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Old 08-25-2013, 11:52 PM   #81
Luke Bunyip
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
If you're not comfortable playing a big wheel in the Imperial mercy machine, and if martinl is as fond of his ambassador as of his dean of Survey, you might swap places at the big table with him...
Martin, unless you want to go with Agemogos's alternate line-up, I'm happy with the status quo. Your call, mate.

Brett, I can cope with it as it is. I like yours more that mine, given that he works for me in regards to the setting. The nearest I can get to earnest, driven and yet compassionate is the visiting NASA technical specialist in The Dish. Does that work, or does he need to be more, um, circumspect and pleasantly silent?
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Old 08-25-2013, 11:58 PM   #82
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Default Second attempt at character assignment

Cast List Suggestion #2
  • jmurrell plays the Captain, the aide/agent, a quasi-rabbinical memeticist who doubles as morale officer, and a Very Young Marine named "'Bear' Karapyetchencko".
  • Luke Bunyip plays the First Lieutenant, the Counsellor, the Dean of Survey, and a marines commando to be specified.
  • martinl plays the astrogator, the Ambassador, a social dynamist, and a marines commando to be specified.
  • sir_pudding plays the Chief Engineer, the Press Secretary, the Military Intelligence Officer, and the Marines commando section leader.

Dramatis Personae
  • NAVY
    • The Captain
      Name: Capt. Alastair Lowell
      Origin: his family were Mayflower Space Navy when Tom Eichberger was an start-up entrepreneur with bad business ethics.
      Elevator pitch: Reserved, undemonstrative, professorial, "British" officer and dyed-in-the-wool Imperial fanatic.
      Thumbnail sketch: Stiff upper lip and master of understatement. Fences sabre, plays the violin. Imperial fanatic. Manners of a college professor usually (and sees teaching/mentoring as an important part of his leadership); icily sarcastic when annoyed with someone who deserves it. Will listen to subordinates' input until he makes a decision. Scarily cold and controlled in a crisis.
      Player: jmurrell
    • The First Lieutenant
      Name: Cmdr ???
      Origin: Foundation Starships and Space Stations
      Elevator pitch: James Cook meets Jonathan Archer
      Thumbnail sketch: Formerly master of an Imperial Spaceways tramp merchant, a very able navigator and shiphandler, has experience of dealing with colonials on backward planets, and once managed to repair his ship and get home after a debris strike crippled it, from a system where the world was TL3. If he were real Navy he'd be commanding one of these missions. Considers the safety of the ship to be the absolute first priority, the sine qua non for accomplishing anything else, and whatever he will get his crew safely home.
      Player: Luke Bunyip
    • The Chief Engineer
      Name: Lt-Cmdr. Tomiko Eichberger. Yes, that's right, "Eichberger".
      Origin: Foundation Starships and Space Stations
      Elevator pitch: The heiress unsure of the legacy.
      Thumbnail sketch: Great-grand-daughter of the most famous engineer ever. It runs in the family. But she's not at all certain about the direction her grandmother (Laura) took the political legacy, and found the politics uncomfortable. She's on a Survey mission to escape.
      Player: sir_pudding
    • The Astrogator
      Name: Lt. Leah Brohn
      Origin: IDJ
      Elevator pitch: farmed-fur astrogator
      Thumbnail sketch: Idealistic, cheerful, optimistic, and out-going. Brilliant at her specialty, and strong in math and physics. Does not understand why the existing colonies contest with the obviously-benevolent Empire. Despite academically knowing the explored colonies won’t welcome the expedition with flowers and tasty cakes of welcome, she still expects something like that internally.
      Player: martinl
  • IMPERIAL OFFICE
    • The Ambassador
      Name: Wukitelamy Bonçon
      Origin: <moderately high-tech colony>
      Elevator pitch: Patient proponent of the long game.
      Thumbnail sketch: A true optimist who believes in slow steady processes of incremental reform, and abhors in particular violent "quick fixes". Was an assistant attaché in her colony's delegation at the Lunar Conference: trusts the Empire's motivations entirely, but often disagrees with impatient policies. However, she will accept orders until they are changed, not disobey ones she disagrees with.
      ~ Keira Knightley with matte black skin, lambent green eyes, and "Old Ivory" hair (all due to semi-permanent cosmetics). She exudes gravitas and trustiworthiness
      Player: martinl
    • The Counsellor
      Name:
      Origin:
      Elevator pitch: The sympathetic cynic
      Thumbnail sketch: A highly principled lawyer and loyal friend, but he always expects the worst of humanity ("at least this way I'm never unpleasantly surprised"). Voted "most likely to show up with half a litre of Scotch and a sympathetic ear after Life has screwed you rotten". Imagine "Bones" McCoy were a lawyer and not a doctor.
      Player: Luke Bunyip
    • The Press Secretary
      Name: Specialist Ada Solaris 496
      Origin: Simanta
      Elevator pitch: The perfect parahuman propagandist, quietly fleeing utopia
      Thumbnail sketch: Designed from the genes out and trained from decanting on to work in the propaganda machine of Simanta, Ada possesses all the qualities of a perfect Press Secretary. Perhaps her fleeing the Social Organism to work for the Empire wasn't quite unplanned….
      Player: sir_pudding
    • The Ambassador's 'aide'
      Name:
      Origin: wild-caught mink
      Elevator pitch: The consumate covert operator
      Thumbnail sketch: A medium-height, medium build, taciturn many with inconspicuous manner, medium colouring, brown-green eyes…. Always watchful, he is something more than a mere bodyguard: a fully-operational Secret Service officer.
      Player: jmurrell


  • SURVEY TEAM
    • The Dean of Survey
      Name:
      Origin:
      Elevator pitch: Marco Polo meets Mark Zuckerberg
      Thumbnail sketch: Part social scientist, part entrepreneurial scout. Enthusiastic, and absolutely convinced that everything will be fine once everyone is integrated into the Empire. Also has no qualms about personally benefiting from opportunities that may arise. Is looking at this voyage as a ‘look-see’ expedition, so he can retire and make his wealth exploiting business opportunities. Has been known to physically assault people that call him a “Wanna-be-carpetbagger”.
      Player: Luke Bunyip
    • Chief of Social Sciences / Social anthropologist (and morale officer)
      Name: <something> Dayan or Rabin
      Origin: Imperial Direct Jurisdiction
      Elevator pitch: grandfatherly, quasi-rabbinical, community psychologist
      Thumbnail sketch: Grandfatherly, "rabbinical". Good listener. Curious. Likes people. Passionate and enthusiastic. Unhurried, takes his time. Likes a good argument, sorry a ‘spirited discussion’.
      Player: jmurrell
    • The Intelligence officer
      Name: Lieutenant Kim Strickland (Imperial Marines)
      Origin: Seeonee
      Elevator pitch: The king of HUMINT
      Thumbnail sketch: An intelligence officer with a flair for ethnological impersonation and a penchant for passing for a local in the finest tradition of the Great Game and the "Ethnographic Survey of India".
      Player: sir_pudding
    • A social dynamist
      Name: Dr. Kyth Haroldsson
      Origin: colonial
      Elevator pitch:
      Thumbnail sketch: A small, mousy, curly haired man with a full beard. Social dynamist with outstanding background in social modelling. Loves weird things, weird societies more than anything else. Will obsess over discrepancies between social data and modelling results, worrying at them like a terrier until he finds an explanation for the difference. Inner conflict between his ability to understand and suggest things that would make society unambiguously better and his defeatism from never managing to get past proposals adopted, no matter how sensible.
      Player: martinl
  • MARINES
    • The section leader
      Name: Cpl Brent "Bucky" McAdams
      Origin: Hell (Tau Ceti)
      Elevator pitch: If there were an NCO shaped hole in the universe Bucky would spontaneously appear to fill it.
      Thumbnail sketch: Bucky's the kind of guy that never works harder than he needs to; a naturally-persuasive leader has a knack for finding the trick for every task. He's the kind of NCO that his Marines love because he looks out for them and smart officers love because he always gets the job done. Martinets and the overly motivated think he's lazy, which terminated his career in the Army of Hell. Soldiering was the only thing he was good at, so he volunteered for the Imperial Marines, where he fits like a glove.
      Player: sir_pudding
    • The scout
      Name: Pvte
      Origin:
      Elevator pitch:
      Thumbnail sketch:
      Player: either Luke Bunyip or martinl
    • The gunner
      Name: Pvte
      Origin:
      Elevator pitch:
      Thumbnail sketch:
      Player: either Luke Bunyip or martinl
    • The very young marine
      Name: Pvte Dmitri Feodorovich Karapyetchenko
      Origin:
      Elevator pitch:
      Thumbnail sketch:
      Player: jmurrell

It's a strong line-up which gives Luke Bunyip and jmurrell closer to what they wanted, at the expense of martinl having to give up a pretty cool dean of Survey.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 08-26-2013 at 02:41 AM.
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Old 08-26-2013, 12:31 AM   #83
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

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Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip View Post
Brett, I can cope with it as it is.
The more I think about it the less I like giving you none of your characters the way you pitched them and chucking a newbie in at the deep end with an Imperial Office four-striper. Assignment #2 gives you two characters the way you pitched them and one with editorial wee in it: rather than one as you pitched it and two that have been hacked about. Also, it lets the newbie at the Big Table play a colonial where lack of familiarity with the setting is least burdensome.

We'll just have to see what we can do to help martinl tart up his Ambassador and social dynamist.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 08-26-2013 at 01:21 AM.
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Old 08-26-2013, 01:13 AM   #84
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

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Originally Posted by jmurrell View Post
So Naval officers; how are you going to contrast with your reserved, professorial Captain?
Tomiko almost certainly knows him personally. They're both descendents of Mayflower survivors and both very close to the center of Foundation/Imperial policy. They've both been officers in the same Navy for their entire adult lives. Tomiko likes Capt. Lowell, I think. He at least remembers that her Great-grandfather was an engineer. As for contrast, she's certainly a bit shy and less generally socially ept.

Quote:
And a similar question for the senior staff; how are you going to contrast with your reserved, professorial, fanatical Captain?
Strickland is an enthusiastic explorer whose curiosity and willingness to try anything is far from reserved.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
What did you all think of the process? Challenging? Disappointing? Sadly devoid of inspiring input from colleagues? Tedious? Laborious?
Certainly challenging to tender eight playable, interesting, and suitable concepts in a black box.

Quote:
How satisfactory is the outcome?
I'm extremely pleased. Cpl. McAdams got picked (yay!). The Strickland concept is brilliant, I wish I had thought of it myself (and gives me an excuse to reread Burton). Eichberger of course ties well into the setting but I wasn't sure if you'd approve. Ada's as alien a character from as disturbing a society as we are likely to encounter.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jmurrell View Post
Of the eight; I had three I really liked, three I thought were solid, and two I felt were just completing the assignment.
I had four I really liked, one that I thought was solid and three that I felt were filler.
Quote:
I got two of the three I liked (and I knew I couldn't get all three)
I got three of the four I really liked.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
that he might want to play his Marines OR as a practical joker, and I hope that doesn't lead to "Bucky" McAdams leaving him behind on some planet.
If it's amusing and doesn't mess with his free time, Bucky's cool. If it makes the job harder than it needs to be, pisses people off or keeps Bucky from watching his stories I'm sure he can find something useful for Pvt. Joker to expend his creative energy on.
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Old 08-26-2013, 01:30 AM   #85
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

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Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
The more I think about it the less I like giving you none of your characters the way you pitched them and chucking a newbie in at the deep end with an Imperial Office four-striper.
Roger. And this works for me, in that I get to play basically the characters I envisaged. I'll just need to read the setting info...
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Old 08-26-2013, 01:31 AM   #86
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Pass martinl the lube: it's Hat time.
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Old 08-26-2013, 02:37 AM   #87
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Default Re: Suggested character assignment

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Originally Posted by jmurrell View Post
And a similar question for the senior staff; how are you going to contrast with your reserved, professorial, fanatical Captain?
Headquarters has presumably assembled a staff with an eye to variety of outlook and range of focus, as a measure to prevent groupthink.
  • The captain, who is described as an Imperial die-hard fanatic in professorial tweeds, is presumably chiefly concerned with war, weapons of mass destruction, and pirate Eichberger devices. There is a real danger that the presence of these things will tend to afflict him with tunnel vision.
  • The Ambassador is big on social and political reform. She's going to focus on finding out what's wrong with these colonies' governments and economies and then reporting the findings to Headquarters so that a sensible long-term plan can be devised, prioritised, and resourced. She will be against rushing in to quick fixes, and oppose over-reach in general.
  • The Dean of Survey is (rather surprisingly) here to look at the colonies as opportunities to make money (with which to fund the Ambassador's long-term schemes, naturally). He is looking for unique products, unusual price ratios, and data on potential market volumes. He emphasises the need to gather practical information on business customs, and to negotiate for treaty terms that will open markets, develop the colonial economy, etc.
  • That leaves the MILINT bubba. What does he bring to the big table?
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Old 08-26-2013, 06:19 AM   #88
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

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Pass martinl the lube: it's Hat time.
I'm happy with either option. Drolgant is closer to PCs I've played before than Wukitelamy, but I'm not sure I like him more, and I can always graft the fun stare you in the eyes pacifism sideways onto another PC. The fanfic-writing Todos Santos Goon is more of a loss, and he's an even trade for Haroldsson.

If option 2 is better for the other PCs, then it is fine with me.
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Old 08-26-2013, 09:23 AM   #89
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Default Re: Suggested character assignment

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Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
Headquarters has presumably assembled a staff with an eye to variety of outlook and range of focus, as a measure to prevent groupthink.
  • The captain, who is described as an Imperial die-hard fanatic in professorial tweeds, is presumably chiefly concerned with war, weapons of mass destruction, and pirate Eichberger devices. There is a real danger that the presence of these things will tend to afflict him with tunnel vision.
  • The Ambassador is big on social and political reform. She's going to focus on finding out what's wrong with these colonies' governments and economies and then reporting the findings to Headquarters so that a sensible long-term plan can be devised, prioritised, and resourced. She will be against rushing in to quick fixes, and oppose over-reach in general.
  • The Dean of Survey is (rather surprisingly) here to look at the colonies as opportunities to make money (with which to fund the Ambassador's long-term schemes, naturally). He is looking for unique products, unusual price ratios, and data on potential market volumes. He emphasises the need to gather practical information on business customs, and to negotiate for treaty terms that will open markets, develop the colonial economy, etc.
  • That leaves the MILINT bubba. What does he bring to the big table?
Shouldn't there be someone focused on the potential impact of bringing the explored colonies into the Empire? I realize Imperial arrogance would tend to discount that concern, but there are some hard-nosed boffins in a back office somewhere calculating the expected macropolitical effects of increasing the LOAs' vs. Jackals' influence, or suddenly cutting the cost of Erbium in half, or opening up a devout trans-Pastafarian world to travel when there is a cis-Pastafarian colony already in the Empire that would feel religiously compelled to kill every single one of them while wearing ceremonial pirate regalia. (Not that the Mink would let them, but preventing their righteous pastacide would sauce them off mightily. Maybe best to spend a decade on psyops preparing for it...)

Similarly, Imperial membership will almost certainly have some negative effects on the colony. The other big table folks will probably assume that these are more than compensated for by the benefits, but that won't always be true.

I recommend the the MILINT guy be the 'Imperial-Colonial negative synergy guy.' It fits the twisty MI mindset. It gives the GM a vehicle to throw monkey wrenches at the PCs, and the player an opportunity to engage in vigorous debate from an intellectual high ground with the more narrowly focused types.
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Old 08-26-2013, 09:26 AM   #90
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Does Lt-Cmdr. Tomiko Eichberger predate the Imperial Creche, Praetorians, and all the other "Benevolent Nazi Bioroid"[1] stuff that happens to later imperial descendents?

[1] "Benevolent Nazi Bioroid" is not strictly accurate, but a vibe is a vibe.
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