[OOC][PLOT] Planning for Arc 2 - Crisis on Infinite Earths

[Black Aeronaut]

I'll have to do a bit more research to figure out where everyone else's fields of study are going to be.  I suspect that Homura's might be something like temporal mechanics so she can get a better handle on how her time manipulation abilities work.

Private tutoring from Setsuna?

Honestly, with as many time manipulators as we have in the setting, there'd probably be an entire department - The Temporal Studies Department.

The hilarious part is that I can easily see a few Federation officers from the future being resident professors that teach subjects such as Temporal Ethics and Temporal Law and Regulations, both of them being required courses for anyone taking classes in that department.  (While it would be technically altering the timeline, it would be for the best because while ignorance of the law is no legal defense, making sure people have that information will make their jobs up-stream in the timeline MUCH easier.)

I can also see The Doctor being the Chair of the Department, as well as the one who teaches the very much needed class, Temporal Crisis Management where young time travelers are taught how to avert paradoxes, and how to contain incidents until help can show up (such as one of the Federation's Time Ships or The Doctor himself).

Setsuna, I think, would teach Causality Engineering so that would-be time travellers can make informed decisions on how to alter the timeline if the situation warrants it.

It'd be funny if a Kosh was teaching the actual nuts and bolts of time travel. 

[robkelk]

For your consideration ... and for somebody else to write, if it's picked up.

---

The star destroyers came to a stop. They had been expecting resistance, but the last thing they expected to see was a fully-operational Death Star - on the side of the forces defending their target.

A little girl's voice came over the comm channel. "Attention, ships of the First Order. This star system is under our protection. You are not welcome here. If you try to invade, I promise you that you will be destroyed."

"Who are you?"

They heard a giggle. "I am called Last Order."

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, they MIGHT play nice... It's not an authoritarian military autocracy the way they like, but it IS an Empire. And the Empress is a much more likeable person that Snoke or Palpatine...

And then enter Kid Ben...

Cpt Phasma: "... I appreciate the courage of a child standing up to me, but all the same, you are only a child."
Ben: *Grins* "You can be forgiven for not knowing about me. Believe it or not, I'm the guy they send in when they need an Alpha Strike on someone."
Kylo: "Captain Phasma.... We should do as he says."
CP: "...WHAT!?"
KR: "He's a Force nullifier... I can't feel feel The Force because he's nullifying it."

Insert Nanoha's evil little chuckle here, because she loves watching him work.

[Labster]

It could be even worse. They could have to face a Cat Sìth Lord.

Incidentally this edit comment on wikipedia came up in my research today: Aleister Crowley is dead (or his he? I guess that depends on how many cats he burned...) Just one more sign of the Metacontinuity coming into our world.

I'm awfully tempted to change his name from "Cait Sith" to "Cat Sìth". Even though the kana spell his name the same way as in FF7 (ketto shii) that is really not how it should be spelled in a Gaelic language. I hate to go against the fandom and official translations, but on the other hand, that spelling makes me want to mispronounce his name. Sorry BA, I know how much you love these discussions.

[Black Aeronaut]

I'm tempted to have this bit in 2nd Season where freakin' Alucard from Hellsing shows up, and the Tsukimura family quietly freaks out because he is one of these progenitor vampires that Shinobu is talking about - one of the "True Monsters" that gave rise to their kind.

Alucard would be amused by their fear. He doesn't think it's becoming of them to be living such a civilised lifestyle, but he does feel it's better than going around and pretending to be monsters - they at least understand what the "True Monsters" are capable of. For that, they would have a modicum of respect, and offers to take Shinobu and Suzuka under his wing so he can show them what they are truly capable of. At the very least they might be able to help Seras come to accept her vampirism with at least some grace.

[Labster]

Just be aware of Aisa Himegami -- Deep Blood is the ability to attract and destroy vampires. Her blood is like antifreeze -- smells so sweet, tastes so toxic.

[Black Aeronaut]

* Black Aeronaut reads up on her...

Oh man, I bet Alucard would fucking LOVE her.  He can't drink her blood, but dayum if he won't fuck with her head.

* Black Aeronaut reads on...

Because of her ability, she has been miserable because her friends and family were killed by it.

Wait, wat?!

* Black Aeronaut reads on some more...

Ten years prior to the start of the series, Aisa lived in a mountain village in Kyoto. Here, a vampire, fearing the power that Aisa held, turned everyone in the village into vampires as a reaction to it.

.... Okay, I take that back.  Alucard MIGHT actually even feel bad for her, albeit in a somewhat twisted sort of way.  Sir Integra Hellsing might actually try and hire her.

All the same, Alucard would find that ability to be deeply amusing - she's the ultimate honeytrap for vampires!

Washu-chan would probably come up with some way to make the Tsukimura family immune to her blood's lure as they're trustworthy.  It would probably be good for her to know a family of vampires who are damn decent people.  (Or, hell, even take her in as a foster child and give her what she's probably been missing the most: a loving family that cares about her in spite of her ability.)

[robkelk]

I didn't have any plans to bring in Aisa, because (a) I didn't have any plans to bring in vampires to Ottawa, and (b) she's a bit of a flat character.

Feel free to invite her over to San Antonio.

[Labster]

I didn't have any plans to bring in Aisa, because (a) I didn't have any plans to bring in vampires to Ottawa, and (b) she's a bit of a flat character.

Feel free to invite her over to San Antonio.

Well, that's a problem that can be solved by Bust Upper.  Oh wait, you meant... never mind.

On the other hand, you can write just about anything for her so long as it's reserved and quirky, and there's not really much canon that could contradict it.  It would take a lot of effort to make her a main character, though.

[robkelk]

I didn't have any plans to bring in Aisa, because (a) I didn't have any plans to bring in vampires to Ottawa, and (b) she's a bit of a flat character.

Feel free to invite her over to San Antonio.

Well, that's a problem that can be solved by Bust Upper.  Oh wait, you meant... never mind.

On the other hand, you can write just about anything for her so long as it's reserved and quirky, and there's not really much canon that could contradict it.  It would take a lot of effort to make her a main character, though.

Now that you mention it... the A Certain world seems to have an odd gap in their females' bust sizes - there are plenty of A cups and plenty of D or larger cups, but few if any Bs or Cs.

And I already have the Misaka Sisters for "reserved and quirky".

[Black Aeronaut]

I didn't have any plans to bring in Aisa, because (a) I didn't have any plans to bring in vampires to Ottawa, and (b) she's a bit of a flat character.

Feel free to invite her over to San Antonio.

Well, that's a problem that can be solved by Bust Upper.  Oh wait, you meant... never mind.

On the other hand, you can write just about anything for her so long as it's reserved and quirky, and there's not really much canon that could contradict it.  It would take a lot of effort to make her a main character, though.

 
You say that like I’ve never done that before.

[Rajvik]

I would say Pensacola could take her, but I've been overrun by other stories to the point I had to put this down, I have one bed left though if you really want her available

[Norgarth]

I've still got plenty of bedrooms available in Windsor.

[Black Aeronaut]

Thanks guys. Though it helps, I honestly think it would be very poetic if Aisa were fostered by the Tsukimura family. They don't care that she could kill them. They want to love her as a daughter anyhow. This will actually be an excellent basis to develop her character around; how she learns to trust in the Tsukimura family, and love them back.

[robkelk]

Agreed. Draw her out of her shell and teach her that it's okay to show emotions.

Washuu - or Belldandy - would have to do something about Aisa's "Deep Blood" ability, though. It's shown in canon to actually attract vampires to her like moths to a flame, and even though they know better because they saw what happened to other vampires, they can't help but take one more hit. (Think "I know it's laced with fentanyl, but I can't stop myself!") A limiter wouldn't be just a good idea; it would be required.

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh, you'll get no argument from me there. That will probably be one of the very first things Ben does before even properly introducing himself.

"Here, quick! Put these earings on!"

"WHAT?"

"It'll suppress Deep Blood completely while you're wearing them, and there are some vampires here who are some DAMN decent folks that I really don't want to see killed."

"Who the hell are you!?"

"Quite possibly your best friend in the whole world."

[Black Aeronaut]

So, an idea that came to mind as a result of seeing those Adult and Child Nanoha and Fate pics.

This would be Season 2 material as it would come after everyone learned that the Metacontinuity *is* home now.

The idea is thus.

In Season 1's denouement, Benjamin finally takes charge and lays down the gauntlet for all the girls vying for him.  However, that is not to say that there isn't still emotional turmoil for some of the parties involved.

I can see Fate and Nanoha being especially fretful as they had major roles in starting The Big Brawl in the first place, ergo feeling that they had gravely betrayed Ben's love and trust in them.

Beldandy is worried for them, but it's hard to comfort these sorts of people.  But even a Goddess needs inspiration.

She's not sure if it was the Ultimate Force Program or just pure luck, but passing by Benjamin at one point, she overheard this song.  (The regulars over in Hangar 13 should recognize this one.)



A Letter to My 15-Year-Old Self.

English Translated Lyrics Here

Dear Me, who is reading this letter
I wonder where you are and what you're doing

For me, who is fifteen years old
There are troubles that I cannot tell anyone

If it's a letter a letter to myself in the future
Then surely I can confide honestly to myself

I'm about to lose!
I'm about to cry!
I'm about to disappear!
Whose words should I trust and believe in?

This one and only heart
has been broken so many times
In spite of the hardships
I still live on
I still live on

Dear Me, Thank you.
To the fifteen year old me
There are things I need to tell

What am I?
Where do I go?
If you keep asking these things
You will find your true self

Youth is hard
And its seas are rough
But you must move your ship of dreams
Forward to the shores of tomorrow

Do not lose now!
Do not cry now!
Even if you think you'll disappear!
You can have faith and trust in your own voice!

The Adult me does hurt
And has sleepless nights
But despite this bittersweet life
I am alive still.

Everything in life has meaning
Be brave and build your dream

Keep on believing
Keep on believing
Keep on believing
Keep on believing

I'm about to lose!
I'm about to cry!
I'm about to disappear!
Whose words should I trust and believe in?

Do not lose now!
Do not cry now!
Even if you think you'll disappear!
You can have faith and trust in your own voice!

In every generation there is sorrow
We cannot go through life avoiding it
So show your smile
We both live now
We both live now

Dear Me, who is reading this letter
I am wishing for your happiness

For those that haven't heard it, it's a real tear jerker - the good kind - about how a fifteen year old girl is writing letters to her adult self about all her sorrow and heartbreak, and her adult self is writing back that she needs to be strong and have faith in herself.

This is exactly what Nanoha and Fate need.

She goes over to the main-line Nanoha universe - sometime between StrikerS and Vivid - finds the adult Nanoha and Fate, and explains the situation.  The two agree - while Vivio is at school, they will meet with their younger selves and console and encourage them.

Belldandy brings them over on the appointed day.  The adult Nanoha and Fate have a bit of a cute-gasm at seeing their younger selves, making the younger counterparts blush.  But as they talk, they realize that these two are already very different people that who they were at that age... but they understand why.

"Tell us about this Benjamin?  What is he like?  What did he do to capture your hearts?"

The younger ones spill, and the older ones are impressed... and a bit envious.  They've known many male figures in their youth who were both kind and strong.  However, it was rare to see one that was not only kind and strong, but also willing to express his righteous fury as often as they did without becoming cruel or arrogant.

And then they got to Alicia.

Adult-Fate was in tears.

The Adults then asked about the others: Madoka and Homura, Sayaka and Kyoko, Ruby and Weis, and Hotaru.

They are impressed to say the least.  The adults then counsel their younger counterparts.  Such arrangements aren't so unusual on Midchilda.  They'd even considered it themselves, but no one quite like Benjamin had ever entered their lives.  If Vivio ever got to wanting a younger brother or sister, they would have to rely on ova-fusion.

Their younger selves will have to learn to work with their new-found sisters - to learn to love each other as family.  Yes, it is hard.  But if they truly wish to stay with Benjamin, and he really is that wonderful of a person, then they must become a family for real.  Their Elders know that it's not easy - even they have had their own spats before, even if they never lasted long.  Something this good never comes easy.  But it can be worthwhile.

Besides, do they honestly want to pass up the the chance to give Vivio such a big and adoring family? .... Didn't think so.

They part ways here - Vivio will be home soon, and it's best not to confuse her.  She is still a bit fragile from her past experience.

The Adults watch them go, hope burning in their hearts on behalf of their younger selves, and happy that they've had an opportunity that they never got.

The Youngsters go with their heads filled with the wisdom of their older selves.  They know what they have to do now.  They just need to swallow their pride and extend the olive branch.  The rest, from that point, will be up to the others and Benjamin.  And he has already made it clear that he will not tolerate malcontents spreading misery in his house.

Yes.  It will be worth it.  He has done so much for them.  And they have so much love to give to him in return.

[Norgarth]

She goes over to the main-line Nanoha universe - sometime between StrikerS and Vivid - finds the adult Nanoha and Fate, and explains the situation. The two agree - while Vivio is at school, they will meet with their younger selves and console and encourage them.

Umm, how would Belldandy visit a main-line Nanoha universe? isn't the idea that all the other universes are 'offline'/out of order, which is why everyone's showing up in this reality?

[Black Aeronaut]

At the end of Season One, the worst of the damage is repaired and that's when they attempt to revert things...

....Only to find that everything is already in its proper place.

The main-line universes reset themselves by sheer dint of the causality already being there.  Literally, it was Temporal Momentum at work, because whenever you make an alteration to a timeline, it causes it to split into two streams - one where the alteration never occurred, and one where it did.

And so much causality got funneled into the Metacontinuity all at once that it couldn't help but become its own continuum.

I'm playing with the idea that the Goddesses knew this would happen, but withheld this information simply by letting it be the Demons that explain everything to our characters, thus freeing them from having to lie by omission.

This could be what sends Salem into a frothing rage where she decides that it's not just the Two Brothers that must die, but that All Gods Must Die.

Thoughts?

[robkelk]

It could work. However, it opens a can of worms, in that it proves people can travel to and from the Metacontinuity. What's to stop Washuu or Tenchi or The Doctor or Harold Shea or somebody else from opening too many paths between worlds and destablizing the multiverse - again? (I'm reminded of the current story arc in General Protection Fault - start here and keep on going. The guy with the ridiculous chin is (essentially) an anthropomorphic personification; the guy with glasses is the comic's protagonist. So far, it's been a "my God, what have I done?" moment for our hero.)

Mind you, there's always the movie version of the Nanoha storyline. Nothing says the younger versions of the characters - the ones we've already seen - come from there, and the older versions of the characters come from the TV-series continuity. This leaves us with two each of Nanoha, Fate, Arf, Hayate, her knights, and everybody's devices, but that just gives then something to talk about with Mimi Hanyu.

[Black Aeronaut]

A cogent point.

Then we can have the Goddesses (supported by the higher-ups like The Almighty, Tenchi-sama, Madokami, Homurakuma, etc) restrict Dimensional Travel to only what is strictly necessary, and even then it is only to be performed by them, using their methods, as theirs has the least impact.

How's that?

[Labster]

I think the Cat Bureau would never abide by that rule.

I'm having trouble figuring out what the scope of Arc 1 will be.  We don't want to make solving the problem seem too easy -- TV shows have died by solving the central conflict too early.  Twin Peaks comes to mind, where the executive meddling to "solve Laura Palmer's murder already" drove the show to early termination.  Anyway maybe that's because no one has written it yet and everything is fine.

But it might just be easier to say that the multiverse is only partially working now, and *handwave* you can't do that X because science, even though Y works.  Where do you get these silly ideas?  Seriously, did you even take intro to interdimensional dynamics?

What's to stop Washuu or Tenchi or The Doctor or Harold Shea or somebody else from opening too many paths between worlds and destablizing the multiverse - again?

<salem>Go on...</salem>

Mind you, there's always the movie version of the Nanoha storyline. Nothing says the younger versions of the characters - the ones we've already seen - come from there, and the older versions of the characters come from the TV-series continuity. This leaves us with two each of Nanoha, Fate, Arf, Hayate, her knights, and everybody's devices, but that just gives then something to talk about with Mimi Hanyu.

At least there are only two continuities; we wouldn't want to come back from the woods with four Annies! Ha ha ha!

[Black Aeronaut]

Actually, for Nanoha there are two more continuities: Battle of Aces/Gears of Destiny, and Innocent.  Battle of Aces diverges just after the Book of Darkness incident where the girls all refuse to destroy Reinforce.  Naturally, consequences follow.  The recent movies, Reflection and Detonation, are based loosely on the events in BoA and GoD.

Innocent, on the other hand, is an entirely different continuity altogether and a can of worms that can be left for later.  Suffice to say it's the source material that I got Alicia's image from.

As for the scope, I apologize if it has seemed like I keep changing things around.  The general thrust for Season 1 hasn't really changed: as our characters try to keep a lid on matters concerning the displacees, things are happening in the background that will blow the whole thing into a mass panic.

This is the idea I had with Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb - that he somehow showed up under the radar, found himself a literal can of Handwavium from Fenspace, and is now using it to prepare landmarks to become space ships so he can corner the used space ship market in our solar system.

Still kinda playing with the idea of whether or not this will cause Unreal Estate to happen.  It would be as simple as having him use Spindizzy Drives and vastly underestimate their power.  (I can just hear him going "Oops" as the entire city he is in begins to lift off.)

The only issue that was bugging the hell out of me was how to fix the "divots" left behind.

I recently had the idea of taking a page from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series where after a group of Fomori attack a town square, they drag over a piece of alternate reality where the attack never happened, and use it as a patch for that one time and place.

Then, that's where the Goddesses would come clean about the situation.  Just before Doofenschmirtz did that thing he does, they were able to restore basic functionality.  Annnnnnd then they gotta clean up his mess.

Anyhow, that's when the thing about the messed up causality comes to light for everyone else, and the reason why no one can really go home - it'd be doppelgangers all around.

So it wouldn't be that we "solve the problem".  Instead, it's more like how in Final Fantasy VII where your plucky group starts out as freedom fighters aiming to take down the corp, and instead get sucked down into a "fate of the world" story where the protagonist and his band become god-slaying adventurers.  (Not saying that you HAVE to go that route, just that the overarching plot is going to develop in a similar manner.)

In our characters cases, we get to go out and be like Starfleet - emissaries, explorers, and police all in one.  Though I would imagine that Brent would be more of an Emissary, Rob would be more of an Explorer, and Ben would be more of a Police Force.  (I'm not setting that in stone, just to be clear.)

And, I would like to think that part of that is going to be tracking down the malcontents that want to just punch holes in space time no matter what anyone else says.

All that said though, what I *really* want is for this to be entirely open-ended for everyone involved - kinda like Starbound.  (Even the trailer is something else - it makes you feel like you just accomplished something grand just by watching the thing!)

Does this help any?  Does anyone have any better ideas?

[Dartz]

I'm actually starting to think - with all the walls of text floating around - that only until somethingis actually written, is it "canon" or has it happened.

Otherwise, there's too much cruft and 'backstory' to keep up with.

Fenspace had a 'problem' with it - but it didn't really get in the way. Now this thing's got a thousand times more planning than plot it's impenetrable for those of us who can't follow it all.

[robkelk]

When another alien race shows up...

---

"Does anybody recognize those ships?"

Umino squinted at the screen, then said, "Raalgon."

"Don't look at me! I don't recognize it."

Umino turned to Mikoto. "'Raalgon', not 'Railgun'. It's from Irresponsible Captain Tylor."