Darth Wiki / Open Blue

Describe Open Blue here.

Sure, gimme a sec to regain my bearings.

...

Right, then.

Title of a (possible series of) novel(s) by Master Of The Phoenix (does Archive Binge here, but doesn't consider himself a regular troper, leaving the entry to be made by moi and his faithful comrade Ellie), currently under construction, if he could just find the time out of his busy college schedule.

Based on a series of Play-by-Post Games, each set in an Alternate Continuity of varying difference from the others. The 'Verse itself is somewhat vaguely defined, though it generally seems to be an Alternate History of earth set in 1773, in the new world, with naval superpowers vying for control, with pirates thrown in the middle. It's supposed to be about Pirates, anyway.

These nations include:

• La Reina de Avelion - Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Spain and/or France, depending on the continuity. Normally has a big chunk of the new world in its grasp like Spain, and in a state of decay. The most likely nation to survive a Continuity Reboot. Source of many a hero and villain alike. Thanks to a certain player, is normally chock full of Halo Shout Outs, of all things, including Tyke Bomb special forces called "Spartans". Fortunately, these sorts of things have reduced with each incarnation. Wear blue.
• Das Reich von Seran - Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Great Britain and Nazi Germany In The Cavalier Years. Normally has a small chunk of the new world in its grasp. Avelion's hated rival in most settings and second most likely nation to survive a Continuity Reboot. Contrasts with Avelion's vast Zerg Rush-worthy numbers with fewer soldiers armed with Anachronism Stew weapons that in the real world had only just been conceived at the time. Ruled by a Distaff Counterpart of Adolf Hitler with Chess Master tendencies. Munchkin's choice. Wear red, for obvious reasons.
• Het Hertogdom van Remus - Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the Netherlands, France, and some Slavic countries. Normally controls strategic locations on trade routes in the new world. Neutral to the Avelion-Seran war and third most likely nation to survive a Continuity Reboot. Rely on fast ships and imported weapons from all over the place to survive. Functions as Switzerland, hosting an annual conference where Avelion and Seran debate over who gets Reman economic support. Wear white.
• Pirates - Self-Explanatory. Rape, pillage, plunder, and... stuff. Divided amongst various Pirate Lords (and Ladies), the most powerful of whom is Roberto the Pirate King. Wear whatever the heck they want.
• Imperium Jormungand - Fantasy Counterpart Culture to The Imperium of Man Ancient Rome, with Norse references. Normally long-gone by the time Avelion rises to power, this ancient civilization with ancient technological and mystical wisdom was completely destroyed by barbarian hordes over a thousand years ago. Makes for interesting settings like a Temple of Doom. Four of its ten Space Marine Imperial Templar Chapters survived in tatters and now compose an Ancient Conspiracy that protects the Imperium's scattered artifacts from nosy college professors, rich idiots with nothing better to do, and Those Wacky Serannis.

Recurring characters who survived more than one Continuity Reboot.

• Capitan/Commander Joseph/Giuseppe/Jose/Joe Hawkins/Ceretto/Somethingorother (Master of the Phoenix) - De Facto Hero. Normally an Avelian Wide-Eyed Idealist, who may or may not resemble Horatio Hornblower (if not have him as an NPC First Officer). His RPer has considered the possibility that he might be a Marty Stu, and is currently working on fixing him. Owing to his RPer being a Real Life fencer, Joe naturally has Implausible Fencing Powers.
• Capitan/Commander Jessica Spade (LTK) - Action Girl. Joe's inevitable Love Interest, who starts out as an "Adventurer". May or may not come in a package with her father Aegis. Age varies between 12 and 16.
• Captain Leo "Burning Boot" Drummond (Ellie) - Lovable Rogue. A pirate who loves to kill things with fire. He's never really the same thing twice. Sure, the name sticks around, but a reboot can make him anything from a master of the natural sciences to a pirate with amazing luck at finding third-rate legendary weapons to a man who failed his mission in life.
• Capitan Amanda Todeskind (Führer Mandy) - The Baroness (Looks like a Sexpot, acts like a Klebb). A grown-up Expy of Mandy, based primarily off her rendition by Bleedman. Wears grey coats and works for Avelion's Office of Naval Intelligence, typically has a background in their Spartan Project, and Joe's Forgotten Childhood Friend (sort of). May or may not be the Big Bad.
• Commodore Robillard Karriden. (Stewie) the Hunter... of Pirates. Feared by pirates across the seas, this guy comes from either Avelion or Remus, depending on the continuity. Either case, somehow becomes Joe's friendly rival of sorts, in both romance and Flynning. Made of Win.
• Almirante-General Don Terrance Hood (NPC). Reasonable Authority Figure and A Father to His Men. Supreme Commander of all Avelian Forces in the New World, an Officer and a Gentleman who started his career with a serious case of hydrophobia, ironically enough. Hands out missions to people. And stuff.
• Kapitän Aya Seran (Führer Mandy). Cloud Cuckoolander. Essentially Haruhi As a Seranni Captain, minus the Reality Warper factor. Fuhrer Katrina's younger sister who graduated at the rank of Ensign. Promoted to Captain in order to get her killed on the front lines to prevent her from ascending to the throne and ruining the country, should the Fuhrer die. Of course, Aya never gets killed.
• Mister Anon (NPC). Louis Cypher. A Reman businessman and self-proclaimed Man of Wealth and Taste. The two things he loves to do are hang out at a coffee shop on top of a hill, ask people to guess his real name, and do business with a non-monetary currency. The three things he loves to do are hang out at a coffee shop on top of a hill, ask people to guess his real name, and do business with a non-monetary currency.

Recurring characters who survived at least one Continuity Reboot.

• Captain Edwin Van Cleef (LTK)- Brutal Pirate Without A Cause. Quoting his profile, "No one knows what he really wants. Not even him." Van Cleef typically goes around taking what he wants, killing people he doesn't like, and... well, inspiring fear in whoever hears about him. Makes his point with a BFG in one hand, BFS in the other.

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Open Blue contains examples of:

• Action Girl - Jessica from the Pirate/Avelian side, and Kapitän Karla Weir from the Seranni side. OB had a lot of these...
• Ambiguously Gay - Seranni Vizeadmiral Hrodwulf is quite the fop, and spends most of his onscreen time doing things like shopping for a new nice hat, much to his escort's chagrin.
  • Leutnant Steingard, being an Expy of Koizumi, is played for laughs this way.
• Ascended Fanboy - (well... Fangirl, anyway) Kapitän Caitlyn Straz, a Gender Flip Cloud, who joined the Seran Navy to make sure that Justice Will Prevail.
• Ax-Crazy - Capitan Yuka Kamishiro, who enjoys torturing pirates every chance she gets.
• Little Miss Badass - Elsa de Ceretto, an Espartano, in one continuity. Started out as more or less an Expy of a minor character from Gunslinger Girl. She got better. Wields a Spencer Repeater with Improbable Aiming Skills.
  • Janice Cervantes, a Spartan Cadet who flushed-out of the training program, survives her disposal and teams up with Smuggler King Luke Anatoray. Kills by Dual Wielding daggers.
  • Angelique Soriano is another Spartan, who uses a Whip Sword. Also serves as Vice Almirante Royche's Morality Pet.
• Battle Couple - The relationship between Kapitän Weir and her marine commander, Ronald Paccone, is at the very least, rumored to be this.
  • Joe and Jessica are definitely this, when one of them isn't being a Bash Brother/Sister to Elsa.
• Big Brother Mentor - Enrique Costas, Elsa's bunkmate and best friend during her time in training. Set a record in stripping and reassembling a rifle that she could never seem to beat. Was killed during a live fire exercise.
• Bling of War - Everybody who can afford/is assigned to wear it, justified by the time period...
• The Cavalier Years - 1773...
• The Chessmaster - Fuhrer Katrina, Vice Almirante Royche, Luke Anatoray the Smuggler King, and in one continuity, Grand Admiral Duran.
• Child Soldiers - Espartanos begin active duty at the age of 13.
• Continuity Reboot: Nearing five, last count. Go figure.
• Cold Sniper - Elsa, who gets some Defrosting Ice Queen treatment.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience - Avelion and its bluejackets, is typically presented in a positive, or at least sympathetic light, despite its flaws (greed, corruption, etc). An exception to this are the agents of ONI, who dress in intimidating grey coats and are usually up to no good.
  • Seran and its redcoats are either presented as 'wind-up toy soldiers', militaristic all-consuming war machine, or proud and honorable men and women protecting their country, depending on the character. Reichsintelligenz, whose agents wear black coats, is always up to something sinister.
  • Remus and its whiteshirts are depicted as either neutral impotent merchants, or the Only Sane Nation in the world.
• Cool Ship - There have been quite a few, including, but not limited to, fire-breathing
• Cursed with Awesome - Boolean Radley, a pirate cursed with skeletal immortality, is out to cure himself by killing a mockingbird. (A lot more difficult than it sounds.)
• Custom Uniform - Officers of all four State Sec organizations have these to make them stand out from their nations' various Red Shirt Army grunts. ONI officers wear gray, OCI officers wear navy blue and red, Reichsintelligenz officers, suitably enough, wear outfits evoking the SS, and Reichskolpo personnel look just like the Gestapo.
• Dramatic Wind - The Powers That Be seem to oblige to this whenever the timing is right for any character wearing something that can billow.
• The Empire - Avelion, which is slowly becoming a Vestigial Empire.
• Expy - Several of them, from Haruhi, to Nanoha, to Winry and Fuhrer Bradley, to Hector Barbossa. Oh, and Indiana Jones. .
• Eye Patch Of Power - With the number of pirates around, it would make sense that this shows up occasionally. Radley, in particular.
• Femme Fatale - Sheila Kree, a major Pirate Lord, who commands a Cool Ship.
• Flynning (naturally)
• Foreign Sounding Gibberish - Ronald Paccone and Aya Seran don't sound anywhere close to German. In fact, Aya is Japanese. Giuseppe Hawkins sounds closer to a mix of Italian and English than Spanish. Todeskind probably isn't a real German surname, but means something. Even if it were a real German surname, it doesn't explain why somebody from a Spain equivalent has it.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language - At least one character uses Gratuitous Russian, while most other characters sometimes speak gratuitously in the tropes below:
• Gratuitous French - Reman characters from the French side.
• Gratuitous German - Seranni characters are prone to this, for obvious reasons.
• Gratuitous Spanish - Avelian characters are equally guilty.
• Handicapped Badass - Subverted by Almirante Harper, who pretends to be lame, in order to cause his enemies to underestimate him.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl - Yuka and Vita.
• High-Class Glass - Flotteadmiral Nimitz wears one, which occasionally veers into Scary Shiny Glasses territory.
• Improbable Age - Katrina Seran became Fuhrer at the age of 20, owing to the mysterious assassination of her father, Kaiser Alfons (which was probably one of her machinations). Before that, she graduated from the academy at the age of 15 with the rank of Kapitän, and attained the highest rank in the navy in five years. Obviously an evil Teen Genius. Elysia Schneider, one of her more normal classmates, reached the rank of Konteradmiral (a two star naval rank) at the age of 24, thanks to pure dumb luck.
  • The original Joe was a Captain at age 16, and was promoted to Commodore a few months later.
• Improbable Weapon User - Leo has, among other things, used a flamethrower sword, white phosphorus-mounted giant metal sea critters, and burning shoes. One Captain Beatrix Engel carries a razor-sharp halo for medium-range fights.
• Kangaroo Court - Jessica is forced to defend Joe in the most ludicrous court marshal in the history of the Empire, which comes to a most bizarre resolution. Doesn't stop it from becoming a Moment of Awesome to her credit, though.
• King of All Cosmos - El Dios, who spends his time drinking and arm wrestling with Kukulu, an Expy of Cthulhu.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority - Subverted with Aya's ship, Thirteenth Glory. She has it painted bright red for reasons that are obvious to her. All it does, however, is make the ship a bright red target for anybody who wants to blow it up, and the paint used is flammable, nonetheless. Looks like the laws of Humongous Mecha don't necessarily apply to 18th century warships...
  • Kree's Bloody Keel uses its color to intimidate, rather than to make it three times faster.
• Les Yay - The other players seemed to like the idea of Karla x Rhianna, for some reason, though it never really got to that point.
• Lovable Rogue - Aegis Spade, who always has a magic flask full of alcohol. There's also the Weiss Katze, a Cultured Warrior who has a thing for white and... well... cats. Leo may or may not be lovable, depending on who you ask.
• Mad Bomber - Anita Tekker, Rhianna's First Officer, specializes in explosives. She might not actually be mad, but is at least a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant, using plastic explosive as a substitute for modeling clay.
• The Neidermeyer - Vice Almirante Royche, a member of ONI's board of directors. He is equally disrespectful to superiors as he is to subordinates, and can back it up with his hand to hand skills. Made worse by the fact that he has a tendency to ruthlessly beat Spartan cadets in training whenever they screw up.
  • His less-competent counterpart from Seran, Vizeadmiral Hrodwulf, got his rank by having his family pull favors, and cares more about buying a new nice hat than an international conference that he is supposed to attend.
• New Meat - Kapitäns Caitlyn Straz and Beatrix Engel, though they can more than handle themselves.
  • Joe is also this, to some degree.
• Obfuscating Stupidity - Almirante Harper's greatest weapon, which goes hand in hand with his Implausible Fencing Powers.
  • Ephraim Archer, a wealthy Reman heir, pretends to be a Jerkass Upperclass Twit, hiding a calculating intellect which he uses to assess prospective trading partners. It helps that he's Born Lucky.
• Officer and a Gentleman - Almirante-General Hood, Commodore Karriden, Almirante Harper (albeit somewhat eccentric), Flotteadmiral Nimitz, Hogeadmiral Ryatur, generally anybody with the rank of Admiral and up. Vice Admirals, on the other hand...
• Pirates (duh)
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - King Roberto is more or less Orcus on His Throne.
• Proud Warrior Race - Seran, where every able-bodied citizen aged 18 and above is part of the Reserves, and every able-bodied citizen between 13 and 18 is enrolled at one of its multiple military academies. The Yamanis in the Back Story, and Jormuna.
• Schizo Tech - In some continuities, Seran is a few years away from developing Gatling Guns, and in at least two, uses revolvers and repeating rifles. Avelion has perfected the technology to coat its weapons with diamond (albeit accessible only to high-ranking officers).
• Shout-Out - Many a reference to Pirates of the Caribbean, Halo, and Warhammer 40K.
• Sinister Shades - Being a high-ranking The Men in Black agent, Royche wears these.
• State Sec - Avelion's Office of Naval Intelligence, which in turn is kept in check by the Office of Counter Intelligence. Reichsintelligenz functions as this for Seran, with its branch Reichskolpo (a dead ringer for the Gestapo) serving to control their colonial populations.
• Stepford Smiler - Standartenfuhrer Rhianna von Adolf, commander of Reichsintelligenz special operations, is also a Girl with Psycho Weapon. Perhaps owing to her nature of being an Expy of Ryoko Asakura.
• Those Two Guys - Privates Melissa Wiedemann and Mayrie Walde, two Seranni Storm Troopers who would kill to get some combat action.
• Those Wacky Nazis - Seran is basically Nazi Germany In The Cavalier Years, using British uniforms and technology.
• Tyke Bomb - The Avelian Espartanos, who are taken from their homes at the age of three, and put through The Spartan Way until age 13, when they start getting sent on missions.
• Wretched Hive - Cofressa.
• You Know the One - Iron Nautili, They Who Must Not Be Named, banned by the administration for being such... odd... Game Breakers. One of the rules explicitly states that they should not be named while in-character (or out of it, for the matter). This is parodied in-universe by turning their name into a Scottish Trope.