Big Dumb Idea I have planned

[Makο]

No need for fluff. It's followed by a section I labeled the "skype idea corner," which, while giving away massive spoilers, makes it easier to critique. By the way, it's a concept right now. Basically a big chunk of set up and world building.

 

[spoiler=the thing]

On the single continent of Ceros, on a vibrant world surrounded by a vast sea, exists a medieval age of knights, kings, magic, and fantastical creatures. The different races among five separate nations lived in harmony with one another, aside from the occasional territorial or political dispute that would plunge the continent into a few years of war at a time.

 

The Aged Ones, Gods of this world, oversaw the beings they had molded and shaped, quite content with what they had done.

 

The Humans, ever resourceful and hardy, thrived in every environment, despite their overwhelming lack of special abilities. They spread like wildfire, toil like slaves, and construct massive citadels on plains and mountaintops alike.

 

The Swift, thin, agile, and peaceful, spread their beauty across the land as they constructed vast cities in the gigantic forests of Ceros. Tall, with almost stringy light blue limbs, they have a natural bioluminescence that has some of the lesser races believe them to be angels of the Aged Ones.

 

The Gyo, rash and brutish, served as effective warriors and wonderful tacticians, setting the standards for honor and warrior culture throughout Ceros. Hulking in stature and typically with an eternal scowl, they are more peaceful than the more judgmental would realize, often taking the peaceful option before war.

 

The Jumbin, small and delicate, design contraptions and propose ideas beyond the wildest imagination of the other races, typically working as excellent engineers or politicians. Despite their small stature, there are none more influential in the land. While cute, the machinations of their minds are anything but.

 

This excludes the countless of lesser, more tribal races, and the vast quantity of incredible creatures spread throughout the land.

 

However, there was one unintended part of their creations that the Aged Ones despised, and actively turned away from. The Mentalists, a sect of the standard magicians of the land, tampers with forces that the Aged Ones never intended mortal creatures to. Bringing life back from the dead, attempting to accelerate growth, and countless other shady projects and dark experiments.

 

Despite such a profession, most of the races knew about the Mentalists, and were generally content with their existence. Sometimes, nations would come to them and sponsor their many projects, as while the true goal of their projects never came to fruition, their countless months of research often led to new breakthroughs in magic and technology that all the nations would take great advantage.

 

The Mentalists never succeeded in their attempts, as they lacked the necessary knowledge and materials to ever succeed. As such, the Aged Ones generally ignored them, and hoped that with time, the Mentalists would lose their value to the kingdoms and fade away, save for the eternally persistent.

 

However, things changed when one of their experiments had too many factors for success.

 

Backed by the Human Kingdom of Aduril, in the western land of Feros, the Mentalists had begun experimenting with the possibility of crossing the ages, back and forth, in attempts to gain great knowledge. While uncaring at first, the Aged Ones had become alarmed from words that spread across the land: their initial experiments had been a success, and a public demonstration would take place at the Cathedral Plaza in the Kingdom of Aduril in two days.

 

Abusing their all-seeing abilities, the Aged Ones realized that the Mentalists, in some fashion, had obtained all of the necessary ingredients to successfully conjure a portal between time periods. However, the Mentalists knew not the strict rules required for time travel to actually succeed, and their experiment had failed spectacularly, with little left to benefit anyone and the Mentalists discredited for their grand claims and failures.

 

Despite this, the Aged Ones were furious; not only at the Mentalists for gaining the knowledge to almost succeed in their experiment, but also for the races of the lands–both worshippers and otherwise–for letting such a careless experiment be attempted. Nay, for also encouraging their foolish attempts. In a rage never before seen in Ceros or anywhere, the Aged Ones imposed upon the world an age of Cynicism and Strife, in an effort to cull these cocky and foolish races from the land via self-destruction. Wars utilizing vast destruction magic occurred, advancements in technology and quality of life ceased, the races became hostile towards one another, and the lands fell to chaos.

 

However, the Aged Ones had not accounted for one thing: the sturdy and undying nature of the Human Race. By the end of two hundred years of turmoil, only the Human Race stood as the intelligent race of the land.

 

The effects of the age of Cynicism and Strife were brutal and widespread. Many of the fantastical creatures of the land were dying or extinct, magic had become highly limited, and the five lands had become united under the Ideal Nation of Aduril, ruling the entire continent of Ceros.

 

Now no longer held back by dangerous creatures or the protests of the other races, humanity entered a new era of growth, an incredible Industrial Revolution, the Thousand-Years of Industry and Majesty. Magic had been completely forgotten, the Aged Ones neglected and disregarded, and any memory of the creatures and races of old had been completely abolished. Watching this race embrace iron, steel, coal, and lightning for their own use, the Aged Ones turned away completely, never again watching over or inhabiting the land of Ceros.

 

Come several hundred years of further growth and expansion across the world, the Ideal Nation of Aduril turns its eyes towards time travel once again...

 

 

[SKYPE IDEA CORNER]

 

Time travel has three very specific, VERY strict rules regarding it.

 

1. It only works from the future going to the past.

2. A portal only works when an attempt is made in the future AND the past occur at the exact same time in the yearly timescale

3. Only one object may travel through.

[4/19/15, 12:50:03 AM] Mako: Anyway, the Mentalists failed the first time. However, what would happen if the Ideal Nation of Aduril just so happened to do their experiment at the exact right time?

[4/19/15, 12:50:24 AM] Mako: You guessed it; the experiment actually succeeds, and a portal is created.

 

[4/19/15, 12:52:16 AM] Mako: It’s basically a split timeline, almost.

[4/19/15, 12:52:35 AM] Mako: There’s actually an explanation as to why this occurs the way it does

[4/19/15, 12:52:48 AM] Mako: basically, incoming giant spoiler, one of the Aged Ones sets this up

[4/19/15, 12:53:06 AM] Mako: After all, how did the Mentalists suddenly have the knowledge and ingredients to successfully make a portal?

[4/19/15, 12:53:08 AM] Mako: Well, potentially, anyway.

[4/19/15, 12:53:43 AM] Mako: So, said aged one ends up restarting a VERY small portion of the world’s history, creating a split timeline

[4/19/15, 12:54:21 AM] Mako: The Mentalists from timeline #2 create their portal at the same yearly time as the Ideal Nation of Aduril in timeline #1

[4/19/15, 12:54:27 AM] Mako: thus creating a successful connection

[4/19/15, 12:54:59 AM] Mako: however, as a result, mere moments after our protagonist in question is sucked through the portal to the old age

[4/19/15, 12:55:08 AM] Mako: timeline #1 is completely destroyed

[4/19/15, 12:55:26 AM] Mako: Of course the rest of the Aged Ones notice, and, in a plot point I came up with RIGHT NOW

[4/19/15, 12:55:47 AM] Mako: the Aged Ones are absolutely furious, and plan on turning against their creations.

[4/19/15, 12:55:58 AM] Mako: Guess who it’s up to to stop them?

[4/19/15, 12:56:05 AM] Mako: Boom. Time for war against gods.[/spoiler]

 

It's what I have so far, and I'm still working out the kinks. Go nuts with your cnc.

[mitchermitcher]

I don't quite understand everything but it sounds like a pretty solid idea.

 

I like the idea of the Mentalists being basically wizards with evil plots but no one takes them seriously because they don't yield any particularly good results. It's that playing with the usual expectations for wizards with evil shit planned that I appreciate.

 

I basically understand why rule 3 of time traveling exists after thinking about it, but I don't quite know how to say it. But it makes sense, worry not.

 

Kinda a strange backstory for a 'war against gods' plot though, and I'd be pretty disappointed if that's all it is. Somehow this reminds me somewhat of Chrono Trigger, so I expect a story at least as grand as that.

[Makο]

I don't quite understand everything but

 

Neither do I.

I like the idea of the Mentalists being basically wizards with evil plots but no one takes them seriously because they don't yield any particularly good results. It's that playing with the usual expectations for wizards with evil s*** planned that I appreciate.

 

I didn't particularly have them planned like that. More than anything, they were wizards who were trying to see what they could get away with, ethics and moral issues pushed aside.

 

 

 

 

I basically understand why rule 3 of time traveling exists after thinking about it, but I don't quite know how to say it. But it makes sense, worry not.

 

 

 

Arbitrary limitations (*throws confetti*) aside, my whole train of thought was that, since an entire timeline collapsed upon an object's passage, the portal is so unstable that it can only reasonably sustain a single transfer.

 

Kinda a strange backstory for a 'war against gods' plot though, and I'd be pretty disappointed if that's all it is. Somehow this reminds me somewhat of Chrono Trigger, so I expect a story at least as grand as that.

I only played like a couple of mi- ah, wait. That was Golden Sun. Nevermind, I've never played Chrono Trigger, and I've only seen maybe 1/3 of the story at best. But I'll see what I can do.

[mitchermitcher]

Arbitrary limitations (*throws confetti*) aside, my whole train of thought was that, since an entire timeline collapsed upon an object's passage, the portal is so unstable that it can only reasonably sustain a single transfer.

I was thinking something among those lines, but more like, because an entirely new timeline is created once something travels to the past(regardless of how much or little impact it makes to the timeline), there is no guarantee that in this new timeline, things would lead out in such a way that a time portal would be created again to link up to the past, and so, the portal naturally collapses.

[Makο]

I was thinking something among those lines, but more like, because an entirely new timeline is created once something travels to the past(regardless of how much or little impact it makes to the timeline), there is no guarantee that in this new timeline, things would lead out in such a way that a time portal would be created again to link up to the past, and so, the portal naturally collapses.

Actually, the secondary timeline did not occur once it happened. The Aged One who did it started a split a few mere days before the first experiment. The second experiment in the first timeline reached over to the second timeline and connected with THAT first experiment. The protag is actually from an entirely different timeline.