let fury have the hour,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's third TDM! And the death of an important guy. And some very upset royalty.
WHEN? Late 1792, Paris.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

IT'LL BE FINE;

Paris, 1792: revolutionary france.

read the France setting infopages

arrival for new recruits

(Note: If you were one of the people who used the previous TDM and want to use that as canon while still participating in this one, feel free! The following will still happen, though the guide will apologize for a malfunction in your BCE causing you to zap through the intervening month instead of joining your comrades like you should have. You'll be assured the glitch is fixed now, and it probably is. Probably.)

You wake up in a Parisian hotel room with a kind woman standing near the door, waiting for you to awaken. You have none of your clothing, just black military-issued underwear, and none of your previous possessions beyond the one you chose (if you remember choosing) to bring with you.

The woman by the door speaks French, and if you didn't understand the language before, you do now. If you have questions as to what's going on, she'll answer: you are a member of COST, a paramilitary organization of time travelers fighting against the Regency, a tyrannous kingdom of the future who are trying to stamp out freedom and individuality in the name of peace.

She will provide you with the clothing necessary to fit in at this time, and show you how to use your BCE implant to look up information on this time period and its social and political mores. She won't let you leave until you're properly dressed to fit in, but once you are, she'll wish you luck.

KILL THE KING

It doesn't matter if you're new, or if you've been here a while. You'll hear about the execution going on today. It's as though the barely restrained urban chaos of Paris has ground to a halt. Everything is about the king. Is it really going to happen? Are they really going to do it? Can they do it? Is it even possible?

Anyone out of the loop will be filled in, but with no small amount of ridicule: Today is the day of the king's execution. His trial has wrapped up, and the National Convention voted to execute him for treason and tyranny.

The crowd at the execution is enormous, a riotous mob of passion barely restrained. Everyone is jockeying for a better view, with children and adults climbing up on nearby statues, lampposts, the sides of houses, rooves, some even hang from windows. Everyone watches the scaffold.

The prison cart arrives with no fanfare save the yells of the crowd. Within it sits a small, fat little man, looking like he's doing his best to remain composed. He's brought to the scaffold, and his crimes are read out: colluding with foreign powers, and the crime of royalty, which is anathema to the republic of France.

When asked for his final words, Louis Capet, known to some as King Louis XVI, speaks in a quiet voice. "I forgive my enemies."

When the blade comes down, the crowd errupts into cheers. Many rush forward to touch the blood of a king, dipping bits of cloth in it in an attempt to save it.

I PREDICT A RIOT

It's as though all the built up tension in Paris exploded when the king was killed.

Who knows what started it. Rumors spread like wildfire, and it doesn't matter, does it? In the end, most of Paris is swarmed with chaos, especially in the areas nearest to where the king was executed. There's no doubt that the riot and the king's death are directly related; no peasant currently throwing stones and breaking windows will deny it.

Fights are happening with great frequency. It only takes a word, a half sentence, for someone to decide you're some kind of counter-revolutionary. There is a current of anxiety in Paris that hasn't gone away; after reaching a fever pitch, it has expressed itself with violence and chaos.

let's visit the tuileries

The Tuileries was the royal palace in Paris, the last residence of the king before his death. Of course the people of France end up clamoring at its gates, screaming profanities and attempting to scale them.

The majority of the guard let them do this, making only the most token of efforts to keep the peasantry back. But one guard, a man by the name of Antoine Colin, seems to become spooked and shoots repeatedly into the crowd before someone knocks him out.

By then, though, it's too late. The crowd was rambunctious, but not murderous. Now it's bloodthirsty, and the gates are stormed. It isn't long before the common people of France are trampling through the corridors of power. Inside, they'll mostly find servants running and hiding, and lots of valuables to steal.

Most are content with that, but not all. Some clamor for the deaths of the queen and the royal children-- per the laws of inheritance, Marie Capet's remaining son is now King of France. Should he not die as well?

The queen is hidden in a safe room, a hollow wall inside her apartments. Do you try to find her? Try to save her? Try to kill her yourself?

...And what about those kids hiding in there with her?

BRING IN THE TROOPS

The riot in the Tuileries lasts several hours, well past nightfall. It's beginning to peter off, people loosing their energy or vigor, when the sound of gunfire echoes from the front courtyard.

General Lafayette has arrived to save the queen, and brought with him a retinue of personal soldiers. All on horseback, brandishing firearms and sabers, they stream through the expansive halls of the Tuileries and attack anyone who looks out of place. They're here to clean up this mess with no concern for more filthy peasants getting in the way.

Aftermath

The night is a long one. Several fires break out in various parts of Paris, shops are looted, and several die in the Tuileries. The queen has disappeared, along with Lafayette. Some say she and Lafayette died, and they'll show you the bodies for a couple sou. Others claim they saw them riding off into safety just before sunrise. There are already talks of hunting them down, trying to find the traitors.

Only one thing is known for sure: It may be advisable to stay inside for the foreseeable future.

read the France setting infopages

NAV NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

[mylawn]

[76 stays standing, his focus out the window and on the riots closer to the center of town. He doesn't expect to be bothered, but he's too antsy to sit. Who knows if the people who abandoned this house will find their way back? He wants to be ready in case that happens.

It takes him a moment to respond, as if he's weight how he's going to handle a personal question.]

I'm a soldier.

[Which is the only thing he really wants to use to describe himself, even though he knows it might raise some eyebrows. He's certainly too old for active duty, for one thing, but he isn't about to get into his own past with someone who's still a relative stranger. The fact that he's military is all that people really need to know about him, he thinks.]

You?

[pointedlook]

[ There's a moment of weighted silence and Arthur wonders if he asked something too personal. If maybe 76 was the type to remain silent and close lipped on any personal information. It would make sense in a way. And he's met plenty of people like that in dreamshare. Sharing the past made it easier for people to catch up with you in the present.

So he doesn't outwardly blink at the admission of being military. He seems a bit older to be in it, but maybe things were different where he was from. ]

Was it work you enjoyed?

[ After, he offers his own answer, with a shrug. ] Corporate acquisitions. Just a high paid haggler, really.

[mylawn]

I'm good at it.

[Probably the only thing he's good at, is what he tells himself when he's feeling particularly self-loathing. Nobody enjoys this kind of work, but someone has to do it.]

Nobody likes fighting wars.

[Just like he imagines nobody likes being a high-paid corporate haggler, but who is he to judge? All he really has to compare it to is his own stint as a high-profile diplomat, and he's not sure the two are comparable, aside from the 'haggling' bit.]

This must be a change for you.

[He says it wryly, like it's supposed to be a joke--maybe it is. 76 has met his fair share of suits.]

[pointedlook]

Some do.

[ Those people aren't necessarily good, but they're out there. Just like he's seen his share of bad people in dreamshare, using it for things they really shouldn't. But then, stealing ideas and things out of people's heads by technology and trickery isn't exactly going to get him golden boy status. ]

There's more shooting, but approximately about the same amount of people yelling angrily.

[ Arthur takes it as a joke, returns it. After all, he knows what image a suit gives off. Corporate, cold, no real knowledge of the world. Eventually he'll need to break character, since a normal suit wouldn't know how to handle a gun, fight hand to hand, or know to look for all the escape routes in a room. Until then, he's content with this– he isn't sure 76 is telling him the whole truth anyway. ]

Do you believe them? Cost, I mean.

[mylawn]

Nobody who isn't a sociopath likes fighting wars.

[He says that with something of a wry grin, but he sobers up pretty quickly. This is not something Arthur doesn't already know--that much is clear, and it's difficult to take his mind off the riots anyway, even as they casually prod each other.]

Can't be sure. I want to.

[Because it is a good cause, even if it's not his.]

Might change my mind if they start having us tamper with things.

[More than they already are, but so far the mission objectives seem to be preserving history. He's okay with that, even if his lack of memory is more than a little disconcerting.]

[pointedlook]

[ And there's the point. Only the unstable, ambitious, and near sociopathic like to participate in war. The rest of the populous could honestly deal without the strife and tragedy that surely follows on its heels.

(But then, there's something to be said about revolutions and what they do for morale, what they do for change, for the people). ]

Seems like they're generally trying to keep things on track. Don't know how successful that will be with a ragtag group like this.

[ There's too many moving parts, too much free will. Most of the people here he's sure have good intentions, but it's hard to keep track of it all. For once, he's glad he isn't running point on a job like this. He thought the Fischer job had a spiderweb of details, but it pales in comparison. ]

I'm just hoping we're on the right side of things. I wanna believe COST, but...

[ Arthur trails off, lets the silence speak his thoughts. ]

[mylawn]

But you don't remember joining. There's something at home more important that you wouldn't have left behind.

[76 finishes the sentence, assuming that Arthur is in a similar situation to he is--still, it reveals a little more about where he's coming from than he probably should. All he can hope is that they're sort of in the same boat, where that's concerned.]

It's a legitimate concern.

[What if they're the evil regime?]

[pointedlook]

I was tricked into it, yeah. [ Not his best day, if he's going to be honest. A point man should be better than that. He should've done more research. Dug deeper into the paperwork and the electronic trail. Should've– well, there's no point in going back down that path. He's here now. ]

Wouldn't say I had anything extremely pertinent, thankfully. Sort of resolved that recently.

[ Cobb back home with his kids. It's the one thing he's glad he got to complete before getting stuck here. Without him, he isn't sure Cobb would've made it home. Or out of inception with his life. ]

Kind of hate to rain on anyone's parade who thinks we're doing good, since the premise is promising. [ He spreads his hands, feeling like 76 is on the same page. ] But you know, convincing villains think they're doing the right thing.

[mylawn]

[76 hasn't gone so far to say that he's been tricked--he just can't remember the circumstances by which he came here. He wants to believe that Grothia is telling the truth about Regency interference, and she hasn't actually given him reason to doubt it, yet, but he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop.]

So far we're just maintaining the way things should be.

[Which he considers good. Straightforward. He doesn't expect the missions to stay this way, however.]

No telling when that might change.