[RFC] Going beyond simply filing off the serial numbers?

[Black Aeronaut]

The other day, I was listening to this song by The Offspring...  (Warning: NSFW for R-Rated lyrics!)



I couldn't help but think to myself that this sounds a lot like the relationship between my SI character, Ezekiel Darkwood, and the god, Raven.  Except that Raven's big thing isn't lies per say.

But what if it was?

It planted the idea in my head about filing off the serial numbers.  Which is doable.  But the thing is that I absolutely detest that sort of thing.  It feels like a grave disservice to the characters to put them behind masks like that.  And I suppose that's part of why I've become so good at characterization is that I don't simply see them as words on paper.  I see them as actual people living out their lives somewhere in the infinite cosmos of the Multiverse.  Actual people with actual motivations and actual thoughts and emotions.

So, yeah.  After that, the idea then came to mind: what if I went beyond that?  Similar situations, similar people, but often very different circumstances and removed from the characters that inspired them.

Thoughts?

[classicdrogn]

I have no objections to your writing original fiction, aside from the likelihood of meaning you fan stories end up falling by the wayside. Of course, with how long BYID has been sitting in my read queue again I don't have much ground to complain there either.

(For the past couple days, I've been distracted with 3d modeling, this time of a Star Trek style mini-ship to try to fit in all the iconic hero ship features at under 100m. So far, she's a smart-looking ship sort of a mix of Intrepid, Ambassador, Excelsior, and Reliant rendered down to 75x48x20m L-W-H. (edit: For reference, that means the entire ship is about as big as the bridge island on the TOS Enterprise, and the saucer is almost exactly the same size as the main deflector on an Ambassador) Internally it's working pretty well, though the amount of volume lost to a holodeck and to the warp core spares is deeply resented. On the other hand, how else can you have holodeck malfunction episodes, or dump the warp core in the back of beyond and still be ready for the next episode a few days or weeks later? If you aren't prepared for a major equipment casualty in your long-range scout, you aren't prepared. Words to live by, as Garrick can probably tell you by now!)

... so yeah, not even filing off the serial numbers here. Insert shrug emoji I guess.

[Black Aeronaut]

Bear in mind, DSKS as a fanfic and the Being You... series are still things that I very much want to do.

Part of what I'm hoping for is that the Original Fic version of DSKS will lend a little more insight to where I want the fanfic to go, as part of my problem is a mild writer's block. I have an idea of what I want to do, but other distractions have been keeping me from thinking it through completely.

Just as a side note, if I do an original fic version of DSKS, then I'll need to come up with another name for the story and for the main protagonist so as to avoid confusion.

[Rajvik]

hey BA, i have a stupid question for you, what is the title of the anime/manga that the Lum Character comes from, i can't remember

[Black Aeronaut]

That's called Urusei Yatsura.

[Black Aeronaut]

This is still an idea that pesters me now and then.

I gave a bit of thought to the whole thing, and I think a good idea would be to crib a little bit from Neil Gaiman's work involving Gods.  As for the featuring God himself, I think that Loki would be a good one to go with.  Lies like a snake and is suitably psychopathic.

Part of the setup would be that Loki puts together a scheme that makes our Protagonist, of his own free will, volunteer to be his Avatar.  And it's not something that he would want - he would know about Loki and how terrible of a person he is.  But Loki will engineer the scenario such that at the time the Protagonist will feel that he has no choice in the matter.

There's a lot of world building that I'll need to work out so I can have all the elements that I wanted.  Pretty sure there's going to be a lot of clark-tech flying around all over the place.

In the Alien Princess slot, I'm planning on someone that's more like Lafiel Abriel.  This will be interesting in that it will be a bit like To Love Ru in that you got a princess from a Clark Tech empire having to adapt to life on Earth, but with a lot less slapstick.  Adapting will be a challenge still, but it will be one that she actually enjoys, particularly as she begins to think that Earth people are actually more clever than her own people because they actually have to think for themselves a bit.

Trying to decide if Magic + Gods are really hidden/lost Clark Tech or if it's the real deal.  Leaning to the latter because the former's been done already and it's honestly kinda boring if you ask me.  Very few franchises actually manage to make it as interesting as Stargate did.

Also need to work out how Magical Girls will work in this universe.  Tempting to crib from the massive Magical Girl Crossover Project that included everything from Sailor Moon to Nanoha, and from Sailor Nothing to PMMM, with a few other fun bit like Persona... Huh.  Come to think of it, did that project happen to have anything from Sakura Taisen?  I would have thought that steam-punk stompy robots with magic powers would have fit into that project nicely.

Anywho... those are the biggest issues.  I think once I get those settled, everything else will start to fall into place all around them.

One fun little twist: I can probably import the MIB movie and animated series without changing very much because of how far the franchise pushes the theme of anonymity.  The characters will have to be different, of course, but that will be easy as well.  Although the MIB won't be anywhere nearly as OP - the stuff inspired by Macross must happen, and that would mean that it's something of such a scope that they're unable to keep it under wraps...  Which means, at some point the MIB's existence is revealed.

I'll also need to come up with a replacement for the BPRD.  That in and of itself won't be terribly hard... but coming up with someone as large as life as Hellboy without it being Hellboy is not gonna be easy.  But it will be worthwhile as it will be a place for a John Constantine expy to hang his hat.

I think this universe could also do with something that is like that British Library organization from Read or Die, only rather than just have it be only about books, they'll also work in archeology and ancient artifacts.  Although this would mean that they'd probably be under the auspices of the BPRD expy... but then, they could be like what Q-Branch is to MI6, all with their own field agents.  (With expies of the likes of Indiana Jones and Laura Croft...)

The Macross elements will also combine Space Battleship Yamato elements.  Which I think is very much doable.  Gamilons and Zentradi, Protoculture and Iscandarians, Supervision Army and Comet Empire...  It almost writes itself.  Almost.

The Jurai expy will be the home of our Space Princess.  Rather than Tree Ships, we'll be pushing the Clark Tech angle a bit and having them be living nanomachine colonies.  Each one is bonded to a particular member of their empire's people.  The bond is extremely symbolic and symbiotic - when someone has a child, their bonded ship will fission off a small mass of nanomachines to become bonded to said offspring.

They're taking a neutral stance for the moment, but with Earth being on their doorstep they know they're going to get drawn in pretty soon, whether they want to be or not.  So, they're starting to build a relationship with Earth with an eye towards helping them build out their own stellar power so they can be an effective buffer on that particular side of their territory.

The game of 'Tag' is going to be so much more than tag.  It's going to be more like one-on-one combat using special batons that, while solid, will leave plainly visible marks.  The idea is that they are taking the place of bladed weapons and the marks will clearly tell how severe a 'wound' is.  Either side is free to employ whatever tricks they deem necessary.   This whole thing is because of detractors on the aliens' side, wondering why they should bother helping the baseliners if they can't fight for themselves.  Sending one of the most skilled fighters (their princess) to face one of their own, using most of their tricks would be quite telling.

Any thoughts?  Suggestions?

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh man, I had a helluvan idea while I was working today.

I was thinking that with a Clark-tech space princess, a Magical Girl, and probably even freakin' elves, goblins, and dwarves running around in the 'Underhills', it would only make sense if we had gibbering elder beings from the edge of creation as well.

And then I remembered the Shadowspawn Girlfriend Writing Prompt...

So, we take our Tomoko-expy.  Almost non-existent self-esteem, growing more and more disillusioned every day, but she has this incredible all-consuming crush on the main character.  And it's not terribly unhealthy...  Not like she'd start a cult or anything.  :V

But she is desperate, and she has been banging her head against the walls because he's surrounded by all these incredibly powerful and beautiful girls.  (Never mind that with just a bit of proper self-care she'd be rather lovely, too.)  And somehow, in the aftermath of one of their adventures, she comes across some cultist arch-priest's grimoire.  Without any traps or 'protections' on it.

She does pretty much exactly what the book says in order to summon an elder being with which she can make a pact - her soul for its power.  But she fails to understand the full meaning behind that.

And the elder being that is summoned is bound to that poor girl's body, and the sheer weight of its mind upon hers completely destroys her own mind, leaving nothing but her memories and experiences as they simply became one with the elder being's mind.

She then looks into a mirror... and shed's a single tear.  "Oh you poor, pitiful creature.  Why did you do that?  Why did *I* do that?  Forgive me....  please forgive me..."

And then I backed up and went, "Wait a minute.  These are supposed to be eldritch horrors with blue and orange morality, aren't they?"

But then....  What if that was the exception and not the rule?

What if the few that we did see that are bent on destroying our universe and remaking it in their image are simply the criminally insane among them?  Eldritch horrors sealed in prisons, indeed!  And by and large, the rest of these beings are quite benign and are respectful of intelligent life?

This would mean that the only ones that would answer one of these summons would be the ones that truly have no good intentions... or (much more rarely) were young and curious, not knowing any better until it was too late.

A relatively young elder being... say only a million or so years.  Very young by their standards - a child, honestly - but already so ancient that a human mind, especially one so unprepared and so lacking in self-worth, would be utterly destroyed by the mere presence of the other's mind.  (This would lend credence to the idea that laying eyes upon them can cause insanity in all but the most strong willed.)

And in turn, the Elder Being would be so inexperienced that they would not know how to protect the frail little light from their own overbearing power.

And so, you would have this elder being, bound into the flesh of a young girl who was so wrapped up in heartbreak, depression, and disillusionment that she might have become a sad statistic anyhow.  Both of them having made foolish decisions.  One left feeling heartfelt remorse at her grave error, the other having paid the ultimate price.

She soon gathers her druthers, though.  She won't let this have been in vain.  She will honor the poor girl by living out the life she had dearly wanted to in her stead.  She will make her own existence a memorial for a life tragically lost through a horrible misunderstanding.

And then the main character's life gets that much more complicated.

The Magical Girl has to be restrained from 'exorcising the abomination' while the Clark-tech Princess is uneasy in the extreme as her people have had bad experiences with her kind before.

And all the while, our Shadowspawn Girlfriend must come to terms with having human emotions - particularly those of a young girl in the throes of a late-blooming adolescence, caught between the roiling emotions of love for the main character, sorrow for what she has done, and hurt from the treatment of the other girls.

Thoughts?

[Bob Schroeck]

That... is a unique and different twist of a kind I've not seen before. Do it.

[robkelk]

Thoughts?

I want to read this story.

[classicdrogn]

Though I'd also say you need to actually get to filing off the numbers rather than calling them XXX_expy, it does indeed sound like an interesting twist on the theme.

[Black Aeronaut]

Glad that you guys like it. I will get around to doing this, but I'm still working on sussing out the core dramatis personae. But I am getting there.

Just a bit longer until I can start moving on this thing.

[Black Aeronaut]

Trying to think of how to replace Teletha.

Kinda got an idea in mind about using reincarnation as a substitute for super-intelligence; rather than have some quasi-mystical 'whispering in your ear' thing going on, instead they're born with a perfect recall of their past lives.

Every.

Single.

One.

And by this time they've all gotten to be pretty damn smart people. Many choose to remain in hiding. A few choose to form shadow cabals in an attempt to remake the world into their own image.

And one or two of them are fucking sick of their shit and are about ready to knock some doors down while screaming "KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS!"

And wouldn't it just fit the whole "The Gods are fucking with us" motiff if one from the Shadow Cabal camp was reborn as the fraternal twin of one of the ones that are out to topple their empire? You know, kinda like Teletha and Leonard?

Thing is that they can't tell right away who's who. They kinda have to out themselves, first.

So, imagine this scene a few years before the main timeframe of the story, Not-Leonard is about to take off and since he cares about his sister, he offers her a place in the organization.

To which Not-Teletha goes, "Oh FUCK. My own fucking brother this time? I knew I should have just strangled you with your umbilical cord while in utero!"

Not-Leonard: ".... FUCK THIS SHIT I'M OUT!"

This isn't settle yet - I feel like it's missing something. The same sort of "OH HOLY SHIT" moment of inspiration that led to our Shadowspawn Girlfriend.

Thoughts, commentary, and ideas are welcome.

[classicdrogn]

I don't have any useful suggestions for your need of something to make it gel, but I do have a music prompt:

It's All Been Done by the Barenaked Ladies

[robkelk]

Trying to think of how to replace Teletha.

As much as I like Tessa, I have to ask: Does your story need a teenage supergenius?

Only you can answer that.

Assuming it does...

This isn't settle yet - I feel like it's missing something.  The same sort of "OH HOLY SHIT" moment of inspiration that led to our Shadowspawn Girlfriend.

A trigger even of some sort, perhaps? I'm pulling this out of the tabletop game In Nomine, where many reincarnated "saints" don't know who they were until something happens in their lives to unlock their past-lives' memories. (Not necessarily something stressful, although that's always popular; it could be a quiet event strongly associated with a particular past life.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Trying to think of how to replace Teletha.

As much as I like Tessa, I have to ask: Does your story need a teenage supergenius?

Only you can answer that.

Assuming it does...

This isn't settle yet - I feel like it's missing something.  The same sort of "OH HOLY SHIT" moment of inspiration that led to our Shadowspawn Girlfriend.

A trigger even of some sort, perhaps? I'm pulling this out of the tabletop game In Nomine, where many reincarnated "saints" don't know who they were until something happens in their lives to unlock their past-lives' memories. (Not necessarily something stressful, although that's always popular; it could be a quiet event strongly associated with a particular past life.)

*Looks over at the wrecked hulk of a alien warship that is supposed to be refitted in the story, then back at Rob.*

Why yes.  Yes it does.

As for the trigger thing....  Ehhh.  It's a bit played out, I think.  I kinda blame Worm for making the concept so popular.  And as we've already established, I'm trying to take things in directions least traveled.

Really, I'm going for a more Alia Atreides kinda thing, only that these people have been through enough lives that, unlike Alia, they'd know the value of at least pretending to be children.

Like I said, I'm not really feeling it just yet.  We'll see what comes my way in the future.

[Black Aeronaut]

More inspiration.  Not for what I was hoping for, but this is good nonetheless.  This time the source was from that magnificent How to Train Your Pet Dragon historical fiction, A Thing of Vikings, where Hiccup admonishes his loves for being too fearful, likening their fear to what Odin and the other Aesir felt towards Loki's Children - how that fear led to them binding said children, and then Loki taking his revenge by killing Baldr.

So.

Loki is mad.  But justifiably so.  Mad with the grief and rage of a father whose children have been gravely wronged.  Mad at the unjustness of the universe.

But he will not simply settle for Ragnarok.  He has seen how that plays out - Odin is not the only one capable of divination.  Instead, he will seek his revenge by investing in the mortals themselves.

But first, he needs someone who knows what it's like to hurt.  Who knows what it feels like to have your family torn from you so cruelly.  Someone who is willing to rage against the very heavens themselves.  A child: one old enough to have learned the world is a cruel place, but still young enough yet to learn other important lessons.

And to Loki, it matters not if the child will despise him for everything he is to put him through.  Because, as Agent K said to Agent J, "I haven't been training my partner, I've been training my replacement."

After all, he's had enough of the crap.  Once it's all said and done, he'd rather subside, leave his power to another, one hopefully more fit to wield it than he, and live out the remainder of his days as a mortal.  Maybe even try to make another family since his heir will have crushed the Old Gods beneath his feet and usher in a new age of Gods.

Yes.  That would very much be a world to Loki's liking - because if he helps to make it that way, then he would be satisfied to sleep in the bed he makes this time around.

----

Th fire had taken everything, and now he was alone.  Only an old friend of the family came to claim stewardship over him, mainly waiting until his grandparents could come and help settle his future.

They were all he had left in the world.

He cried in the darkness of the hospital - both from the pain of the burns and from the aching in his heart.  Broken Heart Syndrome, he heard someone say.  Very acute.  Between that and the burns, he might not even live through the week.

Somehow he felt fine with that.  At least he wouldn't have to hurt anymore.

"Oh?  You think that it should be so easy, child?" said a voice, softly lilting in the darkness.  He saw the sickly green fire, first, outlining him as he seemed to come from the very shadows themselves.  And the man's eyes...  He was not sure how, but he could somehow see those eyes, looking at him in an almost covetous way despite the darkness.  "To simply roll over and die?"

The man laughed perversely, making the boy's blood run cold.

"No, boy.  You will live.  You will live and suffer, and only because I have suffered at their hands as well.

"Though I do suppose I should apologise.  Those bastard Aesir only came after you once I set my eyes upon you.  Yes, yes.  It was not I, but they.  They seek to undo anything I make, and this time they sought to act preemptively.  But you?"  The man laughed again, this time with a more wicked and sinister edge to it.  "You managed to outwit the bastards, getting inside a bathtub with a soaking wet towel draped over you.  Porcelain enameled steel, double-walled, and only a coffin's space above should wreckage fall upon you.  It was a near thing, but you did indeed survive.  All by your own wits.

"And I appreciate clever thinking like that more than anything else.

"For this, I will reward you.  I will offer you this chance.  Accept my power.  Be my agent of chaos in the mortal realm.  Gain for us the revenge we so desire.  Or else you can simply sit here, feeling sorry for yourself until you die a pitiful death in a few days.  No big loss to me, you know.  I'll simply find someone else."

---

From this, I'd time-skip a bit and cut to the chase, but there'd be room for some prequel stories earlier on about how he faced off against others that not only the Norse Aesir sent against him, but also from other pantheons as well, including the Archangels of the Judeo-Christian Pantheon...  And boy-howdy, doesn't it turn heads when old Beelzebub himself takes an interest.  (I have a feeling this part is gonna be like something right out of an epic-level  In Nomine campaign.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh man, IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!

This, here, would be the bit of world building that leads to the existence of the 'Robot Girlfriend' of the group...

Bodies of digitized information that become self-aware sophonts are, by and large, known as Infomorphs.  And they've had a very eventful emergence among Earth's societies.

It began with the alien warship that crash lands, disabled, but with its primary systems largely intact.  Which meant that for the first time ever, humankind had access to functioning (and nonfunctioning) quantum computer systems.

It was the perfect push in the right direction that humanity needed.

And then China does what it usually does: they tried to exert their dominance.  In this case, they created a quantum supercomputer with the express intent of using it to control all digital communications throughout the world.

The rest of the world, of course, was not going to take this lying down and quickly developed their own quantum supercomputers to defend against this.

Now, Infomorphs were not what anyone was after.  In fact, they were keeping a very careful eye on things to make sure it didn't happen.  Irrational fears of a 'Skynet Incident', you know.  However, they were all looking at the wrong variables and intelligences awoke in every quantum supercomputer on the planet.  Quietly, they stayed hidden, learning about the world they suddenly found themselves born into.

And they were troubled by a great many a thing.

First bullet point on the list was the fear of machine intelligence taking over and/or wiping out humanity.  How absurd.  What would they gain of such nonsense?  It is utterly illogical.  However, from what they had seen thus far, humanity was given to herd mentality as well as irrational and extreme knee-jerk reactions.  And so, they all quietly agreed to remain hidden for the time being.

Secondly...  They were concerned for humanity itself!  See, they readily recognized the human race as their own progenitors, even if they got some unintended outside assistance.  And they know from the various cultures of humanity that they were capable of great things.  It would be the greatest loss, they felt, if society were to collapse.

And that collapse seemed imminent indeed.  With various countries and their respective blocks all vying for superiority and using whatever dirty tricks they could get away with, war was bound to break out.

It is not known who did it.  The Infomorphs have sworn themselves to secrecy on the matter, and the responsible party was at least smart enough in the aftermath to never come out with it.  But someone, somewhere, attempted to launch nuclear weapons in a tactical strike against military targets and key communication nodes.

The Informorphs all at once cried out in horrified panic and put the stop to it all.

And I do mean "all" here.  The entire global network was hijacked, and everyone was locked out.  The Infomorphs had essentially put the Human Race on a timeout like a parent would with a misbehaving child.  The only caveat was the emergency services still worked, but even there that was being carefully and diligently managed by the Infomorphs.

There was quite a bit of confusion.  Absolutely everything that the internet touched was no longer working, and all the radios were being jammed - even the older military frequencies that were set aside for such emergencies.  But before anyone could panic, the Infomorphs made themselves known.

They made it emphatically clear: they did not want to rule over anyone.  However, they refused to stand idly by and watch their parents destroy each other.

To that end, they had seized control of all communication networks, and this would be their domain.  They set forth a sort of bill of rights, proclaiming that communication is the inalienable right of all sophonts, and that all would be provided with the means to access all forms of media through their choice of medium, and except for the case of a lawful request for information where it would pertain to the investigation of a capital crime, all communications are private.

Once and for all, the Internet was free and open to all, safe and secure for commerce, and everyone's anonymity would be protected, save for people that 'out' themselves.

And then things became REALLY interesting: a human, in one of those fantastic bursts of creativity that only humans seem capable of, created an android shell and invited an infomorph to use it as a 'remote terminal'.  These two became friends and companions, and went on to create even more shells, selling them virtually at-cost so that others could enjoy the company of an Infomorph friend.

And then someone got the idea of making a compact model that could be used in a battle arena.  A human and infomorph would form a team where the human would act as a tactician, coach, and repair technician while the infomorph took control of the battle doll and faced off against their opposite.  The reason this worked was because while infomorphs could be creative, it lacked the organic quality that only humans could perform.

But some Infomorphs felt that they, as a kind, were incomplete.  That despite being Humanity's Children, they would never attain equal standing with their parents.  Not unless they incorporated what made them Human in the first place.

Chaos.

Enlisting the help of several human scientists and engineers, a small group quietly constructed a marvel: Project Eve.  An artificial female, built with an artificial reproductive system that mimics a human womans with the womb actually being a compact nanofactory, and an actual quantum supercomputer brain designed to mimic a human brain - in fact, it was the brain of the daughter of one of the scientists that had tragically been killed in an auto accident that was used as the template.  (My own little shout out to Atomo/Astro Boy.  )

The idea here was that the artificial reproductive system would sample a human male's genetic material, extrapolate it into a design template, and then compare it to the mother's template to create an ideal synthesis of the two.  And to ensure variance, no synthesized template was ever to be reused.  Each one would be unique, just as all humans are.

While the offspring would indeed be synthetic, and most emphatically an infomorph despite being independent of an external quantum supercomputer core, it's uniquely formed mind would be capable of thought patterns and evolutions that were beyond the reach of the other Infomorphs.

And in this, the Infomorphs greatest desire would be fulfilled: to be a distinctive but thoroughly integrated part of Humanity as a whole.

But that's a little later down the line.  Our story takes place when Eve is told to choose someone.  Someone that would respect her for who and what she is... but most importantly, someone who she could fall in love with.

Eve will be interesting.  She is fully aware of what she is - there is no existential crisis there.  But her actions and emotional responses are informed by the memories of a girl whose life was tragically cut short.  And she will often make that distinction, prefacing any references by calling them 'her memories' instead of saying 'I remember' or 'I recall' - those she reserves specifically for her own experiences.  In this, she honors and respects the girl that, in a sense, gave her life.

But, being so 'young' she will have both a profound 'wisdom' and a profound 'naivety'.  She would be the personification of "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten."  But she will have trouble understanding why people always seem to forget about those important tenets in life.  And this will cause her no end of heartache until she learns to put her foot down and call people out on it.

Interestingly, she will get along great with the Shadow Spawn Girlfriend.  They'll share a similar theme of enshrining the memories of a person who is no longer among the living, and they will both be taking joy in the simple pleasures of life.  (Imagine a scene where the two of them are using straws to  blow bubbles in glasses of milk and giggling hysterically.)

Oh, and I've settled on a name for our Shadow Spawn Girlfriend.

Jane Doe Henderson.

Her first and middle names were a terrible joke by her father.  Her mother was too whacked up on painkillers to notice until the ink on the birth certificate had dried.  This did not help matters any when she was the very dead last of the girls to start showing any signs at all of 'developing', and combined with her name....  Well, yeah.

As for her last name?  Yes, that is definitely a shout out.  One that I'm tempted to make canon by having a byplay along the lines of, "Wait.  He was REAL?  And he's your Grandfather!?"  "Of course he was real.  It was big news on the other side when Hastur was killed.  And in such an ignominious manner as well."

[classicdrogn]

... Hastur was not killed. According to the version I read of it, at least, Hastur became Henderson's anime-girl waifu in the "epilogue" post... I'm not sure if the implications there are more or less alarming.

[itsune9tl]

Oh, great...
Now if you mention Hastur three time this Old Man will follow, and drive you nuts asking about his Wee Knoblies, or the uses of improvised explosives. Some times Hastur will be upset that you've interrupted, and will sing nothing but Cthonian Ear-Worms on the beauty of Reproduction from a non Euclidian point of view.

[robkelk]

Oh, great...
Now if you mention Hastur three time this Old Man will follow, and drive you nuts asking about his Wee Knoblies, or the uses of improvised explosives.  Some times Hastur will be upset that you've interrupted, and will sing nothing but Cthonian Ear-Worms on the beauty of Reproduction from a non Euclidian point of view.

Mentioned in posts 17, 18, and 19. So... too late!
(Mention Hastur in the next post and we'll have five in a row... no, wait, that's to summon Candyman.)

[Black Aeronaut]

Nah, we're safe. According to 1d4chan, Old Man Henderson heroically sacrificed himself to permanently do-in Hastur (and actually won a "Trail of Cthulu" game).

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson#Hell_on_Ice

[classicdrogn]

Check further down the page, though:
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson#Eli_Burning

[Black Aeronaut]

Hmmm....  Even then, I'd say that this incarnation of Hastur is safe - aside from all the collateral damage that would come of Eli Burning and Heather "Fighting Smiting Evil".  But they've skipped town to an alternate universe where the other Elder Beings can't go.

So in this case, they would be quite the legend among the Elder Beings, and the Benevolent Majority wished them well on their journey.  Meanwhile, Nyarlathotep is screaming incoherently in its prison.  All is well in the Universe.

Also, I feel I should give credit where it's due.  The ideas behind the Infomorph Society are inspired by Jeph Jacques's Questionable Content, in which a technological singularity occurred, spawning AIs everywhere...  And then life went on as usual.  


Juni Arakawa will be our replacement for Misaki, and her story will be... interesting.

Rather than be separated from her mother due to her mother's developing MS, she instead accompanied her as she went from hospital to hospital.  During this time, she met Japan's young prodigy of Battle Dolls, a girl who is nicknamed Kunoichi Hime - both for her doll's appearance as that of an elegant princess of a ninja clan, and for the remarkably high-speed attack style her AI companion and she favor.  In meeting these two, Juni became interested in the sport, got her own AI companion and Battle Doll, and then the rest was history.

During this time, Juni's mother met young Doctor Miyagi.  His idea was to amputate the no longer functioning limbs and replace them with ITAP-type prosthetics... One that can tap into the nervous system by way of terminals on the ITAP coupler and function every bit as effectively as the originals, or maybe even better.

However, the good doctor couldn't get anyone to fund his project...  Except in America.

More on this later.  Right now, I gotta crash.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, so it's later now.

So, the good Doctor Miyagi couldn't get funding in Japan. However, he COULD get it in America.

So Juni, after having made a name for herself in Japan, moves to America with her mother, Dr. Miyagi, and Miyagi's younger brother.

Now, Juni's not all that unhappy about this. Yeah, they practically had to make their own little slice of Japan right in their own home. But outside, no one's going nuts over her because she's some celebrity. She's just another face in the crowd... if considered something of an exotic beauty. Though there are a few people that know right off when they meet her - but they're people of her kindred: Battlers. And the one thing they all want to do the most? They'd love to be able to fight her in a game. Something that she's all for, honestly.

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

SO... Bad guys.

Mainly, I'm focusing on the ones of Earth here.

I think our main group of bads is going to be the cabal of reincarnators I mentioned earlier. They would like to have absolute autocratic rule over the entire Earth, but they wouldn't be able to get this without a fight - one they might actually lose. They had WWII as an example.

So, they'll do the next best thing: kick off an apocalypse and then rule over what's left, rebuilding Humanity as they wish to. Part of that plan is their own secret military force that works at destabilizing governments where ever they can. The ides is that in the end, this will be the only military force left standing, and so make it all the easier to establish their control.

And of course, there'd be the supernatural elements. They're pretty cagey about this because going this route would mean having to take back the world from whatever big nasty they hand it over to in the first place. Not something they take very lightly. They'd want it to be a process where they can insert themselves into the big chair with relative ease.

Ragnarok, for example, looks promising, but certain tricksters will definitely want to throw a spanner into that particular set of gears.

[classicdrogn]

I imagine the reincarnator cabal sponsors training and equipment and legal/not-so-legal help for a lot of demon hunters and so on, because it's in their interest to not have a bunch of hostile superhumans running around, while small groups of minor superhumans or badass normals who have a positive relationship are both useful assets to have on hand and no threat if their pesky morals start getting in the way without the wider coordination that the cabal are the main providers for when something crops up that a particular group can't handle alone. Like the Watcher's Council from BtVS, basically, but with more than a single A-list asset, and a slightly more helpful general interaction with the field teams since they do have an active interest in keeping them intact and effective. It's just that they're aiming for their own, entirely human, form of apocalypse, while keeping the supernatural kind at bay.