Reds fanfic
- Thread starter E. Burke
- Start date
Bookmark1995
Banned
By April of that year, Ian, George and Fred all made up our minds on going America for the summer for pleasures of the flesh. The problem was, of course, we didn't have any money, nor did we have jobs to pay for it. Our parents worked hard, but usually they could afford food and housing, and not much else. School summer trips are ubiquitous in Canada nowadays, but us kids in Grand Falls were in the sticks. Again, small town Canada was not at the center of progressive ideals.
Now I know why we keep being nicknamed Menshies [1]. While our neighbor to the South has fought wars to achieve its revolutions, our political independence from the British and our transition to communism happened peacefully and slowly, over a century in fact. We Canucks always seemed to have the luxury of change coming relatively slowly, and thus being able to regulate it, while other great nations have been consumed by it.
Anyways, while discussing on our way to school ways to pay for our trip, we came across our acquaintance, a term I used very lightly, Nicholas in front of the building. He was this scrawny, short kid who so was excitable and energetic you just wanted to beat his ass, which I admit I did. Of course, the fact that he was Red before it was normal made him an open target, but he still seemed to treat everybody as a friend. Of course, when Canada turned red, everyone in school backed away from, convinced he was going to rat us out to Section 9. He never did, but I always believed something was off about him. They say the greatest evils often wear the biggest smiles.
"Hello mes amis," he uttered with his thick Acadian accent of his, and his too-friendly smile,"or should I say, 'comrades?!"
"Hey," George said, with his less strong Acadian accent. He stared at the red shirt and hat the guy was carrying in his hand, that I just noticed, and asked him about it in an awkward attempt at small talk. George always tried to be friendly, even to people he disliked.
"We'll, he said, outstretching them, almost as if they were first place trophies. The shirt and pants we're red, and had Young Pioneer written on them, "this was given to me by the Young Pioneers, for my-"
"Great," Ian interrupted, rudely ,"see you around." Ian uttered the perfunctory good bye, signaling to the both us to leave this weirdo alone.
"But wait let me share with you the good news," Nicholas uttered with joy, (seemingly) oblivious to our indifference to his very being. "I managed to get a Pioneer Vacation!"
I wanted to walk away, but Fred paused, intrigued. His face gave me pause. It was a face he made every time he saw a coin on the ground. "Tell me more," he said, in a tone that showed interest.
"Well," Nicholas said cheerfully, "It works like this. The Debs government wants to get young people into Communism. Their are also often understaffed. So, their inviting some kids to work over the Summer in the UASR."
"Really," said Ian. He suddenly had his hand in his chin, his index finger on his bottom lips, "How much does this cost?"
"Free," he said. We paused for a minute.
"Rooming," I asked.
"Free," he repeated.
"Food?"
"Free?"
"Transportation?"
"Free".
"What's the catch," Ian asked, a suspicious tone in his voice.
"No catch," he said triumphantly. "You get to work in the UASR, making money, and learning about the glory of revolution-," he stopped, seeing our increasingly skeptical faces, and happily pulled out crinkled brochure pamphlet. He then bid us farewell, and strutted away.
We opened the unusual pamphlet. It was full of the usual Red talk, of contributing to Revolution, of brave people doing jobs. But what stuck out was also the promises of room and board, in exchange for doing some odd job and some "revolutionary activities, learning and training." Basically, we figured these were like group lessons and stuff. But this did peak our interest. Without our a word, we wandered into the school's student affairs office, to get more info.
....
We walked in, which was staffed by Sara, our assistant principal, and saw the tables had large posters, which detailed some location, along with a list of positions is offered, ranging from towel boy to engineer. She apparently knew what we heard about, and pointed us in the direction of forms that we needed filled out, once we decided where we wanted to go.
As we said, our interest was in getting laid, so we looked for where that was possible. We decided to pick a beach. So we picked Hilquit Beach. When we discovered it was the premiere beach in Metropolis. So, we figured, why not, and began filling out applications. Having worked in my family's diner, I applied for a job as a kitchen hand/dishwasher.
We filled out the forms, but the Vice Principal said, "you need to get your families to agree". That didn't seem like to much trouble, until I remembered my parents complaining about the Reds and their "unGodly ways." Oh boy.
Part 2: Arrangements, Memoirs of the Red Turn (2006), Harold MacDevon
[1] Short for Menshevik. A term used by communists (especially militaristic ones) to describe moderates.
[2] Only after I wrote this story, I found out Grand Falls is a majority francophone town.
Now I know why we keep being nicknamed Menshies [1]. While our neighbor to the South has fought wars to achieve its revolutions, our political independence from the British and our transition to communism happened peacefully and slowly, over a century in fact. We Canucks always seemed to have the luxury of change coming relatively slowly, and thus being able to regulate it, while other great nations have been consumed by it.
Anyways, while discussing on our way to school ways to pay for our trip, we came across our acquaintance, a term I used very lightly, Nicholas in front of the building. He was this scrawny, short kid who so was excitable and energetic you just wanted to beat his ass, which I admit I did. Of course, the fact that he was Red before it was normal made him an open target, but he still seemed to treat everybody as a friend. Of course, when Canada turned red, everyone in school backed away from, convinced he was going to rat us out to Section 9. He never did, but I always believed something was off about him. They say the greatest evils often wear the biggest smiles.
"Hello mes amis," he uttered with his thick Acadian accent of his, and his too-friendly smile,"or should I say, 'comrades?!"
"Hey," George said, with his less strong Acadian accent. He stared at the red shirt and hat the guy was carrying in his hand, that I just noticed, and asked him about it in an awkward attempt at small talk. George always tried to be friendly, even to people he disliked.
"We'll, he said, outstretching them, almost as if they were first place trophies. The shirt and pants we're red, and had Young Pioneer written on them, "this was given to me by the Young Pioneers, for my-"
"Great," Ian interrupted, rudely ,"see you around." Ian uttered the perfunctory good bye, signaling to the both us to leave this weirdo alone.
"But wait let me share with you the good news," Nicholas uttered with joy, (seemingly) oblivious to our indifference to his very being. "I managed to get a Pioneer Vacation!"
I wanted to walk away, but Fred paused, intrigued. His face gave me pause. It was a face he made every time he saw a coin on the ground. "Tell me more," he said, in a tone that showed interest.
"Well," Nicholas said cheerfully, "It works like this. The Debs government wants to get young people into Communism. Their are also often understaffed. So, their inviting some kids to work over the Summer in the UASR."
"Really," said Ian. He suddenly had his hand in his chin, his index finger on his bottom lips, "How much does this cost?"
"Free," he said. We paused for a minute.
"Rooming," I asked.
"Free," he repeated.
"Food?"
"Free?"
"Transportation?"
"Free".
"What's the catch," Ian asked, a suspicious tone in his voice.
"No catch," he said triumphantly. "You get to work in the UASR, making money, and learning about the glory of revolution-," he stopped, seeing our increasingly skeptical faces, and happily pulled out crinkled brochure pamphlet. He then bid us farewell, and strutted away.
We opened the unusual pamphlet. It was full of the usual Red talk, of contributing to Revolution, of brave people doing jobs. But what stuck out was also the promises of room and board, in exchange for doing some odd job and some "revolutionary activities, learning and training." Basically, we figured these were like group lessons and stuff. But this did peak our interest. Without our a word, we wandered into the school's student affairs office, to get more info.
....
We walked in, which was staffed by Sara, our assistant principal, and saw the tables had large posters, which detailed some location, along with a list of positions is offered, ranging from towel boy to engineer. She apparently knew what we heard about, and pointed us in the direction of forms that we needed filled out, once we decided where we wanted to go.
As we said, our interest was in getting laid, so we looked for where that was possible. We decided to pick a beach. So we picked Hilquit Beach. When we discovered it was the premiere beach in Metropolis. So, we figured, why not, and began filling out applications. Having worked in my family's diner, I applied for a job as a kitchen hand/dishwasher.
We filled out the forms, but the Vice Principal said, "you need to get your families to agree". That didn't seem like to much trouble, until I remembered my parents complaining about the Reds and their "unGodly ways." Oh boy.
Part 2: Arrangements, Memoirs of the Red Turn (2006), Harold MacDevon
[1] Short for Menshevik. A term used by communists (especially militaristic ones) to describe moderates.
[2] Only after I wrote this story, I found out Grand Falls is a majority francophone town.
Last edited:
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Hate list? I'd imagine RC is up there, considering he's belligerent and he destroys them with THEORY.
How would you rank as the most hated characters of the rogues?
I don't quite know, I'd imagine either the out and out Nazis or Avenge Ulster. Perhaps Avenge Ulster actually with how insane he is in general.
Yeah I can totally see that. I'd imagine he's one of the usual targets of mouth frothing rage, along side your character who is an ex UASR marine and is thus especially hated just for that it seems. They also would further hate RC as he's an open bisexual and in the far more sexually liberated UASR I'd imagine he, being a lot less asocial and restrained then me, have at least had sex with members of both genders and may have even tried some polamory relations with both heterosexual and bisexual types (which he would probably had stated out in the open just to further piss off the far right elements on AH.com).
Excellent! A real life Coming of age/political awakening story. Can't wait to see more.
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Yeah, I could see that. The far right has an odd obsession with other's sexuality. The Marxism simply makes it worse.
Well, it's really only the Brazilian Integralists that hates DevilDog because he's a Marine. In my headcanon, the Brazilian Integralists absolutely HATE American Marines because
1. They're among the best soldiers the UASR has to offer. (I remembered Jello telling me Marines ITTL were like Guard Units) And
2. They showed the most brutality towards the Brazilian Integralists and didn't give ANY quarter to the Green Guard.
Of course, the usage of flesh melting chemicals and poison gas on the Marines is what gave them such callousness, as well as a large hatred of fascism.
Sure, the Integralists won at Santa Lucia, but the Marines got their revenge in the "Death Before Dishonor" charge, where they, like always, gave no quarter.
So that's why the Brazilian hates DevilDog for his military service.
If this extends too the other fascists, I don't know. I'll have to see what happens in the TL.
So given that it's been a while since we've focused on the horror genre ITTL...
How does everyone feel about a look at Ridley Scott's 1979 arguable magnum opus, Star Beast, that helped redefine the science fiction film genre, made Hammer Film Productions a household name once more, as well as helping everyone forget about that awful crisis in Quebec that almost ended the world?
I haven't quite worked out all the kinks in how it'll be different just yet, especially given that all the American involvement is butterflied away, but now the question is if I can manage to make xenomorphs into a metaphor for Communism.
How does everyone feel about a look at Ridley Scott's 1979 arguable magnum opus, Star Beast, that helped redefine the science fiction film genre, made Hammer Film Productions a household name once more, as well as helping everyone forget about that awful crisis in Quebec that almost ended the world?
I haven't quite worked out all the kinks in how it'll be different just yet, especially given that all the American involvement is butterflied away, but now the question is if I can manage to make xenomorphs into a metaphor for Communism.
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
So given that it's been a while since we've focused on the horror genre ITTL...
How does everyone feel about a look at Ridley Scott's 1979 arguable magnum opus Star Beast that helped redefine the science fiction film genre, made Hammer Film Productions a household name once more, as well as helping everyone forget about that awful crisis in Quebec that almost ended the world?
I haven't quite worked out all the kinks in how it'll be different just yet, especially given that all the American involvement is butterflied away, but now the question is if I can manage to make xenomorphs into a metaphor for Communism.
I love the idea.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I think MapleLeaf, a female Canadian soldier, would be hated even more. Integralists took sadistic pleasure in raping women soldiers. They wouldn't hesitate to label her a whore.
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
No doubt. Not to mention that she's served in a traditional masculine role.
DevilDogs hated because his branch of service left scars on The Green Guard.
That sounds great. If it helps, there is a British novel called The Space Vampires, which was made into the 1986 film Lifeforce, which bears some similarities to Alien. Perhaps that could be the basis of the film, and the energy vampires could eventually evolve into the xenomorphs.
It's my personal comment on how creepy the whole "powerful women being broken" fetish is and what it'd look like in real life. It's pretty high up there on my "that's crazy nasty dude, please stop and get help or so help me I will kink shame you like you've never been kink shamed before" list. A fascist society with a high value on militaristic machismo would almost certainly find female soldiers to be a challenge to that machismo and their own sexist values. Luckily TTL the perpatrators of the Brazilian military prostitution system like their Japanese, German, and Italian counterparts don't get away with it and much more justice is done; to the rankling of the Brazilian far right. But fuck the Brazilian far right.
Waververse: Coalition of Champions, (Ravenstag Games Cooperative, 2017)
"The intention is to create a game that you can have a blast with your friends with and a love letter to one of America's longest lived and most beloved series and its characters and those characters we've been fortunate enough to get the blessing from others to use to make the ultimate superhero game experience." Said lead developer Bridget Smith regarding the co-operatives' biggest and most ambitious project yet, as well as its most successful. The developer of the Game; Ravenstag Games Cooperative, has a rather impressive pedigree of games, having started in the eight bit era with an experimental game called "Raven's flight" where the player took control of a female space commando named Alunya Zhukova in a battle against an oppressive "Star Ecumene" in one of the first games to make usage of cutscenes and text to tell a story. Since then, the developer has worked on a large number of games across many genres and across many generations of gaming, having worked on both its own IPs as well as with the IPs of other companies to create an expansive library of games well regarded by both retro and modern gamers. Originally based in Seattle, the developer soon also set up an office in Vladivostok and is considered a multinational co-operative, making heavy usage of the internet to help its far flung developing teams work together while minimizing the need to have them move.
When Ravenstag got the chance to work on a Waververse game with story input from the likes of Samantha Waver herself, the cooperative leaped at the chance with both hands to work with the venerable artist and writer and her creation. Managing to secure the blessing of a number of other IPs to be used in "for fun" guest characters as well, the Company thought of a way to make a superhero game that could be enjoyed with multiple friends at a time, and came upon the idea of a four player action RPG and set itself to work. The game was to have both a fluid fighting style like beat 'em ups; meant to be relatively simple but rewarding of exploring the mechanics, with a series of powers and special moves unlockable through the game's level up system, each helping to make every character play in a unique and interesting way through both the usual sets of different moves and powers and stat changes as well as special mechanics for each character. Not only would each character have their own individual "ultimate moves" but each combination of characters would also have "tandem moves" where two or more characters came together to combine their abilities in a unique way for a spectacular move "to reward team-work and cooperation."
The game was also filled with all manner of easter eggs and references to various aspects of the very long running Waververse as well as the settings that any guest characters or levels came from. Whether that was from special costumes, references in the dialogue or levels, or simply calling up a number of long buried aspects of the setting to be used in the game, the game was bonafide "pornography for lovers of continuity". The game also served as a way to get introduced to the Waververse and its offshoot universes; allowing newcomers to join old fans in appreciating the work of one of America's longest running shared world settings. Certainly one of the more expensive and ambitious projects the developer has partaken in, the offering of fan donations as well as Waver's own cooperative's financial support certainly proved to be helpful. Nintendo in particular was "a massive help; we were elated to see that a lot of people wanted this to be a thing and we certainly hope that we've delivered something that everyone can appreciate. We really are fortunate to have such a well wishing community and can't thank you all enough for making this possible." Said Bridget in response to fandom efforts to help the project move along with volunteering to help with coding, testing, and donations.
The soundtrack was composed by a combination of Jamie Christopherson, Yoko Shimomura, Kenji Yamamoto, Bill Brown, and Frank Klepacki and contributions by a number of artists for a "powerful experience" that wouldn't overpower the sound of the game itself and most of the bosses and characters having leitmotifs with lyrics tailored to them and the circumstances of the fight.
The Game Itself:
Coalition of Champions offers players their pick of Columbia, Valiente, Molotok, or Hua to play with in a four person co-op experience, though additional characters are available such as Maui, Orobi, Draguv, King Arthur, Saavi Sai, the Wandering Jew, Amazonia, Gilgamesh, Aramelle, Rayshift, Starfist, Zeras, Zabibas and others; including guest characters such as Samus Aran, the Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, or John Egbert. The main story line does have missions with some mandatory characters however, to ease the burden of having to write for every single possible character combination. The game features a sprawling plot line touching on many elements of the Waververse at once with a combination of brawler and action RPG game elements* to provide for tight and exciting gameplay with each character being designed to be stand out and unique while still trying to make sure any combination of characters in the party is viable for beating any level. The game also facilitates a sophisticated spawn director system meant to ensure that the players are given dynamic challenges alongside scripted fights against many of the most iconic and powerful villains of the Waververse. A massive amount of dialogue was recorded for the game to ensure that any given character's presence there would still feel like it was the canon one, and the banter between party members is well and truly beloved by fans of the saga. High quality voice acting was a sticking point for the makers of the game with Jillian Aversa playing the role of Columbia, Elijah Wood as Molotok, and Fred Tatasciore playing the part of Siegfried.
Act I:
The gameplay's story begins with Siegfried being revealed to have lead an alliance of the world's villains in an attack on the planet in pursuit of a mysterious goal, going from defeating his Neo-Axis' attacks on the UN headquarters on the Valiant Airbase; a literal flying base meant to be neutral terrain to combating the forces of villainy in a number of open maps, such as Delhi and Leningrad as well as fictional locales like Atlantis and Lemuria. The Neo-Axis' goals at first seem to be difficult for the heroes or the people they work with to piece together. A lot of the attacks don't seem to have a great deal of very obvious connections and some seem to be done for the simple act of recruiting local villains or malcontents into the cause advanced by Siegfried. However the clock is ticking and a number of thefts of a series of projects meant to create super soldiers as well as attempts to raid the bases of both villains and those opposed to Tyranny for a wide array of knowledge and a number of mystic artifacts start to get everyone speculating. Hints at a number of rather more mysterious projects also arouse interest from the cast.
Act 2:
Further explorations of Siegfried's plan so far take the heroes to see the more mystical side of the setting as people try to see if any answers can be gained from the supernatural. This leads the cast to explore a number of more outdoors locations such as the Japanese countryside and the Arctic Circle, even having to deal with a mischevious trickster spirit before the Trickster Spirit's defeat and the destruction of its malevolent carnival ends up pointing them to having to go into the Depths of Hell (based on Dante's inferno) to find out the next step of Siegfried's plan, and the "Whoa-Zone" a chaotic maze ruled by the strange cosmic beings known as Xixixik where getting lost is easy due to the strange way space works in the place. There it is found that Siegfried has made a number of pacts and simply murdered a number of residents of Hell and the Whoa Zone to take from them a sword of mysterious power and rip from them the knowledge of certain powerful spells and magical rituals and has dragged off a number of these beings with them in part of his army as he next goes to deal with Raena Caudilla. Further suspicions are aroused as more of the espionage based subplot is unveiled, showing that at least some of these ideas had some connection to the information on the Valiant taken by Siegfried.
Act 3.
The battle also goes through alternate timelines such as Raena Caudilla's Spanish Imperium consisting of multiple versions of Earth ruled by her Spanish Empire. Siegfried and Raena at first fight each other before they came to some manner of an accord with each other, and the bulk of the action comes in trying to stop Raena from absorbing yet another Earth into her multiversal empire, fighting her Spanish legions and her lieutenants before dealing with the Wolf Queen herself, though when defeated she flees, though the evidence gathered points the cast to the Divine realms such as Olympus and the mystical realm of the Tuatha de Dannan. The Gods are caught in the midst of a fierce battle as many of the fouler denizens of humanity's myths and religion have been directed against them in a great metaphysical struggle for supremacy, aided by Siegfried and his army of villains as well as a massive collection of recently created super soldiers made to help tip the balance of power long enough to suit his own purposes, while Morganna le Fay uses the Chaos to try and establish herself as the supreme goddess. Here it is found that the reason that the plans discovered earlier existed was that many of the governments of earth feared conflict with the gods, and had created a plan to combat them should such a thing ever come to pass, a plan which had been taken by Siegfried for his own purposes. The wisdom of keeping this plan a secret instead of owning up to having contingencies is debated, and Columbia herself believes this could have been averted had the people been made privy to it and more attempt to simply understand and get along with the divine and "try to treat their people as fellow proles rather than othered monsters". The act concludes with a battle with Morganna and Mordred as well as her attempt to raise Apophis to claim its power for herself, the Heroes at first seem triumphant before it is found that Siegfried has found a way to tap into the Divine energy of humanity and thus make himself a being of almost unlimited power. Having no need for the heroes who have played their parts in his plan, Siegfried attempts to kill the heroes, but they are rescued at the last moment by a cosmic entity who is fearful that Siegfried may cast the universe into eternal darkness by "hoarding for himself power that is meant to be shared among many."
Act 4.
Now in the space section of the setting, the cast now has to find ways to overcome Siegfried's power as well as resolve conflicts in the stars themselves, having to not only save the Earth but help the peoples of space with their own issues. One of the devices needed to confront Siegfried's Godlike power is found on the homeworld of the Akiliar Union, a society that has often been an ally to the Earth and its space colonies against more hostile alien civilizations, but one that is faced with both an attempted fascist coup as well as Mendrogan's invasion of the Akiliar Union. With the device in hand, they need to head to another corner of the universe to retrieve a device that is currently being guarded by the Klanirans, whose homeworld is under attack by the destroyer of galaxies and the bringer of blue oblivion; Xargak the Angel of the Apocalypse as they set about murdering everyone they can find to satiate their insane bloodlust, having to go about fighting both him and his cultists as well as the mistrustful Klanirans who have never been particularly fond of humans either. Finally, they must retrieve a cosmic energy source that is unfortunately aboard a space station that is currently under siege by the star raveners who seek to rip apart worlds for their resources to fund their operations in the cosmos and have come to the space station to take the energy source to enable them to spread their menace across the stars, having to not only defeat them but also save the Allirii who were caught unawares by the sudden and forceful attack. Finally with everything they need, the heroes are finally ready to return to the Earth and confront the menace that currently threatens to forever make the world its slave.
Act 5: On the Earth, they find that Siegfried has used his reality warping to turn it into his vision of Nazi paradise, a brutal self aggrandizing social darwinistic hell that requires them to have to strike at many points of Siegfried's new empire. Battles take place in Debs D.C (now renamed "Siegstag"), as well as Beijing, London, and in Buenos Aires to try and weaken facets of Siegfried's world spanning empire. In conversations with resistance fighters, it seems that the battle against Siegfried has not been going particularly well as virtually every attempt at fighting him has lead to disaster and failure. Assassin teams, nuclear warheads, gods, superhero strike squads, even alien intervention has failed to make a scratch on the invincible Siegfried. However the heroes come to the conclusion that the only thing that those fighting Siegfried were lacking before were the right tools for the job of toppling the godlike overlord. They had the willpower and the manpower, but without the right weapons to prevent Siegfried from simply erasing people from existence or smiting them from the word go or penetrating his invincibility, they were always going to struggle. With everything set up for the final battle, they confront Siegfried in his new castle in Berlin, facing both his twisted and corrupted versions of heroes remade into his image of perfection as well as his loyal and empowered soldiers and all the devious tricks his mind and his reality warping powers can conjure. Finally at his throneroom, the fallen hero of the Nibelunginglied is confronted with the heroes being able to take a portion of his abilities to fight him on more even terms before finally managing to batter him and his elite squad of duplicates of his most hated enemies into losing his grip on his powers for just long enough to have them taken away from him entirely. With the loss of his godly powers, he is seemingly killed by the gods with a furious smiting, with the damage he dealt to the cosmos starting to unravel and disappear from existence with the energies now no longer in the hands of the tyrant. With the threat at its end, everything seems to be peaceful as everyone starts to go their separate ways, but if there are others who would seek to rule or destroy mankind, there will always be those who can unite to stop them as Columbia notes.
*Basically combine Hulk Ultimate Destruction/Prototype with Marvel Ultimate Alliance and some Witcher 3. If Marvel Ultimate Alliance exists TTL it probably has a different plotline.
"The intention is to create a game that you can have a blast with your friends with and a love letter to one of America's longest lived and most beloved series and its characters and those characters we've been fortunate enough to get the blessing from others to use to make the ultimate superhero game experience." Said lead developer Bridget Smith regarding the co-operatives' biggest and most ambitious project yet, as well as its most successful. The developer of the Game; Ravenstag Games Cooperative, has a rather impressive pedigree of games, having started in the eight bit era with an experimental game called "Raven's flight" where the player took control of a female space commando named Alunya Zhukova in a battle against an oppressive "Star Ecumene" in one of the first games to make usage of cutscenes and text to tell a story. Since then, the developer has worked on a large number of games across many genres and across many generations of gaming, having worked on both its own IPs as well as with the IPs of other companies to create an expansive library of games well regarded by both retro and modern gamers. Originally based in Seattle, the developer soon also set up an office in Vladivostok and is considered a multinational co-operative, making heavy usage of the internet to help its far flung developing teams work together while minimizing the need to have them move.
When Ravenstag got the chance to work on a Waververse game with story input from the likes of Samantha Waver herself, the cooperative leaped at the chance with both hands to work with the venerable artist and writer and her creation. Managing to secure the blessing of a number of other IPs to be used in "for fun" guest characters as well, the Company thought of a way to make a superhero game that could be enjoyed with multiple friends at a time, and came upon the idea of a four player action RPG and set itself to work. The game was to have both a fluid fighting style like beat 'em ups; meant to be relatively simple but rewarding of exploring the mechanics, with a series of powers and special moves unlockable through the game's level up system, each helping to make every character play in a unique and interesting way through both the usual sets of different moves and powers and stat changes as well as special mechanics for each character. Not only would each character have their own individual "ultimate moves" but each combination of characters would also have "tandem moves" where two or more characters came together to combine their abilities in a unique way for a spectacular move "to reward team-work and cooperation."
The game was also filled with all manner of easter eggs and references to various aspects of the very long running Waververse as well as the settings that any guest characters or levels came from. Whether that was from special costumes, references in the dialogue or levels, or simply calling up a number of long buried aspects of the setting to be used in the game, the game was bonafide "pornography for lovers of continuity". The game also served as a way to get introduced to the Waververse and its offshoot universes; allowing newcomers to join old fans in appreciating the work of one of America's longest running shared world settings. Certainly one of the more expensive and ambitious projects the developer has partaken in, the offering of fan donations as well as Waver's own cooperative's financial support certainly proved to be helpful. Nintendo in particular was "a massive help; we were elated to see that a lot of people wanted this to be a thing and we certainly hope that we've delivered something that everyone can appreciate. We really are fortunate to have such a well wishing community and can't thank you all enough for making this possible." Said Bridget in response to fandom efforts to help the project move along with volunteering to help with coding, testing, and donations.
The soundtrack was composed by a combination of Jamie Christopherson, Yoko Shimomura, Kenji Yamamoto, Bill Brown, and Frank Klepacki and contributions by a number of artists for a "powerful experience" that wouldn't overpower the sound of the game itself and most of the bosses and characters having leitmotifs with lyrics tailored to them and the circumstances of the fight.
The Game Itself:
Coalition of Champions offers players their pick of Columbia, Valiente, Molotok, or Hua to play with in a four person co-op experience, though additional characters are available such as Maui, Orobi, Draguv, King Arthur, Saavi Sai, the Wandering Jew, Amazonia, Gilgamesh, Aramelle, Rayshift, Starfist, Zeras, Zabibas and others; including guest characters such as Samus Aran, the Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, or John Egbert. The main story line does have missions with some mandatory characters however, to ease the burden of having to write for every single possible character combination. The game features a sprawling plot line touching on many elements of the Waververse at once with a combination of brawler and action RPG game elements* to provide for tight and exciting gameplay with each character being designed to be stand out and unique while still trying to make sure any combination of characters in the party is viable for beating any level. The game also facilitates a sophisticated spawn director system meant to ensure that the players are given dynamic challenges alongside scripted fights against many of the most iconic and powerful villains of the Waververse. A massive amount of dialogue was recorded for the game to ensure that any given character's presence there would still feel like it was the canon one, and the banter between party members is well and truly beloved by fans of the saga. High quality voice acting was a sticking point for the makers of the game with Jillian Aversa playing the role of Columbia, Elijah Wood as Molotok, and Fred Tatasciore playing the part of Siegfried.
Act I:
The gameplay's story begins with Siegfried being revealed to have lead an alliance of the world's villains in an attack on the planet in pursuit of a mysterious goal, going from defeating his Neo-Axis' attacks on the UN headquarters on the Valiant Airbase; a literal flying base meant to be neutral terrain to combating the forces of villainy in a number of open maps, such as Delhi and Leningrad as well as fictional locales like Atlantis and Lemuria. The Neo-Axis' goals at first seem to be difficult for the heroes or the people they work with to piece together. A lot of the attacks don't seem to have a great deal of very obvious connections and some seem to be done for the simple act of recruiting local villains or malcontents into the cause advanced by Siegfried. However the clock is ticking and a number of thefts of a series of projects meant to create super soldiers as well as attempts to raid the bases of both villains and those opposed to Tyranny for a wide array of knowledge and a number of mystic artifacts start to get everyone speculating. Hints at a number of rather more mysterious projects also arouse interest from the cast.
Act 2:
Further explorations of Siegfried's plan so far take the heroes to see the more mystical side of the setting as people try to see if any answers can be gained from the supernatural. This leads the cast to explore a number of more outdoors locations such as the Japanese countryside and the Arctic Circle, even having to deal with a mischevious trickster spirit before the Trickster Spirit's defeat and the destruction of its malevolent carnival ends up pointing them to having to go into the Depths of Hell (based on Dante's inferno) to find out the next step of Siegfried's plan, and the "Whoa-Zone" a chaotic maze ruled by the strange cosmic beings known as Xixixik where getting lost is easy due to the strange way space works in the place. There it is found that Siegfried has made a number of pacts and simply murdered a number of residents of Hell and the Whoa Zone to take from them a sword of mysterious power and rip from them the knowledge of certain powerful spells and magical rituals and has dragged off a number of these beings with them in part of his army as he next goes to deal with Raena Caudilla. Further suspicions are aroused as more of the espionage based subplot is unveiled, showing that at least some of these ideas had some connection to the information on the Valiant taken by Siegfried.
Act 3.
The battle also goes through alternate timelines such as Raena Caudilla's Spanish Imperium consisting of multiple versions of Earth ruled by her Spanish Empire. Siegfried and Raena at first fight each other before they came to some manner of an accord with each other, and the bulk of the action comes in trying to stop Raena from absorbing yet another Earth into her multiversal empire, fighting her Spanish legions and her lieutenants before dealing with the Wolf Queen herself, though when defeated she flees, though the evidence gathered points the cast to the Divine realms such as Olympus and the mystical realm of the Tuatha de Dannan. The Gods are caught in the midst of a fierce battle as many of the fouler denizens of humanity's myths and religion have been directed against them in a great metaphysical struggle for supremacy, aided by Siegfried and his army of villains as well as a massive collection of recently created super soldiers made to help tip the balance of power long enough to suit his own purposes, while Morganna le Fay uses the Chaos to try and establish herself as the supreme goddess. Here it is found that the reason that the plans discovered earlier existed was that many of the governments of earth feared conflict with the gods, and had created a plan to combat them should such a thing ever come to pass, a plan which had been taken by Siegfried for his own purposes. The wisdom of keeping this plan a secret instead of owning up to having contingencies is debated, and Columbia herself believes this could have been averted had the people been made privy to it and more attempt to simply understand and get along with the divine and "try to treat their people as fellow proles rather than othered monsters". The act concludes with a battle with Morganna and Mordred as well as her attempt to raise Apophis to claim its power for herself, the Heroes at first seem triumphant before it is found that Siegfried has found a way to tap into the Divine energy of humanity and thus make himself a being of almost unlimited power. Having no need for the heroes who have played their parts in his plan, Siegfried attempts to kill the heroes, but they are rescued at the last moment by a cosmic entity who is fearful that Siegfried may cast the universe into eternal darkness by "hoarding for himself power that is meant to be shared among many."
Act 4.
Now in the space section of the setting, the cast now has to find ways to overcome Siegfried's power as well as resolve conflicts in the stars themselves, having to not only save the Earth but help the peoples of space with their own issues. One of the devices needed to confront Siegfried's Godlike power is found on the homeworld of the Akiliar Union, a society that has often been an ally to the Earth and its space colonies against more hostile alien civilizations, but one that is faced with both an attempted fascist coup as well as Mendrogan's invasion of the Akiliar Union. With the device in hand, they need to head to another corner of the universe to retrieve a device that is currently being guarded by the Klanirans, whose homeworld is under attack by the destroyer of galaxies and the bringer of blue oblivion; Xargak the Angel of the Apocalypse as they set about murdering everyone they can find to satiate their insane bloodlust, having to go about fighting both him and his cultists as well as the mistrustful Klanirans who have never been particularly fond of humans either. Finally, they must retrieve a cosmic energy source that is unfortunately aboard a space station that is currently under siege by the star raveners who seek to rip apart worlds for their resources to fund their operations in the cosmos and have come to the space station to take the energy source to enable them to spread their menace across the stars, having to not only defeat them but also save the Allirii who were caught unawares by the sudden and forceful attack. Finally with everything they need, the heroes are finally ready to return to the Earth and confront the menace that currently threatens to forever make the world its slave.
Act 5: On the Earth, they find that Siegfried has used his reality warping to turn it into his vision of Nazi paradise, a brutal self aggrandizing social darwinistic hell that requires them to have to strike at many points of Siegfried's new empire. Battles take place in Debs D.C (now renamed "Siegstag"), as well as Beijing, London, and in Buenos Aires to try and weaken facets of Siegfried's world spanning empire. In conversations with resistance fighters, it seems that the battle against Siegfried has not been going particularly well as virtually every attempt at fighting him has lead to disaster and failure. Assassin teams, nuclear warheads, gods, superhero strike squads, even alien intervention has failed to make a scratch on the invincible Siegfried. However the heroes come to the conclusion that the only thing that those fighting Siegfried were lacking before were the right tools for the job of toppling the godlike overlord. They had the willpower and the manpower, but without the right weapons to prevent Siegfried from simply erasing people from existence or smiting them from the word go or penetrating his invincibility, they were always going to struggle. With everything set up for the final battle, they confront Siegfried in his new castle in Berlin, facing both his twisted and corrupted versions of heroes remade into his image of perfection as well as his loyal and empowered soldiers and all the devious tricks his mind and his reality warping powers can conjure. Finally at his throneroom, the fallen hero of the Nibelunginglied is confronted with the heroes being able to take a portion of his abilities to fight him on more even terms before finally managing to batter him and his elite squad of duplicates of his most hated enemies into losing his grip on his powers for just long enough to have them taken away from him entirely. With the loss of his godly powers, he is seemingly killed by the gods with a furious smiting, with the damage he dealt to the cosmos starting to unravel and disappear from existence with the energies now no longer in the hands of the tyrant. With the threat at its end, everything seems to be peaceful as everyone starts to go their separate ways, but if there are others who would seek to rule or destroy mankind, there will always be those who can unite to stop them as Columbia notes.
*Basically combine Hulk Ultimate Destruction/Prototype with Marvel Ultimate Alliance and some Witcher 3. If Marvel Ultimate Alliance exists TTL it probably has a different plotline.
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Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Sounds well enough, Superhero games definitely get some love ITTL. I especially like the Wotcher elements as well. I attempted to create a Witcher sequel-video game, but I just couldn't sit still long enough to write it. CoP was easily the hardest thing I've ever written.
It's a reference to some of the bad guys in a webcomic I'm involved in the creation of, it's completely unrelated to Reds but I thought I'd make a reference to my other projects. The Greater Enlightened Meritocratic Ecumene of all Civilized and Worthy Societies and Species. A totalitarian meritocracy where your job, your rank, and even whether or not you get to live or not is determined by performance examinations managed by shackled A.Is. If you are deemed a "negative contributor of resources" you are immediately purged. Constant thought monitoring and an endless feed of propaganda also ensures that all citizens of the Ecumene are obedient of the Ecumenical councils, which work in a nested council system of those appointed to them by their meritocratic system (which of course, considers loyalty to the Ecumene's ideology as a very important value for promotion) leading up to the Supreme Council of Grand Minds which is organized around the Xyruh or Leader. The Xyruh is of course, by the Meritocratic system of the Ecumene the most perfectest, infallible, wisest, and greatest intelligent being in the entirety of the Ecumene which spans billions upon billions of galaxies and questioning him is tantamount to Heresy. Due to the meritocratic culture, people of a higher rank than you are believed to be superior people to you, and questioning your superiors is grounds for disciplinary action or even execution depending on how badly you contradicted your superior and how much higher the superior in question's rank is than yours. The Ecumene also hates humans (who are generally a tiny minority) the way the Nazis hate Jews for their physical resemblance to a space elf species that founded a direct democratic culture esque anarchist society known as the Intergalactic Syrabaric Communes; whose founding species the Ecumene hates the way the Nazis hated Slavs. Though to be frank they hate every species not from the Ecumene's home galaxy but they really hate Humans and Merendi (said space elves).
They're lead by this species, the Imilki.
They're made more to poke fun at the idea of an absolute meritocracy being anything other than a quick road to horrific dystopia so extreme it makes 1984 look like the epitome of freedom than they are to be realistic. I mean, their equivalent of the SS selectively recruits solely from people whose psychological profile designates them as sociopaths who can't feel remorse or hesitation when it comes to harming other sapient beings but are incredibly loyal to orders given to them by superiors.
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I ask because when I was 14, I also came up with Oikoumen, but it was rather an interstellar version of the UN, created for cultural exchange and joint scientific activity. And of course no one with anyone. Did not fight. Do not worry! I will not demand copyrights :-D! Just really love antiquity.