Welcome to the Bridge City of Distad. Located in the Zife system on the planet Alfasdan, here is the last hold of the United League of Planets behind Milatat Line and they have been fighting hard to keep it. The Antarean Empire’s forces have pushed them out of almost every nook and cranny of the system, routing their forces from five of the six planets in the system, and cutting off any forward tendrils they’ve made towards Imperial territory. However, they have the back half of the City of Distad, and they’ve used every one of their resources to maintain a supply line to it. However, even the massive wheels of the League’s bureaucracy cannot hold back the laws of physics and the planet is ever so slowly moving in it’s solar orbit away from the League’s toehold in the system.

The League is desperately shipping men and supplies onto the tiny slivers of landing pads that they have secured in the rear of the city, trying to build up enough of a force to take back the city and hold it against the Antareans for the better part of a 473 day year. The city itself, once the proud system capital, provides enough cover that the Antarean Imperial Space Navy is unable to keep the ships from running back and forth from the League base. Moving from this secure location, the League is constantly fighting back against Antarean forces who are literally trying to drive them into Alfasdan’s purple seas.

A large part of the Antarean forces are working to insure that the League makes no more inroads into the system, another portion of forces has been devoted to keeping the remaining populating of the Zife system locked down, and suppressing their inevitable rebellions. The remainder of the AISN’s forces are almost all dedicated to keeping the League presence in the system from expanding. The AIA and a few small pockets of EXtreme Tactical Responsive Army units are pushing into the area without the benefit of their usual extensive air support.

Both the Antareans and the League have found themselves engaged in on and off guerrilla warfare as they fight throughout this urban area. Unable to use heavy artillery, for fear of sinking the symbolically valuable city, both sides have resorted almost exclusively to infantry warfare, with a few rare light vehicles scattered throughout the city.

Most of the civilians have left the city, but a few small pockets and individuals remain, their allegiances unknown. The rest have left the city, the specter of violent death at their backs, retreating for safer spots, or in some cases making runs to leave the planet or the system. For better or worse, there are no real witnesses to whatever the combatants decide to perpetuate upon each other. The result is pure warfare, with neither side holding back their aggression.

The focus of the battle is Central Bridge the main artery of Distad, it runs directly from one end to another and is the only remaining attachment between Distad and the mainland. There was an attempt to ferry supplies aerially, however, both sides’ defenses proved quite able to take out the flyers in short order. Now both sides use Central Bridge to ferry supplies back and forth, and the slow lumbering trucks that have been used to ship everything from weapons to basic foodstuffs often find themselves forced to take the main road. Depending on the day and the truck the two sides find themselves either defending or attacking the bridge.

The battle continues to light up the city with firepower and darken it with debris. As the planet slowly orbits Zife Prime, going farther and farther away from the League’s supply lines, only time will tell which power will take the city, and eventually the system.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the Bridge City of Distad – City Planning Pt. 2 [Exercise: Setting]
2. Distad Characters – Facilitator Wai Wazad Pt. 4 [Exercise: Setting]
3. City Planning Pt. 1 [Exercise: Setting]

| Pt. 1 |

Facilitator Wai Wazad stood looking out over the long expanse of the only remaining bridge into the City of Distad. He was an unusual member of the MVD, in that he was an unclassified personage. His background could be found on any public access DAIS, his current assignment was posted up with a number of others on the MVD’s GaliNet presence. His was the public face of the Combined Antarean Imperial Forces on this planet. He was very close to becoming the Imperial Controller for this planet. But the ULP’s forces had this tendency to grip on to every last bit of territory with enormous, and thus far futile, determination.

Without moving his head or body, Wazad’s eyes flicked around the ground in front of him. They stopped and he leaned down and casually plucked a box of cigarettes from the front pocket of the dead body immediately in front of him. Though the pale yellow box was dented, it was relatively unscathed. The same could not be said of its owner, a member of the League’s–Wazad had to use the tip of his shoe to brush away the ash that had settled on the uniform–17th local Militia.

The sun was setting and the human detritus formed when the AIA had cleared the bridgehead was still heavy in the air, making what would have been a fairly relaxing evening nearly as dark as night. Wazad didn’t see what the dead militia-man was leaning against until he pulled a matchbook from his pocket to light one of the low-quality military-issued cigarettes. In the light of the match, he could see that a singed and half-destroyed poster was tacked to the column. Wazad could just barely recognize the White Wing’s logo on the poster, with Lania Gallientus’s famous face nearly a burnt cinder beneath it. The militia-man’s body blocked the bottom of the poster, but just above it someone had used crude rezpaint to write Angels Fall First in large red letters.

Taking a long draw from the cigarette and looking around at the burnt and scattered bodies fading into the night, Wazad chuckled darkly and murmured “they most certainly do.” He stood there for a moment, silhouetted against the poster, slowly working the cigarette down to a cinder. He dropped it beneath the poster, letting it glow dully next to its original owner and walked forward. Ahead of him there was a boom that wasn’t thunder and a flash that wasn’t lightning. As night fell and a battle began to rage a few miles ahead of him, Wazad hummed tunelessly and strolled down the bridge, moving towards a storm of his own making.

Related posts:

1. Distad Intro – City Planning Pt. 3 [Exercise: Setting]
2. Distad Characters – Facilitator Wai Wazad Pt. 4 [Exercise: Setting]
3. City Planning Pt. 1 [Exercise: Setting]

So I have this really cool idea for the opening into the bridged city. But then I realized that it refers to a few things that only dedicated AFFers would get.

When you are in a game and there is a bit of art that is not essential to the narrative, but that adds flavor and depth, part of the fun is leading the player to the origin of it. But when you write these things out it makes less sense to put it out there and explain it later because on it’s first mention the player is not going to be distracted by gameplay, they are going to simply be puzzled. So in order to set the history a bit better for those who might not know it. (A brief timeline of the AFF universe, as compiled by yours truly, can be found here.)

So, without further exposition, here is the Bio for Varis Lania Gallientus, one of the prime historical personages in the AFFU.

Varis Lania Gallientus

Homeworld: Arctus Gordivia IV (Diorga)

Affiliation: Founder, White-Wing Foundation (NGO-Humanitarian). Antarean in origin. Varis in the house of Gallientus.

Born: 944 A.E.

Status: Deceased

Bio: Lania, of House Gallientus, was born 944 A.E. to the then junior Senator Claetus Gallientus and his wife Riea. She was the latest, and last, of the direct bloodline of the house’s founder Varis Gallientus. Like all members of the direct bloodline from the house’s founder Lania was given the title of Varis.

At the age of 14 (958 A.E.), Lania moved with her father to Antarea Prime and was thrust into the limelight as the daughter of one of the Antarean Federation’s most beloved public figures. Unlike many of her peers, Lania was forged by the attention of millions of Antareans. Her character was strong and sweet and many considered her the daughter of the Federation, raised by the best that Antarea had to offer in the very heart of the young democracy. To many she became a symbol of the success of the Federation.

When Riea Gallientus died of natural causes in 962 A.E. the whole nation watched as the newly elected Vice Minister walked slowly through the streets of Prime City to the sculpted Necropolis, where only the Antarean culture’s most important personages are buried. With worlds upon worlds watching, Claetus Gallientus broke down at the podium. His young daughter, however, stayed strong. Lania held her father up and–though practically still a child–spoke spontaneously to the crowd and the many viewers, giving what historians consider to be one of the most moving eulogies in Antarean history.

Claetus Gallientus took a year long leave of absence, returning to the position fully recovered, though–as he himself would readily admit–only through the aid of his daughter.

In 965 A.E. Claetus was elected to his first term as the Prime Minister of the Antarean Federation. Lania was one of his strongest campaigners, traveling around the Federation to espouse his platform of new development, expanded humanitarian rights, and the integrity of the United League of Planets, to which the Antarean Federation had been welcomed almost 100 years before his election.

When Claetus was elected as Prime Minister, his daughter was only 21. Lania, determined not to “simply sit around Prime City and look pretty,” founded a humanitarian organization: the White-Wing Foundation. It was created in order to bring respite to victims of the Crusader uprising.

With Lania–aboard her command ship, Riea’s Pride–coordinating relief efforts in the second and sixth districts, the White-Wing Foundation became the largest pacifist humanitarian group in the entire League. The organization was publicized with posters of Lania portrayed with angel wings, reaching out to take an unseen person’s hand.

Lania personally became a force for peace and human rights, her very presence was often able to diffuse even the tensest of situations. To many in the second and sixth districts, she was a saint.

It was no surprise that Lania, always a supporter of worker rights, came to stand in solidarity with the members of People’s Worker Union. She, and a number of AF Senators, came to support the PWU during their protest above Ixion, stopping work on one of the ULP’s main shipyards. In order to put more force behind their statement, the PWU held the work stoppage during the Antarean holiday of Crowning Day, one of the most significant in the Iosian religion.

What was a surprise was the appearance of a heavy League taskforce in the Ixion system during the protest. Due to the manipulations of Antarean Royalist agents and the last of the Crusader leadership, the twitchy Commodore Kurtis Bradley opened fire, without provocation, on the shipyards. Bradley, twisted by his own private tragedies, destroyed the station and then meticulously eliminated every ship that had escaped the initial conflagration, including Riea’s Pride, clearly marked with the wings of Lania’s foundation.

When Lania died, her father, Prime Minister Gallientus, took his own life on the very floor of the League Parliament. At the same moment he died, the news of 31-year-old Lania Gallientus’s death spread throughout the Antarean domain, destroying the battered hope of those whom she had aided.

Throughout the second and sixth districts of League space riots broke out as the news spread and a general attitude of rage spread through the districts. As rioters broke through League Security barricades and out into the streets of thousands of cities it became common for graffiti artists to tag the once hope-producing recruitment posters of the White-Wing Foundation.

The most common phrase, scrawled in paint red as blood across the bottom of the posters, was:

“Angels Fall First”

In her death, Lania’s organization fell apart and the ideals she had spent years spreading fell. Her only remaining legacy is the Second Antarean War, that and thousands of aging graffiti-covered posters.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the Bridge City of Distad – City Planning Pt. 2 [Exercise: Setting]
2. Distad Intro – City Planning Pt. 3 [Exercise: Setting]
3. Distad Characters – Facilitator Wai Wazad Pt. 4 [Exercise: Setting]

One of the most important things to be able to do as a game writer is set the stage in which the game is going to take place. Tonight, I’m going to lay down a game setting for the Angels Fall First Universe. A way long time back, one of the team members, Stranj, proposed that we do some text-based role-playing as a team. It was fun, but I would have been relied upon to really lead it (as the writer) and I didn’t have the time to really pick it up. Also it didn’t seem like many other people were interested.

In addition to all that, I have been slightly put off web-based text RPGs ever since I led fD&D back in my Blizzforum days (as Ajaz50). It wasn’t the system that was disastrous, it was the play, with many time zones and people barking at me about ed. rules. However, we do have an IRC room for the AFF team and reading Midgar is Burning over at The Escapist made me think. Perhaps it might be time to give such an endeavor a try.

I have to admit, that I’ve been thinking about what way to play an AFFU RPG. In my (humble) opinion, the focus of RPGs are on the players and what characters they build. This is partly my own way of thinking, as I have been known to spend hours figuring out elaborate backstories for my characters, setting up character traits, and figuring out what actions they would take according to their personalities. You don’t want to know how long it took me to set up my Mass Effect characters, and I must have literally been staring at the screen for a half-hour when my character game to the first big good/evil decision of the game. I had to balance what I wanted to do and what the character whom I had created might do.

As such, having the characters on the massive spaceships that populate the AFFU doesn’t make much sense in my mind. Their conversations and interactions are meditated by comm links and separated in the dead of space. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that in space, no one can hear you roleplay, but in a case where (as it no doubt would be for AFFU-ers) people would be playing opposing forces, it would be a pain.

So it has to be on a planet.

But even a planet might be too large, at least as a starting off point. So I went through my mind-catalogue and looked at AFFU art.

And there it was:

[note: Graphics are created by the AFFU team, not me.]

The bridge city. It was perfect. Admittedly, these concepts were really only jumping off points. I needed something far more gritty and complex. But the idea of a city out in the water connected to the mainland only by a single bridge. It was perfect. It would be a city on the water.

The Bridge City of Distad

I can see the plot line following the setting very well. I had a measure of control over the area and a good motivation for a plot. Now to figure out the setup.

Related posts:

1. Distad Intro – City Planning Pt. 3 [Exercise: Setting]
2. Welcome to the Bridge City of Distad – City Planning Pt. 2 [Exercise: Setting]
3. Distad Characters – Facilitator Wai Wazad Pt. 4 [Exercise: Setting]

Hello, this is Read, Write & View, a blog about writing for convergent technology. Specifically, writing universes, concepts and stories that can be applied over a number of digital mediums. The focus in this case is on writing interactive stories for computer games within the wider context of a world rapidly approaching technological convergence.

First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aram Zucker-Scharff and I am a student at George Mason University, where I’ve set up an independent study, part of the requirements for which will be maintaining this blog. I’m majoring in Information Technology and English.

In this blog, I’ll examine the context of convergence and the art of interactive storytelling through articles, blogs and books, along with experiencing and experimenting with the stories themselves inside a number of games. In addition, I’ll be writing bits and pieces for various story universes, with a focus on three “universes.”

The first is a continuing project that I’ve been working on for quite a while, the Angels Fall First Universe. I’m a member of the team creating this universe and distributing it out on a number of game platforms, including Unreal Tournament 2007, Homeworld 2 and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Both past and future work that I do as a member of that team will show up here. You can see more about the universe at its website http://www.affuniverse.com/ where I contribute under the username of Phifty.

The second is a concept I call “Beyond the Rim.” A science fiction universe built by myself from scratch. I have little done with this universe beyond the initial concept.

The third is “Merely Players” and is a very loose concept that I got the seed of an idea for while I was in England last year. We’ll see what develops as things go along.

I’m looking forward to exploring game design and interactive storytelling. There is a lot of interesting stuff out there and this is an opportunity to really explore it in depth. I hope you enjoy it.

For those who are interested, I’ve uploaded the curriculum that has been approved for this course of independent study through George Mason University. It can be found at http://aramjzs.googlepages.com/Proposed_Independent_Study.pdf.

Related posts:

1. How One University Uses Social Media to Help Make Student Votes Count.
2. Merely Players [ENGL344 Final Project]
3. Using Lijit to Educate Students on the Election