Subject: About Knightmare
Author:
Posted on: 2013-04-12 08:36:00 UTC
Well, the thing is, Knightmare was a TV kids gameshow when I was little, so the spellcasting isn't quite as ridiculous as it might sound. Some information about it can be found on its site: http://www.knightmare.com/ . You can also type it into wikipedia for some good information.
Hee hee, I'm so planning to write a blackout interlude now.
The story is as follows:
The Doctor enters through a plothole.
Things get a bit complicated.
Things get even more complicated.
All story ideas, suggestions, and theories on how the hell the Doctor and his companions will restore power back to HQ should now be placed here. Complaints about gaps in continuity, contradictory information, paradoxes, unintentional plotholes, and SPaG errors will also be placed here.
Thank you all for putting up with my derpery!
All of it! But particularly the 'Time Lord Academy reunion', and how you handled the Fisherman's interaction with the Doctor. Great stuff, now to get writing about what happened to those ypurs...
A lovely interlude, Ms. Winterwood!
...that I've posted the second part of my bit of the RP (it's on the next page now, unfortunately) and it seems to be turning into an interlude in its own right. Should I just move the whole thing to livejournal, or make a new thread for it and then put it on lj when it's finished?
~DF
... that if you want feedback as you write it, it's best to put it on the Board as you go along. Whether you put it in a new thread or as an extension of this one (since you hijacked it anyway ;)) is down to you.
hS
It would probably be better if I make a new thread, actually, since I get the feeling this might take me a while to finish (it's a crazy thing that gets written when I have a spare moment), and this thread is already halfway down the page.
I still want to know how to link without showing the URL, though :)
~DF
I do indeed want feedback, so...if Lily doesn't mind, I'll just move it to here, starting with the second post.
By the way, how do you link on the Board and have text displayed instead of the URL? I was told once, but then I lost the post and can't remember the coding...
~DF
The specific code is [a href="http://Your url here.co.ppc"]Your Text Here[/a], with the[] replaced by .
(Hey, do you think we could convince the Powers That Be to let us have .co.ppc? That would be fantastic. Ohhh, now I want to make the second PPC Computer Game from scratch in Java or something just so I can save the files as .ppc...)
I assume from this that you're planning on posting a link to the first part, too? Because it'd be a good idea if you haven't already thought of it. ;)
hS
Wonderful! Thank you. I shall now save that in a Word document, like I should have in the first place.
(That would be interesting! Wait, there's a PPC Computer Game?)
I am indeed! I'm currently thinking that I'll link to the first (since it was posted a while ago and already got feedback) and repost the second, since, well, it's on the other page and I doubt anyone's seen it. And then, at some point, I'll write the third, and...well, we'll see how many parts it ends up with!
~DF
This one.
There's also roughly half of a sequel, which I may turn into 'an entire sequel' and just release as-is. I'unno.
hS
hS...I've got a new appreciation for the difficulties of trying to find anything in HQ, my partner's bleeding out, I've met several assassins in disguise, and now I'm stuck talking to someone who could be a nurse, a patient, or who knows what, and the room won't restart no matter how much I press F2. Is this supposed to be happening?
I do like the dialogue, though. I just wish I wasn't stuck in it...
~DF
In Which Goodbyes are Said.
Also, for your reading and linking convenience, here's the entire story as a Google Doc:
Plotholes and Meatloaf and Angels, oh my!
Seriously well done!
And it was cool to see that the Fisherman got a mention as one of the other Time Lords to have crashed into the PPC. I shall have to write up what he and Evie got up to during the blackout...
I had been hoping to actually write the Fisherman meeting the Doctor, but since you weren't around to give consent to me using him I had to settle for sly mentions.
If it helps for the future, I'm almost always okay with people borrowing my characters for interludes like this (I'd obviously appreciate a heads-up and a link - I'll want to read it anyway!).
Doesn't help now, but still...
I'm writing them now, so I'm thinking of having the Fisherman find out from Morgan that the Doctor's in HQ or something.
I'm like Moffat in that I like putting in extraneous scenes after the fact - oh, and probably a prequel too... hehe.
Seriously, that's brilliant! Also, has it been explained exactly what happened to the few remaining Ypurs that were living in the Slorped Cafeteria? If not, I might just have an idea for one... ;)
so feel free to write about their fates if you want. :)
I'll wait until you've finished your deleted scenes (and other bits) so that things line up without having to resort to timey-wimey bendy-wendy... stuff.
Last scene.
It's there because I realised that the Doctor might not have recognised/had a strong emotional reaction to the titles of Fisherman, Disentangler, and Agent at the end had he not encountered them for a bit. So there.
Definitely unintentional. Interesting and curious, but pure coincidence. :P
The only reason I haven't reviewed before is that I'm not very familiar with Doctor Who, so I can't comment on much in the story - except that I understood it all up till the end with the cocky American guy. That shows a lot of skill on your part, because like I said, my knowledge of Doctor Who is shaky. It's basically cobbled together from references on the Internet and from listening to friends talk about it.
So, yeah. Good job!
I didn't expect anyone to write a story because of my post, but... Wow.
Jack Harkness, what /do/ you think you're doing? XD Lovely conclusion, Lily!
You used the Daleks-playing-Cluedo idea! And that scene was the best, the best!
DALEKS ARE SUPREME AT CLUEDO. (busts up laughing again)
I'll get to Wikia-updating right away! To the edit button!
By the way, Morgan says that she "doesn't like having a home". That should probably be "doesn't like not having a home". Just a final typo there.
This whole story was 100% pure awesomeness. And now, I'm afraid that the Doctor too has to go on the "canon characters that know about the PPC" list.
The bad thing is, the Doctor Who authors are so quick to say "sure, why not?" that they might make this story canon if they find and like it.
And now I have more plot points for my Agents, as Nikki is assuming that they might die in a year's time... and Sergio too is making that assumption, as he already lost friends in the past.
The money raised would then go to fixing up the multiverse because then you'd have a Whovian copy of the PPC to contrast with the original version of the PPC. As if we didn't have enough alternate multiverses.
Thank you! I hope you find something interesting to do with that plot point.
In fact, I am writing right now an interlude to show what happened to my Agents before and after chasing down Slorp.
http://lilywinterwood.tumblr.com/post/47823400718/ppc-interlude-doctor-who-crossover-generic-surface
All mistakes are mine; this was unedited. Please feel free to point any out.
And I'm not saying it because my Agents are in it, I swear! (Though I liked how you handled them)
Three small mistakes about them, though:
- The rifle is called M82A1, not M281. Also, Sergio can't fire it while standing (it has to be fired from its bipod while prone), but we can justify it as Rule of Cool.
We had the Doctor fighting alongside our Agents, after all. Nothing beats that in coolness.
- It's Nikki Cherryflower, not Cherryblossom. I did think about calling her that, but I decided against it as it would have been too blatant. (She's a clone of Sakura Kinomoto, and "Sakura" has the meaning of "cherry blossom")
- Nikki is the grenade specialist, not Sergio. It's fairly minor (Sergio can use grenades too), but I think it would be nice to make her do something.
I'll go fix it, stat.
It's M82A1! Em-eighty-two-ei-one!
*Sergio, who apparently mistook Lily for Araeph and is probably messing up the phonetic spelling too*
I loved how the old-timey dialogue from the Transfictional Canonical Defense Authority members was interspersed with modern-style grievances against the PPC technology. Ah, DoSAT. Even given the vast probabilistic distance between multiverses, you still never change.
The Doctor's description mentioned that he had braces. Unless that's dialect for "suspenders" or he got injured in one of the Series Seven episodes I didn't watch yet, that may be a phrasing problem.
Also, which continuum's wraiths/Wraiths was Eledhwen referring to?
So the Mongoose Shelter is finally mentioned somewhere. I was never sure what it was for, but it's nice to know that it still exists. I only wonder where all of the mongooses come from? There can't be that many spawned by Phrasing Mishaps.
Ah, so there was a showdown after all! Well, a showdown of sorts, but a showdown that's solved by a grenade and a Time Lord throwing playground jibes is still a showdown. Will that instance of the Reality Room still work after this? The Room's properties would make the grenade explosion actually leave permanent damage. Not structural damage, because it's still HQ, but it'd be nasty.
Because suspenders is, I believe, UK slang for garters.
That would be awkward.
And I believe Eledhwen's referring to Ringwraiths, because those are the most common wraiths in Middle-earth. I'll go specify.
I imagine cleanup in that room will be extremely fun.
Frost is back! And the Doctor has trapped the meatloaf monster in the Reality Room! With an explosive!
I rather like the digestive enzyme theory. It's quite plausible, and certainly nothing I would have thought of. (If anything, I'd have someone try to eat it, then get eaten themself >.>)
Since most people seem to have come to an agreement to make this PPC canon, I'm going to start updating the involved characters' Wikia pages, but I don't want to have to say "This character appears in Parts (Applicable Numbers)", and add maybe a half-dozen links to a page when one might do.
I'd been hoping for a chapter focused on dealing with Slorp by itself, but that probably won't happen now that it's subsumed the Weeping Angel. Still, this installment turned out great, especially due to Morgan. In fact, both of the Time Lords had some great scenes this time around.
Now I want to write a followup featuring the last of the fleeing ypur flock when I get Permission. Wait, is it a herd? A pack? What are groups of ypur called?
I'll make the link public when it's finished. And there's about two more chapters to go, so yeah.
I vote for a stampede of Ypurs.
I'll just wait until the story's finished to make most of the changes, then. There'll be fewer extraneous edits that way, so I suppose waiting will work out better.
At last! A character of mine who doesn't read like all my other characters!
It's actually really interesting to see how someone else writes Morgan III, particularly given the current lack of source material (in fact, you've just written the source material). I enjoyed the dialogue about the fall of Gallifrey and the segue into Sues - and also this:
“Sues can be rewritten,” retorted the Doctor.
“But when they’re rewritten, they’re not the same Sue.”
Which reminds me both of the Doctor's favourite tagline, of River's response ("Not those times. Not one line! Don't you dare!"), and of Gandalf and Saruman's exchange about the colour of Saruman's robes:
"I liked white better," I said.
"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."
"In which case it is no longer white," said I.
(And who said there's no humour in Lord of the Rings?)
I also really like your A/V techs - I can tell they're from the same Department-sorry-Division as Adam and Frenchie. And... oh dear stars, now you've put the thought of a meeting between Captain Jack and Agent Lux in my head... or worse, an alliance...
hS
I am loving this crossover so much. The Meatloaf Monster is perfectly crazy for HQ, and the inclusion of the steam-punk universe is going to make things extra interesting. The meeting of the Time Lords was great, and while more hostile then I expected the meeting to be, it made perfect sense.
Actually, speaking of the parallel universe barrier falling: could the Enforcers of the Plot Continuum be trying to get in? Or successfully getting in? That might be interesting, to see the Doctor fight a Mary Sue without being brainwashed by their Aura of Smooth. I know the Doctor have enough problems to deal with, but it may be interesting. Just a thought.
You know, I think I may have to write a blackout story after all. You brought in the timberwolves, so now I'm seeing the Everfree Forest attached to HQ, and Marvin and Printworthy have to go around and try to calm, or destroy, the beasties. After all, they are members of the All Purpose: My Little Pony devision. Then they can come across some Aperture Science hallways, perhaps with GLaDOS trying to extend her reach over HQ. That could be interesting.
(Says the guy who still has not finished the first mission. Or sent the interlude to be beta read yet...)
Until the next update, I will sit back and try to write. Real Life gets in the way far too often.
It's such a pity that the RP thread started and ended while I was on holiday without internet, otherwise I would have joined in. I had some ideas about part of DTE being in Knightmare (possibly related to the magic mechanic of that series: literal spellcasting, where you have to spell out the spell to cast it, e.g. "Spellcasting: T-E-L-E-P-O-R-T" for a teleport spell). You bet Eagrus would approve of magic like that.
(This is definitely not me wanting to make this interlude part of canon, oh heck nope.)
...It's canon for me. Heck, I'll try to reference in in one of my missions so to solidify it's being canon. Deal with it.
Do it! Make it happen! This is an event that should be properly recorded!
Even when it ate Cafeteria workers!
In fact, there was a short discussion of that in the previous blackout thread. The more stories in the blackout's time frame, the better, and if we get enough, it'll effectively make everything involved Officially Stuff That Really Happened. If you still want to write the story, go for it!
Wait, so Knightmare's magic system is based on a bad pun? I was all set to be annoyed by that, but puns like that are just too ridiculous for me to be mad at.
Can the casters draw on a wall or something to use the spell, or does it only work if they say it out loud? What if they needed to do something specific, like R-E-M-O-V-E-O-N-L-Y-T-H-E-O-T-H-E-R-W-I-Z-A-R-D-S? The other wizards could just cast Q-U-I-E-T and counteract it before the first one had even finished talking.
The Knightmare-verse wizards are probably masters of finding synonyms in stressful situations.
Well, the thing is, Knightmare was a TV kids gameshow when I was little, so the spellcasting isn't quite as ridiculous as it might sound. Some information about it can be found on its site: http://www.knightmare.com/ . You can also type it into wikipedia for some good information.
Hee hee, I'm so planning to write a blackout interlude now.
The incredibly bad bluescreened computer graphics... wow, memories.
hS
And now, I realized something else. I started the whole kinda-roleplay using my Agents... two of which, for reasons that are currently under spoilers, shouldn't actually be in HQ anymore in April 2013.
But this timey-dimensional wimey stuff explains that just fine. I'm also picturing Agent!Sergio trying to blast a Weeping Angel's head into pieces with his Barret M82A1, with Nikki in tow complaining about the mess that her birthday had become... since they are from April 1st, 2012
And now I should stop. Using them to play around with the April 1st joke led to a chain of events causing this to start. Next thing I know, they actually run into the Doctor and his new companions, and things go even more downhill.
Timey-wimey Angel blasters are always welcome, especially since the third Angel is still out there.
My Agent trio is composed of Agents Sergio Turbo, Nikki Cherryflower and Corolla. Their Wiki pages and missions (the second collaboration with Firemagic shows the Barret too. Heavy, but powerful sniper/anti-materiel rifle) are kinda accurate for their 2012 selves. (2013!Corolla is in DoSAT, though, while Sergio and Nikki aren't in the PPC anymore)
The Barrett (Two Ts, I messed up in the previous posts) is weapon designed to be used against lighly armored vehicles. Using it against human enemies is apparently a war crime IRL as it can use .50 high explosive armor piercing incendiary rounds.
Feel free to make this fail to work against an Angel, though. I have no idea about how thought they are, aside from the fact that small calibre guns are useless.
...by increasing the energy of the Olympic torch or something.
Granted that minisode could be non-canonical because it features the 2012 Olympics, and contradicts canon set down in the earlier episodes (the Tenth Doctor lighting the cauldron and so forth).
And the Angel did come back (in a way similar to Timberwolf regeneration), albeit injured.
I just watched it, and given that Amy has a "Handbook to Traveling Through the Universe", the TARDIS has an "Adventure" setting, a human is capable of outrunning a Weeping Angel, and the Sonic Screwdriver is suddenly capable of blowing a Weeping Angel's arm off when that setting would have made three separate canonical encounters much easier, that Weeping Angel inexplicably hating the Olympics, which is just confusing and goes against most every canonical fact about them, and to top it all off, the minisode lets the Weeping Angel into the TARDIS when we know that to be a Very Bad Thing. I'm pretty sure that not only is this non-canon, but if it hadn't involved the actual Matt Smith and Karen Gillan playing Eleven and Amy, it would be indisputable badfic.
Considering the awful combination that this is a contest winner and that it was written by a primary school class, I really don't want to see what the other entries looked like.
Children lack the understanding of boundaries that comes with writing fan fiction. They were told from the start of writing class to be creative and that they can do anything when they write. These children may have seen selective bits of the canon, only the parts with Matt Smith in it, and/or not at all (most decent writers know well that they have to know their stuff, whether that be the canon or something else).
It's somewhat plausible that the TARDIS could develop an Adventure setting, probably something like the Random function I just put into the Portal generator. Amy could've found an old book that the Doctor had in his library. And like I said, the sonic increased the energy of the torch which somehow made the Angel explode, which would have made better sense if it was anything other than a stick of fire, since fire doesn't do much damage to stone.
It's not canon, but it doesn't mean little details can't be pulled from it. I personally think the Handbook would be a good addition to the TARDIS library, even if the Doctor finds himself yelling at the pages every time he reads it because he's done everything the book told him not to do.
And hey, for kids, it's pretty impressive. I know when I was eight, I wasn't even able to keep my writing on the same topic for half a page, so compared to me from then, they're practically Hemingway. "Good as Gold" was still a mess, but at it's a mess that at least resembles the source material. I'm still annoyed at the arbitrary rules set in the Handbook and the massive breaches on how the Weeping Angels work, but it could have been much worse.
Still, I was more confused than anything that that particular script was selected as the contest winner. Considering the scale of Doctor Who's influence, it should have been easy to find one that doesn't play out as contradictory to established rules.
I don't know how many groups entered, but seeing how Doctor Who is a Big Deal Television Show, they probably got hundreds, if not thousands, of scripts, and they went with the one that neutered the Weeping Angels(which to make it even more inexplicable were the current showrunner's malevolent darlings), unintentionally created capability for impossible speed in an Olympic torch bearer, and retreads a time frame that had already been shown before in Ten's run.
Oh, look at me, going on about something that's already been decided as non-canon and can't be changed at any rate because it was filmed over a year ago. Now I feel like I'm just whining. I wasn't trying to whine, but it read like whining when I looked it over for typos just now. Bluh.
Excuse me while I create a pocket universe to hide in.
I swear, I take my mind's eye off of him for one second, and the next thing I know he's been chased off a cliff, tried to out-taunt the French Taunter, accidentally portalled to Eroticon VI-- he swears it was a mistake-- or trying to pet a Baneling.
Lovely job. Your character interactions are top-notch and I particularly enjoyed that confidential bit between the Doctor and Christianne.
Though admittedly I'd like to borrow him for some speaking lines in future chapters. It could be interesting. :'D
I'd also like to borrow Gaspard, whenever he gets down from that tree of his in the RP.
For both agents, I mean. We can assume this is some time after the RP, so Gaspard did get down from his tree.
A bit of advice for writing each character, if you decide to fit them in later on:
Harris: lives to impress others with his achievements/epic fails. A vain character who takes great pride in his appearance. Said want to impress is not out of snobbishness: he truly does want to be recognized as having done something great and wonderful during his time in the PPC. Of course, said want to prove himself has nearly gotten himself maimed/drowned/burnt a couple times. If you can get past his massively inflated ego, you'll find a very polite and well-behaved young man, if a little boring to talk to.
Gaspard: his character page should do the trick. He'd also be instant bowtie-buddies with the Doctor if he ever meets him.
If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to have a look at their parts if they ever appear. I've got plans for both of them, so I'm setting the stage for the future.
Do you still need my email or do you already have it?
I could give you the link to the google doc version (because I'm finicky and keep lots of copies of my stuff for some reason).
...at expertmechanic [at] yahoo [dot] ca.
I haven't written anything new in the doc just yet, but that'll probably be the best place for you to preview anything I do put there and make sure things are going well.
Got the link! Hopefully Real Life won't throw me a curveball and I'll have time to look over any new additions tomorrow.
Harris makes an appearance near the end of the fourth scene.
That's kind of an obscure reference, now that I think about it, so feel free to ignore it.
Oh, yes, Agent Omicron shows up somewhere! I've always wanted to see him used. He showed up in literally a single sentence in his only other appearance, which was disappointing. One of the only Daleks in HQ to survive the Crashing Down, and nobody seemed to care.
I can just see the Doctor running into him and Agent Charlie(a Classic Who Imperial Dalek; he showed up in one of Tawaki's missions and never appeared again) sliding down a hallway, talking shop. And, of course, for two Daleks, talking shop is almost always going to be about efficient methods for murder, but then again, that's shop talk for most Assassins.
The dialogue with the Doctor and the Cafeteria Workers was absolute gold, even though I didn't recognize any of the Workers. That's quality right there. But you shouldn't have called the monster Mister Meatloaf... now I'm getting ALF flashbacks...
If the dimensional junctures have increased to the point that the AUs start interlocking, I hope it's not going to get to the point where they start running into the outer edges of the Mirror Multiverse. Having steampunk doubles would already invoke some crazy dimensional reacharounds, but the possibility of having brainwashed Sue-fused doubles in addition to that would just get everything much nastier much more quickly, and the Doctor's got enough on his plate (Hey! a pun!) with the-cafeteria-beast-that-shall-not-be-named.
But it is possible to modify the game so that it's playable for two. I'm fairly certain, though, that the Doctor's referring to an incident where it was him, Davros, and possibly a companion or another Dalek or something.
I know at least the PPC Cluedo thing is unplayable for two, so that game with Agent Omicron definitely involves other people.
(Now you've put that idea into my head, and oh it's fantastic.)
No, Nerys and Lisa are my own creations, though Jof belongs to Vixenmage. I'm just temporarily cameoing other people's agents into generally non-speaking parts, unless I ask for permission (like with Morgan).
Well, with the destruction of the barrier, I expect power to be returning to HQ and shields to be reinstated fairly soon. Then it'll just be a case of getting those two TCDA agents back to their proper AU. :'D
... and since it's come up... I will be starting a game of PPC Cluedo on the Other Board in the not-too-distant future. Unless anyone knows a better way, it'll mostly be played by email... just giving you a heads-up. There will obviously be an announcement on this Board at the time.
hS
It is probably the best thought related to board games that I've had in a long time. The word Conservatory becomes so much better when you imagine a Dalek saying it.
How would they even play the game? They have no hands to hold the dice! Come to think of it, they have no delicate manipulators at all, unless you count the tentacles of the post-Time War mutants, which is surprising for a species that regularly brings itself back from the brink of extinction with its skill in genetic engineering.
I've never seen a Dalek with any appendage more deft than the metal clamp in those win-a-stuffed-animal claw games. How do they make their ships? Do they just drop down on some planet, scare people into putting drive cores together for them, then leave?
...and they exterminate the board when things don't go their way.
Coincidentally, I started reading these immediately after watching my first episodes of Doctor Who on Monday (including "Blink," which makes it super-appropriate). Yes, I'm planning on watching the rest of the series now.
I feel it needs to be said, this is doing an emergency correctly. It's fun to read and puts forth a sense of danger without forcing everyone to get involved or threatening The Very Existence of the PPC As We Know It™.
Also, one typo in part two: "The torches started flickering as they backed away from archway . . ." is missing "the" in front of archway.
Ok, I love this part. Especially all of it. But the Doctor's reactions to everything the full name of DoDAEG is particularly hilarious. Also, “Well, it’s not every day that a fictional character calls you fictional.” *is gone* And the Doctor's explanation after that is particularly wonderful. Thank you for writing that.
Wait, which Cafeteria are they going to? From what I've read on the wiki, there are three or so...
All in all, wonderful chapter! Well done :)
~DawnFire
The one-department-only Cafeterias probably wouldn't be enmeshed enough into HQ's systems to black out the entire complex, and so the smaller ones would probably be restricted to their individual areas.
Plus, if a canon character tried to bust into... say, the DIA's headquarters for example, claiming he'd dropped in through a rip in space and ask to be led to their Cafeteria... well, I shouldn't need to say what the Agents would do in response, but in case you were wondering, it includes the words "high-powered tranquilizer".
Hold on, let me back that up. OK, so Jumper is from another 'section' of the multiverse and travels to fictional worlds. Part of his explanation of how he can do this is that there are natural holes in the universes where information escapes. You know the legends where a guy whispers something into the earth and the wind takes what the guy said to some vilagers? The information flows something like that, only sentient races, such as humans, receive this information as story ideas. The ideas are written, things are given some artistic licences, and a stronger 'link' between the worlds are formed. While this was longer-winded then what the Doctor said, the premise was similar in the writer 'tunes in' to worlds that are fictional here, but very real elsewhere. Then Jumper came to the PPC and his life got flipped, turned upside down.
As always, exelent story here. Hope to see the fourth part shortly, where we discover what is lurking in the kitchen.
Especially in all the Doctor-visits-Tolkien/Rowling/Lewis sorts of fics. I know at least one Potterwho fic has the premise that Rowling has a subconscious psychic link to the Wizarding world that allowed her to create Harry Potter.
I mean sometimes it might even seem feasible. When I write, I like to picture the action happening in my head. It can, sometimes, feel extremely realistic, like it's actually happening somewhere.
You missed a space, by the way. It should be "But what", not "Butwhat".
The Cafeteria, eh? Maybe we'll finally get to see the Flower that runs it. I've always thought it was a Rafflesia, but that's based on both massive speculation and the fact that a Rafflesia would have plenty to feed on with all the uneaten food that's left behind. Rafflesia nutrient-absorption systems are weird.
Clara's disappearance will at least be easy to resolve. As somebody that I don't remember their name said, in HQ, the place is so time-distorted anyway that someone time-shifted by a Weeping Angel would probably just turn up in a hallway at the other end of the place.
When Captain Dandy called Christianne "constable", I got a brief mental image of everyone in the scene wearing Victorian "peeler" uniforms and holding nightsticks. It looked especially amusing on the Angel.
Whoverse Tolkien must have been some guy. Which incarnation of The Doctor met him? The Doctor said he had a pipe when Tolkien traveled with him, but I don't remember any pipe-smoking Doctors. (checks the Doctor Who wiki) Oh, wow. The First Doctor. The Doctor knows Tolkien from waaaay back.
I do remember coming up with some kind of a fungus that ran it. I believe it's still floating around the wiki, somewhere.
...er, sort of. Apparently, it was a Flash Patch I was thinking of: Favolaschia calocera.
We probably should come up with a Flower for the Cafeteria, though.
Nothing like a Flower that smells like carrion to represent a food-delivering group in HQ.
We could even call it Arnold.
Sometimes they just turn blue for no good reason.
Fixed the spacing error. And oh gosh, yes, old men having tea and smoking pipes and discussing foreign languages. It makes so much sense.
Now I'm stuck on what exactly in the Cafeteria would be draining all of that energy. I don't want to use a Cybermat; there's more than just Whovians running around HQ, I'm sure.
One of this guy from Farscape. He claims there are thousands like him. They love light, and are pretty insistent about getting it. Though honestly, with how shiny DoDAEG is already, I don't know why he wouldn't just set up shop there. Lighting up the Cafeteria like a tanning salon could be fun, though.
Actually, a guy skilled at wiring the place up for maximum light might be a good thing to have with Weeping Angels and Creepers running around, if you can get him to cooperate.
~Neshomeh
Wait, this is an alien-of-the-week that tricks the protagonists into letting him supercharge their living ship so he can absorb the light it gives off and develop the ability to shoot lasers from his eye sockets?
I might need to start watching Farscape.
I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix, if you have that. And seriously, you have no idea how much awesome you'll have on your hands. Farscape is my favorite show ever, not just for a reason, but for all the reasons. All of them. ^_^
That particular episode, "Crackers Don't Matter," happens to be one of the best, IMO, and one that really captures the essence of the show. It's zany, it's clever, the bad guy is a legitimate threat, and it shows the main characters overcoming problems foreign and domestic in creative ways. That episode has one of the best payoffs; fortunately, the wiki article doesn't spoil it, because you really have to see it to appreciate it. It'll knock your socks off. {= D
~Neshomeh
Whatever it is, it would have to be either desperate or very confident to use HQ in that way, especially since, as an invader, it wouldn't know what it was up against.
Plus, if it was in the Cafeteria, it would probably have been able to hide out for some time sapping energy slowly, but the massive power outage all at once implies that it's due to the drainer of that power suddenly deciding to perform a task requiring lots of energy rather than needing it simply to continue existing.
It probably shouldn't be from the Doctor Who universe; he's fought the Weeping Angels already, and it wouldn't be fun just to see him running down a list of Who nasties. An entity such as an Osmosian would have the motive to sap HQ's power, but they're human-sized, as are most species like them in fiction, and their power-sapping ability just wouldn't be enough to knock the whole grid out, and even if it did, it would only be for a few seconds. If the power drainer is some sort of artifact, there'd be more explanation than it's worth figuring out why it's in the Cafeteria and why it only activated now as opposed to earlier or later than it would probably be worth to introduce it.
With that in mind, I've got a few ideas, but they're a bit shaky. Metroids and Stargate's Replicators are known for their energy-absorbing powers, especially the former, and they are both driven by a need to produce more like themselves. If a Metroid Queen or a powerful enough Replicator got into HQ, it would have been able to enter the Cafeteria(this part would be easy for the Replicator, as most models are quite small) and heal itself on whatever it's drawing the energy from. After it's done, it would increase the process, in preparation for reproduction.
If this goes on, the Metroids could be relocated, but the entire stock of Replicators would have to be destroyed. We can't have Replicators going back to their home canon with any knowledge or power whatsoever from more advanced continua than theirs, let alone HQ. Just them learning what androids were practically wiped out human civilization; learning about plot hole transport could easily break a galaxy..
There are other species that the same idea as above or a similar one could work with, but it's late and I can't remember them all.
I had another two ideas for why the power might be being drained, but one was, I now realize, a blatant ripoff of the Cataclysm part of Legends of Metru Nui, and the other I can't think of any species examples for. The latter one basically amounted to some entities forcibly draining HQ's power to restore their own, or build themselves physcial forms, or something of that sort. It's a bit cliché, and not at all finished, but I don't have a better one right now. I probably will later, though.
...I had been thinking Cybermen with a Cybermat, but Replicators would be much more fun...
You could always blame it on re-animating foodstuffs gaining sentience and trying to make more of themselves in a Frankenstein-like makeshift lab.
Maybe something along the lines of:
"Rise! Rise from last monday's gruel, my creation! Tomorrow, we shall become four, and the day after that, eight! Day after day we shall multiply in accordance to the curve predicted by 2^x (x>0) until we shall take over the kitchens! And then, my loyal follower, we shall sweep the Headquarters of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum like the grey, sludgy, and possibly edible tide that we are!*"
*Read aloud in the best squeaky-voice you can manage.
This power drainage situation sounds like a classic Sailor Moon scenario (1st season). You know, elaborately costumed villain is pulling a ton of energy from somewhere in order to take over the world, or some other ill-defined objective... I think all the PPC agents need to band together and use the power of love to overpower him/her/it and its army of zombie-like underlings.
Of course! It's using the energy it's absorbing to bring all of the uncooked food to life and revitalize the Negaverse! Only deus ex machina can save the day from a villain of such caliber!
This would be a good time to admit that I've only ever watched the Abridged Series of Sailor Moon.
...with the wackiness of HQ.
Given that most of the fic has been rather serious it would be rather fitting that this would end up as some literal Noodle Incident.
I baked it piece by piece, lovingly sculpted its face into the most handsome and delicious form I could (liberal application of frosting was involved, especially for the eyebrows), and fashioned internal organs comprised entirely of cookie dough. But it still did not move: it was a simple lump of baked goods, in various forms of baking. And that was not enough.
So I commandeered a kitchen, stole all the wiring I could, and consulted several steampunk and Frankenstein verses for aid. Now, my creation lies before me, ready to come to life...waiting...
Wait. I don't have Permission yet. Technically I'm not an Agent and shouldn't even be there. Crap.
;)
That is the first thing I could think of when I read that. I could see the massive blobs of creamed peas and shredded ham forming into pseudo-mouths and howling out-of context movie quotes.
Then I started thinking about the meat creature from John Dies at the End and it got weird.
Nice to see another Calvin and Hobbes reader around here.
Want a tuna sandwich?