A thread for all the Jedi

[Acacius Blade]

I was daydreaming and had a good idea.

Basically we'd be flying round the galaxy as usual, keeping a low profile. The fleet encounters a very large debris field - asteroids, dust clouds, wreckage etc. But as well as that, they detect a very large object inside the debris field - a ship.

It's an ancient ship, hundreds - possibly thousands - of years old from the time of the Old Republic. And whats even more exciting - it's a Jedi ship. I had a cool idea for a specific clan of Jedi who were more like traditional monks than we know Jedi to be - more religious and passive - and very much into archaeology. This ship will be one of two that were converted by the Jedi for very long trips. Even with hyperdrive, back then things were slower and the galaxy was a much bigger place. So they converted the ship to include a compartmentalised stasis system, where individual sections of the ship could be frozen in time. This allowed the Jedi to travel for many years without ageing but also let the contingent of droids carry out their business in the rooms, corridors and bays with inactive stasis fields.

Now the two ships were travelling on opposite sides of the galaxy, but planned to meet up to exchange a very sacred artifact - a Jedi Holocron older than the Republic itself.

Acacius will be aware of this tale, and it's fine for other older characters to be aware as well. But what nobody will know is which ship had the holocron before contact was lost with both of them. So our characters will make their way through the debris field to the ship and take a look around the immense vessel to look for it, and possibly salvage anything of use - as well as reclaim a hefty piece of their Jedi heritage in the process. The ship is like an ancient temple in space - the corridors will be adorned with stone in some places to honor the Jedi Temples they were away from during their travels. There will be glyphs on doors and walls, scrolls, tabards, tomes, candles, all kinds of artifacts of significance as well as knowledge and wisdom. But the possibility of a holocron will be the main prize.

Now holocrons are a big deal and I agree that they should be few and far between from an OOC perspective, otherwise they're not special. But from an IC perspective, we've got to go take a look in hopes of finding it. Whether they've got the right ship or not can be decided nearer to the end since there's no reason to decide now. But if it's not the right ship, they the characters have still got the means to begin searching for the other ship - course trajectories, logs etc.

So this could be an early thread and plant for a bigger story down the line. It can be kept low-key and isolated since it's in the middle of nowhere and doesn't need to be drawn out, there aren't loads of twists and plot threads interlacing, it's pretty straight forward and something thay everybody wants to do rather than has to do - something they all want to do together. Our Jedi characters all still have their clashing personalities but they can all agree that this is something worth taking the time to do and build a foundation of trust, friendship and teamwork.

But so there's not just post after post of walking around a dark moody ship with nothing to do except read scribbles in stone and solve riddles and cough on dust, I came up with the stasis idea.

At some point the ship was boarded by a group of Sith. Consensus can dictate their number and power level but the idea is that they were frozen in stasis when the stasis generator malfunctioned. The console is shot to hell so we can't just deactivate the entire system. So we have to work our way through the ship and manually deactivate each stasis node, which will essentially un-freeze a handful of rooms, corridors and compartments in one go - then we move onto the next. But each time we do we could be greeted by an explosion that never finished, or an irate security droid who things we're Sith - or even the Sith themselves who (as far as they're concerned) are still in the middle of taking over the ship.

Any takers?

[Captain Untouchable]

I most definately like the core principle of finding an old Jedi ship. It wouldn't be the first time that the Jedi had put members in stasis and shot them out into the galaxy - Outbound Flight, for example - so it isn't without precedent. Perhaps the principles are in some way related: the ship we discover was sent out (using slower Hyperdrive technology, no doubt) to explore unknown parts of space, and to act as missionaries of the Force, to a degree.

The rumour of an ancient Holocron is certainly intreguing; and we could easily use the "the other ship has it" excuse if necessary. Even without it though, the Jedi Archives have been almost entirely destroyed, so even if we could pull the memory core from the main computer and get access to some logs on ancient (from our perspective) Jedi history, that'd definately make the mission a success.

Having passengers trapped in stasis certainly sounds like an intreguing premise, too - particularly the idea of characters from what I'm guessing is a sort of Knights of the Old Republic era, given the fact that the Sith are boarding? Were you intending to have a large number of Sith aboard (and by "Sith", do you mean Dark Jedi, or just regular norms?), and a large number of Jedi survivors, etc?

It might perhaps be more fun to have just a single, powerful Sith Lord aboard, with his lackeys - like Darth Vader boarding Tantive IV with his Stormtroopers; and only one (or a small handful) of Jedi. They can have frozen the Sith mid-boarding operation to await Jedi / Republic reinforcements, and when we came aboard and informed the droids that we were Jedi, they began to go through the process of disabling the status fields, or something.

We might want to take along a generic Rebel or two, to fly the shuttle that we borrow, etc, and to act as the token Carth Onasi analogues for the mission; assuming there aren't too many volunteers, and the flyboys aren't to uppity about going on a ground mission, of course. :mneh

[Acacius Blade]

If the enemy numbers are few, the Dark Jedi for the challenge. But if there's a larger number of them then the sith troops would be a welcome addition to the rlightsaber-wielding commanders.; I suppose it's like having a Founder surrounded by Jem'Hadar soldiers. (been watching a lot of DS9, lol).

A nice mixture would would best. A handful of Dark Jedi, perhaps a Sith Lord in command, and a plethora of troops requiring us to divide our attentions and possibly split up around the ship so we have pockets of action here and there - like when the Cylons boarded Galactica. It wasn't eveyrone in one location - there were a few groups isolated which made it more dynamic.

And if the droid crew have been running for so long their matrix/matrices may have developed some peculiar...peculiarities. Some may have gone mad, some psychopathic, some delirious. Some may have achieved sentiece. It would certainly make for an interesting group of NPC's who we could potentially take back to The Weel (the non-phychotic ones, naturally).

I don't know about Jedi alive in stasis though. I initially thought that there would only be sith and droids, and that for some reason the Jedi were dead or long gone - perhaps escaped somehow. But I could be persuaded to go the other way. Once again, it's a source for story jumping-off points with the old long-lost knowledge card for play.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I can already think of a character I'd want to play who was stuck in stasis

[Captain Untouchable]

How would Jedi stuck in stasis impact the Wheel? Not really a question; more of an oooh, this could lead to something interesting. They might perhaps find themselves becoming a reluctant messiah, expected to preach about how the Jedi Order was meant to be, back in the day, but are totally out of their depth because they're only a Padawan (actually, I'm just a friar )


Wait. No. Bad Jace. I'm not allowed any more characters.

[Acacius Blade]

Some Jedi may look to him. Others may think 'Well no, look what happened to them!'.

But I suppose it could be like that episode of DS9 (I did say I've been watching it a lot!) when this dood who was lost in time comes back and to him its 50 years later and he says he's the Emissary instead of Sisko, and he tries to bring big changes that some are for but the majority are against but do it because they think it's what they should do. Then Captain Sisko's all 'Shut up fool!" and everyone realises their choices were better.

[Serena Laran]

I like this idea a great deal!

I think I'd like to play a throwaway PC, like a Jedi who was mortally wounded just before the stasis thing happened, and who hangs around a bit in the RP and eventually dies of his wounds.

(p.s. when do the zerg attack?)

[Acacius Blade]

Right after you seduce the mayor.

[Dasquian Belargic]

So, when does this start?

[Captain Untouchable]

Then Captain Sisko's all 'Shut up fool!" and everyone realises their choices were better.

Thank you - now I'm picturing Deep Space Nine, retold with Mr T in place of Avery Brooks.

How quick is the stasis? Were they "paused", or were they "put to sleep"? The specific process of the technology can be kept all vague and mostly ignored, but that specific question would make a significant difference, in terms of how quickly the the Jedi / Sith come back to there senses. Will it be a case of one of us accidentally turning off the stasis field, and all of a sudden the battle bursts into action? Or will they need to "wake up" first?

Also, is the stasis effect something that is of a definate, finite area - a "time bubble", with edges that we can stand on one side of, look through, and see people frozen in place - or is it more of a "if you are in this room, you are in stasis" effect?

[Acacius Blade]

It's essentially a pause function - the entity in stasis will be completely unaware. It was designed that way because the droids would be running the show when the Jedi were sleeping. I say sleeping because that's what it was meant to be. Once their breathing/synapses had slowed down the droids would switch on the field in their quarters. It could even be a sort of communal sleeping quarters like at the beginning of Alien.

And the stasis fields themselves encompass entire rooms. Other than the internal sensor system, which may be damages, the only way to see whats going on in a room is to deactivate the field and then open the door and be greeted by whatever the hell is going on in there. Like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna git!

[Serena Laran]

Right after you seduce the mayor.

Ahh, such sweet memories! :mneh

[Droo]

I'm also all for this idea. It has been nicely set up for us in backstory, while offering plenty of unchartered territory to explore story-wise, and is relative specifically to the Jedi and their place in the universe. No Empire. No Rebellion. Just legacy, intrigue and action!

[Acacius Blade]

Like the Bajoran episodes of DS9 with the Prophets and all that palava.

LOLS - I'm all for the Trek references today!

Thank you - now I'm picturing Deep Space Nine, retold with Mr T in place of Avery Brooks.

LMAO! He ain't gettin' on no Defiant!

[Acacius Blade]

The thread will be up sometime today or tomorrow at the very latest.

[Serena Laran]

Woohoo its started!

[Captain Untouchable]

Just a brief trivial aside -

Technically, Leela Vorega is a Colonel in the Starfighter Corps. However, she's the officer-in-command of the Valiant, who is traditionally referred to as the "Captain", regardless of rank. Weird, I know - I blame myself, for my inability to do anything "normally".

There's no problem at all - in effect, the two titles are interchangeable in her case; the Jedi aren't intimately acquainted with our personnel records; etc. Just figured I'd make that my "not very interesting piece of trivia" for the day.


I also jumped right in (literally). I hope that was okay.


Edit:

Using the blue text for the "in the past" stuff is a good idea. I know a couple of people have toyed with the idea of featuring characters from back then - could we make the colour coding "the norm" for the purposes of this thread perhaps, just in the interests of helping out people like me who get easily confused?

[Serena Laran]

My character from back then will be interacting in the here and now, so no blue text needed?

[Captain Untouchable]

If it's *now*, then sure. But if you're going to flash back and tell sections of the story from before time froze, etc...

Just so that people know what is happening in the present. It could get confusing, and someone might inadvertantly wind up reacting in the present to an event that actually happened 4000 years ago... you get the idea.

[Acacius Blade]

Regarding the captain thing - saw it countless times in Star Trek where a commissioned officer was referred to as Captain when in command of a starship, despite being a lieutenant or something. I just assumed it'd be similar here. AFter all, you can't really be The ensign of a ship, whereas there's only one person per ship you call Captain.