The Mother 4 questions and answers topic

[Forte]

I must ask that all comments be held off until I complete this, which won't all be in one post, since I don't have much of an idea of the middle or ending, just a pretty long beginning.

Taking a little longer than I thought it would. So instead of waiting to do this when I actually finish it, I'll just start a new topic. If you're interested in it, feel free to ask/say whatever you want about Mother 4. Originally the plan was that after I finished there would be a lot of fun, mostly unrelated to the story things to explain and elaborate on, so that's what's going on here, just without the actually finished part.

Also it's a good way to get people to post.

As a side note, this thread is especially useful for pointing out to me anything that seems off about any of my posts. If you pay attention, most of my Mother 4 updates are posted in the wee hours of the morning, so my spelling/grammar might be off even though I try to keep it of a quality higher than normal.

[Sepuku.exe]

* Sepuku.exe is a giddy fanboy

[Forte]

That's not a question or an answer

[Forte]

Obviously I've been pretty busy lately, with what little free time I have being used on TF2, the occasional Wii/DS/PS2 game, and card games that in the future will be played on motorcycles, and haven't really had the time to write much with Mother 4. To make up for it, I'll answer a few of the questions that most people who read it probably have on their mind while reading it (At least, I feel like it's not very well explained in story). Some of this is useless trivia that isn't worth much to the story.

Q: What's the world of Mother 4 like at the beginning?
A: Not very different from the world in Mother 2. The story starts long enough after the events of Mother 3 that the technology left over from the old world is understood by the inhabitants of the new one - that is to say, there's cars, and then there's car repairmen, and people who make the cars. Needless to say, in a world as empty as the world is when Mother 4 starts, making cars isn't really a busy job.

Q: What's up with these names?
A: Pretty much they're all musical terms, unless you're Heron, Falin, or Toshi. Toshi's name is the only one to give away his power/possibly reveal his purpose.

[c0mp1337]

so in the lastest post, did you just made porky inb4 foreveralone.jpg

[Forte]

Early on in the development of the story, I really thought to myself that Porky needed to die, but then I realized that Porky has committed too many crimes to really be allowed to die. The next best thing I could think of is to make it where his threat is neutralized is to, as you put it, keep him foreveralone.jpg.

[Fenril]

What happened to the spider-time machine that lets people live forever? I probably just forgot if you mentioned it, but... yeah, I can't remember.

[Forte]

Destroyed, per Porky's orders.

[c0mp1337]

can you remind me what the different sectors were and what did they have?

[Forte]

Sector 1 is the capitol sector, and also the biggest sector. It houses the Unit 1 Tower, the largest of all the Unit headquarters. Housed within are two terrariums, it is fully equipped offices and housing for each of the commanders, room and boarding for soldiers, international archives, basically everything you would find in what may as well be Washington D.C.: Building edition. Some of the buildings are fake shells built specifically to house utilities such as electricity and water plants, and there are also museums, schools, shopping centers, the necessities of urban living.

Sector 2's claim to fame is the Chimera Division, housed in the Unit 2 Tower. There is an extensive library here, as well. Tourism to the sector is pretty big, so there's lots of Chimera Laboratory themed gift shops. It also rains here quite frequently, and gets a good deal of snow in the winter. Weather altering technology could change this, but no one bothers to change it. I guess I'll just state here that each of the sectors aside from 6 and 7 are pretty much your typical big city environment with plenty of shops, restaurants, high rises, and etc.

Sector 3, and more appropriately, Unit 3, is the medical division. It is home to the best medical facilities the world has, and that's really saying something, considering the technology is all the same throughout the world. Its placement as the best, however, obviously stems from the fact that 70% of Unit 3 is stationed there. Needless to say, living in Sector 3 puts your life expectancy up.

Sector 4 is the only sector to be nothing more than a large island. It's the only place on the entire planet that doesn't generate artificial clouds, but rain is a very limited thing that is never allowed to happen near the Unit 4 tower. The climate was mostly arid to begin with, so disallowing rain isn't something that has to be done often. Due to the sunlight, the materials used to make everything are a much lighter shade, roads are paved with concrete instead of asphalt, for example.

Sector 5 is another large sector, outdone in size only by Sector 1. It is the number one sector in terms of military training, and is where the majority of new recruits begin their training. It has more educational institutions than any other sector, as well, mostly to account for the academic education of these new recruits. Though you may think so, the schools here do not feed brainwashing information into their students.

Sector 6 is commonly described as "a frozen hell at the top of the world", and lo and behold, it is. Most criminals, for almost any crime, are sent here for varying amounts of time depending on the crime they committed. The only higher security prison in the entire world is located in Sector 1. Due to a certain someone practicing their PSI here a bit too much, the entire area of the sector and, miles of ocean around it,is locked in a never-ending blizzard.

Sector 7 is the mineral resources sector, located on a desert continent, of which the majority was not a desert until an artificial sun was launched into geosynchronous orbit around the area. Due to this, there is no such thing as night in Sector 7, and the actual "day time" is dominated by temperatures in the mid 100s (celsius). The primary function of the sector is mining, since the area it is in just so happens to be on top of very rich mineral deposits. Scattered about the sector are various scrap yards, full of broken robots and machine parts that have been put out of service. The materials are recycled at these scrap yards, and delivered back to the Unit 7 tower where they're machined and used in new robots.

[Clockwork Pyrite]

Which scene did you have the most fun writing?

[Forte]

I can't say I had more fun writing any part of it than any other part. Even if I did, it's been so long now that I couldn't tell you.

[Clockwork Pyrite]

Which idea of yours strikes you as "most original"?

[Forte]

It's hard to define an original idea in a story that is supposed to serve as an unofficial sequel to a series that served as a satire of Western culture. Most everything is a reference to the preceding games in one way or another, and I wanted it to be that way. Sector 7 and everything contained in it strikes me as one of the most original things I came up with, and it follows a motif set in place both by the overarching "dominance over nature" thing, and by Adagio's character itself.

The Sector 7 chapter presented early on in the writing is actually in need of serious retconning. It was written as a way to avoid what I felt would be a slow progression through that part of the story - replace the trek through a long tower like that with a casual meeting. In game, it'll be a fully fleshed out area, with a surprising amount of stuff to do, considering that it's a desert.

I think it's also important to note that some of the things in the story may seem like they were unoriginal, or lifted from somewhere else, the most prominent example being that Allegro is an effeminate, pink haired, scythe wielding douchebag, a character who I built completely from the ground up to be a reverse Magypsy. Imagine my surprise when I first found out who Marluxia is, almost a full year after I first designed Allegro's appearance. At least he looks hella manlier than Allegro.

[Clockwork Pyrite]

This is an incredibly overused and generic question, but I'll ask anyway.

If you could change/rewrite one part of the story, which would it be?