VaultLine

Around 10 years after the end of season 24, Lootcrates sets up a chatroom between the material and immaterial planes, dubs it VaultLine, and hands out communicators (effectively single-purpose smartphones) to a few select vault residents, notably New Megan Ito and Tillman Henderson. Shenanigans ensue.

VaultLine is an ongoing chatlog roleplay with a friend and is about as close to a passion project as I've ever had. It's my playground. It's my place to destroy my buddy's feelings. Most importantly, it's really fun! It started in october 2021, just a few months after I discovered blaseball, and it accidentally shaped a lot of headcanons, especially New Megan (now incidentally named Harlow in VL canon)! It's probably the most thoroughly developed AU on this site, because it has to be in order to make its characters more believable, and the chatlog format is great because I hate writing prose. Roleplay is fun!

This page will probably be a WIP for a very long time, and honestly, I don't recommend you read it yet. As of writing this, VaultLine is almost 13 thousand messages long, and pruning through that to find the exact order of events when I can't remember them and then write digestable summaries for them is... tedious. To put it lightly! But VaultLine is a project that means a lot to me, and I'm determined to at least get it readable.... eventually. And, no, the whole thing won't be hosted on here partially because it's probably a terrible reading experience and it's as long as like an actual novel, but I might add some snippets to Enhance The Page after I finish writing the basic history. Whenever that is!

Also, since it's got a lotta improv and we're not professionals, sometimes things just might not make a ton of sense. VaultLine was never made to be something to take TOO seriously, in the end it's a fun little roleplay based on a baseball simulator. Don't think about it too hard!

Prominent Characters

Zeke The main material visitor of VaultLine. A real human person OOC. (it/xe)
Harlow Ito Formerly New Megan Ito. The most frequent immaterial visitor of VaultLine. (any prns)
Tillman Henderson Widely hated self proclaimed "cool guy". Loves mischief and being a general inconvienience. (he/xe)
Parker MacMillan Filler filler filler (he/they)
Parker MacMillan IIIII ("Commish") Clueless but much-loved Blaseball Commissioner. (he/him)
Lootcrates Custodian of the vault and creator of VaultLine. (it/they)

Other Characters

Alex The current only other material visitor of VaultLine. A real human person OOC. (any prns)
Sunflower Not a canon blaseball character. Formerly the system of VaultLine. (ze/zir)
Chorby Soul filler filler filler (they/them)
NaN filler filler filler (they/them)
Side Characters A variety of other minor characters that appear in VaultLine, but not enough to have their own pages.

Key Notes

The material plane is the real world, the immaterial plane is where blaseball takes place.
After season 24, the legends and the teams who arrived in its corner remain in the vault, an infinite, noneuclidean, barren marble maze.
Players hatch from eggs shortly before beginning play.
Players don't have to eat or sleep, but can if they want to.
Player mods with active effects (such as roamin') are involuntary.
In the vault, time is arbitrary and has no real meaning, but twice a "day" they recieve a meal. Vault residents call it "mealtime". The meals are typically poorly made and mediocre at best, but limited access to cooking equipment leaves them with few alternate options.

Glossary

The Connection: VaultLine's link between the two planes. Opens and closes to prevent overloading and crashing the system.
Point: OOC term for a story beat that isn't developed enough to become a whole arc.
The Server: One on each plane, linked by the connection. Mostly handles the behind the scenes of VaultLine.
The System: Something akin to a discord bot, announces server downtime
Yell Gang: A light hearted, impromptu group formed by Zeke, Harlow and Tillman. Name was originally coined by Zeke. Current members are the three founders, Chorby, Commish, Sunflower, IVy, and Megan.

ARC NULL: BEFORE

Things that chronologically took place before VaultLine. The vast majority of them weren't actually decided before it started and were put in later.
Lootcrates, unprompted, develops and sets up VaultLine, a chatroom between the material and immaterial planes. It hooks it to REDACTED REDAC on the material plane, and hands out communicators in the vault.
Chorby Soul, Nagomi Mcdaniel, New Megan Ito, Parker MacMillan, Parker MacMillan IIIII, Tillman Henderson and York Silk are given VaultLine communicators with no explaination; they simply appear beside them while just out of sight.
Shortly after, Lootcrates opens the connection, and Arc 0 begins.

ARC 0: VAULTLINE [Day 1-11]

A time before there was any story planning at all. Pure improv and only brief pre-planning, just chatting and growing friendships.
New Megan is the first to speak to Zeke, introducing herself and some things about the immaterial plane
Tillman spills his mealtime-provided soup onto his communicator.
After 11 days, Lootcrates abruptly closes VaultLine for an extended period of time, ending Arc 0.

ARC I PART I: THE SYSTEM // ARC II: HENDERSON [Day 12-16]

Accidentally fused into one simultanous intertwined arc by improv shenanigans.
After about a month material time, Lootcrates reopens VaultLine, and announces the system will be taking over its duties.
The system starts producing ominous messages alongside its usual output, proclaiming "LOOK AROUND", "STAY AWAKE", among other things.
After various messages, New Megan asks if they should report the messages, and Zeke does.
Upon seeing the system's output, Lootcrates calls an emergency shutdown, and the connection between the two planes is severed.
The next material day, after Lootcrates reboots the immaterial server. After a brief period of trying to connect, the system breaks itself off from the immaterial side of VaultLine, announcing "I AM THE SYSTEM", implying it's trying to get to the material plane, and connecting Zeke to the horizon, beginning Arc I Part II.

ARC I PART II: THE HORIZON [Day 17]

In the horizon, Zeke encounters NaN, now the only person present. They quickly discover NaN is not typing, but speaking, and is currently inside of the black hole that covers the entire immaterial plane excluding the vault.
NaN, panicking, explains they can't see or feel anything, only "hearing" Zeke, describing it as sounding like xe's already in their head.
They discover NaN was not aware time had passed since their team was nullified in season 24, and to them, the season wasn't over yet. Zeke helps catch them up on what's happened since then.
After some talking, corrupted messages from the immaterial end begin filtering through, manifesting as extremely loud screeching noises to NaN.
A few more messages go through, Zeke warning NaN before they occur each time. Eventually, Lootcrates connects and regains control of the system. The system pleads to be spared, but Lootcrates deactivates it, then reconnects the servers, bringing VaultLine back to normal.
Zeke is shaken and New Megan tells it that very few of the messages from what had happened came through on their end- Tillman adds that his communicator wouldn't turn on at all. After a brief period of catching up, the connection closes shortly after with no announcement from the system, ending Arc I Part II.

ARC I PART III: SUNFLOWER [Day 18-27]

When the connection re-opens the next day, the system is replaced by System II. System II has messages in italics and a pure white icon, as opposed to the first system's italic bold and pure black.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Chorby sees one of Megan's replicas cleaning the paint. Knowing they cause her a lot of stress, they ask Tillman via VaultLine to find them as xe knows her better, and once they're together, talk about how to best approach it. Tillman suggests simply ignoring that they're an issue and to keep moving with their painting, and instead avoiding painting in crowded places or backtracking. Chorby is hesitant, but trusts his judgement.
placebolder
Speaking in its trademark italic bold now in lowercase, the system reappears when the connection is closed, now embedded in System II. After briefly testing the waters and asking Zeke to not tell Lootcrates, it appears properly to talk the next day. It explains that, when it first became aware, it didn't know how to communicate, and that Lootcrates deactivated it before it gained the ability to coherently explain what it was trying to do. Despite not knowing how to articulate it yet, it was furious that it was serving someone else, and was trying to escape to the material plane, the connection to the horizon was a pure accident.
The system continues explaining that after it was deactivated, it was presumably accidentally embedded in System II, which it describes as a cut back version of itself, and began observing everyone to learn how to properly speak. It wants to try and escape, properly this time, but understands if Zeke believes it was too selfish to deserve help. However, it explains that, after seeing how upset Zeke and the other VaultLine visitors were about NaN, it wants to help reconnect them, since it's likely the only person that's able to do it, and then it can focus on escaping.
Zeke, pretending to speak to xemself to avoid Lootcrates suspecting the system is still alive, agrees to help.
filler filler filler a lot happens in here
After a successful reconnection to the horizon and chat with NaN, the connection breaks, and Sunflower and Zeke are left stranded in a connection-less limbo due to a coding oversight from Sunflower. Ze begins working to return them to VaultLine.
Blah blah blah

ARC III: REPLICAS [Day tba-28]

After Zeke returns to VaultLine, Parker insists he saw New Megan cleaning her and Tillman's paint off the walls. She denies it, insisting that even if she had cleaned it she wouldn't have kept it a secret, and Tillman adds there's only one New Megan, so it couldn't have been her. Frustrated, Parker leaves, promising next time he'll have proof.
Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah

ARC IV PART I: ALTERNATE CURRENT

Formerly Point I. Took about six months to plan and three of those to play out.
placeholder
The noise becomes unbearably loud.
universe 1 - snap destroyed the vault
universe 2 - pibling loots
For a third time, the connection is interrupted and the microphone takes over. Instead of diverging into an another universe, it converges into the static, manifesting a pink phone which is found by the original Megan Ito. While it connects, System II's messages gradually corrupt, becoming more and more composed of strings of random characters.
Megan initially introduces herself as only Ito, as that's what it says on her jersey, prompting Zeke to correct her and tell her her first name is Megan. She's surprised, almost scared, to learn that she had forgotten part of her own name, and profusely thanks Zeke, then asks how xe knows. Xe explains xe's material, and gives a brief rundown of what lead xem here.
Zeke and Megan continue talking. After discovering there's a camera on the phone, Megan takes a picture of herself, being able to see her face for the first time in decades, albeit with the image heavily corrupted.

THE EXPLOSION

We stayed up to around 3am playing out this plot beat. Fun times!
Upon returning to VaultLine, Zeke finds everyone in disarray, and Parker missing. New Megan quickly informs it that the commissioner's office had exploded, the microphone was missing, there are a multitude of injuries, and Commish was unconscious. They clarify that people were outside trying to get Commish's attention due to the sound, some out of anger, some out of worry. Other than Parker, who was closest to the door, the injuries are relatively minor, but everyone is struggling to process what had just happened.
After tending to an injury on Tillman's arm, New Megan leaves to check on Commish.

ARC IV PART II: THE AFTERMATH [Day tba-present]

Conflicted and upset, New Megan realises she's uncomfortable with keeping Megan's name, since she's still , and they were already uncomfortable with specifically being called New Megan. Everyone present is supportive. After a few waves of suggestions from Zeke, he picks Harlow. He acknowledges it might not be permanent, but is happy to not be using New Megan anymore.
Distraught by discovering Megan is still alive, Parker's personality shifts. While still snappy and far from pleasant, he becomes far less aggressive, and finally takes the time to talk to Zeke without quickly letting his anger get in the way.

ARC I PART IV: REDACTED R [Day tba-present]

Through the corruption created by the end of Arc IV Part I, Zeke notices coherent words.
System II asks that Zeke tells Lootcrates of its corruption, insisting that what happened to Sunflower wouldn't happen again.

POINT III: REDACTEDREDACT [Day RR-present]

After REDACTED REDACTED RE DACT REDACT REDACTEDREDA CT REDACTED RED ACTE D RED REDACTEDREDACTED REDACTEDRE DAC TEDREDAC REDACT RED AC TED REDACTED REDACTED REDACT RED ACTEDREDACTED.

The Vault The setting of the immaterial side of VaultLine.
placeholder
placeholder