Newest Eyrie

[Shay Guy]

Yeah, I know, it's just...UF is already the unchallenged champion of the mega crossover. It's already jam-packed with so many nods and shout-outs and homages you can't swing a cat without hitting one. Hell, it even already had a Sailor Moon character, so this doesn't increase the source number.

So what's the big deal about Makoto Kino showing up? Hell, what was the point of it? Making it easier for readers to visualize the character? Making it easier for the authors to write her, saving them the trouble of making up a name and appearance? Is The Antianeira Incident, or future stories using Kilovolt, in any way a better story for it?

I guess at some point, I just wonder how the story benefits from having everything thrown in that possibly could be. :/

---

Pronounced "shy guy."

[Berk]

The answer to 'Why?' is 'Why Not?'
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead

[Bob Schroeck]

Rule of Cool. Just... Rule of Cool.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Shay Guy]

I thought current policy was to discourage that?Yeah, maybe I'd find it cooler if I were familiar with more of the source series. And if I'd ever finished the Core. (Though I have had a thought nagging at me, wondering if space opera is really well-suited to the text format...)Another thought. UF has dozens of sources contributing to its setting, but some of these are more key than others. So what's most fundamental? Far as I can tell from the wiki and what I've read, it's most fundamentally a (highly extensible) Star Wars/Star Trek/Dirty Pair/Bubblegum Crisis/Babylon 5/Revolutionary Girl Utena/Ah My Goddess/Doctor Who/Transformers/Giant Robo crossover, with a heaping spoonful of self-and-friend-insertion on top. Or maybe underneath. Probably way off, but those are my preliminary top ten. (Not even sure DP should be in there...)

---

Pronounced "shy guy."

[Wiregeek]

You should start from the beginning of the chronological order
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sweno]

Dirty Pair should be there, it was part of the core series.

I have introduced several people to the series with Symphony of the Sword.

It is well written, fairly self contained, and serves as a good hook for the rest of the series.

Once they get addicted I can say "It all started with this, but be warned: there have been vast improvements over the years, and there will be parts you
don't like. But stick with it because it is great. And you will thank me when it's over."*

But tossing the core stories at someone from the get-go? I know I wouldn't have finished reading them if I ran across those stories nowadays.

I've become far too jaded against Self Inserts of that caliber (Now With Concentrated Cool!).

One of my friends (who I see in person about twice a year) waited until our next meetup to smack me on the back of the head for introducing him to the series.
He was mad (in a good way) that I had introduced him to something that re-ignited his interest in a slew of anime/manga.

I'm just hoping that they will (someday) get around to doing a Core 2.0. Because I know that with as much experience as they have now, a much more elegant
job could be done.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[OpMegs]

Shay Guy wrote:

---

So what's the big deal about Makoto Kino showing up? Hell, what was the point of it? Making it easier for readers to visualize the character?
Making it easier for the authors to write her, saving them the trouble of making up a name and appearance? Is The Antianeira Incident, or future stories
using Kilovolt, in any way a better story for it?




I guess at some point, I just wonder how the story benefits from having everything thrown in that possibly could be. :/

Given Geoff's SI's run a fairly consistent plotline since his introduction, with distinct elements, it's possible that it's a
setup for something later. Examples include the Red Skull plotline slowly gaining momentum, and Geoff's training with the Ignatine(incidentally, the
concept of Revy from Black Lagoon having ANY experience with the warrior monks is enough to send me belly-laughing for a good long while). That, coupled with
Steve Rogers' request that Geoff start rounding up members for this new incarnation of the Invaders, greatly increases the concept that Makoto will
reappear, and will have more than just a shout out status.

And even if she's not used later on by another author, she's in the 'verse now, and another of UF's
numerous contributors may, in fact, utilize her.

Blades introduced us to Sith Knight Rei(as well as UF's counterparts of Shinji and Asuka, IIRC) and we've slowly but surely been seeing the progression
involved there in Warriors of the Outer Rim. Just because something comes completely out of left field in one story doesn't mean it won't be explained
ever again.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Shay Guy]

sweno wrote:

---

Dirty Pair should be there, it was part of the core series.

I listed it already. Not sure how significant a part of the setting it is aside from Kei and Yuri, but yeah.

I have introduced several people to the series with Symphony of the Sword.


It is well written, fairly self contained, and serves as a good hook for the rest of the series.

I tried starting SotS. Still had trouble getting into it. Maybe I should wait until I've seen Utena, I'm already planning to do that
before reading the second volume of Hybrid Theory anyway.

But tossing the core stories at someone from the get-go? I know I wouldn't have finished reading them if I ran across those stories nowadays.


I've become far too jaded against Self Inserts of that caliber (Now With Concentrated Cool!).

I think part of the problem is that the Core page
explicitly says "They should be read first if this is your first visit to the UF universe."

I'm just hoping that they will (someday) get around to doing a Core 2.0. Because I know that with as much experience as they have now, a much more
elegant job could be done.

Huh. I'd thought the same thing. Well, the 20th anniversary is coming up in three years...

OpMegs wrote:

---

Given Geoff's SI's run a fairly consistent plotline since his introduction, with distinct elements, it's possible that it's a setup for
something later. Examples include the Red Skull plotline slowly gaining momentum, and Geoff's training with the Ignatine(incidentally, the concept of
Revy from Black Lagoon having ANY experience with the warrior monks is enough to send me belly-laughing for a good long while). That, coupled with Steve
Rogers' request that Geoff start rounding up members for this new incarnation of the Invaders, greatly increases the concept that Makoto will reappear,
and will have more than just a shout out status.




And even if she's not used later on by another author, she's in the 'verse now, and another of UF's
numerous contributors may, in fact, utilize her.




Blades introduced us to Sith Knight Rei(as well as UF's counterparts of Shinji and Asuka, IIRC) and we've slowly but surely been seeing the
progression involved there in Warriors of the Outer Rim. Just because something comes completely out of left field in one story doesn't mean it won't
be explained ever again.

Okay, okay. So...how is this any different from if Kilovolt was a completely original character?

---

Pronounced "shy guy."

[Morganite]

I'm not sure Dirty Pair *is* that significant a part of the setting, aside from Kei and Yuri.

Seeing MKR wouldn't hurt either, but probably isn't as important. But since SotS is sort of like a continuation of RGU... yeah, that'd help.

I think part of the problem is that the Core page explicitly says "They should be read first if this is your first visit to the UF universe."

I'm pretty sure that was put there before SotS was even started. A lot of the stuff that's been written since then stands on it's own better, but the prior stuff I think tends to assume knowledge of the events in Core.

Okay, okay. So...how is this any different from if Kilovolt was a completely original character?

That's the tricky part. We don't know.

Some references in UF are there just for perceived awesomeness factor, and because people enjoy it when they spot a reference. Others times, what looks like a side reference turns out to be a prelude to a more significant use of that source. (It's hard to give examples of this, because they'd be spoilers for later SotS developments... o.O )

And at this point, it's way too early to tell what's going to happen with this particular one.

-Morgan.

[s3yang]

(incidentally, the concept of Revy from Black Lagoon having ANY experience with the warrior monks is enough to send me belly-laughing for a good long while).

Well, in the manga, (and character-wise, those particular characters seem pretty close to source), it's heavily implied that Revy was taught
the 2 guns thing by Boss Chan. And he _does_ seem somewhat more the type.

[zojojojo]

at this point, probably the single biggest part of the EPU is star wars, what with all the jedi running around and all... what makes it interesting, is their
ability to take the backstory for a character (like, say, dorothy) and smoothly blend it into the existing framework without changing whatever it is that makes
that character interesting in the first place... and then logically evolving that character to a new and interesting place.

in the end,it doesn't matter if you know the backstory of any given character or not... if you know it, great, you know a little more of their history and
you get a few more jokes; if you don't, then it's just another character.
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[OpMegs]

s3yang wrote:

---

(incidentally, the concept of Revy from Black Lagoon having ANY experience with the warrior monks is enough to send me belly-laughing for a good long
while).

Well, in the manga, (and character-wise, those particular characters seem pretty close to source), it's heavily implied that Revy was taught
the 2 guns thing by Boss Chan. And he _does_ seem somewhat more the type.

Hmm, yeah. I forgot about Chang. And given Geoff as a big example, the Ignatine don't seem to hold TOO much onto their former students. And
given the text notably mentions that it shows traces of Ignatine, Chang may have taken the basics and developed his own entire style from those, to the point
that you don't have any Ignatine clerics coming around to "clean up a mess they created", as Chang isn't a loose cannon from their order.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[mephron]

Shay Guy wrote:

---

Help me out here, my UF-fu (hey, palindrome!) is weak. Exactly what is the significance of this Kilovolt character presumably being an import of Sailor
Jupiter?

Normally I don't do this kind of thing, but this time I think I need to clarify...

There is/was some stuff going on in the background, a new series, called 'GweepCo: The Animated Series'. A lot of the Bacon Comics Universe references
is based on that. In that universe, the Sailor Moon characters did, in fact, exist, but stopped working together after a Bad Incident. (which happened Before
Present Day). In that, Sailor Jupiter went into independant crimefighting as Kilovolt.

I borrowed that incarnation when Gryph and I were talking and we decided that, after all the violence, a relatively NON-violent confrontation with a Big Fire
cell would be a pretty cool addition.

She will show up again, almost certainly in the Invaders, but I had to follow Chekov's Law and put the gun on the mantlepiece. There's
stuff I plan to come back to at some point, but I lack enough Preparation H to just pull it out of my ass at that moment, and sometimes a flashback really
messes with the narrative flow.

So yes, it may seem gratuitious now, but as one of our lines goes, "I had to tell you THIS story so I could tell you THAT story."Brazil has decided you're cute.

[Star Ranger4]

New FI short story in the Mini stories forum, Get Carter
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Rod.H]

Hmm, not really fussed by the by, as when a character is yanked into UF they end up better then the source.

Still the thought that Jeremy Clarkson is running around the UFverse with his assistant The Stig is enough to boggle anyone's mind.

Heh, I must remember to re-register on the EPU Forums someday, but as Chad comes here I'll put the question on the table; As upgrading aircraft
(particularly fighters) into aerospacecraft seems to be of current interest, has anyone though of making a spaceworthy Harrier Jump Jet.

--Rod.H

[Norgarth]

Not sure what the point in updating a Harrier would be, any repulsor equipped craft is capable of VTOL/hovering, which was basicly the jumpjet's claim to
fame.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[ECSNorway]

It's also, I'm told, capable of some interesting maneuvers not available to ordinary aircraft, thanks to its vectored-thrust setup; this could lead to
an interesting bit of combat usefulness.

If most space fighters in UF'verse fly like Star Wars fighters (IE, like atmospheric craft), and a Harrier can zip itself around like a Starfury...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[mephron]

Chad? Chad doesn't come here. I'm Geoff.

As far as that kind of thing is concerned, I have no idea. However, most current fightercraft in the UF universe either have something like that already or are
not rigged for landings in-atmosphere. (The TIE series, for example, isn't really good at that, although I'm sure Gen. Tangril may have some ideas.)Brazil has decided you're cute.

[Acyl]

In the expanded universe Star Wars novels, particularly the X-Wing (and related) books by Stackpole and Allston...pilots do crazy vector tricks with tractor
beams and repulsorlifts, turning on the proverbial dime or whipping around in ways that typical aircraft wouldn't be capable of. But at least in those
books, it seems that kind of thing is unconventional. The implication seems to be most pilots aren't that creative or skilled enough for WTF Throttle
Tricks - most pilots still think in linear terms. Or maybe they're too caught up in one paradigm or another...a pilot who trained in a planet's
atmosphere performing poorly in space, or a TIE pilot ripping the wings off his fighter trying to pull a turn against air resistance. Or whatever.

Of course, that's just one way to look at it. It's consistent logic, I suppose. 'course, I'm also told by aviation fan friends that the
expanded universe X-Wing books give an absolutely horrible depiction of fighter tactics anyway, so...
-- Acyl

[Rod.H]

Chad? Chad doesn't come here. I'm Geoff.

Well, I knew it was one of you. It just escaped me on just which one, and out of the Allucard alike AA or the Kilrathi AA, I grabbed the Kilrathi.

As far as that kind of thing is concerned, I have no idea. However, most current fightercraft in the UF universe either have something like that already or are not rigged for landings in-atmosphere. (The TIE series, for example, isn't really good at that, although I'm sure Gen. Tangril may have some ideas.)

True there are the Veritech-based craft, but they need space to transform (or a damn good pilot), so they can take off vertically. TIEs can't do that, X-wings might be able to if on a near-vertical pad. All of the currently known Retrotech craft need a runway.

Repulsorlifts....don't they need a nearby surface to function?

Also I think the only aerospace fighters in UF that can truly do radical vector changes are as follows: Veritech-based ones(VF-1, VF-2, VF-4 etc), Starfury, Colonial Vipers (with main thrust at idle, RCS direction change, throttles firewalled), SF-22 or anything odd thought up for pure asteroid racing.

--Rod.H
"Right, time for a drag race. The Stig will be driving the 21st centuries most powerful production car - the Bugatti Veyron, I'm driving the new Tesla Quantum and we're both up against the Autobot, Outrun!"

[HoagieOfDoom]

Rod H wrote:


Repulsorlifts....don't they need a nearby surface to function?

As far as canon Star Wars technology is concerned repulsorlifts do require some kind of surface, but the range on mil-grade repulsorlifts is
enormous. I seem to remember that the ones equipped onto certain capital ships and transports are capable of bringing the ship from ground to orbit.

[Epsilon]

You know those aircars in Cloud City in Episode V?

Repulsorlifts.

On a gas giant.

"Repulsorlifts only worked within a gravity well, as the technology required mass to push against. For a typical habitable planet such as Alderaan,
"antigrav range" was approximately six planetary diameters, or around seventy-five thousand kilometers."

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

Epsilon

[Matrix Dragon]

And now we've got a rather nice Christmas mini-story.

http://www.eyrie-producti...-docs/DCForumID24/58.html

[Star Ranger4]

Two, actually. G Just added a second.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Matrix Dragon]

Indeed he did. A story I never expected at that.

http://www.eyrie-producti...-docs/DCForumID24/59.html