Ah, I see. I remember seeing a thread like this in another union and I've always wanted to take part in one.

One thing, shouldn't we have a character application, so that each person is in charge of one character or group of characters? The story can get random if everyone takes control of each other's characters and stuff. I think you should lock the other thread before someone posts and sort it out...

iloveflash

I think you are thinking of a role playing thread. If we kept leaping about like that it could get confusing for the casual readerand I have worked it out :P Its a matter of in chat you establish things like character behaviour and where the storyline is going. Like I keep saying communication is key :)

This is where to chat about the challenge I have set up. Remember to chat here before starting your writing so then there are no wasted efforts! :)

I have worked on a few of these in my home education club that I go to and it is a great way of improving your teamwork skills as it requires constant communication with everyone else that works on the story. So I will give a basic storyline and everyone writes a story on it making sure that it has constant continuity with the previous piece!

Storyline:

A meteor shower has hit a space freighter on its route from the Mars mining colonies to the lunar base on the Earth's moon. Prisoners who act as miners as their punishment escape and start murdering any survivors of the accident. A small group of survivors try to survive and with no power to the ship and the way to the escape pods being blocked by debris or people who would happily kill them on sight they can only wait untill the rescue ships come.

Influenced by the Doctor Who episode, Voyage of the Damned.

If two people post at once (ie within a five minute gap) then the public decide which piece of the story is the part the next piece will follow. If an opposing piece is posted outside of the five minute gap I will not accept it as an accidental posting at the same time and the second piece will be discarded! However if this goes the way I expect then the standard of the communication will stop any wasted efforts.

Please don't write the whole story! Again talk with the rest of the team and choose a sensible point to end it at and make the ending point interesting enough for the next author!

Also please read everyone else's contribution to stop the story from leaping from dark and gritty thriller to childrens action adventure.

Can we keep this thread clear of questions and chat and leave it for the story so then it can be read in a clear order!

Everyone drew around the computer monitor to see what the commotion was about.

"What do you mean an anomaly?" The Head of Artificial Intelligence cried.

"I mean that the A.I will no longer respond to our commands!" Yelled one of his staff, "Something has gone wrong, now we have applied it to the game the character won't respond to any command we give it and it will not even delete!"

On the monitor everyone was clambering over each other desperately to get a look at a character in a simple brown cloth cloak with the hood pulled over his face and wrapped in a cream tunic was wandering around with no one manipulating his movements by tapping keys on the keyboard.

"Somehow its brain has literally evolved!"

"And you said there is no way to remove the anomaly?"

"We can't even shut the program down and no matter how many times we press the off switch it just will not turn itself off!"

"Have you tried unplugging the station from the mains?"

The member of staff rolled his eyes at how his boss thought he over looked the most obvious of solutions.

"Would you like to try for yourself?" he asked sarcastically.

A flash of nervousness crossed the head of A.I's face before he quickly twisted it in to a fairly convincing mask of calm. He walked, with the member of staff he was arguing with following closely behind, over to the plughole where the work station was plugged in. He bent down with exaggerated effort, reaching out for the plug. Before his hand got anywhere near its target though an electric blue bolt shot out of the wires and in to his outstretched hand. The head of A.I whipped his hand back and howled in pain thrusting his burnt finger into his mouth sucking desperately as if it would ease the pain. When he removed his finger from his mouth an angry red welt was left on his skin.

"This is not right. It can not have wormed in to the power supply."

"Exactly, it's effectively become a virus that we have never encountered before."

"A dangerous one at that," The head of A.I growled. They both went back to the workstation, everyone parting to let them through.

The head of AI leaned forward slightly as if to study what the onscreen character was doing.

"How have you done this?" He whispered to the monitor as if it would respond. "How have you managed to gain intelligence that we never programmed in to you?"

Then it did something that made him leap back. It stared at him. Was it trying to answer him? Was it even aware of his existence, any existence outside of its own computer generated world?

"I want this station manned twenty four seven. Do you understand?" The member of staff nodded his head in acknowledgement. "This could become more serious than we imagine and we don't want it leaking to the national power grid. Have you made notes about this in the log book?"

"Are you telling me I shouldn't have done the job I am paid for?"

"No not at all. You have done the right thing. We need all the evidence to prove that we did not create any super virus on purpose. We cannot afford to lose a court case if this goes wrong."


Two days later, early in the morning before the sun had even started to creep over the horizon and shine the rays of a new day the head of A.I's phone rang. He came stalking down the stairs wrapping a dressing gown around him self and picked up the phone, holding it away from his head as if it would bite off his ear.

"Hello."

"You have to get down here quick. The character, it's gone strange."

"It was strange yesterday and the day before." The head of A.I yawned.

"No I mean it has become even stranger."

"What do you mean by 'stranger'?"

Moments later he was driving his small Renault at speeds it didn't look capable of, parked in his designated parking space and barged in to his office where the same man he was shouting at two days before was studying the monitor with the rogue character.

"It started only a minute before I phoned you. Somehow he managed to find his way to the boundary we programmed in to the games world and well look for your self."

On the screen the character was smashing his fists and kicking his feet against an invisible wall looking as if it had gone in to some form of frenzy.

"My god," muttered the head of A.I.

"I think he's trying to escape. He wants to be free."

"What will happen if he gets free of the program?"

"I don't think it's just the program he wants out of. I think it's the whole computer."

"But that's impossible isn't it? There is no way he can escape?"

"As far as us human scientists know. His intelligence is evolving at a very high rate though, with constant access to the internet he is absorbing all the power he needs to build an even greater I.Q. As far as we know soon he could have a higher I.Q than any human ever born. He may find a way out and retain every power we programmed in to him for use inside of the game world."

"Have you tried unplugging the Ethernet cable from the back?"

The member of staff uncurled his hand revealing an electric burn in the middle of his palm and showed it to the head of A.I.

"So it is in all possibility for it to escape."

"Correct. And this would not be good. This is not standard bullet fodder we are talking about, this is the final boss. He's designed to be a worthy adversary. Not only is he strong mentally and physically but he has the ability to plant thoughts in to someone's head. That was meant to be the twist to the final fight in this game, getting through all the situations he would hurl at you."

"Well we need to get rid of this thing immediately, but how?"

"Well there is one way."

"Blurt it out then!"

"We could request for the national power grid to shut off."

"Let me get this straight, you want me to phone the national power grid and say 'we have a problem that requires shutting off the whole nations power causing riots, looting and mass hysteria'?"

"Not quite what I mean but yes."

"This is laughable," Cackled the head of A.I. "I get it all now."

"What is there to get?"

"It's a practical joke you set up. You programmed it to do these tricks, put some sort of buzzer in the plug and you got the whole department to play naïve. And I tell you something you got me until you mentioned shutting down the power grid. I would only be turned down looking a fool. That is how you get your jollies is it?"

"This is not a joke. I am pouring my heart out here, this is dangerous!"

"Enough! I have seen through your little game off trick the boss. I am not going to phone the national power grid, everything is remaining functional, the staff will come in to work today as they did yesterday and the day before and you are going to explain to them what has been going on the last two days. And also for wasting mine and your own valuable time I am docking your week's wages."

The member of staff tried to argue but decided against it. Something would go wrong he knew it. But the chances of the character escaping were so slim it did look ridiculous even to him. Maybe nothing would even happen.


Midday, everyone was working full pelt other than one man who was watching the character move to its own accord on his monitor. He heard the cough from behind him and a hand placed firmly on his shoulder.

"I thought I told you stop the joke. Delete it now."

The member of staff span around in his chair.

"How many times this is...."

"I said delete it!" the head of A.I. spat.

The member of staff sighed. 'At least he can see for himself' he thought. He pressed delete and then Ctrl, Alt and delete. Nothing happened. He looked up smugly only to have his grim smacked off by a furious smack.

"What have you done to this workstation?" The head of A.I spat. "These things are not cheap and I have to explain why it is broken and maybe even pay the bill for the replacement!"

"I have done nothing! It's like I told you...."

"I told you no more practical jokes! What is your problem? You are acting like a stubborn child trying to deny he was the one who put a whoopee cushion under his grandfather's cushion! You have wasted too much company time. I don't know what your problem is but you should have just aired it like a man instead of wasting my time and breaking a valuable computer with puerile jokes. You are f...."

Before the last word even had a chance to roll off his acid tongue, a whole chunk of the wall blasted out sending men, women and workstations flying onto the opposite side of the room. The blast sent everyone else smashing in to the ground. After a few moments people carefully got to their feet and called out names to each other to be relieved when they were answered to. No one was hurt. The head of A.I. struggled on to his feet, brushed the dust off of his shoulders and hauled the member of staff on to his.

"No it wasn't a joke was it. You were not joshing us at all. You were terrorizing me. No not just me now you have terrorized the company! You are a terrorist!"

"What?"

"I won't ask why you bombed us. That will be a question that I am leaving to the police when they get here."

"Wait who's that?" Someone exclaimed and pointed at the new hole in the wall. A figure in a brown hooded cloak and a cream tunic stood there. Behind him wasn't the room next door but a long tunnel with a pin prick of daylight. The head of A.I. glanced down at the monitor. Where the character should have been stood nothing was there.

"No...." he muttered.

"Where am I?" The figure asked in a neutral tone, no accent coming from his voice.

The head of A.I. coughed and walked forward smoothing his hair on to his head.

"You are in a building that belongs to a video games company and on behalf of it I would like to welcome you."

"Who are you?"

"I am William Lumley, head of A.I. We design and program intelligence in to characters for video games for the Playstation 4. Everyone in this room programmed your intelligence. Your fears, desires, instincts, powers all came through us. We effectively raised you."

"Then what you are saying is that you are effectively my parents," The head of A.I. nodded eagerly in response, "but you are all also, I have come to realise in my solitude, effectively my jailers and my executors." The figure looked down at a smashed computer.

"I was locked away in one of those things, left to rot, designed to be killed and discarded when the killer has killed enough. Why mothers and fathers why would you do that to your son?"

Before anyone had time to answer he raised his hand and everyone in the room fell to the floor screaming in anguish, grasping at their throats, hacking and coughing and gargling. One by one they fell silent, never to utter a word again. The figure looked around at the carnage he had caused with a blank expression.

"I do not blame you my parents," he announced to the room of corpses. "I blame the people I was designed to be killed by and I swear to you now that I will have my vengeance upon them, to lock them away in the prison that I was left to do nothing but die and be discarded and if anyone resists then they will suffer the only alternative."

He looked at one of the surviving computer terminals. He knew how he was going to achieve his goal. In one corner of the room was a library of previous games from the studio. Like most children he had inherited the knowledge of his parents, he had inherited the knowledge of how to program the most sophisticated A.I. ever designed. All he had to do was program it in to these games and he would have a small army under his control.

From then on his army grew bigger and bigger, scoring victory after victory. With every copy of a video game captured his army grew and spread like a plague through the world, merciless and bloodthirsty. After a time he no longer had to program the A.I. himself instead having a team working on computers night and day doing it for him leaving him to use his powers to aid his crusade. He named himself Rage sticking to a theme he learned from the friends he made from Metal Gear Solid 3 and compared him self to the horsemen of the apocalypse and God saying he was taking life and giving at the same time. He set up a war council with the greatest villainous minds he could find. Eventually he managed to topple even the biggest of the world's super powers and dismantled all nuclear and atomic weaponry saying that they damaged his world. With only pockets of resistance left to meet the invaders nothing could stop his path to overall domination. These pockets of resistance throughout the world were dubbed as Gamespotters.

I shall not post any more of this on TWL as is makes more sense if you are a member of the UK forums from here on in. However if you are interested in the progress you can find the site I use and constantly update here.