The Ideas Topic

*Crosses arms, closes eyes, and nods solemnly* Yes, hitting him with a crowbar is much more cost-efficient than pumping him with drugs. Good thinking, KH. ...Wait, dammit, what was the nickname we gave to you...? Ack, you'd think I'd remember eternally branding you with a name you never asked for! Ah, right, it was George. Good thinking, George!

On the subject of Fallout... I'm not interested. I don't recommend making an RP like that unless you get more interest... While two-man RPs can flourish, and in my experience it has happened - MORE THAN ONCE, mind you - it's not the best idea unless you've really thought it out, and the other participant has already written an appropriate character and gotten used to writing them.

So, in short: I don't like the idea, and you should get more people who are interested first. Preferably people with already-existing characters who are suited for it, if the number of people turns out to be less than five.

I personally don't care, and probably wouldn't bother. Also, Nebula, it was Washington. Wrong part of the President.

Escape the Island: The Resistance

In an island nation, the minority is being repressed to the point where they are fenced into a small section of the island, with run down buildings, and given the scraps from the rest of society. Guards are placed in watch towers, anklets are placed on every member of the minority-basically the chance of escape is slim to none.

There is a small group known simply as "The Resistance." They use what they have to build up an escape attempt. Using IEDs and everything from 2X4s with nails to hand made broad swords. No special powers, no secret skills, everyone (even the enemy) are normal human beings, but the enemy has the higher tech weapons.

The character classes would need some developing, but I just thought I'd pitch this to you guys.

Aesoth wrote:I was discussing something with Admin today so I decided to post something about it. What would you guys think about starting a Fallout RP?

I'm in.

I'm working on a FF7ish story. there is an alternate Shinra.

So there's this guy, Zeke Winters. He was digitally created by Shinra to be the ultimate soldier, even surpassing Sephiroth.

...

BLARGH. I'll add more when I havea more solid idea. Maybe a rough draft.

How 'bout the tone? Would it be grittier? More... "realisti-" PFHAAHA, I can't even say it. It's FFVII. Well, will it be down to FF levels of realism, as opposed to KH? And is this soldier supposed to be a good guy, or bad? And, for the record, I doubt they'd succeed in making a soldier to surpass Sephiroth. They tried making EQUALS to him and failed miserably.

I imagine that, with a few more details, it'll make sense though, so I'll reserve my judgement for when I hear the whole thing. Because, you know, my judgement is SO absolutely final and critical, because it TOTALLY doesn't change over time, and has SUCH an important bearing on everything.
...
Rexial: Are you trying to be sarcastic? You're doing it wrong. You have to make sure you don't sound remotely serious.

Shut up, you're a figment of my imagination. You don't get a say in this.

Well, I'm thinking about Shinra being worse, but with a really good disguise. Maybe Zeke gets glitched and finds out that they're terrible? I DO know that they will have made him without emotion.

In chapter one, he will start feeling emotions, which will affect his system.

Some specs on Zeke:

Has a red muscular armor system, and a red VR helmet connected to his neurosystem.

The highly advanced helmet is capable of...

Giving Zeke mission orders

Running VR missions

And basically anything a high powered computer/ Occulus can do.

*Shakes head* In all honesty, I can't give an accurate judgement, since I haven't played Crisis Core, or hell, any of the spinoffs! Just the original FFVII.

Actually, Shinra DOES have a good cover, it's just that when there's a giant slum that exists because of them, it's pretty hard to maintain it. Some of the slum dwellers, I recall, still like Shinra, even if they are all pissed at the whole slum thing. And that's ignoring the UPPER part of Midgar. You know, the part you barely see any of? I think they've got great publicity already, considering. To make it any better, you'd have to convince the MAJORITY of the people that they're not bad, and that would require convincing the slum-dwellers that it's not Shinra's fault their home is a hellhole.

Please, explain to me how this clone-robot-replica-whatever starts feeling emotion. It's one thing that bothers me about this kind of thing, there's no way to copy human emotion. You can copy the reactions people would have, but you can't copy the emotion itself.

If he's a clone or a replica, that's fine, he'd possess some of it, and to get rid of it, it would just have to be suppressed. But if he's a robot of some description, it's impossible.

Also, the original Sephiroth was cool. Genesis was pretty good as well. The clone-robot-replicas of them, though... *headshake*

...now I want a milkshake.

Milkshake? ...Wow, that sparked more thought in my head than I thought. As in, it made me wonder if any of the Tales games let you make a milkshake. I mean, there's a Cooking aspect, but I haven't seen a Milkshake as a cookable item. Of course, I haven't even finished Tales of Symphona 2, and I haven't even BEGUN Tales of the Abyss. It seems strangely plausible to have a milkshake in the game.


...Yeah, Haar makes a valid point. Until you bring Mega Man X into the equation, but Shinra doesn't have Doctor Thomas Mother****ing Light working for them, so they're **** outta luck. Thing is, what happens when you apply KH logic to it? I imagine that an artificial sentience could gain emotional capacity, but only if other peoples' hearts reached out to it. Basically, the only way it would work is if somebody very persistently and genuinely tried to befriend it.

And that means that if it's not running on KH logic, IT WON'T WORK. Which is bad, because FFVII doesn't run on KH logic. However... if the sentience were hooked up to the Lifestream, it would either explode, snap completely, or - very unlikely and impractical - acquire the memories that are a part of the Lifestream.

As revealed by the Ultimania, in FFVII, the whole "the planet's gonna run out of life force eventually and die; even if Shinra stops being a d*ck" thing is wrong. You see, when a person dies, they return to the Lifestream, carrying their memories with them. These memories actually act as energy, as well. The Lifestream slowly grows stronger as time passes, and Shinra's just making things bad locally, and pissing off the Planet. In addition, you know how, upon mastering a Materia, it splits off? It's effectively charging it up with enough memories/experience that it creates MORE mako/Materia.

The point I intend to make is that Shinra, if they were really brilliant, would figure it out, and figure out a way to hook up their artificial life form thing to the Lifestream and give it some memories, hopefully without making it explode from the sheer mass of information and emotion. HOWEVER. If they were that smart, they would probably ease up on the whole Mako thing enough that it wouldn't kill the Planet eventually, just stay in equilibrium.

Long story short, there's a ton of paradoxes involved with the whole idea.

Also, yeah, making an OC who's deliberately stronger than Sephy in an FFVII story, alternate universe or not, is a bad idea. Narratively speaking.

Except, that clone-replica-robot-Seph wasn't really that strong. 99 megalixirs through the W-Item glitch. Used none of them. No level grinding, ever. But that's off-subject. Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth is just kind of a b*tch no matter what way you look at it.

Also, it's Cooking. You can't cook a milkshake...Y'know what? I'm gonna make myself a milkshake.

Oh, BTW, in Abyss, the cooking does something completely different, it restores your stats after battle or similar things. Just something I think is noteworth.

Now, milkshake time.

ALL MY MILKSHAKES BRING OLD GUYS TO THE YARD... And, well... it's uh, pretty creepy. >.>

...Either way, I had a milkshake, and it was good.

If anyone has seen the FMA episode where Edward rattles off the componets to make a human... It's kinda like that, but it's mainly synthesis and coding.

Doc, that's the FIRST EPISODE. In the original. In Brotherhood, I think it's the second. And FMA may be the WORST thing to bring up in this argument. Remember, in FMA, trying to do that never ended well. Trying to resurrect a dead person? Unspeakable horrors. Making a Homonculus required that a part of the maker be put into each one, I'm pretty sure, and in the form of a Philosopher's Stone. It's a bad idea to bring up FMA when we're discussing this.

Think about it in terms of how FFVII works, as the story is meant to be alternate-FFVII, right? Trying to approach it from a different angle will only work if it's a particularly similar angle; something with a strikingly similar tone and theme, but perhaps exploring the areas that FFVII doesn't clarify. That sort of thing.

Basically, work within your limitations, or else it won't work. Introducing FMA or KH logic into this won't work. After all, there's no alchemy in FFVII, and if there is, it doesn't work the same.

Prolouge Chapter 1, rough draft.

Prolouge

Virtualization.

Zeke Winters, a man with… well, his features are unknown for now. Anyway, Zeke Winters, a 16 year old young man, only remembers a bright light, and the past three days. Today, the fourth day, will be the plunge into the unknown.
Chapter 1:

Zeke woke up, and saw a blue face with a pixelated smile, which said, “Hello, Zeke! Ready to go to school?” Zeke sighed, and his medium voice rang out, “Do I have to?”
“Yes! Besides, it could be fun!” The emoticon then turned into a rather… pervy face. “Aaand, you might just make a few lady friends.”
“Didge, shut up.”
“Never!”

“Close Didge.” With a swipe of his hand, the emoticon was gone. He smiled and said,”Open Pandora. Also, run Shinra Communication System.” A plethora of hard rock began to flow into Zeke’s ears. His system began to tint yellow and overclock. All of a sudden, Scarlet was talking to Zeke, faster than he could comprehend. Zeke chuckled, “Slow down, damn.”
“Get your emotions in check.”
“Huh?”
“You felt happiness.”
“Hapei—Ha—“
“Happiness” Scarlet helped the young man finish the word. “Happiness is… Well, it’s the good type of anxiety. Alright, you need to go to your bus stop. I’m sending the data to you. Run your GPS app.”

Zeke then ran the Locan, the GPS app, and a red trail appeared. Zeke followed it, and saw a sign that said “7th Heaven Bar”... And saw a girl around his age with green hair and a black diamond covering where her right eye would be. He knew they were the “emo” or “scene” kids, but damn was she beautiful. She was 5’7, a little bit pale, but it didn’t really matter. And he felt bad (not that he knew what that was), but she had nice boobs, which were big, but not too big.. And her ass wasn’t that bad. She was wearing an All Time Low T-shirt

Zeke’s system tinted yellow-reddish this time. Scarlet sighed, and popped up on Zeke’s system. “Forgot to mention, your code name is Horizon... Woah, woah, woah! What the flying hell are you doing?” She saw Zeke taking off his purple AR helmet, and his armor began to melt into a square formation, revealing his face. He was 5’11, had sky blue Mako eyes, naturally spiked black hair, and on his slightly pale body were black jeans, a white T-shirt with a black Linkin Park logo, and black Converses.
“Looking like a normal person.”
“Put your armor back on NOW!”
“Bye, Scarlet. Close Shinra Communication System.”
“Damnit, Hor—“ Scarlet was cut short. What was Zeke going to do now? He really didn’t know what to say. He walked up to the girl, and immediately started shaking. He internally facepalmed. The girl said,”You ok?”
“Y-yeah. Just a bit… uh…” Zeke felt like a total idiot.
“Nervous?” Her medium high voice, which sounded rather mature for her age, yet quiet, rang out clear.
“Yeah. I-I’m Zeke.”
“I’m Ave. And no need to be nervous…” She paused. “I heard you talking to someone from Shinra.”
“Yeah….”
“You DO know that they’re slowly destroying the Planet?”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. They’re using the Lifestream as a source of power, and it’s slowly killing us all.”
“The Lifewuh?”
“The Lifestream. It’s where we come from. All of our memories, our ancestors… Even us, all came from there.”
“I was coded by Shinra.”
“…Damnit, they’re ahead again.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m with AVALANCHE, an Anti-Shinra movement. Shinra uses Mako, the liquid form of the Lifestream, as an energy source. They’re technologically ahead of us… Listen, you obviously don’t know much about emotions and other things, so stick with me, ok?”
“Ok.”
Ave then saw the bus coming. “Bus’ here. C’mon.” The two then got on the mentioned vehicle.


---
I do know there is a bit too much talking. I may make it into script format.

Okay, I don't have any problems, per se, with Zeke. Ave, I'm a little less sure of. In casual conversation, people don't tend to go off like that. Usually, the only place I'd see that is maybe at a mall with the environmentalist crowd handing out brochures that tell you to fart less often as a method of keeping Methane out of the atmosphere. I don't really think anyone with an ounce of intelligence would tell someone affiliated with Shinra that they're with AVALANCHE, either...All in all, she comes off as kind of an idiot, so unless that's what you're going for, I recommend changing some stuff around.

Aside from that and a couple of spelling errors, it doesn't look too bad, but try to describe the setting more. Judging from the existance of AVALANCHE, I'm guessing this is taking place in the slums of Midgar, but it's really not totally clear. Also, if Zeke is wearing armor, you should probably describe that in the beginning, rather than just "his features are unknown for now"

That's really all I have to say. It's kinda natural for exposition to have a lot of dialogue, so don't worry about that too much, although, like I said, I'd recommend reworking that so that Ave doesn't come off as a naive idiot.

Well Zeke TECHINALLY is a blank slate. He just found out about happiness, and where to go. He really doesn't know better.

I have some plot down.

-At school, there's going to be some sort of nuisance monster, Zeke can easily take them down, yada yada yada- filler.
-Some SOLDIER 1st class members try to "kill" Ave. Zeke and Ave take them down.
-Normal school day
-Time passes by/ filler
-Scarlett tells him that the attack was a test and tells him to meet him at the Lifestream
-Zeke meets Scarlet and Sephiroth at the Lifestream, and Scarlett tells them to fight.
-They fight, and Zeke falls into the Lifestream. He finds out that there was another SOLDIER 1st class named Zeke Winters. They did horrible experiments, and gains his memories and the typical glowing Mako eyes.
-Zeke meets with Ave and says he wants to join AVALANCHE.

And when I mean "filler" I don't mean "useless typing" I mean like "events that aren't so serious". I don't want it to be BOOM event, BOOM event, BOOM event.

Yeah, like I said, I didn't see any problems with Zeke. The problem is with Ave. She shouldn't know he's a blank slate, and I don't know about anyone else, but if I was with an anti-Shinra resistance, I wouldn't bring it up to anyone I saw talking personally to Shinra. In fact, I probably wouldn't bring it up to anyone at all.

Bear in mind there is a right way to do filler and a wrong way to do filler. DragonBall Z had good filler, with Goku falling off Snake Way, Princess Snake, etc. Beelzebub, for example, has filler that does absolutely nothing except waste the show's budget. It is completely unrelated to the story and wastes time where there really isn't any to waste. Please don't describe Zeke's English class...or really anything that we already know about. If, maybe, in gym class they fight each other, that might be something I'd like to hear about. Unless it's interesting...I really don't care what Zeke's reaction to frog-dissection is.

Also, don't forget that when Cloud fell in the Lifestream, he turned into a vegetable for quite some time. And just for the record, it'd be nice if later in the story you explained why it was that Zeke and Sephiroth are told to fight. And just out of curiosity, is this the original Sephiroth or crazy-stupid-emo-replica-robot-clone Sephiroth? And is there a reason he doesn't already have glowing Mako eyes? Because it kinda sounded in your draft like he already has Mako eyes.

The bright light will be explained. Ch. 2 rough draft.

Chapter 2
As Zeke got on the bus, he said,”Soo… anything I need to know about you?”
Ave said, “Well, some of my hobbies—“
“Wait, hobbies?”
“Things I like to do. And don’t interrupt that much, it’s not really liked. Anyway, I like playing guitar, piano, playing video games, and drawing.”
“That… seems interesting.”
Ave laughs. “Hey, you’re lucky I’m talking to you.”
The two continued to talk until they made it to Oakley Academy for the Supernaturally Talented, a ordinary high school, besides the fact that all the students and faculty having some sort of special power. As Zeke and Ave walked off the bus, Ave said, “Just follow me. We should have the same schedule, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” As Ave opened the door, she noticed a tattoo on Zeke’s arms and said,”Cool tattoo.”
“Thanks.” Zeke then continued to walk with Ave. They two then made it to the guidance office. Ave said,”Go to Room C. I’ll be outside.” Ave then left, and Zeke managed to find Room C.

In Room C, Zeke met a short bald man. He smiled and said,”Hello, I’m Mr. DeStefano. You must be Zeke. Ave has told me quite a bit about of you. It must be an honor, being a SOLDIER 1st class.”
“It’s hard, let me say that.” Zeke chuckled.
“Ha! It must be. Listen, we have a manikin problem.”
“Manikin?”
“Clones of some of our best fighters. They’ve been causing some trouble. There is a no kill rule here, but we’re making an exception for these menaces.” With that aside, don’t cause any trouble. Got it?”
“Yes sir.”
“That’s all. You can continue now.”
Zeke left, and met up with Ave, and started to stare at her. Ave said,”Uh… Something wrong?”
After a short moment of silence, Zeke said,” Nothing.” He then quickly looked away. The bell than rang, and the two went to first period, Biology.

Hm...Definitely better, at least in my opinion. All though, it seems a little TOO coincidental that they'd have the same schedule. Unless that's planned, that just seems really convenient...But, as long as it makes the story more interesting, very few people will care. Usually if I'm writing a situation like that on my own, I give my character, since I write in the first person, three or four friends and have classes with each of them. I can see why you can't do that here, so I'm not gonna go on about that. Once again, Ave seems a bit dim when nothing goes off in her head in response to Zeke not knowing the word "hobby," but that's less extreme than last time. And something I just noticed, since when does AVALANCHE take high school kids? I was under the impression that all the human party members in FFVII, sans Barett (No idea whether I spelled that right) were between 18 and 20.

And just one minor thing, how do they know they have the same schedule? I didn't see them sharing pages or anything. Hell, at my school, people don't even know their schedules until the first day, so...I understand that it's not a huge thing, but you might want to make note of it, just to make sure.

Beyond that, like I said, it has improved. Chapter was a bit short, but it's not like you're writing a novel, it's a fanfic.

Chapter 3 will be where Zeke gains some rational thinking and realizs some things.

Since this is non canon, maybe they got desperate

Screw it. Making this into script format.

BETTER IDEA

RP version?

Mmm, it might work elsewhere, but...just look through the TITAL branch. Not topic, branch. Just see how many failed RPs you find there. If you're willing to run that risk, I'll give my personal go-ahead, but it seems like you have an interesting idea going, even if one of your characters is kind of an airhead.