Player Plot Post: Ploiatos!

[notglitching]

(Now say it ten times fast.)

But hey people! In a month filled with ship malfunctions, mind controlling rocks, Ingress revelations, and whatever the actual mod event for the month may prove to be, we (Glazed and I) come to you with exactly what you've all been waiting for:

~More. Plot.~

The Short Version:

In an attempt to render the Moira not virused, powerless, and at risk of everyone dying if Ploiatos manages to rot his door open, Defense is stepping up to take Ploiatos out. The specifics are player-variable, but this can (and hopefully will) result in permanently removing the threat he (individually) poses to the ship, and cleaning up what influence he's had to whatever degree possible.

The Long Version:

...is partly up to you guys! In the aftermath of the Monolith's "virus", Rinzler will be making a case to the captain/first mate to stop keeping infectious murder viruses aboard the ship-- and between that, Mana's removal, and the rapid corruption of the ship that followed, they're officially on board. At this point, he'll call up Miller (Head of Defense) and they'll pull in people to strategize and act towards the following goals:

• Quarantine:
  
  Being a (modified) security program, Rinzler particularly is inclined to treat this as... well, a computer virus. Ploiatos is clearly corrupting and modifying some areas of the ship. Just as clearly, he can have an influence on people, and as he was originally a normal crewmember before his exposure to something through the Ingress, it's not unlikely he could turn crew into something like himself. Much scary, very dnw.
  
  So-- calling engineers, buildy types, or others willing and able to track, secure, and keep people out of the areas of effect until they can be restored? A way of safeguarding the noncombatants would also be good, whether on-ship or by temporarily flying off it. (Transporters, get!)
  
  
• Kill It With Fire:
  
  The main focus! Some ideas can be found here (if you don't mind paging through unrelated wordspew), but this is the part where character powers, technology, or ideas have the most potential to change how it goes. Based on previous plot info, Ploiatos is just about unkillable by standard fight methods; he's super fast, with a touch that damages (infects?) and then kills. That said, he can be confused fairly easily, and there's room for both creative solutions and crazy OP ones.
  
  Attacks that work through walls or without contact are obviously a good plan. Since the walls of his current confinement have held this far, there's reason to think barricades would be effective at keeping his movements limited-- especially if they're newly built, without any time for him to spongify them. Characters wanting to engage him personally could be literally walled in to do so, minimizing the risk to others... or Team Engineering could work to cut the box he's in out of the ship entirely before anyone attacks. (Just don't break it.)
  
  
• Cure?:
  
  Even if Ploiatos is eliminated without further harm, the damage he's already done is massive-- both to the physical ship and by infecting/killing crewmembers in his previous attacks. Especially if there's a chance more like him could be created (probable, since the Ingress' power was involved), the next step after ending the danger is preventing it from happening again.
  
  Medbay members, Sanitation crew, or anyone willing to get their hands dirty would be very welcome for analyzing the corruption he's spread. Restoring the ship to its undamaged state is a priority-- but so is (carefully) studying what caused it, and being ready if it happens again.

ICly, we're hoping for the removal to go down on the 14th to place it before the main mod event. That said, there's a lot going on this month, and backtagging will likely be a thing. Comment, plot, or query freely! Miller will be putting up an IC organization post tomorrow. We're super excited about this and hoping to bring as many people as want in.

Comments

Questions!

[notglitching]

(We'll ask a mod if we don't know. 8|b)

[keelahselai]

The mods'll probably have to answer this one, sorry for immediately over-complicating matters ;;

Is there likely to be any effect on people with Ploiatos scars by fighting/killing him? Are the scars going to disappear, will something about them be altered by hurting him, etc etc whatever there might be. I don't know if there are more than two or three characters left on board with the scars, but it's worth asking!

[hohnkai]

Hey. So anyone with scars will be more sensitive to Ploiatos and can feel when he's near. Its optional if the character would be more or less weakened by the energy drain. The scars wont just disappear though. Players can always get rid of them if they want to through other means. Since there aren't many scar bearers left there's room to hash out the effects and all that.

Plotting: Quarantine

[notglitching]

Re: Plotting: Quarantine

[curiousnotmalicious]

Velders the welder here! Dutch is good at welding all things. That's buildy, right? Any way she can help, she will.

[notglitching]

Excellently buildy, I'd say. Would she want offensive building (keeping the fight area sealed off), or defensive (protect those noncombatants!)?

[redshitlord]

Let's throw the red shitchild in here for helping carry people out of the way, potentially, if necessary. Since he's large and turns into an actual car.

[notglitching]

...man, considering Ploiatos gets confused by multiple people on a scene, I'm curious as heck how he'd respond to people turning into cars. But awesome, rescue car is definitely good to have around!

[keelahselai]

Tali can totally help out here. They could maybe use a similar force field type setup to what they used to keep the Hulk caged up - they could potentially use that to keep areas of the ship cordoned off and even move them around to drive Ploiatos to somewhere he'd be easier to kill (or to somewhere easy to jettison him)...?

[notglitching]

Hulk-level force-fields sound like exactly what they want, honestly. Battlefield control and protecting those squishy ranged combatants. How mobile was the setup they managed before?

[caelus]

Jim is definitely down with helping with the quarantine, and helping keep people out of the affected areas of the ship. He's got some knowledge in shoring up ship and defense if it is needed. If it comes down to fighting at some point, that's also ok.

[notglitching]

Awesome! The ship was enough of a mess before Ploiatos started rotting holes through it, so Jim's expertise could definitely be handy.

Plotting: Fire and the Killing Therewith

[notglitching]

[tearmeanewone]

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

(AKA: The One Where Elizabeth Eats Her Words)

Elizabeth, with her crazy dimension-tearing powers, can definitely put some hurt on Ploiatos, if not eject him into some other timeline/the cold vast darkness of space. Which she doesn't want to do in front of the crew, but this seems to be an Extreme Emergency Requiring Less Discretion.

(Technically speaking for Anti-Game-Breaking Reasons, Elizabeth can't put people/herself through tears, but I could talk to the mods about maybe plotting a reason she can for this one time? Unless there's a better plan in which case, cool stuff. 83b)

...regardless she should probably tell Rinzler he had a real real real good point way back when.

[notglitching]

sldkjflsdjf I LOVE THIS A LOT. They literally argued about this exact thing... all the way back in March? Rinzler's gonna be more than a little shocked at Elizabeth coming around.

Sounds like a guaranteed damage method, with an optional finishing blow? We can see if anyone comes up with a different one so she doesn't have to powerbreak, but it's an awesome combat power either way. Rinzler would vote for kill over exporting their virus to someone else's time, but either way, it's off the ship and that's the priority.

[greyate]

IDK how gamebreaking it would be to have Jean kill Ploiatos the same way she killed Apocalypse aka using her Phoenix force. She could literally disintegrate him if it comes down to that needing to be done.

BUT I'LL LEAVE IT TO YOU GUYS TO DECIDE. Just know I'm up for having her do that if needed!

[notglitching]

Honestly, I JUST WATCHED THAT MOVIE TONIGHT and I am super enthused. :D Way to hit epic levels, Jean.

But that sounds like a great option for a finishing move! Maybe in conjunction with Elizabeth's world-splitting? (There's scattering ashes and then there's scattering ashes across the multiverse.) Not sure if you're playing Jean at full power all the time or if Dramatic Fight Circumstances could cause her to Pheonix out at him as things get crazy.

Venom

[poolhall_killer]

So our enemy is easily confused and attacks without contact work best. It just so happens you have a rather skilled fighter with such abilities in your crew!

Venom's a master at distance fighting and can utilize his billiard balls of varying strengths. I definitely want him to help wear the enemy down, but not deliver the killing blow. Last time he did that, some bad stuff happened.

So if anyone wants to team up/form strategies/make fun of him for using a pool cue, hit me up!

[shiro2hero]

Offering up a guy with what's basically a welding torch as his hand for building barricades against this dude.

Otherwise, there's a chance he might actually volunteer to throw in, despite using hand to hand techniques which. Aren't that great of an idea here, clearly. But he'd offer. Even just to play bait

[lethen]

May not be the one to do any finishing moves, but Fenris can use his power to attack without contact/phase through walls or other objects! I also don't mind him being a distraction or something. He just wants to fight...... he hasn't killed anyone in days, okay. It's got to be a record.

[fallin1]

Lucifer is down to help with taking this foul creature out. It isn't as bad as some he's seen (former lord of hell and all), but he's definitely willing to get his hands dirty. He's bringing supernatural strength to the table and basically being unkillable.

That is unless Chloe is around.

But no, one person has already pointed out that they think he is disingenuous about not wanting to cause trouble, so what better way to help than to kill a monster? St. Lucifer, at your service.

Plotting: Cure

[notglitching]

Not to be confused with Cúrre.

[prorenataa]

Good morning!

Okay so I had talked with the mods a little about this and about what Adrien did in terms of medical stuff in Ploit's workroom from Section U. They nudged me towards you guys.

Would this be something you'd like me to follow-up on with the mods for this plot? Would it be helpful?

Plotting: Other?

[notglitching]

Want to make a case for friendship with the murder monster? Trap him in an interdimensional banana? Join him in trashing this ship (it's too sketchy to live anyway)? Drop off your thoughts here!

[ryuuzaki]

I HAVE NO CASES BUT

L was just discussing this with Tex in the comments of his info post, totally by coincidence. He thinks taking Ploiatos back to the Midway Hub might be a very bad idea.

He cannot help with the physical side of a fight or even provide many concrete engineering suggestions for quarantine, but he can offer strategic suggestions in a more general sense. (i.e. he can't tell you the nitty-gritty of how to build A Thing, that would be up to an engineer, but he can probably think of the things you should be able to do with it in terms of precautions you want to take, and offer some useful design specifications.)

Also: I'm going to do some looking into the stuff I mentioned on Plurk between now and when this goes up -- there may be a case for thinking that Ploiatos, or part of him, is somehow trapped in the Ingress.