[Iscarioto]

Love the colour them on Sif!

[Iscarioto]

Thanks.

I nominate Gargantua’s, um, fox fella.

[Iscarioto]

Okay, Let’s roll.

Ascension

Setting:

Present Day

A sudden breakthrough in science and technology sees the increase in cybernetic augmentation in the use of warfare. Budget cuts and riots see the uptake of this technology unpopular with governments worldwide. At the forefront of this technology, multi-national conglomerate know only as Ascension begin building an army the likes of which the world has never seen, creating an entity holding its own sovereignty beyond national borders and restraints. They begin hiring soldiers of fortune and reformed criminals, transforming them into cybernetic super-soldiers to bolster their ranks.

Meanwhile, Chinese scientists, while studying the effects of an ancient plague, make a breakthrough, harnessing a serum, known as MT-VS7, or ‘Empty Vessel,’ which turns the virus on its head, and grants the recipient otherworldly powers. The serum disappears soon after.

Aware of the implications of the serum, and wary of aggression towards their capabilities by China’s People’s Liberation Army, Ascension launch a swift assault upon Hong Kong, to stifle China’s economic and military capabilities, establish a foothold to mount their invasion of the mainland from, and to send a message to the world; they are here, and they are the future.

Our story begins in Hong Kong, with a group of vagabonds brought together by fate alone. Each receive a dosage of Empty Vessel whether willingly or otherwise. What they gain, they must use to protect the city, and themselves against this technocratic imperial invasion. Locals, tourists, students, lawyers and triads must unite to repel the incoming forces.

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So here is where the interactions can begin. Before we start turning this into a story we need to develop characters.

So firstly there is your own character.

Each of the recipients of Empty Vessel as a base will receive increased perception and speed, heightened senses, the ability to lift items several times their own weight. The degree to which these abilities are improved is random, and the extent to which can be defined by you, as you see fit for your character.

Supplementary to that, each recipient also receive one particular power unique to them, i.e; Fire-Wielding, Teleportation, TK, Time Control, etc. Completely your choice.

Alternatively, if you decide to roll the villain role, the Legion of Ascension cybernetic augmentations will be improved over the course of the story. Initially, soldiers have their arms and legs completely replaced, the effects of which should be obvious, and also wear armor which ties into their limbs, improving speed, accuracy and strength. The technology should look bitsy at first, inhuman, and then with time the look of the tech itself will improve, look more sleek and advanced.

As the story progresses, the humanity of the soldiers decreases, more body parts replaced, greater abilities.

Eventually, as a plot point, Ascension will unveil technology which is mobile of its own regard that hunts down organics and attaches to them at the base of the skull, rendering them conscienceless and slowly replaces all but their important organs as a self-manufacturing sort of cyber-zombie plague.

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Aside from developing your own ‘player character,’ if you will, we also need to look at designing the other pieces. Below shall be a list of things that need envisioning, if you guys want to go through and pick out what you’d like to define we can cross it off, and then everyone can submit their designs and we can work from there. You can design a look and contribute to their story.

Ge Hong – the ageless, yet frazzled scientist who discovered MT-VS7, and mysteriously disappeared with it shortly after.

Yi Quantou – Bandit leader from the mainland, strong sentiments of nationalism, wary of outsiders. Forms a militia, the Crimson Hand. His warriors all exhibit traits of Empty Vessel.

Xiao Tou – The little thief, a street orphan who joins up with the Triad as a fledgling ‘Blue Lantern.’ Has the ability to teleport items to himself which he has touched, making him a fantastic burglar. Morally good, just stuck in the wrong place.

‘The First Mistake’ – The original augmented Legionnaire. Horrified at what he had become, he fled, but promised to do what he could to destroy Ascension. Ninja-like, hidden in shadows, robed to hide not only what is left of his identity, but also the crudly formed augmentations which plague his body.

Shan Zhu – The leader of the Triad, acquired a cybernetic arm through his black market web. Also appears to have abilities from the Empty Vessel, almost an all seeing eye, who can visit the minds of those he forms connections with. Believed to operate out of a casino in neighboring Macau. The anti-hero, the protagonists must win his favor if they have any hope of winning the war. Morally grey, redeemable.

Qian Feng – The chief enforcer of the Triads, has the ability to manipulate fire. Heavy smoker. Morally bankrupt, a tool rather than an asset.

Lam Shuk-Yee – Chief of the HKPF, hesitant but cooperative with the protagonists.

Jonathon Reischek – Formerly considered a philanthropist and humanitarian, CEO of an important corporation. Lost his lower jaw and his sense of humility in an undisclosed incident several years ago. His hunger for revenge lead the drive to create the Ascension program, and lead him to spearhead the Legion as Commander and Chief.

We also need to define the look of certain set pieces.

The Legion of Ascension Invasion Craft – This is a bit of a trope, but I basically reckon every story needs great Star Destroyer-esque flying Aircraft Carriers. Could probably do with landing craft/mechs too.

The Legionnaires themselves – Thinking three phases, the first being quite simple armor, visible augmented limbs and facial modifications but with a whole lot of personalisation, like marines; trophies, custom weaponry and so forth. The second phase, in transition, would be more professional, like storm-troopers, their armor far more uniform, a helmet which is menacing and faceless, their actions more robotic and less human. The final phase would be pure cyber zombie, less emphasis on armor and more tech, with perhaps just the mouth up still visible to indicate they were once human, everything just butchered flesh wrapped around cybernetics.

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So that was a huge spiel. No rush on any of this but if you want to pick one up here let me know which and get at it, and we can flesh this out.

Yay!

[Iscarioto]

@Weilyn said:

@The Atomic Punk said:

Who hates whales?!?

Maybe I’m just a bit prejudiced because one of them stole my bike.

wait wait wait wait wait. What?

Full story, please!

[Iscarioto]

@bad people. Haha, you mightn’t be wrong.

@JR, the fins and tail are stolen from companion and body, and then I just used the square insignia flattened out as a black line, and once I got bored of doing that I did the same thing with polearms and blades, making all the colours black and stretching them till they were the right size for lines, then dropped some zyps to hide all of my mistakes

[Iscarioto]

An awesome idea at that. Yes, that sounds choice! Will flesh out some setting tomorrow and start making characters etc

[Iscarioto]

So, this is what I was doing instead of working on this comic project, but basically this is what I want to achieve. We can put up our designs for characters etc, but when it’s down to the crunch, it would be great for people to produce comic themed pages to continue the story. A lot more work than I first expected though, so there is that. but yeah

[Iscarioto]

This was a bit of mucking about to play with the idea of comic frames. And the whale took forever.

Heavily inspired by this amazing song and video which you should all check out:

http://youtu.be/KQu8FOjJXdI

[Iscarioto]

Not against that prswirve, thinking that it could be a sort of factionalism, have them as sort of early stage antagonists that eventually need to ally with the heroes to reclaim Hong Kong. Thinking of writing a character who is actually a member of the Triads to be involved at the hero level and try to bridge an alliance there too. Unless you’re thinking of doing the same in which case I’m happy to take a step back

[Iscarioto]

Looking good JR

Yeah, so I mean this will basically be an interactive story, rather than a game-oriented RPG. And everyone can contribute and we can design the overall look. Might involve a bit of sharing and allowing artistic liberty with your characters etc, we’ll see.

I imagine people should be able to bring in and have majority control over several characters, to pad it out, particularly in the case of characters which or of a more NPC role, background characters, one off interactions etc.

On that note, I’m thinking as a supplement for the powers, perhaps there is a scientist from mainland China who has developed a serum which produces randomized (to an extent) superpowers. So either willingly or covertly characters come into contact with this serum and receive base level traits such as enhanced strength and speed, reaction time and the like, but also a random one off such as flight, TK, the ability to summon items they’ve touched in the past etc. And this serum is part of the reason the Corporation chose to strike.

[Iscarioto]

Good question livewyre, I haven’t really done this before. I suppose myself, or someone else can put up ideas for the setting, we vote on it and then write and design our own characters on it, and then come up with plot points. I’m keen to try and make this almost a community interactive comic, rather than a text based RPG type, so say, your young Lawyer on an Internship in HK realizes he’s developed TK in the middle of a court hearing in Kowloon, you would illustrate that happening in HeroMachine, and we’d use that as an introductory page for that character. Then the game master decides that this could be an interesting plot point, so tells you that a group or mercs (perhaps controlled by another forum member) break into the court room to silence a witness, so you must put up a page or two dealing with the crooks using your newly discovered TK ability. But then OtherForumMemberX is passing by and see’s that sh!ts going down, so jumps in to provide help. Build from there.

I image it will be a bit more lengthy than a normal RPG, as we could have little tie-in competitions to design the villains and the settings and to whip it into a comic like shape.

On that note, I may try myself, but who is keen to whip up a couple of generic comic frames as templates to use?

On the note of setting itself, I’m toying with an over all idea.

So we have Hong Kong. Each player can come up with a reason for why they are there. But the overarching story I’m thinking will be along the lines of advances in military tech see augmented super-soldiers becoming more prevalent. But the price to mass produce them under the global financial crisis is astronomical and beyond the means of most governments to justify. Capitalizing on this, the producers of the technology and various multinational corporations form a conglomerate to fund and produce a dutiful cyborg army. Seeing China as a threat, with the worlds largest standing army, they strike quickly, using Hong Kong at the hub of the production rich Pearl River Delta as the staging ground for their much larger planned attack on the Mainland. Political anarchy, vote-buying and the like insures that the US, the EU, NATO and the UN, etc, are limited to intervene, so stuck under lockdown beneath the secret invasion, a band of misfits must form together to prevent eventual global domination and enslavement.

The enemies will initially be willing soldiers of fortune who submitted themselves to the augmentation in hunger for power. As the story progresses, some of these soldiers start developing a soul, and as such, the corporation initiates the next phase of their technology, a form of nano-tech which attaches itself to unwilling hosts, using the parts of their body which are needed for mobility, while stripping away their personality, leaving only a loyal hive mind.

That blurb was longer than I expected.

Thoughts? Feel free to add ideas and so forth and then we can turn this into a proper write up and go from there?

[Iscarioto]

Civi Spandex is fine! Um, whichever suits JR! I’ll go with Hong Kong, spent a couple months there in 2008 so will make it a bit easier to come up with the setting too. Mint.

[Iscarioto]

Guess I ought to start writing.

As a starting idea, I’m thinking a modern day setting, somewhere other than the United States, somewhere exotic, but not so exotic that we’d need to come up with an outlandish reason for everyone to be there, thinking like, an airport stopover hub destination like Singapore, Dubai or Hong Kong?

In the mean time, if we’re thinking of a modern setting, how about everyone start working on an image for their own character in every day style, nothing costumey, but maybe distinct enough that when the costume comes about (if that’s the way the story goes) then you can see the links?

In fact, try come up with your power too, while baring in mind we don’t want to go overboard here, no Peters’ or Sylars’ from Heroes, or Rogues or Supermen, something a bit more grounded. Can have TK, but it gives chronic nosebleeds, or somthing. Limitations, at the very least for your characters to overcome later in the story. You guys are all pretty on to it anyway, so this goes without saying!

[Iscarioto]

Shux guys.

Yup, “go hard” is New Zealandian for the giving of permission, and it also means keep up to good work, so both interpretations really apply here

[Iscarioto]

Love your current video, go hard!

[Author]

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