You take a mortal man and put him in control....
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:49 am
Watch him become a god!
Watch people's head a-roll.
Earlier today, I read the newest chapter of Stuart Slade's awesome fic, "Armageddon????" over on SDN, in which he realistically described, in some detail, what Sarin nerve gas did to some people. (Well, they were actually demons, but I don't make that distinction.)
Anyway, this triggered the same primitive part of my brain that was triggered when I read the detailed realistic depiction of what happened to people in a nuclear attack in Matthew J. Lineberger's absolutely splendid fic, "The Humanist Inheritance".
Just like last time, I almost literally cried out loud, and I did make a knee-jerk post exclaiming my hatred of war and pain itself.
Later, some other posters described horrible deaths by other means, and I eventually conceded to Her Grace The Duchess of Zeon that nuclear and chemical weapons are no more or less immoral than just about any other weapon.
All weapons suck. Later, I started thinking that if I was God, I'd put a stop to all of it. There would be no more violence, no more pain, no more death. It would all be gone.
There would be no more health problems, no more hunger, no more sadness (but see below). I'd snap my fingers and they'd all be gone.
(As an aside, tomorrow I feel I must watch Hide and Q [TNG], since I remember Q offered Riker that same power, and I want to watch it to see how he handled it. I think I'd take it.)
Now, what gets interesting is I am basically God in this universe, and my self-insert happens to get a great deal of power over his life. If real life me was given the chance, like I said, I'd do it. But, would author-insert me? I'm not so sure; it doesn't seem to fit so well into his background and character.
If it does, that has a fair bit of storytelling potential, and could actually fill up the plot void from AW 3100 - AW 3900, which is virtually undefined. (The only thing that is defined is Adam&Leila competently reigned, but they hate it. By the present, they are both just very tired of it all, but believe they must continue doing the job, since it is their "sacred duty". I'll write more of this in the old kingdom government thread, when I detail succession - they'll be some quotes from them in there that will help fill it out.)
(As a side note the AW 3009 - AW 3099 is indeed moderately well defined, and will make up the last one or two chapters of my core plot fic. In that time, they consolidate control and preserve the A'millian Star Empire, but the old kingdom fades away - the people are gone and many of its old ways die too. It marks the beginning of the author-insert's fall into full blown virtual depression, with only his wife, granddaughter, and duty keeping him going day to day. It's quite tragic.)
(And bringing up the fall to depression in a thread about becoming a god, the reason he does is that real world me probably would in that situation too. In the A'millian culture, power comes with responsibility, and absolute power comes with absolute responsibility. It is a lot of fucking work and it just seems entirely sucky. Only fools covet power. If I took the god powers, I'd likely be the only sad person left, but the needs of the many... Then again, as God, I might be able to fix myself too. Hmmm, that might just work. But I'm getting off topic here.)
(But since I'm off topic, I kinda wanna win the lottery too. No where near as useful as being a god, but I might be able to do a few nice things for people if I did. I have some specifics in mind - a million bucks would be more than enough, and at least a couple lives would be better.)
Anywho, this thread is about two things:
1) How hard it actually can be to write a consistent self-insert. The difficulty comes in, at least to a setting like this, because the self-insert has a completely different life than I do, a completely different background. Hence, what he and I would do and what he and I believe in often don't perfectly match up, and sometimes, are completely different! I might actually be able to call him a legitimate character in his own right.
(The worst part is I maintain a couple different forks of him too - a different copy from each universe of the expanded multiverse, and then his life is so long that he can actually be quite different depending on the era in question. Then it gets worse since I also maintain Mrs Author Insert in similar detail - and I think she actually takes more of my brain hard drive space, due to lacking the easy reference pointers back to real me. And, Mr and Mrs author insert are both vitally important in each other's development; I can't change one without looking at the other, making character tweaking all the more hard.)
I have something else I want to say about this, but I keep getting mentally sidetracked before I can type it and I forget what it is. Oh well, it will come later.
And 2) Do my desires here fit into his character at any point over his life? If so, what happens? (Enter potential fic material! It will be nice to flesh out that plot-void. Especially when his god-ambitions fail.)
This will of course be the bulk of the thread. What it will require is me talking about the life and character of the self-insert, and his wife, who, like I said, is vitally important to how his life goes. I'll probably talk about a couple of the multiverse forks (understanding what might have been helps show why things are the way they are), and then get into the meat of the matter: filling in that plot void if the characterization allows it.
This will wait for tomorrow, as it is bed time now.
Watch people's head a-roll.
Earlier today, I read the newest chapter of Stuart Slade's awesome fic, "Armageddon????" over on SDN, in which he realistically described, in some detail, what Sarin nerve gas did to some people. (Well, they were actually demons, but I don't make that distinction.)
Anyway, this triggered the same primitive part of my brain that was triggered when I read the detailed realistic depiction of what happened to people in a nuclear attack in Matthew J. Lineberger's absolutely splendid fic, "The Humanist Inheritance".
Just like last time, I almost literally cried out loud, and I did make a knee-jerk post exclaiming my hatred of war and pain itself.
Later, some other posters described horrible deaths by other means, and I eventually conceded to Her Grace The Duchess of Zeon that nuclear and chemical weapons are no more or less immoral than just about any other weapon.
All weapons suck. Later, I started thinking that if I was God, I'd put a stop to all of it. There would be no more violence, no more pain, no more death. It would all be gone.
There would be no more health problems, no more hunger, no more sadness (but see below). I'd snap my fingers and they'd all be gone.
(As an aside, tomorrow I feel I must watch Hide and Q [TNG], since I remember Q offered Riker that same power, and I want to watch it to see how he handled it. I think I'd take it.)
Now, what gets interesting is I am basically God in this universe, and my self-insert happens to get a great deal of power over his life. If real life me was given the chance, like I said, I'd do it. But, would author-insert me? I'm not so sure; it doesn't seem to fit so well into his background and character.
If it does, that has a fair bit of storytelling potential, and could actually fill up the plot void from AW 3100 - AW 3900, which is virtually undefined. (The only thing that is defined is Adam&Leila competently reigned, but they hate it. By the present, they are both just very tired of it all, but believe they must continue doing the job, since it is their "sacred duty". I'll write more of this in the old kingdom government thread, when I detail succession - they'll be some quotes from them in there that will help fill it out.)
(As a side note the AW 3009 - AW 3099 is indeed moderately well defined, and will make up the last one or two chapters of my core plot fic. In that time, they consolidate control and preserve the A'millian Star Empire, but the old kingdom fades away - the people are gone and many of its old ways die too. It marks the beginning of the author-insert's fall into full blown virtual depression, with only his wife, granddaughter, and duty keeping him going day to day. It's quite tragic.)
(And bringing up the fall to depression in a thread about becoming a god, the reason he does is that real world me probably would in that situation too. In the A'millian culture, power comes with responsibility, and absolute power comes with absolute responsibility. It is a lot of fucking work and it just seems entirely sucky. Only fools covet power. If I took the god powers, I'd likely be the only sad person left, but the needs of the many... Then again, as God, I might be able to fix myself too. Hmmm, that might just work. But I'm getting off topic here.)
(But since I'm off topic, I kinda wanna win the lottery too. No where near as useful as being a god, but I might be able to do a few nice things for people if I did. I have some specifics in mind - a million bucks would be more than enough, and at least a couple lives would be better.)
Anywho, this thread is about two things:
1) How hard it actually can be to write a consistent self-insert. The difficulty comes in, at least to a setting like this, because the self-insert has a completely different life than I do, a completely different background. Hence, what he and I would do and what he and I believe in often don't perfectly match up, and sometimes, are completely different! I might actually be able to call him a legitimate character in his own right.
(The worst part is I maintain a couple different forks of him too - a different copy from each universe of the expanded multiverse, and then his life is so long that he can actually be quite different depending on the era in question. Then it gets worse since I also maintain Mrs Author Insert in similar detail - and I think she actually takes more of my brain hard drive space, due to lacking the easy reference pointers back to real me. And, Mr and Mrs author insert are both vitally important in each other's development; I can't change one without looking at the other, making character tweaking all the more hard.)
I have something else I want to say about this, but I keep getting mentally sidetracked before I can type it and I forget what it is. Oh well, it will come later.
And 2) Do my desires here fit into his character at any point over his life? If so, what happens? (Enter potential fic material! It will be nice to flesh out that plot-void. Especially when his god-ambitions fail.)
This will of course be the bulk of the thread. What it will require is me talking about the life and character of the self-insert, and his wife, who, like I said, is vitally important to how his life goes. I'll probably talk about a couple of the multiverse forks (understanding what might have been helps show why things are the way they are), and then get into the meat of the matter: filling in that plot void if the characterization allows it.
This will wait for tomorrow, as it is bed time now.