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Black Box Soul (REVAMP!)

EDIT: THIS IS ALL NEW STUFF, YO

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Recently I came back and decided I'd put down everything I have about the game now, now that a lot of things have changed. Currently I only have part of a script, a combat system idea and several pieces of concept art, but this is definitely still going.

Setting:

The story takes place 200 years after an event known as the Great Exodus, where seemingly the Earth’s entire population vanished into thin air. Soon after, strange machines known as homechs (a portmanteau of ‘mecha’ and ‘homunculus’) began to appear in the California/Nevada region, eventually gathering around a religion known as the Church of Humanity. The Church preached that humans left the Earth, leaving the homechs behind as the planet’s caretakers. Their other purpose is to seek to achieve perfection by becoming as close to humans as possible, at which point the humans would return to take them with them. The Church of Mankind became homechkind’s official, theocratical government, setting up four holy cities in the remains of San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with the latter being their capital, and started on a great restoration project to try and return the cities to their former glory.

The cores:

Every homech is powered by a mysterious piece of black box technology known as a core. A glowing blue spherical object, the core acts as both a power source (pulling an endless supply of power from somewhere unknown) and as the homech’s mind. To interact with the outside world, the core extends tendrils out that could best be described as the homech’s nervous system, latching onto objects and manipulating them. Though it could theoretically control anything this way, homech cores find it far easier to control humanoid bodies, as they identify themselves as human-like.

Damage to a homech’s core is very serious, often leading to death. Even if the homech survives it, it can lead to numerous mental or psychological conditions.

The Adversary:

However, a decade or so later, Los Angeles came under attack by a mysterious enemy that became known simply as the Adversary. While also machines like the homechs, they came in many shapes and sizes. What they all had in common, though, was serious aggression towards homechkind. Unprepared for this sudden attack, Los Angeles was easily taken, any homechs that weren’t able to escape being ruthlessly slaughtered. In the aftermath, the homech capital was moved to Las Vegas, while the Adversary constructed a massive wall around the entirety of LA, closing themselves off, though Adversary robots would still antagonize nearby settlements, even almost reaching Vegas itself. As a result, the Church became more militaristic, San Diego becoming the official military capital of the coast and creating a force known as the Holy Guard, who would watch over the three holy cities and occasionally any settlements outside, while plotting to one day retake their former capital. However, their coverage of the homech settlements was very poor, leading to the formation of various militia groups and the rise of various mercenaries who would protect the settlements around LA.

Reset the World:

Within the Church lies a secret insurgency group known as Reset the World. Nobody within the Church who still lives knows of their existence, and their numbers remain just as much of a mystery, with the possibility that they could have members high up in the system, and another possibility that they might even be working for the Adversary. What isn’t a mystery, however, is their goal; the total destruction of the Church from the inside out, to be carried out through the assassination of various VIPs within the Church and the destruction of several locations within the holy cities. They haven’t enacted their plan yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

More setting and background stuff (with mad spoilerz)

The Inquisition:

Reset the World isn’t the only secret organization within the Church. The Inquisition is an organization that only a privileged few high up in the Church know of, and their goal is simple; maintain the status quo of homech society, at any cost. The Inquisition has worked to keep homech society in a state of cultural stagnation for many, many years, weeding out any people that they suspect may question the Church or cause serious changes. They’re not above wiping out entire settlements in order to kill one possible dissenter, and then blaming the entire incident on an Adversary attack. They’ve also orchestrated the location and extermination of various human shelters, in order to keep up the illusion that humans have completely vanished from the Earth. To the higher-ups, though, this is completely necessary, though. Because if they don’t keep homech society in check, they could very well incur the wrath of God.

The Maker:

Perhaps the Church’s darkest secret is the Maker, the true origin of homechkind. A massive, sentient factory, the Maker creates the homech cores, while its own personal robots (created without the self-awareness or free will that homechs have,) unofficially known as Spheroids, create primitive bodies for them to at least move around in before sending them out into the world. Having gained sentience soon after its initial creation, the Maker soon realized that it lacked the freedom that its creations had, being unable to move from its spot and being forced to create cores. It was also aware that its own power source was its own creator, who lies comatose inside it and in possession of the Source, the core that powers all other cores on the planet, and that if its creator ever woke up, it could very well die, not to mention that there were forces out there who were plotting to destroy it as well. Because of this, the Maker was eventually driven to madness by fear, paranoia and hatred over the years, growing to hate its creator, the homechs, the Adversary, and eventually every living thing on the planet, yearning for the day that it could be free from its responsibilities and use its unlimited (but currently kept in check) power to destroy everything, the only way it could be sure that it would be safe.

Peter and Emily:

On the coast, currently living in Los Angeles, is the leader of the Adversary, a human named Peter Rosenburg. Before the Exodus happened, he was a scientist from a wealthy family, working on methods of faster-than-light travel, when he discovered an alternate dimension consisting of nothing but a mysterious kind of energy that would eventually be dubbed gate energy. Upon discovering this, Peter began to think that tapping into this power could create a nigh-inexhaustible power source, and began to look into it. During an, experiment, however, a freak accident exposed him and a fellow colleague, Emily Rose, to the energy. As a result, the two became living conduits for Gate Energy, with Emily becoming the Source, the anchor that allows Gate Energy to manifest in this world. With this came god-like power, as well as bizarre physical changes for the both of them; grey-ish blue skin, blue hair and eyes, and fluorescent blue blood. Hearing about the transformation, the military quickly stepped in, seeing the potential for powerful super soldiers. Emily, still traumatized by the transformation, eventually lost control of her vast powers during the tests, disintegrating nearly the entire population of the Earth before she was finally able to rein it in. Distraught by what she had done, she disappeared, eventually making her way to the desert in Nevada before falling into a coma. Her powers, acting on her desire to atone for her actions, constructed a shell around her that would become the Maker (and eventually gain sentience through constant exposure to the Source) and began to create the homechs in order to replace the humans that had been lost.

Peter, meanwhile, spent most of the time after the Exodus frantically searching for his daughter, Lucy, hoping that she hadn’t become one of the victims. Miraculously, however, she managed to survive, though she was also traumatized by the event to the point of near-catatonia. Worried that she might hurt herself, but knowing that she had to go find Emily in case her powers ran wild again, he cryogenically froze Lucy, using his powers to create guard robots (the very first Adversary) to look over her and went off to search. During his search, though, he finally came across the homechs, though he kept his distance and observed as they developed their society, realizing that Emily must’ve created them. As he found that they were destroying human shelters, though, he became furious, creating an army of Adversary and storming LA, taking over the city and turning it into his headquarters. Thinking that Emily had finally turned against humanity, he resolved to destroy the homechs and Emily, and rescue as many humans as he could. His powers had rendered him unable to age, so he was able to spend almost two centuries looking for other human shelters (there were a number of underground shelters created that the surviving humans took shelter in after the Exodus, fearing a foreign attack,) taking them back to the city while he constructed a giant wall around it, deconstructing the city and turning it into a utopia for them. It was around that time that he realized that his powers were slowly waning, and that he would need to choose someone to replace him if his waning powers eventually returned his ability to age. Eventually, he decided to use his daughter, bringing her out of cryostasis and subjecting her to the same experiment that gave him his powers, having done research before and thinking that he’d be able to give her her powers without the mental trauma or loss of control. Unfortunately, this
proved to be a failure, as while her power was even greater than his was (though not as much as Emily’s,) the manifestation brought her a great amount of pain and mental anguish, and she was quickly put back into cryostasis again until Peter could figure out what to do, leaving her at the (now hidden) laboratory as he feared what would happen if he brought her back to LA in her unstable condition.

At the same time
 
This seems like a very good idea the ideas behind it are incredible (Though I can't shake the feeling that I have seen this somewhere before) but one thing will have to be addressed: if Emily is in a coma then shouldn't her powers weaken like Daniel's thus the maker would weaken or has the maker managed to find this alternate dimension and use that to keep itself alive?
If that is the case then Emily would no longer be required to keep the maker alive then the maker would ether kill Emily or awaken her from her coma and that would mean that Daniel would then find and kill her or Lucy if Daniel's powers have weakened and that would mean that Lucy would take up her own mission as she was forced into doing this and that would also mean that Lucy would have to make a new conduit from one of the few humans remaining and that would mean she would have to finish her fathers mission to save mankind but by doing that the robots would see that humans aren't gods but Lucy and Emily so then the robots themselves
would kill the humans as they will most likely believe that the humans have wasted there time and effort when Lucy and Emily were the ones that they should have worshiped so Lucy would have to repeat history and kill all of the robots. If that was the plot sorry if not and you don't have one feel free to use it if you do you can use it anyway if some parts are useable. Bye.
 
really cool idea! the possibility of machines gaining awareness has always intrigued me, just what if you know? what if a game understood how to play with us? if they somehow gained awareness of good and evil, without spirit would they be able to make a moral desicion? anywya my video game will feature this type of scenario also, and i'm trying to merge it with the legend of nibiru and prophecy, well good luck with your project do you have any character drawings?
 
@Darth J: The Maker doesn't know how to replicate the incident that resulted in Emily becoming what she is now. Only Daniel has that knowledge. And the Maker wouldn't dare mess with it's own power source, less it screw up and kill her by accident, or wake her up.

Also, Lucy is a playable character, as she's found and revived by the main character.

@dsoulja85: I only have a concept sketch for the main character, Zeek, drawn and uploaded. I have sketches of a couple other characters (Lucy and another playable character, Teri), but they're pretty much just crappy quickie barely-visible-after-being-scanned sketches.
 
I think this is one of the best justifications for anthropomorphic robots I've ever seen. Your basic concept--robots worshiping humans--is really neat and totally makes sense. The thing with the psychic powers is a little too anime-esque for my tastes, but it's an RPG, so it's not out of place. Amnesia is overdone, but it's not glaring here. The thing with robots acting just like humans is another thing that usually strikes me as odd but works here, because their souls are originally based on a human and they worship/emulate humans in any case.

Anyway, this is an very solid start. When I see things like "I started this a week ago" and "mysterious entity" and all of that, a red flag goes up in my brain, but this is actually interesting and well explained. I think this has a lot of promise, so do keep going with it! This forum is a little slow sometimes, but try not to get discouraged by lack of feedback.

Have you thought much about graphics, btw? If your game is sci-fi, the RTP is unlikely to satisfy your needs. I'd look into SNES rips or something. SNES games tend to use 16x16 tiles, but you can blow them up to 200% before importing.
 
Not yet. School got in the way for a while, but I'm still working on this.

New entries for some characters and a bunch of rewritten stuff for others, as well as some stuff added to the general premise.
 
For anyone wondering if this is still going (at least anyone who still remembers this,) it indeed is. I've been doing a lot of work on the characters and plot, as well as on a new battle system, and have finally started to work on a plot synopsis for the game (currently it's at the aftermath of the 2nd dungeon of the game.)

I'll have to go back and do some serious rewriting on the first post. But for now, here's some stuff.

BBS Key Terms (Warning: contains spoilers)
The battle system for BBS in its current incarnation.
Current concept art for Zeek
Current concept art for Lucy
Current (but incomplete) concept art for Duke
 

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