Orchestrated By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)
I currently do not have the epic AIM convo, but I can
look for it. I think I still have it.
I do have your original offers:
--------------------
This is an offer you will not like...but you won't be able to refuse
either.
The SA is knocking on your door. General Cutman has every intention
of killing Dr. Cossack and has endless means and inventive minds
to do that. Escape plan or not, the fact is that Cossack, without
some kind of miracle on his side, will probably not even come close
to surviving the next fight.
Cutman's own analytical nature, his general genius, and the forces
at his disposal and the powers they command insure that you are not
only outnumbered and outgunned, but completely overwhelmed before
the battle even begins. Some of your friends are deserting you, some
are making their heroic 'last stand' and some are just curling up
into a ball until its all over.
Somewhat pathetic really.
And so, I come to you, as a leader of men, as a leader of one of
the top ranked Megaman Teams still left in relative cohesion, and
as the most trusted bodyguard of Dr. Cossack, with an offer you will
not like, nor can you refuse.
Dr. Cossack will live through Stage 4, but not because you'll win,
or because he'll escape in some fantastic way. No, he will live because
I shall give you a way out. My... abilities are well suited to this
sort of use. I can fake the good doctor's death, as well as your
own and a few choice others, and then, under the cover of the explosive
confusion I can drive Napalmman to create, I can relocate you all
to a safe haven of my own, far outside the grasp of either the SA
or the RPD. Hell, not even Wily will be able to touch you.
You will be perfectly safe.
I can supply the good doctor with room and board, along with his
daughter, and the materials necessary to make your planned changes
and upgrades, as well as put you all in the best condition possible.
You'll be in top fighting form, even better than you all were before
the War began.
I even promise I won't influence any of you at all.
Of course, I have conditions. You must wait in my safe haven, safe,
until I allow you to leave. This is not for some nefarious reason,
but rather to make your deaths more believable, and cover my own
tracks. The General will of course be... miffed if he discovers my
plan this early, and it is imperative to the continuation of human
life on this planet that I be successful.
Another condition I have is that, once back in action, you do not
use any knowledge you might glean in your time in seclusion about
me against me until such time as the threat presented by General
Cutman is ended. This is for much the same reason as before. I also
will request that you do not share any such information with the
other Megaman Teams, specifically the Mechanical Maniacs, for what
I hope are somewhat obvious reasons.
Realistically, this is not your best option. It is your ONLY option
for Cossack's continued survival. I can only hope you accept my offer.
You can't, after all, save anyone if you're dead.
-With all due consideration and respect.
Mesmerman
--------------------
Needless to say, I'm going to trust you and the other CC to write
our plan into action. Mesmerman is too obsessed with his own genius
to keep himself from giving anything too obvious away, ESPECIALLY
if I start writing him, because oh god I cannot resist subtle hints
at my big plot twists. That said, I believe a nice twist to the story
would be the hologram plan (where they try and smuggle Cossack out
behind the SA's back to a mobile base) should be hilariously reverse,
where the Cossack that acts as bait IS Cossack, and the rest of the
faction escorts the holograms.
This does two things. It fixes the mess up you guys have so far in
the plan (The CC are Cossacks bodyguards. If they AREN'T with whatever
Cossack we happen upon as the SA, the General is smart enough to
realize something is amiss) and it gives me the opportunity to screw
everyone else on the Cossack faction up indirectly by having you
end the thing with Cossack's hologram (the one that escapes safely
according to plan) smiling, revealing himself to be a Mesmer robot
and then self destructing after taunting them all.
Just to fill my mind screw quota for the Stage.
Thoughts?
--------------------
My response (All questions were sorted in the AIM chat though)
...you really do propose an interesting offer. However, before I
agree to ANYTHING I have questions/ comments:
1) Will Cossack, Kalinka, Jay, and Silent Bob (They would come too)
be used for your...food is the best word here?
2) There has to be a catch outside of the few things you mentioned.
The tools used to upgrade the Comrades...you claim YOU wont influence
them, but this would be TOO convenient if you didnt try SOMETHING
to the SA's Advantage.
3)I want you to swear (be it Elysium or whatever you consider Holy)
that if we do agree to this, you will not change/ alter my friends
(You say choice others. I want my entire team, and Regulus to be
that choice few) at all! I know your tricks. We do not give a shit
about Elysium or the General, or even you for that matter. You claim
not influence us...but I want to make sure as hell that there isn't
some damn loophole...
4) In the ensuing Chaos, I want Zymeth to be freed from Wraithman.
Excluding Ringman, I want my entire team.
5) How do we know that you will keep your word and keep THE REAL
Dr. Cossack (Or Jay, Bob, Kalinka, or any of us) alive throughout
all of this? And how do we know that the Cossack that you...save...
if the REAL one and not one of your tricks?
6) After the ordeal before, why would you consider sparing us?
I would like your answers to these before I decide anything. I am
aware that you would like this completely private, which I understand
completely, but I assume I will not be able to talk this over with
my team about whether to accept it or not. Very well. I agree, yet
I DO want to make sure that we are not getting screwed over here.
PM me back. And if possible try to go on AIM tomorrow night 8:30
PM EST where we can talk further if your answers leave more to be
desired.
Yours truly,
Drillman.
--------------------
As for Drillman himself...I really tried to emulate the Obi-Wan
type character, as the wise leader that balanced out the team, and
eventually faction. Of course he is driven by anger due to the loss
of his love. Of course, he really isn't a complete pussy about it
either.
When he came back to life, kinda, he was less of an Obi-Wan and more
of an Anakin (Not the pussy), for now he had the dark side corrupt
him. What I had originally planned was that Drill was the backup
host for Mesmer. Of course, it turns out that practically everyone
was Mesmer.
For most of the war, Vulcan wasn't much of a driving force. God knows
I would have liked to work a good bit harder on some scenarios, but
not everything can be a winner. He really came through during Stages
3 and 7, though.
The inspiration for those moments of glory were the chance to elaborate on a
sub-plot in regards to CrystalChan that reflected my personal life. It's no surprise
that I have a very close relationship with Crys, and I poured a good bit of heart
and soul into co-writing those two combat scenes with her. The confrontations
took a sexual turn, but I doubt either of us feel bad about it.
Now, I don't get asked questions, nor much recognition, but for those two Stages,
I felt completely in control. For both of those points in the war, I pretty much
took a stern seat as the director and editor. I'm proud of what I and my comrades
all accomplished for those Scenarios. They came out very good, all things considered.
The character of Vulcan himself is very subtle, I think. Nothing is too grandiose
about him and he really is more of a soldier than some of the Rambo-minded Cossackers
from Stage 4. Most of his appearances didn't have an impact on the war as a whole,
but the Battle of Elysium was epic, and despite my lackluster effort for most
other stages, it was the blaze of glory I was waiting all war to participate
in.
A turn that I surprised myself with was the last-minute decision to reveal that
Vulcan died at Cossack's Citadel before being revived in his current body. It
came out of my ass, but I did consider the idea for a long time. The fact that
the Crystalgirl from the previous Ascendant Androids had inherited biomechanical
research from her parents gives reasonable stability to say that the technology
exists to transfer a human into a full prostehic body, complete with all mortal
functions (if you know what I mean).
All in all, he could have done more to be an attention whore, but saving my efforts
for the occasional spotlight worked better in the end. It wouldn't have been
quite as rewarding to be such a ham anyway. I had no sub-plots to work with beside "Vulcan
vs. the Androids" and the Vulcan-Makenshi team-ups. If I went and made myself
a Mary Sue like Pluto, I'd have just wound up being some goofball who couldn't
be taken seriously.
In short, the war was mostly foreplay, but it had a sweet, sweet climax. Vulcan
STAGE 1
Not one of my finer moments. Surviving Berlin was fun, because we
DID get to murderize a couple wannabe godmodders. At that point in
the war, Rich was playing Captain Napalmman, which is quite interesting
to think back on. Sao Paulo Cannot Stop was a good bit of a bomb,
however. I originally intended my single contribution to be a "WIP",
set to change once I had better focus. Turns out I got distracted
by this thing called a social life and I left myself to an embarrassing
right-out-of-my-ass film noir sequence with goggles that did NOT
do nothing and some preggo giving birth on the battlefield. Oh well,
like I said before... not everything can be a winner.
STAGE 2
Rematch in Alaska was experimental. Maks and I were toying with the
film noir thing and Hunter jumped in with Riff. It wasn't a terribly
bright idea in the end. We had too much shifting between perspective
without the reader realizing who the hell was talking. Raijin's summary
of that scenario was blunt and cynical, but he hit the nail on the
head. Tyrannical Androids was pretty good, though. Spark showed up
out of nowhere and retook his mantle as Napalmman, as I had offered
him before the war began. It turned out pretty well, but I wish I
was more active. I was straining myself on being active with two
sides of the dice seeing how, yet again, I was distracted by a social
life.
STAGE 3
This was the first Stage I was truly proud of. When the hat raffle
gave us the Androids and Vulcan in the same scenario, I was pumped.
Because of my excitement, I automatically took a leadership stance.
A surprise while we were writing, was Makenshi and the Comrades wandering
in after their previous scenario, but the more the merrier. Things
got rocky for me during the editing process when Drill got a little
too antsy and posted the incomplete version for all to see. As a
result, I myself got a little too antsy and put a good bit of panic
into making a hasty bargain with Raijin. Though I had plenty of time
to finish the REAL edits, I rushed myself and gave a scenario that
was more or less two thirds completely edited. Eh... at least my
showdowns with Napalm and Crys were fun.
STAGE 4
I put Vulcan on hiatus, realizing that I worked better when I focused
on just one scenario. I wanted to flesh out Gravityman, who I had
decided, was going to be my SA alter ego. This didn't happen quite
as well as I hoped. In fact, those plans fucking bombed. The Citadel
battle happened. God damn was that Scenario a mess. It only shaped
up once Rich barged in and absolutely decimated Pluto, who was a
MAJOR source of frustration. We had a lot of Yugioh punks who wanted
to have a duel and win with the heart of the cards. Quite thankfully,
it never happened. I wasn't in the right state of mind to keep up
with all that nonsense, so I had no lasting contributions. What I
did give was rather embarrassing, and I decided to take a much needed
break. The ending was a shocker, though.
STAGE 5
For me, the second installment in the ongoing Vulcan & Makenshi
Power Hour was no better than the last one. It may not have been
bad, and we did drop the noir crap, but my heart wasn't in it. Of
course, the fact that the "Rebel Rebellion" caused the
war to become invitation-only was a major factor in this. I only
got back into the swing of things after a few weeks had passed. I
tried to pull my weight around, but I failed at it because everything
was such short notice, leaving me disoriented. Bummer. At least Slaughterhouse
was decent.
STAGE 6
Pallbearers was an excellent surprise, seeing how Spark managed to
suddenly produce a backstory for Walter. I had little involvement
with that Scenario, and honestly, I didn't have to worry about the
Ascendant Androids since the Cap'n was quite capable. Again, I let
myself get distracted and Bad Enough took a lame turn despite the
overall influence it had on the war. There was a scene I'd been waiting
a long time to write, which was a swordfight with Quint. I never
got around to it, because my distractions demanded my attention.
I left it to Gauntlet to finish the scenario. It was anticlimactic,
but I appreciate that he mentioned how Vulcan lost because he was
distracted. It was true enough for both the character, and myself.
STAGE 7
As with Stage 3, I was in my element. We had three weeks to get it
done. First week was planning, and the following weeks were nothing
but progress. It all went smoothly sans a few prideful speed bumps,
which kinda shows, and although I left a couple mistakes on the final
version right at the end, my editing did turn out pretty good. Infamously,
I jettisoned Makenshi's contributions at the last minute, telling
him to put them in a War Journal. The fact of the matter was that
Spark and I both felt that, although related, it was a completely
different storyline. To give better focus on both plot lines, I made
the decision to isolate the two. The result was a fantastic War Journal
that better emphasized Shiken's death and even tied up a couple loose
ends everybody had otherwise forgotten about. Again, good work Maks.
STAGE 8
So, it ain't a secret that the 8th and final Stage to the Business
of was intended to be MM3-only as far as the action went, but,
eh... everybody had a fighting chance to produce Aftermath Journals
to tie up any loose ends.
This particular compilation covers the Ascendant Androids in several
areas, and last time I checked at 11:30pm on March 31st, one half
hour before the War Room was closed, it was the longest of all the
aftermaths.
Now, as you may notice under the author credits, Rich was involved
in a portion of the project. His part was the first scene, which
was written mid-way into WANTED. I named it "Tonight the Stars
Revolt!" after one of my favorite albums (not coincidentally,
Blast Off to Nowhere is a song from it). The purpose behind the short
was to set the team up for future events, but what's brilliant was
that I never credited him the first time I posted it. As a result,
it went over many people's heads. Well, just to make sure people
DID finally read it, I decided to be resourceful and use it for the
Aftermath Journal.
During the early stages of the war, Crys and Stryker did a one-off
short called "Reasons for Leaving," which brought much-needed
dimension to the authors' alter egos. It better explained their status
as background characters during the war. Now, when it was first posted
on the MM3 forum, many ideas were presented that had been scrapped
or reworked shortly thereafter, which I deleted or edited.
Anyway, because neither of those two stories had already been made
public anywhere else beside the MM3 forum, I decided to be resourceful
and turn them into a pair of flashback sequences for the MM5 Aftermath
Journal. Both of them had a relationship to the war, and there was
no better way to make sure that the reader got a chance to better
understand the team's situation... whether they cared about it or
not, I don't give a shit. So nyah.
So, three new segments were made to outweigh the flashback scenes.
The first one was titled "Heroes Welcome" and was written
by Spark. The character of Walter had found closure at the end of
Stage 6, but even then, it seemed like a good idea to outright state
that he was going to be a member of the Ascendant Androids. It was
my way of telling the reader "Yeap, he was there for a reason."
The second was my handiwork. I never gave it a title, as I always
intended it to be brushed under the "Blast Off to Nowhere" blanket.
For a long time, I wanted to directly elaborate on Vulcan's relationship
with Dr. Cossack through methods other than narration. I wanted there
to be interaction between them. Everything seems a little too happy,
but hell, we just won the war, so of course everybody's gonna be
elated.
As a side note, the deadline for Stage 8 was April 1st, one day before
before the third anniversary of my father's death. The relationship
between Vulcan and Cossack is not a coincidence. As a tribute, I
made the very first recorded mention of Jack's uncle, Kieth, explaining
that he and Cossack were very much alike in their personalities.
To further the personal nature of the scene, I chose to narrate it
in the first person using Vulcan himself. I feel as though there's
more that I could have done, but in the end, I really am my own worst
critic, so it doesn't matter. The scene came out being very warm,
and that's exactly the feeling I was aiming for. Mission Accomplished.
Now, the final scene is quite the story. Spark produced it as "Last
Rites" and it very much sets us up for the next story arc that
the Androids will be following. Would I like to share any details
other than that? Not a chance, as you can see, we've got a good launch
pad for any and all future shenanigans. There ain't no way we can
follow up the war and hope to best it, but I'm ready to tell a damn
good story.
With Junkman, I took what was used in the Drastic Measures series
and created him to fit within the parameters of the story. Now, for
those who have read any of the epilogues for Drastic Measures will
notice that Junkman is probably the most serious member of the team.
This fits perfectly with the story. Granted, it wouldn't be easy
trying to transition a team more known for it's humor then it's seriousness.
As for the Junk Staff, it was the first weapon created in the Drastic
Measures series. Over time, a few of the others got weapons themselves
(For example, Turboman's Scorch Saber appeared a few times during
the story). But, when I think of weapons, the Junk Staff comes to
mind. It's shaped similar to the staff used by Kilik in Soul Calibur,
except that it's made of junk that has either come off of Junkman
or from junk that's lying in the area.
The addition of two different types, as I call them, came as a way
to prepare for the war. I knew that a single weapon probably wouldn't
cut it against the Scissor Army, so that's why two different forms
were created. The Power Type Axe is based off of the Terror Moon
axe used by Asteroth in Soul Calibur, with the exception that the
blade is shaped moreso like a traditional axe and not a half-moon
shape like said axe. It can only be used by Junkman because of it's
weight and the amount of strength it takes to properly use it as
an offensive weapon.
The Speed Type Nunchucks never did appear in the story itself, but
they play a role as the quick strike weapon for Junkman. It's base
was the Falcon nunchucks from Soul Edge/Calibur. The main exception
is that it did not have the blades on the end of the sticks. Like
I said, it never appeared in the story but it was created.
Now, for myself, the hardest part was to decide the fates of the
other members of the team. It was either kill them off or let them
stay on and have me write for them. I went with the first option,
although it was not an easy choice. But, I thought that giving Junkman
a chance to stand out on his own without the other members of Drastic
Measures in the way would help him out more because of his solo status.
Overall, I had fun doing this. Granted, there were some bumps in the road, but this was really worth the time and the work put into. I want to thank all who have worked with me on the writing, like Gemini, Naop, and Hunter Chemeleon for the work they did with me. I also want to thank everyone for making this possible. It was a blast to read this and I think that it was a great idea. Hats off to everyone!
War has been a great learning experience for me. I've been trying
a hand at creative writing, but it really, really sucked. It's embarrassing
to look at all the early ideas I had, which can be seen at the beginning
stages of the War. This event worked out all those creative juices,
and I've been able to work out so many plans and details about the
characters I create, their actions, their backgrounds, and actually
feel good about them. Makenshi's background isn't explicitly written
out for the public yet, but I wrote up A LOT of references to his
backstory anyway in this event. It took a while for me to actually
realize how nonsensical it looked to the ordinary reader, so I tried
to shed some light on what the hell was going on.
Makenshi is a calm, sagacious person that cares for other people,
even if they were on opposing sides. He's got his flaws, though,
like being vain and occasionally lacking common sense. However, in
the past he was apparently some horrible, evil guy, and underneath
his cool exterior the crimes he had committed gnaw at his fractured
psyche. Many years ago I wanted him to have that overused evil alternate
personality shtick, but I find this approach was much better. I don't
know why, but I really wanted this guy to have a seriously screwed
up past. I guess it was because people rarely took such an approach.
Makenshi's personality, jacket, and previous hairdo is loosely based
off of Jing from King of Bandits. His dual wielding pistols were
taken from GunZ, which I don't play anymore but still think it's
an awesome game. The variety of elemental bullet cartridges he used
were supposed to be reminiscent of Megaman. His personality, glasses,
and gunslinging abilities were also taken from Vash the Stampede
from Trigun.
The current generation of the Ascendant Androids' armors was thought
up of by me, what with the whole watches and having access to two
bodies (one being the original, the other their robotic RM forms.)
It's really complicated so that it would fit with War, and important
parts of the armors' functions come into play throughout the War.
I really wasn't aware that Neptune was not only based on Poseidon,
but his design was ripped off of Waveman's. So, I unintentionally
ripped off of Neptune when I was coming up with the current design
for Makenshi's armor, giving him a fish-like look. The huge spear-launcher
named Iormungandr is a modified version of the hookshot Makenshi
had before War.
And for the last time, it's pronounced SHY-ken MAWKS. As in shy like
timid, ken like the name, and mach except plural. And Makenshi's
nickname Maks is pronounced like maximum.
So, in "Predecessor," Makenshi dies in an attempt to kill
SA Wave. I've had this planned somewhere in the middle of the War,
and I'm glad I still had the opportunity to write up the big showdown.
I was a bit reluctant to let go the character I've been using for
so many years, but with this I can get a fresh start. Will Makenshi
ever come back to life? Does this mean that I'm quitting the Ascendant
Androids? The answer will come all in due time.
First I'm going to say that the Captain's name was NOT taken from
Spike Spiegel of Cowboy Bebop. But his first and middle initial are
taken from Wolfwood from Trigun. It is only a coincidence, but only
now do I realize how the relationship between Makenshi and Spiegel
is a lot like Vash and Wolfwood. They have a different set of morals
and because of that things get tense between them. Eventually though
they start understanding eachother.
The names of all listed above are the names of random people I know
in real life (though the first names of Spiegel, Vatnick, and Beeson
are different.) I was just pulling them all out of my ass to be bit
characters that get acquainted with Makenshi, but all of a sudden
I wanted to develop them further. Also as a fun fact: the people
I named Spiegel and Beeson after are actually female and male (respectively),
and their personalities are completely opposite of the Captain and
the Doctor. That's just my way of secretly poking fun at them :P
I was originally going to have the bodyguards miraculously start
breaking free from their AI restraints and having unique personalities,
but thank god I scrapped that and rid them from the story altogether.
Vatnick didn't get much attention and Beeson only started having
character development at the end, but I started to really get into
fleshing out Spiegel, starting with having his father be the maniacal
cyborg in "Hellmetal Zoo: The Fields of Mars!" (and before
I forget, I have Avi to thank for coming up with Dr. Wolfland's name,
while I in turn along with Seadragon named the love-to-hate politician
she thought up, Hugo Jorgunsson.) And now, his personality has made
a complete 180 since the war, and I plan to have him as a prominent
supporting character in the Androids' mythos.
Wow, this guy is totally fucked up. His personality is based on
Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 and Gluttony from Fullmetal Alchemist,
and I pretty much tried to do everything in my power to make the
reader go, "Holy shit, this guy is BEYOND batshit crazy." I also
wanted to give him a fearsome aura, with all the gruesome ways he
kills his victims and his inappropriate attitude. He's childish,
but then people started to write him as being nauseatingly pouty.
So I decided to put him in a downward spiral of madness, making him
much more cruel and sadistic, and making him snarl instead of whine.
It's best not to try and understand what the hell goes on in this
guy's mind. Basically, I had to let my cuh-razy imagination run lose
when thinking of what his actions would be.
The design was thought up of by Rich. Along the course of the event
what he could and could not do was put into question, and we had
to get into all this chemistry and physics stuff. His mere existence
is a sin against nature and physics, which made things even more
complicated. Thankfully we got passed that though, and I did learn
some things about chemistry, so the debating wasn't a complete loss.
A lot of SA Wave's attacks are derived from Venom in Marvel VS Capcom
2.
Eh, I mainly put him in here to be sort of a wild card, and he
certainly saved me the headache of finding a plot device for Makenshi
to receive his armor. I had the feeling this character was causing
a stir amongst the orchestrators of this event, especially being
that it appeared like he was random non-epilogueverse character I
pulled outta my ass, so I tried minimizing his participation in the
War as much as possible. His hounds were supposed to be a pride of
lions (har har,) but after playing some Resident Evil..... yeah.
Prior to War he states that he used to be extremely powerful but
lost his abilities, reflecting a fallen angel like Lucifer was. I
considered him with an electric guitar/rocket launcher as a primary
weapon before I was aware of Harp Note from Megaman Star Force's
existence, but when I did play that game I decided to follow through
with it. His appearance is based on the manga version of Zazie the
Beast from Trigun. Or maybe he's a male Viera from Final Fantasy
Tactics Advance without the huge pointy ears. Hmmm....
Stage 1, "Standoff in Alberta!"
This was a pretty fun scenario, and the most active one I've participated
in. Unfortunately, this meant it was more like an RP, making it really
cluttered.
Stage 1, "Surviving Berlin"
I chose Waveman to take the form of a giant alligator during the
sewer chase because of the urban legend. Look it up.
Stage 1, "Combat in London"
This was a pretty significant scenario for Pride. It's Spark-Chan
that makes him start questioning his programmed hatred for humanity.
Behind the scenes her words have been gnawing at him, and in the
end this ultimately causes him to take a more anti-hero approach.
Stage 2, "The World is my Rome..."
Another RP-like scenario, but at least it was more organized with
less filler sentences, right?
Stage 2, "Rematch in Alaska!"
I decided to experiment with writing in the first perspective since
other people were doing it. This is the only scenario where I used
an existing landmark as the crux of the plot, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Stage 3, "War of Souls"
Wow, I really got hammy here, especially in Makenshi's fight with
Mesmer. That's all I can say, really.
Stage 4, "Hellmetal Zoo: The Fields of Mars!"
I confess: I'm secretly a fan of horror fiction. So when coming up
with ideas I said, "I know! We should write something creeeeepy
with lots of plot twists!" And so we did, with Avi and I coming
up with a lot of the plot and Hunter Chameleon pitching in with creature
designs. I don't know where the cyborg animals came from, I just
pulled them out of the hat. I came up with Wolfland because I liked
the idea of having one-timers being the main antagonists (I couldn't
think of any good plots with a simple faction VS faction slugfest)
Stage 4, "The Old Citadel"
Regulus wrote the fight with SA Wave, but I edited it to inject more
craziness. 'Twas fun.
Stage 5, "Live and Let Die"
This was the scenario where I fell into a rut. Thankfully we managed
to turn it into something.
Stage 5, "Slaughterhouse"
It was kinda disturbing to write all those gruesome scenes with Waveman,
especially the "show" he put on for Grenademan. I am so
fucked up.
Stage 6, "Pallbearers"
I don't think I wrote anything in this at all. But I must say that
Regulus did a very nice job interpreting SA Waveman.
Stage 6, "Silence End"
I was still in my rut and couldn't think of anything as good as Hellmetal
Zoo, nor did I really know what important points I was supposed to
address, if any. In the War humans have always been helpless before
the robots, so I decided to turn things around and have some robocidal
rebels brainwashed by a lunatic to hunt down robots. The Black Angel
was based on Nemesis from Resident Evil, which you can especially
see because of the rocket launcher. Eliza, the girl all the robocidal
humans adored but was actually a robot that neutralized Robot Master
weapons can represent something that happened in the community that
I'd best not talk about (those who were there should know what I'm
talking about though). It wasn't intentional, but I guess I was doing
it subconsciously.
Stage 7, "Kill Now, For Elysium Awaits"
Yeah, I was kinda wondering why everyone was forgetting that Makenshi
wasn't present when they were about to leave. I rectified that in "Predecessor" though
:P
Way, WAY before the war was brewing, Diveman was originally supposed
to be me in real-life as a robot master. However, that concept made
it easy for me to put him on autopilot, because hey, I don’t care
enough to RP myself. I do that on a day-to-day basis. Honestly, if
the War hadn’t come along, he probably would’ve been doomed to be
a lame duck.
But when the War came along, I saw the perfect chance to really give
my boy some zazz. Hell, I had his persona picked out the day after
I got welcomed back on board. I had absolutely zero interest in playing
yet another damn do-right superhero who fights for the American dream
of truth, liberty, four day work weeks, and kissing the gym teacher.
I wanted him to be a more hardened, jaded and cynical character who
doesn’t have much respect for anybody. I thought if done right, he
could stir up some drama in the Cossack camp, adding a layer of drama
and realism to an already desperate team scene. Besides, I thought
of it as taking the “What are you willing to sacrifice?” dogma to
a new level since he’s throwing out morality, ethics, civility and
some hygiene in order to help his side come out on top. So, I stitched
together the dirty, underhanded fighting of Blades, the Protectobot
helicopter from Transformers, the belligerence and rebellious streak
of Jayne Cobb from Firefly, and the original Superdick himself, Superman.
Blades and Superman were the ones who really drove Diveman to being
the dick he is. Every scenario he played a major role in, I wouldn’t
call the job done until he screwed somebody over something fierce,
and enjoyed the hell out of it, like Superman as he’s killing Lois
Lane on the cover on his comic books.
For those keeping score, there was infamous bridge incident in Stage
2 that he bragged about to Mysteryman, the school he got blown up
in Stage 3, leaving Aquaman to rot after Stoneman walloped him, driving
Frostman temporarily insane AND getting Neptune manhandled in Stage
4, and lastly, using Multiman as a suicide bomber factory, then blowing
him up to cover his ass in Stage 7. However, I wanted to keep his
dickery fun and simple, rather than do something as wild and improbable
as blowing up RPD HQ, and threatening a watcher. No offense, but
it's kinda overdoing it.
Jayne factored in every now and then too, since I thought he and
the crew of Serenity mirrored the Comrades in a myriad of ways, since
they’re both outlaws struggling to survive with an oppressive regime
nipping at their heels. Hell, some of Diveman’s lines came straight
from the show including, “I’ll be in my bunk”, “Big damn heroes,”
“I aim to misbehave”, and “They believe they can make the
world better,”
The hard drinking and smoking was a simple touch I added in to establish
the fact he’s a bad boy. And for the record, the Hemmingway cigarettes
Dive pesters Vulc for in Stage 7 is yet another Silent Hill reference.
According to a billboard in Silent Hill Origins, Hemmingways are
the cigs of choice in that little bit of Hell on Earth, which probably
explains why they’re so hard to come by.
By now, I reckon he’s become one of the War’s more infamous characters.
The only thing he has in common with me is my real name, and that’s
it. I only wish is that I didn’t get off my ass to join in the War
before Stage 1 was finished. Because now he looks silly as he berates
the other Comrades for graverobbing in the beginning. :P Superman,
eat your heart out.
Rich had a lot to do with his design, from his appearance, to his
powers, to his demeanor, so he deserves most of the credit. I was
mostly just playing off the hand he dealt me. But that said, it was
a damn fine hand.
Naturally, Napalmman wants humanity just as dead as Cutman does.
But I wanted to imply that Napalmman has given more thought about
his cause than just “Kill now, for Elysium awaits!” otherwise, he’s
just a foul-mouthed SA Joe who gets to play with cooler toys. That’s
where Stage 3 comes in. Even though the banter between Starman and
Napalmman wasn’t exactly the most action-packed part of the story,
it at least set Napalmman apart from the millions of Joes who are
just as single-minded in their belief in Elysium as he is. Rather
than loathing humanity simply because Cutman said so, he flat-out
tells Jackie Boy that humanity oughta go because they’re gross, smug,
panicky maggots that exploit others (namely robots) for personal
gain, refuse to learn from their mistakes, and then bill themselves
as top dogs. That’s why he initially saw Cutman as more than just
his leader; he saw him as his leader, his god, and his father.
Napalmman’s mostly based off of the drill sergeant from Full Metal
Jacket. It’s where I got the idea to call his Androids things like,
“Shit Piles”, “Pissbag”, “Brickback Mountain” and so on. Hell, that
one gruesome (if not slightly improbable) scene where Napalmman is
feeding his troops bits and pieces of Gravityman, Chargeman, and
SA Joes was inspired by the scene where the drill sergeant forces
Private Pyle to scarf down a jelly donut while the rest of the detachment
did push-ups. Whenever I was writing for Napalmman, I’d frequently
have Full Metal Jacket on in the background as inspiration.
I tried to make Napalmman’s treatment of his troops is mostly a form
of…tough love. His job was to drive his troops to be ruthless killing
grace of Elysium. By riding their asses, I figured he created an
atmosphere of hatred and resentment that in turn, fueled them into
being more ferocious killing machines. After all, he’s supposed to
be their superior officer, not their friend *glares at Captain Frog*
And it worked, at least on some level, since the AA actually achieved
their objectives most of the time, unlike certain nameless Captain
Frogs *glares at Captain Frog*.
But on the other hand, I wanted Napalmman to genuinely hate his comrades/lackeys
at the same time. Just take a look at the shit list in my sig (which
he really does have). After all, for a unified force of destruction,
they can get sloppier than they should. What kind of perfect killing
machines would they be if they end up just as flawed and weak as
the humans they were built to destroy? It’d make Napalmman and his
forces into a walking hypocrisy. “OH NO! CHARGEMAN’S OUT OF CONTROL!!
AGAIN!!” was his fear made flesh. But the real kicker was when Napalmman
realized that he was flawed himself when he learned the hard way
that Cutman wasn’t the savior he thought he was. I think it went
a long way to blow his mind and make him an even more bitter asshole.
Still, I wanted the Captain to every now and then to refer to the
AA by their actual name to indicate brief (very brief) shining moments
when he’s proud of and/or sympathizes with his troops. The most notable
case was when Starman gave his speech on why the evil AA sucked,
which really just reminded Napalmman that despite his troops’ shortcomings,
in his eyes, they’re (usually) still better than all of humanity.
He could still at least respect the fact they were all fighting for
the same cause. So he wasn’t cool with using his troops as tools
the way Cutman did which is what led him to his disillusionment with
his leader. Otherwise, he just would’ve been a spazzy bootlicker
that’s oblivious to Cutman’s own hypocrisy. But none of that will
give Chargetard a free ride. And that won’t stop him from, say, sticking
shards of a dead Gyroman inside the wounds of his subordinates to
correct his troops after screwing up a mission.
Generally, I’m happy with how he turned out. In a few ways, he turned
out to be a sounding board for some of my…darker views on the world.
In some ways, I guess he’s what an SA Diveman would’ve been like.
Considering how he treats his troops, Crorq might’ve made for a good
drinking buddy. I should’ve played more on his rebellious streak
in Stage 7, but then I guess he wouldn’t take control over the Napalm
Forces as easily. And in the end, Rich is the one who deserves the
credit for this guy. *glares at Captain Frog*
For those who (more than likely) don’t remember, Walter was supposed
to be Napalmman’s human alter ego. Originally, I was gonna make him
the chief rival to Elecman, but that went up in smoke when the S6
closed down. After that, he just sorta…languished. Honestly, I didn’t
think he was ever going to see the light of day. But when Vulc told
me Walt would get some action once the war was over, I figured Stage
6 was the perfect place for me to plug him in and get him some good
ol’ fashioned notoriety.
In Stage 6, he was basically just being introduced, so y’all haven’t
even begun to see what’s up his sleeve. I was originally gonna make
him an average guy who shit the job of being in the Sandbox. But
then he went on to frag not one, but two robots that stage…Yeah…His
thoughts and opinions on the Iraq snafu were added in at G’s behest,
who suggested that we use the stage to voice our own thoughts on
the war. So if I came off as preachy or lame that stage, sorry. But
now that the war’s over, I think he’s ready to crack some skulls.
And for the record, Walter’s now an avid fan of the Incredible Hulk.
In fact, he’s even got a tattoo of the Hulk on his right bicep.
The whole entire point in Blizzardman joining Cossack was the thought
that he could work from the shadows of the severe underdogs that
supposedly no one was going to pay attention to. Obviously, this
blew up in his face as Cossack's Citadel was basically Cutman's first
major target of the writing project, and then Blizzard decided to
work for Wily, who got taken down the very next stage, so I wouldn't
ask this Russian which horse to bet on at the races unless you plan on tearing
your hair out in frustration.
Now, some of you may hate Blizzardman, and all I got to say is "mission
accomplished!" Ever since day one I've been doing everything I can to get
Blizzardman the bastard title on the Cossack faction which I think I've managed
to secure, being put up there with Diveman, hands-down the biggest dick in BoW.
Honestly, watching Geminiman mention Officer Garmel and immediately assume it
was Blizzardman brought a warm feeling to that block of ice located in my chest
cavity. And of course, like any true bastard, he's going to get away with it.
Overall, BoW has really allowed Blizzardman to flesh out his character and really
sets the scene for why he's so messed up in 21XX as Chill Penguin. Had it not
been for this event, he might have ended up a much less satisfying character.
I basically ghosted for T. Hawk during the whole project, since
he's not too big into writing but knows how to roleplay. In case
anyone DIDN'T pick up on the blatant homages, T. Hawk is a mixture
of several elements from the Metal Gear Solid games. Seriously, I
think the only thing T. Hawk didn't do to tip people off was sneak
around in a cardboard box. Most of his badass gunslinging moments
are elements taken either from Revolver Ocelot or Boondock Saints,
given that one of Regdar's favorite weapons is the single action
colt army revolver.
T. Hawk didn't get much character development, but that's really
part of his charm as a character. There's a sort of purity in his
simplicity as a character that you really have to admire in an age
where every character has some sort of emotional side-story *coughmyselfcough*.
Just about the only backstory T. Hawk has manifests itself in amusing
anecdotes shared between friends at the bar.
Oh, God... I SO wanted a chance to pull off a heist in this war. I mean, we had a freaking gunslinger on the Armored Assassins and everything. Blame Rich and his bloody Cutman for busting down Cossack's door the moment I got the idea in my head. It's all your fault this story never had a good ol' fashioned hold-up, General Cutman. You really are evil.
I don't think anyone was truly satisfied with how Stage 5 turned
out because of all the mass cleansing of continuity that had to be
done, but I was disappointed to have to basically skimp out on showing
people just how low-down a bastard Blizzard can be when he puts his
mind to it. The whole idea basically centered around Blizzardman
keeping every last one of his promises, except in a very morbid,
Calypso-from-Twisted-Metal kind of way. Basically, Rich had been
threatening to come and clean a certain clawed Robot Master's clock
for all the smack he'd been talking about how he'll kill General
Cutman himself in a one-on-one. I talked with Rich and convinced
him to hand their already bleak-looking fate over to Blizzardman,
promising a more or less similar end for the characters involved.
The plan that Naop and I had agreed on was that Slashman, Pirateman,
and I think Tenguman were going to need full reboots on account of
Blizzardman. The deal was that in exchange for defending Kalinrad
from the incoming invasion, the Cossacks would be rewarded with as
much scrap at they could teleport in, as in the max scrap value for
each character (Promise no. 1). Astroman is pretty uneasy because
by now Blizzard's easily been one of the most shady characters hanging
out with Cossack, but since the RPD won't win against an SA commander
with superior forces and a fully-assembled Armored Assassins team,
he agrees.
At this point, the plot more or less progresses like it actually
did in the final cut of stage 5 and we get to the infamous backstab
scene. Everyone's loading the mountains of scrap and while it was
kinda messed up Blizzard felt the need to light Kalingrad on fire
and slaughter the opposition in the confusion, why nit-pick, eh?
Job well done, everyone.
This is where things were SUPPOSED to get ugly. Basically, Blizzardman
whips out his trump card, the snow-white Devil unit he had specially-made
to accompany him to Kalingrad's snowy city, and threatens the Technical
Tyrants that if their leader doesn't fight him in a one-on-one match,
he'll crush their microchips in the palm of his hand (Promise no.
2). Astroman is obviously not built for melee and Blizzard... damn,
what a sand-bagging bastard. He probably still would have picked
Astroman even if he WASN'T the TT leader just because he knew this
fight would be slanted in his favor. Astro can't use the Astrocrush
because his friends are so close by and Blizzardman would inevitably
pound the crap out of the selfless TT leader, after which he orders
the TT to be dismantled and thrown into the assorted bits of Scissor
Joes, RPD troops, and Wily mis-fits. This just BARELY meets the two
terms he stated at the beginning of the stage. The first promise
was that they'd get a crapload of scrap. Check. The second promise
was that he would not allow their microchips to be harmed, but bastard
that he is, never specified the conditions of their actual body.
Check.
So, ideally, the original end of stage 5 for Kalingrad was supposed
to be much more disturbing and serve to further crush the already
dampened spirits of the Cossackless Cossack faction. It's not a horrible
travesty, though. Stage 5 still had its moments and overall it was
pulled off rather well considering we had so much more crammed into
the list of things to do.
Actually, my role was determined ever since the middle of WANTED.
For those who remember, I had long ago written 7M:SA, which featured
an Orange Hell-verse version of my Team.
Sometimes around mid-July, I received a copy of WANTED, followed
by this message :
QUOTE |
Once you’ve read through Wanted, take a moment
to realize what the ending means. |
Hard to say no to such an invitation, isn't it ?
Anyway, I've been able to develop the Captain in the way I wanted
: some guy blindly loyal to the General, but in the end, he put his
own interests before the Army's as he betrayed in Stage 7. After
all, he was only hired for the job.
Captain Quint's appearance is heavily based off Captain Harlock,
a personal hero of mine : cape, pistol-rapier, battleship... However,
Harlock never had views of mass genocide as far as I know.
His "database" didn't get as much use as I wanted, and
it had some definitive holes (Madrid, anyone ?). But I kept it, as
it related to my own "I find something useful-looking and keep
it somewhere" behavior.
Originally, no one was going to have ranks and stuff, and Quint's
motivation was to get Captain ASAP. Finally, this was changed, and
here you had the second half of the SA.
On a final note, this Captain Quint is watered-down compared to his
AU counterpart, who was a true Merc (as in, backstabber and all).
Now, switching on the Team itself, I don't have much to say. Nearly
all the upgrades are courtesy of the General's brainstorming.
A quick note, however : In the end, the AA and 7M became quite antithetic.
-7M was to focus on CQC and AA on long-range support.
-7M work more like a team, while the Androids are only kept in line
by Napalm's orders.
-7M seem reasonable compared to other SA Officers, while AA has at
least a half of trigger-happy/psychos.
-7M can follow orders without having to be threatened by Napalm Bombs.
I had somehow intended a larger role for the Marauder, but as Reg
pointed it out in Murmansk, this would have been quite the overkill,
and the safest way to lose my base. However, it got nice parts (car-jacking
by Gem, fight and takeover by CG) so it's fine.
With the War's happenings, that guy became more or less Deep impact's
second-in-command, and then temporary leader (which was something
I didn't want to, as I'm not the leader type IRL). I blame it a bit
on my teammates' writer's block.
Evil Energy (and then, Mesmer possession) was an unexpected development.
Gotta thank Raijin for it.
Originally, Searchman was to have a new body after Stage Four, but
the design got lost somewhere...
Them Fatalists are my "babies", and as such, I tend to
get overprotective with them, which was one of the reasons they lingered
in the background. That's more or less how I write them, anyway.
The batteries part in Stage 1 was to avoid any "Onoes Warpman
is out of energy ! Again !" situation. It would have been as
annoying as its SA "counterpart". ^^
Finally, they got to shine in the end of the War (defending Murmansk,
finding the way to Eden and taking over the Marauder). Quite good
for newbie villains, eh ?
Quite a minor guy. He was only in because Hard suggested me to
put him in as a NPC.
In the end, he had quite a carrier : distracting Wily, helping in
the Marauder's takeover ... Seems like bartenders never get a free
day.
My incursion in the RPD. He had quite a twisted origin.
Y'see, at the end of Stage 6, I wanted Junk and Slash sent to the
closest RPD base. Twas Brussels. I needed some Belgian name, and
in an amazing lack of imagination, borrowed the pseudonym of a Belgian
friend of mine.
We chatted together about how he wanted me to develop his guy, so
I did as planned, and got to keep him alive at the end of Stage 7.
Quite cool.
STAGE 1
"Standoff in Alberta" : We got extremely active in this one. Marked
the beginning of Evil Energy infection.
"La batalla de Ciudad de Mexico" : Probably the biggest victory of
the SA (and Quint) in Stage 1. I mean, there even was a worldwide broadcast.
I actually went soft on Saturn's fate at the end.
"Sao Paulo cannot stop" : the beginning of the TT-F5 alliance, and
the creation of the Major-Captain Law : "Every Scenario with Jack Vulcan,
the Tyrants and one of Hunter's Teams will suffer delays". =P
STAGE 2
"Good ideas" : Having the Mechs in front of us only meant two things
:
1-Scenario would be awesome
2-I'd get my ass kicked all the way to Elysium
Both predictions happened for my pleasure. I admit I got miffed by
Magnus switching sides, but that was my stubborn "you only leave
the SA dead or feet first" opinion.
"Rematch in Alaska" : Everyone else was doing the 1st-person speech.
=P
Anyway, Lento got to wrestle a Siege Joe, so it was fun.
"The Clash in Osaka" : Writer's block, apathy and waiting for the
other guy to write turned this promising DI meeting into a fiasco. Gotta thank
Raijin for wrapping everything up.
STAGE 3
"Winds of Fate" : Quint's series of failures continues. Guess who
he'll blame ?
Anyway, this was the beginning of my collaboration with Regulus,
which was quite successful if you ask me.
"Bloodbath in Russia" : Delays and stuff had the General allowing
me to write his character. The Scenario was written the way a SA assault should
always be : quick, straight to the goal, and full of blood and gore.
"Despair of the Lost" : take Osaka. Replace Clown&Tengu by the
E8. Similar results.
STAGE 4
"The old Citadel" : Quite a big part. Luckily, I got to write the
stuff I intended for my boys. Reg+Hunter work appeared in the scenes with T.Hawk
and Enker.
"The Meeting" : I arrived in this Scenario at the last minute, just
in time to give details about Henry. He had quite a nice part, I think.
"Hell Metal Zoo" : Brainstorming ended in a "I'll do something
creepier than you" contest, which was quite nice. Sensor Rats and Acid
Varans were my creations, BTW.
Oh, and just because everyone loves it : "The Fatal Five mounted
a bionic shark and rode it to safety." I still have stuff planned
for that shark.
STAGE 5
"Rematch by the Rogues" : Murmansk, take 2. Crawling battleship,
Spade's antics, Fatal Five winning ... quite the perfect Scenario.
"Slaughterhouse" : When looking at the selection, I was around "Holy
sh*t no !" and "Will they kick me not too hard if I surrender ?".
Add in the mission of getting Chargeman and I was "Do I have a will or
something ?"
Luckily, it ended not so bad for the Impacters. Maks and Sparks are
good writing fellows ; it was the latter who came up with the Mesmer
twist.
"Live and Let Die" : Twas quite messy to write. I got to drag Hyper
Storm back into the SA only because Magnus wasn't still in the War Room at
that time.
Still, I edited that scene 3-4 times between "leaving his corpse" and "taking
it back to Elysium". But in the end, the Captain won the argument.
"Changing Minds" : My line in the summary is a good sum-up of my
feelings. =P Nice Scenario, though.
STAGE 6
"Slaves of the Puppet" : Crazy Impacters, Furmanisms, Cyros and Naop
... another perfect Scenario.
"Are you bad enough ?" : return of the Major-Captain Law. Still,
it was a nice write.
"Behind the Scenes" : Fatal five get to do another relevant thing.
Have to thank Hard for not yelling at me possibly miswriting his fellows.
And I have to agree with the summary about Eden.
STAGE 7
"The Puppet's Masters" : Sadly, I didn't do much. Cyros and Raijin
are wonderful people to work with, though.
I too was amazed by Clown and Tengu's durability.
"Last Flight of the Marauder" : Battleship fighting, final duel with
Stardust, death and destruction everywhere... What all true warriors strive
for. The fact I switched sides at the last moment counts as a victory, right
?
When the idea of the War first came into light, well, I was both
amazed and disappointed, the latter ONLY because it coincided with
the start of the school year. But I doubt after an epic like WANTED
we'd want to wait another eight months to start things.
Like all my ideas, having Cyros choose a faction involved taking
a bunch of random ideas in my head, listening to some music on my
computer, and mixing it all up and such. At one point, I had originally
envisioned Cyros leaving the Warriors to work for Cossack. His defection
wouldn't go unnoticed by Wily, though, resulting in a very messy
breakout. Some divine intervention by the Comrades, plus my years
old OC Neonman, would have gotten him out of their along with...
well, his original body (hinting at the awesomely mysterious past
no one cares about). At this point I would have had Cossack put Cyros
back in that body and perform upgrades.
From what I can remember, Starnik was rather keen on keeping the
Warriors together, so, after some thought, I realized my earlier
idea had it's problems (such that Cyros actually had a reploid form
as well), so I shelved the plan and stuck with Team Wily.
Overall, the War was a big experiment with my writing skills. My
two War Journals marked the very few (if only) first-person perspective
stories I'v written. All the while I wanted to hint at just what
occured in Cyros' past, before he became Flashman, but I wanted to
keep it at a minimum because it wouldn't give him an advantage in
the War. References to him may or may not mean anything
in further works.
Cyros, this Cyros that is, is meant to be an ideal version of myself,
taking the best traits I have, expanding on them, and suppressing
others, but still giving him his flaws to avoid making him too linear.
Now ask yourself this: would you like an ideal version of yourself
to be in the middle of a genocidal war? To this, I say no, I would
not. But I put Cyros through it anyway as a major obstacle to his
psyche.
The small mental bender I had him go on was a spur of the moment
idea. After Stage 4, Wily had enough time to take everything to his
space station, including stuff only he knew about *coughCYROS'BODYcough*,
but Stage 5 Scenario A didn't give him ample time to do it again.
Like the tagline of the war "What are you willing to sacrifice," I
decided that Cyros needed to be hit. Hard. The journal lockdown until
after Stage 6 delayed that for a bit, but Despair and Hope was the
result.
Only regret with the War is not expanding on the Mesmerman/Cyros
idea hinted at in War of Soul. Hardman, that was really an excellent
idea. I had brainstormed several AU scenarios in which there was
a "Mesmer Cyros," which admitedly turned into a somewhat
carbon copy of Mesmer Eigen, only, admittedly, more dangerous, due
to a frightenly powerful control over the flow of time. It would
have never been canon, of course, but I never voiced the idea until
now.
As a summary, the War built up my serious story telling skills, plus
gave me a chance to write about characters other than myself. Fall
of Dusk was, possibly, the best example of this, as I had to hammer
each sentence out on my own. Regulus helped in the background, but
that was basically it.
Stage 1, Scenario D: Working with the Maniacs in the first Stage
was a shocker. Fun too, despite the lack of Warrior/Mech interaction
for the most part. Tried to keep Cyros' antics to a minimum.
~When Chimeraman shows up and Cyros thinks it's Ridley
~Cyros holding Starnik back when he tried to go after Ben (why didn't
Starnik blame Cyke?)
~Writing the destruction of San Diego. BOOM!
Stage 2, Scenario C: A scenario with Mesmerman, in the flesh! Or
whatever. Again, much of Cyros' antics were minimal, thought he got
a one on one fight with Freezeman before Mesmer showed up.
~Cyros' brief encounter with Mesmerman.
Stage 3, Scenario I: The first scenario were the Warriors actually
get hurt a lot. Dealing with Mesmer Geminiman was a fun chore in
itself.
~Melting Mesmer Gem's eyes with buster fire. Classic.
~Cyros loses an arm. At least it wasn't the one he ma- made crafts
with.
Stage 4, Scenario B: This stage was a little strange at points, not
to mention delayed. We got out a story at the end though.
~Painted an appropriate picture of Bass; he's a war machine, pure
and simple.
~Classi-Cal overcoming Bass. That's one for the ages.
Stage 5, Scenario G: I was involved with this stage at first, but
then stuff happened and I didn't get to help much for the ending.
Oh well.
~Nothing really. Had ideas for interaction between Flashman and Expressman,
but they got thrown out the window.
Stage 5, Scenario F: Woo, this was a fun one! If Cyros was still
with the Warriors, they probably would have had thing easier. But
that wouldn't make the story as fun, would it?
~The Warriors using fireworks to counteract Wraithman's darkness.
~Wraith beheading Naoshi, only to see he still lives. Didn't expect
that, did yah?
~Wraith vs. Quick. Quick blocked the scythe, with his own hand. bad-ass.
Stage 6, Scenario G: The Stage Introduction threw me for a loop (Warriors,
working for the SA!?), but I was able to pull off this scenario with
Hunter and Naop without a hitch.
~Having Searchman blow up Naoshi at point blank range, only for the
latter to ask why he's hurting.
~Crash firing at Grenademan; was able to make him more like his MM8
self.
~Brief mental encounter with Mesmer and Cyros. Hints at further encounters.
Stage 7, Scenario E: Got to work with Hunter again, and Raijin too.
Writing the insane Docman's lines was fun!
~Crazy Docman moments. He's INSANE!
~The SA Joe finding his own rifle in his face. Definitely a "WTF?" moment.
~Mesmerman's head in the iron dust cloud. He controls Magnetman,
so why not?
To be honest, I wanted Geminiman to join the RPD, because let's
face it I'm too much of a chivalrous good guy. However from the start
Rich had it planned that both Mags and Gemini were going to become
Mesmerman's puppets (hence their characterizations in Wanted) and
thus my decision of what side to join was already made for me. So
some ideas were given by Rich, namely all the new powers Geminiman
would get which in hindsight aren't as god-almighty as the AA or
Magnetman as all Gem got was a bigger laser, better clone control
and swords. He also suggested that Geminiman went into his old Red
personality and appearance until Raijin pointed out that Gemini Red
was Gizmo's thing and not mine.
Rich then suggested another colour scheme change, this time making
Geminiman pure white. I never really thought much on the idea until
later on though.
Now around this point you should be thinking, "But Lennon, all these ideas
for Geminiman are Rich's what did you do in the whole grand scheme of things" or
at least you should be. Well when it came to Geminiman's personality I was the
one who thought it up. I decided I wanted to make Geminiman act very unbalanced,
basically hurl fits of insane laughter every now and then for no good reason
and be just plain old sadistic. Also with knowledge on Mesmerman's methods of
twisting a person's perspective of things I wanted him to focus on the character
relationships that were the strongest in him, so he soon got an unhealthy obsession
with Shadowman and Sparkchan. The original plan was to get Geminiman slowly go
out of control on the battlefield and then have Shadowman and Sparkchan try confront
him about it out of concern, but Mesmerman would warp Geminiman's thoughts into
thinking Shadowman had a thing for Sparkchan and that he must be dealt with.
However Classi's decision to have Spark leave and join Wily threw a spanner in
the works and I had to rethink it over. I had more or less got something similar
with the whole Bride of Wily plot line that was setup in the end, where as with
Shadowman that whole rivalry had been set up long ago and did not need much working
on.
I then looked back at Rich's white colour scheme for Geminiman and thought of
Geminiman's title, since now he had always been the Knight in Shining Armour,
but with this new white look I had realised I could call him the White Knight
and use it as a bit of a twisted version of his old title.
Also Geminiman was a solo SA commander and as such he had to keep himself up
to par with the likes of the AA and the 7M, unfortunately, Geminiman didn't have
much in the weapons department by comparison to the AA so I went and focused
on his strategic ability, making a series of cunning plans and tricks to use
in each scenario to compensate for his overall lack of destructive ability on
his own. As such he turned out to be very formidable, I even got a comment during
the making of Stage 3 saying that he was beginning to make the rest of the SA
look bad and as such he suffered his first loss then.
Although obviously, Geminiman's reign of terror had to come to an end and ideas
were bounced around on how to get him back to reality and good again. The central
point of it was that it had to involve both Shadow and Spark because from the
beginning I made a point that his true weakness was his obsession. In Spark's
case she had the power to revert Gemini by either outright accepting him for
who he was or outright rejecting him, and with Shadow it was to either win or
lose to Gemini. In the end I had Spark reject Gemini's current persona to return
his old self back and actually have Shadow lose to Gemini to make him kind of
realise that his victory wouldn't bring him any joy.
I have to give credit to Gauntlet for coming up with the Geminiman Vs White Knight
Geminiman fight idea. It made for a nice twist that I didn't really think of.
During Stage 2, I noticed I was fighting the WRF in addition to
Sparkchan so I had this brilliant idea of this army of Multimen fighting
an army of Geminimen, the only problem is Geminiman has a maximum
clone output of 6 where as Multiman had an infinite number. So how
could I get my way around it? The answer was simple, have the SA
Joes be equipped with some sort of holotech that makes them look
like Geminiman and program combat data into them to make them fight
like him. Thus the Holy Order of Elysium was created.
The Holy Order name was in theme with Geminiman's whole White Knight
title in that he'd have an order of lesser knights and also a White
Knight could be likened to a Paladin so I figured I should make it
a Holy Order, Also I was listening to a lot of Guilty Gear themes
at the time and I liked Ky Kiske's one which was titled 'Holy Orders
(Be Just or Be Dead)' and so it kinda stuck to me.
After Stage 2, I decided to keep them as my trademark forces, since
there was no point to not use them again.
For Stages 1, 4 and 5 I had most control over Artilleryman's character.
From his original creation he had been my favourite member of the
Evil Eight (before then it was Clawman who had been in every incarnation
of my poorly made custom robot masters) And after it was decided
that he was going to be one of the members of the Evil Eight that
survived the War and come out looking looking somewhat brand new
I found that I had control over him in stage 1 along with Geminiman.
Due to their history I decided I'd use Artilleryman as a bit of a
test dummy for Geminiman's new abilities. But also introduce all
these new weapons for Artilleryman to keep him in the whole theme
of being an Artillery robot. The most notable change in Artilleryman
at that point was the addition of the Long Tom Cannon, which is actually
a weapon I shamelessly took from the Mechcommander games, it was
the single most powerful weapon in the game and also the standard
artillery turret you could get deployed so I figured I should give
him that and make him a force to be reckoned with.
Stage 1 didn't end well for Artilleryman unfortunately, I was going
to have him escape Toronto, but in then I kinda got him too banged
up to get him out of there alive and so he suicided himself with
the unleashing of the Long Tom Cannon and then come Stage 4 he was
back in action, and surprise surprise, Geminiman was also in the
scenario.
So I gave Artilleryman his much deserved new look and first victory
against Geminiman since as Gauntlet pointed out, he can't ALWAYS
lose to Geminiman. Oddly enough, they encounter each other twice
in the war and each encounter came out with a different victor so
they ended the conflict in a bit of a tie game.
After that Artilleryman was basically covered by Gauntlet, and he
brought in his mercenary image full circle having the guy work for
EVERY faction in the War and come out with a big paycheck and smile
at the end. So Artilleryman ended up being one of the biggest backstabbing
bastards in the whole ordeal and I love him for it.
At the con (and even before then) we were discussing why the ‘Maniacs
would ever join the RPD. Because, story-wise, we wouldn’t. I suggested
we try to cheat our way out, but that wasn’t very good any way around.
Then it was suggested that it just be a mistake Shadowman make. To
make Shadow be a bit more human (especially since people write him
like he’s Batman).
I agreed. And, moreover, I make Shadow make LOTS of mistakes. Just
throughout the first half of the War. These mistakes cumulate in
Stage 4 where we get busted for every single bit of sketchy dealings
we’ve done in recent memory. After that Shadowman doesn’t play too
much of a role until he gets back on his feet.
One thing I wanted to do was to use War to enhance some existing
characters. Especially the Evil Eight. We had a lot of ideas bouncing
around at the con and all those really played out in the first few
stages. And now I’d say they’re much stronger villains than what
they started out with.
Another idea was to have just about every single villain the ‘Maniacs
currently have involved in War in some way. Even Nightmare Top had
a plan for War, but involving him just didn’t pan out. Maybe that
plan will be shown in an epilogue. But everyone else did get, at
least, bit parts. Even Xelloss.
The Sinister Six PC was planned to be used right from the start.
However, those guys have new rules governing their presentations,
and really … I didn’t want people to get sick of them and neither
did Rich. So they just kept being pushed back until the very last
stages.
One thing we learned at the con was how massively hilarious Crorq
could be and how untapped he was. War was a real opportunity to give
that guy a personality. Because, when I first introduced him, he
was a coolly logical machine. But now I’d say he’s an essential member
of the supporting cast.
One rule was that, no matter how obnoxious Crorq was, the good guys
could not retaliate. Not without serious reprisals. Crorq is really
the ultimate bad boss in War. He’s abusive, demanding, condescending,
unappreciative, gross, and (worst of all) one you can’t talk back
to. Because … he’ll shut you down. It’s not even a debate with him.
He was developed well.
Well, I may as well cover Arty, since I did write alot of him.
Arty was always my favorite of the E8, mainly because he struck me
as a guy who could be very origional. In Unnamed I had him be the
only one to escape Robot Jail and survive as a head and when it came
down to who we wanted to keep from the E8, Arty was one of them.
He'd be the mercenary.
As such I tossed him onto Cossack's faction as a way to make that
crew oddly undersirable to Shadow. Just sort of a twist. Although,
by process of elemination, he couldn't get very far anywhere else.
Honestly he might have stayed loyal to Cossack's faction too. If
only he was paid. And treated with respect. His betrayal really was
the cumulation of what others had written and was not planned. After
it was ordained it was decided to make him, somehow, be a wild card.
Someone who could bring in victory for whichever faction he was aligned
with at the moment.
Out of all the characters in the War that I've written, I'd say Arty
ended up as the biggest winner. Even if he wasn't paid, he did get
redesigned by Cossack. Stole some tech from the SA. Paid a HEFTY
sum by Chimera and a goodly sized sum by Hardy and Wily. And, since
he was there fighting witht he RPD at Gulch, he came home as a conquering
champion.
Since this was Rich's event I kept my ideas nebulous and mostly
character driven. The vast majority of these ideas did indeed see
the light of day.
Nightmare Top didn't appear, however. Maybe I'll use the idea I had
for him in War in an ep, like I said earlier. The Special Forces
actually were used pretty well and completely in-line to what I was
thinking.
The idea to kill Magnet off with plastic nanobots came very quickly after he
was introduced. Not only could Mags not control them, but he couldn't really
hurt them either since they were microscopic. Moreover, they would be able to
take over his mind and use their own very simple programming to do one thing:
kill Mesmerman. So Mesmerman's mind-control would not work on them because they
do not think.
But Mesmerman killing Mags with his scyth? That came as I was writing that battle
and realised Mesmerman's own holographic form could quite easily dispatch Magnetman.
But only after Mags got a good degree of damage done. I wanted all the Mechs
on the same side at the very end, even if one was being controlled into it.
Mesmerman was a MUCH trickier devil to kill. He's sentient evil energy. If evil
exists he's still alive. So I felt he had to be isolated in order to be killed.
After having to assume command over War, I really wanted to make Rich's origional
ideas work. As a way to keep his spirit involved if not he himself personally.
And this meant a return to the Orange Hell universe. I then realised this that,
if Mesmerman were to follow them there, he would be in the place he most feared
- a place without humans.
Another idea involved Mags propelling his satillite far from the Earth in order
for him to die.
Another idea involved trapping him within a time warp (Light *did* invent Time
Man). This would also isolate him.
It was important, to me, that Mesmerman die here. Because he needed his cummupins.
Plus, the idea of making him even MORE powerful nessesitated a follow-up story
where we dealt with that, and following up War with that sort of story would
be too ... impossible.
In the end Rich made it so the General made a virus to repurpose his evil energy.
In my outline the virus' effectiveness would have stopped at just killing all
his bodies everywhere while freeing his pawns from his control.
The people we were going to face at Desert Gulch changed ever day until it was
actually written. At first we would have run into Nightmare Top (who was set
to die in Stage 2, but the E8 replaced him ... felt it would be more effective).
We also might have run into a helf-rebuilt Multiman. I tried drawing him out,
but couldn't come up with an idea. I gave this one to the Elysium Battle guys
because they were searching for more baddies for their crew to fight. My version
would have had added weapons, however. Also he wouldn't be have been slow minded.
He would have gotten slower the more of him there were out there. But the way
he was handled was fine.
At this point I had planned for Chimera to be a part of the final battle. Rich
had suggested he be made into Cutman's personal guard once (during the Heatman
rigormoral) and I was going to carry over the idea into here. I did, in a way,
but he never actually faced the MM3 team.
I also considered bringing back Rich's Slipstream Angles - Flash Ma'am, Quick
ma'am, and the Silver Devil. Well, the Devil was being used in the other scenario
and the other two did seem too god-moddy after re-reading the convo we all had
in the private forums. But I did give the General devil-armor.
The S6 was an idea I was against at first. But I thought about it
and ... it made snece. So I penned them in. Britt and Erick had, evidentally,
agreed with Rich that it was okay to be used earlier, so I figured that'd apply
to now as well. Origionally I had it so they left with Gary and went to the OH
universe.
Heatman was a very back-and-forth case. Ben didn't know what to do with him and,
in the end, it was left to me. I tried to have everyone's ideas fit into the
end, including all of Ben's ideas (even ones I didn't really like ... his last
words were "Avenge me"). However it had been too long since I had seen
Robocop 2 and I misinterpreted Rich's ideas (which I did honestly try to put
in there). Oh, well. I also used him to kill off the nuclear Wily subplot that
had run it's course. It was tacked on and, while it did serve as a nice direction
in the beginning, it did not serve a purpose in the end.
At the very beginning Heatman was going to take out Skull Castle and die in his
own explosion. The WW were going to convinve him to stop with the General (not
Mesmer) pulling his plug because he's not stupid enough to leave someone like
Heatman with a choice. Flash was gonna Time Stopper them outta there. But then
dying in the cold chill of Space was proposed by either Raj or Rich ((Raijin Note: It wasn't me)) and that
felt like the best way to go.
As I recall, Ben had an idea where he was going to have Heat turn ont he General
and die of withdrawl. But this was in the middle of a lot of back and forth on
his part and I didn't really think that idea was so great. He then thought it
would be good to have he (as Pyro Da Fox), Erick, and Britt say goodbye to the
MMC because it wasn't "fun anymore." This was too depressing, however.
Plus, you don't get to die twise AND say goodbye. I did, however, have him reconfigure
himself as Pyro for his very last scene. He also wanted to bring the entire X-Force
into play, which was shot down. Not only were they much too powerful (their gig),
but this was a classic-series only event. In the end I gave him his wish a bit
by having Heat reconfigue himself into the image of Magma Dragoon.
His decision to join the SA at the very beginning was Raijin's idea in order
to give Ben a good sendoff (as Ben was planning on leaving the community) ((Raijin Note: It was Ben's idea to join the SA. It was joining War that I urged him to do for a big sendoff. I didn't argue with his ideas otherwise because I didn't want to discourage his involvement.)). But
the suddenness of it didn't make sence to me, so stage 1 was ser up to give Ben
a way to join the SA that made a lot more sence.
Wily surrendering ... a few people were mad about that, but it made sence. A
team-up between the SA and the Wily faction was planend fromt he start. Classi
actually didn't like everyone just teaming up and felt one faction should actually
be beaten. When plans were laid to have Gemini rescue Sparks from Wily and have
Heat die by blowing up WIly's satillite (and eating his plutonium), it became
clear that loser had to be Wily. He had no more big plan ... no more direction
whatsoever. And it made a lot of sence because that's what Wily does at the end
of every MM game. He gives up. It seemed spontanious, but that's because I like
to begin every chapter with a bit of a surprise.
Insane Shadow was born out of a conversation Raj and I had while I was writing
the intro for the 'Maniacs. Namely that it was stupid for the RPD to expect robots
to insall chips in themselves. I, however, saw no problem witht hat and figured
it would happen all the time. We argues about it further and I just went ahead
witht he idea because it did seem liek something the RPD would do, but it struck
me that he was also right. So I had the argument play out in the form of Shadowman
doing some chip-installing on himself with disastrous results.
Well, with the last scenario of the War completed, and only a few personal epilogues to be hashed out, I figured it would be a neat idea to collect a few personal notes from everyone about what inspired them to write certain things, or how they got ideas for some of the scenarios. I know more than a few of us were inspired by movies, anime, and video games, and I think it'd be a nice bonus feature to just sort of collect those thoughts, as well as a few of the more interesting unused ideas, in one place to make for an interesting look at the War from the side of the people who wrote it.
I've been asked a LOT (and I do mean a LOT) about how
I got the original idea for Mesmerman, and exactly how, since I'm
obviously not a deranged psycho, I manage to make someone who, in
only a fraction of the time, became about as feared and brutal as
the legendary General Cutman.
The original idea for Mesmerman, and his shape, really, was based
on Skeith, the Terror of Death, from the .hack series. It was the
difficulty I had coming up with a good way to describe his discombobulated
form that made Mesmerman into the artistic headache he is today.
Skeith's title as Terror of Death also made the transition into Mesmerman's
own title as the Terror of Perception, although that later became
the name for his virtual form.
Mesmerman's physical body is actually a Doctor Octopus clone, which
is especially apparent in the 'Slaughter in the shelter' sequence
in Once and Always. Add in that Mesmerman's body could hack into
robots and humans that he got a good grip on was an idea I pulled
from Transformers, as those giant robots in disguise could manage
the same thing with similar cables that came out of their fingertips
(although they never hacked into each other like that...).
His sense of humor and overall demeanor is a combination of the Joker,
my own somewhat caustic wit, and a healthy appreciation for music
much in line with the original reasons for our hero's name being
Rockman. Mesmerman's most memorable line, "Please to meet you" is
of course and excerpt from a Rolling Stones song called Sympathy
for the Devil. As the idea of Mesmerman and the song came together,
he actually evolved into a sort of 'Lucifer' on his own, becoming
a being who relied on humanity's evil to survive, which made for
a rather odd villain in a continuity littered with crazy robots out
to destroy humanity.
Many of Mesmerman's lines are cribbed from other sources, such as
the oxymoronic poem he quotes off right before 'killing' Freezeman
in Stage 2, and the 'power' speech in Stage 3 taken from, of all
people, Xykon the Lich from Order of the Stick. But he also has a
number of somewhat profound original speeches, such as the one delivered
in Once and Always to Constance and then later when he faces down
the Maniacs in space in the last Scenario. Over and over he holds
firmly to the belief that change, and the conflict that results,
helps him survive, and that in some sick way, he has humanity's better
interests at heart when compared to psychos like General Cutman and
the Scissor Army Napalmman. His contrasting goals are much more plainly
stated as he gloats over the General's crippled form in Stage 7,
Scenario A, in classic 'invincible villain' form.
One of the things that actually makes me a little sad is that I,
personally, don't have a copy of the grand conversation that took
place between Mesmerman and the Cossack's Comerades back in the beginning
of Stage 4, where they struck what, at the time, seemed like a mutually
beneficial deal to keep Cossack and Kalinka alive. Although I'm willing
to bet Anime Master either has or can easily get those particular
pieces to put up here if he wants to.
In the original plans for the War (there WAS a plan, yes. Trust me.),
Mesmerman was supposed to face down General Cutman, as he did in
Stage 7, and then sort of vanish from view, disappearing completely
to menace another day under cover of the celebration we figured would
ensue when the General fell and the SA was defeated. Obviously, that
turned out WAY differently, as now (Spoilers) MESMERMAN is the dead
one and the General lurks, now focused on making the Mechanical Maniacs
lives a living hell.
Will he be back? Well, this time, no. I can't honestly say I have
plans to revive him, and I don't think anyone else is stupid enough
to willingly unleash him on the world again. I've got my hands a
bit more full with my other character.
Hardman's role in the war was a simple and somewhat tragic one,
almost exclusively because I focused most of my attention on Mesmerman
and his various machinations.
Of all the Team characters associated with the war, Hardman in many
ways remained the most loyal to his pre-war alliances (with particular
regards to Gauntlet, even when the Mech's leader went a little insane),
even going so far as calling Needlegal 'Boss' for her stint as the
replacement leader when Shadowman was demoted for insanity. Despite
his world literally collapsing around him with the destruction of
his Bar and the loss of Cassandra to the hardware being known as
Constance, He never really changes, remaining his sarcastic accepting
self with a general intolerance for the Scissor Army that's only
marginally greater than his distaste for the Shutdown Code. Often,
he also takes the most punishment, as seen during his fight with
Hyper Storm and Ballade, where he wins basically by falling on his
last assailant.
His reward for his loyalty and perserverance in the face of such
overwhelming odds are personal heartbreak and a mountain of debt.
As part of the team that took down Mesmerman (and presumably General
Cutman) he gets some praise and accolades for his work, but in many
ways it does nothing to counter the amount of terrible turns his
life took while he fought to keep the world alive. In order to prevent
Artilleryman from blowing him away in the second act of Stage 7,
he sacrificed the barest amounts of financial security he still had
so that he could make his stand beside his team, arriving in time
to help turn the tide against the super-powered psycho-genius General
Cutman (Turns out the the Hard Knuckle is INCREDIBLY effective against
ol' scissor head, nearly rivaling the Super Arm in terms of damage).
Later, on the Eden station, he gets robbed of the one thing he swore
to protect waaay back at the beginning of the war when Mesmerman
once more turns Cassandra into a hate-fueled destruction machine
that the Mechs have to put down. The resulting wounds combined with
the surgery she undergoes to remove Siegema'am from her head plunges
her into a coma, with no sign of coming out of it, leaving Hardman
utterly alienated from everything he had and held onto from his life
before the Mechs.
In a lot of ways, during the war, Hardman mirrors another oversized
and somewhat tragic hero, the Thing of Fantastic Four fame, which
is only fair considering I based most of Hardman's accent on the
Thing in the first place.
Well, I decided a long time ago I needed to revist the idea of
Siegema'am, and I got to do that with the War in two ways.
The first was Constance, a latent personality deep in Cassandra's
head, who's introduction was a reference to numerous stories about
two people who are actually one person and niether realizes it. The
most easy reference to make here is Fight Club, although the two
personalities never take swings at each other. Her switching back
and forth and the references to the 'vigilante' was also a reference
to several 'alter ego' super hero types like Batman and Spiderman.
Although how the reference to 'The Derelict' got into Once and Always
and what meaning it had escapes me for the moment.
The second was the Siege Joes, which were updated Siegema'am frames
with some terrifying weapons and powers. They were created to counter
the RPD's special forces, but I'm afraid they never got portrayed
that way in some cases. One of the Siege Joe's most effective appearances
was in Stage 3, when a squadron of them literally materializes in
the center of the Cossack's Comerades formation, causing them all
to scatter so that Mesmerman can get to work on them.
Their value as shock troopers, in several intepretations on the word
'shock' again made itself apparent when the Maniacs faced them in
Eden, when the Sieges are aided by Cassandra and the mind-warped
Benny, managing to score a solid blow against the team by destroying
Snakeman's rifle.
When the War got rolling, Turbo decided early on due to circumstances
beyond his control that Freezeman had to go down, and bad. Not only
would his death drive home the high-stakes nature of the War, but
he was also kind of a vacant slot.
So, in Stage 2, Mesmerman makes somewhat brutal an short work of
Freezeman, making his death over the top and ugly to provoke Drastic
Measures, and then even going so far as to use his body as a shield.
Of course, this being Mesmerman, it's all a scam, as the real Freezeman
is captured and psychologically tron apart and rebuilt into Mesmerman's
personal bodyguard (little more than a host for a pair of returning
enemies from Hardman's Bar, the admittedly poorly named Eden and
Hades). Unfortunately, before I could really get the ball rolling
on Freezeman's side story, I went and disappeared, and Freeze kind
of fell by the wayside until he was dealt with alongside the equally
unexplore story branch of Syne Co, Mesmerman's terrestrial base.
Originally, Freeze was going to be contained entirely in side stories
until his eventual run in and death at the hands of Constance, who
would then take his place, as she eventually did, at Mesmerman's
side. Fortunately, that all worked out anyway.
I actually ghosted for Top on a few occasions early in the War,
most notably for his appearance in Once and Always, which focused
on his self-stated mission of finding Dr. Light and getting him out
of RPD controlled territory, and then later when he shows up simply
to slap Shadowman around when his friend is going smart-crazy. In
both of those instances, Top pretty heavily hits on the idea that
the Mechs are a family, and that the war has torn them all apart
is something he seeks to fix. Top himself expressed these concerns
on the Mechs board when he originally chose to side with Light.
In a lot of ways, his views are a parallel of Hardman's, and it was
a little tidbit I found interesting, although I never really got
the chance to expand on it. Top's view of the Mechs as his family,
something that needs to be saved no matter the cost, are much like
Hard's view of Cassandra and his Bar, but while the latter loses
the things he wanted to preserve, Top manages to see his goal through
to the end, with the Mechs finally being fully reunited by the end
of the War.
The lesson learned here is that unfailing loyalty to your friends
and team can manifest in a variety of ways: Top's loyalty lies to
the Mechs, and that drives him to keep them together, while Hard's
loyalty is to Gauntlet (Boss), and that drives him to do what he's
told to the best of his ability. While both are accurate intepretations
of loyalty, Topman's personal mission is, in every way, more rewarding
than Hardman's 'good soldier' role.
Gaderham took on a life of his own over the course of the war,
basically stepping easily into the position of Crorq's second in
command, even following up on the cliche of being even more effective
than his superior.
What started out as a goofy rookie evolved into something a little
more... well, black-ops as the need for it arose. While its never
explicitly stated (just heavily hinted at) Gaderham is Ex-Special
Forces, finely tuned for a number of covert operations, and easily
capable of bringing diplomacy to even the most violent of situations.
He lost his spot in the Special Forces when his legs were blown away
from his body, and a lack of immediate repair corrupted his normal
motor functions, leaving him as the robot version of a man confined
to a wheel chair.
His handicap, if it can be called that, does nothing to deter him
from his duty, and in fact has made him more effective. While he's
no good at stealth and infiltration anymore, his bearucratic skills
and ability to subtly manipulate almost anyone toward a 'for the
greater good' end manifests itself several times early in the war,
particularly in Once and Always where he constantly defuses the more
edgy officers like Landigarm.
The War does tax him, however, and he is unable to convince the RPD
higher ups of the very real threat Mesmerman presents after General
Cutman falls in Stage 7. He counters this first real failing by falsifying
all of the documents necessary to make the Maniacs' trip into space
legitimate, and rests happily in the knowldege that even if he gets
caught, he can't be fired because he really just can't be replaced
at this point.
Gaderham also has an implied relationship with the star-faring do-gooder
Duo. Almost as soon as it was decided Mesmerman was finally going
to die, I knew his wayward 'creator' (even if he was just a little
whacked out on Evil Energy at the time) just HAD to put in a small
appearance to apologize, but making him show up to the Mechs just
didn't feel right. So instead, it became arequest he'd made of Gaderham,
who he recognized as someone who not only wanted to do good, but
had the resources to do it. This might also explain why Gaderham
was so insistent that Mesmerman needed to be dealt with, but hey,
coincidences happen.
His grip on the paperwork bloodstream a governmental unit like the
RPD is bound to have is almost totalitarian, and is something I may
explore later. For now, I'm content that we have a name and a face
for the guy who REALLY does the work to insure the inner workings
of the RPD are smooth and all signed on the dotted lines.
There were... oh, boy, just a TON of ideas, both good, bad and
completely off the wall that didn't get used. In the few weeks Rich,
G, Rai and I spent on the finale, we actually went through, what,
three different ways of ending it AS WE WROTE IT?
Just trying to figure out a way to TAKE DOWN an overpowered, out
of control Magnetman actually resulted in a lot of head scratching.
Until the idea we actually used in the finale, my best plan was a
specially made concrete cannon ball Hardman could fire out of his
chest. Theoretically, Magnet would have no way of stopping it before
it bashed him in the head and sent him down like a house of cards.
Thank GOD everyone else thinks in a different way than I do, because
I'm really, REALLY certain that wouldn't have worked out in reality
anything like it did in my head.
Like I said before, Mesmer was supposed to live through the whole
mess and Cutman was supposed to die for good, but that got all switched
around. Also, originally the General was going to try and ESCAPE
through the interdimensional portal, with the Mechs following him
to the Orange Hell universe, which, again, obviously didn't pan out.
There were also some ideas tossed back and forth about killing off
Mesmerman by forcing him into Orange Hell, where a perfectly peaceful,
ordered world without evil energy starved him to death.
Actually, we came up with a lot of ways to kill off Mesmerman. I
get the sense not a lot of people liked him.
Landigarm, who I believe actually gets promoted at some point, had
the life expectancy of the average house fly in a room full of venus
fly traps. I mean, an angry, anti-robot character in a war full of
superpowered mechanical beings? Fodder. Pure and simple. I actually
expected him to be dead by Stage 3 or so, but somehow we all forgot
to kill him off. A lot of human RPD officers got axed, but not ol'
Garmie.
I know Rich and Gauntlet and Rai all have their own lists of unused
ideas that probably sounded really cool at the time but didn't fit
into the story proper. I know we ALL did.
And I have to say that basing Crorq almost exclusively off a one-shot
character in Clone High (which ran for, like, ONE season) was a deceptively
brilliant idea. I think it was actually Top's but I can't remember.
I just know it wasn't mine and I laughed really hard when it was
brought up at the Con.
My involvement in the War was never as complete as it should have been. I would start each scenario active and aware of everything going on, popping in and out of various scenarios as necessary to make sure everything was going smoothly. Then, after a few days when the big amounts of writing would start pouring in, I'd quickly fall behind. With the large volumes of writing being produced, and my refusal to ignore or even skim any of it, I was quickly finding myself bringing printouts of scenarios with me to and from University so I could read while driving and walking, just to find enough time to catch up. Incidently, I did little on the creative end. I always ended up leaving the bulk of the writing for my own character to Gauntlet, who was getting frustrated and burned out more than anyone by the end. Wish I would have given him more of a break at times like that. He was always making notes like "okay, this is what's supposed to happen, it's somebody else's turn to write now" or something more direct like "Raj, it's your turn. Write." but I always ended up leaving him in the lurch.
While I didn't write much for my own team, I ended up doing a lot of writing for Omniman and Golemman, whom I adopted due to everyone else's disinterest with the Evil 8 losers. While I didn't break the duo out of their rut, in the end I succeeded in generating some sympathy for them. The most (only?) writing I did for Snakeman was the battle scene in Stage 2, which was more of a showcase of Enker's powers than Snakeman's, and then the shutdown scene for Snakeman a couple Stages later. I had some interesting plans for Snakeman after that but never saw them through due to my own slow, unreliable creative process. The thing with Snakeman in the body of a Search Snake was handled well by Gauntlet based on my own ideas. For the most part the other guys were great with accomodating my ideas while I was being too slow to integrate the ideas on my own, but there were some things I really only could have written myself. The Docman War Journal started in Stage 3 and was meant to be released regularly in the same vein as Hard's Once and Always side story. The release of Docman's War Journal was pushed waaay back because it made obvious the shocking reveal that Cutman was behind the Shutdown Code far too early. Aside from Senator Keigle, the story was also to focus on Snakeman and deal with a flashback to before Hardman's Bar that would both explain Docman's presence in that story and the shift in Snakeman's personality between the early epilogues and his portrayal in Hard's Bar, Wanted, and War. I still have to write that story, but it's too bad it's now going to happen after Docman's been killed for good (?) and is no longer relevant. There's not much shock value to be had any more either way, so it would have to focus more on Snake's personality development, with Docman's retroactive intro being more of an incidental thing.
For what little I added to the overall story, I had a lot of opinions on what everyone else was writing. Before the start of the project, someone said the Mech's stories would all look the nicest because I would be going through correcting typos and grammar as I read them. I tried to live up to that expectation. It was already my self appointed job as team proofreader, but War required me to be quite punctual with that task. I occasionally pestered writers of other scenarios as well. Add onto this my insistence on snarking everyone with my Summaries, and I guess I came out of this project looking like more of a jerk than anything. It all had a purpose though, things look cleaner and more professional than they might have, and the summaries and maps were in the interest of an obsession with organization. With so much information being produced, it's easy to lose track of what's going on and where. I just had to make maps so I could keep the broad strokes of the War straight. I had to write summaries to express some of my own opinions on the scenarios, but also give people like Top, Classi, Hard, and even Rich who didn't have time to read everything all the time a chance to keep up on the project's events.
The last Stage was the culmination of my problems with procrastination and divided attention. Right when everyone's involvement was most important, I had to abandon my post completely to catch up with a certain History paper that was due the day after the War finale was. My punctuality with writing real world essay work is the same as my punctuality with writing online fiction, possibly worse. Everything turned out fine in the end, but for three whole weeks I had to cut myself off from the community and when I came back and read everything, there were things that were posted in the final version on the site that I would rather were fixed, such as Snakeman using exploding Search Snakes, Cutman using the term "predecessor" instead of the intended "successor", and an odd miscalculated subtraction. All those edits I snuck into the site version like I'm sneaking in my commentary right now.
Additionally, I also would have argued for cutting the entire "Dave Weller" scene for its inappropriate role in the denouement, and I wanted Snakeman's characterization at the beginning of the scenario to be very different. Gauntlet and Hard did some edits to Snake's lines at my request, but some extensive rewriting would have been required to make Snake less whiney like I wanted. The way G initially wrote the scenes was based on my own complaints about the rifle's role in Snakeman's fighting style, which resulted in a behind the scenes argument. So while I intended the Snakeman character to shift to a new combat style in an adaptive and seemingly indifferent yet inwardly complex manner, I didn't actually write anything of the sort, so Gauntlet put his own spin on it, which came out as taking his frustrations with what he perceived were my irrational reasons and attaching them to the character. I'm not up for drastically rewriting things at this point, it would be in bad form. So I'm left with the task of salvaging whatever I can in a later writing project.
In spite of all of this, I love how the War turned out. I greatly enjoyed working with everyone and reading what they came up with was an exhilerating experience. I should have done more, but I still left my mark on it, and I'm still inspired to make more sprites and art for it well after its conclusion. I just hope I can finally start to work in a more timely fashion.
The event that would come to be known as the Business of War can
trace its roots back to October of 2006. Gary and I were having a
casual chat on AIM when I began my usual grousing about the community
(this was during the MMC regime, so morale was at an all time low).
Gary made a passing remark about having a sort of Megaman Team get
together to help boost things, but I actually argued against the
idea, as I thought it would be impossible to keep the non-team and
generally idiotic mass population of the MMC from keeping such a
massive event organized. That, and our own limited control over our
own forums within the MMC severely crippled our options.
So, the idea was pretty much shelved when Gary agreed to the above
points, and we never made mention of it again. Although, due to Gary's
passing a month later, that statement doesn't necessarily mean we
wouldn't have explored the idea more if we were working under better
circumstances, which would, ironically, only happen when Gary's death
triggered a domino effect hat would eventually lead to our leaving
the MMC forums and restarting the MM3 (and temporarily S6) forums.
Soon thereafter, the S6 had closed its doors and I came onto the MM3. I already
had an extensive set of ideas worked out, which would change on an almost daily
basis. At this time, I began to remember the conversation I had with Gary, and
I realized we were actually in the perfect position to enact it now.
Kin and Tonic was instrumental in setting the tone for later, which subtly re-introduced
Mesmerman. At this time, though, the actual idea for the War wouldn't be quite
as developed- that would happen a few weeks into WANTED's planning stages.
In Early May of 07, I first presented the idea for an unnamed "collaborative
event" to be started soon after WANTED wrapped up, which coincided with
the Mechs Meet. Raijin and Gauntlet seemed to be pretty happy with the idea,
but were reasonably concerned with its actual function. At this time, the War
was given the code name "Project WIND" (as in the "winds of change").
That name wouldn't appear in any public places, however.
It should be noted that, originally, only entire teams would have been able to
choose an affiliation, which went more in line with the War being a team-centric
event. I never anticipated the amount of splintering that would occur, though
it did show that there was alot of care put into everyone's characters- a good
indicator as to what I could expect. This would also explain why I asked for
a lockdown of the teams in June- I wouldn't have even bothered to ask for it
if I expected so much dissention within the Teams.
Back to WANTED's role in the War's set up, originally General Cutman wouldn't
have been involved, or even mentioned. In his place would have been the Four
Horsemen, who met their ends almost as soon as they were introduced when it was
decided to bring back the General. Mesmerman would still have served a prominant
role in the War even with Cutman's presence, though he probably would have been
more of a puppeteer-type villain than he already was.
Incidentally, I credit Gauntlet for giving me the idea to bring back Cut. Yeah...Blame
him.
WANTED reintroduced General Cutman to the current readership in a very big way,
sending an ominous message that something even bigger was coming up. Only two
weeks later, after the Mech Meet (where more ideas were fleshed out in person),
the Business of War was unvieled with a large, 50-page story that was a collaborative
effort in and of itself.
By this time, the actual "design" of the War had been worked out, and
it would stay the same almost exactly. For the first three Stages, all Scenario
set ups were done a very basic way; I would cut up strips of paper with random
elements (people, places, and troop levels) written on them and mix them in a
hat, literally randomly drawing them out. After Stage Three, Gauntlet had worked
up a Scenario Generator, which was used for the remainder of my administration
over the War (I can assume G used his own gadget after my leave).
The War required me to be flexible and dynamic. I knew that with some many people
working on a single story that my own plans would have to be changed on a minute-by-minute
basis. I had a definate vision in mind for the entire War, which I would leave
extensive notes on in the Mechs private forum.
At some point, though, I became troubled by what I percieved to be a more personally-driven
mindset that infiltrated alot of writing that I saw. Quite a few people, I thought,
were simply using the War as a means to get their own character over instead
of trying to get the Team collaboration element in. It must be noted that even
though the Mechs were all but seperated themselves, we still worked closely with
each other to remain on the same page, so I was somewhat spoiled by my own Team's
concern for the overall goal. At that time, in November, I didn't really see
that going on with alot of the other Teams, so I was starting to get concerned.
This is when I started intentionally spreading the "Cutman is going to win
no matter what you do" rumor through certain people. I was banking on the
resentment this would cause when it was spread, and I hoped it would actually
draw people closer together and take the community aspect of the War more seriously,
rather than using it to showcase any one single character.
As we all know, this backfired in December. Things got pretty heated at a time
I was starting to lose faith in my own project, which led to my eventual hiatus
(which I'm still on- don't let this one post fool you).
Gauntlet assumed control over the project in the time being- the original idea
being that I would come back to it when I got my second wind. Obviously, that
second wind never came, and I barely bothered to keep track of what was going
on due to the sour feelings I had for the community at large (still have 'em,
incididentally).
Only a few short weeks ago, I got the urge to participate in the final Scenario,
feeling that if I didn't, I'd probably regret it later on. G had repeatedly asked
me to come back to the project for weeks, but I declined every time. This time,
though, I decided to come back to it, though I admittedly could have interjected
myself a bit better than I did, which went something like this on the Mechs private
forum:
"I've decided to write the ending. I'll have it done later."
Understandably, a very tired Gauntlet didn't like my tactless delivery, but we
eventually worked it out until it became what it is today.
The ending is a mishmash of ideas that were originally planned at the beginning
of the War mixed with more current ideas laid out by G and the others.
The original ending called for Mesmerman and Cutman to turn on each other in
a more sudden manner at the last second, leading to a full battle between the
two in Desert Gulch. Mid way through that, "Colonel Red" would be introduced
in much the same manner he was in the final ending to challenge General Cutman.
Cutman would have then absorbed Mesmerman and his power to answer the challenge,
barely losing to Gary. This would have signalled the end for both Mesmerman General
Cut in a single swoop.
Another idea proposed was a slightly different take on the above, with the setting
changed to Mount Elysium in the Orange Helliverse, showcasing Cutman's true vision
(and definately answering what happened during and after the events in Revenge
of the Scissor Army). The end result would have been Cutman dying (sans Mesmerman
powers), and Mesmerman possibly living on after betraying Cutman at the last
second).
In all of the proposed versions, the S6 would go to the Orange Helliverse to
live with Gary in order to give them proper closure. I was never comfortable
with the idea of at least three former super heroes simply vanishing into the
civilized world, doomed to sadness.
It should be noted that at one point, Britt was supposed to take up an evil QuickMa'am
role that would have been rather godmoddy and convoluted (it was one of my ideas,
afterall. Godmoddy and over complicated are prerequisites to anything I come
up with). She decided to retire from the community before the character could
be instated, though.