Jannisary announcements and comments

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

Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » July 29th, 2013, 10:32 pm

Athena Spartan continues her relentless pursuit of Alarius Temar through the Orbital Station One having already defeated some of his enhanced guardians, but Temar still has a few tricks up his sleeve for his old adversary.

Episode 21 of Janissary is now available in the Member's Area at http://www.mccomix.com/members/gallery3 ... Episode-21

I'd like to thank all the people who've read and commented on this story, as it's always nice to know that someone is reading your work. Thank you.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby bluemax2 » August 2nd, 2013, 12:19 am

Technophyle:
Fantastic episode. What a series!
Is the forge coming into range while Spartan is battling her nemesis? Will they all be "converted"?

By the way what happened to Elenis? She seems to have shorted out. Is she an unaware double spy? She has got to be one of your finest female creations, especially in her silver catsuit, wow! I do hope you don't get rid do her and use her further on perhaps rehabilitated or modified for other uses? Maybe in other stories or even in some of your fine work on Metrobay Comix...?
Anyway, I digress.
I look forward to upcoming twists and turns in this epic story. TV scifi could learn something from the stories you weave, not to mention the incredible imagery.
Keep up the great work.

Regards,

Bluemax
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 12th, 2013, 10:20 pm

She's won. Athena Spartan has derailed Alarius Temar's attempt to seize control of Elysia, and now her old enemy sits in a cell awaiting his fate. All that's left is a few trivial details, like finding out who he worked with. But Elysia, the Alliance, and Athena are about to find out that it's not even close to being over. Also, Athena and Ericka have hot, steamy sex because it's been a while since we've seen the two lovebirds go at it.

Episode 22 of Janissary is now available in the member's area at http://www.mccomix.com/members/gallery3 ... Episode-22
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Sumatra » August 14th, 2013, 12:00 am

Looks like an epic climax. Great stuff.

Alliance seems unprepared for Centrum. Everyone else too. Wondering if Centrum will use that weapon on the planet or the station.

Liked Temar's fall was quick, not drawn out. His slaves returning back to normal or seeing them again?

-Sumatra
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby michaelscheppard » August 14th, 2013, 7:57 am

im curious you seem to have structured mohd so its can be used as a concept for various open ended story's is Janissary similar to that or do you have a definitive end in mind for this one
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 14th, 2013, 8:34 am

michaelscheppard wrote:im curious you seem to have structured mohd so its can be used as a concept for various open ended story's is Janissary similar to that or do you have a definitive end in mind for this one


The universe of Janissary is open-ended (there's at least one more story planned in it, set in the past, and I have some other ideas). The characters, however, are a different matter. At the conclusion of this one, the stories of some characters are very definitely over, one way or another.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 14th, 2013, 8:52 am

Sumatra wrote:Looks like an epic climax. Great stuff.

Alliance seems unprepared for Centrum. Everyone else too. Wondering if Centrum will use that weapon on the planet or the station.

Liked Temar's fall was quick, not drawn out. His slaves returning back to normal or seeing them again?

-Sumatra


Second question first: yes, you'll be seeing them again. I might have been a little too clever, but if you read the dialogue it's clear that the Alliance is not revealing the truth to the Elysian population: they're using the "Bosk went rogue" story to explain what happened on the station, and Temar's network of slaves is still there because he's infiltrated the power structure of the government and military so successfully that taking them out would create chaos, not to mention what it would do to the population if they found out right away what was going on. Thus their demand Temar order the slaves to fully cooperate with them, and sometime-later dialogue mentioning that they were. Basically they've replaced Temar as the head of the conspiracy.

First question second: they can't turn them back to normal, and not because no one has the equipment Temar used to change them in the first place anymore. Even though they have the technological capability to make them physically look like they were, and possible technology to change them mentally to something closer to what they were, they can't simply reverse the changes. My general philosophy when it comes to mind-control or mental alteration which is meant to be permanent, and not something like a hypnotic state, is that there's no reset switch. You might be able to change someone back so that they're mostly like they were (or at more likely what you think they were), but there's always something that's changed, if nothing else the memories and experiences are going to have an effect.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby sohta123 » August 15th, 2013, 8:51 pm

Tecknophyle wrote:First question second: they can't turn them back to normal, and not because no one has the equipment Temar used to change them in the first place anymore. Even though they have the technological capability to make them physically look like they were, and possible technology to change them mentally to something closer to what they were, they can't simply reverse the changes. My general philosophy when it comes to mind-control or mental alteration which is meant to be permanent, and not something like a hypnotic state, is that there's no reset switch. You might be able to change someone back so that they're mostly like they were (or at more likely what you think they were), but there's always something that's changed, if nothing else the memories and experiences are going to have an effect.


Thank you! I wholeheartedly agree. And that's a lot of what makes it so erotic.
The only exception I'll accept is if the designer (and the author) build a reverse-engineer capability into a product and that allows for the 'pointers' to memories to be reset or the person's mind has been 'backed up' if you will.

Mind alteration is not exactly the same as mind control. That's why I'm a huge fan of corruption in stories. It shows the alteration.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 15th, 2013, 9:25 pm

Tecknophyle wrote:First question second: they can't turn them back to normal, and not because no one has the equipment Temar used to change them in the first place anymore. Even though they have the technological capability to make them physically look like they were, and possible technology to change them mentally to something closer to what they were, they can't simply reverse the changes.


I should add something else: remember that many of the people being controlled (Marx, Hogan being prime examples) were upper-end members of a military dictatorship. Marx was about to start her own coup. Her cousin (now a cat-person) was to be the shooter. Hogan ran an internal security battalion, basically the Elysian SS. Karla was the former head of intelligence.

They weren't necessarily very pleasant people. In general terms, a bunch of authoritarian war criminals. It's not really in the Alliance's interest, at least for the moment, to even bother trying to reverse the mental changes because they have them under control.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 26th, 2013, 10:10 pm

Stuck with a job she didn't look for and really doesn't want, Athena, flush off her victory over Temar, is trying to get things in order but doesn't know that the mysterious Centrum is about to appear in Elysia. Meanwhile, on the Forge, the drones making up the Centrum collective are facing a crisis as the AI known as Charlie begins making some questionable choices due to his infatuation with the resurrected scientist Willu Ganderon. And when the Forge arrives, tragedy strikes the Alliance.

Episode 23 of Janissary is now available in the Member's Area at http://www.mccomix.com/members/gallery3 ... Episode-23
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby michaelscheppard » August 27th, 2013, 7:53 am

i hope this is just a fake out
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Adon » August 27th, 2013, 11:01 am

Maybe... considering what they do to live captives, they'd be better off blown up?

I suspect a fake-out too, but not necessarily that it will be a good thing for Athena at least. Worse, I'm definitely convinced now that Willu has been a very, VERY bad influence on 'Charlie'. Yeah, she doesn't seem to have any of the compassion that made Charlie bond with her in the first place, but think about it... we were told that when she was in her statue state, she was still conscious and was reliving the moments leading up to it over and over again without stop. She's been in that state for I'm not sure how long... but waaaaaay too long for a mind to come out without a lot of damage. It shows in her callous attitude towards the drones in general. This latest act, making them into duplicates of herself, is even worse.

See, as I understand it, while the drones appear to be emotionless, they're not. They just don't express it externally, and don't need to since they're all connected to each other. Further, they see the network as wonderful... that converting others is a gift, and being converted is a positive thing. As the last 'Centrum' chapter demonstrates, though, Willu is not part of that network, and views the drones as expendable things to mistreat as she wishes. The clenched fist shows that this has NOT gone unnoticed, either, and that it isn't appreciated. And the warnings of the network being compromised are being ignored, which is probably going to lead to their downfall. It sounds like each new Willu-duplicate is being yanked from the network with brute force... kind of like just deleting a file that needs to be uninstalled. It leaves nasty holes that the surrounding code is unable to cope with because they haven't got any instructions as to how to mend that hole. Worse... the whole thing seems to be an act of pure narcissism on Willu's part. Sure, each individual Willu is smart, but being all functionally identical that doesn't mean that any of them will be able to offer additional insights that one could not.

In an odd way, I feel sorry for the drones. While I am against the loss of individuality, their core 'truth' has been upended since Willu came along. Now their master is behaving strangely, and this outsider is disrupting their harmony in a huge way. Makes one wonder... are the drones capable of rebelling? Yeah, they've likely got all kinds of obedience hard-wired into them, but they also have that machine-like logic. The whole 'laws of robotics' come to mind, and it doesn't seem totally out of the question that they decide that they best serve their master by ignoring his commands since they are currently flawed due to outside influence.

Just speculating. Great stuff, as usual.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 27th, 2013, 11:31 am

Adon wrote:She's been in that state for I'm not sure how long... but waaaaaay too long for a mind to come out without a lot of damage.


Roughly 80 years.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Tecknophyle » August 27th, 2013, 11:47 am

I'd just like to say that, as a writer, nothing pleases me more than having readers speculate on what was meant by having certain things happen in a story and questioning characters motivations and goals, because that means I have, in a small way, created something that people can speculate about. So please, carry on.
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Re: Jannisary announcements and comments

Postby Adon » August 27th, 2013, 7:45 pm

Well, you are one of the most thought-provoking writers here, yaknow.

I was pondering the question of Charlie... namely, how after 80 years he quickly reverts to being eager-to-please when it comes to Willu. But then it occurred to me: he's never really had a chance to 'mature' in all that time. Every time he's come across another being, he would convert them at the earliest opportunity. As such, he's only had Centrum to interact with, and Centrum would by its nature never disagree with him on anything. So in a sense, he's had no reason to mature since his decisions were never questioned, and they all seemed to work out. This has also given him the opportunity to obsess over Willu all that time, which likely put her on a truly astonishing pedestal that it would be nigh impossible for him to look at her objectively. And, since Willu effectively defined what was right and wrong for him all of his life, she goes right back to doing that when she returns. He doesn't I think really understand organic minds well enough to realize that all those years being trapped in a nightmare took its toll on her, since he doesn't seem to have noticed how her outlook has changed pretty radically from before.

This will, I sort of hope, alter the relationship between him and Centrum. Previously, while he acted as their unquestioned master, he never *mistreated* them. He acted on the same value system that they had... that organic life needed to be improved by conversion into Centrum, and that conversion was an act of uplifting people to a higher state. They never had a reason to question him, since he never actively abused them. Now, though, he's treating them with disdain. Look at his answer to their cautions: that everything's fine because he's in control. That's not really an answer at all... and it would reduce him to micromanaging every aspect of the network that becomes compromised. Something he doesn't really seem keen on doing since he's being sexed up by the Willu posse. Now the drones are effectively being 'killed' when turned into Willu-clones. Which makes me wonder if Centrum will act in order to preserve its own existence.
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