Homo Solitus and derivatives, remember your history.

[SilentMobius]

This is it, the conflict on Ruki-ka has come down to this:

The Omega serve the Unredeemed.
Yes you heard me right, the champion of the Unredeemed Shere is Omega Yuan Chi. I have bio-nano material that I recovered from his corpse shortly before it was reconstituted, and there is no shadow of a doubt that his is Omega.

ICC, Sol banking, Everyone, this not longer Omni vs Clan this is not a conflict of Solitus vs Solitus. This is Omega vs Solitus

Choose your side wisely.

[SilentMobius]

((No comments? IMHO this is the most important change to the RK conflict since the launch of the game, its like the Russians during the cold war allying themselves with Hitler leading neo-Nazi's, even most Russian's would hate the idea))

[Dabblez]

/ooc

Trouble, its not really clear to me at this stage how much of this info is available ic and how much is purely ooc knowledge. I read PWH ages ago and its all become a little hazy. I am not sure Dabblez would know who the Omega were, or care about events which happened thousands and thousands of years ago.

As more and more people go into the Shadowlands, speak to the NPCs and such, I imagine much of AO's lore will be considered public knowledge. Even then I think I'll find it hard to make it feel relevant to Dabblez daily life. Ultimately I play Dabblez as a very down to earth character - she is by nature more preoccupied about paying the bills a the end of the month and dodging creditors than then she is about the destiny of mankind and all things of cosmic significance.

So maybe I am playing the wrong game. I did not know things would go this way 2 years ago.

[Sundai]

Ok. I admit it. I'm an idiot.

What's an Omega?

WHere can I find more information?

[Nevver]

((Divvinity, you can find out more about them in "Prophet Without Honor." I haven't run across any references to them ingame, but now that SM has brought this up, I hope to find some stuff about them! ))

I am looking forward to meeting an Omega and stealing their secrets.

[Aazamon]

(( I found it very interresting, unfortuneatly Aazamon doesn't know much of the history in PWH, even though he is aware of the nature of the Omega. Also he is completely unaware taht the Omega lead Omni-Tek, or influence it anyway. But there is always a way to get the truth out isn't there )).

[SilentMobius]

OCC
The Omega are the creators of nanotechnology and the destroyers and enslavers of mankind.

The Omega released a nano-plague on earth that wiped out almost all life while they slumbered waiting for a more hardy human to evolve (homo Solitus) so they would have an effective slave race and little resistance to their rule.

Solitus revolted, lead by David Marlin (A Solitus-Omega hybrid and a truthdreamer) and after many years of petty warlords established a just Government and the ICC. All of this should be considered Highschool history IC. One of the reasons OT is watched so closely by ICC is that they were worried that OT might use their tiny (compared to the Omega) knowledge of nanotechnology to become the new Omega.

Homo Solitus was enslaved from about 3332AD till about 12101AD, you don't forget that in a hurry

PwH Tells us (the players) that OT dances to the Omega's tune but noone would know this IC until now.

Nobody even thought that there were any Omega left, but not only are there some left, but they are working for OT's allies
as IC information this is dynamite

N.B. All of PwH is now on the AO website so you RP folks have no excuse
/OCC

[Trisagiona]

OOC:

Actually, I think SM is right. The Omega should be high school knowledge. If we, caught in the turbulent everyday life on Rubi-Ka find it relevant is another question.

Think Tris will think something in the lines of "Omega? Yeah I remember something about them... You think you saw one? Give me a break, they are history. Wake up and live in the real world for once. There's enough trouble here as it is"

Only if something really wierd happened that proves without a doubt that the Omega of old are involved will she start fighting them.

I have no doubt that will happend but... not yet

[LLJKTonitrum]

Still OOC:
My character's reaction would basically be "no way it's the same Omega, they all died out long ago". Perhaps it seems like frantic rationalization given our OOC knowledge, but it makes sense ICly.

It'd take a lot for him to realize that it's the same Omega, and that they control Omni-Tek like a puppeteer controls a marionette -- and by then, it would probably be too late for it to matter.

[Aerinyi]

((Why should the Omega be considered public knowledge? We see no references to them in game. And while the book may be up on the web site, so is a link to download Anarchy Online. I seriously doubt that our characters in the game are supposed to be able to download Anarchy Online. So clearly not everything accessible on the site is in character knowledge.

Besides, it seems poor storytelling to me to reveal all of the story's secrets this early on. ))

[_______________Grues]

(( OOC:

I'm not going to comment this IC, as I don't have enough information IC yet. Prophet without honor is, as far as I can see, definitely not IC information, and no one seems to have answered the IC question posted here IC yet... However, if my main character knew what I do she would probably say something to the effect of:

"What? OT serves some long-since-dead monsters that mothers use to scare their kids to be good? Give me a break. My family and I have worked for OmniTek for years and years, and it's been perfectly normal business, not any dancing to the tunes of ancient evils or other fantastic nonsense. Oh, yeah, maybe there is a nutcase high up in the hierarchy, thinking that he has a deal with the devils, but that has nothing to do with the normal running of the company.

And even if some of the Unredeemed were of this Omega people, so what? Some of the citizens of Rubi-Ka are regular breed humans, the very same who used to enslave atrox and nanomages, who waged wars and built concentration camps and nuked cities to hell, and do we say that they should be opposed just because of the load of the ancient evils their - our - race has done? We can't know if the Omega are still the same people who did those evils; it would be unfair to expect they are, without any evidence."

Personally, I hate the effort of imposing "omni bad, clans good" on the players at this point of the story. So far, the attractive thing about the AO storyline has been that while it gives rise to strong feelings and conflicts it has also been not black and white but very shades of gray; it has been easy to find valid reasons for considering either side good. This "on one hand this, on the other hand that" is what gives rise to good, long-term, dynamic roleplay; "me evil, you good" doesn't last very long as a theme.

))

[Trisagiona]

((I think the new system gives a better opportunity to be a little bit of both if you ask me. Right the Unreedemed are supporting the Omnis and the Reedemed are supporting the Clans, but you're still free to fight against this from inside the Corporation right? I mean you can start a campaign working towards cutting the bonds between them. You might fail and get kicked out of Omni-Tek but still, it's interesting roleplay

It's like. FC gives us the world. Love it or hate it, this is it. It's your choice where you want to be and what you want to do within the framwork of the world. And besides, it's your own perception of good and evil that classifies omni as bad. In reality they just think that the world is there for their taking. To make them stronger. If everyone thought that way it wouldn't be bad would it? ))

[_______________Grues]

((OOC:

Tris, your mail proves my point. You speak of internal campaign to change omni association to the Unredeemed: the hidden assumption is that OmniTek is the bad guys and if you want to play a good guy you cannot play a loyal omni, but someone who disagrees with his company.

This used to not be the case when I played the game for the first times. Yes, Omni could be seen as the evil then, very easily, as the greedy megacorporation with lots of crimes in its past. But also clans could easily be seen as the evil: as remnants of once legitimate but now obsolete movement, who can't forgive OT crimes done in the past and continues terrorism in the false name of freedom. Neither of these views were The Truth; they were two explanations to a really complex situation. This is what situations are like in the real life too; the setting gave us possibilities to explore a wide range of worldviews.

Now it seems to me that FC seems to be trying to trivialize this to a much, much more simpler good-bad setting where the Unredeemed are the evil and Redeemed are the good, and OT is bad because it associates with the first. And this is what I hate. As you say, it is still possible to play a good person on the side of OmniTek, but it's now much, much more difficult to justify the viewpoint that Omni is in the right. If the storyline goes to the direction it is going, soon to think that a character should be either stupid and blind, or truly selfish/evil.

It's true, as you also say, that this is FC's world. It's perfectly within their rights to give us a world where OT is the evil, and yes, we have to deal with that. But no, wait - we don't have to: if we hate the setting, we can also stop playing... and I think that if all the multifaceted omni characters I've met and liked will from this on be either stupid, evil, or changing their company from within, I'm going to grow bored of the Conflict really, really soon.

Sorry about ranting. But I really do hate this black-and-whiting of a setting that used to give so much more opportunities to interesting roleplay.

And no, I'm not planning to stop playing yet. I'm planning to go Omni and play a character who is a good and loyal company employee without being a mindless puppet of ancient evil overlords. If this does not turn out well, or FC makes it too difficult with future storyline updates, I'll think of finding another game.

))

[SilentMobius]

OCC
I take issue with "Prophet without honor is, as far as I can see, definitely not IC information" as a massive generalisation. PwH is a story that contains much information that our character could never know, however it also contains information that any Rubi-Kan who considers themselves even remotely educated would have to know.

Why did ICC regulate Nanotechnology? because of the threat of the Omega.
Why does ICC exist? to quote:

12272
"Most of the ministers, diplomats and senior advisors that made up the world congress were violently opposed to anything that would remind them and their constituents of Farmatek's almost ten millennia long dominion over Earth. To suggest so soon after the end of the war (dispite the fact that the war with the Omega had ended more that a century and a half ago) that their facilities should be pulled together into a large and potentially all-
encompassing company...a world-spanning corporation"

12305AD
"This was of course an Omni -Tek operated outfit. In the past decades other corporations had managed to gain a foothold in certain industried - the world congess and the recently formed ICC adamant on keepong Omni-Tek in check and prevent it from beconning a monopoly"

You don't just forget that kind of active and relevent history

Now many Rubi-Kan's are miners and fronteer people, and as such they may not have had a passable education, fair enough. Even Omni-1 has its sewer rats that have never set foot in a classroom in their lives. So anyone _can_ decide that their character had a poor education, or even that they have an insular NIMBY philisophy and that this information meant nothign to them. But out of all of my characters I'd say that only my young Atrox trader wouldn't be totally gobsmacked by this information.

Remember that the worst thing about the Omega what that they were _imortal_, and for the most part is was the same individual Omega's ruling for over 10 millenia.

Now we have The Chosen, who openly refer to themselves as "The Inamorta" and who employ Omega champions.

Sure this does _not_ suddenly mean that everyone knows that Omega run OT (assuming that is in fact true) what it does mean is that there is a solid line of provable association between OT and the most terrible beings that the homo Silotus have even had the misfortune to be enslaved by.

To me this totally changes the roll of ICC, and the rest of the non-Clan non-OT anarchy online universe.
/OCC

[Trisagiona]

OOC:

I understand your point of view Grue. It's not easy seeing it in black and white. I've chosen not to. As far as I see it now is that the Clans and Omni-tek are funded and supported by these two factions. One who believes in power and one who believes in peace and harmony. From the omni-tek side I would think it would be like waking up and finding that your company is funded by slavery or something equally vile. You have three choices.
1. Go on like before not caring where the credits come from.
2. You love your company enough to try to persuade it to stop associating with the wrong kind of people.
3. Quit (the company)
Hmm actually there's a 4th. Deny it all.

I guess, if this was reality, that a lot of employees would be shocked and horrified by the knowledge of the Unredeemed. But I would guess a lot of clanners would feel the same way by the Redeemed.

That's how I feel, but I live by denial anyway and work with whatever's there.

The trick is to make a story good enough to make your kind of truth reality

Tris the eternally optimistic roleplayer

[SilentMobius]

Originally posted by Trisagiona
OOC:
3. Quit (the company)

OOC (still)
Actually I really wish that was an option, as I've said time and time again, if an OT employee became disenfranchised with the complany what are they going to do? Join the clans... mosty the answer to that question would be a simple and forcefull "No" and I can understand that. So where is the OT resignation form (OT->Neutral) that the Jobe scientists used?

But I digress
/OOC

[_______________Grues]

(( OOC:

From the omni-tek side I would think it would be like waking up and finding that your company is funded by slavery or something equally vile. You have three choices.
1. Go on like before not caring where the credits come from.
2. You love your company enough to try to persuade it to stop associating with the wrong kind of people.
3. Quit (the company)
Hmm actually there's a 4th. Deny it all.

No, I don't think you completely understand my point. I don't deny that you can still make good non-black-and-white roleplaying out of this situation - you can make good roleplaying out of any setting if you really want to. But still, as a player, I don't like the way that this latest "OmniTek Is Funded and Guided By Eeeeevil" nonsense is forced down our throats, and the fact that all your options above are based on this assumption further convinces me that it indeed is being forced down.

And neither do I like the "peace and harmony" vs. "power" -setting. Those motives were maybe interesting to me when I was aged 10, but in the age of 30 I would like to play somewhat more complex motives and ideals, especially in a game that advertises itself as science fiction rather than fantasy...

If this was reality, and OmniTek was a real company, people's reactions would most likely not be "shocked and horrified". I think it would be more like "An ancient faction that's eeeeevil because it Only Believes In Power and tries to acquire that by funding my megacorporation employers? Gimme a break. What do these Unredeemed guys really want? Whose propaganda is this 'redeemed'-term anyway?" (I think that's the line I'm going for IC, too.)

I find it hard to believe in Ancient Evils that are Evil just because they are, well, Evil, and you know, they want to Rule The World and be nasty to nice pretty unicorns, and I really, really feel that it's a shame that FC is taking the storyline more and more to that direction.

Rant, rant. But I really do hate this.

))

[Trisagiona]

I think I'm going to say as SM did. Let's wait and see where this is going.

[lilnymph]

((It is also shown in PWH that The Omega DON'T control OT directly. They have subtle control over it. They can't effect major policy changes in it, but foster an atmosphere of su****ion and corruption to allow them to steer it the way they want.))

Hugs

lilnymph

[pudds4tw]

Even if this information is correct, which I highly doubt, you think it is fair to judge a person because of their race?

If indeed it is an Omega you have found, how can you naturally assume they have malicious intentions?

The Omega/Solitus war was almost 20 thousand years ago. I think it is worrying that you are so swift to label this person, of which you know nothing about aside from your so called "scientific evidence", as evil.

How would you like if I labelled all nanomages as evil because of the actions of the Nanomage Liberation Front? Unfair you say? That's what I thought.

For all you know, the Omega could be here to share their knowledge of nanotechnology with Omni-tek for the betterment of all employees.