Subject: Isn't that the definition of original fiction, though?
Author:
Posted on: 2016-02-24 14:52:00 UTC
Harry Potter is just fanfiction of life on Earth - it's the speculative what-if scenario 'what if British schoolkids were magic?'.
hS
As you guys know, I'm a big fan of speculative evolution. However, I recently found something that I think deserves our attention. Behold, the worst speculative evolution project imaginable!
http://speculativeevolution.wikia.com/wiki/Category:New_Pleistocene
Don't be fooled by the name-the writer for this has dumped in any species he could think of, fictional or otherwise, from dinosaurs to vampires to Godzilla to Megaman robots. Basically, this is Rise of The Galeforces-level crossover shenanigans right here. None of the species are given good reason for why they evolved, the spelling is awful, and Mary Sue species are EVERYWHERE.
Seeing as speculative evolution is essentially fanfiction for life itself, and this project features a ton of crossovers, I figured that if this doesn't fit the bill for a speculative evolution badfic, nothing will. As such, I would like to claim this... thing for use as a first mission. I'm almost done with my writing samples, and I should be done with the Permission prerequisites sometime this week.
Erm, Bass.EXE? That is a species of creature now? This is like reading a D&D creature manual, with all it's supernatural beasts and making you feel kinda insignificant. I also think .EXE is lowercase, isn't it? I could see agents coming into this world when An RA malfunctions while they're trying to get to world one. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have ourselves a new multiverse.
...is that I don't know if there's a story to go with it. If we have only the information about the world and creatures to go on, I have doubts that it would make an interesting mission because it may be just the agents going around and free-roaming the place like a sandbox game. It'd be weird as hell, sure, but probably not quite the same as following an actual plot.
That being said, this sounds like the kind of thing the DOGA would tackle. I mean, if it's an uncanon world we're talking here...
From what I can see the issue isn't with the geography, but with the animals. That puts it firmly in the purview of the Department of Misplaced Flora and Fauna.
Assuming it falls under the competence of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum at all, which I'm... open to being convinced on.
hS
The PPC is meant to deal with fanfiction, yes? Speculative evolution is, by definition, original work. Unless the author is bunging in monsters from other media, I don't really see how it's any of our business, and even if that's what they're doing the link is rather tenuous. =/
If you think about it, speculative evolution is basically going 'what if' with the history of life on Earth-essentially, creating EUs of World One. It's literally fanfiction of life on Earth (And sometimes beyond) itself.
Plus, most of the monsters from other media are definitely Suefluenced.
Harry Potter is just fanfiction of life on Earth - it's the speculative what-if scenario 'what if British schoolkids were magic?'.
hS
There's also the idea of fanfics of runs and/or campaigns in roguelikes and RTS things and the like not being under our purview, but there I disagree - I recently found a fanfic involving Civ 5 that is wall-to-wall (lumpen, badly written) sex scenes and has a Mini Death Robot in the summary, but were it to be a simple campaign retelling I'd probably shy away from it.
I'm missioning it, btw, and one of the agents doing it is the following pair of fine and upstanding gentlemen:-
1/ What's the canon?
2/ When writing a mission, what text will your agents be sent into?
hS
1) I'd say World One, with a ton of other continua thrown in.
2) They'd enter the world of the project itself, with the text of the species descriptions dragging them about. I suppose that it would be ordered by going counterclockwise around the world, starting in Europe and ending in Eurasia.
I have some thoughts on what you've said so far, but I'm on the clock right now and time is limited. I'll write those down later. Instead, I'll ask this:
What would your agents do to fix the non-canon nature of this situation?
The creatures that were basically yanked out of their own continua would be returned home, while the species that aren't that bad could be brought into the DMFF. The badly written ones? They get some good ol' fashioned extinction.
Humanity's probably stuffed in a plothole of gargantuan proportions, so they'll need to be brought back out, but the main Sues are things called dylanuses-extremely overpowered Sue species that the author basically pulled out of his rear end.
First off, having two or three agents enact extinction events across the entire planet? That raises too many logical conundrums in my mind. What if they miss something? Where would the PPC put an entire noncanonical species? Why wouldn't the agents do the sensible thing and just have this obviously AU Earth destroyed?
That brings me to my second point. Having this be "fanfiction" of World One makes me a bit uncomfortable. World One really should not be involved in the doings of the PPC (beyond the various agent-delivering plot holes). It has no plot to be protected. Also, like Huinesoron said, "fanfic" of World One is typically considered original fiction. As much as it might gall us, we don't touch original fiction.
Finally, I should note that there is no story to mock. You're essentially asking to spork Wiki pages. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I do question both why it should be done and if the end result would be any good.