Plot Summary
Hey there. I've placed the Plot Summary in its own page over here.
Plot Analysis
This one is rather long in the tooth, as far as being logged. I took far longer on this than most, mostly due to my real life being chaotic. But I'm back, and this Season is no exception to the others for getting an analysis.Starting off, my first thoughts. This season is the "Masterpiece" or so the teenagers that made it thought. It's a crayon drawing made by crazy teenagers; ergo it seems awesome if you're of that age, but as you get older it quickly seems to be just random insanity. That is how I will be analyzing this, anyway, since it was almost 10 years ago and the distance of years removes any shiny varnish that may have obscured its flaws at the time.
This season was... a combination of things. The first big chunk of it was just really normalized and heavily planned. Everything went down a straight ramp. The Commanders attacked, the Questers counter-attacked, ground was steadily gained. Everything was so cut and dried that I don't really need to analyze much there.
Then things started to get messed up. Klumsy's Platinum Challenge derailed the entire game as people spent countless sessions mindlessly fighting rehash bosses. Metal Man became some odd psycho who just started bashing the bosses and losing track of anything else. It was... just off. Not to mention the "Nobody Conspiracy" and the evil Metal Man showing up for no reason.
Then after that, the normal stuff continued. Or did it? No, it didn't. It slowly acted strangely and began to corrupt itself. Weird references to Solarians became a bit too prevalent, 'Sha'fol' came up too often, then it became some bizarre thing where Aetos acted stupid, Dark Metal Man trolled the Questers, and Garrick wandered off for no real reason. And then the ending came, and everything sharply fell apart into total pandemonium. Hilarious, but also terrible. It gave me visions of Season 3 and--no, I'm not linking Robotnik going 'Why' again, I'd need a new one if I were going to do that.
There's a reason behind this, as there always is. It isn't terribly pretty but it needed to be written down.
The plot was made by me and Nick. We originally had some bizarre magnum opus involving Kingdom Hearts and a Final Fantasy flavored ending. But over time we drifted over how to end it. It went back and forth. We made at least 3 endings. Then we came to blows over it and there was even a fight over who ran the game. In the end, Nick left and there was no ending. I had to make it up. Unlike a rational person, I just winged it, resulting in enough bizarre gibberish to create 3 books worth of epileptic tree plots.
First, I should have the person I speak of speak for themself, because a one-sided rant about him is just going to get nowhere. So for the first time, I'll quote in here something else--the description of the other ending.
[12:17:45] [Nick_Caligo] Alright. Remember how you wanted to figure out some way to bring all the crazy shit together into one unified, sensical storyline?
[12:17:52] [Metal_Man88] Yeah.
[12:18:10] [Nick_Caligo] I think I got it.
[12:18:46] [Metal_Man88] Well, I'm open to hear it.
[12:18:53] [Metal_Man88] Almost anything will do.
[12:19:08] [Nick_Caligo] They defeat the Void after Sardis's exodus fleet gets wiped out by some mysterious force. Aye?
[12:19:22] [Metal_Man88] Yes.
[12:19:40] [Metal_Man88] ->> Speaking of that, without the Knights of the Round, we'll need a new explanation for Sardis's fleet exploding <<-
[12:20:05] [Metal_Man88] ->> Hopefully one involving cool combat of some kind, or some unexpected help <<-
[12:20:40] [Nick_Caligo] Alright. After the Void gives his big dramatic, "you shall no longer be pawns" thing, plus some jibberish about how his time's almost up in this world, he digitizes and gets deleted.
[12:21:42] [Nick_Caligo] The chessboard follows, and then the entire room just goes up in little pixels, leaving the Questers standing in the middle of Eisnaught, puzzled.
[12:21:56] [Metal_Man88] Heh. I knew the Void would need to be deleted.
[12:22:12] [Metal_Man88] Having him sit around would invite him to make a mess again some day.
[12:23:03] [Nick_Caligo] That's when two or three people suddenly materialize and start looking around. One of them pulls up a holographic screen and keyboard and starts typing away doing diagnostics of some kind.
[12:24:45] [Nick_Caligo] They explain that they're technicians from the 4D world--much like the people from Knights of the Round would've been--and explain the true nature of the multiverse.
[12:25:05] [Nick_Caligo] That basically it's a big ol' computer database of all these worlds from video games dating back to the late 20th century blah blah blah et cetera.
[12:30:59] [Nick_Caligo] The Void was a virus that he loosed in the midst of the Nintendo folder to create basically a smokescreen effect to obscure himself from pursuit.
[12:31:53] [Nick_Caligo] The side effects of the virus included massive fragmentation to slow processor speed, and data compression to make things easier to transfer around.
[12:32:44] [Nick_Caligo] It then pulled in a number of bits of data from other folders.
[12:33:28] [Nick_Caligo] The result was that the otherwise vast and infinite Nintendus that Wolf and I were working with was contracted into the one you mapped out.
[12:33:47] [Metal_Man88] As well as some other things.
[12:33:58] [Metal_Man88] Questers warping in and out from nowhere...
[12:34:10] [Metal_Man88] A teleporter which allowed the Questers to go almost anywhere instantly, too.
[12:34:11] [Nick_Caligo] Yeah, like Sardis Mongul and all this Solaria junk that somehow became intregal to Nintendus's existance.
[12:34:24] [Nick_Caligo] The teleporter was there from the start. The Questers were unexpected.
[12:34:45] [Metal_Man88] Some day I'll have an RPG that has all of the Solarian stuff in perspective.
[12:34:51] [Metal_Man88] (Entirely original one, mind you)
[12:34:58] [Nick_Caligo] I figured you might.
[12:35:17] [Metal_Man88] I realized it was sort of a promising thing, however it belongs by itself.
[12:35:40] [Metal_Man88] Anyway, continue,.
[12:36:28] [Nick_Caligo] At any rate, they finally tracked down Luther to the Nintendus folder. That's when they found a massive amount of data getting ready to transfer, AKA Sardis's fleet. They quickly canceled the transfer and replaced the out-of-place data where it belonged.
[12:36:45] [Nick_Caligo] In other words, they didn't destroy the fleet, they put it back on a repaired Solaria.
[12:37:25] [Metal_Man88] Eh. That works just fine.
[12:37:42] [Metal_Man88] *Saves that climactic battle for the universe it belongs in*
[12:38:28] [Metal_Man88] Sardis Mongul himself had to be reformatted, so destroying him probably helped them.
[12:38:42] [Metal_Man88] Mainly because he, Maxamillian, and several others were corrupted.
[12:38:45] [Nick_Caligo] Sardis knew too much about how the universe worked.
[12:38:57] [Nick_Caligo] Oh, and the X-Zone, FYI, is the Recycle Bin.
[12:39:06] [Metal_Man88] Well, that makes perfect sense.
[12:39:23] [Metal_Man88] Almsot everything in there (Save for some weird things which continue to persist) is old stuff.
[12:39:49] [Metal_Man88] It then follows that they tried to delete The Void many times, until he decided to open up the recycle bin and cause chaos.
[12:40:41] [Metal_Man88] (Which will, for obvious reasons, once again be used as it should be--thus limiting it to rather, err, strange circumstances that important people such as Questers wind up in there)
[12:41:23] [Nick_Caligo] Aye. Deleting the Void just made the Recycle Bin its playground. It was able to use a BUNCH of junk that was just sitting around in there.
[12:42:07] [Metal_Man88] Another nasty side-effect: The Void could not be destroyed normally.
[12:42:21] [Nick_Caligo] So, they tried to disassemble its code manually, only to find that something else--the Questers--was already doing it rather well. The Questers weakened it sufficiently to the point that it was just a few quick command words away from being totally annihilated.
[12:43:55] [Metal_Man88] And this subsequently removes all of the strange and extra things from happening again?
[12:44:21] [Metal_Man88] That is, the stuff that is just floating around as garbage.
[12:44:30] [Nick_Caligo] Yep.
[12:44:35] [Nick_Caligo] Well, not yet.
[12:44:43] [Nick_Caligo] That's why the technicians have appeared in Eisnaught.
[12:45:20] [Nick_Caligo] They're there to survey the total damage the Nintendus folder has sustained.
[12:45:55] [Metal_Man88] I can see them being shocked at how much they find.
[12:46:33] [Metal_Man88] The Void was supposed to have died in Season 3; he lasted 3 more seasons than he was supposed to.
[12:46:42] [Metal_Man88] About 11 year's of madness.
[12:47:33] [Nick_Caligo] The one typing away is running diagnostics and checking to see what he needs to do to fix it. After a bit, he types in a few commands and, without a whole lot of warning, Nintendus is restored to normal in a fantastic light show of colors. All structures built on Nintendus during the "frag period" remain intact. Which means Eisnaught. Ivan Robotnik remains in command as a reward for helping them take care of the virus.
[12:48:46] [Nick_Caligo] When the light clears and their eyes adjust, they find themselves in a city that floats in the skies of Nintendus, overlooking its infinite vastness. Practically in orbit, actually.
[12:48:54] [Nick_Caligo] Geosynchronus orbit, even!
[12:49:25] [Nick_Caligo] The Stadium rests in this city, which shall be called Eisnaught Secundus.
[12:49:41] [Nick_Caligo] Eisnaught Prime remains on the surface of Nintendus.
[12:50:49] [Nick_Caligo] The technicians will then open up a warp portal and offer everybody the chance to either go home or stay here.
[12:51:18] [Metal_Man88] Aye.
The logs I have cut out before this one, and the ones after it are mostly bickering over what the ending is going to be, plus me going on about bizarre plots like something to do with a weird man with a weird blood-tear-like mark near his eye that wears all white and steals the Questers' ride home. Yeah... WTF? Long story short, there was a low level collision between Nick's plot and mine.
He wished to redo/reformat the world back to the one he used originally; I was more interested in keeping mine. We couldn't agree, he left, and the Luther plot was left to die. It never happened; none of it. Meanwhile, my crazy mayhem just sort of vomited forth onto the stage and made a mess of things, making it clear that the sort of result current-me would want never happened. That is, I would have probably rather liked a win-win ending in which the stupid nonsense died and yet the parts I liked about Nintendus stayed. But I guess the problem was, I'd never been allowed to fulfill the nonsense quota I needed before I realized the way I was doing Solarians back then sucked. (Ask me back then and I'd rant and rave about NANOMACHINES MCSARDIS was somehow the greatest character despite the fact he had 25.3 seconds onscreen total, and all of that time making weird riddles that made no sense.)
Nick had the idea of what was going on best: [13:07:59] [Nick_Caligo] See, you're weird. You've thought up more characters than I have in a long long time, but you can't for the life of you chain them together in a story. -_o
So basically, that was what happened. A bunch of disconnected characters trying to be characters without a plot, occurring after an attempt to rewrite the world as the ending got rejected.
So! To recap, the game was fairly smooth up until the ending, due to conflicting visions on what the next generation would be. The Platinum Challenge derailed the game as well, mostly because I demanded it even though there was really no way to do it without dragging everything down to slowtown. Took so long to get up to steam that the weird BS stuff I made up ultimately took over and triumphed, corrupting the game into gibberish.
So yeah. Best Season? Hardly. Best of SSQ 1? Eh.... it's close in ways. So far I've logged this one, 1, 2, and 3...
Season 1 vs. this Season: The Amish Cartoon season is more sane but ultimately completely unarmed, and loses that gunfight.
Season 2 vs. this Season: The opposite extreme, Season 2 brings so many different weapons to battle it trips and falls because it never stays the same long enough to really beat the way this season had some continuity for a good chunk of it.
Season 3 vs. this Season: It's hard to really say 'vs' because it seems more like Season 3 would regard this season as its little brother. After all, just like Season 3, it devolved into total insanity. Although Season 3 ultimately loses out because it never made sense at any point rather than losing its mind at the very end.
So, it's the least screwed up, compared to its immediate siblings. But it could even lose out to a late SSQ 1 Season I haven't logged yet. Its main Seasons to be compared to at the time were mostly a bunch of weird ones--the Dark Ages were still remembered them, and that was an entire year of total mayhem that was complete garbage. It's no surprise everyone thought this was the best--it probably was the best Season of its era.
But it can't really stand at all against the SSQ^2 or Confrontation Seasons, and probably at best breaks even with or barely beats the worst parts of SSQ:I. Even then, I doubt SSQ:I devolves into total mayhem at the end, nor does it probably stop dead to host mindless fighting for months on end!
I could go on for more, but I feel like I've said all this really needs. It has a lot more to comment on due to the increased fidelity vs. most of the other Seasons I've logged (sans SSQ^2--that one is just shorter commentary wise due to the fact it's much easier to understand the plot, thickness aside.) I may add even more to this whenever I get bored, but mostly because this is a fascinatingly strange Season that I don't think I can stop staring at easily. It is everything I had in mind for the future--awkwardly thrown on the screen with no art at all.
Word Map (Made by Wordle)
This map is rather useful, but that's solely because this season doesn't have TOO much clutter until the very end. We can see the most talked about Questers here: Aetos, Julian, Charles, Metal, Garrick, Digi, Nodal, and Azure. Those would appear to be the main Questers of this season, by default.
Then there's the villains; Kuja and The Void and a very hard to find 'Denon'. An honorable mention goes to Dark Metal Man, as the 'Metal' in there is combined between him and Metal Man, making it hard to tell exactly how much is each's doing. Especially since 'Dark' shows up as a lesser word in the background, suggesting it shows up enough.
After that are some more general descriptors. Emeralds and Magitek show up clearly, as well as light, dark, evil, good, fire, sword, force, energy, power, time, etc. These are a part of the huge focus on various 'abilities' this season. Also showing up is 'three', which has to do with the continual emphasis on three--the three holy stones of Hyrule, the Triforce, the Three Powers, etc.
Notably missing is most of the Commanders, Klumsy, and Sha'fol and Xalron and Sardis Mongul and Jeff Maxwell, and SkyHigh, and Tridus, and Phantom. It only goes to show that the Commanders were mostly pointless, nobody really cared and they were all steamrolled really fast except for Denon. There were also too many of them, since that split too much of their time up for anyone to remember any of them. A crucial flaw as far as those 'forgettable normal sessions' I was going on earlier.
Top 10% Logs of this Season
While this Season didn't SUCK like Season 3, it also is really large and bears the same treatment. Indeed, eventually I'll go back and do the same for all the Seasons. With that in mind, time for the top 10%... or should I say, top 3.Number 3: Chapter 256: Requiem for a Denon
One of the few sessions involving a Commander where they aren't overly simplistically done. Denon is neither good nor evil entirely; a dark spirit enslaved by Kuja, he is one of the most powerful Commanders but also unwilling to do much other than try to avenge his enslavement by killing the Questers. And when that fails, he actually decides to change sides, and then sacrifice himself rather than risk more pain. It's an interesting character study, and alongside that, there's also the fact that he cleverly counters one of Julian's aggravatingly long lectures mid-battle with a well timed attack. He also actually challenges the Questers' minds as much as their power; something few others did in this season.
This is also here to help represent the Commander sessions, because, well, while others may be a bit better than it, if I left them ALL out, it would sort of be a statement that I hated all of them. The top 3 would be rather samey if I didn't do this, anyway.
Number 2: Chapter 276: Omnipotent Guest Week
It was once called 'Chaos Undone', but I see no chaos truly being undone. Instead, nanomachines, Gerald Robotnik, Ivan Robotnik, Jeff Maxwell, SkyHigh, Sardis Mongul, Xalron, The Void, Tridus, and Phantom basically appear in a surreal Atlantis-based mosh pit and beat eachother up while reality itself explodes. I criticized this chapter a ton, but as far as entertainment value, it is quite hilarious to watch it go completely out of control. One of those "so bad it's good" moments, at least for me. It sort of kills off all the overdone seriousness that this entire season had going on. Although I wish it actually made sense, some things can never be expected of gibberish, er I mean, insane psychotic crazy comedy.
Number 1: Chapter 266: Ruby Friday at Death Mountain
So, what happens when you mix some of chapter 276 with some of chapter 256, and remove the boring 'Commander' part? You get this. Robo-tektites, amusing but mercifully short cameos of things from Season 4, and Julian plunging into magma while a Ninja stands on his head and people waffle about. And then a block falls on Julian's head. Despite the extreme peril he seems to be in, it turns out to just be him screaming for no reason! And that's not counting the short appearance of the infamous "Soul Eating Gorons" that I really should have used more, as well as a bunch of weird traps that hit Aetos a lot. Also Dark Metal Man mocks the Questers' ignorance and/or stupidity before finally being driven off in a way that actually makes sense.
I just wish more of Season 6 had been like this chapter, that would have made it a lot easier to log, since it's far more amusing than most of the Season, and sort of a preview of things to come.
Cast (In order of Appearance)
Aribar - Quester - Weary MageJulian - Quester - Angry, Violent Loudmouth
Charles - Quester - Cryptic Mystic of Order
Aetos - Quester - Aggravating Idiot
Metal Man - Quester Leader - Borderline Psychotic Leader
Sardis Mongul - Fake? Solarian? - Diary Page Thrower
Digifanatic - Quester - Elementally Willful
Smash Dex - Quester Tool - Indispensible Equipment
Jina - Quester - Flake that Never shows up
Infantry - Denon's Forces - Wisecracking Mind Controlled Maniacs
Denon Reveille - Kuja Commander - Tragic Casualty of the Past
Azure - Quester - Misspelled Mystic
Mewtwo - Smasher - Turion Base Commander
Skyhigh - Fallen Quester - The Sky Never Stops Falling
Ganondorf - Smasher - Local Nintendus Dark World Ally
Magitek X-Nauts - Grodus' Forces - High-Powered Freakish Abominations
Grodus - Kuja Commander - Predicted Everything
Garrick - Quester - Nova? Nova... NOVAAA!!!!!!
Kuja - God of Nintendus - Complacent Dimensional Plotter
Maxamillian - Kuja Commander - World's Most Misspelled Name
Ivan Robotnik - Quester Ally - Anti-Magitek Master
Meier Link - Kuja Commander - The Undying Darkness Vampire
VG - Quester - Mostly MIA
E Li Three - Quester "Ally" - Master of Meaningless Tests
Nodal - Quester - Background Jokester
Klumsy - Dead Quester - Master of Battles
Bowser - Smasher - Mostly seen in holograms
Rapmaster Dracula - Hologram - Evil Memory of Mayhem
Dracula - Hologram - Partially Redundant Evil Memory of Mayhem
Evilking - Hologram - Evilest Nidoking Ever
Spyke - Quester - Short-Appearance SwordsReploid
Bowyer - Hologram - Eeeevil Controller Disabler
Wily - Hologram - EYEBROW MASTER
Sigma - Hologram - Impudent Fool
Blade - Quester - Only Speaks When Spoken To
Blastoise - Hologram - More History Anecdotes
Wolf - Hologram - Going to Get You
Pigma - Hologram - Still wants that Reward
Andrew - Hologram - Uncle Hologram!!!
Leon - Hologram - Out to Get You
Ridley - Hologram - Big Enemy
Dedede - Hologram - Yet more History
Zio - Hologram - Metal Man thinks he's become weak
Lakitu - Hologram - Long suffering Cameraman
Jessie - Hologram - Return of the Revenge of Team Rocket
James - Hologram - Make that NaN
Meowth - That's Left!
Big Bro - Hologram - Big Old Reference
Sephiroth - Hologram - Weak to Skyscrapers
Deloth - Quester - Back for More
Sardis Mongul's Journal - Annoying Plot Object - Completely irrelevant and confusing
Wolfman - X-Zone thing - Irrelevant
Thorn - Kuja Lieutenant - Mega Tank Pilot
Zorn - Lieutenant of Kuja - Pilot of Mega Tank
Dave - Quester Ally - Black Market Scuba Diver
Policeman - Kuja Minion - Keeps the Order with Violence
Shopkeep - Kuja Civillian - Triggers Alarms
Thirteen Gentleman Androids - Thirteen Gentleman Android - Vengeful Relic
Doopliss - Kuja "Commander" - Turncoat Turnsheet
The Void - Chaotic Monstrosity - Behind the Questers' Victory
X-naut - Grodus' Forces - Vile Vial thrower
X-Gunner - Grodus' Forces - Sharp Shooting Shootmeister
Mushroom King - Mystery Man - Quizmaster and Hiding King
Eldorado - X-zone Hallucination -
Robotnik - X-zone Hallucination -
SAX2 - X-zone Hallucination
Metal Sonic - X-zone Hallucination
Evil Aribar - X-zoe hallucination
SA-X2 - XZVone Hallicoan
Zess T - TV Personality - Cooking under Duress
Rip Cheato - TV Person - Guesses Everything
Kain - TV Show Person - Dark Ruler of The Square
Dark Metal Man AKA "Xalron" - Dark Alter Ego of Metal Man - King of the Last Laughs
The Ninja - Quester - Skull Stander-on-er
GW - Smasher - BEEP Beep beeep BOOP
Megaman - Smasher - Master of Jumping
Deku Tree - Quester Ally - Wooden Informer
Lord Crump - Grodus' Forces - Ally Locator
Dr. Robotnik - Leader of Robotnikland - Trolling You From The Future
Dark Goron - Meier Link's Forces - Soul Eater (If He Got a Chance)
Vampire - Meier Link's Forces - Finger Biter
Vladimir - Charles' Hallucination - #1 Reason Not To Drink Before Sessioning
Sha'Fol - Solarian - Calm Explainer of Doom
Dr. Mario - Smasher - In the Background
Tridus - Fallen Quester - Lunatic with a Huge Sword
Bandit - Lashiec's Forces - Corrupt Telemarketer
Gerald Robotnik - Kuja "Commander" - Destoryer of Civilization
Lashiec - Kuja Commander - Dire Dark Invincible Emperor
Jeff Maxwell - Fallen Quester - Nerdy Assister
Phantom - Fallen Quester - Mass Murderer
Battleship Pilot - Maxamillian's Forces - Defender of the Capital
Nova - Ancient AI - Garrick's Best Friend
Link - Smasher
Donkey Kong - Smasher
Professor Oak - Stadium Staff
Fox - Smasher
Zelda - Smasher
Falco - Smasher
Samus - Smasher
Conclusion
Well, hard to come to a distinct conclusion here. This whole thing was a bit of everything, and it didn't really offer a conclusive statement. It's a mixture of disappointment over how the ending was botched, relief that it brought an end to a lot of the formulaicness of the plot, but also regret that it didn't make any interesting statements while it was around. Mostly, it was a bridge to another era, without too much beyond that.Perhaps in another 8 years I'll finish logging the core of SSQ: Confrontation and have something a bit more interesting to chew on...