Premise:

This isn't like your average competitive battle arena where you try to desperately claw your way to victory. Instead, this will be about battles where you can calmly discuss with your opponent how the fight would (or should for the sake of story or epic-ness) proceed, and then type it out in the IC in greater thought and detail than you could if you were coming up with the battle more on the fly with "if/then" statements that takes some of the immersion out of the conflict. Here you have a clear, singular goal that you are both working towards, so should end up with a better read and no hurt feelings involved on either side. Plus you can work on your parts while waiting on your partner, so it shouldn't take that much longer even if it's more detailed.

Balancing here is far less of an issue as well. For example, there could be fights against a clearly superior big bad; a plucky moister farmer up against a seasoned veteran of evil and must use a bunch of tricks with the terrain to win, for example. Basically, stories that you can now get away with without your opponent yelling at you for god modding, unfair use of terrain, using too much luck, etc. This arena is not only good for those fun situations, but also if they are a close call and you want to think about which character would win in a given matchup. The focus turns to the characters themselves, not how well the player can play as them strategically, and make the battle result more definitive and objective, even if the battle could go either way in certain circumstances. A win percentage could be posted to say what you guys decided each one's odds actually were, as well as other detailed info about advantages and disadvantages each one possesses on the other.

Rules and Suggestions:

1. Players in the match must agree on what will transpire. Outside of this there are no major rules unless you break standard forum rules or turn this into a roleplay not related to battle.

2. You don't have to have 100% of it planned out, but you certainly could. If nothing of significance is planned, however, that defeats the purpose of being here.

3. Battles should take place in the standard format of each player taking turns writing from their character's perspective as the battle proceeds. However, the players can write with each other's characters at times should they both desire this, such as to make a post more fluid if a series of back and forth blows is written by one person. Also, it can be more impersonal views of the battlefield being posted as well, which could be handy for large scale conflicts.

4. The battles here don't have to take place within the same canon. People can decide to have individual stories be canon with each other or not. If nothing is stated, assume that the battle takes place in it's own separate canon.

5. Anyone can use this thread to set up one of these planned matches. If you do create a battle from this premise, you should type [planned] in the title of the thread that the fight will actually take place in.

6. The IC tab of this thread isn't really important right now unless you guys have ideas for it.

7. The Characters Tab can be used to post characters you'd like to try out for this. If you see a character you wish to fight, contact them in the OOC here or PM.

8. Battles must not be ranked, meaning you wont get points kept track in the forum's statistics. If you don't know anything about ranked matches, that's fine. Just make sure you put the battle into the non-ranked category when creating the thread.

9. Have fun!

yaay we did it buddy
we did it importantnobody
we made it happen

okay so what

I'll be a big old monster alien that I'll design and probably take some inspiration to create, and you'll be a big army full of sci-fi dudes with some little underpowered heroes mixed in, right?

Where should this be? will the Monster come out of the previously mentioned portal, or like, come out of the ocean like Godzilla, or the sky? I'm thinking it'll be a little bit like that monster from Cloverfield, big, bipedal, but uses it's arms to balance itself and swing around. Probably not as ginormous, though. Or maybe it will be that size, if you want the sci-fi army to be massive, and with a lot of cool vehicles. But I was thinking maybe like 30 feet tall and it shoots acid or something.

1. Either the monster or my crew could come out of the portal, but if it's your monster then that could maybe work a tad better, but not enough for me to care one way or another if you had specifics in mind. If it's that big it would be hard to imagine it flying unless it has some special ability.

2. Maybe I can have some additional waves of troops coming in over time. If we decide on much over 30 then I'll abandon the idea of it being from the single mascot ship I have for the setting and instead it would be UNT (the good guy alliance) forces, allowing however many we end up desiring. That could also allow people like generals and such that I may get inspired to create.

3. The power level of this setting is usually so that magic users can still be defeated by normal people but some could do things like leap over single two buildings, send out massive flames, etc. Some could defeat a 30 story monster by themselves but they are more rare, of course.

4. I was thinking minimal vehicles but could bring some out.

5. The monster probably wins?

1. What if like, the Monster is like a mistake that's coming from some weird dimension that is opened up by the portal? And like portal-travel is commonly used in this universe but this is the first time a horrific monster has appeared out of it, like, falling out of it or crawling out of it.

2. Additional waves would be cool. And maybe we could have a character that is flying high above in a small command ship, observing from below.

3. not sure what this means. is this sci-fi or fantasy?

4. If it's small, maybe a few vehicles. But if it's a big battle with a big/smaller but powerful monster, definitely bring in some vehicles that can be destroyed.

5. I was thinking that, too, because then we could use this universe as a sort of on-going battle with this monster versus like, the entire planet. Just have different people pick it up or join in every once in a while. With a few twists thrown in, of course.

Perhaps this first battle would take place in a sort of remote setting?

1. By this universe do you mean the monsters? That would make the most sense. Portal travel does exist in my setting but is rare or special circumstances.

2. So scout planes that get "king konged" out of the air. Could work. They have plenty of anti-gravity vehicles I could come up with.

3. Sci-fi with magic. Their magic follows rules rather than, "because it's magic I shall spring forth this magic fireball in your face!"

4. Smaller like 30 feet is better so foot soldiers have something to do and some who wield swords can do cool flips and such onto it's body and do some damage.

5. Yeah. And the monster destroys the planet in the end. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Perhaps the first battle is on a rocky beach. The planet would have diverse climate so it's not all the same type of battlefield and getting boring.

6. A villain fighting through all my heroes would be a good plot as well, like the monster going through planet locations idea.

1. By universe, I mean canon. Should have clarified.

2. Yeah, and helicopters and stuff too

3. okay

4. what if it's like Shadow of the Colossus? And the Monster has little alien baddies on it defending it from the agile soldiers? just a thought

5. What if it's like, colonizing the planet? and it turns it into a creepy alien planet

6. yuppers!

1. Alright. The scifi setting has a lot of alternate canons anyways.

2. They could have helicopters if they didn't want to make use of anti-grav technology for some reason. Such helicopters would be rare but there would surely be one or two models still existing.

4. That would also be like Cloverfield, sort of. The smaller baddies is good to have. This makes it seem good if they were sentient at least somewhat so you can have a character among them.

5. Could happen.

6. I tried out that idea earlier but not through planned battles so it took a long time and then died. I wanted to go through all my characters who haven't gotten a chance to fight yet. Some battles could have multiple of my characters teamed up with others are more one on one. They are fighting a group of bad guys called the Big Bad over a period of time if all the battles will be the same canon. If we are going for a long running battle, that plot actually strikes my fancy better then the monster battle over a lot of battles.

2. Hovercopters, I guess. Something that floats in one place while people shoot off of it or jump off of it or hang on to it. Cool stuff.

4. Smaller baddies would be good because, if the monster is really big, it would be cooler than just the monster swatting away at tiny mosquito soldiers. We could actually have little battles happening ON the monster. Now that's cool.

5. If it's a long overarching canon.

6. I'd be willing to do that. I could try to get someone else interested in this subject after we're donedoing it. Cause hey, why not have different people take on the same canon? It'd be cool, I think. Limiting an entire in canon universe is dumb. So that's why people don't do it. Not sure why I'm even talking anymore... Okay then. Sounds good.

What do you think our forces should look like? I was thinking of calling the alien monster "The Threat". The Threat vs UNT.

The monster could stand on two legs, with arms that drop drop down to it's knees. Sometimes it goes on all fours. It could be covered with alien fungus, that give off a sort of poisonous gas. It's mouth? Well, I'm not sure about it's whole face in general. I was thinking maybe it could just kind of be a mass of tendrils and goopy gross stuff, with no real defined shape. Be a little creepy. Maybe some of the plants living on it would fire poisonous or acidic projectiles, and the monster would just have big hands and claws.

Now, if it was a BIG monster, the small aliens could live inside it. Like a hive mind sort of thing. Like the Zerg, from Starcraft.
With all of this symbiosis going on, it would look like wherever the monster came from had an ecosystem and stuff.

2. They do have things of that nature. Really good anti-grav devices take a lot of energy so their shields aren't the best for the most part but they can hover, zip around quickly, and unleash death and destruction down on enemies in spades. Some expensive generators could power great shields and anti-grav but your monster wouldn't be fighting the really good vehicles unless he upgrades later. Even a 100 foot monster would be quickly reduced to toast unless he was magically enhanced or skin made up of some made up biological material to withstand orbital bombardments.

4. The main npc's will probably be able to kill a lot of them in cool fashion.

6. I'll try to get people too.

Poisonous

Soooo . . . You two are doing a story fight. How is this new to the arena?

Soooo . . . You two are doing a story fight. How is this new to the arena?

k
---

2. well i mean
we could not have orbital bombardment and crappier vehicles to make the fight more interesting. maybe the little monsters could fly, too. (EDIT: And by crappier i mean just making the sci-fi army less advanced and with some plot limitations to make it so they can't just orbital bombard the monster to death instantly, or just use their super immediate death vehicles right away. if they just never had them in the first place we wouldn't have to explain why they don't have them in the fight, instead substituting it for less powerful vehicles.)

4. cool wrapped that up!

6. okay cool sounds good

"Poisonous"

I'm guessing you got like cut off mid-sentence or something
like your turkey in the oven went off and you had to go get it
so i'll just leave that there for now

Soooo . . . You two are doing a story fight. How is this new to the arena?

Shoo Skally, shoo!

I see no threads to keep track of planned battles unless you wanted us to clog up the general arena chat with our planning and recording of information.

<Snipped quote by Skallagrim>

k
---

2. well i mean
we could not have orbital bombardment and crappier vehicles to make the fight more interesting. maybe the little monsters could fly, too. (EDIT: And by crappier i mean just making the sci-fi army less advanced and with some plot limitations to make it so they can't just orbital bombard the monster to death instantly, or just use their super immediate death vehicles right away. if they just never had them in the first place we wouldn't have to explain why they don't have them in the fight, instead substituting it for less powerful vehicles.)

4. cool wrapped that up!

6. okay cool sounds good

"Poisonous"

I'm guessing you got like cut off mid-sentence or something
like your turkey in the oven went off and you had to go get it
so i'll just leave that there for now

2. This canon could take place a bit in the past compared to the standard time period I set it in and more in the boondocks.

6. It should fire poisonous projectiles to fit with the poison theme.

2. yeh. just making it the army less OP or having a reason to explain why they suddenly are less powerful.

6. yeah that's what i was thinking, except like, the weird fungus and creatures would shoot the acid for it.

so yeah

that's the monster, I guess. If not, just say so

Now, where should this happen? On some far out planet, isolated from the others for one thing.
A rocky, cold planet? To contrast with the red's and weird organic materials of the Threat? (i'm calling it that now nerd) Maybe a somewhat major city somewhere nearby to encourage the fight along.

Obviously, the whole planet wouldn't be just rocks and cold, it would have plant life and forests. it would just be a planet of cool colors. faded blues and grays, very light greens and an almost teal sky. then the monster comes in with it's dark purples, red's, dark greens, and wet texture.

ye

2. They wouldn't be bringing a whole lot of military equipment due to having no other forces to fight in the area. It's more like an outpost station where they do have enough to withstand pirates and such but not equipped for planetary bombing runs, that much for sure. A lot of the soldiers will also be rookies but a certain military organization will have sent some of it's members there as a home base to explore that sector of the galaxy. A freak cosmic storm will have off planet communications impossible and the main fleet in the sector just left so won't be back for a while. Basically, a perfect storm of bad luck.

6. Sounds like a good monster. I imagine it of King Kong intelligence.

7. Rocky and cold it is. There will be a really harsh tundra where they don't really go into and their main city is just chilly rather than frigid. The tree leaves could be blue. I shall call the planet...Oryu. Maybe a cool bounty hunter is on the planet and finds it a good idea to sabotage the UNT for reasons and the monster comes so he or she "teams up" with it.

8. The Threat could sort of win in the end but sort of not. It will be stopped at some point for sure unless it's goal is just living on the planet. Plus a lot of my favorite characters might survive anyways. Or not because it is it's own canon so they will still live in my main one.

2. Sounds fun! Maybe this will all tie into with the Threat's sudden appearance. Maybe not just a freak cosmic storm but a dimensional disturbance? Something like that.

6. You know the Hunters, from Halo? How they aren't really one organism, but rather a collection of different organisms to make up one operating semi-intelligent being? What if it was like that?

7. "Teams up". Well, what do you mean by that? Fighting side by side, or just, the bounty hunter just is a huge prick and starts picking off soldiers? Maybe not a bounty hunter, but a commando from a rival army or something.

8. That depends. If this Oryu planet isn't TOO important, I don't see why the Threat shouldn't be able to just take it over completely and make it into it's own creepy mushy dominion. If you want to keep it in your own head canon, we could just have the heroes retreat from this scary massive monster. If you want to have a little side-canon, we could just have some of them die in the battle. Maybe in future battles, this Threat infested Oryu planet could be a location to fight on, or an established location in the lore.

2. A portal of the type the monster comes through could indeed cause a dimensional disturbance that destroys all signals passing through.

6. I know them. Maybe the smaller monsters spring off of the big one because they are actually part of the big one that can separate. These organisms reproduce and mature deep inside of it so it gets stronger and larger as time goes on. However, it needs a lot of energy to keep this process going.

7. "Team up" is them using the monster for their own gain without the monster really aware it's being used. The story could take place when the UNT is at war with the largest Empire in the galaxy and one agent managed to infiltrate the planet and could disable vehicles. They are called the GAN Empire. At the main timeline they are not at war, at most in a cold war but are not beyond helping each other on occasion. They respect each other at least somewhat and follow rules of war so are not transparent villains like the Empire from Star Wars. During the big war between them these rules were more lax, although both of them still agreed not to use weapons of mass destruction because if they did they would destroy the galaxy and neither side is suicidal.

8. There could be a canon where the Threat is more successful due to the lucky breaks, which will be the one we will keep in canon for these arena battles. It will not be a stick in the woods planet, just not a super major planet that would easily repel the monster even with all the bad luck in the world unless they all had heart attacks. XD

We can say it's a moderate planet and close enough in UNT space to threaten other planets later on. It's only separate from the rest now due to the dimensional disturbance.

The heroes retreating would make them less heroic, now wouldn't it. XD

2. Good. So that's that, then.

6. Yeah. That's what I imagine the Threat's long term plan is. Kill the annoying natives, build a little nest and make more babby Threats and go from there until the whole planet is it's.

7. What if the GAN tried to use the Threat for their own gain, but they underestimated it's abilities and got out of control?

8. I'd imagine that, if the Threat had the strength and time to even begin to spread to other planets, and that point it would be a massive crazy hivemind of epic proportions. Creepy space whales that shoot out aliens, for later use in battles? Maybe, at some point in the future, we could do a three way battle. That'd be cool.

(Retreating heroes) Yeah, but, I mean come on. They aren't gonna fight for a lost cause, right? At some point, it's just gotta be obvious that your team aren't gonna win the fight.

Also, if we establish a new Threat canon, I wouldn't think of myself controlling the Threat for every battle we get into using it.

6. Baby threats sound cute. Too bad they are deadly. Maybe one baby threat turns good. haha

7. The Threat appears to have come out of nowhere right now so wouldn't know what to do with it for some time. Maybe the agent on the planet gets the info to them and they formulate some plans at that point.

8. Maybe not exactly like whales, but the gist is there.

The battle wouldn't have been hopeless, it just ends up turning out poorly. The surviving heroes would be forced to regroup once things take a turn for the worse.

9. The Threat seems more like an NPC at that point. This may turn out to be more of an actual roleplay that could start up. I am still in the process of getting the setting with all the info before I posted interest checks for stories that could take place in the setting. You are welcome to take a look at the wiki if you want, but it's still about a month off of being ready to start. This canon and the Threat can get pages on the wiki, even.

6. Who knows

7. Yeah. I was just thinking about the bounty hunter, like a GAN agent that went sort of rogue, but not really? just not listening to orders but still fighting for GAN

8. killer whales on a whole new level

Not hopeless the WHOLE time, just, at some point, it would probably be something like "wow everyone else is dead. this thing is spooky. let's blow this joint"

9....There's a wiki? I didn't realize I was making something in like a big official canon. Alright.