Hello everyone! Veralta's here to present a tale of journalism, 'heroism', free speech, AIs, and virtual worlds, with a hint of a conspiracy within a conspiracy. This is one of the longest skips that I have written (clocking in at 4.9k when I last checked it), but somehow, I made it work.
This is also Part 1 of my team's series for the RenCon contest, where we plan to make the Foundation rumble with a brand-new GoI, Aviatica, which is made up of journalists. A massively secret force meets a massive truth-seeking and radical organization, in short.
Special thanks to chiifu and
Cerastes for critting the plot outline and plan for this article, and to
Ralliston,
Sebarus,
caspian2 and
basicskipreader for helping me figure out how to properly do the pacing, tension-building, characterization, motives of said characters, and ending of this article. You guys really helped me out making a story like this :)
As always, I hope you enjoy this piece!
