So last night I thought of what I thought would be cool use of my 3D engine: make Asteroids in 3D. I thought of some cool things I could do, including giving it a plot. So, today at work, I started to write a plot for it…at least that what I meant it to be. However, now it seems more like a short story then the plot for a flash game, maybe a more complicated game, but I don’t know that it would be good for Asteroids 3D. Here is what I have written so far, tell me what you think:
A lone craft floats lifelessly among the asteroids. The field spans seven systems, the nearest system is a class three; a red giant with four planets in deep orbit. A space port is in near orbit and is currently on the far side of the sun relative to the vessel. It is a small craft; with room enough for maybe two people including the pilot. Who is currently face down on the dash with a trickle of blood running down from his forehead, where the two met, and onto the controls. There is a small pool at his foot. The wound is not serious, but he has been out for hours; long enough for him to drift from open space into the outer edge of the asteroid field. Some debris from a similar craft floats by. A red light begins to blink on the dash; the label says: “Aux. Power.” After a time the light turns green and the flashing stops. Suddenly, lights across the dash start to glow and flash. A crackle emanates from a speaker embedded in a panel on the right of the cockpit. A jagged heads up display springs into existence on the forward window; quickly smoothing out as thousands of bright red dots appear on the screen. Red letters begin to flash at the bottom of the screen: “Proximity Alert.” Suddenly, the sound of nails across a chalkboard tears through the cabin. The pilot jerks up, splattering blood on the HUD. He regrets this action.
“Aww, FUCK!”
Groping under the dash he pulls out a small fabric case. Tearing it open he digs through its contents. He pulls out a tube labeled morphine, a small white bandage, and a roll of bandage tape. Jamming the tip of the tube into his right leg, he starts to bandage the wound on his head when the contents of the display registers.
“Fuck.”
A long scratch stretches from the upper left corner of the cockpits front window to the lower right. He flips a switch on the left side of the dash and a set of blast shields close over the window locking at the center. The HUD adjusts accordingly and the red dots are replaced by red outlines of each asteroid in the view field. The pilot types something into the conveniently placed QWERTY keyboard located in the center of the dash. A console window appears in the lower left corner of the HUD. He types in: “sysdiog” and presses return. More quickly fill the window as the computer spews out values and status messages. His eyes dart back and forth as text speeds by. The final line reads: “System Status: All Systems Operational.” Unsatisfied he enters another line: “print log.” More text is spewed onto the display. One line catches his eye: “EMP sensor triggered > initiating emergency shutdown to preserve system.”
“EMP…what the fuck happened?”
“Our s-ship was hit-hit by a combination EMP conc-cussion rpg. Commander.”
Starting, the pilot spins around in his seat. Hunched on the floor of the cabin is a metallic figure. Where the left arm should be a cylinder slowly spins back and forth among a mass of torn wires. The arm hangs limp from handlebar protruding from the left wall of the cabin. As the android forces itself upright, the commander notes that left side of its face is misshapen and the eye is not as bright as the right.
“Shit Marvin, you scared the hell out of me!”
“I am su-sorry Com-mmander, some of my int-internal circuits were aff-fected by the EMP a-as was my hardd-drive. I am currently rebuilding the damaged sec-tors.”
“I didn’t mean the way you were talking, I just wasn’t expecting someone to answer me.”
“Y-you forgot that I wa-s here? Tha-that is unu-usual for you.”
“Well incase you missed the pool of my blood on the floor, I’m not all here either.”
“I wo-uld have to disa-disa-disagree Commander, from my scans it wou-ld ap-pear that you are in one piece.”
“I meant mentally. There’s a good chance I have a concussion.”
“My sc-ans show that t-o be truuuuuuu…”
The android’s eyes dim and go out. The left arm’s stub stops moving.
“Marvin?”
Eyes lighting up once again.
“I’m sorry, Commander, the repairs were completed and a restart was required. One of the many follies of having intelligence based on Windows.”
“Tell me again why we still use that piece of shit.”
“To put it simply, our government is not willing to spend money on a better OS.”
“In other words they’re cheapskates. You know, I don’t give a shit if you bad talk our “government.””
“Well then, in your words: Out government is made up of a bunch of fucking cheapskates.”
“Hey! Since when do you swear?”
“Since my reboot. I keep a log of words that are not in my database and when I rebuild it they are added.”
“I see.”
The commander turns back to the dash and looks at the various displays.
“So tell me again, what happened before I blacked out?”
“We were defending the carrier from a group of Confederacy battle cruisers. In fact, you see that chunk of debris in the upper right corner of the HUD?”
“Yes.”
“According to my scans, that is the front half of one of them. Looks like the carriers main cannon tore it right in two.”
“Wait, were we defending the carrier? I remember something about making sure we weren’t caught killed. Were we carrying something important?”
“You may be correct. It appears as though some of my memory files could not be recovered. That may be the reason they only hit us with an EMP instead of something more powerful.”
“But what were we doing?”
“I’m sorry Commander, I cannot find that data.”
Now I’m going to go watch 300…for the first time.
