Well, I feel like keeping that promise today. I'll start by saying that last night, I did some basic work on effectively a preliminary on the Red Hood Rider comic, and it was so bad that I stopped after just the cover and first page, but that if I wasn't rushing and actually used references, these quick pages (not meant to be actual pages, mind you--I basically wanted to do I believe it's called thumbnailing, but without references my attempt was an utter failure) would be a rather nice way to convey the prologue I drafted in my head.
But since that'll take time, I haven't done it, yet. Instead, for today, I've been thinking about one of my other webcomics a little bit. I still need to track down the original notes I have for it (I'm not even sure where they are), but the basics for the webcomic is that it takes place in a world where humans had, previously, been a spacefaring empire...but were engaged in a losing war against a vastly-superior force, both numerically and technologically.
Their only victories in the war were Pyrrhic in nature, and for the most point, they simply made heroic sacrifice after heroic sacrifice: last stand after last stand, progressively pushed further and further back. They eventually got to the point where their own sacrifices were more extreme than the aliens fighting them would inflict, including--with people still on the planet/moon--blowing the planet/moon up because it was one of the only strategies guaranteed to cripple the enemy.
It slowed their advance down, drastically. Humanity was struggling nobly, and in spite of their best fighters dieing, new fighters were quick to innovate effective combat techniques. While already advance, by fighting aliens vastly superior technology-wise, humanity was kicked into high gear in advancing even faster, in a desperate attempt to even the playing field, but again, their best simply wasn't good enough, and they kept on falling back, being pushed back further and further, sacrificing more and more.
Their enemy never made contact, apparently determined, relentless, to wipe humanity out, but in spite of this, humanity kept on doing their best to hold on. Their losses could not be measured, but they made sure that the enemy was still suffering for their victories. When finally pushed back to our own solar system, each planetary body the aliens overcame took months or even years to accomplish before they could advance to the next.
Humanity held on for that long, but eventually, when the aliens managed to navigate their remaining fleet through the rubble of the moon, the final siege began. Humanity at this point had fortified Earth into the strongest possible defensive formation, and even though the aliens had vastly superior technology and numbers, it was clear that they were running low on available resources as far as the campaign to wipe out humanity was concerned.
(Humanity deduced that there were probably fleets more worth of alien ships elsewhere in the universe, but the logistics of the invasion meant that if they could hold their ground and fend off the current invasion, they might be able to survive.)
Unfortunately, while they were near that point, they could never quite get there. The aliens were simply too advanced, too many, for even the fortified earth to withstand, and humanity's desperate measures continued, as they began using technology that risked destroying their own planet anyway in order to hold off the attack.
Ultimately, all the humans on the surface were wiped out, and the radiation produced from their machines poisoned the land. The aliens were unable to scan deep enough below the surface to confirm all human settlements were obliterated, but they left anyway: it was obvious to them that even if humanity had somehow sealed away settlements deep enough underground as to avoid detection, that between the small size they'd be required to be and the damage dealt to the planet, their days would be numbered and within a couple of generations, they'd be extinct.
The aliens were half-right; humanity had small enough settlements hidden away, deliberately so and part of the radiation was a gambit to try and help prevent them from being found. And they knew that in all likelihood, humanity was in fact doomed to die out: there were too few of them left alive, in too hostile an environment.
...But not wanting sentient life on the planet to die out, they kickstarted evolution in as many species as they could, in the hopes that they would evolve, repopulate the earth, build their own empire, and with luck, be able to use humanity as precursors to their own lives. And in this goal...humanity half-succeeded.
...By which, I mean, humanity managed to kickstart evolution alright, but they managed to do so so effectively that the animals on the surviving earth were sentient enough for communication between them to begin...while humans still lived. So all those various, last-ditch efforts, blind hopes of continuing where humanity left off, managed to survive, artificially evolve (there's some basis in fact for this being possible, in that breeding domesticated animals such as dogs has accelerated their divergence from the creatures they share ancestry from such as wolves, and the effect I have in mind is similar), and collectively recognize humans as their creators--which is, mind you, the equivalent of humans directly interacting with God.
And given the choice, you'd probably not want to see your God (gods, in this case) die. So the new collective terran life began to lay the foundation of a system to help rebuild, repair, and nurture the wounded earth, along with its crippled inhabitants. The result was that humans act as overseers of a number of other lifeforms, and these other lifeforms generally have jobs they specialize at. There's aspects of the story that are fairly grim: dead life is turned into food for the living, except for humans who are turned into fertilization for plants. Animal instincts are still very strong in some breeds uplifted, leading to accidental murders (or attempted murders) that cause extreme PTSD, among other things. There's basically some degree of forced eugenics, in that humans are still few enough in number that they must produce offspring, thus, must be paired with someone they are genetically compatible with who isn't too closely related to them.
...But there's also a lot of good. Interspecies relationships--while infertile--can be made, so long as proper procedures are taken. (For instance, humans can donate their genetic material so they still have genetic offspring, while being paired with someone they actually love.) The world is on its way to healing, slowly. Advances in technology are cautiously being made, and advances in fields regarding to natural life are going at an astronomically fast rate.
Basically, it's the aftermath of an apocalyptic world: they're recovering, slowly, and are on their way to a better world. They're not exactly happy in what they have, but they have enough freedom that they're generally not miserable. Things like art, music, and whatnot continue to be made, with diversity like never before given the inclusion of different species into sentience. Different viewpoints on the world philosophically have cropped up, and it's a rather diverse world. It just so happens to be a world that, through necessity, has some grim regulations in place that people accept because they need them to live. A benevolent dictatorship of sorts.
Another webcomic idea of mine that I'm rather fond of is one mixing fantasy, sci-fi, and slice-of-life. Basically, it'd follow an average guy, living a slightly-quirky life. A recent college graduate, he has a circle of friends and shares a small house with a good friend. (And, yes, she is exactly that, and no, their relationship doesn't become more than that.) He's got a good, funny life there...and then he gets dragged into the fantasy world, where he is classified as The Hero, The Chosen One set to lead the forces of good to victory.
His body changes in there to that of a teenager, because clearly the hero MUST be a kid, and he is not exactly happy about the whole ordeal, snarking heavily and using underhanded tactics that a hero shouldn't ever use but which he employs just to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Some of his friends eventually come into the world as well, helping him on his adventures there, but he only enters there when literally dragged through, because time doesn't mystically stop; time spent in the fantasy world passes in the real world too so the longer he's gone, the more he misses out on. (Fortunately, his boss is one of his good friends.)
Other small details include how his brother is a dark mercenary who was summoned similar to how he was, except as Chaotic Evil. His brother, not exactly happy about being Chaotic Evil, decided to emphasize 'Chaotic' and slaughter the cult of evil that summoned him, and since then has been hiring his services out and doing whatever he pleases, with the 'evil' bit mostly translating into 'being a jerk' rather than actual acts of evil. (Basically, gaming the system is a trait that the brothers share.)
Another eventual twist is that he actually isn't The Chosen One, but he's stuck coming anyway, because the characters point out that while he may not be The Chosen One, it could be a case of The Unchosen One, where he continues to fight in spite of the prophecy being a lie and fills the role anyway, and failing that, he's their best hero until the actual Chosen One is found, and thus, has to continue fighting until the real chosen one can fight without him there.
Then there's the sci-fi bit. I decided that the style for sci-fi would be stick figures, but he'd be notable in having a nose in stick figure form, which the others wouldn't. (I'd also like to point out that these stick figures would be rather detailed: colors for clothing, skin, and such.) In there, he would be a consultant on the ship. Basically, the crew came to earth in search of someone fitting their criteria: someone who would accept the situation, be willing to help, be able to comprehend, follow along with things when needed, yet not think identically, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to solve a problem. So not exactly a "primitive" mind, so much as a "mind that is most likely to not be set in their ways". He wasn't the only option--there were millions of candidates--but the recent magical signature on him from his fantasy adventures marked him as being the best candidate in immediate range.
And from there, he gets the same stuff, getting introduced to the world as a whole, how things work. Basically, because magic exists along-side technology, there are many things that aren't fully explained, like how humanity exists on many different worlds, yet apparently evolved separately on there. They're the most common form of life out there, even though other forms of life exist.
And there's a weird cosmic effect in place: technology will not work on a planet until a significant portion of the population recognizes it, understands it, and often is able to use it. In short, their minds make it real. Meaning that on Earth, advanced technology doesn't work, and magic is extremely dampened, making it a sort-of isolated well. There are ways to get around this, of course, by showing humans how to make the tech and how it works, and once it's mass-produced, bam, it now works on Earth, even more advanced alien versions of the tech.
I never quite did flesh out the balance between the three settings, but I love the concept.
A final webcomic I felt like talking about was a fantasy webcomic, loosely speaking. Basically, it's slice-of-life, featuring more "realistic" characters. Vampires are caused by a fungus that spreads through spores in the blood. Werewolves are a disease that acts a lot like a cancer, which can spread only through certain methods, and has some unique properties. "Angels" are birdmen. "Dragons" are reptillian fliers. "Demons" (that's a derogatory term) are batpeople. Fairies are insect people. These, and maybe an aquatic merfolk people, are basically what I'm thinking make up a world, where all of them live together. (Vampires and werewolves can only infect humans, by the way. They're considered offshoots of humanity.)
There's biological barriers in place preventing interbreeding, but such relationships do exist. This is not a world where nations are divided by race; nations exist, but are made up of multiple different races, just like in the real world we have how multiple ethnicities make up a country. While one race may be dominant (humans in particular are the most numerous), the other races exist in plentiful numbers everywhere.
I made a city setting, where some characters of each type exist. I actually have put a ton of detail into it, but I'll save it for later. I've rambled enough. Next time, maybe I'll get to actual stories rather than webcomics!
But since that'll take time, I haven't done it, yet. Instead, for today, I've been thinking about one of my other webcomics a little bit. I still need to track down the original notes I have for it (I'm not even sure where they are), but the basics for the webcomic is that it takes place in a world where humans had, previously, been a spacefaring empire...but were engaged in a losing war against a vastly-superior force, both numerically and technologically.
Their only victories in the war were Pyrrhic in nature, and for the most point, they simply made heroic sacrifice after heroic sacrifice: last stand after last stand, progressively pushed further and further back. They eventually got to the point where their own sacrifices were more extreme than the aliens fighting them would inflict, including--with people still on the planet/moon--blowing the planet/moon up because it was one of the only strategies guaranteed to cripple the enemy.
It slowed their advance down, drastically. Humanity was struggling nobly, and in spite of their best fighters dieing, new fighters were quick to innovate effective combat techniques. While already advance, by fighting aliens vastly superior technology-wise, humanity was kicked into high gear in advancing even faster, in a desperate attempt to even the playing field, but again, their best simply wasn't good enough, and they kept on falling back, being pushed back further and further, sacrificing more and more.
Their enemy never made contact, apparently determined, relentless, to wipe humanity out, but in spite of this, humanity kept on doing their best to hold on. Their losses could not be measured, but they made sure that the enemy was still suffering for their victories. When finally pushed back to our own solar system, each planetary body the aliens overcame took months or even years to accomplish before they could advance to the next.
Humanity held on for that long, but eventually, when the aliens managed to navigate their remaining fleet through the rubble of the moon, the final siege began. Humanity at this point had fortified Earth into the strongest possible defensive formation, and even though the aliens had vastly superior technology and numbers, it was clear that they were running low on available resources as far as the campaign to wipe out humanity was concerned.
(Humanity deduced that there were probably fleets more worth of alien ships elsewhere in the universe, but the logistics of the invasion meant that if they could hold their ground and fend off the current invasion, they might be able to survive.)
Unfortunately, while they were near that point, they could never quite get there. The aliens were simply too advanced, too many, for even the fortified earth to withstand, and humanity's desperate measures continued, as they began using technology that risked destroying their own planet anyway in order to hold off the attack.
Ultimately, all the humans on the surface were wiped out, and the radiation produced from their machines poisoned the land. The aliens were unable to scan deep enough below the surface to confirm all human settlements were obliterated, but they left anyway: it was obvious to them that even if humanity had somehow sealed away settlements deep enough underground as to avoid detection, that between the small size they'd be required to be and the damage dealt to the planet, their days would be numbered and within a couple of generations, they'd be extinct.
The aliens were half-right; humanity had small enough settlements hidden away, deliberately so and part of the radiation was a gambit to try and help prevent them from being found. And they knew that in all likelihood, humanity was in fact doomed to die out: there were too few of them left alive, in too hostile an environment.
...But not wanting sentient life on the planet to die out, they kickstarted evolution in as many species as they could, in the hopes that they would evolve, repopulate the earth, build their own empire, and with luck, be able to use humanity as precursors to their own lives. And in this goal...humanity half-succeeded.
...By which, I mean, humanity managed to kickstart evolution alright, but they managed to do so so effectively that the animals on the surviving earth were sentient enough for communication between them to begin...while humans still lived. So all those various, last-ditch efforts, blind hopes of continuing where humanity left off, managed to survive, artificially evolve (there's some basis in fact for this being possible, in that breeding domesticated animals such as dogs has accelerated their divergence from the creatures they share ancestry from such as wolves, and the effect I have in mind is similar), and collectively recognize humans as their creators--which is, mind you, the equivalent of humans directly interacting with God.
And given the choice, you'd probably not want to see your God (gods, in this case) die. So the new collective terran life began to lay the foundation of a system to help rebuild, repair, and nurture the wounded earth, along with its crippled inhabitants. The result was that humans act as overseers of a number of other lifeforms, and these other lifeforms generally have jobs they specialize at. There's aspects of the story that are fairly grim: dead life is turned into food for the living, except for humans who are turned into fertilization for plants. Animal instincts are still very strong in some breeds uplifted, leading to accidental murders (or attempted murders) that cause extreme PTSD, among other things. There's basically some degree of forced eugenics, in that humans are still few enough in number that they must produce offspring, thus, must be paired with someone they are genetically compatible with who isn't too closely related to them.
...But there's also a lot of good. Interspecies relationships--while infertile--can be made, so long as proper procedures are taken. (For instance, humans can donate their genetic material so they still have genetic offspring, while being paired with someone they actually love.) The world is on its way to healing, slowly. Advances in technology are cautiously being made, and advances in fields regarding to natural life are going at an astronomically fast rate.
Basically, it's the aftermath of an apocalyptic world: they're recovering, slowly, and are on their way to a better world. They're not exactly happy in what they have, but they have enough freedom that they're generally not miserable. Things like art, music, and whatnot continue to be made, with diversity like never before given the inclusion of different species into sentience. Different viewpoints on the world philosophically have cropped up, and it's a rather diverse world. It just so happens to be a world that, through necessity, has some grim regulations in place that people accept because they need them to live. A benevolent dictatorship of sorts.
Another webcomic idea of mine that I'm rather fond of is one mixing fantasy, sci-fi, and slice-of-life. Basically, it'd follow an average guy, living a slightly-quirky life. A recent college graduate, he has a circle of friends and shares a small house with a good friend. (And, yes, she is exactly that, and no, their relationship doesn't become more than that.) He's got a good, funny life there...and then he gets dragged into the fantasy world, where he is classified as The Hero, The Chosen One set to lead the forces of good to victory.
His body changes in there to that of a teenager, because clearly the hero MUST be a kid, and he is not exactly happy about the whole ordeal, snarking heavily and using underhanded tactics that a hero shouldn't ever use but which he employs just to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Some of his friends eventually come into the world as well, helping him on his adventures there, but he only enters there when literally dragged through, because time doesn't mystically stop; time spent in the fantasy world passes in the real world too so the longer he's gone, the more he misses out on. (Fortunately, his boss is one of his good friends.)
Other small details include how his brother is a dark mercenary who was summoned similar to how he was, except as Chaotic Evil. His brother, not exactly happy about being Chaotic Evil, decided to emphasize 'Chaotic' and slaughter the cult of evil that summoned him, and since then has been hiring his services out and doing whatever he pleases, with the 'evil' bit mostly translating into 'being a jerk' rather than actual acts of evil. (Basically, gaming the system is a trait that the brothers share.)
Another eventual twist is that he actually isn't The Chosen One, but he's stuck coming anyway, because the characters point out that while he may not be The Chosen One, it could be a case of The Unchosen One, where he continues to fight in spite of the prophecy being a lie and fills the role anyway, and failing that, he's their best hero until the actual Chosen One is found, and thus, has to continue fighting until the real chosen one can fight without him there.
Then there's the sci-fi bit. I decided that the style for sci-fi would be stick figures, but he'd be notable in having a nose in stick figure form, which the others wouldn't. (I'd also like to point out that these stick figures would be rather detailed: colors for clothing, skin, and such.) In there, he would be a consultant on the ship. Basically, the crew came to earth in search of someone fitting their criteria: someone who would accept the situation, be willing to help, be able to comprehend, follow along with things when needed, yet not think identically, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to solve a problem. So not exactly a "primitive" mind, so much as a "mind that is most likely to not be set in their ways". He wasn't the only option--there were millions of candidates--but the recent magical signature on him from his fantasy adventures marked him as being the best candidate in immediate range.
And from there, he gets the same stuff, getting introduced to the world as a whole, how things work. Basically, because magic exists along-side technology, there are many things that aren't fully explained, like how humanity exists on many different worlds, yet apparently evolved separately on there. They're the most common form of life out there, even though other forms of life exist.
And there's a weird cosmic effect in place: technology will not work on a planet until a significant portion of the population recognizes it, understands it, and often is able to use it. In short, their minds make it real. Meaning that on Earth, advanced technology doesn't work, and magic is extremely dampened, making it a sort-of isolated well. There are ways to get around this, of course, by showing humans how to make the tech and how it works, and once it's mass-produced, bam, it now works on Earth, even more advanced alien versions of the tech.
I never quite did flesh out the balance between the three settings, but I love the concept.
A final webcomic I felt like talking about was a fantasy webcomic, loosely speaking. Basically, it's slice-of-life, featuring more "realistic" characters. Vampires are caused by a fungus that spreads through spores in the blood. Werewolves are a disease that acts a lot like a cancer, which can spread only through certain methods, and has some unique properties. "Angels" are birdmen. "Dragons" are reptillian fliers. "Demons" (that's a derogatory term) are batpeople. Fairies are insect people. These, and maybe an aquatic merfolk people, are basically what I'm thinking make up a world, where all of them live together. (Vampires and werewolves can only infect humans, by the way. They're considered offshoots of humanity.)
There's biological barriers in place preventing interbreeding, but such relationships do exist. This is not a world where nations are divided by race; nations exist, but are made up of multiple different races, just like in the real world we have how multiple ethnicities make up a country. While one race may be dominant (humans in particular are the most numerous), the other races exist in plentiful numbers everywhere.
I made a city setting, where some characters of each type exist. I actually have put a ton of detail into it, but I'll save it for later. I've rambled enough. Next time, maybe I'll get to actual stories rather than webcomics!
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