My Aborted Stagger

[Bluemage]

I was just digging through some old files of mine, when I found something actually interesting. It seems that, years ago, I was struck by the idea of writing
a Stagger in the universe of Big O.

I failed miserably.

The project was too big, and college too distracting. On top of that, I cannot write dialogue, and I have no ability to grasp character behaviors.

On the other hand, I have two snippets, a plot summary, a timeline, and a thematic analysis that I wrote when I was still working on the project.

Anybody interested?

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm certainly curious...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bluemage]

The first problem with doing a Big O story is that none of it makes any sense. So much of the setting is unexplained
(including quite a few plot events), that the first obstacle to creating a decent plot is figuring out what the heck's going on, and making some sense of
it all. You pretty much have to write your own background to get any semblance of sense out of it. So I did.

Well, the basic idea of it came from the last episode of the series, where the so-called 'Big Venus' appears, erases the city, and is convinced to
restart the series. The ending scene is identical to the beginning of the first episode, except that Dorothy and Angel are both already with Roger. You may
have noticed that memories of the past, when they are shown, tell a jumbled, incomprehensible mess of a story, what with Roger being established as part of the
Military Police, an associate of Gordon Rosewater long ago (while looking exactly the same), and killed in Big O while
the Bigs were destroying the city. The flashes of the past were seemingly designed not to fit together, in an effort to make the series more of a Mind Screw.

My basic premise was that everything shown about the past is true, and that the way that Paradigm City got from being a fairly normal place to a patchwork
target of giant robot invasions was the same way the series ended- imperfect resets. People didn't lose their memories forty years ago- they lost them
sometime in the near future, and then got reset back to forty years ago in a temporal loop. Every time the city looped, things played out differently. Every
flashback, no matter how incomprehensible or incompatible with the others, is true, but they don't all happen in the same
continuity.

My premise had four versions of the world:

The original: similar to our own world up until some ecological disaster happened. This disaster created a steadily
expanding desert on the North American continent. This is when the giant dome that covers all of Paradigm was constructed- the metaDome, as I call it (to
distinguish it from the smaller domes inside the city). The first metaDome went up over New York, built by the Paradigm corporation, which created the
concept. Two other cities got their metaDomes up in time- DC, and Orlando, Florida.

Eventually, the metaDomes stop being enough to protect the cities, and the edges of the land underneath start turning to desert as well. Paradigm starts
building smaller domes over parts of the city, and also funds ways to potentially reverse the damage and restore everything. Eventually, they fix the problem
with the metaDome, and shift funding to the restoration projects. Megadei are originally developed as part of this repair effort.

After a few more years, one of the restoration projects- Project Venus- reports a breakthrough. They've figured out how to create a machine that can
rewrite reality, to the point where it essentially makes its user a god- thinking that they can retcon the desert back to productive land, and solve every
problem they have in one move. Construction begins immediately.

The other two cities pick up on what Paradigm is doing, and decide they need to stop it. After a few years of war production, they launch an attack on
Paradigm, breaching its metaDome, overwhelming its Megadei, and laying waste to the city. Project Venus, which was technically complete (but untested) was
rushed into activation.

First Reset: Paradigm City was thrown backward in time 40 years, to Original Year 0 (when the land inside the metaDome
first started turning to desert). Almost all of the people from the final days of Paradigm were restored to the new city. Many were *changed*, in one way or
another, from personality alteration, to new social status, to different skills than before. All these changes were relatively minor, like an increase in
aptitude in a skill that the person wasn't good at before (no Memory fragments, but slow, slight shifts). The city itself was recreated from
'snapshots' of its (original) past, across the last 40 years. Venus Unit, the focal point of the change, survived as it was in Year 40. The metaDome
is in its Year 23-ish state: perfect condition, and self-sustaining. The mini-Domes are all complete, as they were when the project finished. City buildings
come from all eras- many exist outside the Mini-Domes, and all are in varied states of repair. Ecological damage is as it was when the metaDome was made
self-sustaining.

The sudden, massive change in Paradigm caused the people of the other cities to become suspicious and paranoid, even more so than in the original timeline.
They all began research into useful combat machines- in this timeline, the Megadeus invention *led* to the Dome replacements in the other cities, instead of
the other time around. Preparations took almost forty years, conforming loosely, despite the changes in order and urgency, to the original invasion plans.
Most of Paradigm spent those decades adjusting to the changes in the City, and living normal lives. Paradigm soon rediscovered Venus Unit, and set its best
and brightest on it, including most of the show's cast. The leader of this team had recovered some knowledge of Venus, and had a plan to manipulate the
future. He worked with Roger Smith and the rest of the team, convincing them to believe in his plan (the timeline we know). The project leader knew the
invasion would come, and planned to use his influence over the new Project Venus team to radically alter the timeline when it was next reset.

The second invasion took place in much the same way as the first, with the armies of foreign Bigs breaking through Paradigm's Domes and wreaking havoc.
Big Venus manifested, and performed the same operations as before: neutralize invaders, dematerialize the City, and rebuild it (in the faulty way the original
reset used). As it did this, the leader of Project Venus, Gordon Rosewater, went before it, appealing to her to carry out the changes he had described, and
written in his book. She heard him, and forced Big Venus to change Paradigm as it rebuilt.

Second Reset (the series): History altered to make Gordon old, a former CEO of Paradigm, and a tomato farmer (putting
him in a place where he can play his part, and watch, unencumbered, to make sure his plans succeed). The city reset as usual, but, this time, the memories of
every person in the world (not just in Paradigm) were repressed by Venus. See the changes from First Reset, but far more pronounced (people spontaneously gain
new skills, 'remember' blueprints, changed in mind and status). Similar to these changes were a series of skills, recollections, blueprints, and other
mentality fragments, the 'Memories' (note capital) of the series, which Gordon had implanted into the minds of his proteges (each for a purpose- these
are the Memories that prove useful, like Beck's tech skills). Alex Rosewater, Gordon's son, became CEO. Three Bigs, one of each model, were preserved
in the city, as part of Gordon's plan. Each of the Venus team, groomed by Gordon for a specific role (tomato flashbacks are metaphors for this process-
hypnosis and Venus combined), became key players in the new order, including Roger Smith, Timothy Wayneright, Michael Seebach, and Angel.

Gordon's plan was a way to gradually shift events away from the activation of Venus Unit, and allow history to finally resume its normal course. His
'tomatoes', people who he groomed/retconned into fitting specific roles, would settle into various roles, changing according to their environments.
They would each undergo a series of tests, working against each other and Megadei created/relocated for the task. At the appropriate time, Gordon would lead
Angel, the 'Dominus of Big Venus', bact to Venus Unit. The remaining tomato(es) would then have a chance to change the cycle. Once they managed to
convince Big Venus to not do anything, to destroy itself, or to do something else that would break the cycle, reality could finally continue normally.

The Bigs, three Megadei (one of each city's model) of surpassing power, were added to Paradigm of the Second Reset as part of this plan. The use of a Big
brings out the essential qualities of its pilot. It also requires balance, a coming to terms with both the essential independence of human beings, and the
degree to which humans must both serve and rely upon others. Only partnership can allow a tomato to master a Big: those who give themselves up will be
consumed, while those who attempt to dominate their chariots will be destroyed.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Bluemage]

At the end of the series, Roger was successful in changing some things, but not enough to end the cycle.

Third Reset: Essentially the same as the series, but with Roger, Dorothy and Angel possessing most of their memories
of the last attempt.

It seems to me that Big O is built on a trinity. You have the three Bigs, and the three people who pilot them. If you think about the pilots, there's a
pattern to them. Schwarzwald, dominus of Big Duo, is obsessed with the truth; he seeks to know exactly what happened forty years ago. Roger, dominus of Big
O, fights to preserve Paradigm as it is, and worry more about the here and now than the past. Alex, (false) dominus of Big Fau, fights to reshape the future
in his image (or, depending on how you interpret his character, to make sure there is no future).

Past, present, and future... this sounds somewhat familiar...

I figured that the resets that Big Venus does are the equivalent of sticking time and space in a blender and hitting 'frappe'. They're
really not good for the timeline, and I don't think the Three would like that one bit (especially since this
temporal loop essentially limits the scope of time and space in that world to a mere forty years long). They were
going to destroy that reality to stop it, but decided instead to test the people of that world, to see whether or not they could prove themselves worthy of
continued existence and fix things themselves. Hence, they gave Gordon his plan during the First Reset, and made the Bigs of their second reset, as champions
of a sort. The whole series was planned to see if one of the domini could get to Big Venus and prevent the reset. Roger convinced it to reset the timeline at
the end of the series, but not change anything except for what we see in the last scene.

This is where Doug would come in.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Interesting, but how do you explain the Klieg lights up in the rafters? Or the rafters themselves, come to that? ^.^

--Sam

"How the hell did I do that?"

[Bluemage]

I had Doug arriving in the Third Reset, during the events of the first episode of the series. I figured he'd have a bit of an interesting reaction to a Gotham-esque New York from an alternate world where giant robots fight each other in the streets.

Once he figured out what the heck was going on, I figured this quote from DW5 explained what would happen:

Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets about being a Warrior.


I'm needed, I'm good at what I do -- one of the best, in fact --


and I like to think that my actions in the Warriors made my home


Earth a better place overall.




But when the battle's over, when the bad guys are dead or locked


up, at the end of the day, I'm not a cop or a soldier or -- god


help me -- a hero. I'm an engineer. That's the career I chose


for myself, it's what I studied very hard at a very prestigious


university to learn. And it's something I love to do. I love


the thrill of creating something, whether it's a machine or a


program, that fulfills its purpose with efficiency and elegance,


that I can admire when I'm done. I love solving problems and


turning the solutions into things that other people can use.

What would somebody like that do if he found himself in a world where nobody remembered how anything
worked?

Teach, I figured.

I saw Doug setting himself up as a teacher and repairman, helping people inside and outside the domes by fixing what they can no longer understand, and
teaching those who wish to learn how to do the same- teaching people the skills and science lost on that day forty years ago and a month or two in the future.
When he figured out that giant robot attacks were more than isolated incidents (probably around Episode 4, with the electric eel), he'd do what he could to
help out. Mind you, most of the enemies are giant robots strong enough to fight Big O for a few minutes at a time, so he wouldn't really be able to do
much in a fight.

I hadn't really figured out most of what he'd do in the middle of the series, except for a few events, and one long-term plot. Doug would find himself
teaching Beck. He seems to be the character with the most scientific skill, and helps Roger at the very end of the anime. I could very well see him wanting
to learn from somebody like Doug who understands all these sciences, only to find his own memories of the last iteration of the loop, combined with Doug's
character as an example, turning him into a truly good man.

After the first fight with Big Duo, Doug searches the remains, trying to figure out how the Megadei work. He finds an odd data storage unit, and copies the
contents into his helmet. Nothing he tries can make sense of it.

He would probably meet Dastun at Duo's crash site, if not before. I can see the two of them getting along quite well, though Doug might have to annoy him
quite a bit first.

At some point after that, Doug joins the crew that repairs Big O after a fight. He examines it, finds a similar storage system, and copies its data, figuring
that another sample of that data might help in cracking the code.

Doug would also encounter Alan Gabriel at some point. It's really amazing what "Lightning's Hand" can do to cybernetics, isn't it?

At some point, Beck would see the data that Doug had copied from Big O and Big Duo, and realize that they were memories.

The endgame would shape up like this: Beck would end up being forced to restore Big Fau, but instead of kidnapping Dorothy, he would use the memories that Doug
had stored, along with some additional memories added by the Loon himself. Doug's teachings and example, along with the memories added to Fau, would make
him the new hope for the Future. Alongside Roger of the Present and Schwarzwald of the Past, Loon of the Future would appear before Rosewater when he fired up
Big Fau for the last time, and the memories of all three would condemn him. Doug himself would stop Angel from awakening Big Venus while this was happening,
and the resets would end.

I get the feeling the epilogue would have Paradigm (under CEO Beck) cleaning up the desert, fixing the city, finding the other cities, and finally 'coming
to terms' with them.

After making it back home, Doug might want to go back to help out, visit and see how the reconstruction is going, or bring a corps of engineers or two to fix
the place up.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Bluemage]

The parts I had were a few quotes and scenes, mostly isolated lines of dialogue and two important events. I posted them a long time ago, but I'll add them
here.

-Doug regarded her levelly. "So, how many of you *can* dance on the head of a pin, Miss?"

(Not mine, but perfect)

-Dorothy narrowed her optics in the expression that her interaction subroutine suggested for annoyance. "You are a nutbar, Douglas Sangnoir."

Chapter Title Ideas

-Paradigm Shifting Without A Clutch

-Aggressive Negotiations

-You Just Made A Big Mistake

-In This City Of.. What Was I Saying Again?

-Don't I Get A Script?

-Doug Meeting the Three:

"Those voices! I know those voices! Show yourselves!" Doug yelled, worry showing in his eyes. "Why, oh why, did they have to find
me _here_?", he thought in panic.

A few tense seconds after Doug spoke, three figures stepped from the shadows that surrounded him. The mysterious figures each wore identical black cloaks,
concealing everything but their eyes- colorful, piercing orbs, which seemed to see into the very depths of Doug's being. They stood in a line in front of
him: one short figure -too short to be fully mature-, on the left, another, taller figure in the middle, and the third, who managed to reach a medium height
despite being hunched over, on the right end.

A voice spoke: nothing betrayed to which figure it belonged, nothing save its tone- deep, sultry, and quite obviously feminine.

"You Seek To Break The Wheel Of Destiny," it said.

As the first voice finished speaking, another- this one the sweet, bell-like tones of a virtuous maiden- took up where it left off.

"Why Do You Do This?," it asked: curiously, yet unhappily.

Predictably, the third voice- that of a young girl, yet possessed of more knowledge and wisdom than any girl- picked up the thought, as the last echoes of
bell-like tones faded into the inky otherscape.

"Know You Not That What Is, Is For A Purpose?," the girl questioned, somewhat accusatorily.

When the girl finished speaking, all three figures, in perfect unison, stepped forward and spoke as one.

"Who Are You To Trifle With The Destinies We Ordain?"

A tinge of something dangerous entered Doug's voice as he responded. "So it is you who have caused so much suffering here?" As he went on, his
voice grew in power, becoming louder, angrier, and more incredulous with every word. "_You_ are the reason that *these people*," his arm sweeping
around, indicating the world around him, "have lost their pasts, and avoid their futures? _You_ keep *these people* ignorant, binding them ghosts of
pasts that may not be, while blocking the way to their futures! WHAT could THESE PEOPLE EVER have done to deserve this, THIS TRAVESTY?," Doug roared,
glaring at each of the figures in turn.

"We Have Done This," responded Sultry, a hint of- was it regret?- in her voice.

"It Has To Be," continued Child, certainty audible in her words.

"You Cannot Change Our Paradigm," Bell-tone finished.

"I Write." Sultry.

"I Direct." Bell-tone.

"I Produce." Child.

The Three spoke together, their chorus resolute. "We Ended The Past, To Produce The Enduring Present. We Repeat The Present, So That The Future May Yet
Happen. We Prevent The Future, In Order To Save The Future. If We Did Not, All Would Not Be, And All Would Be, For Naught!"

"Sure, you'll _save_ the future," Doug snorted sarcastically, "but what'll be left when you get done?"

-Rosewater in Big Fau:

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!!," Alex screamed, his face purpling in rage. "I AM A GOD!"

"No, you're not," said the figure in grey. "You're just a man whose intentions are good.' Too bad you don't even understand
them."

As he said this, the man in the grey leathers stuck out his fist, as the other two had done before them, thumb extended to the side. With a look of pity upon
his face, he twisted his thumb down, as Schwartzwald and Rager had before him. The display below them came to life again- this time, without any of the
electronic noise that heralded its earlier declarations..

With effort, Alex Rosewater turned his gaze away from the three phantoms before him, looking at the lit display at his knees. His eyes widened and his face
paled, as he read the single phrase is displayed- first once, then over and over, each time hoping it would be different.

Each time, he saw the same two words.

'Ye Guilty'

A single long, painful scream rang out across the secret Paradigm hangar, as its master ceased to be.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Bluemage]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

Interesting, but how do you explain the Klieg lights up in the rafters? Or the rafters themselves, come to that? ^.^




--Sam


"How the hell did I do that?"

Paradigm City (and some of the desert around it) is inside a gigantic, opaque dome. The lights help simulate the sky, sun, moon, and stars,
allowing crops to grow and people to live without looking up and seeing nothing but the dome.

EDIT: If you really wanted to play fast and loose with the canon, you could say that what makes Big Venus work is the Heart of Lorkhan, and name it the Third
Numidium...

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Bob Schroeck]

Mmm. Nice. Lots of potential there.

BTW, I seem to recall that the reboot Dorothy was biological, from the look of her in those last moments...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Wiregeek]

BTW, I seem to recall that the reboot Dorothy was biological, from the look of her in those last moments...

Memory rejected, substitute imagery of pure, perfect, Robot!Dorothy deployed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Wainwright

SEGFAULT.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Bluemage]

Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

BTW, I seem to recall that the reboot Dorothy was biological, from the look of her in those last moments...

You said that back then, too. This is how she looks at the end:

http://www.freewebs.com/bluemage142/cap002.bmp

I don't see any difference.

BTW, feel free to steal any and all of the idea, even if only for a throwaway reference. I can build theories and settings, even some plot threads, but I can
do neither your character nor the anime justice.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Foxboy]

(Not mine, but perfect)
-Dorothy narrowed her optics in the expression that her interaction subroutine suggested for annoyance. "You are a nutbar, Douglas Sangnoir."

I do believe that one was one of mine.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, I (re-)stand (re-)corrected.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

Hmmmmm... "When life hands you tomatoes, make pico de gallo and spice things up." I could see Doug saying something like this in Paradigm City after
he learns about the tomato meme.

(As for chapter titles: "Take me down to the Paradigm City" for chapter 1?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

You beat me to the chapter title suggestion. Rob; I actually have a partially written filk along those lines somewhere in my dev folders...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[HoagieOfDoom]

Those are some solid ideas, Bluemage. My one concern is the limited number of metaDomes you propose exist. The source material may have explicitly mentioned
that only three were made, I can't remember. I bring it up mostly because I remember one of the agents in the anime having a French accent, so maybe there
was one in France, or Quebec?

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

Interesting, but how do you explain the Klieg lights up in the rafters? Or the rafters themselves, come to that? ^.^

IIRC, a number of the final scenes took place in a (mock?) television studio set. The first thought I had after the final credits rolled (and after I picked
my jaw up off the floor) was that the entire series was basically The Truman Show, but the "audience" is never shown or acknowledged. Maybe
when the "actors" became aware that the world really was a stage, the "producers" hit the reset button.

[Bluemage]

HoagieOfDoom wrote:

---

Those are some solid ideas, Bluemage. My one concern is the limited number of metaDomes you propose exist. The source material may have explicitly mentioned
that only three were made, I can't remember. I bring it up mostly because I remember one of the agents in the anime having a French accent, so maybe
there was one in France, or Quebec?

The limited number of cities saved was not from the source material; the anime doesn't discuss
anything but Paradigm City, the deserts outside the city, and that the Union exists, and is opposed to the Paradigm government. I put it as there only being
three metaDomes, and thus three cities, to tie in with the three Bigs, the three goddesses, and the three pilots. It would be more exact to say that there
were only three preserved cities on the East Coast that developed Megadeus technology and had the ability to deal with anything beyond the borders of their own
domes.

As to the French accent, there were what, two characters who had it? They were both part of the Union, which was later revealed to not really exist. I
figured they were part of Gordon Rosewater's plan.

I will admit that your interpretation of the ending makes more sense than mine. This started as one of those crazy ideas that you get right before you go to
sleep- I still have the original, hastily-scrawled sheet of notes to remind me. I was also trying to find an explanation that worked without leaving the world
the "actors" were in, and it requires a good bit more insanity to manage that.

I also figured that when you can rewrite reality, you can make your reality-rewriting machine's interface work however the heck you want, and maybe Angel
always wanted to create a TV show.

---------------------------------

For extra WTH factor, remember the episode where Roger is hallucinating that he's a homeless bum in a normal world, and has to come to terms with himself
to recover? What would happen to Doug if he were hit with that effect? Would he be a mundane, upper-middle class
engineer?

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.