| MUAHAHAHAA! Ok so I had joined this online forum thingie and there was this RPG that I really wanted to just utterly sweep up. So I wrote this thingie as the basis for the forum's RPG...and I found myself utterly intoxicated by it. I really need to get this into novel form before I die.
Balance: The New War
History: The year, 2501. New York had been a crumbling wasteland for decades. Of course the Hunters blamed the “pseudo-humans” for the despondency of the once vibrant city, and vice versa. But now, General and acclaimed hero, Henry Mauskowitz—Mauser, in the quiet whispers of his subordinates—has found what he believes could end the delicate war between Humans and Non-Andromorphs. The Neurostimulacrux, they called it. It effectively tames what they consider their last real adversary: Vampires. Rather than seeking to HIDE a human from the heightened senses of a vamp, as previous weapons had tried, the Neurostim tried the exact opposite. It bonded with “impure” blood and attacked a vamp’s hypersensitive receptors, flooding it with acoustic, gustative, olfactory, ocular, and tactile impulses. It was the equivalent to being placed in a room with noise that made one’s ears bleed, hallucinations that never disappeared, smells and tastes of the hottest peppers and bitterest lemons, and (this one Mauser secretly enjoyed the most) the sensation of several millions knives slicing through the skin. It rendered a vamp quite incapable of sanity, much less belligerence. The perfect weapon, in a dart the size of a 2-inch needle. Much like the Hydrogen Bomb of World War II, the StimDart would secure the war.
Mauser was a happy man these days.
Man's Hunters had long ago tamed the pathetic wolf-dogs they now kept in zoos, enslaved in hard labor, or displayed in living rooms to scare the grandchildren. They had found the majority of the Gateways, slowing the quiet immigration of Demons almost to a halt. Though there were several Lycans and Demons that posed as antagonists, without the cumulative power of a large Pack, or a large Coven—these individuals were singular threats and posed no greater danger than a few dozen deaths at a time. But vampires…Vampires had their Clans. They often swooped down, accompanied by Lycans they had freed and Demons they had allied with, and left several hundred Hunters and civilians dead in their wake. And now…now their end was within sight.
Yes, Mauser was a very happy man these days.
Races Involved: Everybody.
Humans are quite aware of other beings, and want them dead in any manner possible. The largest and most organized group is known as the Hunters. Other vigilante bands were existent, of course, but only the Hunters had the technological prowess and brute strength needed to make a dent on Non-human populations. There are a few activists, seeking to ease what they see as only intolerance of other Species. These people are thought of as traitor, if not insane, by their fellow Men, but are not trusted by other beings, who have learned to hate all humans. They are often the first ones killed, but there are still a few who believe in the power of ideals. Serenity is the name of the organization at the forefront of the activist-traitors.
Lycans want revenge. They had been dishonored, tortured, and enslaved by Man in the Fourth World War. In 2275, The Eurasian Alliance, the superpower at the time, had made it their prerogative to capture all Lycans. They used a common drug, Mutagenixx, combined with a pumped up Serotonin Inhibitor. Muta kept Lycans in their wolf form, and the SIs kept them numb to external stimuli. Essentially, they became mindless dogs. Lycans were often freed by renegade Humans and the guerrilla attacks of Vamps, but it was found that without the drugs they had physiologically been addicted to, they went into severe withdrawal and often died. There had long since been found a drug, Elytheria, to counter the withdrawal effects, but that supposes that a wolf is freed by someone who can administer Ely. Lycans are vicious and amoral, truly loyal only to their own, but bound to their allies to destroy what they perceive is the greater enemy: Man.
Vampires are bellicose, ruthless, and sadistic—but only by necessity. Their brutality is tempered by incredible tactical skill and intelligence; they are by no means another animal with fangs. In general, they are an idealistic lot (as opposed to the paranoid cynicism of Humans)…they had had no previous account with Humans. Yes, some vamps killed humans and some humans killed vamps, but it was not a total war between Races. It was just incidents. A few sympathetic vampires had helped free Lycans before—hell, it was they who invented Elytheria. But a few sympathetic vampires also aided the “hopeless humans.” Basically, in the past, each Vampire was considered only as an individual, not as an example of the whole race. But now, with the invention of the StimDart and the subsequent dangers, Vampires have been thrust unwillingly into the war. Even those sympathetic to Man could not trust ones who held their deaths so easily at hand. As very new elements in an old war, Vampires have still retained the nobility and grace they had before. They balance their bloodlust with honor—they will never hurt a child, lest they are attacked by him first; they try to keep the civilian casualties down; a hundred other unwritten rules are existent. These rules serve to justify their actions; it helps them believe that they really ARE better than these humans, who would so callously endanger the beings that had once given them aid.
Demons were once the amused bystanders of this war. They saw themselves above and beyond the petty travails of the ones, TerraBound…those who did not understand the greater secrets of the mysterious. They fed by necessity, but Man saw it is an attack almost kin to terrorism. When Man began to uncover their secrets, with that insidious Human curiosity, Demons saw it as a personal affront. The uneasy peace between Demons and Man came to a crashing halt when, after given information about Demonkind from a traitor, Pancrazio, Man began closing Gateways to stop what they considered the Flood of the Filthy. A particularly gory Lycan massacre had been attributed to the Demons, and Man had taken actions against this new danger. As a result, the Demons had hesitantly joined the war. They passionately hated the Lycans, but their need to find and destroy all evidence of the power to close Gateways trumped their hatred.
Plot: Mm’kay, well this can go a lot of ways. The StimDart is relatively new (barely past the clinical testing stages), mass production has not yet begun. Therefore, Nonandromorphs can still attack the research laboratories…although there are several of them, and there will definitely be backups to the information. So some nights could have attacks.
Vampires can often pass as human, given the right amount of training to disguise the fluidity of their movements among other things, because Anasol, a drug, protects them from the sun for short periods of time. So some RPGs could be spies.
Mutant Lycans could start evolving with an immunity to SIs.
A Dark Book could be found, and Demons could find another way to open Gateways and reek revenge.
Or…and this I find most interesting myself: Humans could just about obliterate other species. But a girl, Angie Dademone, adopted daughter of a prominent Sector Police-Major (who, though competent, derives most of his power by being the brother to Mauser) falls into the clutches of the Vamps, who protect her from raging Lycans. In their care, she talks to a Demon who tells her an interesting story of the beginning of the Darkness—the age when Non-andromorphs were discovered. A philosopher had reasoned that to keep Man from fighting each other, they had to fight against a common Enemy. And so he struck a deal with one of the oldest demons, Pancrazio, to create Lycans and Vampires. Pancrazio was sympathetic to the troubles of Man, and thus was considered a traitor to DemonKind. Thus, the Nameless Philosopher traded possession of his body for the lives of a whole new race of beings.
Well, after seeing the horrors of the resulting wars between the New Races and Humans, Pancrazio tried to help Man by giving them the knowledge of how to close Gateways. But, since he possessed the Philosopher’s body, the Philosopher had become immortal and shared in his power—a side effect he obviously had not considered. The Philosopher will try to do anything in his power to keep the war going…to keep Man fighting against a common enemy, due to his twisted love for Humanity.
If the StimDart works, and all other races are subdued, the Philosopher will create a whole new Horror to the bane of all Races existent. He would use Pancrazio's power to create an even greater, more powerful species, in an attempt to keep Man united.
Angie, with a band of close friends of all races, must either destroy the StimDart Protocopy, or –failing that—must find a way to separate Pancrazio and the Philosopher before the new Horror is created.
OR….a pleasant mix of any of the above could result.
Some Meanings:
Neurostimulacrux: A blend of neural, stimulus, simulacrum, cross. Basically it is a drug that crucifies vampires with simulated neural impulses.
Nonandromorphs: Non, meaning not; andro, meaning man; morph, meaning form
Mauser: the name of a kind of weapon
Henry: German, meaning ruler of the home
SI: Serotonin Inhibitor; based on SSRIs (like Prozac), which are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. Serotonin is needed to relay neural messages. Thus, inhibiting it can disrupt senses and cognitive function.
Elytheria: Greek, meaning freedom
Terrabound: Terra is Italian for earth; so it means earth-bound
Pancrazio: Italian, meaning Supreme ruler, or all-powerful
Angela Dademone: Angela means Angel; and Dademone, is Italian for “From Demon”; which kind of adds a little question mark to her background.
Anasol: Ana, is a Greek prefix meaning without, Sol, is a Latin suffix meaning sun
Protagonists: None. Everybody has got a reason for doing what they do, either for safety or survival. The line for peaceful enmity had been crossed a long time ago. The conclusion of this decisive war is simply the next step in the epic that can only end when one or all races are eradicated or conjoined.
Come on now....you can't tell me that that wasn't a literary cudgel to the forebrain.
::sigh:: Now if only I could write it proper...
~rae. |
I'm being emo. SoI felt like writing emo. And this would be the offspring of my shit mood...
