Character building and Aligned Timeline Q&A

[Aegir]

Alright-y!

Aegir here, with a small batch of questions that I've been mulling over. These will vary a bit but most of them (hopefully) will all be relevant to the OC App I am currently working on.


Is there an age limit to Cybertronians on this forum? Is a century or two too young for a bot even if we are all using human age equivilants?


If it does not effect the canon events of the Exodus or timeline hereafter in anyway would it be ok to fabricate a temporary OC and shift for the sake of the actual OCs' history?


I'll think of more---but for now these questions are the most pressing.

[Aegir]

Oh! Another huge question that slipped my mind!


How are Cybertronians birthed in this continuity. Are they cold forged? Taken directly from the Well of All Sparks? Or is a protoform shoved into an empty shell enough?

[Deleted]

Hi Aegir!

Age limits - yes, a century or two is probably too young. We're a little fast and loose on the terminology (what cybertronians call centuries would be more like millennia for human years, so you'll see cybertronians referring to things that happened "a hundred years ago" which, if they were to translate it for the humans, would be quite a bit longer sounding). In any case, as far as equivalent years go, Optimus is in his 30's, Bee's in his teens - but Bee was an active Autobot scout before the Exodus happened, so assume we're talking at least over a handful of centuries for most of them.

It's alright to create a temporary OC for the sake of the actually apped OC's history - don't go into a lot of detail, as it's your OC we want to see, but we also don't assume they lived in a vacuum. ^_^ (some examples that spring to mind are things like former squadrons or cohort, which can be mentioned but are understood as being in the past).

Forging - I'm going to point you at the All Spark entry in our wiki (as it's early and I'm precaffeinated and this says it better) tfp-rp-wiki.tiddlyspace.com/#AllSpark Essentially probably 90% of the population was full-framed - frame built for a specific function and taken to the All Spark for ensparking. From there you have the much more minority options of forged, which were mechanisms created by the All Spark, or classes of carriers (such as symbionts, or the 1% self generators)

[Aegir]

Thanks for those answers and the awesome link! I was kinda looking for the forums wiki and now that I have it I shall never let go!


Now I only have one more question; more of a request really.


I tend to like to start characters off from their earliest possible moment. Meaning that they know no one and are as utterly new to the RP world as I am to the forum.


I am sure this is the norm for everyone who starts a new character but I suppose I wanted to ask about the existence of Intro Threads for characters. It all seems rather self-explanatory now that I am writing it out, but I want to verify that an introduction RP thread would be plausible and not too inconvenient.

[Deleted]

Definitely! Any character on this site, canon or not, have had their own intro threads. If you have a look at any of the Earth-based boards you're bound to hit a bunch

There are two different ways you can go about it, and these apply to any of the threads on the board. You can write your post and mark it as 'Open', and wait for others to tag in. Or, you can invite and/or plot it with other people beforehand on the boards/pm/IM/etc so that you know at least which characters you'll be starting out with in your thread. Hope it helped!

[Deleted]

(Aster here)
I'll chime in and say that for a completely new player it's a good idea to talk with some of the existing players and try to have a few interactions in planning, so that you have a chance to get your character involved right off the bat. Sometimes open threads have a tendency to sit because they ARE open, and no one wants to come in uninvited. Also, big open threads with more than, say, 3 characters, tend to get messy and lose momentum and take forever to finish.

Discussing with folks beforehand can help make a little less chaos out of the introductions. You don't have to be related to/know the characters beforehand, but knowing that, for instance, your character might really look up to Bulkhead or want to get into a simmering rivalry with Knock Out is something that you can do while you (and the rest of the group) get a handle on your character's personality. Just my two cents!