[Project] NS2 fiction
henrythewhite
Join Date: 2011-01-29 Member: 79551Members
Join Date: 2011-01-29 Member: 79551Members
in Squad Five
<div class="IPBDescription">Following in the footsteps of "Six Days in Sanjii"</div>I remember being super excited when I first read <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/world/intro" target="_blank">Six Days in Sanjii</a>. There was something about it that captured my imagination. It made me feel like I knew something about the outmatched Frontiersmen, facing their horrifying alien foe for the first time, and it sure as hell made me want to play the game. My hope is that you felt the same way.
I want to work with some of you to make more fiction for the NS universe.
I won't pretend to know all there is to know about the NS setting, and clearly there are going to have to be some changes from that first story to expand on the differences between the marines at first contact and the marines as they are now (and let's not forget the aliens), but I'm open to feedback and editing. In fact, I'd especially like to use the project as a co-editing space.
My vision for this project is as follows:
-I will write around 50k words in story material (stories or setting documents, number TBD), with more forthcoming if it seems successful
-I will make this material available to others for the purpose of peer-editing
-I will provide all of it to UWE for use as setting and theme material, to use as they see fit
-I will work to make all of this as true to the setting as I can, hopefully with input from UWE, and
-I will give the UWE creative team final say in defining what is canon
I hope that:
-you will be moved to contribute your own words to this effort, in an amount TBD by yourself
-you will help out by editing my work and pointing out any errors I have made
-you will accept the editing suggestions of others
-you will also submit your material to UWE and accept their definitions of what is canon
I expect that some of what I make will be unusable. But some of it will be good, too. And I will count successful any fic that UWE can post that makes people want to play the game.
Interested?
I want to work with some of you to make more fiction for the NS universe.
I won't pretend to know all there is to know about the NS setting, and clearly there are going to have to be some changes from that first story to expand on the differences between the marines at first contact and the marines as they are now (and let's not forget the aliens), but I'm open to feedback and editing. In fact, I'd especially like to use the project as a co-editing space.
My vision for this project is as follows:
-I will write around 50k words in story material (stories or setting documents, number TBD), with more forthcoming if it seems successful
-I will make this material available to others for the purpose of peer-editing
-I will provide all of it to UWE for use as setting and theme material, to use as they see fit
-I will work to make all of this as true to the setting as I can, hopefully with input from UWE, and
-I will give the UWE creative team final say in defining what is canon
I hope that:
-you will be moved to contribute your own words to this effort, in an amount TBD by yourself
-you will help out by editing my work and pointing out any errors I have made
-you will accept the editing suggestions of others
-you will also submit your material to UWE and accept their definitions of what is canon
I expect that some of what I make will be unusable. But some of it will be good, too. And I will count successful any fic that UWE can post that makes people want to play the game.
Interested?
Comments
I expect I'll be posting a link to the initial 10k of material by the end of the upcoming week, or whenever I finish the original piece that I have ideas for, whichever comes first.
Also, Zastels, I too would love to hear more about your map. Is there a defining concept of the place?
Ya I'm going to need another 24 lol
I've started it, didn't think Mother would be dropping by from the great white north . .
I would appreciate your thoughts on how I should distribute access to my pieces in the future. I chose to use the googledocs publishing function because they mention that it is less resource intensive, but perhaps I should be giving you folks commenting access instead?
Also, while I wait for your comments on the above piece, do you have any ideas for things that I should write about? Particular setting documents, stories, any ideas would be welcome. I can't guarantee that I'll use them or follow them the way you had thought they would go (for that, you have to write stuff too :D ), but with any luck we can come up with more cool things to put together for this project.
Finally, how do you incorporate IPs and Phase Gates into the fiction? Are new marines coming through them, or are the IPs just spawning stored copies of the on-duty soldiers according to records from the local nanogrid? How do members of the TSF get from star system to star system? Are there big interstellar phase gates, or other FTL travel, or is it something altogether slower?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys!
And I completely agree that there should be some attempt made to compile the existent canon. What material, besides Six Days in Sanjii, is there that you know of? Perhaps one of our first documents that we should make should simply be a listing of various background material and the especially relevant facts that may be drawn from it?
For example, I tried to do something like that at the beginning of my piece by listing some of the events that I had presupposed to exist for the purposes of the story / setting. But I should also have added that I just made up the idea of having the Kharaa produce deep-space capable spores that would act as starter seeds for future colonization in other areas. And I just kind of assumed that there is a TSF navy of some sort, with ships that are capable of bombarding a station with high-energy plasma weapons, lasers, or kinetics.
EDIT: Here is a link to the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Community_Lore" target="_blank">community page</a> I created for the project. You'll be better off creating an account on the wiki, and formatting is fairly straightforward for simple matters. You can google anything over the simple stuff fairly easily.
I'll have some more material ready for you folks soon, in the form of several TSF database entries covering the Kharaa. In the meantime, I was just thinking that I should have made <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wk76r0u8YQf761I1fCri4dyLmi1uvOwpclY6ZKvdd6c/edit" target="_blank">my material more accessible</a>, so now you can enter comments.
I really hope that some of you will be interested in offering some workshop-esque advice, as I still consider the above stuff to be a rough draft and I feel like I need an outside perspective on it. I look forward to seeing whatever else you folks want to put together, and I'd be happy to offer critique / commentary on your pieces too.
I like the idea of writing up the TSF charter. Do you have any ideas in particular, SkymanderX? I was thinking I should look up details from the UN Charter, but the existent background for the TSF makes me think that we might want to base it off something more like, I dunno, Rainbow 6 :)
That's my take on it, sourced from one of those links I posted previously in the thread.
That sounds right up my alley aye Rob...
I would be down to help
Also if you are bored go read the NS fan fic I wrote 7-8 years ago... The link is in my sig
[edit]
also look in your maps folder for the official map back stories as well
also Nanites
[/edit]
If not would it be possible to create?
What year is this, main locations etc.
Population, technology, politics, resources, colonization of other planets - why, how, how many, where...
First alien contact.
Goals or reasons why humans and aliens fight eachother. Do they need the same resources? Are humans trying to harvest resources from alien planets? Do kharaa even have multiple planets? Or is it more like aliens, where humans carry them around on their ships - then some ###### happens and suddenly we have a hive mother... or the predator stuff.
Or do aliens have some form of space travel too?
You dont need too much information on the aliens since you can write it a bit from the human perspective - so you only know what they discovered everything else is not yet known.
Is it the other way around, do aliens invade human outposts?
Guess its pretty much starcraft marines vs zerg, imperium vs tyranids kind of story.
Even tho uwe doesnt want ppl to look at kharaa as the "evil" race... well they are aliens, relative primitive with teeth and claws... dont think you will ever take a cup of tea with them.
Arclight, there is a wiki that Champlo0 posted a link to on May 9th (the first page of this thread), with links to both Marine and Alien info. Other than that, I know of little to no background information. The writer I mentioned above is working on changing that.
Also, my apologies for not getting more material out to you guys recently. I have been writing more, but my pace dropped right about when several of my friends finally pushed the Vorkosigan saga in front of my nose. Not a coincidence.
I did totally rewrite most of the "Fall of Hovd" piece to improve the pacing, but it's still a first draft of this new version. Many much comments would be appreciated.
Also, what do you think of the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/10QrM9I_3LxNU4kAMTL2qf9pusibuJ-z7fnSYSkBrfGA/edit" target="_blank">Kharaa analysis</a> writeup that I posted a while ago? I haven't seen any comments on that either, and would much appreciate them. Especially since I'm currently working on something similar for the TSF's own technology.
I haven't added anything for a few days, because I hit my 50k word goal and wanted to take a breather to work on something else. I know, the words don't quite add up, but I have another unposted piece on the formation of the Charter that makes up the discrepancy.
What do you folks think? I'd enjoy working more on the NS2' piece after I get some of this other work done, where should I take it and what else should be in there?
Basically some reporter was granted interview access to the TSA home system, they cleared the gate, stared down the barrels of several heavy defensive platforms, and got silently boarded for security inspection by a TSA marine squad.
They then went into the TSA base, going through the training facilities, where cheap low-tech solutions such as RC toys being used as fake-kharaa targets (due to limited funding by the continually fighting governments), next to high tech phase gates & holo-grids (new tech paid for by same panicky governments now that the kharaa are on the scene).
Finally ended saying the governments had wanted to control this TSA creation of theirs, but now that it has been given real teeth, may grow beyond their pathetic attempts at control.
Anyone got a link to this background story?
Also you MUST read MONSTER. One of the best NS fan fictions ever written and it's huge!!
As well as Gates Moon and Stars, another brilliant NS universe background.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=29447" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...showtopic=29447</a>