An Uncertain Universe: Discussion Thread

[Vixen]

The story in question is here.

So this is it. This is An Uncertain Universe.

Those of you who frequent chat might recall that I've been talking about this one for about a month's time. Be forewarned - it is a MONSTER. An absolute monster. 173 pages. 62,860 words. To decrease strain on everyone who doesn't want to read it in one sitting, and also to get a bit of episodic suspense going, I'll be posting one part per day - or trying to. On-the-fly discussion can be held in here.

While the entire story has been done in advance, I do forsee problems with schedules, with formatting, and with everything that can happen. But I'll try to keep it as close to a nightly scehdule as I can.

As for what this story's about - I'd rather not say. Except two things: first, that this story is probably destined to go down in history as the one fiction everyone hates, and secondly that by the end, Vixen will have undergone a major, major change in her life. Everything else about it - plot, characters, canon status - will be revealed, or not revealed, in time.

There will be fifteen parts of varying sizes posted over the next fifteen days. An alert shall go off here when they're posted. I request that no one react, IC, on the RP boards, until all parts are posted.

I hope you have as much fun reading it, as I did writing it.

- Vixen

[Vixen]

Part Two is now live.

Enjoy.

[Vixen]

And I've only begun messing with you, Vixen my dear...

Part Three is live. Enjoy.

[Vixen]

All I can do at this point is pray that the canon character featured in this part - the first of about three or four to show up in AUU - is written well enough.

Part Four is live. Enjoy.

[Slattern]

What is the time period of the story? What year is it placed in?

[Vixen]

The story itself ranges allllllllll over the place in terms of timeframes, but it starts on October 11th, 2015. Vixen notes the date at the end of part one.

Relevant dates outside of that timeframe will be noted, or alluded to.

[Vixen]

Also: part five is now live. Enjoy.

[Vixen]

Part Six - 'Interludes' is up.

[Vixen]

Part Seven is now live. This is probably the one I'm the most nervous about, since there are fruit flies with a deeper understanding of international law than me. But fingers crossed that folks like it anyway.

[Vixen]

Part Eight is up.

Things get weirder.

[Vixen]

Thought I'd post today's part a bit earlier since I might be coming down with something. Hope you enjoy it.

[Vixen]

And because I wound up feeling better, I posted part the Tenth.

[Vixen]

Part 11 is up. Also, I decided to add chapter titles, which have been edited into all previous posts.

Enjoy.

[Vixen]

Part Twelve is live. Things come to a head...

[Vixen]

I don't really have much to say about Part Thirteen or its subsequent parts other than I couldn't be more satisfied with how they came off and that they contain the best super-fight I've ever written.

So, y'know, no hype.

[Vixen]

All I can do as I send this baby out into the wilderness, is hope that it's as good as I think it is.

Part Fourteen is up. Epilogue tomorrow.

[Vixen]

And it's done.

Thank you for reading. Please post questions, comments, critiques, praise, and damnation to this thread.

[kestrel404]

Brava! Brava! I loved it. It ate several afternoons worth of work, but I loved it!

[Cade]

Truly amazing. It is a great story. It was truly worth reading and I really enjoyed it.

[Hugin]

Interesting story.

Some parts of it I found absolutely fabulous, others weren't really my thing, but all in all enjoyable.

I don't consider it canon however, since that kind of thing actually means something now.

[Wakinyan]

Thank you Vixen. I can tell you put great effort into it and it shows! Great job!

[Vixen]

Quote:

Originally posted by James 'Prodigy' Meehan:
I don't consider it canon however, since that kind of thing actually means something now.

The story's actually constructed so that it can be easily ignored by anyone who doesn't want to consider it canon, as long as you're fine with the idea of Roxanne and Mitch getting hitched. (This will be carried over to the OpNet and is the 'major life change' I promised.) Nearly everything else is open to interpretation and would only really be picked up by paranormals who can sense that kind of split in time. What they pick up, if anything, is up to the individual player.

It's funny - I was actually writing this story and laying it all out in my head when the new rules came out for the fiction boards, and the new rules fit perfectly for the ending I had in mind. I was originally going to poll people on what tag I should put on it, and abide by either their decision or any director's decision. And now with the new setup in place it happens like that anyway and it fits precisely with what I had in mind.

It's one of the weird little synchronicities that make me think that truth really is stranger than fiction, even if fiction has things like a timeline-straddling kitsune cutting ideas out of the collective consciousness with samurai swords.

Glad you like it over all, anyways. And that goes for Alchemist, Cade, Wakinyan, Samhra, Singularity, Endeavor, and anyone else's feedback that I've blanked out on.

[Hugin]

Actually, the only reason I wouldn't consider it canon is because of your stating the loss of economic ease for novas being that they just aren't so rare. I'd disagree with that.

All the other stuff that occured didn't bother me as like you said, it's easily dismissable and I don't necessarily find it objectionable.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

WOW!!! Good god. Great story! LOVED IT!!

One vote for Cannon here.

,,

Quote:

James 'Prodigy' Meehan:

Actually, the only reason I wouldn't consider it canon is because of your stating the loss of economic ease for novas being that they just aren't so rare. I'd disagree with that.

I don't have a problem with that, or rather, I don't have a problem with it as it was presented. Vixen wasn't presenting cold hard economic facts, she was presenting an emotional argument in trying to justify a life style. Vixen could get paid to do lots of things, but they are things she doesn't want to do.

She could have said she wasn't happy with the nova jobs she was being offered (actually she has in other stories) or that it's a life style choice, but it wasn't that kind of conversation.

[Vixen]

Yeah, that is essentially it. Vixen has the marketing savvy of a hamster and doesn't have the right mindset to 'be famous for being famous' so to speak, since that takes a lot of work in managing your image.

And while I can see what other folks are saying, I do think that Vixen has a point - she's talking about people wanting to interview you and cut you a check just for sitting on a TV show and being interviewed, even though 'I'm a nova' is about the most interesting thing you have to say. N! is more likely to spend the effort in chasing after Lance Stryker and asking him why he shouted 'Booyah!' when he kicked a guy's head off on live TV, than they are to chase after Vixen - who doesn't like giving out interviews in the first place and hasn't done anything very controversial in some time.

You still can become insanely rich as a nova by using your powers for personal profit, of course - that I'm not disputing for a second - but I think that you can't really expect N! to keep banging on your door for interviews if you haven't done anything really newsworthy, if there's other novas out there doing controversial things. Aberrant is in part about the superhuman as celebrity, and celebrity is fleeting and fickle - I know who the first erupted nova is, but I couldn't tell you who the second one is, for example.

But as I said: Vixen is many things, but marketing-savvy isn't one of them. She could have been just way off base, just as I might be.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Vixen:I know who the first erupted nova is, but I couldn't tell you who the second one is...

Portman. He's president nowdays.

[Hugin]

Vixen was describing the world in a manner I do not think it would have been.

One of the aspects of how we now handle fiction is that I can simply say whether or not I desire the world presented to be the one we play in. If you want someone to accept it then perhaps yous should explain within the text that the character in question's worldview isn't necessarily correct. Nothing in the story suggested that Vixen was doing anything other than presenting the hard cold facts of the world.

As written I don't want the story to be canon. Having the types of interpretation you two are talking about also allows someone to read Vixen's statements as being totally factual and we're back to the point of conflicting interpretations within the Opnet.

Vixen, if that's your point of view for the character, that she's not truly right, the only way I as a reader can know that as opposed to hope that is for you to tell that to me in the story.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

So you take from the story that Vixen can make more money as a paper shuffler for the government than as an elite, media personality, XWF, making endorcements, novox star, unethical telepath, or using her powers?

And this is a cold hard fact because of a water cooler conversation where someone asks her why she isn't rich and she gets defensive?

What I take from the story regarding money is that Vixen is overly burdened with ethics, a lack of ambishion and business sense, and on top of that she has several aberrations.

[Hugin]

Her story, her way of presenting the world. Nothing in the story counters Vixen's claims, whether it be another character or third-person omniscient telling me, the reader, that this is her opinion and not her reciting fact.

That is now our responsibility as authors under the new rules, we write the story and people decide it being canon or non-canon based on how the story comes across to them.

We're not in the days of "write whatever you want and we'll treat it as canon or non-canon as individuals on the OpNet." We've passed that. I'm just following the new rules.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I would think that adding this fiction to cannon would mean that Vixen actually said those things, not that they were abstractly true. She said that, perhaps she even believes that, but for a nova she makes making money MUCH harder on herself than it needs to be.

She's not willing to move away from her boyfriend. She's not willing to use her social or telepathic abilities unethically; which in her case means use them at all. She's not willing to use her more forceful abilities because they might hurt someone. She really likes her privacy, and isn't willing to give it up. And on top of all that she has a number of aberrations.

So when she says that people don't knock down her door to give her money, I don't have problems with that.

[Hugin]

Not arguing this with you Troll. Sorry. She described the world, there was no alternate description. Non-canon.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

"She" in this case is Vixen, not the narrator.

So if a fictional Terat decribes to another terat how all baselines are out to kill/enslave all novas... he (or the narrator) has to include the other view or it isn't cannon that he said/believed it?

If a terribly gullible Utopian nova says that there is NO WAY Utopia could be sterilizing novas, it's automatically not cannon because the character is wrong?

[Ian 'Very Bad' Blakely]

Vixen is the writer. She was presenting new information, ie. that the world had changed regarding economic opportunities. Your Terat and Utopian examples are obtuse, both of those opinions are basically already canon. Many Terats believe as you've said and it's been presented as opinion or belief, the same with Utopians. Vixen didn't present an 'opinion' she was describing the world and nothing in the story countered it.

[Vixen]

Michael John McGee is the writer. Vixen is the character. Just a heads up.

[Tarot]

Huh?

Okay, I got to read this story but I wanted to share a little something about this argument.

[size:5]//SNIP//

I thought of better examples to use. I'll be back later with something to add to this discussion.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vixen:
Michael John McGee is the writer. Vixen is the character. Just a heads up.

I understand that. I didn't know your name was Michael, so Vixen is all I could say.

[Ghostwriter]

I loved the fiction, Vixen, I really did.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the non-canon vote because as cool as the story is, the effect it would have on the canon storyline we follow here is too big.

I'm sorry!

[z-Carver]

And I'm finally wieghing in. I loved the story, Vix - I think you're a very good writer and this took a lot of work and love. Your committment to your story shows and you did a fabulous job, overall.

I have to agree with Hunin on the canon issue - like I said, great fiction, but I strongly disagreed with the protrayal of Orzaiz. Also, the scope of the story was more aggressive than what I like to see for a shared story-telling experience such as we have here at N!Prime.

Those points aside, Vixen, you wrote a great story! Good work!

[Gerald Haney]

Okay, since I think my original opinion of the story has been lost in my discussion with Troll, I did enjoy the story. Some parts of it weren't my cup of absinthe but there were parts that had me grinning ear to ear and hating Micheal like a son of a gun because all my stuff looks like shit in comparision. I enjoyed it, I just don't think it is canon.

[Tarot]

Still only a third of the way through the story Vixen but liking it so far.

On the argument between Troll and Hugin, I have to say it makes a difference whether something is said as an opinion or stated as factual in narrative. I don't need to see a counter opinion in a story to know there can and probably is another opinion. Tarot might see someone as "full of themselves", "acting superior" or "condescending". That doesn't mean they all that but nothing more, just that Tarot is seeing it that way. The same person could also be seen as "cool and unflappable" or "insightful".

Its all in the perception.