Creating a plot for the 1.3 Community Project: Part 2

[bb1]

I can only see that being true factoring in modern compression. There seems to be a want for MASSIVE textures everywhere.

Huge textures can help a model, but a 2800x2800 (or whatever scaling factor it was, my brain is toast right now) gray square doesn't do anything justice compared to a 256x256 highly detailed map.

[Clavin12]

What would happen if the story was so that the big ship that the scions built is thrown back in time by a third cthonian race, come back to reclaim Sol.

[bb1]

Because if that were the case, we would have to explain how and why it was thrown back in time. FC is good because the very principle of its design causes it to travel back in time. Throw out some realistic ideas and we can entertain that thought.

[Clavin12]

I was thinking the third cthonian race would use a supernova/black hole harnessed and used to send the ark III back in time. I don't have a reason yet...

[AHadley]

That would be physically impossible. I'm afraid the rest of the story is based on real scientific principles and theories, and I wouldn't want that ruined...

[Clavin12]

I don't think anything is physically impossible. The technology will be invented in the far future just for this cp then. This is science fiction!

[Nielk1]

Don't we have 2 possibilities from the base stories chosen?

[Clavin12]

I didn't know we had decided a base story. Maybe we should finish up this poll and make a new thread.

[AHadley]

I think the entire poll may be hanging on ScrapPool's return from holiday...

[Mr X]

Yeah, I think that right now we're waiting for his opinion on my proposed plot merge of our two stories.

[AHadley]

Yeah. Which I must admit is the best idea I've heard in a long time.

And the creation of the A-Drive (I can't remember how to spell it) was never explained, you need one to create one. Maybe the Cerberi had developed one, and it was discovered on the dead planet. There's Perfidious fitted in XD

[bb1]

Hell good enough for me. BZ is loaded with that reason, and let it be.

I just hate leaving everyone in the dark. Dumb reasons or "wait, that should never happen" need to stick to G.I. Joe movies.

[Nielk1]

If anyone needs some 'hows' for things occurring I can help with that. I am quite good at that.

[ScrapPool]

First of all, I liked it... I'm a sucker for time-travel stories and I think this one survives the initial round of "WTF?" thinking that such a story always brings on...   And to be clear, I think Adam and Eve starting the human race is a time loop and not a paradox.  A paradox is going back and shooting your Grandfather before your Father is conceived, while a loop is going back and actually becoming your Grandfather. (ewwww)  A paradox usually implies some sort of impossibility, a loop is just hard to grasp.

I'll over look the reversing of the Ancients, as the Olympian artifacts are gold and shiny while the Hadean artifacts are black and red, not the other way around. No big deal, just switch sides of the planet.

I'll offer a few suggestions:

The ship passes through the moon, and yes the 'spacewarp' drive bit warps the moon around the ship but causes massive damage in the process.  Coming out on the other side it's immediately apparent that the ship is done for and the order is given to abandon ship... the incoming attack waves are just icing on the cake and a good example of Murphy's Law in action.  "Could be worse...  could be raining!"   (cue thunder).  

As to why it happens, there are a lot of ways to explain it.  
Maybe the Hadeans and Olympians are doing wormhole experiments of their own and space is warped in the vicinity of their planet, throwing off the ship's instruments.  
The ship is also, after all, the first of it's kind and maybe it's just not up to the task what with the experimental instruments and drive and all.
The ship could be time shifting the whole time the drive is active and the moon simply wasn't there a minute ago.

Love the approaching moon bit...  love it!  Very dramatic and the best motivator known to man.  

Abandoning ship consists of boarding the already packed Dropships and scattering to escape the incoming attackers.  Each Dropship already holds a mixed bag of Tanks, Troops, and a Recycler.  The escaping ships land at various places along the twilight zone, with many of them being destroyed in flight.  After this mass exodus some join up with Hadeans, some with Olympians, and it's up to the Player and his missions to sort it all out. Guarding the Dropships will be necessary given the ending, as they'll be the only way through the wormhole.

Going through the wormhole at the end means hopping back in a Dropship and heading out.  Going through could also determine 'when' you come out the other side.  If Adam and Eve are the very last ones to go through it could be that the approaching moon warps the wormhole, and they end up waaaaaay back in time, much further than the other forces that went through earlier.  You could have the wormhole flickering, warping, and changing color to indicate this.  This is why they're back before the Hadeans and Olympians, before the planet is habitable, and able to seed the beginnings of life on Earth.  The warping wormhole could also be why their ship is trashed, and they could even leave it in orbit when they discover it's inoperable, something for the future Hadeans and Olympians to discover.

***

I have, btw, both Ancient Hadeans and Olympians fully operational although not completely done.  I plan on using a lot of DLL help to make them interesting...      I have some maps made as concepts for the Hadean and Olympian parts of the planet, but no missions scripted yet.  I have missions outlined in Word, but nothing coded.

I don't see this story as conflicting with my ideas all that much, as it takes place so far back in history compared with my own intended stories.  

I don't know how to explain them having biometal, and then not having it so that Nexus can invent it as stated in their records found in BZ1.  Maybe they don't actually know how to make their own but are using the huge amount that fell from the Ark III?  Maybe they devolve into savagery when they get through to Icarus and have to start their civilization all over again?  Losing their history and technology for a few hundred or thousand years adds a bit of flavor to the story anyway...  

Good work for a mod start...  simple enough to work with but interesting enough to allow for a lot of options.  

-Av-

I am perfectly willing to say that the Cthonian's entire source of biometal in this story is the ARK III. In fact, I love that idea and would like to modify mine to have that be an integral part of the plot, could be a useful motivator in those intermediate missions. It might also prove a source of inspiration for the cthonians to "re-invent" biometal down the road on thier own, if you like that idea.

Alright Avatar! You have spurred me to retype my post. We could probably merge these ideas into one. Since I am a sucker for biometal and think its inherent properties need to be focused on more (think of one time in FE that biometal was the chief ???WHAT??? factor for something, like furies in bz1- BIOMETAL COMES ALIVE O_o!111! )

So here it is: the abridged first amazing post.

1.) Ark III, as it flies through the universe at ExTrEmE speed, enters uncharted areas. Every so many millions of lightyears or so, they pull out of "warp (allow me to use this word for consistency sake)" to use their highly advanced sensors to plot a course safely for a much longer distance. Mapping out the places they've been and gathering some data, in short.

2.) In one such instance of this "drop out," the sensors go mad. [Original post: some strange disturbance] The Cthonian's were conducting space-portal experiments * to av* and it was sending off huge power disturbances. The scientists on board insist on investigating, due to the fact the mission is scientific in every sense, although it is really a publicity stunt. Scions are weird like that. Despite others and "your" objetions, the ship's path is routed toward the disturbance.

3.) Pulling out of warp, Ark III comes across a moon and planet (not through it initially, it is WAY too random and I refuse to believe it would collide randomly with an object so relatively tiny in space.) Detecting that there is life on the planet, the Scions prepare or do something unimportant. Suddenly:

4.) OH NOES D: !! They are sending aerospace fighters toward your position in huge numbers- they don't care who you are, but they want you gone (Potentially mistaken you for another faction that had been giving them trouble??? (THE THIRD FACTION OF MR. X's!? -SP) The onslaught begins. Scions, knowing the harsh ways of the universe, armed the Ark III to some extent and equipped it with one of their Scion Deflectors^TM. The fighters begin launching their antimatter rockets... not just a few, but tons. Say 6-8 from each ship with hundreds of ships firing. Lots of missles. They get closer to the Ark III, and---- Science lesson.

5.) Remember what happens to deflectors when confronted with biometal weapons? It pulls it in, negates what damage it can, and distributes what remains through the armor. Keep in mind, though, the missles are not biometal, and I remember reading in some form that regular weapons are useless against it. If you shot an auto rifle at a sabre hull for a few hours, it wouldn't dent. Remember the paintball weapon? Same effect. Shields, though, have a different effect.

6.) The missles contact the shield. As there is no biometalalic energy to absorb by the shield, it does its other function: deflects (small meteors, asteroids, space garbage. Those missles are like toothpicks with blunt ends to the ship the size of the Ark III). Every wave of missles that strikes it bounce off in some direction, some off into space harmlessly, some toward the planet to burn up in the atmosphere when they run out of fuel, but mostly toward- you guessed it- the moon, as Ark III has been drifting towards it for some time. They are both in close proximity. Many (say, 200-300?) antimatter rockets begin plummeting toward the moon... all armed and hot.

7.) Cutscene! (As if that all wasn't one?) Gigantonormous explosions erupt in concentrated areas on the moon's near side, and when I say near, I mean close to the Ark III. The moon, unstable to begin with, begins to break apart from the impacts. As it is breaking up, the missles continue to barrage it, catapulting enormous pieces of the moon in unpredictable locations... one such chunk right at the Ark III. The shields, normally repelling non-biometal impacts, become overwhelmed due to the incredible mass and inertia being forced against it and eventually fall. Although slowed slightly, the piece (crushes? Smashes? Collides? You pick) into the starship and breaks in two moon slices before finally floating off into space (and later into orbit of the planet) With hull breaches everywhere and the aerospace fighters now fleeing for their lives, the Ark III begins to crack and crumble in many places. The shields are down, so any residual missles still locked on continue to hit the mighty ship, along with moon chunks. The initial first piece that hit the ship was enough to crack it open, the rest take her down.

8.) Chunks of the moon plummet to the planet surface while it is now knocked out of orbit from the barrage it could not withstand. The Ark III is going down with it, although at a much faster rate. Resume here with Full Circle Story.

8.5.) The big big reason I like the Cthonian attack indirectly killing the moon (doesn't have to be missles, can be anything) is because it NAILS the history-repeating itself theme throughout BZ: The Cthonians destroyed their first home planet through their rash choices and decisions, as they would do to Icarus billions of years later.



Edit For Av: The portal at the end of the game is a position->position portal only, he has stated this and is adamantly firm it remain this way. When you get to the Cthonian system in the first place, you are already back in time billions of years. You just don't know that yet. That is the shock factor when you go through the portal. Either way, they probably won't have time to figure it out. It'll be left up to the viewer to decide, unless you give it a bone-chilling Grizzly 1 narration of how the drive pulled them back in time.

That really, really, really, works. I can dig it.

I've been thinking about it too,

Ahadley has been, to me anyway, pretty clear that he is going to be very inflexible with his story because he wants it to be a mod, which could be a problem in terms of combining.

I do, I think, have a solution for combining mine and scrappool's

My view could be that you go with my story for a few missions (going from time to time, stopping the bad guys from screwing up history) and end up in an altered version of Scrappools story except that the world it is taking place on is the homeworld of the third Cthonian faction from my story. (note, we alter it to not include the loop in which biometal exists because it exists, unless someone can write it in. everyone has biometal) the third faction has just been wiped out and the Olympians and Hadeans are fighting over the technology, they hadn't been able to use the timeportal that you go through because the key had been on the other side.

The third faction had used their technology to create a gravity well to bring the planet's moon crashing down to obliterate it. (YES!) You get the option of joining the Hadeans or Olympians (like in SP's), whichever side you do not join the bad guys you have been chasing do.

You travelling through the portal has drained the last of the planet's power, but the Hadean's have set up machines to restore it, if you joined the Hadeans it becomes about holding off the Olympians and their allies (they will take a starportal that they have erected to take them to their homeworld and they will send you home through the timeportal). If you joined the Olympians it is about breaking through the Hadean defenses.

Anyone like it?

With those modifications, I LOVE it! of course, those are pretty significant modifications...

Let me be very clear. I will be opposed to any story which is centered around or contains random, easy, inconsequential (and therefore impossible) time travel. (Obviously) its nothing personal, I simply feel that this is an unnecessary and comparatively weightless plot device which itself invalidates the credibility/believability of the story to such a degree that the interesting ponderousness brought about by its inclusion in the story is nullified by the easily-reachable logical paradoxes and physical law breaking apparent in its inclusion. I think it works very well in Back to the Future. But unless it is our intention to script a notoriously comedic plot, I don't think it can be made to work here. A good story forces one to reach the conclusion that the only possible paths presented in it are truly the only possible paths one could have taken in such a situation. Apply the previous sentence to a logical imagination. An example of a story which doesn't do this well is Battlefield: Earth. In it, a single high-powered nuclear bomb is used to destroy an entire planet because of a reaction that the heat of nuclear fission causes in the planet's atmosphere. But this wasn't just some planet, it was a planet on which a galaxy dominating alien race evolved to the point that they could use worm-holes to teleport across galaxies. My argument in this context is: HOW IN THE HELL DID THAT KIND OF RACE EVOLVE TO A TYPE II CIVILIZATION ON THAT PLANET, (Which, i might add, orbits a sun which is, like all stars, constantly producing "nuclear fire") WITHOUT BLOWING ITSELF UP!???
So that's that.
I can hear it already: WTF he only likes time travel that's in his story....
Answer: Don't make me explain the difference between realistic time travel and Back to the Future AGAIN. Pretty please don't make me. I promise that I'll love any story which presents time travel in a realistic way. Id even love any story which contains time travel which explained to be realistic.

So anyways, I am completely behind all the proposals not in strike through in the above quoted text. Especially those in bold.

@ Mr. X: Dude, awesome. Keep throwing ideas around... i seem to be temporarily out of brain juice... but I plan on excreting my own two-story reconciliation ideas soon...

And also: I didn't mean to keep anyone waiting, in addition to my holiday, I've been doing some preparations for my first year at the ol' U Oregon...
; D

[Clavin12]

In or near the beginning of the story we have to introduce all the races in some way or another (like "unknown hostiles") or something because if we don't later in the story when they pop out of nowhere we will get something like an undeclared variable error from the reader/player. making races appear out of nowhere when they've never been mentioned before is lazy and somewhat stereotype. oh and another thing. I think Scrap Pools story is fine and so is Mr. X's blend but I do think biometal has to be formed originally somewhere. Maybe a third Cthonian faction could invent it but then be all killed or die of some disease (or the inability to reproduce do to experiments done with genetics and biometal).