As I said, this one would be done faster. The next one will not. A cookie to whoever sees/guesses what wikipedia article I used. And I hope you folk like the space background I used which I found by looking for pictures with google.
Been meaning to post this reply for a few days now.
I'm... just curious as to how you actually worked that out, Lying. Did you look at the blurred-out title on the right of the page and realise that what was there could match up with "The Order of the Stick", or am I overlooking some incredibly obvious detail here?
Also, I love the Angry Death Star, Zwean. ;) You really outdid yourself here.
Technically, it *will* be science-fiction. That is to say, it's a work of fiction and I intend to work more "science" into the magic than you've ever seen before.
My apologies for not providing a comic in well, a week now, but I was gone from monday until wednesday and had an oral test yesterday. Also working on determining my thesis subject and will have to start learning for the second chance of a test later in march over the coming days and I have an appointment on monday. So, hoping that such will be enough excuses to be believable.
Even now, I present no new comic, but I did update the first post with a few new banners which are smaller than the first. I may or may not work on the next tomorrow, and otherwise tuesday or later in the week.
Bah! In my day, men had to milk the cows, shear the sheep, feed a baby, climb a mountain, cross a desert, be elected President, recover the treasures of Atlantis, invent a new spaceship, write a letter, launch a revolution, break the 100m-dash record, deflect a comet, and produce a webcomic every day! In a blizzard!
()
__________________
Welcome to the official outdated sig of Naleh!
Spoiler
Possessor of two cookies, one kobold point, and an internet or two.
Dragonslayer and Goblinoid Supporter in D&D Monster H/H.
I have too many characters for a sig.
Bah! In my day, men had to milk the cows, shear the sheep, feed a baby, climb a mountain, cross a desert, be elected President, recover the treasures of Atlantis, invent a new spaceship, write a letter, launch a revolution, break the 100m-dash record, deflect a comet, and produce a webcomic every day! In a blizzard!
Bah! In my day, men had to milk the cows, shear the sheep, feed a baby, climb a mountain, cross a desert, be elected President, recover the treasures of Atlantis, invent a new spaceship, write a letter, launch a revolution, break the 100m-dash record, deflect a comet, and produce a webcomic every day! In a blizzard!
Bah! In my day, men had to milk the cows, shear the sheep, feed a baby, climb a mountain, cross a desert, be elected President, recover the treasures of Atlantis, invent a new spaceship, write a letter, launch a revolution, break the 100m-dash record, deflect a comet, and produce a webcomic every day! In a blizzard!
()
This is so awesome it needs to be quoted...
...Twice
I concur and up that to thrice-quoted! It is that awesome.
In an effort to (A) give you guys some more stuff to look at while Zwean is busy with some things far, far more important than a mere comic, and (B) keep this topic from fading away entirely, I have decided to provide little snippets and insights into the world of Estra.
If you want to know more about anything, please feel free to ask. There will be spoilers, but since Zwean offered me twenty pages maximum for the comic, they won't be spoilers for any time soon. :P
Especially not now, since American Canine seems to have vanished completely. I was looking forward to working with him. Ah well. Anyway, ask about anything. Ask about something or someone you saw in the comic thus far or ask about something else entirely. It's your call.
If I get no requests, I'll just start providing information about what I want to. ;)
Is this a multiverse type of deal with multiple planes, or just one? (The world where it starts and the world with the not-Star-Trek-or-Star-Wars-at-all people, if they're different.)
__________________ Folding@Home The Diamond Mind (A Tome of Battle prestige class)
"I just ESP it a half-twist and. . ." Mark Clifton, "Star, Bright"
Great artist, I'm assuming clinically insane as hes willing to draw for me. Also, *cracks whip* WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF YOUR BOX, I TOLD YOU TO DRAW FASTER!
Why is she pregnant, and the title is "birth of magic"? Coincidence? I think not!
Actually, it *is* a coincidence. Way, way back in the beginning, when this idea was little more than a glint in the milkman's eye, so to speak, Fiona was not pregnant. Then I had one of my classic "Hey self, wouldn't it be great if this event/person was linked to this event/person in this way that you've not thought of before?" moments, forcing me to change this bit. I had to retcon it before it was even out in any way, shape or form. :P
Quote:
Is this a multiverse type of deal with multiple planes, or just one? (The world where it starts and the world with the not-Star-Trek-or-Star-Wars-at-all people, if they're different.)
Oh dear. Looks like the first subject of discussion is the biggest (At least physically). Let's start at the top, shall we?
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The Universe
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Spoiler
The universe needs no real explanation. It is massive, and nobody could possibly even begin to chart all of it. The story takes place in an area of the universe that is (At least mostly) controlled by an organisation called the Galactic Alliance. From beyond the edges of what the Alliance know of the universe, a second faction enters into play, known as the Xavian Empire. Both factions shall be covered in brief in this post.
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The Galactic Alliance
---
Spoiler
The Galactic Alliance is an institution not unlike certain international organisations in real life. In other words, it was formed so that the member civilisations could keep tabs on one another, as they didn't trust each other in the slightest. It is only the threat of swift and terrible retribution from the other members that prevents any one of them from rising up against the others. The Alliance very rarely works as a whole, and it almost always takes a threat to get them to assist each other. This is usually either an outside threat that could destroy all of them, or the threat of previously-mentioned swift and terrible retribution if they do not help.
The Alliance is a fragile thing, constantly in danger of falling apart due to rampant xenophobia on all sides. The various species that form it, however, need each other, if only to help achieve the illusion that they are all on the same side. The truth is, however, that were a single fracture to appear in any one race's military strength, then opportunism would reign triumphant in the minds of their fellows, who would seek to capitalise on such a weakness.
The Alliance has a grand total of thirty-seven different species as its members, although thirty-two of those are little more than puppets for the five major members. By "major" I mean "spacefaring", and by "puppets" I mean "slaves". The thirty-two minor members were all introduced to the Alliance after their planets were invaded by one or more of the major members. Most of the cultures absorbed into the Alliance were going through one industrial phase or another, and an army with the capacity to fight back effectively was a very rare thing indeed.
The five major member species are as follows: The Rugons, the Gurts, the Ablinai, the Kronii and the Quen. In what is both a homage to Star Trek and a showcase of my laziness and lack of originality, all five are humanoid in appearance. Further information about them can be hastily thrown together if requested, although Gurts are exceptionally, impossibly, disgustingly ugly.
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The Xavian Empire
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Spoiler
The Xavian Empire is a vast, interstellar empire (Obviously) that stretches across the universe. The majority of it lies beyond what the Alliance know of the universe, and it contains a grand total of four hundred and fifty eight sentient species. Of that number, only one is really in control of anything. They are the Xavians, and their home planet of Xavia is the centrestone of their vast empire. They are expansionists, if the vast number of species under their dominion is anything to go by. Little else is known of them by the Alliance, save their capacity to learn from the tactics of their enemies and their inability to understand the concept of interior design.
Having engaged in (And lost) six campaigns against the Galactic Alliance, they have displayed a startling level of intelligence, or at the very least something close to the Law of Infinite Monkeys due to sheer numbers. Every time they were driven back, they adapted their tactics to compensate. Every time they managed to acquire some of the Alliance's technology, they managed to adjust and reverse engineer it to suit their purposes.
Their leader, Emperor Cruthek, is a man who prides form over function and usefulness over appearance. This view is shared to some extent by his subjects, at least to avoid the Emperor's personal Thought Police. Because of issues with overpopulation, he has no problems with killing his own subjects in order to help reduce the drain on resources. It is for this reason that the Xavians are known as expansionists, and it is for this reason that their troops have been thrown into certain death time and time again.
The Xavians are as bad as everybody else. Emperor Cruthek, on the other hand, is a combination (And a parody) of Palpatine and Xenu.
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The Xavian Wars
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Spoiler
There have been six major invasions of Alliance space by the Xavian Empire to date. I shall speak of those invasions in order. The first three Xavian Wars were merely considered information gathering missions to the Xavians themselves, and were beaten back with relative ease. They did not go without a fight, however, and they obtained extensive information on the Alliance itself. From the locations of their galaxies and planets, to a rough distribution of their various military strengths. From their tactics to their formations.
From their technology to their cultures. There was much they learned from those forays. Having established in the minds of the Alliance leaders their status as weak, unskilled opponents, they launched a fourth invasion. The leaders of the Alliance were complacent in their ability to defeat the Xavians as they had done three times before. That complacency was their mistake, as the Xavians now know where to strike and where to avoid. This time, they were playing for keeps.
In the end, however, the Alliance were victorious. They were on home turf, and used their superior knowledge of the surrounding area to their advantage. Outflanked, out-gunned and cut off from supplies and reinforcements from the Empire, the fourth armada eventually fell to the defenders, although they did not fall easily. Although the fourth invasion had been serious, there was no way it could match the fifth. Entire Alliance planets were surrounded and obliterated, bombed into oblivion. It was a systematic approach to a problem, to be sure.
The Emperor had wanted to maximise the potential destruction, however, and had ordered the division of the massive, solitary fleet. In its place were a multitude of smaller fleets, each still capable of destroying a planet, but now allowing for many more to be destroyed at any one time. Unfortunately, they were immensely weak, when compared to the original. The Alliance couldn't be everywhere at once and still provide an effective defence against this tactic... or so they thought.
With a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work, a Quen engineer was able to modify one of their race's standard scout probes to transmit radar signals. The idea was pitched to the military, who liked the idea. One thing led to another, and that idea cascaded into the perfect counter to the Xavian invasion. Before, Alliance spacecraft capable of wormhole travel were restricted to travelling to pre-set coordinates and hoping they could reach the affected area in time.
All that changed, however, when some bright spark realised that the same transmission that contained radar signals could also work as a homing beacon. And so, the speed at which Alliance spaceships could respond to threats drastically increased, to the point where they were practically on top of the Xavian fleets within minutes of the alarm being sounded. Now that the Alliance had the ability to fight back, the Xavian forces suffered a loss of morale.
They remembered, or at least knew, of what had happened the last time they had been drawn into a war of attrition. Within weeks, the fifth invasion was officially called off, but the Emperor had high hopes for the sixth one.
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The Behemoth
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Spoiler
The Xavians had learned from the fifth invasion, and Cruthek now knew not to divide a powerful fleet unless absolutely necessary. Based on records and reports of the various factors that had lost their forces the last two wars, several of their scientists devised a radical solution to solve not only the problem of failing troop morale, but also to negate the need for supply lines entirely. They drafted up blueprints for an incredibly powerful flagship that would stand as the beacon of their Empire.
It was their own home planet of Xavia. After all, surely no soldier would dare allow their morale to fail when their own civilisation hung in the balance! Being as rich in resources as it was, receiving tithes and tributes from all across the Empire, Xavia held enough supplies to last an army a lifetime or two. Although it would take most of their metal supplies, their plan was extremely simple.
Try and picture it. A planet full of materials, resources and manpower. A planet-wide energy grid to power the engines, weapons, shields and systems. Massive metal pillars jutting out of the ground, connecting with a massive sphere of metal located beyond the atmosphere. The hull itself, incredibly thick and dense, and absolutely covered in weaponry. Missile silos, laser batteries, plasma cannons... Enough firepower to decimate entire fleets, and enough defences to withstand the same firepower in return, if not more.
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The Meduna System
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Spoiler
The Meduna system. Situated on the outer fringes of the charted universe, in an area of space none have yet claimed, the only reason it has not been absorbed into one space-faring empire or another is because it isn't worth the effort. Meduna's planets have little in the way of resources, and an equally pathetic smattering of intelligent life. There is nothing worth pillaging and nobody worth enslaving, an attitude that has spared its inhabitants much strife. Over the centuries it has been used mostly as a dumping ground for space wrecks, the remains of vessels that were of no use, even as scrap. It is a common practice for species belonging to the Galactic Alliance to reassign troublemakers there.
The few space stations scattered across the system are old and outdated, little more than holding pens for the criminals and dissidents who live there. Home to some of the most violent and dangerous criminals in the history of the universe, and devoid of enough resources to make an invasion worthwhile, there is little enough reason for anybody to go there. The system's sole asteroid field, however, has slowly been picking up the pieces of spacecraft that have drifted its way, one by one, drawing each of them into its combined gravity well. With every spaceship that is abandoned there, its size increases, bolstered by the scrap metal.
The metal only adds to its gravitational pull, its power slowly increasing with every new addition. But the effect such a gravity well has on passing spaceships has never been the real danger. No, the real danger lies in the scrapped spacecraft themselves, or rather their contents. Though the spaceships have been decommissioned, they still contain supplies of highly dangerous fuel, no longer protected by containment shields. The whole network of asteroids and spacecraft is a catastrophe just waiting to happen, but it is also the last resort against any attacker. If things look grim enough, the entire thing could be detonated, causing not only a devastating explosion that could destroy a large part of the system, but also a massive discharge of the stored energy, effectively working as a crude EMP weapon simply by completely overloading every electronic system it touched.
Or at least, that's how it was before the Sixth Xavian War and the Battle of Meduna...
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Estra
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Spoiler
Estra is one of the smaller and less-developed planets in the Meduna system, and that's saying something. It is divided into a multitude of kingdoms, fiefdoms, counties, realms and empires, and although there was once much war, now there is an uneasy peace of sorts, championed as a breakthrough by many idealists. Any change in the status quo, however, and a second Age of Slaughter could occur. Specific information about Estra will be revealed at a later date, either when I decide it's a good time or if requested.
Well, there you have it. A look at some of the background material for Estra. I leave you now with a link to a semi-draft version of a project I started a couple of months ago. I had another "Hey, self!" idea, but this time I had (For some reason) decided that writing the entire story from the beginning of everything to the start of what I had written currently was a good idea. I hate whatever part of my brain gives me these ideas, sometimes.
...It occurs to me that I never actually answered the second question.
Quote:
Is this a multiverse type of deal with multiple planes, or just one? (The world where it starts and the world with the not-Star-Trek-or-Star-Wars-at-all people, if they're different.)
One plane... sort of. I'll explain now.
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Wormholes/Warp Travel
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Spoiler
Classic "Star Trek" theory seems to hold that a ship the size of the Enterprise can fly at incredibly fast speeds through space without hitting anything. Ever. While that *is* possible, I'd never want to take a chance like that. Both the Galactic Alliance and the Xavian Empire (Due to each side stealing the technology of the other) use similar methods of performing the same function.
Incredibly powerful energy generators are used to power special devices designed to tear a hole in reality, forming a 'tunnel' of sorts through the alternate reality known commonly as "the Void". It is called that simply because of its defining feature: There is nothing there. The 'tunnel' of energy through the Void tears open a new hole at a pre-determined destination, leading back into normal space.
The emptiness of the Void makes it a perfect place for the larger and more powerful spaceships to use their most powerful engines. These engines are unsuited for use in normal space due to the extreme speeds they can propel a spaceship at. At those speeds, the chances of a collision with anything are quite high. As such, Void travel is advised, due to the lack of almost all other objects in the vicinity.
Void travel is dangerous, and should a vessel not make it all the way through before the energy fades and the holes seal themselves up again, then they must either recharge their wormhole-creating systems or wait and hope for another ship to tear open a hole nearby.
Addendum: Before anybody asks, yes, I know that one of the comics features a guy mentioning that shields, teleporters and time travel are impossible technologies, and yet both my information on the Behemoth and the story version I linked to mention shields (And the story mentions teleporters). This is not an accident. "The Captain" is an idiot, and will believe anything he's told.
Some people say that people who believe in fate are small minded.
I believe people who say such things are scared of, and thus naturally, -hate- fate. The mere idea there is a manipulative force you can't kill, one you actually have to live with rather than ignore or eliminate. It's a terrifying prospect isn't it?
Its a very justified fear, especially when you take into account that it is impossible for fate and free will (even partial free will) to exist.
My reasoning runs like this: Fate, by its nature, would have to be omniscient. If it is omniscient it knows all possible futures and what specific chains of events will cause each those futures. Since it can act anywhere, it is capable of causing any of those chains to occur (given sufficient time in which to act, which it of course has). Because it is capable of picking a future, it decides what the future will be, and thus no other entity has free will.
I find this far too scary to believe in, which is why I prefer not to believe in fate, God, or any other omniscient being. Of course, if I am wrong I have no choice except to be wrong until the omniscient being decides it would like me to stop being wrong. See how this gets?
__________________ Folding@Home The Diamond Mind (A Tome of Battle prestige class)
"I just ESP it a half-twist and. . ." Mark Clifton, "Star, Bright"
I don't believe in Fate. But I do believe that Chaos Theory can, essentially, predetermine everything. That looks the same at first, except:
a) there's nothing supernatural or omniscient about it.
b) It doesn't stop choices from meaning anything... Quite the opposite, it means our tiniest choices could literally change the universe. ("Shall I have honey sandwiches, or jam?" "Careful - whichever you choose will, via an incredibly long and complex chain of insignificant events, alter the weather patterns of the planet and potentially kill the future inventor of faster-than-light travel!" Or whatever.)
edit: Said idea doesn't frighten me, because it doesn't have any effect on free will. It does mean that we would always make whatever choice we happened to make, because human minds are really just very complex programs. We might make a different choice under different circumstances, but that doesn't matter because those circumstances don't appear. Everything causes everything else. Nothing's random.
I suppose that could be scary. But I don't find it so. And even if it was scary, it's not nearly so much as the idea of some Higher Power deciding everything.
__________________
Welcome to the official outdated sig of Naleh!
Spoiler
Possessor of two cookies, one kobold point, and an internet or two.
Dragonslayer and Goblinoid Supporter in D&D Monster H/H.
I have too many characters for a sig.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koji
Though I suppose [Naleh] is a pretty big hat.
Last edited by Naleh : 03-18-2008 at 11:00 PM.
Reason: elaboration
Scared? Of fate? Of the possibility of some "higher power" or whatever, deciding the course of my life for me? Of some pre-determined destiny awaiting me? Of any form of lack of choice in the matter on my part?
You're damn right I'm scared.
Hell, if fate is ever proven to actually exist, I'll be freaking petrified of it. I mean, what blame could we possibly shoulder for our actions, if they're pre-determined? Even the possibility of only *some* actions and events being pre-determined would freak me out. If we don't have *complete* free will, then we may as well have none at all.
On a side note, could anybody picture Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with Kamina making a lot of speeches about accepting the hand life deals you, about not striving to break through every obstacle in your way, about allowing other forces to determine your role in life for you?
It wouldn't sell. It'd be like an Adachi manga without the fat kid.
Heh. This sort of thing fits into the themes of some of the characters (Almost every character I've worked on has at least one or two). I think I'll move onto that bit next. It seems as if it might help stir up another nest of hornets. :)
And my apologies for the lack of updates over the last month. I have no good excuse for it since I do not consider "I did not feel like working on it" as a good excuse.
__________________
Last edited by Zweanslord : 03-23-2008 at 07:52 AM.
Another great comic up, the story is getting intresting.
I personaly like the sience-fiction and fantasy mixes and I dont understand why there are so few of them.
Hey guys. Zwean's still working on real-life obligations (Sock it to that thesis, man!), so here I am again, attempting to turn more of my thoughts and ideas for Estra into typed explanations. Or, more precisely, attempting to do it *effectively*.
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Mana
---
Spoiler
A previous post of mine mentioned the Void, an alternate reality of sorts used for 'warp' travel, which is basically the use of super-powerful spaceship engines that cannot be used safely in the 'normal' reality, which is full of stuff to crash into. The Void is home to a form of energy that has been known to destroy spaceships that linger there too long, and was a contributing factor in the destruction of Xavia in the Sixth Xavian War. It has come to be referred to as "anti-matter" by the Galactic Alliance, due to its devastating effect upon anything from normal reality.
The denizens of Estra, however, know it by the name "mana". The small hole in reality that Fiona discovered in Terril's disused library was a wormhole of sorts, a doorway between reality and the Void. Indeed, the very reason the library was abandoned in the first place was because of its presence. More specifically, it was due to it *opening*. Think of a wormhole as a hole in the bottom of a bucket. The larger the hole, the quicker the water escapes. The larger the wormhole, the quicker the energy escapes. If there is a hole small enough, the water cannot escape.
Wormholes opened by spaceships are huge, and the Behemoth was forced to open a truly massive one in order to pass through. By comparison, the hole in Terril was tiny. Little - if any - energy was able to pass through at all, although that did not stop the locals from forming their own opinions about something that they knew nothing about. In time, some of those opinions became stories told to quiet down troublesome children, and the next generation grew up with an ingrained fear of the place. Living creatures must either adapt to their surroundings or perish.
After all, people who live in a desert find themselves adapting to the heat. When Fiona entered the room that housed the wormhole, she was unknowningly exposed to the tiny amount of mana that had managed to exit the Void over those generations. When she inserted her arm into the wormhole itself, before forcing it open further with her own hands, she was exposing her body to slightly more mana than before. When she widened the hole, more mana was able to escape. As water flows to fill up a container, so too did the mana flow to fill up reality. Or rather, it tried to.
Fiona's body was now used to a tiny level of mana, but that was enough. As it flooded through her and into reality, it *changed* her body... as well as that of her unborn son. Later investigation and research done by Fiona and the Council of Magic would discover that hers was not the only body that had been changed somewhat. Her body had adapted to withstand mana, as well as to create and store its own supply. It had evolved a couple of new organs, as well as created an entirely new network of tubes that connected the two new organs to the respiratory, nervous, digestive, immune and endocrine systems.
More will come on mana in the near future. It's a big subject, and typing stuff up like this will help me in the long run, as I'm almost positive there's at least one blatant contradiction I just can't see that's staring me right in the face.
...even those who call themselves altruists were merely in it for what they could get out of it.
Genius.
And as I have always suspected.
__________________
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The Black Shield Transforms! - from Beyond Myria campaign
Wolvun avatar by kind courtesy of Kain_Tempest.
Spoiler
Requiescat in pace: the "Sweet Hat Bro" bird.
Can nothing survive the jaws of THE BEAST? Even the innocent cute and fluffy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sikyon
Sometimes people forget all the benefits we reap from the sacrifices of our soldiers.
In slightly-related news, my idea for Script Frenzy was to do a script based on a story I have set in Estra. I had counted on my own ability to procrastinate, but I had not counted on the ability of other people to distract and prevent me from doing what I want to do.
Thirty pages. I should have been approaching a hundred. Bah, there's always NaNoWriMo. Luckily, my ability to type absolute rubbish that makes some sense is beyond compare. ;)
A nine for Plot and a seven for Originality? Wow, thanks. I'll keep trying my best. Since I'm not the artist, I can't comment on the seven for Drawing Style, although I'm chuffed with Zwean's mad skillz. I'm not fussed about the zero for Humour, though. It's not meant to be full of jokes. ;)
Anyway, do you have any thoughts on anything that needs to be done to improve the comic in any way?
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Re: Estra - The Birth of Magic
In my day, men had to milk the cows, shear the sheep, feed a baby, climb a mountain, cross a desert, be elected President, recover the treasures of Atlantis, invent a new spaceship, write a letter, launch a revolution, break the 100m-dash record, deflect a comet, and produce a webcomic every day! In a blizzard!
