MXO story outline for chapters 7-14

Fen wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

I dunno, what at first sounded rediculous (it was a mid-storyline continuacy fix afterall) I've come to like the idea of.

Think about it, Wright waking up in Mauser's body unexpectedly, that would've been a total mind----. Then, the way I see it at least, him/her prowling the real with a crazy super electricitied body, jacking into random old world surface jacks with his body's current alone.

I dunno, the image is just cool in my head. Must've been a lot of internal character development/conflict during that time (burying your own body ffs) as well, which just adds gravity to the whole thing. A tortured body and soul, the result of a master plan gone terribly ary, walking the darkness with only her conviction to keep her going. Its just cool darn it.

Colonel Volgin!!

Colonel Falcon.

cloudwolf wrote:

Remember the bros supposedably O.K'd the storyline up to and including Chapter 9. That includes the Oligarchs and their background.

The same can't be said for Neo/Trinity though

No, that part was in there too even way back then.

cloudwolf wrote:

I dunno, what at first sounded rediculous (it was a mid-storyline continuacy fix afterall) I've come to like the idea of.

Think about it, Wright waking up in Mauser's body unexpectedly, that would've been a total mind----. Then, the way I see it at least, him/her prowling the real with a crazy super electricitied body, jacking into random old world surface jacks with his body's current alone.

-_^

Phrack wrote:

/activatepewpewlaserflymonstersuperoligarchygoldenhallwaypowers

ROFL. ZOMG Science Fiction!! It wasn't in the movies, can't be Matrixy, kill.. KILL

Rarebit wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

Remember the bros supposedably O.K'd the storyline up to and including Chapter 9. That includes the Oligarchs and their background.

The same can't be said for Neo/Trinity though

No, that part was in there too even way back then. 

Glad to know that, cause I happen to like that part of the story too.

Rarebit wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

Remember the bros supposedably O.K'd the storyline up to and including Chapter 9. That includes the Oligarchs and their background.

The same can't be said for Neo/Trinity though

No, that part was in there too even way back then.

/vomit

/losefaithinhumanity2.0

A very interesting read. Shame it couldn't last one more year to round everything off.

Phrack wrote:

/activatepewpewlaserflymonstersuperoligarchygoldenhallwaypowers

Also too, Zombie Snowmen infected with the Smith Virion pls.  And, Electro Gremlins. 

"Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness."

I hope MxO can survive the loss of Rarebit.

I hope someone at SOE gives MxO a chance to thrive.

I hope someone steps in soon and picks up the storyline, embraces it, owns it, has a love and respect for Matrix canon, and revitalizes the player base.

Since July 2004 when I first entered the MxO Beta . . . . . . I played, I loved, I dreamed this game, I never gave up and still, I hope . . . . . .

I know this isn't completely related, but it does have something to do with story. What was the purpose of SSR and creating them? Did you plan an doing anything with them other than the secretive backstory they already had?

monkeymanx8 wrote:

I know this isn't completely related, but it does have something to do with story. What was the purpose of SSR and creating them? Did you plan an doing anything with them other than the secretive backstory they already had?

That's an interesting question. The primary goal of Datamine was to provide an area with new twists on gameplay: high-profit data mining in a free-for-all PVP zone. As I got to thinking about it, a story on what type of facility might have become such a place got into my head, and that helped shape what turned out to be the artificial island with separate administration and research buildings and so forth, and it gave a good angle for Dr. Martin's collector dialogue.

It wasn't a hugely ornate story or anything, and you can probably guess most of it from the hints in the doc's messages and the details text on the items and NPCs from the construct. I suppose you might be able to tell something from what Raeder said in the one Live Event he was in there, too.

The warehouse building at the SE corner had interiors that could still be opened up, and I figured some day I might open them up, stick some NPCs in and add a new boss on the roof or something. I didn't have a particular story in mind for that, though.

There's space for some more floors to open up in the lower section of the administration building (SW corner), although I think I would have had to put them together myself, which would have been more time consuming. I did have a bit of an addition or final hint to the little story of the place that I was thinking I could try sticking in there, and I'll just say that it had to do with me noticing that we had an in-game model for a pod.

Oh, that makes me think of another construct, the Sati's Playground. Didn't you imagine a backstory for it too?

Thanks for the response.

deimoslvov wrote:

Oh, that makes me think of another construct, the Sati's Playground. Didn't you imagine a backstory for it too?

Just what it says on the collectors or somewhere, that Sati made it for fun.

Rarebit wrote:

deimoslvov wrote:

Oh, that makes me think of another construct, the Sati's Playground. Didn't you imagine a backstory for it too?

Just what it says on the collectors or somewhere, that Sati made it for fun.

Mhm, ok. I hoped there was a little story behind the Kunoichis, but I can take it as it is. Thanks for asnwering.

Rarebit wrote:

 I did have a bit of an addition or final hint to the little story of the place that I was thinking I could try sticking in there, and I'll just say that it had to do with me noticing that we had an in-game model for a pod.

   :O

Rarebit wrote:

I'll just say that it had to do with me noticing that we had an in-game model for a pod.

Pics or it didn't happen.

*snip*

   I have another question, Rarebit.  During a chapter 10.2 Zion mission, the player encounters a bluepill who is apparently a disguised redpill whose organization can't be verified.  The character mentions that it was about time they sent someone.  And in a desk there's a note saying something like "your contact's name is Soren", which appears to be a reference to Captain Soren, who died before the truce started.

   Is this some poor uninformed redpill, or is something else going on?  At the time, with Mauser running around and this note that mentions a long dead captain, I was beginning to wonder if the Oligarchs were taking the bodies of dead characters and using them for their own purposes.

I like the general idea of the oligarchs, but I'm not all too fond of the final resolution and trinity and neo as perfect genetic design etc.  I give Rarebit much credit for coming up with something that does fit with the overall source material.

Oh yeah, I second Othinn's question. I'd almost forgotten about  that.

I also have another one: A while ago, I believe it was in one of the ask a dev threads at least a year if not two years ago, you said that one of the ideas you posed to the brothers (via Chadwick?) was shot down. Do you think you could tell us what it was?

Pretty sure he confirmed elsewhere that that was to do with the Machines not actually using humans as a power source.

Neoteny wrote:

Oh yeah, I second Othinn's question. I'd almost forgotten about  that.

I also have another one: A while ago, I believe it was in one of the ask a dev threads at least a year if not two years ago, you said that one of the ideas you posed to the brothers (via Chadwick?) was shot down. Do you think you could tell us what it was?

I believe he stated recently that the only idea shot down was the idea that humans were not used as batteries/energy sources for the Machines, that that was a Machine lie (ie. they were being imprisoned for other reasons).

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Neoteny wrote:

Oh yeah, I second Othinn's question. I'd almost forgotten about  that.

I also have another one: A while ago, I believe it was in one of the ask a dev threads at least a year if not two years ago, you said that one of the ideas you posed to the brothers (via Chadwick?) was shot down. Do you think you could tell us what it was?

I believe he stated recently that the only idea shot down was the idea that humans were not used as batteries/energy sources for the Machines, that that was a Machine lie (ie. they were being imprisoned for other reasons).

I am working on those merv missions that investigated that. I loved those missions.

Fen wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

I'll just say that it had to do with me noticing that we had an in-game model for a pod.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Hm let's see... Ah.

I'm not 100% sure it would have been usable, and at best I'd probably have had to have put it in a locked room with a lot of steam/smoke/haze around it, and you'd just get a bit of a glimpse of it through an interior window while battling tough NPCs in the room outside or something.

That is just awesome.

Othinn1 wrote:

   I have another question, Rarebit.  During a chapter 10.2 Zion mission, the player encounters a bluepill who is apparently a disguised redpill whose organization can't be verified.  The character mentions that it was about time they sent someone.  And in a desk there's a note saying something like "your contact's name is Soren", which appears to be a reference to Captain Soren, who died before the truce started.

   Is this some poor uninformed redpill, or is something else going on?  At the time, with Mauser running around and this note that mentions a long dead captain, I was beginning to wonder if the Oligarchs were taking the bodies of dead characters and using them for their own purposes.

Poor and uninformed is the correct answer. They were a wartime Zion plant whose contact had been lost before the beginning of the Truce, so they hadn't received any word and didn't know what had happened since then.

ZaneZavin wrote:

I like the general idea of the oligarchs, but I'm not all too fond of the final resolution and trinity and neo as perfect genetic design etc.  I give Rarebit much credit for coming up with something that does fit with the overall source material.

When putting the OP together I realized that I'd sort of been heading away from the "genetic" explanation toward having them as pure programs, maybe just because that ended up being easier to convey. I'm not sure now if I'd have kept going that way or not.

Ok, I do like the idea that Neo and Trinity were BIPs or more susceptible specimens for a consciousness transfer. It makes sense because they both had some ability beyond the others which could mean they were more connected to the machine side in their ability to hack the program.

As far as the genetic thing, I think back to Neo's conversation with The Architect and it wouldn't make sense unless pretty much everything Archy said was a lie. I think the only thing he lied about was the doors. If Neo is an anomaly that was beyond his control, then he wouldn't have been specifically created with that purpose etc.

My take on the whole storyline is, what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way.

ZaneZavin wrote:

As far as the genetic thing, I think back to Neo's conversation with The Architect and it wouldn't make sense unless pretty much everything Archy said was a lie. [...] If Neo is an anomaly that was beyond his control, then he wouldn't have been specifically created with that purpose etc.

It was the Oracle who came up with the inherent error scheme. The Architect allowed it, but he did so knowing that that part of it wasn't something over which he had direct control.

Heyyy this is a good opportunity to mention that personally (I wouldn't enforce this on others, mind you, since it's pretty touchy in some ways), I don't think Neo was "the anomaly." The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," which is different than actually being the anomaly. If you have to pick a character as the anomaly, it seems to me that it would have been Smith; but I think it's more accurate to say that the "anomaly" he was talking about was the cascading system of errors that inevitably result from the current Matrix program's built-in imperfection that allows for a small percentage of the populace to reject it ("the anomaly is systemic," etc). The tricky part about this interpretation is that one of those knuckleheaded Agents later says "The anomaly" when he finds Neo; I explain this away for myself (whee magic!) by making excuses like "Agents didn't know everything" or "the Agent was simply referring to Neo as one of the primary manifestations of the consequences of the anomaly."

ZaneZavin wrote:

I think the only thing he [the Architect] lied about was the doors.

The doors?

Rarebit wrote:

The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," ..."the Agent was simply referring to Neo as one of the primary manifestations of the consequences of the anomaly."

Sounds pretty good if you ask me.

Rarebit wrote:

Heyyy this is a good opportunity to mention that personally (I wouldn't enforce this on others, mind you, since it's pretty touchy in some ways), I don't think Neo was "the anomaly." The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," which is different than actually being the anomaly.

This is how I saw it watching the films even though those upgraded Agents called him the anomaly. Mind you saying "It's him, the product of the anomaly, do we proceed.." etc.. doesn't sounds as good!

So during my time in MxO I've come to think of Neo as a part of the anomaly. I tend to see the anomaly as a whole, rather than seeing the anomaly as a cause with Neo as a product.

I'm more of the belief that both Neo and Smith are anomalous. 

When I refer to the doors I mean how The Architect says, "here are two doors. The door to your right leads to the Source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to your left leads back to the Matrix, to her and to the end of your species. "

I feel that he is says this in an attempt influence Neo toward the choice that he wants.

Definition of Anomalous included because I like the duality in how both meanings of the word could be correct.

1. Deviating from the normal or common order, form, or rule.
2. Equivocal, as in classification or nature.

So the reason the Oligarch's appeared as "wire-framed humans" was because they were jacking in from android bodies or because they were pure consciousness?  The simulation was unable to recognize the android body because it wasn't human? They wanted the BIP so they could jack in with humans that they extracted from the Matrix? Is that about right?  

Rarebit wrote:

Heyyy this is a good opportunity to mention that personally (I wouldn't enforce this on others, mind you, since it's pretty touchy in some ways), I don't think Neo was "the anomaly." The Architect calls him "the eventuality of an anomaly," which is different than actually being the anomaly. If you have to pick a character as the anomaly, it seems to me that it would have been Smith; but I think it's more accurate to say that the "anomaly" he was talking about was the cascading system of errors that inevitably result from the current Matrix program's built-in imperfection that allows for a small percentage of the populace to reject it ("the anomaly is systemic," etc). The tricky part about this interpretation is that one of those knuckleheaded Agents later says "The anomaly" when he finds Neo; I explain this away for myself (whee magic!) by making excuses like "Agents didn't know everything" or "the Agent was simply referring to Neo as one of the primary manifestations of the consequences of the anomaly."

Here ya go:

When Neo blew up Smith in the end of the first movie, Smith said in Reloaded that some part of Neo wrote onto him.  He didn't understand what happened.  That said, some part of Smith probably also wrote onto Neo.  This connected Smith and Neo, and 'the anomoly' could refer to either or both.  At the time, the Agents did not seem to be aware of Smith's continued existance...  so at the time, they would have viewed Neo as THE anomoly (since he contained a piece of Smith within him).

The overwritten/copied statement from Smith in that scene actually adds some great value to the MxO storyline where Neo/Trinity were BIPs as part the interface program being copied onto Smith would've been what allowed him to overwrite Bane.

cloudwolf wrote:

The overwritten/copied statement from Smith in that scene actually adds some great value to the MxO storyline where Neo/Trinity were BIPs as part the interface program being copied onto Smith would've been what allowed him to overwrite Bane.

While I like the way you're thinking, don't forget that the Machines often overwrote humans later - and they didn't have any BIP in their posession.

deimoslvov wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

The overwritten/copied statement from Smith in that scene actually adds some great value to the MxO storyline where Neo/Trinity were BIPs as part the interface program being copied onto Smith would've been what allowed him to overwrite Bane.

While I like the way you're thinking, don't forget that the Machines often overwrote humans later - and they didn't have any BIP in their posession.

Those overwrites didn't change what people looked like, they only changed their minds.

CODEMAN wrote:

So the reason the Oligarch's appeared as "wire-framed humans" was because they were jacking in from android bodies  

Pretty much. They were using a different kind of interface than operatives use to get in. Also, they didn't particularly care about looking normal.

There was a hint about the Trainman being involved with the Oracle a little while back that I don't think was caught. It involves a few of my favorite characters, so I'll just go ahead and point it out. :)

First, recall that the Merv was looking for the Trainman to bring the Apothecary into the Matrix. His trail led to the elevator room in the Abandoned Subway, where Malphas said he detected an entrace in the middle of the far wall, and left "a note on his doorstep."

[7.1.4] "Chocolates will not tempt him out, I fear" - Syntax - 3/29/07

Once the Trainman was in the Matrix, he brought the Apothecary in right around the corner from that same location:

[7.2.1] She comes highly recommended - Vector - 4/25/07

Skip ahead ten months. Halborn is hunting the Oracle in Richland, and the Morpheus sim is up to something in Westview. Look where he goes:

[9.2.4] Emanation - Vector - 2/4/08

And who he visits there:

Lo Ruhamah is an exiled monitoring program. Where does she end up after Morpheus exits the subway?

Skip ahead two months. Halborn has killed the Oracle. Sati, Seraph, and the Morpheus sim have disappeared. Ookami and some Mervs go hunting for them. Where does the trail lead?

[10.1.1] No girl... No angel... No prophet... - Syntax - 4/7/08

I have to say I really like the planned out story (as well as making what has already happened MUCH more interesting with the Ogliarch back story).

It really needs more out-of-matrix stuff that could have been provided by cutscenes...

Great work RareBit... sorry it's all coming to an end.

ZaneZavin wrote:

deimoslvov wrote:

cloudwolf wrote:

The overwritten/copied statement from Smith in that scene actually adds some great value to the MxO storyline where Neo/Trinity were BIPs as part the interface program being copied onto Smith would've been what allowed him to overwrite Bane.

While I like the way you're thinking, don't forget that the Machines often overwrote humans later - and they didn't have any BIP in their posession.

Those overwrites didn't change what people looked like, they only changed their minds.

Also they weren't completely successful.

I finally got to read all of this :) My is it interesting!!

I am really happy that the Trainman and the Oracle both stay alive and come back in the story =)

It sure would have been nice if we could have learned from the old team what they planned to do with Neo remains, Sarah and all the rest, but I understand why they wouldn't have done that since it would have hurt anything you may have planned to do with them when you took over! I guess we will have to decide for ourselves how those stories end! :P

That picture of the pod is cool! Thank you for showing us!

Thank you for explaning the Morpheus Lo Ruhamah thing! I never figured that one out but was sooo curious :D A lot of other things got answered too like the event with Balthial and stuff :)

I would have loved to see that white sky and gold hallways! That would have been lots of fun :)

I agree.

Illyria

Its funny you posted those pics from that event with Seraph, Morpheus Sim and Lo.  I meant to ask about that.

I gathered from that event (and some concurrent mentions in a crit...something The Oracle alluded to perhaps?) that there was to be kind of a Free Exile movement...programs that no longer wanted to be under the Merv's jurisdiction.  I read that event as egged on by Seraph, and for which the Morpheus Sim might have been the eventual leader.  Perhaps even shedding his Morpheus "shell" and forging his own seperate identity).  Reason being I figured the Merv was way overdue for another insurrection...aside from little dumb ones like Desayd the Nighmare, nothing really since the Invalesco thing waay back when.  But with this resulting in a full sub org of its own....bringing them into parity with Mechs and Zions with EPN / Cyphs. 

Just wondering, had you considered anything along those lines?

Did you ever want to right the full story for MxO, or did the task just fall to you and you ended up doing it? I really like what you did with it.

Villemar_MxO wrote:

Its funny you posted those pics from that event with Seraph, Morpheus Sim and Lo.  I meant to ask about that.

I gathered from that event (and some concurrent mentions in a crit...something The Oracle alluded to perhaps?) that there was to be kind of a Free Exile movement...programs that no longer wanted to be under the Merv's jurisdiction.  I read that event as egged on by Seraph, and for which the Morpheus Sim might have been the eventual leader.  Perhaps even shedding his Morpheus "shell" and forging his own seperate identity).  Reason being I figured the Merv was way overdue for another insurrection...aside from little dumb ones like Desayd the Nighmare, nothing really since the Invalesco thing waay back when.  But with this resulting in a full sub org of its own....bringing them into parity with Mechs and Zions with EPN / Cyphs. 

Just wondering, had you considered anything along those lines?

Nope.

monkeymanx8 wrote:

Did you ever want to right the full story for MxO, or did the task just fall to you and you ended up doing it? I really like what you did with it.

I was fortunate in that it more or less defaulted to me eventually.

Rarebit wrote:

Nope.

Okay then! 

Well my last and final question about the storyline, kind of broad I suppose, relates to the character-driven evolution of the story as opposed to the event-driven aspects of the story. 

Did you have any ideas about taking different characters in new and different directions?  Like the whole Emo Persephone / Thanatos phase she recently went through.

What do you think would have become of the General, everyone's favorite bete noir for such a long time, reduced to Merv's errand boy in the Real.  Had you thought about him escaping eventually, or having him killed off outright?

Had you considered returning Agent Pace to her old, cheery self; or was she to stay strictly business forevermore?

I also wondered about the psychic trauma of Cryptos and eventual resentments and identity crises of Cryptos.  Would those resentments have come to an eventual boil, causing Cryptos to act in unpredicable / dangerous ways?

Oh and on a lighter note, as the surly and unpleasant cartoonlike character he became, any thoughts about the possibility of Flood's eventual comeuppance?

Had you any ideas for any of the other main characters?  Like I mentioned on the other thread I think, I really liked the slight growth of character for the Merovingian in Chapter Eight when he starts for the first time to take a real interest in the real world outside of the simulation. 

I realize character arcs arent for everyone...for example I don't see Grey changing his behavior and attitudes much anytime soon.  And some of the minor characters I have to say were pitch-perfect and should never change.  The Twins, Beirn, Effy for example. 

Way back quite a while ago I wrote a screenplay, inspired by some independent Tarantinoesque movies in the 90's and a screenwriting seminar by a professional film screenwriter.  What I remember he said that I found to be true for me and what made it fun was this advice:  He suggested basically consider your storyline to be a very rough roadmap where rather than having a rigid inflexible route, you have certain points on the map you want to hit, ie. Point A, Point B, Point C etc.

He advised, while you want the characters to hit those certain spots on the map, between those points have the characters veer off and go off the main highway on side routes; and you'll find they'll almost write themselves and they'll do things that will surprise even you.  Just when you think they'll zig, they zag.

So to sum up, while the storyline you've created and shown here is primarily (and of necessity) event-based; how much of the character-driven aspects of the story had you allowed yourself; and had you planned on focusing more on the character-driven side of things through Chapter 14 and beyond?  Letting yourself take the characters off the beaten path between Points A and B as it were, to grow, to change, to evolve?

Anyways, hope this makes sense. 

/salute

I didn't try to plan out stuff like that far in advance. Things like the Kid being shot down and getting scarred, Persephone trying to save Kroller and being nearly killed, lashing back at the Merv, stuff like that just happens as you get to thinking how you're going to execute certain story points, and what that would mean to the characters involved.