[Mkguild] New Author & Character: Stryker

[Stryker mk]

>
> You got thought them *all*?  Awesome!  Welcome to the club. :)

Well... I *think* I did... if not all, then almost all. I've been at
it for about 4 months, though, so...

>
> I like the specs for your character quite a bit.  Although you want to
> be careful not to have too strong a character so he doesn't get
> boring. ;)

Yeah... for battle, I was planning on only throwing him up against
really powerful foes or very nasty situations. Sending him out after a
band of recalcitrant lutins would be kinda pointless; the story would
be over in a paragraph or two.

The other ones I'm working on may end up getting a lot more "screen time"...

> His having two souls, in particular the souls of two
> entirely different species, let alone genders is very intriguing.  It
> seems you can do quite a bit of confused moments and soul-searching,
> so to speak, with him.

And having a messed-up set of original programming doesn't help him
too much either. ;-)

> I'm not a huge fan of automatons in the MK
> universe, but this is definitely a cleverly thought out one. :)

I use the term automaton somewhat loosely; as he's not mechanical, but
rather a magically animated liquid. But, as he's not technically
alive, and is made of metal (even though he usually looks the part of
an anthromorphic keeper), I didn't know what else to really classify
him as.

>
> I like your intro story.

Thanks! :-)

> Although you leave a lot open about the
> backgrounds of the two characters that become Stryker, I would imagine
> you're going to shed some light on them a bit in future tales.

Yes - once I figure out what, exactly, that background is.

>  You do
> use a few very modern terms for the setting, though (e.g.
> "nanoseconds")

I do get your point. On the other hand, it's not completely without
precedent, either...

One of the things I like about MK is that magic has been firmly
established as a phenomena of particle physics; the particles being
mana. We already have fields and flows, extraterrestrials in the form
of the pantheon, a robot (aka automaton) fox that occasionally spouts
random 20th-century gibberish, guided missiles (I'm thinking both of
the target seeking arrows used by - IIRC - Rickkter; and the ones with
explosive warheads that were used against Merai & Raven), compound
bows, and semi-automatic magazine-fed projectile weapons. Also, a
clear separation has been made between astronomy and astrology. Oh -
and a certain alchemist's lab has an uncanny resemblance to a college
science lab where I once worked...

... so, I guess that what we have is something of a hybrid
environment; neither sci-fi nor pure middle-ages fantasy.

That said; do you have any suggestions on how to phrase the
description of the arc-over event more in the flavor that you are
asking for, without loosing the impact that an understanding of the
physical nature of the event imparts?

> and I'm not sure how the MK vets will like space travel

That's OK - neither did Stryker! (no life=no mana)

So, um... he's not going back there anytime soon; and being
unconscious for 99% of the time, he doesn't really remember the
experience, either.

> although I find getting blasted clear into orbit pretty awesome. :)

As someone who *really* wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid
(and given the developments with Burt Rutan & friends, I still hold
hope that someday...) I find the notion of being blasted clear into
orbit pretty awesome too. :-)  But, I digress...

> One thing you want to look out for when writing is to be careful not
> to head jump.

Noted. This was my first cut at it (heck - the first thing I've ever
written that wasn't either an essay, manual, bug report, or code); so
I'll see if I can do something about it as I work on the project.

> My only real qualm with this story is the five thousand years of ice
> age thrust upon the planet as a result of the spell gone awry.  :)  I
> mean, holy crap, that is some spell!

Actually, the spell was only the trigger - the primary factor was
placing a superconductor right above a nexus; resulting in a short
circuit in the flow of mana thru the planes. Messing around with the
universe's primary mana flows -- um, kids, don't try this at home, OK?

> He's just an apprentice,

Oh, no - that mage was very accomplished; and something akin to a
Moranasi. His master is a daedra; probably Ba-al. Soul binding -
especially with blood magic - is not something to be undertaken
lightly; an apprentice would never be allowed to do that. Doing it to
a potential mana superconductor is something even this mage wouldn't
try alone. Also, I don't think an apprentice would be allowed to use
the center of a dark nexus.

I'll see if I can make that more clear in the text.

> And then his spell gets screwed up and piratically destroys the world.

No, just triggers a climate change. It's happened many times before;
I'm quite sure that it'll happen again, and as before life will go on
- albeit with a change of seasonal fashion, no doubt! :-)



> I don't think you need to mention the ice age, just that it was a huge explosion. :)

Eh. Hmm. Thing is - and this needs bringing out somewhere; I haven't
decided on if it should be in this story, or later - that's part of
the reason the daedra abandoned the project; the materials and
procedures required were too dangerous, even for them. That shorted
out nexus almost took out the daedra overseeing the project - and
would have if it weren't for the daedra's unhumanly quick reflexes.
And I'm pretty sure that blowing a mountain range into the upper
atmosphere is gonna be noticed for rather a while. :-)