Now that college is done, the writing bug has bit hard, and I'm up to 42k on chapter 7. I'm posting a quick bit from early in the chapter to sound people out and see what people think.
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"What's that?" Daley leaned forward, interested.
"That's what we believe to be a *second* Visitor incursion. We believe
the original girl never actually left. And that the event we recorded
earlier this week is an unrelated second newcomer."
Leon raised an eyebrow and looked over at the scientist. "Yet when we
asked about mysterious sailor girls, you looked very much like a man
with a guilty secret." He smiled slightly as Ohara started, and leaned
back. He seemed to be less angry than before, giving the IDEC
administrator the chance to recover and mop his face again.
"Well," Ohara began slowly. "The pinhole detector isn't exactly refined
science yet, but we *can* detect similarities. And I can say with
reasonable certainty that the Visitor and our newest arrival have
nothing in common with each other. Wherever the new Visitor is from,
it's not the same place."
"And you think it's another Sailor girl?"
"Occam's Razor, inspector." Ohara took a breath and looked over at Leon.
"The first sailor girl stayed out of events, even when things were
coming apart earlier this year. She only becomes active again when we
have another arrival, from an unknown location. The only realistic
conclusion is that we've got a Visitor from the same location. Hopefully
another Senshi."
Daley raised an eyebrow. "Hopefully?"
Ohara pulled up a montage of boss monster fights from Sailor Moon and
played them on the monitor. "If the anime is any indication, inspector,
the *average* threat requires an entire team of magically enhanced girls
to deal with, and the leader is usually only dealt with at great
personal sacrifice. And every single time, the future of the whole human
race is on the line.
"For all our sakes, Inspectors, I sincerely hope we've got another
Senshi with us today. And so should you."
-------------------------
Opinions?
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Holy shit, resurrection. I was pretty sure this was dead.
As for the snippet...well, it's been a while since I read the first six parts so I don't remember them too well, but I like it.
It's good to see you active on this again, and I like the snippet quite a bit. 'course, now I need to go back and re-read Dead Bang. Not a bad thing at all.
This begs for a lampshade. "I'm not arguing, but it really says something about the state of the world when an ancient children's cartoon is reasonable evidence."
I'm having a bit of fun with the chapter, in that there's a couple of scenes which, when combined with previous chapters, looks a lot like Deus Ex Machina. But then I deliberately lampshade it, and suggest it's intentional in-story. Not sure how it will work in practice, but it's been interesting to write about.
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
I'm kinda going to have to ask for a chapter location archive here realistically. I know I can just dig them up around here... but do you have a page on Pit of Voles or something were this is archived? Longer than a month or 3 and many people will have to reread the whole thing for acquit remembrance.
Anyway... Sailor Moon is a deconstructive parody. What originally attracted me to the show was Luna. Specifically Luna having to deal with an invasion army in secret with in character girl in the tween going to teen range. It was hilarious. That aside you have to remember that when it comes to SM that the Usagi thought the end of the fight will Beryl sucked so much that she discontinuitied the entire year of history. It didn't happen. Jadeite could show up and they'd have no clue who he was... Usagi didn't resurrect her team there... she pimp slapped reality until it got a concussion.
Logically they (Ohara and Co) can conclude that they are missing an invasion or three. With that kind of option, concluding that multiple MGs popping up means that they are here to deal with something specific. Something bad enough to require a specialized military unit to deal with. Taking it as a sign of Big Bads to come. From what I remember these guys are perfectly willing to snipe each other with random kibble theories. As long as the discus things that won't happen as well its good.
Considering how many deities LT is involved with... I don't thing machines have much to do with this.
Edit: must remember to refresh then post.
91k and counting. I'm building toward the hinted-at Hallowe'en fight at the AD Police tower, and just sort of putting everything in place for KS vs. Miriam Yoshida, Part 2, which was mentioned in a previous chapter.
The way the content and size of document is looking I'll probably be writing that combat in this chapter as well, so it'll be the third act of chapter 7. With plenty more developing on the Reika/Hou Bang front, as well.
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
I started rereading Dead Bang and I've noticed an error.
From chapter 2, when Sylia is talking with Reika:
Quote:"Largo was a hyperboomer, imprinted with Mason's memories at the moment of his death. Depending on your point of view, he was either Largo's son, or a reincarnation of the original man.
Shouldn't that be 'he was either
Mason's son, or a reincarnation of the original man.' ?
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
I can't help, but think that any take over the world plot that involves you enemies suddenly acting out of character as the main lynch pin will fail. I mean the AD Police has been making efforts at live capture sense some told them their live capture equipment was actually useful beyond taking up trunk space. Then again the same plot involves every person that randomly gets super powers siding with and leading the Firsters... This is what happens when your not genre savvy and practicing cartoonish levels of super villainy.
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Found 2 random errors myself:
Chapter 2: Hilton Hotel, Megatokyo, 2:30 PM
Quote:Nearby, her wife was sitting staring out the windows at the city, not really seeing the buildings spread out around them, as she played out the moment she'd heard of her grandfather's death yet again.
Kou wife is his wife
Chapter 5: 6:30pm, GENOM Tower, Megatokyo
Quote:"Kate smiled and shrugged. "Soon enough, I think.
Outlaw quotation mark starting a paragraph. 14 paragraphs down
Thanks, guys! I'll wait until people are done rereading, and make the fixes needed to the copies on my website. Ian, of course, will need to correct his master copies himself.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
The trend with super powers will probably be at first at least a lot of solo and group supers with no official recognition. You'll have people who just sort of "help" without regard for whether it's human or boomer. You'll get boomer rights activists who are very much like what you'd get if the Electronic Frontier Foundation suddenly developed super powers. And you'd get the supremacists, who see humans as the superior life form, with themselves at the top of the heap.
Where I'm going with this is something the Abberant RPG actually mentioned. In a balanced world, there's no reason for the "super villain" to exist. You can make more money and live better by doing ad spots for sports and other such firms than you ever could trying to live as a villain. And the "evil" super inventor can legitimately build the "World of Tomorrow" with almost no effort as all the contract offers roll in.
The actions of the Firster movement, trying to hold up a small percentage as the Great White Hope of humankind will actually have the effect of creating a subculture of supers who believe they are *superior*. It's just that it won't be just superior to boomers. After all, if you've got people telling you that you're the next great evolution of the human condition, doesn't that mean you're above *human* rules too?
So the angle I'm exploring is really what it would take for a fledgling society with supers to screw up and establish the ideal environment to create supervillains.
As for the visible element, with the Firster movement being a carefully crafted tool of Ai's, any supers they recruit will be publicly held up as heroes of Humanity. So they'll get a lot of the early publicity. This will make Supers seem to be siding with the Firsters. Obviously, they don't expect supers to side with the boomers, but this is because Ai and Baty have a bit of a psychological blind spot, given their upbringing and personal outlook.
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Something else that I like about Ai and Baty's blind spot is that it's the same blind spot Sylia had before Doug showed up. She didn't see boomers as *people*. Just bastard creations of her father, and thus, not deserving of being given a fair shake. This blind spot is what's going to be their downfall in the end, which is pretty much what Doug warned Sylia would happen if she didn't realize it and become a better person.
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Okay. Ch. 7 is first-pass complete. Just tidying it up and looking for anything that looks weak. This one is the longest yet, about 30k larger than the last one.
Many thanks to Bob for graciously agreeing to proofread the chapter. Having a second set of eyes on the document is much appreciated!
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Okay, Necratoid's comment about the evolution of supers in the world has made me think, and that brought out *this* little snippet. It might show up in chapter 8 somewhere, but I'm not sure where, yet.
******************
New York, (undetermined night)
It was late, and the store alarm was shrieking.
The man across the street sat in the dark alleyway, watching events play
out. He'd seen this a few times before. People with these new "powers"
he'd been hearing about would get cocky, get into fights, break into
stores, and sometimes steal stuff.
It wasn't all one-sided. Sometimes they ran into others who fought back.
To the guy in the alley, it was all too familiar. Something he'd been
trained in, back in the day. An old pattern repeating itself because no
one was bright enough to see it for what it was.
"Well, I'm done with all that shit," he muttered, deliberately turning
away from the kids stealing from the electronics store.
"Hey!"
The man in the dark looked around, to see if they were calling out to
him. Instead, he saw a curious thing. Three kids were facing off against
the larger gang. They wore improvised costumes, much to the gang's
merriment.
"Look what we got here, people! 'Heroes'!" The gang leader swaggered
over to the trio. "And whatcha gonna do about it, eh?" He whipped out a
knife and flicked it around threateningly.
"Well," the first kid said, making the man in the alleyway perk up. That
voice sounded too high-pitched to be a boy's. The girl made a flicking
gesture, causing the tough's knife to fly out of his hands and skitter
off down the nearby alleyway. "I thought I'd start with that. And maybe
follow it up with *this*!"
Her punch showed elements of martial arts training. The impact strength
was all out of proportion for what the man in the alleyway was seeing,
when the tough flew back to crash into the display window and drop to
the ground with an exclamation of pain.
"That's... IT!" The tough stood up, coughing, as his gang rallied around
him. "Put them down!"
The gang pulled knives, sticks, and a couple baseball bats. The girl
didn't wait, but attacked first. She was a whirling dervish, striking,
fading back, and smashing feet and fists into people. And every time she
did, they flew back like a much larger person had struck them.
The other two weren't holding back, either. The smallest of the trio
made a waving gesture out to either side with his hands, then, suddenly
pushed them *up* in a commanding gesture. Three of the toughs behind
those attacking the girl suddenly flew up into the air, flying in a
graceful arc back into the alleyway behind them before landing in the
trash littering the darkened spaces beyond.
The man in the alleyway laughed at that. It was a rusty-sounding laugh,
of someone who hadn't known a lot of humor in his recent life. He felt a
grin spreading on his face when he saw what the third of the trio did.
As the gang reorganized, the trio of kids took a firmer stance opposing
the looters. "Give it up," the girl called out. "You lose."
One of the gang pulled out a gun. "No, I don't," he grinned. "Guns beat
everything." He pointed it at them, and pulled the trigger.
As he did, the third member of the trio held his hands out, in what the
man in the alleyway thought might be surrender. But instead, the bullets
sparked off of a field effect between the two sides. The tough on the
other side blinked, squeezed off a few more bullets, and snarled when
the girl made a yanking motion, causing the gun to fly back into the
burning building.
"Ouch," the man said softly. "Not a decision I'd have made. Once those
bullets cook off, you don't know where they'll go. Hopefully they'll
just wreck the gun."
The gang, their morale badly shaken, began to run away. One of them
however, stayed behind. He was a much bigger man, and he grinned nastily
as he suddenly grew half a foot. His skin thickened to something like
armor plate, and he settled himself like a football linebacker, two
knuckles on the pavement right before he charged with a roar.
The kids scattered. The girl clearly tried to swing at him a few times,
but he never even felt the impacts as he slammed into the force field.
The blow knocked the kid generating the field back, as the gang member
turned on the one who'd been tossing people around.
The man in the alleyway found himself standing at that, but paused as
the urge to intervene fought his self-preservation. "What can *I* do,"
he said with a quiet but deeply felt bitterness.
The trio dashed around the armored linebacker as he charged again.
Instead of running away, they were still trying to come up with a
solution that took him down. And in the darkness, the man could see the
rest of the gang was regaining their nerve, edging back to the fight.
"Crap. This goes on, they'll swarm the kids. I gotta..."
He stopped again, looking at his hand. The blued steel of his artificial
hand had gripped the corner of the building he'd been hiding behind, and
partially crumbled the brick. The red and black plaid jacket he'd been
wearing did little to disguise his true nature when he wasn't trying to
hide himself.
-What can *I* do?- His mind skittered like a car on ice as unfamiliar
thoughts chased themselves around in his head. -I have no powers. I'm
just a *thing*. I can't help anyone.-
He watched the massive thug chasing the kids around while the gang edged
closer to the fight, and felt something ignite within him. Far different
from the combat frenzy he'd felt so often in the past, this somehow
felt... purer. *Cleaner*.
The thug grinned, and set himself again while the kids were trying to
find a way to deal with him. The one who controlled winds might be a
threat if they ever got him off the ground, but keeping him off-balance
was easy. Charging again, he dashed toward the kid, hoping to knock him
into the far wall.
A dark shape interposed itself between him and the kid, and he had a
moment's shock before a fist the size of his face smashed into his chin,
knocking him clear back into the burning tv store.
The trio looked over at their mystery man, taking in his felt plaid
jacket, old dungarees, and beaten up old shoes as the thug inside the
store roared with anger.
"Get out of the way kids," the man's deep voice said with confidence.
"I've got this."
The thug roared, charging out of the store with his shirt on fire. The
man didn't waver, and didn't get out of the way. He just set himself
where he stood, and threw even more of himself into his next punch.
The impact staggered the charging thug, stopping him mid-charge and
knocking him back. The second punch slammed into his armored gut,
causing the mutant tough to fold over, the wind wheezing out of him. The
final blow slammed one-handed into the back of his head, dropping him to
the pavement, unconscious.
The trio watched in awe as the gang fled, leaving their erstwhile
enforcer lying on the sidewalk, his breath bubbling through his bleeding
nose.
Their rescuer hefted the thug, who had reverted to his normal look, and
propped him up on a nearby building. He looked up when he heard sirens.
"Take care, kids," he said with a wave. "I gotta go."
"Wait!"
The man paused and looked around as the girl walked up to him. Behind
him, the one who controlled wind was somehow putting the fire out.
-Handy trick, that,- he thought as he looked back at her.
"Look, Miss. I *really* gotta go. I don't want no trouble with the
cops." He paused as a familiar pain settled somewhere in his gut, for no
reason he'd ever understood. "You.." He shook his head. "You wouldn't
get it."
"Is it because you're a boomer?"
The man blinked, looking down at her as she pushed up his sleeve,
revealing the blued Abotex battle armor. "It doesn't bother me," she
said, with a smile. "You saved us. And it's not your fault other people
don't get it."
The man paused, pulling down the hood, and revealing his face. "The cops
see *this*," he said, pointing with his other hand, "They'll just open
fire. To them, I'm not a person. I'm just some renegade 55C they have to
shut down. And I don't wanna put my life in the hands of some paper
pusher who might not care."
The older of the two boys stepped over, with a grin on his face. "Then
come with us! I know a place you could hide out. Okay," he said with a
shrug, "It ain't no Hilton, but it's gotta be better than the alleys,
right?"
The boy with the wind control also stepped over, looking over his
shoulder and judging the distance of the flashing lights. "We don't have
a lot of time, guys. But I'm in with them," he said, gesturing to the
other two. "We've got a lot covered, but that big guy was all over us.
Help us out, and maybe we can be a real super team. I'd like to try,
anyway."
The man thought about it for about a half-second. -It beats running for
my whole life,- he mused. -And it feels a *damn* sight better than how I
felt this morning.-
"All right," he said, glancing up at the approaching vehicles. "We have
about twenty three seconds before they're too close to evade. I hope you
have a plan for getting out of here."
The girl grinned and darted down another alleyway. "We've done this
before, c'mon!"
The man lumbered after them, darting down two alleyways and a switchback
before finally making his way through an old door linking into an
abandoned basement which fronted on part of the old storm drainage
system. They moved a ways down the drainage pipes, listening to the cars
drive by, until the sounds of police faded into the background.
"So," the girl said a few mintes later. "I'm Sandra. This is Kevin," she
said, pointing at the boy with the wind powers. "And the shield
generator over there is David." She looked up at the fourth member of
their team. "What's your name?"
The man blinked and looked uncertain. "Ah... I've never needed one. And
I hate being called by a number."
The girl grinned as the others eased the door open, and started to
backtrack out of their hiding place. "Then we'll have to come up with
one!"
Somewhat dubiously, the boomer followed the kids out of the storm drain
and back out into the alleyway, while they debated the pros and cons of
his new name.
*******************
Ideas?
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
Does 'more please' count as an idea?
I like it.
The only thing that confused me at first is that I wasn't able to figure out if the three kids or the larger gang is the one breaking into the store.
This was cleared up once the pre-fight banter happened, but it was still a little confusing.
If you mention (roughly) the number of gang members there are when the boomer first notices them, it would prevent the confusion.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
If you're soliciting ideas for a name, I vote for either "Jet" (after the owner of the Bebop and Spike's partner-in-crime from Cowboy Bebop), or something double-take-inducing like "Melvin" or "Benny" (the latter after the… peculiar male lead in the movie Benny and Joon).
If you're asking for general criticism, then all I can do is echo Sweno on all points.
Depending on how familiar the kids are with late 20th comicbooks, maybe Tony (as in Stark, their new friend is an 'iron man' of sorts) 8)
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
Simon -- For the Vision
Ben -- for the Thing
Hmmm.
Anthony, Alexander... something "pretentious and literary" or "Deep meaningful name" y'know? Especially if the kids come up with it.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
The first thing that comes to mind is "Poor, poor Leon". Why? Well Leon is a still unmodded human that managed to last a decade of front line combat with everything from cyberpsychotic boomeriods to full on modern combat boomers... with substandard government issue gear. Worse he has no real hate of any race and can ignore origin of birth issues. In short... Leon is civil servant Batman... and the soon to be panicing government knows it.
I expect the first obvious suggestion he will make is to have the previously existent group of cops nominally trained for dealing with this abnormal crap to advertise to hire from the newly empowered group. In short the government will panic and Leon will give the media member that asks him first will be given a flat stare and told that the solution already exists. The doses are spread around Megatokyo... so are the ADP. Also at some point someone makes a comment about how soon they should expect Megatokyo's first Kaiju attack... only for Leon to point out Largo already tried that.
I'm not sure that you realize that cartoonish levels of super villainy are not really driven by logic and material needs so much as 'ME! GLORIOUS ME!' and 'Because its fun! Duh'. Remember that most of the CLoSV are from the high rankers in Genome hired by Quincy. They were raised in their profession for the sole purpose of commiting acts of CLoSV in order to get the universe to call Epic Levels of Bovine Excrement on them and do something about it. While it makes sense to make money off your powers... its more fun be Dr. Evil and run your legit stuff so you can pull the CLoSV acts as a hobby.
I mean Yoshida was given a brain upgrade as a sign on bonus and gets some else to fund his revenge... then plays the part of the five year old and points out that it makes more sense to give people who want the powers and side with them the chance at powers. The timing was also stupid on their part... if the had waited for the race war to kick off and then released the powers as a weapon of the Firsters' religious movement you could control things to your end. By making it apparently random you've half defused the war before it starts. I mean what part of the xenophobia and reactionism of the Firsters' movement is going to want to be led by random genetic mutants? Can you say secondary targets of the Firsters? Of course you can.
As for the smart/genre savvy villian in the series, Yoshida, I'm totally expecting him to respond to his employers confusion on how thing went so horrible wrong with their plans by e-mailing them a 200 odd page, thesis quality document explaining the blinding obvious holes in their plans. Then use his exscape pods and/or secret tunnels to escape... possibly leaving behind a Yoshida shaped robot. One with one of those Wily type, stupidly long, spring necks (that extends when captured) for the sole purpose of confusing them. Silly, but I can see him pulling this for Evilulz.