New enemies and ideas for future threats

I really don't think that any next "Big Bad" should be anyone's pet project. It ought to be something that GMs work together to make, in my opinion, because they're the ones who are going to be utilizing them as a tool. Some of the ideas presented in here are interesting antagonistic forces, but I wouldn't want to see them as a "Big Bad" because they're pretty much controlled by a single person OOC.

A collaborative effort is going to be needed to make something new and interesting that players find compelling to fight and that GMs find enjoyable to write.

I've handed mine over to Madi to flesh out as she pleases with anyone who wants to add to them. I will not be running them, they are a tool and not a pet project.

That's part of my point. The Legion of the Damned is primarily senti-focused in terms of its story elements, and will cater to the two or three players who are writing it because they want to interact with it as players. That's kind of why I think that anything that's meant to be a setting-level threat rather than random encounters needs to be handled by GMs primarily, with as many as possible involved.

The LoTD might be great as a random encounter type enemy, but I don't know if I feel comfortable with the idea of them, or any of the other ideas presented in here thus far being the "Big Bad" for a few years, because that entails them being more than just an option for something to fight, but the *only* thing to fight. I say this about everything in here so far, because what we've mostly got so far are individual player with a dozen very different ideas about what they might like to fight.

This is, again, not to say the ideas in here are bad, but that we can't really lean on them as "Big Bad" stuff and that they're better handled as random encounter type enemy groups, or maybe having the occasional plot devoted to combatting one specific threat or another.

Soban said:

So I think we are looking for long term persistent threats. Things that are kinda always going to be there and provide roleplay over the long term. England/France type thing where they never really beat each other, but they were always fighting and winning/losing. I think we want both forces of nature, and peer rivals. Several of the ideas we have here have a lot of synergy. Of the two, I think we are looking more for peers who have characters so we can put a face on our enemies.

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Yeah I like that, have a rogues gallery basically.
For a peer rival, I'd suggest something that's similar enough to Yamatai in some cultural aspects to be appealing to some parts of the population, while being different enough in goals or ideology to make them impossible to ally with. They trade with each other sometimes, fight other times. Or if they don't go to full outright blows, they work through proxies. that sounds like a good path for plot lines since we've got the new SIFT thing going on and we're trying to flesh out SASO. Lots of Secret Space Squirrel Berlin Wall shenanigans

So my perspective is that we should have a large buffet of numerous different enemies where you pick the ones that you like and fit your plot. or as Locked out said, a rouge's gallery. Being the 'big bad' as it were should be like being the number one most wanted. The other nine are still out there to be dealt with and are perhaps taking advantage of you not looking at them as hard right now. There have been a lot of great ideas in this thread. My instinct is that we develop them all and encourage each other on developing them.

Then you miss the point Alex, it's not meant to be for just them. As I said before, I also wanted to offer something for the rise in Mecha popularity. And any enemy idea is going to come from more then just the GMs, who have just as much right to input as the player base, be we are making stuff for everyone who interested hopefully. Every idea is gonna start as a proposal from one or more people at first, it's up to everyone else to get involved and grow it as they please.

So saying it should come from GMs is not quite the right perspective in my opinion, and shouldn't discount how these ideas start regardless of creative focus. And it's the Legion of the Forgotten.

Jack Pine said:

And it's the Legion of the Forgotten.

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Sorry, late night brain

Alex Hart said:

That's part of my point. The Legion of the Damned is primarily senti-focused in terms of its story elements, and will cater to the two or three players who are writing it because they want to interact with it as players. That's kind of why I think that anything that's meant to be a setting-level threat rather than random encounters needs to be handled by GMs primarily, with as many as possible involved.

The LoTD might be great as a random encounter type enemy, but I don't know if I feel comfortable with the idea of them, or any of the other ideas presented in here thus far being the "Big Bad" for a few years, because that entails them being more than just an option for something to fight, but the *only* thing to fight. I say this about everything in here so far, because what we've mostly got so far are individual player with a dozen very different ideas about what they might like to fight.

This is, again, not to say the ideas in here are bad, but that we can't really lean on them as "Big Bad" stuff and that they're better handled as random encounter type enemy groups, or maybe having the occasional plot devoted to combatting one specific threat or another.

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The Senti, their good, bad, and ugly, are a GM tool. Not a pet project. Do not dismiss things so handily that you refuse to even honor their name. It's disrespectful to the writers who had the basic idea that you build on. The Legion of the Forgotten will be a GM tool as the Senti are.

Soban said:

So my perspective is that we should have a large buffet of numerous different enemies where you pick the ones that you like and fit your plot. or as Locked out said, a rouge's gallery. Being the 'big bad' as it were should be like being the number one most wanted. The other nine are still out there to be dealt with and are perhaps taking advantage of you not looking at them as hard right now. There have been a lot of great ideas in this thread. My instinct is that we develop them all and encourage each other on developing them.

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yeah these things all kinda should exist together.
One of my favorite things in stories dealing with force of nature/pure evil villains is that half the time the real issue is getting everybody else with their different agendas onboard to go and fight off the evil threat whether it's looming or currently eating planets

HarperMadi said:

Do not dismiss things so handily that you refuse to even honor their name

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I got the name wrong because it's late and it's a very similar name to a 40k thing and they mixed together in my brain, don't misrepresent an honest late-night mistake as an intentional slight.

I like not so much grand armies that just invade everyone so much as more subtle threats. Insulating forces that twist things behind the scenes to slowly weaken you and use your own tools against you.

Your economy is taking a hit, your businesses are failing only to be taken over by endless lines of shell corporations that are all interconnected but lead to nothing, something is investing in odd places that only make sense when its too late, generals and admirals are being lobbied by shadowy forces and given black funding to work against you to distract and weaken you, entire starships are disappearing off the assembly line, the empresses/premiers popularity ratings are dropping drastically and they are given situations that they are forced to make the hard choices that will continue to taint their image just to keep everything secure.

Entire planets or sectors are just rebelling or throwing behind unclear forces, its all coming undone and apart and its clearly the end of the dynasty as the great empire of old is brought low without ever actually seeing the true enemy in battle even if they know who it is acting against them would be political suicide and its just what they want after all!

And then when its too late to stop it you figure it all out and the mastermind just casually walks in and sits on your throne right infront of you and theres nothing you can do or say anymore because they are the hero and you are just a tyrant they've deposed legally and toss all the blame onto you.

Its not really the kind of threat people here would look for. Since you cant really fight shadowy cabals and Illuminati with starships and armies. And FMs would throw a tissy fit over the liberties required to take. But i'm just more a fan of intrigue and the like compared to just fleet smashing and grand armies we've done time and time again~

For that to work, there would have to be a degree of internal political upheaval that I don't think we'll see happening in Yamatai.

Kinda why I want a cold war type scenario. You get chances for flashpoints, you get intrigue. It doesn't end with one side making a big hammer and hitting the other side because that sided has an equally big hammer.
A threat that can to a degree be reasoned with but never totally be turned off by diplomacy. But also can't be soundly militarily defeated unless Yam wants to destroy itself in the process.

Hate to immediately namedrop one of my own projects, but I have very much been developing the Yuukan/YNNX as a sort of mirror universe/north korea version of Yamatai. They're intentionally taking all of the questionable morals, and old guard Nekovalkyrja perspective, and running with it. Not to mention a whole bunch of the old NMX aesthetic and equipment.

At the same time, they are incredibly neurotic, misguided and evil, a corrupt society of harsh regulations and strange occult dealings. They don't want to destroy Yamatai, they want them to see things the way they do.... Which ties back to other old lore like neko supremacists in SAINT, Black Spiral, The Daughters of Eve, e.t.c...

Yeah, I'd love to do the whole 'cold war' thing with them. Some secret ops and hidden skirmishes. Strange days when Yam ships are under attack and the Yuukan helps them, despite their goals being totally different.

I think, faction-wide or individual characters regardless, enemies should have more nuanced goals than just 'kill everything'. They should be 'the good guys' in their own minds.

It was true of how the Klingons and Cardassians were written, and taking shades of that is generally a good idea.

The idea of AIs forcibly turning organics into robots, earlier in this thread, was interesting. May I ask if there was any kind of planned plot attached to that? It would help their longevity a lot to have proper characters...

Hate to immediately namedrop one of my own projects

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That is what this thread is for.

The idea of AIs forcibly turning organics into robots, earlier in this thread, was interesting. May I ask if there was any kind of planned plot attached to that? It would help their longevity a lot to have proper characters...

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Not really, I had the idea recently. I was thinking of them as having complex relationships with biologicals from two perspectives. First, they aren't powerful enough to wipe everyone out. Second, there are differences about how exactly to deal with the biologicals who need to be upgraded. Some are a bit more on the 'tell them and give them incentives' side of things while others are on the 'forcibly capture them and upload them into robots' side, and others are on the 'if they refuse to be converted, then they just have to die' side of things. With a lot of variation and shades between them. Which I think could lead to a lot of interesting storylines.

What would they do with people who are converted, but still don't want to be chromeboys?

I haven't worked that out yet. I think being a citizen would require a bit of adherence to the orthodoxy. If you were a chromedome who didn't want to be a citizen that's fine, you can't vote/hold office/get goverment contracts ect. but could participate fully in their society, probably as long as you paid taxes. A chromedome who didn't want to be a part of their society could probably just leave.

This leads to a hilarious situation where they capture a crew, convert them all, then let them go and they return to Yamatai and just ST back into their regular bodies, go out and are captured again... possibly repeatedly with the chomeboys being ??? about why the keep trying to go back to inferior biological bodies. As a whole, they aren't supposed to be evil, just have a radically different point of view.

In fact, capturing a crew, converting them, and letting them go is probably how first contact happens.

They're just running after ships like "LET ME HELP YOU!"
Obviously chromeboy charity

Ethereal said:

Yeah I think someone mentioned that to me but it seems odd if somehow that universe-spanning problem has already been resolved mostly I was thinking about the Children of the Aether, which should still be a problem unless the religion has died.

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It was never solved. During the First War, Interpreter Melisson tried to get Yamatai to cut down, or altogether stop using aether. That didn't work out too well.

*Rides away on his Ironstrider, shrieking hymns in Binary.*

It's interesting to have seen this discussion was also made a year ago. There are some really great ideas (and even some that were repeated again here!) there: