Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business 21st Century Legion: CHAT THREAD

'Boot, I read your first few posts. Love how you mixed in X-Men characters.

Cobie, skimmed through your posts too. You're certainly making your characters badass.

Sigh, I dunno if I'll ever get around to doing my part. I have an outline but that's it. I don't really have much time to plot.

Just checking, which "first few posts" do you mean? Of Spark's Day/Emerging/Lords & Masters (the point linked in my signature), or further back?

And yet, you did in around two days

For the record, I enjoyed it. Now, I just have to figure out exactly why Monstress and Nightwind (as you originally had her)/Amihan have never been mentioned if they've been around all this time

Boot, that would be Emerging, I think. The ones where you have Dani Moonstar and Shikari.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see how large 21C Legion has gotten and I still haven't quite kept track of all the story arcs

Thanks - I think the ending's pretty weak and I'm not satisfied with how I wrapped it up. I'll probably do a bit of tweaking with how it was written, but not with the resolution.

Uh, Candi and Berta just took a really loooooooong vacation. Yeah, that's it

So as I try to get 100% caught up on 21CL, I finally was able to read "Lords and "Masters" by Reboot, including some of the prior posts to refresh my memory. Quite simply, I loved it! 

'Boot, you've been a great writer but you've gotten so good over the years. Great sense of pacing, fun and intelligent dialogue and great use of a solid cast of characters--and the right amount.

As I've told you before, my favorite characters you write are Spark and Trinity. Spark is so easy to root for here and you really feel her anxiety. I love the relationship b/t her and Dox.

For the "armor suit" I kept picturing Iron Man's original grey armor as a visual. Not sure if that's what you intended but it works for me. Also wonder if this might eventually cross paths with Nori?

I'm glad you tackled Mekt in 21CL. It took me a minute but I started to think "this is a LSV story!", especially given it's title. Them I realized I was wrong. *Then* the epilogue proved me double-wrong (right?) and I loved every minute of it. Again, great writing for a Legion fan. I especially love Enrapture coming back into the story. "Cosmic King" (still unnamed for codenames?) is a welcome addition too. 

Btw, who is Sidestep? New? Existing?

Love usage of Cecilia Reyes and Dox being so "obviously I requested you for your powers".

The other half of the story was equally as good. You write Dani's power better than most writers ever have. I love the introduction of Rachel and really hope we see her again. She's become a favorite of mine in the X-comics and it just works right here.

The telepathic battle scenes were awesome, with my favorite bit being the rock, paper, scissors scene. Brilliant! 

I was actually unsure if the two stories were meant to be connected or just occurring at the same time. 

The symbiote was awesome and a great call back to a few things. At first I thought it was a Venom-type thing bonded with a telepath, but then I see it's more apt to bound with telepaths. I love the Hound visual being included, which was done in a cool way that was really creepy (and great callback to Irma's allergy). And then the subtle references to the Phoenix force were veeeeeeery interesting. I realize it could have just been the symbiote heading towards Earth but I couldnt help but think you put some UXM #101 visuals in on purpose. I'm definitely interested in Rachel's story when you get back to it, where I hope we'll learn more about the symbiote.

Really enjoyed it 'Boot! Will catch up on latest story arc shortly!

And I thank you for your generosity. I'm pretty sure you have a better opinion of my writing than I do

And from this point on, SPOILER WARNING if you haven't read it. Here's the link: http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=123546#Post123546

If you're asking what I was thinking of, I had something more like this in mind, but scaled down (maybe eight/nine feet tall rather than 16-20) and with wheels and a few other bits for the basic vehicle mode. But if something more Iron Man-like leaps to mind for you, well, it's prose, so it's whatever you think it is

It was pretty slagged by the end of this, and Dox wouldn't want it to be tracked back to him, so probably not any time soon. Besides, Nori's powers work differently - as things stand, she doesn't generate power internally the way Ella/Garth/the Marks do, she leeches it from external sources - so whether she could actually power something like that suit on an ongoing basis, the way Ella did, without inadvertantly draining it is an open question. Certainly, it would need more control than she has just now

Heh. And no codenames yet - as you correctly surmised, Levar *is* the 21CL Cosmic King and his organisation is based on the LSV, but I haven't yet decided if that's what they're going to be called!

Existing - she was a minor character from Jim Valentino's "Guardians of the Galaxy", a member of one of two anti-Guardian teams who Valentino planned to combine into a LSH analogue (but never did before he was forced off). Funnily enough, despite being one of the few members who didn't have a Legion analogue at the time, she had Gates' exact powers (not just that she was a teleporter, the same sort of "teleport gate" power signature), making her an analogue retrospectively!

Valentino talking about it
A couple of pictures of her

Well, I don't think she's ever had this exact powerset in the comics - she's had the hope/fear illusions, and she's had psychic arrows (though I'm not sure either powerset worked exactly the way I have them act), but not together. [What other powers has she had in the comics again? I know she also had the Green Lantern-esque "solid illusions", animal telepathy, the Valkyrie powers and the fairly ill-defined quantum powers. Anything I missed?]

Well, I didn't want for them just to stand blasting away at each other. And since what I came up with was basically rock/paper/scissors with an infinite variety of objects, I had to lampshade it

It's a bit of both - originally they were entirely separate, but they seemed to have enough parallels and be mutually reinforcing enough that they worked better concurrantly than consecutively. In strict plot terms though, they just occur at the same time.

In a way, it's closer to the former - it's more apt to bond with telepaths mostly for self-defence. Normally, it's entirely dominant over the host - the way it was with the guy and briefly with Dani before Kari & Tik managed to weaken it enough for Dani to use her powers to gain temporary control. Full telepaths, however, can turn the tables on it, forcing *it* into submission the way it usually does to the host, as Rachel ultimately manages. Ergo, it's more than slightly paranoid, and prefers to ambush them (the way it did with the guy, and - originally - Rachel) in a sort of pre-emptive strike so it can neutralise them - by bonding itself, if it feels safe enough, or with a skinsuit if it thinks they're too powerful to risk it (as it did with Rachel, having had a huge struggle to subdue her the first time round, even though she was ill-prepared back then - it would never have thought about bonding with her in the end if Dani hadn't basically forced it to).

We'll see. I won't rule it out (indeed, she makes an appearance during one of my Earth War tie-ins), but I don't intend for her to become a regular character right now

"Relativity"'s a lot shorter and less complicated - it's mostly (1) establishing a character for later use and (2) establishing what Andromeda was up to between the Workforce and Cathingham. L&M was by far the most involved self-contained story I've tried so far!

Reading Cobie's comments made me feel even worse for not being able to read both your stories from the beginning! I feel like I've missed 90% my life.

I have to apologize in advance though. Something else else happened recently (Cobie knows since I told him about it while PMing re: Dark Oval; 'Boot, I'll explain it to you via PM too) that is gonna add some additional complications to my life too. Ugh.

As it stands, I probably won't be able to:

a) fully catch up on all your posts - it took me a bit more than week to catch up on Dark Oval Book 1, and I don't think I'll have the same luxury of time to catch up here

b) do more than a few vignettes here and there when EarthWar finally breaks out

What I CAN promise to contribute is to use those Legionnaires whom you won't use, and use them in scenes that can highlight the scale of the war. Like I discussed with Cobie over PM, I can have scenes in Asia. I'll do my best to give those Legionnaires their moments in the brief scenes I can cobble together for them.

I'll explain more fully over PM exactly what happened in RL

IB, like I said privately, no worries . The important stuff comes first and foremost among that is you're okay!

It'll be great having you contribute when you can and how you can! So we can just see how that goes.

And hopefully you can catch up when you can on our older posts. I do realize it's quite a lot! But there is always plenty of time.

FYI, I read your own 21CL last night and wil have comments today (I hope)!

IB, I really enjoyed 'Redemption at the North Pole' quite a bit! Even though you picked up the story years after you began, I thought it ran pretty smoothly, actually! And you can see how good of a writer you've become over the years with your final posts.

You've got a nice handle on some of the characters so they feel entirely "your own". Certainly Zoe, Jaz & Jenni are all characters you really shine with and I'm interested to learn where you might take them from here.

I was actually surprised and delighted to see that Chu was revealed to not be a major 'big bad' type. We've already got Luthor as President of the US, so making the choice for Chu to stand out as not a bad person (though perhaps an opportunistic politician, as you'd expect) is a good one. I think it makes her more dynamic going forward.

Also liked the reveal that Morlo was the villain of the piece.

Nightwind as Amihan was a good addition to the 21CL cast. She's always been a favorite so I'm glad to see her. Monstress has always been a Legionnaire I've disliked but perhaps you'll convince me differently over time.

I know you're further writing will be more limited than it had been (and really, you can't keep this pace up--you're crazy! ) but I'm looking forward to you continuing to write these characters in 21CL!

Just caught up on your stuff Cobalt. Looking good [Couple of typos - notably a "Mekt" & "Kinetiz and XS", but nothing too serious ]

One thing I need to know (in PM, if you prefer) - how long before I need to have my tie-ins for this ready? As of your last post, it looks pretty damn close...

Cobie, thanks! Glad you liked it. I still feel I can do waaaaaay better, but thanks for the encouragement. Glad you liked my Legion Ladies, and I'm happy we get to keep using Chu going forward.

I'll especially be using those 5 ladies going forward.

Looking forward to working more with both of you too

Thanks IB!

'Boot, we're pretty close now--I've got like 2-3 more "Road to..." posts to go and Im there. However, I haven't actually written any EW posts yet though I've got it all plotted out. I planned to huddle with you (and IB) before we got started. The new baby put a temp hold on my progress of 'new posts".

Will bounce back PM to you shortly! I know you need to write the tie-ins so we can hammer out any detais you may need from me. And if I need to wait at times that will be okay.

Don't worry, I kind of expected nappy changing would take priority .

I've got most of my EW stuff provisionally plotted in varying levels of detail, but, as usual, the writing itself is slow going for me (historically, you're a LOT faster than I am! Or, at least, better at keeping a constant speed up once you've started), so knowing you're not ready to start EW-proper on (say) Monday is good for me . I do have one Cos/Metternich scene that may need to fit somewhere in the middle of what you're doing just now, though.

Awaiting your PM whenever JT stops driving you up the wall and back down again!

And don't worry about me - like I said, I'll take all the unused Legionnaires and think of something to do with em

Awesome posts, guys! Really can't wait to read more. I love the tension and the sense of excitement that's building.

Looks like things will be happening fast...

For the Asian front, what do you think would be good targets? Would Mordru focus on multiple targets at once, or would he try to take them one by one?

Maybe he'd try to secure the areas of Asia nearer Europe first? If so, maybe the Middle East?

PS, I loved the post that showed the "gathering" of the Legion. I could just picture the group shot in my head.

IB, just sent you a PM with some specifics.

Meanwhile, thanks for the compliments and glad you're enjoying it! It's all coming together and its kind of amazing to see since I've been working towards this story since 2005. It should be a lot of fun to do, and then I'm eager to play with where the characters go from here!

Thanks, Cobie I can tell you're having a LOT of fun with all this. I can't imagine how you're managing to work on both this AND the Dark Oval Novella - are you sure you haven't developed superpowers?

I'm having a lot of fun imagining scenarios for my Legionnaires too

Meh, mine was just a brief scene that was necessary to move forward [Hence the "twenty minutes in the future" tag, to give a bit more leeway on where it happens]. It's 95% Co

Yeah, we've maxed out around nine PM threads as time has gone on on this, and in those you first mentioned where you were going... *checks*...

Definitely been a while coming

Sept 2005--amazing!!!

So I put up the last "Road to..." post this morning. This brings us right up to Earth War proper. But no worries--there is no rush to get the whole thing done right away!

I know you both need a bit of time to get your posts together, and let me know via PMs if there are any aspects of that you need any data on. In the meantime, I'm trying to build up the first several posts to get my rhythm down and focus on how the story will exactly play out.

By my 3rd or 4th post I'll show a clean break where the Legion splits up into three teams and that might be a good time to throw your initial posts in; for the most part, each post I do will be a clean break (almost like if it was a television show, this is where it would go to commercial).

Once I get up those first 3-4 posts, and then start doing more, we can talk via PMs on the progress and if there are any tweaks needed or if one of us wants the other to mention something so it can be picked up on.

I'll wait for your team split post, then With the changes that have been going on, i'm not entirely clear which Legionnaires will be available for me

PS, I looooooooooove how it's all coming together. One favor, please? Can you do a post that shows EVERYONE together before deployment? Because that would be awesome!

Will do! Actually, I'm glad you asked me that since it was something I was considering but wasn't sure if it was the way to go.

I think it fits. It's one way of showing that a) the numerous threads and factions which have been hard at work are finally coming together, and b) it shows the sheer scale of the event that will happen.

Plus, it's just awesome to see everyone together like that

I will permit this if and only if you call the post "The Earth War: Alpha"

(And, of course, the final post where Mordru gets his "The Earth War: Omega" )

Guys, I'm sending you both a PM as I think it might be time to kick off Earth War proper! My PMs will say this but I'll reiterate that I do plan to move along steadily but take things slowly so we can coordinate the pacing as we go. I've written several posts but I still have a LOT to get through.

Quick point of order re: your latest post, Cobalt: 21CL R.J. is "Raymond John Brande" , not Rene Jacques