Possible Story Ideas

[Noxton]

Both Neoteny and Barloke make great points. Taking the line from Barloke, my other question is, if the Oligarchs were always this close and this power hungry, why didn't the Machines deal with them as a threat long ago, perhaps when Zion and the Machines were in Truce-time?

Hell, it would be a fantastic way for the Machines to thin Zion's numbers without even doing any of the work. We all know they didn't give a damn about the truce from the beginning since they dropped it so easily. In fact, during the Truce it would have shown Zion just how much the Machines had held over their heads, how much they didn't know and how much the Machines had mastered this planet.

Now I realize this idea was created AFTER the fact, but what I'm saying is... it's a thin storyline, and it is very "villain of the week" as Neoteny said. Also, if the Machines would lie to the Oligarchs about how they handled the processes of the Matrix (lied / withheld, same thing), then why wouldn't they spend their time protecting themselves against the Oligarchs, who surely would want to get in on the action if they found out they were lied to.

After all, why hide something unless it's worth hiding? If knowing the Oligarchs would come into the system once they learned about the power bestowed upon these humans, about the ability to drop programs into human bodies, about all of this... Why not find a way to keep them out or even better, rid themselves of the potential nuisance and nuke the Oligarchs altogether?

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a) Merovingian/Machine collaboration (including research of Beirn's cheat code powers in conjunciton with Cryptos's code which could lead to pushing the Oligarchs out)
b) Machines harnessing some of Sati's programming in conjunction with the programs they have to push the Oligarchs out/render them powerless.
c) Machine/Oligarch war (which seems like the eventual resultant of the Oligarchs being kicked out of the Matrix anyway)
d) Machines kidnapping BIP and using it to do the whole golden hallways reset thing which somehow magically kills oligarchs/blocks them from the Matrix (my least favorite option, since, if you look at it, contains no real further explanation as to why or how the BIP accomplishes this, since it's just code as much as anything else, and that a server reset wouldn't seem to do much...)

I'm sure there are other options to remove the Oligarchs, they just need thought. But again, I don't think removing them is entirely necessary. Just strip them of their power or kick them out of the Matrix and you're essentially golden - not killing off characters in a villain of the week type of action and retaining individuals who could be used to further plot either immediately or soon thereafter.

In fact, it would be interesting if we could somewhere down the road make them into a Merovingian sub-org and bring some balance to the Merovingian Org. I mean, we have more LE characters than anyone by a long shot.

Maybe we could find a way to make some RSI's look like the Wright-Accelerated Exiles under someone like Flood (to fulfill his sub-plot), and then even have some player-characters either make wireframed RSI's or something.

That would need some SERIOUS fleshing out, but it could give the Merv something to do besides the Emo Persephone stuff that was going on at the end there.