The attack on the Seven Villiages (Fanfic)

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:35 pm

Quentin was scared.

He had expected the humans to be primitive when he set out.

They weren't.

He ran. He heard the movement of the... thing... chasing him. Then there was a thump behind him, and the noise stopped.

It crashed to the Earth in front of him. It was over seven feet tall. It looked like a human, but all its proportions were wrong. Its head was too small for its massive body, and its legs were too long. Worst of all, it bent and twisted the lux around it with its very presence.

The thing grinned. Quentin raised Wildcard to activate its power, but before he could activate it, the thing was on him. It moved like lightning, and Quentin convulsed as the thing's fist struck him, its force enhanced by a jolt of incapactitating electricity.

The last thing Quentin saw before he lost consciousness was the thing's metal teeth bared in a twisted grin.

It was a normal day in Freeman Downs. The village had settled down from the excitement of the Harvest Fair well enough. Master Rillcreek was walking down to the market to buy some fruit for lunch, when he felt an unusual pulse of Lux in the distance. He turned, and focused his attention.

He felt the pulse again. It felt like something was going on at the Mistwall. He focused his full attention as he felt the pulse strike a third and final time. There was no mistaking its effects.

The Mistwall had just been counterspelled, and this was not the work of a Rac Cona. Even as the realized this, he felt its magic unravelling, and realized he was too far away to do anything but watch.

Lieutenant Miguel Cortex loaded his assault rifle as he ran a diagnostic on it over his Smartlink. Everything checked out. He ran a dignostic on his armor. Everything checked out. He queried his squad over their network. All of them reported that their equipment was operational. He queried the rigger. All the drones were operational, and there were no hostile aircraft or Matrix presences detected. Excellent. He queried the mage. There was a higher level of mana than usual in the area, but other than that, everything was normal. Everything was running by the book. Well, other than the rather rushed deployment, but if it needed the Jaguar Gaurds to be deployed in such a hurry, it must be important to Aztlan.

>>>We're coming over the target village now,<<< the rigger reported.
>>>Good. Troops, I want you to hit the ground running. Pacify all hostiles. All enemies are to be assumed to be Awakened.<<<

The Rac Cona in the marketlpace stared at the machine that had just come flying into the marketplace with a sound like the screech of a hawk and the roar of a lion mixed together and amplified a hundredfold.

[will finish later- class now]

BrockthePaine · Post by **BrockthePaine** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:47 pm

One of the first things I learned in writing fiction was to use action verbs. It'd help, I think, to comb back through the entire thing and substitute action verbs in place of many of the linking and helping verbs that you used. Just a thought.

Dapple · Post by **Dapple** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:10 pm

Well um hmmmm. Pretty short, needs more. Then I shal make a desicion.

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:33 am

DELETED DUE TO EXCESSIVE GORE AND VIOLENCE

BrockthePaine · Post by **BrockthePaine** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:59 am

Hmm. What is this story rated?

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:20 am

Okay, That's it.
I'm pulling rank and SHUTTING THIS DOWN.

Dapple · Post by **Dapple** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:03 am

Ooooooh someones been naughty.

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:14 pm

Could you have at least warned me before you deleted the post, so I would have gotten a chance to save it? I didn't think it was all that violent, so I didn't get a chance to do so.

I'll point out that this is a Shadowrun/TotQ crossover fanfic. As such, violence should really be expected- it's a cyberpunk game where you play a pack of killers for hire, after all. Besides which, I wanted to establish the Azzies as really evil for those of you who aren't familiar with their history of attempts at destroying the world (and the reason they're attacking the Seven Villages is because the Luxfont is key to World Destruction Attempt #3- just hook that baby up to a fusion plant, and wait for the mana spike to create a metaplanar bridge for the Horrors to cross over).

BrockthePaine · Post by **BrockthePaine** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:24 pm

There are better ways of portraying an opponent as evil. That was a BAD way. There's a fairly strict requirement regarding TotQ fanfics - they should maintain a G or PG rating. The level of violence in post 2 was unnecessary.

This LiveJournal has a very large collection of ideas on how to write good fantasy. You could definately benefit from reading through the exhaustive list (I certainly benefitted from reading it, and my degree's in writing).

If you'd like, I can offer you some constructive criticism on the first part, but only if you'd want the advice.

EdBecerra · Post by **EdBecerra** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:50 pm

RHJunior wrote:Okay, That's it.
I'm pulling rank and SHUTTING THIS DOWN.

As is your right, but I have to admit, I'm curious - excess gore and violence? Ain't no such thing

Really, isn't that statement almost as silly as Anne Frank's famous comment about believing that people "are really good at heart"?

C'mon, man... join the Cynical Revolution! Join us, the Few, the Proud, the incredibly Bitter!

Dapple · Post by **Dapple** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:43 pm

Yeah, already there, weather I like it our not.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:50 am

Ritually disemboweling a racconan child and ripping her heart out with your fist qualifies.

On a lesser note, the fanfic broke one of the basic tenets of the Questorverse: NO SOUL MAGIC. No ghosts, demons, "angels," spirit-guides, or spirits of the dead; no seances, divinations, "trips to the afterlife," or communing with the spirit world; no spells that affect, entrap, create, or destroy souls. The spirit world is as much a mystery to people in the Questorverse as it is in the real world.

On an off-sides, tertiary note, it kicked common sense right in the jimmies. A high-tech aztec civilization is about as likely, and feasible, as an Indy 500 with no wheels. What people don't understand is that the Aztecs--- and the Incas, and the Mayas, and the Anasazi--- were not civilizations "on their way up." They were already at the pinnacle of what could be achieved by a barbaric tribal culture. To advance beyond the barbaric requires a respect, in ideology if not fully in practice, of inalienable human rights.... and the Web of Trust that is a product of that moral footing.

It takes billions of human interactions-- by people seperated by years of time and thousands of miles of distance--- to create even the most simple household gadget. In a society of brutality, cruelty, superstition and oppression, this web of trust is impossible. This is why no pagan, barbarian culture has ever advanced beyond a certain plateau till it abandoned paganism and barbarianism; This is why modern civilizations that descend to tyranny and barbarity soon begin to collapse.

they can make gulags, brute squads, and mass executions, but they can't make a quality roll of toilet paper.

If the aztecs, or any corollary of the aztecs, exist in the Questorverse, even with luxcraft at their disposal, they're stuck exactly where the RL Aztecs were--- a bloody, enslaved, stone age people who could not even grasp the concept of the wheel.

This was the triumph of Christianity, and Judeo Christian ethic.... it first encapsulated the concept of universal morality, and the notion that moral interaction with one another on the individual level was part and parcel of the purest relationship with the Divine. "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy strength, with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself." The Golden Rule was not merely a good suggestion or a philosopher's abstract thought, but a DIVINE DECREE. It was that concept, and all the interconnected morals that came with it, that brought European and Western society into an ethical conflict with itself over the discrepancy between its behavior and its beliefs. It made the Web of Trust a God given right, rather than a situational circumstance.
The end of slavery and the invention of the lightbulb both owe their existence to that.

Dapple · Post by **Dapple** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:52 am

You heard the man, You sir are outa here. This wasn't just overboard, it was launched off the ship with a catapult.

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:00 am

Uhh... yeah. Shadowrun Aztlan was basically a South American drug cartel that decided to take over Mexico (and most of the rest of South America, barring the areas that got taken over by a a bunch of dragons and paracritters, and turned into Amazonia) by exploiting A. the growing power of megacorporations (rivalling or exceeding many nations in economic, political, and military power- hurray for cyberpunk), B. the fact that following the return of magic in 2011, there was an upswing in the power of tribal shamanism (and tribalism in general, thanks to the Native American Nations' successful rebellion vs. the US over corporate exploitation, that snowballed into them blowing up several volcanoes in response to the passage of a bill that made their genocide OK), and C. the fact that the company somehow managed to get themselves entangled with the Horrors, spirits that feed off of pain, suffering (and for the less powerful, destruction). Fortunately, they live on a metaplane that is seperated from everything else by a gigantic gulf that can only be crossed when the world's mana level is high enough. Unfortunately, blood magic not only bump's up the world's mana level, but also pollutes Astral space, and makes it an ideal area for Horrors to live in.

Honestly, the racs probably got off light in that the Azzies didn't just drop poison gas on them, like they did the Yucatan rebels, though they might have decided the risk of creating even more of Toxic paracritters that want to kill them.

Also, I'll point out that while there is a known cosmology in Shadowrun, its exact structure is debatable (and is indeed quite heavily debated in the SR world). There's the physical world, the Astral plane, which is like viewing the physical world through a pane of bulletproof glass, where lifeless objects appear drab and colorless, living things appear vibrant and colorful (with magical ones even more so), and there are radically different laws of physics, and the metaplanes, which are heavily debated about. Noone's quite sure of how they're structured, whether they're real or a detailed hallucination, etc. Different people can access different metaplanes- an Hermetic mage can't access the Plane of Beasts, the Shaman can't access the Plane of Fire, and noone can access the Bug Spirit's metaplanar home but the Bug Shamans. One thing's for sure though, and that is that you can get hurt (and killed) on the Metaplanes, and many folks argue that that's evidence they're real enough. Other folks argue that you can get hurt and killed the virtual reality called the Matrix, but that doesn't make that real. You have the first group arguing that some of the weird stuff going on in the Matrix points towards the fact that it is a Metaplane in its own right (or is at least becoming one).

I'll also point out that golems in SR are simply a particular kind of spirit caused to 'possess' a physical object instead of generating a body magically- and the Rac Cona do use golems, so they have a rudimentary understanding of Conjuring, even if they don't think of the spirits as living beings (and the spirits involved are likely rather weak ones- the strong ones tend to get a bit vocal about mistreatment).

Tbolt · Post by **Tbolt** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:19 am

That's a good explanation of Shadowrun rules, Nick, but I think you miss RH's point.

The Questorverse and the world of Shadowrun are incompatible.

In the Questorvers an all-powerful benevolent deity has placed an impenetrable barrier between the spirit realm and the corporeal realm. Any equipmnent or "magic" that requires tapping into the ethereal plane will not function because god will not permit it to. And don't even think of having something to shield magical items against the will of god. (Imagine an ant trying to use a piece of grass as a shield against a human.)

You have a good imagination, but if you're going to write a story using someone else's characters you should respect the rules they have laid down for their universe.

BTW, if you want to form a passive voice support group, tell me! I need to join!

("was" = bad, use action verbs! )

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:02 pm

Not really.

That might be what the Rac Cona believe, and it would be reflected in their magical tradition. Any spirits they might summon would be 'lux constructs', for example; they might interpret the Astral Plane in a different fashion (Lux Sense and kenning), and they don't go on Astral Quests to the metaplanes. It doesn't mean that that is the only way to view magic. For example, you have the hermetics who view magic as a bunch of forces to be approached scientifically, devout Christians who think that they aren't doing magic, and that God is working miracles through them and sending angels to help them, Shamans who think that their Totems grant their magic, people who think magic doesn't exist, and they're using psychic powers instead, etc. The beliefs of the practitioner influence how their magic manifests, and how it is best approached (wonderful mystery vs. science), but it doesn't do much beyond cosmetic effects. A Fireball thrown by an Hermetic mage is the same as the "fiery wrath of God" invoked by a devout Christian, and a Spirit of the Volcano is the same as a Fire Elemental is the same as a Seraphim weilding a Sword of Flame.

It's good to know that Master Rillcreek's response of "that's impossible" was accurate to character, though.

BrockthePaine · Post by **BrockthePaine** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:12 pm

...

It's not what the Rac Cona Daimh believe that's important. It's the rules that the author laid down for his universe that are important.

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:51 pm

I haven't bought any of the SuperCDs. Are they written from the Rac Cona's point of view? If so, they can be wrong, because the Rac Cona can be wrong. Remember the bias of the in-world author. The premise behind this is that the Rac Cona suddenly appeared in the Sixth World in 2070. Therefore, it would be the Sixth World's magical "laws" that apply.

Earl McClaw · Post by **Earl McClaw** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:53 pm

Tbolt wrote:That's a good explanation of Shadowrun rules, Nick, but I think you miss RH's point.
The Questorverse and the world of Shadowrun are incompatible.
You have a good imagination, but if you're going to write a story using someone else's characters you should respect the rules they have laid down for their universe.

nick012000 wrote:Not really.

Brock put it quite succinctly, and I agree. If you want to play in another person's house, you need to respect their property.

You've got a healthy imagination, nick012000. If you feel so strongly that you need to tell a story like this, separate it from Ralph's Questorverse and create your own world. Make it as light or dark as you wish, but make it your own, not someone else's. Not Ralph's, and not WizKids'. Then you'll be able to be even prouder of the results, because you won't owe them to anyone else.

Nick012000 · Post by **Nick012000** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:21 pm

Thing is, I disagree. The Questorverse and the Sixth World are perfectly compatable. You just have to take the Rac Cona's point of view on things as precisely that, instead of an Absolute Truth (though they may well beleive that), and that would fit right into the whole morally-relativistic-cyberpunk-dystopia theme Shadowrun has (along with the trade of something ephemeral but unreplacable for something concrete as another theme).

Would it help if I crib off of Aussie TV requirements, and edit the title to have AV 15+ and add the statement "“The following story is classified AV 15+. It contains frequent very coarse language, strong violence, sexual references, drug use, adult themes, and supernatural themes. The writer advises that it is suitable only for persons aged 15 years and over,” to the first post?