The Story of Unity: Post your questions here!

[buzzie71]

Well, almost all will be revealed, but please read on first:

 

Hello PvE and all who are interested! As promised, with the conclusion of the Unity storyline, I'm opening up this thread for any and all questions you may have about the story that pervaded this rev.  There is plenty of unreleased material and I'm sure a lot of places in the story that weren't made very clear, so ask away, whether it be a question about something you found on Unity or what parts of the story you were missing.  In the absence of questions I can start typing about my experience writing the story, but I am eager to answer long-standing questions that I have previously answered with the accurate but unsatisfactory "I can't discuss future storyline".

 

I say almost all will be revealed in the very rare case that there is something that I overlooked and cannot actually reveal, for fear of revealing spoilers or for breaking confidentiality.  However, at this point, I have not heard word that another Padmin is planning to pick up the story, and the story itself is largely over, so I should be willing and able to answer pretty much any story-related question you have here.

 

That said, send forth your questions! As the primary writer of the Unity story, I hope you enjoyed following it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together, and I am eager to share much of what went into its development :D.

[CROCKODUCK]

What inspired this awesome story, I know it dates back to almost rev 9 but did something specific inspire you or was it just a buzzie idea?

[buzzie71]

What inspired this awesome story, I know it dates back to almost rev 9 but did something specific inspire you or was it just a buzzie idea?

 

It actually doesn't date back that far, only to rev 10 :P.

 

I probably had a mix of influences somewhere in my subconscious when I was drafting the first part of the story, which eventually became the logs found at spawn, but at the moment I can't point to a specific one.  I imagine Star Trek, of which I am a fan, was one source of inspiration; in retrospect, the homeworld that Unity comes from and the premise of its construction and its mission feels as utopian as life on Earth as portrayed in the show.  The Endgame story was largely inspired by Halo; for that one I intentionally wanted to put players (and the sponge) on an ancient installation similar to what happens in the Halo games.

 

Other than that, the seed that I had started with was a sign hidden away in the spy cage in the corner of the End segment of the rev 10 glowstone quest.  It suggested that Unity would be a cruiser much larger than the Destiny (the crashed shuttle that was in the same room - the nameplate on the shuttle was admittedly in an obscure place, my fault :S), and that it was "lost".  With that, I just sat down one day to type a backstory for Unity, and ideas for how I could explain certain things (how Unity was powered, why Unity was devoid of crewmembers, how players on P came to be on this map for example) became clear as I was typing.

 

(Apologies if you've been watching this post and seeing it change over time; almost as soon as I post I think of something else to add :P)

[CROCKODUCK]

No apologies bozzlie and yeah your story almost reminds me of the unreal series. All and all great work with the whole thing man.

[zifnab06]

What happened to Dr. Sign? And will he make a reappearance?

 

ALSO WHY ARE YOU RED? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YELLOW?

[buzzie71]

What happened to Dr. Sign? And will he make a reappearance?

 

ALSO WHY ARE YOU RED? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YELLOW?

 

I was actually half-expecting to bring Dr. Sign back into the story, but the opportunity never really arose outside the cameo appearance he made in Endgame.  If I were to guess, I'd say he took a break to go...plotting.  As for whether he will return, I can't answer that that will depend on whether he stars prominently in future server events. (That reminds me, I need to post the tentative story bible I have...)

 

If your comment about being red is what I think it means, that is admittedly not related to the story at all.  It's also something I am reluctant to discuss here, but find me in a PM or something and I can explain.

[NatalieIsNot]

(Eep, late to the party)

 

First off, thank you for this awesome storyline! I know  quite a few people (including me) heavily enjoyed having something unique to the revision.

 

I've been piecing together the story from what all has been discovered so far, but there are two things I never figured out:

 

• In Log 019, it reads:

  Scouting Party Delta reports sighting circlestone, glowstone, mushroom blocks, and diamond blocks about 1500m away. Retrieval Team Echo has been sent to secure the cache.

  We looked all over for this reference, but couldn't find it. I know Retrieval Team Echo never made it back, so it had to still be out there. Did it even exist? 

• What happened to Julius Brennan? I only found the one log from him, and suddenly he's dead?

 

 

(We all know what I want to ask, but I know you're sick of hearing it :P)

[buzzie71]

(Eep, late to the party)

 

First off, thank you for this awesome storyline! I know  quite a few people (including me) heavily enjoyed having something unique to the revision.

 

I've been piecing together the story from what all has been discovered so far, but there are two things I never figured out:

• In Log 019, it reads:

  We looked all over for this reference, but couldn't find it. I know Retrieval Team Echo never made it back, so it had to still be out there. Did it even exist? 

• What happened to Julius Brennan? I only found the one log from him, and suddenly he's dead?

(We all know what I want to ask, but I know you're sick of hearing it :P)

 

Ahh yes, the cave. I will admit I felt guilty when I heard word that you and others were looking for the cave, because it actually (as far as I know anyway) didn't exist; I admittedly didn't think anyone would go looking for it :S.  This was written in mainly in anticipation of a quest that would unlock a glowstone trade sign at spawn upon completion, similar to what happened in rev 10, in which case there would be room to expand on that one particular incident.  That didn't really happen, and so the only resolution to that plot point ended up being that sign in Endgame.

 

As for Julian Brennan (pretty sure that was the name I had? :S), it is true that he is, well, dead.  He was introduced into the story initially to provide a second perspective of events, and I was originally going to add more logs from his point of view.  It would be cool, I thought, since while John Smith knows a lot, the AI doesn't know everything, and having an extra character would help paint a more complete picture of events.  In the end, I ran out of creative energy and only had that one log from him on Unity, so you didn't miss much.  The decision to kill him in the way that he died was actually decided on long after the first round of logs was released, in an attempt to explain multiple unclear points in the plot.

 

A small bit of trivia: he is named after the protagonist of X3: Reunion; no real reason why :P.

 

I had drawn up a draft log which wasn't released that explained what happened to him (and coincidentally, why Unity was stranded in the first place and why John Smith's reported crew complement went from 201 to 200).  I'll release all the notes I have as well as the logs I've written regardless of whether they made it onto the map, but for now, have this one that explains what happened to Julian Brennan. (It expires in a month, so if you choose to save it, now's the time :P)

[buzzie71]

In retrospect, a lot of this is stuff that has not been properly explained through the logs, and it would be mean of me to dictate what all the ambiguous things meant exactly.  It is ultimately up to you, the reader, to fill in the holes with your imagination, and so I have left my notes and things hidden behind links and spoiler tags that contain my lines of thinking.  Open them if you wish, but please do not feel compelled to believe everything I intended.  For then this makes me a lecturer, a pedant, and though certainly I intended for parts of the story to be explained one way, it would be a bit rude if I were to demand you thought the same.

 

[EDIT: Oops, forgot to make them publicly viewable! Links fixed :D]

 

There's actually more that I have, but for now, I have compiled and added commentary to the file I have that holds draft logs and their notes.  Enjoy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10TGBWRtkQNFsjL6REtpJ8U5g0jjrzTdwadlqCVPsG2A/edit?usp=sharing
 
This is the timeline that became the basis for the first round of logs that were found in Unity: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W6xpFbnTCqe8NpIXMSkHFp4iU3gYpOqgQ0isrIOoGm8/edit?usp=sharing
 
A player brought up the glyphs that TheRandomnatrix had posted to the subreddit (which I had posted to the first PvE Mumble meeting as an early sneak peek to all who attended).  
 

 
The glyphs were not substitutions for letters, nor were their particular pixel arrangements or symmetries significant - they were merely a string of ideas, with each glyph symbolizing one idea.  When creating this, I had an idea for what I wanted the glyphs to symbolize, which I'll keep in a spoiler tag below:
 

I posted this to the Mumble channel I was in, but I'll post it here as well.  From left to right, my intentions for the glyph symbols were:
 
1: Fragmentation
2. Aloneness, loneliness
3. Knowledge
4. Friendship
5. Adventure
6. Cooperation, teamwork, unity (virtue)
7. Crossing between worlds
8. Hero, success, victory
9. Unity (virtue), unity (the ship)

 

Strung together, it was my attempt at chronicling the story of the P rev, from the beginning, when P players go out to explore the world, to the end when P players would work together (and go to the End) to search for the sponge block, bring it back, and send Unity on its way.

 
 
 
The last thing to properly declassify is Endgame.  With any luck a progress thread will be moved to The Archives soon, and I can provide additional information in this thread.

[NatalieIsNot]

Eep, the google docs are locked :/

[buzzie71]

Oops, my fault ><.  Should be fixed now!

[sansapants]

Ahh yes, the cave. I will admit I felt guilty when I heard word that you and others were looking for the cave, because it actually (as far as I know anyway) didn't exist; I admittedly didn't think anyone would go looking for it :S.

You magnificent bastard!

Oh well, at least we had fun looking for it, and it gave me an opportunity to explore the map that I otherwise might not have taken.

[buzzie71]

Just to bring this thread to a sense of completion even though it's been a few weeks since the start of rev 12, here is (approximately) the thought process I went through for the Endgame quest.  Want to know where to find the sets?  Want to know where I got the ideas for the stars?  Come have a read:

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WKRs-LoLHJ_rsOvOOIq_TO_tSCpc6L1p-OiZ9kAhbw8/edit?usp=sharing

[CROCKODUCK]

Haha I finally figured out who's writing style you remind me the most of buzzlie! If you've ever read a Michael Crichton book, you both seem to share the love of leaving the reader wanting to know more, but enjoying the story at the same time. That delicate balance. I really hope someday the story can continue in a future rev or just even make a cameo in a future rev :D