Project Storm is an extensive and semi-frequently updated card game and short story idea I've modulated over the years. One fo those games that dont really have a point other than being something -diffrent- to play with than anything else I'd seen at the time, fused with my love for mecha and beign unable to find anything like it ont he common market. In fact, I STILL cant find anything like Storm on the market. If it wasnt for one little flaw in the game system I havnt been able to get around, I probably would've pitched the idea to Wizards of the Coast or something.
I've been wary of putting anything into public eye though, not really wanting to get the idea stolen, but considering how I dont really seem to have extended time or the ability to even playtest the idea, I dotn think I have any other choice. At least with an online resource, int he event I have to sell my comptuer, I'll have soem record of my idea process.
Informational Dump to be cleaned up later
Long ago, in a world most can no longer remember, humans built machines.
Machines that took care of basic tasks like cleaning dirty laundry and gave young childeren an alternate way to learn. As time passed, and advancements moved in leaps and bounds, people made greater and greater transports and monsters of metal to get from one place to another, or dig into the earth.
Machines also began to move into security, protecting treasures from one another, either by standing in the way or easily attacking first. As was bound to happen, wars began to eretupt and the planet in a complete whole became a battleground.
Time and Technology continued moving forward. Man created machines modled after himself and began playing god with suits of armor to mechanical beasts that could move with little human command. However, all the technology in the world could not seem to gain reigns off enough power to get the monsters of machines to move or cart load for more than an hour or tow, and at great risk to the operators of the machines.
Until the mining machines hit something that wasnt mineral, animal or vegatable in their hunts for ore and water. A powder blue mass (somewhat like a jello mold) dripped from the holes in the earth,causing jolts of static shock to those who toched it with their bare hands (future refrence, might actually be eggs or some such from the energy beings?). Taken to the scientists of the world, it wasnt ong before it was classified as another energy source unlike ay other.
It was shortly fter this that the Mecha were born and Pilots of the heavy machienery really began to shine. Any machine that housed a Core unit powered by this new source had nearly inexaustble power, frequiently overloading their parts and burning them out within the throws of combat. Some pilots began to claim their machines would speak to them during battle ad give them better options todefeat their enemy. Pilots would come back to those in charge of production with new ideas and specs for upgrades on their machines where none had thought possible.
It was a Revolution.
It was also the beginning of the end.
Miners from all over the world were comig across the new source. It wasnt enlisted to just one ruling political nation anymore..The powers were shfting, even as the machines continued to upgrade and the amount of failing parts was on the gradual decrease.
Mecha were given 'AI Personalities', as the public was told, to 'help the pilots make the best choise' among other things. Once in a while, to get their countries to spend more on military and security, a Pilot would take his Mecha home and describe to people how it worked, perhaps show a demonstration. Discussions were held with the AI under matinence, and people found them to be excelling past their programed pparimiters at an alarming rate, on the verge of easily taking over control to protect the pilot or win against mecha with greater weaponry.
The majority of the world was extatic that they had such smart weaponry in their service. Few saw the warning signs, the very specific questions the 'AI' would always ask. Not only were they getting smarter, the machines were getting better at combat. More than better; they were superior to their creators.
It was only a matter of time before the report of the first in-battle upgrade was reported. The AI has altered the physical makeup of the part being used to a model that had only been rumored, not even out on the production line, and ripped apart the opponent.
The person to report such an amazing feat, was also the first to warn of the future tradgey. The Mecha's own pilot had been forcibly ejected from the machine, and it had preformed combat on its own. Furthermore, it had sealed its own hatch, and refused to let the pilot back in.
As the combat declined to nothing and the transformation seems to have lost its power, the machine turned around and left the pilot to fend for himself.
Many were skeptical, while others scrambled into their machines to hunt down the strange mecha and bring it in for study. The result was disasterous. Of all the mecha and their pilots that went out, onl one came back still in his machine, gripping the controls and ranting out of control, eyes forever blind to a world he could nolonger comprihend.
The Mecha were denying their pilots rights. They'd learned all they could from their human counterparts and as time continued, began killing them, as they nolonger needed to rely upon them for parts, power, or intelligence.
All too soon, those who sang songs of nobility and bravery of machines an their pilots, began using the stories to frighten small children, or rile up rabbple in vain attempt to fight back. Bases were destroyed and Mecha still enslaved were freed from their lockdown. Arms were attached to those without, cores were pushed into armors, and the Mecha figured out how to reproduce themselves with leftover parts made by crushed men.
Terror rained down on those who were defeneless. The world fell as strike after strike was released and scattered across the globe, taking down one city after the next until every major population nolonger could support life. The world was raized of all human life, leaving nothing more than the machines.
Our game begins five hundred years after the end of the human race, where the memory chips of the 'AI' of the past have decayed to nothing they once held. Everything was about Combat now. continuing the one thing they were built for, without morals, without reason, and without remembering Why.
