In the world described in my last post, here’s a tentative pass at a storyline:
*First contact between the starfaring species and the planet-bound magical species. It will establish a lot of the races, culture, world, and the initial conflict. The space race is militaristic and is claiming the planet to ‘protect’ it in an ongoing war.
*Several years later, a special ops captain of the spacers is interrogating a captured, tortured mage and trying to control his mind with cybernetic implants
*A young male apprentice mage is travelling with his older female magess teacher. They are going to a local elder’s council to discuss the disappearance of a major mage in the area (the same one as being interrogated?). The apprentice is a child of a society overrun by another society: he has dyed hair, tattoos, ear piercings, and small pieces of technology. His instructor spars with him constantly over his dilution of their culture; he thinks she’s clinging to a past that’s gone. He takes the world a bit for granted
*A young female willful scientist studying magic, trying to explain it in terms of logic and science. She’s on the planet studying the ‘natives’. She means well but is a bit condescending towards them
*The magess and apprentice begin to discuss with the council the disapperance and others like it that have happened. THey suspect foul play. They are all arrested for treason by the spacer police
*The scientist witnesses the arrest/abduction and stubbornly asks questions about it. She sees the young man (the apprentice) as the wizards are carted off, something about him intrigues her (obviously setting up a love interest). She keeps pressing the point until she sees the special ops leader from earlier, a hard nosed man with a reputation. She spars with him but is brushed off.
*She goes back to her home on the planet, an ‘apartment’ she shares with a gay male spacer who is a sort of wandering spirit, he’s there on the planet to just enjoy the local life (and men)
*After talking more about the arrest, they boldly decide to break the people out suspecting some sort of foul play. They take along the man’s boyfriend, a gay male native mage
*They break the apprentice out, but the others are nowhere to be found. The apprentice doesn’t know why they were arrested and at first doesn’t believe their concerns of foul play but changes his mind when he sees lies spread on the holo-broadcast about him by the police trying to bring him in.
*The group heads out to the great council, a high order of wizards and elders that commune with the spirits to govern/advise their world. Wanted by the police on lies of violent crime, he feels he can’t show his face til he goes to this council.
*They try to make their way across country to the council, avoiding large towns. The spacers are frustrated by their lack of technology they are dependent on. They have encounters with local characters and creatures exposing the beauty of the planet. The scientist continues to try to grasp how magic works, the young man tries to convince her to just believe in it
*Special ops follow them on the way, nearly capturing them several times
*Following clues they find an old deserted keep atop a dungeon guarded by strange creatures. Deep in the depths they find the guardians of the council. They allow only the boy into the inner maze of chambers. The gay mage throws him a good luck charm that secretly has a transceiver in it. He works for the government, helping them find this secretive council of powerful mages in exchange for immunity from their arrest and a free ticket to anywhere in the galaxy (he has a desire to see all that the technology-rich spacers have to offer)
*The enemy attacks and captures the council in an intense fight, but first they traveled to the spirit realm and found the souls of the apprentice’s teacher far away. Barely escaping with a guard of the council, they learn of the gay mage’s treachery, and in shock leave for the location of the captured teacher and presumably where these mages are going as well.
*There they find the powerful spirit stone used by mages to channel mana/spirit energy being mined in huge quantities. Also, a ship is being prepared for transit to the nearest spaceport to take off into orbit, carrying all the mages. They find them in a strange cryo-sleep with numerous cybernetic implants embedded in their bodies. The mining is of great concern to the apprentice: apparently the mages have always used the stone sparingly as it serves as both a link and a barrier to the spirit world. Upsetting so much breaks the barrier. Ghostly demonic creatures begin to slip into the real world around them. Things will get very bad very soon if something is not done.
*They confront the gay mage with a battalion of men. Enraged by the deception the gay spacer fights and kills him. They escape and head to the spaceport to intercept the sleeping mages being shipped somewhere offplanet
*They sneak a ride up to a space station where the ship is going, and sneak through the tunnels of the space station. There they run into a group of spacer terrorists who are trying to blow up the military installation. The group from the planet explain the kidnapped mages and how they can’t blow it up yet, and the terrorists reluctantly agree to wait to find out what is going on. All they knew is some sort of uber-weapon was being built and they intended to stop it in protest of the war, reckoning the lives of those on the station were worth it to prevent further loss of life.
*Apprentice goes with some of terrorists and overhears conversations. The special ops leader is using the scientist’s understanding of magic to create a powerful weapon of linked mage minds under mind control. The huge amounts of the stone link them back to their world so that when the station leaves orbit to attack enemy worlds far away they can still cast spells (they’ve apparently done experiments that show without the stone mages power diminishes away from the home planet). The weapon would be a surprise to enemies as it did not exhibit any of the normal weapon signatures (perhaps the station is disguised as a delipidated old ship?) and could sneak up on enemies
*Enraged, the apprentice thinks the scientist was going along with this all along. They argue and he realizes she is as angry over this misuse as he is. Their relationship has built up to this point and they finally realize how much they care for each other.
*Finally, the apprentice decides to travel to the spirit plane and find his teacher’s soul. The spirit plane is harrowing for one so young and inexperience as he, but he finds her and talks to her, barely avoiding her desire to take over his body since her soul is basically caught in purgatory. He explains what is happening to her, and she and the other sleeping mages’ souls link together and take control of the weapon from the spacers.
*The mage weapon attacks the spaceports across the planet and numerous ships before the spacers can react. The terrorists set of small bombs in the station aimed at keeping the station intact but incapicatating the enemy spacers on board.
*Finally, the captured mage council confers with the apprentice. They meet with the remaining spacers and make them leave the planet and the solar system forever. Those who wish to stay can but must never make contact with the spacer race again. The council decides to stay on the weapon as a guardian over the planet. They appoint the apprentice as a mage and give him the task to rebuild the council and the planet in the wake of the spacers leaving.