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Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: General Battuta on July 31, 2010, 12:58:30 pm

Title: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on July 31, 2010, 12:58:30 pm
(http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/bpheadersmall.jpg)

These conversations are chronologically ordered and non-simultaneous.

Aboard GTD Imperieuse

"All of you bomber jocks are volunteers. You knew, coming in, that your odds of surviving ten sorties against Federation targets were low. You volunteered anyway, because you knew it was a job that had to be done."

"For this mission we need volunteers twice over."

"I want everyone to be aware, going in, that this mission will stress you to the limit and maybe beyond. Not because your targets are heavily defended, but because they aren't. This, too, is a job that has to be done."

"You will deploy Cyclops torpedoes dialed to maximum yield against the following targets, selected by GTVI for their importance to the Federation war effort. Frag orders, strike package assignments, and IPs will be distributed by your squadron commanders. BDA will be conducted by the 45th."

"Forgive yourselves in advance. You won't have any time to hesitate once you're on the line."

Aboard UEFg Yangtze

"She's too old to fly. She's got to be a danger to the squadron."

"Shut the **** up, Ogre."

"Look, it's not like I'm saying she's a bad person, even a bad leader, but there are limits. She could do more good somewhere else."

"Do you know how many people there are with as many flight hours as her?"

"Hundreds. There've got to be hundreds."

"Maybe ten in the whole Fleet."

"What? That can't be right. At Indra II there were - "

"They're dead."

"How the hell did they all get dead?"

"Look, you want to know why our fighter corps kicked their fighter corp's ass for the last eighteen months?"

"Because they can't fly for ****?"

"It's because they take their good pilots off the line after twenty, thirty sorties and pull them to the rear. Where they train new pilots, build new dicta, and pass on their knowledge. And do you know what we do?"

"We - "

"That's right. We keep people like Flight Lieutenant Ng'Mei on the front line, where they rack up spectacular kill counts and then die like everyone else."

"Makes sense to me. We have to win battles now, not battles in six months. What's the good of an ace if they aren't out getting kills?"

"They have the luxury of using their aces to make new aces. They're running a marathon, we're running a sprint. And that's why their flight corps is getting better and better, and ours is...well, look at the Indus."

"Lorna Simms is - "

" - the only one worth a damn still flying off that ship. The rest are dead. And you know who trained Simms, right?"

"Ng'Mei?"

"Ng'Mei. So learn everything you can while she's still in the cockpit, Ogre, because when she's gone...there's nobody to take her place."

"**** me."

Bergher-Tanikawa Suites, Duchenne, New Berge, Hulldown Continent, Beta Aquilae

"Tell me why you did it."

"I don't owe you anything."

"You earned our trust, Thea. You were extraordinarily, painstakingly convincing. I would have sworn before a tribunal that you were as loyal as the day you left."

"Apparently you should find a new line of work, then."

"Is that a confession, Thea?"

"That's Rear Admiral to you, Captain."

"You were stripped of your rank and citizenship in the GTVA six hours ago. I could execute you summarily and you wouldn't even get a goddamn epitaph. So answer my question."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I will protest this injustice to the limit of my ability. Get your spooks out of my home."

"Don't play games with me. I'm here to offer you a chance at absolution."

"I wasn't aware that the Alliance had any morality left in its table of assets. Absolution seems like a stretch."

"My God. I don't know what those monsters did to you over there, but it really is as terrifying as they say, isn't it? You were the best, Thea. You knew who you were."

"Enlighten me."

"You were a patriot. You were...an honest-to-God champion of humanity."

"I wasn't aware I'd abrogated that responsibility."

"Abrogated? 'Abrogated'? You gave them the ****ing jump schedules, you traitorous piece of ****. There were ten thousand people in that - "

"Keep your voice down."

"Tell me why you did it."

"If I did something, I did it because I took an oath to secure the future of humanity."

"You are as irredeemably, unutterably lost as your commander was, aren't you?"

"I - "

"Shut up. Sergeant, secure Thea Carey and move her to the Blackbird Village site. She can still make up for the damage she's done...one way or another."

Aboard GTCv Arcane

"Understand me well. This plan needs to be foolproof. I need contingencies for the contingencies."

"It's foolproof."

"Convince me. What if the stealth fighters are detected and engaged?"

"We allowed a number of Pegasus hulls to fall into their hands intact last year in preparation for an eventuality like this one. The strike element fighters are identical to those craft, down to the serial numbers on individual components. If debris from lost strike elements is recovered on-scene, we can explain it away as components from those ships or fabricated duplicates. Same goes for any Maxim rounds their forensics may collect."

"Elegant. If risky."

"We believe the risk is ameliorated by one major factor in the plan, sir."

"Explain."

"They want to believe us, Admiral. They want us to be telling the truth about what's going to happen out there."

"Speak your truth first and it becomes the truth."

"Our tradecraft calls it psychological pre-emption, sir."

"Very Shivan."

"I understand that's your specialty, sir."

Aboard GTD Atreus
listen to this conversation (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Txdx2pIAH81n5pkugJPwkHxhj54n5cqr?usp=share_link)

"You want me to what?"

"I don't want you to do anything. I'm giving you a direct order to 'do what'. But I want you to understand why I'm giving that order."

"Sir, I am accustomed to receiving orders from you that make a minimum of sense. I am not accustomed to those orders putting my crews - "

"Let me make something clear to you. You are one of the finest officers I have ever had the pleasure to command. You make your ships perform in ways that I probably could not manage at my finest."

"Sir, I appreciate that, but - "

"I am not finished. If I give you a direct order to fly your ships into a solar flare, you will obey that order. You will obey it whether I give you a seventy-page strategic directive explaining our urgent need for a fleet of ghost ships or a simple six-word coded imperative. You will obey the order with alacrity and without question, and you will do so with enthusiasm and skill. If you cannot meet these standards then you are not the woman I need in command of my point battle group."

"Sir."

"We are not like the enemy. Orders are not optional in this fleet. There's too much on the line for us."

"Sir."

"Do you want some coffee, Anita?"

"Please, sir."

"Have you read Contingency MORPHEUS?"

"I don't have the clearance, sir."

"A piece of advice? Pray to whatever force you believe in that it stays that way. It's a nightmare you don't get to wake up from."

War in Heaven is coming soon.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Colonol Dekker on July 31, 2010, 02:07:22 pm
Do these lines feature as command briefs or somesuch?


Also contingency MORPHEUS, does it feature "The One?"
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: The E on July 31, 2010, 02:13:23 pm
These lines are not part of any command brief or somesuch. They are just ... conversations that happen before and during War in Heaven, featuring Characters you're going to see, and referencing things that will happen.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on July 31, 2010, 02:14:13 pm
They aren't things you'll see in-game (even in the fiction viewer), but they occur during the course of the story. We wouldn't want to spoil actual game content so close to release.

The fiction viewer will present similar material.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Madcat on July 31, 2010, 04:20:27 pm
You didn't exactly make the wait any easier with posting these...  :lol:

Very nice!
Now I hope you release within the next three weeks, because my 3-week-holidays just started yesterday.   ;7
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Scotty on July 31, 2010, 05:48:49 pm
I hope release is soon too.  The fall semester of college starts three weeks from Monday for me.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on July 31, 2010, 08:38:19 pm
If all goes well release will be within the week. But no promises.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Scotty on July 31, 2010, 09:05:26 pm
 :D :D :D

Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Maverick on July 31, 2010, 10:53:06 pm
If all goes well release will be within the week. But no promises.

OMG!!!
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Rodo on July 31, 2010, 11:31:07 pm
Wanna crash WiH with my Loki :drevil:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Madcat on August 01, 2010, 04:33:39 am
Oh boy oh boy oh boy, an estimate!  :shaking:

Great to hear that, my thumbs are pressed that all goes well.
But if it doesn't, no problem either... I'd rather have a bugfree campaign than having my mood killed somewhere down the line and having to wait for patches.

Thanks to the whole team for all the effort! You people rock beyond description!  :yes: :yes:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Dilmah G on August 01, 2010, 05:05:40 am
Oh, you have no idea, mate. ;)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Colonol Dekker on August 01, 2010, 05:29:42 am
Oh, you have no idea, mate. ;)


So.............  There will be patches? :confused:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: The E on August 01, 2010, 05:32:47 am
No.

At least, we hope there won't be. But as we all know, no matter how thorough a job our testers did (and thorough it was), a few bugs will probably still show up. We'll fix those, then do a patch a month or so after release, if necessary.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Dilmah G on August 01, 2010, 05:35:07 am
Oh, you have no idea, mate. ;)


So.............  There will be patches? :confused:
Nonono, I meant it in response to:

You people rock beyond description!  :yes: :yes:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Colonol Dekker on August 01, 2010, 05:41:21 am
Oh sweet relief :D



Yeah, you're not too bad BP team :yes: ;)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Commander Zane on August 01, 2010, 11:13:59 am
If all goes well release will be within the week. But no promises.

OMG!!!
x2!!!
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Raiden on August 01, 2010, 02:57:48 pm
I've never been this excited for a fan project! Reading the Conversations above give me a lot of confidence about the story, not just the events they're preluding but the general quality of the writing. Can't wait to see what you guys have been cooking up.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: [Wolf]Maverick on August 01, 2010, 03:18:50 pm
Great Stuff.
Now i'm perfectly in the mood for War in Heaven.
And i agree with Raiden, i was also never been this exited about a fan mod.

Mav
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Scourge of Ages on August 02, 2010, 01:07:29 am
You really do know how to make folks anticipate a thing, don't you?

You should all be marketers...
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Snail on August 02, 2010, 02:36:10 am
You really do know how to make folks anticipate a thing, don't you?

You should all be marketers...
The best marketing scheme by far was having people talking about random aspects of WiH in publicly accessible areas.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on August 02, 2010, 02:42:48 am
You really do know how to make folks anticipate a thing, don't you?

You should all be marketers...
The best marketing scheme by far was having people talking about random aspects of WiH in publicly accessible areas.

Actually that sort of annoys me.  :nervous:

I think the campaign will live up to expectations. There's one sequence of three missions that I feel is a little story-heavy and action-light, but testers have liked it and everything has checkpoints or dialogue skips for the most part. It's just prepartum anxiety. (The_E has been trying to get me to stop freaking out for several weeks now, mostly unsuccessfully.)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Colonol Dekker on August 02, 2010, 03:10:44 am
Don't panic.
 
General rule of thumb I tend to live by is- "You're dead if you worry, you're dead if you don't. . . So why worry."
 
Not sounding morbid but that got me through some deeply harrowing places.
 
 
Save the anxiety attacks for after release. That's when it WILL hit you ;)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Snail on August 02, 2010, 03:58:14 am
Actually that sort of annoys me.
[BillyMays]
THAT'S WHY IT'S SO EFFECTIVE!!!
[/BillyMays]

Doesn't mean it's excusable of course. :nervous:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Raiden on August 02, 2010, 11:49:16 am
There's one sequence of three missions that I feel is a little story-heavy and action-light...
My favourite type of mission  :nod: Blasting spaceships is never a chore, but personally I'm in this for the story (and the in-game cutscenes...best part of Blue Planet for me).
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Mobius on August 03, 2010, 02:52:06 pm
"You will deploy Cyclops torpedoes dialed to maximum yield against the following targets, selected by GTVI for their importance to the Federation war effort. Frag orders, strike package assignments, and IPs will be distributed by your squadron commanders. BDA will be conducted by the 45th."

Which means...? :confused:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on August 03, 2010, 02:55:02 pm
It's modern fighter pilot speak. A frag order is a 'fragment order', a portion of the general Air Tasking Order (ATO) which provides a directive to a specific unit or component of a unit. A strike package is a group of aircraft assigned to the same mission but usually with different roles within the mission. BDA is bomb (or battle) damage assessment, post-strike reconnaissance used to determine the extent of the mission's success.

We've tried to move War in Heaven closer to modern military pilot jargon though we had to tone some of it down to maintain reliability. Dilmah, who is (sort of) trained in and close to the military aviation establishment, has been a big help.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Mobius on August 03, 2010, 02:59:41 pm
Isn't that a bit exaggerated? Seems the military equivalent of Star Trek's technobabble...
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: The E on August 03, 2010, 03:02:19 pm
Says the guy who wants to get as much of a punch out of a human vs human conflict as possible.

One goal we had in mind when writing the dialogue in WiH was to make it actually sound as if there were professional military operators behind those microphones.

As an example, you can't write a medical drama without using medical jargon, just as you can't write a police or courtroom drama without using the language associated with those fields. Why should combat pilots be treated differently? Sure, we toned it down to a point where even a non-aviation geek can grok it, but it's a part of the overall flavour of WiH that we worked very hard on, and won't let go.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on August 03, 2010, 03:03:25 pm
Isn't that a bit exaggerated? Seems the military equivalent of Star Trek's technobabble...

It's the way pilots actually talk. Actually we had to tone it down a bit as there was no way players were going to understand combat dialogue like "Three, One, tally bandits, visual, break left!" "One, Three defensive, bandit in lag pursuit!"

or like "Hound Three-One, Argus, fence check, cleared hot, confirm judy at two klicks."

Which is how pilots actually talk in combat. Plus a lot of swearing.

So what you'll end up seeing in War in Heaven is FreeSpace 2's civilian-friendly chatter spiced with just a hint of the way the military actually talks, which is an impenetrable soup of acronyms, brevity codes and bizarre slang.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on August 03, 2010, 03:08:22 pm
edited
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Rodo on August 03, 2010, 03:12:12 pm
Oh I didn't notice those lines the first time around, cool stuff!!! :yes:
Dammit, I'm starting to feel that... I can't wait!!!
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Mobius on August 03, 2010, 03:12:56 pm
No doubt you're trying to be as much as realistic as possible, and that is definitely a good thing, but some... explanations would make jargon more understandable to players.

For example, I had no clue who the TIDS* guys were in some old space shooter I played time ago, but:

Quote
Due to the nature of this mission, the TIDS are preparing the Dark Angel interceptor for launch.

Even if it wasn't 100% clear, it still provided some sort of indirect explanation about their role. Hope you got what I mean.

*Don't google the term because results will have nothing to do with the meaning I'm refering to in this post.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on August 03, 2010, 03:14:16 pm
So, I'm going to quote myself here:

Quote
So what you'll end up seeing in War in Heaven is FreeSpace 2's civilian-friendly chatter spiced with just a hint of the way the military actually talks, which is an impenetrable soup of acronyms, brevity codes and bizarre slang.

We are way ahead of you. Please read posts before responding to them.

You will not need to know military brevity code to understand what's happening. But if you want to learn some, you can start with an ACM dictionary. (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/usaf/docs/mcm3-1-a1.htm)

Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Scotty on August 03, 2010, 03:40:47 pm
Indeed.  I'm very glad they didn't use fully realistic chatter.  It'd be the next best thing to incomprehensible without actually being a pilot.

Although, I did stumble over 'frag order' because I'm used to seeing it as FRAGO. :nervous:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Ravenholme on August 03, 2010, 07:02:31 pm
And of course, phrases like Angels -- and Weeds somewhat lose their meaning when applied to space where concepts such as up and down are largely irrelevant (Yes, you could use the ecliptic as a horizontal, but in a furball, everyone's going to be orientated different ways as the situation demands it)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: carbine7 on August 03, 2010, 09:16:26 pm
Damn it, now I have to get a new joystick....

I'll suffer  :yes:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Dilmah G on August 04, 2010, 03:29:17 am
And guys, if you don't understand anything, feel free to ask/PM. :)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Commander Zane on August 04, 2010, 11:12:54 am
I have a bit of an idea of what some things mean, even though we haven't really used all the fancy terms like we'd normally be expected to.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Snail on August 04, 2010, 11:37:39 am
I have a bit of an idea of what some things mean, even though we haven't really used all the fancy terms like we'd normally be expected to.
Yeah; it doesn't take a huge leap to figure out what the terms mean when taken in context (if not what the acronyms actually stand for).
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Dr. Pwnguin on August 04, 2010, 11:45:24 am
And of course, phrases like Angels -- and Weeds somewhat lose their meaning when applied to space where concepts such as up and down are largely irrelevant (Yes, you could use the ecliptic as a horizontal, but in a furball, everyone's going to be orientated different ways as the situation demands it)

Atmospheric Dogfights then  :lol:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Dilmah G on August 05, 2010, 03:26:07 am
Eh, I personally wouldn't be into atmospheric dogfights in Freespace. LOMAC/IL2/CFS/BoB contend me on that front. :P

Quote
So what you'll end up seeing in War in Heaven is FreeSpace 2's civilian-friendly chatter spiced with just a hint of the way the military actually talks, which is an impenetrable soup of acronyms, brevity codes and bizarre slang.
Oh pshaw, it's not that bizarre when you find out where it originates. :D
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Snail on August 05, 2010, 04:24:22 am
And South African slang!
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: General Battuta on September 12, 2010, 11:40:05 am
:bump:

Would be interested to see what people think of the Conversations post-release.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Rodo on September 12, 2010, 01:24:08 pm
Makes more sense now, just that.

I could go with my interest in the MORPHEUS project, but that's from reading the descriptions and prose entries, not particularly from these lines.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Qent on September 12, 2010, 01:28:15 pm
It's really nice when you're playing and suddenly the conversation becomes clear -- the Pegasus one was best in that regard.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Mongoose on September 12, 2010, 02:36:08 pm
One or two of these did give me "Aha!" moments as I played the campaign, but reading them again retrospectively, they all take on a far more chilling light. :yes:
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: emark4 on March 24, 2018, 10:29:11 am
:bump:

Would be interested to see what people think of the Conversations post-release.

Okay, 8 years late, but I am guessing that the "Yangze " conversation is talking about Flight Lt. Ng'Mei? Felt like making that into a database entry for the character but I want to make sure.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: QuakeIV on January 25, 2023, 03:01:47 am
Anybody have the conversation files?  Links appear to all be dead (I did not exhaustively check all of them)
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Grizzly on January 25, 2023, 11:09:14 am
here they are (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Txdx2pIAH81n5pkugJPwkHxhj54n5cqr?usp=share_link).
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: QuakeIV on January 26, 2023, 03:19:16 am
This isn't technically the thread for it, but happen to have soliloquy.ogg?
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Grizzly on January 29, 2023, 06:44:15 am
Yes. Updated the previous link.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: QuakeIV on January 29, 2023, 10:48:09 am
Sweet thanks
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Renegade Paladin on January 29, 2023, 02:05:56 pm
Would it be acceptable/desirable for me to feature oldmenconversation and soliloquy at the appropriate points on my channel?  I've done readings of the OP and used the conversationsfrombp2_01 file as the "reading" for it already, scheduled to come out at the appropriate points in the narrative (the first one is already live (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X1ahfOzo-Q)).
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Grizzly on January 30, 2023, 04:26:18 am
oldmenconversation should be fine, soliloquy is a teaser for act 4 so I'm not entirely sure about that one.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Renegade Paladin on January 30, 2023, 07:22:08 pm
Okay, I'll leave it alone.  Thanks.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: taoofcrime on January 31, 2023, 12:48:01 am
here they are (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Txdx2pIAH81n5pkugJPwkHxhj54n5cqr?usp=share_link).

Calder is so sloshed
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: Colonol Dekker on January 31, 2023, 04:23:45 am
We've all been there.
Title: Re: Conversations from War in Heaven
Post by: taoofcrime on February 02, 2023, 12:52:56 am
Laporte sitting uncomfortable in a chair looking nervous and pretending to sip whiskey while old southern-fried General Calder goes on this long drunken rant, just a great mental image