Human Serum / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Human Serum.

Credit where credit is do

Meta Wonderrat 28 Feb 2021 10:55

EdAWACSdenyY wrote "Human Serum" in 2014 (or maybe even earlier). It was deleted by the time I joined in 2016. In 2016 I started on a rewrite. Now in 2021 I have my rewrite reworked and ready to go. This stuff had a long journey already, let us see if I can get it back in the game.

Lesson to learn: It does not matter when a project started, as long as it is sandboxed, it can rise again.

Thank you Deny for letting me do this. Man, I could not read the room the last time this project was brought up.

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Fighting Monsters and Language since 2016.

Last edited on 28 Feb 2021 10:56 by Meta Wonderrat Show more

Zesc 02 Mar 2021 15:17

I am somewhat torn over this. I really like the basic premise of what is pretty much reducing/oxidizing the aspect of… "humanness"? "humanity"? But two things make me see this as unfinished.

The first is that this one has some tonal issues; yeah, sure, the CI's format does not has to be the sqeuaky clean clinical tone of the Foundation, but phrases like "accelerate their effectiveness" are simply not correct. "Personnel […] are to be removed from the Item and the suits." is another such case.
With authorial permission, I would tidy this up a bit.

The other thing I didn't liked are the somewhat silly two final notes from the "Staffnotes" section. Such gags can easily throw of the reader with a sudden mood swing and don't really work in favour of the article. Especially since "people pets" and "militarized mermaids" could become truly horrifying material if played well.

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Eschew elucidation, espouse obfuscation.

Meta Wonderrat 03 Mar 2021 08:14

Sure, go ahead with the cleanup.

"Personnel […] are to be removed from the Item and the suits."

This thing would not even be in there if I had not imagined a suit fusing with its wearer and the wearer being ok with that.

I intended the last two notes to be more of a "if we can do it we will do it" point in world building, than as jokes. Can we salvage that or should I remove it for the time being and perhaps spin both into tales relating to the item?

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Fighting Monsters and Language since 2016.

Zesc 06 Mar 2021 22:19

Alrigthy, I moved once over it and tried to smoothen the tone wherever possible ("Personnel that came into direct contact with any form of the Item" -> "Personnel exposed to any form of the Item"). I also added a word here or there (Like, I assume you meant "living humanoid" since toy-soldiers are, by definition, humanoid) but overall, I tried not to go overboard. If you have any gripes, feel free to revert the changes.

Now, I still don't that the final two notes are well placed (especially human-smart pets are a topic I could fill pages with), but if you really want such final notes to wierd out readers and hammer home the implications, may I suggest just moving down the part with the suits? It seems much more fitting there.

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Eschew elucidation, espouse obfuscation.

Meta Wonderrat 07 Mar 2021 20:36

Nice. I made a few changes to the notes and fixed a few details.

Also, sorry ScaledDatura you [seemingly] upvoted right as I made my edits, so I am not sure whether I have now retroactively ruined it. (It was at 0 as I was editing, but was not upon reload.) Also thanks for the +1.

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Fighting Monsters and Language since 2016.

ScaledDatura 08 Mar 2021 02:33

Huh, weird how often that happens. I read the revised version and I like it just the same (if not more), so it's still a +1 on my part

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Regal blood and autumn leaves provide enough color for me