Battlezone Universe

It appears that voting has homogeneously stabilized for the first round.

Clavin's, BBB's, and Fall of Empires have been removed from the lineup.

The rest stay around for further discussion.
Mr X's Time story (http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9596.0.html)
AHadley's Perfidious story (http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9610.0.html)
General_Hoohah's FE Sequel (http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9498.0.html)
ScrapPool's Full Circle story (http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9683.0.html)

NOTE: I'm not saying that you CAN'T discuss any of the other stories. If you find some good ideas to use or even ideas that shouldn't be used, to make a point, then by all means...

This topic and what ever is discussed in it should be used as a means of determining the general disposition of the community. Note that only one story can be the plot for the 1.3 CP. It's possible that this story may not be any of the ones selected so far - but a combination of them or plot ideas related to them.

If a story falls out of the community's favoring, it'll be removed. If an idea for combining the stories is suggested, it'll be added to the poll options.

I'll go ahead and summarize what's been said so far:

---

Some users appear to be "torn" between Mr. X's and Ahadley's story, so the actual number of users who would like to see either of the two stories is probably higher.

Time travel and how to make it work well is a main discourse here. Although public opinion appears to support using time travel as a story device quite positively. Mr. X's and Scrap Pool's stories rely on time travel for the story but do it in different ways. It is also possible that users are torn between Mr. X's and Scrap Pool's stories, so the actual number of users favoring both stories may be higher.

General Hoohah's story appears to have received some interest, although it isn't as widely accepted as the other stories. I am unsure as to whether there should be any bias to the votes for this story.

Users are also suggesting combining the stories (namely Mr X's, AHadley's, and Scrap Pool's stories).

---

If Gen_Hoohah's FE Sequel does not receive more attention, it may be dropped from the line-up!
If you want the story to stay in, please say so. It would do better for you to present a case as well.
Otherwise, please nominate for the story to be dropped.

I prefer Mr. X's time travel to Scrap Pool's. Just the basis of it's existence.

What would happen if we changed the time travel to a sort of virtual time travel where the subject goes into a past (or future) world which he can interact with, but his body remains in the time travel machine and at the time that he was sent off?

That would be annoying and not fun at all. We need our massive space carriers blasting though time!

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 02, 2009, 02:58:32 PM
That would be annoying and not fun at all. We need our massive space carriers blasting though time!

Like in my story!   :x



:lol:

And in Mr X's, though his is more of a time-chase.

Quote from: VSMIT on August 02, 2009, 03:46:52 PM
And in Mr X's, though his is more of a time-chase.

Well yea, and Mr X's would have a lot more portalage, a lot more movies...

If there's going to be time travel I prefer yours, scrap pool.

Sorry to be the one who attacks it, but I really think that time travel in BZ2 is kind of a stupid idea.

I don't think that it fits well with the BZ storyline at all.

How realistic do we want BZ2 to be? I haven't read into the FE storyline in-depth, but to me it seems like FE focused heavily on realism within the battlezone storyline.

I have to agree, that even though a self-containing paradoxical loop seems like a fun idea, it's not a very realistic one unless it can somehow get some further explanation (say, perhaps the very properties of biometal may be explainable as a paradoxical loop acting on something, creating a "strange matter" we know as biometal).

Quote from: Angstromicus on August 02, 2009, 06:28:22 PM
How realistic do we want BZ2 to be? I haven't read into the FE storyline in-depth, but to me it seems like FE focused heavily on realism within the battlezone storyline.

I have to agree, that even though a self-containing paradoxical loop seems like a fun idea, it's not a very realistic one unless it can somehow get some further explanation (say, perhaps the very properties of biometal may be explainable as a paradoxical loop acting on something, creating a "strange matter" we know as biometal).

Ya know there is the realism thing.

Then again, BZ has always been centered around an inexplicably nearly indestructible metal which, when stimulated properly, magically turns liquidous that it might be shaped into incredible machines. But it doesn't do this in battle. Also, it can think.  :?
Then we get to BZII in which there is a race of beings fused with this metal, and somehow they survive. In fact, they need to get three energy projectors to fire at a planet through a wormhole and this transforms the planet into a machine-world which allows the scions to live near it.

Realistic? You decide.

Point is: this universe already has biometal, which I promise you, a lot of main stream writers wouldn't touch because frankly, its not very believable.

(from here on, read slowly and carefully)

Also: self-predestining time travel loops aren't really so strange, and don't require extraneous explanation to justify, because they are merely the result of a logical conclusion solving the possibility of universe-destroying paradoxes. What a mouthful.
And because it is mathematically true that you would go "back in time" if you traveled faster than light (primarily because nothing happens faster than light) due to special relativity, then time travel technically doesn't break any accepted physical or mathematical laws as long as a way to travel faster than light is provided (not an easy task, chemically, it requires an infinite amount of energy to accelerate even a quark faster than light), and in the case of Full Circle, we have a way to do that in the "Warp" drive (Alcubierre Drive), which actually doesn't move anything faster than light, but instead warps space around the desired craft and "pushes" it along at speeds which seem faster than light to an outside observer.

The real point is: it is arguable that time travel is more realistic than biometal.

And I think we all are thinking of paradoxical time loops in the wrong perspective, as though the event which caused them is "new" and somehow "changed" the past. If we assume that the events of Full Circle are true, then humans have always been evolved from the microbes on Adam and Eves dying bodies, there was never a time when something different was the case, it was never "changed" from some other scenario of our evolution by time travel, it was always the case, because here we are assuming that there is only a single time line, and that our scions went BACK IN THE ONLY TIMELINE THAT EXISTS, and caused humans evolution. It doesn't matter weather they know what thier actions mean, the fun is that the player knows. Time travel is not a new action, but merely an action happening such that it fulfills the requirements that must be met for it to happen in the first place.
OH MY GOD its so hard to explain... you kind of have to think of words in dual tenses in order for it to compute completely... think of the universe as timeless. Try to imagine that you can't control your own destiny even though from your perspective it seems as though you are making choices which could have gone either way. <- this world-view is the key to understanding whatever the hell it is that the oracle says in the matrix.
Self-fulfilling time paradoxes inherently support a deterministic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism) outlook on things. You can read that link if you want to see what i mean. Yes, the whole thing.
:-D

*falls to the ground, out of breath*

P.S.: read this story's plot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps). It is another example of a self-fulfilling time loop, except that when contrasted with Full Circle, it is more complex, covers a shorter domain of time, AND it actually has a time machine!

Quote from: bigbadbogie on August 02, 2009, 05:58:29 PM
Sorry to be the one who attacks it, but I really think that time travel in BZ2 is kind of a stupid idea.

I don't think that it fits well with the BZ storyline at all.

Thats what i've been trying to say.

It's just a vote :P

If you don't want time travel, don't vote for it.

Quote from: Feared_1 on August 02, 2009, 08:08:01 PM
It's just a vote :P

If you don't want time travel, don't vote for it.

Why I can't say short things like this, i don't know...

I'm not telling anyone they can't discuss, but it seems pretty funny to me that people say "I DON'T LIKE THE TIME TRAVEL... DO SOMETHING ELSE" when there is a vote right there :-P

We've been there done that with chasing something through a wormhole... think back to what I call "stock."

Quote from: Feared_1 on August 02, 2009, 10:03:07 PM
I'm not telling anyone they can't discuss, but it seems pretty funny to me that people say "I DON'T LIKE THE TIME TRAVEL... DO SOMETHING ELSE" when there is a vote right there :-P

:-D

IMHO, I think what we have here is a good collection of well thought out plot lines each with their own individual pros and cons. I have to be honest, there is not one story line that I think is 100% on the money; however I do see a lot of potential in some stories over others.

I like the idea of time travel just a little bit. My main problem with it is that I don't think it should be the backbone of the entire storyline. Having an entire campaign in the past sounds like it could get old pretty quickly. Although I think that it could make some pretty good SP missions. I think that it is pretty important to have a story line that will not only provide something interesting to follow, but also provide a fun and original single player experience. It is one of the reason why I didn't vote for scrappool's story initially; it's a great story, but I feel like the campaign that would follow it would just be stale. :/

FE, Uler, QF, FS, etc had highly successful SP campaigns IMO because they had fun and original levels to compliment the standard "Destroy the enemy Recycler" objective. This is where time travel could play an interesting role in a campaign. I could see a level where something malfunctions or your recycler is destroyed at some point when you are in the past and you have to use the technology available to you being an interesting change of pace. (I could imagine commandeering some ancient hadean/olympian tech to be quite interesting! :D) Or perhaps during a space battle there is a level where the ISDF carrier gets boarded by the enemy or perhaps even the opposite. They are really more ideas rather than suggestions but its stuff that is surely possible to do, and also has not been done before.

On the subject of alien races, the BZ storyline makes good use of Earth mythology as the backbone for the Cthonians, and if you include the Uler MOD as part of the story the Ulerians were another bio-metal aware race that had an influence on Earth's culture and was defined by ancient Egyptian Mythology as the Cthonians were based on the Greek Myths. There are also a lot of unexplored parts of the BZ storyline that could be worth bringing back with a new race/faction. Look at the Core system for example. We know that the ruins on the core system planets differed; the ruins on Mire, Rend, and Bane looked like they belonged to seperate civilizations. At the same time the Mire ruins were noted to have a writing system that was quite similar to the Cthonians (Another possible to link to a mythological race that made its presence on Earth at some point?) which could fit well with a 3rd cthonian faction or cthonian like faction as mentioned in Mr. X's storyline. It might be interesting to find that there are indeed remnants of the civilizations that lived on Mire and Bane out there somewhere that were a part of a coalition of races like the Cthonians. Take Norse mythology for example; originally the Aesirians and the Vanirians would have been at war with each other eventually allying themselves as a faction. What if during their war they discovered bio-metal? But rather than destroy each other like the Hadeans and Olympians did they joined together as one? Once again, just ideas to try and give an example of what I am getting at. Mainly, rather than creating race X from somewhere beyond the distant stars (which isn't necessarily a bad thing though) there are plenty of ideas to brought about that would provide new races with an original play style as well as something in the spirit of BZ.

All in all though, as I mentioned earlier I think that the stories that we have gathered so far have a lot of potential and need to be fleshed out to maximize that potential. If an interesting time travel plot can be decided on that would provide something fun and new I'd be all for it. Essentially I guess as a bit of a breakdown of what I am trying to say is that the story should be as fun to play as it is to read. And having it feel like it fits with what has happened along the current BZ storyline is also a huge plus IMO. (Although at the end of the day it is still fiction, and fiction can really be anything you want it to be)

Quote from: Tempest Storm on August 02, 2009, 11:44:55 PM
I like the idea of time travel just a little bit. My main problem with it is that I don't think it should be the backbone of the entire storyline. Having an entire campaign in the past sounds like it could get old pretty quickly. Although I think that it could make some pretty good SP missions. I think that it is pretty important to have a story line that will not only provide something interesting to follow, but also provide a fun and original single player experience. It is one of the reason why I didn't vote for scrappool's story initially; it's a great story, but I feel like the campaign that would follow it would just be stale. :/

Finally some really insightful, thought out analysis.
(not that nobody else said anything interesting)

Yup my story really just uses "time travel" as an excuse/premise to have a rather "normal"(non-time travel) campaign.
Call it the Conservative Democrat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Democrat) of BZII1.3CP stories which contain time travel.  :wink: (If you don't see how that makes sense, you should watch more news.)

So you suggest intricate use of time travel maybe even within missions in the story? Yea. I can dig it! I cant write a story which contains it in time for it to join these discussions, (my abilities to present self-predestining time paradoxes which make sense is limited and general) but that's a pretty damn awesome idea!

Maybe after this vote users could submit their versions of the chosen stories for combining.

The people of at least bane are still alive, somewhere... We continue to find more and more of their 'leftovers'. Who knows when we will find the evidence of where they went.

Time travel could spawn the creation of entire new groups from scratch. You think it was the NSDF vs the CCA? No, we've got the Nazis up there too! What, another one, the Pan Asian Space Coalition?

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 03, 2009, 07:56:20 AM
The people of at least bane are still alive, somewhere... We continue to find more and more of their 'leftovers'. Who knows when we will find the evidence of where they went.

Time travel could spawn the creation of entire new groups from scratch. You think it was the NSDF vs the CCA? No, we've got the Nazis up there too! What, another one, the Pan Asian Space Coalition?

You know, my story could be easily modifyed to include any of those factions. Could be very interesting.

Also, in some cases the bad guys messing with them could be what wipes the out/ causes them to abandon their homeworlds. The scions trying to keep history on track could provide some interesting missions...

I also think think it might be a good idea if we go with timetravel that the only reason the bad guys can time travel is because they saw how the scions did it - essentially its the scions' fault.

Finally, does anyone think that the cereberi would work as the bad guys in such a storyline?

I think we would need a more developed bad guys with more personality. All antagonists have to have a redeeming feature, just as all protagonists need a flaw in order for a good story.

If anyone wants I can read all the stories extremely closely and process out a combination that fits well with everything else we already have.

I can probably do that to. If anyone wants that is. And yes I would keep some form of real time travel.

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. 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?

Personally I think time travel is a lame, worn out subject, but from a plot combination point of view I think its good.

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 03, 2009, 03:50:15 PM
Personally I think time travel is a lame, worn out subject,

A) You've mentioned this like a bjillion times, and you complaining is getting lame. :P I think we can pull it off as long as we resist the urge to shove in obscure references to stuff like doctor who.

B) Looking at the vote, a lot of people disagree.  :wink:

But thanks anyway for your compliment.

Would be wierd having a Blue PoliceBox crashing into a Biometal Carrier... Even wierder if some random 6ft SaltShaker rammed against the hull of said Carrier. :-P

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 03, 2009, 03:50:15 PM
Personally I think time travel is a lame, worn out subject,

Three words:
GET
OVER
IT


I am getting quite annoyed at your constant attempts to steamroll out the time travel. TOO BAD. Get over yourself.

Who had that space carrier boarded idea? That model would be a CP in itself. Bays where you get in a tank or service bike for occurrences such as that slimming to no-vehicle corridors,.. Remember, BZ2 is much less of a pilot FPS than bz1 (and even that was pretty abbysmal, although it felt more like you were running forward than sliding on ice) unless you severely tweek pilot physics on that level, it will be no fun. Or Halo, which is the "both" option. Plus the texture O_O ' ' ' Generic bumpmap, anyone? New pilot model because you wouldn't wear helmets indoors (MASTER CHIEF?! ) A mission like that sounds fun but would have to be short or done with precision.

Anyway, the reason I liked scrap pool's so much was the ending. It had the same Meteor of Achilles flying towards Earth with Grizzly 1 talking about how history repeated itself; all those briefings and field manuels and artifacts finally give you the AH HA moment- it all makes sense and you leave the game with goosebumps. _{and then get to watch the so so blah bz2 ending}

Nielk1, we're going to have several people combine them, I think. That's a lot of work for one person and we want lots of ideas.

Quote from: bb1 on August 03, 2009, 07:01:58 PM
Who had that space carrier boarded idea? That model would be a CP in itself. Bays where you get in a tank or service bike for occurrences such as that slimming to no-vehicle corridors,.. Remember, BZ2 is much less of a pilot FPS than bz1 (and even that was pretty abbysmal, although it felt more like you were running forward than sliding on ice) unless you severely tweek pilot physics on that level, it will be no fun. Or Halo, which is the "both" option. Plus the texture O_O ' ' ' Generic bumpmap, anyone? New pilot model because you wouldn't wear helmets indoors (MASTER CHIEF?! ) A mission like that sounds fun but would have to be short or done with precision.

Anyway, the reason I liked scrap pool's so much was the ending. It had the same Meteor of Achilles flying towards Earth with Grizzly 1 talking about how history repeated itself; all those briefings and field manuels and artifacts finally give you the AH HA moment- it all makes sense and you leave the game with goosebumps. _{and then get to watch the so so blah bz2 ending}

Creating a space boarding mission would probably be a lot easier than it seems. The model work would be quite a job although I think there could be a ton of tricks to be done to scale down that work to a feasible level. FLS did some work with indoor infantry combat that was pretty fun although it was nowhere near the scale of such a thing. Zephyr also worked out the infantry combat physics way better than FLS did, there are some good examples to follow out there. I think that the real challenge would be finding the right AI processes to work everything out properly and possibly the scripting to make everything work smoothly. Would it be a lot of work? Yeah, but thinking outside of the box would make something of that scale reasonable and fun.

On the topic of Scrappool's ending I have to say I am against that one as well, it's just my personal opinion but I just don't like the outcome. Humans discover Bio-metal in the 50's and have a total secret war in space with the stuff, after the events of BZ2 Humans and Scions begin to find out that they are not the only races that currently have access to bio-metal, through this discovery they are almost wiped out by a corrupted Hadean Crown forces along with the Cerberi war machine only to come out victorious after a long and hard uphill battle, not to mention any other MOD story lines you may consider to be eligible to be counted as canon. And after all of this it turns out Bio-metal just comes into existence because the Scions went back in time? IDK but it seems like a let down to me :(

Up until now every other known species to make extensive use of bio-metal has destroyed itself or come near to total obliteration. Unlike the bio-metal users of the past however Humans and Scions have yet to actual face extinction like the others have. Have Humans and Scions reached the height of their power with bio-metal by now? Are they destined to fall? Or will they continue to prevail? Bio-metal seems to be a chain for others, it allowed the civilizations to rise to powers far beyond their standings before its discovery but they all eventually fell, eventually passing on the technology to a new race as time marched onward. Perhaps answering these questions is the right idea for a conclusion with a project like this, and perhaps the CP's story should finally reveal the creator's of the substance that has influenced many races. Although I feel like in such a case, based on how the BZ story has come along as it has, that a Progenitor race type of archetype is better suited for such a conclusion.

Of course it can't end the story of BZ, the cycle should and probably always will continue. Although after all this time and all the races before the humans wondering where this stuff came from it kind of kills it all to find out its just some kind of paradox IMO.

Seeing as 1.3 is most likely the final patch to BZ and a 1.4 community project and a BZ3 are highly highly unlikely, why can't the chain continue? Biometal outgrows humanity just as it did to every other race it encountered - - can you really expect that Humans are the only creatures that united against it rather than destroyed each other over it (CCA furies)?




Well.. The destructive properties of biometal are never fully tapped IMO. Those "rogue furies" could be stopped with a small group of gun towers and a functioning armory to keep them healed. I'm thinking those NSDF linguists did a poor job translating and the ISDF should revisit it...what if those Cthonians were never more powerful than humans of the time? They could travel through space as we could (In the 1960s?!) and had some buildings lying around. How do we know that the NSDF and CCA deciphered the artifacts correctly? The cerberus might have been, for all we know, their grizzly tank. Just something to ponder.

Quote from: bb1 on August 03, 2009, 11:30:55 PM
Seeing as 1.3 is most likely the final patch to BZ and a 1.4 community project and a BZ3 are highly highly unlikely, why can't the chain continue?

Even though there may never be a 1.4 or BZ3, having the biometal chain continue means that future mods or community projects aren't constrained to doing something completely new.  This leaves the door open for the next generation of BZ2 players that end up liking the game enough to mod it.

Avatar's story has bioemtal exist well before the Cthonians. In fact it must have if the Titans attack them before they have biometal and are not the name of the furies they themselves make. The BZ1 info on artifact objects suggest Avatar is correct. Thus to kill bio-metal, you have to go to go to it's beginning, possibly to the first race ever in existence to reach the level of technology to use it. And who is to say someone else does not make the same thing?

Nobody said biometal exists because it "exists" in scrappool's story, it simply shows a little bit getting to Earth the first time. I think his discription and summary are off in the way that it shows the origin of biometal, if only because such a small sample hitting early Earth would be completely buried/melted/mixed with a tiny TINY chunk of crust or mantle, that it would be utterly unusable to humans in the '60s. Rather than rewriting canon, it is adding to it by saying the bering meteor wasn't the FIRST FIRST time biometal was found on earth. Perhaps a bit of useless trivia, but that is what makes stories fun.

The first biometal on Earth was brought back by the first man ever on the moon, Jon Beardsly.

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 04, 2009, 09:01:54 PM
The first biometal on Earth was brought back by the first man ever on the moon, Jon Beardsly.

He was the english guy working for the Nazis right?

I think I'd like to put the Nazis into the storyline in a period of history that gets visited.

Quote from: Mr X on August 05, 2009, 12:59:45 AM
He was the english guy working for the Nazis right?

I think I'd like to put the Nazis into the storyline in a period of history that gets visited.

HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

It COULD be arrange, however would be EXTREAMLY short lived.

Third Reich Forces died out in space due to ill-constructed craft.

Just so you all know, ScrapPool hasn't been putting anything in for a while because he's been on holiday. Nor have I, for the same reason.

He sent me a PM the other day, so I'll put it up here now.

Quote from: ScrapPool on August 02, 2009, 07:51:07 PM
Hey so if I seem somewhat unresponsive during the next week (or if I don't respond at all) it is because I am on vacation again! If anybody wonders, you'll know.

Also: if discussion of merging stories comes up, know that I am very interested, if we are looking for a story based primarily on "Full Circle", in inserting the intra-wormhole-key-hunting featured in Mr. X's story into the "intermediate missions" of Full Circle. It is a cool idea. In the same vein, however, I am extremely NOT keen on time portals or time machines in the traditional back to the future or star trek black hole sense. I'd also like to steal ideas from perfidious in order to kind of add to the time before Full Circle begins, but in a full, merged plot.  :-D

These ideas both hold that "Full Circle" is the central plot right now, while adding elements from others, but its all I can think of (right now) while keeping the elements of storytelling in tact that I feel should be in tact and incorporating elements of other stories without violating those elements all whilst having a relatively concise, contiguous storyline.

SO DUN BLAME ME FOR BEING SELFISH! :lol:

Why am I telling you this you ask?
So that you might speak on my behalf a little bit while im gone, I say!

Mr. X said something about me being rather inflexible, and then the Cerberi being the ideal bad guy. I was thinking about this a few days ago, and I thought, maybe amongst the Cerberi technologies discovered on the destruction of the Mothergod in PF is an Abercurie Drive. The tech is copied and built into the Ark III.

I also very much like Mr. X's crossover storyline. I shall mail it to ScrapPool with haste!

Quote from: Warfreak on August 06, 2009, 01:13:40 PM
Third Reich Forces died out in space due to ill-constructed craft.

Or is that what the scions who time travelled wanted you to think?

Quote from: Warfreak on August 06, 2009, 01:13:40 PM
It COULD be arrange, however would be EXTREAMLY short lived.

Third Reich Forces died out in space due to ill-constructed craft.

No no no, they LANDED.

Then they died.

IIRC the prototype NSDF had some fighting with them. Weird looking turrets that fall over every few seconds.

Nothing in my BZ field guide said anything about Nazis on the moon.

It wouldn't have done. Same way it didn't mention the Pan-Asian Space Coalition (that right?) There was more than just the NSDF and the CCA in space, and BZ1 didn't tell you all of it.

Here's a nice simple idea for blending the plots.

The Scions and the AAN have made a treaty with the Hadeans and are collaborating to create a portal designed to work more efficiently and travel greater distances than the current star portal technology. The portal was nearly finished when a distress signal is picked up coming from the construction site. The Scions investigate finding the portal captured by a faction of rogue Hadeans (these had broken off from the main Hadeans because they didn't want to have any peace with the Scions or AAN). The scions also found that a third Cthonian race that had been in hiding had joined with these rogue Hadeans because they wanted to invest in the rogue Hadeans newly captured portal. This new race had revealed their technological supremacy by working with the Hadeans and turning this star portal into a time portal. This is a big shock to the Scions and the AAN and they then send a large flagship to try and take back this portal. The third Cthonian race (Hzarzk, Tartarans anyone?) further reveal their technology by taking hold of the Scion flagship with a tractor beam. They open the portal and send themselves and the Flagship with them blasting into the future, and into a system not yet discovered by anyone but the third Cthonian race. The players main objective now is to get back through the portal and to their home world, while their secondary objective is to defeat the third Cthonian race and recapture the portal. as a twist they might meet the future Scions and AAN.

Comments welcomed.

Hmm... I don't see much evidence of Full Circle in there really, or Perfidious... you've bended everything into it except the two we wanted to bend into it! :lol:

Quote from: AHadley on August 10, 2009, 02:44:53 PM
Hmm... I don't see much evidence of Full Circle in there really, or Perfidious... you've bended everything into it except the two we wanted to bend into it! :lol:

Grade A Calvin. Now if he had the space dolphins it would be A+ Calvin. :roll:

Quote from: AHadley on August 10, 2009, 02:44:53 PM
Hmm... I don't see much evidence of Full Circle in there really, or Perfidious... you've bended everything into it except the two we wanted to bend into it! :lol:

I merely took elements of the stories not actual chunks of storyline.

N1, How do you mean? Is that supposed to be an insult? The dolphins were a mere stupid idea not even written down unless you saved that particular chat.

I'm struggling to see much of the storylines in that. :P

So far mine is the most popular and I can see evidence for any of it...

well there's a portal and time travel and an objective of getting through a portal. I was thinking the rogue hadeans and the third Cthonian race would be kind of capturing you and some of the missions would be involved in escaping and then the real conquest stuff would start.

P.S. There is a third Cthonian race that designs time travel.

I think having Hadeans period is bogus because the Cthonians are all dead.

Quote from: bb1 on August 10, 2009, 07:26:18 PM
I think having Hadeans period is bogus because the Cthonians are all dead.

i thought they were all dead too, until i played FE....

Ok, I have a little edit for my submission to better mirror the storylines

The Captured Scions manage to escape their cthonian captors and discover that there is another portal leading out of the system. They still intend to return through the portal they came through but the Cthonians (that's all I'm going to refer to them as right now) came after them and cut off their escape though the original portal and where forced through this new portal which hapened to lead to a time recently before the start of the original battlezone storyline. (or some other time period according to the tastes of the community.)

If you want me to change something say so right out please. I don't like writing a whole new story because of one differential detail.

I don't see what was wrong with my crossover.

Clavin, you're pretty much just writing a new story aren't you? I mean, 95% of it is still stuff that wasn't in anyone else's.

as I said I'm writing with elements and ideas from the other stories, not plot. If you don't like it I can try again or you can get another writer. I mostly did this because I saw no one else was.

I have,

we're just waiting for scrappool to give an opinion.

Clavin, i'm just confused by your ability to combine stuff and not have it vaguely resemble the stuff that people have already said that they liked.

I think I'll try again but keep more of the plot lines intact.

I think X's is best at the moment too. It manages to keep PF intact too, which I'm glad of :lol:

FE (as far as the story goes) to me was a cop out. Cthonians had to kill off themselves to save the universe or whatnot... relegating them to the supreme mystery race you only can get bits and pieces of. Bringing them back had the same "aliens in bz2 ruins the plot" thing that scared off all the bz1ers. Full circle allows you to explore them further with them still being allowed to perish in the same way. You should only be able to go backwards with Cthonians, not forward... but FE is canon and we've gotta work with that.

That's why the bz1 attitude doesnt make sense to me. There were aliens in BZ1 too, its not new.

TBH I don't see the problem with the BZ2 Hadeans, they'd most likely have evolved a little since, new tech and the like

And time travel gives us a chance to see a less advanced version of them.

I've been itching to make the prototype NSDF. I even have them on my wiki as a race under 'Truman'.

Won't integrating several different races according to which time your in take up an extreme amount of harddrive space?

There is something called .paks, incase you haven't heard.

1TB is already under 100$.

but still most people don't just go out and buy new hardrives for just a battlezone 2 mod.

My mistake. You can get them for under 80$ now if you look somewhat-hard. I doubt everything bz related that has ever existed would fill a 1tb HD *waits for the naysayers*

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 12, 2009, 07:33:53 AM
Won't integrating several different races according to which time your in take up an extreme amount of harddrive space?

No. Unless you think a gig is a lot.

Clavin's problem is he doesn't have 1475 floppy disks.

most mods never exceed 2 gigs, they are usually under a gig, once this CP is done, it'll probably be under 3 gigs.

and that's a small price to pay for another cool mod!

there it is:   8-)

:-D

FE was only 256 MB download. I seriously doubt this CP will go above 1GB, or even get close.

Quote from: TheJamsh on August 15, 2009, 05:34:45 AM
FE was only 256 MB download. I seriously doubt this CP will go above 1GB, or even get close.

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

i am in support of General Hooha's storyline due to its complexity and its originality. i would really enjoy playing it because it is very interesting as to how the plot could fluctuate and how so many different twists and surprises could be added. i am behind it 100%

Go iron maiden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 15, 2009, 08:58:56 PM
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.

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.

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.

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...

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Quote from: Avatar on August 12, 2009, 08:16:34 PM
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.

Quote from: bb1 on August 13, 2009, 12:42:57 PM
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.

Quote from: Mr X on August 03, 2009, 02:18:48 PM
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... (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/229211-college-football-preseason-top-25-cheerleader-edition#page/2)
; D

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).

It's the best way though... The Cerberi in themselves were like this if you never payed attention. Originally Hadean Craft and then their own faction. Sounds sudden to me.

The ending with FC as-is has the ultimate shock- "We were back in the past that whole time. None of it has even happened yet...the EDF's creation, the bio wars, not even humanity. The order that sent us into that hell hasn't even been given yet... and here we are, plummeting to the fearsome planet we called home."

How's that for a Grizzly 1esque narration? The fatal flaw I see in FC is that you must explain that the portal does not affect time but not make it obvious. Otherwise, you will have people confused as to what the big hubbub is all about; exiting the portal and being back in time or going through the A.D doing it will need to be elaborated in a briefing or VO somewhere. Else players will default the portal to the time travel device, losing all impact.

About a third race, I think that just puts lard in the frosting. Going back in time gives you free run with the Olympians of the time and the Hadeans of the time. They are all wiped out in FE, but in the past the Olympians were probably fierce with their sticks and rocks.

Yes, considering they littered the solar system with their feats of epicness and layed the road of destruction for us, they must have had pretty nice sticks.  :roll:

Quote from: Warfreak on August 21, 2009, 08:37:10 AM
It's the best way though... The Cerberi in themselves were like this if you never payed attention. Originally Hadean Craft and then their own faction. Sounds sudden to me.

Well it would never work in a book...but then this is a game so...

Why even brink humans and scions into it?

It's an odd question, but I think it's one that deserves a good response. Why not do something completely separate? A different part of the Universe, a different reason for conflict, a different outcome. I think it might be refreshing to create something new, not re-hash the same players again.

That is exactly the kind of ideas i've been thinking up.

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 21, 2009, 10:51:40 AM
Well it would never work in a book...but then this is a game so...

And why wouldn't it work in a book?

It's a sign of a lazy writer not to have an introduction for their characters. I read this in the writers handbook for 2004 so...

Because this is a community project for the 1.3TA5 Battlezone II patch, not the Remake Project for the ever improving Battlezone Engine.

Also, resources aren't that widespread. Look around...in a community of a hundred or so, you could pull off a remake. Asking the small community to redo the entire game, races, stories, buildings, terrain, planets, and everything is going to alienate potential modders (although invigorate quite a few others to be fair) and extend the time for production from a few months to years, at any which point it can get lost in developmental hell, people losing interest, or dropouts. This project is already much better organized than 1.3CP1. Don't ask too much or this one may feel the same fate.

I have it!

Its mentioned in the plotline for battlezone 2 that the Cthonians were probably the ones that created biometal, so I'd like to suggest that the third Cthonian faction were the ones who created it by infusing adamantium(or some other uber tough metal) with living tissue, with the peaceful intentions of creating settlements on inhospitable worlds.

The Headeans attack and wipe out the third faction in order to acquire this material and use it to win the war against the olympians, the olympians find out and to deny the Hadeans of the advantage in the war they make planetfall shortly after, both sides adapt biometal tech in their own unique way. In a final act of defiance the third faction created a gravity well to bring the moon crashing down, and so the war for the planet turned into a frantic struggle to obtain as much biometal as possible and the means to replicate it before it was too late.

During this the scions appear, with both sides thinking that they are the enemy the ark III is blown out of orbit by missiles from both sides. The wreckage scatters across the planet, giving both sides different aspects of scion tech to add to their growing knowledge of biometal.

The scions try to recover as much of the ark as possible but abandon this when they discover that the Hadeans found their ftl(faster than light) engines. Stuck in no mans land, they must pick a side. They must join the olympians and fight to overwhelm the Hadeans and fight to retreive their engines or join the Hadeans and attempt to hold off the Olypians while the engines are recharging.


If no one minds, I'm gonna start writing a history for the third faction.

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 21, 2009, 11:45:08 AM
It's a sign of a lazy writer not to have an introduction for their characters. I read this in the writers handbook for 2004 so...

That is just not true. What you always need is a plan though. It is only the simply low level stories that follow this. I have one I've been writing for something else actually where the characters start nameless and faceless till they get fleshed out in a specific chapter (I plan to rewrite this but still). The story still works, there is no sign of laziness in it.

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 21, 2009, 11:45:08 AM
It's a sign of a lazy writer not to have an introduction for their characters. I read this in the writers handbook for 2004 so...

That is absolutely, 100%, NOT an indication of a lazy author. Especially when it comes to the nature of the antagonist in a story... in fact an unknown enemies' slow elucidation is often an integral part of the most profound plot twists... thank you The Village... (i didn't say they would be pleasing plot twists to science fiction fans... >:( ... frikin guys in pig suits... )
The same can be applied to protagonists. Slowly revealing that they are relatable characters builds connection and meaning for the reader. Which of course is the primary goal if you want to take said reader on that ever enjoyable emotional ride when one of the characters you have grown most attached to is killed or turns out to be evil... etc...

Of course it is sometimes seen that the viewer/reader is thrown into a story without any introduction in any form. Like most people, I don't like this device much, but it is used to create a effect/experience of chaos and confusion. Often times this is attempted with little success in movies. It works better in books.
Point is: I promise that the author of your writers handbook for 2004 is no Vonnegut, and certainly is not known for their own groundbreaking authorship. But to be fair, I'm sure that it is a book aimed at novice writers, and if I were to write a book I should certainly like to pick it up for the other more practical advice on how to write a simple plot which is undoubtedly contained therein.

Quote from: Mr X on August 21, 2009, 01:57:12 PM
I have it!

Its mentioned in the plotline for battlezone 2 that the Cthonians were probably the ones that created biometal, so I'd like to suggest that the third Cthonian faction were the ones who created it by infusing adamantium(or some other uber tough metal) with living tissue, with the peaceful intentions of creating settlements on inhospitable worlds.

The Headeans attack and wipe out the third faction in order to acquire this material and use it to win the war against the olympians, the olympians find out and to deny the Hadeans of the advantage in the war they make planetfall shortly after, both sides adapt biometal tech in their own unique way. In a final act of defiance the third faction created a gravity well to bring the moon crashing down, and so the war for the planet turned into a frantic struggle to obtain as much biometal as possible and the means to replicate it before it was too late.

During this the scions appear, with both sides thinking that they are the enemy the ark III is blown out of orbit by missiles from both sides. The wreckage scatters across the planet, giving both sides different aspects of scion tech to add to their growing knowledge of biometal.

The scions try to recover as much of the ark as possible but abandon this when they discover that the Hadeans found their ftl(faster than light) engines. Stuck in no mans land, they must pick a side. They must join the olympians and fight to overwhelm the Hadeans and fight to retreive their engines or join the Hadeans and attempt to hold off the Olypians while the engines are recharging.


If no one minds, I'm gonna start writing a history for the third faction.

Love it! All of it!
This third faction is really growing on me... not only because they provide an excuse to cause a moon to come crashing to a planet  :roll:

In Clavin's defense, I think he was referring to "universe" rather than character, and laziness as in we stick with the edf BZ universe all the time instead of just redoing it all and scrapping canon stories.

I've got 2 story lines for other projects that go with an entire alternate timeline and one post ISDF BZ2 ending. This just seems to be what the story submitters wanted, more of the EDF timeline.

Quote from: ScrapPool on August 21, 2009, 04:04:31 PM
This third faction is really growing on me... not only because they provide an excuse to cause a moon to come crashing to a planet  :roll:

Actually, my main reason for including them is the implication that a peaceful society with peaceful intentions creates the weapon that takes war to a whole new level and results in their own destruction and the deaths of many others at the hands of more violent factions. Meanwhile the warlike societies manage to survive. Evil trumps good.

It also means that it isn't your bog-standard "there's biometal on a planet so X and Y who hate each other are fighting over it" storyline.

Quote from: bb1 on August 21, 2009, 04:17:50 PM
In Clavin's defense, I think he was referring to "universe" rather than character, and laziness as in we stick with the edf BZ universe all the time instead of just redoing it all and scrapping canon stories.

But its better to add depth to something that exists than to create something completely new. Thats why all the really good stories get sequels ;)

hmm, i just thought, because the hadeans and the olympians, and the third cthonian race originally came from the planet where the scions crash on, it would mean that the cthonians living on the planet wouldn't need space suits, right? just an interesting point.

and, yes, character development can happen slowly, it's a little hard to follow everything in the story if they give a ton of characters to memorize, in FE it was good, they presented about 3 characters, and added and developed from there, if someone gives you 5-8 characters, it's going to be a harder to understand the characters, why they do things and to even remember who's who.

it all comes down to style of writing, and personal preference, some people like a quick to the point storyline, others like to take it slowly. and both happen in real life, and even using both ways in the same storyline can work too, but changing the pace can sometimes be confusing for the player, but that can be a tool in itself.

anyway, i like how the storyline(s) is coming out, very nice. BTW, if the hadeans have the huge scion engines from the ARK II, how would they EVER use them, and what would they even use them for?

GHH's story has 5 votes for it but hasn't received much discussion. I'm nominating the story for removal from the possible plots.

Quote from: Angstromicus on August 22, 2009, 01:21:27 PM
GHH's story has 5 votes for it but hasn't received much discussion. I'm nominating the story for removal from the possible plots.

I'd second that, I haven't even seen GHH on the forums for quite a while actually.

Quote from: Rocket on August 22, 2009, 01:16:02 PM
hmm, i just thought, because the hadeans and the olympians, and the third cthonian race originally came from the planet where the scions crash on, it would mean that the cthonians living on the planet wouldn't need space suits, right? just an interesting point.

No, its not the Cthonian homeworld, just the planet that the third faction colonised.

I am thinking we might go with Mr. X's time travel and Scrappool's major plot events.

I personally don't see how an FTL crash is going to cause time travel, and I personally like the portals more. What do you all think on this?

Also, I do like the model of the Ark III being a Police Box.

All jokes aside, it looks like the stories are coming along pretty swimmingly.

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 22, 2009, 02:43:12 PM
I am thinking we might go with Mr. X's time travel and Scrappool's major plot events.

I personally don't see how an FTL crash is going to cause time travel, and I personally like the portals more. What do you all think on this?

Its really hard to explain...
"I have read that if one was travelling on a beam of light, that one would measure no elapse of time and no distance covered, no matter how far the observer on earth measured the light beam to go. but if the guy on the light beam measures no time elapsed and no distance travelled, how could he at the same time, measure the earth observer's clock to be going more slowly than his own, which has measured no time at all ?" ... "THat is the time dilation from his view for earth would be infinite." ... "How can the observer on the light beam see the earth move at the speed of light, when time dialated for him is infinite? For the beam it would take 0 seconds to travel from A to B. Of course it is physically impossible to observe from a beam of light." ... "Time does not exist for a photon, since it is travelling at the speed of light, and so it makes no sense to discuss how fast the photon sees the observer's clock to be moving." (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=157220)

Its really just a logical extension of the principle of time dilation. The asymptote of the time-dilation curve approaching infinity is at the speed of light.
Essentially, as you get closer and closer to the speed of light, time elapses slower and slower, until when you are traveling at the speed of light, time does not elapse at all.
By the normal laws of physics, it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate even a proton to the speed of light. Not practical. But if you circumvent those laws by bending the universe around the object you are "accelerating" to get it to achieve a "speed" which seems to an observer to be faster than light (really, you aren't moving at all.) via the Acclubiere Drive, what happens to you from the perspective of the observer?
One assumes that you experience negative time dilation- that is, dilation "past" the point when time does not pass at all (for a photon), essentially, back in time. This model is supported by physics of general relativity and examples of light reaching our eyes from stars far away (what would happen if you went faster than that light, at it?)

Re: realistic time travel.

The Acclubiere Drive causes a bubble inside which time is normal, and outside which time is normal, does it not? The only issue I can see causing time travel is the collapse and formation of the bubble. Though IIRC it is impossible to enter or exit the bubble or make one, it must have always existed, or some weird stuff like that.

Being science fiction, they make the bubble and collapse it, but how does the collapse of a space dilation wave cause time travel? And at that, wont the front and back of the wave cause opposing time travel if that did occur thus canceling each other out? I mean, one is a space 'expansion' and one is a space 'contraction' so how does this work? On that note, do we represent a space 'expansion' as a void that light moves around if it shows at all, and a space 'compression' as a liquid where light collects if it gets in at all?

I mainly like the time portals because in my mind I have drawn up an explanation for it I can understand, granted, we can literally have both.

I am sick of portals. TRO, BZ2, FE, potentially more, have used portals as a major plot device and I think it is time we give them a rest.

How about the ark III being designed to travel time? oh and I'll probably lose karma for this but _{If we didn't use time travel we wouldn't have to think over this problem  :-D just saying!}

That's not a karma losing point, it's a damn fact  :-D

Quote from: Clavin12 on August 22, 2009, 06:15:53 PM
How about the ark III being designed to travel time? oh and I'll probably lose karma for this but _{If we didn't use time travel we wouldn't have to think over this problem  :-D just saying!}

Clavin, you're getting very tiring with your anti-time travel ideals.  Please stop.

Quote from: Nielk1 on August 22, 2009, 05:54:21 PM
The Acclubiere Drive causes a bubble inside which time is normal, and outside which time is normal, does it not? The only issue I can see causing time travel is the collapse and formation of the bubble. Though IIRC it is impossible to enter or exit the bubble or make one, it must have always existed, or some weird stuff like that.

Being science fiction, they make the bubble and collapse it, but how does the collapse of a space dilation wave cause time travel? And at that, wont the front and back of the wave cause opposing time travel if that did occur thus canceling each other out? I mean, one is a space 'expansion' and one is a space 'contraction' so how does this work? On that note, do we represent a space 'expansion' as a void that light moves around if it shows at all, and a space 'compression' as a liquid where light collects if it gets in at all?

I mainly like the time portals because in my mind I have drawn up an explanation for it I can understand, granted, we can literally have both.

A. I agree. Time portals are easy to understand. They are also impossible and lead to inevitable credibility destroying "why didn't they just..." scenarios.

B. The time travel is not caused by the actual drive itself. Its caused by the fact that it is used to travel faster than light. One would never be able to see the ship while it was in warp, so the point of the warping of light around the expanding space behind the ship, although a cool idea, does not apply. If you watched the ARK III come out of warp, it would seem to pop into existence out of no-where, because no radiation is fast enough to contact it and reflect off.

As for the effects of the warping of space, like I said before, this has nothing to do with time travel, it is merely a "legal" way to accelerate mass to (apparently) faster than light speeds. There is no "front" or "back" of the warping of spacetime. (In addition, it is nowhere specified that nothing could enter or leave the bubble, only implied through logic, as as the bubble moves forward, it "makes room" for itelf from a singularity "pushing aside" the rest of the universe, but so fast that before relativistic or light-based mechanics could "notice" it. According to radiation based detection mechanisms, it was never there, and this is technically true, because the "ticks" of time (plank second) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_time) actually happen slower than the ship is traveling. O_o) That is a 2-D representation of a 3-D concept. In reality, inside the "bubble" nothing is happening at all. The drive moves space around the craft, pushing a small section of space along at faster than light. Imagine if you had a wind-up toy truck on a piece of paper. The truck could only go so fast because of its mechanical limitations. Now imaging that you cut a circle around the truck. You could then push the paper along (with the truck on it!) as fast as you like. If you happen to push it faster than the speed of light, then, well, when you come out the other end you will be "back in time" from the perspective of you departure point.

Quote from: sabrebattletank on August 22, 2009, 04:29:42 PM
Also, I do like the model of the Ark III being a Police Box.

Nah, it should be a delorian that time travels at 88 mph! And the guy who invented it should be Doctor Emmet! And the main character of the story should be Luitenant Mcfly.

Sorry all. I just had to get that out of my system.

Quote from: bb1 on August 22, 2009, 06:13:21 PM
I am sick of portals. TRO, BZ2, FE, potentially more, have used portals as a major plot device and I think it is time we give them a rest.

But they're the only beleiveable method of interstellar travel, even travelling at the speed of light or just short of it would take years just to travel to the nearest solar system to our own. And other galaxies allow you to be creative with the planets, not just the big rocks you get in our galaxy, which are boring and repetitive and I think we should give them a rest.

I'm still waiting for a gas giant map. Biometal tanks should have no problem flying on those. Really, though, portals are becoming common plot devices and are tired. Let's not make them a theme of BZ.

No-one said that about hyperspace in star wars. I'm just saying.

Quote from: bb1 on August 23, 2009, 09:34:21 AM
I'm still waiting for a gas giant map. Biometal tanks should have no problem flying on those.

Biometal tanks hover, they need a solid mass to hover on. And where would you find biometal in a ball of gas? Not to mention actually being able to see...

Keep waiting. After a year my Jupiter map looks like crap still.

And frankly the high pressure airfoil unit is not my best work.

I would like to withdraw Perfidious from the next round of voting. I think we have better options, and I'd like to work on it myself anyway :)

WE DO NOT HAVE BETTER OPTIONS!!!

Quote from: AHadley on August 23, 2009, 12:51:58 PM
I would like to withdraw Perfidious from the next round of voting. I think we have better options, and I'd like to work on it myself anyway :)

Please don't until you see the next round of voting.  If you feel that you still would like to remove it, we can at that time.

hmm, you could have 2 different perspectives...

one is from the ISDF point of view, showing the Perfidious story with a background story of what's happening with the scions, about them building an ARK III to travel to an unknown galaxy... (Play ISDF)

and another view of being the ambassador traveling on the ARK III, which is the scion viewpoint. (Play scion)

what do you think?

hey! and you would get to see what the ARK III looks like taking off from two different perspectives! :-)

Quote from: Mr X on August 23, 2009, 12:08:47 PM
No-one said that about hyperspace in star wars. I'm just saying.

Biometal tanks hover, they need a solid mass to hover on. And where would you find biometal in a ball of gas? Not to mention actually being able to see...

Hyperspace was fundamental and brand new when starwars came out. In contrast, the longest-running sci-fi single series Stargate has used portals for a long time, not to mention countless other games. Back in the day, Starwars placed the claim on hyperdrive and expanded on it from there. At this point in time, though, portals are everywhere in sci-fi. SP's Ac..something isn't.

Don't even say "star trek warp" because I don't think they do the exact same thing ;)

Tanks can hover on water, ehh?

Why not play the campaign as a member of the third powerful Cthonian faction?

Or, more broadly, why not play the campaign as a non-human/scion entity?

Could be interesting, at least as an idea to vet.

Possible way to include this: you are playing as part of the third chtonian faction, and do some quick stealth/recon missions, and have to make a choice: stay with your own people or help/join the scions/Ark/whatever.

That would wreck the storyline because they're supposed to get wiped out before the real fighting starts...

"Or, more broadly, why not play the campaign as a non-human/scion entity?"

I would love to watch the action from the perspective of a tree.





---However, you do bring up a good point. The story as is can easily be influenced to allow the main character to be an explorer of the cosmos who happens upon the events as they unravel. His ship is in the Cthonian planet space while Ark III is exploding and somehow gets caught up in the evacuation ships going planetside. He joins up with them on the planet for -reason- and there you have it, the one human(esque?) character among the Only-Scion crew. This method also allows you to dish out the story more slowly, have a more tense relation with the Scions since your history is ALSO in shadow, and allow the Eve thing to play out in a more brilliant way. You would get the story of the AC drive, the reason they pulled out near the planet, and other such details as missions went on since you entered the picture halfway into it. More dynamic character development, rather than a bland human ambassador. Someone who doesn't know about biometal, ISDF, Scions, all that jazz.

I was thinking the perspective of a virus or bacteria.

Or possibly the Hadeans.

That post above was aimed toward you, sabre. Bad post timing oops  :-D

Oops. I like it bb1!

Ooh! What about this? The Cthonians (aka Greek gods) took some humans from ancient Earth (read: ancient Greece, or whatever BZ1 cannon says) for a purpose, possibilities include:

 * experimentation? [with biometal? with another, foreign substance? with native fauna?]
 * colonization? pets/slaves? [--> then they rebelled?]
 * to be a superweapon? [in conjunction with biometal?] [but they failed/escaped/were set free because they were too powerful?]

and ancestors of the Explorer (player) formed a new race

  * a fusion of biometal and human and Cthonian? (has this been done before?)
  * a fusion of biometal and human and something else -- native plant/animal?
  * a fusion of biometal and human and some non-living entity: stone? metal?

They were left in the stars (left for dead/abandoned by the Cthonians?) because
a) as pets they were no good
b) the Cthonian experiments failed [or so they think]
c) they rebelled and were sent to a prison planet, (we can call them "Australians").    Just kidding.
d) Reason D.

But they grew strong away from their former oppressors and

i) forgot about them and are exploring
ii) are looking for revenge
iii) haven't forgotten about them, but aren't looking for revenge
iv) Reason IV

Enter the Explorer and the Ark III.

Feel free to add on/subtract reasons and such. Also, feel free to submit reason D. And Reason IV.

Discuss. What do you think?



 

I think colonization is least used one and thus it's the one that we should use. it'll add to the freshness of the story.

Pets? That gave me a good chuckle. Whatever human-cthonian encounters happened were brief at best judging by the BZ1 briefings and scans-- they had a war to think about and couldn't spend bonus time on teaching a new race secrets.

Rebelled? Hardly...

The time period the story is set in dictates they don't even know earth exists. If it was a Cthonian from the planet, he'd probably just join the cthonian struggle. With a third party, they are caught in the blind. YOU get to be the player that has flown interplanetary scout ships- never a biometal tank!

Make this obvious in mission 1. Give him a special modified ship that has clunky controls (high drag, slow acceleration, guns with a more random spread) that kind of thing. It would be refreshing for us vets that have to go through the usual bland "intro mission" by making your character actually handicapped by HIS skill, not yours XD

Quote from: sabrebattletank on August 23, 2009, 08:06:08 PM
Why not play the campaign as a member of the third powerful Cthonian faction?

Or, more broadly, why not play the campaign as a non-human/scion entity?

Could be interesting, at least as an idea to vet.

Quote from: Mr X on August 24, 2009, 03:45:38 AM
That would wreck the storyline because they're supposed to get wiped out before the real fighting starts...

Quote from: sabrebattletank on August 24, 2009, 04:40:08 PM
 * experimentation? [with biometal? with another, foreign substance? with native fauna?]
 * colonization? pets/slaves? [--> then they rebelled?]
 * to be a superweapon? [in conjunction with biometal?] [but they failed/escaped/were set free because they were too powerful?

  * a fusion of biometal and human and Cthonian? (has this been done before?)
  * a fusion of biometal and human and something else -- native plant/animal?
  * a fusion of biometal and human and some non-living entity: stone? metal?

Feel free to add on/subtract reasons and such. Also, feel free to submit reason D. And Reason IV.

Discuss. What do you think?

OH MY. These suggestions fit in rather well with a little proposal I was cooking up for something of a bend.
Im excited now.

The blend goes something like this: it could be presented as a three "act" or "part" story.

PART I: EXTINCTION OF THE THIRD FACTION AND HIDING OF THE DRIVE.

This would be the first part, it would be concerned with the extinction of the Third Cthonian faction in a fight with other cthonians over their superior technology.

This part is rather vague to me... and so I kind of want to nod to Mr. X's history of the third faction for this part... but it might be centered around the hadeas trying to get their hands on a significant piece of third faction technology: the Alcubierre drive. The third faction hides it successfully or something, and then are killed off (but not before activating their gravity well to bring the cthonian moon down, more on that later).

One might play as a third faction cthonian (in the "past").

PART II: CERBERI HUNTING AND DISCOVERY OF THE DRIVE

Part 2, we jump ahead to the future (possibly after Perfidious, just so that that story might remain in tact) and we join the scions (player=the ambassador from full circle, on EDF oversight duties) as they are hunting the last of the Cerberi.
Our scions follow the retreating cerberi through Hadean space portals, fighting and exterminating them, until finally the cerberi discover a rather more-ancient, burried protal, activate it, and retreat through. The scions follow, and once they reach the other side, discover a wold filled with cthonian relics. Here they exterminate the very last remenants of the cerberi, but at the end, discover the Alcubierre drive hidden by the third faction in the distant past. At this point, all seems calm and concluded, and the scion forces return to mire with their prize.

NOTE: There is potential, before the cerberi start to retreat through hadean portals, that they have spread to SOL worlds, eg, Mars, the Moon, Europa, Titan, etc, and so, we could, for a few missions, go cerberi hunting on the worlds from BZ1 as scions! This possibility excites me the most.

PART III: CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARK III AND MODIFIED "FULL CIRCLE"

The third faction's Alcubierre drive is the centerpiece for the construction of the ARK III...

Resume plot of Full Circle to conclusion with the following suggested modifications:

The ARK is brought out of warp by the gravity well activated by the third faction on the cthonian homeworld.
Cthonians DO NOT reverse engineer biometal, instead they use fallen peices of the ARK as their source, just as the scions do.

There are some other suggested modifications to full circle that I wanted to include but I cant remember what they are at this time... they were really good too... if yall could er... re suggest them, id like to have them in here....

IMO: -this plot reconciles the "portals/no portals" discussion, because portals are included, but are not the main recurring theme of the story.
       -this plot reconciles the "cerberi/no cerberi" discussion, because there are cerberi, but they are exterminated.  :lol:
       -we would (eventually) get to play as each of the three proposed races of cthonians, in addition to the scions. (the third faction by default, and either the hadeans or olympians when you are prompted to join each of these factions in the eventualities of FULL CIRCLE)
       -we would get to re-visit mars, titan, europa and even the moon as we go cerberi hunting. and so, this plot could solve one's desire to return to those worlds.

The one bit this plot does not include, and the one discussion this does not resolve is the time portals. But you already know that I am anti-time portals. So their exclusion in this draft is very explicable. HOWEVER, I BELIEVE that if the cerberi are causing trouble and inciting damaging shenanigans as they are retreating through these hadean space portals, that the same plot-sense effect is achieved (as if they were traveling through time), and that is: lets follow these guys through this portal and stop them from causing trouble. Same thing as the time cop, but without the time portal. Know what I'm sayin?



ANYWAYS this is really just an amalgam of suggestions and things we all want to see...
Its primary drawback is its potential sheer size and length. This would be no short mod... Although if we have something like 5 missions per part, (something i think is highly possible) the potential  size of this story could be rather nominal.

I think thats a vunderfal suggestion.

5 missions per part would seem excessive. Which part is the bulk? Spacing some out could be possible, with the main plot getting the most exploration.

So a boring old ambassador, huh? That has as much fun as the farmers and cowboys you get in all the other mods. I'm still going to stick with a green person who can't fly his tank right, if only to make the intro bore-snore missions more accurate and FEEL like intro missions.

What if we made the main character a man but from another country like russia, france, or scotland. A Jamaican would be fun. A Jamaican psychologist.

You have to get the VO to be able to do things like that. He could be Indian if I could get my calc Prof to do it. Which won't happen.

I can do an Indian accent.  :-P

I could do it if i practiced. it was a kind of a joke.

WAIT: I GOT IT.

Biometal is alive-ish, correct? But how "ish" was never really settled?

What if it was bio-metal that made the Ark crash into the moon, to secure it's own discovery?

Bi0-metal itself is kind of an enigma. Why can't it be a bigger thing, maybe even an inter-universal problem? Perhaps use this analogy: Think of the universe like a tree: bio-metal is a vine, crawling, spreading itself through warring factions across the universe, pitting life against life until bio-metal is the only thing left.

It repeats a common theme in Battlezone: You can't control bio-metal. (Furies, Scions, ect) Also: What was thought to be a blessing turns out to be a curse.

i think the theme of bz1 was that the races are fine until they reach too high, and their inventions of biometal are destroyed by their creators, and the creators are destroyed by biometal, and then biometal is found again.... :roll:

but it's an interesting idea, actually making biometal an actual race basically...

i always thought of it as a building material with little microchips in it though....

Microchips aren't very -bio- in the biometal sense. The dark and scary side of biometal.

If it weren't too late, it would be fun watching all the biometal revolt. It is mostly just "regular" biometal that doesn't have any initiative or whatnot until a strand of DNA touches it. Then it becomes BI-EVIL-METAL

Quote from: bb1 on August 24, 2009, 09:53:17 PM
Microchips aren't very -bio- in the biometal sense. The dark and scary side of biometal.

If it weren't too late, it would be fun watching all the biometal revolt. It is mostly just "regular" biometal that doesn't have any initiative or whatnot until a strand of DNA touches it. Then it becomes BI-EVIL-METAL

that sounds creepy...

sounds great though

Talking to TS I thought of something. The Hadeans in FE are after Mire and Earth because their locations are where critical space time nexuses are so they can take over the galaxy and beyond. So, how about this possibility:

The Cthonian offshoot is found and war is waged on them by the Hadeans. They escape in time or something, but the Hadeans think they killed them all. It is from this that the Hadeans develop their portal technology. Their rude understanding of the system makes them think they can transport even farther using the space time nexuses, when in reality this is what opens the gates for time travel. Of course this does not allow for any good control of the time travel.

I came to this in discussion with TS after being told why the Hadeans would not attack anyone before the Humans and Scions of Earth and Mire. What if the first attack is the source of their knowledge of the Nexuses that make them attack us?

I mean, if you knew there was a possibility of intergalactic portals, you would try to make them. the EDF and Scions are kinda just hanging, trying to kill the last of the Cerberi at this point.

Maybe it was the third faction who created the cereberi super computer and the dark planet to prevent anyone from using the portals.

I suppose if biometal is alive in a sense, that if you put enough of it together it would develop an intelligence, maybe even a personality.

It could be that biometal was the the result of the third cthonian faction trying to make a machine that could imitate life flawlessly. Maybe the Cereberi super computer was the product of this and they hid it to stop it from falling into the wrong hands, but unfortunately they never finished it and it was too strongly influeced by certain parts of its personality.

The third faction hid along with it a device to activate the nexii (if thats the plural) and travel back in time to the battle for the third faction's homeworld.

I still like the idea that biometal itself is orchestrating things, pitting faction against faction.

Quote from: sabrebattletank on August 24, 2009, 08:07:26 PM
WAIT: I GOT IT.

Biometal is alive-ish, correct? But how "ish" was never really settled?

What if it was bio-metal that made the Ark crash into the moon, to secure it's own discovery?

Bi0-metal itself is kind of an enigma. Why can't it be a bigger thing, maybe even an inter-universal problem? Perhaps use this analogy: Think of the universe like a tree: bio-metal is a vine, crawling, spreading itself through warring factions across the universe, pitting life against life until bio-metal is the only thing left.

It repeats a common theme in Battlezone: You can't control bio-metal. (Furies, Scions, ect) Also: What was thought to be a blessing turns out to be a curse.

What is the biometals motivation?

If we are time-hopping Timesplitters 2 style, then it could be the biometal leading us.

Why would the biometal want to lead us?

I don't know. Ideas?

Same as any other lifeform, survival and replication, it uses other lifeforms to achieve this just like plants use bees, War generates maximum dispersal of its material and exposes it to positive evolutionary forces.

Plants don't know that they use bees. Should the biometal be sentient?

Well, we know that it has a memory of sorts, that seems to indicate some sort of brain. So I wouldn't be surprised if it could think for itself.

Thing is, this would suggest that if you added to a peice of biometal another peice of biometal from somewhere else, its "knowledge" would increase. Like plug in memory devices for computers if you will.

I tend to think of biometal more of having a collective unconcious.

It sounds so great because it's the reason we fell in love with BZ in the first place.

You are flying otherworldly death constructs, and those lovable tanks suddenly fly and shoot lightning at anything that isn't them...

I had nightmares of Furies chasing my pilot in my youngen days... coupled with the slow hovering and the eerie noise, heart stopping! Bio-metal in itself is the best plot device in the arsenal for a BZ related story, but this has decreased steadily over the run of bz2 mods.

So: I do think we need to keep bio-metal central to the story, perhaps even to the extent of having bio-metal direct the story in ways the characters weren't expecting.

Since Scions are part biometal anyway, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps when they decided to check out the energy disturbance (gravity well) the biometal part of them swayed over the reasoning of it being a bad idea and so they redirected their course.

We can only leave this in the eyes of the player, you'd have to make a fairly explicit mod with that as the central plot. Biometal as a device in other plots doesn't work so well because it leaves the player wanting more, to get deeper into it.

I think we need to come up with the basic time travel plot and then sort of sharpen it into our storyline with all the twists and details. Like you would sharpen a camera lens.

I'm confused at this point, what the current plot we're vetting is: Is it ScrapPool's? Mr. X's? Mr. X's modified version of ScrapPool's? Is it Mr. X's version of ScrapPool's with additions, like we have been discussing here? Did I spell ScrapPool right, with the capital letters and everything?

Anyone have any insight?

Things sort of broke down it seems. Many suggestions are being made that don't fit even with stock let alone FE or the provided base stories.

That's why I made my suggestion two posts earlier. You just take a basic time travel plot idea and then sharpen it into the story. I think scrap pools represents one time plot and mr. x's another. Scrap pools with the accidental time travel built with the ship and mr. x's with the time portals and the intended time travel. We just have to pick one outline and add the details.

Once we have a better idea on what we're going to do (after combining stories) we can mold it to fit around an existing time line.

Write the details before we write the main structure of the story?

Ok, I'm going to lock this topic and open up the next one.  Hopefully it will be more conducive to ideas.