[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

[GraveyardShift]

The Grandmother Wars

War 2: Dirty Pool

"I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU KYINAYE ARTIC!" Isabel Arc jabs the smaller woman in the chest with a finger while supporting her cat faunus Granddaughter Mia Arc in the other. "You shameless thief! Walking in like you own the place and taking grandchildren that don't belong to you! This one is mine!"

"In truth that belongs to Jaune and he's free to associate with whomever he likes. So as long as one of my daughters is nudged in that direction..."

Isabel narrowed her gaze. "That's your play is it? Well I'm not letting you have my only son ether! I am forbidding any union between them!"

"Like you tried to forbid his huntsman career?"

Isabel spluttered.

"Izzy, sweetie. You really need to relax your need for control. Trust me. You squeeze too hard you'll simply drive them away. After all how much happier has been since he came to Beacon with Mia? And frankly it's been good for Mia too. All those new friends and experiences she'd had. For a girl who's lost so much she's gain much in return."

"...Fine. I don't disagree. But that still doesn't mean I approve of your daughters! Do you KNOW what goes in their heads?"

"Yes. You know full well I'm aware of their underlying issues."

"And you think it's safe to let them around Mia?!?"

"She's been good for them too and this is the first you've complained about it despite their various adventures. Mia learned a love of climbing and embracing her heritage, both as a Faunus and as a distant noble after all."

Isabel glowered at Kyinaye. "I'm still not approving any union! So there!"

Kyinaye narrowed her gaze. "Are you SURE that's the only means to make it happen?"

Isabel sniffed. "If Jaune marries nether of the twins then you don't get your grandchild!"

Kyinaye gave an exasperated sigh. "Well I suppose I'll have to go to plan B. HEY NICK! WANNA SEE SOMETHING AWESOME?!"

Nicholas Arc appeared immediately. "DO I?!? WHAT IS IT?" he asked like an excited child.

"If you think I'm going to be swayed by my husband you have another thing coming Art-MMPPH!"

Kyinaye seized Isabel by the labcoat and hauled her down into a sudden heated kiss. Isabel struggled briefly before going slack. Mia squealed before hiding her eyes behind her hands. Nick just stood there wordlessly watching.

The kiss wore on for about a minute before Kyinaye pulled free with a pop. "MMWUAH! Any complaints now Isabel?"

Isabel just blinked, glasses slightly askew, as she stood there bluescreening. Her mind ruthlessly trying to hunt down and crush the very tiny, miniscule treasonous part of her that suggested she was kinda into this and maybe giving up some control to someone else wouldn't be so bad.

Kyinaye chuckled. "I thought not." She then stole'liberated' Mia out of Isabel's arms before turning to Nick. "Well Nick? Any complaints about you and your wife being conscripted into MY harem?"

Nick stood there also bluescreening but with a dopey smile on his face at how AWESOME it was to see his wife being kissed so passionately by another woman... again... but this time without the intent of killing her... which was MUCH hotter.

"I'll take your silence as an assent you have none and agree to the conscription of you both. Well Izzy now that THAT'S been settled, looks like Mia IS my Granddaughter since I have her grandparents." She turned to Mia booping her nose. "And let this be a lesson to you Mia. Always have a back up plan and when in doubt, always aim higher up the chain."

Mia giggled.

Willow Schnee suddenly teleported into the room with a thick binder in her hands handing it over to Kyinaye who glanced at the cover of "APPLICATION FOR POSITION IN HAREM." She flicked it open with one hand sifting through it while hold Mia with the other arm. "Impressive. Good stock. No health complications aside from the drinking but we'll fix that. I do have to ask..." Kyinaye looked back toward Willow. "Why THIS harem?"

"Because I want Nick."

"Mmmm..." Kyinaye snapped the binder shut with a thump and tapped a corner on her chin. "A compelling argument but I'm going to need MORE...."

---

Why waste time on the father when you can simply claim the grandparents?

 

[GraveyardShift]

Last post.

Because I REALLY liked these jokes.

Original by Colobopsis

Jacques the Jack-Ass Jokes
​

We (@Leo 123 , @brinkleberry and myself) present you the anthology of jokes about Jacques Schnee. These were funny as hell to come up with and we hope that you will laugh with us too.

• "Willow cheating? Don't care. Sleeping with Willow? Don't want to. Cheat on Willow with secretaries? Hire prostitutes? Don't want to. SDC stock price goes up? Thats what we are talking about!"
• "Numbers go green - PP goes hard"/"Jacques wants to get out of the box"
• Why are Lien banknotes made out of plastic instead of paper? Because otherwise Jacques would be doing inappropriate things with them.
• Why Jacques is so power-hungry indvidiual? Because if he wasn't as cunning he would have had hard time as a gay in Atlas.
• Jacques actually doesn't care about sex at all. He is a tryhard-cel who married Willow only for the money and influence. He forced himself to have three children with her. Then he went back to CEOing and being a jackass.
• - Why hasn't the GDSS sent an agent to kill Jacques in his bed yet?
  - They haven't figured out how to turn a stock portfolio into a competent assassin.
• Jacques has actually never had sex. Because having sex means losing your virginity. And Jacques Schnee never loses.
• I present you - the ChudJacques (made by myself using Paint 3D).
  
  

 

[Frankly Tired]

Strawberry Maintenance
~~~~~~
It's Weapon Maintenance Day in Beacon!

All students who pass examination are exempt from their next class (Combat Class is Mandatory)
As a bonus, Students who pass are allowed 1 free Strawberry Milkshake in the courtyard.

Please thank Head Chef Boid R. Tea for providing the Milkshakes.
~~~~~~~

Ruby is having a crisis.

as her code as an Engineer dictates, she MUST do a 110% thorough cleaning of Crescent Rose!
That has always taken 12 hours of the day...

...But Strawberry Milkshake...

No!
She must persevere!
Her baby must be polished and oiled to perfection!
~~~~~~
All the Cold Weapon students got their milkshakes first.

Jaune lords it over Ruby.

She may have "accidentally" fired off a round into his milkshake, exploding the contents into his face.

Half of the exploded contents landed on Crescent's Inner workings.

Ruby has to start over...
~~~~~~
Pyrrha tried to offer a Split Straw couples milkshake, but fumbled and drank from both ends when Jaune asked why she had one.

She drank too fast in her panic, and choked.

Jaune pats her back as she coughs up strawberries.

physical contact!

it's a win.
~~~~~
Nora spilt her Couples Not-Together Together, but Together Milkshake.

Ren offers to share his normal milkshake.

He even offered to use the Split straw as a way to share.

Nora drinks it all in a panic.

~~~~~~
Yang doesn't like strawberries, planned to save it for Ruby.

but someone touched her hair by accident as they were both leaving, and it melted in her hand.

"I'm sure Strawberry milk is just as fine," She stares at the semi boiling mass in her surprisingly durable cup, "Ruby probably can't even tell the difference."

Unfortunately, she placed it down when she was called to do something

Someone saw a melted milkshake, and dumped it.
~~~~~~
Despite her Stereotypes demanding that milk must be consumed.

Blake is lactose intolerant.
Also she's allergic to strawberries.

But the milk.
It's calling to her.

And so were the paramedics.
As she lies there, foaming at the mouth.
~~~~~~
Weiss wasn't much of a fan of Milkshakes.
She instead wanted Strawberry ice cream.

So she froze it.

Happily, she took a bite.

Oh right.

She hates strawberries.

Disgusted, she left the Surprisingly Durable Cup on Ruby's desk as she was working.
~~~~~~
Well...

It had some ice chunks in it (Weiss how?)

But after 16 hours, it did melt into a decent, milkshake like, consistency.

*Crunch*

Could do without the frozen strawberries though.
Why are the stems still on them? (Weiss how?)

 

[Frankly Tired]

Ironwood Takes a Vacation
~~~~~~
Prompt:
James Ironwood takes a vacation. He has no idea where to even start, but Qrow and Taiyang are there to help!

~~~~~~
James placed a hand on the last STRQ member's shoulders.

"Qrow, Mr. Xiao Long, I have experienced many new and wild things this past few weeks. You two have allowed me to see many new sights, and try new experiences. And I just have to say."

He frowned, gripping their shoulders tightly.

"I am never going on another vacation ever again. If it was legal, I would never even have a day off. I won't ever spend the 15-30 minutes of a lunch break, I will instead eat as I work. hoping that, by some miracle, I choke on my food and perish, so that I will never have to remember the things you two absolute deranged lunatics put me through. The very thought of a break is causing me Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Pain. I can feel my very Aura drain as I am forced to picture what has transpired."

with his bullhead arriving, he boarded, before it departed he turned to look at them once last time.

"Never invite me to do anything with you two ever again."

The remainder of Team STRQ watched as the Atlesian Headmaster left.

Qrow huffed, "Ungrateful much?"
Tai nodded, "Totally."

 

[Frankly Tired]

Jaune, Penny and Ruby's First Date
(This will see an update)
~~~~~~
Prompt:
Penny decides she's going to experience dating. So she selects Ruby and Jaune as her first partners. How does it go?
~~~~~~
J: "Wait both of us at the same time?"
P: "Yes! Double the experience!"
J: "Penny that's not how that-"

R:"Hold that thought Penny!"
P:"Okay!"

"Jaune, let her have this. Besides with another one here, we can stop her from going too far, too fast."
"Huh?"
"Do you really want to experience Penny rubbing your leg under a table?"
"Wh-what?!"
"Penny has a habit of applying everything she learns at the same time, it's why I banned her from helping me with doing maintenance on Crescent Rose."
She sighed.
"So much oil, polish, and paint..."

"So she might..."
"On the first date? Probably."
.
.
*Fearful shiver*
.
.
"Ruby, we're going on a date with Penny together."
"For safety?"
"For safety."

 

[GraveyardShift]

Jaune Arc: Tsundere Hunter

"Ms. Nikos! Ms. Nikos!"

Pyrrha gestured to the reporter keeping Plastic Smile No. 7 "The Gentle Ease" on her lips. But Dust was this Press Conference taking so long... She may have been retired from the circuit for her time at Beacon but she was still required by the Sponsership contracts that had yet to expire to make the occasional Media Presence.

She'd much rather be back at Beacon right now watching Nora's latest antics...

"Ms. Nikos there have been rumors floating around that you have been seen in the presence of a local Valish Boy during your time at Beacon. Can you offer some insight into who this boy is and why he's seen so frequently with you?"

Pyrrha's smile slipped slightly almost into a genuine grin but she caught it and forced Plastic Smile No. 3 "The Slight Teeth" into place.

...or she could be working on getting Jaune to date her. Again.

"As you well know, I am attending Beacon Academy to put my skills to use as a future Huntress and Defender of Humanity. I have been placed on a team with three other individuals as is Hunter Academy Standard. The boy you are likely referring to who's name is Jaune Arc..." She allowed herself a little heat in her voice to make it clear she didn't appreciate the dehumanization of Jaune by omitting his name before switching back to a neutral tone. "...is the Team Leader of the team I am on. It is only natural that as my fellow teammate and Team Leader I spend time in his company to better our cooperation in our time at Beacon."

"Anything to say about the rumors that you are dating this Jaune Arc or he is currently attempting to date you?"

"No."

"What about the rumors that he is currently attempting to date multiple girls including famed Heiress and Singer Weiss Schee?"

Pyrrha twitched slightly at the name but forced herself to keep still. "Jaune is a very kind young man which is appreciated by many of our fellow classmates and close friends. He is free to date who he chooses." LIKE MEEEEEEEEEE. She raged in her head. ME AND NOT THAT FLAT SKINNY HARLOT WHO IS ONLY ICE AND SPITE.

"What about the rumor-"

Pyrrha's agent cut in. "As much as I'm sure Ms. Nikos would like to recount her academy experiences, if there are no further questions regarding the subject of this Press Release, we will need to end it here as we are 30 minutes over time. Thank you for attendance." Pyrrha was greatly relieved by the dismissal and being ushered out as reporters clamored to try and get a last question in.

---

Jaune opened the door to the dorm room just a Pyrrha was snapping the last of the elastic of her workout outfit into place. He quickly spun around and closed the door. "Whoop! Oh sorry Pyrrha! Didn't know you were back already!"

Pyrrha turned to face him with a megawatt grin on her face. "Oh no big deal Jaune! It's not like we haven't seen each other already given how we live together." Pyrrha had, in truth, been fully dressed for 30 minutes now and had been waiting for Jaune to return to the dorm before strategically positioning herself and adjusting her outfit when he came in to sell the lie it had been a 'close call'.

She had been doing this since their first week as a team back when JNPR was sorting out their 'domestic' schedule because Jaune had been GREAT fun to tease. Ever since she teased him in the Emerald Forest about 'having spots on his team' and he had reacted positively to her first attempts at teasing to form a genuine connection, she had come to crave that response from him.

As a Co-Ed team, there had been the occasional 'accident' of walking in on each other which was to be expected. Nora and Ren having grown up as Co-ed nomads and raised in Mistralian culture which included communal and mixed bathing, were used to it and didn't make a big deal out of it.

Pyrrha herself, also Mistralian and having been pretty much raised in a locker room, didn't have the same sense of bodyshame ether and so also wasn't put off by any 'accidents'.

But Jaune... oh SWEET Jaune... despite having been raised with seven sisters and his early training of being a doctor, was SUCH a gentleman about wanting to 'preserve their modesty', had the most HILARIOUS reactions when it happened. The way he went red, stuttered and stammered, before saying something completely non sequitur that never failed to make people laugh.

Nora had immediately joined in with her into trying to arrange such 'incidents' trying to see what off the wall stuff she could make him say and take it as a competition to 'outweird the Fearless Leader'. Much to Ren's torment. The stories of which were eagerly shared with their sister team RWBY which Yang would latch onto about the 'Jaune Phrase of the Week'.

Life went on and Jaune got better about the stammering, slowly becoming inoculated to the 'incidents' though he still had the weird gibberish outburst and never failed to turn red. Which he was doing now.

And Lonely Little Pyrrha, devoid of any meaningful relationships, had her heart stolen when she wasn't looking by the kind blonde goofball himbo.

She didn't know how or when it happened. Maybe one too many of those boyish smiles sent her way with genuine kindness and affection. Maybe it was the dark secret he entrusted to her, first and long before the others, that bound them together as he literally entrusted his life to her at Beacon. A gift so precious and taboo she swore to guard it to her grave.

Or maybe it was just knowing the reaction she got out of him when she teased him triggering his gentlemanly upbringing. Eventually coming to understand he reacted this way because he saw her as a woman.

Pyrrha shivered a little at that. Jaune, a boy, saw her, as a girl.

And she liked that he saw her as such. Making a little flutter that jumped from her stomach to her chest.

But whatever the case was. The hows or whys. They mattered not. What did matter was that Pyrrha Nikos was In Love with Jaune Arc.

And so she teased him relentlessly, more frequently, knowing that when she did so, all his attention was focused on her in that moment.

And, she was so sure, if she remained the focus of his attention, he would come to see her in the same way that she saw him having captured her attention for as long as he had.

She simply nodded having not paid attention to a single thing he'd said in the last few minutes. Only watching his lips move. "Sounds about right." She said causing Jaune to raise an eyebrow. KYA! SO CUTE! Pyrrha gushed internally. "I'm heading up the roof. We're doing stretches today so wear something light. No need to bring combat gear." She reminded him.

"Seem to be doing that a lot these days...." Jaune mumbled.

"Flexibility is important to a Huntsman Jaune. Being able to move in unpredictable ways without hurting yourself can throw off your opponents letting you slip through their guards easier." She demonstrated by twisting while stretching before dropping backwards into a bridge arching herself and nearly folding in two.

Jaune went pure red at the things she was doing. "Uh... L-l-lettuce stocks are up over jelly seeds in the market today." He said turning away from her.

Pyrrha fell flat on her back as giggles took her. Finally she rolled to her feet (going backwards heels over head ensuring Jaune stayed red watching her move) and patted him on the shoulder as she went for the door. "See you in five."

"R-Right."

Pyrrha let the door close behind her but used her semblance to prevent the latch from engaging letting her silently crack the door open and watch with giddy intent as Jaune's shirt came off. Oh Yes... she thought.

---

Jaune had no idea how it came to this. He was a good boy! His mother had pretty much forced him to be such.

And here he was stuck between two girls wearing little more than 'swimwear' as gym clothes.

Yang had showed up a few minutes after he and Pyrrha had gotten started. "Oh! You two doing some stretching and Yoga? Fancy that! I'll just join you!"

He knew what was going on. He knew about the 'Jaune Phrase of the Week' challenge and how Yang had started joining in with Pyrrha and Nora trying to get a rise out of him. Yang was a worse tease then Pyrrha and Nora combined!

"No Jaune. You're still too stiff. You need to loosen up a little further and REAAAACH!" Jaune gritted his teeth as Pyrrha put her hands on his back and pushed bending him in a way that didn't feel natural. How was he getting worse at this? Pyrrha seemed to have to constantly correct him all the time.

And Yang wasn't helping at all! As much as Jaune tried to avert his gaze and respect her, she somehow always found a way to stretch right in his sightline.

If he didn't know any better he'd swear they were flirting with him.

But that was silly! They were only nice to him because he made them laugh. Which... wasn't the end of the world. Being able to make his friends laugh and feel good was something Jaune Arc could do for people. Positive energy and all that.

Living with seven sisters had him used to being teased in all manner of different ways by girls. Always playful and never hurtful. Just like his friends.

Except Weiss.

Weiss Schnee was a cold angel of snow. Who dismissed him as a 'bumbling peasant'. Who acerbic tongue lashed out at him at every opportunity.

But his mother had taught him better. That to never judge a book by its cover. That a 'friend was a stranger you just hadn't met yet.'

That somewhere under there was nice, kind person who was afraid of being taken advantage of.

But like his father said "All you need is confidence son. Your mom didn't say yes at first ether, but I kept going! I never let the rejection get me down and just like a good fight, you get up and keep trying! And now we're married for life and I wouldn't have any other woman ever!"

To which his mother Isabel promptly smacked him in the back of the head but did so with a blush on her face and she didn't resist the kiss Nick immediately planted on her afterwards.

And then there had been his ex-girlfriend Katy.

She had been bullish, loudmouthed, and argumentative. And the more they fought, the more she'd clung to him.

But in the quiet moments when it was the two of them leading up to when they had gotten together romantically, she was a kind, affectionate, cuddler that had only become more pronounced when they were dating.

All of this including some extra research from Mistralian literature had led Jaune to one conclusion.

Weiss had feelings for him! But she was being a Tsundere about it meaning she wouldn't just come out and say what she really felt.

And frankly, Jaune had to admit that having to work for Weiss' affections was something he enjoyed. There was no reward without honest hard work ever in life right? The Good Book of Aslan said so multiple times!

He just had to put in the work and show Weiss that he, Jaune Arc, was a gentleman to the core and that she could trust him to catch her feelings and hold them gently. She'd come around!

...in fact... he should go invite her to come up and join them!

"Hey guys! I'll be right back. I need to go check on something." Jaune made for the rooftop exit and down into the dorms.

Once he was clear, Yang and Pyrrha butted up against each other with brittle smiles.

"So we're really doing this are we P-Money?"

"Apparently we are."

"No hard feelings when he picks the right girl?"

"None. At. All."

---

As Jaune knocked on the dorm room door, it was not Weiss that answered but Ruby Rose.

"Eyah?" she asked around a sucker clenched between her teeth leaning on the doorframe.

"Uh..." Jaune forgot himself a minute taking in the spaghetti top and short thigh length skirt she was wearing. "Is the AC out or something? Everyone's wearing some pretty light clothing."

Ruby pulled the sucker free of her lips with a pop. "Or something." She commented idly.

"Didn't take you for a lollypop girl. You're normally obsessing over cookies as your goto sweet."

Ruby shrugged working the hard candy around her mouth before pulling it free again. "Felt like a change today and needed the raw sugar." She offered the very sucker that had been in her mouth to Jaune. "Want some?"

"Uh... thanks but while I'm sure you have excellent dental hygiene... I'll pass on the one that's been in your mouth."

Ruby shrugged. "Missing out." she put it back it between her jaws. Jaune caught sight of her tongue swiping over it. "Ehth strahbeuh." she said.

"Riiiight."

Jaune and Ruby just stared at each other for the next few minutes. Ruby working on her candy and standing there waiting on him as Jaune's brain tried to remember why he was here in the first place.

"Ruby, why are you standing at the door like that? In or out!" The door was yanked fully open as one Weiss Schnee was revealed. Her eyes caught sight of Jaune and her breath came out in a hiss. "Oh. YOU." Taking stock of the situation she noticed the staring match going on and immediately hustled Ruby back into the room as Ruby protested. "How DARE you objectify my team leader like that!"

"Damn it Weiss! It wasn't like that! It's just hot!" Ruby protested out of sight.

"A likely story!" Weiss growled as she glared at Jaune still in her usual outfit.

Jaune clapped his hands as his brain finally hit drive. "Oh right! That's why I came down here!" He cleared his throat. "Weiss would like to join me, Pyrrha, and Yang on the roof for a stretch session?"

Weiss turned red and she verbally exploded. "YOU FILTHY CHANUVISTOIC PIG! YOU ROTTEN MONGRAL! HOW DARE YOU ASK ME TO PERFORM FOR YOUR SICK ENTERTAINMENT!"

The rant went on as a "WHAT!?!?" exploded from behind her followed by the loud banging and clattering of wardrobe doors and dresser drawers.

As Weiss finally wound down from her rant she was bodily shoved aside as Ruby charged past her having changed into a rather tight gym outfit herself seized Jaune's arm and powered down the hallway with Jaune in tow using Pedal Burst yelling "THOSE HUSSIES HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME TRYING TO STEAL MY BESTIE FOR THEMSELVES! HE WAS MINE FIRST!"

Yeah, Jaune thought to himself as he tried to keep dinner down as Ruby ripped through the school onto the roof at high speed before charging into the standoff with Pyrrha and her sister yelling something at them about 'bimbos'. His friends were weird and Weiss just wasn't being honest with her feelings yet. But he'd get there eventually!

---

From the next building over, Nora gleefully watched the chaos though a pair of binoculars. "She actually called them bimbos! Pay up Renny!"

Ren sighed and passed her 5 lien. "I still say you can't read lips."

Blake's ears twitched minutely as she caught every word. "She did call them bimbos." She confirmed.

"See?" Nora challenged. "Okay. New bet. Yang slips accidentally on purpose and falls on him. It's classic."

"With Pyrrha there? I say it's Ruby who gets away with it."

Blake scoffed as she added the cute rogue to the story of the Gallant Knight and his rooftop romantic rendezvous just as the tension was set to explode. "Please. It ends with ALL of them falling on him as they mistime their efforts and all try to do it at once and get tangled in a human knot."

"Bet!" Nora held out a hand and Blake slapped it.

---

SAVED IT!

 

[Sift Green]

I also have a series of Direct Messages with @Hahoalki further exploring the Myrmidon Cloning Conspiracy idea. If he's okay with me sharing them I might post them here.

Click to shrink...

Okay, I've received permission from @Hahoalki to share the DM conversation we had about the Myrmidon Cloning Conspiracy. And since @AndrewJTalon was included in the DM thread I've also gotten permission from him to share stuff from it. So here we go.


Hahoalki started us off by presenting the following:

Hello, Sift Green and AJT. I've already discussed aspects of this with one of you on Discord, but you, Sift, I haven't had a chance to speak to in detail with yet.

Essentially, my muse isn't cooperating with Truly Invincible, so I'm going to start diversifying my fics. One of the ideas I have involves fusing the Myrmidon Conspiracy concept with AJT's "High Society: Arkos" idea... with some modifications, because I'm me.

Andrew, a lot of this should be familiar to you, but there are some nuanced changes based on your feedback.

These are the basic ideas I've come up with so far:

Premise 0: the fic begins in the break between First and Second semesters, or (equivalently) between the first and second volumes of RWBY.

Premise 1: the Myrmidon Conspirators have planted a student at Beacon to be their eyes and ears, watching their asset, and making sure she doesn't stray too far from the path they have planned for her. Based on his reports, they are not happy with how close Pyrrha's been getting with her team's leader (nor, for that matter, are they particularly pleased with the fact that she isn't a leader herself). So, they contact Athena (who is Pyrrha's legal guardian and cover-story mother), inform her of the situation, and "ask" her to rein in her "daughter."

Premise 2: Athena, for all her many faults, has developed maternal feelings for the girl she's supposed to be helping control. So once she learns that Pyrrha is close to finding happiness, she does some digging of her own, and learns about Jaune's storied background. She finds out about Arturia (and her various connections), Nick's connections to Aelia Paravel, and Jaune's connection to Jeanne (and thus to the history of Argus & Hellenic identity), and manages to sell the conspirators on the advantages of letting Pyrrha and Jaune get together. Thus convinced, the conspirators "request" that Athena set something up with Arturia. This leads to...

Premise 3: A version of the "Arkos: High Society" snippet. Jaune's family informs him of who the prospective fiance is ahead of time. Athena, with her flair for the dramatic, does not give Pyrrha the same courtesy. So when Jaune says something along the lines of "Don't worry, Nana won't make you do anything you don't want to do, and I don't want to chain you down," Pyrrha suddenly gains the courage to ask, "But what if I do want it?" Jaune's a little shocked (I'm thinking he assumed she was already taken), and doesn't know how he feels, so Pyrrha assures him, "I have feelings for you. But I won't make you do anything you don't want to do, so take however long you need to ask yourself what it is that you want. And rest assured, I will be happy as long as you are too."

Premise 4: Tangy overhears that last part of the conversation, so she's in Pyrrha's corner almost from the get-go. And Jaune? Well, he dances with her, has the time of his life, and asks her if she's sure she's willing to be engaged to him. I'm sure you can guess her answer. But when they get back to school, things start getting complicated, because...

Premise 5: ...Arslan picks a fight with Pyrrha almost as soon as they meet, before backing off saying "Thank the Breaker, you're the real one." (I know, I know, but you really cooked with that concept, Sift) Jaune is suspicious and Pyrrha is skeptical, until Tangy reports that she, also, had a run in with a Pyrrha look-alike.

I'm not sure where the story should go from there, which is one of the reasons I want to talk to you guys. Though, given that this is the Itanoverse, I'm thinking a subplot involving Yang would be apropos.

I have a bunch of questions about worldbuilding and characterization, but right now I'd like to open the floor for feedback - or, Sift, if you feel like you can't trust me to do your idea justice, now's the time to speak up, before I get too invested.



To which I replied with:

I think all of the premises you've laid out are solid. And this idea is big enough for more than one person to take a stab at it, especially since there are some radically different ways you can take the concept. Seeing the way you take it should be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

What kind of feedback are you looking for?



And so Hahoalki went on to ask:

First and foremost: what do you envision the conspirators themselves are like? Obviously, there's both political and scientific elements, but are there more?

Is it a monolithic group, or factionalized?

What role (if any) did Lionheart play in its formation, and what role (if any) does he play now?

The secondary issue involves Pyrrha's character. The paradox of Pyrrha is that she combines a messianic complex (seeing it as her duty and destiny to personally protect Remnant) with genuine humility and selflessness. It's obvious where the former came from in a Myrmidon Clone Conspiracy scenario, but it's less clear where humility could have come from. I can come up with my own ideas for this (likely involving religion), but I would like your input before I commit to anything on this front.

Finally (for now), Pyrrha has a better relationship with her parents in this version of the setting, correct?



To which I replied with:

Since the conspirators are mostly a collection of old families that have clung to the old pre-Breaker traditions and faith there would be a religious angle on top of the political and scientific elements. This religious element wants to see the Hellenic faith become the dominant cultural force within the League again and there'd be some disagreement as to how they should go about that. Some think the natural charisma of their martial messiah will be enough to put things on that path, others think they'll need to proactively suppress the Breaker faith once they gain power. Most conspirators fall somewhere in the middle of those two positions.

In any case some of the news organizations owned by members of the conspiracy slant their stories in a pro-Hellenic anti-Breaker manner. This is readily apparent in how they cover Pyrrha's matches with Arslan since Arslan is such a clear champion of the Breaker faith; presenting the fights as proxy battles between divinities and spinning Pyrrha's victories as signs that the Hellenic pantheon is in ascendance.

Pyrrha doesn't like this, seeing it as needlessly divisive, and has complained to her parents every time an arenas' hosting live commentator has alluded to or outright claimed such a thing. Her parents show that they take Pyrrha's complaints seriously by pulling what strings they can to have the offending commentator not commentate on Pyrrha's future matches. The conspiracy allows this because they can pay the next commentator enough to burn bridges with Pyrrha should her next victory over Arslan be deemed impressive or important enough.

Athena convincing the conspiracy's leadership that Jaune is a good potential match for Pyrrha would be a victory for the 'let our martial messiah's natural charisma bring our people back to hellenism' crowd, though they'd probably be looking into ways to try and convince Jaune to convert to reduce the risk of mixed messages and for the political optics of having someone with his kind of connections embracing the old ways.


On the monolithic vs factionalized question I'd say that the conspiracy is outwardly monolithic with slight internal fractionalization. Basically the conspiracy has been quite good at keeping all of its infighting behind closed doors, which is a contributing factor as to how they've been able to keep a conspiracy as big and old as their conspiracy would need to be a secret to outsiders.


The role Lionheart plays is obfuscation; the conspiracy has to move around a lot of resources to create and maintain a clone army on any meaningful scale. As such Lionheart keeps the central government of Mistral from learning about the resources being moved about, and in return the conspiracy lends him enough Myrmidons to form one or two of his personal hit squads.

At the moment I think the conspiracy is older than Lionheart's involvement as the research and development phase would have taken decades what with mapping out the Myrmidon genome, letting the prototypes grow up enough to see if they had everything right, tweaking genes when they found out they didn't, letting the next batch of prototypes grow up enough and so on until they finally had something worth a production run, and then growing a couple of small production run batches before they finally made Pyrrha herself. So logistically speaking it's quite possible that they'd have to have been working on the project for longer than Lionheart could have been realistically involved.

However Lionheart's involvement would have changed the calculus of the conspiracy, as his ability to obfuscate things from outsiders would allow them to drastically upscale their operation. The Myrmidon project would be able to go from a we-are-laying-the-groundwork-for-our-grandchildren kind of project to a we-can-do-this-in-our-lifetime kind of project; going from a handful of easily hidden facilities that could produce a couple hundred Myrmidons at a time to much grander set of secret facilities that could produce legion after legion of Myrmidons at a practical timescale.


On Pyrrha's humility: I'd say that the conspirators would view humility as a desirable trait in their artificial messiah. For both the less awful and true believers among them that humility is a reassurance that Pyrrha will take council from the conspiracy's leadership once everything is in place and Pyrrha assumes her role as the Myrmidons' leader. The more awful among them think Pyrrha's humility will make her more controllable as she won't go full god-complex-diva so long as she is humble.

So that's why the conspiracy is happy Pyrrha is humble and will encourage it when they can. As for why Pyrrha is so genuinely humble? I can see there being a religious reason for it. Most of our real world's Greek mythology's hero myths involve stories with a moral about the dangers of hubris after all, so it wouldn't be surprising if Remnant's equivalent carried similar warnings.

Her humility could also come from how her parents have raised her. Athena has always put her whole heart into every role she's played and the conspiracy is having her play the role a messiah's mother: anything less than perfect parenting won't do.


And yes Pyrrha's relationship with her parents is much better in this version of the setting. A good chunk of Athena's issues stem from her not knowing who she is without the mask and choosing the wrong masks. Here she's wearing a mask she has no problems fully becoming, and so she becomes it and knows who she is.

On top of that politicking within the conspiracy was less corrosive to Athena's husband Peleus' soul than politicking in show business was. As a result he remained a decent husband to Athena and was a decent father figure for Pyrrha.

So yeah, better relations with her parents all around.



Is all that helpful?


The next part of our conversation was this:

It's been quite helpful, but there's still some ground I'd like to cover. I've taken a bit of time to process, and I have a few more questions.

First of all, how much control do the conspirators have over aura quantity and semblances of the clones?

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They've gotten good at ensuring each clone ends up with a variant of Polarity that's similar enough to the baseline for a standardized training regime to work, and they've more or less gotten aura quantity and quality consistently on target for each new batch of clones.

There would still be a handful of outliers since aura and semblances fall within the domain of the soul so mortal sciences will never fully master forcing them into a desired shape, but these outliers should be rare since they've spent so long perfecting the genetic and psychological parts of the equation.

Outliners with less combat applicable semblances are shuffled into either the logistical or medical tracks, essentially being trained to act as camp followers for their more regular Myrmidon sisters. Outliers with combat applicable semblances are rigorously tested to see what they can do: those who fail to impress are also shuffled into the camp follower programs, but those who do impress are given customized training to act as special agents to be kept in the army's back pocket and called on in unique scenarios where their non-standard semblance might provide a solution.

Secondly, we've talked about how Pyrrha herself is the custom-built supersoldier version, while the majority of the clones are designed for mass production. How many "grades" or "castes" of Myrmidon are there in between in the currently mature production run? Does it go straight from "basic infantry" to "high-tier huntress," or are there a couple of "elite soldier" or "special forces" castes in between?

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I'd say there'd be something like four and two-half grades when it comes to "Power Levels." You have the regular Myrmidons at the bottom, those designed to be squad leaders/team captains a rung up from them, the next rung up would be those designed to be the elites/generals that are directly beneath the champion of champions rung Pyrrha was designed to occupy.

The two half grades are for the outliers. The Myrmidons lumped into the camp followers program are technically on the same bottom rung as the regular Myrmidons and technically a half-step below them when it comes to combat powers. It really depends on the individual outlier.

The outlier Myrmidons that are given specialist roles are a half grade because each specialist's exact placement on the "power level" scale can vary wildly. Some are on the same level as the regulars, some are up there with the best of the best.

The next question requires some context. I kind of want to derail Cinder's plans, and doing something with Lionheart to set off the Mistrali Civil War early seems like a thematic way to do that.

So, to what degree has Lionheart been using his contingent of Myrmidons to advance Salem's goals, and what excuses has he been giving them?

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Lionheart has sent his personal Myrmidons on assassination missions, but that's the obvious thing. Less obviously he's sent them on a number of Grimm hunts: Salem doesn't micromanage every Grimm after all so switching to her side means that Grimm can still cause problems for him.

For one thing strategically culling Mistral's Huntsmen and Huntresses creates gaps in the Kingdom's defenses and there are times where Lionheart will need to close one of the gaps he's made for one reason or another. Like if he wants to hide that a gap exists from other people in authority or if Grimm moving through a gap could threaten one of his interests.

So several of the jobs he uses the Myrmidons for wouldn't look suspicious to them at all since they can't see enough of the big picture to realize that he's using them to hide how badly the Kingdom's defenses have been compromised. And if one of them does realize that Lionheart has deliberately created holes in Mistral's defenses? The Myrmidons exist as part of a revolutionary conspiracy that seeks to obtain independence from Mistral proper and creatively reinterpret some borders to the benefit of the Hellenic League; weakening the power of the central government alines with their goals.

And so Lionheart wouldn't need to give his Myrmidons a lot of excuses to justify most of the missions he sends them on, and when a mission does need justification it wouldn't be hard for him to sell it as weakening an enemy of the League.

Which brings us to your next question:

Also, supposing that a means of exposing Lionheart's alleigance to Salem could be achieved, would Lionheart's Myrmidons turn on him, or does their conditioning go too deep?

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It really depends on how long the cloning conspiracy loans out the Myrmidons to Lionheart. Like are they permanently on loan? And if not do they always lend him the same ones or not?

At the moment I'd say he has one or two Myrmidon teams that were given to him permanently, two or three teams that are frequently loaned out to him as the need arises and then a few more teams that are loaned out to him every once in a while.

The teams that have been permanently loaned to him he's probably worked with long enough to have made them loyal to him first and foremost. The teams he's regularly loaned could go either way, and the team he's loaned just every once in a while would probably turn on him if they perceive his actions as a betrayal of the Hellenic League and the cloning conspiracy.


Lionheart has probably toyed with the idea of nurturing the most promising and loyal of his personal Myrmidons into a Pyrrha replacement should the opportunity to try and replace Pyrrha ever present itself. While I don't think the most glaring opportunity for him to try such a thing will happen in your take on the idea this Lionheart loyalist Myrmidon could make for an interesting mirror match foil fight for Pyrrha.

On a related note (and this one goes to both of you), what are the breaks and schedule of the second semester leading up to the Vytal Tournament in the Fall?

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I don't have things lined up on a calendar, so I think Andrew should weigh in on that question.

On the topic of Myrmidon conditioning, what exactly does it entail? What do they believe about Pyrrha, about their purpose, about non-Hellenes, and (after the engagement) about Jaune?

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That's a good question and I'm going to give it some deep thought. I'll try and have an answer for you before Sunday is over.


And then we had this exchange:

On the topic of Myrmidon conditioning, what exactly does it entail? What do they believe about Pyrrha, about their purpose, about non-Hellenes, and (after the engagement) about Jaune?

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So at the moment I don't think any of the Myrmidons have gone through any kind of accelerated aging for a number of reasons. The conspirators didn't want to risk introducing any accelerated aging genes to the general population after they've won their victory and are in a position to start disbanding Myrmidon units. The founders of the conspiracy already expected it to be the work of generations so they planned to take their time ensuring quality, making accelerated aging an unnecessary complication. Finally accelerated aging would cut the active service life of a fully trained Myrmidon in half which is not the return on investment the conspirators are looking for.

As such the conspiracy has all of childhood and the teenage years to shape their Myrmidons into the soldiers and warriors they wish them to be. The education of the Myrmidons begins shortly after they leave the cloning facility's nursery, where they are placed in a more or less normal seaming preschool environment. During these preschool years the Myrmidons are closely monitored to see if they're actually developing along the lines they were designed to so their trainers know where to slot them once they're ready to graduate from the preschool setting.

The specialists and the elites are given a more broad and personalized education because they're expected to be the problem solvers in the field and therefore need a more flexible knowledge base, while the rank and file Myrmidons are given a more narrow education since they're expected to follow the lead of their superiors. Both educations are highly propaganda filled extolling the virtues of the conspiracy's dominant ideology.

As for what this education told them about Pyrrha and their relationship to her? Pyrrha is a demigoddess of war, and they revere her as such. Now that doesn't mean they think Pyrrha is inherently perfect and can do no wrong, but Pyrrha would have to majorly screw up before the average Myrmidon would question her orders.

The Myrmidon's believe their purpose is to protect and serve the Hellenic League (or at least the conspiracy's vision of the league) according to the will of the conspiracy's inner circle who act as the voice of Olympus, and they will be lead in this endeavor by the demigoddess made flesh that is Pyrrha.

Their education gave them a deep pride in Hellenic culture, the pagan version of that culture specifically. One could describe them as cultural chauvinists, as they think all peoples would be better off following the teachings of the old pagan philosophers and paying homage to the gods and goddesses of Olympus (or whatever Remnant's equivalent of Olympus is called).

This complicates their feelings towards Jaune. They don't care that he's not ethnically Hellenic, but they do care that he isn't culturally Hellenic. At the same time they don't like the idea of second guessing Pyrrha, and she clearly thinks he's fantastic so Jaune has to be the ideal man, right?

So Jaune has the potential to be a stumbling block for the ideology the conspiracy has taught the Myrmidons, and what conclusion each individual Myrmidon reaches about him is a good marker as to who that Myrmidon will side with if/when Pyrrha ends up in conflict with the leaders of the conspiracy.



Was all that helpful?

I hate to ask this while you're still thinking about things, but do you have any ideas for specific characters involved in the conspiracy? Because if not, I just spent about an hour coming up with "close-enough" Greek equivalents to the cast of the board game Clue.

They fit... surprisingly well. Or perhaps not-so-surprisingly, given that they were all supposed to be shady characters in the first place.

I'm especially fond of 'Chilliarch Alcibiades "The Colonel" Moustakas,' 'Hierarch Thallo "The Reverent" Floros' ("Isn't Thallo a Girl's Name?" "Young lady, you have no idea how many times that's been pointed out to me"), and 'Professor Thanasis "Doc" Porphyry' (he's professor, not doctor - he lost his medical license the first time he got involved in a "eugenics by clone saturation" project).

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The only concrete characters I already had for the conspiracy would be the prototype Myrmidons know as Myrmex and Tiresias. Myrmex being the first truly successful prototype who was everything the conspirators were looking when it comes to combat prowess but had a noticeable aesthetic flaw that disqualified her from being the poster girl. Most of the prototypes made after Myrmex were efforts to match her level of power without that aesthetic flaw. Myrmex is a true believer and will be Pyrrha's greatest supporter if she goes along with the conspiracy... and her greatest foe if she rejects the conspiracy and subverts the other Myrmidons. I'm thinking Myrmex played the role of one of Pyrrha's older cousins as Pyrrha was growing up and helped with some of her training.

Tiresias would be one of the follow up prototypes who was born blind. This pushed her variant of Polarity's magnetic senses to their most extreme, allowing her to sense things you wouldn't expect a magnetic detection power to sense and allowing her to fight as if she's a combat precognitive. She also played the role of an older cousin to Pyrrha and helped her learn how to sense things with Polarity.


So with me only having them I'd love to see the characters you've brainstormed. My family didn't own Clue so I never got a chance to play it while I was growing up, but looking at the list of characters I found on wikipedia I'd say it should be a good source for inspiration for the conspirators, it's a surprisingly deep well since each edition of the game had a different spin on each character. You could easily make a different character based off of each variation of Ms. Peacock for example, like the femme fatal grand dame original Ms. Peacock could be the inspiration for a financial backer of the conspiracy while the ornithologist Henrietta Peacock could be used as inspiration for one of the scientists and so on.

So what characters did you come up with and what roles do you see them playing in the conspiracy?


The Next part of our conversation:

So, here's my first draft of a "Factions and Characters" rundown. Any feedback and input would be appreciated:

Factions:

Suppressionist - the Breakers need to be reeducated and forcibly converted to the old ways.

Incentivized Conversion - the Breakers can be allowed to practice freely, but cannot be allowed to proselytize, and will not receive the same political/economic opportunities as Pagans.

Tolerance - the Breakers should be allowed the same opportunities as Pagans - Pyrrha's charisma and the Truth of Olympus will win out in the end.

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That's a sensible list for factions within the conspiracy. It's probably the clearest place for disagreements within the inner circle as things stand now.

Chairman Georgos Sophocleus
- The mastermind behind the conspiracy.
- Probably the guy I have the least idea how to characterize.
- Part of the "Incentivised Conversion" Faction (partly due to personal opinion, partly due to the needs of maintaining relative neutrality).

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So looking at the Clue character list I found I'm presuming that Georgos is based off of Mr. Body/Dr. Black? I.e. the guy who's normally the murdered host whose death is being investigated in a regular game of Clue?

Yeah I can see why it'd be hard to nail down a concrete characterization for a character based on him, since his most notable trait in the original game is being dead during the timeframe of your play sessions. That doesn't leave a lot of room for characterization in the game itself and from what little I know of Clue's ancillary media he doesn't receive much focus beyond "Guy whose death gets the plot rolling" most of the time.

With that in mind I'm thinking we need to take a long and hard look at his narrative purpose/role in the world and pick out the character traits that helped him get to his current place in the world alongside the traits that will help him to fulfill his purpose in the narrative.

His narrative purpose is that of a big bad, one that's cut from a different cloth than the other big bads already found in RWBY. That is to say he'd be more of a spy/political thriller villain than a dark lord.

So he's a man of wealth and means that has a vision for his nation incompatible with the current world order. He'd need to be both charismatic and affable to both gather the eclectic group that is the Inner Circle and to manage their different personalities whenever serious disagreements popped up.

Now as the big bad of the cloning conspiracy story there needs to be a concrete reason as to why our heroes cannot truly compromise with him at the end of the day. So what lines is he willing to cross that will be a bridge too far for Pyrrha, Jaune and their friends?

Any of that helpful?

Lady Dimitria "Scarlet" Kokkinaki
- Basically a rising star of the Hellenic underworld, she has quite a few politicians on her payroll, and quite a few more as notches in her bedpost, and said politicians are, for all intents and purposes, now helping cover for the conspiracy.
- I see her as being roughly the same age as Cinder - older than the main cast, but younger than Team STRQ's generation. She's a classic Femme Fatale crossed with a ruthless mobster, and she also has an axe to grind against the Breaker Church and the status quo (we'll have to discuss the details with Andrew, but I'd like to think that it's as pants-on-head stupid as Hazel's reasons for hating Ozpin - and possibly involving the criminal activities of her parents/grandparents having been broken up by Paladins of the Church).
- Accordingly, she's a member of the "Suppressionist" Faction of the conspiracy.

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So she's the youngest member of the Inner Circle and is probably going to be the most adversarial member towards Jaune and Pyrrha's relationship.

And yeah, having a pants-on-head stupid reason for her hatred of the Breaker Church sounds like it could be fun.

Chilliarch Alcibiades "The Colonel" Moustakas
- "Beware the Old Man in a Profession where Men Die Young."
- This guy was badass enough that his genes make up nearly 50% of the Myrmidon genome. In his prime, he taught the first generation (including Myrmex) almost everything they know about combat, and to this day, being able to beat him in a fight (armed or unarmed) is a mark of pride for a Myrmidon. He still teaches tactics and strategy. He is also "Peacock" Pagoni's lover.
- He thinks that Breaker teachings about forgiveness and meekness are for the weak, and is, therefore, part of the "Suppressionist" faction.

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So Chilliarch is the biggest physical threat if the story ends up with a combat encounter with the Inner Circle. And as one of the chief genetic donors to the project he has a bit of Jango Fett in him.

I'd imagine he'd have at least tested Pyrrha before she began her gladiatorial career if he wasn't directly involved with her training, just to make sure she can go the distance the conspiracy needs her to go.

Doctor Eirini "The Nursemaid" Argyri
- Psychologist in charge of the Myrmidon indoctrination regimen.
- She's basically the closest thing any of the (higher-ranking specialist/elite) Myrmidons have ever known to a mother. Balancing the needs of "making sure they're loyal, stable, and capable of reentering society after the war" and "making sure they believe in the cause and will always obey orders" is putting a lot of strain on her.
- Part of the "Incentivized Conversion" Faction.

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So I'd imagine she'd either be the more sympathetic members of the Inner Circle or the most controversial member of the Inner Circle with the whole balancing act she's trying to pull off.

Hierarch Thallo "The Reverent" Floros
- Current High Priest of Zeus (or equivalent deity) and Spiritual Heart of the Myrmidon Conspiracy.
- Actually surprisingly chill and compassionate, he believes that Aslan was actually a demigod Zeus sired, whose deeds and teachings have been partially misinterpreted by the Breaker Faith. In that capacity, he prays to Aslan alongside Herakles and other apotheosized demigods.
- Accordingly, he's the main driver of the "Tolerance" Faction of the conspiracy.

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It's interesting to see that the person driving the "Tolerance" faction is the man most people would least expect at a first glance. I like it.

Lady Penelope "Peacock" Pagoni
- The Conspiracy's primary financial backer, and an additional source of political clout.
- She's a classical Femme Fatale Grand Dame, with a lot of connections to the Hellenic "establishment" figures, though beyond that, I'm not particularly sure of her characterization. Though I suspect that she treats the Myrmidons as her grandchildren, and is therefore loved by them.
- Part of the "Tolerance' Faction, as she doesn't want to see her old friends torn down for something as silly as buying into the superstitions of Aelia Paravel.

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Hmm... So she believes the war needs to happen enough to pay for the creation of a clone army that will ultimately bear the brunt of the sacrifice that goes into war. At the same time she treats the resulting clones like they're her grandchildren.

There could be some potential in the dichotomy that can be found in that.

Professor Thanasis "Doc" Porphyry
- This is the mad scientist in charge of the actual cloning/genetic engineering project.
- His thesis of "positive eugenics" by flooding the gene pool with "genetically perfect" specimens got his medical license revoked. Georgos met up with him soon after, and the two realized that they could make their interests align. Thus the Myrmidon Conspiracy was born.
- Doesn't actually care about religion.

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So Thanasis is onboard because his experiment will be conducted as a side effect of victory.

I like it. I like it a lot.

It's worth noting that I intend for most of the friendships and personal connections in the conspiracy to cross factional lines, enabling the entire thing to keep stable despite differing visions.

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Having the strongest friendships in the Inner Circle cross faction lines is a very good idea.



Also when I was looking at the list of Clue characters I found out that from 2016 to 2022 Ms. White was actually fully replaced by a lady called Dr. Orchid (Ms. White returned in the 2023 edition). Dr. Orchid's different incarnations across the games she was in was usually a biologist of some kind and her very first incarnation in the 2016 edition of Clue Dr. Orchid was an adoptive daughter of Mr. Body/Dr. Black.

So Orchid could be used as inspiration for another scientist involved in the project that isn't part of the Inner Circle yet, but she expects to be at some point because of her connections to people within the Inner Circle.


And the next part of our conversation after that, a post with Hahoalki quoting me:

Now as the big bad of the cloning conspiracy story there needs to be a concrete reason as to why our heroes cannot truly compromise with him at the end of the day. So what lines is he willing to cross that will be a bridge too far for Pyrrha, Jaune and their friends?

Any of that helpful?

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Very helpful, actually.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to watch Gargoyles, see if I can get any inspiration from Xanatos.

But for the big "uncrossable line," it depends on how big his ambitions are. Where, exactly, does he want the borders to fall after the Mistrali Civil War?

If Geogrgos is trying to rebuild Iskander's empire, then conquering Pandu strikes me as a line that Jaune would be absolutely unwilling to cross - his godparents have treated him far too well for that.

Even if his ambitions are closer to home, - say, everything on the shores of Lake Matsu - I can see Aelia Paravel being on this guy's "to conquer" list. Needless to say, Jaune would not be on board with that.

The big issue is that Jaune doesn't start out having the political capital to extricate his fiance from the conspiracy (it goes without saying that Pyrrha wants out - the whole thing is creepy to her, and way more pressure than she's comfortable with, and puts her on a pedestal to boot), so he has to play along for a bit.

I'm beginning to think that the plan to use Jaune's family connections might blow up in the conspirators' faces when Jaune starts pulling on those threads himself to apply pressure towards his own ends (getting Pyrrha through the war safely, along with as many of her "cousins" as he can manage).



Hahoalki also posted this:


Don't mean to spam, but I do want to keep this in your mind, as I could still use advice.

In the meantime, I've come up with prospective names for units of Myrmidons. Note that the numbers listed display only the "tooth" personnel. "Tail"/support personnel would increase the size of most of the larger units.

Needless to say, the whole system is loosely based on the Macedonian army of Phillip and Alexander.

Aight, here goes:

Tetradion: 4 Myrmidons
Tetradiagos: Team Leader

Lochos: 16 Myrmidons (4 Tetradia)
Lochagos: Leader of a Lochos

Hexekostys: 64 Myrmidons (4 Lochoi)
Hexekonter: Leader of a Hexekostys

Syntagma: 256 Myrmidons (4 Hexekostyai)
Syntagmatarch: Leader of a Syntagma

Taxis: 1,536 Myrmidons (6 Syntagmata)
Strategos: Leader of a Taxis

Phalanx: 9,216 Myrmidons (6 Taxeis)
Phalangiarch: Leader of a Phalanx

I would imagine that the Phalanx Entire would have an equal number of "tooth" and "tail" personnel, for a grand total of 18,000 or more women. In other words, it would be a division.

The Taxis, if deployed on its own, would perhaps have a total of 1,000-ish integral support personnel, making the unit as a whole regiment sized.

The Syntagma might have 100-ish integral support personnel, for total of 350-ish. About the size of a small battalion.

Smaller units may not need integral support personnel.

Syntagmatarchai and up may be chosen from a specialized "Officer Caste" of Myrmidon, while Lochagoi and Hexekonters may belong to an NCO/Junior Officer caste.

The "Elite Supersoldier" Caste should probably be a different thing from the "Officer" Caste, just because you're optimizing for different things in the two cases.

Pyrrha herself would be an (expensive?) attempt to combine the virtues of the "Elite" and "Officer" castes in a single individual.


So, on my assumptions, the "Caste System" might look a little more like the following:

Standard - still superior to most soldiers, but mass-producible (and thus probably "only" equivalent to low-tier huntsmen?).

Elite - highly optimized soldier designed to match or defeat medium- (and perhaps even high-) tier huntsmen.

Leader - better than average intelligence and combat ability (for a Myrmidon), but not at the level of either the Elite Caste or the Officer Caste in either category, being a "happy medium" between the two extremes.

Officer - has the same combat skill level as a Standard Caste (ie, better than average soldier, and comparable to low-tier huntsmen), but highly optimized for intelligence, intuition, and strategic thinking.

Champion of Champions - instead of being a "compromise" design like the Leader Caste, Pyrrha is designed to fully combine the intelligence of the Officer Caste with the combat-skill of the Elite Caste, producing a "genius bruiser" suitable for use as a figurehead and spiritual liege.


Depending on the "error rate" in aura/semblance margins, there may need to be a dedicated "Support Caste" - for things like logistics, transport, artillery, etc.

----------

I would like thoughts regarding my plot ideas before we get into revising the Caste System, if that's possible.

Either way, take as much time as you need.



And my commentary on his plot ideas was this:

I've also been thinking about how the characters react to things, as well as timing of events.

Rough outline in my head:

Early/Mid March: inter-semester break, this is where and when the engagement happens. One week of Nick training Jaune intensively, at the latter's request. Learns basic Aura Slash technique, but isn't good/effective/consistent yet.

Late March/Early April: Exchange Students arrive, Arslan "confronts" Pyrrha.

Mid April: Vytal Festival Dance, Cinder infects CCT network.

Late April: The Breach.

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So introducing the change and then running through a few familiar story arcs to see how the change affects the world. Make sense.

Late May: Tangy encounters a Myrmidon, reports it to Jaune and Pyrrha. Jaune contacts Arslan, teams ABRN, RWBY and JNPR start planning a trip to Mistral.

Mid June: Events of Grimm Eclipse? Might get mentioned in passing, depending on utility for the story.

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Seems like a sensible enough place to put Grimm Eclipse if you decide to adapt it for the story. It could be a good place for Teams JNPR and RWBY to learn how to work with Team ABRN in the field.

Early August: End of second semester, three teams go to Mistral.

Mid August: Jaune starts noticing some worrying patterns involving the discrepancy between huntsman mortality rates and Grimm attack rates. Brainstorming happens. He uses his AP Statistics class (the one that Isabel made him take) to look for statistically significant correlations between "Location and Nature of a Huntsman's Last Mission" and "Odds of Huntsman Disappearing," and finds something (tbd). He then looks through the list of current missions on the Huntsman boards, and pitches his plan (basically, camp out at a couple of high-risk sites until they see something happen) to RWBY and ABRN.

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Jaune catching onto the problem because of civilian studies most Hunters wouldn't bother with is a good idea. I'm guessing they're looking into the attacks and disappearances to try and find the Myrmidons that attacked Arslan in order to confirm their suspicions.

Late August: the three teams encounter Tyrian Callows while "camping" a mission site that would have been taken by a Hellenic huntsman. Jaune gets stung protecting Pyrrha, but the good guys buy enough time for the Myrmidon Team that's been tailing them since they arrived in Mistral to step in, and Tyrian is forced to flee.

The Myrmidons in question are currently operating under orders from the conspiracy, but they're one of the "once in a while" teams that have done wetwork for Lionheart in the past. And they've done enough spying on the team to know that this confirms the worst possible scenario - someone with access to Mistral's official mission board system has been culling huntsmen of all nationalities, and Lionheart is complicit.

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So the Myrmidon team that found them was a team that was somewhat suspicious of Lionheart for some reason then? And then them comparing notes is what exposes Lionheart's betrayal to them.

Sounds like it could work.

This is about where I lose the thread. I know Pyrrha's reaction (she's having an identity crisis), and I think I have a pretty good idea of Jaune's reaction ("somebody is using my fiance's cousins as child soldiers, and I am not amused - it is nice to meet the in-laws, though; glad her family is almost as weird as mine"), and the Myrmidons (seeing as they saw Jaune take a pretty serious injury for their Demigoddess of War) will probably have a higher opinion of Jaune than they started with, but Chairman Sophocleus is still too fuzzy for me to know how the Conspiracy as a whole will react to the sudden revelation that one of their collaborators is playing both sides and trying to destroy civilization as a whole.

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Hmmm...

So we need to figure out how Sophocleus and the rest of the inner circle were originally planning to reveal the Myrmidons to Pyrrha, and from there we can figure out how they'll try to salvage the sales pitch now that the reveal is out of their hands.

And with that figured out we'll know how Sophocleus and the inner circle will try to get Jaune and the rest of Pyrrha's friends to play along, and what the tone of their relationship will be before the inevitable break.

Obviously, they'll start moving against Lionheart and reaching out to their contacts, but I haven't figured out the timescale, nor do I know how much they care about legitimacy.

Do they use one of the teams they know they can trust to spy on Lionheart until concrete evidence of wrongdoing is uncovered? In that case, I'd probably have them find out about the plans for the Fall of Beacon, and set the stage for their own "counter-invasion" of Myrmidons to keep things from going as badly as they did in canon. This probably includes a sideplot involving Pyrrha bonding with Penny over being artificial beings, and ultimately derailing Cinder's plan to have Pyrrha kill Penny on TV.

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So they bring a collection of Myrmidons with them back to Beacon and help thwart Cinder's plans.

But there's a wildcard option: fabricated evidence (using Jaune's statistical model combined with reports from loyal "loan-out" Myrmidons as a framework to ensure consistency with actual events) and a more "instantaneous" response prior to the Vytal Festival. The conspirators have just had the perfect casus belli dropped in their laps, and no revolutionary ever lets a good crisis go to waste.

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I could see this being a hotly debated issue within the Inner Circle. On the one hand having a few more years to prepare and get all their pieces in place is good; I figure they were probably aiming for somewhere between Pyrrha's twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh birthday to have everything ready, so they might be worried about the things that aren't in place yet.

On the other hand a perfect cases belli is a hard thing to pass up, and the realization that Lionheart's agenda is less compatible with their's than they thought could make them worried that he planned to pull the trigger before they were ready anyways.

So yeah that would be a pretty intense debate.

More details on Jaune's approach to the conspiracy: given that the Tolerance faction has the edge for now, and given that he doesn't personally have sufficient clout to fully extricate Pyrrha from their machinations (to say nothing of the rest of his cousins-in-law) in the early stages of the encounter (lead-up to the Vytal Festival), I think he'd agree to go along with things as long as he doesn't have to compromise his faith. He is Pyrrha's rock through the entire ordeal, and his primary goal when dealing with the conspiracy is to get her through the events of the impending Civil War/World War safely. He intends to use them the same way they're trying to use him.

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Makes sense, and I like it.

Speaking of the conspiracy using Jaune, the initial premise is that the Conspiracy wants Arturia's connections. Which connections, specifically, are they going to try to exploit, and when?

Andrew, you should probably chime in on this last one. And at any point, you can correct my misconceptions about the characters, or help fill in gaps.

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The thing that using Jaune for Arturia's connections that they'd have a hard time getting without him is probably legitimacy to foreigners. Pyrrha's a big enough deal to obtain a certain level of legitimacy within Mistral all on her own, but that doesn't guarantee people in Atlas or Vale would be sympathetic enough to the Hellenic League's struggle to either stay out or covertly support it. Arturia's connections might let them get that.


And our last major exchange:

(in response to the Myrmidon team that's involved with uncovering Lionheart's tomfoolery)

More like the Conspirators noticed that Pyrrha was coming to Mistral with Arslan, and decided they needed to keep an eye on that, with the result being that the Conspirators become aware of Lionheart's treachery as soon as JNPR and Company do.

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Gotcha. That makes sene.

That whole "original plan for the reveal" thing is tricky to me.

"You're a genetically engineered living weapon that we intend to use to gain independence from Mistral at large, and most of your life up until this point has been a lie," is going to be a very hard sell even under the best of circumstances, and even before Pyrrha finds a bunch of clones of herself, that'll be obvious to the Conspirators.

So they need a lie of their own, or they need a way to make Pyrrha feel "okay" with their machinations being her "Destiny" that's plausible enough for them to think it would work.

I don't know what that would look like, but I think I can come up with some elements that might help them "spin" things.

Pyrrha isn't the first attempt at a Champion of Champions. She is the third. The first two were basically miscarriages (something something "optimizing for charisma and combat instinct without compromise isn't easy" something something). Pyrrha is also the first Myrmidon whose "incubator" was mobile enough to be taken to the Temple of Zeus for a blessing, and this is what the majority of the conspiracy attributes her survival and health to.

Bonus points if it was Hierarch Floros himself who performed the blessing. Still more if he's maintained a close relationship with Pyrrha from her childhood, and he's the one who breaks the news to her.

The general idea is that her genotype was always "too ambitious," and "Doc" Porphyry can't explain her survival. Thus almost everybody associated with the conspiracy (including the people she's been close to and feels like she can trust - Athena, Hierarch Floros, Myrmex) believes her to be a literal Gift from the Gods (Porphyry excepted, solely because he doesn't care about religion, though even he admits that he doesn't have a better hypothesis).

What's missing is a reason why they didn't tell her, and while we can probably come up with one that theythink sounds good, that's always going to be a deal-breaking sticking point for her.

Of course, if they can spin things so that she feels like she is some kind of Divine Gift, she might (reluctantly) go along with their plans anyway.

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I'm thinking they had a lie of their own prepared, mixing old myths and legends to form a prophecy that would serve as the foundation of their legitimacy. Some spectacle that would make the grand reveal of the Myrmidons look like an act of divine providence instead of the work of a secret society in the shadows. The original plan involved Pyrrha being part of the spectacle, to give her the impression that she was the one who had performed a miracle both to the public and herself.


As for what that miracle is/was? At the moment I'm thinking the conspiracy has gotten their hands on a magical artifact from the pre-Moonshatter era: a set of mirrors that were enchanted so they could be used as portals between each other. One of these mirrors would be located at a Hellenic holy site, perhaps directly incorporated into the base of a temple's idolatrous statue or something; the rest of the mirrors would be located at the hidden cloning facilities.

What was supposed to happen was that Pyrrha would be brought to pray at the holy site for a public relations stunt meant to reassure the public as rumors of war were becoming too big to ignore. Pyrrha would pray before the mirror, perhaps perform a sacrifice or some other grand ritual in front of it, and once she was done she would look upon the mirror to see an army of herself in the reflection. The army marches out, and publicly pledges their fealty to the Champion of Champions Pyrrha Nikos.

The mirror, let's call it the Mirror of Perseus or something, would continue to disgorge Myrmidons at regular intervals as the war progresses; only ceasing once victory has been unquestionably won.



Of course with the conspiracy exposed before they were ready the conspiracy finds themselves in the same place as the Klingon Monks that cloned Kahless The Unforgettable; trying to spin the whole debacle as them following the will of the divine instead of them trying to make a power play.

Using complications in the creation process that Pyrrha theoretically shouldn't have survived but did anyways is defiantly a good starting place for that spin, and I really like the ideas you have in that department.



Any of that helpful?



Another thought I've had is with the Myrmidon squads loyal to Lionheart. Specifically with the Myrmidon he could potentially be grooming to serve as a replacement for Pyrrha loyal to him first and foremost should the opportunity to replace Pyrrha present itself.

Since Pyrrha is a Rule 63 allusion to Achilles she gets her name from the female alter ego Achilles was disguised as when those who cared about him were trying to keep him from going off to war. However other sources give different names to Achilles female alter ego, these names being Cercysera or Aissa. Those could be good names for the Myrmidon team leaders loyal to Lionheart.

On the other hand the death of Achilles battle brother Patroclus came about because Patroclus agreed to wear Achilles' armor and lead the mythological Myrmidons while pretending to be Achilles so the Trojans wouldn't know that Achilles was skulking in his tent and refusing to fight because his girl got stollen. So making a Myrmidon who Lionheart moulded to be a replacement for Pyrrha should the opportunity to replace Pyrrha ever present itself a Rule 63 allusion to Patroclus might be a good idea. The problem is I can't find a good feminine version of Patroclus' name.

Anyways what do you think?