The revised Backstory of Rose Watson and Hawk Silverstone

[NebulaFlare]

since the new NT had a major lore facelift (I like it. NT seems more humane now) I have to rewrite Rose and Hawk's backstories to allow them to fit. I want to ask you guys if the changes can fit. I love these two characters too much to give them up, with all their quirks and whatnot. So without further ado, here we go!

And just because it's so much easier, I'm doing this in a timeline bullet format

-Rose born, and is the daughter of Jedrick Silverstone and Claire Watson.

-Jedrick Silverstone and Claire Watson divorced, Claire winning custody of Rose

-Claire Watson dies, Rose ends up an orphan, grows up. She gets in general trouble and starts selling drugs.

-Jedrick Silverstone wants a son, fathers a test tube baby and names him Hawk Silverstone

-Rose wants to turn a new leaf. With best friend Lori Alvarez, leaves her home city New London for Tau Ceti, works in NT. Starts as a cargo tech, works her way into Security cadet, up the ladder to HoS trainee under Lysanuh Dilgan.

-Hawk has no knowledge of his sister. Grows up in a cushy life, aspires to join the NT Navy Escort (sorry if that's the wrong name!). He starts off as a security Cadet.

-Syndicate kidnaps Rose one day, implanting her with loyalty chips and interrogating her. She's finally saved by Tau Ceti officials, but suffered PTSD and depression from the incident. On top of all that, with stress from HoS training, NT loyalty implants, she breaks down and develops a split ego, Rosie Thorns, the trouble making person she was before turning the leaf. NT forces her to take some very much needed R&R

-Syndicate plot to do evil bad things. Hawk, who is the son of a very distinguished official in the NT Navy Escort, is incriminated and found guilty of murder. The Tau Ceti Police arrest Hawk.

-Jedrick Silverstone contacts Rose, having quietly been keeping tabs on his daughter, and she finds out about her long lost brother and father. before Jedrick is brutally murdered by Syndicate.

-Rose goes AWOL, leaving her home and her life, in a desperate attempt to save a brother she never met, before it's too late. She works undercover and against regulations, using her knowledge in security, detective work, and understanding of gang relations, to steal money and fund her search for the people who attacked her father and brother. She gathers enough intel to protect her brother and prove him innocent, through bribes, altering evidence, and whatever means she could do.

-However, without medication and returning to her addiction to drugs and alcohol, she reverts back to the persona of Rosie Thorns - with the distinct goal of protecting Hawk. She's clever enough to evade police force and attacks anyone who has even the smallest link to whoever hurt her brother, even if they were just innocent middlemen.

-She still doesn't have enough info to clear Hawk from Syndicate prying eyes, so takes the risk to work for the Syndicate. Down the line she is assassinated by an ex-syndie agent.

-Prior to being killed, Thorns had sent a DNA backup to a trusted group (either NT or tau ceti officials) who reclone Rose. Rose has little memory of the past few months, and a week long amnesia of before she died and recloned.

-Hawk is acquitted of all charges, being proven innocent since it was discovered that evidence was planted.

Sounds decent?

Edited January 2, 2015 by Guest

[Susan]

Sounds incredibly snowflakey. Like, not even the good kind. Clever enough to evade an entire sector's police force? Given that even our current police have the capability and technology to crack down on people who do really subtle shit, I highly doubt Alliance police will just go 'hurr' to a deranged criminal running around attacking anyone connected to her brother, and it wouldn't take a super genius to find the connection between the murders. The random evidence going missing plus the connection between Rose and her brother also wouldn't be ignored.

Plus, why would she go to such obscene lengths for someone she never met ever? Totally destroying her life and pissing off not only the police (because they wouldn't be the only ones involved) but the space FBI? Snowflake as fuk.

[Tablespoon]

The whole change from Rose to Angel kinda gets her out of it. And it is an interesting story.

[Serveris]

Snowflake as fuk.

[NebulaFlare]

Is it really that far-fetched? People are capable of finding loopholes and evading the police irl - Carlos the Jackel, Gerald Blanchard, the three criminals who escaped Alcatrez Island...I can pull examples from sleazy politics and tenacious rebels. Rose has the knowledge of how people work, both within and outside the law. And Rose didn't go at this alone: she had help, and a lot of help. One of those people that helped turned on her and killed her. She can't escape forever, and I've had to play out several close calls. A decent chunk of this is very canon, and happened on the station. To what Rose and Hawk were before, it's been toned down dramatically.

I posted this because I wanted constructive criticism. Not just a careless shrug and "snowflake as fuk" with requotes - that's not helpful. I just came back after several month haitus - I see the lore change. I don't know what level of expectancy is usable now. I'm asking for advice. I've read the wiki and toned their history as far as I can, while remaining close to the original to respect other player's connections and canon stories.

[Baka]

As a rule, anything involving the syndicate with a character is snowflakey.

Characters are not suppose to know what the syndicate is. Characters are not suppose to be involved in any way with the syndicate. We can't have the lore that the syndicate is sooper secrikt if everyone and their mums had a stint with the syndicate. What you do with the syndicate is suppose to be non-canon.

[NebulaFlare]

Hm. Ok, question. What is the level of knowledge an HoS knows about the Syndicate? My prior understanding is they are a mysterious, dangerous organization that opposed NT - not flat-out removed from knowledge. If someone said, "I work for the Syndicate," has the reply change from, "you're joking," "that's not funny," or "If that's true, it's to the brig." to, "what's the syndicate?"

[Covert0ddity]

In regards to the syndicate, I wrote the lore for them, and still need to expand on it slightly. But no, that was changed. People know about the syndicate.

The Syndicate is a major terrorist and criminal underground organization thatdeals with: Drugs, human and slave trafficking, terrorism, illegal bounty hunting, assasinations, hitmen, and basically all things organised crime. They would be known as something like ISIL is to America - Through the news and the extranet, but you woldn't assume every bomber or gunman to be part of ISIL Irl, so that's how it works ingame.

People who would take it seriousley: All heads, most of Sec.

People who would maybe think you're suspicious: Everyone else.

People who never heard of the syndicate: You live under a rock, or just don't care.

You don't joke about working for a major crime organisation.

[Susan]

I posted this because I wanted constructive criticism. Not just a careless shrug and "snowflake as fuk" with requotes - that's not helpful. I just came back after several month haitus - I see the lore change. I don't know what level of expectancy is usable now. I'm asking for advice. I've read the wiki and toned their history as far as I can, while remaining close to the original to respect other player's connections and canon stories.

 

I gave you constructive criticism. And yes, it is really far fetched. The entire thing leaves a seriously bad taste in my mouth, and I think you aren't giving enough credit to law enforcement and are probably under the impression that they're donut-eating fatties. The Syndicate and their awful name are galaxy-wide recognized as a terrorist organization. You'll notice that in today's world there are specific detachments of veteran and experienced police officers that form counter-terror groups who gather information on their members. If your character, who was involved in so many violent and random murders, got involved with them, they'd know.

You cannot propagate many violent homicides and expect the police not to care. They'd be keeping tabs and hunting you down and they'd have people planted in the Syndicate or information sources. You'd bet your ass they'd be made aware of a wanted felon and terrorist guilty of a rapsheet of homicide and your face change would mean little because there always is a paper trail. I'd also like to state this isn't 1962 with cops that have no idea what DNA or forensics or literally any applied criminal science is. Escaping from the era of bad technology is easy. In 2457, law enforcement has a wide variety of cutting edge tools; what the FBI and police can do today is amazing, I highly doubt more than four centuries in the future they'd be unable to locate someone who goes around shooting anyone who might have even looked at her brother the wrong way.

You also didn't answer my question. Why would she do this for some random person she'd never met and only shares half of her DNA with? Abandon your cushy job to take on every law enforcement agency in the galaxy just because your brother was arrested for a crime he committed, ignoring that fact and ignoring you literally never interacted, then somehow magically destroy the evidence in a high profile police investigation and have that go entirely undoubted without the prosecution doing their damndest to call a mistrial so they can avoid double jeopardy? Difficult to swallow, difficult to believe. There are a lot more factors in play in the real world than a single person being able to so easily route and fight the entire galaxy of law enforcement with 'help' - the more people involved, the easier it is for the police to connect the dots.

[Frances]

I actually don't mind snowflake things as long as they're done well, and away from the eyes of the general population. You could pretend to roleplay a character who's secretly a demon or the reincarnation of Santa Claus for all I care, as long as this is not blatantly forced upon other players. Which is why I don't mind characters that are perma-syndie, as long as they abide by server rules, and don't meta/act out unless they're antags. The syndicate is a pretty cool part of our universe, and I don't see why we should restrict players from creating narratives exploring it if it doesn't harm anybody else.

That said, I think dark, convoluted narrative should be done well, because otherwise they turn to cheesy and cliché real quick. And since the point of this thread (and general forum section) was to provide criticism, a few things:

 

• -Rose is a random ex-orphan/drug pusher turned security guard on a remote research station. Why does the Syndicate go through all the trouble of kidnapping her? She obviously seems like a problem person, is an unlikely candidate for advancement due to her past, and doesn't hold much power.
  
  
  
  -I would largely develop Rose's motivations for acting out. Whatever pushed her to turn her entire life around is something that should be central to her character. Whether that be because of feelings of abandonment, a desire for redemption, or a foolish and delusional quest for adventure and escapism that turned wrong, you should provide us with something. This is supposed to be the crux of your character, yet you say nothing about it other than "it happened".
  
  
  
  -Evading police & defending Hawk like an overprotective mom while acting like a total psycho and badass is definitely snowflakey. Having her be this successful at it does not make her a character that can hold an audience's interest.
  
  
  
  -So the syndicate kidnaps her and implants her, then NT saves her and rehires her (at that point, that's sorta like if you disappeared for months with ISIS, then got hired to work security for the FBI after escaping), and then she asks to work for the syndicate again and they say yes? The syndicate isn't idiotic, even if it were full of mad men looking to run a gambit, they probably wouldn't want the help of somebody that has such a convoluted history, or at least risk giving them anything of importance. I'd say to retcon the entire part about having her being kidnapped beforehand, have her gain knowledge of the syndicate through some other means, and provoke her earlier stress through some other event.
  
  
  
  -Have Rose and Hawk meet, or interact somehow. Even if you have to write stories, since it's not something you can really RP. Right now you have a sister protecting a brother who she never met, who thinks she is a crazy psycho and wants nothing to do with her. It feels like these two characters would inevitably drift apart, because nothing holds them to each other. Have them create some sort of dynamic.

 

That's all I have.

[NebulaFlare]

She goes out of her way to protect Hawk because he's the only family she has left. She grew up neglected, abused, alone, and poor. She wants human connection - she wants to have a family she can trust. She gets taken out of the streets and given a second chance by NT. She didn't have a cushy life, or a cushy job, ever - she gets stressed out through her job and training . Then a group of people come in to attack her, interrogate her and make her life even more hell. She breaks down. After she's rescued, NT forces her on leave and she seeks psychological help. One day, a distinguished NT official comes to her home and reveals she does have a family, and that family is in trouble. Suddenly he's murdered.

Rose is not stupid. She's desperate. Desperate to get out of a life of fear, neglect, and depression. It's all she's ever known since the day her mother died. She's not wasting the chance to lose her newfound family, and she's willing to risk what little she has left to protect her brother. She works in security, and she worked against security. She knows how things play out. If Hawk was innocent he was going to be falsely charged, and nothing she could do within the law would stop that. She wanted justice, and the law doesn't always give that.

She didn't rambo-murder people - that's gonna bring the police to her! the most snowflake thing she did was use a false identity to work as a janitor where the evidence was kept. She had special glasses that records whatever she sees. All she needs to do is look at files and move on. She was an undercover detective at most.

Going back to my draft, I realize that Thorns wouldn't send her DNA to the Syndicate - she'd send them to elsewhere. She doesn't trust the Syndicate, and she doesn't despise NT anymore. She'd get cloned somewhere safe, with no idea where she's been. But hey, she's a respected officer and HoS in training, who disappeared for months with little recollection of what happened. She was targeted by the Syndicate - the law enforcement would protect her. Hawk would be acquitted of charges and found innocent.