Alright, so I'll admit it. Gun Gale Online: Alternative is pretty good. It doesn't have Jesus-kun in it except for maybe some mentions and more than likely a cameo appearance, but for all intents and purposes, it's all about different characters. I like that. That, and we actually get to see some of the other game modes that GGO has to offer; that being the currently popular battle royale (with cheese, bonus points if you get the reference) style of game mode that's been popularized thanks to PUBG and Fortnight: Battle Royale. That being said, I wanted to explore an idea in this game world, that being that the World Seed pretty much made VRMMOs open source, who's to say that someone couldn't create a mod, or game mode, to add to one of the currently running games?

That was the idea behind this. What is this game mode? How many of you have watched or played Rainbow Six: Siege? It's a pretty fun, if not challenging game because you have to have a very different mindset in it, making it very competitive. That's the game mode that I want to implement in GGO as a game type, a game mode called Siege. This is kind of an idea that opens the possibility for other fanfic writers to take into account when writing stories in this universe, that being the possibility of adding other game modes to an established game to "freshen" it up. That, and I am going to take a few creative liberties, so suspend your disbelief a little here.

That being said, this will primarily be a "prologue" style pilot consisting of an interview type setup with a character based off of my personality being the person interviewed and a random person being the interviewer. That being said, let's get this show on the road!

Title: Laying Siege

Rating: K+ for the pilot, possibility of T for a full story.

Disclaimer: I only own my copy of MS Word and my laptop. Sword Art Online (the franchise) belongs to Reki Kawahara. I only own my personality. See the forward for the full disclaimer.

By the by, the Alternative and Progressive SAO manga/LNs are pretty good, miles above what originally came out. But that's just my opinion.

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In a small dingy bar in the center of Gun Gale Online's main hubworld, a single television, or hologram if you wanted to get really specific, ran showing an online interview between two persons. The first was the channel's primary news anchor for all news GGO. Or, at least that's how it liked to be portrayed. There were hundreds of GGO channels out there that covered news, interviews, analysis of tactics and patches, and so on. The channel's host for the segment was LadyDeath, a former professional GGO player that had found more popularity in the commentary sector rather than livestreaming gameplay, therefore to make a living she changed careers; and considering that she had been doing it for almost a year it must have been good money. She was currently dressed in her character's famous outfit, that being what looked like a reaper's cloak with the hood down. Underneath that was what looked like a 'smart' reporter's outfit.

The man opposite her was wearing what could be considered lax business casual. That being an untucked, collared button-up shirt and jeans that looked almost brand new. He looked to be of Caucasian descent with brown, shaggy yet well-groomed hair. His piercing blue eyes stood out against the generic black and brown eyes that were very common to the base avatars in the game. He wore glasses, but nothing that seemed odd or obtrusive, they seemed to match the personality of the wearer. After being on screen long enough, Death started her interview segment.

"With me here today is Steve Gregar, head of Project Siege," she addressed the camera, knowing that her audience was already rapt in attention. "Thank you for joining me today, Steve."

The man nodded his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you for having me on your show, Ms. Death, it's quite an honor," he replied. Ladies in the audience noted that they were admiring the pitch and tone of voice he was using.

"Please, tell us a little about Project Siege," she prompted.

"A while back, I had a dream. That dream was to archive every video game ever created and allow it to be played by a new audience. Despite my apparent age here as you can see, I'm a slight bit older than my avatar would like you to believe. One thing in my childhood that was a constant was video games. Those games impacted my life growing up, for better and for worse. One internet search will net you the negative side of things thanks to the jackasses who blamed video games a few decades ago rather than poor parenting, lack of discipline, and mental health help. The good was how it brought such a large group of people together with one shared hobby: playing together no matter where in the globe they were. You could be a white, middle-class boy in Midwestern suburbia or a black, low-income man in the middle of a crime-ridden intercity neighborhood and become friends regardless because of that shared love. A love that had carried on to this day and thanks to the World Seed, many more people are able to take part in this hobby that was once thought to be for geeks only. I should know, I was one," he joked.

He continued. "Project Siege is a loving fan recreation of the game Rainbow Six: Siege released back in 2016. Of course, that was but a few years ago; but as we all know, technology evolves." Before him, a miniature model appeared between the two of them displaying a very small, close quarters map. One might say that it was slightly claustrophobic in the setup. "The philosophy behind Siege is close quarters, modern combat where two five-man squads face against one another."

In the model, ten characters appeared. Five appeared next to a glowing icon that was used in map application to note a destination. Five others appeared outside the house. Steve continued once more, "One team defends an objective and another attempts to go get it." On that cue, the match started and little pipe-shaped drones started to zip in the building while the other five started to set up defenses. "There is a planning phase where the attacking team can scout with drones and the defending team can set up various types of defenses to keep the enemies out or delay them enough to pick them off." The defending team finished setting up their defenses and started to choose defendable positions. "Once the planning phase is completed the attackers will commence their attack on the objective."

The attackers started to advance on the defenders. The two teams started to attack one another using slow, very tactical combat and positioning. It was at this moment that Death spoke up. "I've noticed that each of these combatants are using very slow combat versus GGO's very quick combat style, what is the reason for that?" she asked.

"Ah," he said in a very knowing tone. It wasn't condescending, but it was one where you could imagine him thinking right before replying, 'when were you going to ask?' "The reason behind this very slow level of combat is that it makes every encounter intense. It makes you think about how to enter every encounter with the enemy. You can't run in guns blazing, you have to probe them and they probe you back."

The teams continued to kill each other until it was a 1v1 match. "I've also noticed that some of the characters are on the opposite team as well, is there any reason as to why they do not use their GGO avatars?"

"There is. As you know, the avatars in GGO are randomized so therefore you can get someone like the Pink Devil who's extremely short and is difficult to hit on character model alone. If anyone remembers Oddjob from Goldeneye, you might know what I'm getting at. Therefore, we have created characters with classes and weapons for users to use as a base. Those who have the same type of weapon personally owned as that character may use that weapon, but note that any buffs that were purchased will be negated or debuffed to ensure game balance while in the game but will resume after leaving."

"And that reason is?"

"We want the game to be fun for everyone, it'd be annoying if someone could just buy overpowered equipment and not have it mesh well with everything else in the game."

"It seems like a very interesting game, Mr. Gregar."

"Please, call me Steve. Mr. Gregar is my father," he laughed.

She seemed to shrug off that reply like she had heard it somewhere before. "But what makes you think that other people will play it in GGO when they have their builds and weapons?"

He leaned forward in interest. "Well, that's because it's different. Unique in the VRMMO sphere right now if I would say. It presents a different challenge in the same game that many people already know and love. First, there were 1v1 deathmatches with the Bullet of Bullets. Then there was the Battle Royale mode of Squad Jam. I think what makes this unique is that a group of us fans created a game mode similar to how Squad Jam was created and are willing to put themselves out there for free to give people more options to play in the game that they love, a game that I also love." He then turned to look at Death, "Plus, over a ten-thousand have already signed up for the alpha across several different countries alone, I think quite a few people are interested, and I hope many of your viewers are too. It's currently a free game mode, so go check it out when it goes live."

LadyDeath seemed honestly surprised. "Well, thank you for joining us. For any of you who are interested in this game mode that is coming soon to GGO, check out the link in the link-dump below." And with that, it ended and the screen went to a sporting event located on another World Seed based game.

Several interested parties looked on to this new game mode. One was a veteran to VRMMO games and his friends, the other was a pink-clad girl and her very burly friend. One thing was for certain, there were now some fairly high profile persons in the VRMMO community that was looking on to this game mode with interested eyes.

To be continued…?

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Well, that's all I really have for this one. Admittedly, I wrote this one while drinking. Ok, admittedly, the original idea came up after watching the first episode of GGO Alternative and I loved it. The idea itself was that if one guy could create basically PUBG, why couldn't another be created in the same game?

What do I want to happen to this? I have no clue. I just think it's an interesting idea to throw out there for people to build off of if they want to use it for their stories that take place inside of SAO/GGO. I guess this was just one of those interesting ideas that popped into my mind. All I have to say is to do with it what you wish.

This is more of an announcement for those who follow me next. I'm in the process of moving. I appreciate your patience while I change domicile locations. If I don't update for a fair amount of time in any of my content, this is the reason. I do have a plan for what I want to get done once I move and I'll proceed with this as soon as I can. Again, I appreciate your patience since I can crank these type of content pretty fast as they're just ideas I don't have to plan for

Until next time!