Thanqol Writes Weekly

[Thanqol]

Hi, I'm Thanqol, and sometimes I'm a jerk.

So the past year hasn't been good to my story writing. Not to say I've been idle! I've been a flurry of activity. I've become reams better at roleplaying, I'm working for The Government, I've basically self-taught myself a history degree, I've continued learning how to draw, and I've gone on a complete tour of classic cinema. I'm absolutely saturated in culture and creative output.

But I haven't sat down and written anything for ages. And I miss it.

I've spent an awful long time planning to write things. My notebook and skull are filled with sketches of stories and even some fully planned major pieces. But I'm just not getting around to the actual act of writing. This is a problem, and I'm going to solve it in the only way I know how: Publicly throwing down with The Internet and promising to write something every week.

My usual challenge conditions apply. It doesn't matter what I write, how long it is, or anything else, so long as I've put pen to paper and come out with at least a paragraph more than I had to begin with. Deadline is going to be every Friday. I'll try to polish off some pony fic ideas I've got in my head and they'll show up here (I've written one already and will post it soon) but if you want to see the unfiltered mass of my creation, including non-pony stuff, that'll be in this thread. I'll also do blog posts expressing some of my insights into writing and the things I struggle with.

I'm also in the market for lots of new seed matter, so if you have ideas or requests for things you want to see me do, please post 'em in the comments! The theme for my first couple of stories is probably going to be "Applejack's Infrastructure Adventures" - a concept I've had in my head since forever about the pettiest, smallest-stakes slice of life stuff in the MLP world.

I think it's going to be a fun project and a great resolution for 2015. I'm back, everyone!

[Thanqol]

So let's get started with Rainbow Dash Digs Herself Into A Hole!

[Forum Explorer]

I don't know if you are familiar with the universe, but a Shadowrun short story would be pretty cool. (I have absolutely no problems if you decide to add ponies to it)

But this should be pretty cool and entertaining to see you do.

[Thanqol]

Notes to myself.

Twilight Sparkle Engages In Home Modification

Spoiler: undefined

Show

"Twilight?"

"Yes, Spike?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

An hour and a half of searching would confirm two things. One, Twilight's new crystal tree palace was so ridiculously large that it required an hour and a half to thoroughly explore. Two, that there was no bathroom. No bedroom, either. Just a bunch of completely bare empty crystal rooms, evidently waiting for Twilight to provide her own furnishings. Evidently the Tree of Harmony didn't do interior decorating.

"Looks like we're going to have to go shopping," said Twilight reluctantly. "Spike, go get my savings."

"The savings that you hid under your mattress?" asked Spike.

"Yes, Spike,"

"The mattress that was blown into its component feathers by Tirek?"

"Ye - oh horseapples," said Twilight. Those savings came from her allowance from Celestia, an allowance she hadn't received since she'd left Canterlot. There had been a lot saved up, and she had simple tastes, so she hadn't thought to bother Celestia for more.

"No big deal. Just ask Celestia for an advance," said Spike.

"I can't do that!" said Twilight. "Celestia hasn't paid me an allowance for years!"

"So what?"

"Don't you see? This has to be a test!" said Twilight, jumping to the only logical conclusion. "She wants to see if I can stand on my own four hooves. Or! She wants to see if I can manage the administrative tasks of running a kingdom! Tax collection, infrastructure investment -"

"I don't think Celestia would -" but Twilight had already wheeled around to face him.

"Additionally," she hissed, "Celestia gives huge amounts of money to charities and government services. If I ask for a handout then that's coming out of the budget that pays for starving orphans. And all those budgets are public, Spike!" she picked him up and shook him. "What if there's a public enquiry? What if the Health Minister calls a parliamentary enquiry into why hundreds of bits were provided to a fully grown, deeply powerful princess instead of his decrepit old hospital? Lives are on the line, Spike! Lives!"

Spike took a deep breath. He could see where this was going.

"No, Spike," said Twilight, turning and dramatically walking over to the window. "This is my giant crystal treehouse, and that makes it my responsibility. If I want luxuries like a bed or a bathroom then I will pay for them myself."

*

[Thanqol]

Blog post: Having Something To Say

Following that up with random insights, when and if I have them. Just gonna collect any weird observations I have about the world in this thread.

- Combat is boring when no one is making any decisions
- When I first wake up after not-quite-enough sleep, my brain instantly goes like, "YOU ARE WORTHLESS, YOU SUCK, EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER DONE SUCKS". I can usually shake it off after a while, but I understand the intention is to cripple me with depression so I go back to sleep and it can finish what it was doing.
- An old ute with a fresh paint job can successfully infiltrate a vintage car parade.

[Madcrafter]

- An old ute with a fresh paint job can successfully infiltrate a vintage car parade.

I immediately could see this making a good story.

[Thanqol]

They can all make great stories, that's the point.


Musing on the word zone, particularly r.e. Forum Explorer's question.

How does one make a computer hacking scene interesting? Similarly, how does someone make a space battle interesting? This thought occurred to me while reading the Thrawn books recently. Space battles are shockingly dry when people are just trading blows and X-wings are just blowing up TIEs, it feels like wasted pagecount. There are some interesting moments though:

- Damage control. Torn up, ruined machinery is all the more cool when you need that stuff to live.
- Learning new things. X-wings dogfighting TIEs? SNORE. The details of carrier launch, recovery, and re-arming in Battlestar Galactica? Woah!
- Commander focus. One of the coolest spacefighting moments ever is where Thrawn blows out all the guns on an Alliance ship's port side, and then tractor beams it in to use as a huge deflector shield for his star destroyer's weakened starboard side. Those flashes of insight and cunning from commanders is really cool, and especially dialogues between them where they compare strategies.
- Bean counting. You never realise how important stormtroopers are until an Imperial Captain starts complaining about how he's running out of goddamn stormtroopers.

And I just had an epiphany regarding cyberpunk and hacking.

Hacking is done either two ways, usually. It's done either we all enter a TRON world and fight metaphorically with giant robots made up of code, or the local equivalent (Megaman, The Matrix, Accel World), or it's done Hollywood style where some guy freestyles some buttons on his computer keyboard, and then something blows up or changes or whatever. Neither of those are like, hacking though? It either totally disregards the computer thing by making computers be a excuse for weird special effects, or it totally disregards the computer thing to make people be magical wizards with wands shaped like keyboards.

So what makes hacking actually unique and interesting? It's control over information. I think what makes hacking, specifically interesting is the application of lies. As a result I think that for hacking to be interesting and its own thing it needs to focus on the social engineering necessary to make it work. Make it necessary to screw with peoples' emotions and feelings and make hackers be suave, manipulative and awful to make it work. That's interesting.

[TheAmishPirate]

And I just had an epiphany regarding cyberpunk and hacking.

Hacking is done either two ways, usually. It's done either we all enter a TRON world and fight metaphorically with giant robots made up of code, or the local equivalent (Megaman, The Matrix, Accel World), or it's done Hollywood style where some guy freestyles some buttons on his computer keyboard, and then something blows up or changes or whatever. Neither of those are like, hacking though? It either totally disregards the computer thing by making computers be a excuse for weird special effects, or it totally disregards the computer thing to make people be magical wizards with wands shaped like keyboards.

So what makes hacking actually unique and interesting? It's control over information. I think what makes hacking, specifically interesting is the application of lies. As a result I think that for hacking to be interesting and its own thing it needs to focus on the social engineering necessary to make it work. Make it necessary to screw with peoples' emotions and feelings and make hackers be suave, manipulative and awful to make it work. That's interesting.

This just gave me a strange mental picture. Your standard-issue DDOS attack is extremely alike mobbing some poor soul with dozens of shouting people until they can't even tie their shoe they're so overwhelmed.

I don't know where that thought is going, but there it is.

[Madcrafter]

They can all make great stories, that's the point.

Mhmm, that was the one that jumped out at me the most though.

So what makes hacking actually unique and interesting? It's control over information. I think what makes hacking, specifically interesting is the application of lies. As a result I think that for hacking to be interesting and its own thing it needs to focus on the social engineering necessary to make it work. Make it necessary to screw with peoples' emotions and feelings and make hackers be suave, manipulative and awful to make it work. That's interesting.

Mhmm, but that I don't really think makes it unique; you get the similar thing you might see in a thriller or spy novel or whatnot, just with someone typing into a computer at one or more points in the process. It is more interesting though, and a bit closer to real life (barring just spamming phishing emails or something).

[Deadly]

I think it's worth looking a little more deeply into what makes Hollywood hacking so boring. As you say, it's wand-waving magic with a keyboard, but what makes that so disappointing?

What you typically see in a Hollywood hacking scene is a lone genius faced with a challenge, which they proceed to solve on the spot. They either have the answer at hand, or will proceed to figure it out in a couple of minutes, then go ahead and do it with what tools and resources they have at hand. There's no research, no preparation, no nothing.

People want to believe in that sort of lone genius because they are mortally afraid of being put in a spot where they don't have a ready answer. We are taught that not having the answer, or answering wrong, is cause for public shame. We idolize people who can puke up facts and answers on demand, and we believe their fact-spewing abilities make them ideal for solving problems too. We believe that problems are solved simply by knowing the relevant facts.

But solving problems is a creative skill where often you have to get the wrong answers before you discover the facts. Anything you can answer or solve in less than an hour is not any kind of accomplishment. That real sense of accomplishment comes when you've spent a year on something, tearing out your hair because you got it wrong a thousand times before you got it right, and because it looked like a hopeless mess of pieces until just before the end.

Solving problems is also often a matter of team work and sharing ideas. But even when you see teams of hackers (or anything else) in Hollywood, they do not work together. What you get are a bunch of lone geniuses who proceed to do exactly what lone geniuses do in Hollywood. They'll mostly sit around, maybe type a little uncertainly on their respective keyboards, until one of them proclaims, "Heureka! Try this," and then they try that and bam. There's no discussion, no arguing, no back and forth. Or at least very little of it.

There are of course different kinds of hackers. Different levels of skill, targeting, motivations and determination. There are also different needs for different stories. Is the hacking central to the story, or does it all happen in the background? Much like romance, if you want to do it well, it must be a central part of the story and not just one scene.

Personally, I find it absolutely fascinating, the people who spend years slowly infiltrating some very specific target, carefully using insiders and social engineering to exfiltrate intelligence, then analyzing and using that intelligence to develop specialized attacks, specially developed bugs and backdoors, which are again delivered via insiders or social engineering because there's no public-facing access to these systems. All of it in an attempt to crawl deeper into the heart of the target where the real prize awaits.

That's real accomplishment, full of drama and complex challenges, and it's the sort of hacking you never see (handled properly) in Hollywood.

Of course, that's not to say you couldn't tell a great story about script kiddies launching DDoS attacks and picking at the low-hanging fruits of the Internet. Or criminals doing the electronic equivalent of Smash-and-Grab. Different stories, different needs. The drama just isn't in the hacking itself, then.

[Tiki Snakes]

Cyberpunk?
For my money, you'll have to go a fair way to beat Ghost in the Shell, (particularly the first film and the series). Especially in terms of hacking, information control and social engineering.

[Grinner]

So Deadly has given a very thorough high-level overview of the intricacies of hacking as a plot device, but I'd like to address some of the lower concerns.

When the commanders in your example are busy trading fire, they are involved in a battle, a single, discrete conflict. Hacking does not have a clear analogue to this. Cyberwarfare is a very asynchronous mode of conflict, while the sort of things Hollywood specializes in (i.e. gunfights) represent synchronous conflicts.

Realistically, a hacker-fight would happen over an extended period of time and, as Deadly mentioned, would probably encompass a great deal of the plot. It would be a campaign of information warfare with an emphasis on information. Characters in Hollywood often participate in conflicts with the objective of physically eliminating, capturing, or otherwise detaining the opposition, but this cannot be the case for something focused on hacking, with certain exceptions.

It occurs to me that a story featuring hacking as a central device would emulate political drama (the 2012 film Lincoln comes to mind) in some respects. The objective of the character's actions would be to acquire information or influence (over people or infrastructure), and the characters would have to employ cunning and artifice to accomplish their objectives. Moreover, a great deal of the political dramas' plots detail the process of preparation, something key to particularly big hacks.

Certain tropes of procedural crime dramas and spy thrillers might also be applicable, given their focus on acquiring and determining what certain pieces of information mean.

Summer Wars, if you've ever seen it, is one of the better attempts I've seen, though it still made certain concessions to Hollywood's version of hacking.

Also, certain elements of the recent Sherlock Holmes movies could work, particularly the scenes where Sherlock walks the audience through his reasoning. What's important is that the information be important to the ongoing plot. Drowning the audience in the details of SSL protocol is bound to both confuse and bore it.

[Thanqol]

This is all super interesting and stuff that needs me to really open my brain about and digest.

For now, have two really interesting things that are shaping my near-term thoughts. They're about conflict and the future of conflict.

[Thanqol]

WEEKLY RECAP:

Blogs:

Having Something To Say - awesome discussions about birds

Summer - Fulfilling a promise

Gaming:

Crazy mad progress happening in AIA

New Principles:

Always quit writing when you're in the swing of things. Leaves you with something to look forward to when you start again tomorrow.

Writing:

Just what's in this thread. It's a pretty good haul, all this, considering all the other awesome stuff I did this week!

[Thanqol]

New blog post! On Comedy!

[Thanqol]

Urgh, one of those dreams. You know, the ones where you yank out half of your teeth with your fingers before thinking to ask, "Wait, adult teeth grow back, right?"

There's a story in that too.

[Thanqol]

Aah! It's Wednesday and I haven't done anything for this thread yet!

I have a good excuse though, especially for this kind of thread. I've been reading The Jungle Book! And it's great, I'm totally absorbed in it, and it's been a while since I've been that wrapped up in a story. Has anyone ever read that book as an adult? It's really shockingly good.



Anyway, here's something that I'm not feeling super confident about. It's primarily an experiment with writing in voice, but it lacks a clear plan or direction. I think that there's some interesting stuff happening here but it's in the form and not the content. My ideas are being pulled in to many directions right now!

Spoiler

Show

This land is cursed, you know?

Well, you should know. This was where the Snake lived and died. For nigh on fifty years he was loose on this land an' every pony lived in fear. So it's almost odd, then, that ain't none of the stories about the Snake blame the Snake for bein' the Snake. They all agree that the Snake was punishment for somethin’ else, an' that somethin' is usually hubris.

Classic tale is to blame it all on Starswirl. It's an easy hoof to point - powerful wizard, wanted to become a princess, a horrifyin' monster just seems like the sort of thing somepony like that should make, right? The next runner up is that it's Celestia's fault. The logic on that one goes, Celestia's the perfect pony princess, there ain’t no way she managed that without goin’ and carvin’ off all the evil bits of her personality. Maybe there was once a bigger thing, a pony responsible for creating the universe, an’ the colours, an’ the water and mountains, but that pony split itself in two pieces and they been fightin’ ever since.

After that then you get into the more weird an’ local forms’a blame. The Snake got made when the pony tribes wouldn’t stop their feudin’. The Snake got made by aliens to make the world, and then we got made to refine it. The Snake got hatched when a dragon loved a mare. The Snake was once a good guy, but he got shunned and rejected an’ driven to evil.

All the Snake’s stories are about how it ain’t the fault of the Snake for the things the Snake does. Instead of blamin’ the Snake for what he does we should blame each other for what we done to create him. An’ this makes stories about the Snake confused an’ angry an’ leavin’ folks with a bad taste in their mouth, an’ I reckon that’s just how the Snake likes it.

So I ain’t gonna tell you any stories about where the Snake came from or what he done before he got large. I’m going to tell you stories about things the Snake actually did. An’ if you ever feel like I’m tellin’ the story wrong or there’s somethin’ you want to stop me and argue about, just remember that it wouldn’t be a Snake story otherwise.

*

The Snake hated ants.

When he first hatched and went through his first winter, he shed his skin – an’ feathers, an’ scales, an’ teeth. It all just fell off him in bloody clumps until he wasn’t much more than a bloody skeleton. He enjoyed this state of affairs an’ went around gifting ponies with horrible little fragments of himself to remember him by. They’d always throw the darn things away, an’ they’d burrow into the ground, scuttling and sliding, an’ then grow up into somethin’ terrible. An’ then the Snake would have a laugh.

But he soon found out that not that many of his twisted little children were growin’ up as he’d hoped. So he went around to the places where the bits had fallen and found out that somethin’ was eating them – ants. Hundred of little ants, solid and orderly, breaking each nasty seed down into tiny little bites and carryin’ it back in perfect formation. It was so organised that it just cancelled out the Snake’s evil magic, and the Snake weren’t happy about that at all.

So, after that, the Snake made it his business to stomp out any ant nest he saw. He’d dance atop their little hills, an’ pour boiling water down their holes, an’ crush them beneath him, an’ watch them scuttle away and then imprison them in demented ant farms. One time he tried eating ‘em but they bit his tongue and clung to his tonsils and he couldn’t dislodge ‘em. He thrashed around in a rage for days after that, cursing an’ hexing an’ sulking.

So after he’d worn himself down, the Snake moved from rage to spite. He found the biggest ant nest he could and began to dig. He tore it up bit by bit, brushing off the furious ants who came forwards to bite him. He kept digging until he met the Queen, and he held her up by the antennae an’ started barking demands at her. “Why,” he wanted to know, “do you ruin everythin’ I do? I’m just trying to live my life and have a little fun; why do you need to be everywhere? Why do you need to ruin everythin’?”

“Because,” said the Queen, “as Queen my job is to look out for the ants an’ only the ants, an’ I couldn’t make that different more than I could become a pony.”

An’ the Snake’s eyes gleamed. He’d suddenly got an idea. “So your nature is to spread about misery wherever you go?”

“Exceptin’ for my kin, yes,” said the Queen. “Ain’t nothin’ else worth a thing.”

“Then mayhaps you shouldn’t be my problem alone,” said the Snake. “Perhaps everypony in the world should know what I feel.”

So the Snake called up a storm, ‘cause a storm was the proper weather to do this kind of work. From the storm clouds started pourin’ a thick poison, like tar run rampant with algae. He opened his mouth wide, distending his jaw, catchin’ all the poison and rot in his mouth an’ bloating like a balloon. When the Snake could contain no more, he swished the mixture about in his mouth, and then spat every last drop down upon the Queen an’ her ants. An’ the ants shifted and warped, sproutin’ like weeds an’ burning away like they were burned with acid. Soon they were to the height of knees, an’ then withers, an’ then all the way to a pony’s hat. They were there by the thousands, the Queen an’ all her brood.

An’ then the Snake rolled away into the sky, keen as mustard to see what was to happen next.

[Thanqol]

"Hey idiot! What about a simple villain with a clear motivation?"

Okay, derp. I've been so wrapped up in big ticket thoughts recently that I've totally missed the boat, which was the reason I started this project in the first place. But! I have just thought of the perfect way to bring everything together and keep myself simple and on track with an easy yet super fun story.

I'm gonna write a James Bond novel! All thoughts, processes, and subroutines are now realigned towards this goal!

[Tiki Snakes]

An actual James Bond novel, a james bond style spy novel, or an espionage novel?

I'm guessing not the third option there, but there's a vast difference between the first two that is very easily missed, and I'm interested in that particular nuance.

[Thanqol]

An actual James Bond novel, a james bond style spy novel, or an espionage novel?

I'm guessing not the third option there, but there's a vast difference between the first two that is very easily missed, and I'm interested in that particular nuance.

Actual James Bond. Haven't read any of the books but have seen most of the movies. What do you think the vast difference is?

I've got some great ideas instantly coming to mind but I'm interested in this first.

[Thanqol]

Simple villain, clear motivation:

The Villain: A sophisticated, high tech Somali pirate. Made a fortune stealing cargo ships and progressed to sponsoring international criminal and terrorist activity. Forward-thinking, almost visionary. Sees himself as a father/wise mentor figure to his organisation. Turns this almost compassionate, benevolent air towards really dark ends when manipulating people. In the movie he'd be played by Morgan Freeman or Clarke Peters.

The Plan: What they do normally, but global. Shipping firms have adapted their strategy to use increasingly automated ships to prevent the pirates from taking hostages. The villain is responding by planning a series of sophisticated attacks to steal the controls of the global shipping industry. Once he has that he can redirect any cargo liner anywhere he wants - which means that he has essentially conquered the world.

This means he needs:
- To breach the HQ of the shipping network and upload his virus
Methodology:
1a Develop the virus using hackers and kidnapped employees
2a Kidnap a connected CEO and interrogate him for key information, particularly w/r/t disabling backups
3a Attack the control building with a highly armed team

- To immobilise and distract the world's navies and intelligence apparatus
Methodology:
1b Engineer a crisis in the arctic
2b Fund multiple acts of terrorism on energy pipelines to divert attention
3b Kill or discredit James Bond, who knows too much.

It all basically follows from there.

[Tiki Snakes]

James bond himself. A lot of people who parody, mimmick or simply talk about bond style things only see Bond as he projects himself, the outward persona and the trailer montage self, all sharp suits, one liners and gadgets.

It's more explicit in the books, from what little I have read, but its still there in the films to varying degrees, but the real James Bond is somewhere beneath that veneer of debonaire disinterest. He's the jaded soldier who kills for his country. He's the broken man, utterly unable to survive normal life. Away from danger, excitement and purpose, he devolves to self destructing alcoholic dangerously quickly. He literally needs that rush of adrenaline to survive, so he throws himself utterly into his work, holding nothing of himself in reserve. This is why he is able to so casually manipulate the women he encounters without guilt, why he can quip so casually as he murders the people in his way. He's a man who represents the establishment and will do anything for his country but who has a burning disrespect for authority and who rebels against the rules and regulations as much for his own amusement as anything.

A man with total self confidence and a complete lack of self worth, utterly believing he can achieve whatever impossible goal he sets his mind to, but who would throw his life away in a split second if the mission required it and who is utterly incapable of ever living a normal life.

He's also man who only ever actually loved one woman, (depending on your chosen continuity) and who is at his core most honestly a simple widower who has no time to or capacity for grief.

He's also a secret agent, who only a handful of people would ever really have reason to know about and not an investigator as much as he is an attack dog, a hit man, the last line of defence and only ever really dispatched on a set mission rather than out on his own reconnaissance, so I can't think why the villain would have accounted for Bond in particular in his planning, let alone require him out of the way, what with that basically just meaning that 008 would be sent to get him instead. Unless of course, the Villain fits one of a few very specific options;

If he is a similar agent or whatever from the other side, he might know about bond via reputation, but there's little obvious reason that he would expect bond in particular.

More likely, he'd have to be someone inside Bond's own organisation to have a meaningful chance of both knowing of Bond and having particular reason to fear him rather than the double-0's or British Intelligence in general.

Edit - I think there are probably more holes in your villain's goals and logic here, too.

At a glance, there's the big issue of, well. Once he gets control, then he only has a limited window in which to benefit, because shipping companies aren't going to simply keep sending out ships using the same technology after that. Meaning he might get access to the navigation system of every cargo ship on the ocean, but no more. Also, those ships only move so fast, and are easy to track. So how does he take advantage of this without getting taken out by one of the governments crossed in his scheme?

And once he has this grand haul of cargo, what does he do with it? That's a lot of random junk. Tiles and toilets and Toyotas. Desperate Somali Pirates basically can't lose at this point, they have so little they can sell what they can sell or ransom hostages and consider it all worthwhile if they get basically anything, but our Villain has has to distract all the major navies in the world, as well as mount a major military operation to sieze control of the centre, and now has what? A bunch of stuff to sell on the black market.

[Thanqol]

James bond himself. A lot of people who parody, mimmick or simply talk about bond style things only see Bond as he projects himself, the outward persona and the trailer montage self, all sharp suits, one liners and gadjets.

It's more explicit in the books, from what little I have read, but its still there in the films to varying degrees, but the real James Bond is somewhere beneath that veneer of debonaire disinterest. He's the jaded soldier who kills for his country. He's the broken man, utterly unable to survive normal life. Away from danger, excitement and purpose, he devolves to self destructing alcoholic dangerously quickly. He literally needs that rush of adrenaline to survive, so he throws himself utterly into his work, holding nothing of himself in reserve. This is why he is able to so casually manipulate the women he encounters without guilt, why he can quip so casually as he murders the people in his way. He's a man who represents the establishment and will do anything for his country but who has a burning disrespect for authority and who rebels against the rules and regulations as much for his own amusement as anything.

A man with total self confidence and a complete lack of self worth, utterly believing he can achieve whatever impossible goal he sets his mind to, but who would throw his life away in a split second if the mission required it and who is utterly incapable of ever living a normal life.

He's also man who only ever actually loved one woman, (depending on your chosen continuity) and who is at his core most honestly a simple widower who has no time to or capacity for grief.

He's also a secret agent, who only a handful of people would ever really have reason to know about and not an investigator as much as he is an attack dog, a hit man, the last line of defence and only ever really dispatched on a set mission rather than out on his own reconnaissance, so I can't think why the villain would have accounted for Bond in particular in his planning, let alone require him out of the way, what with that basically just meaning that 008 would be sent to get him instead. Unless of course, the Villain fits one of a few very specific options;

If he is a similar agent or whatever from the other side, he might know about bond via reputation, but there's little obvious reason that he would expect bond in particular.

More likely, he'd have to be someone inside Bond's own organisation to have a meaningful chance of both knowing of Bond and having particular reason to fear him rather than the double-0's or British Intelligence in general.

Oh yeah, absolutely. All this is pure feature and core insight. Fleming described him as "A blunt instrument of the government" and that's exactly how I intend to use him. All the stuff about his personality is optimal for the story I want to tell and the point of the challenge - that is, telling a story about James Bond and not some generic secret agent.

Anyway, the fact that the villain accounts for Bond particularly becomes an emergent property of his plan after Bond starts meddling in it. I know exactly how everything starts but I'm resisting saying it all now. That list of things represents more the six core things the villain is doing that link the action scenes together. But I'm not going into my story plan today because I'm letting myself ferment with the excitement of how cool this is gonna be. Right now I just wanna focus on the villain.

I will mention that I'm straight up stealing the Aviators' song Snowblind as my Bond theme for this story. I'm also visualising the opening montage, it's cool as hell.

EDITED:

Edit - I think there are probably more holes in your villain's goals and logic here, too.

Well yeah obviously. He's a Bond villain. If I do it how I'd do it he could do this entire thing without leaving his apartment.

At a glance, there's the big issue of, well. Once he gets control, then he only has a limited window in which to benefit, because shipping companies aren't going to simply keep sending out ships using the same technology after that. Meaning he might get access to the navigation system of every cargo ship on the ocean, but no more. Also, those ships only move so fast, and are easy to track. So how does he take advantage of this without getting taken out by one of the governments crossed in his scheme?

And once he has this grand haul of cargo, what does he do with it? That's a lot of random junk. Tiles and toilets and Toyotas. Desperate Somali Pirates basically can't lose at this point, they have so little they can sell what they can sell or ransom hostages and consider it all worthwhile if they get basically anything, but our Villain has has to distract all the major navies in the world, as well as mount a major military operation to sieze control of the centre, and now has what? A bunch of stuff to sell on the black market.

Well, if you want to get into that side of it, he's going to go to the UN and say "Either I crash every one of these ships into the nearest coastline like the world's biggest Robin Hood and utterly totally crash the global economy in the process, or you accept all of my demands without question".

He doesn't want the stuff. He wants a button that ends the world.

[Tiki Snakes]

See also the above edit.

[Thanqol]

See also the above edit.

Aha, but I did, and I edited in counter to your edit.

[Tiki Snakes]

Any plan which involves you directly threatening that many major powers, especially the big three or four, had better have one hell of a good method of assuming your own safety from governmental death squads built in, really.

I mean, sounds like a classic Dr Evil plot, essentially, which was itself mimicking at least one Bond film, but the Bond version at least involved the mastermind of a global crime organisation and a laser weapon capable of destroying cities and the nuclear weapons of the superpowers basically at will before demands started happening. You know?

And would the hijacking and/or scuppering of the world's cargo ships have a bigger effect on the global economy than the banking crisis? I mean, I'm hazy on how much wealth would actually be afloat at any one time.

[Thanqol]

Any plan which involves you directly threatening that many major powers, especially the big three or four, had better have one hell of a good method of assuming your own safety from governmental death squads built in, really.

I mean, sounds like a classic Dr Evil plot, essentially, which was itself mimicking at least one Bond film, but the Bond version at least involved the mastermind of a global crime organisation and a laser weapon capable of destroying cities and the nuclear weapons of the superpowers basically at will before demands started happening. You know?

This is nitpicking of execution. I have described the plan in as flippant terms as possible, I know I have to put more than five minutes into it when it comes time for the villain monologue. What you need to know right now is:

- Steal the world's global shipping and transportation chain
???
- Profit!

I don't need to focus on the ??? bit because Bond kills the guy before that happens.

And would the hijacking and/or scuppering of the world's cargo ships have a bigger effect on the global economy than the banking crisis? I mean, I'm hazy on how much wealth would actually be afloat at any one time.

If you don't think it would result in a massive and instantaneous meltdown of the global economy you're way more optimistic than me. In the current global market everything is operating on hairlines. The supply chain disruption alone would put entire industries and millions of people out of business.

[Madcrafter]

And would the hijacking and/or scuppering of the world's cargo ships have a bigger effect on the global economy than the banking crisis? I mean, I'm hazy on how much wealth would actually be afloat at any one time.

Thanqol maybe has done some research on this already (and if I am not mistaken, has a degree somewhere around here), but I think it would do significant amounts of damage (I don't know in relation to the banking crisis, but that is hard to measure anyways). Suddenly there is no shipping, and no foreign goods (outside of exorbitant air shipping) are able to be efficiently imported/exported. Some countries would do better than others of course, and more connected areas like Eurasia can still ship by truck. But in heavy importing countries things would start running out decently quick (probably food variety first), while exporting nations will have large chunks of their economy carved away in a flash. And recovery is long; you'd have to wait until new ships were built, since most all the current ones would be destroyed (assuming they are and not just run aground or something).

For example, China alone, with the highest at over 2 trillion in exports, probably does the huge majority of that by ship (and maybe some by rail to Russia/N.Korea), since it is highly isolated otherwise. That's enormous economic activity wiped out, and it will be just completely gone for a decent chunk of time. That's serious damage.

[Tiki Snakes]

Oh, that was much more of a straight question than anything. I'm sure it'd have a huge impact, but I have no conception beyond that. The banking crisis is a conveniently recent and real world benchmark to compare such things against, what with the near collapse of our entire concept of banking/money being a spectre there for a while.

Edit - Its clear no further comment or question is desired or required, you're clearly confident on and decided on your vision so I'll leave you to it from this point. I only really meant to ask about the James Bond vs James Bond-esque thing, anyway.

[Thanqol]

Oh, that was much more of a straight question than anything. I'm sure it'd have a huge impact, but I have no conception beyond that. The banking crisis is a conveniently recent and real world benchmark to compare such things against, what with the near collapse of our entire concept of banking/money being a spectre there for a while.

Heh, past tense.

It'd be rationing at best, famine, total societal collapse and regional warfare at worst, depending on if your country imports or exports food. Not as clean an apocalypse as thermonuclear weapons but it definitely counts as one.

I'm inspired by an evil, extremist version of Henry Okah.