|
|
Post by Amneiger on Nov 18, 2009 3:50:40 GMT -5
90,137 words =D Much better then yesterday. Oh, and I found a thread on the NaNo forums about using Word's AutoSummarize function to produce fun stuff of your novel xD Here's what that I got when I asked for a ten sentence summary: Right.
“Grandmother?
“Right, right.”
Right.
“Right. Right, Tristan?”
“Right.
“…Right.”
“Right.”
“Right!
It's good to know that my NaNo is so agreeable xD Also, Dr. Matthews is fun to write if I can get his speaking style down correctly xD Here's a sample of it. It is said that whenever angels came to Earth and revealed themselves to humans, the first thing they would say was "Do not worship me!" You see, angels bore some of the light of the Creator, and they did not want humans to worship their fragment of it instead of the whole light of the Creator.
Now, the light within is certainly neither an angel or the Creator, but it is still a light that bears the visual markings of the divine. Furthermore, it is a light of knowledge. It holds the truth, or what looks like the truth. And ever since humanity ate of the fruit of knowledge, it has become addicted to knowledge. The beholden have seen the light within you. They will throw away their truth so that they may carry yours. They will not think that you are God; they will still be able to think enough to know that you are not the Creator. But they will think that you are an angel. And another sample that I don't think I'll be able to fit anywhere in my NaNo, so I put it here instead. Imagine the essence of knowledge and idea. Imagine mathematical truth and unknown science shining like a divine thing and burning like fire scorching away your mind. Imagine it growing like a beautiful cancerous tumor of light until it seems like all you can do to keep it from bursting out of your skull and expanding out into the world. That is Inspiration. |
|
|
|
Post by Amneiger on Nov 20, 2009 4:28:14 GMT -5
xD I meant that Wednesday felt slow to me, because I only wrote a thousand words.
Anyway, 93,714 words. Come on Amneiger...remember the goaaaal...you can do iiiiiiiit...
|
|
|
|
Post by Amneiger on Nov 21, 2009 4:40:20 GMT -5
I have finished my outline. Final wordcount: 102,248. Got to around 101k before midnight. I have done it. My last chapter felt rather rushed and lacking in detail and short, and my novel in general feels kind of meh and my characters don't seem to have enough personality. But I have done it. This is the first time I've won NaNo, and I'm amazed that I've managed to pull something like this. Also, my chapter titles suck. And are spoilery. But mostly, they suck. Anyways, final details: Grants
The Peerage
Lemuria
Obligation
Navigators
Artificers
Etherites
Atomists
Technikars
Overlords
Throgs
The Fallen
The Faithful
The darned
The Illuminated
Clockstoppers
I'm hoping that I put in enough clues for people to figure it out what the Illuminated and the Clockstoppers are, because they're kind of important xD. And Illumination is part of the reason I didn't want to have to use the word "light" in my title. xD Dare 6: Your protagonist does a face-heel turn and becomes the main antagonist. - Bonus Points: if your story now has no protagonists left. Completed Edit: Did the dare, but not the bonus points. Dare 7: Write a chapter of the story in first person, or if the whole story is first person, write a chapter in third person. Dare 8: Create a completely original and new type of vehicle, and describe it in detail. Dare 9: Have an important discussion occur over e-mail. - Bonus points: Include smilies and chatspeak. Dare 10: If at some point someone starts saying something in a different language that doesn't exist in RL, use the names of Netwiffers spelled incorrectly as the words of that language. - Bonus points: If you use the correct spelling of the names. All completed except for the dare about a new kind of vehicle, which was only kind of completed. Dare: Include NTWFers in your NaNo. Double: If they're main characters. Dare: Reference another NTWFer's NaNo in your own. Bonus Points: if you have one of your characters reading that NaNo. Triple Points: if the author of said book shows up as an NTWFer cameo. Didn't get PFA's double dare. Elcie's bonus dare only happened offscreen. And I'm afraid that none of the NTWFers got any lines. Dare: Include a delicate crystal trinket somewhere in the story. Have it glow with untold power, be engraved with intricate magical runes, be stored in a prominent place of honor, and always be referred to in capital letters (as in, The Crystal of Light.) Write a lengthy description of it. Have one or more characters stop to admire it, and possibly feel an immediate magical connection to it. In other words, set it up as if it's going to be a major plot device. Then have somebody drop it, shattering it into a million pieces. Oops. Bonus points if everyone just shrugs it off and moves on, and the incident is never brought up again. Ah well, powerful magical artifacts are a dime a dozen these days. Triple points if the story isn't fantasy. Did this, including the triple points depending on what your definition of "fantasy" is. And finally: A few people posted on this thread saying that this looked interesting. If anybody wants to try to read the current unedited version, PM me an email address to send it to. |
|
|
|
Post by Amneiger on Dec 1, 2009 15:37:43 GMT -5
So it took me over a week to realize that people might not actually want to read something where a bunch of the terminology wasn't clearly defined and thus confused them. >_> Hurray for me! Anyway, I better post all this setting stuff before the mods lock the board and the threads therein. And yes, this is going to be long. And yes, I'm hoping that I've provided enough context in the novel itself so that you won't need this, but it's here if you do need it. Also known as "How to Make It Obvious that I Based this on a Role-Playing Game." <_< Most new geniuses are approached by members of either the Peerage or Lemuria, the two major mad scientist organizations. The Peerage and Lemuria are not on good terms, and would be very happy to sway a budding mad scientist towards one side or another. Both organizations differ in terms of what mad science is and what a genius should do with it. The PeerageThese are the main principles of the Peerage: - Mad science is a separate field of study from sane science. You need to know sane science to make the mad science work, but mad science is still something that is very definitely strange. What you’re doing here is kind of like magic. Except that you need sane science to use it. And it needs technology to make it work. And you can’t learn spells. Which is kind of why we call it “mad science” instead of “magic.”
- Mad science only works for you because you are mad. Even if you aren’t suffering from their catalyst’s derangement, you still see patterns and connections that don’t exist, as your Inspired mind tries to reduce all the world to a few simple physical laws that can be manipulated at will.
- Mad scientists aren’t quite normal anymore. You have the ability to create technology that shouldn’t work but works anyway. There’s a really weird light-thing in your head. You have a mana stat, for crying out loud. You’re weird now, and there’s no going back.
- Remember what we said about not being able to go back? That includes sane science, too. You can’t do sane science anymore, because you aren’t really a creature of sane science now. Mania and Inspiration both mean that not only do you no longer think like a sane scientist, but any attempt to follow proper laboratory procedure, investigate things in a thorough way, and apply proper standards of rigor will invariably be ruined by your presence. Genius shows you the answer, not the process.
- You don’t have the final answer. This is an idea that comes from sane science, so you should be familiar with it. Science is based around the idea that as much as we know now, there is always going to be more to know. While current theories and ideas of how the world works may be useful, they will be eventually be replaced with new, better, more accurate theories that explain more things. That’s where you’re at right now; you might have good theories that explain a great deal, but resist the temptation to believe that you have the ultimate answer, because you don’t. But that’s not what genius wants. It wants to believe that you have the answer. You must believe otherwise, or you become unmada. And from unmada, it’s only a hop, a skip, and a jump to Illumination.
- Mad scientists should do their best to research what mad science is and what it can do. Maybe we are all crazy, and maybe Mania does all sorts of things to normal scientific research procedure, but mad science is definitely real. Since we’re the only ones who can really interact with it, we’re the only ones who can study it.
The Peerage essentially has no organizational structure; it used to organize itself with a hierarchy (complete with official member lists and codes of law), but dissolved it when the politics became too much. Now it’s basically a bunch of mailing lists and forums, with a few websites offering mad science textbooks for free download. The Peerage had originally been founded and organized as a resistance to Lemuria, but after World War Two it has shifted its focus to research. The Peerage divides itself into five foundations, groups that each focus on a different aspect of mad science: - Artificers: Mad engineering. Artificers are interested in making things. While the other foundations may spend time on philosophies of the world and on long-term plans of mad science, the Artificers just want to make things.
- Directors: Mad psychology. Directors see social structures and psychology as systems that can be manipulated by mad science. They’re very good at mind control.
- Navigators: Mad physics. Navigators are test pilots, explorers, crime fighters, and adventurers who use mad science in their travels. Their mad physics program developed in response to the Navigator’s general needs for both Skafoi (to get to wherever they want to see next) and Katastrofi (in case they run into something that wants to eat them).
- Progenitors: Mad biology. Progenitors are the ones who have the carnivorous mutants, vats full of clone soldiers, or have loaded themselves with implants. (Possibly all three.)
- Scholastics: Mad philosophy. Scholastics concern themselves with abstract ways of viewing the world, from ancient ideas of natural philosophy to modern theoretical mathematics. The Scholastics run the research programs for those who want to study the nature of mad science instead of using it for practical applications.
LemuriaThese are the main principles of Lemuria: - There is no such thing as mad science. What you are doing is sane science that nobody but you has the intelligence and ability to understand. Since there is no such thing as mad science, there is no such thing as Axioms; your technology should be classified according to whatever aspect of sane science it uses instead.
- You are sane. What you see and what you think are not the products of a deranged mind, but is the truth of the world. Of course you’re not mad. How can anyone who can build such technology do so while being mad?
- The various theories of individual Lemurians may seem to contradict, but in actuality they are all various aspects of true science. Eventually, we’ll know enough to put together a complete picture of true science. Eventually.
- You are perfectly normal and non-supernatural. That light in your head is perfectly harmless and normal; pay it no mind.
- Something went wrong with the world in the past. Humanity, somewhere, made some error in scientific, cultural, or moral development. You should be using your intelligence and insight to correct these errors. This will probably require global manipulation or world domination, but if that’s what it takes that’s what will be done.
Lemuria organizes itself much more strictly than the Peerage. In the past, Lemuria was a conspiracy bent on world domination, and regulated itself to ensure that obedience and loyalty of its members. It’s still a conspiracy bent on world domination, but with the Peerage’s rise in power after World War Two it’s began watching applicants and existing members more and more strictly to better clamp down on any influx of Peerage ideas. Lemuria does not offer its super-scientific knowledge freely, but will only make it available for official members. Lemuria often refers to the Peerage as the Invisible Empire, because it believes that the Peerage is a conspiracy dedicated to keeping Lemurian genius from controlling the world by maintaining an iron grip on the Earth. Instead of foundations, Lemuria has the baramins. Each baramin is sorted by what its members think is the “divergence point” in human history that they need to fix. - Atomists, who believe that humanity should try to use technology instead of social reform to fix societal problems. Societies such as those depicted in Gattaca and Brave New World are perfect examples of what Atomists think are good ways of life.
- Etherites, who believe that science should return to older scientific ideas. They create unified theories (such as the Luminous Ether) to explain the world around them, and will either ignore or destroy any contradictory evidence they find.
- Mechanists, who believe that all things are preordained. Humanity essentially has no free will; everybody’s actions and ideas are the outcome of the natural processes around them. This applies to the Mechanist as well; everything they do, from saving an orphan from starvation to mass murder, is not their fault, but the fault of their genetics or society or fate in general.
- Oracles, who believe that the natural sciences based on inductive reasoning and empiricism are morally corrupt. They think in terms of black and white morality, and advocate a return to older systems of moral and philosophical thought; something before 1300 would be acceptable.
- Phenomenologists, who believe that there is no objective reality, no logic, and no distinctions between that which is true and what which is false. The only things that are “real” are those which you decide, at this moment, are correct. Phenomenologists arose out of political groups that created propaganda by cherry-picking facts that supported their arguments and suppressing evidence that could be used against them.
There is one notable aspect of Lemuria/Peerage interactions: the mercatus. Lemurians are very good at collecting super-science components, and is willing to sell to anyone (even peers) who can meet their prices. Alternatively, a genius may wish to join one of the several minor foundation-like groups (known as programs) or simply remain a rogue with no connection to any mad scientist organization. Each foundation and baramin offers an ability (referred to as a grant) to its members: - Artificers: Artificers are very good at seeing how things go together. They can build wonders more quickly then other mad scientists.
- Directors: Directors pay much more attention to the mundane world and how it thinks then other mad scientists. Directors can spend Mania to make themselves more persuasive and charming.
- Navigators: Navigators can get into lots of trouble while out in the field, and they quickly learn various methods of getting out of whatever they find themselves in. Navigators can spend Mania to make themselves faster and stronger.
- Progenitors: Progenitors are better at building and working with wonders small enough to be used as implants; these implants can be used for either their creations or themselves.
- Scholastics: Scholastics know a great deal with mad science theory, and can to some degree predict and compensate for faults while building their wonders.
- Atomists: Atomists build wonders that are more similar to mundane technology then other geniuses; their wonders gain some resistance to Havoc.
- Etherites: Etherites used their unified theories to get better results when using Mania to enhance their wonders using the genius “enhance technology” ability.
- Mechanists: Mechanists believe that all things, humans or otherwise, are just cogs in an unchanging universe that no force can divert or change. They build wonders that are structurally sounder and more resistant to damage.
- Oracles: Oracles want to replace empirical logical reasoning with systems such as pure reason and revelation. They can spend Mania to instantly know one fact in any mundane (non-mad) field of study.
- Phenomenologists: Phenomenologists simply don’t understand the concept of things being true or false anymore. They can spend Mania to tell almost undetectable lies.
"I have committed crimes in my hunger for knowledge that would sicken you. And here, at the end, I understand that all my knowledge means nothing, that none of my wonders will benefit a soul, that they were only sparks of Inspiration cast out into the world to live here for a time. I understand now: nothing I have achieved will last, and the blood on my hands will dry there when I am dead, and from it no new life will come forth. I am not mad." ------ Obligation is the game's Karma Meter. A genius with high Obligation refrains from harming others, doing anything listed in the Scale of Scientific Sins, and in general stays away from behavior that might lead to their seeing other people not as other sentient creatures with their own wants and needs, but as systems to be used like other pieces of technology. A Transgression is an action that goes against Obligation. For example, a high Obligation genius would treat medical surgery as a transgression; even though the procedure might save the life of the patient, it still reminds the genius that the human body is a thing that can be manipulated and controlled. As Obligation drops, the genius’s actions and thoughts become more and more strange and inhuman, as they throw away more and more sane boundaries and limitations in the name of knowledge and power. Obligation is rated on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. (The surgery example above would only be trouble for a genius of Obligation 9 or above; it no longer counts as a transgression for a genius of Obligation 8 or lower.) A normal person who sees mad science may have one of three things happen to them. If they don’t think too much about what they’ve seen, they remain normal. If they think about what they’ve seen and can figure out the alternate logic behind the strange technology, they become geniuses. If, however, they try to think about what they’ve seen and don’t successfully reach any sort of conclusions about it, they become beholden.
The beholden cannot think for themselves, in that they are no longer capable of having any sort of high-level thoughts about the world. This includes philosophical, political, religious, and scientific ideas. While they may still superficially hold on to their old opinions, they would no longer to be able to understand why they have these opinions or to construct arguments to support them. For example, a beholden might still believe that murder is wrong. However, they would be unable to tell you why it is wrong.
However, geniuses have found out that beholden can handle wonders and aid in lab work without inducing Havoc. Furthermore, a beholden tends to “latch on” to any genius who can provide them with a worldview, and will loyally serve the genius. This makes beholden a valuable asset for many geniuses, and some go about searching for suitable people to turn into lab assistants and private guard force.
A beholden without a master lacks a worldview of any sort, and cannot make sense of what is going on around them because they will have no context for understanding what they see. Those beholden who cannot find a new master, become geniuses, or return to normality will go completely insane and die after a few months, as their mind fragments and they slip into catatonia.
A genius can deliberately make a person into a beholden. To do so, all of you have to do is talk to them. Demonstrate your wonders. Explain your theories. Show them your genius. Spend enough time doing so, and the person cracks.
The “clarity” the glassmaker (from the storyin the first post of this thread) was talking about was actually his description of the other workers becoming beholden. He had accidentally turned his brother into a beholden by showing him mad science, and then he had gone on to turn the rest of the workers into beholden.
Overlords, Technikars, and Throgs are three of the types of Martians that live on Mars. The Overlords are the leaders; they command armies and are the only ones who can pilot a Martian battle-walker. The Technikars are mass produced Grays used for various forms of work around Mars. Throgs are basically Mars Orcs; they gather in tribes and live out in the Martian desert.
One of the dreams of both science fiction and the beginning of space flight was the idea of living in space. People imagined starships sustaining cities of people, and of space stations as the outposts of an adventurous and brave humanity striking out to see worlds never before imagined. The world took this image for their own, and was very disappointed when it didn’t happen.
Space Station Colossus represents various Space Age ideas of technologies such as hoverbikes, robot butlers, and holo vid-screens. When it was created, it was as beautiful as the hope that had been in all dreams that had created it. The station is older, now, and has lost much of that beauty and pristineness as age and neglect has caught up to it. Nevertheless, the station is one of the most popular bardos, as it has become a massive marketplace for geniuses to come and trade whatever manner of strangeness they’ve either created or found.
Most mad scientists are of two parts: the human part, and the light within. The light within is the beautiful, transcendent thing that provides the force of mad science, and the human part controls, directs, and contains it. For some geniuses, however, this is not the case. They become something brighter and more brilliant. They burn away in their own Inspired intellects. They become the light within.
The light within, it turns out, cannot comprehend and is not interested in obeying ideas of morality or ethics. It cannot see other people as anything other than test subjects and raw materials. It is a force of deranged creation that denies restraint, decency, and sanity as it brings its mad ideas into the world. These geniuses are the Illuminated, and they are all of humanity’s nightmares of science turned corrupt, insane, and hideously free.
The wonders and actions of the Illuminated betray a mind that can no longer be called a mind by any human standard. Their behavior has been compared to the sanity-destroying gods of Lovecraft or the Fair Folk of legend who treated humans like toys, combining incomprehensible alien logic, unpredictable behavior, and mad cruelty in all they do. The two most well-known theories for Illuminated behavior is that either Illuminated twists the genius’s mind beyond recognition or that the original personality has been replaced by an alien intellect. In the first case, the genius has transcended, in the cosmic horror sense of the word; they can see that humanity is in the expanse of the universe like unto ants or worms or lab rats, and treats humans appropriately. In the second case, it’s difficult to tell exactly what kind of intellects would go into an Illuminated genius. It could be something that has also "transcended." Or it could be that pure Inspiration is flowing through and animating the genius, like a corpse connected to an electrical wire so that it dances and writhes.
A genius can become Illuminated either through committing atrocities or through improper use of Mania. Atrocities would include acts such as hideous experiments on unwilling subjects, scientific torture, and genocide. An unmada who attempts any manipulation of Mania that would risk turning an ordinary genius into an unmada (such as Deep Inspiration and diatribes) risks becoming Illuminated, as Mania burns away the moral and ethical centers of their personalities. In any case, all Illuminated have an Obligation of 0. Approximately 20% of all mad scientists eventually become Illuminated; 10% during the process of becoming Inspired, and the other 10% later on.
There have been no confirmed cases of an Illuminated being “cured.” All the stories have either had no evidence that they occurred or the Illuminated in question was simply pretending to be normal again until they could be certain they were no longer being observed. All current research states that the most sensible thing to do with one of the Illuminated is to put them down like a rabid dog before they turn you into their next experiment.
All people have the ability for imagination, marvel, and awe. People know what magnificence and ingenuity and brilliance and grace are without having to be told such things, because it is a part of being human. They also have the ability to create works embodying these, be it scientific, philosophical or artistic works. Within everybody is the knowledge of beauty and the spark of miracle. For Clockstoppers, there is no beauty. There is no miracle. There is no magnificence or brilliance or grace or ingenuity or marvel or awe or imagination. There is just hatred and spite and an endless void. Clockstoppers (also known as Hollow Ones) can be described as being anti-geniuses. A genius often became a genius because they used the power of science, technology, or philosophy to work through whatever issue started their Breakthrough; Clockstoppers deny any of these exist. While geniuses create (very strange) technology, Clockstoppers have the ability to destroy both wonders and mundane technology. If a genius represents technology, creation, creativity, intelligence, and sentience, a Clockstopper represents the absence of technology, the absence of creation, the absence of creativity, the absence of intelligence, and the absence of sentience. The motivations of new Clockstoppers may vary considerable, but as they grow in power they all seem to gain the same goal: the destruction of sentience and the reversion of all humans to unthinking animals. As a Clockstopper grows in power, their definition of what is technology (and thus able to be targeted by their anti-technology abilities) expands. The definition usually starts out with modern computer technology, but at higher levels of power become much more alarming. While geniuses can only affect physical objects, Clockstoppers are able to target and destroy nonphysical technologies as well. Examples of abilities powerful Clockstoppers have demonstrated are: - Nullify language. Language is itself a technology; it is a shared mental structure allowing individuals to share thoughts and collaborate to create both societies and more technology. Weaker forms of this ability only cover more “scientific” forms of communication such as mathematical equations, but stronger forms can turn writing into nonsensical scribbles, turn spoken words to gibberish, and reduce works of art and music to meaningless shapes, blotches of color, and random sounds.
- Destroy agriculture. Crops exist because humans created agricultural techniques to channel and use the plants they found around them. Agriculture is science, and thus can and should be destroyed by Clockstopper abilities.
- Drain Mania. A Clockstopper can cause geniuses, manes, and other people/things of mad science to lose Mania.
- Immunity to weapons. Weapons here initially means just guns and tanks and the atomic bomb, but eventually extends to swords and crossbows and clubs. All of these are items that humans have taken up to aid them, and are thus technology. If you throw a rock at the Clockstopper, the rock becomes a weapon, which is technology, which the Clockstopper would be immune to.
- Destroy dog domestication. Early humans tamed wolves to be their friend and allies, but this training is technology; it is another mental construct and another form of technology. It must be destroyed.
- Prevent fires from being lit. Humanity learned to use fire to fend off predators, cook their food, and light the night. Therefore, fire is technology.
- Destroy thought. Sentient thought lead to humanity creating science and technology. To stop there being science and technology ever again, one should destroy all sentience.
|
|
