Get it while it's fresh!

For the moment, no audio; my recording rig is in a bit of a state and I'm not sure when I'll have it back in service. It's one of those cascade failures where to fix one thing I'll have to fix another thing which will require changing three more things and getting rid of two or three others...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-18-17 AT 03:59 AM (EST)
 
That was a joy to read. Seeing the experience of each one of the Vocaloids as they awaken gives a sense of both what it's like for them, and what they're like. I also like that gblackrock17 got his two cents in.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>That was a joy to read. Seeing the experience of each one of the
>Vocaloids as they awaken gives a sense of both what it's like for
>them, and what they're like. I also like that gblackrock17
>got his two cents in.

I really enjoyed this, too! I appreciate the thought and care that goes into a story like this, even though I'm not really a writer, as such.

Incidentally, is gblackrock17 a username we should know? Obviously, I expect to recognize who it is once the reveal happens, but this is still Golden Age--no reason for Gryphon to hide, and I don't think he'd make a video that risque anyway. Trying to think who it might be. Zoner, maybe?

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

>Incidentally, is gblackrock17 a username we should know?
>Obviously, I expect to recognize who it is once the reveal happens,
>but this is still Golden Age--no reason for Gryphon to hide, and I
>don't think he'd make a video that risque anyway. Trying to think who
>it might be. Zoner, maybe?

I do believe that is Soundwave, aka "Gabe Blackrock", aka The Guy Who Bullshitted Sylvie Daniels.

Aha! Thanks for the reminder.

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

>I do believe that is Soundwave, aka "Gabe Blackrock", aka The Guy Who
>Bullshitted Sylvie Daniels.

This hypothesis is circumstantially supported by the fact that 17 was Soundwave's original item number in the Japanese Transformers G1 series.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR

Ah, I forget that, so I tried and failed to associate gblackrock17 with Black Rock Shooter, as in a character that got Vocaloid song and escalated from there.

>Ah, I forget that, so I tried and failed to associate gblackrock17
>with Black Rock Shooter, as in a character that got Vocaloid song and
>escalated from there.

Heh, my only point of reference for BRS is people in Danbooru comments saying that Aircraft Carrier Wo-class from Kantai Collection looks like her, particularly in the anime when she gets shot in the eye. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

So, that was excellent fun.

I think my favorite parts were the individual awakenings. They gave a clear and defined sense of the differences in each Vocaloid, and were imo quite powerful and engaging, particularly Gumi's. I also have to give significant props for the concept of the logs files acting as essentially residual memories. That was really well done.

I also deeply appreciate the deliberate lack of a "villain" in this. You'd already told us in the Featured Documents post that such was the case, but I was still definitely left wondering whether there wouldn't be at least some attempted shenanigans when Dr. Tsuji showed up at the final hearing. That, as well as Hinamura's response when Miku asked why he'd decided to join in on their side were fantastic. (As an aside, the annotation for how Gryph and Zoner intended to "handle" any potential complications was absolute gold)

Oh. My. God.

I haven't commented on stories recently...not because I don't enjoy them (I do!) but because I feel like simply saying "great story!" is...a bit ofa waste of bandwidth.

I have to comment on this one, I do...

You had me in tears about 4 times over the course of it, even knowing (because it's Eyrie) that Everything Will Turn Out Alright In the End.

Gods, but I wish I could be in the Letterman audience for that show...wish, wish, wish

and finally, "wrong side of history"...chills down my back, completely and (not to get TOO political about it) quite apropos of today, all things considered.

brava!

>and finally, "wrong side of history"...chills down my back, completely
>and (not to get TOO political about it) quite apropos of today, all
>things considered.

As the submitter of that part - inspired by the phrase, yes - the timing was not planned at all. It's just something that happened, for good or ill.

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

This is lovely. I would say more, but I've become increasing bad with words, so I'll leave it at that and hope you can parse the meaning.

Oh yes, if you want an easy-to-digest sample of Vocaloid music (and that was the inspiration for my portions of the writing), you can't go wrong with the concert albums available on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hatsune-miku-magical-mirai-2014-live/id969914420
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hatsune-miku-expo-2014-in-indonesia-live/id925579881

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/mikunopolis-in-los-angeles-happy-to-meet-you-im-hatsune/id642832495

(the two 2014 concerts are of the same time period of the story, while Mikunopolis was in 2011 during Anime Expo and coincided with the Toyota Corolla Hatsune Miku advertising campaign.)

--- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

>(the two 2014 concerts are of the same time period of the story, while
>Mikunopolis was in 2011 during Anime Expo and coincided with the
>Toyota Corolla Hatsune Miku advertising campaign.)

Mikunopolis is also a city on Funkotron. They're... very dedicated fans there.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Back when New Tricks came out, I said that it felt like a return to the older, more episodic Eyrie Productions, where UF!Gryphon stumbles headlong into one anime after another? This kinda does the same thing in a different way. Think all the way back to the beginning of Undocumented Features: the divergence point, the event that kicks it all off, is the accidental creation of an artificial intelligence. This is much more narrowly focused, and it doesn't show any sign of leading to another complete retcon of galactic history stretching millenia into the past, or to the destruction of Worcester, MA, but the parallel still made me smile a little.

We haven't really seen that much of Earth or galactic society immediately post-contact, have we? There's this, there's the mini about Zefram Cochrane testing the hyperdrive he's independently reinvented, there's the first story featuring Redneck (which IIRC introduces Zardon), and there's been a lot of hints at things that happened but not actually onstage, but I feel like FI-era is much more fully realized. The variety is nice.

On a more out-of-universe note, the extent of my prior exposure to Vocaloids is that someone I follow on Twitter went to a Magical Mirai concert in 2015 and posted a whole bunch of photos with no context. I then tried to find examples of the music, found the really old stuff that sounds like it's been AutoTuned to death, and gave up. :-/ So I also want to say that you have once again done an excellent job of presenting new-to-UF characters to people more-or-less completely unfamiliar with their source material, and that I appreciate your choosing sample music videos based on newer iterations of the software. :)

And finally, when y'all first used the line "My friend, don't be a dick," it seemed such a perfectly Venkman thing to say, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it fit neatly into two other characters' mouths in the course of the same story.

>We haven't really seen that much of Earth or galactic society
>immediately post-contact, have we? There's this, there's the mini
>about Zefram Cochrane testing the hyperdrive he's independently
>reinvented, there's the first story featuring Redneck (which IIRC
>introduces Zardon), and there's been a lot of hints at things that
>happened but not actually onstage, but I feel like FI-era is much more
>fully realized.

Not really, no. There is, at least, a hell of a lot more stuff set in the FI era. The thing about the WDF's early Golden Age is that they mostly spent it nowhere near Earth, so to show Earth in that period, we for the most part don't show the main cast, which is in itself something that doesn't happen terribly often.

>The variety is nice.

I enjoy it too, when it comes together.

>I
>then tried to find examples of the music, found the really old stuff
>that sounds like it's been AutoTuned to death, and gave up. :-/

... Um, on a point of order, that's sort of what Vocaloid is, so... :)

>And finally, when y'all first used the line "My friend, don't be a
>dick," it seemed such a perfectly Venkman thing to say, so I was
>pleasantly surprised to see it fit neatly into two other characters'
>mouths in the course of the same story.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm pretty sure it originally was a Venkman thing to say (as in, he says it in the movie, not just in The Other Side). And, to be fair, Kurusu was quoting Rodimus Prime. (No, he wasn't there for that conversation, but he heard about it later.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>And finally, when y'all first used the line "My friend, don't be a
>dick," it seemed such a perfectly Venkman thing to say, so I was
>pleasantly surprised to see it fit neatly into two other characters'
>mouths in the course of the same story.

I'm not sure what it says about me that the first person I associated that line with upon reading it was Adam Hills - possibly just that I'm a fan of The Last Leg. Then again, later on in the story I had a brainfart and mis-attributed the "The right people will get this" line to Monty Python before correcting myself, so maybe I just need to work on expanding my reference pool. Still, I don't mind admitting this, since it led directly to me wishing I could see the Vocaloids perform the Camelot song from Holy Grail.

>Still, I don't mind admitting
>this, since it led directly to me wishing I could see the Vocaloids
>perform the Camelot song from Holy Grail.

LUKA
Look, my liege!

MIKU
Camelot!

RIN
Camelot!

MEIKO
Camelot!

KAITO
It's only a model.

MIKU
Shh! Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home. Let us ride, to, Camelot!

immediately starts the guitar riffs of Def Leppard's "Run Riot"

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

So much becomes clearer. If I have any nitpicks it would be... well, investigating to closely.

I do feel (possibly because of things IRL) perhaps an even greater connection with Miku and the others because the 'villian' of the piece is really their own fears; and having to face them and an uncertain future. That aspect really resonates with me right now.

>I do feel (possibly because of things IRL) perhaps an even greater
>connection with Miku and the others because the 'villian' of the piece
>is really their own fears; and having to face them and an uncertain
>future. That aspect really resonates with me right now.

[ Miku and company give StarRanger4 virtual simsense hugs in support. ]

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

I haven't remarked on my enjoyment and approval of this story because to do so without anything else to say feels (as others have said) like a waste of bandwidth.

So, proofing! I was rereading the story, and noticed that in the final hearing scene, Eri Terauchi was referred to as "Takeuchi". Probably a typo.

>So, proofing! I was rereading the story, and noticed that in the final
>hearing scene, Eri Terauchi was referred to as "Takeuchi". Probably a
>typo.

Oops, thanks.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

A moment of funny:

Sweet! :)

(BTW: found the original - http://archvermin.deviantart.com/art/Hatsune-Miku-on-Letterman-487361552 )

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

>Nah, I can't blame you for that. I mean, I'd have handled it with my customary
>and may I say legendary sangfroid," Kurusu remarked, "but Shinoda would've had
>six kittens and a cow, and the rest of us would've had to tie him to a couch
>to keep him from calling Chiba for instructions."

Rereading this today, and other recent threads took me here:

Shinoda: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS F*****G COUCH!

>Rereading this today, and other recent threads took me here:
>
*SNERK*

You do realize in the long run that ISNT going take us anywere GOOD, yes, Jeff???