unforum

[jebreject]

Holy cow, can't wait to hear more! This is awesome!

[Relia]

Okay, lemme esplain. No, there is too much, lemme sum up.

I was first to arrive at the basketball courts at about 2:45 (I was worried about missing the rest of the crew since I was running late to the Needle, so I went directly to the court). There I met Joey -- the basketball player who informs us that "this is my Milwaukee" in the first seconds of the TIMM promotional video. He was, as expected, surly and disgruntled -- the Joey we know and love. He asked if I had been followed, I replied that I didn't think so, but wasn't sure. It was very cold, a frequent topic of discussion. He asked what sector I was from -- I judged the Philly area to be semi-equivalent to Big Brass City and told him that. He replied he has a nice two-bedroom apartment in Sector 14, the Canning District.

I asked if Blackstar had set him up with that -- he replied, basically, that sure, indirectly they had. He works for the MTC, of course, but we all know whose pocket they're in. He also gave me a "BE AN M-ROTOR RE-SEATER" postcard, which one of us will scan shortly for all of you to have digital copies of as well.

While we waited for 3:00 to roll around, we were joined by several of our good friends from this forum (and some forum-lurkers <3), and -- happily -- a few video cameras, which will make distilling this adventure much easier once they can either YT post those or transcribe them.

Joey asked if we remembered the recent Power outage. We did, of course! He said that they had decided in response to this to establish a new Power Board -- this point was emphasized. He was EXTREMELY concerned about the possibility of Blackstar being given control over this Power Board. Extremely. He went on to say that Power essentially, errr, powers everything in Milwaukee, and how disastrous it would be if Milwaukee were without access to its Power. 'You know how a tree loses its leaves?' he asked. 'Well Milwaukee without its power would be like that. It would be a tree losing its leaves.' (paraphrased from memory, of course. XD) Joey explained that Mike Russo is really concerned for the wellbeing of "the people of Milwaukee" and that this is why the Power Board prospect troubles them both so much.

The way he talked about power was VERY specific. Never "electricity" or "fossil fuels" or anything of the sort. Always "POWER." I got the feeling there was an important distinction there.

We were joined by a man and a woman each in red coats -- Bob and (don't recall her name). "You guys must be here for TIMM...?" the woman asked. Bob, asked what sector he was from, replied that he didn't know. Bob may have been flustered, or may have simply been tagging along with the woman. It seems UNLIKELY they were planted in the group, but they later disappeared, so we can't totally discount the possibility. XD Anyway, this may be a red herring, other than Joey's commenting how suspicious they were in red coats. "Is something important about the color red?" someone asked. "I don't know, IS something important about the color red?" Joey answered. We continue.

Big T was there, so I handed him the photocopy I'd made of A Reasonable Haven. Joey asked where we got THAT, and said that if we'd been in the office when that debacle went down, we wouldn't be handing it out so cavalierly. XD (Poor Joey.) He noted Russo had "taken such a beating" for that that we didn't even know, and at some point reinforced that Mike Russo was a true hero, that guy, like other true heroes: "Ulysses, or Andre the Giant." (In my opinion the best part of the conversation.)

Joey walked off for a bit, presumably to call and check in with Mike Russo. He came back and told us that the MTC had an item of power which was the most powerful item they had. He gave it to me. ()

It was a small trophy of a golden turkey, engraved with the words "CHAMPION DYNASTY FUND." (I love this ARG so much.)

It was so powerful, he said, he couldn't even believe how powerful it was. He said something charmingly Joey-surly about "look, it's so powerful I don't even know if you can be trusted with it, I mean, I've worked at the MTC for (years?) now and I don't know if I could be trusted with it 'but no, Russo says, give it to the girl.' "

There was, at some point in our conversation, a bullhorn from off in the distance. We're not sure if this was In-Game or not, but Joey played off of it as if it was, looking alarmed. We began walking shortly later.

Joey, still discussing the Champion Dynasty Fund (aka my turkey) explained it was like a vastly more powerful version of a family tree. It can be used to enhance one's power level. He noted family trees go in the ground because their power keeps the GoDSEED dormant, but that's only one facet of their power. He told us he's been stockpiling family trees in his apartment for a while now (alas, I can never be his girlfriend if that means the second bedroom is full of fennel) in hopes of improving his powerclass, but he hasn't heard back yet.

I asked if anyone with a family tree could do things like shatter glass (thinking of the second video), or if it depended on your powerclass. He replied that it varied from person to person, but some people, yes, could shatter glass.

He said Blackstar was out on patrol in this area and had cleaned out a bunch of rebels several days before. Joey was VERY NEGATIVE on the idea of rebels and hoped very hard that we wouldn't run into any.

We got onto the topic of Treasure Hunter, who Joey said is "kind of a D list celebrity in Milwaukee ever since the video." He noted that despite this, treasure hunting hasn't really taken off. This got us onto the topic of "who is an A-list celebrity, Terry Nanny?" "Oh, Terry's -- Terry's SO FAR BEYOND A-list, you can't even...." We asked if Joey had ever met him. Joey said that Terry was a person he prefers to meet as little as possible. "He's like, do you remember that famous guy from before the incident who called himself Prince? Who you couldn't even, he didn't even want people to look him in the eye? Terry Nanny is like that, he's like the Prince of the Active times, and if you look him in the eye for too long he gets so mad."

At some point we asked about the Mayor's League, who Joey said were basically like chickens with their heads cut off. XD He says sometimes Anna Tate Mellon just calls up their office and starts yelling about shit. XD He didn't make a big deal of this question, seems it's not terribly important for now.

He looked up in the sky as a flock of geese flew overhead. "That's just beautiful," he said with surprising sincerity (for our usually surly Joey). "You know, Milwaukee's defense is based around the 'V' too."

"Oh really?" we asked. "How so?"

"Well, for instance, when we use the power of the family trees, we stand in a V formation, with the most powerful person in front."

Back on the topic of Blackstar's patrols, someone asked if Worker was going to be out patrolling. "Oh, definitely," Joey said. We asked if there was more than one Worker, or just one.

"Oh, there are lots," he said, "some programmed to be ..... kinder than others. I mean, some are just okay cyborgs, but then some are absolute killing machines. I mean, the other day I was at FeBrizzio's having a margarita and there was one sitting next to me, and I couldn't even tell, but then, I knew, you know, because he didn't eat or drink anything." [[I'm now wondering, was the girl in the Streetcar Shuffle section of the TIMM video possibly also a cyborg?]]

We asked if he'd ever witnessed Worker doing his power run before. "Yeah, I have." "Against you?" "No, thankfully. But he did use it against Treasure Hunter once, and it's a good thing Treasure hunter had a family tree and a power gem, or he'd never have made it."

We started walking. As we walked, I saw something, suddenly, that was extremely disturbing. I saw a man in the far distance.

In Central Park, in January, with snow on the ground:

with short sleeves.

"Oh my God, Joey, is that WORKER?" I asked. He whirled, frantic. "Where?"

"Over there, in the button-down with the short sleeves!"

"It IS Worker, quick, hide, hide, over here, HIDE BEHIND THIS TREE!"

(Imagine, if you will, nine people all trying to "hide" behind the trunk of one tree at the edge of a huge empty clearing. Yes. I love this game.)

Joey reached into his bag and began frantically yanking out family trees (fennel bulbs). He handed these out to people (not me, I of course had the CHAMPION DYNASTY FUND ).

"Now, to activate one of these, you hold it up and shout 'BONUS'," he'd told us at some point earlier. (sorry, conversation order is all mixed up in my memory, but I'm doing my best XD). "Except the Champion Dynasty Fund, for that you should 'BONUB.' " (Awww, yeah.)

So now we got out from behind the tree and formed up in a V formation, with Joey at the front of the V. He placed me directly behind him safely half-hidden, protected kind of like a quarterback is protected in the Victory "V" kneeling formation in football -- except in this case visually rather the opposite, as we looked much more Mighty Ducks. XD Still, I enjoyed having an honor guard.

Worker began to run directly towards us in his POWER RUN.

This was so awesome words can't describe.

We held up our family trees and began shouting "BONUUUUUUS" so loudly that I hope there were passersby and if so, I hope they were duly impressed.

I was reluctant to shout "BONUB" just yet as Joey had specifically told us the CDF was so powerful I couldn't just be using it willy-nilly.

Worker was slowed by the efforts of Bonus, but not stopped. HIS POWER RUN STILL CAME, SURE AND INEXORABLE. Joey stepped aside. "Now, now, use the Champion Dynasty Fund!"

I held up my golden turkey trophy of power and yelled out fiercely, Winterfell! BONUB!!!!!!! with all my fury.

Worker fell back, dropped to the ground.

Then he got up and ran.

Joey, rallied by this turn in our fortunes, gave chase, yelling "BONUS" with his family tree held out fearlessly -- we chased too, high on our bravery and success. As he ran, Worker frantically threw a large handful of paper into the air and kept running. As we got closer, Joey told us "you stay here and figure this out, I'll go after him!"

We took this to mean we would not be seeing Worker or Joey again, gathered up one hundred (or, errr, ninety-nine) one dollar bills -- each with an orange sticker with one alphanumeric character on it, stuck over the word "ONE" on the dollar bill.

We thought we'd probably have to arrange these in order by serial number, but that it was too cold and windy and snowy AND COLD AND COLD AND COLD to do so where we were, and we were sure Joey wasn't coming back today. (Be safe, Joey. ;__; ) So we ended up at a Starbucks.

Once the dollars were ordered (with #42 sadly missing, but happily not so important -- unless 99 was a purposeful number of dollars handed out because it's a multiple of three XD), it spelled out the following message:

I MADE A MISTAKE WORKING HERE, BUT I'M TOO DEEP TO QuIT 888 @ 8 AV FOR BUSINESS AND EVEN SOME PLEASURE PHASE TWO NOW BEGINS <3 MM

Description of Part Two of this adventure to follow. <3

[teufelsdrochk]

[Relia]

BE A RE-SEATER POSTCARD:

[WARNING: 300 dpi scan. This thing is fucking huge. Since some details are quite small, I wanted you to be able to see the glory of cool dog the postcard at a very large resolution.]

Note:

"Opportunities" is in a small-caps font, nothing else is.

"Heroes for a reasonable tomorrow" -- the second time "reasonable" has been prominently used as a ringing endorsement, the first being Milwaukee: A Reasonable Haven.

Number at bottom left of reverse of postcard reads "A-7948" All copies of the postcard read the same.

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk31/Meropia/TIMM/reseater-postcard-1.png (front)
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk31/Meropia/TIMM/reseater-postcard-2.png (reverse)

[Relia]

[Tilanol]

The "Does he know?" scene makes way more sense now.

I think Relia's idea about the woman being a Worker is right (barring Workers all look the same). When guy stops dancing and's trying to get the lime, he's probably trying to find something to defeat the lady Worker. When they part in opposite directions, it's because the man is now a Worker too.

Sorry if this is hard to understand. It's much more clear in my mind.

[GMcG]

[another_pilot_dwn]

but we never see him drink

[GMcG]

[Relia]

Forgot to mention, also from the conversation with Joey -- he's never met Chuck Jagoda, just knows the Jagoda Museum.

[swift360]

amazing - thanks guys!

[Tilanol]

[Scaurus]

I just want to thank Relia for that write up. I'm sure the video will be even better, but that was more than enough to get my wife and I breathless with laughter. Well played!

[dposse]

wow, Relia!! that's soo amazing!!!!!

[DorianaGraye]

First, thanks for the write-up! It was delightful to read (I, too, love this ARG).

Anyway, I think the missing dollar bill is significant. 42, according to Douglas Adams in his book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is the meaning of "life, the Universe, and everything." Here's a link to the Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything#Answer_to_Life.2C_the_Universe.2C_and_Everything_.2842.29

Note: There was also a puzzle (albeit an arbitrary one) associated with the book and 42. It was created in 1994 when the book was released in the States. The Wikipedia entry lists possible solutions.

The odds of the 42nd bill in the sequence going missing coincidentally are extremely slim. Also, the bill's assigned letter was an unnecessary one--it was obvious that a "u" must subsequently follow the "q." Just throwing that out there.

Can't wait for the video!