Fantastic police; "Put the raygun down and step away from the giant!"

Or rather; "Tell me what you would be interested in reading in a fantastical crime drama centered around the subversion of tropes, systems, "the way things are", and the corruption of law representatives."

edited 22nd Dec '11 3:25:33 AM by Kraken

More details would be appreciated, but the concept, as they say, intrrrrrigues me.

SHOW ME YOUR MOVES KRAKEN

I actually had a somewhat related concept, but it was so Five-Man Band generic that I've dropped the idea until something really interesting comes to mind. I'd like to hear more.

[Is disappointed I didn't think of this first]

Sounds reminiscent of The Watch arc of Discworld and also the Provost's Dogs subseries by Tamora Pierce. Might look at them for what works, doesn't work, has been done.

Kinda makes me think of Myth Adventures, going off of the thread title.

edited 22nd Dec '11 1:22:22 PM by RocketDude

I would greatly appreciate a manuscript excerpt, at least, but if you haven't written it yet, go for it.

Fantastic Police have Fantastic Criminals.

Which they get to use lethal force on a lot more often because they're more likely to be dangerous even unarmed.

This would do well as an absurdity-based comedy, but I doubt you could get a serious story out of it without explaining how any world or multiverse could function with such cross-dimensional interaction.

Wait, where does cross-dimensional interaction come into this at all? I thought it was simply police in a fantasy setting.

Well, I probably shouldn't assume things, but, either this is some strange world where all manner of science fiction (raygun) and fantasy (giant) things coexist, or it's a multidimensional series of worlds that somehow interact (otherwise, how would you get crime worth having these fantastic police over?).

Either one, in any kind of serious setting, would not function properly, so unless you want a dystopic deconstruction (doubtful), it would be best and most entertainingly done as an absurdity-based comedy.

edited 22nd Dec '11 2:59:49 PM by USAF713

A deconstruction need not be dystopian in this case; it could be just as funny and absurd as a straight reading of the concept.

That's true, but I've found that absurdist deconstruction is probably the hardest thing someone can try to do. If you really wanted to, I suppose you could, but...

I'm pretty sure the title is a joke, not a literal description of the work.

We don't exactly have a lot to go on otherwise, do we?

I'm aware. I'm just saying...

Making something absurd and deconstructionist at once really isn't hard. After all, isn't the essence of true deconstruction the examination of the absurdity of the component parts of the idea? I mean, the term was invented by Jacques Derrida, for gods' sakes.

edited 22nd Dec '11 3:13:33 PM by JHM

It's difficult to do well, unless, I suppose, it's not supposed to be funny... or comprehensible...

edited 22nd Dec '11 3:20:40 PM by USAF713

You would be surprised. Also, what of the Deconstructive Parody page...?

Do you guys seriously want details? I kinda left it vague on what setting I was working on purpose.

edited 22nd Dec '11 3:37:31 PM by Kraken

It would make our lives easier, yes.

I'm quite game.

@Kraken - I'm interested in knowing too.

In the meantime...

My verse actually uses this concept, although not nearly as fantastic as it can be.

At nearly every corner of the city, there's a pole called The Interfering Pillar. When someone uses magic, the closest IP records the wave and reports it to the Moderators, a subsection of the city's police department.

If the wave signal indicates the usage of magic that was approved by the city hall (if you want to use magic in public, you have to get official approval), it's went unnoticed.

If it was unapproved, however, the identity of the violator is notified to the police and then the city police, which is ALWAYS armed, mobilizes. They are armed with a portable version of ERASER, a machine that shoots off anti-magic wave.

If they can't do the job, which pretty much never happens, they call in The Exorcists. Those are basically an army of mini-Super Soldiers that has taken care of more than several invasisons of {{Cosmic Horror}s.

So basically in my verse,

technology > magic

city police > criminals

In the first and current arc, the city police is trying to track down the drug dealer who is distributing drugs that eventually drives people insane and turn them into a zombie/alien hyrid monster. Because IP system cannot inert magical materials, the police is forced to track down the target in the old fashioned way.

edited 22nd Dec '11 4:01:37 PM by dRoy

Kinda reminds me of the Watch in the Discworld books. I think they dealt with it just by recruiting as many of the fantasy species as they could - they've got a werewolf, a gnome, a vampire, a golem, lots of trolls.

Makes me think of Hellboy...