Oni2:Slaves of War/Overview

Backstory

Oni's timeline has already veered away from ours — for instance, we have passed the start of the World Coalition Government (the manual says "2032", but this is meant to say "2012", the same year the Freedom Riots happened), the development of phase technology (first used in 2012), and the beginning of the BioCrisis — but it's possible to reconcile all the differences in our timeline and Oni's by tying them to a single point of divergence in history and calling Oni's timeline an alternate history. This also makes everything easier to explain to the audience.

Before continuing, an unanswered question from Oni is how Hasegawa could have invented the Daodan Chrysalis. It's way too advanced to be a mere next step in the technology of the time, and he only had up to 3 years to do it, since the manual says Konoko was orphaned (meaning, separated from her dad) at age 3. My approach to the backstory has Hasegawa inventing the Chrysalis — the implantable form of the Daodan — but not the Daodan itself.

As the basis for Oni's alternate history timeline, my point of divergence occurs in 2000 AD when a scientist in Oni's timeline develops phase technology. This allowed contact between our world and another place. In our timeline, some small difference caused this technology to not be discovered. In Oni’s timeline, while experimenting with the "phase veil", some small seed or seeds of life slipped through into Oni’s world unseen. This foreign life was able to grow even in Earth’s environment because it was Daodan-enhanced; all life is, in this other place.

According to this premise, the atmosphere is becoming toxic not because of industrial pollution (as the fans tend to assume, but is never stated) but because Daodan-enhanced life is coming through the phase veil and taking root here, xenoforming our planet to resemble their home. At first it is only simpler kinds of life, like bacteria and plants, but as those flourish here, larger alien life forms which depend on the simpler life as food are able to live here too.

By 2012, a few things happened as a result. For one, the BioCrisis was serious enough that the WCG had to be formed. The manual states that the purpose of unifying the nations of the world was to avoid the spiraling debt that many were in. In our timeline, some countries are in financial trouble, but in Oni's, the situation was made worse by having to deal with the gradual toxification of the atmosphere, which led to the construction of Wilderness Preserves and Atmospheric Conversion Centers.

After Jamie’s death, Hasegawa analyzed the Wilderness to find an answer to what killed her and what made the Preserve so dangerous, and he noticed that the same genetic signature/process was occurring in all the hostile/alien plant life. Naming it the Daodan ("troublemaker"), he then decided that if humans had this same extraterrestrial process inside them, they could adapt to the xenoformed environment in the the same way that this life is adapting to (and changing) Earth.

This approach unifies the development of the Daodan Chrysalis, the reason for the WCG and the cause of the BioCrisis, and explains all of this with a single change in our recent past, which is the successful development of experimental phase technology in Oni's world and not ours.

Themes

Oni starts us off with a seemingly controlled situation; the WCG is in charge, putting the world into a kind of stasis. On a more personal level, Konoko has been trained as a cop and has an SLD assistant, and that world's all she's ever known. The end of Oni, however, leaves us with everything being turned on its head. Therefore, I think it's natural to be led to the notion of opposites, for both story-following and story-telling reasons:

Oni 1 => Oni 2
Order => Chaos

Oni 1 was about a seed of chaos growing in an orderly (controlled) world, and Oni 2 can be about a seed of order (control) growing amidst chaos.

Oni 1 => Oni 2
Solitude => Company

Oni 1 was about Konoko working alone, losing anyone that she had left to trust, so let's make Oni 2 about working with others as part of a group ("Someone left to trust"). Plus, I'm inspired by guido's art, in particular this piece, which is my favorite. I really want to see Mai be part of a team like that; even if it turns out that not every member of the group is entirely allied or trustworthy....

Conflict

With the above in mind, here are the forms of conflict I would like to focus on:

• Man vs. Man; there's going to be plenty of this kind of conflict all over the world -- debates over whether the Daodan is needed or whether it's too risky; how to fight against the Wilderness, potentially with risky countermeasures; fights over land with working ACCs; fights with Syndicate warlords who want a piece of the world for themselves...

• Man vs. Nature; the plot can serve as an analogue to the global conflict between our selfish desires as a race and the needs of the planet; is there no way to co-exist peacefully with the Wilderness, alien though it may be? This is the conundrum that all of mankind is facing, but it is specifically Mukade's agon in the story.

• Man vs. Self; Mai feels badly about the Cataclysm she caused. She's not sure she made the right choices, and after being betrayed by, or at least having to fight, her former agency as well as her brother, she has lost the ability to trust people. Her agon is her inner guilt and her unwillingness to trust others, but she has to learn to trust and work with the other characters in order to prevent more disasters like the one she had to bring about the last time she worked alone. Finally, she's concerned about how her Imago form will turn out (if we don't have her already at that stage when Oni 2 begins). All of these are internal struggles that weigh down on Mai's psyche.

Gameplay

Assuming we had the use of Oni's original engine, or had totally reproduced its behaviors, what areas can we work on for an Oni 2? What areas of Oni needed improvement? The melee combat is probably the area we'd need to focus on the least, as it is the most polished. Our time would be better spent in areas dictated by Oni 2's story, or by criticisms of Oni 1. Too many bullet points on our feature list will result in another Oni project that takes longer than planned, so let's keep it to a minimum. Here's my suggestions:

• Slightly improved melee: now with parrying, grappling, and throw escapes.
• Power tree for Mai; how she uses her Chrysalis (that is, how the player plays as her) affects its development as she goes Imago.
• More communication between AIs, like what Bungie originally planned for Oni. Basically, I just want an AI to be able to call or run for help. No blithely walking past KOed allies when the area is supposedly secured.
• Natural environments; this one could be a stumbling block for the Oni engine. We might need to re-write the 3D engine (or incorporate an open-source engine) in order to do complex outdoor scenery. If Mai and co. are supposed to be exploring the Wilderness, then this is an unavoidable issue. One specific concern I have is interactive flora. If you're in the middle of a bunch of bushes, do they actually quiver if you brush against them? Does the character push palm fronds out of their face as they walk? If the plants just sit there as static models, then we have a problem, especially because the Wilderness probably is a bit more lively than our everyday ferns and flowers and trees.
• Stealth; either the use of disguises, or else simply allowing Mai to sneak up to or around enemies, is a "must" in my opinion. I would like to allow players to do pacifist runs.

Loose Threads

Things from Oni 1 that we want to make reference to or develop on, even if trivially.

• Hapémask
• The Marionette project
• More advanced SLD technology
• Bertram Navarre
• Q-31 Railgun
• Deadly Brains
• Theta wave scans
• Funny civilians and general Bungie-style humor
• Flatline zombies
• "I have accomplished everything our father dreamed of doing."
• From the manual:
  • "An average family can afford a nice place to live, timeshare on a vehicle and a terminal that links them to the WorldNet."
  • "The poor wretches who can't afford to live in the cities get as close to the atmosphere processors as they can and eke out a miserable (and dangerous) existence working on the reclamation teams who beat back the corrosive stain of the wilderness."
  • "Biotech is to us what nukes were to our great grandparents"
  • "cyber drugs"
  • "Others claim a connection between the Syndicate and the remnants of the countries erased by the World Coalition Government's land grab."