The First Chapter of the Fantasy of War

The ongoing story that I'm writing into this blog is actually the main portion of the Fantasy of War, something that happens a very long time after this first chapter I'm talking about in the previous post. Fantasy of War as with some good storylines is developed and imagined in reverse, with the ending coming first - and the beginning coming last. This first chapter I speak of is merely chronologically first. This by no means is the beginning of the story. The beginning of the story is already right here on this blog. That's the beginning of the story.

This first game/chapter is a flashback from the present time storyline - and this is the a major portion that could actually be told in a short game. At present, it has no connection whatsoever to the current storyline - but all will become clear in time.

I've decided that one of the experiences in my dream made for a good beginning to the first chapter, which is actually the development of one of the more important concepts in the Fantasy of War - the concept of a greater power. In a sense, it's one of the wackier sides of the Fantasy of War, but an important one.

After all, there is no greater fantasy of war than of one involving far greater, far more powerful beings which cannot be described in any way but abstract.

Expect the story to begin like my dream - your main character arrives in a trains with others, gains a short briefing about the world - and soon after, your main character's goals will come into view, together with what you need to do to get them accomplished.

Random Idea - 12th July 2007

There are rules in this world. However, they can be bent to perverse ends, causing what you would see as an anomaly to simply be normal in the flow of events. To this extent, any human can gain the abilities you have seen so far over the course of time you have spent here. It is not to say that you could gain the same abilities they do, but spend enough time with them and it will not be long before you will gain the same abilities that they wield as if it were nothing. Of course, first you'd have to contend with how to live among them without the same powers they do.

They can access data by merely touching the terminals, but you cannot. They can order food by merely channeling enough data into the grid in the floor. It will not be long before you will find yourself alienated by their very norms because you do not have the same abilities they do. Of course, there will be those among them who are disabled and do not have the ability - and that is how you will live until you possibly gain it, of which the probability is slim.

They are actually of the same origin as you, with a possible genetic predisposition. There is no evolution at hand here, merely a massive process of learning to be done. It may take until your next lifetime before you complete your learning process, but nothing can stop you if there is a will to do it.

First Semester Exam Timetables are Out!

Yay! My first semester's finals timetables are out. It's pretty cool - I have one paper per week. A whole week to study for each paper. I'm in heaven. :D OK, being in heaven is pushing it. I just think it's a rather ideal timetable. Plenty of time to prepare, plenty of time to play and relax too. If you aren't waiting to drag your butt back home or something, the time table is excellent.

I'm currently working on rewriting the prologue for the story. I think it ended up a bit messy and stupid, since I sort of dumped all the supposed tension by saying that there was tension. I think that completely broke the entire prologue's feel, so I'll be rewriting it. I believe the next post of it will be in PDF format, since I think dumping the entire rewritten prologue just like that into the blog is suicidal. :P

Update: u238's blog and drinkingcocoa's blog links have been removed. u238 is in the process of revamping his blog and possibly even moving it, while drinkingcocoa, well, he just ain't updating anymore.

Gaming and Rewriting the Story

I have actually been pretty occupied in real life. I've been gaming a lot lately. My friends have been introducing me to the wealth of Warcraft III custom maps. I've not been playing DotA much, and I still suck at it. :P Among the few maps I've been playing include Pimp Defense, Gem TD, Massacre TD Solo, 7 Hero Siege and I myself have been trying hard to learn mazing techiques using a flash game called Desktop TD. I can assure you though that I haven't gone back and rewritten the story yet. I have been heavily rethinking the story and continuously revising it. While I can already rewrite the first two chapters as I intended and repairing certain foreshadowing facts which went wrong already. Imagine, only two chapters and already an error. I'm holding off in the meantime and planning it a little bit more carefully. :D

Chapter 2 - 07: It's Them

"So the threat of an attack was from them," said Erse. "However, we can't confirm any of the ships specifications. It's not from any known ship in our database."

"Considering we haven't seen them for 10 years, that's not surprising. If they were still using the same old attack ships, they'd be doomed to fail."

"So what shall we do?"

"Send the footage to the Arltian Alliance."

"They've never heeded our warning before. What makes you think they'll listen now?"

"They won't. They still think we're fooling around and faking a third enemy so we can attack them. We don't have the power to monitor their borders for them. We have enough trouble getting enough men to run all our ships."

"Even we are understaffed as it is. If they were to attack us now..."

"We'd lose because we'd only man half of the ship. The Arltian Alliance refuses to allow us to hire their people from the bordering planets. We may have the money, but it doesn't mean anything if we don't have enough men to use that money. I've got to go now. Time to report this to the rest of the fleet."

The story is being rewritten yet again at this point. Expect it to happen until kingdom come. I decided that this way of writing is awful - and it's most certainly headed in the wrong direction. I think that I've put in the sideplots too many too early, and I'm confusing readers more than I am attracting their interest to read more. Of course, arguably - this whole story is actually a sideplot to a much larger one.

Kanya might be looking at a rename, although Erse and Pandora will probably stick. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who the main characters are in the story now does it? :D

I think my methods of furthering the story are wrong. I think I've been trying too hard to further the story by summary, instead of writing in detail what I should be writing about. Expect the first chapter in a rewritten PDF form some time in the future.