Topic on Talk:Order of the Baristas

This is a permanent link to the first version of this post. You can view later versions on the post history page.

I think the question right now is like, how well grounded is the Thunder Plains? I think setting up the pseudo journey starting somewhere in the Middle East seems inappropriate for the aforementioned reasons, but I think some of these feel like they're feeding into the same problems of mystifying coffee growing places? Like, e.g., coffee isnt really grown in the arab world.

I went into my specific apprehensions in my other reply, but on a similar note, having Baristas have to start in the Middle East doesn't really make sense when much of the lore in this page is very explictly American or Anglo-centric (e.g. the names on here and I've proposed are references to Western media or organizations) and it doesn't really mash well with the sudden dropping in of another country without sounding like the Arab World is some kind of mystical origin for Baristas without any worldbuilding bridging the gap (e.g. coffee is somehow made or ruled over by a white Canadian man despite originating from across the ocean?) So yeah, I agree with ohnoitsal that without significant workshopping, this idea seems kind of careless and that since the Thunder Plains bit is so central to Garages lore, it might be better to post it here as a separate talk page/revision.

My general suggestion is that if there's any new lore you want to add, we should either keep it grounded to the real places and what their role is in the coffee industry or to take care to ensure that it really works as just a silly bit, and both these cases require a better grounding in the real world practices and places this writing works with.

Personally, I'm not particularly invested in Barista lore- and personally, unless I have a very strong reason in order to do so, I try to keep things...as simple as they need to be you know? Like, why make myself have to think about geopolitics when I don't have to. I think keeping this to a secret society type deal that operates alongside essentially the IRL coffee industry is easiest? And you can certainly frame it as them being secretive or loving coffee but just having to bear or exist alongside realities of 2022.

And of course the big caveat- I think if you have details and grounding out, etc, then I feel like that might be best put in a new talk page or summarized in full?