(( For those of you who havn't been following my storyline in game or though the ZIC, heres an explanatory post now that i've decided to withdraw actively pursuing it given my limited activity as of late. ))
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(( Sorry, I know this post is long overdue but I thought I should let everyone know the situation.
With college work coming to a head as I approach the end of the year, as well as a new job and several other factors, it's been apparent for some time I could never do this RP justice.
Originally the whole thing was a lot grander in scale with more in-game interaction, my own events, multiple story branches etc, etc. Sorry it never happened.
But to break the way the story was going down for those interested...
The next stage was going to involve an exile black-market information trader, like the ones seen in previous critical missions, who was involved with a whole society of underground trading and had got his hands on some juicy machine info regarding The Harbinger. Players would have to deal with this exile, getting him several random items of moderate worth and eventually trading for the data file. This file would reveal the true identity of The Harbinger.
This machine log, referencing the sector of the surface where Geoffrey had planted this grain fields and where CloudWolf had subsequently escaped too following the attack on Old Zion, talks of an ancient Machine war program. The best of its kind, it was an experimental project that would involve sending a single being to eradicate small survivor colonies scattered in the wastelands of conquered cities. Unfortunately, following the decision to enslave humanity in the Matrix system instead of mindlessly slaughter them, the program rejected it's orders, not understanding why the machines would want the fleshlings to live. His sole purpose was to kill, and to enjoy the killing.
With the Matrix still in development and the first tests beginning on neural simulation the program had nowhere to escape deletion, there was no safe house, no Frenchman, no Trainman. So he fled the Machine City itself, running far away into a series of old interconnected rebel bases only he had enough knowledge to utilize without being detected. He ended up in what would become Geoffrey's fields.
There he bided his time, for countless years he waited, undetected by the machines. Slowly he built up systems of his own, becoming fully sentient and self-teaching himself basic thought patterns and program development. It would be like a human, trained from birth only to kill, learning to read for the first time. Then Geoffrey came.
There were humans still alive on the surface world, not all had fallen into the enslavement of the Matrix. Humans... right on The Harbinger's front lawn. Humans growing food to sustain more humans. His primal programming taking over and bloodlust filling his mind The Harbinger used the crude telegraph communication protocols that existing above the fields, the same poles which powered Geoffrey's operation, to send a simple anomalous message to the machines. There were rebels at this location. Kill them.
The Harbinger watched in hiding as the sentinels came and slaughtered the humans one by one. It gave him a feeling he had not felt in centuries. Pleasure.
But there was nothing he could do to fulfill his bloodlust, he had no way of realistically doing anything while he remained a wanted program in the darkness of the real. But he realized if humans had found this place once, they would undoubtedly do it again. And next time he'd have a plan.
He began work savaging and renovating an old matrix jack-in system from the surface world (as referenced in the old Neurophyte storyline). By this time The Harbinger had become quite proficient in technology and had quite the array of living defense systems made from the scrap of human bases. It's then that CloudWolf wandered into his domain.
Watching as the Zion captain took shelter in one of Geoffrey's old bases, The Harbinger used his systems to create subtle noises and hints to lead CloudWolf to the booby trapped jack, his apparent salvation. It would be like a spider, waiting for its prey to fall into the trap.
And he did. The moment CloudWolf used the jack to try and contact Zion, his consciousness was forcefully pushed to sidelines as the The Harbinger copied himself into his body.
It's then all the event's that have happened thus far came into play. His enquiries into The Matrix and its weak spots, his bargaining with Zion operatives, his nostalgic trip to 01. And all of it was to come to head in one final showdown after Zion had learnt the truth from the Machine Data Log they would acquire from the exile trader.
It was actually shaping up to be quite interesting, Mindsweep and the Black Code had volunteered to help WindBear lead an assault in the real while Corobeus and ViralMarauder had been trying to negotiate with The Harbinger in the Matrix. The final showdown would be a two pronged attack, two separate assaults happening at the same time.
The attack in the real would likely have taken the form of a final written story with input from Mindsweep on how to treat his characters, it would detail their fight against the Harbinger's automated defenses in real, eventually getting them to CloudWolf's quickly diminishing physical body. At the same time Viral and Coro would distract The Harbinger in the Matrix through a live event, questioning him while in the depths of DataMine where the program was trying to find data regarding the power systems behind the matrix, with the ultimate plan of destroying them and slaughtering millions. Eventually he would realise what had happened in real and attack the other two operatives. He would subsequently be killed, despite claims of his death resulting in losing CloudWolf forever, and an emergency extraction team working in the real would jack him out of the Matrix.
And I think that's where we should be at around about now, a comatose CloudWolf being returned to New Zion.
/discuss. ))
