Catbert's Repository of RP Stuff (and Feedback)

[Catbert]

Catbert's Repository of RP Stuff (and Feedback)

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Hi, and thanks for coming to this thread, regardless of whether you opened it intentionally or just by accident. As you can guess from the title, this is where I'm going to keep links to all (or most of) the stories, bios, or whatever else that I was involved in. I decided to do it for two reasons:

• I'd like to have a thread which I can just check and look back at what I did in the past.
  
• I'd really love to hear feedback from people, should they find anything here to be worth their time.

It won't contain ALL the stuff (because tracking down every comm wouldn't be worth the effort), and it will be developed over time. Right now I just want to prepare the layout and add some basics. With that out of the way, time to get to it.

[HERE BE CONTENTS] (once I'm done making the posts and filling them with useful info)

[Catbert]

1. Featured Stories

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Here I'll be listing my favourite stories. They may be mine alone or co-written with other people; they may be finished or not. I just consider them the most important projects of mine, and I'll do my best to see them through.

• A Kusari Story [Complete]
  
  About the story

  This story features Norman O'Connor, my oldest RP character. It describes his adventures after his resignation from the LSF. Although I wrote it on my own, special thanks goes to SeaFalcon: the RP we had at the time I was writing this actually motivated me to finish this story.
  
  In the ideal world Inge Wexler would've been a character here too, as she was involved in many events. However, that would have made the story twice as long, and it probably wouldn't have been completed by now. That, and the story would become much more complicated. That's why her participation is limited to one indirect mention.
  
  
• Get Me out of Here [Complete]
  
  About the story

  A joint project by Occam Razor, Shalo, and myself. Although I was the one posting it, it wouldn't have been possible without them. While we're at it, I'll also thank Byron for taking the time to review and comment the story as it was being posted. This is a tale of Kyle Cross going to rescue his girlfriend Kiara Garlow who was apparently captured by Remy Moreau, a Brigand from Gallia. However, Kyle discovers that there was more to that kidnapping than met the eye.
  
  I know that the pacing is uneven, and the second act (talking) is way too long, but that's what happens when you have to take stuff from Skype chats. Still, despite the drawbacks, I decided to keep the story as "featured", simply due to the fun I had with it, as well as the time and effort spent on it. Hopefully, the follow-up story that is bound to happen will be more evenly balanced in terms of action and conversations.
  
  
• Of Cages and Misery [In progress]
  
  About the story

  Another joint project featuring Occam Razor, Byron, and Black Smoke. It continued the story started in "Get Me out of Here" and should have better balance of action, introspection, and dialogues.

[Catbert]

2. Stories and Biographies

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This section will cover my other stories, including incomplete/abandoned ones. Although I didn't mark them as featured, some of them might still be curious. A curious observation is that most of these stories died down due to [insert_reason_here]. I apologize to those who were meant to take part in them.

Started by me

Although I called it "Started by me", it merely means that I was the one to make the first post. Most of these are a result of cooperation of some sort. While compiling this list, I noticed that quite a few of them were left unfinished, and I am to blame for that.

• To Make a Difference [Abandoned]
  
  About the story

  A short story about a group of Brigands that decided to move to Boulogne from the Gallic Border Worlds; that's how Les Damnés started (in a way, the faction was the continuation of the story). I planned to do it as a part of +LE+ back in the day, but it didn't work out (probably died down with +LE+). The story itself is nothing special, the only curious part about it is the old Boulogne inforcard with a population of 14.000 people. Oh, the good old 4.86 times.
  
  
• Chasing Shadows [Unfinished, might continue]
  
  About the story

  A story about LSF's prototype cruiser (not the one that appeared in game as a prop though). The story isn't mine alone: the cruiser was the brainchild of another player, and there were quite a few =LSF= members involved. Unfortunately, it died down back in the day, but the story might continue one way or another.
  
  
• Stranded [Unfinished, might continue]
  
  About the story

  The LSF attempt to rescue a few agents left behind on Leeds during Gallic onslaught. It was meant to involved multiple people, but it died down again (probably I was about to leave at around the same time). In a way, I wrapped it up in A Kusari Story, but I might revisit this one, if the mood hits me. It is complicated by the fact that that I'm no longer in =LSF=, and Ashley Sunderland became someone else's character after I had left Disco back then (and I really didn't mind, and still don't).
  
  
• A Breaking Point [Somewhat finished?]
  
  About the story

  A chapter from the life of the trader who spawned Ajax Combine Inc. It all began when I managed to tractor a power cell (or a derelict nomad artifact) from a destroyed Wild ship in New London. The Wild chased me and Yaoquizque to Sprague, then the artifact started to interfere with my freighter's systems. The story lets us know where the characters end up, but it lacks a distinct conclusion, that's why I labeled it as "somewhat finished".
  
  
• An Outcast among Outcasts [In progress]
  
  About the story

  The story of Kyle Cross, my 3rd or 4th character on Disco, I think. Recently he has become my main character. The story describes how he ended up where he is, while giving homage to some of my characters who never got their own story. If I ever finish this story, I'll mark it as "featured".
  
  
• Doubts and Delusions [Unfinished, retconned]
  
  About the story

  Some members of the Order are concerned that the organization is becoming complacent again, and the story of Toledo might repeat itself with Akabat. It was meant to lead to some curious consequences, but the story died down. For all I know, those events never took place. Still, I had a lot of fun participating in this and imagining what would happen in the future.

[Catbert]

3. Factions

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Some might say that factions don't belong here. But I think that the background of the faction does count as a story. That, and the fact they usually don't last long, so the main value they have is the story behind them.

Current Factions:

• Les Révélateurs (a GRI faction with a lore twist)
  
  
  My thoughts on Les Revelateurs

  This one is probably my favourite. It started off when a friend found out about GRI having their own ID, and no other faction using it. For the first few weeks, we were just flying around without any identity whatsoever. Eventually, from various pieces (such as "His word is law", a catchphrase that I think I borrowed from the old GRN), the faction's lore grew. I also came to the idea that Gallia, being "the villain" of the mod, needs a compelling motivation for their actions, apart from old grudges from Sol or a plain lack of resources. Compelling motivation is an important aspect of les Révélateurs and their RP. In a way, the faction itself is a character.
  
  The lore of les Révélateurs has two layers. On the surface, it's what you see in the description: just a small GRI battlegroup, not much different from any other Gallic faction. However, there is the second layer, which I call the twist. Hints and clues about the twist are spread all over my post related to les Révélateurs. They are everywhere: in the faction description, roster, my posts in the stories, some of my MDs, and even answers in the recruitment thread. When put together, those hints might help you find the twist. Should you do that (very few people actually bothered), you'll look at the story from an entirely different angle, and start seeing all the hints.
  
  In fact, the faction writeup by itself is a complete story at this point, with a few mysteries to figure out. It's much like how Dark Souls handles its lore: you collect its bits from item descriptions or pieces of dialogues, and a bigger picture slowly forms. Still, not all questions are answered.
  
  And I haven't even mentioned an array of potential activities in the game. At this moment (with the war against Bretonia, Liberty, Crayterians, Outcasts, Coalition, and the Council going on), GRI have a variety of places to fly to and factions to fight. If that gets too challenging, Dublin gold also technically belongs to the King, so there's an opportunity to "liberate" the Crown's "stolen" property. Being an intelligence faction, GRI can in theory do shady deals with the less reputable factions, but we haven't tackled that route as of yet.

Old Factions:

• Les Damnés (a Gallic Brigand faction)
  
  
  My thoughts on Les Damnes

  My first attempt at creating a faction. The name and the backstory are a reference to +LE+, a GRN-faction-turned-Brigands. I joined them back in 2010, and despite the faction being frowned upon at that time (mainly due to being seen as unbrigandish), I still had some great moments with +LE+. When I was creating Les Damnés, I tried to add some Brigand feel to it (and I was inspired by the Saints Row series at the time).
  
  The faction ended up being mostly me and Decktare, a good friend of mine, and it didn't last too long. Still, despite the general lack activity in Gallia at that time, we managed to get our share of fun encounters, particularly with Radion's GRP and the Order|.
  
  There was a fun story arc: we once planned a 2vs2 event with GRP in Ile-de-France. Once we were there, it coincided with one of the admins (I think it was Alley, but I may be wrong) to spawn some Nomad Marduks in various places around the sector and announce it as "increased Nomad activity". Naturally, a Nomad patrol appeared once we were about to have a fight with GRP. Instead the Brigands ended up having to join forces with the Police to bring down those "weird purple things".
  
  It didn't stop at that: after the fight the Brigands managed to tractor some of the Nomad remains, and that resulted in a chase, because the GRP wanted the stuff for themselves. Once they secured these unknown materials, they tried to find buyers, and the Order were willing to meet in Rishiri to negotiate. However, the deal didn't work; Brigands wanted tech or something that was worth more than a few million credits that the Order were willing to pay. So it resulted in a nice battle with SNACs, exploding gunboats and bombers, etc.
  
  In the end it died down because I kind of lost interest in Disco at that point and just disappeared (I apologize to those who were affected by that). Still, I have fond memories of the time when Les Damnés were rolling around and doing things. At least there was some fun in the Le Chat Noir club.
  
  
• Ajax Combine Inc. (an undercover LSF group)
  
  
  My thoughts on Ajax Combine Inc

  My second attempt at creating a faction. It is still mostly a draft, and it may never take off, but I enjoyed writing it. Kudos to Stolt for bringing up that idea, or I probably would've just left it as an out-of-game thing to explain what my LSF Director character was up to after being reassigned from the LSF.
  
  It also tied up nicely with the trade run I did in my Freelancer Serenity (tungsten from planet Harris to Planet Sprague, and something else back to Harris). I tried to provide an RP reason for that (the character being a blockade runner trying to haul as much stuff off Harris to Sprague before the Gauls occupied it), and later came up with an idea of some power standing behind that blockade runner. That's how the concept of Ajax was created. I even tried to recruit Dave Synk into hauling stuff with me (back when there weren't even thoughts of a faction), but it didn't go farther than one trading session and an excuse for doing that route.
  
  When I discussed the idea of a faction with Stolt, we ended up deciding on the LSF ID. Back in the day (2010-2011) people used to complain about =LSF= being "same Navy/Police, different IFF". Kingvaillant tried to rectify it by making LSF work mostly in the Independent Worlds (Magellan, Cortez, Bering, Texas, Galileo, and Kepler). That ended up with LSF losing some of the things to do, but maybe we should've just taken the idea further. So I thought it'd be good to try and make use of LSF ID's ability to fight enemies of Liberty outside of Liberty, and give an LSF faction an entirely different list of things to do (or at least different places to do those things at).
  
  That being said, I'm still not sure if it'll work. I haven't been too active in game lately (mostly because I have more on my plate than I can chew in terms of games and even RP stuff going on Disco). Still, I thought this little project deserves a mention, if only for the background lore.

[Catbert]

4. Characters

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At first I thought I'd do character sheets here, but then decided that just listing the characters with some comments (and maybe links) would be enough.

2010

• Norman O'Connor, LSF agent
  
  Spoiler

  My very first character on Discovery. Back when I joined in 2010, I knew that I wanted to play as LSF. So, once I had enough money, I got myself a Mini-Razor, Armor Upgrade Mk II, and just started playing.
  
  There's a funny story associated with this character: after having got acquainted with a few people from =LSF=, I applied one evening only to see a post approving my application after 8 hours or so. Happy that it went so smoothly, I tagged my char (there weren't tag passwords back then) and went to an =LSF= guy I had on Skype to talk about it. He was surprised to see me tagged, and he said there was no approval post. I went back there and saw that the post wasn't there! As it turned out, the guy responsible for approving applications had approved my app by accident and asked the mod to hide the approval post after I had already seen it.

[Catbert]

Below Be Feedback

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Well, that's it. I'll keep filling this thread with various stuff over time, but the layout is done. As I said earlier, any sort of feedback is appreciated.

[Sombs]

You have the most epic combination of forum name and avatar. Not even Flex-Tape could upgrade this.

Aside from that, I hear people talking about you very positively, for example this @SeaFalcon person and some Forlorn people. I look forward to steal your time by cybering with you until I am pleased!

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Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

Templates: Character | Transmissions

Alternative Soundtracks

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[Stolt.]

BTW you forgot that part where you used to be a great leader for =LSF= a half decade ago, which I feel like you should get credit for =S

*EDIT: Said 'greater', meant 'great'

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- Dossier on Adrienne Perry

[Catbert]

You have the most epic combination of forum name and avatar. Not even Flex-Tape could upgrade this.

Aside from that, I hear people talking about you very positively, for example this @SeaFalcon person and some Forlorn people. I look forward to steal your time by cybering with you until I am pleased!

Thanks, I'm flattered. Feel free to track down my characters for some RP. Oh, I forgot, I don't even have a list of characters ready yet. Guess it's about whether our paths cross in space, for now at least.

BTW you forgot that part where you used to be a great leader for =LSF= a half decade ago, which I feel like you should get credit for =S

I didn't think it was worth mentioning which factions I was part of. The "Factions" part was only for factions made from scratch, and not the factions that I joined when they were already well on the way. That, and I didn't really last long as =LSF= Director (8 months, I think), and there are things I should've handled better. But thank you!

Also, I have extended the "Factions" section, so now there's a reference to the old =LSF= times (although it's still behind a couple of links). Each of the two factions now also has some retrospective thoughts.

[Catbert]

A couple of developments:

1. Get Me out of Here has finally been completed. I know that the posts from 8 to 12 were way longer and 'talkier' than they should've been, but that's the drawback of basing the story on Skype RP. I'm keeping this story as "featured" just because it has a couple of interesting plot twists, and due to the amount of fun we had while working on it. The follow-up story may appear soon, and I hope it will be more evenly-balanced.
   
   
2. I've updated the list of non-featured stories. So far it only includes the threads started by me. I'll try to dig up other stories I took part in some other time. While going through the list, I noticed that a lot of those stories were unfinished. Guess I should blame my laziness or quitting Disco at the times when those stories were supposed to take place. A sad joke it may be, but perhaps I should have renamed that section to "Abandoned stories".