cosmicnut on 2/4/2007 at 11:31

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Geek Time

Star Trek
Enterprise NX01/-/A/B/C/D/E -
Defiant
Voyager
Runabouts
Klingon birds of prey
Romulan somethings (god I can't believe I forgot the name)
.... (I could go on)

Star Wars
various

Discovery - 2001

Shads ship - Battle Beyond the Stars (very unusual design)

Navyhacker006 on 2/4/2007 at 13:32

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Cool, been trying to remember the name of that place. Thanks. Wait.... this is similiar, but the one I'm remembering was more.. chaotic? Had a graph-paper background, and you could move the ships around. Any idea what I'm talking about?

Navyhacker006 on 3/4/2007 at 02:32

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Found it, much easier than last time I went looking.
(http://www.merzo.net/) - enjoy.

ravenred on 1/5/2007 at 13:48

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First Post, and although this doesn't necessarily follow the trail of this thread, I've considered quite a bit on how you'd structure a System Shock 2 script.

Firstly, I can't leave the annelids behind. Yes, they're ridiculously derivative of Aliens, the Thing and the Ice Station episode of the X-Files referenced earlier in the thread. Irrelevant. The concept of the Many as a corruptor (a staple of most sci-fi and pretty much all religeon) is a valuable one in story-telling and can be a very good counterpoint (see below) to the sterile electronic world of the Von Braun.

Secondly, SHODAN. Essentially, our favourite megalomaniac needs to be introduced. Fanboy service aside, you need to work her into the story in a way which is logical and establishes her as a new character. Essentially, keep her in the same position as Xerxes in SS2. She controls the Von Braun and has had part of her personality corrupted by a hacker (giving both enhanced computing power and delusions of divinity) and part of her personality co-opted by The Many. However, I think the original idea that The Many were created by Shodan still works. However, they were created in the Von Braun's medical bays rather than any alien world. Not that anyone will know that initially. ;)

Thirdly, main characters. It's very cheesy, but I think you actually follow the character choices of the original game. You include an OSA, a (civilian) hacker and a meathead marine. These three character types could be played off each other quite well, especially if (like your SS2 character) you have no memory of who the hell you are. The movie therefore becomes a long journey of trying to work out who you were and what your role in the scheme of things was. The hacker and the OSA represent the machine and the flesh in the overall schematic of the movie (mirroring the Shodan / The Many) divide, and their corruption by either telepathy or nanite infection would be an excellent ongoing theme. The marine represents the viewer, the uncommitted middle ground between the two (like Freder in Metropolis, in some ways) The movie could be played as a three-hander between these actors. It's the furthest thing from a buddy movie however. None have no idea whether they can trust either of their companions, let alone themselves.

The rest of the Von Braun is like the game, essentially uninhabited by the living. This increases the loneliness and paranoia of the lead characters, especially if they keep collecting PDAs (logs) off corpses. This could be quite an intrusive story-telling technique, so would need to be carefully managed by the director, but I can still see a place for it. It would work well as a claustrophobic horror/conspiracy thriller, but would become quite dull if it became an FPS or action film. Terror and loss-of-control are the watchwords. Plotwise, you could work with a slimmed down SS2 plot, retaining Polito and working with separate POV scenes to highlight the differing journeys and secrets. No flashbacks however. The "tone" should remain real-time and linear. Making another "Resident Evil" or "Doom" or trying to ape the aesthetic and direction of Aliens would be (IMO) a mistake. System Shock is bookended by the character of SHODAN (no Teri Brosius, no film!) and the protagonist being a pawn for larger powers. These two key ingredients would have to be integral to any script.

ravenred on 2/5/2007 at 00:05

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Why not be alone with friends? One of the problems with a single person narrative is asking who they bounce off. Reading logs provides great entertainment for the player, but not for the viewer. The only other option would be to extend the dialogue with Polito to provide exposition and character development. Whilst this would make the final betrayal that much more devestating, it highly limits your character interactions until then. Unless you use a lot of non-verbal storytelling (Le Samourai, anyone?) or (yuk) a constant voice-over, you box yourself into a corner. I'm trying to think of a movie where a single-person, essentially one character narrative has worked. I can't.



Not if many of her "lower order" functions have been taken off-line, leaving her with consciouness and precious little else (this could even be done by something as crude as a rumbler severing a cable). This returns us to the original connundrum of do you restore SHODAN, knowing that she's possibly more dangerous than the annelids.



Rather than being a cross between "Aliens" and "Doom - The Movie"?

SS2 is deeply derivative. This isn't meant as a criticism. The X-Files barely used an original idea throughout its run. What this means is that you have to carefully select the aspects that make it good and try to separate them from their parent. For this reason, for example, I'd ditch the annelid eggs. The worms are nasty so you kyou could have them... uh... stuck to the walls in mucus. An egg hatching a parasitical wriggling thing would have Ridley Scott suing you faster than you can say "homage"...



Urgh. For mine that's trying to shoe-horn continuity in. Whilst Star Wars (A New Hope) managed that, it was only by throwing the viewer right in the middle in a very obvious, expositionary way (Think Vader interrogating Leia). To do this in a slower, more subtle way would be difficult within one movie. If you'd already had a movie of SS1 I'd agree, though. Whilst I profoundly enjoy the idea of humanity travelling light-years only to find the sins of its past waiting for it, there's no payoff for the viewer revealing Shodan unless you've spent more than a few minutes building up the fact that she's the baddest momma west of the Pacos. The name SHODAN means little to most people (more fool them, but...) so once again I think game-based continuity should bend a knee to narrative necessity.