Footage Recovered From a Private Server / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Footage Recovered From a Private Server.

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notgull 17 Sep 2020 04:13

TEAM BIRD BES— wait you mean we're not doing this anymore? Oh, then what are we doing?

Here's the first entry in our little series about how Resurrection happens to the Foundation's foes too. Let's see if it floats.

Thanks to Pedagon, Grigorikarpin, Placeholder McD, Cerastes and HarryBlank for critique! Image is from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LTG_Austin_Miller_Official_DA_Photo.jpg

HarryBlank 17 Sep 2020 04:14

BOWE LIVES

Gotta do something about that dude.

notgull 17 Sep 2020 04:15

Well, I think we could just launch a nuclear missile at him? That went well the last time.

(account deleted) 17 Sep 2020 15:48

Not really a fan of this. When it turned out that Bowe - Bowe! was still alive in… I think it was Back Alley Deals? it was like an "oh shit!" moment, where you had this evil, mysterious dude whose primary attribute was that he had been dead for years be revealed to not only be alive, but capable of launching an attack on the Foundation at will. You didn't know his capabilities, you didn't know his plan, and it made him intriguing and interesting and dangerous.

And here, he gives a lecture to COBRA, laying out exactly what he's planning to do, why, and with whom, introducing two characters who seem like they're destined to become narrative minibosses at some point down the line. The awkward dialogue ("Both of their organizations were threats to the Foundation during my tenure; however, they have been forced into being peaceful due to the Foundation's global hegemony") doesn't help.

Was leaning towards a no-vote, but I gotta give it a downvote. Maybe this will be a piece of a larger puzzle, but as it stands, it doesn't work for me.

Last edited on 17 Sep 2020 17:39 by (account deleted) Show more

TheHouseOfBalloons 17 Sep 2020 19:20

I’ll second some of these points- the dialogue was here corny as hell and came off like Saturday morning cartoon villains.

This series conceptually sounds like it’ll be pretty fun (and I am looking forward to further installments) but damn, do these villains need more personality.

weizhong 18 Sep 2020 08:43

I wanted to like this. There were a lot of elements here to be excited about, with the start of a new tale series set in a popular canon, some big name characters being thrown around, and the general feeling that Something Was Going to Happen.

…unfortunately, I have to echo the other negative comments in this thread. The actual dialogue comes across as cartoonishly villain-like:

Courtesy of our organization's greatest hackers, I was able to get a peek into their secret database.

Lines like this make this sound less like the words of a charismatic, hardened war-vet with a fascist bent and more like a "twiddle your mustache" kind of supervillain.

Much of the content here is also phrased in the format of "You know that thing we would both certainly know? Let me explain it for the imaginary audience who doesn't." The infodump of material here only served to slow the pace down and made the more interesting bits weighed down by how much narrative was being overexplained.

Riemann 18 Sep 2020 14:04

Going to have to echo those above me - this is a villain monologue through and through, and I half expected some sort of Syndrome aside to pop up: "ah you caught me monologuing!". The most boring way to convey information is to flat out tell us, and that's really all this is.

I don't think this is a particularly engaging way to introduce Bowe - it's just telling the audience that he's cool and dangerous and we should watch out for his zany plans.

Steeltitan 19 Sep 2020 02:11

Generally agree that the monologue seems over the top, and I'm not entirely sure about the Scarlet King and the Church of the Broken God working together. It just doesn't sit right with me. The whole "All the Bad Guys Team Up" proposal as a whole seems rather melodramatic, and with all the differing characterizations we've seen of the different GOIs over the years, I'd be rather disappointed if they all do just toss aside all their differences to become just united, straightforward enemies against the Foundation that need to be stopped again. Hoping we see more nuance in how the GOIs react, and maybe some that might like the current status quo.

However, I'm still hype as hell to see a reexamination of the Foundation's roots and ties to Bowe. No vote for now.

Last edited on 19 Sep 2020 02:13 by Steeltitan Show more

Vezaz 19 Sep 2020 13:48

I wish the description of his accomplishments was more specific than "cold war victories" lol

---

I sing of arms and the man
Storm-tossed by Hera's jealousy

notgull 19 Sep 2020 16:02

I did originally have a line or two about that, but I cut it out in the name of streamlining.

DrDromeus 02 Oct 2020 20:48

While I understand the concerns of others who have downvoted, I have to say this was definitely my cup of tea. As someone who’s not familiar with past Resurrection canon, this story still felt understandable and that was important to me. While the monologue aspect of this is a point of contention, I think it makes perfect sense to an organization like the Chaos Insurgency where almost everyone is kept in the dark and would need a large-scale announcement to set the facts straight to everyone involved.

Overall, I think it’s a very nice setup to an ambitious storyline.

TestingHydra 04 Oct 2020 22:23

Now I'm fairly certain this is an error but you never know, the caption for the image of Bowe is dated 1986, but the story mentions multiple times that he "died" in 1983.

Croquembouche 14 Oct 2020 22:52

^{Votes don't help the author, so I've vowed to always leave a comment with mine, at the very least whenever I rate an article negatively. If you feel the same, help out by leaving critique with more of your votes. Comment follows:}

The idea of Boweism as a pseudo-religion is a very interesting one, for me at least, but it's not enough to carry the article. The speech acts as a single-sided dialogue explaining everything that the previous article glossed over, but it's not much more than that. It's a lore dump: not a problem in and of itself, if it's necessary for the plot, but I wish this information could be presented a little more naturally, and it's the same information being presented twice (though more clearly this time). But beyond a nebulous goal of uniting a bunch of GoIs against the Foundation (which appears to have already been done, given the guests on-stage), I'm not too sure where we're going from here.

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