Battlestar Hyperion

[Roger Davis]

I've really been missing our other site these last few weeks. It was rolling so smoothly and then just collapsed so quickly that the awful loss of such a great RP site never really hit me until just now. I know that some of you still frequently visit it (which actually surprised me) and Tris even got in an typical late response just a few weeks ago.

Back on track, I sent James a PM on there (who knows when he'll ever get it) about possibly restarting the site. Activity dropped because a few people "poofed" but the entire thing died because Sid disappeared and he was the main driving force behind EVERYTHING. The rest of us just put it down hoping he'd come back but I don't think that's going to happen anymore (his short-lived visit here not even mentioning BSH).

Now with that established I feel more comfortable basically taking over there as a more prominent admin that does more than just updates the thread tracker (a huge job for such an active site mind you ). I could drive the fleet's plot line and such and keep things moving. We'd have some kind of catastrophe that explains why so many people are either dead or seriously injured. Working without Sid as commander would be pretty difficult after all.

So with that all out there, how do you guys feel about a second migration to try and restart BSH? I'm looking at Kyla, Jordan, and Lars in particular for this and I know you've all have decreased activity already. If you guys can't do it then I don't think it's possible to salvage the site. I also have no experience nor desire to go advertise and affiliate, something which Kyla is amazing at (although probably sick of and burned out from).

EDIT: For those 'Verse people who are confused, back in the beginning of the year around February Sidney started a Battlestar Galactica Alternate Universe RP site which many of our members migrated to. It had INCREDIBLE activity for a few months before crashing. The site can be found here.

[Kara Monroe]

Well after my move I will be picking everything back up again in full swing. My life kinda went completely buts and turned upside down and holey cow heh if you want me there I will gladly help.. just need a few more days for life to settle again.

Sent from my MB865 using proboards

[Kyla Monroe]

I don't mind helping out with things. I think the other layout is still around and can switch over to that if you'd like. I'm not sure how much RP'ing I'd do, my muse is pretty burnt out if that wasn't already obvious from my lack of ability to get anything done here... *sigh* If anything I'd probably drop most of my characters and start over on new ones.

We'd probably want to start out while doing the planning stuff plot-wise setting up a sort of activity check which includes sending an email to everyone to see if anyone would be coming back when things get going. Just to get an idea of where we'd be starting out and what characters need to be deleted from the site.

*edit for thought* if you're wanting to go small-ish scale as far as what happens to people instead of having some ships blow up or something, we can run something along the lines of when Brian goes all crazy cylon ex-boyfriend alot of people get killed/hurt before he gets put down. and maybe some malfunction occurs if we need it to happen on other ships where a few of his copies go haywire as well.

[Tristram Kelly]

And in order to keep Sid around, we can have Brian shoot him. Sure they did it in the series, but hell, it's better than the alternative.

[Roger Davis]

Better than expected responses (Except for Tris who I expected to reply quickly OOC but take forever IC ).

If we don't have a membership to poll anyway then I think a change of scenery to the new layout would be good to coincide with our rebirth. An activity check will of course be fantastic as well. You have no idea how relieved I am to have you helping with this, Ky.

As far as plot lines go we have a wide variety of possibilities. Our options including the following (or a mixture of them):

1) Skinjob Cylon attack (AKA Brian and others) - Extreme internal sabotage coupled with assassination attempts leads to several deaths/serious injuries which remove characters from play. This would be all the more devastating because up until this point we have no idea they even exist.

2) Traditional Cylon Attack - The Fleet gets swarmed by several basestars. The civilian fleet takes minor damage (but enough to knock out any unlucky civilian accounts) but escapes while Hyperion stays to fight. Hyperion thus takes pretty heavy losses to explain all the military accounts we have that we'd lose.

3) Civilian Uprising - It seems a little early for them to be THAT pissed (especially without a prison ship of agitators) but we were already developing a potential plot line with disgruntled civies. There could potentially be a series of terror attacks within the fleet targeting high level individuals (The president and Alex as her guard, the commander, Zeke the head scientist, etc.)

4) Mutiny - Also unlikely this early and without major provocation but there could be a military uprising which takes those people out. I suppose it could be a successful mutiny but the majority of the characters who are left would most likely not be on the mutiny side and would thus lose their jobs too (if they don't get killed). It's thus more likely that it's a failed mutiny because the targets were injured but not killed and the loyalists managed to maintain control in the end. As unlikely as the scenario, this one just feels best for us going in with such a decapitated top ranking.


I'm open to other options of course or as I said a combination of the above to create a mega-disaster. We also need to start thinking about whether we are going to RP the event or just claim that it happened and start in the aftermath.

It might also be worth considering doing a further time skip a few weeks to a month into the future where things are settled down. We could "start over" with modified profiles for those who are still around and reviving accounts. People might be in new positions (e.g. A new and official commander who is actually in power instead of place holding and completely unsure of himself) and the fleet make-up/status can also be altered slightly. This idea just came to my head but the more I type the more I see the benefits of it.

Sorry for the growing wall of text but please let me know your thoughts on it.

[Tristram Kelly]

But I love your walls of text! I think that there are several characters who need to be inactivated due to activity, but not permanently killed off, like the Commander, the Gunny, and others.

[Kyla Monroe]

Will read more through your avalanche of text tomorrow when I am off work roger <3 ill think over what chars id keep but atm I'm thinking only azura but keep hr on an injured list or somthing til I feel the muse , the others I'm not sure I want to keep

[Lars Engström]

*didn't read anything except the first post because i am in a rush at the moment.*

I am totally behind getting it going again, if that is what happens, I will edit this later when i get back n the swing of things, and read it all.

(Edit)
Before sid left, there was a discussion between us of having a new ship join the fleet, and passing leadership of said ship to the ever friendly OOD... now depending on James' actiity, I wonder if Kielen wouldn't simply take command in such a situation?

Anyhoo, I like the idea of a Cylon attack, seeing as we haven't had a big tangle with the toasters since the Genesis of our story.

2 more things and I'll shut up.

1) What about the resistance? I liked the story we had going, and i am sure we could have an explanation for the sudden silence of the what is it? 3 people who are unable to continue for whatever reason. I propose we either
A: Write a post that brings everything together and go from there or
B: Simply pull a massive time skip, and have everyone be bak with the rest of the peeps. (Basically skip them all on board hyperion.)

2: Should we move this topic to the BSH site? Just a thought.

[Roger Davis]

I know that this discussion would make more sense on the other site but seeing how we're all here more often I figured it should stay put at least in this early stage of talking. That is unless you all really feel strongly about moving it back (it belongs there and also will bring the site back to life a bit).

Alright I've got a few things to respond with so I'll try to keep it orderly


Command Change
It is a huge issue which certainly complicates things. James wants to be active but he psychically can't be because of his internet/computer issues. I'd love to just have James bumped up and be one big happy follow-the-chain-of-succession family but I don't think James can be depended on for it. It's the sad truth and I'm not willing to restart the site and dump the most important role on someone who simply can't fill it.

Option 1: Skip James
We can just give command directly to Kielen, the OOD. It makes little IC sense but much better OOC sense. For whatever reason James is also knocked out so we skip two down the line of succession. Roger (me) or one of the other senior officers might get bumped to XO.

Option 2: Time Skip
We skip past the confusion of the initial situation and technically a provisional system with support from the civilian government could completely rework the chain. Someone further than the OOD could be put forward as the new commander and even a new character could be created (a previous officer that just chilled out as an unnamed NPC) to take over.

Option 3: New Fleet Personnel
Instead of just drawing from within Hyperion's crew we can either run into a new ship(s) that has other senior military on it that will then take over our ship. This could create a lot of drama (good and bad) and was actually a suggested plot point by Sidney earlier (It was Sidney who was replaced). More on this further down.

What about James?
James has voiced interest in the restart and will probably show up to revive his character. Our solutions to this are to either: Make him still plays as injured and not on active duty. Or we give him a separate minor ship to command. Again see further down.

A new ship(s)
Sidney planned to have our fleet next run into another small fleet of civilian ships as well as a gunstar (basically a small battlestar, which compared to massive Hyperion makes it MUCH smaller). This provides us the opportunity to do a few things.

Chain of Command Drama
Sid planned to have an Admiral come in with the gunstar and thus replace him on Hyperion and as overall commander. There was a lot of drama planned for this which I won't get into (Cylon BS and possible mutiny) but there's the possibility of doing that even if the gunstar CO is only a commander (with our commander out of action).

Move Inactives Someplace
Instead of saying everyone is dead or injured forever we can just dump people on this other ship and never talk to them again until they reactive and transfer back over to Hyperion. This is a bit of a waste of a ship and RP opportunities (as discussed below) so I was also thinking that in the gunstar's fleet it would have a medical ship which could take on hundreds of casualties and basically be our long term recovery unit and act as a dumping ground for inactives. That way they are out of the way but still some determined place (where you could visit them I or something).

Allow for more RP and Advancement
Two ships equals twice the locations to RP. It also means wore sophisticated tactical situations with coordination between ships (or going off on separate missions). It also opens up more positions for higher advancement. Two commanders, two XOs, two CAGs, etc. Hyperion is more prestigious and more powerful but the other ship wouldn't be a push over.

Change Direction Completely
If we really wanted to we could have all our actives (a reduced and more junior crew) transfer over to the Gunstar while the inactives (Sid, James, etc.) remain on Hyperion with no major incident killing/injuring them. Then I basically NPC Hyperion as if it were any other random ship in the fleet.

The downsides are obvious (BSH RP not even being on the Hyperion for one) but we some some benefits that make it worth considering. We have no chain of command issue. There is no need to explain what happened to nearly everyone. The ship is smaller and thus we can fill a larger amount of positions with actual PCs. The gunstar isn't an unstoppable beat like Hyperion thus adding more of a challenging underdog feel.


Inactive Characters
As mentioned above we also have loads of possibilities to go here. They can be in the Hyperion infirmary, transferred to another ship, transferred to a hospital ship, or we all transfer away from them.

Resistance
Basically the group that went out on the Raptor (Sid and everyone else convenient) never came back and are assumed dead. The rest of the resistance has made a base and is fighting guerrilla style for a while.

Kyla and the president
I'd love to have some continuity there even if she is in a reduced role (i.e. still injured from the attack or whatever but well enough to give some speeches and be a figurehead of the government). It would also help provide legitimacy to our convoluted succession of military command if the president gives her blessing.


That's all I've got for now. Again, let me know what you think.

[Lars Engström]

I personally would go with putting the inactives on one of the NPC ships, and then having the Hyperion stay the main location. It doesn't feel right to just have the Hyperion just lurking... but i dunno.

2 ships would be interesting, but from what litte Sid and i discussed, i think the plan for said Gunstar was to wait until we have more people.... so it might be somewhat a waste to do it now.

However, if we start up sorta where we left off (with some explanations.) We might draw back the people who are inactive, and then go from there. I wouldn't be surprised if people come back, or join up, once there is action going on.

[Daniel Bruce]

Well number one would fit in with all of that sabotage stuff we were starting on, unless that's what you were referencing to in 3 when you said "we were already developing a potential plot line with disgruntled civies". As for whether we should RP it or skip ahead, may I suggest that we RP it just to get back into the whole feel of it.

With the inactives, I think we should go with the hospital ship option, but hey, that's just me. The resistance idea sounds good too. That's about the width and depth of my opinion at the moment, sorry if it doesn't seem like much :/

[Roger Davis]

Re: Sabotage
That sabotage and the disgruntled cives on a different ship were unrelated.

Re: Inactives
I also think that a hospital ship would be the best course of action for them. This seems like a fairly minor issue compared to the actual event and how we reorganize and I don't think anyone will have issues with it.

Re: New Ships
Yes, I don't want us to get overambitious and start spreading to other ships when we've only got maybe 6 of us. That being said, I think we do need new ships even if we aren't really going to be using them yet. The current fleet is MUCH smaller than that in BSG in total ships even if we have a higher population density than the series. If there is a major incident then our numbers will be cut down a bit which would open up the need for possibly more people to be recovered.

We also don't have our proposed hospital ship. Unless we want to completely convert one of the civilian ships in a horrible makeshift job which creates a substandard facilitiy, each tons of resources, and displaces thousands of civies then I think we want to conveniently find a hospital ship.

I'm also a fan of having an actual military fleet instead of a total lonewolf type scenario with some civies tagging along, especially if our RP goal is to fight instead of run. I don't want us to be completely overpowered with tons of battlestars but I think adding a few minor military vessels to the fleet would make it much more realistic. IRL Battleships/Aircraft carriers are the minority of a fleet, not the only military vessels in a navy.

Re: RPing it out
This idea has also been growing on me. It would better explain what actually happened more than a quick made-up summary and would allow personal involvement for characters to have an attachment to the event. As you mentioned, it's also a good refresher type event to get back in the swing of things.

I'm still a fan of a short time skip, however. I'm just dreading having to RP out a transitional and confused period. How does it sound if we RP the event and THEN time skip ahead to a reordering? The site needs a return to structure especially if we're recruiting new members. Arriving in the middle of a cluster**** with no sense of command or direction is not a good way to get started. Once things are established we can make some back-dated thread to post reactions to the event and maybe even make some of those confused power struggly type threads with the eventual result already in mind.

[Lars Engström]

Fair enough....

What if we were to find this gunstar with a small (But extremely overcrowded) fleet, and they were under attack. Maybe they grabbed as many civies on the ships as they could? Anyhoo, maybe there is a hospital ship in the mix and then in the mass confusion/ pew pew, there would be plenty of injuries.... then we can absorb the fleet, and take the hospital ship and be on our way.

[Tristram Kelly]

If only we could wrangle all our inactives...

[Lars Engström]

So say we all....