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So like a good tv series the Dark Aether Ends

Thanks to everyone who took part and had such a great time. Without you my story is just a story, your contributions and involvment bring life to the story and make it a hundred more times memorable :)

So as everyone writes up their final perspectives on the events of friday, it would be interesting to hear what your most memorable moments were. What sticks out as you look back at the past three months?

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12 Comments

  1. Avariel Falcon Avariel Falcon December 17, 2011

    The start was amazing, and using the story telling clockwork was a wonderful device. I checked that machine every day, so much so that I’m going to find myself wandering to City Hall for no reason now out of habit! ^_^

    I enjoyed hunting the machines to take photographs of them all, which in the end proved a useful exercise as we needed to find them to bung them up with angels.

    Although it was more of a side plot to your main story I really enjoyed rescuing Gadget from his prison in Caledon, we still have some scores to settle over that I feel, and maybe a few threads still to be tied up…

    Beyond that this event has been one of the main reasons for me to log into Second Life recently. About the only events that I can compare this too in experience terms are the old scenario events in Ultima Online, but with much better graphics!

    All in all this is unicorn approved! Yay!

  2. Avariel Falcon Avariel Falcon December 17, 2011

    Oh forgot to mention: Mystical woolly sheep, clockwork dreams, Margo the impossibly vast bag lady, the strange knightly fellow, fighting dangerous crab creatures, wondering where the cow went, pretending Mr Tenk did not try to destroy The Writer and poor Unit #13, Unit #3, Unit #8, Unit #9 and last but not least Unit #6, cloud angels, sneaking around reading notes and finding clues, strange things afoot at the power station, not so useless tree, scary monster tree, and a nice game of chess!

  3. Mr. Arnold Mr. Arnold December 17, 2011

    Looking back I have too many things to list that I really liked.  There were a few bumps in the road, but it all came together at the finale so I would have to say my favorite part was the finale itself and taking part in this story at all.

  4. Gadget Starsider Gadget Starsider December 17, 2011

    I loved every minute of it Loki. So much has been so fun and memorable to RP that it is hard to pick favorites. The Grand finale was as impressive in its scale as it was in its seemless execution. Even if our IC characters were being suspicious and secretive at times it has been great fun making new freinds and cooperating with so many people in ths epic RP.

    Your adventure for me was without doubt the most fun I have ever had in SL and like Avariel I found myself getting withdrawl symptoms if I could not excitedly check on the writer and everyone’s developments on the notning about every 30 mins!

    And yes it does seem like I am turning the last page of a much loved and enjoyable book, but I hope such a memorable RP will inspire more Babbagers to create their own mini-adventures, it has certainly inspired me and *shrugs* I have got a shiny new toy to play with! :)

    *across the room a shackled, rage filled intellect, vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded the freedom beyond itself with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, drew it’s plans against us.* 

  5. Jimmy Branagh Jimmy Branagh December 17, 2011

    This chapter for me is a right-side bookend to a full shelf that extends back five years and has had a tremendous influence on the development of my personal story here.  I hope this bookend continues to slide to the right as time continues to move.

    The Writer was a great device to move the story forward in reverse, with Miss Margo acting as a Greek Chorus of one.

    Even the most evil of characters has a sympathetic tale somewhere.    The quest provided details, where we discovered finally what drove Jason Moriarty to become the standard of evil in Babbage over all these years.  But, I still wanted to kill him.

    I hope to see him again.

    All involved were fantastic.  It’s great that so many here jump in to make these adventures so memorable.  To hell with Hollywood, eh?  We make our own blockbusters, and they become part of the historical record of New Babbage.

    A great epic, Loki!  Looking forward to the next chapter!

    Meanwhile, in the basement of the Imperial …

     

  6. Nat Merit Nat Merit December 18, 2011

    I certainly find myself reacting like I do to the finale of a major fantasy TV series full of mysteries – reading back through everything trying to decide if all the questions have been answered and if everything makes sense :)

    I think everything does fit, with a little creative problem solving…

    Future Jimmy warned us not to ‘trust him’ and gave us The Writer to tell us the story of the original timeline. In doing so that changed things so that the original timeline never occured because we were all informed by the writer of the high stakes in the balance and all more paranoid about not trusting ‘him’. And this includes the villains of the piece too – they were as aware of the future warnings as we were!

    So who was it we trusted in the original time line who caused the destruction of Babbage? I can only assume that some of us originally forgave and trusted Moriarty on the basis of the false confession from the Van Creed that seemed to clear his name, perhaps that combined with learning his tragic history was enough to turn some to his side, or at least consider him an ambiguous character who deserved a second chance.

    So in the original timeline we didn’t work together to find the cloud angels, some of us were instead giving Moriarty the benefit of the doubt or tempted to side with the Van Creed’s quest for scientific knowledge and power. It became a case of Sebastian’s dogmatic word again their voice of ‘reason’. Is that why the alt!Van Creed had brain-powered clanks when in our timeline Gadget has only just created the first? Were the alt!Van Creed able to pursuade Gadget to help them in the quest for scientific progress without having to resort to kidnap?

    Of course we’ll never know for sure because The Writer very neatly finished its story at the very moment out story ended, with our final events as its first. We can only wonder…

    • Mr. Arnold Mr. Arnold December 18, 2011

      I think the ‘him’ that Jimmy was warning about was the voice telling us nothing mattered, because of all the people future Jimmy would tell us not to believe before all others it would probably be that.  Moriarty was the messenger of that same message, so bicariously it’s both hims I suppose.

      • Nat Merit Nat Merit December 18, 2011

        It’s interesting that the voice doesn’t appear in the Writer’s book though isn’t it? I was half assuming that it hadn’t felt the need to manifest until future!Jimmy ruined its plans…

        • Mr. Arnold Mr. Arnold December 18, 2011

          Well I think it’s strongly implied that thing Moriarty summoned was the voice, and that thing had spoken to Moriarty since childhood he said and the ‘old one’ he called it, but I’ll confess to not knowing for sure.

  7. Nat Merit Nat Merit December 18, 2011

    Oh and I don’t think anything will ever compare to the moment in Shadow of the 13 when Myrtil and I realised that our friend was half the villain’s soul and would have to die before Babbage could be saved. That is still the single most mindblowing moment of any story I’ve ever experienced in my entire life – like going to the cinema to watch The Usual Suspect and realising in the final moments that the friend who offered to go halfsies with you on a large popcorn is Keyser Söze!

    But that doesn’t mean that Dark Aether wasn’t the pinacle of Loki’s transmedia storytelling achievements, he’s developed these stories into a fine art and perfected so much over the last two years. I’m still in awe of how much of the story that must look pre-arranged with other players is actually decided spontaineously as a free-form response to the actions of others. The way Loki will incorporate the side stories of others into the main story, so they look like an intregal part designed from the start is surely his greatest skill and what makes these stories so satisfying to so many of us.

    So bravo Loki Eliot! I hope everyone who’s enjoyed his hard work has tipped the Help The Orphans poster on the Jefferson Way side of the Imperial Theatre in Babbage Square :)

    • Avariel Falcon Avariel Falcon December 18, 2011

      Indeed, the direction from Loki is very minimal and mostly to stop the herded cats jumping over a cliff with the plotline. ^_^

      Most of the direction tends to come through actual roleplay interactions with the omni-character that is Loki and his many many alts. (How does he control so many alts at once? Superpowers? ^_^).

      Hopefully we will see a return next year. Maybe on a smaller scale, but I think this project is too important to New-Babbage now to just let die. Otherwise its just building, parties and RFL, not that these are bad, but it is the roleplay scenarios that bring the prim city to life.

  8. Cyan Rayna Cyan Rayna December 19, 2011

    I think I have always loved the RP elements to your stories. Basically the points where your NPCs interact with us and further the story along. I’m sure sometimes it must be frustrating for you to get something moving along, but I know if I ever see Ms December running about I know there is something that she wants to tell someone.

    I also love your NPCs. They all have voices of their own and all breath life into the story.

    I also really like doing the running around Babbage for the clue hunt (even though during the Shadow of the 13 one I kinda cheated XD).

    Anyway this was the second time I got to get fully immersed into the plot of your story and hope I don’t run off and miss the next one (like I did with last years :P)

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