[Episode 103951] [Episode 103951]Author's Foreword:
This idea simply would not let me go. My favourite, absurdly addictive game, with my favourite, eternally interesting characters. Making it work isn't going to be easy though. I expect there might be quite a few options, and episodes just to get through the character selection process (which is why "Character Selection" is part of the title) before we can get to the meat of the tale and become more linear (then we'll drop or change that suffix, I think). We'll see what sort of story we authors want to tell and then go from there... or in several directions at once, who knows! ^_^
Also, if you're not familiar with the World of Warcraft game, or even if you just haven't sacrificed your soul to it as I have, you might have some problems keeping accurate to it. As I am the one starting this off, and also as I am pathetically familiar with nearly all the nuances and details of WoW, I'm happy to offer myself as a knowledge resourse for questions, or to pre-read episodes before posting so that all the comments you get on your episode aren't gamefans trying to correct you on the little stuff. :P
I'll kick off the backstory now...
~ ~ ~
The world had ended, and everyone was dead. Why? How? Does it matter?
Oh very well, let's say that the US of A butted into one too many of other peoples wars and conflicts, eventually convincing most of the planet that America was the single greatest threat to their peaceful (or otherwise) continued existence, and that they were never going to get anything accomplished as long as the US was going out of their way to get in the way. A large alliance of nations who America had made angry over the decades formed, and thus united, declared open war on the USA. Most American citizens were shocked, especially since they'd never heard about a great many of these offences and grievances their government had given to others, having been raised under the mistaken impression that "Freedom of the Press" existed in their country as something more than pretty words to make them trust that whatever crossed their TV screens was the true and whole story.
America soon found itself under full-scale attack, and turned to it's allies for help... and were surprised to discover how many "allies" did not like or respect them enough to be more than trading partners. The US government's untelevised and unprinted foreign affairs methods had left no one much impressed, and a surprising number, absolutely furious.
Even with so many countries attacking them, and so many more preferring to stay neutral, the United States of America was still, undoubtedly, the largest, best-equipped military power in the 20th-to21st centuries. The fight was long, hard, and hugely destructive. It wasn't until the US decided something desperate and definitive was needed to "send the message that we're not kidding around" by launching several nuclear missiles at the four capitol cities of their chief aggressors, that their lukewarm "allies" and other neutral countries got off the fence... and immediately attacked the USA. Nuclear Disarmament was not something that could be ignored, especially when the initial alliance of attacking nations began to respond in kind to this new escalation. Nukes were flying all over the place, and the spread of fallout was the beginning of the end. Irradiated dust kicked up from the hundreds of explosions across the planet spread via the major wind currents. While the war itself had lasted barely two months, leaving the United States and most of the initial alliance nations glowing in the dark (so to speak) the deadly dust was still up in the air, slowly but surely spreading lethal amounts of radiation to every corner of the globe. Roughly one year from the day the last missile fell, the last human being on earth vomited her last breath.
(Author's note: Before you get mad at me for the above, rent the movie where most of this came from. I believe it was called, "The Beach" though my memory may be off a bit. The whole thing was depressing, but frighteningly plausible!)
But as I said at the beginning, it doesn't matter. The world had ended; everyone was dead.
~ ~ ~
A number of interesting individuals who had been pretty sure they'd died (being as it had been slow and painful, it was a reasonable assumption) opened their eyes to find themselves in a strange non-place; a featureless, groundless, skyless, "place " where the only colour was, oddly enough, tan.
As they looked about, staring at all the familiar faces, and wondering what the heck was going on, a dark rectangular line about the size of a doorframe formed in the space in front of them, and a slice of the tan swung out like a door... not that there was any wall they could see for it to swing out of.
From this doorway stepped a tall, muscular Caucasian woman wearing a lot of leather, armour plates, and a Greek-style plumed helmet. An unembellished short sword hung at her hip, and a small buckler was strapped to her back. Once she stepped though, the "door" swung closed again, the seams disappearing to reform the featureless tan expanse that stretched on into infinity.
Ignoring the absence of anything resembling ground or a floor, the woman walked... or rather marched toward them with a confidant, steady stride, coming to a military crisp halt a few paces from the closest of them. She then removed her helmet, unveiling a long mass of smooth red hair, and grinned at them.
"Greetings mortals!" She barked, in a tone that had probably been meant to sound friendly, but was a bit too much that of an experienced drill instructor to get that affect from most people. "My name is Athena, and I am the Goddess responsible for the redistribution of your dead little souls. Now do understand, normally we keep you here in the afterlife for a little while or a not-so-little while, depending on how much good or bad Karma you have to work off before being reincarnated back into the world. Unfortunately, what with a whole bunch of your more idiotic fellow mortals having apparently been bound and determined to turn their planet into a glowing dead husk, direct reincarnation is not going to be possible for at least a few million years. Aside from having wait for all that deadly radiation to clear away, it's going to take we Upstairs folks quite a while to coax the surviving organisms through to an evolutionary state that is at least somewhat complex enough to house your souls. And I wouldn't get your hopes up either; we're talking about monkey-tribe level evolution here, so I hope you don't much miss things like cars, supermarkets and woven cloth."
"Oh my..."
"You said it Sis. This sucks toadstools."
Athena cleared her throat. "That is one option you have, anyway; to park it right here and stew for a few million years until we can make a monkey-equivalent out of you... not that it would be exactly like a monkey, necessarily. I've heard some folks are planning to give the reptiles a shot at higher evolution this time around."
"You mean we'd have scales or something? Eww!"
"I don't think I like the idea of staying where we are that long. I mean, we've been in this totally empty place for less than 10 minutes and I already feel uncomfortable. I mean... there ain't nothin' here!"
As frightened and worried voices rose in agreement, the goddess once more cleared her throat. "As I was saying, that is ONE option, and it could be worse. After all, none of you here had the slightest thing to do with destroying the world you lived in, besides the basic and always applicable culpability of allowing your governments to run out of control... and even then, Japan was kind of a late joiner to the fight, seeing as you didn't contribute at all until the Americans started throwing the nukes around. If any of you HAD been more involved, you wouldn't be here; you'd be 'down there', which would not be nice as it's become a lot more crowded lately than you can probably imagine." Athena said grimly, pointing a finger in the direction of her feet. A couple of the less brilliant minds of those gathered actually looked down, trying to see the guilty folks, but most grasped the symbolic meaning of the goddess' s gesture.
"So what is our other option... ah... Athena-sama." A cautious girl asked.
"Glad you asked. Well, the thing is, having so many mortal folks die in such a short interval, on top of having nowhere to reincarnate them back into, has pretty much thrown the whole working system we had going up here right out the window. There's been a few massive brainstorming sessions among the egg-head types about what we're supposed to do with you all, and one of the more interesting ideas that came up was to create some 'pocket worlds' in the Astral plane to keep you mortal souls occupied and largely out of our hair while we work to put the Earth you twits wrecked back together again. Now before you ask, a 'pocket world' is kinda like a fake planet, or a virtual reality about 50 generations ahead of what you guys were doing with those computer thingies. Don't expect any fancy goggles or bodysuits, because you don't technically have eyes or bodies. We're gonna stick your immortal souls right in the worlds, so for all intents and purposes, they might as well be real to you."
A hand went up from the wary girl who'd spoken earlier. "So, from our perspective at least, it's going to be just like we were back on Earth again, as though we never left, and then eventually, when the real Earth is fixed, you'll just transfer our souls straight into the lizard-monkey bodies?"
Athena snorted. "No child, there won't be a whole lot of resemblance between the Earth you know and these knew worlds. For one thing, there'll be a noticeable drop in complexity and details. If we were going to completely remake an exact copy of Earth in the Astral plane, down to the smallest blade of grass and the most complex laws of physics, we might as well go whole hog and build you fools a brand new planet from scratch! And not to beat you mortals over the head with it, but considering what you did to the last Earth, do you really believe that you (as a race mind you, not as individuals) deserve to have another nice, clean planet just handed to you?"
"No, I suppose we don't." A calm, if sad voice whispered, her eyes downcast.
Athena nodded. "Damn right you don't, which is why you get to cool your heels for a few eons until we're ready to give you another shot at planet-care. These 'pocket worlds' are basically place-holders for your souls so that we're not tripping over you constantly while we do our jobs around here. You have, after all, left us a heck of a lot of work to do. So getting back to the point, no, these are not what you probably would consider 100% realistic worlds, in fact they're not technically composed of real matter, but then neither are the lot of you at the moment, and once we put you in, everything will at least feel solid and real enough for you. The point is for you souls to have a place to keep yourselves busy so you don't stagnate. Like the kid over there said earlier, if we just left you here where you are with nothing to do for 5 million years, you'd probably be left with the mental acuity of an amoeba, what with the constant inactivity and lack of any sensory stimulation."
"Alright... so what sort of world are we getting then? I mean, Astral plane 'pocket world' sure, but what's it like?"
Athena grinned. "So glad you asked! Since all the real scientific and environmentally inclined gods and goddesses are mostly occupied coming up with ways to speed up Earth's reconstitution, it's was left up to the deities with less applicable skills to volunteer to design these pocket worlds. I volunteered to design one to suit my taste for you mortal souls to run around on. As to what sort of world it is, well...." the goddess gave a wicked grin, "I am a War goddess."
"Oh my... would that mean our new world is going to be rather... violent?"
Athena grinned and nodded.
"Oh dear..."
The goddess stepped closer to the fretting girl and patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry too much. Even a war-torn world needs more than just fighters in it. I tried to give you souls a lot of options to choose from, so you should be able to be someone you at least don't especially mind being."
The young woman forced a pleasant smile. "Thank you for your consideration, Athena-sama."
The war goddess grinned and turned away, giving the sweet girl in the housedress a pat on the back which nearly knocked her off her feet. She hadn't meant to do it so hard, but the war goddess was more used to dealing with people a good deal more sturdy and sure on their feet.
The wary one raised a hand. "I though Athena was the goddess of Wisdom?"
The so named goddess shrugged. "That came a bit later. Originally I sprang from my father's head already wearing my armour, ready for a fight! As I got a bit older I branched out a bit. Anyway, that's neither here nor there at the moment."
Walking back to a spot where she could address the whole group, Athena spoke again. "Now, while I have put a lot of time and thought into designing this world for you mortals, I'm sure I haven't thought of everything, and possibly some things won't work in practice quite so well as I'd imagined them in my head. I'll be keeping an eye on you folks and maybe making some little tweaks to the world as time goes by... and you have to admit that we're all going to have a LOT of time to fine-tune things. Basically what I'm saying is not to be to disappointed with your first impressions of this world, as it will be improving in little ways over time. There are a couple of things that I can tell you right now won't be changing, however.
"You guys are free to live out your 'lives' on this world more or less however you see fit. Fight hard and grow strong, or take your time and experience everything. Go far and accomplish much, or focus your efforts on crafting supplies to help those more eager to head out for adventure. It's all up to you. What is also up to you is how you want to deal with each other. Laugh, cry, fight, or make sweet, sweet love, it's all up to you. However be aware that even if you were family or a couple engaged to be married back on Earth, right now all of you are unrelated, except emotionally. Your former bloodlines are gone, in fact so it your blood; you are not human beings at the moment, only souls, so if you find you have a sudden desire to have a romantic relationship with a person who was your sibling back on the real Earth... don't sweat it, because there's no actual problem with it anymore. I decided not to create any pre-existing personal relationships for you on this new world. Once you step into it, you are all single, all only children, and all orphans. Any relationships you make new or want to keep from the old are entirely emotional and your choice. That is the first thing."
There was a good deal of mumbling and muttering in response to this. Three sisters looked at each other, worried and a bit uncomfortable at the idea of no longer being sisters anymore... until the oldest pointed out that, according to Athena-sama, what mattered was if they wanted to consider themselves sisters. All three quickly agreed that they did, and that settled matters nicely. Not far from them, a particular brother and sister (each of whom was firmly convinced the other was dangerously insane... and both of them correct) were almost dancing with joy at the idea of being allowed to be perfect strangers to each other.
After letting them work out their plans for a little, Athena cleared her throat again. All attention returned to her. "Now then, the second thing is along the same lines. As I said, you are free to fall in love with each other, kiss, cuddle, and have hot, sweaty sex so long as you both agree. You can even organise a wedding if you really feel strongly for one another, but there is one aspect of married life which, unfortunately, will never occur in this Astral world."
The goddess paused, allowing them to absorb the seriousness of her coming statement. "Children."
The pleasant girl blinked and looked quite distraught. "No... no children?"
Athena nodded sadly. "While it is possible that we may figure some way around this issue eventually, it is very unlikely that there will ever be a childbirth in this pocket world."
"But why?" The same girl pleaded.
"Simple. No new souls. No new mortal individuals are going to be born or die on earth for a VERY long time. That means your new world's population is fixed. As you are souls and as the place you will 'live' is within the Astral plane, you can't really 'die' in such a way that you would have to start over a life from the very beginning. Since there would be no new souls to give to your children... then you cannot have children. Aside from that, don't forget that the whole lot of you are still technically dead, even if I'm giving you virtual lives to keep you busy until you can be reincarnated for real. You have to be alive to create life."
This too, provoked mixed reactions. The oldest sister seemed quite disappointed, but wasn't about to argue against the goddess' logic. Most other women and girls were likewise very unhappy to hear that. There were a wider variety of reactions from the males, ranging from being heartbroken, indifferent, all the way to "YES! Don't need a rubber no more!"
Hearing that one fool, Athena rolled her eyes and considered adding "The Clap" to the list of debuffs that players upon her little stage could find themselves stuck with. What would the effects be? Reduced walking speed by 10%, periodic pain/damage, lowered agility, stamina and spirit. Yeah, that sounded good.
Shaking her head clear of such thoughts, Athena drew her sword and shield, waving the former above her head. "Well, there's just one more thing before we get started, mostly a formality, I'm sure, but not one we can ignore completely, Free Will and all that crap. By a quick show of hands, is there anyone here who does not want to spend their time on my little pocket world, and instead remain right here, likely with little or no company, for the next several million years, with nothing to do or see or touch or even think after a while, until your mind becomes complete mush?"
There were, unsurprisingly, no hands raised.
"Right then, no total idiots in this bunch..."
"Wouldn't go that far." One boy muttered.
"Heh! You know kid, neither would I, but anyway... LET’S GET TO AZEROTH, YOUR NEW WORLD!"
Athena struck her sword off her shield, creating a large, bright spark, which continued to gleam until is filled the whole... expanse with pure white light. When the gathered souls could see again...
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(Posted Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:29)
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