The GiantitpAnime Fans' Visual Novel (now planning settings and routes)

[13_CBS]

Is this last part referring to the naming schemes or the route planning?

I originally meant the route planning, but I guess we'll need popular approval of both.

[Terraoblivion]

I support the route planning scheme. It sounds quite reasonable and like it adds to the story. As for the naming scheme i truthfully don't care that much, though using an obscure language will make fewer people look at it oddly like i did at the early attempts at using German.

[13_CBS]

Just a random thought I had...

I was wondering if we could have a "Dreams" theme in this VN. I was mostly inspired by the fact that, well, this whole project was started because a certain person had a certain dream, and I thought it might be cool if we included it in the VN as long as it didn't interfere with anything important. (That, and giving the VN a super artistic theme like Dreams allow us to be artistically pretentious, wearing oversized berets and speaking with fake snooty French accents.)

One way to include the Dreams theme is to associate some of the main characters with aspects of dreams, said aspects being pretty much anything the word "dream" can mean or represent in the English language. Doing this not only makes our visual novel Artistic^TM but also could help us flesh out the characters further. For example...

Furi: Aspect of Hope ("I have a dream...that someday..."), representing his desire for a world where people wouldn't have to be unhappy, which in turn manifests as his desire to promote justice and to protect his friends.

Siela: Aspect of Wonder (daydreaming, mental wandering), representing her curiosity and her tendency to let her mind wander off on strange tangents. Speaking of which, I was wondering if we could make her somewhat bookish and/or intellectual. This could explain why, for example, Terra enjoys her company--Siela shares with her a passion for knowledge, not just for its own sake or for selfish ends, but to help others. Because Siela likes to read about various things, however, she's also painfully aware that she's inadequate: after all, the more you read about great people, the more aware you become of your own shortcomings (some people in turn try to become as great as the people they read about, or simply don't care--for Siela, however, she just feels that much worse about herself).

Kara: Aspect of Prophecy (dreams that foretell the future). I noticed that Kara, while fleshed out thoroughly in terms of personality (thanks to her own inspiration, Nothingclever), could use a little more about herself: where did she come from? Why is she so strange? Granted, this is because at the time of her creation there was no real setting information to base her background off of, but I have an idea: what if she's a secret government project to replicate Prophet technology? Let's also say that her Anima manifests as not only increased PLANT performance but also a phenomenon that can only be described as "short-range precognition"--a very limited ability to tell the future, more like a Spider Sense than any real clairvoyance. It could explain why she's such a strange person, since she's always been kept isolated until the beginning of the Visual Novel's events, and why she becomes so attached to Furi in her route. (For extra moe points, she's something of a cross between Rei Ayanami and C.C.)

Kamia: Aspect of Delusion (dreaming, wishing for the impossible), representing her self-deception of having emotions, and her obsession with her brother. For her, belief/delusion and Furi is her source of strength. She does what she does because she lies to herself and because she wants to be with her brother.

Ritt: Aspect of Vision (a wish for honor and respect throughout the galaxy), representing his deep belief in chivalry and treating all with respect and honor. Ritt is always looking somewhere into the future, either immediately in front of him or towards the beyond, and he envisions a world where people treat each other with the same kind of courtesy and honor he holds so dear.

Roag: Aspect of Grandeur (unshakable belief of domination), representing his incredible arrogance stemming from his belief that he is the greatest at pretty much anything worth being good at.

Thoughts?



Now, for actually relevant stuff...

Okay, for Siela's route, it seems that most people like Prime's idea of having the big Eldritch Abomination battle take place at the end of Siela's route. I also think that every route should start somewhere in or around the Imperial Academy of Robotics and Advanced Piloting (I was thinking that having the "prelude" section that connects all of the routes at the beginning should be a scene where Furi dozes off in his PLANT during a test run, and is woken up by Kamia who is also part of the test run). Thus, we have a beginning and an end to the Siela route, epilogues aside.

In order to construct a skeleton plot as Nerdo advises, I think that we should try coming up with a middle to the story, which ought to be something dramatic and significant, though not necessarily the climax. For example, maybe the middle point is where Roag's latest utter defeat at the hands of Furi kicks off his Heel Face turn.

After that, we could fill in the sections between the beginning and the middle, and the middle and the end with other significant events (Furi and Roag's first battle for the former, Roag's Big Damn Hero moment for the latter, for example). Thus, our skeleton plot should look like...

Beginning at Academy, Furi's first live piloting test run -------- Furi meets Admiral Roag Septimus in combat--------Roag is defeated by Furi yet again, and starts to see the error of his ways-------Roag saves the Imperial Navy from a sticky situation --------- Epic ending, with a battle against an Eldritch Abomination

Within each section of "-----------" are, of course, plenty of scenes and plot.

Thoughts?

[Lord of Rapture]

I was thinking that the Eldritch Abomination battle occur at the end of Kamia's route too. In the end, both sides are ultimately destroyed, but then Dominic steps in during the power vacuum to assume control of the cultist faction, and all that's left are the remnants of humanity hiding out amongst the stars forever cowed by an unseen enemy they don't even know whether it still exists. It'd be the perfect ending to the dark path.

No, I'm not ripping off the Dominic Deegan snarkers in any way, why do you ask?

On Siela's path and the character aspects, I think they're fine, except I think Roag needs to be defeated at least three times before he starts thinking about the error of his ways. The first time he dismisses as a fluke, the second he gets furious, and the third he finally starts connecting the pieces together and realizes what a rear end in a top hat he is.

[13_CBS]

On Siela's path and the character aspects, I think they're fine, except I think Roag needs to be defeated at least three times before he starts thinking about the error of his ways. The first time he dismisses as a fluke, the second he gets furious, and the third he finally starts connecting the pieces together and realizes what a rear end in a top hat he is.

Oh, there's LOTS more plot in between the five main events that I've planned. For example, in between the beginning and his first meeting with Roag, Furi could...

1) Have an awkward, but cute, moment with Siela
2) Fight a raiding group of HERALDs
3) Fight Illa
4) Beach episode
5) Comedy scene between Mei Lia and Terra

And so forth.

[hanzo66]

Fun ideas...

Also, I take it my character's role will sorta depend on the Route or something? Certain paths he might be an ally while certain paths he'll be an enemy?

[Lord of Rapture]

Fun ideas...

Also, I take it my character's role will sorta depend on the Route or something? Certain paths he might be an ally while certain paths he'll be an enemy?

Since we both like neverending conflict, I was thinking you secretly work for me.

[Fri]

I think we could help by, dunno, giving ideas about events/stepping stones between the beginning and the end. Could we?

[Nerd-o-rama]

As long as I get to chew Fri out for reminding me of when I was young and retarded at least once a route, my event ideas are pretty much covered.

[hanzo66]

Since we both like neverending conflict, I was thinking you secretly work for me.

That's... Kinda awesome.

[Lord of Rapture]

That's... Kinda awesome.

Also, your actions would be able to hint at the contents of my contract with Furi, seeing as I would never reveal it directly to him or the audience.

Dance, puppet, dance.
No offense, I hope.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Since we both like neverending conflict, I was thinking you secretly work for me.

Or at least pretending to secretly work for you. Like uneasy allies that don't really trust or care for each other.

Though I already called dibs on being the mole for the cultists. Which won't be a problem unless everyone's secretly working for someone else.

Hang on, that's a route we don't have. We don't have a "falling in love with a beautiful enemy" route. What kind of mecha VS would be complete without that? Illa would be a good candidate. You could put it into Kamia's yandere route fairly easily. Like "Illa and Furi meet, have to work together in an enemy mine scenario and start to like each other. Then Kamia finds out and kills Illa when Illa tries to defect."

[Lord of Rapture]

Or at least pretending to secretly work for you. Like uneasy allies that don't really trust or care for each other.

Though I already called dibs on being the mole for the cultists. Which won't be a problem unless everyone's secretly working for someone else.

Hang on, that's a route we don't have. We don't have a "falling in love with a beautiful enemy" route. What kind of mecha VS would be complete without that? Illa would be a good candidate. You could put it into Kamia's yandere route fairly easily. Like "Illa and Furi meet, have to work together in an enemy mine scenario and start to like each other. Then Kamia finds out and kills Illa when Illa tries to defect."

Well, no one truly works for me under their own free will unless I write them a contract. Sure, he may be planning to betray me, but that doesn't mean I still have contractor's privileges over him.

I don't know about Illa though. I think shoehorning Illa as a love interest into Kamia's path would reduce the meaning and purpose of having Kamia as a heroine. She could be a friend though, and have a one-sided crush on him. Then she'd make a Heroic Sacrifice that in the grand scheme of things ends up doing nothing but hurting Furi.

[Lord of Rapture]

I had an idea suddenly for Kara's mysterious past:

Kara could be a fusion between elder evil and humanity. When the leader of humanity during the last war against the gods died in battle, his/her soul was somehow tainted by the elder gods' influence. Kara Witte is actually the reincarnation of the great leader, created by the cultists as the ultimate pilot against humanity in a cruel act of irony. Subconsciously, she is connected to the elder gods, and knows their movements and their thoughts, and even wields some of their powers. However, because the cultists never really cared for her, and because they are horrible people, she has seen humanity do terrible things to each other and has known nothing but horror and war all her life. Nevertheless, her past life's personality and integrity keeps her from succumbing to her inner darkness and despair.

[Shades of Gray]

...

What have I stumbled into here?

[Prime32]

...

What have I stumbled into here?

Madness.
MADNESS!

I had an idea suddenly for Kara's mysterious past:

*snip*

Hang on, that's a route we don't have. We don't have a "falling in love with a beautiful enemy" route.

Combining these, what if the final battle in Kara's route is against Kara turned evil?

[13_CBS]

On Kara: Interesting...the "Aspect of Prophecy" idea could fit nicely with this, if we go ahead on using it.

On Illa as a Heel Face Turn lover: Agreed on not shoehorning Illa.



There's a lot of ideas being thrown around here, and in order to prevent them from being lost if or when we need to come up with plot events and details, I'm going to try to store them in one big post:

Font of Madness

Spoiler

Show

Also, I take it my character's role will sorta depend on the Route or something? Certain paths he might be an ally while certain paths he'll be an enemy?

Since we both like neverending conflict, I was thinking you [Han] secretly work for me.

As long as I get to chew Fri out for reminding me of when I was young and retarded at least once a route, my event ideas are pretty much covered.

Also, your actions would be able to hint at the contents of my contract with Furi, seeing as I would never reveal it directly to him or the audience.

Or at least pretending to secretly work for you. Like uneasy allies that don't really trust or care for each other.

Though I already called dibs on being the mole for the cultists. Which won't be a problem unless everyone's secretly working for someone else.

Hang on, that's a route we don't have. We don't have a "falling in love with a beautiful enemy" route. What kind of mecha VS would be complete without that? Illa would be a good candidate. You could put it into Kamia's yandere route fairly easily. Like "Illa and Furi meet, have to work together in an enemy mine scenario and start to like each other. Then Kamia finds out and kills Illa when Illa tries to defect."

Well, no one truly works for me under their own free will unless I write them a contract. Sure, he may be planning to betray me, but that doesn't mean I still have contractor's privileges over him.

I don't know about Illa though. I think shoehorning Illa as a love interest into Kamia's path would reduce the meaning and purpose of having Kamia as a heroine. She could be a friend though, and have a one-sided crush on him. Then she'd make a Heroic Sacrifice that in the grand scheme of things ends up doing nothing but hurting Furi.

[quote]Kara could be a fusion between elder evil and humanity. When the leader of humanity during the last war against the gods died in battle, his/her soul was somehow tainted by the elder gods' influence. Kara Witte is actually the reincarnation of the great leader, created by the cultists as the ultimate pilot against humanity in a cruel act of irony. Subconsciously, she is connected to the elder gods, and knows their movements and their thoughts, and even wields some of their powers. However, because the cultists never really cared for her, and because they are horrible people, she has seen humanity do terrible things to each other and has known nothing but horror and war all her life. Nevertheless, her past life's personality and integrity keeps her from succumbing to her inner darkness and despair./QUOTE]

I was wondering if we could have a "Dreams" theme in this VN. I was mostly inspired by the fact that, well, this whole project was started because a certain person had a certain dream, and I thought it might be cool if we included it in the VN as long as it didn't interfere with anything important. (That, and giving the VN a super artistic theme like Dreams allow us to be artistically pretentious, wearing oversized berets and speaking with fake snooty French accents.)

One way to include the Dreams theme is to associate some of the main characters with aspects of dreams, said aspects being pretty much anything the word "dream" can mean or represent in the English language. Doing this not only makes our visual novel Artistic^TM but also could help us flesh out the characters further. For example...

Furi: Aspect of Hope ("I have a dream...that someday..."), representing his desire for a world where people wouldn't have to be unhappy, which in turn manifests as his desire to promote justice and to protect his friends.

Siela: Aspect of Wonder (daydreaming, mental wandering), representing her curiosity and her tendency to let her mind wander off on strange tangents. Speaking of which, I was wondering if we could make her somewhat bookish and/or intellectual. This could explain why, for example, Terra enjoys her company--Siela shares with her a passion for knowledge, not just for its own sake or for selfish ends, but to help others. Because Siela likes to read about various things, however, she's also painfully aware that she's inadequate: after all, the more you read about great people, the more aware you become of your own shortcomings (some people in turn try to become as great as the people they read about, or simply don't care--for Siela, however, she just feels that much worse about herself).

Kara: Aspect of Prophecy (dreams that foretell the future). I noticed that Kara, while fleshed out thoroughly in terms of personality (thanks to her own inspiration, Nothingclever), could use a little more about herself: where did she come from? Why is she so strange? Granted, this is because at the time of her creation there was no real setting information to base her background off of, but I have an idea: what if she's a secret government project to replicate Prophet technology? Let's also say that her Anima manifests as not only increased PLANT performance but also a phenomenon that can only be described as "short-range precognition"--a very limited ability to tell the future, more like a Spider Sense than any real clairvoyance. It could explain why she's such a strange person, since she's always been kept isolated until the beginning of the Visual Novel's events, and why she becomes so attached to Furi in her route. (For extra moe points, she's something of a cross between Rei Ayanami and C.C.)

Kamia: Aspect of Delusion (dreaming, wishing for the impossible), representing her self-deception of having emotions, and her obsession with her brother. For her, belief/delusion and Furi is her source of strength. She does what she does because she lies to herself and because she wants to be with her brother.

Ritt: Aspect of Vision (a wish for honor and respect throughout the galaxy), representing his deep belief in chivalry and treating all with respect and honor. Ritt is always looking somewhere into the future, either immediately in front of him or towards the beyond, and he envisions a world where people treat each other with the same kind of courtesy and honor he holds so dear.

Roag: Aspect of Grandeur (unshakable belief of domination), representing his incredible arrogance stemming from his belief that he is the greatest at pretty much anything worth being good at.

Okay, for Siela's route, it seems that most people like Prime's idea of having the big Eldritch Abomination battle take place at the end of Siela's route. I also think that every route should start somewhere in or around the Imperial Academy of Robotics and Advanced Piloting (I was thinking that having the "prelude" section that connects all of the routes at the beginning should be a scene where Furi dozes off in his PLANT during a test run, and is woken up by Kamia who is also part of the test run). Thus, we have a beginning and an end to the Siela route, epilogues aside.

In order to construct a skeleton plot as Nerdo advises, I think that we should try coming up with a middle to the story, which ought to be something dramatic and significant, though not necessarily the climax. For example, maybe the middle point is where Roag's latest utter defeat at the hands of Furi kicks off his Heel Face turn.

After that, we could fill in the sections between the beginning and the middle, and the middle and the end with other significant events (Furi and Roag's first battle for the former, Roag's Big Damn Hero moment for the latter, for example). Thus, our skeleton plot should look like...

Beginning at Academy, Furi's first live piloting test run -------- Furi meets Admiral Roag Septimus in combat--------Roag is defeated by Furi yet again, and starts to see the error of his ways-------Roag saves the Imperial Navy from a sticky situation --------- Epic ending, with a battle against an Eldritch Abomination

Within each section of "-----------" are, of course, plenty of scenes and plot.

Also, any thoughts on my "Dreams" theme idea?


Anyhow, more plot details...


Taking the first section of Siela's route plot, starting from Furi's first Live pilot testing run and ending with Furi's first meeting with Roag Septimus in combat, here are ideas on an order of events leading from the beginning to that critical point in the plot:

Furi, growing bored from the extremely dull and technical process of the live piloting test (lots of diagnostics and precise procedures to go through, and he has to frequently pause for the other four PLANTs to do their thing), has dozed off by the beginning of the VN, and wakes up thanks to Neridia, who is pretty much Expect cliche lines like "Cut the chatter!" and "Lock Sabreur Bombers into Shoulder Positions!" At the end of the exercise, all the PLANTs are declared to be fully combat-fit and functional.

Minor scenes happen...

After the exercises, the test pilots head back to school, with each potential heroine heading off to grab different things (Kara has to get a make-up take home test, Siela must get some worksheets that the class did plus homework assignments, Kamia has some stuff to do for club activities, or whatever). The player, at this point, has the opportunity to go talk to any of them, either directly ("I'll head off to our classroom--I feel like talking to Siela.") or indirectly ("Hmm...the professor said that he left the notes on his desk in his office. I'll head over there--woah, it's Kara!").
(I have to ask: how are we presenting the player the choices he'll have to make to pick the routes? LoR came up with the idea of Dominic simply appearing and presenting Furi a contract, which is an interesting idea but I'm worried that it might appear a little to meta or heavy handed.)

Minor scenes happen...perhaps we get to see how a regular school day at the Academy looks like. We could also drop hints about Siela going through minor bullying at school.

Several days later, Furi's hometown, a space station near Saturn's orbit, is raided! And for the sake of drama, Kyube had been visiting his parents there, so he's on the station as it's being attacked. Illa and elements of the 7th go on strafing runs on the station (while Furi wonders if one of the HERALDs (Illa's) is avoiding civilian casualties and was instead attacking military targets and such), and the ITP Giant and ITP Titan are dispatched to protect it. Expect NGE-esque scenes where the novice, teen pilots have emotional and technical issues to up the drama, and Siela locking up in fear...until Furi, through his view screen, notices a young mother and her child tugging desperately at a man's corpse, then looking up in horror at an incoming HERALD. That's when his Anima kicks in, and in a Foe Tossing Charge he wipes out most of the raiders. Illa escapes unscathed, but shaken.
(If this scene happens in Kara's route, we could have it so that Siela's parents are killed in the attack, and a grieving Kyube accidentally blames his sister (among others) for their deaths, tipping Siela further towards depression)

After the battle, Furi and Siela lounge in the locker rooms (made co-ed For Great Justice), discussing their first bit of live combat. They initially talk about the civilian casualties, and wonder if this is what war is really like. Siela then moves on to talk about how nervous and frightened she felt during the battle, and rambles on until it gets to the point where she starts to speak badly of herself (how bad she is as a pilot, how she froze in combat and allowed people to die)--it is here that Furi yells his objection (starting with "Bakayero!", since gratuitous Japanese is awesome) and says encouraging things. Relationship upgrade get!

Minor scenes happen...for example, we could have an interlude where Illa is berated by Roag for her failure, but since he has a fair amount of trust in Illa he acknowledges her pleas about the existence of a potentially highly dangerous pilot (Furi), and decides to mount an all-out assault on the Academy to test this pilot. Meanwhile, Siela and Furi encounter one another while shopping, and decide to help each other get groceries and stuff. The day ends with the two of them sitting on a park bench, eating snacks and talking about stuff.

Afterwards...

In order to discourage future raids, the Imperial Navy mounts a small assault on Pluto, the cultists' primary foothold on the solar system. They dispatch taskforces Root of Spring, Kabal, and Victor, and they move along in fleet mode...but a surprise attack by the Tarentum badly damages parts of the taskforces, leaving the PLANTs without fingers or chunks of their limbs, decreasing their overall combat efficiency. Han Bodega, after introducing himself in a (comically) ham-tastic fashion, retreats.

This is when the 7th Fleet arrives in full force.


And so forth. Don't forget that there's plenty of other minor scenes going on in between the important stuff: interactions between Terra and Mei Lia, for example, or Ritt eying Furi and Siela with a bit of jealousy (his Start of Darkness begins with his duel with Roag, where he's utterly outmatched and humiliated, and his subsequent rescue by Furi makes him even more frustrated).

Thoughts?

[hanzo66]

Also, your actions would be able to hint at the contents of my contract with Furi, seeing as I would never reveal it directly to him or the audience.

Dance, puppet, dance.
No offense, I hope.

So I would assume this means that we're the Chaotic Neutral characters? Does this mean that my character has some idea of the 4th Wall?

[Lord of Rapture]

1. No, we're Chaotic Evil. Neutral is for *******.
2. Man, you do whatever you want.*

*cookie for reference

[chiasaur11]

1. No, we're Chaotic Evil. Neutral is for *******.
2. Man, you do whatever you want.*

1) Nah. That's true neutral. LN is for a different group of *****s, and Chaotic Neutral is for mercs, maniacs, and miscellaneous manipulators.

2) Is there a way to take off my pants?

[Lord of Rapture]

1. No, whatever-neutral is for ******* and weaklings only. Real men take a stand on the issue between good and evil.

2. Say WHAT!?

[13_CBS]

So...discussions on alignment aside, does anyone else have any plot ideas, or comments on previously suggested ones?

[Prime32]

I don't like the idea of Dominic having a personal stake in the story. Those types usually just sit on the sidelines, only interfering to make things more amusing for themselves. This is partly because their role usually requires them to have godlike power, which would make fighting them difficult.

[Lord of Rapture]

Perhaps, but Dominic never appears for any long length of time after his meeting with Furi. He simply disappears from the storyline except for brief flashes whenever Furi sees him during the midst of a battle whenever one side is winning heavily or during particularly stressful moments. The players won't ever be sure that they're fighting Dominic at all - this is just for us writers to get an idea.

[Prime32]

Alright, but does Dominic ever give "hints" to the player if they're starting to lose? (Not outright aid - if he can't understand the hints he's too boring to play with anyway)

[Lord of Rapture]

Well, yes. That's the whole point of having my Citadel of Wonderful Failures for - to make sure Furi doesn't screw up.

[Prime32]

To get you "a feel for it", I translated a well-known chant into Irish. I may be a bit rusty...

Is mise an cnámh do mo chlaíomh
Cruach é mo corp, is tine é mo fhoill
Rinne mé níos mó ná míle lanna
Níl aithne ag Bás orm
Ná aithne ag Saol
Fhulaing mé pian chun a lán arm a chruthú
Ach ní beidh riamh aon rud sa láimheanna seo
Anois, agus a guigh mé, tír lanna éigríochta

...I was bored, okay?

[13_CBS]

Hmm...I was hoping someone had more ideas for the skeleton plot.


^: That's the UBW chant, right?

[Nerd-o-rama]

As much as I give armchair advice on writing, when it comes down to it, I'm very lazy. I can give ideas for my character's own personal arc because I have a feel for it (and am used to writing in that manner thanks to RPG character creation), but not really for a big sweeping story like this.

[Fri]

give it then.

@CBS.

alright, I'll think of something for the skeleton plot. just wait a bit.