A crossover concept fishing for ideas

[deadpan29]

Here's an idea I've been playing around with for a while.  In light of the recent posts on Doolittle's World and the Game Theory clip in Crossovers that Should be, it seems appropriate to go ahead and throw it out here.  I don't know if I will ever get around to writing stories about it but I enjoy it as a world-building exercise with Yosho of Tenchi Muyo as a sort of linchpin and secret €œbig good€ holding everything together.  I invite others to contribute additional ideas or comments on the presented ideas. 

Premise: Yosho/Kasuhito, Tenchi's grandfather in Tenchi Muyo, hasn't spent the last 700 years as just a simple shrine keeper.  He's been involved in a number of major incidents over the years and has accumulated a network of acquaintances, allies, and outright agents in his service.  Also, Ryoko and Ryu-Ohki may not be the only dangerous thing that has been buried at the shrine for safekeeping.  This could be handled as something happening behind the scenes in most of the respective series, or as something that makes for full-fledged AU divergence as Yosho takes actions or puts people from group A into touch with people from group B for mutual assistance.  Some of these series would have to be modified in some way to get back stories regarding human history or the nature of the universe to fit. So I've been playing around with finding stuff that fits or can be made to fit.   

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Events: Yosho, in my world building, has grounds and motivation to get involved in alien incursions (as a prince of Jurai), people of mixed heritage (as he is sympathetic to their plight and tends to offer them a haven), anything involving sword fighting (as a master of the blade), characters with strong religious beliefs and affiliations (he is a priest), and anything involving magical or otherwise empowered plants (as the Jurians are basically very advanced techno-druids). 

InuYasha -- Not only would Yosho offer a haven to various hanyo characters, but If yokai and ambitious mortals were running around looking for mystic jewel fragments 500 years ago, it seems likely that some of them would have come around the Masaki shrine to investigate legends about Ryoko's three jewels of power.  A number of the non-human or half-human characters could still be around at the time of Tenchi's adventures.  

Soul Calibur -- People with swords fighting over and because of manipulations from intelligent swords of power might draw him in.  Again, there are some characters with non-human or modified human natures that could still be around.  

Blue Seed -- Plant monsters, angry gods, and partially-human hybrids. 

Assorted Tokusatsu -- Anything involving invading aliens or mythological beings. (Which covers most of them) 

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Characters -- Again, Yosho tends to become involved with or atract the attention of people with mixed heritage, a focus on sword skills, involvement in spiritual matters or aliens, etc.  You may notice that there are far more female than male names on this list.  I like the idea that Tenchi's grandfather also tends to attract women of beauty and power.  Additionally, female characters have more potential for complicating Tenchi's life.  I try to justify characters being around in the late 1990's as I am also trying to build a semi-coherent timeline for all this. 

Donavan Bane -- Darkstalkers video game series -- Half-vampire, wandering Buddhist monk, uses a magical sword that has some degree of intelligence. 

Mikoto -- Samurai Shodown video game series -- Mixed, complicated, but definitely non-human ancestry that could result in slow aging so she would still be around.  Proficient with a blade, used to be a priestess / object of worship for a cult during a dark period in her youth. 

Momohime/Oboro -- Muramasa: the Demon Blade videogame -- A woman who merged with the ghost of a samurai about 300 years ago and spent time in spirit realms, which may have affected her aging rate.  Practices a sword style that revolves around using cursed blades with special powers while resisting the €œcursed€ part.  Giving her swords from other sources adds additional crossover posibilites. 

Ahega - Omamori Himari manga and anime -- Hinoenma (vampiric/succubus) with a taste for blood from spiritually-strong bloodlines.  Uses a sword, has a sidekick that is a master sword smith, gets Tsundere for men who can both stand up to her and will stand up for her. 

Igam - Hikari Sentai Maskman -- Former dark general that had a heel-face turn and became a Buddhist nun at the end of the series.  Skilled with a rapier-like weapon. 

Arashi Kishu -- X/1999 -- Sword wielding Miko. 

Minerva -- Spinnerette webcomic -- Anthropomorphic Cerberus with both sword and sorcery abilities, tasked with hunting down evil escapees from hell. Either an AU equivalent so that the rest of the webcomic cast is'nt around or events take place before her involvement with the rest of said cast. 

Ali and Ann -- Sailor Moon anime -- Reconciling the history of Earth and the galaxy from Sailor moon with that of other series takes some doing, but makes for an interesting mix.  In this, I propose that the Doomtree was actually a Jurian tree that got lost or went off on its own, and at the end of their story arc instead of relocating to another world these two and the purified sapling locked onto the tree's €œaunt€ at the Masaki Shrine.
Jiyo Nanohana and Freesia Yagyu - Jubei Chan the Ninja Girl - At the beginning of the series, Mr Nanohana moved out to the country to get some peace and quiet so he could concentrate on his writing.  If he wanted peace and quiet, maybe the countryside in Okayama wasn't such a good choice.
Devil Hunter Yohko - Hereditary monster slayer / magic girl with a sword.  Yosho's been a friend of the family for a while now.
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Other possible sources:

 

DC comics: chosen over Marvel due to a fondness for Project A-ko.  I'm uncertain about to including characters from this because the DCU as a whole (or almost any western-style superhero universe) comes with a lot of baggage.  Black Orchid, as envisioned by Niel Gaiman, might have ended up at the Masaki Shrine instead of the Amazon rain forest when drawn to a place with a strong connection to "the Green".  Raven of teen tians is another possibility, etc.
Starwars: Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, someone had a truly spectatular hyperdive malfunction and ended up in the vicinity of Earth.  Jedi or lighter shades of Sith could fit right in. 
Revolutionary Girl Utena - Swords, spiritual and phylosophical matters, but do I really want to deal with this much mindsrew?
Magic Knight Rayearth - Magical girls with swords, but everything happens off in another world/dimension.
Love Hina / Negima - The Shinreiryuu School offers lots of possibilities.
(edit: Still trying to get the font size straight)
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[classicdrogn]

While not around per se, there could be references to Ruroni Kenshin characters/events/techniques. Unless there was some Inuyasha crossing in there... 3x3 Eyes, and any number of other supernatural themed settings have ways to render a human protagonist ageless with greater or lesser degrees of limitation and drawbacks. In a mystical martial arts setting, it's perfectly in genre for a Master to live hundreds of years with little debilitation just through the power of their qi.
--
"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

[Black Aeronaut]

If we want to have fun with AIs and Human-built space habitats, you should include Questionable Content. But for even more fun, look into Megatokyo.

[deadpan29]

I realize this all comes off as kind of vauge. This is partly as I have largely scrapped my original idea of "all these people are Yosho's employees or vassals or lovers" in favor of "Yosho gets around and knows a lot of people." With this change, I have perhaps lost track of what I want to do and where I want to go with this. Trying to work through and clarify this is part of my motivation for posting here. Maybe to narrow this down I should focus on traits that I think would tend to bring people into Yosho's orbit.
The primary trait would be that of misfits. Yosho faced prejudice over his Earth/Jurai mixed heritage and it wounded him deeply. He has a soft spot for anyone who stands between two worlds and doesn't fit in to either. This includes part-human hybrids (Donavan and Mikoto), people who have been modified from normal (Momohime), exiles (Igam), or those who are the last of their kind. (Ali and Ann)
Adding swords, spiritualism, religion, plants, aliens, etc. to the mix adds to the appropriateness of the choice, but the misfit factor is probably the primary one that leads to continuing contact and association.
I've already considered and rejected Dante from Devil May Cry. He might know Yosho, but doesn't particularly need Yosho to give him a place to belong or people to rely on. Dante tends to carve out his own place in the world and have people orbit him.
Additional figures that might fit.
Galatea - Claymore - Sword-wielding super-soldier thanks to inhuman tissue grafts who took up the role of nun as a cover. Claymores are apparently unaging. If Yosho has experience with InuYasha style half-yokai, he might be able to make or aquire a sword that would keep a Claymore from loosing themselves to their inhuman side.
Shinichi Izumi - Parasyte - A young man with a shapeshifting alien that bonded to his right hand and has made other changes, leaving him rather inhuman in both biology and psychology. Fights with his parasyte partner turning one hand into a set of blades/tentacles and a conventional blade in his other hand.
Here's a crossover duo I've been considering: Kanna (InuYasha) and Alice Liddel (American McGee) - In cannon Kanna left a shard of herself behind that struck Kagome and gave her key information. In my considered plot line, she left another shard behind that slowly grew or otherwisde became a second Kanna, not the same person as the first but a sort of clone if you will. As a kind of creepy manufactured half-yokai, she wandered the Earth for a while, ocasionally interacting with Yosho. Alice learned to walk in both the real world and Wonderland simultaniously, but (in my story ideas) the real world began to reject her. Not only socially, but physically as Alice slowly became less and less "real" as far as the physical world was concerned, eventually becoming a being who always existed just on the other side of the looking glass. Kanna IS the looking glass. Now they walk together, with Kanna able to pull people into Wonderland and temporarilly project Alice or other Wonderland inhabitants out into the physical world.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Necratoid]

One of the biggest issues your likely to get is that you start having mutually exclusive cosmologies... both in space and on Earth.
By mutually exclusive I mean your including Tenshi Muyo and other cosmologies.  Seriously, one of the reasons Tenchi dropped off the fanfiction radar is that you can't argue with the TM holy trinity being the only deities in the setting.  Made crossovers very, vey difficult.  I'm not sure if that pack of whatever the Jurian equivalent of jyhad actually is are still lurking... but those guys saw genocidial rampage as the laid back setting on this issue.  Just fair warning... which may not currently apply.
The major self written point you've entered into the series is that we know why Earth is qarenteened in this universe.  Youki... Earth is lousy with things that are nightmare fuel for the universe at large.  I forget which of the first 2 series of TM it was in, but one life draining, teleporting youki gets loose on a planet and unless a member of the royal family shows up is basically game over for that world.  I'm pretty sure this is how the Jurian Royal Family got royal in the first place.  Their sword techniques can actually deal with youki.
Ignoring the sheer number of youki and the like on Earth at any given time, the fact that there are so very, very many methods of offing or containing the things means that not would Earth require a Royal court to contain... but if those practices spread the Jurian Royal Family basically can kiss is power base away on many worlds.  As I see Sailor Moon involved (at least a pair of anti-villian morons) this is likely how that Royal Family got into power as well... it would also mean, in setting, that the disaster that causes Crystal Tokyo is actually the removal of all the settings other antiyouma forces by death, organizational dissolution or them moving off world.  Turns out the senshi can't handle the numbers themselves.  Would also explain the entire thing where Earth is strangely the backwards planet in system... despite being the only naturally life bearing world in system.  Basically Earth had all its anti-supernatural forces intact and Beryl set up a teleportation gate system that let them get off world... basically a numbers game.
Then Yosho decided to seal a stupidly scary powerful Ryoko on the planet and they decide to forget Earth existed... explaining the entire lost Colony drivel they never actually prove, but keep warbling on about.  Thus Yosho got left alone on the infested planet of doom... and all was good.  He got a social life and everything.

[deadpan29]

That's pretty close to what I already had in mind. I've been taking the route of making TM cosmology and political state of the galaxy as the baseline and trying to make everything compatable with that. When the SM Moon Kindom (Queendom?) fell, the whole solar system was was quarenteened as a potentially infectious death zone. The reason Sailor Galaxia, Pyron, or other world-destroyers aren't rampaging through the galaxy is because ships with Light-Hawk Wings are actually a match for them. This, in turn, keeps Jurai at the top of the political pyramid in the Galactic Union.

Then you have Earth, which seems to be some sort of nexus point where any interdimensional fissure or inter-galactic hyperspace route has a high probablility of ending up there and the plannet deals with world-destoryers on an almost annual basis. For example, you may note Donovan Baine on my list which means Darkstalkers in which Pyron the planet eater shows up, gets beaten up in a fist fight, and is then eaten by one of the locals.

Another crossover element: The Amazing 3 (manga/anime by Osamu Tezuka). Three undercover GP or Galactic Military agents are sent to evaluate Earth. The council behind them decides that Earth should be destroyed for the safety of the Galaxy. This gets monkeywrenched by the mission commander falling in love with an Earthling. This is a pattern than happens almost as much as beating up the unstoppable invaders and scares certain parties almost as much as the insane strength displayed by some Earthlings.

Regarding this:

I forget which of the first 2 series of TM it was in, but one life draining, teleporting youki gets loose on a planet and unless a member of the royal family shows up is basically game over for that world.

Are you refering to one of the first two movies? The first has Kain who is a sort of time-traveling cosmic destroyer while the second has the demon Yuzuha who is pretty close to being a Sailor Moon or InuYasha villain.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

For the most part, I can come up with crossover elements to incorporate or at least reference in shout-outs by myself, though I’m open to suggestions.  What I really need some help on is figuring out where I am going with all this.

 

First a confession:  In my mind this was originally a lemon fic.  Porn with plot and lots of humor.  Something about Earth was affecting Yosho’s tree and in turn it had an effect on him and a number of his descendants.  Or maybe the extreme eccentricity (you can’t call them crazy, they’re royalty) displayed by other members of his family finally caught up with him.  Yosho in this AU always had a lady friend or three around the shrine when he wasn’t off saving the world, and generally came back with one or two new ones.  Tenchi’s Father went from slightly Hentai to full-on swinger.  Tenchi isn’t embarrassed by sex.  Ryoko’s cave was remodeled into a sex dungeon a while back with Ryoko as the gimp. Etc.  The story was going to be a retelling of the OAV with all this in play, largely from the point of view of the prim and proper princess Ayeka after being dropped into this insanity.

 

Then as I played around with world building and characters, the potential for plot and humor became more interesting to me than the porn.  So I’ve gotten attached to the now-modified concept as described in my opening post but I’m trying to figure out my approach here.  The leading contenders at the moment:

 

1)      Go Over the Top: See Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon and The Key to a Successful Interview by The Sage of Toads for the general idea.  The Earth branch of the Masaki-Jurai clan is still crazy, just not all that Hentai.

2)      Subtlety: Yosho has managed to keep his activities and the nature of some of his acquaintances hidden from Tenchi along with everything else.  During or after the Kagato incident, after Katsuhito reveals his identity as Yosho, parts of his past and activities on Earth are slowly revealed and Butterfly-Effects grow from there.

3)      Staying in the Background: Told from Yosho’s POV, Tenchi and harem have their own adventures as canon while most of them never get a clue about what Yosho is doing.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Necratoid]

I'm probably thinking of a movie then.  I just remembered it was one of those type of things from that series.  The hopelessness and despair of the guards was notable in my mind a decade or so later.  Also one bad guy getting cut down a desacating in like 4 seconds screaming.
For the dropped lemon bits... technically you don't have to drop them completely... or actually write them.  Just make them the rumour mill of the Jurian Royals.  The Emporor visits after hearing his son ditched the Empire to have a centuries long orgy... and freaky things about him using that hot planet killer as a gimp.  Something he keeps hearing people go on and on about... cutting off as they notice he noticed.  One of the reasons he wants Yosho off that idiot planet... his wives don't actually believe it.  The nobels not so much.
Again in one or both of first two series there is a bit abot these blob people.  According to Washu, their claim to fame is that they are the only ones in the known glaxy willing to write and broadcast soap operas... which everyone wants to do but is too repressed to actually do.  Though that may be from a fanfic... though the shows get amazing ratings... even though no one will admit to actually watching the show themselves from prim and properness.  Earth has hundreds of these... one of which go back literally 75 years to pre-TV.  With humaniods.  Fear is if this gets out the empire will grind to a halt.---
Basically have the Jurian Court POV be some chapters... Yosho has been dodging these idiots for centuries for good reason...  in which mad, elaborate stories of what they have decided is going and the Ruling Trio hearing about it and not being able counter it for reasons of the court at large lacking security clearance.  These people are repressed and have way, way, way^347 to much time on their hands.  However they aren't directly expendable as they can be assigned to planets with minor youma/youki issues.
Tenchi starts off as basically normal (for the series)... and then gets involved in a few other people's problems at random (mostly Tenchi and Ryoko), those two are occasionally sent to help out other groups.. offically unoffically as the Jurian contribution to events.  Ones labled you-can't-actually-see-this-shade-of-black black ops.  Ryoko and Tenshi are a battle couple as far as Earth and black ink on the virtual the same shade black out to nineteen points past the decimal point ops are concerned.  Tenshi is considered a more modest Bond... with his own stupidly powerful Bond girl/assistant.  Pity that no one told him (after all he obviously knows this fact)... and Tenshi helps out on his own with random equal level encounters semi-regularly.  The only records of these things are mostly Ryoko's diary and her cabbit's logs.
The only remotely public records happen to be Mihoshi's paperwork and Kyone's paperwork.  Part of Kyone's job is installing the cliffnotes in Mihoshi's paperwork... Mihoshi is infamos for writing 4-5 hundred pages on a traffic stop.  She has an amazing attention to detail and no filters for what is actually important.  People reading these have actually advanced engine technolgy by years with her observations.  Actual combat missions generate documentation dozens of times the length of War and Peace completely in stream of conciousness formatt.  Their bosses are actively prohibiting her from getting promoted as they did the math and her ability to translate and sum up Mihoshi level paperwork is irriplacable to the point that the super computer required to translate the paperwork at the same level would take up the budget for decades and get broken in less than a month.  Regulations state that your partner must read over your paperwork before it is handed in after all.  Kyone was doomed the second she decided to pass the academy and got Mihoshi as a roommate.  The reason their patrol ship has such a good/advanced AI is that its required to run spell check and grammar check.on said megareports... the manhunt for the people that keep sending Mihoshi those deeply picky thesauruses continue.---Keep in mind that we are talking about a Tenshi involved in events like the Galaxia incident... Galaxia travels via asteriod base and enters the system at sublight speeds from decades or centuries out.  She is ultra dangerous but travels so slowly you can't specically defend against her, because she takes so long getting anywhere.  She headed for Earth thinking is was still the capital of an Empire.  She is ultra dangerous and does collect the planets super weapon(s) and kills everyone in system... though she is one of a bajillion planet killers, one of the most humanlike.  Ryoko and Tenshi are convinced she is off her meds and a bit brain damaged (not evil herself).  No one told them she was an intersystem empire capital world killer... then again Ryoko may know and not really care about that... she raided the Jurian capital after all.  She was just sad to see the state of what is basically one of her peers/ (ex)professional cohorts.
Mentioning that poor Galaxia and rumors of Tenshi flattening the Emperor's chosen, sword prodigy, fiance for Ayeka without even drawing his weapon are the like are going to give him a major rep... add in the rumors about Earth floating around... and...

[deadpan29]

I think I have found my approach to some of this.

First: Magic
The various Galactic cultures and civilizations are aware of magic, but they don’t trust it. Magic, as opposed to certain psychic powers that primitive cultures may confuse and mix with magic, temporarily changes the local characteristics of the universe so that the intended effect of the spell is what happens naturally. Afterwards, the normal rules reassert themselves, but sometimes things don’t snap back all the way. Repeated use of a particular form of magic in an area will slowly make magic of that sort easier to perform, but may also cause malfunctions in advanced tech as the governing rules change. It can also make it easier for beings from other dimensions/planes/whatever to enter this reality as the local properties/laws/constants more closely match those of their point of origin.

It generally takes widespread use before this becomes an issue. But there is a history of magic-based societies, like the Moon Kingdom, ending up over run with horrors from beyond as the Moon Kingdom did. Even ones that don’t end like this tend to become more isolated as Galactic Tech becomes unreliable in those star systems, while the most advanced magic of these societies isn’t reliable outside of their home system. The stereotype known to most galactic citizens is of a monster infested sword-and-sorcery world ruled by wizards and priests of strange gods where not even the most basic firearms work.

So magic, to the average space faring entity, is like chemical/biological/nuclear weapons to us. You don’t touch that stuff unless it’s all gone to hell already.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

Second: Invasions
Earth seems to have the worst luck when it comes to invasions. For the last few decades, it seems not a year goes by without at least one batch of extraterrestrials or beings from another dimension coming by to conquer, enslave, harvest, devour, etc. There are reasons for this.

1) Earth’s solar system is connected to multiple pocket dimensions. The Moon Kingdom had multiple bomb shelters that at least some people were evacuated into during the final battle. These weren’t just conventional shelters but were a form of dimensional life boat. When the planets other than Earth lost their magic-based teraforming these shelters shifted into other planes, becoming self-sustaining pocket dimensions. Over the millennia, the populations of various pocket realms have thrived, died off, evolved culturally or physically, mutated and degenerated, etc, with each realm following its own path of development or disaster. Further complicating things, are people from Earth occasionally accessing one of these pockets because they need to seal something nasty away and sometimes they didn’t check or didn’t care if there were inhabitants already.

2) In the last few centuries we have had European explorers tramping about, disturbing seals leading to these pocket dimensions, etc. Decline in belief has led to a decline in various rituals maintaining seals. And then you have mad or even fairly sane scientists meddling with things they shouldn’t have, at least not without a lot more ground work. A number of these pocket realms have been drawing closer and reconnecting with Earth or space in Earth’s vicinity. So, for example, there have been a number of invasions from Mars involving beings that are probably the descendants of Mars-from-the-Moon-Kingdom but don’t actually live on Mars as it is now. In other cases you get something like Oz or NeverNever Land or the Magical-Kindgom-of-X from kiddy-cartoon-show-Y.

3) This odd hyperspace structure has also opened worm holes and other forms of hyperspace conduits leading to distant places in this universe. A lot of those pathways lead to people with imperialistic tendencies who don’t necessarily know or care where Earth actually is on the star charts and may not be from this galaxy. Some of these, like the aliens in the Outlanders manga, may be decendants of refugees from some earlier period of Earth's history and they want to reclaim their ancestral homeworld.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

Third: Beating the Invaders
Earth may have the worst luck in how often it gets invaded, but that’s nothing compared to how improbable its track record is in beating those invaders. Not just in the number of times it has happened, but in the ways it has happened. Where do these people who can bounce plasma bolts off their foreheads and punch through our most advanced tank armor keep coming from? How do these primitives find that one design flaw in the mothership? How does a planet that has barely gotten to its moon a few times keep building giant robots that can smash armadas? Did the Zorbadians really get their buts kicked by a giant moth and an atomic turtle? Perhaps most disturbing, why do high-ranking members of the invasion forces keep falling in love with Earthlings and turning on their comrades?

Then there are the ones who try for the quiet infiltration method, only to find that Earth already has predators in the shadows and secret conspiracies that don’t like newbies on their turf.

Earth continues to be largely unknown in the wider universe because the invaders that survive tend to cover the whole thing up out of embarrassment. Those in the know may try to trick rivals and enemies into sticking their hand into that mess.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

Foruth: The Lemon Bits
About a year after Ryoko's attack and Yosho chasing after her, someone out there in the galaxy produced the Galactic-tech version of an eroge featuring characters obviously based on Yosho and Ryoko. The story is of these two stranded on one of those sword-and-sorcery worlds mentioned in a previous post, cooperating to survive, and falling in love. It was probably meant to score political points of some sort against either Jurai, the House Masaki of Jurai, or Yosho specifically. It gained enough popularity to be brought to Ayeka's attention, and that was the final straw that prompted her to go tearing off in her ship to find Yosho.

A few years after Ayeka runs off, a second game hits the scene. This one is about what happens when Ayeka finds the first two on that barbarian death-world, which revolves around some epic combat against life draining threats that might endanger the galaxy if they get off world. It also involves a lot of the infamous Juraian marital practices, i.e. the Ayeka-based character breaks out the whips and chains and hot wax. Some of those monster threats are sex-demons as well.

The first game made a few ripples but would have been soon forgotten. This one not only captures the attention of those whose fetishes run in this direction, but has epic action and production values that attract even more people who aren't into the kinky sex. 700 years later, the existence of the first game is a bit of obscure trivia but the second has produced sequels, spinoffs, reboots, multiple routes splitting off into their own separate series, etc.

So when various aliens become aware of Tenchi and Earth, there is always someone around who is a fan of this series and makes the connection.

It doesn’t help matters as people dig deeper and uncover details on some of those invasions, the existence of actual life-sucking and sex demons being fought by magical warriors, and this Ataru Moroboshi guy who married into the Oni Syndicates.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Bob Schroeck]

Heh. Nicely put together. I especially like the idea of Earth being the "anti briar patch" that a civilization will try to get its enemies to approach...
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

Third: Beating the Invaders
... Perhaps most disturbing, why do high-ranking members of the invasion forces keep falling in love with Earthlings and turning on their comrades? ...

There's a reason worlds with Protoculture are usually declared "off-limits"...
--
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

[DHBirr]

So magic, to the average space faring entity, is like chemical/biological/nuclear weapons to us. You don’t touch that stuff unless it’s all gone to hell already.

I had a notion along those lines at one time, so it nicely applies to this universe of yours:  How do you think the Time-Space Administration Bureau would react to finding out about this attitude, considering that TSAB feels much the same way about the kind of major weapons a non-magical society wields?  There's the potential there for elements on each side thinking the other needs to be shut down hard.  (The line in my concept was that magic-users, even if their intentions are good, simply can't ever be trusted, because magic is inherently unworthy of trust ... even with the best of intent, it's guaranteed to eventually go wrong.)
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[deadpan29]

Fifth: Psychic AbilitiesFrom Tenchi Muyo, one of the GP special forces guys (Baguma) who tried to assault the Masaki house in the 3rd OAV was said to be a “B-class telepath with the ability of teleportation”. Among the tests Washu runs on Tenchi are analysis of the Organic Pattern, Astral Pattern, Over Dimension Pattern, Parallel Pattern, and Psycho Layer Pattern. The Astral Pattern is used as part of GP security access.  Ryoko can summon spirits.
Galactic society is aware of and makes some use of psychic abilities. These are different from magic in that they bypass the physical laws of the universe instead of changing them. The human mind and soul extend beyond the 3D reality most of us perceive, referenced in some of the “Patterns” of the previous paragraph. Some people can use this part of themselves to reach out and do things that would seem physically impossible in this universe because most of the work is being done somewhere outside of said universe. This is similar to a ship moving into hyperspace to get around the light speed limit in normal 3D space.
Less advanced societies (like Earth) or magic based cultures don’t always differentiate between the two. I’m not sure if I will include Harry Potter in this mix, but if I did then legilimency and occlumency would be classified as psychic while most of the spells would be magic. Most ki-effects of martial artist types are psychic abilities.
The distinction will make a difference in how people from other planets view the ability and the character that uses it. For more immediate concerns and as far as most people from Earth or its associated pocket dimensions are concerned , whether the guy blasting fire is a magic-based flame sorcerer or a ki/psychic-based “firebender” probably won’t matter.   On the other hand, magic has fewer inherent limits.  There are magic and psychic methods for mind reading and teleportion and spirit conjuring.  There are no known psychic abilities that could turn a human being into a normal-sized toad.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[classicdrogn]

While it obviously wouldn't work for how you're setting up your universe, my own inclination would be to reverse the methods stated for magic and ki/psi powers - with magic reaching beyond the possible to do what is impossible, while ki users simply punch reality in the face until it submits to their will. Of course, your way you can have a wise old master or two clucking to each other about these whippersnapper mages with no sense of subtlety, twisting the world into pretzels around them where using their own flexibility to approach the problem from an angle where the world's counter-forces don't apply would work just as well.
--
"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

[deadpan29]

O.K. I'm doing some world building and putting together a timeline as a framework I can hang things on.  Could someone more obsesive about Mortal Kombat than myself nitpick this?
First, I'm assuming that the various realms of MK are pocket dimensions as described a few posts back, having been shaped by the elder gods of MK and being connected to each other as well as Earth.  Raiden is Earth's ambasador to and representative among this council.  I know about the mythology of the "one being" from the games, and at least some of that is going to be distorted myth to make it fit with everything else.   I'm still deciding how much and in what way.
With this combined timeline, Earth has no shortage of powerful warriors through the centuries.  So much so that Shao Khan lost ten tournaments in a row, technically allowing Earth to invade Outworld rather than the other way around. (Somebody tell me if this is acutally how it works or at least if there is room for arguments that say it works this way.  I do know the elder gods weren't always dilligent about enforcing the rules.) Earth was in the midst of WWII at the time of the final defeat in that sequence and the various forces aware of this opportunity were committed elsewhere.  However, the occult shadow-war occurring behind the scenes of WWII expanded to include repeated commando raids by all sides and a few independent factions to seize various forms of mystical lore and power. 

Having lost face, several elite warriors, and parts of his sorcerous infrastructure through these tournaments and raids, Shao Khan’s hold on power became somewhat tenuous.  As most of his major lieutenants were of the backstabbing type, even perceived weakness was a significant danger.  To reinforce his position, he enacted various backup plans, like the creation of Mileena and resurrection of Sindel, earlier than he would have in the original timeline.  

This was not sufficient.  Shao Khan was challenged and cornered by enemies and betrayers and cast down.  As he exploded into light upon his defeat, he is presumed dead but it remains to be seen if this is a truly permanent end.  In the meantime, the various realms that were absorbed into Outworld are separate once more.  Shang Tsung rules the diminished Outworld, plotting conquest but seeking a different route than the tournaments.  Other masterminds like Shinnok and Onaga are probably out there plotting as well.  Many of the other characters in the series have gone on different paths.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

If anyone is wondering why I would be making such changes to the timeline, I've got some plans for Sindel and the rest of the royal family of Edenia that work better if they broke with Shao Khan decades ago.  I also don't want to have to deal with MK: Armageddon.
Also I like the idea of sending the various characters off in different directions so I can make crossover situations like the following:
Mishima Zaibatsu (Tekken) has carried out a hostile (in several senses) takeover of Ultracorp (Killer Instinct) with intent to aquire their bio-tech division.  This both furthers Heihachi's interest in the Devil gene research and serves to secure the loyalty of one of his minions, Reptile (MK).  Both Riptor (KI) and Alex (Tekken) are Reptile's "sons" thanks to this research and will presumably gain the shapeshifting powers reptile uses to take on a more humanoid appearance when they get older.  Of course, Heihachi will also find uses for some of the other research projects.  The more mechanical/cybernetics based projects are now part of Mishima Heavy Industries being managed by his daughter Akiko. (Nuku Nuku)
So, as feedback, am I reaching too far with this?
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[deadpan29]

So, I still haven't written anything for this but I still find a great deal of entertainment in doing the world building to hang a story on. I'm trying to fill in some of Yosho's adventures over the centuries. As covered in the first post, I have him down for being directly involved in the Soul Calibur shenanigans and indirectly involved in InuYasha, due to various independent figures showing up at the shrine looking for Sacred Jewel shards.

Now, looking at Yosho, his approach to things seems to be sneaky and behind the scenes. I'm also assuming that at least some of Tenchi's knack for reaching out to people in pain and touching their hearts is also found in Yosho. So, I've been looking for characters who met sad ends or bad ends but could have been saved if some compasionate-yet-sneaky figure had either taken them under his wing or pulled off a stealth rescue while the main villain what preocupied with the main hero. To provide an example:

Mina Majikina (Samurai Shodown): Archer-exorcist from Okinawa in the late 1700's. Having grown up shunned and alone because of her abilites, she returned to the village from a demon-hunt to find that all the villagers had been slaughtered. She set out on a personal crusade to slay all demons, accompanied by a cute and seemingly harmless creature she found in the wreckage. In the end, she came to the conclusion that this creature that had become her only friend (perhaps ever) was responsible for the slaughter, and so she slew the creature and comitted suicide shortly thereafter. Or at least that's how things went in canon.

I'm plumbing the TV Tropes pages on Woobies, Driven to Suicide, etc. for characters like this and here I am fishing for suggestions as well. They don't have to be female and they don't have to be from Japan, but I'm looking for characters that can fit in the "real world" (to the extent that Street Figther, Sailor Moon, or Helsing fit in the "real world") from the 1400's through the 1970's.

Given what I laid out for pocket dimensions a few posts back, characters from generic fantasy or some kinds of sci-fi could work, but would be harder to fit in.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm plumbing the TV Tropes pages on Woobies, Driven to Suicide, etc.

Please! Show a little loyalty and plumb the pages on All The Tropes instead!

You might want to look into http://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/Cartwright_Curse]The Cartwright Curse for potential candidates or pointers thereto -- I'll be that there have to be some doomed girlfriends-of-the-week from any number of shows who would fit your requirements.

And speaking of the Cartwrights, it would be interesting if Yosho had been wandering the Old West at the same time as Kwai Chang Caine...
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[deadpan29]

I was actually not aware of the existence of All The Tropes. Thank you.

Also, given Yosho's history with Ryoko, taking hurt people under his wing could include people who are downright axe crazy due to their pasts, but somehow mellow out considerably after being sealed away for a while.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Bluemage]

I don't know if it's relevant, or even useful, but I had a thought.
When I saw your premise, talking about having other things sealed up down there with Ryoko, my mind went in a different direction.  Think Warehouse 13, Raiders of the Lost Ark... that sort of thing.  Yosho traveling the world, finding devices religious, magical, and alien, and storing them safely away from the world.
Probably a concept more suited to a one-shot than a true fic, but the thought of letting Washuu in there makes me grin.  Then I scowl, because that means *Mihoshi* might get in...

---

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

I've been writing a bit.

[Black Aeronaut]

Deadpan29 wrote:

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They don't have to be female and they don't have to be from Japan...

Actually, you do want to focus on that area.  Japanese, especially young females, have a unique psychology - a mindset if you will.  In other words, a young Japanese woman will commit suicide for reasons that would make the rest of us scratch our heads... At least, that is until you plumb the depths of how the Japanese think and why.  Trust me, there's a reason why there's serious culture clash between the East and the West.

[deadpan29]

blackaeronaut wrote:

---

Deadpan29 wrote:

---

They don't have to be female and they don't have to be from Japan...

Actually, you do want to focus on that area.  Japanese, especially young females, have a unique psychology - a mindset if you will.  In other words, a young Japanese woman will commit suicide for reasons that would make the rest of us scratch our heads... At least, that is until you plumb the depths of how the Japanese think and why.  Trust me, there's a reason why there's serious culture clash between the East and the West.

I do expect to get a lot of "hits" in that category, but I also wish to widen the scope beyond one set of islands.  
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.