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Re/Aligned Mods ([personal profile] re_alignedmods) wrote in [community profile] re_alignment_ooc2013-10-01 10:56 pm
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Upcoming Event: THE PILLAR

This event will run from October 25th through November 8th.

EDIT: Sign-ups extended until end-of-day October 22nd.

Event Text

Tonight there is a storm. Lightning flashes across the sky, and the tang of electromagnetic interference is thick in the new air of Cybertron. The strikes are beautiful, lancing out in every color of the visual spectrum and more than a few colors beyond it, moving through the stars.

There are no clouds, however. There is no weather or rain.
There is only the Lambda, churning violently above the Haven, pulling winds in vast, large circular patterns around its epicenter: The Junk Pile. Dust swirls. Debris flies. The winds grow stronger and stronger through the night, until even the heaviest robots find themselves impeded if they try to approach.

It is only the Firstforged who remain steadfast, appearing one by one from their temples to approach the temptest storm. In the morning, they gather, and as the first light of the distant Cybertronian sun crests the horizon, they each unsheathe their weapons of choice.

The winds calm.

The lightning ceases.

For a moment, all is well.

Then, the Pillar strikes the ground.

It sends up shockwaves, burying the Firstforged in clouds of dust and rubble, making a deep noise like vast plates of metal buckling. To some, the sound seems oddly high-pitched and painful to hear. To others, it is disorienting.

To a select few, it is even
changing.

When the dust clears, the Firstforged are gone and the junk pile has resettled, its peaks and valleys utterly different than they have been before. Buildings outside of the temples may have sustained damages from the heavy winds, and some electronics will still be functioning oddly from the lightning strikes.

However, there is something even stranger to note.

Sitting in the junk, amidst the rubble, is the Pillar.

It is precisely in the center of the Haven, just beneath the lambda and extending up as far as the naked eye can see--appearing even to reach into the lambda itself. Those who approach will find it makes a low-pitched hum, and is eerily warm to the touch. However, even those who do not approach will find it difficult to ignore the quiet unsettling feeling it leaves by just existing.

What’s worse is those who were ill-affected by the initial shock of its landing. They’re different, now, in both appearance and thought. They cannot remember their time here in the Haven any more than they can remember aspects of their lives before. Now, they remember different lives.

Alternate lives.

They act as if their past has utterly changed...and for a time, the Firstforged are not around to explain it.

It is up to the citizens of the Haven to realize what is wrong, and to come up with a solution for the problem--if one is even possible. It is up to the citizens to hold down the fort while its protectors are away. It is up to the denizens of Re-Aligned to
chose their alignment.

How this works
Again, this event will run from October 25th through November 8th...meaning all that text above hasn't happened yet.

On the day leading up to the event there will be the storm, and starting the first day of the event the Firstforged will have ‘vanished’ and the Altered History effect will begin. This effect will last for two weeks, at which point either the players have solved the problem of the pillar or it will resolve itself.

By November 9th, the Firstforged will be back in the Haven and everyone will have returned to normal.

Firstforged Departure
The Pillar event consists of two sub-events...the Firstforged Departure and the Altered History effect.

Up until October 25th it can be assumed that the Firstforged have been going about their usual duties--generally unavailable but still present in the Haven.

After the night the Pillar falls, they will be unreachable. For two weeks, the Firstforged will be absolutely gone, vanished as if they’d not been there in the first place. Acolytes will wander in a daze or will continue tirelessly to do tasks that no one has told them to STOP (leading to many an over-polished floor.) Glyphs will still be present on all Refugees, but will seem dimmer. Those who have previously died or entered the badlands will feel a distinct pull towards the Pillar.

Something is definitely wrong.

Following the event, the Firstforged will return for a brief period (starting on November 9th). The appearance of the Pillar will have alerted them to the fact that Unicron is stepping up his game, and its now time for them to get serious. Some will be departing to watch the Lamda from space, others to keep an optic on the badlands, and others still to speed the work on Cybertron’s interior in hopes that Prima will return sooner if its done.

Before leaving to do all of those things, they will want to talk to their aligned.

Altered History
The second half of the Pillar event is the Altered History effect.

Participation on the Altered History effect is up to you! Should you wish to take part, you will need to complete the sign-up form below and submit it to this post before October 20th.

All characters hit by the Altered History ‘waves’ that the Pillar emits will find themselves changed. One significant moment in their past will have been altered, disrupting their personality and even potentially their appearance. Their new history will feel (and will BE) the real history for them. They will not remember changing, they will not remember any parts of their previous past, and they will not remember any time spent in Re-Aligned.
For all intents and purposes, it will seem to them like they just landed on this Cybertron for the first time.

However, the Altered History effect will only have an influence on THEM. While they may look and act very differently, their glyph will not have changed, their room will still have the same contents, and all their previous messages will still be on their communications device (or in their logs, for those with built-in Link connections.) Additionally, anyone not affected by the Pillar's AH waves will still remember them as they are supposed to be.

Example!
War for Cybertron!Megatron’s past has been changed. Instead of flying into a rage on the council floor and deciding to form the Decepticons and kill everyone ever, he distinctly remembers accepting Optimus’s offer to join with him to fix the corruption inherent in Cybertron’s bureaucracy. Together, they began building a system of significant reform, aiming to eventually abolish the Senate and start their political system anew. However, when the Senate received wind of this they reacted badly, naming Optimus, Megatron, and their followers outlaws. Megatron spent the next several million years with Optimus at the head of the Rebellion, championing equal rights for robots, campaigning peacefully sometimes to get help from alien races and to convince the Council of the error of their ways (Optimus’s idea), and conducting deadly battles other times against the vast armies of drones sent to annihilate them. They called themselves the Autocons.
In R/A Megatron’s brand is now different, a blue symbol with square eyes and sharp points. It matches his eerily blue optics.
He remembers his last conversation with Optimus on his homeworld, the red truck arguing with him about whether the coming battle could be avoided, both of them throwing angry words at each other as he staunchly refused to back down. He remembers turning to leave, disgusted, before hearing Optimus sigh and say ‘be careful, and don’t die.’
This makes Megatron thoroughly perplexed at the actual death threats he clearly has been exchanging with Optimus on his Link device in the Haven a week before.
He’s even more perplexed by the purple Decepticon motif that is emblazoned on everything he owns, and has no idea how these items came to be in a room which only opens for him.


Sign-ups
Anyone who wants to notice the bizzare happenings surrounding this event are welcome to do so at any point during it! Catch an Acolyte walking in circles, find yourself hugging the pillar every day before work, clean up all the debris that mysteriously flew into your room during the storm.

If you’d like to be additionally be changed by the Altered History, all you’ll have to do is fill out this form:



We do ask that you really think about your answers, and provide three or more large paragraphs for the history and personality sections. We’ll look each submission over and give it an okay so long as its solid and not game-breaky(so basically so long as it follows the rules of a normal app). If there’s something we’re unsure about we’ll ask before approving it. However, its better to be thorough than to be vague (especially since we will be reviewing these, and we’re already notorious for our slowness in pinging back and forth.)

Beyond that, feel free to use your creativity and come up with something you'll really enjoy~

~
wherenobotsgone: (R - Looking up)

[personal profile] wherenobotsgone 2013-10-20 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
Character name: Skyfire
Character journal: [personal profile] wherenobotsgone
Altered History: The key change in Skyfire's history is that he didn't crash on Earth. He and Starscream decided that the storm was too dangerous to try to approach the planet, leaving it unexplored. Skyfire was able to return to Cybertron and continue with his work as a scientist and explorer for some time, at least as long as the planet was still at peace.

However, as time passed and Cybertronians became more and more divided, this also affected his personal life. Starscream's ambitions led him to become closer to the Decepticons, which caused a rift in their friendship. By the time Starscream joined them, Skyfire felt that he could no longer in good conscience consider him a friend. It was Skyfire's choice to break all contact, something that Starscream considered a betrayal on his part. For some time afterwards, Skyfire still considered himself a civilian, but it eventually became clear to him that were would be no place for neutrality in this conflict. It was then that he decided to join the Autobots and became part of their science team.

Given Skyfire's altmode and his previous experience as an explorer, when the energon crisis became a problem he was one of the first to leave Cybertron in search of better energy resources. It wasn't successful and he returned, so he was in the Ark with everyone else when they crashed on Earth - and when they awoke from stasis. His role after that wasn't very different from what he does in canon after they find him: being the largest Autobot and also flight-capable, he was still stuck with a lot of carrying others around.

Altered Personality: This is a version of Skyfire who has lived through the war, instead of just hearing about it. He isn't bitter, because that's simply not his nature, but he's much less naive. He's still good-natured, and mostly optimistic, however there is more realism in his outlook. Although he can't help but hope Cybertron will eventually find peace again, he's quite aware that this is nearly impossible. This hasn't made him cynical, though, and he's chosen to focus on making the best of things as they are and trying to help in whatever why he can.

He's also much more used to fighting. He doesn't enjoy it, and he helps from the laboratory instead whenever he has a say in it. Still, he knows he makes a difference in the battlefield, so he had no choice but to become more of a soldier. After all this time, he doesn't have the luxury to be reluctant, either. It's simply what needs to be done.

Another difference is that he doesn't have to deal with the feeling of being out of place. This Skyfire has spent a very long time as part of the same team, and the time he lost in the crash was the same as for everyone else, which means he doesn't have to deal with a sudden change in his worldview. This makes him more confident by removing the "fish out of water" factor.

Altered Appearance: He looks pretty much the same. The only real change is that his built-in weapons system is now more fit for war than for self-defence and exploring, but this isn't really something that would show in his appearance.