SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2020: THE SYNOD IS CONVENING.

[modormenace]

All fourteen Gates simultaneously reverse polarity. For the next seven days, and only these seven days, any imPort stepping through a Gate will arrive safely in the Porter building: the only place on this fractured planet that can safely contain the energy of the imPort community in its entirety.

SO IT BEGINS
THE SYNOD

THE

DEATH

TRAIN

While the Gates are the simplest form of transportation, those making the journey to the Synod from the White Tower have the option of travelling by train, if they wish. Despite the playfully grim moniker, there haven't been any recorded fatalities on board the Death Train in many years. Or ever, really. Raw, untamed entropy doesn't do anything as simple as kill.

For that delightful reason, passengers will be reminded at frequent intervals not to attempt to leave the train once it enters the active zone of the Porter's defenses, or to do anything that could jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.

The journey is relatively comfortable and takes approximately two and a half hours. A limited menu of pastries and alcohol is available from the buffet car. The smallest tables seat two.

 

As the train passes through the entropy-saturated wasteland of the Deathdome, the view from the heavily tinted windows of each of the train's four-person cars is impossible to comprehend: every atom of the landscape is in a constant state of flux, scattered in endless possibilities across the multiverse.

WELCOME CARPET

Inside, you get the impression of three towers; no view from outside is possible. You're totally sealed inside for the week, by the same Fate-built tech that shields this place from the ravages of cosmic radiation— the train station is built into the structure, entrance tunnel hermetically sealed.

You're greeted by welcome robots, primitive little things full endless enthusiasm and covered in dents. What they lack in intelligence they make up for in persistence and durability. Each and every ImPort is assigned their own personal robutler.

Though they tend to hinder more than help.

Boop boop boop boop. They provide you with a complimentary swag bag. Inside is one (1) t-shirt, one (1) top of the line tablet (pre-loaded with this year's Agenda and a simple game app that looks suspiciously like 2048), a stress ball, personalised souvenir pen and eraser (but no pencil), and of course, a lanyard keycard for accessing the comfortably adequate accommodations provided for all attendees.

Given the week-long Synod, your room itself is a decent suite, furnished with dark colors, redolent with a smell you can't quite place. You may find yourself assigned an unexpected roommate, which may feel awkward considering you'll find arrayed on the beds, a half-dozen complimentary tickets to the spa, restaurants and the power gym, with its preternaturally durable equipment.

Robutlers constantly remind: do not attempt to leave the Porter facility or do anything to jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.

CONVENTION

Talks and panels take place in the convention area, which feels like a miniature city within the Porter's defenses, a hive with padded audience seats, wide stages, and complete with holographic audiovisual equipment that's curiously compatible with presentation software from every city.

Here, ImPorts will present and debate various topics regarded as major concerns for all. [OOCly, players are invited to suggest topics! Scroll down; they will be added below.]

This is also something of an expo, where cities practically demonstrate— or show off their good works. From the latest hovertechnology models to demonstrations of healing powers, playful duels in the forcefield-enclosed stages to magical books that temporarily transfer skills on touch, this is the place to pretend you're showing off your cards... while playing the most important ones close to your chest.

PANELS AND DEBATES

PRESENTERS

TOPIC

Joseph Kavinsky vs [N/PC]

White Tower ImPort Overpopulation and Dimensional Instability

Tony Stark and other technopaths

How Technology Will Save Us

Joshua Foley

The Mysteries and Intricacies of ImPort Physiology

Count Dooku and volunteers

ImPort Factions Must Align Against the Shared 'Resistance' Threat

Jin Bubaigawara (x3)

The Twin Cities are NOT Dimensionally Unstable No Matter What You Heard

Kang

Bridging Old and New: Maintaining Infrastructure with Limited Modern Resources

EVENING

EVENTS

Every night of the Synod, ImPorts gather to dine in a grand hall with a ballroom party. Each dinner is hosted by one ImPort city, gruntwork complete with robutlers-- which guarantees food safety, and complete with multiple cuisine options, cultural decor, and entertainment.

Given the range of cities represented, food options vary from greasy burgers to six courses of seafood and blue venison, and rarefied vegan fare.

When ImPorts aren't here eating, they're most often talking. Ergo, it's not uncommon for low-key drama to break out, but this year, the majority of Synod days seem to be passing uneventfully.

Fortunately, speeches are reserved for daytime. After dinner, it's time to dance.

 

The last song of the night is always obscure music no one can quite remember the words or melody to afterward. It's a slow dance song meant for two or more partners; the ballroom grows dark and the world seems to fade away. Or rather, it just fades back into one's hotel room.

THE BLACKOUT

On Monday, September 21st, shortly before the Gates are due to resume ordinary function and allow attendees to leave, the Porter building suffers a power cut.

Abruptly, all the lights cut out. Music stops. Your faithful robutler freezes in place, unresponsive— though its internal systems appear to be running, the centralised command hub that it relies on has fallen silent.

Though the robutlers are out of comission, technology-minded ImPorts and their tech drones hasten to reassure that systems analyses are underway. Within a few hours, repairs begin, the estimated time being two days.

In the meantime, thanks to the diversity of powers on hand, there is enough food and water. Candles start to circulate. It might even be a little romantic, if it weren't for the chaos outside. Characters might find themselves trapped in an elevator for a few hours, or compelled to seek comfort from one another.

Comments

[loyal_soldier]

He bit back a small smirk of amusement, even though Dooku wasn't looking. He'd never seen Kamino in his life. Heard about it from the clones among the training officers, but the planet meant nothing to him. The nameless rock his cloning facility had been hidden on was more home than Kamino.

"Suppose so, sir." It was easy to tell he was being treated with about as much consideration as the furniture, but that was fine with him. No sane person ever suspected that the table was out to get them.

"Science and philosophy aren't strong suits of mine." Mostly true. Though he'd done much more thinking about what in hells his purpose in life was when the Empire failed to live up to the ideal.

[dun_moch]

"No, I don't suppose they would be," the Count says dryly. He and Palpatine had seen to that. The clone soldiers had been created at the most fundamental level to be soldiers, and the Kaminoans had delivered on the contract admirably. Still, organic life of all sorts tended to be... unpredictable, in Dooku's long experience.

Now he does turn his head, and favours the soldier with his gaze, but even now he does not see him the way he might see another diplomat or Force-user. He studies the face, but he does not meet the eyes.

"Yet your genetics hail from a people with a fascinating philosophy," he remarks, almost offhandedly. "I believe the Mandalorians I once fought would have responded to this display in much the same way as you. They understood the importance of focusing on immediate challenges."

[loyal_soldier]

He doesn't try to look Dooku in the eye either, staring at a point a few meters through the Count's head. It was easier to switch off that way, keep his brain quiet and not let himself feel that there was a threat in the room. As long as everything was properly handled, Dooku wasn't an immediate threat, like a shielded reactor core. Or like a big, dumb animal that you tried not to rile.

There's the barest of shrugs. "I wouldn't be surprised if it's the template talking, sir. We were always told he was chosen for a reason."

But of course, there'd always been a phrase among his production line for those that started acting independent. Those men had 'gone Jango'. The cloners had probably worked very hard to squash that, but it still happened, just enough for there to be stories.

So maybe it was down to genetics after all.

[dun_moch]

"That was my understanding as well."

Dooku lets a soft, satisfied smile slip across his face at those words. The smile of a man who knows a secret. He knows full well the reasons Jango Fett was chosen. Selecting and testing the clone template was one of the first tasks Lord Sidious had given his new apprentice.

"He was a man of great reputation," he continues. "I have heard it said that he had to prove himself by hunting down a rogue Jedi. A feat that few could have survived, much less accomplished with distinction."

Poor, deranged Komari Vosa. She could have been so much more than a test. Yet somehow, Dooku's apprentices always seemed to find ways to disappoint him, for reasons that certainly had nothing to do with his own teaching style.

[loyal_soldier]

"He did his job, and we did ours." Jango Fett killed Jedi, just like they had. And Dooku obviously seemed to know more, that amount of smugness seemed excessive even for him.

Might as well indulge him on that, and show a bit of curiosity. It wasn't fake, either. "Permission to ask a question, sir?"

He did want to know more about the template. He still didn't know everything about how and why the clones had come to be. He never would. He'd pieced together things with Rex in the first few years here, but it never fully made sense.

But still, he knew things Dooku didn't. Details he was pretty damned sure nobody had told the Count, about the last days of the war. Every Stormtrooper knew it by heart, though. You didn't forget the Declaration of a New Order.

Deviant as he was, some of that stuff still resonated with him. No reason to push it away either, especially not here, when the old Separatist might try and take a peak in his brain. He had reason to be proud of what he was and who he'd been cloned from, and bugger all the people who'd ever tried to make him feel differently.

[dun_moch]

The Count gives the soldier a searching, appraising look for a couple long seconds. Curiosity of this sort isn't exactly encouraged among his line. But Dooku does take satisfaction from sharing his knowledge, particularly when he sees no way it could damage him, and the train has far yet to go...

"You may ask," he says, bestowing his permission with a gracious air befititng such a great favour.

[loyal_soldier]

The silence is a problem. One he solves by mentally shoving it into the same category as the chaos outside: don't think about it. Don't let it touch you, and it won't cause you harm.

And so the moment passes. "Thank you, sir," he inclines his head, because obviously he's got to know his place and all that.

"Clones are loyal, and nothing changes that. I do my part for the White Tower because it follows Imperial ideals." In theory, same as how the Empire followed them in theory. Joining the Resistance should've been harder than it was for him. But he'd had a conviction to rely on: 'Akobi would've wanted this.' There'd been more thinking on his own account since then. But back then, he'd known what his Commander would've done, and that'd been all he had to guide him.

"Was anything ever said about the template's loyalties? Was he like us, or was that part of how we were altered?"

[dun_moch]

Jango Fett's loyalties... now there was an interesting topic, and a deeper question than the Count had expected from a simple soldier. If anything, Dooku looks slightly pleased at the chance to talk about something with multiple angles.

"The template was a deeply loyal man... in his own way," he says slowly, remembering the fierce discipline the Mandalorian had shown along with his fellows at the Battle of Galidraan. "He had a particular code of honour, but not to any government. If anything, his deepest loyalty was to... family. Unusual for a bounty hunter perhaps, but not for a Mandalorian."

The only time Jango Fett had ever truly surprised Dooku was when he asked for an unaltered clone to be raised as his own son. It was the most sentimental display the Count had ever seen from the man.

[loyal_soldier]

"Suppose that's what you follow if you don't have a higher purpose." He was still an idealist after all these years, though a considerably more jaded one. The universe could be made a better place, but most everyone seemed to have abdicated that responsibility, up to and including the Fates. Do the expedient thing, not the good thing.

Sometimes he did end up feeling more selfish, when all that got to be too much. He could understand only caring about your family. That was a smaller, safer scope for ambition.

Thinking about that dredged up a muddle of bitterness and resolve, though he wasn't sure Dooku was even bothering to pry open his brain at the moment. "And the older batches always did care about their brothers. Did he have any?"

[dun_moch]

"No... I believe he was quite alone before he was chosen to be the template."

Partly because Dooku wiped out his crew during his Jedi days. An awkward detail in their relationship, but one that had never soured into treachery. The Count frowns at the memory of that battle, the pain of disillusionment with the Jedi's ways deeper than any actual war wound, and doesn't even think of looking closer at what is in the clone's mind.

"He would never have been alone again afterwards, of course. An army of millions, each carrying his blood and wearing his face. It is ironic, though. The clones served the Republic, while he was bodyguard to the leader of the Separatists. If matters had followed a different course, the Clone Wars might have begun with the clones battling their own template on Geonosis."

It would have been an interesting scenario. Dooku had been slightly disappointed when Mace Windu's saber relieved Fett's shoulders of his head before the attack of the clones. Pitting the new soldiers against their forerunner would have been a fine test of their willingness to follow difficult orders.