Harmonic Resonance Week Three Plotting

[powersthatbe]

Last Week, In Harmonic Resonance...



As more people became Conductors, Travelers faced their own worst nightmares, crawling out of Liminal Space. A journey to Aratta Skyhook in the Waking World discovered ominous connections. And Grant was assigned baby-sitters.

This Week, In Harmonic Resonance...

Ia & Ib.
Cards on the Table. Travelers, Conductors, and other Dreamers meet at Hushabye Meadow to share all the information that’s been uncovered in the last week, and to discuss next steps. There will be one toplevel on the mingle for just dropping exposition, for those who want to read and catch up, and a second toplevel for group discussion.
II.
Opening The Way. Collaborating, Travelers and Dreamers manage to open a stable portal to Aratta Skyhook, enabling any who wish to investigate the Waking World side of things to do so. But fitting in on Aratta may not be easy… contact the mods here for any information or further prompts needed for this investigation.
III.
The Fall of Mount Widdershins. One of Questing Country’s floating islands falls out of the sky - an almost unprecedented ‘natural disaster.’ Dreamers and Travelers struggle with the dream-magic and work to understand and clean up after the calamity.
IV.
Quests. Several different Quests have been mounted, both last week and this week, including a Quest to find Shacklebreaker. Groups of Dreamers Questing together can plan here, and contact the mods here for any information or further prompts they need.
V.
Wild Card. This is the halfway point of the last Jaunt. If you have a creative, off-the-wall idea for tricks, shortcuts, longshots, or other curveballs, plot it here, and contact the mods here for any information or further prompts they need.

Comments

WHAT WE'VE LEARNED

[powersthatbe]

[claudiometer]

*The planet below Aratta Skyhook is hosting a computer chip the size of Wyoming THE IBERIAN PENINSULA. The space elevator itself acts as an antenna.

*The chip's official purpose is to run the INVLEP software that lets Synthetics into QC. It's also beaming out some Orthopraxy Good code. That is probably not unintentional.

*The chip is probably also also beaming out Conductor brain waves. Whether that's intentional or not is currently unknown, but at best Claudia figures it's 'unintended but not seen as a problem.'

*Conductorness is spread via memes.

*HEY GUESS WHAT YOU CAN USE LIMINAL THEMATICS ON QUESTING COUNTRY ITSELF

QUESTING PLANS

[powersthatbe]

Re: QUESTING PLANS

[lightnovelexperiences]

SO, Leah is questing for Shacklebreaker, as is Shiro, Anafiel and I believe Allura. Of the NPCs, Ace is going as well, which means Shinji might want to tag along. Room for one more!

here is a link to the beginning of the quest, and here also is Shiro's toplevel link. Perhaps one could be the first task, the other could be the second, and we do the third one week four?

WILD CARD IDEAS

[powersthatbe]

Re: WILD CARD IDEAS

[thornsofmalkav]

Thorn the Conductor has an Idea, which she came up with after tagging along with some Travelers to the Waking World. So the Opaline Bore is a stable portal through time, right? And Travelers can use their abilities on Questing Country, including inserting ideas into there?

What if we got a Traveler to drop a portal to Aratta (possibly via Leah's closet?) into the Opaline Bore? Could you make a stable two-way portal that way?

[helborn]

Here are some ideas off the top of my head. Since Naoya may accidentally or on purpose cause chaos...

- Shifting lands can be an issue (either the Transformed Lands or just the geography deciding to move)
- Sudden suspicion of any Investigators in Arrata
- If a stable portal's opened to Arrata and it stays open other people could wander through
- I had another idea but I can email it to the mod account because it's Sneaky

Re: WILD CARD IDEAS

[lightnovelexperiences]

- how well will Conditioning work to prevent the spread? What happens when a Conditioned becomes a Conductor? Leah is becoming Conditioned, so we're about to find the fuck out.

[awitchdidit]

So, dropping this here before discussing it with anyone because it's convenient, but:

- Conductors spread by memes. By using their cultural touchstones, you become more like them and eventually become one of them. So...what happens in reverse, if a Conductor (or many Conductors) start using the cultural touchstones and memes of Travelers, or Dreamers, or generally ideas that originate outside the Conductor jointmind?

Re: WILD CARD IDEAS

[lightnovelexperiences]

Deedee has a crazy idea for how to get proper poetic justice, which will have to wait for next week if/when she gets Shacklebreaker -

Everyone forcibly turned Orthropractic so far has been properly horrified that they were converted by force, as this is against the 'self-evident' Orthoprax code of conduct.

So Deedee thinks it would be a really great idea to Bridge over to Doctor Doofenschmirtz the people responsible for this madness along with her warband, and meme at them/Sanction them.

If they want to convert the world to Orthopraxy so badly, then charity starts at home.

(She will, of course, release anyone who hates it with Shacklebreaker. She's here to teach them a lesson, not to be as bad as them. Still.)

CONTACT A MOD FOR MORE INFORMATION

[powersthatare]

[crouching_sin]

Naoya and Q'uila are heading towards the Lighthouse - I have no idea how long it will take for them to get there (we left it nebulous when in the week they left). But a thread can get set up for them to start actively searching.

Re: CONTACT A MOD FOR MORE INFORMATION

[thornsofmalkav]

Stable portal idea!

Re: CONTACT A MOD FOR MORE INFORMATION

[lightnovelexperiences]

Leah is going to become Conditioned - then to get Deedee's head out of her Infiltration, and together they'll seek Shacklebreaker.

She's trying to deliberately trigger a change in herself to become the first Resistor - with all the advantages of being a Conductor, but without being virulent or susceptible to the virulent memeplex. Declarification was suggested as a possible means to this end.

If she succeeds, she'll don crystalline blue armor and rubber gloves and boots, becoming the Resistor of Heart.

(frozen comment) GENERAL PLOTTING BELOW THIS POINT

[powersthatbe]

[breakaleginhalf]

Grant is going to be deinfiltrating and getting Gil in his head! This is going to be Very Stupid but also A Major Event for Grant, so if anyone wants to join in on that let me know! Apart from that I don't have any ideas, apart from Gil having a spare Memory Restoration on offer.

Bismuth I have no real plans for, since she's not been able to be particularly helpful with all of the political/technical network stuff I'd love for her to have something physical to do instead!

[helborn]

Gil prepare to have Cas hug you.

Also Bismuth and Casper could probably team up in fighting Nightmares or working on cleanup after the mountain falls?

[helborn]

Casper is fighting nightmares and trying to run information between Investigators and Conductors. He's going to be available wherever people need him and will likely get heavily involved in the clean up and investigation of the fall of the mountain.

Naoya is still looking towards the sea and the lighthouse for some answers and maybe also will gaze into the abyss a little bit because apparently this is just how he does shit. He's on call for help with deciphering anything computer or technical, and if there's a way to sort of 'flip the polarity' of Conductors he's more than willing to run tests or to try and manually reverse the signal. He doesn't like them, there's something Angel about them in his opinion.

[lightnovelexperiences]

be not afraid, Naoya, we're goin Full Humanity path cause we got a Reason to light up the Macrochip like it's the fucking Fourth of Jul- I mean, Leah/Deedee will be quite open to you reversing the polarity of the onerion flow.

Leah deeply loves and appreciates Casper as a friend, and at some point will invite him for Crunchyroll and chill. Literal chilling with crunchyroll and korean food, she knows he's gayer than a tree full of monkeys.

[thornsofmalkav]

Thorn has an idea how to make a stable portal to the waking world. She's up for becoming Resistors and learning more about the bidents.

Delaunay is using his Grace he got in the purgatory return to find where shacklebreaker is for the people questing for it.

Maria and Crisis will probably do something, but I'm not sure what.

[helborn]

Casper is probably going to gently take Delaunay aside once he learns what he's up to because he has questions about Shacklebreaker.

[claudiometer]

Claudia is heavily invested in the skyhook side of things.

Naoki is possibly going to help Kanji with a Wild Idea.

Shinji doesn't really give a shit about any of this, but point him toward the cause of the bullshit and he'll smash it with a hammer.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Shinji is also immune to Conducting because he's a Pillar, so how would you like Leah to do some of the pointing? Or Rubellite, either way!

Madoka is going to work closely with Claudia and Naoki on the Wild Idea... but may also "randomly" become a Conductor.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Leah is going to go to Paraiba and to Crisis and ask to be Conditioned, on her knees if she has to, telling them that they're her only hope.

Then she'll work closely to help the Arattan crew fit in, possibly with a big anime and toku watch party at the game store Pez recommended, complete with kosher galbi... then seek to become a Resistor, then to get Deedee back in the game (in the process vastly increasing the potential of the Conductor Network). And during all of this, she'll seek the Bane of All Chains. Busy week for her!

Madoka has been compromised and knows it, but will fight as hard as she can to make Resistors out of Conductors and to teach people infohazard control even as she knows that her ██████ ██ ███ ██████ is inevitable (and thank god for Doki-itus, said someone for the first time ever; S-Tech Convenient Censorship is a godsend here!). Once she joins the ████ ████ ████, she'll start teaching them how to fight the spread of the infohazard, including proofs for Eldritch and Psychic Defenses to the Conductors over their Network. She doesn't like that ██████████ was, in fact, █████████, but this is exactly who she is and what she does anyway!

Rubellite will be doing her own infohazard training courses among the Conditioned, and preparing them for a battle of minds and for an armed conflict she hopes will not come to pass on Aratta. She is otherwise available as an Oracle for anyone working on the Conductor problem, or to aid the Travellers with any quests that will Probably bear fruit.

Nabiki is presently unattached, but would be interested in any time shenanigans and to learning what it means to be an Adversary. The thought of tweaking the noses of the Adversary Age and helping the Elves out in the past also appeals to her, and she'd like to leave caches in the past to help out the future!

[reallymean]

An anime watch party seems like an excellent way to destress between questing challenges.

[truerevelation]

Soooo, Kanji has a lot on his plate. He's likely to start off by continuing with work on decrypting/retransmitting/Grid-Skill-ing the Snowflake transmission with anyone else who's doing that bit? ... and generally sticking a rocky nose anywhere Aratta-side that would help. He's also likely to be attempting to locally signal jam anything suspicious around him, though no idea how well that'll work.

But... he's starting to wonder how to get in touch with the Starmovers again. Even if the Conductors are clearly not under their ... not thumb, okay ... he also wants to check in on things in case anything *is* up. Chatting to Harbingers? Inadvisable Merges with stuff? Big Technology?

[okanetendo]

Have you considered travelling back in time to where the Starmovers used to be to talk with them, Kanji?

Cause Nabiki will, along with making a few long-term Bargains in the past to pay off... oh, right about when the Conductor Crisis hits.

[capital_asset]

All of my plotting is very tentative.

If Gil is coming back, then Raidou may or may not be far behind. Luckily, Raidou is also Conditioned, and is hopelessly bad at understanding memes. If that doesn't happen, Paraiba will be... still around? Doing things? I am very far behind.

Minako is doing... stuff. Things. She can probably Sift something if needed, and her Liminal skills are good for cleanup and such.

Cassandra is back in control of her body, with Priscilla riding shotgun in the back of her mind once again. I don't really have any ideas for either of them at the moment.

Yukki is... also doing stuff? Possibly interested in talking to Harbingers and/or Starmovers, possibly interested in Declarifying things.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Leah (or Deedee) will seek out Paraiba (or Raidou) as a teacher, because she thinks that Conditioning might be the key to preventing her from doing even more damage with her Conductive memes.

Nabiki or Madoka would be interested in Starmovers and Declarification, respectively.

[vrepit_no]

Soooo... last week was kind of an overwhelmed wash for me. Everything happened So Much. Let's start fresh, shall we?

To sum up Shiro's Week 2...
He was bitterly disappointed by the discovery of Conductors being a viral concern and therefore less of a choice than people think - and especially upset that it appears the Hecatite Orthopraxy is either controlling or influencing the Conductors. He has sworn off Conductorship for himself as a result. Instead he spent pretty much the entire week throwing himself into battles against nightmares as a method of usefully expelling his own negativity.

Week 3 Plotting...
He is not interested in going to Arrata. He thinks of himself as far more susceptible to mind-based shenanigans, and wants to keep himself out of contact with the people running that sort of nonsense lest he lose his cool. Instead, he will be assisting with the fall of Mt. Widdershins that's anti-clockwise, Richard, fighting Nightmares some more, and potentially joining in the quest for Shacklebreaker.

[lightnovelexperiences]

For what it's worth, Leah is also horrified about what she almost did to Shiro, and will humbly and gratefully accept his help. Including an appreciation for his Dad Stares Of Disapproval when she slips into memery.

[willyousee]

I'm here, I swear!

Opal's Week 2
Opal spent more time in the Waking World (not Aratta, but a different planet entirely) trying to sneakily do research on the Conditioned. ...This did not go as planned. However, the time they did spend in QC involved a lot of ridiculous bursts of light and elements and destroyed Nightmares.

Week 3 Plotting
They really want to help figure out what's going on, but aren't sure how they would be able to go to Aratta, since they're not a Traveler. They also want to go on a Quest! They're very excited about the notion of a Quest. Quests are cool.

[reallymean]

Allura will be joining the quest for this universe's version of Shacklebreaker, because they really seem to need it what with the whole brainwashing thing going on. That's probably going to take up the bulk of her attention, though if we get to the point of space battles this mingle, she can lend a mech to the war effort.

She'll be hitting Oracle at the start of Week 3, which is probably not relevant to anyone else, but I wanted to make note of it somewhere.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Leah's not capable of doubting herself, but... she's still capable of realizing the gravity of the mission, no pun intended. And will thank her for her help, and her faith in Leah.