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[Story idea for terra ascendant]

I have an idea for a story. In short: shameless homeworld cataclysm ripoff
the story focuses on 3 groups

The crew of the malko (id appreciate better name ideas) a highly modular lowborn mining vessel that accident unleashes the greatest threat the Terran empire has ever faced and in their quest to redeem themselves will uncover both their employers evil motivations and dark secrets the Terran empire wished buried forever

the Dal's remnants of the AI from the Ragnarok jettisoned to prevent the devourer from repairing the vessel, becoming distant allies of the malko (seriously id like assistance) and willing to do anything to stop the devourer, even if it means incinerating the atmosphere of any planet the devourer infects even a small portion of.

The devourer a entity that has the strengths of the flood, Pre-nerfed Borg (hey i said threat not annoyance) and the beast all rolled into one, its only goal is to consume all life in the galaxy

still working on the outline will post it later

[Rommel]

I'm not even sure where to begin. Okay, yes actually I do know where to begin.

This isn't just directed against you, but where the hell, in my writing, have I given the impression the Empire has terrible, dark and evil, buried secrets that they need to keep hidden?

Seriously. Have the Terrans done bad things? Yes. Were they justified? Yes. Are they open about it? Yes.

Nobody is being protected against the Terrible Secret Of Space*, there isn't any hidden genocide or brainwashing going on behind the scenes. If you want to cast the Empire as the bad guys, there's plenty of stuff they're upfront about to do so with. You would be wrong, but you can make the argument.

There, now I feel better.

Oh hey, yeah, thanks for the story idea but we've already got the Reapers, we don't need a mini-Reaper**. A galaxy can only hold a certain number of 'End All Life!!11' aliens before you need to press the reset button. Yes, I'm looking at you Stargate.***




* =: Even if there are Shover Robots.

** =: Yes, I know that's a gross simplification, but gross simplifications make life easier.

*** =: I think it was Stargate SG-1 anyway, maybe I'm getting them confused with Star Trek again. Oh, and apologies to those folk that liked the last couple of seasons.

[kalaong]

He's also missing the central point of the setting: Highborn are exponentially more dangerous than we are, and have evolved an equally more developed moral code to compensate through trial and error. They are more aware of screw-ups, simply because their screw-ups are more catastrophic.

For example, despite being smarter and more capable, they still screwed up their previous attempts at space development, matching their timeframe to canon ME despite their origins in Ancient Rome. It's entirely possible that this is their second, or even third attempt to colonize space - the previous ones having ended with civilization-wide collapses before space-based civilization could become self-sustaining. Hell, it's possible that the current civilization had to rebuild Earth's civilization after a collapse! (Particularly tragic, as the ME timeline is based on the theories of space development pessimists who insist that we won't return to the moon this century. Of course, these are the same ones who said planes could never fly, satellites were impossible before the 2050s, and that the Moon landing would never happen at all.)

The point is that the Highborn bled and suffered for their current level of civilization, and are aware of how fragile it is, how much it takes to maintain it, the responsibility they have to do so, and what they should expect from it in return.

What he's describing is the equivalent of a veteran (well-trained) soldier going on a crime spree, or even a grand-master martial artist - possible, but far less likely than most civilians.

[response to critisim]

Shover Robots WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE! ... sorry about that outburst but the shear stupidity of that drove me over the edge. look the Terran empire wont be portrayed as the bad guys. this dark secret is just one event at the end of the grand crusade where the highborn did something that by those times would be considered a war crime also regarding the reapers after the events of Imperial Glory i just don't see a whey for them to be a threat anymore unless your willing to do an asspull and say "the rest of the reapers are immune to energy weapons" so unless your willing to do that witch if you do ill hunt you down and kill you (just kidding ) I'm going forward with this fic. also justification is a matter of perspective even today we still argue weather or not we were justified in drooping nukes on japan during WWII the same goes with morals, i mean for all we know the reapers think their doing us a favor by turning us into... you know what. finally this isn't taking place in the main Terra ascendant verse, its taking place in a version i cooked up with changes i find interesting. also theres no navi here that just did not make sense

[Rommel]

Okay, that was good. You gotta be screwing with me though.

Are you the guy who wanted space commies in Imperial Glory or the one that sent me the nice little PM saying 'Hey, I like the story, but there weren't Na'vi and plasma weapons and stuff in Mass Effect so you better take it down before anyone realizes' ?

[kalaong]

Howzabout you leave him be until he re-discovers punctuation?

[response to criticism]

Feb 20, 2011 17:10:28 GMT -6 Rommel said:

Okay, that was good. You gotta be screwing with me though.

Are you the guy who wanted space commies in Imperial Glory or the one that sent me the nice little PM saying 'Hey, I like the story, but there weren't Na'vi and plasma weapons and stuff in Mass Effect so you better take it down before anyone realizes' ?

No I'm not that guy, (why ask anyway ) I'm fine with the energy weapons. Nether do I really have anything against the Na vi. it's just when you introduced them it confused the hell out of me.

that plot twist on ilos didn't help ether.
"SPOILER ALERT" The Na vi being genetically modded humans? Really "SPOILER ALERT"
Look, on a whole i like your fic its just that it has a LOT of flaws ( or what i view as flaws) that i feel the need to correct in my on special way. By writing a fic that does.

I hope you under stand that. I don't mean any insult to you or any fans of this fic, I'm just writing this to tell a story set in a slightly different version of your Terra ascendant verse. You don't have to make any part of the fic I'm writing canon in the main Terra ascendant verse if you don't want to. I'm just writing this for my own amusement.

Note#1 Plot outline's nearly finished will put it up tomorrow afternoon.

Note#2 Seriously what are Shover Robots?

Note#3 All those accusations you guys are throwing at me make me sad .

[dalek]

It begins with the crew of the Malko finding an ancient probe while mining an asteroid belt. They bring it onboard the Malko in order to study it. The devourer escapes the probe and begins to covert the ship. The crew has no choice but to sever the lower half of the ship in order to save themselves.
They are found by a patrol consisting of a frigate, a carrier, and a dreadnought, (yea I know this probably isn’t how the Terran Empire does things but it’s necessary for this fic to work) the carrier stays behind to repair the Malko while the frigate and the dreadnought investigate the severed half. They report strange energy readings … and are promptly infected. The carrier after realizing what has happened orders the Malko to flee while it holds of the entity that took over the rest of the patrol.
The last thing the Malko hears before it goes FTL is the screams of the carrier’s crew.
All this happens in the first chapter of this story. As you can see I’m setting up the devourer to be a pretty major threat but this is just addressing what I find to be the biggest problem with terra ascendant. The weakness of the villains, it seemed that the empire never lost any battles other than the beginning of Eden prime, and that was because no one expected that. The power up at the end only made things worse, at the end it seemed at the end the only thing that stands a chance at defeating the Terran empire (aside from a lot of things I’ve seen in anime) is the Daleks.
That’s all I’m posting for today see yah later.

[Rommel]

Alright, I don't think you mean any harm so I'll try to clear up some confusion.

There are a lot of 'verses in the sci-fi genre that could knock the Empire on its ass.

Let's start by quantifying something.

Imperial Glory Chapter Nineteen:

"The three main cannons of the SuperDreadnought came to life, huge bursts of plasma fire erupting from the bow and shooting across the blackness of space, pouring into Sovereign. The power readings were ludicrous, the Na'vi Crystal enhancements working even better than expected, each gun projecting 20 megatons per second of energy onto the Reaper, melting away the armor like so much wax before the flame."

20 M/PS firepower per gun. 3 guns for the High-Terra class which the Serpentine was, and four guns for the new Phase-Three Stalwart class. Add in secondary weaponry and we'll say a Phase-Three Imperial Super-Dreadnought can project continuous firepower of approximately 105 megatons per second.

Truly ludicrous firepower, compared to canon Mass Effect. On the sci-fi scale, this puts the strongest Imperial Ship of the Line on the same level as a Mark XXXIV Bolo.

By the same token this translates to Cruiser level weaponry in Star Wars, where multi-gigaton yield capital weapons are far from uncommon. Beginning to see the picture?

As for your other comments, pride comes before a fall, and Terrans are nothing if not prideful. One Reaper, off his game, should not be used as the pinnacle example of the enemy.


Now, seeing as how it seems as if you're serious about writing your own Imperial Glory, I am going to ask you politely to please not. If you want to take the plot, change the names, change what you want, put your own little spin on an Imperial Mass Effect, that's your business. I'm just asking you not to take Terra Ascendant, break it apart like a Lego toy, and put it back together as you see fit. There are a whole lot of sandboxes in Mass Effect Fan-Fiction, I'd appreciate it if you didn't jump in to mine.

[kalaong]

Oh hell yes. Read Citadel and The Hot Gates yet?

John Ringo Rocks.

[convicter]

Feb 22, 2011 20:53:16 GMT -6 Rommel said:

20 M/PS firepower per gun. 3 guns for the High-Terra class which the Serpentine was, and four guns for the new Phase-Three Stalwart class. Add in secondary weaponry and we'll say a Phase-Three Imperial Super-Dreadnought can project continuous firepower of approximately 105 megatons per second.

Truly ludicrous firepower, compared to canon Mass Effect. On the sci-fi scale, this puts the strongest Imperial Ship of the Line on the same level as a Mark XXXIV Bolo.

By the same token this translates to Cruiser level weaponry in Star Wars, where multi-gigaton yield capital weapons are far from uncommon. Beginning to see the picture?

This is something that has bothered me in the ME universe. I think weapons and armor tech are somewhat for lack of a better term shit considering the realistic implications of the Mass Effect theory. I could accept the galactic norm for weapons based on humans time with mass effect tech but the salarians and asari have been roaming space since humans were kickin it crusader style. In all that time the best they managed was the destiny assencion... really?!? I personally enjoy the scope of ships in the star wars universe, specifically post clone wars. Games like empire at war do a grand job of dropping scale in your lap and how much of an effect that scale really is.

On your post about pride going before a fall, that is true. What I look forward to is how you alter perceptions and mindsets of cast when they realize "You survive because we allow it". Will they still consider success a "turkey shoot" or will they truly face a challenge worthy of a highborn.

[dalek]

Thanks for the positive criticism and helpful info Rommel, though I’m kind of confused, what do you mean by “break it apart like a lego toy” could you clarify that? Oh yes, here is the next part.

The Malko, after reporting what happened, are attacked in uncharted space by the devourer but are saved by the Dals. After a tense standoff between the two they come to an agreement, the Dals provide weapons and technology useful against the devourer and the Malko works for the Dals until the devourer is defeated, or as the Dals put it, “exterminated”.

This chapter is going to be short and primarily to introduce the Dals.
I’ll post the next part tomorrow.
Now I asked nicely, now tell me… what are shover robots? *glares*

Btw I’m also thinking of doing a doctor who/ terra ascendant crossover any suggestions for that?

[Rommel]

Feb 25, 2011 23:56:43 GMT -6 convicter said:

Feb 22, 2011 20:53:16 GMT -6 Rommel said:

20 M/PS firepower per gun. 3 guns for the High-Terra class which the Serpentine was, and four guns for the new Phase-Three Stalwart class. Add in secondary weaponry and we'll say a Phase-Three Imperial Super-Dreadnought can project continuous firepower of approximately 105 megatons per second.

Truly ludicrous firepower, compared to canon Mass Effect. On the sci-fi scale, this puts the strongest Imperial Ship of the Line on the same level as a Mark XXXIV Bolo.

By the same token this translates to Cruiser level weaponry in Star Wars, where multi-gigaton yield capital weapons are far from uncommon. Beginning to see the picture?

This is something that has bothered me in the ME universe. I think weapons and armor tech are somewhat for lack of a better term shit considering the realistic implications of the Mass Effect theory. I could accept the galactic norm for weapons based on humans time with mass effect tech but the salarians and asari have been roaming space since humans were kickin it crusader style. In all that time the best they managed was the destiny assencion... really?!?

That was something I loved too. I suppose the official story is that it's like that to showcase the technological plateau that Reaper tech enforces onto the galaxy, but even that rings a little hollow. So you sit there, and you think, and you roll it around in your head, go through a few leaps of logic that don't even make any sense to you at the end and finally come to the inevitable conclusion that in Mass Effect, Humans are just smarter than aliens. I don't think that's what they intended but if the shoe fits...

[kalaong]

It's more like that technological plateau induces a static mindset. We're used to Moore's law, and the possibility of a technological singularity. Those possibilities shape our consciousness. The aliens got locked into mass effect tech, reached its limitations, then believed that there was nothing left to discover. Don't knock them for lacking our experiences, because that's what made humanity powerful both in IG and in real life.

[convicter]

Humans are are extremely independent and even as stated by Mordin Solis "Genetically Diverse". Humans hate status quo, we innovate constantly. As you stated, "There is always a better way". I guess I simply can not see humans reaching the limit of any tech base, once it seems we do then suddenly there are multiple other paths to advance. Think of processor development in the past 10 years. Intel hit the limits of stable mainstream single core performance back in 2004. So they reworked the idea and slapped 4 cores on a single processor. Now at the end of the year AMD is going to be dropping 16 core processors on the market. Limit is a subjective term, /grin.

I like the archetypes of handheld weapons you have introduced in your stories. Photon weapons interest me the most. Densely packed bundles of light, damn that would knock the wind out of you and burn like a son of a bitch, shaped tight enough and it would cut a nice hole right through a body.

[convicter]

"The universe is big, it's vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.

All of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?

-----------------------The Eleventh Doctor"

Was reading this and it got me thinking, in Enoch;s conversation with God he asked God "Why are there spaces of void in the universe?" God replied with, "Those were the stars that did not shine when I commanded them to." Sorry just had to share...

[stros727]

Wow, I am liking this discussion right here, everybody getting technical and what not. I happen to love the Terran Ascendent universe because of the reason that it is basically a view of,

'What would happen if we never had the dark ages.'

In reality if the dark ages had never occured and scienece was never branded as evil, humans would be colonizing space right about now, maybe even pushing the envelope beyond our solar system. Please remember that the development we lost in that time period was 600 to 800 years of scientific research.

Who knows, maybe the American revolution would have included automatic weapons and stealth aircraft if it never happened. So as with convictor and kalaong, the idea that ANY civilized society of functioning organisms that are biological in nature and have brain fucntions could have stopped pushing the enevelope technoloigically is unthinkable in my minds eye.

I saw the year in which humans discovered the prothean data cache on mars on the year that human fleets destroyed the reaper was only 35 YEARS! Humans are very quick on the uptake in terms of adapting to new technology, but 35 years is unheard of, and if the council races are so slow to develop new technology for as long as they have been on the citadel and we have been locked on earth only to allow us to catch up in 35 years? I am kind of surprised that the systems alliance did not take over the galaxy in the first place for kicks.

[convicter]

Mass extinction has happened on earth before. The proof? I think it is going for about $3.85 a gallon at the local gas station. I also try and keep things in perspective, the human race is not as imaginative as folks seem to think. We are however extremely innovative, we can advance along a path at extreme speeds. With that in mind look at mythology, the Greeks believed in a pantheon of gods and half gods called titans. There are other ancient texts that called these "gods" watchers and the children of the watchers "nephilim". God (in the bible) punished the watchers for sharing the secrets of heaven with humans, He stated "I intended man to find these things out on their own". He also referred to the nephilim as bastards and commanded Gabriel to proceed against them. In short because the agents God left to make sure we did not end ourselves decided to show us how to perform alchemy, arms manufacturing and gene splicing. Creatures such as the Medusa, Pegasus and minotaur are (in my opinion) hardly a mere bedtime story. The fact that every race from ancient times has artwork of dragons says something as well.

[Rommel]

Fascinating. I take it you're a fan of the "Lost Civilizations" theories?

[convicter]

I am a fan of anything that supports human kind as God's greatest creation. At the very least in this galaxy/universe/reality.

If there is one constant in the ancient texts it is that every creation of God has corrupted their purpose at some point in time, humans included. You ever look at society and ask yourself "What the fuck are we doing?". It is a denial of reality that makes fiction/science fiction something we want to focus on. The dream of a reality where there are actually solutions to the problems we face. However if we do not address the problems we face then we may become one of those "Lost Civilizations".

[stros727]

Here is the thing though, I hope I am reading this in the right context, so please excuse me if I am a bit off.

According to convictor, we focus on the science fiction genre and the making of it so greatly we make it out to be an actual reality, but that we should focus on our real problems so that we do not become a "Lost Civilization."

For the record I am a proponent of the "Lost Civilizations" theories, (For evidence please direct yourself to the Baghdad battery) but I am also in the affirmative that science fiction could also bring about the answers we need, if in a limited way.Now, as a species we do need to change our priorities around if we want our children in a few generations to live well, but us humans have it in us to change our destines on a whim and make something out of nothing.

I want to take the work of Dr. Robert Mallet as my example, because it is absolutely astounding if he can support this theory with more evidence that he already has. Please look him up for the full story, but the gist is that Dr. Mallet is working on a project from one of Einstein's lesser known theories, in which he uses lasers and motion to "drag" or bend time, and the hope is that we can use this to travel time.

The downside is that we could only travel back to the point of which the machine was turned on and as such it is still just a theory, but think about it for a second. It took roughly 60 years from first flight to space flight for us, and now just 40 years after that, we actually posses the knowledge to try and BEND TIME! Again it is still far off, but to do something that was found in only the most reaching science fiction novels not 50 years ago to it being even a remote possibility is just absolutely mind blowing. We must refocus our effort on saving our future, but when most people in the world only look for what can be done for them, it will be a long road ahead. But looking back on all of our accomplishments and the continued speed at which we have accomplished them, I have the hope that we will be okay.

Again, if out of context, just think about it as a separate entry