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Montréal, Québec

Character Handle: Harpalos
Level: 50

Organisation: Merovingian
Faction: Consequence
Ship: La Crypte

hangouts: Lamar Central, The Vault

Brief Bio: A pacifist scientist working for the Merovingian for the intellectual challenges and freedom of learning he can get. He's a loyalist from the first date, and while his boss views might be different from his sometimes, he'll use all his skills to accomplish his work, so that he can stay in the graces of his leader, and thus continuing to have the freedom and ressources for his everlasting quest for knowledge.
He's an overanalyzing anti-social, unless the situation arises where he can display his knowledge of all the fields which interrest him, such as mathematics, computers, philosophy, physics, litterature or history.

((That might explain why most of you never heard of him...))

You can count on me

Harpalos, EST

Zane is a great veteran, involved and aware of what's going on.

Good luck comrade.

Monique is maybe only 18 years old, but she knows that she's old enough to understand her place in this world. She got the chance to grow in a comfortable household, with a loving family teaching her good Christian values. She knew that the world was her playground and her newly started course in arts at college looked promising. At last, she felt she had a role. She had the grades to become a doctor or a lawyer, allowing her to be in contact with people and then work for the community. But relieving others' ailing or legal pit traps didn't sound really interesting.

No, it's through art, creativity, expression and emotion that she would help others. Everywhere in Megacity, she was seeing corruption, violence and egocentrism, all enclosed into steel and concrete. A casket for self-expression, buried alive, gasping for air. She knew there are lots of artists in the city, but most of them do this for strictly personal reasons. For Monique, art was a mean of mass communication, of collective education. And her new project gave her reasons to wake up every morning and be happy. She would create a series of art pieces all decrying a common target: animal abuse. Her work was starting well. She had already done 3 projects: a painting of a fur coat engulfing its wearer, an ambient electronic song made of animal sounds and a sculpture of a lab rat on a cross that she was particularly proud of. Her current work now was a video documentary.

Her classes for the day were over. She rushed outside and started to search for the kind of person she was looking for an interview. Businessmen in Lamar were abundant, all dressed alike. She only had to catch one, male preferably, ask him a few questions to see what are his values toward animals' rights, and if the subject is interesting enough, offer him to do a video interview. As expected, the public was not very cooperative. No one had time to stop for her, not even for a minute. She knew how people could be rude to strangers on the phone for surveys, but the dishonest politeness they all had disgusted her. After 15 minutes of sorrys and bad excuses, she grew tired and went to sit a bit on a bench.

A few instants after she let out a gasp of exasperation, a man sitting behind her, on the other side of a planter between two rows of benches, engaged conversation. "You have a problem, mademoiselle?” The mix of English and the French accent surprised her and she turned immediately to see who was talking to her. The man didn't turn to talk to her. He was sitting straight, looking to her opposite direction. All she could see was his long and sharply groomed jet-black hair, with strands of grey on the temples. She got up and walked to the other side, curious in seeing who he was. Surprised, she saw that he was the kind of man she was looking for her project. A not-so-young man elegantly dressed in a business suit. A tan betraying frequent travels in the south, or God forbid, a man frequenting tan salons. And cool sunglasses, the kind only movie stars were wearing. She had to convince him to participate in her project. Nervous, she presented herself, extending her hand, holding her notebook in the other. "Hello, my name is Monique". The man reached and shook her hand with a firm grip and answered. "Mine is Michel. Have a seat."

To be continued

The man, more used to be called Harpalos, his nickname, than his real name, was looking at the strange specimen he had in front of him. Living in the redpill community for nearly 2 years put him in contact more with trench-coated urban cowboys or humorously sexy-looking ladies. Seeing what he could only call a neo-hippie (pun not intended, but it still went through his mind) was enough to spark his curiosity. After all these countless sights of extremely short skirts, seeing a lady who looks like she's wearing an assemblage of half-dozen long skirts with mismatched colors was refreshing. Her long white cotton blouse seemed really comfortable compared to the catsuits or other latex outfits of his female counterparts. Her young face was lacking any sign of tension, something that even a perfectly designed RSI can't hide when you're used to live in the Matrix on the edge at all time.

Harpalos had no idea who that Monique was, but having seen her trying to contact many people to be then shoved aside sparked his interest. Curious to learn what she was looking for, he didn't hesitate to ask. He however couldn't predict the impact this apparently meaningless and inoffensive bluepill young adult would have on him.

Monique accepted his proposal with enthusiasm, hardly hiding her nervousness. Trying to ease her, he told her that he had seen her from afar and it was obvious that she needed some help. She then started to present her situation.

"Ok. First thanks for this, Michel. I can call you Michel right?" He nodded immediately, knowing that formalities were maybe not necessary with someone like that. "I'd like to ask you a few questions for a project at school." Harpalos knew that social studies often asked students to work with the public to do surveys and such, and knowing that Flood didn't have anything special for him today, he could take a few minutes and make a student happy. He told her that he would answer her questions with pleasure.

"Thanks a lot sir. You can't believe how helpful this will be!" Another sympathetic small nod from Harpalos and Monique was ready to start.

"Question 1. Do you have a pet at home?"

Quickly, Harpalos figured that he had to put aside his redpill persona. A pet? A home?! He suspected that there might be rats hiding in his hovercraft, but not something he would call a pet. He then answered no. She wrote something in her notebook and went to the next question.

"Ok, then let's skip to question 4. Do you consider yourself a lover of nature?"

Trying to understand the goal of her survey, he could only figure that she was an environmentalist. Going from pets to nature in general, he was certain that she was trying to trick him. The pattern was too obvious. Who doesn't like nature? And pets, most bluepills have them, especially businessmen who surely all live in the cosy surburbs of Megacity, with the 2.5 children, 2 cars and a dog. She surely didn't thought of meeting a redpill, but still, Harpalos told himself that he will still answer truthfully, ignoring his advance analysis of what was going on. After a few seconds of thoughts, which Monique used to jot down a note about it, he answered.

"I come from Québec, I grew playing in the wood, enjoying snow and playing hockey. Nature was an essential part of my youth. Now, I can't enjoy nature like before thanks to my work. I made choices in my life which resulted in that. But deep inside, I know that nature is an essential part of my life, if not in body, at least in mind."

"Hihihi, sorry"
"Why are you jiggling?"
"Hahah! Because of your accent, it’s funny. And by the way, it’s Gig-gling, not Jig-gling! "
"Yeah, sorry…"

Seeing the young woman laugh at him because of his accent made him smile. How it’s possible to jump over buildings effortlessly, to code complex programs, to land a deadly machine-gun kick into the face of a ruffian, but still being unable to correctly use English. What is better than a young bluepill to understand that before being a god-like RSI, there’s a human with weaknesses behind each redpills.

To be continued.

"Ok, next, question 5. Do you or your wife wear fur or leather?"

That was the kind of question not made to ask to a redpill... First, leather is quite common in the redpill community. The shoes he was wearing were made of leather, most redpills had a leather jacket or two that he was using frequently. But the important thing in his mind was that it was only code. The shoes he was wearing didn't come from an animal. They came from a database of clothing available when he first dressed his RSI in the Matrix. He took a few instants to think how he should answer this, seeing that Monique was eyeing his shoes.

"No, I don't wear leather nor fur. And no, these shoes aren't made of leather."

Monique smiled and replied truthfully "Don't tell me that an apparently rich man like you, wearing some neat italian fashion business suit wears leather imitation!". Harpalos looked at her and nodded. "Trust me, this is all fake. Genuine fake. It looks like real leather because they were designed to be a good imitation of what leather should look like. You wouldn't believe how technology is good these days to make you believe something is real, but in fact it isn't."

She hesitated for a while, twisting a wooden-beaded strand of hairs around her fingers. "Weird..." was her only answer.

"Ok, last question then and I won't bother you anymore." Harpalos smiled, amused by this exercise of Matrixian rhetoric. Monique was satisfied of his answers, but thought that maybe she didn't pick the right person. She knew what was the next steps and would have prefered to find someone who would feel guilty about his views toward animals. She didn't really know who Michel was, and seeing how open he was, she wanted to continue her experiment and make her proposition to him. "Would you be interrested in participating in a filmed interview where I could learn more about your views toward animal cruelty? This is for an art project I'm doing at school, to evaluate people's views toward this topic. I'd like to make a group interview with people able to express their opinions."

Harpalos hesitated. Helping her for her project was not a problem, but being filmed was the part he wasn't fully comfortable. He was a redpill after all. But he got an idea... He accepted the offer and took her e-mail address. After an honest hand shaking, she left him, happy that the first part of her project started. He had promised Monique that he would contact her soon, and she waited nervously to see if Michel would indeed follow-up it up.

((Ok, here's the idea. Harp then posts on the Datanode One forums and ask for a few redpill of all horizons to assemble and meet a young bluepill doing a project about animal cruelty. If some of you are interrested in joining, drop a line here. Monique can be god-modded by the participants and new story elements can be brought eventually. If someone would be interrested in roleplaying a bluepill in the focus group, that would also be interresting. It's a written story, so the only limits is our imagination. The concept of the story, as you have seen it, is to compare how complex concepts such as ethics can take a totally different angle from the redpill perspective. Any takers?))

Harpalos was sitting at his console comfortably, reading some bluepill newsfeed. The small electrical cable he was chewing on (he called this his "real" licorice) almost didn't have any casing at both ends. Caillech walked by in the computer room.

"Harp, I told you to stop doing that! I don't want you to hurt yourself chéri..."

"D'accord maman..."

He took his cable out of his mouth and put it on his keyboard above the top keys. Caillech went to sit next to him.

"You look troubled. Everything's fine?"

"I'm alright. But I was asking myself a question. Have you recently heard from Zane?"

The Kid celebrated the Breadfeast last november with some operatives from here.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300006095

"Eh maudit.... Thanks Chloe, but that's not what I want to hear. Could we please have a more detailed overview of the situation? I don't like this at all. It's been a few days already without sign of Zane. This guy is worth our efforts to free him! He's the only Merovingian operative still around that was with me when I enterred the Matrix! That's not some random guy!"

Caillech was sitting next to him, signaling him to mute his microphone. Without catching his breath, he asked Chloe to wait for a second.

"What??"

"Harp, don't make more pressure than they already have... We all know that Zane is worth our efforts, but you must accept that there are things that might be out of our control and that the only thing we can do is wait and hope."

"Ouin..."

He took a big breath and returned on communication with Chloe.

"Ok, you are our link to him. We'll follow your orders and await for further instructions. If a problem occurs, I can contact the right ressources to come help. Good luck."

Caillech made a recomforting smile at him, telling that he did the right thing. Maybe, but still, he would have prefered being in the center of action. This time, he would have to trust fate.

The choice in characters selection demonstrates us that it's not random gibberish.

Too simply... wow. This is truely amazing. I strongly urge everyone to
sacrifice the necessary bandwidth and download this gem. It's obvious
that many efforts were made in this, and I must congratulate you and
everyone that took part in it for the effort. I hope that the devs will
like it enough to submit it for the contest!

themarsnova wrote:
i give it a 10 the agent appearing from the dude was awesome

True. This was really well done

Really really nice project. I'm totally up for that.

Harpalos, level 50 Merovingian

Reeverb wrote:

Harpalos pvping? That's awesome! I didn't know you were up for that.
I added you to the List.

Well, I admit this is unusual, but with such a well-thought event, I'm actually up to jump in the arena!

Good idea to restrict it to 2 areas. Since we're only 8, a whole district would have taken forever. The shorter time frame is also excellent. Will it start at the same time or could it start a bit later?

I had asked to leave early and it was ok, but an unexpected meeting announced for this afternoon could prevent me from making it. I'll do everything I can to sneak out of it.

Mindsweep wrote:

Reeverb, are you going to post a updated list for the 4th may?

Look at the first post in this thread.

Thanks for the reminder, I'll send my payment tonight.

Interesting find by angry-gamer.net: the design document of Path of Neo by Shiny. It does seem legit, apart for a weird document apparently written by the Wachovskis (and dated as of today) sure has a weird ending.

The last section of gameplay pits the player against a thirty story tall, fire-breathing Smith. At close up it is apparent that Smith-zilla is made up of thousands of the normal sized Smiths. If the player is able to deliver significant chunks of damage to Smith-zilla, Smith’s should shake from his body like sprays of blood.

When at last Smith-zilla is beaten, the player will either get an incredible visual animatic that explains their path to higher consciousness or a medal.

The end.
And I haven't seen the reference, but there are talks that it was based on Seraph instead of Neo. Anyway, enjoy the read!

I'm still reading, but 2 interesting tidbits:

The Wachowski Brothers' arc for Neo is that the character has four general mindsets.

Self-Preservation

Protecting Others

Risking Your Life for Others

Sacrificing Yourself for the Greater Good.

This one makes no sense, but is also in the brothers' document mentionned earlier. I hope this is a joke, or they want to make sure people read the whole thing...

The chateau fight should be a high flying aerial duel. And the player must be reliant as ever to their newly acquired skills in order to beat the gang of heavy metal goons. [...]

After the fight is over, the Merovingian will smirk, assuring Neo that while he has bested his bodyguards he will not be able to defeat his “hounds.” When the door closes behind him, the player must race through the seemingly endless chambers of the chateau, fighting off the Merovingian’s “hounds,” a host of long forgotten root-programs. Vampires, werewolves, witches and warlocks, leprechauns, ant-men, and big-headed aliens, that carry ray-guns and intimidating, looking probes.

Bah, it's really taken down. Surely someone downloaded all the content offline and we'll see it somewhere one day. Until then, I have as a memory the cache versions of all the pages I read and the delicious Wachowskis storyline document.

Joakim wrote:

Why the heck would stuff like that be confidential?

Because it is a business document. R&D work such as this one, yes, even for a game, isn't public domain unless the developpers decide to allow it. Companies usually don't like having their processes known by the public.

Heh, another step closer making mxo the game where choices are not final! Oh, and by the way the hi-res file was a .psd file and not a .png.

Or the simple answer. Rarebit have written this mission weeks in advance, without knowing then that finally it's EPN that would free Brenda.

((That was very good! Can't wait for the follow-up))

I am very very pleased to see that the LESIG is in high priority!

Heheh true Chuui... Mine was nearly a novel!

I might not be able to make it, we'll see. Caillech sends word however that she might make an appearance.

((As far as I know, Mega City Time = Pacific Standard Time. So 4:30 PST = 7:30 EST = 11:30 GMT))

No need for brackets in a thread about rp by the way. No need to be afraid to break the fourth wall, the three base ones aren't even there.

Luca's right, there are some things going on under the surface, making me remember the days of Linenoise. Most of that is LESIG-fueled however. They can't be around at any time, and well, they are limited to work in the boundaries of the official storyline. The result is that player-made RP events and storylines must be taken with caution by them. However, I am 100% sure that we could make some initiatives that could include the LESIG in our stories.

What we do miss is something like a way to communicate the LESIG and to give them OOC proposals about storylines that we are planning. For example, a team is planning an event where Cypherites must compete with EPN to prevent the recruiting of a bluepill. Involving the LOs in such an event would make it more "official" and would give a larger reach to the event. However, I have no idea how the group of organizers could request the involvement of the LOs without using OOC.

A way for us to give event proposals to the LESIG is my first suggestion on how we could bring back the RP.

And secondly, well, there must be some initiatives from our part. Not for clique events, things were people from all horizons can have an input. Since my last public event, like FaraRose, I got quite disappointed by the involvement of the players. So well, since then, I've stayed in the shadows, enjoying every inch of RP which Harpalos' style can fit with. So I wait, I collect ideas, I do my own thing.

But after seeing the aftermaths of last Friday's massacre on the Mervs and the way things are evolving since then, I'm sure there's still place for some good old fashionned inter-organizational drama RP which doesn't involve stretching the storyline.

But do we need a PET for doing all this? I think that no. I don't like relying on group of persons to do everything while everyone is telling them "entertain us!". What we need is ideas and commitment. There are resources around. I've helped in the planning of a lot of events and love helping players to put their storyline in motion. With some tools, ideas, humility and a collective butt-kicking, I'm sure we could make something to bring some RP back on Syntax which aren't centered around someone's main.

Your points are very valid. Would the LESIG be in a precarious
situation, that would encourage favoritism? In my opinion no. The
community and the LET will have to trust it. I had made a rather
lengthy message in the previous forum telling ways in which the LESIG
could be the just needed element to fix the current lacks in LET. In
general, I told that in my opinion a LESIG would be a team of dedicated
volunteer task force, bound to a confidential agreement. People on it
should be more dedicated to the game than their inner self. Like a
table-top RPG gamemaster. He knows what events will happen, he take his
fun in seeing how the players will react with it. The first events of
the LESIG will be an important test of confidence, and I'm pretty sure
that with it the LET has a potential great tool to improve what is
really the essence of this game : the story and how the redpills take a
part in it.

It never made sense anyway.

Next MxO canon weirdness to clarify: the Matrix is only Megacity and everywhere else on the planet is a big blur.

Raulen wrote:

Thanks for the kudos, Arcanoloth. But, a certain doctor had to rez the CyberCore as he tried to administrate pain to some Reactor guards. I sit here thanking you for your patcher abilities and timing, for which it seems nobody else in the event considered to load.

A great event, I should add. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the next one. /thumbsup /manhug

A fast query to the developers:

This is quality work: will it too eventually hit the archives to be re-playable?

Archives allows you to replay critical missions, not live events!

520 results. Knowing that Harpalos is an historic person (friend of
Alexander the Great, governor of Babylon and treasurer of the Empire
riches) and seeing my MxO profile being shown as the fourth result
makes me feel special, I guess...

That was indeed an impressive party. We can all thank the Merovingian for bringing us such quality entertainment!

In this screenshot :
http://thematrixonline.station.sony...cursion/013.jpg

She says "and the factory stays in once piece..."
It should read "and the factory stays in one piece..."

EDIT : Harpalos, from Syntax...

((I love it Atem. Matrix noir story. Count me in. It's still early to have Harp take any part in this, I don't want to force things out in a direction so contact me so that we can discuss about it.))

You know you can always count on me Zane

Handle: Harpalos
Crew Name/Hovercraft Name: La Crypte
Active Crew Mates: Caillech
(Crew Mates you also rp yourself such as an operator or others):
Faction Name: Novus Imperium
Organization Affiliation: Merovingian
Level: 50

"Bon... Qu'est-ce que c'est..."

Harpalos just had the notification that he received a communication. It was from ZaneZavin, someone he always trusted and knew as a very curious person, just like him. He hadn't news of him since a long time so with pleasure he switched his monitor from his latest reading to the message.

"Hum..."

Caillech came by and saw him scratching his chin. She sat next to him, asking what was troubling him.

"Oh! Nothing, don't worry. No one is between life and death and requiring our immediate assistance. No, check this, it's from Zane."

She checked the screen, trying to figure out what was that. It looked like a puzzle, but with really few details. She pointed at the screen to a number.

"What is that? Is that the only clue we have?"

"250Ghz. I haven't heard this since a long time. Let me explain you. Radio transmissions are made using the electromagnetic waves. There are waves like that everywhere, including light itself. We don't see it, but there are billions of electrons dancing in constant oscillation everywhere. This oscillation is made at a certain speed. We call this the frequency. The higher the frequency, the faster the electrons move. The hertz is the unit of measure of frequency. 250 GigaHertz mean 109 hertz. At such an high level, we call that high frequency. Frequencies so high that they are strong enough to travel really far without having the signal lose too much of its strength. They are used in radio transmissions mostly. And that's what I think Zane wants us to check onto."

Caillech was used to Harpalos' usual lectures on various topics. She didn't understand everything despite his efforts in vulgarizing the topic, but anyway, she saw as usual in his eyes that he loved sharing knowledge.

"Well, can we set the ship to listen at this frequency then?"

"Normally, yes. As you know, the avoid the agitation that followed the start of the war between Zion and the Machines, I opted for our safety so we moved to the North Pole. We're safe here. However, radio transmissions can hardly reach here, even in high frequency. I have to explain you how it work for you to understand."

He opened a drawing program and started explaining. Caillech couldn't prevent herself from giggling, seeing how bad his drawing was. Harpalos knew well enough that he was bad with arts, so he didn't mind.

"You see, normally the radio waves sent by an antenna on high frequency will go up in the sky until they bounce in the sky, usually on the ionosphere which is the last part of the atmosphere. But you see, one day humans woke up and decided that they would add a cloud of smoke all around the Earth, blocking the sun. They thought that would kill the Machines. The rest is history. Anyway. Now thanks to that stuff, high frequencies can't travel correctly. I tried it and I could only receive a very partial signal. So well, we have two choices. Either we get closer to the source and try to pick up a clearer signal, or we stay here in safety."

"Well, some hotter air wouldn't do us any wrong!"

She knew that Harpalos would never pass on the opportunity to discover new things. A few minutes later, La Crypte took off and started moving southward.