.
Brainstorming new WZ story lines is surely much fun.
Going forward from there can lead to even more levels of fun, more levels of the game.
Here's an example of what I mean.
Storyline:
Dr. Reed uses Scavs.
Scenario:
Dr. Reed had a son, Jason, who was rendered a quadriplegic during his senior year at Cal Tech by a Neo-Luddite terrorist bomb. Using cutting-edge technology from the research arm of his multi-national company, Synaptics Inc., Dr. Reed made his son somewhat whole again and put him in charge of a top secret project set-up deep in the frozen tundra of the Russian Steppes, code named
"Mangodai". The Nexus events of the original Campaign were part of Reed's "Plan A", the
Mangodai, his "Plan B". (There was also a "Plan C" & "Plan D" but we'll leave those aspects of Dr. Reed's malevolent creativity for another occasion.)
An Actual Story:
Just one of endless ways of dramatizing the general "Storyline" and the more specific "Scenario". It is character driven and uses the power of mythos because those are central to my chosen yarn-spinning aesthetic for this effort.
As part of the aesthetic technique I use, Scavs refer to Cyborgs as
"Mekka" and the Ultra Borged Jason Reed as "
The Shinning One".
Part of the
"Mangodai" mission is to open up a new front along the Gulf of Mexico and to enlist Scavs Tribes to create diversionary False Flags to squander Project resources and misdirect their attention from a southern geographic region that is rich in lost technology that could turn the tide of war and the very dominion over the planet's future.
And now the very short, but complete, story that brings the foregoing to life in but one of many ways.
"Mastan of the Scar - His Tale"
My life tale begins in the foothills I call home, a days journey from the waters of the Great Gulf, before the Mekka alliance that forged our first war ties with the order that came to be known to us all as the Mangodai, rumored in whispers to be a darker sect of Nexus from the Far East, across the great ocean, far north of the land of the Great Wall.
A Shiny One of Metal, with coal fire pits for eyes, had come to my tribes village, the Wing Clan of the Eastern Scav Nation, before the on set of our fiercest winter in a generation, in the 20th season after the darkest days of man.
Much was promised and some I saw before leaving to journey with my warrior brethren on my Trike, Badger Strike, to fight on the Northern Mountain Front, at the foothills of Greybeard.
Would that I had done otherwise, knowing as I do now that the cause was lost before it ever began. But in that thought I am a fool, for nothing could have changed the course we were all bound to follow.
I am known in my homeland as Mastan of the Scar. My woman calls me by my secret name, the name born of the Long Sight I possess, but that is between us and no other but the Elder Akbar, our tribes Seer. I think of her now as I nurse my wounds just before sunrise.
We have fought long and hard, my clan brothers shoulder to shoulder, drenched in each others blood.
There were moments of glory, a time all true warriors yearn to feel in their bone & sinew. Of that I have no regrets. The battles fought, even those lost, we strode with honor. That is the way of our Nation and all the Scav peoples.
But there was treachery in the words of The Shiny One, the Mekka who strode alone with eyes of cold death.
In doing his bidding I fear we lost much more than can ever be regained. A warrior's true heart can never be bought or sold like melons in the Seven Nations market bazaar, for it is honor itself and without honor all is lost.
Indeed, of that I am certain, as much I am that the flow of blood from my wounds has only been stayed but for a short while, enough though to wield my weapon again this day on my feet, in the thick of it, in the worst of death's pitiless march.
There are but a few of us left here at Greybeard's Pass on the red road to the High Plateau we call Crimson Mane.
We must guard this compound with our lives. So it has been commanded. For if we do not prevail it has also been promised ... that we will never see our home hearth fires again. In this I know there is no other course.
I, Mastan of the Scar, will fight till I am vanquished as will my warrior brethren, those few of us left.
But I too fear I will never again know the touch of my youngest yet in the cradle, my first son. That will be my deepest wound as we battle at break of day.
The sun rises now as I make final preparations on my Trike for this days blood letting. So few of us left. So many we must face.
We say our prayers to the ancestors, the grandmothers & grandfathers, the Great Mystery, in silence. All know what this days outcome will be but we shrug this heavy burden as if we were mighty giants and not mere blooded mortals.
Before I mount my Trike I turn and face my fellow Wing Clan Warriors, those few who will with me join in battle, perhaps our last.
I remember the words of some long ago warrior who once roamed the lands of our ancestors, the lands we would engage the enemy on this day.
The words seem fitting. This I said:
"Warriors of the Wing Clan, my brothers... the sun, Grandfather of our Nation, smiles upon us as we prepare to meet the Northern enemy.
I say to you, my fellow warriors...
It is a good day to die."
With those words hanging in the air like carrion birds awaiting a wounded boars last gasp, I turned, I ...Mastan of the Scar, and strode with shoulders squared, to my Trike and fired-up the engine, double-checked my weapon cache.
In short order, I signaled the procession forward. And for one last time I thought of my first son, whom I would likely never see again let alone teach the ways of a true Wing Clan warrior.
Then the fun can continue if you're up to it, like so -
In the virtual game world that is my
"Aqua Co-op: SE & EE" this one of many, many, stories that will play-out.
- RV
.