Though most everybody probably realizes it by now, the first thread of chapter 5 is up, and there is now an index for chapter 5 available on the front page of the forums as well.

Rock's chapter 4 ending has been assumed canonical. This first thread begins hot on the heels of chapter 4, continuing with the group's descent to Earth. Rock and Jam have been left alone in space on the destroyer; everyone else (Ace, Geoff, Mako, Ember, Desmond, Big, and Shadow) departed on a shuttle back to Earth. They left off on a bad note, though; resentment + Rock = jerky things, so instead of sending them home, he saw fit to crash their ship into the most desolate part of Chun-nan he could find, thus beginning our story with disaster, hijinks, and ill sentiment — just the way we like it around here.

Those of you with characters in the shuttle are welcome to begin posting and reacting now.

Expect this first "crash" segment to only last a few posts before we timeskip ahead a little and finally give these worn, battered, beaten characters a chance to recuperate. After the timeskip will probably be the best opportunity for people to bring in other characters (including new players and their characters).

Kinda rollin' onward. Things are going smooth, maybe a little slow, but smooth. I know some are holding out on jumping in until the cast gets out of the village. That's fine and reasonable. No guarantee of how long that will take, of course. The beginning of the next thread, perhaps? Hope that's not too far for patience.

Maybe now's a good time to thoroughly admit — no, advertise — the reality of the dark, marshy foundation underpinning this chapter, which is that, as of yet, there is no skeleton to this storyline, no structure, and no real direction. It is a squishy mollusc of a tale. Some ideas are floating here and there, but nothing has been settled upon other than "they eventually take a train out of the frozen wilderness" and from there... mystery.

This makes it pretty opportune for you if you've got ideas, or if you have goals you want to accomplish with your character, or something you'd want to get to see your character do, or develop to be, or whatever. There's no central character, no main protagonist (or even antagonist yet), and so little framework that whoever throws up the first playable, remotely engaging idea will probably end up charting the course of the story in some way. Sooo, if you've got anything, or merely want to help come up with something, talk. Let's collaborate and make crap up and do role-play-y things.

I guess my fear is that this will end up being some sort of apathetic goal-chasing story. There isn't much of a goal here right now; if everyone just tries to get out of Chun-nan and get home, they will probably accomplish it, and end the story being the exact same people and personalities they started as. That would suck and be boring. I think this kind of aimless time is best used to explore characters, their motivations, what makes them tick, and develop and flesh them out more and more. So don't be afraid to collaborate with me, or some other RPin' loser here, or even that weird bow-legged guy in the cowboy costume you pass by in front of that bar on your way home from work every day. It don't matter. We'll just have some fun with it. All you gotta do is help get the ball rolling, and suddenly, you have given birth to a bouncing baby story.

I'm probably going to wonder what the heck I wrote here later and why.