Changelings, part 3 · 10:09am Jun 25th, 2019
Alright, after some rest, my head is starting to work again. No, seriously, I was completely braindead after finishing "Hals of the Changeling King". Any story idea, any thought just didn't lead anywhere. It was like standing in a tiny square room and turning every way just revealed a blank, white wall I could bang my head against.
Now, the important part. Since I like things coming in threes for no reason at all, I've decided to write a final part of the New Hive (also, trilogy sounds cooler than bilogy, duology, or whatever it would be otherwise). No, I don't count "Hard to find the right words" as a part of the trilogy. The new part that's going to be a critical this time, though, is that I want to finish off Silver Sun as well. This will either turn out to be a perfect connection of the New Hive into the world, or a horrible mutated chimera of a story that will cast eternal shame onto the other changeling and Silver Sun stories.
So, the next up - boss, Cromach, One, Contradiction, Three, Bubbles, Gem, Five, Astray, Two, Anvil- okay, that's too long. It will be a crazy overloaded cast, which certainly is a point for the mutant abomination of a story. Well, we'll see how it turns out, if it turns out. Right now, I'm starting the prelimiary planning stage to see if I can make any sense out of the idea.
As for Legacy of Light, for now I'll keep it on the random update list. I've got about two more chapters planned out before I have to plan out next part, which means at least the next two might not take few months each.
And finally, the big two things.
I'm going to need a name for the boss.
I don't have time or idea to make a cover art now.
Boss's name?
Metamorph ('cause he changed from drone to king) or Apotheosis (for much the same reason)
My thoughts, i may be talking nonsense:
One - take your time , let it sit in your head or scrapbook until you have a firm idea of where every major/medium sized puzzle piece fits, there is nothing worse than writing yourself into a corner. Huge cast of characters is a problem, you either need to shuffle some in the background, or prepare for a long haul. Keep a design doc to keep track of them, their relations with each other, etc.
Two - If the New Hive had long enough time to live with dwarves i would expect them to have a decently sized population(well,WELL below the number that would cause problems with overfeeding,but still more than a hundred/thousand, i dont remember if you stated how many dwarves are there),and perhaps excavated a part of the city for themselves, also boss produced a grand total of a SINGLE changeling, a very nice and drugs changeling, but a single spawn for kinda eusocial race?
Three - boss continues to improve as a King, i mean book two he was a lot better than book one, as he becomes more familiar with running things both on dwarf and hive mind level i expect him to improve. It seems he just leaves his changelings alone if there is no emergency. There is a delicate balance between control freak and not doing anything.
Four There is a wealth of Silversmith tech sitting there, Granite wants that. Actually i think every dwarf wants that. If they didnt grab it there needs to be a reason. Actually understanding the tech may take them a few... hundred?Thousand? years.
Five(a joke) Okay,here is what you do. Send the deep core miners, grab some titanium. Make a spine out of it. Surgically implant it into the Boss. He met Chrysalis and just rolled over and let her do whatever she wanted.
Name - Lets go on a tangent. Changelings are born with armor on, it is very proper, dwarven and traditional. Workers are very diggy diggers and very miney miners, it is very proper, dwarven and traditional. Warriors, especially high tier are very fighty fighters, it is also very proper, dwarven and traditional. Infiltrators are also very proper, dont question it. I said dont question it. Here, Gem made some drugs.
What im getting to is you can try something dwarven for his name, or mix of dwarven and changeling.
Below are a few ideas for names. None of them stand out for me, but they might for you.
apodeme: connective ingrowth of exoskeleton
lekker ynsekt: 'nice insect' in Frisian
tàcharan: Changeling in Scott-Gaelic
vaihdokas: Changeling in Finnish
thulduk: dwarf word
delvar: dwarf name
beelove: coworker's idea (bee-love)
lustant: coworker's idea (lust-ant)
Apposite: pertinent & appropriate
Germane: relavent and appropriate
measgaich: 'mixer' in Scott-Gaelic
5079719
I really dislike Metamorph. It's too generic and I'm 100% sure it's already a name in thousands of ling fics. Apotheosis is great, but it means ascension to godhood as far as I know which directly contradicts boss' personality.
5079732
1 - yeeeah, though my world already has a ton of characters with various kinds of friendships, rivalries, and backgrounds. The trick will be to make the story readable without the knowledge of entire Trinity War, preferably accessible with only the knowledge of the New Hive stories, or at worst New Hive and Silver Sun stories. And it's going to take some time even before the first chapter. I need enough ideas to fill something that needs to be big straight becasue of character count.
2 - Well, he spawned one, but Eight(now One) spawned 2,5,6,7,11. Plus, his earliest experiences were starving partially out of overpopulation. Amount of lings isn't a big deal, I certainly do think that he would want a real hive underground, and would need some additional forces, especially if he would want some more quality than just holes in the ground.
3 - I do believe this will be a big point, and, funnily enough, Cromach has very similar experiences. Totally not a situational pairing I've been thinking about a lot, heheh.
4 - Yep, I'll be using "dwarves are researching stuff" logic for justifying not walking around with a fully charged BFG and Stompy. Without the dark priest control, there could be some disputes about old tech remaining in the ruined enclave and possibly other Silversmith caches Stompy might know about.
5 - I think this falls under point 3, and I think this will be eating boss inside, at least a bit, although doing so worked out for the best.
Dwarven name? King Lager Guzzler!
5079909
I'd rather avoid simply using any variation of changeling/love eater/shapeshifter in any normal but non-English language.
No, right now I'm toying with the name "Wildcard" which I think fits. It's by no means final, and it's not actually relevant to the boss, but to the world outside, because it's time the New Hive took their place on the surface.
5080267
Sounds like your creative juices are already starting to flow again. Keep up the good work, while I go back and read the Silver Sun Arc.
5080267
It means...
I would argue the second definition is the most accurate for this.
Well. We could be cheeky and call him Tyrannus. Another one could be rex (king).
Occisor memoriae. (memory killer) because... you know... he killed the old hive memories. Or Pater amantes. (loving father).
More reason to keep catching up since I don't know what Silver Sun is!
5080537
King Beard it is! Cryo will be proud.
5083588
You'll get there, or if you don't, no big deal. My intention is to make it readable for people with knowldge of only New Hive stories.
5083591
...Barba Rex. (king beard) because latin