Kaily came up with a damn good story idea. · 9:16am Jun 2nd, 2018
I wont be going into the full details, because this idea is good and I am using it. How good? It would make a great game, novel, movie, and videogame. This is a damn good multi-media idea.
In short, "So you're writing a lot of tank combat. What if those tanks were human built drones, each with a personality of sorts. What if one of them was Twilight?"
There's way more to it than that. It would be a story exploring the early days of AI war-machines and some social implications of creating intelligent life.
Unfortunately, I'm doing two projects a week right now. I need to drop SOMETHING if I wanna do this one, and I can't drop a story I've been payed to write. I am VERY tempted to drop Flesh and Bone like a hot potato and write this story instead. But I want feedback from you guys. People don't seem to be enjoying F&B much (few comments, low readership), but hey, there could be a silent majority.
I'd like your opinions :3
EDIT
Looks like people want me to continue Flesh and Bone. No problem. This was win-win for me as now I know what my next project will be :3
The idea sounds intriguing..
Isn't that basically the tachicomas from ghost in the shell, cept one is twilight? Sorry, I draw connections to everything..
i rather like F&B the only real odd part is the tank, all i can think of is that if i can fit Celestia then it would be way to big for normal ponies. then add a toilet. but i like it as it is. I was kinda feeling that some of the other characters had started to become OP somewhat, but thats just me
I myself enjoy F&B a lot and, well, would like for it to be continued. The tank combat is incredibly exciting but I do attribute that to the crew. I also favor the tanks to be 'simple' machines instead of personalities.
And then there's the thing with NFire's Legacy... Though, hmmm, your concept does sound different... yeah, okay, nevermind. But it still gives me a way to compare it to F&B and, well, I like the theme of a crew in their ... 'normal' tank better, Hay, I would even have preferred the tanks actually being more normal, at least when that final battle was starting out. But then you put really nice restrictions on them, so... yeah.
In the end, it's still up to you and if you'd rather write another story, well we'll just have to read that one.
I do like reading F&B even though I may not comment, I’m just enjoying it the first time through. I think it would be best for you to think economically first, but some people might like the idea of you dropping a story less than a cooler story. Interested in the idea but I also like f&b, heh.
I like F&B too but usually it's late at night when i read and i'm too damn tire to comment
I personally have been enjoying F&B quite a bit myself. I feel it's been fun so far. And has potential to end up as quite a good story. I don't really want it canceled.
Yet...I can't help but wonder if it's what you really ought to be doing for your own happiness right now. You want people to be engaged enough with what you are writing to draw forth lots of comments. And you also seem to want to get some new readers looking at your stories.
I would think that all of your normal readers are enjoying F&B as another novel by an writer they've read a lot from. And want to keep reading more from. But while it is a different story. And certainly doesn't feel like you're re-treading old ground. It also doesn't really feel massively different then some of your older works in tone or scope as of yet. I think a lot of people who are reading F&B have read ALL of your past stories. And might not quite feel that F&B is really that stand out from some of your other works.
I think your fans like it. But I don't think it's really going to increase in popularity.
I think the massive success of your commissioned story really showcases that people VERY much enjoy reading writing that you do. Yet they also need a hook to start reading in the first place. A concept that catches them very well. A cover picture that really draws the eye. A description that really grabs hold of people.... Sure the overall concept wasn't your idea. But most good concepts amount to nothing at all without a good writer working on it. It's YOUR success in writing that drove the popularity of that story
I think what you really need is the hook to reel in new readers. And F&B just doesn't seem to have that.
So in the end I would say.... If you have an idea for a new project. Try it out. You are a very VERY creative person. And I'm sure you'll write a massively interesting story. And if it has enough of a hook..Who knows. Maybe it'll draw in new readers.
though if you wanted. I'd suggest throwing up a poll. And maybe some concept writing for your patrons to see if the new concept is something that seems good.
4874650 On the surfice yes. But we found a way to take the concept and do a solid 10 on the scifi hardness scale with it while also making it a fun story. I dont want to post too much details in a public form because the full idea is marketable.
4874652 Other characters? Please elaborate.
4874672 I could easily post them durring the day time. I used to get a lot of attention posting them at midnight my time. This seems to no longer be true. What time works for you? Give me a range of hours with a timezone.
4874657 Oh, no. THe idea is that the tank is a drone controlled remotly by a single AI. There's no crew at all. This is something we almost already have right now IRL. South Korea has semi-autonomous drone tanks on the DMZ. They require a human to fire them via a remote uplink. But eventually we will have 100% automated tanks. There's a story in there.
4874681Fine points, Re. And I can shelve things for another day. From what I have seen here, I'll be writing this idea down to do next time.
4874795 Whoops. Ment to write exgirlfriend :P Bah, i'll just use her name.
4874807 She dosn't care? Its a first name. That's public info. People put it into facebook. Or do you ask every one of your friends "Hey, can I say your name when talking about you?"
As long as you don't cancel F&B entirely, I wouldn't mind reading this new story. Flesh and Bone is an incredibly interesting story, and I would like to at least read until after the inevitable griffon attack before a break happens. But hey, Go where your muse takes you.
4874815 I just asked. She would rather I use her real name and never her screen names because for both of us, keeping our online IDs as a private thing is more important.
4874819 It's cool. I'm able to keep ideas on the backburner for years (just ask my D&D players...). I'll do this idea in a few months when F&B is done. It would be nice if more people commented on it though.
Sounds quite fun. There've been similar ideas, actually, and I was planning on writing one myself. Have you ever heard of a Bolo? Essentially, an AI-controlled building-sized tank with a nuclear weapon as a main gun. Fractional-C fusing plasma tends to work quite well as a deterrent. Computerneek wrote one where the Mane Six got turned into various ones by some of Discord's shenanigans, but that's mostly a slice of life.
Tank battles or actual warfare offer an interesting idea, though...
I haven't seen one of those.
FB sounds interesting, though I have not read it yet. Too many people drop stories to start new ones, and I am happy you aren't doing that.
4874875
Hell, Nfire shipped Applejack with a bolo.
4874875 Yes I am familiar with Legacy. That being said, this is a similar concept, but would be more interesting as it could be written as a 5.5 on the simplified Mohs Scale of Sci-FI hardness. IE
See... You would only need an AI with the intellectual capacity of a human teenager to make for a good automated tank. You wouldn't even need to wait till we can make one as intelligent as an adult human. We might actually have the ability to make one of those in a decade or so. SO rather than going Bolo with awesome science-fantasy, this would go Hard Sci-Fi and do it's best to use plasuable near-future technologies.
I think it's more interesting without the pony aspects, to be honest.
I mean, how could a tank be Twilight? Is it really Twilight if she's not a pony, can't use magic, and probably won't be a bookworm? (I mean, you don't see many tanks at the local library.)
Maybe it's just me. If you think you can make it work, it's still a neat concept! And you know how much I like stories with AI, after all.
So, you're going to write MLP x BOLO crossover fanfiction?
4875051 Yeah it is more intresting as an orgional fic concept, but it could be written with some pony in it so I could post a version here XD
Like, say the overseer of a given unit gets some say in what the personality is like and requests a few things...
...and then someone decides to bootleg the tanks and add extra features. Some of that fancy iron-ball antiradar paint, some sort of active/adaptive camo (even without the kind that can look "invisible", it'd still be handy for helping with spoofing other tanks I bet, especially if they had extra hardware to spoof the originals' IFF codes and such with as well), extra exterior armor, instead of separate models focusing on enhancing strength, speed/agility, or output power just have a general model that balances all three (basically jack of all trades, master of none), heck, possibly even throw in some crude analogue of TSDS while we're at it. Heh, I bet with all that, the bootleg ones would confuse the heck out of the original models, wouldn't they?
(Well, I suppose that instead of original/bootleg models, it could be more like civilian/milspec models, dunno. Gotta watch out for some of that weird milspec programming, though. Especially if it has code to (semi-)slave a civilian model's chassis to its own AI control even when said chassis is already in use by a civilian AI.
Though now that I think about it, isn't civilian/milspec basically how Autobots/Decepticons happened? Personally, I find the Junkion side-faction more interesting, even if they are all a bunch of weirdos.
)
Either way, I can only imagine what'd happen if something were to then wipe out all the humans and leave all these AI drones to their own devices over the years, doing whatever it is they do or feel like doing, especially if they have the ability to build more of themselves over the years, resources permitting of course.
4875129
You don't need to imagine. They made a game about it. World of Tanks.
What? THere's no way AIs built for tank combat wouldn't have been built to LIKE tank combat.
Remember. When you wake up, ask for a name.
4875264 Wah?
4875319
To prevent confusion in copied AI, they must be given a new name upon activation. So they will be told this prior to copying.
I'm interested sorta, but this could go bad fast. Be careful, Meep, but I know you can make this idea work!
4875129
Extra features... Extra features...
Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking?
Because I'm thinking shotgun tanks.
Shotguns make everything better.