Recently I've decided to get down and work on one of the larger background stories that have been clamoring for attention- and with a cast of something to the order of forty, that's a lot of whining story ideas- but I'm not sure how best to start the opening. I've got three ideas to kick it off, all of which I think work just about equally well at starting the plot: 1st Opening Story opens revolving around the Imperial BioAndronian Empire (IBAE) and its origins, namely about Origins Council, the invention of the BioAndroids, and the situation on BioAndronia as a result of the invention of BA's. It should also briefly touch on the "Pure Planet" concept, tying it to the main storyline. (The main story is takes place on Pure Planet 14- Earth- and is a struggle for the character in question to gather support to protect PP14 from the questionable morals of the IBAE, which he defected from. It also is about the same character's other objective- to find and kill his 'father', the Generation One Experimental Series, General Testing Unit Prototype "Snpr EX1", after an issue with him crops up in the middle of the first section, Project One Man War.) 2nd Opening Story opens revolving around Snpr Mk.VII's Activation (birth) and the mishaps that happen, providing some immediate background information as to why Snpr looks the way he does. It then jumps ahead in time, likely around the time the 753rd Aerospace Engineering Shipyards were busy trying to perfect the Juggernaut Cannon, and the chain of events that happens, leading to the creation of an iconic Aerospace Combat Vehicle. (ACV; term for any armed space vessel, usually military. 'Crafts' is the designation for smaller ACV's, like fighters, medical hoppers and ship-to-ship transports.) Ties in well with a quote I plan on putting at the start. 3nd Opening Story opens in the 'present day' (either early 2014, or at the tail end of the Third Great Defensive War, mid 2014; not a spoiler, because nothing critical is detailed. Makes sense in terms of writing it after the Third, because of how it would open and because of an important event at the end of the Third...) with Mk.VII standing on the bridge of the FFS Forgotten, thinking to himself. Thus, it would all play out like a flashback, and would end going back to reality just in time for an important event. (Still no spoilers.) They all seem equally good, and I've been stuck at which to choose. The story would be taking place some time before the First Great Defensive War, the war the IBAE waged to take control of most of the Universe in order to ensure the security of the Pure Planets, which are planets that bear a striking resemblance to BioAndronia, before the invention of the BA's, which virtually destroyed the planet's natural life. (A large, semi-religious hidden theme in the series. Origins Council (later Council of Elders) feels horrible for destroying their planet that gave them a new beginning, and all BA's are designed in a similar way. With the military conquest of virtually everything, the production can be reduced to a balanced level, allowing BioAndronia to slowly recover. In this semi-religion, it is actually the moon which is revered the most, because moons are found very rarely around planets bearing complex life, and the thinking is that they let their moon down by making it revolve around a virtually dead planet, taking its one and only joy in existence and shattering it. The sun is next, as it now shines light that serves little purpose other than illumination and survival of the few remaining plants. BioAndronia ranks the lowest (but with almost the same regret as the sun) because planets can recover; a planet can recover and grow anew after anything short of physical destruction, and even than it will eventually fall together again. Suns and moons cannot fix their planets as much as the planet can itself, and for them to 'own' a livable planet is something akin to their version of a Holy Grail.) Some other info: Project One Man War Saga takes place over a huge time frame, starting twelve billion years before the present day (the Earth was created seven billion years ago, rather than five, to account for some issues with a new concept, the Human Ascension, brought about by the running sub-theme of human perseverance, and how we are powerful because we keep charging ahead.) and so far going to the year 4014, Earth Standard Time. (Earth is under a time compression field, and the ratio is something like 196 million Universal Accepted Time years to one EST year. A strange plot device to explain a gaping holes in Snpr's age not matching with his Activation year, because his age is always expressed in UAT years, and people may think I goofed up when I say he's around seven billion in 1993 and around eight billion in 2014.) Origins Council is a small cabal of humans, the inventors of the BioAndroids, and so much Aerospace technology. Their origins aren't hugely important to the overall plot, really only during the second section, Project Shattered Skies, as well as a minor detail as to his true age, linked to the R.A.G.E. system testing. It *may* also be linked to a few super-secret events, but right now it's a last-ditch failsafe if I can't explain them out any other way. The only other major thing it's related to is the Destiny Fleet, a semi-minor plot device, and thus very minorly related to the ending of the main story in 2014. Really, it's more of an interesting concept rather than an important thing- I can fix the R.A.G.E. system testing event without it, and could redo the whole Destiny Fleet thing without it without wrecking anything. And in a hardline critic viewpoint, it's a rather cheesy and overdone twist. Starting it at Snpr's Activation also links several of the first main characters, and how they all got together in the first place. At the very least, I don't yet have to freak out about linking Snpr to Ocean Seven yet, as that happens much later. (Project One Man War Saga was originally Sci-Fi, but seems to have taken on aspects of Fantasy and as of late, a very dark genre. Like the theme of the semi-religious Origins Council, the whole story at points can also be said to be semi-religious based, as my silly little belief that ideas such as Time, Logic, Fate, Destiny, etc, are the real 'gods'- although I see them as literal sentient but machine-like forces, not anything so egotistically modeled after humans or fantastical creatures. Logic plays the largest ongoing role, and is the highest power, looking at every intended action, reaction and inaction and comparing it against a solid list of rules that define physics and what is possible and impossible, and allowing said action, reaction or inaction to be done. (Otherwise it would move on to the next possible action until it found an allowable one, or it ran out and was forced to delete the entity trying to breach the laws of logic if inaction was unacceptable.) Logic is only surpassed by Time when Time is awakened, which is to say when there have been a string of illogical actions that slip through and begin to snowball, threatening to break the whole system down. Time's job when sleeping is simply to maintain the flow of all universes (Time only moves forward, but there is the aspect of infinite universes, each one differing slightly including combos of differences. Every one moves at the same speed, and restarts when it comes to a collective end. Any universes halted because of illogical actions remain inert until ALL active universes reach an end. As for people and life, it can be said that there is only one conscious, who is all of us. Every life restarts in due time, playing the same life out as per its universal differences, and we do not think as one or realize we are one because the single conscious either has such a level of concentration to be us without thinking such thoughts, or it is akin to a machine, following its programming, each line of programming (life) unaware of the others residing right beside it. And I can explain why I can think this if such a thing is true, because it was what I was supposed to do in this universe. If we throw in some form of 'free will', than it is because we are incapable of truly believing such things (and thus figuring them out through revelations) or that it is along the lines of how we invent stories.) When Time is awake, however, it has only one job: to assess how much of a threat to a universe multiple logical failures constitutes, and decide whether to render the universe inert or not. (Because such an action- stopping time- is such a massive breach of logic, Time overrides anything Logic has done, is doing or can do, when it is awake. Despite being on the bottom of the pile when asleep, Logic still cannot go against anything Time does- however, unlike humans, Time will always wake up when needed on instinct. That being said, however machinelike it is, it is still capable of being pissed off in a sense. You try having to wake up from a good dream every two seconds to go decide whether or not the kid with a flamethrower next door is a threat yet or not. Even an intangible force becomes a little ticked off when nobody else in the huge cabal of forces can do it themselves, regardless if whether or not it is your purpose and yours alone.) There's a ton of other info I can supply if you'd like, but I'll leave it at this for now because if I listed everything, I'd need a task force to sort it all out and then fix all the consistency errors!
