The Pilot

This is the thread for all discussions related to our pilot episode. I will be updating this post with relevant information.

The main characters are traveling around North America helping people put their lives back together after the Convergence. This often involves pacifying rogue fictites nearby. The team is a Five-Man Band+2:

• The Hero: Hikari—geeky, idealistic, and nor particularly good at anything other than kicking fictite ass, though that does stop him from trying to help out however he can.
• The Lancer: Cody—the bullying attention-seeker who is generally ignored and uses his power to spy on suspicious folk
• The Smart Guy: Ironeye—the scholar who spends most of his time collecting whatever bits of information he can about what is going on, as well as occasionally altering the weather for the benefit of the people the team is helping. He's also the de facto Number Two.
• The Big Guy: Murky—the Emotionless Girl who also happens to be the muscle of the team.
• The Chick: arks—The Pollyanna who volunteers for all of the dangerous tasks because he can't get hurt
• Team Mom: Kara—The Medic and team leader, as well as the only person on the team who has helping people as their primary motivation (it's in the top 5 for most of the rest)
• Team Pet: Matrix—the shapeshifting comic relief who seems to contribute more by making people laugh than by actually doing work himself

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Since we no longer have Furiko, and before, I had Matrix crushing on Murky after getting over Furiko, I guess we'll have him crushing on Murky.

That's also what I was assuming.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Yeah, we kind of have to rework how relationships work a bit after all those characters got dropped to streamline the show.

Also, Hikari isn't the new guy any more. That changes a few things (or is he?)

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As far as I am aware he is. It also places him in a good position for The Hero- being the newcomer and thus audience avatar.

We're not really sure. It's something we'll need to figure out. In a bit, I'll have a post on the character relationships we do know.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

But anyways, what do we want the overall tone to be? I can see a few possibilities, including, but not limited to:

1. Background information, storybook style: Giving the world and introducing the characters. Show them fighting, but don't make any large effort to have a particular plot.

2. Monster of the Week: We can also just start In Medias Res. Explain nothing and go straight to the action assuming that that audience will pick up on or already know who the characters are. Since the pilot is really more of a test for how things will work, it doesn't have to be an official episode, or the official first episode.

3. Slice of Life: Just having the charcters interact around the base. This will focus on building characters and we can use it to test out how versatile the group is without distractions such as the world or battles.

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Well, I think the idea was to have the team be nomadic at first because it didn't involve Fridge Logic due to recruiting choices, and we don't have to worry about doubling the cast by featuring people back at the base. The "base" scenes and the "on the road" scenes will pretty much be one and the same until the show Jumps the Shark Kara's team is recruited by Eddie and they actually get a home base and support staff.

I think the pilot should be pretty indicative of what a "normal" episode would involve, and thus should neither focus too much on action nor too much on Slice of Life.

edited 11th Jan '10 4:48:07 PM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Having a smaller, nomadic team also makes Kara's initial attitude toward Hikari make more sense. How much of a family vibe is there really going to be with a large group operating out of a semi-professional caliber base?

I think we should go with a compressed version of Episode #1 as originally planned:

• C-Day.
• Hikari sets out to find the Tropers.
• He coincidentally catches up with them in Boston.
• They fight the Hydra (or another fictite, if we decide to change it).
• Hikari's powers prove useful in defeating it.

edited 11th Jan '10 4:55:19 PM by Karalora

Stuff what I do.

With the loss of the base and now with a defined tightly knitted number of characters, we have a lead in for the team dynamics and thus the tone. You need to give the characters fairly even exposure, you need to be able to present a camaraderie (sp?), the tone of the series will lend itself to that sense of close knittedness with the characters and involvement that our target audience evidently loves. Or something like that, at least.

For our tone, let's split it into three:

• The Team Dynamic Tone (Nakama or We ARE Struggling Together?)
• The World Environment Tone (World Half Empty, Crapsack World or Low Fantasy?)
• Self Regard (Are we self parody, subversive, cruel deconstruction, played for laughs...? Yes this can actually act independently of the above two to my view because it really is Self Regard. How do we feel about our idea?)

I want a report by Friday on each on these section! But no, really, each of these points will have to be established independently, hence splitting them up rather than just considering one general tone. We will have to introduce the team, we will have to show the landscape etc.

I believe we've been shooting for A World Half Full for the setting—yeah, things are pretty bad, but the efforts of the protagonists and people like them are slowly making things get better.

With regards to the protagonists themselves, I don't think it's We ARE Struggling Together. On the other hand, Matrix, Ironeye, and Kara all get along great, yet there's something that would interfere with any other trio (even if Ironeye/Matrix/Hikari at least looks cool on the surface). I think it's one of those things where even though not all of these people are friends, or even like hanging out together, their shared experiences keep them together. In the end, even after some of the horrible things they've done to each other, they still end up being the "family" Kara wanted them to be—or at least that's my take on how the series should end.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

So in the end, it is Nakama: one of the characters might say (or at least think) something along the lines of "I think you're an annoying self-centered twit, but you're still part of the team".

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Pilot Monster

Thoughts on the Monster of the Week for the pilot:

• Hydra—too difficult without Murky and Furiko both abusing Rule of Cool
• Dragon—too awesome to appear this early (unless it's a smaller dragon, at which point we're wasting a dragon appearance, in my opinion)
• Chimaera
• Minotaur—probably too easy

We want some more to choose from, preferably a large creature, definitely an iconic one, and hopefully one that the team would have difficulty fighting without Hikari. Ideally, this creature will be faced near water so that we can demonstrate Murky's power (since it's the one that is least relevant to what the character normally does, and thus least likely to appear otherwise—remember that her hydrokinesis is relatively weak).

Random Note

Use of the term "Empowered" for people who have manifested C-Day abilities. This will become interesting later in the series when it becomes clear that technically everyone is Empowered.

Weapons Notes

Setting note: In a post-apocalyptic setting like this, ammunition will be hard to come by, particularly since Americans have demonstrated a tendency to hoard ammo if they even suspect something is wrong. Thus, while everyone on the team will likely have a firearm as backup, these will be weapons of last resort. Ironeye wields a Glock-17 (in part because ammo for it would be relatively easy to come by), but it's unknown what firearms the rest of the team will have, though presumably Murky will have the biggest one.

Primary Weapons

• Murky: Naginata, a backup gun of some kind
• arks: something to get his enemy's attention
• Matrix: Skitty form
• Kara, Ironeye, and Hikari: Knife for backup/utility (since all of them primarily use their powers instead of skills in combat...though Ironeye isn't completely screwed if his powers don't work).
• Cody: ?

Ironeye's Power (Big thanks to Kara for coming up with the general idea and helping me tweak the details)

Ironeye's power was problematic in that while it was useful in niche situations in the middle of combat, it mattered far more in the preparation phase...after which he would be pretty much useless unless the team were facing unarmored humanoids. Kara and I came up with an idea that made Ironeye more useful without sacrificing the thematic elements of the old power. The idea is thus: Ironeye can act as a sort of heat conduit. Whenever he feels hate, he can absorb the heat around him and project it into a region nearby; whenever he feels rage, he can absorb heat from a near location and release it around him. If he transfers too much energy, he risks seriously harming himself. Thus, he has an effective limit—while he has no problem freezing a small amount of water, larger bodies of water would only be subject to moderate chilling. Of course, this does mean that if he puts in enough time, he could end up freezing the large amount (assuming it wasn't so hot out that the ice melted faster than he could freeze it).

This power is interesting from a character standpoint for a few reasons:

• For someone who tries to control his emotions, being forced to feel anger or hate to be effective would be very frustrating—this is screwing with Ironeye's head in a very bad way
• Ironeye's power has very obvious tag-team applications with Murky, the one team member he actually fears
• The power allows Ironeye to "overclock" himself if need be. Doing so to save someone is a huge deal for him.

Troperiffic Team Relationships/Ensemble Roles

• Bash Brothers: Matrix and Hikari
• Big Brother Mentor: Ironeye to Hikari and Matrix (at least until Ironeye becomes a Broken Pedestal due to Character Development)
• Brains and Brawn: Ironeye and Murky (subverted a bit when Murky turns out to be the one with the practical knowledge of a Wrench Wench, while Ironeye isn't so physically helpless himself)
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: arks and Hikari
• Like Brother and Sister: Ironeye and Kara
• Morality Chain: Kara to Ironeye
• Morality Pet: Hikari to Ironeye (at least initially) and Murky, presumably someone to Cody
• Mr. Exposition: Ironeye
• Plucky Comic Relief: Matrix, arks, and Jinxed
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Matrix/Hikari as red and Ironeye as blue
• Shadow Archetype: Hikari to Ironeye (one of the rare cases where the "Shadow" is the less evil of the two)
• Sword and Sorcerer: Murky and Kara(/Hikari/Ironeye)
• Team Dad: Both Faw (especially to Jinxed) and Gabriel
• Team Mom: Kara
• Token Evil Teammate: Cody
• Token Good Teammate: Kara, up until Hikari stops geeking out and takes a stand against Ironeye
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Jinxed and Murky
• Worthy Opponent: Eventually Ironeye to Hikari

I probably forgot a bunch, but I'm sure you get the idea. A few things to note:

• Since Cody is a new character, he doesn't have much in the way of established relationships
• Since arks wasn't slated to be important until late in the original series, he doesn't have much either
• Murky being a Wrench Wench was suggested to give the character more to do than being the muscle, and, well, the team needed a mechanic
• Since Gabriel (formerly Kyler) was originally (and still is) a late joiner, we don't have a ton for him. Depending on how things turn out, he could even end up being Ironeye's "replacement"
• Since Jinxed was originally a minor character, her relationships don't have a ton of depth.

I think that's all for now. Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the necessary skill areas (both in and out of combat) to see which still need to be filled (as well as which characters are too focused in one area).

edited 13th Jan '10 5:53:42 PM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

If I remember correctly while Fawriel is her father figure... Hikari and Matrix are rather like siblings to her. Though with Matrix she tends to either dote on him while he's in skitty form (unless she has firecrackers) while he acts the big brother when he's in catboy mode.

I think at some point we made a note that she might initially dislike any mothering on Kara's part.

Real Life rwby rose

Cody's primary weapon is supposed to be a gun. Maybe a rifle, so that it isn't too similar to Ironeye's. I can also imagine him wielding junk like large sticks, knives, etc.

Cody's behaviour towards other characters depends on how easily intimidated they are. I'll try to flesh out the character over the next day or two so that you've got something to work with.

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I slightly messed up my description of the "funnel" analogy for Ironeye's powers last night  ^*

. The difference is not the direction the funnel is pointed—the narrow end always points toward the object to be heated or chilled. The difference is the direction of flow, whether Ironeye is collecting heat from the environment and concentrating it in the object, or siphoning heat out of the object and dispersing it into the environment. The point is that either way, the object undergoes a larger change, and the environment a smaller change in the opposite direction.

Stuff what I do.

@Jinxed: I remember that bit.

Eventually, we'll need to figure out how she feels about everyone else. Since she's not in the pilot, we do have some time.

@Bobby: As mentioned in my last post, having a gun as a primary weapon (at least in the earlier seasons) isn't a good idea due to issues of ammunition. A knife, on the other hand...

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I think that Matrix would most likely not have a gun.

A weapon for arks, huh?

How about a dented aluminum baseball bat?

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That could work.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I now demand that arks must yell "BONK!" when hitting something with said bat at least once during thr run of the show.

We have revamped the criteria for the Episode 1 Monster of the Week slightly, in order to make it clear why these are the criteria we're using and hopefully make it easier to come up with a good one.

• It must be instantly recognizable as fictional—not necessarily from a specific work of fiction, but it must be clear from the first appearance that this is not merely something that escaped from a zoo, a cryptid turning out to be real, etc.
• It should be a singular creature, so that we won't have to keep track of an entire group of enemies for this first stab at writing an episode.
• It should be reasonably large and tough, in order to be credible as a threat and a difficult target for a group of Empowered.
• It should be non-sapient, so that we don't have to deal with tough ethical questions right off the bat.

We no longer need it to be iconic, as long as it follows the first criterion on the list. We have also talked about tweaking the plot so that it's not that Hikari's powers are vital to defeating this particular monster because of its particular qualities, but that one of the tropers gets taken out of action and they need him to sub in.

Given all this, we might very well go with the Hydra after all, unless something much much better presents itself. One new idea, now that we've tweaked Ironeye's powers, is to have him repeatedly heat up Murky's naginata blade to cauterize the necks as she cuts them. Then one of them gets taken out of action, necessitating a new strategy, and thus enter Hikari.

Stuff what I do.

Yes, because the gang of Empowered really are that tough.

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I'm now sorely tempted to make Cody's weapon a butterfly knife, him being a spy and all...

The hydra sounds ideal to me. I think it might be good to start out with a strong monster - throw our heroes in at the deep end, so to speak.

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No special snowflake syndrome with the weapons. We should have a sort of common basic weapon that most members of the team use. A weapon that we associate with them in constrast to other groups, something that helps indicate a communal pool of weapons, sharing + practicality. We could spend a fortnight trying to make up a signature weapon for each troper and find some way in which it special attunes their personality to the eighth wall or we could not. Make a group weapon, give the Big Guy a bigger one or an extra one, give the outsider character a different one and that's it. That's still got problems because you say to yourself "Now we have the group's standard what about the rest of the world?". Is it "most people have guns, those with military level hardware are special though?", is it a show where the appearance of a simple shotgun can chill the air?

In the post-apocalytpic world, the right choice of the new currency can be an important aethetic choice. Make it bullets. People hoarded them, they're not being made anymore and making them the currency makes a point of "it's dangerous out there".