User blog:ChineseLegolas/The (second to) Last.

My last MOC blog. Let's go.

MOCs
Orange mech, no codename, just called the Dreadnaught Custom. Out of these three, I like this one the most so far. Legs were interesting and fun to build, especially since I used crawler tracks on the back of the legs, not sure if you can make those out. Out of these three mechs, the orange, I think, is by far the most solid build. He will be armed with a big gatling gun and a large gauss gun that can combine into a massive cannon.

I have one last MOC planned, just a small Ce-Matoran. Then that's it. I've built the MOCs for the Duet Universe.

And here. I'll take out a leaf from Artek's blog and type out a summary of the more-or-less cancelled Duet Universe.

Backstory

 * The first deviation occurs during the final battle on Bara Magna. Teridax launches a gravitic blast, seeking to destroy the planet. At the last minute, Mata Nui deflects it, and it pulls the two moons towards Bara Magna, just like in canon. At the last minute, however, Mata Nui fails to push Teridax, and he himself is struck and is killed.
 * On the day of the Reformation, Teridax kills much of the Order, the Dark Hunters, and almost all of the Toa, instantly stopping any future revolt against him.
 * Teridax seizes control of the Great Being laboratory in Tajun and acquires the Great Spirit Robot plans. He creates fifty 1:1000 replicas of himself and imprints them with his spirit. Since they are smaller, they do not need nanomachines eg. Visorak or Matoran. Creating the smaller robots takes him half a decade. They are purely robotic and do not operate like Mata Nui or he does in a robot suit.
 * During this five year hiatus, much of Spherus Magna is plunged into chaos by Teridax's armies which terrorize the inhabitants. In fact, Rahkshi were more common than Rahi. During this dark period, many of the few remaining Toa and Turaga die trying to protect the Matoran and Agori.
 * While the replicas were being built, five of the surviving Toa band together and attempt to lead a revolution. Instead of facing Teridax, they run into the first of his replicas. They stood no chance. The replica had a sort of power that paralyzed them, leaving them helpless as it crushed them with its feet. Their corpses were never found.
 * Two years later, the Last Toa dies, a Toa of Psionics. The remains are kept fairly well preserved as she died while wandering the Northern Frost. No other Toa have since been found.
 * After those five years, Teridax begins the building of the Citadels, small cities created by his gravity powers. Fifty of these were created all over Spherus Magna and each was overseen by one of his replica robots. He leaves Spherus Magna, intending to conquer the known universe, as he had offered to do with Mata Nui. With him, he takes several hordes of Visorak which replace the Matoran as the nanomachines. During the liftoff, as he was building up enough velocity to not only leave orbit but to accelerate him far enough into deep space, he badly damages the Red Star.
 * It takes nearly a generation for the majority of what was left of the populace to overcome their suspicions of the seemingly perfect cities left behind by the tyrant. Eventually, nearly all of the survivors of Teridax's Reformation make their home in one of the Citadels.
 * It becomes apparent that the Citadels were nearly as bad as the outside world. The robots are programmed to kill off a small portion of the inhabitants living there each month. This is known as the Culling. As Teridax cannot rule the planet, he uses this to cow the populace. The Citadels provide basic necesssities and some sense of security so this was why people chose to live in them, despite this horrible occurence. Most people decide it is the better option, even though the thought of being killed at the end of each month instills a primal fear into them.
 * The Last Toa's remains are recovered by a wandering Ce-Matoran and Ice Agori. They secretly take it back to their Citadel.
 * One of the fifty Citadels, Citadel Nineteen, is liberated. It is the northernmost one, located in the ice caps of Sphreus Magna. This Citadel was liberated using the remains of the Last Toa found fourteen years prior. By carefully extracting bits of the Last Toa, Toa Shards are created, a shadow of a Toa Stone. These are then duplicated and grafted onto compatible Matoran and Agori. They trained to become soldiers and successfully revolted against one of Teridax's servants, despite a huge loss of life to do so.

The Characters

 * Deimos is the main protagonist. He escaped from Citadel Twenty and wants to join the army. A bit naive, well-meaning. Of moderate intelligence, amiable.
 * Calais is the deuteragonist, or perhaps even the second protagonist. She is one of the most powerful cadets enrolled in the Combat Academy. Very irritable, hates talking to others, and FLIPS out at being touched. Considered a military genius.
 * Kolofu is Deimos' friend who came from Twenty with him. A strong fellow, also of average intelligence. Not clumsy at all, and loves eating.
 * Arsena is another cadet at the Academy. Fairly high-ranked in her year. Very impulsive, argumentative, and regularly gets into fights with Kolofu, but she sometimes loses. Everyone thinks she likes Kolofu, but she always denies it.
 * Mayumi is a gentle, caring person. She is of middling rank, mainly because she is trained to be a supporter, not a fighter. Best friends with Arsena, despite them being polar opposites.
 * "Hush" is a Dark Hunter. Initially mistaken for a "strong, silent type" male, it is discovered she is actually extremely shy, and rarely speaks up. She lacks self-confidence, despite potentially being a very strong fighter.

The Academy
The Combat Academy is the largest institution in all of Citadel Nineteen, and the only one of its kind on Bara Magna. It trains both Matoran and Agori in the art of war. Few are admitted, and even fewer graduate due to the tough standards. However, the most prominent reason why not all of the students graduate is due to the ranking system. Every single student in each year is assigned a rank. The lowest ranks are automatically dismissed. This creates huge competition between the cadets, and is a very cut-and-dried method of telling which cadet is stronger than the other. Duels are fairly frequent, and there are campus-wide tournaments every six months. In addition, the rank you graduate with determines you starting rank in the army, as well as your pay, your living standard, etc.

Hydraxon is the Commander-in-Chief and the Dean of the Academy. Axonn is another member of the faculty. The Shadowed One is not a technical member of the faculty, but there are strong ties between the Academy and the Dark Hunter remnants.

Toa Shards
The Last Toa has been elevated to a saint-like figure, even worshiped in some extreme cases by fanatical cultists. In actuality, she was most likely a coward who wandered into the wilderness, to scared to fight.

Nevertheless, her power was extracted from her corpse to create a Toa Stone. As a single Toa Stone was a thousand too few to combat the fifty robotic replicas, it was shattered into hundreds of Toa Shards. These Toa Shards are then artificially cloned.

The Shards are then grafted onto compatible Matoran and Agori. The process could be as painful as a really bad bee sting to having your all four of your limbs getting chopped off. There is no real way to tell who is compatible, though a few subtle signs such as an excellent physical condition seems to be helpful.

The Mechs
Each Matoran and Agori cadet is given a Mech that is partially altered to suit each individual cadet. Prominent cadets either have one custom-made for them or bring their own in rare cases. Even rarer are the ones that make their own Mech.

The official term for a Mech is a Flight Harness as all of them are equipped with jet thrusters, but most people just call them "Mechs" or "Walkers". Some Dark Hunters are enrolled in the Academy, and they are not given a Mech.

A Mech's main purpose is to make up for the size and strength of the Matoran/Agori as they shoulder the duties of a Toa. In addition, they are unable to access Elemental energies, so the Mech will provide firepower for them, much like an Exo-Toa.

The Duet

 * Deimos is in a Duet with Calais.
 * Arsena is in a Duet with Mayumi.
 * Kolofu is in a Duet with "Hush".

Ah, the namesake of the Universe. Why don't I call it the "Calais" or the "Deimos" universe? Or use a synonym for "broken"?

Reason: The Duet is the driving point of the entire story. A Duet is a pair of two fighters. There are no rules for it. They can both be Agori/Matoran, or one of each. Same gender, or different.

There are only two, simple requirements for a Duet. One person must take all offensive duties, and the other must take all defensive responsibilities. The offensive member is called the Striker. The defensive member, the Breaker.

The Duet is so vitally important due to the role they play. The Breaker will do their best to protect the Striker by:
 * Creating an (initially) inexplicable energy field that nullifies, or "breaks", the paralyzing properties of the robotic giants. Do tell me if you want spoilers for this.
 * Distracting and doing their best to get the replica's attention.

The Striker must:
 * Put all their trust into their partner.
 * Do whatever it takes to strike down the replica. Strikers are considered the stronger of the two.
 * This is not Attack on Titan. The replicas have no convenient weak spot on their neck.

The second requirement is a very close bond between the two members. Each member, after all, constantly puts their own life in the hands of the other. It is common for a Duet member to not take a replacement if their partner is killed in combat. Another reason for the Academy's existance is to create Duet pairings quickly to instill that bond between the two members so in real combat, they will be ready as soon as they graduate.

Conclusion
Is that it? I dunno, a lot of details have slipped my mind since creating this Universe. I do remember planning it to be less thought-provoking that the Infernum Universe. More action, more kersplosions, a bit more lighthearted, and a racy plot instead of a weird plot that seems to go nowhere and then finally explains itself.

I had a lot of fun making this Universe, though. And I do want to create it. It was originally planned as a project to be started after the Madness Series. The Infernum Universe, though, is taking quite a bit of time, so I am dropping it.

Doesn't hurt to remember it though. :P