GP vs. CS, Part I
I wrote this shortly after compiling my list of RPG characters throughout the years. This compares my first site, story, and senshi team (Goddess Power!) with my current one (Celestial Souls).
Currently it isn't finished, but I will post more when I do get around to working on it. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but it's fun to do.
Goddess Power! vs. Celestial Souls
Summary
Goddess Power (yes, it was spelled with the exclamation mark and will be abbreviated as GP from here on) was my first fan senshi story. The site didn’t last very long; it opened in August of 2002 and closed in early 2003 due to lack of interest on my part. At the time I was starting to get into the Harry Potter series, I believe.
The site was a relatively small site, but I modelled it after my fan senshi idol, Sailor Orion. Several of these elements were rather unnecessary, and in later sites I cut the site down to four basic components (though before then I lumped profiles under the same section as the story. Nevertheless, GP revolved around my story and the five Senshi that starred in it, the names chosen rather…randomly. Sailor Callisto, Sailor Aeolus, Sailor Helios, Sailor Persephone, and Sailor Eos - funnily enough, the story only got as far as the second episode, so only Sailor Callisto had made an appearance, yet everyone else had profiles and pictures in their galleries just the same.
Celestial Souls (henceforth known as CS) is my current fan soldier site (I hesitate to use the word ‘senshi’ as that is a distinctly Japanese word and only one character is Japanese). It was opened in August of 2005 and is still going strong over a year later. My Harry Potter interest has waned to some degree and for some reason my interest in Sailormoon peaked again when I saw the (fairly) recent PGSM.
The site is probably smaller than GP, but it contains all the basics. At the time of writing this I have fourteen acts (chapters, episodes, whatever you wish to call them) centering around my soldiers - Sailors Selene, Tethys, Demeter, Helios, and Eos. Some of them were partly a rehashing of my old characters (Sailor Helios retained the most of her previous incarnation; the only thing both Sailor Eoses have in common is the name and white hair) while others were completely new. (Persephone to Demeter…not a big change).
Story Basics
GP was purportedly set in an ‘alternate universe’ where the canonical Senshi didn’t exist (they were simply a famous manga series, amongst other things) and in their place were my own Senshi. This was primarily done because I didn’t want the hassle of the keeping the canonicals in-character while simultaneously dealing with my own characters.
The primary antagonists were Queen Hera and her assistant Artemis. They were plotting to do three things - find the reincarnated Princess of Callisto, kill her, and then take her crystal to rule over the decrepit ruins of the kingdom. Unfortunately two people do not an army make, so they had these strange things called ‘shadows’ to aid them. The Shadows were impervious to physical attacks, but magical ones could harm them. They could assume anyone’s identity at will, and none of them had names. They were only ever referred to as ‘Shadow 1’, ‘Shadow 2’, and so on.
To stop them, a small fairy named Celeste gives 14 year old Kodomo Awaino a necklace in a dream that allows her to transform into Sailor Callisto. From there on, it is her duty to find the princess and such before Hera does, for obvious reasons. The series was meant to be similar to Sailormoon - drama with bits of light-hearted fluff now and then.
CS is also purportedly set in an alternate universe because I don’t want to bother with the canonical Senshi (though I make a few little references to the series now and then, but it’s still alternate-universe). The new Senshi can be seen as counterparts to the original ones, though that is not necessarily my intention.
The primary antagonist is General Eric Aloisburg de Regina, though from acts one to nine he does not appear; his reincarnation, Alexander Dessler, gives all the orders when he’s not watching television, complaining about his bad back, and what-have-you. They have a limited array of ‘monsters’ at their disposal; insane, pseudo-human things that are quite sentient and quite absurd in their line of reasoning. They can be considered equivalent to youmas, though youma generally have less of a mouth on them than these guys do.
To stop them, a girl named Serena Reine gives a brooch to a man named Antonio Salucci, who goes on to forcefully invade the mind of Christine Schumacher, one of his vocal students, to give her the brooch in a dream. From there on, 18 year old Christine can become Sailor Selene, her duty being to kick ass and take names until told otherwise, all the while looking stupid (in her eyes). The series is not meant to be serious in the least; everything is exaggerated, from peoples’ reactions to the way which they speak. Unfortunately it seems like my mind is against me; a serious tone seems to be slowly creeping into my work.
Past Lives
(Or The Reason They Fight)
The senshi’s past lives were set on the kingdom of Callisto, situated on none other than Jupiter’s moon of the same name. The year was “a thousand years ago”, so if the story started in 2002, it was presumably around the year 1002 A.D., during the Byzantine empire on Earth. It involved Hera, the sister of the queen, being jealous of her niece Selene. Selene was the Heir Apparent to the throne; taking Hera’s place as Heir when she became of age (what constituted “of age” was never stated). Hera was angry about this because now she would never be able to rule when her sister died.
I shall quote the rest from the story itself:
“…The queen's sister wanted to be queen if her sister died, but since the princess was of age, the crown would have gone to her instead of the sister. …So, the queen's sister vowed to get rid of the princess herself. She found an accomplise from Earth, and she forced her to find a way to get rid of the princess. Finally, she came up with the idea of poisoning the princess, and it almost worked - if the Merodisuishou hadn't kicked in... The queen, enraged that her own sister would do such a thing, banished her to Earth, and removed the symbol on her forehead, thus removing her from the family...
“But we do know that, the ex-sister and her accomplise set up their own little kingdom on Earth… apparently creating some sort of creatures as their "people". … in revenge, the ex-sister attacked Callisto. Got some kind of force to smash some buildings, set some on fire, and let and panicking crowd do the rest. Well, the crowd pancked alright...rushing to the safety of the palace, clambouring for escape pods. …the royal family had to leave in one of the esacape pods...but the...thing attacked it, sending it crashing back to the surface. The remaning crowd - apparently they were killing themselves in the chaos - surrounded the pod, but were quickly killed off by that thing...
"… then everyone got out, and the ex-sister came up, apparently the guardian senshi died in the battle to protect the princess...she killed the princess, then ran off, leaving only me, the queen, and the other advisor standing. The queen … was heartbroken, and felt that her kingdom couldn't be re-established...so she sent her court and kingdom to Earth, to live here…”
In CS, the soldiers’ past lives are set primarily on Selene about two thousand years ago - roughly around 123 B.C. Selene is more commonly known as “the moon”, though apparently it is the centre of a vast empire known as the Lunar (or Selenian) Empire. Not much is known about the story at this point; only that four of the soldiers (Tethys, Demeter, Helios, and Eos) were ladies-in-waiting/bodyguards to Princess Luna, the only child of Queen Crescentia and her husband Maximus.
Eric Aloisburg an immigrant from a prosperous family who forcefully clawed his way up the ranks of the military by merit alone and is about twenty years older than Crescentia. By the time Luna is born, he has become General of the Army, subordinate only to Crescentia herself and in control of the entire army. (It’s less glamorous than it sounds; there’s a lot of paperwork involved). He changed his surname to de Regina to show that he is in the service of the queen.
Luna eventually grows into a woman, and apparently General de Regina is very tempted by the nubile young Heir Apparent who is fifty years his junior. He has excellent self-control, though, and doesn’t do anything to her. Years pass again, and “General de Regina apparently decided he didn’t like Crescentia anymore”. He begins to wage a long and costly civil war against her, using the defective troops to attack the nobility as well as waging smaller guerrilla attacks using peasants, who are enthused by his charisma and want change. Crescentia is forced to call in foreign troops, as her own are against her.
Eventually General de Regina decides it isn’t safe to have Luna near Crescentia any more, so he brings her to live with him when she is in her mid-twenties. They seclude themselves in an underground bunker, though it is implied that this was not voluntary on Luna’s behalf. Finally, the war comes to a sudden halt when everyone inside the bunker - Luna, General de Regina, and all of his other assistants - is discovered dead. The assistants (two Lieutenant-Generals and a few others) are found to have taken cyanide; it is presumed General de Regina gave Luna cyanide to prevent her from returning to her mother before ingesting some himself.
Reincarnation is completely automatic (that is, it is what the Selenians believe to be life after death, much like Hindu belief except without the factor of karma) and as such it is not required for Crescentia to send anyone anywhere, as they will reincarnate where they choose, when they choose.
Next up is mostly character comparison, as the story and site are out of the way.
Currently it isn't finished, but I will post more when I do get around to working on it. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but it's fun to do.
Goddess Power! vs. Celestial Souls
Summary
Goddess Power (yes, it was spelled with the exclamation mark and will be abbreviated as GP from here on) was my first fan senshi story. The site didn’t last very long; it opened in August of 2002 and closed in early 2003 due to lack of interest on my part. At the time I was starting to get into the Harry Potter series, I believe.
The site was a relatively small site, but I modelled it after my fan senshi idol, Sailor Orion. Several of these elements were rather unnecessary, and in later sites I cut the site down to four basic components (though before then I lumped profiles under the same section as the story. Nevertheless, GP revolved around my story and the five Senshi that starred in it, the names chosen rather…randomly. Sailor Callisto, Sailor Aeolus, Sailor Helios, Sailor Persephone, and Sailor Eos - funnily enough, the story only got as far as the second episode, so only Sailor Callisto had made an appearance, yet everyone else had profiles and pictures in their galleries just the same.
Celestial Souls (henceforth known as CS) is my current fan soldier site (I hesitate to use the word ‘senshi’ as that is a distinctly Japanese word and only one character is Japanese). It was opened in August of 2005 and is still going strong over a year later. My Harry Potter interest has waned to some degree and for some reason my interest in Sailormoon peaked again when I saw the (fairly) recent PGSM.
The site is probably smaller than GP, but it contains all the basics. At the time of writing this I have fourteen acts (chapters, episodes, whatever you wish to call them) centering around my soldiers - Sailors Selene, Tethys, Demeter, Helios, and Eos. Some of them were partly a rehashing of my old characters (Sailor Helios retained the most of her previous incarnation; the only thing both Sailor Eoses have in common is the name and white hair) while others were completely new. (Persephone to Demeter…not a big change).
Story Basics
GP was purportedly set in an ‘alternate universe’ where the canonical Senshi didn’t exist (they were simply a famous manga series, amongst other things) and in their place were my own Senshi. This was primarily done because I didn’t want the hassle of the keeping the canonicals in-character while simultaneously dealing with my own characters.
The primary antagonists were Queen Hera and her assistant Artemis. They were plotting to do three things - find the reincarnated Princess of Callisto, kill her, and then take her crystal to rule over the decrepit ruins of the kingdom. Unfortunately two people do not an army make, so they had these strange things called ‘shadows’ to aid them. The Shadows were impervious to physical attacks, but magical ones could harm them. They could assume anyone’s identity at will, and none of them had names. They were only ever referred to as ‘Shadow 1’, ‘Shadow 2’, and so on.
To stop them, a small fairy named Celeste gives 14 year old Kodomo Awaino a necklace in a dream that allows her to transform into Sailor Callisto. From there on, it is her duty to find the princess and such before Hera does, for obvious reasons. The series was meant to be similar to Sailormoon - drama with bits of light-hearted fluff now and then.
CS is also purportedly set in an alternate universe because I don’t want to bother with the canonical Senshi (though I make a few little references to the series now and then, but it’s still alternate-universe). The new Senshi can be seen as counterparts to the original ones, though that is not necessarily my intention.
The primary antagonist is General Eric Aloisburg de Regina, though from acts one to nine he does not appear; his reincarnation, Alexander Dessler, gives all the orders when he’s not watching television, complaining about his bad back, and what-have-you. They have a limited array of ‘monsters’ at their disposal; insane, pseudo-human things that are quite sentient and quite absurd in their line of reasoning. They can be considered equivalent to youmas, though youma generally have less of a mouth on them than these guys do.
To stop them, a girl named Serena Reine gives a brooch to a man named Antonio Salucci, who goes on to forcefully invade the mind of Christine Schumacher, one of his vocal students, to give her the brooch in a dream. From there on, 18 year old Christine can become Sailor Selene, her duty being to kick ass and take names until told otherwise, all the while looking stupid (in her eyes). The series is not meant to be serious in the least; everything is exaggerated, from peoples’ reactions to the way which they speak. Unfortunately it seems like my mind is against me; a serious tone seems to be slowly creeping into my work.
Past Lives
(Or The Reason They Fight)
The senshi’s past lives were set on the kingdom of Callisto, situated on none other than Jupiter’s moon of the same name. The year was “a thousand years ago”, so if the story started in 2002, it was presumably around the year 1002 A.D., during the Byzantine empire on Earth. It involved Hera, the sister of the queen, being jealous of her niece Selene. Selene was the Heir Apparent to the throne; taking Hera’s place as Heir when she became of age (what constituted “of age” was never stated). Hera was angry about this because now she would never be able to rule when her sister died.
I shall quote the rest from the story itself:
“…The queen's sister wanted to be queen if her sister died, but since the princess was of age, the crown would have gone to her instead of the sister. …So, the queen's sister vowed to get rid of the princess herself. She found an accomplise from Earth, and she forced her to find a way to get rid of the princess. Finally, she came up with the idea of poisoning the princess, and it almost worked - if the Merodisuishou hadn't kicked in... The queen, enraged that her own sister would do such a thing, banished her to Earth, and removed the symbol on her forehead, thus removing her from the family...
“But we do know that, the ex-sister and her accomplise set up their own little kingdom on Earth… apparently creating some sort of creatures as their "people". … in revenge, the ex-sister attacked Callisto. Got some kind of force to smash some buildings, set some on fire, and let and panicking crowd do the rest. Well, the crowd pancked alright...rushing to the safety of the palace, clambouring for escape pods. …the royal family had to leave in one of the esacape pods...but the...thing attacked it, sending it crashing back to the surface. The remaning crowd - apparently they were killing themselves in the chaos - surrounded the pod, but were quickly killed off by that thing...
"… then everyone got out, and the ex-sister came up, apparently the guardian senshi died in the battle to protect the princess...she killed the princess, then ran off, leaving only me, the queen, and the other advisor standing. The queen … was heartbroken, and felt that her kingdom couldn't be re-established...so she sent her court and kingdom to Earth, to live here…”
In CS, the soldiers’ past lives are set primarily on Selene about two thousand years ago - roughly around 123 B.C. Selene is more commonly known as “the moon”, though apparently it is the centre of a vast empire known as the Lunar (or Selenian) Empire. Not much is known about the story at this point; only that four of the soldiers (Tethys, Demeter, Helios, and Eos) were ladies-in-waiting/bodyguards to Princess Luna, the only child of Queen Crescentia and her husband Maximus.
Eric Aloisburg an immigrant from a prosperous family who forcefully clawed his way up the ranks of the military by merit alone and is about twenty years older than Crescentia. By the time Luna is born, he has become General of the Army, subordinate only to Crescentia herself and in control of the entire army. (It’s less glamorous than it sounds; there’s a lot of paperwork involved). He changed his surname to de Regina to show that he is in the service of the queen.
Luna eventually grows into a woman, and apparently General de Regina is very tempted by the nubile young Heir Apparent who is fifty years his junior. He has excellent self-control, though, and doesn’t do anything to her. Years pass again, and “General de Regina apparently decided he didn’t like Crescentia anymore”. He begins to wage a long and costly civil war against her, using the defective troops to attack the nobility as well as waging smaller guerrilla attacks using peasants, who are enthused by his charisma and want change. Crescentia is forced to call in foreign troops, as her own are against her.
Eventually General de Regina decides it isn’t safe to have Luna near Crescentia any more, so he brings her to live with him when she is in her mid-twenties. They seclude themselves in an underground bunker, though it is implied that this was not voluntary on Luna’s behalf. Finally, the war comes to a sudden halt when everyone inside the bunker - Luna, General de Regina, and all of his other assistants - is discovered dead. The assistants (two Lieutenant-Generals and a few others) are found to have taken cyanide; it is presumed General de Regina gave Luna cyanide to prevent her from returning to her mother before ingesting some himself.
Reincarnation is completely automatic (that is, it is what the Selenians believe to be life after death, much like Hindu belief except without the factor of karma) and as such it is not required for Crescentia to send anyone anywhere, as they will reincarnate where they choose, when they choose.
Next up is mostly character comparison, as the story and site are out of the way.