Screw you, php.

Moving on!

I'm willing to reactivate Ejan for the sake of storytelling, but it might be best if I created a new character and use Ejan only as peripheral order-giving. That will put us all on even footing when it comes to canon-ness. If darling Amy wants to run Riya too, that is totally awesome and I endorse it; it'll be good to have someone who is obviously 'entrenched' in the current state of things already so our nublets can have some guidance.

If you don't want to be an assassin, we have to determine what post you might wish to occupy. Fighting the government takes all kinds! If you're not killing government people you could be a politician yourself, or another private business owner like the de Altamiras. Alternatively, you could be a spy, a snitch, a support person of some kind...or a third party interference, like a thief or a regular person who's been pulled into this unpleasantness through no personal desire.

I'm in the Charlotte airport again on the happy side of my trip, but I think we're about to board. I'll see about composing something tonight or tomorrow morning to get things going. Meanwhile, I'll create a new board so we can have something besides Discussion Thread to post in.

Riya is not a people person. She won't have an entourage that could contain other characters, so we'll need to find some other way to get persistent characters to stick around in the story despite not interacting with Riya.

Riya will have contacts and people she's trying to kill..but she does encounter incidental people. Since Pammy's character wants to be a thief then perhaps she and Riya could meet accidentally, as both professions tend to perform their functions in the evening hours. That would be kind of funny...Riya skulking around ready to kill someone and interrupts Pammy's character robbing the joint. *snicker*

We had a tendency in prior iterations to pair our characters up and work with just those two characters with occasional periphery characters. As Riya hasn't got a match at the moment and none of the people she interacts with initially are likely to be wandering around with her at every waking moment (see: Thoth) we'll need to work around that lack of built-in interaction...which I think is all to the good! I'm excited about this plan! I'm proud to be a part of it!

You know...

Now, let me make a few general statements to avoid confusion later on down the road, stolen from book one notes and modified.

There are 3 Stage 1 sites: GOBI (China), SIBERIA (Russia), and ANDES (Peru). Of the three, the Gobi Compound is the oldest and most prestigious, but generally admits only Chinese students. Our original students are based in the Siberia site.

Stage 1 lasts 6 years, and new students generally range from 8-10 years old. At all three sites, the only language permitted between the faculty and students is Mandarin. The languages spoken by the faculty away from the students varies between sites, and amongst themselves the students use a slang form of the bastardized Mandarin-based pidgin which has developed within the international army of the [IF]. I'm sure our characters will probably link up along language lines.

All Stage 1 facilities are mostly subterranean. A small bunker above ground serves as access to a much larger installation below.

Education within Stage 1 facilities is generalized, training students in academic issues relating to [IF] service. Though physical conditioning is a part of the curriculum (becoming more involved as students progress), no combat or related training is taught at Stage 1. That doesn't mean they can't indulge in it in their free time.

As a military academy, Stage 1 (and 2) have strict conduct requirements. Because of the sensitive nature of these facilities and the education being provided therein, students are only expelled under the most grievous circumstances, and are sent to the private-sector rehabilitation facility Charybdis. Less serious incidents are met with standard military punishments, often directed at groups.