Unnatural Selection (WIP - Even the Title)

#1

HI! I am new to the Choice Forums and cannot for the life of me think of a good answer as to why I waited so long to post or develop an idea for a work to create. Especially since I enjoy creative writing and programming. Well, with exception that I am limited on time!

In any case, I am compelled to share my idea and below is the first question to the prologue for feedback. I believe the most interesting stories are somewhat based in truth. Please let me know your thoughts and I hope to be done with the prologue later in the week to share for testing.

In the vastness of space and among the endless planets and stars, exists an asteroid known to Earth as 1997XF11 that was discovered by James V. Scotti on December 6, 1997. By his calculation, the asteroid was to come exceptionally close to Earth on October 28, 2028; but what he had no way of possibly calculating was that a single, lowly comet would collide with the asteroid on February 7, 2027, thereby changing the course of the asteroid and of Earth’s future. The collision created a shift in the orbit for the one-mile asteroid just enough to cause an impact to another large mass…

a mass known as Deimos, the smaller moon of Mars.

Now Mars is named after the Roman God of War, also known to the Greeks as Ares. Ares had twin sons and Deimos was one. Deimos in his own right, is the Greek God of Terror and his name means “Dread”. Dread is how the people of Earth feel with no way of knowing what will happen from the resulting impact. It is as if the Gods of old have sent a reminder of their power and wish to display a show of force.

However, there does appear to be opposing forces and in a dream, you feel the presence of a higher being who has given you the power to make one choice as a deity concerning the asteroid…

These select choices offered to you will have lasting ramifications to the solar system.

What choice will you make?

  1. Make no choice.
  2. Send another comet to collide with the asteroid and avoid the impact from taking place.
    3.Destroy the asteroid from within before an impact with Deimos.

The end result is to create a transmutation of the human species and the next chapter play as one of the new species created on Earth from the destruction of the moon or rather change in the moon. But that cannot happen without a bit of decision making as a deity first.

#2

This is why we need Sentinel. :smiley:

Well, as a super powerful being with the ability to destroy asteroids at my whim I’m sure I can understand orbital mechanics enough to figure out what’ll happen if I make the asteroid miss Deimos right?

Sounds interesting. I await more info or a demo or something.

#3

@Shoelip
I definitely will post more once have finished the demo and hopefully I surprise you a bit.

#4

Well, I am going to call it a night for now on coding.
Below is the dropbox link to the collision demo file for Choice of a Deity:

Just place in your own creator files and run the scene.

#5

I think we could play online, if you would add HTML instead of txt at the end, right?

#6

@PhoenixReborn

I believe this link will work.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/gvqzi2x6arggs8h/UnnaturalSelection.html?dl=0

Removed the previous link which carried the “Choice of” name.

#7

I picked to redirect the asteroid.

Bah! Should have known this so called deity would have been a genocidal maniac.

Choosing not to interfere leads to another choice that doesn’t really make sense to me. Are we choosing whether to reverse the rotation of the moon or something?

#8

Thanks a lot @Arkalel

#9

@Shoelip
Not really. Deimos is destroyed by the asteroid but the resulting debris continues to hurdle towards earth. So the choice is whether the moon is hit while it is moving clockwise or counter clockwise as it rotates around Earth, with counterclockwise meaning the moon and debris will collide while moving towards each other and clockwise meaning collision takes place going in same direction. Either way the moon gets hit, but when and in what direction to affect the force of impact.

#10

I will continue to work on being more descriptive to help eliminate confusion @Shoelip but there is no way to save Earth if want to continue the story for a New Earth. Instead, a choice has been given to you on how a new Earth will evolve as a result of an extinction level event.

The next chapters will take place further into the future and surround 5 new species developed over time from the previous homo sapiens.

A very brief description of the five are:
Ademans - named after the moon of Mars that was destroyed and their distinctive evolutionary trait is growth of 4 arms.

Anubians - werewolves/lycans that survived and continued evolving and their distinctive evolutionary trait is inability to be completely human and each has various parts always as a wolf; however each is able to turn into a complete werewolf, now at will.

Aquaterans - live primarily in water and have distinctive ability to breath on land and in water, but not able to live on land or in the deep ocean.

Angelicans - live in the sky and have distinctive ability to fly by use of wings

Atraugans - live within the Earth, either in caves or underground and their distinctive ability is growth of a 3rd eye which allows them to see during day since their main two eyes only see at night.

Hopefully sounds interesting but will develop story arcs for each of the species or one arc that you follow as a species with limited options based on the species chosen.

Like the option to hide underwater from danger since are Aquateran or fight since are Ademan… so on & so on…

#11

In personal taste I would change the werewolf bit. I have a hard time believing humans could evolve to turn into a wolf. An idea would be that wolves evolved to sentience. Kinda like planet of the apes but with wolves.

#12

@person59 thank you for your input!

I guess I was aiming for werewolves exist already and further evolve by surviving on Earth, so your right, that line would not technically be an evolution of homo sapiens but more homo lupus lol

#13

I don’t get it, where are these werewolves you keep talking about? I got each of the ending but its a good start, interested to see where it goes though.

#14

@maxmansung
Sorry for the confusion.
Hopefully the next chapters will shed a bit more light on the story of each species evolution.

In essence, the Anubians are the evolved werewolves which existed on Earth before the chaos that ensued from the asteroid hitting Deimos.

I took the name Anubian over just werewolves or lycans from the Egyptian god Anubis, which had the head of a jackal. So this species to will have various parts remain as wolf similarly to Anubis, the Egyptian God of Death.

They are no longer really werewolves since cannot change to be completely human and their bite does not afflict any of the other species, but they retain their ability to shift into a full werewolf animal being.

Does that help or am I looking at maybe eliminating the Anubians from the story?

#15

Sounds interesting then, I like the idea. What role do we as the player play in all of this then?

Will it just be humans and Anubians?

How many species will spring up with this change to the moon?

Will they all spring up at the same time or will just one appear depending on the choices we’ve made up until that point?

#16

Might want to change the title, choice of is copyrighted and reserved for official cog games.

#17

@dark_stalker
Thank you! I had no idea and in all honesty the title doesn’t really fit considering in the next chapters the user plays as a new species on Earth.

Hmmm… open to suggestions but to avoid in legal concerns I’ll change to “Unnatural Selection”… Guess when think about it, “selection” is a choice and is a bit of word play off of the Natural Selection process for evolution.

#18

@maxmansung
There will be 5 total humanoid species and all are available since evolved equally just in different regions on Earth.

The 5 are listed in a prior post, but Anubians were only ones evolved from Werewolves.

Ademans
Anubians
Angelicans
Aquaterans
Atraugans

#19

New link with updated changes to help alleviate confusion and removing the “choice of” name in the title.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/gvqzi2x6arggs8h/UnnaturalSelection.html?dl=0

#20

So then is the only “right” choice to not make one? If you choose to redirect the asteroid the god destroys it just to spite you, if you blow up the asteroid then nothing much changes except the culture. It seems like you really want the third option to be picked… In which case why bother offering a choice at all? Unless the point was to show how petty and evil deities tend to be.