Radiant Falcon Presents
Virtua Republic
On tap: act zero
"press F2 for new game"
Z/'''
Fiction is a controversial subject. A lot of scientists and theologians on Earth have asked how did we evolve and why did God make us, respectively. Without going into specifics (and angering a fair bit of scientists and theologians while I'm at it), the answer is that evolution and God are both creations of man. Fiction, if you will. A question philosophers have asked across the ages is "are we just those little pewter pawns in a big Monopoly™ board?" to which the answer is: "you shouldn't be time traveling to the 1930s, Plato." Finally, with all these violent video games being released, and phony connections being made to them and Columbine, we've started to ask, "How did fiction get so real?"
The thing is: fiction has always been real. We've just been too wrapped up in our own problems to notice. You see, what we consider to be fiction in this world is real in a parallel universe. This parallel universe has been noted by a few scientists in this world, and is called F2 by the ones who discovered it and 'crazy' by everyone else. Admittedly, the technology hasn't come to where our Earth scientists could examine this universe in person, but they can observe it. And what they've observed goes a bit like this, nicked from a report written by a Professor Zachary Snider…
'This new universe, which we henceforth refer to as F2, houses several billion inhabitants, although they can all be classified into four races: Starting with our biological equals, ficto sapient; Human. These humans behave just like humans in our world. The next race is ficto metasapient, also known as Newman. These Newmans are essentially the same as humans, though they have extraordinary abilities not found in ficto sapient. Ficto androdus; the Cast: Casts are mechanical beings that look similar to humans, though their ears seem to be replaced with a pair of audio speakers. Finally, there's ficto anthromorphus, the Beast. These are essentially upright bipedal animals…'
So, if you were paying attention, we've got Human, Newman, Cast, and Beast. It sounded like Professor Snider was playing too much Phantasy Star Online. Unfortunately for him, two of his guesses are wrong. As it turned out, in F2, Newmans and Beasts were offshoots of the meta-human and anthro race. That, and he missed two. ficto draconis: the dragon; and ficto combi, the hybrid.
Okay, so I'm nitpicking here and dragons only account for 0.01% of the entire population of F2, and it's worth noting that about ¼ of that population are half-dragon (which would qualify them as hybrids). But there be dragons, alright, and there mostly be dragons in the water. Water serpents, as they are called, are the most common type of dragon, most resembling the ones from Japanese mythology. Unfortunately, they're also troublemakers. Some water serpents have been known to traverse worlds, and their favorite hangout here on Earth is Europe. The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster started with these mischievous water serpents swimming around causing trouble and giving the people of Scotland funny ideas.
This raises the question, if the Loch Ness Monster is real in both worlds, what else is? The answer is a surprising amount. Urban legends such as Sasquatch, the Yeti and Chupacabra, as well as old myths like the Tengu and Griffon; all these creatures have the ability to warp worlds. Everyone else is merely fictional on Earth, which brings us to the Virtua Republic.
The Virtua Republic is but one of five nations on F2; comprised of three states and many different climate-controlled areas, called zones. The zones can encompass anything from snow-frosted glaciers (called the Ice Zone) to scorching deserts (Sand Zone), mysterious ruins (Ruin Zone) to vast prairies and meadows (Valley Zone), deep forests (Wood Zone) to scenic mountain ranges (Mountain Zone), and even a volcano or two. These zones lie within the three states, called Vekkuto, Raster, and Edgedi. In addition, there are many other smaller towns within those states.
The unique thing about the Virtua Republic compared to the rest of F2 is its diversity. Our video game characters, cartoon characters (that includes the characters from various anime) and some immigrants from other nations reside in the Virtua Republic, all brought to life by a mysterious force called Animation Force, or AF. AF manifests itself into these characters, henceforth referred to as Anima, differently, and so each anima refers to their own kind differently. From what we know as video game characters, they call themselves dataroids; and the cartoon/anime characters refer to themselves as eidolons.
How you know which is which is simple: their eyes. The color and size of the eyes of any particular anima determines whether it is a dataroid or an eidolon, and then whether it's human, meta-human, android, or anthro. For instance, to take names out of the census at random, the anthro eidolon Yakko Warner's eyes measure roughly an inch-and-a-half wide. That's fairly average size for anthros, yet his irises are all black. Compare this to the size and color of the meta-human eidolon Inuyasha. While technically also an anthro, his eyes are slightly smaller than a normal human, and thus classified as a meta-human, although his eyes are colored white.
The thing is; eidolons usually have bigger eyes than dataroids. In the case of anthros, dataroids have bigger eyes than eidolons. In addition, most androids can 'scan' other anima to determine what they are, and in some cases, who they are. While this does prove useful, there are a select few who can block out the scan, and typically these are the ones with other distinguishing features, such as dark skin or a big moustache.
That brings me to Animation Force Energy and how it works. AF resides in all anima and the surrounding area. A particular area can have a higher level of AF than others, and this typically is in regard to how much crime is being perpetuated in the area. See, an anima can only die when there is no more AF in him/her or the surrounding area. When that happens, then that anima is deleted, or DT'd. Otherwise, that anima is only KO'd, and can come back to life in at most two weeks.
One final thing I should touch on: AF is found through its crystalized variant, called the refractor pylon. The more pylons there are in a particular area, the more AF Energy there is. But pylons can only energize in a certain radius. And when one's destroyed; you can probably figure out the rest…
Next up: raster act one
"powered gear"
