Advanced Summary: It's been a year since Wade won the contest, and is starting to acclimate to his position as the CEO of GSS. Wade has worked hard to keep his company heading in the right direction, despite numerous obstacles that hound him at every turn. As time passes after the contest is over, the popularity of the 80s begins to wane and he struggles to cope with all his responsibilities when he just wants to have fun. His friends keep in touch with him but remain as busy or unavailable as he is and he begins to question if the contest was worth the result. However, a top hacker working in GSS finds a way to tamper with the Oasis source code, issuing a challenge to Wade that threatens the Oasis and all of its users. Arthur Magellan becomes apparent to be a zealous, but intelligent psychopath, willing to dip into worse waters than Nolan Sorrento and IOI had to keep his project alive. Wade and his previous High-Five comrades must use every trick in the book, as well as with the help of new friends to stop the new villain that has emerged.
The fanfic will follow the book-verse but will blend elements of the movie-verse into it. Of course, because a year has passed, things will also be different.
It should be painfully obvious I own nothing but some of the characters that I made up. This fiction is created purely with the intent for entertainment and should not be used for any purpose other than!
A/N: For those who just want to get onto the story, skip this entire chapter as it is an explanation of why I constructed the story as I have.
This fanfic will be gently AU, with a more scrutinized outlook on the world of Oasis. It will also be blended with themes, notions, or plot devices from the movie, as well as the book. For those who have not read the book, or have not seen the movie, here is the universe of Ready Player One as I've built:
1. Sho, is known as "Shoto" in the book, and is a Samurai avatar like his brother Daito. Keeping with the book, his brother remains deceased as a result of Nolan Sorrento and he retains this Japanese persona and not the Chinese ninja seen in the movie.
2. Aech, is a "heavy-set" woman in the book, and I'll keep that theme. Her avatar in the book is also an "Athletic, Caucasian male" which I will keep in tune with that. Wade addresses Aech as a male in the Oasis, and a female IRL so I'll roll with that. Additionally, in the book she had a "basement" modeled after Ogden's basement that Halliday and all his friends hung out in to play DnD, while in the movie she had a "garage." For the purposes of this fanfic, we'll assume she has both.
3. Art3mis is known as the "Sixer Fixer" in the movie, a popular twitch streamer and possibly a youtuber, but an eccentric and famous blogger who dons two blaster pistols from Star Wars, and a high level sword on her back. I like her personality and look in the movie, but I'll keep her arsenal from the book. In the movie, her father was indentured to IOI and had passed away while enslaved in their never-ending program, while in the book her parents were left unscathed by IOI. I like the way the movie got her involved, and it helps with her "helping the world" mantra, so I'll elaborate on that.
4. Parzival is given "GM" like powers as a result of becoming the CEO of GSS and winning the contest in the book. He is also given Anorak's robes, and the final battle as well as the third gate, the big red button, everything is in Castle Anorak on planet Cthonia instead of planet Doom. I will follow the book in this instance.
5. Additionally, all the keys were not the same in the book from the movie (minus one that was very similar), and there were no gates either. The events in the book will proceed over the movie, however all tests that were done in the movie will instead be referenced as tasks they had suspected would lead them to the copper key but did not.
6. From what I remember about the book, when you died, you lost everything in your inventory (dropped), your level was reset to 1, and you respawned at the last place you logged in. In the movie, you "zeroed out" and you lost "everything you had ever earned" as well as dropping it all to the ground. Clearly, there are a lot of discrepancies here (correct me if I'm wrong), so here is how I will be ruling it in my fanfic: Death resets your character completely, with you respawning where you first logged in, and all of your items are dropped where you died. Like most games, if the items are not looted, you could go back to pick them up. However, any items NOT on your persons, still belong to you and are still "safe," wherever they are.
7. In the book, Parzival had a base on an asteroid where there were "strict" permissions allowing who could enter his base, much like private chat rooms. To prevent people from simply stowing all of their valuable loot on a private base and then going out "risk free" there is a rather expensive fee instead placed to keep this "base protection" on your zone, and if it is not paid (I'm thinking you have to pay daily) the protection falls and your base is free to be attacked, pillaged, and destroyed.
8. I've been trying to wrap my head around how things are "created" in Oasis. Both the book and the movie say essentially "anything can be created" but there was a hint from the movie where Aech noted Art3mis' Akira bike is a "standard model with a licensed skin" which makes sense enough to me. Therefore, there will be millions, if not billions of different "models" of weapons, vehicles, parts, and things of that nature with different "skins" that alter hitboxes, add functionality, mass, and what have you. You can also create custom models via mods, which I'll explain later.
9. IOI in the book never really was addressed to their fate, other than Nolan Sorrento seemingly being arrested (his trial had not happened), while in the movie the company suffered the same exact fate, minus the fact that Wade had purposefully made their Indentured program illegal and shut it all down. I'll be following the movie's lead here.
10. The book is written from what I remember in a first-person style. I'm more comfortable with third person, so this will be written as such.
11. In the book, Wade shared his "winnings" with his friends an even 25-25-25-25 (between Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto) but in the movie, he won the egg himself. I like the idea of him being the "sole" winner of the competition in the movie and I'll go that route. Wade's relationships with his friends however is duly noted, and he will appoint them all head of different divisions, giving them heft salaries.
12. In the movie, Wade decided to "turn off the Oasis on Tuesdays and Thursdays." I feel like there are better routes to get people to focus on reality, without taking away their favorite escape tool and will address this later.
13. All for now, this might be updated as the fiction goes on. Let me know if this is confusing, or if you would have preferred I had not done it this way.
I will post updates on my profile on progress with the story. Keep tabs on my profile for progress updates!
As a fun little add-on: I saw someone put in an idea to enter in your own character into the Fanfic they had constructed and thought: "what an interesting idea!" So I too would like to follow suit in a different fashion. Email: "Trayscent at Outlook dot com, or pm me. I ALSO HAVE A FORUM on the RPO section. IF I Don't respond to your character inquiry within a few weeks it means I didn't get it!" ( forum/Zompocalypse-Forum/218384/ ) and answer these prompts for a character outline. If you do not answer these well (Like not following the rules for my character personality traits) I will still add your character, but they will have a diminished role, or I will affix them with attributes as I see fit. Additionally, please don't put it in reviews. Pming me (however that works) is fine with me.
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Languages this character speaks (May be fictional languages like Klingon, Elvish, etc):
Description of what your character looks like:
Character Personality Traits:
(Pick 3 Positive Personality Traits, and 1 Negative One. For instance you character could be: Disciplined, Genuine, Patient, and Boring.)
What Motivates your character:
What was your character's past like (Be as elaborate as you wish):
Character Avatar Name:
Character Avatar Species:
Character Avatar Physical Description:
Character Abilities/Skills: (Note, to keep the balance of characters, the less you put the better they'll be at it. I won't accept things like "perfect at combat, stealth, and sabotage" and will curve the character if that's done. If you say vague things like "combat" I'll allocate specialties into melee, range, magic, etc. Remember, the less you say, the better your character will be, but try to be specific.)
Additional Notes of your character (Anything I missed or you would like me to know):
Here's an example character submission:
Name: Theo Baxter
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Languages this character speaks: English, Broken Spanish
Description of what your character looks like: Frail man with short curly black hair. Thick eyebrows, with a short nose, and usually chapped lips. Has sharp emerald green eyes, and a small chin. Typically wears a "NERF THIS" t-shirt, with a worn gray sweater over it, and black and white striped jeans.
Character Personality Traits: Loyal, Knowledgeable, Friendly, but has poor hygiene.
What motivates your character: Theo is motivated to play video games on the Oasis every day and hang out with his friends. Typically that's all he wants to do.
What was your character's past like: Theo grew up in the stacks of a small town south of Miami off the coast in North Key Largo. His mother and father work full time inside the Oasis, working with UPS to deliver items across the Oasis for a cheaper price than the instantaneous mail service Oasis uses. Theo spends most of his time on Oasis, playing on the Minecraft world, honing his creativity and his knowledge of the many modded Minecraft zones on the planet. He belongs to a dedicated Minecraft clan named the "Pixel Pirates" and his best friend Erin is in it. She's an 18 year old shut-in like himself, who loves Minecraft and Anime.
Character Avatar Name: Theus Alvaraz
Character Avatar Species: Human
Character Avatar Physical Description: A Pixelated Ezio from Assassin's Creed to keep in theme with the Minecraft world he frequents. His avatar has an upgraded Diamond Sword, Bow, and several spells.
Character Skills/Abilities: Minecraft Combat, Minecraft Mods, Knowledge of complex Minecraft mods/workings.
Additional Notes of your character (Keep this brief as well): Theo loves flirting with girls on Oasis, but has a hard time talking with anyone in the real world.
And with that, let's start the party.