storyline ideas

[chuck_starchaser]

Dam it my post didn't go up.!!!!
Ok well. I am pretty sure that Eden was never "discoverd" as the retros had a "contact" in the ES.

That is certainly a possibility. In fact, it would go well with the whole idea of retros infiltrating the political cliques.

Another thing which, i am not so sure about, but makes sense and i will post it so someone can correct me if i am wrong......
I think that the ES was pretty much scrapped when the kilrathi war started.
needless to say that exploration is expencive and they proabbly had some large ships that would be usefull in the war effort. It would explain why you can do missions for them in the plot. as they may still have a small budget, and can only afford to hire privateers asopposed to commissining their own vessels.

I'm all for this, if nobody else objects; it could all be explained or hinted at in magazine articles.

I guess what i am saying is that the ES dureing this time could take on a diffrent role. For instance, pirates would no doubt hide out in the expances of unexplored space, and there would be illegal manufactureing, compnies would want to put a stop to this. So one role of the ES could be to scout out pirate and retro bases, or pirate capships hideing. The other role is to find resources for confed.

Here I disagree. If the ES were in the business of digging out pirate bases they'd probably be wiped out by the pirates. I think the ES has become a powerless and resourceless bureaucracy, who lay low and keep their noses way, way out of trouble. As for corporations, there'd be a range of them between 90% legit to 90% crooked. Okay, say in Palan, Monkhouse was finance by one corporation, and there was another corporation laying siege, I can't remember the names or which was which, one was Bronte. Anyways, the corporation financing Monkhouse I think is based in Palan. Where's the base of the other corporation? Answer: somewhere in the gray zone. So, it wouldn't be true that "corporations" would want to stop anything. All corporations would be at least somewhat crooked, the more crooked the more profitable, and therefore the more likeley to finance luxury trips for politicians.

the "exploritry guild" could be a loose association with the ES, as in it is a major cut in costs for the ES, to employ private contractors as it is at your own risk, the equipment is yours,

No. Absolutely no way. When you do those missions for the ES you only gather data and bring it back to them and they have the equipment to analyze it and tell you where the jump-points are, and then you have to repeat the process. The equipment is not intended to be available to individuals, otherwise the existence of this "underworld" would become public and
a) would be a major embarrassment
b) would put the onus on Confed and Militias to go into the gray zone and clean it up, which they can't afford to do
c) would cause the gray zone to expand even faster
d) would piss off major corporations that do tax-free business there
e) would piss off politicians that have their private pleasure bases there

... and secondly, you can still see jump points even if you don't buy the maps (is that a problem?)!

That IS an "inconsistency" we should perhaps fix.

[Captin cocksniff]

this is slowly getting out of my depth..... I just need a way to explain it so that i understand...

So the Gray zone, is the immediatly unexplored area around the confed teratories. That would equate to the shanty towns, of mexico city, or sao palo, in terms of human colinization? Would for the most part be run by pirates (illegal colinization, similar to the people smuggleing seen today), and would be upheld by illegal industry, and would be a very dangerous place?

So as with todays squatters, the policy of confed is not anniliation, more incorperation, so once the setlments are "discoverd", they are revamped, and made official. the illegality of it is overlooked.

Is that it? It is cirtanly the most realistic.

That means that "deep space" explorers are employed by illegal, contractors, working for criminal orginisations, or underhand compnies, or entrapenures?

so what are the ES doing, small local opperations, employing privateers, that are slowly exposeing the gray zone?

What i am still confused about is how you get the Exploration equipment?

[chuck_starchaser]

The Exploratory Service hasn't done anything in years. It used to be that systems in the grey zone would at some point be "discovered" by the ES, but there are too many corporate interests against that policy. At the time of the start of Privateer, however, news has spread of a find, which stirrs the Confed's curiosity, and they prompt the ES to get into action at Rygannon. A privateer (not Burrows) found a tablet presumably of Steltek origin around that area, while working for a scientific foundation hosted and financed by Bronte Corporation, in New Detroit. The piece was subsequently stolen from the headquarters of the corporation, and a Field Archeologist named Sandoval claims to have seen an associate of professor Monkhouse leaving through the backdoor. Security cameras had been tampered with.

Check my first issue of The Zone (neighboring thread).

Yeah, you got it.
Exploration Equipment is getting really tough to find. At one time, the ES used to install the equipment into ships, but the ships were routinely attacked by pirates trying to obtain that equipment. The ES then tried to hire privateers with better flying skills, but this didn't improve the situation much. Finally, they decided to keep the equipment always at a base, and have their exploration privateers return to base with data to be analyzed.
There are a number of illegal pieces of exploration equipment around in the gray zone, and given enough money, you could get your hands on one of them. The only other source is from Confed ships that have them.
Confeds routinely explore to try and find ways into enemy territory before the enemy does. But attacking Confeds is not an easy thing to do, so the price of exploration equipment is damn high, and has nowhere to go but higher.

[chuck_starchaser]

The Exploratory Service hasn't done anything in years. It used to be that systems in the zone would at some point be "discovered" by the ES, but there are too many corporate interests against that policy, plus, the public are suspicious and it's a hard sell. At the time of the start of Privateer, however, news has spread of a find, which stirrs the Confed's curiosity, and they prompt the ES to get into action at Rygannon. A privateer (not Burrows) found a tablet presumably of Steltek origin around that area, while working for a scientific foundation hosted and financed by Bronte Corporation, in New Detroit. The piece was subsequently stolen from the headquarters of the corporation, and a Field Archeologist named Sandoval claims to have seen an associate of professor Monkhouse leaving through the backdoor. Security cameras had been tampered with.

Check my first issue of The Zone (neighboring thread).

Yeah, you got it.
Exploration Equipment is getting really tough to find. At one time, the ES used to install the equipment into ships, but the ships were routinely attacked by pirates trying to obtain that equipment. The ES then tried to hire privateers with better flying skills, but this didn't improve the situation much. Finally, they decided to keep the equipment always at a base, and have their exploration privateers return to base with data to be analyzed.
There are a number of illegal pieces of exploration equipment around in the gray zone, and given enough money, you could get your hands on one of them. The only other sources are from Confed ships that have them, and similar equipment of Kilrathi manufacture.
Confeds routinely explore to try and find ways into enemy territory before the enemy does. But attacking Confeds or Kilrathi is not an easy thing to do, so the price of exploration equipment is damn high, and has nowhere to go but higher.
A good investment, if you have the money and the contacts.

[Captin cocksniff]

Ok it is starting to make sense now.

So the ES is pretty inactive, Actually i think that confed intrest around the Tri systems (reygnoon) was as they knew the kilrathi where intrested in it, so they simply wanted to try and find what ever the kilrathi where looking for before the kilrathi. Though i am not 100%sure

I am fairly cartian that Eden was left for the retros due to a contact in the ES, (the infromat tells you)

As for sandaval and the compnies, I cant remember the histroy, is there any way to read the scripts of the story line? It would be kinda nifty if sandaval was killed by Monkhouse (trying to find the other piece of the map). then once your atrifact completes the map, maby monkhouse sent the drone to kill you. the kilrathi are looking for monkhouse as he already took the majority of the seltek stuff and, you have to try and find monkhousese stock of seltek stuff to stop the kilrathi getting it? i don't know.

As for the running of the grey zone, how do you see things. At the moment, i see it like an equivilant to a shanty town, at the moment i see it more "run" by diffrent pirate factions (associaded with buisnesses), who will be fighting each other, it would make a good basis for a side plot to take part in turf wars with in the zone. A totally lawless place where "he with the bigest guns is king". or what?

[chuck_starchaser]

Man! You don't trust anybody, do ya? Poor Monkhouse, most dedicated scientist, not interested in money, only Science; and you'd have him kill Sandoval? Sandoval was a crook.
Now, that he was employed by Bronte, that's something that I made up, but would make a lot of sense: He works for Bronte; Bronte wants to find the Steltek as they think they might find technologies that would be worth a lot of money, so they hire privateers to explore. Finally a privateer comes with a big Steltek tablet. Sandoval knows its worth and he steals it. He tampers with the cameras, then says that he saw an associate of Monkhouse leaving. Meanwhile, he needs to get rid of the tablet temporarily in case the Insys don't believe his story and come to check his place.
Bronte, believing that Monkhouse stole the item, lays siege to Palan.
Rondell hear the report on the news and the false claim by Sandoval, and put a price on his head, and in hours Sandoval is dead.

The grey zone runs itself like underground groups run themselves in any city. Mostly by negotiation. Inter-gang wars happen, but not all the time.
Basic law or the zone: Mind your own business. If a planet has been squatted by the retros, piretes fly the other way. If a planet is squatted by pirates, retros fly the other way. Same with corporations. In a world without police, they need to have a code of conduct. In the official zones, though, that code of conduct no longer exists.

Here's another possibility. Suppose you're not too friendly with pirates, say -10 or -20. If you meet pirates in The Zone, they might appear as grey dots in the radar, and when they pass by you they might say "My manners end when we meet in Fairyland", (something Zoners might call the official map systems). If you are at -70 with pirates, though, they might attack you. Same with kilrathis, or AWACS or merchants. A feeling of kinship as Zoners, creates a buffer zone of tolerance. The battleground is Fairyland.

[Captin cocksniff]

Yes finally i get through!!! after hours of waiting. Horray!!!!!

Ok i can't see what you wrote chuck, but i read it before so i have to go on memory.

So you where right, Bronte is laying seige to Palan owned by the Rondell corp.

Murphy explains this as sheer buisness, Bronte stopping exports whilst increaseing their own. that of course could just be pretence.

However. there where some things i forgot about monkhouse,
Monkhouse was kidnapped (by nameless compnies), and brought to palan, monkhouse escaped as there where bombings that killed his interagators, and he mannaged to get out.
Monkhouse is being persued by the kilrathi, and once you transport him, he gives you his piece of the artifact!

I don't know what you would want to do with that´.

maby rondell, is owned by Kroiz or the retros/kilrathi tratiors, and they kidnaped monkhouse to get his artifact.
Bronte could be owned by Lynch, (i kinda have kroiz, the kilrathi and retros working together), or one of his other rivals (see below). One thing we must keep in mind is that no one can have put the artifacts together before you (even in halo records), every one knew it was a map, because Monk published his suspitions of this, so people started looking for him. so maby rondell had the piece that sandaval stole (he was going to sell it to Bronte?), and rondell had him killed, they didn't need the actual artifact as they already had it scanned, so they went after monkhouse, to get his, but he got lucky and escaped. NB: Lynch is the Boss of New detroit, sandaval was killed on New detroit, and tayla works for Lynch (?), so it was a ploy to send you to lynch all along? Maby Tayla killed sandaval as he didn't have the artifact?

I mannaged to find a script of PR, and at the end there are missions i have never done, (i have no idea if it was included or not),
after you get the gun, when you land on new detroit, lynch steals the gun and makes you do missions for him, in exchange he boosts your gun, ´but you have to give him the artifact! (you, kill regis, kill a whore on a plesure cruser! who stole off lynch, and inflict defeat on his rival "Damien Lang", and another namless rival who is working with confed!)
Like i said i have never done them, so it is quite important that we know wether it was included or not.

[chuck_starchaser]

For the past week I've had *a lot* of trouble accessing this thread, so what I did is start another one "storyline ideas (part 2)", where I think I got the story behind the Palan story right.

[Wisq]

Wow. Never seen six duplicate posts in a row.

What I do to avoid duplicates is just to open the thread, or the list of posts by me, in a separate window. After each post attempt that appears to have failed, I refresh that second window. Quite often, I'll get a "zero sized reply" notice from my proxy, or various other errors, but it still goes through. Other times, I just hit refresh to attempt the post again.

[chuck_starchaser]

I do that too. Today's biggest problem was actually reading the thread, more so than posting to it, once I was in. I kept trying to go in from another window without success for a whole hour, then I'd get consecutive PHPBB errors, then back at just not going in.