'Story Contribution Guide: Core.' (Not IC)

This guide extrapolates on the various subjects necessary to understanding how to effectively contribute to this story, and has several sub headings such as 'Styles' and 'Major Characters', some of which have their own sub headings such as 'Family' and 'Antagonists': anyone wishing to contribute to this story should read not only this part of the guide but all of it's sub pages to have a full understanding of the story and how to add to it in an effective and helpful manner.

The first points to remember about the core rules of the story are as follows:

1: POV & Temporality

The story is to be written in second person, present tense: you should write with terms like 'you', 'yours', 'you're' and 'you've': not 'I saw' or 'Justin looked'. You also should never write a scene from a different character's perspective: there is only one protagonist, and the reader is supposed to immerse themselves in his position and mindset, so anything that breaks that immersion is BAD.

2: Good, Bad, Neutral, and Negative Endings.

There are four kinds of way that this story can end: Good, Bad, Neutral, and Negative.

'Good': endings are those where the colony is safe, the protagonist lives out his life with whichever partner or partners he has chosen for himself, and things basically settle down to a, 'happily ever after: or at least until your children are grown.' These endings are hard to get to and mostly stem from democratic 'style'* choices.

'Bad' endings are events where the protagonist dies or otherwise ends the story in such a way that the reader will be very disappointed with the outcome and want to go back and try a different path. The most common way to get a 'Bad Ending' is to do something stupid such as try to fight an entire guard patrol or zombie horde by yourself, or otherwise behave heedlessly and without caution. The other is to fall for a '**** Trap': (See Bellow.)

'Neutral' endings are what they sound like, not 'good' not 'bad' not 'negative', but somewhere in between. Neutral endings mostly stem from 'Style'* choices where the protagonist goes into dangerous or peculiar territory, but not one outright antagonistic to liberty and justice. One of the most common sources of 'neutral' endings is religion based 'styles'.

'Negative' endings are those where while things go well for the protagonist they end up going badly for the colony or the world because of the choices he has made. The most common reason for ending up at a 'Negative' ending is choosing a Style which is antithetical to liberty and justice: such as the majority of the 'Imperial' and 'Noble/Royal' Styles*, though many of such styles will offer 'outs' where you are given the chance to change your mind and embrace freedom and honesty after all. These branches are collectively referred to as 'George Washington' branches, because you have taken absolute power for yourself, and then, like the first president of the United States of America, willingly renounced it. It must also be noted that among the true endings of the story, where the story goes to the point of having gone through all the crisis and major events and then having a 'and then 20 years pass': 'Negative' endings are the most common sort: it takes a special degree of dedication to reach a 'good' ending. (That said, over all the most common type of ending is actually 'bad' because they can happen at any point in the story.)

*(See sub thread bellow.)

3: '**** Traps'

There will be several points along the various story lines where the reader is offered the option of committing sexual ****, against assorted individuals including his family members.

These are referred to as '**** Traps' because they inevitably lead, in every case, to a 'bad ending' with the protagonist being killed, locked up for life, used as bait in a zombie trap (Which could be filed under 'killed', but...) and so on.

Furthermore the scenes were the **** occurs are to be written in such a disgusting and unsatisfying way that they are essentially 'anti-erotic': **** is never a good thing, should never be portrayed as fun or entertaining, and always ends badly: this is a very important part of the story's submission guidelines and will be ruthlessly enforced.

4: Conservation of Plot: or, 'Where branching makes a new continuity and where it does not'.

It is important to note that some parts of the story reference other parts which an author may not have read, and some don't. One of the most important things to keep in mind with this is this thread here:

http://chyoa.com/story/rise-up/thread/take-stock-of-what-you-have-92146281

If you don't see it in that thread, or it doesn't easily flow from something you DO see, such as being part of the climbing harness or MREs, then until the protagonist acquires it in the course of the story: he doesn't have it.

This will be most important in the as yet un-started 'abandoned mine' SL, but also in the stories where the protagonist is flitting through the colony evading patrols and trying to accomplish things such as fomenting a rebellion against The General, and so on.

Another important aspect to note about this 'Conservation of Plot' is that descriptions of the colony and the people in it should remain consistent from one author to the next, for which a sub-thread to this one and further sub threads to that will be established in the next few days. In the mean time authors wishing to contribute should read all of the available threads, which are not that numerous yet, and if possible work with areas of the colony which have not been described and they therefore have more free reign.

Now, to cover where branchings of the story DO create new continuity, and the limits on that.

Simply put, in terms of minor NPCs and events not covered by the 'Storytelling Events Guide' (See Link to additional thread bellow.) and other sections of the contribution guidelines the authors have free rein in what happens in their story. There is a great deal of ground that can be covered here, and I do not pretend to know all the twists and turns this story may take, if I DID this would be a private story and I would write it all up myself!

That said: read this guide thoroughly, because each and every section of it outlines part of what is 'Established' about the colony and the challenges that will be faced in/by it and our protagonist, and if you want your submissions to be approved you have to follow the guidelines and rules that it gives.

5: Consistences of the setting.

There will be several sub threads established on this topic but the first few to keep in mind are as follows:

"It is the year 2087 by the Old Reckoning, or year 21 of the 'Pepsi' Colony.

21 Years ago the world overturned in an apocalyptic series of disasters, beginning with two massive alien scout ships battling in the skies above earth and landing troops on two sides of a certain valley in the Middle East, which is how the disasters came to be known as 'Armageddon'.

Then, in the space of a hands count of weeks, 'The Rise', as inexactly predicted in the films of Gorge Romero and others: the return of available mana to earth's magical field and with it demons, angels, fair folk, witches, necromancers, and werewolves: and a 'Skynet' like rebellion of our automated fighting machines, culminating in a limited nuclear exchange, drove the human race to the brink of extinction."

What this means for the story is that any kind of manufactured goods more advanced than about the 1870s level of technology is a relic from before 'Armageddon' or has been painstakingly rebuilt from scraps of such relics which have been salvaged by the colony, and is intensely valuable.

It also means that a lot of the things we in the modern world take for granted are all but gone or lost completely.

Cars, trucks, and vans? They colony has maybe 4, which all are used as ambulances and all cobbled together from a half dozen vehicles of similar but not the same type from before the apocalypse, not to mention running on Frankensteinian **** powered engines.

The internet? Totally gone, the few computers which remain are all 'government' property and not used for such frivolous things as cat videos and erotica sites like this one.

Radio? At the start of the story radios other than the old Police Band com units used by the Guard are forbidden and held in secret by a handful of rebels in the colony. Not only that but radio transmissions are few and far between and usually brief, because they attract unwanted attention.

(What KIND of unwanted attention you ask? Firstly, The Machines still monitor the radio looking for alien enclaves to destroy, and sometimes they will attack human colonies too. Second, the aliens also listen in looking for Machine Depots and human settlements, and third, perhaps most importantly, there are other humans out there, not all of whom are content to live and let live. For all these reasons the Pepsi Colony keeps it's radio traffic to a minimum and also short in duration.)

Telephones? The few lines which exist are held by the 'government' of the colony and used only for official communications such as the transmission of government announcements and state sponsored broadcasts of songs and speeches. And Cell Phones? Ha! There was barely any reception in the colony before Armageddon, and afterwards all the towers were fried and the phones themselves too.

And as for modern medicine: forget it. The colony barely has a hospital, and by modern standards it isn't even worthy of the term. It's floors are bare concrete, it's diagnostics equipment limited to thermometers, stethoscopes, and blood pressure cuffs: and the medicine it dispenses little more than herbal remedies. Oh sure the pharmacy can synthesize aspirin, laudanum, sulfa **** and penicillin, but those are the limits of their skill and equipment: such wonders as most psychoactive medications and any of the stronger synthetic antibiotics (to say nothing of anti-virals), are the stuff of myth and legend now, and none of them were ever effective against 'Z Sickness' anyway.

All of these pieces of information should be kept in mind as you write for the colony, plus the fact that they are somewhere on the southern border of Pennsylvania, very close to West Virginia and in coal mining country.

More information may be added to this thread as it becomes necessary, though God willing this will be the last time I need to update it.