So here's the deal. Yes, it is quite apparent now that the deadline has passed for 1.3CP story submissions. HOWEVER, I was under the impression that the 28th was in fact the LAST DAY to submit storyline ideas, not the day on which no further storyline submissions would be accepted. So in that, I say: No hard feelings if this thread is locked, deleted or closed, what have you. I just wanted to get it seen by somebody before voting continues further, because in my self-centered opinion, it is a halfway decent story. And yes, I should have submitted earlier, but I was on vacation with my family and as such did not have the time to post this from my laptop.
EDIT: Thanks for adding it!
I am stoked for the idea of a scion-centric campaign, and I enjoy time travel shenanigans, and as such, this story borrows both, except that it actually doesn't contain an unrealistic time machine, and actually, the time machine that it does contain is not used.
So on to the idea?
I encourage everybody to NOT be deterred by the length of this plot outline. I'd say just hunker down and have a good read. It' actually not that long. :-)
Highlights
This story features:
-Two new(ish) races, Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians (not counting a fleshed out scion race)
-Realistic, relativistic, time travel, (YAY Apparent FTL travel via Alcubierre drive!) not by the use of a time machine.
-A closed time-line loop, or causality loop in time. Not Unlike: Terminator, Harry Potter 3, The Time Machine, Several Twilight Zone episodes, and Futurama: Roswell that Ends Well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox)
-A Human-Scion love story. (provided an "apt" voice actor can be persuaded to participate ;) <- creepy statement, i know.)
-An explanation of the origins of life on Earth
-A (possible) explanation of the origins of biometal.
-A non threatening story, by this i mean: this story doesn't threaten other BZII plots existence, presuming that all interstellar travel in them is accomplished by worm-holes.
-Missions from the Scion's perspective, but, in keeping true to BZII tradition, the choice is given to join either the Olympians or the Hadeans some missions into.
-Exploding moons and apocalyptic end-of-world scenarios. (not on earth!)
-Traditional personality clashes and character development between the player's character and the player's superior officer.
-A realistic, (yet biometal enhanced) one-way worm hole machine.
The Plot
Some years after the events of FE (its not really my business to decide how many years), The EDF has normalized relations with its competing races. What Cerberi remain are in disarray, and hold no real power. The Hadean Crown keeps to it worlds, and the Scions, although secretive and independent, are beginning to interact to a greater degree with humanity.
The Scions complete the greatest construction known to modern science, and to all known intelligence in the universe: the ARK III, the first intergalactic ship to contain a functional Alcubierre drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive), a system which allows the propulsion of matter at apparently faster than light (FTL) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light) speeds without requiring infinite energy (this is accomplished by contracting the space in front of the ship and expanding the space behind, not moving the ship chemically, but "pushing" it along with artificial gravity). The ARK III's first mission will be the most iconic in all of history: it will travel (literally) across the visible universe, through intergalactic space a mind-warping 13.7Bly (billion light years) into space (and through the implications of FTL travel, in time as well). The ships crew is entirely Scion, except for a single human ambassador (I wont decide a name, but in this plot summary he is referred to as "The Ambassador"), who will accompany the Scions on their journey. The Ambassador is the player's character.
The first actual mission would be on Mire, as the player (The Ambassador) is deployed by an EDF envoy to join the crew of the ARK III, primarily this would serve as a chance to introduce the characters to the player, and might be used to explore Scion culture (buildings, etc). Basically, an introductory mission.
The ARK departs Mire, and makes a pass by Earth as a PR stunt requisitioned by the EDF as a sign of the EDF's continuing bureaucratic usefulness to the people of Earth. The ARK begins drive warp, and its crew prepare for the 42 month journey to the other side of the universe....
A third the way through the trip (aprox 3.2Bly, ~14 months into the trip for crew members) the ARK unexpectedly drops out of warp and loses power. It is later revealed that the ARK had passed through a moon, and the immense energy required to pass the mass of the moon around the ship has drained the biometal reactors (at this point, imagine a moon similar to Earth's, with what seems to be a bullet hole in it, causing fractures across its surface. Note the scion-looking-ship on the other side of the moon). This moon belongs to a planet, one of two in a solar system in galaxy SDSSJ0737+3216 (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread307420/pg1), nearly a third the way across the universe. Besides this planet and its moon, there is only a gas giant looming in this solar system. The planet, it appears, was once so close to its sun that it became Tidally Locked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidally_locked), it has since moved away from its sun, into a habitable zone, but it remains tidally locked. By this it is meant that one side of the planet always faces its sun, and one side is always blanketed in darkness.
Very quickly, the ARK comes under attack by enemy fighters and an abandon ship is ordered. Landing craft are ordered to aim for an LZ in the temperate zone of the planet, a zone near the permanent twilight ring (a side effect of tidal locking) which circles a narrow band of this planet. A successful landing is made, and at this point, The Ambassador is called into action as too many Scions have died in the attack to provide a much needed fighting force.
This is supposedly where the second mission would begin. It would be The Ambassador's task to deploy one of a very limited number of recyclers and establish a base among hostile forces. There is no biometal indigenous to this world (at this point) and as such, falling pieces of the ARK III (falling as meteors) would form biometal pools. In this mission, the player finds that he encounters large numbers (large enough numbers that it would be a challenge) of enemy craft, small and large, but all are weak and easily destroyed, as they are not made of biometal. The player sees that he is fighting two distinct races, which are in fact at war with each other in addition to the player. For more, see Ancient Hadeans and Olympians as Races later on.
Soon, what remains of the ARK III falls to the surface not far from the Scion's base. It could be the third mission to secure this crash site, as it harbors a large amount of biometal. At this point, the player starts to encounter several varieties of enemy craft which are just as resilient as Scion craft, and, when destroyed, leave behind raw biometal. This mission would also see the very subtle beginnings of a more-than-military relationship between the Player (The Ambassador) and his commanding officer, an as of yet unnamed Scion lieutenant, who happens to be a female. (ah, the defaults of a male-centric society...).
Missions continue with the player fighting both his Cthonian adversaries, on the premise of whatever minor objectives might be thought of by the ever-creative BZ Community. This is the section of the story which might be drawn out to add additional missions to everyone's heart's content. During these missions, the fragmented moon, breaking apart, begins to loom slowly and surely closer and bigger in the sky as it is falling onto the planet. In addition, it might be nice to further flesh out the characters and the developing relationship with the Lieutenant during these intermediate missions, building a connection to them for the player. As these missions progress, it is seen that all of the weak non-biometal Olympian and Cthonian ships are quickly replaced by stronger, more powerful, biometal versions. Falling meteor/pieces of the ARK might be used as a source of scrap for play during these missions.
Something like halfway through the intermediate missions, it will be revealed that scientists of both the Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians (both races harbor far superior minds to Humans or Scions) have reverse engineered the biometal that crashed to their HOMEWORLD (yes you have stumbled upon the CTHONIAN HOMEWORLD, what are the chances...) as the hull of the ARK III, and learned to produce new biometal from reactors which tap the energy of the planet's core. (When playing as Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians, this would be your gameplay resource, you directly produce biometal. (-Similar to the function of The Swarm's resourcing in Fleshstorm, idea credit goes to Lizard-) This explains why at first the Cthonians ships were weak- as they learned to produce biometal, they adapted it to their craft and as such they grew in strength. This, in fact, could explain the origin of the Cthonian's use of biometal, it can also, by a weird switch of fate, therefore directly explain the very origin of biometal. I don't want to make that claim in this story, because that would be very selfish, but nonetheless, it could be implied as a possibility. In short: Cthonians reverse engineered it from Scions, who are a product of the Human's discovery of biometal left behind by the Cthonians- (it doesn't make sense now, but more on that later.)
Junction Mission
After some missions, it is discovered that the destroyed moon is falling to this planet, and that it will likely destroy all habitant life upon its impact, blowing away most of the planet's atmosphere and liquefying the planet's crust. During a "Junction Mission" not unlike mission 14 in the original BZII, the player is approached by peaceful representatives of both the Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians with offers of peace in return for aid.
-- If the Player chooses to help the Ancient Hadeans, it is revealed that a Hadean scientist constructed and activated a time machine (REALISTIC! not unlike this one, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHC8z6ULs18&feature=related) this type of time machine could mathematically send matter back in time, but it would have to be extremely massive, requires incredible energy, and it can not send anything back to a time before the machine was activated. It cannot send matter into the future.) at the beginning of the Hadean-Olympian Civil War 126 Cthonian years ago, in hopes that, if the Hadeans were compromised and beaten militarily, he might go back and stop the war from beginning in the first place. With the addition of the miracles of biometal, the scientist has been able to modify it to create a one-way worm hole which would allow the escape of all Cthonian civilization from the inevitable impact of their moon on this planet, their homeworld. If the Hadean side is chosen, several missions would be spent aiding in the defense and construction of this worm hole generator as the destroyed moon looms ever closer, mission by mission, in the sky until by the final mission, it occupies nearly the entire sky. In the final mission, a large battle takes place, at the conclusion of which, the Hadean fleet and ground forces pass through the worm hole. In the haste to escape the falling moon (at this point imagine a giant fractured moon occupying most of the sky, meteors (falling fragments of the moon) falling everywhere), the scientist asks the exact space coordinates of the ARK's last departure of the Scion captain (coordinates near earth), and he provides them. The scientist adds them to the worm-hole generator's computer, and opens the portal. It does not shut off once the entirety of the Hadean fleet and the Scions pass through, and as such, the Olympian fleet follows. The portal is destroyed as the moon crashes to the Cthonian homeworld.
-- If the Player Chooses to help the Ancient Olympians, it is learned that the enemy, the Ancient Hadeans, posses a means to escape the doomed planet, and plan to leave the Olympians behind. The player's missions become centered around destroying Hadean bases in an attempt to get to and posses the Worm Hole Device.
The last mission is a great battle, and at it's conclusion, the last of the Hadeans retreat through the device. Because it does not close, the Olympians and what remains of their allies (at this point, only The Lieutenant and The Ambassador[the player]; all others were killed) follow the Hadeans through.
Both fleets come out of the worm hole near Earth, but it is not Earth as we know it. It is the early Earth. It is Earth 3.2 Billion years in the past. It has rings, recently created by the impact of a large object on Earth's surface of boiling lava and sulfur. (these rings will coalesce to form our moon) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis) This occurs because when the ARK III traveled halfway across the universe at FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT, it also traveled back in time, in accordance with Einsteins theory of special relativity. 3.2 Billion years back in time to be exact. See space-time, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-time) and faster than light travel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light_travel) Because the Hadean scientist's portal (using the magic of biometal) bent space to form a worm hole, no difference in time occurred, and as such they were teleported to the Earth 3.2 Billion years in the past.
Upon emergence from the one way portal, there is a brief space battle between the Ancient Hadeans and the Ancient Olympians, or rather, the last survivors of these two factions of a now nearly extinct species. The small Scion ship (which holds only the player (The Ambassador) and his love interest, the Lieutenant) is damaged in the battle and crashes to Earth. It is revealed (by some means) to the player that the Cthonians, shortly after the battle which damaged the player's ship, reached a peace agreement (it is assumed on the basis that it was mutually agreed that their species would not survive further conflict), and that they(the Cthonians) assume that the Ambassador and the Lieutenant died instantly when their ship crashed to this harsh, primeval, and lifeless world, Earth. The Cthonian's spot a fertile world, the fourth planet from the sun, Icarus, and settle there in peace. (The remains of Icarus can now be seen as our asteroid belt (yes, its somewhat ironic when contrasted with my previous statement about peace)). It is presumed that they remain at peace for some years, until such time as they have inhabited all the planets and moons in the solar system, even to some degree, Earth, in addition to many star systems beyond our own, before another Cthonian civil war, a war we are familiar with from the logs of BZ1, breaks out and results in the destruction of Icarus.
Back on Earth, the Scion ship holding the player and the Lieutenant in fact was not destroyed on impact, and instead survived enough to allow for its passengers to survive the landing. As the final scene, a human in love with a scion emerge from an alien craft as their oxygen levels run low, (no hope for contact as their radio was destroyed), and crawl to their final resting place, sitting, backs to a stone, with a view of the most beautiful of Earth's sunsets. The toxic chemicals, heat and sulfur warp the suns rays into brilliant colors. On their dying breaths, the first names of these characters are exchanged, Adam, The Human Ambassador[the player], and Eve, The Scion Lieutenant[the love interest]. It is implied that microbes from these two being's decaying bodies are the very first lifeforms on Earth, and go on to survive and evolve in the hostile earth's environment, eventually manufacturing oxygen in our atmosphere and giving rise to all life on earth in the next 3.2 Billion years, including humans.
NOTE: the passing of the ARK III through the Cthonian moon is the cause for the moon's falling to the Cthonian homeworld.
NOTE2: the bit about Adam and Eve is completely nonessential, I only thought that they might make fitting names for these two, the supposed beginnings of life on Earth. I thought it might make a nice touch is all. And no, I am not a Christian.
From the perspective of the EDF and the Scions in the years after the evens of FE, the ARK III disappears and is never heard from again.
Plot Summary
-Scions build the ARK III, the first craft truly capable of FTL(faster than light) travel.
-The player is the only human ambassador to the scions journey across the visible universe (not galaxy, UNIVERSE) a massive PR stunt for Earth.
-The ARK, in mid travel, passes through a moon, breaking it apart and causing it to crash into the tidally locked world it orbits, the Cthonian homeworld.
-The player lands on the planet, and must defend against two attacking races, the Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians, which are also fighting each other.
-At first, the player fights many many weak Hadean and Olympian ships at a time, easily defeating single ships; they are weak because they are not made of biometal.
-Quickly, the Cthonians reverse engineer the biometal that fell to their planet as the remains of the ARK III, and start producing it for themselves, making their ships as powerful as the Scion's. This is a possible origin of biometal.
-Throughout missions, the player sees his Scion female lieutenant as a love interest.
-The player is approached by the Olympians and Hadeans independently and asked to join their side. (In a manner similar to mission 14 from BZII)
-If the player chooses the Hadeans, his goal becomes to defend and aid in the construction of a portal which will allow the races to escape the doom of their falling moon.
-If the player chooses the Olympians, his goal becomes to attack the portal device owned by the Hadeans so that it might be used to save the Olympians.
(Epilogue)
-The player comes through the portal near Earth (the point of the ARK III's original departure) 3.2 Billion years in the past, and his ship is damaged by the last battle between the Cthonian fleets which have come out of the portal as well before a peace treaty is signed by what remains of the two races in an effort to save their species.
-The damaged Scion ship crashes on the earth as is was 3.2 Billion years ago (Faster Than Light travel caused the ARK III to go back in time as well as space, but the Hadean's worm hole simply bent space, it does not deal with time), and the microbes on the player's dying body become the first life on Earth.
-The Cthonians go on to inhabit Icarus and the rest of the solar system and many other star systems while at peace, before another civil war breaks out between the two races which results in the findings of BZ1.
Ancient Hadeans and Ancient Olympians as Races
NOTE: this section is really only how I imagine the Ancients, it has NO BEARING on what the community would produce as far as these to races would be.
My vision of these races' themes would largely follow Avatar's, that is, Ancient Hadean ships are tan-ish, colored like many artifacts in BZ1. Hadean ships are asymmetrical and lustrous, yet centered around even numbers, and have thematically/primarily blue and green homing missile like projectiles. Olympian ships are black, red, and orange. They are symmetrical and rugged, but centered around odd numbers, and have thematically/primarily red and orange laser and blast like weapons.
The reason for the two factions would be explained in this story. The Cthonian Homeworld is tidally locked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidally_locked) as was explained earlier. This means that only one side of the planet faces the sun at all times. The idea is that the Hadeans are the result of the development of a relatively unified culture on the sunny side of the planet, and the Olympians are the result of the development of a unified culture on the dark side of the planet, (which is separate from the hadean's sunny side culture). The differences in these two cultures resulted in an inevitable civil war, which our Scions happen to walk in on in this story.
These differences in culture might be reflected by the way each side behaves and talks with the player. The hadeans would be positive and optimistic, more prone to be peaceful (the traditional good guys), and the Olympians would be negative and pessimistic, and more prone to war (the traditional bad guys).
A friend of mine was inspired by this story such that he drew a scene. To be mean, he's not an expert illustrator. But to be fair, it is interesting to a degree.
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5497/8209059.jpg
Essential Characters
-Human-
The Ambassador (as of yet without a last name, first name Adam)[the player]
-Scion-
The Lieutenant (as of yet without a last name, first name Eve)[the player's love interest]
The Commander (no name yet, clashes with the actions of the player, Foil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(literature)) to the Lieutenant.)
The Captain/General (no name yet, traditional General stereotype, look at captain keyes from halo)
-Ancient Hadeans-
Apollo (approaches the ambassador and asks him to join the Hadeans)[name=placeholder]
Hadean Scientist (no name yet, creator of the worm hole device)
-Ancient Olympians-
Prote (approaches the ambassador and asks him to join the Olympians)[name=placeholder]
Olympian Commander (no name yet, harsh and demanding, but secretly frightened)
------------------
Congratulations, you've reached the end of my storyline submission! If you have made it through and actually read this entire post, I have to thank you! I appreciate that you would take the time to read something as long as this. If you haven't read this entire post, I would hope that you would take the time to read "Full Circle".
As always, the pointing out of flaws, contradictions, and ESPECIALLY CRITIQUES, are very welcome!
No, I wouldn't plan on doing my own mod with this story, i dont have that kind of time.
Yes, feel free to take this idea and run with it on your own if you wish! I'm just trying to put some ideas and imagination I had in my head, into yours!
Thanks a million,
SP
P.S. Please forgive all my run on sentences and my lack of capitalization of "Earth" and other grammatical errors, including but not limited to sentences witch make no sense. This post was written in a hurried, train of thought way. If it goes anywhere, I may be back to make fixes. And pretty please excuse multiple posts, my original was greater than 20000 characters, the limit.
All posts edited for grammar and clarity. In addition, a major plot flaw has been rectified and time scales have been adjusted such that they fit currently accepted planetary formation theories.
Several points have been raised:
How can a ship survive crashing through a moon?
Possible solutions suggested by replies:
1) That the effect of the warp-drive caused the mass of the moon to pass around the ship, such that it was in fact not touched at all while still ripping a hole in the moon. Or something to that effect. (This event would drain the power cells of the ARK, causing it to drop out of warp). In this case, the damage to the ARK which caused it to crash to the planet would be inflicted by Cthonian high-powered non-biometal weapons. (Antimatter bombs or the like).
2) (Slightly less believable IMO) That the ship sustained damage enough to disable it in physically colliding though the moon (remember it is made of biometal). In this case, it is not required by the plot that the Cthonians attack it at all in order for it to crash to the planet.
Why would the Scions, after building such an advanced ship, risk its destruction by only surveying their projected path in space from a relatively local set of data?
Possible proposed solution:
It requires incredible energy to achieve warp merely one time. In this case, it would be infeasible to routinely drop out of warp to re-plan a path in space.
This storyline is completely open to improvements, especially in believability! If you've got an idea, post it!
The Cthonian's original homeworld where they evolved was Icarus.
As if the Hadeans and Olympians could live peacefully for 3 billion years on one planet!!! Not a hope in hell.
The Adam and Eve bit was really, really, really retarded. :lol:
Why does it always have to be the Hadeans and Olympians? I am getting sick to death of them!!!
I'll add this to the poll (I think I can), but don't expect to get much of a turnout.
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 29, 2009, 06:03:45 AM
The Cthonian's original homeworld where they evolved was Icarus.
As if the Hadeans and Olympians could live peacefully for 3 billion years on one planet!!! Not a hope in hell.
The Adam and Eve bit was really, really, really retarded. :lol:
Why does it always have to be the Hadeans and Olympians? I am getting sick to death of them!!!
You know I originally hated FE because it brought Hadeans descendants into the game, and that kind of ruined the idea of Icarus as the Cthonian homeworld for me. What are the chances that Cthonians evolved on Icarus, then killed themselves with biometal, but also escaped to other worlds to have descendants too? Not too good imo. Now that I have grown on FE, (and Fleshstorm too!) I've always had this idea in my head that Icarus wasn't the Cthonian homeworld. It just makes more sense. But that's just me.
3 billion years
is way too long. Good thing its just an idea. It has since been edited to change stupid time remarks.
You know there never has actually been a mod or game (to my knowledge) in which the original hadeans and olympians were playable... if we had some creative people on them it could be very interesting.
Quote from: ScrapPool on July 29, 2009, 07:03:40 AM
You know there never has actually been a mod or game (to my knowledge) in which the original hadeans and olympians were playable... if we had some creative people on them it could be very interesting.
The Ancients campaign in Battlezone Classic does exactly that.
Quote from: ScrapPool on July 29, 2009, 07:03:40 AM
What are the chances that Cthonians evolved on Icarus, then killed themselves with biometal, but also escaped to other worlds to have descendants too?
Much higher than the chances of them inventing a time machine.
It works, and parts of it are very clever (I rather like the Adam and Eve part, though quite how we got to know about it (the Book of Genesis) I'm not quite sure).
I'd go as far as to say this may be one of the better storylines.
I like the name too.
EDIT: +Applaud
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wKVJXvn8-Lg/Rv0dnEC23XI/AAAAAAAAAI8/MYk1GHTZRvY/s400/seal.gif)
Sure it may need a little work to better fit in with the BZ story line or the Universe's story line (I thought Earth was only about 4.5 billion years old and am unsure as to how it could be two billion years older). But, a story like this going through the CP's meat grinder (i.e.. myriad of changes and suggestions from a large number of users) would make a delicious meatloaf of a plot (assuming no fingers, toes, hair, or other strange objects don't get accidentally included :-o.
lmao @ The Seal Of Awesomeness.
Hmmm, Seems people like the idea of Time Travel... ONLY problem I have with this one is that it pretty much has meat on it.
When I voted, I voted for a story that was just framework and could easily fit in other ideas without breaking what is already infront of us.
Basically, you DESERVE The Seal Of Awesomeness, but because this idea CAN survive as it's own mod IF it is not chosen. Great work and let's see how it holds up against the others.
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 29, 2009, 07:20:51 AM
The Ancients campaign in Battlezone Classic does exactly that.
Much higher than the chances of them inventing a time machine.
Haha, BZC hasn't come out yet, and to my knowledge, avy hasn't even earnestly started on the ancients campaign. So no, there isn't a
released mod which exists that meets that context. But then again thats why I am dying for BZC to come out... point is, it hasn't happened yet.
And acutally no, time tavel is allowed by modern physics, so it is (right
now) entirely possible that an alien race might invent a time machine. The catch is that you can't go back in time farther than the time at which the machine was turned on. :lol: BUT THAT's COMPLETELY BESIDE THE POINT, because if you had actually read the plot, you would know that there is IN FACT NOT A TIME MACHINE in this story. Instead, the effects of special relativity on the ARK III as it was traveling FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT caused it to go "back in time" from the perspective of earth. You realize that when you look at stars in the sky, you are seeing light which is millions of years old... it takes millions of years for the light from those stars to reach our eyes..., therefore, if you travel significantly faster than light, you are in fact going BACK IN TIME. read the link i posted on faster than light travel yea? The device invented by the hadeans was in fact just a wormhole device similar to the scion's, it has NOTHING to do with time.
I mean im just sayin. :-)
Yikes i feel like we need some more hardcore science fiction fans around here. :lol:
And yes it is very meaty hehe. But i like to think of it as meat which holds the bones together lol. AND besides, im just throwin this out there, its not like everything (really
anything) ABSOLUTELY MUST hold true to this paltry few paragraphs (which may or may not be WAY to descriptive :roll:) i've written in this forum.
I still think it's very good. Probably deserves to win more than the others, it would make a great project.
I'd be willing to voice adam, lol :-D
If we were releasing this on CD that whole emerging from the wormhole bit would make a hell of a FMV, unfortunately we aren't and nobody like 300mb downloads (unless I am just slow and old and don't have fast internet or know of the latest compression schemes).
Definitely a powerful story-driven part, and I will vote for it on one condition:
Explain how the pre-biometal aerospace fighters destroyed mankind's greatest and largest creation after it just took on the freaking moon... You'd think non-biometal weapons would "plink" off of its hull, even though it is fractured slightly. I can't cite a reference but I remember seeing that non-biometal weapons do terribly little to no damage to biometal EDD.
The passage through the moon may have damaged by it, or it may have been hit by debris. Maybe its travel damaged it in some way.
Why I am saying this when I have my own storyline to support I don't know. :P
I agree. A biometal space ship plowing a hole through the moon and destabilizing its orbit - all without receiving any significant damage. I don't see even anti-matter warheads denting that armor. Was the reactor vulnerable to attack or something? Of course it's possible that the ship never actually touched the moon and thus wouldn't need ultimate biometal armor to plow through the moon. Perhaps the gravitational field in front of the ship behaved like a black hole and ate through the moon. Though in that case, the ship should have had an easier time traveling as the mass of the moon would be gravitational energy for the black hole... A black hole is the only gravitatoinal phenomenon that seems strong enough to plow through a moon at speeds exceeding light.
Quote from: Angstromicus on July 29, 2009, 09:15:34 PM
I agree. A biometal space ship plowing a hole through the moon and destabilizing its orbit - all without receiving any significant damage. I don't see even anti-matter warheads denting that armor. Was the reactor vulnerable to attack or something? Of course it's possible that the ship never actually touched the moon and thus wouldn't need ultimate biometal armor to plow through the moon. Perhaps the gravitational field in front of the ship behaved like a black hole and ate through the moon. Though in that case, the ship should have had an easier time traveling as the mass of the moon would be gravitational energy for the black hole... A black hole is the only gravitatoinal phenomenon that seems strong enough to plow through a moon at speeds exceeding light.
It wasn't a black hole :-P
Quotethe ARK III, the first intergalactic ship to contain a functional Alcubierre drive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive, a system which allows the propulsion of matter at apparent faster than light speeds without requiring infinite energy (this is accomplished by contracting the space in front of the ship and expanding the space behind, not moving the ship chemically)
Note: Expanding the space behind the ship would explain the moon having a hole in it.
Yay i got my avatar on. :-)
Quote from: bb1 on July 29, 2009, 06:15:04 PM
If we were releasing this on CD that whole emerging from the wormhole bit would make a hell of a FMV, unfortunately we aren't and nobody like 300mb downloads (unless I am just slow and old and don't have fast internet or know of the latest compression schemes).
Definitely a powerful story-driven part, and I will vote for it on one condition:
Explain how the pre-biometal aerospace fighters destroyed mankind's greatest and largest creation after it just took on the freaking moon... You'd think non-biometal weapons would "plink" off of its hull, even though it is fractured slightly. I can't cite a reference but I remember seeing that non-biometal weapons do terribly little to no damage to biometal EDD.
THIS is a
very good point. It could be resolved one of two ways:
1) Maybe the ARK didn't touch the moon at all, instead it's err, warp drive used all of the ship's remaining energy to pass the mass of the moon around the ship, no energy left=drop out of warp, in this case, we can presume that some WMD like weapon, nukes or antimatter perhaps, were used by the cthonians to attack it as it came out. Biometal hull or not, 50 megatons of thermonuclear energy is a
LOT of killing power, especially when applied to a target in multiple instances. :lol: There is also the possibility of boarding craft? Who knows?
2) We can also pretend that the ARK sustained all the damage needed to cause it to crash from the impact through the moon itself. It is not crucial to the plot that the cthonians attack the ship, so long as it crashes and causes the moon to fall to the planet. If anybody can put the situation together to make that work, im happy.
We could also consider the possibility of a giant gun like in FE, im not here to rule things out guys. :lol:
I personally am of the belief that biometal reactors were depleted because of moving the mass of the moon out of the way of the ship + cthonian antimatter weapons = crahsed
ARK III I'm sure we can figure out some chain of events that is mutually believable!
Also: see rockets post. :lol:
I really really wanted to overlook this problem with the story that could bring the story to a crushing halt... suspension of disbelief or not I shall continue:
Wouldn't the Scions, in their higher knowledge, have a device to sense a gravity well? I for one wouldn't green light a project ship if it couldn't detect gravity wells in unknown space.
Traditionally, using Star Wars as an example (because it layed the groundwork), if a ship would be pulled out of hyperspace if a gravity well was within the vicinity.
It is simply too preposterous to hint that the Scions felt so confident that their ship could plow through some star or clumsy enough to overlook installing it, along with some sort of malfunction. I would stop the ship immediately and check for issues.
I like this story....
A LOT.
Maybe the gravity well detection failed for some reason?
I'm assuming that since this is new technology, that feature wouldn't be implemented yet. It probably would be assumed unnecessary because telescopes and advanced algorithms would be able to plot a path through space safely (at least for the most part).
Secondly, the chances or running into objects are extremely low because space, for the most part, is very EMPTY. The solar system is fairly crowded, but still quite empty. Even emptier is inter-stellar space. Even emptier than that is intergalactic space. Emptier STILL are the great voids in the universe that contain few - if any - galaxies.
Thirdly, imagine how dangerous it was for the first astronauts to make it to the moon. This is similarly epic (actually, more), so the risks would be worth it.
On average, there are only four atoms per square metre in space.
I have to admit I really like your story idea, ScrapPool. You have probably heard it all before, but a story from a scion perspective is brilliant.
Quote from: Angstromicus on July 30, 2009, 03:33:02 PM
I'm assuming that since this is new technology, that feature wouldn't be implemented yet. It probably would be assumed unnecessary because telescopes and advanced algorithms would be able to plot a path through space safely (at least for the most part).
Secondly, the chances or running into objects are extremely low because space, for the most part, is very EMPTY. The solar system is fairly crowded, but still quite empty. Even emptier is inter-stellar space. Even emptier than that is intergalactic space. Emptier STILL are the great voids in the universe that contain few - if any - galaxies.
Thirdly, imagine how dangerous it was for the first astronauts to make it to the moon. This is similarly epic (actually, more), so the risks would be worth it.
Sure, if you want to drive out on the highway late at night with no headlights... at 1:00AM there isn't much traffic at all but the freak car may pull out in front of unexpectedly.
The Scions seem too pensive to overlook something that important... And if it malfunctioned I would expect them to pull out of "warp" to fix it. I'm sure you could probably write around it and still have the moon issues though, although it is still tough. I still find it interesting how it wouldn't pull out of warp from simply entering a system with a star period, let alone a gas giant.
Maybe their sensing systems failed BECAUSE of the upcoming gas giant?
Assuming that such a system works on the thin space pushed into by dense space (terms are a misnomer, like being in flatland and saying upward not northward) then anything that things space (biometaloids) or anything that thickens it (blackholes and stars) would have a distortion effect on the travel.
The thicker space around the star would make faster-than-light travel more difficult, thus draining power, thus forcing the Ark III out of FTL travel and back into normal space.
I also figure blinkdrive thins the space infront of a ship and thus fives it into it, so it 'surfaces' a distance away.
Quote from: bb1 on July 30, 2009, 02:29:18 AM
I really really wanted to overlook this problem with the story that could bring the story to a crushing halt... suspension of disbelief or not I shall continue:
Wouldn't the Scions, in their higher knowledge, have a device to sense a gravity well? I for one wouldn't green light a project ship if it couldn't detect gravity wells in unknown space.
Traditionally, using Star Wars as an example (because it layed the groundwork), if a ship would be pulled out of hyperspace if a gravity well was within the vicinity.
It is simply too preposterous to hint that the Scions felt so confident that their ship could plow through some star or clumsy enough to overlook installing it, along with some sort of malfunction. I would stop the ship immediately and check for issues.
Ya know it may sound retarded but I really do like that people are pointing these things out. :-)
The thing about gravity is that it propagates in "waves", at the
speed of light, according to the assumption made by my buddy Einstein.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gravity/overview.php
Note: this has never actually been proven in lab settings, because it would take a LOT of experimental gravity to test it out, and that's something we can't really afford.
For example, if our sun magically disappeared, it would take "eight-ish minutes" for our planet's motion to start feeling the effects of this; we would feel the effects of the hypothetical sun's magical disappearance exactly as we were able to
see that our sun had disappeared. If gravity travels faster than light, our planet's orbit around the sun would dissipate some time before the light had reached our planet which indicated that our sun had disappeared, and this doesn't make much sense to physicists and mathmeticians, so we just assume that gravity travels at the speed of light.
Keeping in this assumption, the ARK (traveling FTL, as it would appear to the rest of the universe, not traveling at all from the perspective of the the ARK inside its warp "bubble") would be in a gravity well before it had actually
had the chance to receive any information which might indicate that it was about to pass into one. It would literally drop out of warp
instantly.George Lucas' gravity well generators which stop hyper drives are a cool idea that makes sense in our down to earth world, but as far as science can prove,
no information happens faster than light in the natural world. :/
But then again that's where the physics fall apart and one just has to go with it...
All the compliments are much appreciated everybody. :lol:
*Pulls on labcoat*
Then the highly intelligent Scions would stop every couple million light years and carry out long range scans and navigating to see which way is clear O_O
Quote from: bb1 on July 31, 2009, 12:55:18 AM
*Pulls on labcoat*
Then the highly intelligent Scions would stop every couple million light years and carry out long range scans and navigating to see which way is clear O_O
Haha yes indeed that could be a way of making it safe!
Unfortunately, it rather ruins the story... :-D
Also, scions
LOVE danger! :lol:
Would it be possible that entry into FTL travel takes a tremendous amount of energy, and doing that over and over would be infeasible?
Dammit just lost a post to a badly coded website tab lockup..... It was like 10 paragraphs long and wrote the way how it made the Scions do everything right and the moon and ark still dying... Find me on a teamspeak server or something if you want to hear it. The internet beat me.
Quote from: Angstromicus on July 31, 2009, 01:41:13 AM
Would it be possible that entry into FTL travel takes a tremendous amount of energy, and doing that over and over would be infeasible?
:-o
Yup, that would do it!
This guy is good...
The explanations of the creation of religion itself...
You sure it won't PO the religion crowd?
It definitely would be a stand alone story without chance of sequel and has a fulfilling end all while showing the extremely deep relation to humans and Cthonians.
IDK, in a story I'm working on for something I have the Lilim as the alien race and partially responsible for the origin story. Not very much worry from me about that.
How many twilightzones or scifi movies do the same thing?
Quote from: bb1 on July 31, 2009, 05:06:50 PM
The explanations of the creation of religion itself...
You sure it won't PO the religion crowd?
It definitely would be a stand alone story without chance of sequel and has a fulfilling end all while showing the extremely deep relation to humans and Cthonians.
Ya know I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose the same thing could be said about
Knowing, but it didn't really experience huge damage from that dynamic. The movie just sucked haha. (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/07/knowing.html, if you've seen that movie, you may know what I mean. It's absolutely LOADED with religious, specifically Christian, allegory. Two kids saved by aliens which seem to have angel wings and are dropped off, the only humans on a planet, near an unusually holy tree? Sounds
awfully familiar to me.)
I'm not here to make claims about the origin of religion, I just though it would be a nice touch is all. It could very well be interpreted as me pushing beliefs on other people as a matter of fact... but nonetheless, it, like everything else in this story, is not set in stone. This is an example of one of those things that is completely non-essential to the story. Their names could be Dick and Jane for all I care. In fact, the entire bit about these two characters surviving the crash to earth at all could be dropped. They could die instantly, and it would all still work.
And if you really think about it, humans, according to this story, are not descended from these people, instead we would have evolved in accordance with the panspermia theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia), the microbes in their bodies being the first cells, instead of the first reproducing cell spontaneously coming into existence with the coincidence of amino acids, some sea foam, and maybe a strike of lightning.
As an example, Spore completely rejects genesis, but it seems to have
no problem selling to everyone.
Anyways, all this heavy stuff is generally non-essential, but I added it simply to, in fact, make the story a little more meaningful, compelling (haha,
heavier). It is worth remembering that if it were consensus in the community that this stuff were too heavy or anyone found it offensive, it could easily be dropped!
Knowing was a pretty weird movie...
...This is just a game, and we're just looking for a story. It doesn't mean anything other than that's what the story says :P
Only person we could offend is Calvin.
Lets hope not, as we don't want anybody reacting foolishly and starting any flame wars here. The peace so far is as savory as lobster :-P.
Quote from: Angstromicus on July 31, 2009, 07:14:41 PM
Lets hope not, as we don't want anybody reacting foolishly and starting any flame wars here. The peace so far is as savory as lobster :-P.
That's pretty savory.
If (fanatical) people get pissed off by your story, its their problem not yours, they already have a problem with just about everything else in the Universe, your story will not add any more to their self inflicted burden, They will find something to be pissed off or deluded about what ever you do.
Quote from: mrtwosheds on August 01, 2009, 02:56:12 AM
If (fanatical) people get pissed off by your story, its their problem not yours, they already have a problem with just about everything else in the Universe, your story will not add any more to their self inflicted burden, They will find something to be pissed off or deluded about what ever you do.
Yes, and its not like they would be forced to play it. I just try and leave people to whatever makes them happy and helps them keep respectable morals. If that is god, fine by me!
...
ANYWAYS is anybody finding more morbidly obtrusive issues with the believability of this plot?
Quote from: Angstromicus on July 31, 2009, 07:14:41 PM
Lets hope not, as we don't want anybody reacting foolishly and starting any flame wars here. The peace so far is as savory as lobster :-P.
Mah boi- times of peace such as these are what ALL true warriors strive FOR
Quote from: ScrapPool on August 01, 2009, 03:11:50 AM
ANYWAYS is anybody finding more morbidly obtrusive issues with the believability of this plot?
I noticed that you made it so the start of life on earth was a paradox... which makes no sense.
(starts with adam and eve)
(adam and eve are born :-P and sent to outer space)
(they come back to earth many years earlier and start all the life on earth)
Question: what made them so they could CREATE the paradox?
I think it just doesn't add up.
Quote from: Rocket on August 01, 2009, 09:46:07 PM
I noticed that you made it so the start of life on earth was a paradox... which makes no sense.
(starts with adam and eve)
(adam and eve are born :-P and sent to outer space)
(they come back to earth many years earlier and start all the life on earth)
Question: what made them so they could CREATE the paradox?
I think it just doesn't add up.
Actually it isn't a paradox... in this story, Adam and Eve die soon after they crash to Earth, and the microbes (bacteria etcetera) on their bodies become the first reproducing life on Earth. These little cells then go on to evolve into all life. And eventually humans. It is not really that great a stretch of the imagination considering the time scales involved. So actually its not a paradox, but more of a self-fulfilling event.
It seems you didn't read the story you sneaky fish! Or at the very least I didn't explain it well enough or make it clear enough. :-P
Quote from: ScrapPool on August 01, 2009, 10:01:13 PM
Actually it isn't a paradox... in this story, Adam and Eve die soon after they crash to Earth, and the microbes (bacteria etcetera) on their bodies become the first reproducing life on Earth. These little cells then go on to evolve into all life. And eventually humans. It is not really that great a stretch of the imagination considering the time scales involved. So actually its not a paradox, but more of a self-fulfilling event.
It seems you didn't read the story you sneaky fish! Or at the very least I didn't explain it well enough or make it clear enough. :-P
actually, i did read the story, and you just retold the paradox AGAIN.
maybe you should care to read my post again. :-P
Quote from: Rocket on August 01, 2009, 10:24:17 PM
actually, i did read the story, and you just retold the paradox AGAIN.
maybe you should care to read my post again. :-P
Hmmm... tell me in your words what a paradox is... cuz I dont think were on the same page with that definition...
A paradox is a self-negating statement of logic or events which cannot have a solution. (In a general sense) The term
paradox is also used to describe things which defy intuition.
Example: I am a liar, said the liar.
They didn't "create" a paradox, in fact that's part of the reason that I don't like temporal paradoxes, because if you look at the universe from a timeless perspective, nothing is "created" in time, it all just
is. It's all explained in another time traveling movie/work of literature:
The Time Machine.
The classic paradox example is the Grandfather Paradox. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox)
Lets say you have a time machine and you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother. This would mean you were never born, which means you never came back in time, which means that you actually never killed you grandfather, which means that you actually were born and
did go back in time and kill your grandfather which means you actually were never born and so didnt go back in time... and so on. This is an example of a self negating logical paradox.
Maybe im just being dumb but how is there a paradox in my story again?
A paradox as I term it isn't when you go back in time and change something so that you are now the cause for a past event, because in reality, you always were, you just hadn't experienced you "changing" that thing in the past yet... It's perceptual curse of linear storytelling... A conclusion that, unless stated explicitly, is up to the reader/viewer to conclude.
Although it is a piece of crap movie with horrid acting, I like
The Time Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(2002_film)), because it demonstrates the Novikov self-consistency principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle), in which i am a believer whenever time travel is brought up. It says that if you go back in time, any action you take which might cause you to not go back in time in the first place has a probability of zero of happening. In the sense of the Grandfather paradox, it would mean that the quantum probability of you killing your grandfather is zero. Literally, your grandfather would be invincible until your mother/father was conceived. Of course he doesn't gain special powers that stop him from dying if he is shot or something, its just that no event happens which results in the death of your grandfather.
I think you mean "paradox" in the closed-time line loop, predestination "paradox" sense... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox) (read first paragraphs of article). If this is the case, then it is not a bad thing, but rather a lovely twist of coolness!
Since he didn't do a good job explaining why it isn't a paradox, I will!
When the drive was activated, space was bent along with time FOR THAT SHIP ONLY. Natgeo did a good job explaining this on some naked science episode. As soon as they came out of the warp field or whatnot, they came out WAY back when (the amount of space they covered was relative to the time they travelled because of special relativity). So while time was going on for everything else, they were in fact the only ones moving through it.
They still existed as static objects except in a different time period...they didn't replicate themselves, go back in time, and see themselves doing stuff like traditional B movie time travel, they simply moved through it as if going down a winding road. There is no alternate universe or alternate timeline, just the road. When their remains are deposited at the end of the road, it sets up events that would happen later down the line on that same road... that same road (present) now being under construction ;)
Whew! Fun stuff. Then the Cthonians leave with their story immortalized and those Greeks or whoever got the story of Adam and Eve from the legends told throughout the Cthonians (definitely exaggerated by this point) and boom religion!
I love this story so much I could cry.
Quote from: bb1 on August 02, 2009, 01:16:02 AM
Since he didn't do a good job explaining why it isn't a paradox, I will!
When the drive was activated, space was bent along with time FOR THAT SHIP ONLY. Natgeo did a good job explaining this on some naked science episode. As soon as they came out of the warp field or whatnot, they came out WAY back when (the amount of space they covered was relative to the time they travelled because of special relativity). So while time was going on for everything else, they were in fact the only ones moving through it.
They still existed as static objects except in a different time period...they didn't replicate themselves, go back in time, and see themselves doing stuff like traditional B movie time travel, they simply moved through it as if going down a winding road. There is no alternate universe or alternate timeline, just the road. When their remains are deposited at the end of the road, it sets up events that would happen later down the line on that same road... that same road (present) now being under construction ;)
Whew! Fun stuff. Then the Cthonians leave with their story immortalized and those Greeks or whoever got the story of Adam and Eve from the legends told throughout the Cthonians (definitely exaggerated by this point) and boom religion!
I love this story so much I could cry.
I r bad 4 explain stuff...
Aw that makes me all gooey inside!
Hey, maybe the past is in read-only mode, look but don't touch.
I'm not sure that any part of the human body could survive such an atmosphere, the genetically modified Scions on the other hand...
Actually, that could be quite good, because a loop then forms in which the scions exist because humanity created them, and humanity exists because they evolved from the Scions. They would evolve to not have biometal in their genetics because the micro-organisms that come from them wouldn't be able to find any on Earth.
The paradox here is that the cause and effect relationship is broken. Event A - Adam and Eve, should be a cause. Event B, time travelling, should be an effect. But both events cause and effect each other. This is okay, though, since it is a state of equilibrium. Babylon 4 Babylon 5 did this so it should be okay for the story to do this as well.
It takes some mind grasping to comprehend it, gotta dig pretty deep before the click comes.
From what I've seen, those enviro-suits stand up to pretty much everything.. Miasma anyone?
Quote from: AHadley on August 02, 2009, 06:07:50 AM
Hey, maybe the past is in read-only mode, look but don't touch.
In order for you to still go back in time in the first place, one would think that
must be the case. One can influence the past, but one cant change it or else one's traveling back in time wouldn't have happened at all... if that makes sense.
Quote from: bb1 on August 02, 2009, 04:36:52 PM
It takes some mind grasping to comprehend it, gotta dig pretty deep before the click comes.
From what I've seen, those enviro-suits stand up to pretty much everything.. Miasma anyone?
Yea if these suits can survive Venus (mean temp: 461.85 degrees C), where lead melts and hardens daily, and Titan (mean temp: -179.5 degrees C), where it rains methane, in addition to whatever noxic shenanigans are happening on Miasma, I just assumed that they could survive an early Earth cool enough to have liquid water. :-D
Quote from: Angstromicus on August 02, 2009, 03:15:36 PM
The paradox here is that the cause and effect relationship is broken. Event A - Adam and Eve, should be a cause. Event B, time travelling, should be an effect. But both events cause and effect each other. This is okay, though, since it is a state of equilibrium. Babylon 4 Babylon 5 did this so it should be okay for the story to do this as well.
That's what i mean, its a self-enabling paradox, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox) where one event predestines itself (eventually) through time travel, not a self negating paradox, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox) as I though you meant. :lol:
A friend of mine was inspired by this story such that he drew a scene. To be truthful, he's not an expert illustrator. But to be fair, it is interesting to a degree.
I thought I might as well post it here... call it, concept art?
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5497/8209059.jpg
I think that's the Ark's hull crashed in the background next to the broken, falling moon. In the foreground we have what I am assuming is an Olympian (the name of this "piece" is "Olympian Summit") shaking "hands" in agreement with The Ambassador and The Lieutenant. to the lower right we have what would appear to be an Olympian tank or craft of some kind, and to the left we have a scion warrior and sentry. there is a little battle happening in the middlegound between ships of some kind.
I think I can safely assume that this is occurring during that speculative "junction mission".
Since this story tied for second, I will retype that big plot hole fixer I had from last time... later though, as it is late and I am tired.
If that thing in the back of that picture is a tank, I don't want to be anywhere near that main cannon when it goes off.
If you can work IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR into this story in any way, it will be complete.
Don't forget to type it up in a text editor and save it first :lol:.
Defeat :-(
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.
QuoteMy vision of these races' themes would largely follow Avatar's, that is, Ancient Hadean ships are tan-ish, colored like many artifacts in BZ1. Hadean ships are asymmetrical and lustrous, yet centered around even numbers, and have thematically/primarily blue and green homing missile like projectiles. Olympian ships are black, red, and orange. They are symmetrical and rugged, but centered around odd numbers, and have thematically/primarily red and orange laser and blast like weapons.
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-
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 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 DeflectorsTM. 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.
cool! :-D
then what happens to the scion fighters? they are not built to land on planets, they are meant for space travel only, so what happens to them? are they stuck in space?
What Scion fighters?
Well, I'd say if they did have fighters out in space as a precaution, they would probably survive the descent into the atmosphere since they are biometal.
I wouldn't even expect the Scions to launch fighters because they know the missles won't damage them at all. They probably aren't even stocked well.
ooh, i see, i did a mistake :-P
i guess i got so excited in the reading there i thought the "Fighters" were scion, no wonder i was so confused half way through...
It IS a CP. If you want to input the Scions go crazy in deep space and start mass suicide, hey! Sure. Just make sure to write out of any plot holes (believe me, no fun there). It gets difficult because when you change something, you have to make sure the ripples do not hurt the rest of the story. FE is full of that issue, which is why the story loses coherencey in places. Forgive me if I spelled that wrong.
got to say it has a very interesting plotline and i really enjoy the whole adam and eve part. needs work but itsa good first attempt.
Edit by Moderator:
by the way i have a quick question, if the microbes from both "Adam" and "eve" eventually evolve into human beings, would that imply the the microbes from eve would pass on microscopic amounts of biometal into every thing on earth?
Please edit your posts in the future. There's a reason that it's there.
Quote from: iron maiden on August 19, 2009, 07:21:10 PM
by the way i have a quick question, if the microbes from both "Adam" and "eve" eventually evolve into human beings, would that imply the the microbes from eve would pass on microscopic amounts of biometal into every thing on earth?
Well, no, they aren't scion-like microbes. They (would be) regular microbes. You know. Earth Amoebas.
Streptococcus pneumoniae, etc.
Quote from: ScrapPool on August 21, 2009, 06:11:13 AMStreptococcus pneumoniae, etc.
So, you're saying that we evolved from Strep?
Quote from: VSMIT on August 21, 2009, 06:24:24 AM
So, you're saying that we evolved from Strep?
Finally, a witty fish!
Almost!
I'm saying we evolved from the primary cause of bacterial pneumonia.
(re: S.
pneumoniae)
;D
Then again that's just me pre-fleshing out one of the "Oh wow!" interesting possibilities of realistic time travel.
Welcome back, genius :P
Hey- we can keep him. The guy who has all this at the top of his head is a valuable asset. If he was on the dev team storyboarding for BZ2, imagine what kind of game it would be ;)
Answer: Complicated.
Naysayers are going to shoot out "it's a game, it doesn't have to be realistic."
If it is, though, you can connect and understand it more. The will to win!
What I'm thinking is maybe drop subtle hints throughout play that you aren't when (as opposed to where) you think you are. Maybe a large structure hidden away in a mission with a terminal showing the progress of many solar systems, ours included? With proto earth not where it should be? That might be stretching the whole realistic "how would they know" but I think we can chalk that one up as an easter egg. Except for those nimrods who dive into the .pak and view all the assets before they even play :cry:
Some kind of data terminal saying:
Surveyance of the system indicates only one planet capabe of sustaining life, with the nearest two planets to the star being too hot and the others being too cold. etc.
PS, scrappool, I've written a merger for our two stories in the storyline poll thread, could you read it and give an opinion, I think thats what we're waiting for to move the project forward. Its mainly your story, but modifyed to contain the bits everyone liked of mine.
I'm not comfortable with the whole "cthonians got biometal from the scions who got it from the humans who got it from the cthonians" circle. For lack of a better word, I think it's cheesy.
Quote from: sabrebattletank on August 22, 2009, 10:19:56 PM
I'm not comfortable with the whole "cthonians got biometal from the scions who got it from the humans who got it from the cthonians" circle. For lack of a better word, I think it's cheesy.
Well that's perfectly reasonable.
And I agree that this story is rather brave and presumptuous- but Battlezone is only alive today because of the community, so I find myself more comfortable in this universe making up "canon" than in say, Halo, a very owned and manufactured story.
Although I would list that as an example of something which is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from "cheesy"... unless you were listening to the theme from
Babe when you read it or something.
(Ah family movies...)
Anyways, we are actually highly considering dropping that idea all together, in order to better honor the deepest and darkest ether of BZ1 canon, and to create a more driven resourcing experience.
(It would be that all the biometal in gameplay within the story would originate from fallen pieces of the ARK III. In addition, this take
could imply that the events of this story inspired the Cthonians to invent biometal in the "distant future" (the past, from the perspective of BZ1),
but not necessarily)
Finally, I would say that a small disagreement like that is certainly not sufficient reason to disqualify the other potentially interesting elements of a story
framework.
But I am super stoked for what Mr. X has come up with as far as blends go...
As I stated somewhere, any biometal ship that crashed on early earth would have been totally obliterated in the inferno over billions of years, so the meteor bringing bio metal to earth for the bz1 storyline to happen *is* technically the first real chunk that humans can use.
I don't mind making up cannon for BZ2. I do, however, support removing that particular circle about the creation of biometal.
In a greater and greater way, me too.
Quote from: bb1 on August 23, 2009, 12:07:57 AM
As I stated somewhere, any biometal ship that crashed on early earth would have been totally obliterated in the inferno over billions of years, so the meteor bringing bio metal to earth for the bz1 storyline to happen *is* technically the first real chunk that humans can use.
I disagree, I think it would have ended up buried deep underground where it couldn't be found, it might have hit the earth's core.
Either way, it's long gone.
But my way, it could resurface! With the crew in suspended animation.
Should point out that Biometal was a creation of the Promethean race as a poison to use against the Swarm before they got out of hand. See Fleshstorm for full details :P
AHadely, Biometal ahs like 207 origins.
And even then, that statement is incorrect. Prometheans FOUND biometal and later learned that it is toxic to the Swarm.
Didn't someone throw out the theory that Biometal is a naturally occurring substance?
Actually, one of the briefing/debreifings in bz2 confirms that the Cthonians created biometal.
They created a strain of Biometal, which is apparently the one prominent in the Solar Sytem. So in a sense this is true.
Quote from: Mr X on August 23, 2009, 07:16:53 PM
Actually, one of the briefing/debreifings in bz2 confirms that the Cthonians created biometal.
Yes, it is called Biometal Breeding. the ISDF creates biometal too. The ISDF Recycler can create biometal. It is who made it FIRST not just who made it.
The thing is, all the briefings in bz1 or bz2 don't confirm squat. They are mostly "As far as we know, this and that something or other." Under the circumstances, there isn't much chance of a race that JUST found biometal 40-50 years back to have a clue where it originated.