The Gang of Five
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Caustizer · 128 · 12805

Caustizer

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Tiberian Sun will always hold a special place in my heart, mainly because it was the first CnC game I ever played.  My favourite unit in the game was the Mammoth Mk. II which killed pretty much anything in one shot.  I always found myself building one, along with Ghost Stalker for their insta-kill beams.

It wasn't until much later that I learned their weapons were called "railguns", so naturally when I played Tiberium Wars I was ultra excited when GDI got Zone Troopers (an entire unit of pawnage railguns) and Railgun Upgrades on ALL of their tanks.  I was completely and entirely impressed with CnC3, even if other people didn't like it for some reason.

Caustizer


Pangaea

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I can’t believe I forgot to ask this earlier: :rolleyes

Did you find anything interesting on your geological field trip to Algonquin?



Pronounced "pan-JEE-uh". Spelled with three A's. Represented by a Lystrosaurus.


Caustizer

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We rushed from site to site, often spending no more then an hour or so at each one.

The most interesting thing we found was a solid block of Allenite, which was quite radioactive so we did our best to avoid it.

One particular quarry we visited was a pit over 200 feet deep.  It was quite something standing on the edge of that one!


Pangaea

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Quote from: Caustizer,Nov 7 2009 on  11:00 AM
The most interesting thing we found was a solid block of Allenite, which was quite radioactive so we did our best to avoid it.
Yikes! :blink:

For my next question, I'm going to quote you on a post you made in Sky's "Ask Me" thread: :p
Quote from: Caustizer,Nov 6 2009 on  10:28 PM
That is such a good picture... now you can see why I was inspired to write Far Away Home based on a single work of art.
What was that work of art that inspired you?



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aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)

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You're new avatar looks great! Who is it? And what's the story behind him and Star?


Caustizer

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@ Pangaea

The work of art that inspired me to write Far Away Home (apart from Sky's enormous archives) was actually a model figure that somebody painted for Golden Demon (a very presigious model painting competition).  It was a figurine of a Dinosaur with a golden gyroscope mounted to his bank.  In the center of the gyroscope was an Eye of Eternity, which inspired me to create the concept of the Eye of the World... from there came the Occular and the Sonicron and the prehistoric glass-works that the wingtails are masters of.  When I can scan it, I'll post the picture of it in the magazine.

@LBT

I'm glad you asked.  My new avatar is a character of Sky's creation named Glide, and he is one of the antagonists in my story Far Away Home.  Sky is in love with Glide's sister named Star, but he is very protective of her and doesn't trust Sky in the least.  They fight quite frequently over the subject, with Glide usually beating the crap out of him  :slap

You should take a look at Far Away Home in the Fanfic thread, and tell me what you think!  At the very first post there are some interesting pictures of characters in the story.


aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)

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Well, you took a look at my story, so it would be rude of me not to read yours. :) I'll do that!


Serris

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What is the story behind Land Before Time: Future Wars?

Poster of the GOF's 200,000th post

Please read and rate: Land Before Time: Twilight Valley - The GOF's original LBT war story.


Caustizer

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To sum it up in a sentance:

"Envious Aliens attempt to wipe out the dinosaurs with a deadly virus, but instead it makes them more intelligent and restricts their size, spawning an uprising of advanced civilization and a deepening of the rift between sharptooth and leaf-eater."

...

Claw, being a nation that depends on war (both to conquer and consume the dead, and to reduce the numbers they have to feed through battle casualties), eventually becomes so desperate they attack the three main Havens all at once, sparking the Twilight War, a massive conflict that covers most of ancient Pangaea.

When I get the time, I will write a full story (with your permission of course - some of your OCs might not be portrayed exactly as you imagined them).

First though, I want to get my Claw weapons document done.  They have some really nasty stuff that only the most careless and brutal military would ever sanction (like Cold Fire Soul Replicators, to make more troops by producing copies, Death Screamers - giant flying saucers of death, and Caustic Diggers with chemical throwers).  

We cannot forget Claw's incideous superweapon, the Doom Hammer.

It's a gaint cannon that creates an instant volcano wherever it hits!

VDF has the Titan Uplink, a similar but less brutal orbiting satelitte that attacks using a barrage of Titanium-rods...  and even after rigerous testing and fall-out monitoring VDA counsellors still "banned" it deeming it too heartless of a weapon to consider using against living - but they sure as hell reconsider!

If this would be an actual game, Claw would definately be my favourite faction because their weapons are so delightfully evil!  :anger

Caustizer.


Pangaea

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On the Far Away Home Interviews page, would you prefer that for now only I ask questions of the character who has been already introduced (Gentry) and wait for Theanol to introduce the other interviewees, or do I just ask questions of anyone on the list of guests at any time? (I'm asking this because I was about to ask a question on that thread that relates to Thylo as well as Gentry.)



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Caustizer

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You may ask questions that relate to any one of the characters on the list at any time.  The reason I don't have any limits on this is because I don't expect that I'll get that many questions anyway so I don't want to force the people who might have a question to wait.


Pangaea

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Okey-doke. :p

Speaking of Thylo, is her name derived from “thyreophoran” (the group of dinosaurs that includes stegosaurs as well as ankylosaurs), or did you get it from somewhere else?



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Caustizer

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Actually I completely pulled Thylo out of thin air, really! :wow

This time I believe I just got lucky by the fact it lined up with a good reference dinosaur from that age.  What I wanted to do with Gentry and Thylo was to produce two names that were different but sounded very good together.


Pangaea

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^Holy buckets, that IS a stroke of luck! :blink: :lol

Just so I can visualize Thylo more easily (I continually find myself automatically thinking of her as resembling Tippy :rolleyes), can you describe to me what color and size (i.e., same as Spike, smaller, etc.) you envisioned her as being?



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Caustizer

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Thylo is dark green, and is actually about the same size as Spike.  The most important thing to note is that she talks the way she does not because of childhood but from an actual speech problem.  Thylo simply has a brain that works faster then her mouth can speak the words.  

She is also quite fearless, which is an attribute unique of the entire gang.


Pangaea

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Can you think of any kinds of dinosaurs that haven't appeared in the Land Before Time series that you would have liked to have seen?



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Caustizer

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Wingtails  :lol

No really I don't have an extenisive working knowledge of all the different dinosaur types, but I can say that I wish they featured more egg-stealers in the series and movies because I find them to be quite an interesting speices of dinosaur and one that can be cast on either side of the story.

I'm also surprised that apart from Cera and her family (including Tria I suppose) are the only threehorns in the world we have seen so far.  Longnecks are uplifted above the other dinosaurs a bit more then they should be, since Littlefoot is the main character though I'm not entirely surprised.

Caustizer.


Pangaea

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What drew you to use Sky's wingtail characters (and wingtails in general) in "Far Away Home"?



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Caustizer

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As I was writing Rise of Storm Tide, I started to think about what I wanted for the sequel that was totally untypical for the movies and series and yet did not deviate from the LBT formula too much.  Eventually I settled on the idea of going away... a long long way away.  Farther then the gang has ever gone before.

I thought... what if Littlefoot didn't feel like he belonged in the Great Valley anymore, and taking the gang with him left to find a far away place where he truely belonged.  Eventually this became "Far Away Home" because it implies a place a long way away from where we are now where we believe we would belong.

The idea to use Sky & Star in my story came when I realized that Far Away Home needed an OC, and not just any OC but one that people could relate to as more then a name.  Back then too I had no reviewers (apart from you of course) and nobody really read my stories so I was also looking for a way to appeal to others and get more interest in the story as a whole. Apart from both of these things I wanted to find a talented artist who could "bring the story into life" by creating a few pictures for it.

So by asking Sky to use his character I not only had a large bank of art and familiarity with the OC from potential readers, but I knew I was also guarenteed to appeal to at least one other person in the GOF.  Sky is an enormously talented artist, so by doing a story for his drawings I was able to solve all three problems I had with Rise of Storm Tide.

Later I found out that Star had a brother named Glide, and so I was forced to change the storyline accordingly part way through Act I.  I have been more then satisfied with the result so far.  I also coined the name "creators" prior to knowing they were called wingtails, so it now looks horribly out of place in the beginning of the story  :lol

By introducing Glide into the story it created the potential for not one, not two, but three seperate villians.  Each one has their own brand of mis-deed, but some of them like Glide are just misunderstood while others start as heroes and grow to be a villian as the story carries on (ie Eybron).

Caustizer.


Pangaea

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^ Wow. Interesting. :yes

When you're writing (particularly when you are writing a story), do you ever get stuck at a point where you want to use a particular word, but you can't quite remember what the word is? (That's one of the most frequent and most significant problems I encounter when I'm writing. :rolleyes) If so, what do you usually do when it happens?



Pronounced "pan-JEE-uh". Spelled with three A's. Represented by a Lystrosaurus.