It's Finally Over!

This is the place to discuss thoughts, theories, and speculation concerning Bzzt! Arg

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Carver
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by Carver »

Having done so much research into the military, do you think our collective version of the Captain would have, in fact, been a good Captain in reality?
Dagoonite
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by Dagoonite »

Good question! Possibly, yes. There were a lot of little things that you didn't do/get because you haven't done a lot of research. To be honest, I think that your version would probably make a good XO or be teaching at an academy rather than on a combat vessel.

That said, I chose to make it a construction ship for a reason. It's not a combat vessel, so you're not going to have the same kinds of habits built into you. In my mind, the Captain had a very technical background, probably a lot of engineering who was put in charge for his ability to look at a technical or construction problem, analyze it, and at least be able to instantly identify what crew members would be appropriate to handle it. Most likely able to read plans and schematics well. In that case, it wouldn't matter much that he didn't know certain things. He was the right man for the place that he was... Even moreso once it came to the true mission behind all of this.

Speaking of the Theseus, I'd like to give a big shout-out to spacebees.net and spacespider.net. I never meant to cause any panic or harm. I adapted the Spacebees from the Seabees as it seemed appropriate. It added a nod to ilovebees, it fit in with how Bungie liked to steal from US military conventions, and it added a great bonus to Hive. Honestly, once I settled upon Spacebees, Hive pretty much fell right into place. I had a much harder time with Helen.
thereIwasn't
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by thereIwasn't »

Stuff like Hive offering a Captain's mast, decisions made when the star went BRAAP, general reactions to certain moments... To steal from Mass Effect, you all went Paragon.
Interesting. Maybe this says something about us, or people in general?

If I were to offer a psychological/philosophical speculation of the matter, when we play games like Mass Effect or even Halo we are still detached from the world. It's still "Shepard" or "Chief" that is the nice guy or nut. Here though, we were all to some extent operating under our own names; it wasn't Captain Nemo who was doing the actions, but it was each of us as ourselves with the word "captain" thrown in from time to time.

Or, we're all really, really nice people. If you do write a sequel, I get the feeling you'll be putting in a "too nice, and I'll slap them in the face with something" clause.
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UnrealCh13f
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by UnrealCh13f »

Alright, so a couple things....

It's been a GREAT run. I applaud you. The amount of research and work you have put into it has been outstanding!

I'm also going to sticky this topic.

Great job.
Dagoonite
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by Dagoonite »

Sorry I suddenly got so utterly quiet. There's this thing called "sleep" that my body suddenly needed. Strange.
Or, we're all really, really nice people. If you do write a sequel, I get the feeling you'll be putting in a "too nice, and I'll slap them in the face with something" clause.
If I do a sequel, you all are individual cops. (Well, special agents) On Earth. Yes, I've already been getting ideas. And yes, F484 would be involved, and you'd get to see exactly how your actions had an affect on the grand scheme of things.

I've already done some preliminary research, but not that much. This one, though, would have to be done properly with its own websites.
Though while reading through it on-site would be the best way, I'd be just as interested in the novella-summary version, just to see how Dagoonite portrays the completed captain's character.
That... sounds like it might be fun! I might just do up some stuff from the Captain's logs, XO's logs, maybe even crew's logs.
Unr3alChi3f wrote:I'm also going to sticky this topic.

Great job.
While I'm at it, I wanted to thank all of you mod-types for everything. Opening the forums, setting me up as Storyteller... It may not seem like you did all that much, but every little thing helped me immensely. Even just here in the discussion forum, being able to keep an eye on what was going on with the players, what they were interested in and discussing allowed me to tailor the story just a little bit more... or get my evil cackle on.
thebruce
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by thebruce »

Wow. First, I just have to say - very impressed you accomplished this all on your own. That's a whole LOTTA writing...
I heard about this via hbo, and the "arg" mention perked my ears :) However, coming in late to the party, I was presented with that 'wall of text', as it were, and without the time to really sit down and dig in, I personally found it hard to get into the story... mainly because it was hard to find a source that could easily catch you up, but also due to the sheer novel-like amount of reading necessary :) I'd started a page on my halo wiki to start tracking it, but it obviously fell far behind due to the speed and size of updates, hah.
That said, now that a collection of the entries has been posted, I certainly intend to read through it, and hopefully grasp the scope and flexibility of the project with the community interaction. Based on the feedback here, it certainly sounds like you nailed the story, even though it was off-canon. Kudos!

I'd like to attempt to have the entirety of the project archived on http://halo.wikibruce.com which may take a bit of time to format nicely, but it can be done.
Also Dagoonite, I may be in touch with you shortly about a couple of things.

Props on the accomplishment! 8-)


-- ARGer and Halo fanatic!
Halo ARG Wiki: http://halo.wikibruce.com
4D Fiction: http://4dfiction.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thebruce0
Dagoonite
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by Dagoonite »

Hey! It's you!

Drop me an email some time, and I'll look into helping you out as best I can. A lot of stuff, sadly, didn't get saved. There were a lot of modifications on the fly to the stuff that I prepared; sometimes I said the exact same thing but worded it slightly differently due to player conversations. There were communications that never got sent, and various bits of dialogue that I never got to share with the players, so pretty much none of my documents represent what actually happened in-game anymore..

BUT! I also have the transcript that was so graciously provided by the players as well as each of the threads from the other forum bookmarked. It might take me some time, but I'll be more than glad to help out however I can.
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DHalo
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by DHalo »

Hey there! Nice work, sir. I really enjoyed following along, as that was all I sadly had time for, and even then I probably missed some important info. It has been kind of hectic on my end lately, but honestly the fact that you managed to put so much time and effort in to this project with all YOU'VE had going on is a testament to your dedication, and for that, sir, well played.

I enjoyed the ride and hope to see more work from you in the future! If you need a VA or someone to help with website design, w/e, lemme know.

-DH
Dagoonite
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by Dagoonite »

Honestly, save for the issue with sleep (which I wish that I could do right now) and rewrites it wasn't that hard. I knew my characters, I knew where Chair's story was going to go, and I had a good idea as to what all I could throw at the players. I also had two great sounding boards to bounce ideas off of. The real-life drama was good in a way; it made me eager to GET BACK TO WORK on this. A good bout of escapism that left me staring at the screen stupefied. "Wait, you want to... capture... an EM anomaly? How does that even... Oh hell I can modify this and this and that and I had this plan way back then I can scavenge from and how did my roomies get me to eat a meal without realizing it?"

Also, don't make me an offer about help with another project. I've been thinking a lot about the Greater Chicago Industrial Zone lately, and ideas have been flowing. I won't do anything serious with it for a while still, as I've still got my attempt to get published polished up a bit more and I'm considering applying for a job with Bungie for their writing staff. (What have I got to lose? Other than the stark terror of writing a game that doesn't have an awesome story and taking all the blame.)
PsycoJoe
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Re: It's Finally Over!

Unread post by PsycoJoe »

When ordering up the atmospheric comparisons, I tossed those last two in on a lark. I'd run out of stuff to search and Tommy Lee's speech in The Fugitive suddenly popped into my head. Helen's response was a bit of a surprise. ;)

I'll admit that I tossed in the 'Neverland' bit to warn Chair to expect the planet we were at to be included in the OoB that F484 had set. I didn't expect it to be the game ender. I had the feel the story would have lasted longer if I hadn't done that.
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