Is the mc going to find a tutor willing to teach them the language. Or someone going there to translate with people talking to them. Cuz those noble are wolf to mc that a sheep
That’s so cool. I’m studying politics but I can’t imagine myself ever getting into politics. I guess I’m more academic than anything else 
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Gosh, I love the attitude your mc has. It’s like he has no fear at all. The empress was assassinated and he’s like “I’m not sucking to the elites of this world!” even though he doesn’t know who killed her.
Funny you say that. Being a gay men in Atlantis isn’t seen in a negative light. Sure they might think it’ odd for two guys to be in love but they leave it be.
HOWEVER, the same cannot be said to lesbians. Since kinship is passed through the matrilineal, there’s a lot of pressure for females to have children to pass the family name. Of course lesbians can still have children but to the Atlantians it’s taboo for two females to publicly show their together.
Now thinking about, just in some parts in the West there’s art fetishising lesbians, it’s more common in Atlantian art that gay men are fetishised.
One little problem with this, marriage doesn’t exist in Atlantis 
. Children belong to their mother’s family, so your male mc doesn’t have to worry about being shackled to a wife.
The Atlantians go by the policy of whoever bears the child is the one who passes their family name to that child. Surrogacy is still controversial in Atlantis but allowed. Adoption is seen as okay but the imperial family has never had an adopted child become ruler (it’s actually forbidden for them to inherit the throne).
Though concubinage is practised in Atlantis, it’s only the elites who partake in it. Being promiscuous is not seen as something bad for any gender but such liberties of who you sleep with get restricted the higher your social position in society you become. Males of noble families are strongly encouraged to stick with other noble elites and not embarass their clans by sleeping with commoners… or worse, humans.
Since the empress hadn’t chosen an heir, it would be up to the imperial family as a whole to decide who will become ruler. And since the imperial family is really divided on who should rule, things were going to get messy very quickly.
On paper, that’s the case. In practice, the mc has little influence. As your mc gains more control, there will be opportunities to stripping the influence the nobles have.
In the game, it’s revealed by your sister that your grandmother is going to be forced to call a regency in order to help ‘assist’ the mc in ruling. The regency will likely end once the mc is seen as capable of ruling by themselves.
Then the question arises, who determines whether you’re capable to rule by yourself? And what test should they give you? Maybe a test in Advanced Atlantian High Literature 
?
I’m sure they wouldn’t be too happy having the island get destroyed a second time.
But your grandma is nice, wholesome person. As I stated before, there’s no marriage in Atlantis so you’re not becoming a slave to an “obnoxious wife”
Your grandma might have slight reservation about a male ruling over the country. After all, the First Atlantis got destroyed during the time when men ruled the throne. In Atlantian history, it was referred as ‘The Reign of King’. And it ended with a nasty civil war that almost destroyed the entire population of Atlantis.
But your grandma hopes since you’re the son of her daughter, that you too have the heart and stomach of a queen 
Trust me, even choosing an imperial tutor for your mc is going to be a political fight. Don’t forget, some want to capitalise on your inability to speak Atlantian and they will want a tutor who will be more sympathetic to their cause. But in short, you will get a tutor. What kind of tutor? Well, you’ll find out.
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Then can’t the mc simply declare big sis heir by decree and then abdicate? Assuming big sis agrees to the deal my mc wants of course/ 
Considering the mc is at the moment and illiterate wimp that’s going to take years, so any useful skills and knowledge are likely to come far too little far too late as by that time our position is likely to be purely symbolic. Needless to say my mc would resent being a mere symbol. 
In any case it’s going to take years, likely decades, eh?
So I think my mc’s time will be better spent figuring out a way to escape than jumping through whatever hoops they set for the honor of holding what is then likely to be a purely symbolic position.
Not nice enough to educate us apparently. Again the imperial family are the people he trusts least as it is rather obvious they never wanted him around, unlike his brother.
Being a mere symbol isn’t really ruling anyway, so…
An inversion of the standards of some countries today it seems. Still those places aren’t exactly tolerant of open lesbianism and open lesbians there are often still liable to get charged for more minor offences, such as “indecent exposure” for just holding hands in public for example, even if they don’t warrant the arrests and prison sentences two men would get for doing the same.
To be fair there isn’t much sucking up he could feign without communication skills or a desirable body.
He isn’t the type to get frightened easily, no. Otherwise he would have applied to study literature instead of medicine.
On that note he really is pissed to learn that his supposed frailty of constitution (a part of his motivation to become a doctor) is all a lie to avoid him ever having to go to a human hospital.
As he doesn’t like how physically wimpy and unable to defend himself he is as a result of what turned out to be unwarranted “concern”. 
Ben is so getting bombarded to personal trainer from here on out. Though like with the literacy and knowledge making serious gains will still take months if not years here as well.
Great, so he’s basically the property of grandma and big sis at this point. Really, again, if big sis wants the whole mess she can have for the comparative pittance of safe passage back to where he came from, generous funding of his medical studies and never contacting him again.
This would be a problem if my mc ever did become ruler, but since that seems extremely unlikely at this point it isn’t something he needs to be overly concerned with.
Why did she send a female mc away then, if she didn’t have some radical plan to implement democratic rule something?
So no chance of advocating for mom and dad, instead of getting stuck with an obnoxious jumped up kindergarten teacher, instead of an actual expert in adult education.
Again, teaching adults is rather different from teaching kids the same skills and a method of “clap your hands and sing the alphabet song” is likely to be counter-productive with adults.
But since any education that is halfway decent is liable to take years it won’t do us any good in the short to mid term no matter which obnoxious ignoramus they pick.
Not that the male mc has a body worth fetishisizing at the moment and likely not for a long time either.
Mine will try to work on it, but depending on our actual circumstances and who and if we can get a personal trainer meaningful progress is far from assured it seems.
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Abdication is rarely allowed. It’s only done when the ruler is really old and close to dying. In other words, your mc can’t abdicate. But I’m sure your sister will be happy knowing you would have given her the throne.
I guess being a constitutional monarch isn’t something your mc would want also, if Atlantis was democratic
Unless your mc wants to be spend their whole life on the run or be stuck in an embassy at the mercy of X nation like Julian Assange, it’s better they accept their fate
Lol , I can assure you there are plenty of brave literary scholars in this world…
Maybe she thought she could implement her plans successful such that Atlantis wouldn’t need a monarch anymore…
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I’m sure there are, but like I said my mc was motivated by another childhood hero and by curiosity to get to the bottom of his own unspecified medical condition(s) (which turned out to be bogus).
Now that his physical condition is cleared up I guess we still cannot actually get a competent personal trainer, eh?
No, if he could implement democracy one of the things he’d strongly try to insist on would be that the new parliament consider and grant his abdication during their first official session. If they didn’t grant it he would consider it a severe betrayal to say the least. Whether they would want to remain a constitutional monarchy afterwards is up to them. Given the fact that much like the Kaiserreich alternate history monarchies seem to have retained much more of their credibility in this alternate history it seems likely, or at least more likely than it would be in our world. I assume the (nominal) head of state of alternate South Africa is still the British Emperor? But they’d need to find another stooge to fill the post, maybe in that case his brother would want to? That guy seems to actually like ceremonial duties, or at least not hate them the way my mc would.
So escaping to the US during a tour of the border would be out then? 
But as far as being stuck I guess there is little difference between being a prisoner in Atlantis or in some foreign embassy. So I guess it would depend on how bad it would actually get. I still wouldn’t absolutely rule it out for my mc tho.
Once we get a private moment with her can my mc try to bring up his proposed deal?
To be fair his first choice would be big sis only because he’d judge her the most likely to take it as she’s young, the correct gender and potentially has a long reign ahead of her. If she refuses he’d also try to offer it to grandma, but with her being old she would naturally get less use out of it.
That assumes said decent teacher, as I said before them assigning a renowned children’s teacher, instead of somebody with experience teaching adults is likely to delay progress substantially as adult learning works rather differently.
My metric for understanding the language is also not being able to carry on average everyday conversation but being able to comprehend high level government documents, which requires advanced understanding of the language and at least a decent understanding of Atlantean legalese, which is rather different from being able to read and understand a tabloid, mass-market publication.
The broken tourist-y mumbo jumbo we could potentially pick up rather quickly, but having to talk like Trump is hardly something to recommend. “Me reward you bigly” is not the standard of language ability my mc would be at all satisfied with. In fact at that level of ability my mc would avoid opening his mouth in public even moreso than at present when we know absolutely nothing.
The physical front is similar actually sculpting a truly nice physique would take a lot of time, as opposed to just getting less skinny and more average.
Even with an actually helpful and competent personal trainer and dietitian the mc would still forced to waste years on it at this point. So much like with the other skills and abilities the positive results of it will come too little too late and my mc will probably always have (severe) body image issues at this point, no matter if he ever reaches the objectively magnificent point.
Google translate (and most other machine translation devices really) is terrible for legal documents and pretty comically inept for most other things.
As for human interpreters we’ve not been provided with one, let alone a remotely helpful one we can actually dare trust.
@Bahamuht I doubt it, since the mc cannot even request the services of our former “parents” as interpreters we might trust enough. We also know there are vested interests who want to slow our progress as much as possible and for them getting an extremely knowledgeable and renowned teacher of elite children assigned as our “tutor” would be quite the coup. As it would quickly lead to an unproductive and likely even downright antagonistic working relationship that dramatically slows down any useful learning. Again, like most adults, my mc would resent being taught a children’s curriculum starting with “clap your hands and sing the alphabet song”.
With someone competent in educating adults progress can be much quicker but I still estimate 2-3 years (that was already my optimistic estimate to begin with) until we can comprehend those high level government documents, as in addition to advanced language skills it requires knowledge of the law and legal jargon as well.
The only downside of a competent adult education teacher as tutor for my mc would be that in that case his intellectual progress would potentially far outstrip the physical one and he’d be forced into the ceremonial hell while still looking “average” at best. 
As physical recovery and durable muscle gain operate on a biological clock where little low-risk tampering is possible. Carefully monitored, purely supplemental, responsible, use of things like steroids (more like how they’re used for HIV patients than abused by some athletes) could boost it a little bit, but nothing too substantial as they really only enhance the effects of diet and exercise a bit in that case.
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I think you’re getting too hung up on the language barrier, I know it depends on the person but considering we were just about to head to univ. learning a new language(with a decent teacher) shouldn’t take literal years unless we actively avoid it.
Also I find it a bit hard to believe that the MC wouldn’t try to be more aggresive/assertive after having to deal for so long with such a overbearing “father”. Like during the trip, we’d question what’s happening but we let it go pretty quickly instead of standing our grounds and demanding answers.
@idonotlikeusernames That would be a problem if they actually teach the same way we do, for all we know the educational system is actuallty more advanced here in comparison. Although like you say if our teacher is someone who only knows how to teach children it won’t be easy, but if we’re lucky we can try to call someone from the outside, since there’s no way there aren’t humans who mastered the Alantian language after so many years.
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Why can’t we just use some sort of translator?
Will our MC be able to unleash the Kraken? I’m asking for a friend. That friend is me.
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If possible, please tell us what organization is under the Empress and what hierarchy it is.
Also tell us what reforms can be made and what reaction policies can be implemented.
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So the problem is…my MC won’t trust a single goddamned person now. Like full stop, if the romance options are only the people we’ve met so far, I’m going Ace this game. “I did it for your protection” is BS and they can absolutely cram it. My “parents” could have at least freaking taught me the language, it’s not uncommon for kids to learn a second language especially from a freaking country that’s a super power. But NOOOO, now I’ve got the navigate a political court that had the influence to KILL their EMPRESS and I can’t even read “See Spot run.”
My “friends” continued to lie to me to my freaking face and tricking me into becoming a ruler. I’ll do my duty as it’s more than a couple people’s lives at stake here, but ends don’t justify the means. And once the MC finds out how his gender is treated and viewed in society that betrayal is only going to get worse because there’s no way societal bias didn’t play a part in a lot of their actions. The only people I can “trust” are the same people that all but crippled me, (literally in the doctor’s sense), and it feels so overwhelmingly done I can’t be sure they didn’t have a hand in the murder of my biological mother.
So while I would love the option to tell them all to go play in traffic, I have to smile and nod while assuming everyone is an enemy while I desperately crunch time information. However the moment I can sufficiently defend myself, all bets are off and I’m coming for them first.
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Yep, this is something that really hurts my mc, as he wanted to become a doctor himself. This goes against everything the Hippocratic Oath all doctors supposedly swear, except in Atlantis it seems.
Even if we do get access to a competent personal trainer and dietitian the knowledge that his supposed “frailty” and near invalid status was all just a load of bogus is liable to cause severe BDD that will only get worse from here on out, even if his body does get stronger, healthier and (much) more attractive objectively.
I’m willing to bet our brother on the other hand will look like an adonis who could have stepped right out of an ancient Greek mural.
Which isn’t going to do any wonders for my mc’s self-image at this point either.
But just like with the education it is the same story physically any positive effects will come far too little far too late.
Well I do know of some scholarships that include IQ tests, and in turn those IQ tests can make you do various things, including annoying puzzles and riddles. That said most of them are for higher education and the test is a one time thing during application, not something that occurs with as much regularity as it does for the mc.
If the author is intent on keeping the puzzles a better explanation could be if the doctor gives us to them to “monitor” our mental faculties, as some diseases with a physical component, such as MS, may also eventually lead to cognitive problems. It would make the good doctor’s lies even more objectionable of course, but it could provide some explanation for the regular, annoying puzzles at least.
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Well… I originally came in to the comments here to talk about the whole “first name” and “middle name” issue with the story since, that’s pretty weird. So, shout out to the homies in the forum for pointing that out to save me the words.
But it seems there’s a lot of debate here in the comments. I think the first thing I’ll that first chapter and all that railroading. Cause… big yikes. I do want to first start out that this is all opinion and it’s your story, your rules.
Anyways, I think the biggest issue is pacing and expanding. I get it. From one writer to another, I get the feeling of wanting the rush to the juicy bits but if you want people to understand the juicy bits, then you gotta expand a little on your lore here and not skim through it and expect people to simply accept the logic.
One of the commenters here gave a really good ideas on how to expand and properly pace. Start from school. Maybe it’s the last day of school, finals are over but the teacher thought it would be a good idea to learn about current news and how it reflects in their society (or something) much to the teens disappointment. From there you can lore dump a little about New Atlantic about their society and about the current Empress. Maybe give a little hint hint, nudge nudge when a classmate mention how the Empress look like the MC. Plus perfect time to toss in character looks creation. From there, you could probably have class end and everyone is talking about college but some asked or bully the MC about their mysterious scholarship and boom, even more room to explain about the scholarship thing.
I’ll be real, out of all the confusing things that the demo showed, it was that scholarship explanation. Sure I’m willing to let it slide and believe that the scholarship paid for school, health insurance, clothes, ect. But then when you say “yeah, the scholarship also makes you do puzzles and riddles.” My eyebrows raised so far up that Jesus Christ gave them a high five. That was so incredibly unbelievable and questionable. Like what? It’s not quite story or lore fault but it sound more like author bullshit. It felt like you wrote yourself into a pit and as you tried to figure out a way to excuse the MC’s gullible actions you just went “oh shit! The scholarship! I’ll just say the magical scholarship forces the MC to solve riddles and shit.” Right. Okay. At that point, you’re better off changing the word “scholarship” to a mysterious benefactor and that benefactor is just eccentric. Makes more sense but that would be too on the nose, right? (No offense to you as a person, just the message you’re giving across). You need to put some more tangible lines or something to help us understand what this “scholarships” rules are and don’t just tact on a random “rule” when the need arise.
Mentioning about the MC being gullible, I’m completely with the guy who says the MC is basically four years old. Just to say where my perspective is from, I’m doing two runs with two MCs. One MC being a pervert but lazy genius (if the author of this story let’s me be perverted) while the other is an assertive and blunt muscle head (but obviously minus the muscles with this story 
). Both women. Just my default MCs when I play any games. Anyways regardless being intelligent or average intelligence, both of my girls here would know something is wrong and question the logic here. For example for my assertive one, while she won’t know what’s going on, she would pick up on Jessica’s stutter of “we’re going to New Atlan- I mean, New York.” And would push her going “What do you mean. Finish that sentence right here, right now before I slam this door close.” While my lazy girl would try to trick Jessica. “Man, must be really important to rush me to go visit New Atlantis. What’s the weather like there right now?” Either way, I’m just saying that a gullible MC like that isn’t fit to be a ruler to begin with.
Idk, you could have railroaded that way easier. Hell, we actually have an example of how to reveal to a commoner they’re royalty… remember Princess Diary’s anyone? Personally, it would be better for New Atlantis to send a representative to the MCs home, explain to them there with the MCs foster parents present, and then implore/beg to the MC, on behalf of the grandma, to return “home” for the throne. From there, the MC would be socially pressured to go and it makes more sense then “hur hur, Let’s go to New York with only the clothes on my back at the wee hours of the morning.”
Sorry. Sometimes the most rational decisions don’t make an interesting storyline
(Idk if the blockquote came out well, I’m typing this on mobile). Anyways, this sentence you said in an earlier comment, OP, almost gave me a stroke. Personally, I think this is a bad mentality an author could have. It’s basically like a youtuber running around screaming “Gotta do it for the content.” This sort of mindset really shined during the scene the MC naively traveled to New Atlantis. Why did they do that with no real argument? For the #plot. You can give your reasons why the MC found it a “logical” course of action but at the end of the day, you did it for an easy plot device. It’s the same when an artist draws a character in a bikini armor and then give excuse while it’s vital for them wear something like that. (Again, no offense to you as a person just the feeling coming across). There’s so many different types of struggles an MC could be put against. MC vs. society, MC vs. Natural, MC vs. technology, MC vs. the supernatural, MC vs. the unknown, MC vs. another person, MC vs. fate/god/destiny, MC vs. self. An author could explore as far as possible, making it look like the MC does everything in their power do make the logical choice but then something out of their control just ruins it. I don’t like it when when an author use stupidity as a cop out or “just because.”
Don’t worry though, I understand that people are illogical creatures most of the time and just go nuts. As my friend likes to put it, “I don’t mind when an MC (or any other characters) is stupid, it’s like watching a monkey being released in a mall.” But I like to propose a concept of “logical illogic”. Yes it’s illogical but give a reasonable reason why a character may act as such. Usually the reason of “because their emotions overcame them” is the best excuse but most of the reasons I’ve seen for the reason certain characters acted in certain ways sound like bullshit… plot related bullshit. Either make it a little more sensible or just straight up admit that some of these characters have holes in their brains.
My final point (I know, I’m just going on and on here) is the whole debate on the language barrier. Personally I think both sides have solid arguments here but if I can toss in my two cents here, why not have both? Before anyone can be confused, let me say that people are capable to be able to speak a language but not write/read it or vice versa. It happens to kids in families where they aren’t actively teaching their kids the language. Unlike some of the commenters here, I’m too lazy to link some facts on this. So I’m doing this more on experience. Nearly all my friends and family members fall in on of these categories. Either they can speak/understand but not write, write and read but can’t speak, can understand but not write, read, or speak, can speak and write but in broken grammar, can read and speak but only if the letters are in the English alphabet and not the language’s alphabet.
I think this would be a good middle ground for everyone here. The MC wouldn’t fluent in Atlantian, so there’s still that tension but they do have the building block to learn the language, making it believable to those who question the MC’s ability to learn the language. I mean, imagine the scenario, the MC being for to do a speech but unable to read the script so they freestyle it or a rival pressuring the MC to speak so they bluff having a sore throat and write out their thoughts. The tension is there and making the risks all the more drastic if found out.
But anyways, that’s my two cents on the matter. It’s all opinion here. Your story, your decisions.
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Ah yes, that’s a point I forgot to make when writing my comment. I know that some scholarships are kinda nutty sometimes when it comes to the application process. But as you said it’s just a one time thing and just to see if you’re applicable for the scholarship (or something along those lines). So it really doesn’t make sense for the MC to be doing all those puzzles and riddles, as the author was insinuating in their writing.
So we both agree here that something should be done about that plot detail. (I would insert the “same hat” meme). The only way I can possibly think for it to work, if the author wants to keep it, is if the MC has to do the puzzles or riddles yearly to keep the scholarship.
It then boils down to the author needing to take the time to explain the scholarship and the limitations and capabilities of said logic. If earlier they explain that to keep the scholarship the MC needs to solve a riddle, then down the line that orange card scene would make sense. (Well, not perfect sense but at least we don’t complain about the scholarship puzzles issue lol)
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Hmmm…I’m not sure that would work for my main mc. Just say no and they skip to the next in line, right? As it is my mc knows he isn’t fit to be a ruler, literally what with physically being a near invalid at the moment, plus he already dislikes the regime. In any case if a representative just came to his home he would refuse, I mean he dislikes that regime and thinks of himself as the son of oppressed human political refugees at the start of the story. In short the Princess Diaries method wouldn’t work for my main mc, unless they have (corrupt elements of) the South African police in their back-pocket and they are prepared to arrest him, drag him out of his home and perform some extraordinary rendition should we refuse.
The best way to lure my mc away from the safety of his home would probably be bureaucracy maybe he needs an (additional) scholarship for med-school and the university requests a copy of his original birth certificate or something. And naturally since he was born in New Atlantis the only place he might get a copy would be their embassy. I mean he would still dread the visit but if it is the only way he’s going to med-school he would do it as he is within spitting distance of his dreams of becoming a doctor himself (or so he believes anyway).
Of course making the mc brave the Atlantean embassy in order to get his paperwork for a scholarship does not make sense at the moment since we already have a scholarship. So I would suggest dropping the initial scholarship at the start and maybe moving the puzzles, they are mostly visual, correct? And the mc supposedly has a unique vision or at least brain-eye communication disorder. So maybe the puzzles can be a (diagnostic) test from the doctor to supposedly track the improvements or deterioration of our unique and (bogus) medical condition?
Point is if you get a good enough pretext to get the mc into the embassy you can do whatever you want from there ( I mean embassies can be dangerous, just look at Kashoggi) and that can be more or less voluntary depending on how (cooperative) we want to play our mc. In any case the embassy of a major power probably has a private helipad, so once he’s in the door they could kidnap the poor mc with impunity as we’re on their soil already.
If this is too complicated and if you really want to follow the Princess Diaries method I guess they don’t take no for an answer and just kidnap an mc who refuses a couple days later. I mean if we do refuse I suppose they can just order our “friend” Ben to lead us right into a trap on one of the hikes.
Though I agree with @zombiequeenkai that even the Princess Diaries method would be preferable to how gullible our mc has to be right now.
At least as far as the Princess Diaries goes @Darkner already confirmed that since Atlantis does not have marriage the male mc won’t need a wife to ever be able to “rule”. 
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I’ve read a few pages of it so far and am enjoying it quite a lot. Spotted a few small things that may need editing:
‘The First Matriarch speaks in Atlantian, your mother tongue but you have mostly forgotten it but thankfully there are English subtitles to help you by.’
Grammar - there are too many 'but’s in the sentence which make it too long and sound a little strange.
On the second?/third page the snake is described as ‘running’ off and slither might be a better word to use here.
On the route where the m/c goes out and drinks a great deal, they wake up the next morning completely fine. I think this might be a slight continuity error or I may have misread something. Also in the car with Jessica, when she says that they are going to ‘New Atla - I mean New York’ I think the m/c should be a little bit suspicious or at least notice it/react to it in some way.
I really want to see how this plays out, especially with a more contrarian/combative journalist mc. Hopefully language won’t be a barrier for too long. I’d very much like to lay eloquent verbal smackdown on medieval-minded, pretentious, xenophobic old hacks who think they ought to tell me who I can and cannot hold in high regard or associate with.
Can you tell us a bit more about our family’s general personalities?
Will our career track matter at all later?
Just finished a test plus an essay which was due today. Sometimes I question ever getting to university 
I can see a democratic parliament allowing an abdication, just like the case with Japan’s Emperor who abdicated the throne for his son.
Yep. The head of state of South Africa is still a British Emperor.
Ceremonial duties don’t seem so bad. It’s the easiest job you can have. Place a ribbon over X person, visit the homeless and smile for the cameras. And you get paid and don’t have to worry about paying rent at the end of the month.
It’s out of the question. There’s a demilitarized zone between the borders of the USA and New Atlantis. So the army has plenty of time to shoot you, probably with a tranquilizer, before you ever reach the other side. Afterward, you’ll never see the day of light
If your mc does get a private chance with her, I’m sure she’ll accept. But of course, you still need to eliminate the other potential candidates to the throne and convince the nation that it’s better if she were to rule instead of you. The last thing your sister needs are rumours that she forced the monarch to give her the throne.
I just burst out laughing reading this. I’m sure there’s going to be a proper adult curriculum for your mc.
That depends on what the Kraken is, if you’re talking about a sea monster that unfortunately no. You can blame extinction . But if you’re talking about weapons of mass destruction… you’ll have to wait
There are eight powerful ministers who worked under your mother and they did most of the heavy lifting. Now that she’s gone, they’re in a bit of trouble. I’m sure corruption charges are going to be levied at them . But on a serious note, much of the structure of the country will be revealed as the game progresses.
There are several reforms in the future your mc can push but not currently. Your mc doesn’t have much political capital and is forced to build their power base slowly.
Just smile and wave…
In all seriousness, your mc has every right to distrust the people around him. But at some point, your mc has to have some trust if their going to make it, even if that trust is conditional.
The doctor would be so sad to hear this.
In any case, there was a reason why he had to do it. Using electronic screens with the full capacity of your eyes would be difficult. Don’t forget, screens are made out of RGB (red, green, and blue) pixels and it’s mixing these pixels that produces a wide range of colours. But your eyes can see a lot is discrepancies and so your doctor had to shut, or cripple, some of your cones.
But omitting the whole truth is still bad and your doctor should have disclosed everything to you.
I’m certainly going to edit the first chapter so it’s less railroaded.
There are scholarship that make you do tests. Then again, your scholarship is called ‘The Sphinx Foundation’. Sphinxes are known to give riddles but I see your point. I’m already working on an edited version of chapter 1. Feedback like this is good.
What I’m currently planning on is for the mc to experience growing up. So chapter 1 will be divided into four section marking the different ages of mc. So the chapter will begin when the mc is six years old, starting primary and so forth that way I can convey better how their experience is different from other humans and so forth.
Again. I’ll fix this but the mc is going to go to New Atlantis. Either conscious or not, they have to make it there. I was reluctant giving the mc the choice to say no but I’m planning on giving that option. However, refusing to go doesn’t mean you won’t be forced in there New Atlantis.
So I was joking when writing that but I need clarify something here. I think the problem I created was presenting clues that the reader could pick up on but the mc couldn’t.
An example is here:
Why would your mc, being a skeptical person, find the belief ‘Jessica is taking me New Atlantis’ more plausible than ‘Jessica misspoke about taking me to New Atlantis but rather meant New York’
In order for your mc to believe that Jessica is taking them to New Atlantis, you have to believe that a nation that is known for it’s isolationism would open their doors for you. Even so, why would a representative of your scholarship take you to New Atlantis. You’ve known this scholarship since you were young, why would they now take you to that country if they had plenty of opportunities in the past?
Again, I believe this is my fault. The reader can piece together things to know something is really amiss and Jessica is taking them to New Atlantis but the mc would have to be selective on their skepticism in order to believe they are going to New Atlantis. The reader knows that the death of the empress is important but to the mc, it’s just another head of state who died. Even if the mc was convinced that the empress’s death was important, how could they link that importance to themselves?
I think, the four year old mentality being argued here is due to a disconnect between the reader and their mc. I believed that no reasonable mc would say no to Jessica about taking a plane because I assumed that the mc cares enough about bursary that they would take a flight to meet the sponsor for a couple of days. Would you really tell the sponsor of your bursary you don’t want to meet them even though you need their money to pay for your tuition.
But I’m planning on giving players some leeway here and allow them to refuse (even if it means losing their scholarship to go to university).
I’m coming with a compromise in the next update: broken Atlantian. So the mc will understand basic Atlantian, in other words what 8-11 year olds would comprehend.
In other words, when an official speaks to the mc in ‘proper Atlantian’, a dialect that your parents don’t usually speak, you’ll catch the general gist of it but still need someone to iron out the details.
I hope this compromise satisfies most people as I’m not going increase it any further . Your mc will need to struggle a bit in learning Atlantian.
So the mc will not be able to read Atlantian at all in the beginning. It’s an entirely different writing script from the Latin alphabet. Your parents had no reason to teach you to write Atlantian when you had to learn two languages in South Africa. And even if they did, you’d still be illiterate because official documents are written in a different script from the one used by the general population.
Think of Japanese and its writing system. By using Japanese as an analogy, hiragana is what’s taught to the masses, kanji is what is taught to nobles and officials of the state.
I’ll have to expand on this in the first chapter. Note taken.
I guess the tranquilizer will be needed for your mc …
Thanks, I’ll fix them when I get the chance.
I’m planning on changing much of chapter 1.
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Sometimes people do make it, but I get your point, extremely risky and we’re not a relatively low profile young soldier to boot.
The offer was predicated on easy abdication, so I guess that’s a no go. Unless she still wants it in the event of a constitutional monarchy.
Now the “easiest” way out would indeed seem to be a transition to democracy, after which the new parliament is free to disregard current royal traditions and grant my mc abdication regardless of him being healthy, fit (hopefully) and in his 40’s or 50’s at most, assuming this game spans years or decades. I hope it does as the transition to democracy seems like one of those things that might take a lot of time to phase-in correctly. Start with municipal council elections and then over the years work your way up to higher stakes and higher levels of government.
It’s a bit more involved than that. Also for my mc his body image issues (see below) would make him not so happy at seeing himself practically everywhere.
Another point against it is the political neutrality most constitutional monarchs have to maintain (the ones in Thailand don’t, I know but then they blur the line between being actual rulers and merely constitutional monarchs).
The ones in Europe mostly have to give speeches on whatever the current government wants them to, which isn’t much of a problem under normal circumstances, but if say a Salvini, Bolsonaro or Trump were elected PM or Chancellor there might be issues, certainly with my, as you’ve noted rather headstrong mc.
It always is in politics but even conditional trust requires far more knowledge and communication skills than our mc has at present. Which means the only trust the mc is capable of giving at the moment is blind trust, you really don’t want to do that in politics. Everybody is liable to try and take advantage of an infirm and at present mentally incapable of discharging their duties mc.
Starting with the fact that we’re not human and our condition doesn’t necessarily render us infirm, we’ve just been made to think that so we wouldn’t try any sports or other things that might land us in a human hospital (where the fact that we’re fully Atlantean would have come out) or actually made our body strong and fit.
The shift in self-perception from thinking that he’s borderline disabled and thus has a reason to look as bad he does to learning everything was a lie is devastating. And making that mental shift that we’re in fact fully physically capable but a wimp instead of disabled is what will form the root of my mc’s body image issues. He has had to spend many years learning to think of himself as a physically limited individual, coming to terms with that and even cultivating a positive outlook on his prospects in spite of it. He was after all going to overcome himself to realise his dreams of becoming a doctor.
Learning it was all a pack of lies basically shatters his whole perception of not only the world but himself too…and not in a very positive way. 
This is one huge reason my mc won’t like seeing his own wimpy image everywhere and part of why he would hate being a mere symbol in a constitutional monarchy even more than being a ruling emperor.
Could that possibly lead to the mc needing to apply for another scholarship, that might conveniently require a copy of their original birth certificate so we’d need to brave the Atlantean embassy. More than one way to skin a cat after all.
Or my mc would have to swallow his pride I guess, he can’t afford not to go to university, with his body being near crippled it’s not like he’s remotely qualified for most non-intellectual jobs at this point.
At least speaking it somewhat (like our pal Ben I guess) will give us the building blocks to potentially learn very rapidly (if the mc is truly intelligent) like some of those adults in one of the studies I think I linked.
Even so I guess reading those official documents might still take us about those 2-3 years as we also still need to learn something of the law and its jargon. But at least we can talk to some people that way and it might just be enough to go from blind to conditional trust.
I mean there are plenty of highschool and even some college language teachers who can struggle with legal jargon. 
And now we must learn both in a very short time. Which is possible if the mc has a knack for languages. Hopefully my mc can stay close to my optimistic estimate of 2 to 3 years.
If they want to play it that way…
Which is why luring him to the embassy under pretence of normal, if annoying, matters of bureaucracy might have worked better for them.
So you’re either having a snowstorm obscure everything or you can allow the mc to connect the dots, I mean North Korea is highly isolationist too, but even I would know at least one feature of the Pyonyang skyline.
Seems like the best way for my mc to get out and salvage what’s left of his life after that (maybe he could still become a doctor?) would be to gently nudge New Atlantis towards democracy.
Moving on, will we still meet our brother during chapter 2? And given the male aesthetics seemingly encouraged among their upper classes will he look like a Greek Adonis statue brought to life?
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I thought monarchies keep citizens safe from tyranny. At least that’s one of the arguments monarchists use to justify keeping a royal family
Yes, you’ll still meet your brother in chapter 2.
What’s considered the ideal body type for males is a guy with well toned body with a face of a cute flower boy. Your brother basically has a look of a korean pop star
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I already want to destroy this place. This ain’t helping.
Now we’re talking. Let me nuke this abomination of a city and all it’s citizens back to the bottom of the ocean.
Never you can’t make me Darkner.
I wanna look like Jason Momoa and slaughter all the politicians with my trident. I can’t have the second option, at least let me have my body 
Also can I exile Ben out of the city, I don’t want your protection anymore also your human anyway? Maybe an option to refuse him coming with us instead of getting forced with him, even though we’re supposedly just meeting a sponsor.
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