The thing I noticed first about this story is that you managed to create
two textbook examples of a "mythical" RPG stereotype: the Female
Character Played by a Male Player, also known as the Busty Bi-sexual
Ninja Babe.

Yep. That's Jason being Jessie to a tee.  And Arika was designed to be
appealing to him/her

I got the point about the relaxed moral standards, but the clothing
these two characters wore (especially Arika) was too little to be
practical. As Mr. Johnston pointed out, much of it can actually be a
hindrance. There's several hygiene-related reasons not to run around
basically buck-naked, never mind morals. Unless being built or
engineered not to need clothes is awfully common in this setting, that
cyborg death-machine is going to stand out an awful lot, and if that's
the case she might as well be built to look like a Battlemech.

I haven't actually gone into the whole of how the human race from Darkstarr
Chronicles differs from modern humanity other than a quick overview in
chapter two, but humanity as _we_ know it is extinct in Jason's universe.
And engineering to not need clothing occurred so far in the past that a
planet such as that where the story starts, where it is a cultural
requirement, or those where it is a practical necessity, such as Jamsona,
are few and far between.  On any planet or vessel with earth normal climate,
from the edge of the polar regions to equatorial heat, the body can
acclimatize normally.  Only extremes REQUIRE clothing.  I started the story
out there to illustrate how different society in the Empire is from modern
society, and give the reader time to acclimatize a little before throwing
them full scale into culture shock.

If it helps, remember one thing.  This is a society that has forgotton
Earth, has lost it's history, and rebuilt without the past we are saddled
with.  It has no gods, no religious taboos, and the majority of the populace
really has no purpose beyond seeking their own pleasures.  Material want
doesn't exist.  People like Jason, and the other characters of the story are
the fringe, the group that just can't be satisfied with peace and
prosperity, who have to seek out challenges, and are outsiders even though
they are part of the culture.

Over the course of the story, I will go deeper into how and why these things
have come about, but for now, suffice it to say the oddities you're pointing
out are things indicated by ten years of research into developing technology
and it's possible effects on civilization, followed by a million years of
rises and falls of society.

And believe me, the Darkstarr Universe has enough background material and
research I've done to make a full RPG of my own.  Or my own version of the
Silmarillion.  For all Jenny complains about how much time I've spent on
Tears, it's a small fraction of the time and research I've done for
Darkstarr.

And trust me. Strange as some of it may seem, our real future is going to be
stranger yet.

LSMcGill


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'