Writing Challenge - May/June 2018 [CHALLENGE COMPLETED - RESULTS TO FOLLOW]

[Swamp Sensei]

I mean. I wrote teaching reflections...

Does that count?

I imagine not.

 

[Natz~]

to be fair your role one were counted cause they counted as creativity, doubt reflections would :V

 

[redfeatherraven]

I mean. I wrote teaching reflections...

Does that count?

I imagine not.

Wouldn't say no before seeing it. Lay it on me.

 

[Opossum]

Reaching out about things I may have overlooked:

Kirby Dragons .
Can't find an entry for you on week four.

Natz~ , Pazzo. .
Can't find entries for you on weeks three or four.

A0SHIMA .
Can't find entries for you on weeks two, three, or four.

@DarkAura64/Fenrir, Opossum .
Can't find entries for you on any of the four weeks.

Between Mafia, real life stuff, and the impending death of social groups this kinda slipped my mind in all honesty. Still working on the first bit of the novelization project but I'm unsure if it'll be ready in time.

 

[Pazzo.]

I messed up my entries for the last few weeks, I'll try and get it out today but I understand if I'm out.

 

[redfeatherraven]

Between Mafia, real life stuff, and the impending death of social groups this kinda slipped my mind in all honesty.

In fairness, I've also been a right terrible host of it.

Really should be throwing tags around more often.

I messed up my entries for the last few weeks, I'll try and get it out today but I understand if I'm out.

Nah man, out ain't a thing. Defeats the purpose more than you'd think.

Breaking a streak? Sure. But you're free to resume the next week in.

 

[Pazzo.]

Great, I thought I'd been [RETIRED].

I'll start working right now.

 

[redfeatherraven]

Great, I thought I'd been [RETIRED].

Bro if missed weeks retired us I'd have to rename this to Coricus' Writing Challenge.

Speaking of, Coricus you are ****ing killing this ****. Currently the only one of us with an unbroken streak, all four weeks.

I am legit proud over here.

 

[Natz~]

seconded~

good job girl~

shes been even posting them in the nintenzone for plenty to look at

 

[Coricus]

Bro if missed weeks retired us I'd have to rename this to Coricus' Writing Challenge.

Speaking of, Coricus you are ****ing killing this ****. Currently the only one of us with an unbroken streak, all four weeks.

I am legit proud over here.

<3

And I already did 500 words this week making a joke post fanfic on ResetERA, LOL.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

I think I pulled a Swamp here.

I've been mostly neglecting working on the writing challenge to do other stuff. Well, one of those things was writing how I'd want a final series of the Pokemon anime to go, to post on Serebii Forums. I finished that earlier, and I was just now about to keep working on the challenge...but then I realized I had already written something.

2217 words. I'm submitting this.

 

[redfeatherraven]

A0SHIMA , Coricus , Kirby Dragons , Natz~ , Opossum , Swamp Sensei , Pazzo.

Two hours remain.

I'm cutting it close myself. Home stretch y'all, let's go for it.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Dude I'm doing final essays for my last term of college.

Nah.

 

[redfeatherraven]

Dude I'm doing final essays for my last term of college.

Nah.

Fully understandable.

Rooting for you on the essays, man.

 

[Coricus]

I figure Imma good for the week with the 500 word post I made on ResetERA on top of the 1250 word I did here.

But just in case.

Redfeatherraven desperately went to work typing down as many words as he could to make his deadline. He started this, he needed to set an example. Unfortunately, that was a little hard to do on the seat of a motorcycle at 60 miles per hour. With half the police in the state chasing him. Something about distracted driving, and the theft of a rather large supply of donuts. Those were some pretty good donuts, to be honest. But the police couldn't stop him from making his writing deadline, no one could. He'd sacrificed so much in order to be an internet using Pikachu. Mostly money. A lot of money. He payed almost as much on a month of internet as he had for his glasses, and his glasses weren't cheap. Neither was the tux he was wearing, but it was a rental so he didn't really care that much. He turned the bend around a steep mountainside in a part of the state he honestly didn't visit that much, trying not to get nervous around the deadly drop. Apparently the cops didn't get nervous either, because one of them just straight up fell off. Sucks to be that guy.

Red sang Deja Vu in an awful singing voice as the horseflies bounced off of his tail and rammed into the windshield of the cop car behind him. The cops started shooting, but instead they just kept hitting horseflies and making them explode like fireworks in the air. There were a ton of horseflies in the middle of nowhere and it sucked. But where there are horseflies, actual horses soon follow. And right on cue, a random horse fell off a cliff above. Red sped past the horse with the sheer power of writing it, making it well past the landing zone. But the cops couldn't match his awesome, and the horse collided with the front of one car and flipped it so hard that it did a 720 degree flip and fell further down the cliff.

Red could feel the words flowing through his pen, as though they were being sucked out of the air into it. Perhaps the souls of dead cops fueled his writing determination. 800 words, 900, 1000, a gazillion. All the while the cops were more and more helpless. An entire horseslide fell down the cliff, because that's what happens in Kentucky. And Cliff fell off the cliff too, whining about how much he hated Sonic because of course he was. But none of it mattered. The law didn't matter. Not even the donuts mattered. Red was writing like the wind, and the world couldn't stop him no matter how hard he tried. Because he was mother-fudging Redfeatherraven, Pikachu of the Appalachians. There was no "how" or "why." He looked good in everything, from Fire Emblem cosplay to a suit and tie. And if he wanted to write a whole bunch of junk while on a motorcycle, that was his call. And Arceus help anyone that got in the way.

 

[redfeatherraven]

I figure Imma good for the week with the 500 word post I made on ResetERA on top of the 1250 word I did here.

But just in case.

I have just this entire pile of mixed feelings.

Flattered, certainly. But also confused, very confused. Amused and confused.



10/10 would be confused again.

 

[redfeatherraven]

For me, we have one bit of lore expansion and a few bits of tripe. The most primary part is an entry expanding Starbound's Ruin entity. If it seems written stream-of-consciousness, that's because it basically is:

The lore in-game actually has very little to say on the subject of The Ruin, despite it ostensibly being both the impetus for the player's journey and the primary antagonist of the entire game.

The information provided about it is primarily conveyed by Esther Bright during the cinematic that plays when you first meet her at the Ark. It's described by her as a being that rose in response to the Cultivator's activity, one born "of hate and destruction" that "could not abide life in any form," and it was sealed away in order to halt its rampage, an act that took every last effort of the Cultivator - a notably powerful force - to accomplish.

It was capable of anihilating Earth with no warning and no effective counteraction. As Nox, during the final boss fight, states that the Ruin will awaken, not that it has, it presumably was able to do so even though it was at the time still sealed, weakened, or both. The Occasus cult believes it will be more than capable of wiping out all nonhuman life if only restored to full power, and it is probably fair to assume they're right, although it's also fair to assume it won't stop there.

I wouldn't call it a well-written end boss, but it doesn't much have to be. It is a looming, undeniably powerful force. We can take it from there.

As a first order of business, one wonders why it wasn't simply outright destroyed in the first place. The lore offers no suggestions to why, but I believe the primary implication is that the Cultivator, specifically, believed themselves unable to destroy it. Whether this was true or not is a matter of debate which we'll arrive at in a moment. First, let's hash out where and what the Ruin is.

-------

It isn't mentioned precisely where the Ruin is sealed. A portal is needed to get there, but then, the Ark is reached via (multiple) portals too, and the player is beamed down to the Ruin's surface. I believe the implication of being sealed, and its net effect on our universe, suggests very strongly that it has been placed outside our universe. Perhaps where it is space-time is folded, or at least differently accessible, which would explain how it was able to come to and obliterate Earth so suddenly.

Its present location may have something to do with wormholes. The Ark's gate itself has a substitution cipher message encoded around the outside, which reads (corrected for typos) "COLLECT THE SIX KEYS AND PLACE THEM HERE TO OPEN THE BLACK HOLE." It is possible they mean this literally, and the Ark's portal is capable of somehow stabilizing transit into, or more likely through, an actual black hole with the assistance of warp technology.

This raises a few additional implications. The Ruin is capable of surviving outside our universe with no problem. It is itself a living organism (SAIL says as much on arrival) but is very alien to any other kind of living organism known and equally hostile.

It is my assumption, and I will operate on it (though leaving the matter ultimately open-ended), that the Ruin actually originates from outside our universe, and it wrought havoc after somehow once finding its way in.

Its hatred of life is a bit more difficult to explain. My initial speculation was that perhaps life was somehow harmful to it physically, but on further review I genuinely don't believe this to be the case. After all, while your presence on its surface certainly isn't great for its health, you have to act upon it in order to cause it harm; it's not simply allergic to you.

Imagine this though. In-game, it is effectively our destiny to kill it. I am of the opinion that, through means currently unknown, it is itself perfectly aware of this fact, and is taking measures to stop the threat to its own survival.

And imagine what means it clearly must take. The being is ages old even if the timeline of Starbound alone is considered, and surely it's seen even more. It's seen life raise up from effectively nothing in a multitude of forms. If one is to play 20 questions, a game ostensibly geared toward guessing nearly anything, one opens with the query "Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?" And the Ruin has seen beings spring from all three sources - animal (Humans, Apex, Hylotl, Avian), vegetable (Floran), and mineral (Glitch, Novakid).

Nearly everything in the universe has the potential to, someday, be deadly to it. Were such a creature bent to its own survival above all else, what other measure would there be to take except to eliminate all threats to its existence? When everything's a threat, you wipe everything out.

This, itself, should be sufficient to go on for its motives. The final remaining pieces of the puzzle involve how it is released, which has less to do with it and more to do with the Occasus cult.

As a final thought, this idea perhaps even answers why the Cultivator, mighty as it was, declined to destroy the Ruin when it most likely had an opportunity to. Perhaps it was not malice that forced the Cultivator's hand, but instead mercy.

Clearly the Ruin was once merely a wayward creature not of our universe that accidentally wandered in. It was shown its death, and - as any creature with a survival instinct would - it lashed out for what it percieved was its own survival. It is not a being born of "hate and destruction" - it is a being born of fear, of that primal fear we all share as living creatures. Perhaps the Ruin knew not what it did. What would it be for a being so dedicated to preserving and nourishing diverse forms of life to pass judgement on a being merely wanting to itself live?

This, I believe, was the Cultivator's motive in sealing it away. Where it was sent, it could theoretically live safely away from the sentient life in our universe that might threaten it.

It is also fair to note that, when the Cultivator sealed the gate behind it, the artifacts necessary to reopen it were some of the greatest gifts that the being bestowed on the sentient races, at least for a few. The exact functions of the Royal Medallion, Bone Trophy, and Mirror of Wisdom are unknown, but the remaining three include the Apex' Genesis Coil (which seems to be tailored towards the genetic engineering that defined them as a species, culminating in the VEP), the Avians' Wheel of Kluex (which is at minimum the holiest relic of their primary religion, and may have function beyond that), and most of all the Humans' Master Manipulator (no doubt the base model from which all future Matter Manipulators in use by the Terrene Protectorate are derived). Especially in the case of the last one, it is furthermore evident that the artifacts were not acquired right away, and each may have even been in many ways a test of the species it was entrusted to. And when they're set in the Ark portal and it activates, each is lost forever.

That is a steep price, and likely set that high to discourage disturbing the Ruin except under the most dire of circumstances. The Ruin was under no such compunction. Most likely the Occasus cult was set to disturb it (using Earth as a sort of practical test for their methods of doing so, simultaneously obliterating the organization that might stop them) and the Ruin merely responded in kind to being disturbed.

This could make for a real bittersweet boss fight later in the story, as if the full understanding is reached, the Captain is effectively being forced to take the effectively innocent Ruin's life for the good of all other life in the universe. We'll see how that plays out as well.

The next bit is a brief section of timeline I've tried to put together from the lore available for Humanity. Spoiler alert, it ain't much.

Most of this is either copy-and-pasted or paraphrased from lore books in Starbound. What I've included in my wordcount are the sections I added on A.Z. Price, which are delineated by a ">"; the remaining parts aren't considered:

:Sometime Prior to 500 Years Before Game Begins
- Humans effectively strip Earth of its finite resources. However, they are still able to advance technologically (suggesting extraterrestrial expansion and resource collection had at least begun on a small scale).
- Humans discover warp travel, and advance greatly both technologically and culturally.
- Warp travel allows for plentiful resources, and, more importantly, other sentient life (it is not mentioned exactly at what time or in what order these other races were contacted in). Humanity is "forever changed, enlightened by these discoveries." Internal conflict seems to largely stop.
- Rather than expand in earnest, most of humanity instead took their resources back to Earth, looking to support "a sustainable way of life" with it there and improve their homeworld.
- Alien races also begin to visit Earth in earnest.
- Humanity begins to take a role uniting the peoples of the universe, and there's calls to form an organization for the purpose.
> A.Z. Price operates around this time as some mix of a professional anthropologist. In his travels to complete A Brief Treatise on Ancient Human Civilizations, he begins to interact with the races that come by Earth. From here he transitions into becoming an amateur xenologist.

:A bit over 500 Years Before Game Begins
- Terrene Protectorate established.
- "We accept any race, class, or religion. We offer homes, guidance, education and safety. Our aim is for unity and harmony across the universe. Our arms are open to all."
- From newer documents, a secondary wording to the above: "The Terrene Protectorate has stood proudly for over 500 years, striving for peace, and for unity amongst the many peoples of the universe. We exist to offer aid to the vulnerable and sanctuary to those living in fear. We endeavour to educate, protect and support all those seek our help."
> A.Z. Price submits early xenological studies to the fledgling Protectorate. Due to some mix of this and strings pulled by his publishing company and editors, he is nominally appointed First Contact Ambassador and sent out into deep space to research the primary sentient races.
> Although he was told he'd first meet with the Hylotl, his initial directions were altered in order to send him towards a Floran camp. His ship does have the uploaded coordinates of Earth but no line of communication, and he was not stocked with enough fuel to return. All of this is deliberate on the part of his publisher in order to renege on his ironclad contract to publish A Brief Treatise on Ancient Human Civilizations, which is neither brief nor much of a treatise, and comes on the heels of several additional failures.
> The Protectorate, who were not informed, gets wind of this error too late to correct it. They're forced to delay their announcements regarding the post of First Contact Ambassador, instead opting to operate the other way around and accept ambassadors from the primary galactic civilizations as their first points of contact, treating the Grand Protector as the ambassador of Earth in the meantime. A series of proper Terrene Ambassador positions - one to the primary governing body of each sentient race providing an ambassador to Humanity - would be created later in order to allow the Grand Protector to focus on management of the Protectorate.
> A.Z. Price, meanwhile, would continue about his duties. The information he had access to from the Protectorate would allow him to contact, research, and document Hylotl, Floran, Glitch, Avian, and Apex civilizations. He would prove unable to discover any Novakids.

And bringing up the rear are some effectively randomly-generated characters for potential use in some other project down the line, taken from a few rounds of the card game Superfight. The prompts are included in the below text, but not the wordcount:

----------------------

IDENTICAL TWINS
SHOOTS ACID
THROWS NINJA STARS

If ever there was a call for shameless sexy ninja twins this would probably be the time.

The question is what, exactly, to do regarding the acid. Surrounded by so many characters with unusual powers, I don't suppose it'd be out of place for this to be some sort of natural ability, but it'd be equally interesting to cultivate a sense of mystique about it - it's _billed_ as natural, to frighten enemies, but it's actually some kind of mechanical solution.

----------------------

MAD SCIENTIST
9 FEET TALL
ARMED WITH A CHAINSAW

I assume that being 9 feet tall has little to nothing to do with his scientific pursuits and is a mere coincidence. Dude just happens to be immensely tall and likes his chainsaws.

But I'd also expect him to straight up revel in it, with more ham than Brian Blessed in a Butterball factory. Probably also stacked as hell from some mixture of field work and swinging around chainsaws with engines the size and weight of Doberman Pinschers.

No chainsaw-loving mad scientist worth his salt couldn't pimp his own chainsaw. That'd just be sad, really. Whether he learned the skills to do so for the purposes of chainsaw-pimping or simply on their own merits are anyone's guess, but it would require at a minimum a good handle on materials research (to pimp the chain, by far the weak point of any chainsaw) and mechanical engineering (to pimp the engine, the beating heart of every chainsaw) and developed properly those skills could be parlayed into any number of R&D facilities.

It'd make him an excellent candidate for some agency's Q figure. Other than the urge to stick a chainsaw into literally every piece of equipment large enough to conceivably conceal a blade somewhere - typically hidden as a defense mechanism to some critical subsystem, or part of the weaponry, or perhaps even just for effect, like an artist's signature with more bladed teeth and personal injury risk - he'd probably do excellent work.

----------------------

Total considered text comes to 1,964 words.

 

[redfeatherraven]

The deadline is nigh.
I solemnly swear I will get these damn results situated this time.

The next week of the challenge has begun.
Sixth week deadline is June 10, 2018.​

 

[Pazzo.]

Made an (unfinished) attempt at post apocalyptic fiction. It's pretty rough right now, I'll follow up with more later.

 

[redfeatherraven]

Made an (unfinished) attempt at post apocalyptic fiction. It's pretty rough right now, I'll follow up with more later.

As it hasn't yet been used that I recall, you still have your mercy period available if submitted by tonight.

 

[redfeatherraven]

SUBMISSION NOW FORMATTING LATER.

1,852 WORDS.

Spoiler: HURRY RED

[EDIT]: Phew.

Sorry about the homogenous text blob. Just wanted to keep it honest with respect to time.

Won't **** over it. I'll just break it into its chunks.

Spoiler: Factional presence in Altais Rift

Spoiler: Societies existent in Altais Rift

Spoiler: Didn't really mean for this to be submitted, but what the hell.

Spoiler: A brief history of Altais Rift VII

 

[redfeatherraven]

The deadline is nigh.
I...goddammit.

The next week of the challenge has begun.
Seventh week deadline is June 17, 2018.​

 

[redfeatherraven]

Lest we think I disappeared for a week doing nothing, here's this week's 1,770.

First, there was some slight revisions to last week's submission while I expanded it further. I'm not counting Part I since I can't really separate out the changes, but it's here in order to make Part II make sense:

Spoiler: A brief history of Altais Rift VII, Part I

And now here's Part II, which is counted:

Spoiler: A brief history of Altais Rift VII, Part II

And here's...something else, I suppose? Mixed feelings about it, but any practice is good practice.

Spoiler: An interaction

 

[redfeatherraven]

The deadline is nigh.
Pretty sure it's just me and Cori at this point. Home stretch though!

The final week of the challenge has begun.
Eighth week deadline is June 24, 2018.​

 

[Pazzo.]

Sorry I haven't kept up with this or even communicated, I've been on an extended vacation to Australia and only have access to internet at night and in the morning. Otherwise I'd be on top of this.

 

[Natz~]

its no problem, everybody been off :V

except for woomy

woomy been amazing on this

also vacation in austraila, how has that been?

 

[redfeatherraven]

Damn.

Just beyond the buzzer.

Spoiler: Character trait analysis

[EDIT]: I had to go from 1,712 words to at least 1,750 at literally 11:59 PM. Managed to finish at 1,764 - but seconds too late. Like I said in the opener:

- A submission entered at 11:59 PM EST is valid. A submission entered at 12:01 AM EST is not.

I already used my Mercy. No leeway for me - especially for me. I got an example to set.

Eh, c'est la vie.

The document above was difficult to complete because the only character my mind could quickly whip up was Takashi. What can I say - Hylotl click with me, villains click with me, a Hylotl villain isn't an issue. I had to resort to filling in the rest of the characters by narrative place alone and resign myself to an incomplete analysis, but it did let me into their heads a bit more.

It isn't what I really wanted to submit this week, either way. But when it gets down to 8PM on a Sunday and I haven't been able to work on what I really wanted yet - the words just didn't come, frankly - I take what I can get.

That it was just slightly too late is bittersweet, but it's still here, and I'll take that too.

 

[redfeatherraven]

The deadline is nigh.

The challenge has concluded.​