Fur-Covered Cogs [OOC]

[Sabes]

ugh i hate leaving for work knowing that i could be replying on here...
SO! *claps hands together*

I have a question;


For Sukone's Reality Distortion . . . should it actually EFFECT reality or just the viewing of the world from the other he is using it on?

The thing about the Majick in this world is that a lot of it is just unexplained science. Since this takes place in the late 1800s, there was a lot that wasn't discovered or understood, thus deemed as magic. So, in theory, the reality distortion could be a slight of hand skill that could be accused of being sorcery. Does that make sense?

Also, about your question on how forums rp, you'll get the jist after the first few posts. Not to worry!

[Sabes]

Since both of your characters were upper worlders, it seemed prudent to make mine also someone on the floating world. She's still a servant, just one that works for the lab, helping the professor prepare for his lectures or assisting with their experiments. This would give her a few more freedoms than a slave.

Paying her would give her an incentive to work hard, even if it's just a pittance.

We could make it a university-run female worker dormitory instead of a lowest level apartment.

Since she works for the applied research laboratory, she's likely to run into military or police types, and could, in liu of the professor, be sent down to the unsafe ground to conduct experiments under their direction or collect samples.

Perhaps he's working on how to find this underground city?

It's fine if someone wants to play the part of the professor.



I typically wait for two replies before posting again.

Okay so I see that I am in need of explaining myself more clearly. I'll be editing the first post so this information makes more sense. I think you and I are a little confused....


There's classes, then there's the Ground and Floating City.
The Floating City houses strictly the Higher Order Class. The Higher Order is not Upper Class, it's above.
The Ground houses strictly the Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class.
My chicken character is Upper Class on the Ground. He doesn't even know the Floating City exists.
Did you get confused or am I the one who's confused?


(BTW all your ideas are pristine. Prime. Pinnacle. Keep em comin', rapidfire)

[Enigma]

@Sabes; -

It's hard sometimes to accurately depict a world to people, I think I have a better grasp of it now.


Late 1800's - within the Victorian era. Industrial revolution, age of steam - powered trains, ships, and factories. There's already been mention of skyships and balloons.


Typically, your upper class are landowners - we're talking royalty, important officials and nobles, and at the lower end, your wealthy families and business owners.


If I'm understanding your classes breakdown, it seems that Royalty and middle upper class important officials and nobles are living in these floating cities?


Royalty and nobles typically do not take care of themselves - they have servants - butlers, housekeepers, cooks, maids, drivers, and so forth. So there's some sort of lower middle class as well as worker class on board handling all the labor.


I would think the defining characteristic of people living in a sky city is that they're mages, people with definite talent - but one of your lower class scum profiles is that of a "wicked wizard conspiracists"?


And why under "Events" you have listed "Just a normal day of brainwashing the Ground classes into thinking that the floating cities don't exist and that education is a crime."


So why don't you want the grounded classes to know the floating cities exist, despite what must be a steady stream of airships bringing supplies up to them? And why is education a crime? To be able to supply the floating cities, you need people who know how to can and bottle food, make sure the right things go in, in the right proportions. To make, repair, and maintain the machines that make civilized life possible?


About the only thing I can see is that there was some sort of disease that affected people suddenly. That some of the survivors, royals and nobles (and some of their servants) were moved to remote places, perhaps the mountains and then later the floating cities to protect them.


A disease that was blamed on magic. Perhaps on a spell that changed people, transformed them?

[Sabes]

Enigma,

I am grateful for your understanding and your patience as well as your great ideas! I’ve skimmed over your response an d I would like to take some extra time with these thoughts before replying to you. I’m leaving for work now but I will get back to you either late tonight or definitely by tomorrow.
Thank you

[Enigma]

I'm on the road and on a different machine, may need to reset my discord password.

[Sabes]

I'm on the road and on a different machine, may need to reset my discord password.

Alright then

[Sabes]

@Sabes; -

It's hard sometimes to accurately depict a world to people, I think I have a better grasp of it now.


1 Late 1800's - within the Victorian era. Industrial revolution, age of steam - powered trains, ships, and factories. There's already been mention of skyships and balloons.


2 Typically, your upper class are landowners - we're talking royalty, important officials and nobles, and at the lower end, your wealthy families and business owners.


3 If I'm understanding your classes breakdown, it seems that Royalty and middle upper class important officials and nobles are living in these floating cities?


4 Royalty and nobles typically do not take care of themselves - they have servants - butlers, housekeepers, cooks, maids, drivers, and so forth. So there's some sort of lower middle class as well as worker class on board handling all the labor.


5 I would think the defining characteristic of people living in a sky city is that they're mages, people with definite talent - but one of your lower class scum profiles is that of a "wicked wizard conspiracists"?


6 And why under "Events" you have listed "Just a normal day of brainwashing the Ground classes into thinking that the floating cities don't exist and that education is a crime."


7 So why don't you want the grounded classes to know the floating cities exist, despite what must be a steady stream of airships bringing supplies up to them? And why is education a crime? To be able to supply the floating cities, you need people who know how to can and bottle food, make sure the right things go in, in the right proportions. To make, repair, and maintain the machines that make civilized life possible?


8 About the only thing I can see is that there was some sort of disease that affected people suddenly. That some of the survivors, royals and nobles (and some of their servants) were moved to remote places, perhaps the mountains and then later the floating cities to protect them.


9 A disease that was blamed on magic. Perhaps on a spell that changed people, transformed them?

1 Exactly, all of those apply--including advanced industrialism, allowing the factories on the floating city to be manned entirely by machines (and also humanoid machines), thus the Higher Order Class rarely, if ever, works for their basic needs. They either have research, invent, teach, or study higher education (and do a few other things) as occupations. If they need food or items, they get it from slaves/servants or the lower classes on the Ground.
2 Precisely.
3 Only the Higher Order(and a few of their slaves/servants) live on the Floating City...that being said, the Higher Order consists only of nobles, royalty, and landowners. Meaning, the Upper, Middle, and Lower classes are never to be seen on the Floating City (unless in such a case as your character, who gets personally recruited and escorted to the Floating City or other sky city).
4 Okay now I see...So, yes, the Floating city does have people who don't work or care for themselves due to their keepers and caretakers etc., but it also has a few people that do work (the keepers, caretakers, etc, etc.) So technically there is two different classes of the Higher Order, but they're not the same as the Ground classes, which are Upper, Middle, and Lower classes of the Ground. The sky cities only have mega rich couch potatoes and not mega rich non-couch potatoes. Yeah?
5 That's correct, the sky cities are the only ones who have access to higher education, thus science. However, the "conspiracists" of the Ground's Lower Class are characters who have seen the cities (by being a stow-away on a cargo ship, for instance). Nobody on the Ground believe the conspirators because the Ground is brain-washed to believe that nobody lives on the sky cities. On top of that, the Lower Class is a very exciting and crowded place: it has people who call themselves wizards because they like tricking others that they're special either for money or for entertainment...there's not much to be happy about down there. However, there are some rumors that some people actual magickal gifts, albeit not very powerful ones. Some "wicked wizards," thus, use their majick for obviously evil purposes. The Lower Class is a great place to get creative and morbid. Pretty much anything can happen down there.
6 Since we don't have big plot events going on right now, I just wrote that for extra context. The Higher Order's job is to keep the Ground classes dumb, for ease of control.
7 A lot of what the workers do on the Ground is similar to factory shiz in the real world: assembly lines, dumbly easy processes that come from rules that are given to them. They've learned not to ask "why," "how," or "who," and they just accept what they see blindly. The cargo airships are just something that's just been around. The ignorant Ground people don't bat an eye at dumbly obvious things like that...at least, MOST of the Grounded (leaving leeway for the Conspirators). A lot of the basic needs for the whole population are met in automated factories with robots or by people with easy-to-follow directions. Higher Education on the Ground level is a crime. It's the Higher Order's way of keeping the population dumb enough to control. Nobody on the Ground questions it because they don't even know Higher Education exists. They just think k-8 is education and that's that. (All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten kind of belief.) Maintenance and repair is done by working people of the ground who are just good with their hands and can read a manual or know how to get a new machine.
8 Yes, we can most certainly have diseases of all sorts wreak havoc from the below all the way to the top of the Higher Order. Some evil Scum may even consider creating a virus of sorts to destroy civilization including the population of the sky cities. That's why cargo people wear plague doctor masks or respirators and full suits. Now, yes, that could also be one of the reasons why the people have moved to the floating cities but they mainly moved there for separation and control.
9 omg genious! Maybe that's why we have human-animals .0. and mechanical people and such!

[Enigma]

@Sabes;

1. So Clanks (robots and robotic machines). They can be programmed in ground factories to do the difficult stuff while relying on an unskilled worker class.

3. Since the both of your characters are grounded, I'll have to rethink Nineteen's position. She could still be a professor's status symbol of a living servant rather than a clank.

4. Mega-rich couch potatoes? Since there are robots, I was thinking that the floating city contained Sparks - People who design the machines and robots, which is why they maintain labs. I would think the couch potatoes would (more or less) remain grounded. Unless they like bringing up eligible males and females for the Season (where the unattached upper class tries to find suitable husbands and wives.)

5. See 4 as per higher education. I would hold the libraries of the Floating City hold books of science and the arts, necessary for furthering education. Since they don't exist on the ground (unless hidden), if you want an education, this is where you want to go - and why it's guarded. They contain forbidden knowledge (but not forbidden to the sparks who live there).

a. It's possible that the final year of schooling, upper class and higher middle-class students may be tested - and those who meet the standards may be selected to go to the Floating City (perhaps labeled as a dangerous spark and needing to be contained as a potential threat to society)? So basically as far as the grounded clans know, the Floating City is a prison - and why would anyone want to break into a prison? Unless the wonders of the Floating City was to get back to them?

6. I'd rethink this. It's not so much as cracking down on belief in the Floating City, it's to stop education - so rebel schools that teach the forbidden sciences. Or hidden spark lords - who may be torn up by the mob for their dangerous science use if the police don't arrest them and lock them away. Another reason why performing too well in school can get you ostracized.

7. One way to restrict knowledge is to use Guilds that have specific "hidden knowledge" they're entrusted with. Guilds undergo screen processes to limit who has the knowledge and at each level, you learn only how to repair a part of the machine (but none of the underlying science). The higher you are in the guild, the more parts you know how to repair.

There might also be special clanks called Guv'ner (governors) who provide access to some parts of the machine and will observe particularly sensitive repairs.

On exceedingly rare occasions, a Spark Lord (in a special suit) or a Waldo (telepresence robot) might be escorted down to do the work.

8. Considering the conditions, diseases would certainly be part of it. But perhaps some of those diseases were manufactured, say in a war? A spark war with terrible weapons and clank soldiers? Another reason why sciences are forbidden knowledge.

9. It could also be Forbidden Knowledge - where some people were changed by the Sparks, in order to unlock "magic" or make them into antros (because it looks cute! Or scary! Luna's people were essentially made into living dolls, a toy for some spark lord.)

[Sabes]

I WAS GONNA ASK YOU WHAT WE SHOULD CALL THEM! GENIUS! CLANKS! HAZZAH
3) I do like your character’s idea though. I think @SUKONE-P; ‘s character is actually on the sky city, he might have been Upper Class accidentally?
4) Sparks! Can it get any better? Perfection.

[Enigma]

To be fair, I read Girl Genius which has Sparks (people with a gift for inventing, also called "mad boys") and Clanks (robots), but we could find separate terms for both. Commitment Hour by Gardner has Spark Lords who are the only group to retain science after Earth gets "left behind" after the bulk of humanity leaves for the stars. They usually wear these encounter suits when walking around from their enclaves.

I was thinking that Sukone's character might be a special investigator for the Floating City, tracking would-be saboteurs and hidden sparks.