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First of all from what I gather I'm going back to the hollow/shinigami stuff for a moment. I may be Canadian but we do learn some American case studies politics and whatnot in Social Studies. If we are going COld War style, I'd say what Axie is describing is more a dentente period, there's communication and trying to lessen the strain but there are still strains and by no means is there no conflict and total peace. I believe we are avoiding more brinksmanship and hot war between the two factions at the opening point of the story. Believe me in the second arc there's plently of room for plently of stuff to go all over the place.
Though I think the idea is we want to keep the first plot of the guild from being the same on the brink of war, or mysterious enemies from the shadow of the past or hell.... which maybe nobody else has a problem with it, but frankly I've gotten bored in a lot of Bleach guilds or won't join them for that reason.
(P.S there wasn't always a whole lot of communication in the Cold War, lack of communication lead to a lot of the issues, the communication was definitelty present during the less strenuous times like the dentente period but in times like ther Cuban MIssile Crisis things weren't being chatted up so well between the tweo superpowers).
I'd like to throw it out there now that the artifiact in question is of unknown orgin and power and it's discovery by certain means at/near the end of the arc is what creates the next conflict/arc. So there's plently of time fto fight over it later-ish. But conflict and stuff over the scientist in question is probably very likely even if the artifiact isn't known.
Humans are a large portion of the center of this arc why not make it more clear? Humans could be helping/opposing the scientist? Who isn't to say the scientist is helping/experimenting on/kidnapping quincy and fullbringers? There's a lot of ways things could be going in the human world and the increase in spirtual humans in the world of the living may just be the tip of the iceburg. I mean Some may be seeing the scientist as a huge help with a great vision (perhaps even because they hate the shinigami) others may see him as mad. I mean it isn't completely unlikely that the scientist has some specimens to keep and experiment on,even if he's building up just gifted humans maybe he's striving for more than that. If he's an ally of Quincy maybe he's even having them kidnap shinigami, and trying to create quincy with the ability to purify rather than destroy as part of his goal in his human based society. Though he's been unsucessful so far and is still upsetting the balance unknowigly in his experiments. I dunno I just woke up and am throwing out some little brainstrom things just to keep the creative juices flowing on the possibilities we have based on what Axie has said. Half of what I said is probably god awful but maybe it will inspire good ideas.
We probably won't close off any factions all will become imoportant, Thatincludes Quincy and fullbringers, so hopefully in reveal to the opening arc some interest in those characters will arise. If you know RPers who would be interested in filling any roles in our guild no matter what faction feel free to invite/recruit away.

The ending to a lot of the conclusions made seemed a bit vague. Also I had just woken up, the reason social studies is even on the brain right now is because I've been studying for my diploma in a week. I've been exhausted and very sick lately so my apologies, my brain isn't/hasn't been working at it's best for the last week, but at least now I am more awake.
The artifact is just that an artifact, ancient forgotten by time and it's full capacity unknown. It is revealed in the second arc by a specific character who is mainly just a plot point, that it is really only one piece of an artifact that was once broken into pieces instead of destroyed. The creators are long since dead and nobody knows what the pieces can do when combined. As knowledge of this spread people and factions will be wanting it for themselves and trying to collect the artifact together in trying to gain it's power, or in some cases, destroy it keep it from others. The idea is people will want it for various reasons and likely go to many lengths to achieve that. It allows for their to be conflict not only with factions but within them, because not everybody is noble and some will likely want it for themselves. So on and so forth.
I'd only discussed this with a few people because we wanted to focus on getting the guild ready, made and the first plot line sorted out completely first? Like no need to get hostile about it, but there were other things to focus on before we get all riled up about it. In fact I was under the impression the artifact wouldn't even be mentioned in the first plot line to begin with, though it was but I avoided completely mentioning the second plot because that shouldn't be an immediate issue. Like I've been more worried about working on the front page and sub-forums then telling everybody about every plot line element and idea beyond arc 1because, that's more important to reopening of the guild than knowing exactly what arc 2 is about. At least that's what I thought, I wanted to give it more time before we go talking about it but there it is, not in full detail, because I don't feel like going to retrieve every more detailed account I've written about it in previous conversations.

You're right...I'm just gonna keep my mouth...I mean fingers....quiet for awhile.

Um, this is just an idea I recently thought up, and this isn't supposed to be an arc, but more a component that we build up through other arcs. Maybe have a more sinister side to Central 46 be shown, since those guys seemed to be somewhat sinister in my opinion, and I was wondering if perhaps expanding on them would be interesting.