[OOC] Manifold Mecha Mayhem

[Grey Star]

And the OOC/worldbuilding thread is now up. This page will constantly be edited with the setting's various organizations, terms, and other such objects of proper importance.

[VitaVitaAR]

I am looking forward to this a lot!

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

I think a good idea to help worldbuilding is if each of us talked a little bit about the "show" that our character came from before being featured in this Super Robot Wars style game. For example, Gogekkor V would be a super robot show from the late 70s. It featured a combining robot sent to Earth by the natives of Io for them to fight the coming Jovian invasion. It had five pilots, all teenager, and I want to say they were also a band, and the show is sort of infamous for having the main robot destroyed in its last episode with the Jovian Lizards still undefeated. Originally the robot was supposed to be rebuild better than before and take the fight to Jupiter, but the budget got slashed 3/4ths of the way through with only 36 of the planned 48 episodes being produced. Episode 36 was hastily rewritten to be the finale, and to end on a more hopeful note than it originally ended with one of the lizards being swayed to the Earths side.

[Renny]

Colby Barnett (my character) came from a parallel verse that's just a bit further into the future than this one. His Earth was plagued with an incident of racial debate, that through very unfortunate decisions by the governing forces set fire to a War of Races. This race-war eventually swept up the others, as they noticed both progenitors oppositions causing anarchy and great destruction. To protect themselves they all separated from one another and in a course of three centuries, divided the world by ethnics. Colby is the subtle poster child of two inconspicuous beings, who, due to their act of joining has ostracized themselves from their perspective races. In other words he's interracial.

Through acts of both chivalry and luck, he's runs into his adopted father's secretive Project G: a Mecha that would set the world right. With roughly-put together interventions, he controlled the growing militants of the races, to keep them from wiping out entire races and potentially the world. Though this goes beyond a mere war of races, behind the veil someone is pulling the strings up in the space colony, and in the end, Colby or this man will change the world in a immense way. This lasts probably 25 or 30 episodes, he was transported between his third international intervention and doubts on if he could accomplish his mission or not.

#worldbuilding #BLAM

[Zero Hex]

I choose to think of my guy as a Banpresto Original I guess. One of the alright ones. Definitely didn't think up a whole show behind him and he doesn't have a whole lot of backstory or some hidden great purpose, what little there is happens to be directly linked to the current situation or just his particular unit as an excuse for him being in the game and he starts out as having already accomplished his lifelong dream and then some. He's just that one dude who pilots one of the few Banpresto OG mechs that isn't an overdesigned mess of spikes and you keep him around because he's entertaining rather than because he's a game breaker or the game force-deploys him 90% of the stages as part of the plot.

[VitaVitaAR]

I honestly didn't think about this, I was thinking more about how to fit it into this setting rather than anything else.

[Dead Cruiser]

A more productive avenue may be developing the "Custodian" organization, which may be important as our characters' overarching organization. I think we can all agree that it it's a multinational organization dedicated to global defense by collecting, organizing and supporting exceptional individuals, but what else can we figure out about it?

I personally see it as an X-COM-esque organization, run by a council of funding nations. As well as recruiting and maintaining the "Custodians" themselves, it has numerous in-house engineering and scientific research projects, with the intention of strengthening "baseline" global defense. The overall goal would be that our characters would eventually be only a last-resort crisis team, if not unnecessary altogether, rather than the first and last line of defense against global threats. Or at least, that's the stated intention. Perhaps they intend to instate a new world order using their advances in science and technology? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it's plot potential.

Continuing my queries, what would the structure of the organization be? Paramilitary? Governmental? Corporate? Where would the base of operations be located? What constitutes a threat great enough for our characters to be deployed to intercept? How are our characters deployed, and what are the other logistics of the organization?

All questions that would be good to answer.

[VitaVitaAR]

I'll point out that not ALL characters are meant to be part of them. ^^;

Otherwise we'll see what GS and Rin say.

[IncredibleBee]

Dead Cruiser said
A more productive avenue may be developing the "Custodian" organization, which may be important as our characters' overarching organization. I think we can all agree that it it's a multinational organization dedicated to global defense by collecting, organizing and supporting exceptional individuals, but what else can we figure out about it?I personally see it as an X-COM-esque organization, run by a council of funding nations. As well as recruiting and maintaining the "Custodians" themselves, it has numerous in-house engineering and scientific research projects, with the intention of strengthening "baseline" global defense. The overall goal would be that our characters would eventually be only a last-resort crisis team, if not unnecessary altogether, rather than the first and last line of defense against global threats. Or at least, that's the stated intention. Perhaps they intend to instate a new world order using their advances in science and technology? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it's plot potential.Continuing my queries, what would the structure of the organization be? Paramilitary? Governmental? Corporate? Where would the base of operations be located? What constitutes a threat great enough for our characters to be deployed to intercept? How are our characters deployed, and what are the other logistics of the organization?All questions that would be good to answer.

It's probably an international organization created under the UN with leaders, crew, and funding coming in from the US, Japan, England, China... basically any major nation.
With that in mind, we likely answer directly to the organization's director. But the director answers directly to the world's leaders. We'd actually probably be kept under super close watch specifically to avoid agents going rogue.

[Dead Cruiser]

Not to knock it, but perhaps we can think of a more interesting title for our player characters than "Custodians?" I understand what's intended, but it seems like something that would be played for laughs. I'm sure we can come up with something that's just as fitting and a bit cooler sounding without becoming cliche. Perhaps "Wardens" or "Sentinels." If we really want to mix it up (and add a bit of cheese to this) we can have it be an overlong acronym. Off the top of my head, MARAUDERS (Mechanized Assault, uh, Reconnaissance... something, something...)

[VitaVitaAR]

So I kind of updated Minako's design a bit.

Still kind of obvious who inspired her appearance though. ^^;

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

IncredibleBee said
It's probably an international organization created under the UN with leaders, crew, and funding coming in from the US, Japan, England, China... basically any major nation.With that in mind, we likely answer directly to the organization's director. But the director answers directly to the world's leaders. We'd actually probably be kept under super close watch specifically to avoid agents going rogue.

I figured a team like this, filled with so many strange factors, would have to be some high ranking Earth Gov commanders baby. Sort of like the Avengers. Like there's one person or a handful of people really pushing the idea that what Earth needs is a dedicated task force for when things get real. Not "this country has declared war on this one" real or "terrorists have taken a cruise ship hostage" real, bigger than that.

"We don't know what it is, but it crawled out of the ocean and smashed Tokyo."
"Terrorists have taken the president, his family, and new super prototype we were demonstrating."
"They're going to take the colony and drop it!"

Those sorts of problems. And I imagine we have a ship or something that ferries us around to deployments, like the Tuatha Dé Danann.

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

IncredibleBee said
It's probably an international organization created under the UN with leaders, crew, and funding coming in from the US, Japan, England, China... basically any major nation.With that in mind, we likely answer directly to the organization's director. But the director answers directly to the world's leaders. We'd actually probably be kept under super close watch specifically to avoid agents going rogue.

I figured a team like this, filled with so many strange factors, would have to be some high ranking Earth Gov commanders baby. Sort of like the Avengers. Like there's one person or a handful of people really pushing the idea that what Earth needs is a dedicated task force for when things get real. Not "this country has declared war on this one" real or "terrorists have taken a cruise ship hostage" real, bigger than that.

"We don't know what it is, but it crawled out of the ocean and smashed Tokyo."
"Terrorists have taken the president, his family, and new super prototype we were demonstrating."
"They're going to take the colony and drop it!"

Those sorts of problems. And I imagine we have a ship or something that ferries us around to deployments, like the Tuatha Dé Danann.

[Professor_Wyvern]

Well yeah. We fight Godzilla and Pals, or whoever the Monster of the Week is.

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

Darn it, I just realized I could have rode into battle in the Bagger 288.

[VitaVitaAR]

I've actually spoken to GS a bit, and the Custodians are a VERY big organization, with people who are not mecha pilots as well as people who are being a part of it.

It has a very huge amount of variety within it... and funnily enough neither of my current characters are actually part of it. ^^;

[Art of Fun]

I can't honestly say I had any one or two series in mind when I was making NA-TA and the Nu Wa, but there's def. a leaning towards Eva with giant space aliens and biomechs. For style/aesthetic I think there's some Valvrave thrown in there.

Christ, Valvrave. What a badgood show.

[Grey Star]

GM Worldbuilding Session #1!

The Custodians are somewhat a cross between Full Metal Panic's MITHRIL and Evangelion's NERV. Officially, they are an independent organization are funded by the United Nations to act as a specialized response unit to problems that conventional military tactics and force cannot hope to subdue, containing both military and civilian branches. Unofficially, they hold a lot more power than most people think and are responsible for releasing "safe" technologies slowly into the world to improve overall life since they field experimental black box inventions created by geniuses decades ahead of their time (and also profiting greatly off these patents so as to achieve the greatest independence possible).

Though publicized, very few realize the true extent of the Custodians' might and influence and their inner workings highly secretive, on par with Area 51 or the Illuminati. Despite this, they are also a haven for "nails that stick up" and recruit the best in their various fields despite personal quirks and backgrounds, much like the Nadeisco's Nergal, all the while offering a high degree of freedom unheard of compared to most other secretive organizations. Even their name was picked to be as innocuous as possible so as to provide both the public and their enemies with the assurance that they are just one of other such similar minded organizations out there.

Their antithesis is a group dubbed QLIPHOTH, ruled by a mysterious council of ten that regularly incites wars across the world (and sometimes even guiding alien invaders to Earth) for "fun and profit". They have enough power to erase small countries over night and supplies arms and forbidden tech to the worst of the worst, perpetuating a cycle of violence solely for amusement value sometimes even. They are cancerous and whisper sweetly poisoned words into the ears of the movers and shakers of the world, tempting them into darkness. Employing any and all means to achieve their goals, QLIPHOTH has since time immemorial planted the seeds that would spring forth the worst tragedies to ever happen across mankind's history. Why they do this is anyone's guess.

More to come later.

[Zero Hex]

So this isn't dead right? Sorry I haven't contributed anything but then I don't really have anything to add or change, it's a super robot show/super robot wars game, basically anything goes and neither realism nor seriousness are at a premium here, particularly since you cited Megas XLR as an inspiration. It's just about having cool shit to push as merch and a fun show to hook people into buying the merch.

Super robots summed up

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

I hope not. I've just been waiting for Grey Star to post more world building so there would be something to talk about.