Boldened words with underlined name(s) = Credit to contributor(s)
Boldened name = original character, place, object, vehicle, etc.
CHAPTER 1
The Blarg Confederacy is an original type of organization created for this story.
The entire first chapter is adapted from the beginning scene of the Ratchet & Clank movie from the year 2016, where Chairman Drek announces to the Blarg his plan to create a new world for his people. The significant changes to that scene for this story are:
- The original Chairman Drek's character design per description is used instead of the rebooted version. And, in context, his voice would sound as Kevin Michael Richardson had voiced him in the first game.
- The new Blarg planet plan meeting is being held in a conference room from Drek's flagship rather than in the command bridge of the Deplanetizer.
- Tenemule (the planet from the movie's intro) gets a portion taken away from it by a Planet Harvester instead of being blown up to bits by the Deplanetizer.
CHAPTER 2
Port Zomar, a spaceport town on Planet Veldin, and the Scorch Plains, a desert region, are original places in my creative writing.
To remain as faithful as possible to Ratchet's old-school roots in this story, his personality will be that of the snarky, self-centered, and thrill-seeking teenager he was in the first game for the sake of character development. But there are minor changes to his characterization and some elements of the other burrowed from the 2016 film. Those elements and differences are:
- Ratchet is adopted by Grimroth Razz, and he works and lives in the starship repair shop Grim owns.
- Ratchet's biggest desire in the first place was not to be a hero, or become a Galactic Ranger, but to explore the entire galaxy and have fun. Also, he wishes to find his real family and get closure for why they left him on a desert planet.
- Though he is carefree, reckless, and brash, Ratchet is also friendly, brave, good-hearted, and deep down has the capacity to do the right thing in the end.
Grimroth Razz makes his appearance in the story after the Ratchet & Clank movie from 2016. Like his movie counterpart, Grim is reluctant to let Ratchet go on his big adventure. He does his best to be the father Ratchet needs even when Ratchet doesn't see him as a father, let alone a real father.
Edwina, or "Ed" for short, from the original R&C game is mentioned. She's still the owner of Ed's RoboShack in the icy world of Hoven, but I decided to write her to be Ratchet's close friend from off-world as well. A couple of new chapters in the future will mark her full appearance in this retelling.
The Twisty McMarx hoverboard trick move is used in this story as an Easter egg. In the classic game, the Twisty McMarx is performed during the two hoverboard races, one in Blackwater City, Rilgar, and another in the Gadgetron HQ, Kalebo III. To perform this trick, move the hoverboarding Ratchet to a high ramp and press the following buttons in this sequence while airborne: R1 + L1 + R2 + L2 while moving or holding the left analog stick (L3) in any direction. You'll earn 650 points, which will grant you a greater amount of boost only from the first time you perform this in each race.
Mr. Micron, an elderly Tharpod citizen of Veldin, is another character who first appeared in the 2016 sci-fi animated film Ratchet & Clank. He took his starship to Grim's Garage to have his ejector seat fixed, but Ratchet went over the top by installing unwanted modifications. That was shown in a scene from the movie. As of now, Mr. Micron is only mentioned in Chapter 2 and does not appear in the story–maybe not yet at least.
CHAPTER 3
If you've read this entire chapter, then many of you are thinking everything about it is very, very similar to the scenes where Chairman Drek devises a plan to remove those who would disrupt the Blarg's process of creating their new homeworld and the warbots are being made in a factory on Quartu. Well yes, it is very similar! And I, an aspiring writer, loved how it turned out. Here are the changes and my original characters shown in this chapter I would like to share.
Quartu returns from the original game as the place where Blargian robots are created to destroy. It's one of many temporary homeworlds of the Blarg instead of being their home planet like in the movie. It's also the location of the Drek Industries Headquarters, which has the Factory Complex, a Blarg Army military base with starship landing bays, and the enormous skyscraper that is Drek Tower.
This OC villain I made is my favorite one: General Kylan Thurx.
- I based him on the large and muscular Blarg enemies from R&C 1 called Blarg commanders but with a cyborg twist. He is the Head General (supreme commander) of the Blarg Army and Chairman Drek's trusted right-hand man.
- My written design for this villain is intentionally meant to make him someone who's essentially the Blargian epitome of warmongering as he's very much an aggressive force that no one would dare think about trifling with, especially when in the field.
- He is the commanding officer of the Blarg starship Colossus.
- His surname "Thurx" is an anagram of "Thrax," only with the letter "a" replaced by "u".
- General Thurx is the secondary antagonist of The Adventures of Ratchet & Clank as a whole. He replaces Victor Von Ion from the 2016 movie, who will be held on to for future use in a new R&C story from my series.
- Regarding his "deep, husky" voice as read in this chapter, if he were to appear in an animated work, I imagine him being voiced by Thomas Haden Church. This actor is famous for his work as Flint Marko, a.k.a. Sandman, in Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Lyle van de Groot in George of the Jungle, Jack Cole in Sideways (his Academy Award-nominated performance), and more recently, Agent Stone from this year's Peacock TV show Twisted Metal.
Another original character I created is Dr. Nicholas Mozak, inspired by the Blarg scientists from R&C 1.
- Instead of the green-skinned, pre-robotic 2016 movie Doctor Nefarious being the one in charge of the warbot assembly, Dr. Mozak takes the role.
- He's the chief scientist of Drek Industries' military research and advanced technology division, who oversees the engineering and manufacturing of weapons, robot soldiers, and vehicles for the Blarg Army. Mozak is also responsible for many projects to aid Chairman Drek's grand scheme.
- His surname "Mozak" comes from the word "brain" in Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and maybe Czech and Bulgarian, too.
Dr. Dominic Mozak, Nicholas's brother, is mentioned in this chapter.
- He's a reinvention of the Brain Scientist from the Gaspar level in the Ratchet & Clank PS4 game, which was released in the same month as the movie, and another replacement for the pre-mechanical Dr. Nefarious.
- Unlike his more practical and logically-minded brother, Dominic has the chaotic and unethical mindset of a typical mad scientist. And like his template - the Brain Scientist - he specializes in neuroscience, which gave me an excuse to write about how he advanced many Blarg arsenal and gadgetry with direct neural interfacing.
- I think you'll find it interesting that the first name "Dominic" came from the Latin word "Dominicus", which translates to "lordly" or "of the master". When I put "Dominic" and "Mozak" together as a complete name, this made me think I made a rough translation: "master brain". I found that a very fitting name for a villainous man of science who believes himself intellectually superior to everyone else.
The Warbots are enemies in this story, along with the Blarg, and their appearances are exactly the same way they are in the Ratchet & Clank 2016 movie and PS4 game. Other versions will be original ones in future chapters.
And yes, Zed makes his appearance in the story after doing so in the movie and PS4 game. I think this character is probably very underrated and deserves more appearances in new stories after this one. If you're unfamiliar with him or don't remember him, I recommend rewatching the movie and/or playing the game again. I do it, too, for enjoyment and the quasi-educational purposes of understanding characters and figuring out how they can be recreated in a story that's told a bit differently.
CHAPTER 4
Here's a chapter centered on B5429671! I'm sure you all know who that is. I'm just saving his newly-given name for a later chapter. This is another scene from the movie I've adapted from, but I've added some bits and pieces from the intro cutscene of the R&C 1 game into the mix.
The Solana Galactic Protection League (S.G.P.L.), consisting of the Galactic Ranger Corps, the Solana Army, and the Galactic Space Navy, is an original armed service alliance created for this story. Also, the Galactic Ranger Corps is an amalgamation of both the original robot squads from Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and the elite team of heroes from the Ratchet & Clank 2016 movie.
When B5429671 meets the Infobot, it reveals an info-vid of Chairman Drek's announcement to Novalis. I decided to let this happen early because I didn't want to write it the second time in another chapter when this chapter already has it. I will however write on how Ratchet responds to the info-vid in a short and descriptive form when I get to a point.
Chapter 4 combines three versions of how B5429671 escapes from the warbot factory, takes off from Quartu in a one-pilot spacecraft, and ends up being chased and shot by pursuers, leading him to fall to the desert planet Veldin. Watch the original Ratchet & Clank game's intro cutscene, the PS4 game's warbot factory escape level, and that same scene in the movie to see the references.
As you can see, before Chairman Drek's Novalis announcement plays, the Infobot uses sign language. I made this new change for all Infobots because I wanted to make it so they have another way of communicating with other characters instead of their audio and video contents being their only communication.
CHAPTER 5
The credit for coining the names "Vend-o-Matic 1000" and "Atomic Optimizer" belongs to Jade Thomas the Bison, a.k.a. Riothegod1. Thank you for the creatively fun advice and very helpful message threads on Reddit! :D
The chapter's titular Gadgetron Stock-Stop is an original place of my creative writing.
Fongoids first appeared in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and Tharpods in Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One.
Easter Egg 1: Moby, the Vendor Salesman character who first appeared in the original R&C game in early November 2002 for the PlayStation 2, speaks the line, "Hi there, fuzzball!"
Easter Egg 2: The green triangle button on the Vend-o-Matic 1000 is a reference to one of the real-life buttons on a PlayStation DualShock controller and its function as an interaction feature in many Ratchet & Clank games.
The original Gadgetron Vendor—not the blue cube-shaped one—is mentioned in this chapter.
- At first, the vendor's design was to be something like a wooden sales stand with vertical rows of mini-screens on both sides and two long antennas on its roof. But it was eventually swapped over for its final sci-fi aesthetic shape, the familiar design of what we know the Gadgetron Vendor has. It's now an in-game exhibit in the Insomniac Museum secret level from the first game's sequel Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.
- The dialogue about squirrels, hacksaws, and lawyers is a reference to the commentary, or "Help Message", given by Oliver Wade, the animation director at Insomniac Games during Going Commando's development. Doing a British accent he himself called "atrocious", Oliver Wade said, "This is the original Gadgetron Vendor from Ratchet and Clank 1. The official reason it was cut had something to do with saving memory. The real reason has a lot to do with squirrels, hacksaws, and our lawyers. I can say no more, because I am no longer able to do this accent."
More chapter notes will be added in the future when every new chapter is published...