Azaar

This year has been interesting so far for games: so far I've gotten Halo Wars 2, and pre-ordered Mass Effect: Andromeda and Prey both, with plans to get Injustice 2. Then there's Destiny 2, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and Vampyr as well. Those are just the games I know about (I'm on Xbox One, so I don't keep up with the PlayStation side of the fence). So, what games are the rest of you looking forward to seeing?

Life... sucks. Seriously, I've been so overwhelmed by work and RL in general, and I find myself more often than not trying to relieve stress through gaming: Halo Wars 2, finally got into the first Mass Effect after purchasing the Trilogy, and I've pre-ordered ME: Andromeda and Prey. That said, I'm making a concerted effort to get back into writing. I have only a few minor additions to make for Preparations: Part II (I found that I liked having the occasional diary entry in there, like I added to Part I, so I'm continuing with that) and then it'll be submitted, hopefully within the next few days. Then, it's on to Part III where I buckle down and blow up this wall that has been writer's block for me. So, tl;dr version -- I hope to have Part II ready and submitted to Sully by the end of next week at the absolute latest, so that I can give folks some new material to read.

I've always liked the Alien franchise, even Alien3 and Alien: Resurrection. Prometheus, unfortunately, showed me only one thing: Ridley Scott isn't capable of adapting to the times as a director. I found Prometheus to be just... bad, all around: none of the characters interested me in the slightest, the story wasn't up to snuff (honestly, Aliens should be the benchmark by which the story should be judged, because Cameron truly upped the ante), and more often than not, I was simply bored throughout the entire movie. Alien: Covenant looks to be more of the same, and worse is that it's blocking Alien 5 (where Ripley, Hicks and Newt were supposed to actually be alive and show that Alien3 and Resurrection were just bad cryosleep nightmares). Now, don't get me wrong: I respect what Ridley Scott has done, particularly in giving us Alien to begin with. But Prometheus, to me, is like what many fans seem to think of the prequel trilogy for Star Wars. You know it's bad, though, when I view Prometheus so poorly that I have zero interest in looking at the trailers.

I think some of my online friends said it best: "Who wrote this year's calendar, George R. R. Martin?" Seriously, to hell with 2016. This has been a horrible year for celebrity deaths.

So, Xbox Store has their Countdown sale going on -- I've already picked up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for half-price, seeing as how I got into things there with Skyrim and tinkered some with ESO. But one of the big sales right now, up through the 28th, is the newly-released Final Fantasy XV. If anyone has it, could you share thoughts about it? I played 7, 8 and 9, but got bored about twenty minutes or so into 10 and haven't touched the series since. I've heard some good things, but I want to make sure whether to grab it while it's 25% off (the Digital Deluxe edition with everything is, anyway -- $63.74 instead of $84.99). If it's as good as I've heard, I think I may finally take the plunge again and see how it is for myself.

To Bungie's credit, I like to think they've gotten a little better with Destiny. The Taken King finally started integrating more story, though they could still do more. That said, I'm looking forward to Rise of Iron (pre-ordered it a few weeks back for the bonuses -- Iron Black Gally just looks too sweet); the chance to see what happened to the original Iron Lords, the SIVA and all... it makes me interested to see where they go from here when Destiny 2 finally comes out. I'm just sad that I still won't get to play the Sector 618 Crucible map, or try out the Jade Rabbit or Zen Meteor before Destiny 2 comes out (assuming it's Fall 2017 like currently planned); the pitfalls of PlayStation-exclusives. For myself, though... I think the first three Halo games were my favorites. I tried Doom 3, but could only go about 20 minutes at a time before I had to stop because I caught myself tensing up too much. Btw, Matt, if you play on XBox One, I'll tag you sometime with my gamertag, in case you're interested.

For those of you (however many there are) who've been waiting with baited breath for the Preparations story arc with Gabe, my apologies. RL decided to bite me in the rear, as it were -- a little over four months ago, I learned the store I had been working retail at for most of the previous two years was being closed (part of Sears cutting costs by closing a few of their stores and a LOT of K-Marts). Fortunately, I was able to switch jobs -- more like, reclaiming a job I used to have about a decade ago -- about two weeks after learning the news, so I dodged a bullet there. Slightly better pay, more hours... the latter, ultimately, being why I've been so slow. Well... part of why, anyway. There might be a few video games and the like involved too. At any rate, I do still plan to see this through. Part II of Preparations is pretty well done at this point, so I'm going to do a last check or two and make sure it's polished enough before I submit. I'll just have to remember for future parts to save it as a .doc file -- due to the insane costs of Microsoft Office (and the fact that I can't even find a version like 2013 or 2010 for sale that isn't expensive as all get-out), I'm currently using LibreOffice. At any rate, I am going to keep writing, and hopefully Preparations (Part II) will be up soon. Apologies for the wait.

I've admittedly been slow as well, particularly over the last month or so. Work has been rough, and complicated by the fact that I had to go job-hunting again because the store I work at is one of 78 Sears/Kmart closings throughout the US. Jury duty certainly didn't help, though it was an interesting insight into the legal process that I've never seen before -- TV makes it out to be something else entirely. That said, I'm still trying to work on Gabe when I can; I think I'm done with Part 2 of Preparations, which means more time to devote to bypassing my writer's block for Part 3 and beyond. I've been pretty slack about trying to get with Sully and the rest on Skype via my XBox One, but that's something I hope to change soon.

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-hypothesis-could-explain-why-the-controversial-em-drive-works The future of space flight? This looks pretty interesting.

Dude... Cyber Guyver's looking sweet! So is Chronos GuyverC, for that matter. Very, very nice.

Sully posted Preparations (Part I) in the Character Stories section yesterday, so... new stuff to read. Hope everyone enjoys. In the meantime, on to rewriting Part II.

Gotcha. That's cool. In the meantime, Part I of Preparations should be in your inbox shortly (if not already there).

True to my word, the completed rewrite of Preparations (Part I) has been submitted via email to Sully. This is gonna cover from about a year after X-Day through the first half of Union of the Guyvers. Hopefully everyone will enjoy the read, once it's added to the site.

Angel looks interesting in her reimagination, I'll admit. Guyver Zoanoid, though... I am a fan of the original image because I thought it was very true to form, but this new image just blows my mind with how good it looks. Very impressive all around.

Question: what will this mean for Inception and the following stories for Gabe (I'm hoping to have my rewrite of Preparations (Part I) ready before day's end and emailed in), leading up becoming the Stellar WG and beyond? Will there be a section for Gabe made in the near-future, or would his stories also be folded into the Warrior Guyver story area as well?

I'm not normally one to "necro" a thread unless it can't be helped. That said: I've been tweaking Preparations (Part I) and readying it to send to Sully. Some things I decided I didn't like -- for instance, Gabe was originally going to learn Krav Maga in the original draft, but I felt that for someone like Gabe, who isn't exactly meant to be a brute-force type but instead more finesse, Krav Maga was not the right choice. So I did tweak that some. I've also done something else: a series of journal entries to give a bit more "behind-the-scenes" into Gabe's personality and how it will evolve over the course of the WG fan-fiction. If I'm fortunate, I should have it wrapped up in the next couple of days and get it sent in so that Sully can read over it and get it ready for addition to the site.

I swear, the more I look at this, the more I wish I could freaking draw... never mind come up with a decent color scheme for a good way to envision what Stellar WG will look like once Gabe bonds with the unit. I've been trying to figure that out off and on for the last two years, to no avail.

Is that a list of everything on the ship, or just a list of what the ACTF got? I know the Grakken were given one of the Black units (and I know Gabe is not going to be happy that the Grakken just got handed an upgrade to their tech, let alone one of that magnitude -- at least, not the way I'm currently writing him, unless something changes). Sho himself got one of the Mark II enhanced Warrior Type 2 units; Faye, I want to think, already had hers before 7DOH if I'm not mistaken (I should really reread things, though, to make sure). And Sean, If I remember Correctly, got one of the Warrior Type 2s to become Warrior Guyver US.

There is a possibility, yes. I wasn't sure if the ACTF had their own dormant Warrior units or not, but the numbering scheme lends credence to this being an ACTF member. I always felt Guyver US was intentionally left out of the numbering system, though -- after all, Isis is considered Guyver 4, If I remember Correctly. But I could be wrong.

I'm certainly not in the know -- I still need to get my Skype set up on my XBox One so that I can start coordinating with Sully on things. Interesting that she's female, though -- perhaps someone getting introduced in Story 9, would be my best guess. I need to look back at Seven Days Part 7 to see who got what from the Austrailan clan-ship. It is interesting, however... Warrior Guyver 7. That implies that there is an as-yet unseen Warrior Guyver 6 around (unless they're considering Sean-as-WGUS as WG6). Food for thought...

Nicely done, indeed. I tried doing something similar, but I was nowhere near as in-depth as you were, Zeus T. Since I wrote Inception (and I swear, I'm still working on the Preparations saga, I'm just hitting that writer's block wall with how I want to "grow Gabe up" before he bonds with the Stellar Warrior Unit), I can help you fit it into the timeline. If memory serves, Sully confirmed that August 17, 2006 was X-Day, so Inception is the day after X-Day. So, it should fit in between In The Beginning and Union of the Guyvers. Preparations (Part 1) will fit start about a year after Inception, and actually dovetails into Union of the Guyvers (ending with Cori's abduction by the Grakken). Part 2 is gonna pick up just after Cori's abduction and run through Time War, but it's centered on Gabe and doesn't really go much into all the rest with Jason and Guyver Zoalord and all that (and it features a retelling of Sully's first scene with Gabe, Yuri and Dorian in Time War Part 5) -- I've considered expanding Part 2 some more, but that's something I really need to get with Sully about, since what I'm considering expanding into is something that's connected with Jason. As for the rest of Preparations, my ultimate aim is to run at least five parts, maybe six (Part 4, if I go by what I intend, would dovetail into Sully's Rescue rewrite -- another something to discuss with Sully, I admit), and wind up at the very least through 7DOH, if not into Story 9. Ideally, it would conclude with Gabe being ready for Story 10 and bonding with the Stellar Warrior Unit... and from there, we'd see what happens. I've plotted nothing whatsoever in regards to Gabe after bonding with the Stellar Unit, mostly because I don't want to limit my perspective. Speaking of which, Sully, what would be the best way to contact you to discuss things? Should I just email to you? I can set Skype up on my laptop or XBox One as well, if that might help things.

If memory serves (and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), wasn't the Gigantic and Exceed effectively an unforeseen circumstance to begin with? I honestly recall it being mentioned before that the Gigantic bonding with Sho was totally unexpected. That said, I cringe to think of how powerful a Gigantic GPZ might be.

At a guess, I think I know who they are, from center to right-hand side. I may be right. I might even be crazy. Hell, I just might be the lunatic you're looking for. Now that I've gotten that Rolling Stones reference out of my head... note to self: download Skype for XBox One and get IDs for Sully and Matt and company, so I can hash out some things for Gabe/Stellar WG, when the time comes.

Curse you, Matt! Seriously, I need to get myself a headset and set up Skype so I can chat with all of you, just so I can make certain I don't step on anybody's toes while trying to fit Gabe into things for the lead-up to Story 10, but if nothing else, I have some time to try and work on that.

Believe you me, Sully, I can definitely understand RL keeping you busy. I've "graduated" from being a cashier at my workplace to being on the customer service desk (from starting this job last July to now, almost a year later), and that's been netting me more hours (and a little more money as well), so I can sympathize. While I haven't been keeping up so much with the official storyline and all (and I really ought to), I've been trying to focus more on writing Gabe -- enough to where I'm actually in the midst of making a couple of minor edits to what I've written of Preparations so far. For instance, personality-wise it doesn't make a lot of sense for Gabe to choose to learn one of the most brutal martial arts (Krav Maga, which for those interested is taught to the Israeli Defense Force, and for video game trivia, is supposed to be what Sam Fisher is trained in for the Splinter Cell series) for self-defense, so I'm changing that up to something that's more in line philosophically with Gabe's beliefs. I've also decided to shy away from bringing in Mizki from Mutronics like I'd originally intended, though I do intent to keep Col. Castle around -- I have plans for him. But once my minor editing is done, I can email Preparations (Parts I and II) to Sully, and get back to chiseling my way through my writer's block in Part III; once I get that done, I can move towards Gabe leading up to Cori's rescue, and then go from there. ...wow, that was longer than I'd intended, but I did want to take the opportunity to update folks on what was going on with Gabe as well.