Hi. I'm the kind of guy who has lots of "awesome" ideas (and modesty too clearly) but no spare time whatsoever, and even when I do, I barely finish whatever I begin working on. It's as if somewhere in the middle every project gets extremely boring (and I know beforehand the result so why bother), or I just panic at the immenseness of its size, and just puts it aside.
But sometimes these ideas keep coming out saying "that would be great if I could ever do that but I never will" to my head. This was one of such ideas.
I share with you my thinking notes of such an idea. After seeing so many amazing campaigns, I always felt a little disappointed with each one of them. Not because they are not extraordinary, which they are, but they always follow a path of thougth that, well, isn't
mine. So I thought of a new idea, to make
my extraordinary campaign. Alas I never had the time nor the patience to even begin such a feat. But I kept the initial notes about them.
Perhaps they can give some ideas to other people. Perhaps not. A warning, they are written almost real-time as my thoughts permeated my head. And the style is blatantly honest about it, but I think it is not a bad read. Without further ado.
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I don't know if this is ever going ahead, but I like the story that I have in my mind and at least just wish to write it in carved stone, it may prove itself useful in the future, or maybe not.
Just to make sure, this is a story based on Freespace 2, the main canon story and a popular mod that is called "Derelict". The fact that is based on Derelict is of no singular importance, it's not as if it's the best story I've found on HLP's database, but it's a good enough one, one that most people know of, one that hasn't had any continuity thus far, and one that has a tremendous cliffhanger in the end, albeit only if one fails the last mission.
Also, the story didn't start in my head with Derelict in mind, the inclusion of this mod in my brain only came forward after I played "Sync", which I found tremendously boring and repetitive, but had a very surprising and bright moment, when one passes through a Knossos portal back to Gamma Draconis and somehow brings about the second Shivan incursion. This was a very interesting possibility: to write something that explains an unperceived hole in previous stories. To write a story in another perspective of another story, a parallel story. One that which players get to say "gee, I know what this is and what is happening here! Interesting to see it in this perspective!"
No, the story came about in another way. I first pictured what would be like if someone found a weakness in Shivan ships. This is not something new of course. If I am not wrong on the mod, Warzone tells such a story, where a GTI rebeld holds a way to control Shivan ships. But its nothing but a small detail in the story, and I imagined something bigger. I imagined it as something that was the central story.
I imagined the last mission of Derelict from the point of view of a Pegasus stealth mission wing which is going after a strange marginal group, and when they porsue them into subspace, they enter into the last mission of Derelict, from the backview. That is, from the other side of the Shivan Portal (not coming from the portal, but from the back of it). A strange ship they are porsuing, until all the happenings of Derelict happen in the bad way, alpha 1 dies and the meson bomb does not destroy the Lucifer-type ship, and a Sathanas warship comes trhough. This strange ship appears to have known this would happen and then leeches on to it. And then conquers it from inside of it. And then Sathanas jumps out. A number of following missions by GTVA perspective, seeing a number of shivan ships being "conquered" in this strange way and leaving off the battle sets, leaving a number of other shivan ships that the GTVA has to contend with. Soon, these conquered ships form a fleet of its own. The V fleet. Valhalla.
I also imagined a superbrain, a charismatic leader, a rebeld. Sounds original? No? Well, this rebeld will not shoot against GTVA for once, (as a GTVA general will put it, "finally, a rebeld general who expresses his hatred to the right species!") two, it will be a truly amazing tactical commander, one who will guess correctly every Shivan move (and I'm thinking of "amazing" as in a Kwisatz Haderach style, as in Jernau Morat Gurgeh in "The Player of Games", you get the drift. A true genius, a demi-god) one who will have his own hatred as something that transcends reason and is only his raison d'etre. Why? Because his family was killed barbaricly while trying to flee Cappela. He was there to see it, as captain of a Deimos corvette. Perhaps too classic, but necessary to push this enormous figure into the sidelines of GTVA while preparing a vengeful assault at the Shivans.
While the more so, I also imagined a Bosch like figure. Not because I like Bosch, but because this is Freespace, and I decided that Bosch had to be "killed". And this can only happen by a second Bosch-like figure, but this one as an Anti-Bosch. To do this, I think that movies that go through the campaign as in FS2 depicting his own thoughts will do the trick. In these movies, he will state the most amazing philosophical, tactical and psychological analysis ever seen in FS2. He will do them almost in the fashion of Leto II, the God Emperor of Dune (Dune IV), but less "godly" than that, probably more in the lines of Murat albeit more clever than this one, who was originally blind to all the bigger game that was happening above himself. No, this person knows the bigger game, because he created it (that's why I mention Leto II!).
He will be an hero, much unlike Bosch. Loved by the personnel of GTVA, he will attract defectors and literary prose. But this is no angel. This is an hatred-fueled grievous man, but one who we sense has a moral backbone that is truly charismatic and impressive. He will not sacrifice no one but himself to do the job, he will only ask to those who suffered the same as he did to do as he does, and from a point on, he does not have to ask no one to do it. He even asks them to leave, for Death is the only end he sees forward for those who keep going, nevertheless, his people are with him as they never were, for they feel the same thing.
This will be a fantastic story. The most amazing story, the most passionate, the most thrilling, the dizziest, ever told in FS2. And it will end in falsehood. That is, one learns that it is what it was: a fantasy. How will this be achieved, literally speaking, without disenchantment? I still don't know. But I know there's something I want: no disentchantment. No matter how feeble, how useless all the campaign is, I want it to feel that no one could be without it. The realization that it is a fantasy, the realization that the vision is a false one, the realization that one cannot be without it, a Platonic feel to it. A little sadness feel to it, which I think it fits quite well with FS2.
Will it use the same mechanism as Transcend did? It came to my mind now to punch even the fourth wall as a punch to the stomach. As to make the player, not Alpha 1, but the player himself feel inside the narrative. As in, he's inside the need of the fantasy too. This is probably going too far. Not that it isn't something I didn't wish to go, as I do feel that anyone who downloads this campaign will share these same feelings and needs. It's just something that I feel is too demanding.
On the other hand, it is something that justifies the amazingness of the story, that is, the messianic feel of it, the demi-godly feel to it, the myth, the fantasy. By giving it an ending that is a punch to the stomach. And this may be done in the Princess Bride fashion. Never read it, but I read some reviews of it, and I loved the idea of it. And the mechanism. Here and there, subtly and not repetitively like in Transcend or in Sync, a quick subtle reminder on how above normalcy the campaign is behaving. Or by subtly destroying the fourth wall, here and there, and sharing with the player on how this particular mission or this particular speech or technique was over-the-top and unnecessary, from the literary point of view, "don't you think so as well?". This will be, as in PB, slightly annoying, for it breaks a little with the suspension of disbelief, but it will slowly take a crescendo till the finale, where the end is truly amazing and mesmerizing, an "Awe" moment, and there's a sudden Alice-in-wonderland brief feel to it, and then bang! The realization that it is all a fantasy, but a necessary one at that.
It came to my mind now how it could be achieved. By a last brief movie. This general, who in a previous movie makes a speech on how pointless and ridiculous other "fantasies" were, like the survival of the Ancients, or another races, or any other Deus Ex Machina plots, "no we have to do this all by ourselves", he bluntly puts it, we have to defy the entire galaxy on ourselves solely, and perhaps a quirck on other campaigns about Sol, after desmystifying them in a paternalistic way, calling them mere "fantasies", in a final movie, he declares that all this campaign is too a fantasy. And then we see him, in his ship, a Deimos Class warship, staring at a destroyed Freighter where his bride were. And a supernova clears the set. And the campaign ends.
I think it is brilliant. We just need to make sure he never speaks about "after Cappella" stories, as if he knew that it went supernova. Or! He could say this! Just as long as! To make an amazing cut end! Right before the nova creeps in, a final say: "a nova.... exactly as I predicted." A truly dizzying end: would he really be the genious that would conquer the Shivans had he not died in Cappella? But that's not the point, of course! The point is the fantasy.... the need of fantasy, specially when confronted with something as mesmerizing as the Shivans are. Fantasy, which is also what FS2 is. The fourth wall is therefore restored, but in a brutal way. No player will ever think about FS2 in the same manner as they did before.
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Well, even if it doesn't inspire anyone or anything, I think this is the place where it should be. Thank you people for a highly inspiring place you got here
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