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Ancient History
Howdy y'all. I thought I'd dip my hand into some SR3 fanfiction one last time, and I reckon y'all are about the only ones who'd care to read it. These two pieces have to do with the final campaign arc, System Failure. I hope you enjoy.

One of the appeals for the otaku, to me at least, was their relative youth. Kids forced into a grown-up world, learning about life and death as they play Matrix games. Countdown is a story about the Children's Crusade, a feud between those who follow the Resonance and the Dissonance.

All the imagery and mythical hightones of the Winternight plot caught up with me when I wrote Happy Trails. After all, there was FastJack and his JackHammer, a Nordic setting, and one mother of a wyrm...
Ancient History
That good, eh?
Dawnshadow
I personally liked them.. I just haven't read, touched or otherwised looked at System Failure... and don't know too much about the metaplot, characters or matrix.. I'm a magic-junkie with occassional cyberware leanings
SL James
I think my views on System Failure are well known.

Let's see. Countdown. Not too bad. I'm still unsure as to the purpose of the chapter captions. Some of the Matrix iconography is mixed or muddled, I find it amusing that she could spell cojones even though she didn't even know it's meaning or etymology, and I'm a bit concerned about the skills and professionalism of a combat decker in 2064 who didn't ask or know he might be hired to kill kids.

But I've seen worse. The tribe dymanics were strong and interesting. Overall, I'd give it a B+

The other, well, see above.
Ancient History
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to read it and give a response.
ShadowDragon8685
Countdown was....

Fragging creepy.
SL James
Well, there's nothing worse than going through the effort of writing something and getting zero feedback (well, there's always not being able to write at all).
I figured I'd focus on room for improvement. Plenty of people will line up to kiss your ass.
DocMortand
Yeah, I gotta go with creepy in Countdown. Decent story, altho sometimes it got a little abstract. Probably the main thing that distracted me was why Kimiko wasn't fighting someone in the final battle of otaku v otaku in the meat world. Other than that, it was good.

Happy Trails - great imagery, I wish I knew the folklore behind Perri and FastJack and the CodeEgg, but I don't have System Failure (it's going to be gotten soon enough.) Cool read, tho.
SL James
Creepy? WTF?

The Norse imagery was nice, but I've had more than my fill of it.
DocMortand
Hey SL - keep your commentary to yourself, and I'll keep mine. I just ran my group through the arcology, and I have a different worldview. So if I say it's creepy, to ME it's creepy. Me and me alone.

ANyways...
SL James
Well, I just fail to see where it is "creepy."

Besides, you're not the only person to describe it that way.
DocMortand
It was mostly because two reasons in my case.

A) Had to study Lord of the Flies in highschool (also kids v kids in primitive state gone wrong)

B) I know what the pure white eyes really means in Deus-land. To think it was all arranged...
SL James
Well, I know what they mean as well, but I hardly see how that constitutes grounds for "creepy." Pax screwed over Otaku. News at 11. In other news, water is wet, the sun is hot, and young domestic mammals are generally considered "cute."

(Don't post 20 hours after you've only had a few hours of sleep)
ShadowDragon8685
Dude, you don't find a bloody to-the-death gang war between a bunch of six-year-olds to be creepy?! It got so creepy that Veteran Shadowrunners backed out!
Ancient History
C'mon guys, no need for arguing, everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
hyzmarca
The pacing was ominous. I knew that something very bad was going to happen simply due to the way the chapters are arranged. I didn't know it was going to be Deus. That was jarring. By then I actually had some emotional investment in Kimiko. I liked her and wanted to see her succeed. The implication that she was about to become one of Deus's pawns was creepy because I liked her.

That Ellery was destined to die was well forshadowed or horribly telegraphed, depending on your point of view.
SL James
I'd edge towards the former, because when it happened it did mean something.

She did go out like a punk, though, which is annoying.
PBTHHHHT
Man, that was creepy and pretty good. I kept expecting one of the kids to hoist a head (any sort of head) on a stick and yell, 'Piggy!' or something like that. devil.gif
Lindt
Im not reading them untill I get my hands on SF.
Reaver
Countdown was alright.

I really loved Happy Trails, however. That was very well done. It was a great epic-style battle. Definitely the stuff legends are made of. smile.gif
bclements
QUOTE (Lindt @ Nov 14 2005, 09:08 AM)
Im not reading them untill I get my hands on SF.

I don't think that Countdown has much to do with SF. More in line with Threats 2 than anything. Creepy story, though.
Ancient History
Countdown is an SF story, but you really need to be familiar with Ex Pacis to recognize it, especially at the beginning and at the end. Other than that, it can happen almost any time after Brainscan takes place.
Hasaku
Countdown was definitely creepy, what with little kids beating each other to death and harvesting their cyber. Some of the spelling errors were a little distracting, though. Happy Trails, on the other hand, was much better. Great story all around.
TheNarrator
These were both quite good. You should keep posting stuff you write here, AH.

Lenice Hawk
Really awesome stuff AH. I especially liked "Happy Trails", though I agree countdown was quite creepy. Do you have a seperate website where you post your fiction stories, rather than just background and item descriptions? I glanced but didn't see any.
Ancient History
McNope. But McMaybe McLater.
Lenice Hawk
Drek, why am I craving a happy meal?
fistandantilus4.0
Good deal on both. THe first story sotr of felt chopped. Like you had a neat idea that you wanted to get out and didn't really have teh inclination to expand on. But I like some of the visuals it had. Lots of grit to it. Very harsh.

I really enjoyed the second, especially with Fastjack as Thor, and the whole legend of Thor and Jormungard (spelling, what the hell) in Ragnarok battling. 'Cept Cpt. dies instead of Thor in this one. Made for a good read. Like the symbolism tie in, the whole hanging from the tree for doing divintation/sortialage.
Lindt
So having now read Countdown, I fully agree that its just wickedly creepy. It screams Halloween run. But I also agree that it somehow felt, erh... aborted. It had some great points, but felt like it was a great idea that came out on 'paper' too fast to be fully worked thru.
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