Well, i won't lie. I stopped reading this a while back even if it kept up with the updates. But I do thank you for the work you put into it for this long.
The big thing that stood out to me was you really needed a beta buddy. Someone to read what you put down and send back comments and ideas. Even if it's just to say "This is silly, what are you thinking?"
My issue is that I am a terrible impulse writer - I'll happily ignore my original script for the sake of making a chapter work short term, then spend weeks kicking myself because I foiled my own plans. One of my beta readers did complain along the lines of 'what the hell this isn't anything like the plan you sent what are you doing stahp' but it's a terrible habit to break. Especially when you hit a dead end trying to write what you had initially planned, and writing something new and interesting is easier and faster and less painful than slow iterative work and you just spiral further and further away from where you originally wanted to go.
Trying harder not to fall for that next time. Especially given that my next project of choice is very structured by design, and I've put an absolute shitton of work into the planning stages (Started the original version... August '16? July? Been slowly iterating since then) and it would be a shame for all that to go to waste.
Sad to see things go. I do wonder about this line though. She had to have automatic backups operating more frequently than that. 30 days is somewhat believable, but over 5 years seems way too long, especially since I'd expect progenitor systems to do that sort of thing even without Faith thinking about it. Heck, the perfect time would be when she put her emotions in the box. Why wouldn't the system back everything up then?
edit: Just because there's a current backup doesn't mean anyone's actually going to turn it on. I mean, Drich could hop back in the timeline, and secretly copy Faith's AI core if everyone really wanted to.
This is pretty much the main draw of Commander fics, but it's also the main flaw, because it kind of limits the number of stories you can tell. Either you put the focus more on the characters, their development and the interactions between them (which really should be a focus of any story) or you're forced to engage in some Skitter-level escalation if you focus on more conventional conflict. Or you can tell a story where a super overpowered OCP comes in and flattens everything that even looks at them funny, but those stories tend to get really boring really fast unless you happen to be focusing on the characters involved… making it the first kind of story I talked about above. Eh.
The problem with going the 'escalating conflict' method is that each time the Commander faces a bigger opponent and wins, they get more powerful due to stealing tech. Then they have to go up against an even bigger opponent. And then, when they win, they steal their opponent's tech, becoming even more powerful.
This is something that always niggles at me for Planetary Annihilation fics. All the really overpowering facets, minus ludicrous construction speeds, are fanon.
The lore of Planetary Annihilation is incredibly sparse, and mostly occurs in enemy Commander descriptions in the Galactic Conquest mode, and even that's mostly about the strange things Commanders get up to after millennia of war (sound familiar?).
- Progenitor alloys? Nothing in the lore. What if Doxes actually popped liked popcorn in the same way they do in the game?
- Overpowered weapons? Without the super-armor alloys, it doesn't logically follow. They still use chemically propelled rockets and explosives on each other, for example.
- - - The planet busting laser is a relic of the last war, not something the Commanders can necessarily build.
- Sensors/Stealth? They still have to deal with fog of war... so no super special "see everything" sensors. Can't even spoof radar, either.
- Tech theft? No basis whatsoever. Commanders get a premade set of blueprints, and they might find more in the ashes of the last war, but they don't even research to level up their tech. I wouldn't want my brutally efficient self-replicating machines of war to start making shit up, either.
- - - There's not even any guarantee that a Commander could grab a blueprint from a different tech system and find some way to produce it, especially the more exotic stuff.
- Superior E-War/Hacking? Nope. Don't even have jammers. Nor do they have any capacity for "converting" units.
It's just something that's at the back of my mind all the time once a Commander SI starts escalating. At this point it would probably be interesting to read a parody of the genre where the SI gets a rather... stricter interpretation of the game lore.
For this story, I think you hit the point of no return with the final FTL battle where Faith hijacks an entire star system and starts dictating terms to multiple interstellar polities. After that point it was less of a joy to read and receive alerts for, and eventually progressed to becoming a bit of a chore during the ME arc. I'm still glad you wrote it, though, and thank you for your effort!
- Overpowered weapons? Without the super-armor alloys, it doesn't logically follow. They still use chemically propelled rockets and explosives on each other, for example.
- Tech theft? No basis whatsoever. Commanders get a premade set of blueprints, and they might find more in the ashes of the last war, but they don't even research to level up their tech. I wouldn't want my brutally efficient self-replicating machines of war to start making shit up, either.
...
This is just a dumb statement. You don't need to research to steal technology. You just... steal the technology. And I'm pretty sure they can steal units.
- - - There's not even any guarantee that a Commander could grab a blueprint from a different tech system and find some way to produce it, especially the more exotic stuff.
- Tech theft? No basis whatsoever. Commanders get a premade set of blueprints, and they might find more in the ashes of the last war, but they don't even research to level up their tech. I wouldn't want my brutally efficient self-replicating machines of war to start making shit up, either.
I'll address this part specifically, because @vyor already got everything else.
This is just wrong.
We've got at least two sets of data about how Commanders prototype, research, and develop.
Name: 'Legate Attius'
Description: "Attius is renowned within the Legion for having the most efficient factories and sturdiest nanolathes. Believing the key to victory is good construction, he spends many cycles obsessing over simulations and prototypes of new fabrication and production line algorithms."
Commander: Quad Xinthar
Name: 'Legate Maximus'
Description: "The Legionis Machina tends to follow strict directives in how forces are organized are deployed. This makes innovation among the Legates uncommon. Maximus is an anomaly in his numerous failed prototypes for wheeled transport platform that would supposedly enable him to move across battlefields with swiftness and grace."
Commander: Raptor Betadyne
Both of these come from the faction who are specifically noted in the second set of data to not innovate very often.
Then there's also the whole 'Technology has been captured, assimilated, refined, and transformed into brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war.' line. That alone would tell us that Commanders are very much capable of this.
Finally, the Commanders were developed during the Century War, which was a war that, as you might have guessed by its name, lasted a hundred years, and was fought against an insectoid alien party known as the Xziphid Hegemony. It's important to note that the Progenitors were not winning this war, and didn't start winning this war until they developed the Commander. As they Xziphid Hegemony would capture and farm Humans, this was a war that would see the entire Progenitor species culturally and technologically destroyed, relegated to foodstock for the Xziphid.
So yes, the Progenitors did want the Commanders to be as dangerous as possible. They wanted the Xziphid fucking dead. Being able to go through research and development cycles was very much included as a part of their design.
I'll address this part specifically, because @vyor already got everything else.
This is just wrong.
We've got at least two sets of data about how Commanders prototype, research, and develop.
Name: 'Legate Attius'
Description: "Attius is renowned within the Legion for having the most efficient factories and sturdiest nanolathes. Believing the key to victory is good construction, he spends many cycles obsessing over simulations and prototypes of new fabrication and production line algorithms."
Commander: Quad Xinthar
Name: 'Legate Maximus'
Description: "The Legionis Machina tends to follow strict directives in how forces are organized are deployed. This makes innovation among the Legates uncommon. Maximus is an anomaly in his numerous failed prototypes for wheeled transport platform that would supposedly enable him to move across battlefields with swiftness and grace."
Commander: Raptor Betadyne
Both of these come from the faction who are specifically noted in the second set of data to not innovate very often.
Then there's also the whole 'Technology has been captured, assimilated, refined, and transformed into brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war.' line. That alone would tell us that Commanders are very much capable of this.
Finally, the Commanders were developed during the Century War, which was a war that, as you might have guessed by its name, lasted a hundred years, and was fought against an insectoid alien party known as the Xziphid Hegemony. It's important to note that the Progenitors were not winning this war, and didn't start winning this war until they developed the Commander. As they Xziphid Hegemony would capture and farm Humans, this was a war that would see the entire Progenitor species culturally and technologically destroyed, relegated to foodstock for the Xziphid.
So yes, the Progenitors did want the Commanders to be as dangerous as possible. They wanted the Xziphid fucking dead. Being able to go through research and development cycles was very much included as a part of their design.
Not to mention that the main character in these stories is a human upload/soul-transfer/watchamacallit. Even if the Commanders couldn't innovate, there's no reason why the main characters can't (unless ROB's being a jerk).
I'll address this part specifically, because @vyor already got everything else.
This is just wrong.
We've got at least two sets of data about how Commanders prototype, research, and develop.
Name: 'Legate Attius'
Description: "Attius is renowned within the Legion for having the most efficient factories and sturdiest nanolathes. Believing the key to victory is good construction, he spends many cycles obsessing over simulations and prototypes of new fabrication and production line algorithms."
Commander: Quad Xinthar
Name: 'Legate Maximus'
Description: "The Legionis Machina tends to follow strict directives in how forces are organized are deployed. This makes innovation among the Legates uncommon. Maximus is an anomaly in his numerous failed prototypes for wheeled transport platform that would supposedly enable him to move across battlefields with swiftness and grace."
Commander: Raptor Betadyne
Both of these come from the faction who are specifically noted in the second set of data to not innovate very often.
Then there's also the whole 'Technology has been captured, assimilated, refined, and transformed into brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war.' line. That alone would tell us that Commanders are very much capable of this.
Finally, the Commanders were developed during the Century War, which was a war that, as you might have guessed by its name, lasted a hundred years, and was fought against an insectoid alien party known as the Xziphid Hegemony. It's important to note that the Progenitors were not winning this war, and didn't start winning this war until they developed the Commander. As they Xziphid Hegemony would capture and farm Humans, this was a war that would see the entire Progenitor species culturally and technologically destroyed, relegated to foodstock for the Xziphid.
So yes, the Progenitors did want the Commanders to be as dangerous as possible. They wanted the Xziphid fucking dead. Being able to go through research and development cycles was very much included as a part of their design.
Not to mention that the main character in these stories is a human upload/soul-transfer/watchamacallit. Even if the Commanders couldn't innovate, there's no reason why the main characters can't (unless ROB's being a jerk).
While true enough, I have always felt that research cycles have been a bit of a no limits fallacy with the commanders that aren't Drich. At least early in her story anyway. While everyone seems to ape her general canon for commander capabilities they often forget that a very large part of what she could do with R&D was because she had patience out the ass and the accelerated thought speed to run sim after sim. And even then I feel she should have been having trouble with the more exotic elements of setting than she did.
After all, we have very little idea as to the time scales that commanders operate on in innovation. Especially in isolation as one would expect a single commander to be slower than a number of them working together on problems.
In my case, I'm not really research so much as development. In my story you see me doing my prototyping processes, I pump out new versions as fast as I can build 'em. Which, given the size of my units, is really fast.
I also should note that my character is noted to have the really good scanners.
Well, atleast no last Y has been pressed, sooo.....
As for pacing, why did they stick around for five years, anyway?
I mean, they could have done some dimension hoping.
If you do pick this up again, nBSG (Mercury class Battlestar like the Pegasus), Star Wars (Dreadnough class, basically a pod-less Mercury class Battlestar), Andromeda (for it's needs a living being to use intra-galactic FTL, thus generating a nice problem), ect.
As for overpowered, that would be the Commander that did several Gundam verses besides the Macross & Robotech verses.
Especially if this Commander also has hit Gits, Patlabor & Appleseed.
And yet, this is all still quite light, Lost Universe, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Negima! Nagi Negi, Infinite Stratos and a few other odds and ends, would create a really iritating tech base.
Same for Gundam UC (Psyco{?} frame), Robotech (Protoculture), Full Metal Panic (a certain amplifier), G Gundam, ect.
Lets face it, not being able to wreck a galaxy, is fine.
Means the Planetary Annihilation Commander never came across a Supreme Commander faction or so.
As for characters getting their own ideas that conflict with the writer his ideas, that is normal with most writers.
And this includes some of the vetter and thus well known writers.
The plot point required routes one or two, while the character said that he was dead tired, looked in the freeser, saw there was enough food and went back to sleeping (jetlag).
Anyway, to bad this story might be dead, now.
Will you post a link of that story your now working on, when the time comes?
Since I can't exactly recall if I've posted these, I'll give my thoughts.
I think you did a fine job making an entertaining story, which in my opinion is more important than being good. A few plot points (the Shadow Cabal in particular) were pretty dumb, all of the flaws you've mentioned were definitely noticeable, etc. But despite that I still looked forward to seeing the update notification, because (barring the feeling time with Fusou stuff toward the end), it was an enjoyable read. There certainly is a reason that these stories have collectively generated as much interest and as many likes as they have.
I can totally see why the commander effect thing had ended up being the final nail in the coffin for this. Having to deal with two people with different schedules is an absolute nightmare (As I've found in several school projects, where I have stuff on the days they don't), so I don't even want to imagine what it would be like with four people who don't see each other face to face at all, let alone frequently enough that they could plan stuff like this to the point where this actually works. The interests changing is something that I've been dealing with myself, so I understand your issues there.
All in all, I'm glad this got an ending. Seeing fics just kind of die in the middle of something because the author loses interest or real life rears its ugly head is always disappointing, so the fact that any bow is tied on this, even though it was somewhat disappointing, is refreshing. Hope you have more success in future projects.
Well... Fuck. What a way to end it all. Bit disappointed that Faith just chose to kill Hope when she decided to give up She's alive(ish)! Wouldn't have changed much to let her continue, she seemed in a much better headspace. That or am I'm misinterpreting it and she only deactivated herself. Thought it stated Osiris in multiples.
Hah, In a way Fusou did help bring this along pointing the horrors of this existence and the lives lost to Faith. Though with much better (if albeit abysmal) coping mechanisms.
It's unsatisfying, as an ending. And I'm not saying that because it's bleak. It seems to ignore the autonomy of Hope , as a separate entity from Faith, at least if I'm reading it right. It leaves too many unanswered questions, and not in the interesting way.
It's not a really like, enjoyable ending, but it's closure and I'd rather have an ending at all than the fic just floundering out as Faith loses interest, being honest.
"Hopeful"-Me argues, while Faith did commit something akin to suicide, Hope is still around and might find some semblance of happiness in the future. (See chapter 60 - Hope: Hope is explicitly stated to be it's own, albeit forked, AI "DRAKE_2". Not some sub-runtime, child-AI, or whatever - it's own fucking thing. Thus Hope is still running.)
It hurts all the more because this ending makes sense. And I can't even begin to imagine what will come of this. Fusou's, Tiki's, Drich's reactions... Hope's.
I hope you continue to write, if not for this, then some other story that catches your attention. You're a quality writer, Faith, and I like reading your work. It's been fun.
I think it will be intriguing as well to see what the reactions in Commander Effect will be to this as well. And I agree with the rest of the quote as well.
Right from the beginning, Faith was going to have a mental breakdown at the end of the story. Originally it was going to be a depression-induced apathy leading to her sitting on a rusting, broken Hub without moving for millennia. I just... upped the schedule. And the intensity. But yes, the clues have been there for a while.
Yeah that vibe really got stronger recently and for good reason Faith.
On the scheduling front and updates coming slowly dropping your enjoyment of reading it, IIRC you also had health issues at some point during this that may take some of the blame on tardiness.
I'm a bit of a binger especially when stories don't have a consistent schedule, or things have been slow/cliffhangery lately so yeah I hadn't commented in a bit.
Thanks for the story Faith, I've enjoyed the ride for all the faults and all of the good times as well. Thanks for everything and giving it some closure. Nothing is worse than an incomplete story.
Thanks again, Hope to read you again sometime. Lewd? Nooo... Maybe?
Yeah thanks for a good read.
Too bad you could notget any Rachni, because with thise Ants and Asari DNA scans, coupled with your & Fusou's avatar designs, a Biotical Rachni Ant Queen Avatar should have been possible.
The UNSC dumb-AI would have been perfect to run all those neohumans you made in order to hide in plain sight.
Only two tasks they are any good in?
No matter, just use a broad enough setting.
I myself are not so sure Drake_1 is really gone, remember what happend when Drake_1 & Drake_2 tried to become one again?
Could Hope have forcefully reinstallend Faith her emotions???
Keep this in mind Faith, incause you ever want to come back here, after the other commanders have left, Mass Effect Andromeda is coming out, soon.
Who knows, you might in the future want to pick this up again.
Still wanted to see a SAFE Death Star Array, though.
Shame that.
Do take care of yourself Faith, no aping your SI, you hear.
I want to read more of what you write.
On that, any ideas yet?
The UNSC dumb-AI would have been perfect to run all those neohumans you made in order to hide in plain sight.
Only two tasks they are any good in?
No matter, just use a broad enough setting.
That is, in fact, what most of UNSC smart-AI were doing. Only a handful actually stayed as part of Faith's chain of command - the rest of their created AI just kind of took over Avatars and started living on Miranda for the lols.
Yes, actually. Planned out a good chunk of fic, and have some really good ideas for later scenes which I've been writing up, I just have to actually write up to that point, and I've not exactly had much time recently. Hoping that will change soonish, because I'd really like to power through as much of this fic as possible whilst I've got the inspiration for it.Something about Homestuck?
invisitext. This makes me very nervous (hopefully you don't ape the style where there is nothing happening for a few hundred pages, then something, then nothing again. I got about halfway through before the pacing killed my interest)
hopefully you don't ape the style where there is nothing happening for a few hundred pages, then something, then nothing again. I got about halfway through before the pacing killed my interest
Don't much blame you for that. Homestuck's pacing, ESPECIALLY Act 6 (which is not even joking about 50% of the comic) is all kinds of screwy. I binged it over a week or so, with a few breaks for other stuff I needed to get done, and I had a few moments where I found myself faltering.
I'd prefer to avoid that in Skybond, if at all possible. Current plan is to cover the beginning stages, and then kind of skip around through the timeline between the interesting parts and leave the fillery stuff largely up to the imagination with a few general allusions and call-outs to what's going on in those periods to keep the guesses roughly on track, and then tie things together again at the end.
Don't much blame you for that. Homestuck's pacing, ESPECIALLY Act 6 (which is not even joking about 50% of the comic) is all kinds of screwy. I binged it over a week or so, with a few breaks for other stuff I needed to get done, and I had a few moments where I found myself faltering.
I'd prefer to avoid that in Skybond, if at all possible. Current plan is to cover the beginning stages, and then kind of skip around through the timeline between the interesting parts and leave the fillery stuff largely up to the imagination with a few general allusions and call-outs to what's going on in those periods to keep the guesses roughly on track, and then tie things together again at the end.
