Roleplay contrivance advice

[Ptyra]

Hello all. It's been a while since I've posted anything, but for some reason, I felt I didn't have anything to contribute since the last time I did.

However, I am in need of some brainstorming for an issue I personally am having with a roleplay I'm doing with a friend.

It's a Jurassic Park-Dinotopia crossover roleplay that is just between the two of us, and an enormous part of it is pretty much bull-pooped to get the story going.

The story is focused on Muldoon surviving his attack by the Big Raptor, but being stranded (same friend is writing a story about his experiences, including caring for the baby raptor that hatched in the movie). A woman from Dinotopia comes up from underground while searching for a lost baby dinosaur and brings her back with him. However, he is not the only one to come from Nublar to Dinotopia, and there is a greater threat to the well-being of the island than the dinosaurs coming through from Nublar...when there is an outbreak of rats and plague infects the humans. And also he forms a special friendship with the woman who saves him

Based on the information from the Dinotopia books, it's best assumed that it's in the Pacific Ocean...same with Nublar. For the sake of plot, Dinotopia is connected to Isla Nublar (and Sorna...and the other three islands) by a series of underground tunnels/The World Beneath. However...I feel like this is MASSIVELY contrived.

And yet...I think rats from the outside world being a bigger threat to the Dinotopian populace than genetically altered monstrosity dinosaurs running amok is...incredibly awesome.
I mean, this is the image I use for the roleplay page!


And then there's the question of why Muldoon's rescuer was on a search party in the first place. Penny Lewis, the character in question, is an inspector...could there be a better reason than "I just wanted to help"? She's not even a native Dinotopian, she's from New Zealand originally, and had been living on Dinotopia practically her entire adult life thus far.

Does anyone have advice?

[jansenov]

In Croatia there's is a river that starts in the Velebit mountain range, flows under the Adriatic Sea for 50 kilometers, and resurfaces on the island of Cres, where it is the dominant source of water for the Vransko lake. Velebit and Vransko also exchange species of fish through this river.

You could use a greater underground river with its source in the mountains of Dinotopia and destination in some low-lying cavern on Nublar, however Nublar cannot be too far from Dinotopia (though I wager it can be out of sight), and you need some kind of submarine to navigate this river.

So, Nublar is not visible from Dinotopia, and we'll take the invisibility of Dinotopia for granted.

By using a submarine, you have automatically solved the problem of motivation. It is part of an exploration effort.

In this case Nublar dinosaurs will not be able to reach Dinotopia. However, rats could enter the submarine with some luck, and diseases such as the common cold and influenza (possibly plague, but these two are more likely) will definitely ravage the human population of the island. The rats will become a major pest, but small predators in Dinotopia will probably get used to them over time.

This is only slightly less contrived than what you proposed, though.

[Ptyra]

That does make a bit more sense. Though, it doesn't answer how the baby dinosaur got there either...it's depicted as an ankylosaur. Penny is also riding on her Tenontosaurus companion when she rescues Muldoon...not sure how well he could fit in a submarine, even a big one =P

The idea does hold water (...ha) though, because there are underwater tunnels in Dinotopia's world beneath, mainly to the sunken city of Posidos.

Plague, in my mind, holds water too, since the biggest culprit, besides fleas on the rats, was bacteria, combined with a lack of immunity to find it...I'm pretty sure that of all the people in high-quality living (their quality of living might even be better than those in the western world) , they would be the most vulnerable to plague.

One of the biggest dinosaur threats I can think of is one of the Spinosaurs from Sorna, which starts beating the crap out of pretty much every large predator on Dinotopia. Including other Spinosaurs, which I think of as being the most benign of the big ones there, and even have some involvement with the lives of humans...mostly in keeping the shores safe. It's gotta get there somehow, as well as the Sorna Velociraptors, Diloposaur from both, and the Compys.

[Kor]

Not sure exactly what you are looking for.  There were at least tunnels that the dinos used to get to Dinotopia, as I recall, in the distant past.  & at least 1 dino went the other way, going from Dinotopia to ancient egypt to retire there and taking up the name of Thoth.

[Ptyra]

Well, yeah, that is true. It's such great ancient history that the Dinotopians of the 1800's considered it to be myth...at least until Arthur Dennison found massive amounts of fact in it. Egypt would be much farther from Dinotopia than Nublar, so the tunnels do make a bit more sense.

So, it would be 1993 when Penny would come up on Nublar, and there might be some people daring enough to break ancient code and go poking around. However, there's still the question of why she came along on the mission to rescue a lost baby dinosaur. She's something along the lines of a health and safety inspector for businesses and so forth. I've written her as being on a break from work after her last inspection and came along just to help, but that doesn't seem quite right either.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

You could use the novel version of Muldoon, he survives in that one. Not to mention he's 300% more badass, probably the most badass character in the novel. He blows apart a couple raptors with a rocket launcher and faces down a charging T. Rex with a tranquilizing pistol! Then the problem doesn't even come up.

Actually, if you count expanded universe, movie Muldoon survives in the follow-up comic book series.

[Ptyra]

I've actually started reading the book . Frankly I find the best thing that book!Muldoon does is inducting that at least Tim is alive following the Tyrannosaur attack just by the presence of his undamaged watch.

In spite of that, I still feel more of an attachment to the film version, as does my friend. I think with his background, he might be able to survive and just barely cling on, but he was pretty much at death's door when he is found by Penny in the role play. He'd be at a point where it would be considered a huge miracle for him to have survived the journey underground.

That's not really the part I'm worried about, though, it's the issue of how Penny gets to him, and how all the stuff from Nublar/Sorna/other three islands start coming over and wreaking havoc. And why a health&safety inspector is going on a massive search and rescue into worlds unknown. Which is probably the biggest thing.

[DarkHououmon]

Well, does Penny have to be a safety and health inspector? If that alone makes it difficult to figure out why she's on a massive search and rescue thing, then maybe you should consider changing her profession to something that's more believable for undertaking such a task.

[Ptyra]

In my mind, it's just what works best for her personality...that and it was the best explanation I could come up with her travelling all across the island.

[DarkHououmon]

Ah I see. Then maybe she goes under a seach and rescue because she cares? Maybe she is selfless enough to undertake such a dangerous task? I personally don't really see a problem with a security and health inspector doing something like this if they really want to help someone out.

[Ptyra]

I do kinda think that maaaaybe she would actually be a necessity, like they need someone to keep up with the rest of the rescue team and make sure that everything is secure. And by the point she's at, she should have a sharp eye for little anomalies...

[Ptyra]

Ohay I just realized more big issues needing to be addressed.

First, the rats.

Why did it take until the events of that particular story to take place? If they were getting over from Nublar from underground, supposing that John Hammond had been prepping the island for several years, maybe a decade, then surely Dinotopia should have had an infestation by the time Penny brings Muldoon back?

Why would it have taken so long for that to happen? Unless it's normal for plague animals to be running about a strange land for a several years before they spread their diseases. Isn't that how it worked in Europe's plagues?

Second, the supporting cast
Penny is a character I had created a few years back when I watched the Dinotopia television/mini series. She was a vastly different character and fit into the film universe. Her companion was a Stenocosaurus named Krau. Krau is now a Tenontosaurus named Prem. And so far in my roleplay...he hasn't done much. He's supposedly Penny's best friend, but so far, a Deinonychus named Scheherazade has been filling that role. "Hera" is more meant to be an assistant to Penny, and has a slightly more maternal attitude toward her...though I'm not sure what she actually does. So Prem is highly lacking in his role and has contributed little, and I have no idea what Scheherazade does. The only character that I have a bit more established is a Protoceratops, Oktai, a translator that accompanies Penny while she travels...and he's done even less than Prem. Yet I really want to do more with these characters, and I tend to even forget about Oktai.
Any suggestions for how I could give them more to do?

I think a big part of Prem's problem is that he doesn't speak human languages, and Penny can only vaguely interpret his "speech".

[Kor]

A podcast I listen to has had some segments about disease and it's transmission.  They key is step 1 is if a disease can, if its a virus for example, can it mutate to where it can do pig or avian to human.  The next step is can it mutate again to have it be easy for it to be transmitted human to human.  If it does only step 1 then humans who are in close association with say avians or pigs say, can get the disease but they can't spread it.  

Also if the disease is like the plagues that Europe had in waves, those who know better history then I do like Malte and Nick22 would know more, was it was caused by the fleas on rats, and I think I read somewhere that there was a superstition that some had that cats were evil.  Though some humans who survived had 2 copies of the gene that let them be immune, or if they had 1 copy, if I remember what I saw on tv show, the person would get sick, but would survive, not be killed by it.

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As for not understanding the dino language maybe a small bird that can speak human languages, could be around to translate, or if raised together some humans may understand dino languages and some dinos could understand some human languages.  

For Example someone who can only speak French but understands English, and another person who can only speak English but understands French can speak to each other in a language the other does understand.