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

[13_CBS]

I was joking sir, hence the "trollface.jpg"

I know you were.

I was merely counter-trolling. trollface.jpg

I only mentioned it because it sounded like a suitably unreasonable request to sarcastically make and it has a great little story behind it.

I'm well aware of the little story behind Devil's Trill, and the difficulty behind the piece.

I'm serious, though; I'll give the piece a shot if you really want it in the Visual Novel. Making it Kara's actual theme might be a little much, though...

[Mercenary Pen]

Has there been any progress of late?

Have been working on some possible mecha designs, though this is hampered by my preferring to use pencil and paper, and by my lack of a scanner (though I will look into ways of getting around that).

[13_CBS]

Has there been any progress of late?

Sadly (and to my great bafflement), no. Somehow, I'm more tired and busier during vacation time than during school time (for now, at least--it's been a hectic last 2 weeks). Things should be calming down by the end of this weekend, however, and I'll be getting recording equipment soon. I've also been thinking about some things, particularly on how "realistic" or scientifically hard the technology should be, and whether we should simply go for Super Robot style huge explosions and senseless engineering.

In any case, my personal priorities are the following:

1) Finish the 1st draft of Ritt's monologue
2) Get recording equipment and musical notation software
3) Come up with ideas for the main theme

Something like that.

[nothingclever]

I've also been thinking about some things, particularly on how "realistic" or scientifically hard the technology should be, and whether we should simply go for Super Robot style huge explosions and senseless engineering.

Well we could always go for some kinda scientifically hard technological bits alongside Super Robot style huge explosions and senseless engineering so we can at least say we tried to add some believability. Even if we don't as long as our characters are decently believable things should work out alright.

[Prime32]

It has become clear to me that the best way to advertise the VN would be to create a Super Robot Wars fangame which incorporates the characters.

Watch the links in order.

[13_CBS]

You wanna do the animation, then?


(I've started on the drafts for Ritt's monologue, and I do have a prototype of the Title Screen piece in mind, but work has been very, very slow¹ (but coming along nonetheless)

¹Understatement

[Prime32]

You wanna do the animation, then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPxU2Z3LyA

[13_CBS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPxU2Z3LyA

...you win this round.

*Schemes behind Prime's back*

[nothingclever]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPxU2Z3LyA

That felt painful to watch.

[hanzo66]

Well, gents...

It seems if we're lucky, we might finish this by the time some of us reach our thirties!

[Mercenary Pen]

Well, gents...

It seems if we're lucky, we might finish this by the time some of us reach our thirties!

Well, I've only got five years to go before I get there... we might need longer than that.

[hanzo66]

Hah...

Well, we do have some of the basics worked out, right? General idea of what the girls are like and the background info...

[13_CBS]

Well, gents...

It seems if we're lucky, we might finish this by the time some of us reach our thirties!

Sure looks like it.


I sent Knight the first draft for Ritt's monologue. I suspect that I'll get a reply within the day.

Well, we do have some of the basics worked out, right? General idea of what the girls are like and the background info...

Some of it. There's still a lot of background info to finish, though, especially material for the Chosen.


Edit: Knight seems to approve of the monologue:

Spoiler

Show

Some ensign asked me today why I'm so old fashioned. I'd like to say that I'm a pretty even-tempered guy, but when he had asked me that with that cocky, mocking look on his face I really wanted to punch him.

He's not the first person to say that, though. He's definitely not the first to think of my philosophy on life as being quaint. I've had everyone from classmates to fellow pilots to superior officers tell me that there's no room for honor and valor these days. Get your head out of those books you're always reading, they said.

But listen to what they're saying! "No more room for honor and valor"? What are we, the cultists? We're citizens of the Empire, loyal subjects to the great Emperor. We're better than those butchers and murderers. We have to be, or else we've already lost the war, because the conflict between us and them isn't just about ships and people, but a conflict of ideologies. What's the point of winning if we end up being just as bad as our enemies? I remember what an old philospher once said; "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." If we become an empire of monsters, and our Emperor a ruler of beasts, then there's no meaning in winning the war. I'm worried, though, that we're becoming just that. What happened at Amerigo...wasn't pretty. We won and it was fine and all, but was it worth it?

Now, it's not that I can't understand what the others are saying. My ways aren't always the most practical way of doing things, I know that, and I'll admit: sometimes, it's really tempting to be expedient. But as easy it'd be to abandon morality, that's not something we should or can do.


...

"Defend those who can't defend themselves": that's what my father told me the last time I ever saw him. People have made fun of me for that, too. Even Navy policy's the same; one of the things they drill into us Primaries is that, when it comes down to it, Secondaries are expendable. I hate that. Those with the ability to do so should protect others. Otherwise, it's just a waste or a tyranny. So far, it's been working out pretty well for me. I've made friends in the Academy because of this, real friends who I care about and care about me. Furi, Siela, Kamia, Kyuube...

...

Call me old fashioned. Tell me that I'm naive, foolish, dumb, outdated, or whatever. No matter what you tell me, though, you won't change who I am. No matter what you do to me, I won't forsake myself.

Honor and valour will save us.

[Mercenary Pen]

Edit: Knight seems to approve of the monologue:

Spoiler

Show

Some ensign asked me today why I'm so old fashioned. I'd like to say that I'm a pretty even-tempered guy, but when he had asked me that with that cocky, mocking look on his face I really wanted to punch him.

He's not the first person to say that, though. He's definitely not the first to think of my philosophy on life as being quaint. I've had everyone from classmates to fellow pilots to superior officers tell me that there's no room for honor and valor these days. Get your head out of those books you're always reading, they said.

But listen to what they're saying! "No more room for honor and valor"? What are we, the cultists? We're citizens of the Empire, loyal subjects to the great Emperor. We're better than those butchers and murderers. We have to be, or else we've already lost the war, because the conflict between us and them isn't just about ships and people, but a conflict of ideologies. What's the point of winning if we end up being just as bad as our enemies? I remember what an old philospher once said; "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." If we become an empire of monsters, and our Emperor a ruler of beasts, then there's no meaning in winning the war. I'm worried, though, that we're becoming just that. What happened at Amerigo...wasn't pretty. We won and it was fine and all, but was it worth it?

Now, it's not that I can't understand what the others are saying. My ways aren't always the most practical way of doing things, I know that, and I'll admit: sometimes, it's really tempting to be expedient. But as easy it'd be to abandon morality, that's not something we should or can do.


...

"Defend those who can't defend themselves": that's what my father told me the last time I ever saw him. People have made fun of me for that, too. Even Navy policy's the same; one of the things they drill into us Primaries is that, when it comes down to it, Secondaries are expendable. I hate that. Those with the ability to do so should protect others. Otherwise, it's just a waste or a tyranny. So far, it's been working out pretty well for me. I've made friends in the Academy because of this, real friends who I care about and care about me. Furi, Siela, Kamia, Kyuube...

...

Call me old fashioned. Tell me that I'm naive, foolish, dumb, outdated, or whatever. No matter what you tell me, though, you won't change who I am. No matter what you do to me, I won't forsake myself.

Honor and valour will save us.

Excellent monologue, gives a real flavour of the character.

[13_CBS]

Just a quick update...

I've been working on details on the Chosen and the alien race(s) they serve, but I've encountered a problem. What I've been trying to do was combine Kamikasei's "transcendent elder race of aliens" and "shoggoth-esque attendants" idea with nothingclever's "2 races of aliens, the lesser of which make the Alpha Centauri humans into cultists" idea. The issue here is...if the attendant race is sentient, then what's holding them back from making their own star empire? What do they need crappy hairless apes (i.e. humans) for? If the attendant race is non-sentient and are just mindless maintenance drones, then how did they convert the Alpha Centauri humans into cultists?

(By the way, I've made a placeholder name for the planet in the Alpha Centauri system upon which the Chosen are based--Refuge.)

[kamikasei]

What I've been trying to do was combine Kamikasei's "transcendent elder race of aliens" and "shoggoth-esque attendants" idea with nothingclever's "2 races of aliens, the lesser of which make the Alpha Centauri humans into cultists" idea.

I don't really see the two as compatible. It'd make more sense to leave mine out entirely than to try to combine it.

[Mercenary Pen]

The issue here is...if the attendant race is sentient, then what's holding them back from making their own star empire?

A general dislike of getting their own hands dirty? Perhaps they much prefer having pawns they can manipulate rather than putting themselves at risk to do the job themselves...

[KnightDisciple]

A general dislike of getting their own hands dirty? Perhaps they much prefer having pawns they can manipulate rather than putting themselves at risk to do the job themselves...

Maybe something happened that drove their numbers down enough they can't really go out on crusades in the near future. And their alien breeding cycles mean it'll be millenia before they'll have the numbers to.

But humanity will be a threat in the next century or two. Thus, they turn humanity against itself.

[13_CBS]

I just had an idea...

I'm still trying to merge Kamikasei's and nothingclever's ideas (against sage advice to not do so), so I was wondering if anyone would be opposed to the idea of having the servitor race be a bunch of robots (placeholder name: Attendants). They won't look too much like robots since the ascendant alien race (placeholder name: Progenitors) decided to make them aesthetically appealing, so they look more like alien organisms than robots. Kind of like Cylons, I guess.

[Fri]

why not making them biological construct?

[13_CBS]

why not making them biological construct?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean

[nothingclever]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean

I think he means flesh and blood robots/drones/whatever. Robots don't need to be made of metal in a futuristic setting after all.

[Fri]

yes. and it signify the alien's alienness more. their robot is a blob of meat.

[Fri]

Kasanip being mugged by a deer

[13_CBS]

Alright, I did a bit of thinking, and I may have come up with a way to merge Kami and nothing's ideas together into something workable...


(Wall of text ahead)

Spoiler

Show

Tens of thousands of years [or other sufficiently long time] ago, an incredibly advanced race of aliens (we'll call them Progenitors for now) from a civilization that spanned galaxies decided that they had learned everything of any real interest in this universe and headed off to new ones. Around this time, the Alpha Centauri system's planet (we'll call it Refuge for now) was a fringe settlement, the equivalent of a modern day small town or village in a developed country.

Most of the Progenitors in the core systems left this universe entirely, and cared little about what happened to the lands that they left behind. The less "urban" among them decided to be more cautious and created a servant race (we'll call these guys Attendants for now). These creatures were tasked with maintaining and sustaining the infrastructure and technology that the local Progenitors left behind, just in case they came back. The Attendants were given sentience and intelligence equivalent to that of a particularly intelligent human, since the Progenitors preferred to communicate directly to their servants (and creating sentient creatures was cakewalk for the ultra advanced Progenitors), but these creatures were programmed on the genetic level to be unable to truly use the technology they were designed to maintain, as a form of control, nor were the Attendants able to create and develop their own technology. The Attendants could thus operate Progenitor technology just enough to perform their duties, but no more.

Years went by, and the Attendants did their duty as they were designed to do. On Refuge, however, a catastrophic accident completely destroyed the Attendants' reproduction facilities, from which new Attendants were created (they live for a long time but they aren't immortal). Their limitations prevented them from creating a new facility, and communicating with the outside world for help was pointless since they believed the universe to be devoid of all sentient life except for their own (the Progenitors all left, and all other races the Progenitors encountered were either destroyed or incorporated into the Progenitor civilization). The only plan the Attendants could come up with was opening a rift between this universe and the Progenitors' in order to somehow contact them, but issues of the rift causing devastating damage to the matter and energy in this universe aside, the Attendants couldn't sufficiently manipulate the technology required to pull it off. The Attendants despaired, but could do nothing.

Until the human colonists of De Gama 1 and De Gama 2 came.


The first humans to contact the Attendants and the vast stores of Progenitor technology they guarded were scouts sent down by the stranded colonists. The colonists were looking for a way back home, or at least resources that they could use while they figured out how to cobble together a SpaTiR (Space-Time Rip) Generator, and so they sent down nine people to investigate the planet Refuge. They discovered the Attendants, and, fascinated by almost magical technology, the scouts tried to negotiate with the Attendants. The Attendants, meanwhile, realized that these humans, if properly instructed, could use the Progenitor technology left behind, or at least reverse-engineer it. The discussion eventually led to talks of the first nine being given control and rulership over the rest of the colonists in exchange for the humans' total cooperation in the Attendants' plan. The form of control the scouts and the Attendants agreed upon was a fabricated religion, with the Progenitors as gods, Attendants their messengers, and the scouts as the elite clergy. This would give the scouts' new reign a sense of legitimacy while providing the Attendants the guaranteed cooperation of the unruly humans. The scouts, with their newfound technology and ideas, quickly took over the colonist society, eliminated all opposition, and became all-powerful beings in their own little world.



The Chosen

The original colonists were a collection of prisoners, political dissidents, and other peoples the old empire declared to be "troublemakers". This was the reason why the De Gama 1 and 2 were not sent over to Alpha Centauri with SpaTiR parts and astro-engineers: the government didn't really want them in the solar system, so providing the colonists a way back wasn't a priority. As a result, although the colonists had enough technology, resources, and numbers to support themselves and the future generations, they had a strange mixture of vocations.

• The colonists were sorely lacking in high-technology engineers. They had plenty of people specialized in terraforming, agriculture, and terrestrial engineering, but almost no astro-physicists, no astro-engineers, and of course, no SpaTiR specialists. As a result, Chosen understanding of astrophysics is limited only to those fields pertaining directly to space combat.
  
• The colonists lacked any military training whatsoever. They had almost no understanding of combat, tactics, strategy, logistics, etc. and the only ones who did were the guards stationed on De Gama 1 and 2, who were quickly killed by the colonists once the Sol-Centauri SpaTiR was shut down. Conflict among the Chosen never escalated to mass combat, so they had no civil wars to practice warfare on. Finally, it took them some time to figure out the importance of SpaTiR Generators in space warfare. As a result, the Chosen had to rely exclusively on decisive pitched battles and their technological advantage early on in the war with the Empire.
  
• Likewise, because the colonists lacked military training, they had little understanding of command structure. They had a basic ranking system similar to that of the Empire and two branches (marines and navy), but it was only after the war was well underway that they realized the importance of auxiliary units, command staff, etc. A side effect of all this is that the Chosen did not fully understand the deeper purpose behind uniforms, and so current Chosen military wear tends to be more varied than the Empire's.
  
• One of the biggest opponents of the old empire were medical personnel and biochemists, due to the rampant ethical violations on the part of the old government. As a result, an unusually large number of colonists were such people, and after they received access to Progenitor technology, the Chosen made rapid advances in the neurosciences, genetics, and anatomy. This expertise was put to use in the war in order to compensate for the relative inferiority of Chosen infantrymen, with the Chosen leaders advertising genetic and anatomical upgrades as being "blessings" from the gods. It a few year's time, the elite among the Chosen took up these upgrades even though it wasn't strictly necessary. (Admiral Roag Septimus tried to get one of these upgrades, but the botched attempt left him somewhat blemished and something of an outcast among the Chosen elites.)

I think this manages to incorporate most of the major points in Kami and nothing's ideas. Am I missing anything critical that we were going for?

Kasanip being mugged by a deer

Mai Morobu's hometown: New Kyoto, infamous for its unusually violent deer.

(I gotta write a short story about this sometime. )



Note: I will be attending a wedding from Saturday to Sunday, so I probably won't be available until late Sunday evening.

[kamikasei]

Part of the idea of having only ascended godlike aliens and their left-behind semiautonomous tech and servitors was to have no humanlike aliens around. If you want to have humanlike aliens, I don't see why you'd bother with any part of what I'd suggested. Trying to mix together ideas specifically presented as alternatives to one another seems like a recipe for blandness or at least incoherence.

[13_CBS]

Part of the idea of having only ascended godlike aliens and their left-behind semiautonomous tech and servitors was to have no humanlike aliens around. If you want to have humanlike aliens, I don't see why you'd bother with any part of what I'd suggested.

Because I liked elements from both your ideas, and I wanted to see how it would turn out if I mixed the two together. I especially liked your idea of having the servitor race try to summon the overlord race back into this universe for thematic reasons.

Trying to mix together ideas specifically presented as alternatives to one another seems like a recipe for blandness or at least incoherence.

Sometimes, but not necessarily. I'm wondering though: what parts of my proposed ideas seem incoherent and bland?

[Prime32]

I dislike taking the control of the villainous faction away from the cultists themselves.


And now, something I meant to post earlier. Random sciency stuff inspired by whatever happened to be brought to my attention.

The bad guys's ships have thin but extremely tough armour. Eventually they manage to capture a small vessel and carry out analysis. Despite weighing far too much, their tests insist that the armour is made of... iron? (Named character) decides to carry out further tests...

"So you have the results then? What's the composition of the armour, and what kind of shielding are they using?"
"It's iron, ma'am. No shielding."
"Iron?! There's no way iron could withstand an antimatter blast, especially at that thickness!"
"Yes, ma'am. However, this iron contains no protons, neutrons or electrons. ...Basically, the Chosen have managed to bond particles of similar mass and charge into a semblance of an iron atom."
"..."
"This goes way beyond what any Earth team has ever done. It shouldn't even be possible to keep this stuff stable for more than a few nanoseconds! ...ma'am."

(Not exact words)

[13_CBS]

I dislike taking the control of the villainous faction away from the cultists themselves.

Fair enough, then. I'll rewrite the current backstory to something more like Kamikasei's idea, and see how people like it.

And now, something I meant to post earlier. Random sciency stuff inspired by whatever happened to be brought to my attention.

That sounds fine, but just curious; do you know if material made of exotic particles actually have more structural integrity? We could still probably sneak Exotic atom material into the setting, but we should probably batten down the hatches for the inevitable Did Not Do the Research storm that'll ensue...


One more thing: I don't think Kasanip will be able to provide us with any sketches any time soon, nor do I want to pester her for more stuff when she's busy with other things/feeling uninspired, so I'd like to shift discussion back to world-building if possible.

I've also realized that the detailed level of world building I was hoping for isn't going to be possible given the slower nature of forum discussions (and my lazy nature), so I'm thinking that we could just establish basic ideas and then start writing the actual script afterwards. If we go with this strategy, then our to-do list will be...

Nature of Imperial society (pretty much done)
Nature of Chosen society (we're working on it)
Nature of space combat on a tactical level (we have ideas for weapons, and I have some vague ideas on it)
Nature of space combat on a strategic/logistical level (we have vague ideas involving SpaTiR stations)
General design of all combat vehicles (CONMACs, HERALDs, AIPATS)
Nature of space station combat
Personalities and backstories of named characters (Furi, Kamia, Siela, Kara, Ritt (done), Neridia, bridge crew, Dominic, Roag, Illa, Mors (Mercenary's character), Lurika, Terra, Mei Lia, Kyube, Han)


Most of these shouldn't take too long. We just need to agree upon a basic idea, and once that's done we can write a short story or two to establish tone and writing style. After that, we can start writing the actual thing.


Thoughts?