Jannisary announcements and comments

Discuss "Master of His Domain" and other stories with Tecknophyle!

Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 2nd, 2012, 1:41 am

In the early 22nd century, Earth's humanity has found themselves in a galaxy where ancient godlike Artificial Intelligences rule and have for thousands of years spread humans, some of them changed very much in mind or body, across many solar systems. But whatever they look like or wherever they're from, the one thing about humans is that some will always desire power.

Episode 1 of the science fiction story Janissary is now available in the members gallery at http://www.mccomix.com/members/gallery2 ... emId=45035

Welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy the trip.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby sohta123 » October 2nd, 2012, 2:18 am

Link is giving a login page.
I can't get to all of the the other member's material.
The link in the member's site from the cover get's a blank page.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 2nd, 2012, 11:26 am

Try this:

http://www.mccomix.com/members/gallery2 ... emId=45029

I'm trying to sort out the permissions, please bear with me.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 2nd, 2012, 11:59 am

Okay, it should be all fixed now.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Champ » October 2nd, 2012, 7:12 pm

Totally awesome! Is this a once a week update too? :)
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 3rd, 2012, 2:54 am

Champ wrote:Totally awesome! Is this a once a week update too? :)


Unfortunately, no. That 12 week run with MoHD was possible because I had a slow summer and could spend lots of time rendering which allowed me to build up a large reservoir of images.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Champ » October 3rd, 2012, 3:15 am

That's ok! I'll be patient for it. :)
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby bluemax2 » October 3rd, 2012, 10:27 am

Techno:
Love this first chapter. So much detail and a slow buildup. Very nice!
The way Stratega was reduced to a reformatted slave from a senior official was subtle and very exciting. What's with the target on her forhead? Is that where the probe goes in?

What about the rest of the crew? Miles Valeri, Chilarch and the petty officer? Are they to be reformatted in the same manner, one at a time, in slow detail (hopefully??).
And what of what seems to be the heroine, Commander Lachance? I do hope she's to be reformatted into a drone-spy for the Novaromen.

How often will we be seeing updates of this intersting story?
Weekly I hope, but probably not.

Keep up the great work. Please include lots of mind control and subtle modifications that you are so good at, as was done in your last story.

I can't wait to see what is upcoming.
Can you share any teasers, perhaps....?

Thanks.

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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 3rd, 2012, 1:05 pm

Hmm. Better clear some issues up.

The Themeskiran Matriarchy uses a rank structure based on the Byzantine military; the founding population having been abducted from Earth around that period, with the founders of the government that exists today having used what was written down/could be remembered from that time, thus the language they speak is "Byzant". Stratega is a rank (from the original Greek "strategos"), equivalent to general or admiral (NATO standard designation OF-9). Her actual name is Elenis Kostantis. Similarly, chiliarch is equivalent to a naval captain/army colonel (NATO OF-5), and miles (mill-ays) would be a private or so (NATO OR-3).

The Alliance uses the traditional Commonwealth/American-based naval rank structure everyone should be familiar with from most science-fiction. The Novaromans, as the name suggests (Nova Roma) emerged from a different population abducted from Earth and found their inspiration and terminology from somewhere else. Here's a table (I apologize for the crap formatting) showing the comparative rank structures.

NATO / Alliance / Themiscyra / Novaroma
OR-1 / Recruit / - / Tirones
OR-2 / Technician / Stratia / -
OR-3 / Specialist / Miles / Legio
OR-4 / - / Tetrarch / -
OR-5 / - / - / -
OR-6 / Petty Officer / Pentarch / Tesserarius
OR-7 / Chief Petty Officer / Dekarch / -
OR-8 / Senior Chief PO / Pentakontarch / Duplicarius
OR-9 / Master Chief PO / Bandaphor / Aquilifier

OF(D) / Cadet / Kandidat / -
OF-1 / Ensign / Mandator / Princeps
OF-2 / Lieutenant / Kentarch / Decurio
OF-3 / Lt. Commander / - / -
OF-4 / Commander / Komissa / Centurio
OF-5 / Captain / Chiliarch / Primus
OF-6 / Commodore / Antistrega / Praefectus
OF-7 / Rear Admiral / - / -
OF-8 / Vice Admiral / - / Tribunis
OF-9 / Admiral / Stratega / Legatus
OF-10 / Fleet Admiral / - / -

Why yes, there is a lot of background in this universe. How'd you know?

As for the forehead, the next episode gives a much clearer view of what it is, so it should be obvious.

Oh, one thing I should clear up regarding the speech bubbles. As should be apparent, the shading on the bubbles indicate that different languages are being spoken. If there's no shading on the bubbles, and no other languages are being spoken in that episode, this indicates that the everyone is speaking the same language. If multiple languages are being spoken, the following colors indicate who is speaking in what:

Plain white: Alliance standard (assume English), OR basic sound effects (*grunt*, *mmmm*, that sort of thing)
Brown/orange highlighting: Byzant
Pink/Magenta: Novaroman
and others as they come up.

If I use other than plain English in a speech bubble, it's to indicate that the viewpoint character(s) (or the readers) can't understand it. Thus in episode 1, I provided the English version of the conversation between the stratega and the chiliarch, but the (at the time) mysterious attackers don't get translated.

If an episode takes place on, say, a Novaroman ship and no one is speaking anything but Novaroman, I won't use bubble shading since I don't have to differentiate between languages. Think of it like an episode of Star Trek: if a scene is set on a Klingon ship, you assume that even though the actors are speaking English, the characters are actually speaking Klingon.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tony » October 3rd, 2012, 3:09 pm

I always liked how they did it in Red October best. They started with Russian with sub-titles and switched to English after a few lines/minutes. Of course, when they mixed up the crews, they were back to sub-titles until they agreed all to speak English. (They were all defecting after all!)
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 3rd, 2012, 3:15 pm

Tony wrote:I always liked how they did it in Red October best. They started with Russian with sub-titles and switched to English after a few lines/minutes. Of course, when they mixed up the crews, they were back to sub-titles until they agreed all to speak English. (They were all defecting after all!)


The Red October method worked because the Russian sentence ended with "Armageddon", which is the same word in both Russian and English.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby NoneNeeded » October 4th, 2012, 1:00 pm

First impressions:
<I think this comes across more negatively then intended but I lack the time to make it less so>

OK, I will say I was a little disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the story or art. But it didn't really grab me. Thinking back, I think I felt about the same at the start of MoHD and ended up loving it. But there, I saw a character(Rudy) that I could latch onto. So far nobody has that same attraction here. But this was also a shorter piece than those so I don't feel it is fair to compare or judge yet.

What we have seen of MC has been declarative. We are told what the Statega has been made to do and what the other one will be made to do. Other than that all we have seen is a bald pneumatic blowup doll. You may guess what I think of that genre of MC slave based on my choice of words(Sorry Division). I tend to like victims who keep their intelligence and have a desire to serve or please added on top (part of what I loved about MoHD, Ginny and Carol really pushed my buttons). And bald and naked just isn't for me. I prefer the hint of mystery that the right outfit adds to the female form. And long hair can add a similar air.

I hope it will be more interesting than that. Based on what happened in MoHD, I expect it will but can only comment on what there is so far. From the other comments, it seems you have some fans already and I am glad. I am hopeful I will be a convert but I also know you can't please everyone all the time. I know you have a talent I like, even if not at every at bat.

I do look forward to the next installment. Good luck on the pay side of the fence!
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Uzobono » October 5th, 2012, 8:48 am

NoneNeeded wrote:We are told what the Statega has been made to do and what the other one will be made to do. Other than that all we have seen is a bald pneumatic blowup doll. You may guess what I think of that genre of MC slave based on my choice of words(Sorry Division). I tend to like victims who keep their intelligence and have a desire to serve or please added on top (part of what I loved about MoHD, Ginny and Carol really pushed my buttons). And bald and naked just isn't for me. I prefer the hint of mystery that the right outfit adds to the female form. And long hair can add a similar air.


Have to respond *just* a bit, I don't just write one type of story and neither does anyone else, I especially do not only write bald blowup dolls. While I may not be good at writing, I do try to do my best.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby NoneNeeded » October 6th, 2012, 1:24 pm

Uzobono wrote:
NoneNeeded wrote:We are told what the Statega has been made to do and what the other one will be made to do. Other than that all we have seen is a bald pneumatic blowup doll. You may guess what I think of that genre of MC slave based on my choice of words(Sorry Division). I tend to like victims who keep their intelligence and have a desire to serve or please added on top (part of what I loved about MoHD, Ginny and Carol really pushed my buttons). And bald and naked just isn't for me. I prefer the hint of mystery that the right outfit adds to the female form. And long hair can add a similar air.


Have to respond *just* a bit, I don't just write one type of story and neither does anyone else, I especially do not only write bald blowup dolls. While I may not be good at writing, I do try to do my best.


Thanks for this as it gives me a chance to clarify. Until I saw your comment, I wasn't sure just were I should focus to make my comments less negative. This was clearly one place I should have put in some additional effort.

It was unfair of me to lump all the plot lines making up 'The Division' into one. But with as many running as there are, they sometimes blend together in my very limited memory. So while I am not that fond of Dolls and such that make up the main subjects in Expose, Doll Day, Night Moves, Shopping and Silent Auction(I know many others really like this thing and you don't write form me alone), I do like what seems to be going on with Zephyr in Seductive Path and I do remember many other places in the various tracks for Division that I enjoyed. But like my female form to be both pneumatic AND have a flowing mane. Even better when there is intelligent submission behind slightly unfocused eyes. That bald Deltan character in 'Star Trek: the Motion Picture' almost ruined it for me at the start. Of course, the movie itself ruined it for me by the end.

And to be clear, I am not saying that the characterizations are blowup dolls. That, to me, would imply that the writing was poor. I am saying that the characters, MC victims, bear a striking similarity to blowup dolls. Some are even called dolls. And even here, all I want to say is that this is a style or plot device that I personally do not enjoy except in moderation. I guess I mean even the best Sci Fi author will still not appeal to all Sci Fi fans in every story.

I certainly did not mean to imply any limits to ability to express yourself creatively. I would even add that LoSH ( at least the free ones at HIP and a couple unauthorized ones I saw posted somewhere) were a major influence on my decision to subscribe here( another was cost, MC is more my thing and it was cheaper too!). And I think my fondness for MoHD was more than adequately expressed. And I do like variety.

I am starting to fear I need to retake a writing class. This is at least the second thread I have been on in the last few months where I may have been responsible for giving insult where none was intended. Sorry for not putting things across better.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » October 6th, 2012, 7:40 pm

NoneNeeded wrote:Even better when there is intelligent submission behind slightly unfocused eyes.


Then you should like Episode 2 more and what starts developing.
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