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Sidonian Vigor
A Thank You.

A Thank You.

Now, now. It’s not over. I’ll start by saying that much. SV’s grave has not been dug. It will be taking a long nap however. I want to get some things out of the way, and ask of you, the reader, on your input. If you are reading this, then you have been with me through quite a lot, and for that, I thank you humbly – I value your opinion greatly. Feel free to comment on anything I have to say, and in general ask me about anything in this chapter. There are many minor spoilers regarding overall things that are to come, but nothing specific, and by time any of them would come to be, you’d probably either have forgotten, or will not even read them by that point.

I don’t think there will be an Epilouge – I just haven’t thought of it until now. Just so that you’re aware.

The Future of SV

This world will not be going anywhere. I already know what will happen plotwise in the story, what new characters will be introduced, and so on and so forth, it’s not that the road ends here, which you may have guessed already by the fact that there are so many open stories and seeds planted in the past 80 chapters, like Rei still being alive (If you didn’t catch that survivor brought in by Mystic at the end of the Freigat arc) or the entire Shepard side of things, and much more, in the form of all the characters that A/C have interacted with that have not met their untimely ends.

The end of the chapter 80 is certainly a set-piece, truth be told, but it is what I would consider the end to a volume. I am currently planning to have the next volume of SV start from the perspective of two brand new characters, and then slowly shift back to A/C over time. These two new characters are Alisson and Celis’s new apprentices.

Anyway, the next volume will feature less paranormal/horror stuff, and much more social interactions and drama between people, nations, and hopefully battles and action will be limited to the command perspective for the most part. I don’t know if I want to make this next volume a completely new fiction on RR, or just add it to this one, but this is something you as the reader may influence my decision on – I am leaning more on the new fiction side of things, I want to create the second volume as something new readers can jump into, as a bit of a soft reboot of the series when I do come back to it.

It might be a bit of a spoiler but, the new volume, if it was a new fiction, would simply be named ‘Alisson of the Rebellion.’ Or maybe ‘SV: Alisson of the Rebellion’.

Now, onto the elephant in the room, why is SV halting for a while? Well, if the large gaps in update haven’t made it clear, there are two reasons for this. One, I’m quite burnt out of this world. I used to write in the beginning because looking upon and rereading my own writing brought me such satisfaction, but quite early on, this fascination faded, and I’ve been writing for the simple fact to finish at the good place to leave off, and it’s worn me out quite a bit, which is why I’m framing the next volume as a pseudo-restart, because I foresee some time before it comes.

Then, there’s the fact that I’ve been more and more weighed down my responsibility and work in real life. I don’t believe I have to go into detail about this, but I will say that I’m very anxious for my future, and if only for this reason perhaps, I may wait tepidly in silence as the dice reveal their odds.

Then, there is the issue of the foundation that this story has been built on, truth be told, I would rather not follow SV whilst it’s supports were put up by an imbecile that was the author two years ago. The author two years ago was a naïve, inexperienced one, that knew nothing of priorities, if SV has given me anything, it is a plethora of writing experience, and with that, I hope that anything I write in the future, may have stronger baselines. That’s another reason I want to make a brand new fiction as the second volume, and distance myself from the poorly made aspects of the world.

My words on SV

SV means a lot to me. In a sense, I see some piece, or pieces, of myself, within the whole cast, but chiefly Alisson and Celis. Many times have I thought about making a tear jerker section here, at the end of SV, about myself, but, I will refrain, for the realization that this is just me indulging in my narcissism. However, I must say what I have thought many a time: SV is not fantasy because of the magic or the monsters or what have you; It is fantasy because that person does not exist. There will never be the ‘other’ you are looking for. They may be out there, but you will never find them, never cross paths so organically and story-like, to be pushed together though external means. You must either lower your expectations, or be doomed to loneliness. Imagine how much differently this story would’ve come out, if Alisson was alone the entire way through it. Just silence, and emptiness, forever, he would come across those that smiled and radiated with warmth, but none would extend their hand to him, and him, being too prideful, would never ask for it.

I can tell you all the places that I’ve cried at while writing SV. The first time I think was at Whispering winds, when Sylph was abandoned at the very end. Then, Rapport. No real tears, but it almost brought me there, for whatever reason. Then there was the grass desert. When Alisson awoke from his dream, to the line ‘we’re both stupid’, I did cry very much there. Then there was Galvanize, a little there. A little at Puppeteer. But the really big one, was Epiphany, that was definitely the most that I’ve cried when writing SV. Then, a little at Source, and a decent amount at Harsh Winds, Soft Words.

I couldn’t tell you why exactly I cried when writing these specific parts. My guess is that they were just too relatable to me, and at the moment of writing it, I was suffering through some mental affliction or what have you that made me easier to shed tears.

In chapter 80, I was considering adding an extra chapter. “ A false reality”, wherein Celis awakes alone to face Rickard, not bothering Alisson with it, and dies whilst fighting him. Alisson awakes, and sees Celis dead, and takes his own life out of sadness. The Machavelli arrives, and the Sidonian search party scour the island, only to come upon a eerily silent picture of Celis and Alisson dead.

There was meant to be, and perhaps still will be, a slime-girl and a dog-girl as companions to Alisson’s party in SV. The slime would wrap around their bodies, and act as a sort of exoskeleton, increasing strength and protection, and being able to morph whoever they are attached to in physical appearance, and take the shape of anything as a bit of an illusion master. The dog on the other hand is essentially a mute, sexually frustrated swordsmen that speaks very little, but would serve side by side Alisson as a frontliner. There are some hints already in SV regarding these characters, chiefly one line about slimes from way back, and a few hints here and there about ‘Sabasa’, which I will refrain from commenting further about. The reason I put this here is because these two characters are more of a couple of fantastical additions rather than integral pieces to SV, just side characters that would add flavor, yet despite that they take up a very large portion of my thought on SV. They’re like Lady Salchyon. A character that is here and there, but really doesn’t change much in the story. Oh, I wish I could’ve fit more of Louise into the later parts, but it just didn’t make sense, in the next volume, she will have, probably, a more prevalent role, most immediately in that she and Alisson duel upon his return, to see who will truly take Ardinand’s number 2 ranking. Oh yeah, Lackadaisical exists, and Ardinand. They will be more prevalent going forward too, just like Salchyon and Maccu. I was going to have Lackadaisical rot in jail until eventually Alisson rolled up onto the Andestine homeland, but I think now that realistically, Sidonia would just send Serendipity to wrench him free. The ensuing interaction between the three will be quite interesting.

I don’t really know what to write else here. For so long I thought I would prop this chapter up as some sort of solemn recollection, endowing words of wisdom whilst revealing my own life, and completely ranting and rambling about myself here, to my readers, whom I hold so highly for reading something that is so interpersonal with me, like I have some sort of mythical connection to you or something. But I realize now that it would be out of order, to each their own, after all. I will say this: That no one I know personally, that is, outside of this site, has read SV. For so long I resented that, that if I could meet someone who’d willingly read my writing that they’d immediately be so amiable to me, but obviously that is a naïve hope.

Now however, I’m quite sure of myself in the fact that no one I know reads what I write, it is in some capacity my own little space, completely separate from the real world. As I enter the real world, it will remain as some childish play-place of the mind. I feel it’s important in that sense to have some creative, childish place you can escape to, and fantasize, whether it be in music or drawing, just somewhere where you can create. That’s why in part I’ve never tried to make money off of SV, or my 3D art. Partly because I deem myself far under confident in taking clients, but also because everything I have made has been solely from within me.

But, anyway, I need some kind of conclusion to make. Writing SV has helped me grow as both a writer and person, as it helped me realize many of my own problems in my life, and you readers probably have a more intimate understanding of me than anybody I know privately, even if you don’t realize it.

The Future of the Author’s Writing

I already have a great deal of pilots/early ideas, that have been in the making for a while. I took a lot of lessons learnt from SV, and let me share with you some of the pilots, starting with those I am most likely to write to those I am unlikely to. Even if you aren’t interested, you might find the ideas at the very least as food for thought, or to use them as food for your own stories. Good artists copy, Great Artists steal, after all.

Tower at the end of time –

A very short story. Essentially, it starts off with the second to last man on earth being killed by the last man on earth. A string of wars have left Earth in the distant future in an endless nuclear winter, where only the silent blowing wind and rustling of leave-less trees remain, as all life has been virtually wiped out. The Soldier, (he will not be given a name I do believe) stumbles upon a lone tower amidst the wastelands of war, and meets a little Librarian. The tower holds humanity’s last chance at revitalizing itself, as well as all the books and knowledge ever hosted by humanity – The Librarian needs a human’s approval to initiate the process though, but will the Solider, who has lived in nothing but hell and war for his entire life, a grizzled and defeated man, really restart humanity? And give man a second chance? Or will he simply let man die out with him; he ponders, as he stares dully at the revolver on the table before him.

This is one that I will most likely be writing next. It is small scale, and scratches my itch of dead worlds. That voidly emptiness of a dying world, where everything is still and silent across a snowed wasteland that once hosted life. That sense of hopelessness and finality, it is like thinking of close loved ones passing away, and your life progressing faster and faster until it is over, hopeless to stop the march of time, insignificant. It will essentially just be two characters talking the entire time, the Soldier telling the story of humanities downfall, and the Librarian trying to convince him that humanity isn’t that bad. The problem with the Librarian’s persuading is that, she is not human, and shows no emotion herself.

CN Lewd –

Another large one, not in terms of SV large, but large. This story deals with another of my vices, the issues of purity, innocence, prudence, that sort of thing. I’ll say it right now, it feature chiefly rape as one of its driving issues. You are readers of SV, so when you hear that, I do know that you understand that a story that includes something does not mean immediately that the story is pro-whatever that is; in the same vain that Huckleberry Fin and To Kill a Mockingbird Include racism, despite being anti-racist stories. I’ve written a little bit planning for it, so I will just leave that here:

The forces of light, to gain more power, appealed to the belief of humans, and humanified themselves to better fight darkness, and an age of peace fell over the world, where humanity was dominant. The gods Darkness did the same, just as the gods humanity turned their backs on humanity because they stopped worshiping the gods. A war ensued wherein the forces of darkness, aided by their gods, had the upper hand.

During the war, the hero meant to stop the dark forces switches sides, and becomes the ‘Fake Hero’, the dark king. So, the forces of darkness beat back humanity, and plunge the world into chaos, and only the one island nation remains strong. They have a culture of prudence and purity, and were once pacifists who had only a small number of powerful, fearsome fighters, but the threat of darkness forced the nation to drastically militarize, and managed to stave off the blunted tip of the darkness’s forces, before the fake hero himself lead his main army to the island.

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The island nation’s forces were disintegrated, and the royal family was killed. The queen, slaughtered in her keep. The warrior king, killed along with his Gardes, buying time for the princess to escape. The princess and her half brother manage to get out of immediate danger, and they seemed safe, until the half brother is killed, and princess, is left defenseless. Instead of killing the princess like they were ordered to, the orcs/goblins under a lone, old warlord, decide to take her back to their burrow on the mainland.

The princess is violated, subjugated to the worst humiliations. However, she remains strong, and rather than break her will, the treatment only serves to strengthen her resolve. She summons the willpower to escape after seeing mind broken girls, destined to never leave the burrow. She uses her wits and stealth to escape, perhaps failing several times before escaping. Perhaps she only succeeds because she receives a blessing from her patron deity. On the road to the city state, naked, and dirtied, she meets an old man, whom imparts the words of advice to not talk to anyone, and stay off the roads when in human territory. He gives her his cape to cover her up, and a small pouch of gold, but has to go on his way, for he himself is in a larger convoy, reporting the demise of the island nation to the city state.

The story will essentially revolve around this violated princess, who is enslaved in a city state, and is further subjected to disgusting atrocities by means of her own fellow humans this time - However, she may yet rise from a slave of a meager city state, to the warrior monarch of a valiant rebellion against all things evil and impure. The attitude of the story is essentially ‘Gotta protek dat smile’ As the princess has been subjected to bad things herself, and doesn’t want the same fate to befall those around her. She will lose quite a bit of her humanity after being subjected to such horror, but slowly, through the warmth of those that she protects, she finds her own place in the world, and learns to accept who she is and what has happened to her. The world will be quite dark, and unforgiving, so the few beacons of wholesomeness and warmth will be bright and need to be well guarded. It will be borrowing a couple recycled characters from SV, the aforementioned dog-girl and perhaps slime-girl from earlier. The dog-girl so far has actually been quite changed from the SV archetype it is derived from, but the essence of a swordsmen companion is still there, specifically, the main character raises this dog-girl from the slums from a pitiful puppy, to fiercely protective watchdog.

The world will be something of a first for me: Some sort of skill/stat system will be in place, put in place by the divines that govern the world, and one of these gods, is essentially in aid-de-camp with the main character, and gives her the ability to essentially allocate stats, and see hp and stuff like that, whereas others cannot. Her power may grow perhaps, based on how many people pray to her or her attached deity; essentially, a holy army fighting on the front lines while an entire people pray behind them for their strength. Perhaps the progression of the story would be revolve around rebuilding the old religion, and thus strengthen herself and her knights, empowered through the divine will of the gods. More nationbuliding, politics focused, than SV, with far more of a dip into religion. The main character will essentially have to bulid her own military from the ground up to fight the forces of darkness.

But honestly, I’m not sure if it will see the light of day, because of its heavy undertones of rape and other things that I will omit. I’d either have to leave it out, like I did with Alisson’s abuse by Appy - I.E things that are implied to be bad, but never described - or I may have to find a different site willing to host such depraved things. I don’t know if I’ve said this before but I will state it again: That without the darkness and terrible things in a story, you cannot have any real brightness in it. The more dark the world, the brighter those few beacons in them appear, the more rare, and valuable, they are, the more they must be protected.

The reason why this story exists at all is because of my own hatred for the subject matter, I was sick and tired of seeing such circumstances play out, unpunished, never resolved, never rectified, and left to run free.

CN BV238 –

More of a vague haze of a world than a real story. No real concrete characters, but I’ve fantasized a lot about the world. It will be sort of a mix between steampunk and fantasy. The world is an endless sky, massive monsters in thick clouds stop people from descending too far, and lone floating islands of isolated peoples live sparsely throughout a seemingly infinite world. One such isolated people is on the brink of collapse, as monsters threaten their island, and it crumbles away by the day. They make one last valiant push to liberate an ancient airship, and send a small expedition of warriors abord it to try and find salvation for themselves. By the nature of the world, air combat is prevalent, and most people use fighter planes and large airships with guns on them, but this particular isolated people, from both their roots and their history of having to fight monsters on ground, have a method of letting people fly mostly freely, essentially think Strike Witches or Youjo Senki’s mages. These air-units would be far more maneuverable and pack more punch than normal fighter planes, but they’d be more vulnerable, and far slower. There’s tons of other disjoined information, but I’ll leave it at that, I just find the idea very novel, and it may come to light as a short story expose rather than a real narrative. It’s named after a German hydroplane, the BV-238, the idea of the main group’s airship.

CN Moribund –

This is another epic sort of story, like SV, very long. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve recently lost interest in it, so it’s quite well developed, but not high on my list. It takes my interests of nobility and a unified people and sicks that on space. I will be quite brief about this, as most of what I have thought about are specific events, contrary to other story ideas.

Essentially, humanity is bound to but a single solar system. They have migrated a great many times, as planets fall, and seed ships are sent in every direction possible at a vague attempt at survival. But now, it seems the only pocket of humanity remains in one system, and they are alone, against two alien factions. These two factions are not alien in that they are still sentient beings that can talk and interact, but rather they are forces of nature – One is an inorganic, machine orientated, soulless network – rogue battleships and fleets appear at seemingly random and with no defined objectives. The other force is an organic parasitic lifeform, a hivemind of sorts, of creatures that can be as small as ping pong balls or as large as planets. These two forces however, battle each other, and as the story goes on, we get hints that they are actually far more intelligent than they seem, they humanity as tool to attack each other, for instance.

Humanity, shunted away as nothing but an obstacle in between a great galaxy wide battle between these aliens, have actually endured a century of peace before the story starts. People are becoming lax, the orbital defense network is receiving less funding, the Dread Barons’ power is waning, and people are forgetting the sacrifices of thousands of generations before them to ensure their survival. That is, until, of course, they are attacked once more. The only habitable planet in the system is quickly invaded and evacuated, and completely falls as humanity is once more packed into their ships in space. The noble factions, the Dread Barons, humans that are allowed the gift of immortality and given the responsibility of leadership through crisis, fracture into civil war, even as the innocents are slaughtered by the alien threat, each house becoming their own, independent, rogue fleet, trying to carve out their own section of the system for themselves.

Among it all, there is one noble who has been born a bastard, Elouise. She recognizes that humanity will fall for good if it does not unite, so, through the fires and chaos of civil war and foreign invasion, she builds her own fleet, her own faction, and sets off on a merciless campaign to unify humanity under one noble Dread Baron: herself.

That would be a volume, that unification, but once she is the autocrat of all of humanity, that is, what is left of it, she still has the task of fighting off and finding a away to ensure humanity’s safety.

Meta side of things: Ship girls. Lot’s of ship girls. The space combat would be in the vain of Halo’s space combat, a dozen ships where you know all their names and abilities, against another dozen ships, instead of fleets of thousands of the same vessel. It will feature a talk of politics, but once Elouise establishes herself, a lot of nation building stuff. Keep in mind however, that the entire story would be relegated to a single star system. This story assumes that FTL travel is impossible, and that only the ginormous seed ships, of the story features one of, would ever stand to make the journey to another system.

Especially in the later sections, heavy undertones of despair will be prevalent. Elouise’s veteran fleets, she will watch be obliterated before her eyes, as it becomes more and more prevalent that there is nothing she can do to stop humanity from being completely wiped out.

CN Herald –

Not sure on length, but I am quite sure of the world. It will be a story heavily focused on religion and war. The world is an endless flat plain, dominated by three factions in constant war. The technology level will be some kind of blend of 20th and 21st century, where you can have a battlefield with vast trench networks but at the same time combat mechs and large deep-desert vehicles. Cities are far and few between, but are large and heavily fortified. Trains roll into them from lands afar, carrying fresh men for the war effort who all share the fact that they have no idea where they have come from. People do not have children, and life revolves around the war effort. You either farm food for the soldiers, make arms for the soldiers, or are a soldier, or are an officer. Officers receive orders from superiors they have never seen, far away, behind the lines, who are fighting wars of their own.

There is only one path of life that offers freedom, the life of a mercenary. Small bands of mercenaries flit between whatever faction is paying them at that moment.

One such group of mercenaries were patrolling the deserts one day when they found a great wreckage among the sands, and within, they found something that none of them had ever seen before – A child. Not knowing what else to do, they took the child in, and the leader of the mercs raised her as one of them. This is the main character, a sniper who has known only war, and is left with the mystery of where she has come from. The story starts with her as one of the few independent mercs, given by the fact she owns her own shoddy mech, her long-range abilities make her a valuable asset.

Whilst on a routine employment, mopping up a distant convoy with the large cannon of her mech whilst coordinating friendly air strikes, something she has never seen before falls into her sniping position from the sky. With a halo, and large wings, there is only one thing this newcomer can be described as: an angel. At gun point, the angel tries to explain herself that she has been sent by God to spread His love to this war-torn land of misery. The sniper is dubious, but the angel is clearly not a threatening presence.

Over the course of the story, the sniper, persuaded somehow by the angel or having experienced something, begins to bulid her own mercenary band. The mercs take interest in the angel’s talks, at first regarding the angel as a crazy lunatic, having never heard of ‘religion’ or ‘God’, but over the course of the story, they slowly become devout believers, and believe in His core values of love and peace. This small mercenary band, will yet grow with an agenda, to become Peacebringers, with the goal of subduing the entire world under peace, and put an end to the forever war.

It’s inspired by the likes of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, and Chromehounds. Which I’m sure that no one reading this has heard of. There isn’t much more to it that what there is above, there are some set-pieces I have fantasized about, but that’s it. I feel it’s a very strong baseline, if I were to write this, I know going into it exactly what the themes are. That isn’t to say that it is explicitly said ever in the story whether this ‘God’ the angel speaks of is real, or even if she’s telling any sort of truth. And for that matter, where did she really come from? What lies above in those thick clouds high in the sky?

Yes, sounds a lot like CN BV238, and that’s because I’m still on the fence about whether or not the worlds they take place in are the same, but I’m leaning to the side that they are completely separate.

CN Rich –

As the title implies, the main character is rich. It takes place in the distant future, where America has fallen. Like the 2030s or so. There won’t be any big combat, contrary to every other fic I’ve thought of. It will be more of an introspective about what the world is doing now that may lead it to collapse. The main character comes from a rich, ‘noble’ family, and uses her connections and wits to arrange deals and make the most of a future modern world wherein the largest nations have mostly all collapsed, leading to anarchy. Just an idea, it doesn’t stem further than that. I think there was something about the mc playing a VRMMO game, and that was the focus, and like, being rich and all outside the game, she can influence it from the outside. And that since the world is so shit, everyone escapes to the VR games or whatever…something something…

CN Solo –

A typical MMORPG BS story, where ‘ wow we’re trapped in the vidya game’ except, the main character, figures, that his greatest threat are the other players. So as soon as he realizes what’s going on, he kills every last other player, within like, the span of five minutes. He does this by the fact that you gain XP when killing players, a lot of it, enough for him to level up when he kills one person, which not only regenerates his health, but also makes him stronger, so before anyone knows what’s happening, they’re killed by some guy who’s way over their level, and even if every tries to band together, he just get’s healed whenever he gets a level.

So like, everyone’s dead, and the totally edgy cool mc spends the rest of the story beating the game, contemplating if what he did was the right thing. Yeah, he should she the angel from CN Herald, he needs god.

But what is that prick on his shoulder? Could it be? Is there someone watching him from afar? Could he have perhaps not killed everyone as he had thought? Scary. That, imo, would be scary, you think you’re alone in a game, but you have the feeling that you’re not, and you have no idea if that other person wants you dead for what you did.

There’s some potential here, but I think the whole ‘trapped in game’ sentiment has been done a million times over. If I would do this, it would be as short story, most definitely. There is some part of me that really wants to write a game world story, just for the hell of it.