Non-Crossovers that Should Be, or Plotbunnies Free to Good Home

[Bob Schroeck]

This will date me, but what about Sgt. Shriver?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jenova Silverstar]

How could you forget Sgt. Bilko or Sgt. Slaughter?
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
--Dr. Seuss

[Star Ranger4]

*rolls eyes* Clearly this is a job for Sgt. Major
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[DHBirr]

Sergeant Stripes ... Forever.
Those who are really elderly residents of the U.S. such as myself, by the way, will remember that this was the title of a comic strip that ran in some newspapers about the time of the Bicentennial (it actually started in May 1972).  

It was also, by the way, the nickname of a B-24 lost in the Pacific during WWII.
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[SkyeFire]

Okay, here's one I haven't seen done before.

During the first month of Sword Art Online, roughly 2,000 people died in the game. As per Kayaba's hack of the NervGear, game death caused the NerveGear headset to emit a lethal microwave pulse, killing the player IRL.

But, while Kayaba may have been a brilliant hacker and programmer, and perhaps even hardware designer, there's one thing he wasn't: a quality-control expert.

So what are the odds that, among those ~2000 fatalities, one of them had a NervGear that popped a breaker or blue-screened instead of frying the wearer? Now, suddenly, the Virtual Crimes Division has an SAO escapee with valid login credentials, who's not dead... and might be able to re-spawn. If they can convince him/her to log back in. And if they can come up with a way to give their agent... an edge.

(I recall a *lot* of griping from MMO players about how SAO's local file storage for items, skills, levels, etc, could be abused. Kayaba didn't care, since he didn't really have to worry about that. But now?)

[Bob Schroeck]

Fund it!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Rajvik]

better idea to go with that. Send in an A-team of military gamers to fight there way through once they have that oh so valuable intel asset out
 

[K sai]

I've always thought the IRL Death element of SAO was dumb - as if any piece of equipment is ever going to get past the FDA and other agencies that has any possibility of microwaving the brain of the user even at overamped/max output.

I've always head cannoned it as yet another head game by Kayaba - he just set it up that people who died had their accounts deleted and no new accounts could login. From inside the game it would have the same effect - those news articles at the beginning could be easily faked esp. as they are only shown for less than a minute.

It would explain why there was not a more serious effort to end the game quickly by the outside world - if you actually have a piece of equipment killing people that's affecting people internationally including kids - everything would be thrown at it. But if it just switches off on natural termination then people would be more inclined to let the game run - especially if abnormal or forced termination did risk some sort of brain damage from the forceful ripping of the brain from the nerve gear input.

There's also the reality TV angle; if people knew that people weren't really going to die, but got to watch people act out what they believed to be life or death battles with fantastical creatures, it'd be the most popular thing on tele. People'd be rooting/betting for their favorite characters and the people who came out would be instant villeins or celebrities - offsetting the cost of keeping everything running.

It also explains why it didn't instantly kill the VR industry. If Nerve Gear had the potential to actually kill people deliberately, I don't think anyone would have trusted later claims that it couldn't happen again no matter what manufacturers said.

That said I think a AU based on these premises where SAO basically takes over all Reality TV is a good crossover - SAO/Survivor/Big Brother/So you think you can danc-fight!/MasterChef etc.

[Rajvik]

Kirito looked at the doctors as he sat on his hospital bed. "So we were never really in any danger?" One of the younger Doctors shook his head in the negative, and then suddenly found himself shoved against the wall by the young man who was holding him up one handed by the throat. "Then WHY did you let it CONTINUE?" the young man practically screamed as the other doctors in the room panicked and called for a nurse with sedatives. "We thought we were going to die, I THOUGHT I WOULD LOSE HER!" suddenly he just let go and collapsed to the floor with a slightly maniacal laugh. "it was all a game, just a game." they were the words he repeated over and over again until the sedative took effect. The question however remained.

The mechanic of how it worked worked for why it was able to kill the person using the Nerve Gear, the headgear had to have a way to shut off the voluntary muscles via the nerve cluster at the base of the skull. Amp it up a tiny bit, and shut down the involuntary muscles as well, its not a hardware issue, it was a software hack, thats why the person who is writing a post 4th season story of them being in a military game has my attention.
 

[ECSNorway]

Can we have a link for that one, Raj?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Matrix Dragon]

As a fan of a number of the characters, and some elements of the story, the utter bullshit that is the Nervegear never ceases to irritate me. Trying to explain it away with real world mechanics actually made it worse, because these days childrens toys are recalled or outright banned over very tiny issues.

Trying to figure out sci-fi handwaves for Bullshit Murder Helmets led to me having an idea that was slightly different. What if the mass murdering idiot actually had managed to create a 'real' world in Aincrad? A world whose almost magical elements transfer back to the real world, or triggered a superpower awakening in the survivors? When Kirito and his sister have their sparring match, and he fires off a sword technique out of habit, Sugu barely avoids being shredded by the resulting hurricane. The wall behind her isn't so lucky.

Suddenly, the threat of the survivors of Laughing Coffin, along with other games like ALO and the schemes of a certain disgusting executive, become much more terrifying...

[Bob Schroeck]

There was a curious KOTR/SAO crossover I read a couple years back that played with that idea -- SAO was secretly intended to turn sub-optimal Force Sensitives into Jedi -- and the game ended just as the Republic began to fall in Ep III, releasing hundreds if not thousands of fully-trained and completely unexpected Jedi and near-Jedi into galaxy in the midst of all that turmoil...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Rajvik]

actually Ecs that was just something that crashed out of my head and onto the keyboard in about 5 minutes

if your talking about the post season 4 story, i'll see if i can find it, it should be in my watched files
 

[Matrix Dragon]

Change of Fate, by Vathara. One of my favourite Star Wars, SAO, and crossover/fusion fics.
Star Wars: We get some really good comparisons between the Coruscant Jedi and the Corellian ones, showing neither as wrong, just different. And then, via the SAO players, we get to compare them with TOR-era Jedi too! We have some signs of the Sith being subtle, and a few demonstrations of how Palpatine played the political game brilliantly. And on top of all that, we get an explanation for midichlorians that makes perfect sense, yet doesn't contradict that scene in Phantom Menace, instead, well, giving a different point of view.

SAO: The characters all feel like gamers. There's the sort of dialogue we've all used in games a million times without even thinking, and it feels natural. All the regulars are around, they all feel like themselves, even when changed to fit the setting, and the interactions work. Asuna gets to be awesome and a leader, not just 'Kirito's wife'. The setting actually had people on the outside able to look in somewhat, so there's actually some justice dispensed on the PKers and such, as opposed to the original fictions BS, while the heroes get some damn respect. There's an actual freaking motive for the entire game, even if Vathara never blatantly spells it out, instead cleverly letting the characters in-universe ponder it. And Kibaou is treated like the idiotic, loud mouthed baboon he is.

Crossover: The two settings are blended well. Characters backstories and personalities have been tweaked somewhat, but still like themselves. And let's face it, Star Wars tech definitely helps to avoid the 'wait wait wait, that's not possible' problem of the Nervegear in a semi-realistic setting. Hell, here it could potentially be as tragic as people becoming one with the Force when they believe they've died. 

[drakensis]

I'm actually using that as the basis for a Star Wars RPG game starting later this month for my local group.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Matrix Dragon]

Which part?

[Jinx999]

It also subtlely points out the one of the advantages the empire has in hunting down jedi is that they know who they are, what skills they have and where their friends and contacts are. And that most Jedi are not skilled in "living off the grid".

[ECSNorway]

drakensis wrote:

---

I'm actually using that as the basis for a Star Wars RPG game starting later this month for my local group.

I so wish I was in that group.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[drakensis]

Matrix Dragon wrote:

---

Which part?

Players have been locked in a VR simulation of the Great Galactic War (TOR era) for all the Clone Wars and wake up in the Jedi Temple on Corellia _right_ as Stormtroopers assault the complex. Not using any SAO characters and it may turn out to be more the Back to Reality episode of Red Dwarf than SAO, but we shall see.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Rajvik]

ECSNorway wrote:

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Can we have a link for that one, Raj?

finally was able to get online with a computer to link that military written fic its called Rescue Dive and its on sufficient velocity
 

[drakensis]

ECSNorway wrote:

---

drakensis wrote:

---

I'm actually using that as the basis for a Star Wars RPG game starting later this month for my local group.

I so wish I was in that group.

The group, as generated this evening, is made up of: a runaway Sith apprentice, a pit-fighter, a librarian droid and a Corellian valley girl, who were roleplaying a Sith Council Lord, a dashing smuggler, a droid 'fluent in 10,000 forms of murder' and a ruthless bounty-hunter. I think I can discard any plans that involve them being light-siders.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Hazard]

Pretty sure the smugglers are Lightsiders, traditionally speaking. But yeah, don't think they're going to be very good at it otherwise.

But who knows, maybe you'll be surprised.

[Norgarth]

that Librarian droid must be really annoyed with people being late returning library materials.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[robkelk]

that Librarian droid must be really annoyed with people being late returning library materials.

--
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

[classicdrogn]

Legend has it that Romus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf, and went on to found the city-state that became an empire spanning half the known world at its height. What if the elite of Rome were actually werewolves, though?

I suppose there would have been even more bloody conflict with the vampire kingdoms of eastern Europe and Siberia, for one thing...
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows