Hey, Listen

[IskatuMesk]

If you've got any questions you'd like me to answer massively in-depth, you should ask them now so I can plant them into my plans for my documentary. I've begun production of it, albeit slowly, so if you have any deep philosophical questions for my mangled psyche or questions about my modding or such this is your opportunity to get a bullshit-free answer.

Just keep them realistic.

[Krazy]

From the title I thought this would be some troll thread about Navi from Zelda.

Obviously, you will only choose the questions you would like to answer (or perhaps none of them), so I will just toss out what pops into my head:

-What are the biggest changes between TOA as you originally imagined it and what it became as you wrote it?  Did the "fundamental meaning" change form?

-Is the purpose of art to reflect reality, to change reality, to escape from reality, or something else?

-Should people have what they earn, what they need, or what they want?

Oh yeah, and: -Under what circumstances should people believe in the supernatural?  -To what extent can a person be represented--politically or aesthetically? 

And perhaps the most important question of all...

-What IS your favorite food?

[Marco]

I'm wondering if you'll take these questions seriously or not, but I'll give it a shot regardless:

Do you believe humans are merely creatures of evolution, or perhaps that of something more?  If it is something more, what would you quantify that 'something more' as?

If you were the last human alive on Earth, would you continue to exist?

What would you say is your favorite emotional state?  (happiness, elation, anger, etc.)

[Falchion]

A question on yourself:  Who is IskatuMesk?

[GreatGodSajuuk]

2 Fleets bro, two fleets.

[Falchion]

2 Fleets bro, two fleets.

I'm talking about the guy's character. ¬¬

[1N73RC3P70R]

Is 2x2=5?

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Nothing serious but for the heck of it :

How many puppies and kitties (including real and imaginary ones) were sacrificed in the name of your works?
Where do you believe the puppies and kitties land after their deaths? ... in hell? in heavens? What happens to their souls?

[Master Jademus Sreg]

Describe your earliest experiences with schizophrenia and what, if any, effect it has had on the existential aspect of your life.

[IskatuMesk]

2 Fleets bro, two fleets.

I'm talking about the guy's character. ¬¬

And he answered you.

Some good questions here. It will be a long time until they are answered but I'll have answers for them.

My favorite food is pizza (cheese or pepperoni). I'm a simple man, and a very picky eater.

/edit

If you were the last human alive on Earth, would you continue to exist?

This one stretches a bit outside the scope of the documentary so I'll answer it here.

As it is I don't consider myself Human. I don't believe in Human morals, I don't share the same viewpoints as Humans, I don't place value in the same thing Humans do. In all my dreams, which to me are reality, I spend a great deal of time doing my best to eradicate Humans. I see myself as the devil in the night, the nightmare in the darkness. I am the beast. I am the monster. As far as I'm concerned I am already the last of my kind. The first and the last. I continue to exist not of my own will, but because of the will to finish what I started - TOA. Only when that is complete can I let myself rest at long last. Until then I am forever bound to this charge, for I have already devoted 15 years of my meager life to its creation. I am a vessel.

If the world ended my charge would not end with it.

/edit 2

TOA's history as a universe is a little lengthy to verse in the documentary I think, so I'm thinking of shortening my explanation of that. In either event, here is something I wrote a while ago that tells you about how TOA started and evolved to what it is now.

FYI the documentary is mostly oriented around modding and my life of modding (so the questions about the disabilities and such are really good ones). I do plan to talk about TOA but if I go in-depth into its history I think I'd spend over and hour talking about it, haha. So here's the lengthy version ahead of time.

Throne of Armageddon - The Making of - Part 1

Throne of Armageddon is not simply a novel. It is the conclusion to my life's work.

TOA, and the universe it's based on, the Lour Saga, has had an interesting and strange life twisting across many paths of creation to reach this point. I go through many processes in my efforts to bring dreams to life and, indeed, to bring life to dreams. Above all, TOA is my effort to bring my dreams into a form that I can enjoy [in a material format]. I allow a select handful of readers to experience with work with me, as it has always been, and I will never publish it nor make it public.

In this and later documents I will explain the history of TOA, followed by the history of creative elements, design processes, inspiration, and my methods of creation. I am an individual who suffers from severe mental illnesses, making even the most basic action difficult and problematic.

Humble Beginnings

I have a very bad memory, only capable of remembering scarce, and usually painful, patches of the past. Anything from a year onwards gets sketchy, and I only remember perhaps five minutes worth of activity from 5 years onwards. These bits and pieces are stitched together by my records - eleven year-old files on my computer, cassette tapes, and writing that by now has been long destroyed.

I began creating audio cassette tapes about my own worlds when I was around 5-6 years old. This was the birth of the Mr.Freak's The Gallantry universe (oddly enough Desler made a campaign called The Gallantry, which I discovered during my early years in the community. As a result I generally referred to the universe as MFTG to avoid confusion where ever possible. I am really not sure how the hell this happened at all), which I will refer to from now on as MFTG. MFTG is characterized by its light-hearted, humorous, and often offensive nature. My time in school was perilous and painful from day one. I was kicked out of school after school by constantly beating up kids or by my insatiable defiance. By grade 3-4, I was in a special needs class at a specific school that I would end up returning to time and time again.

By this time I was well into making cassette tapes I just later referred to entirely as "The webshows".

This is where my memory gets very foggy, because it's hard to remember the time period very well.

During this time at school, I began making simple comics. This brought the characters of MFTG to life. The scorpies, then known as the Lour, were scorpion-like beings about the size of a person who were akin to rednecks doped up on the most powerful substance you can possibly think of, both while being highly industrial and possessing ludicrously powerful firearms. The comics also extended into TREMENDOUSLY large panorama drawings using sheets of paper sometimes six feet in length and several in height. These panoramas covered a single scene where all actions were somehow interconnected - always a big, inane battle of some kind.

I ended up in the hospital twice for "assessments", both of which achieved nothing. During my second visit to the hospital I took a major liking to Sonic the Hedgehog, particularly the second game on the Genesis. I did something wholly different here that I would never do ever again - I made entire, fully-colored books involving Sonic and Tails in entirely original adventures, sometimes blending them into my worlds. I have absolutely no idea what happened to the 2-3 books I made but they are long gone for sure.

After some point I decided the Scorpies needed an antagonist. Something that could strike fear into the hearts of everyone. Thus I came up with the Scitor - a bacterial race capable of infecting other creatures, even machines, and corrupting them. The scitor's most basic fighter was the Skedar, a cross between a triceratops and a raptor that stood about four feet high and had basic predatorial intelligence.

The Scitor had many strange weapons, including "scorpy magma", a liquified essence of blood whose very contact could infect anything besides shielded objects. This substance was characterized by being used in enormous quantities to simply flood entire bases or continents to subdue the defenders, and comics would involve the protagonists attempting to escape.

At some point before Junior High, while I was still in special needs classes designed for drug addicts and smokers, I began actual writing. As one would expect out of a person who has never attempted any writing before (ignoring all forms of school work), this writing was an atrocity. A single, tremendous run-on sentence with abuse of periods left and right. But this writing did something.

It established the universe.

Until now there was absolutely no focus point for MFTG/LS. This world was just one big clusterfuck of wat. It wasn't even a world. By bringing it into writing, I suddenly gave this world focus. History. I gave the Lour something to work forwards to.

The original history went something along the likes of scorpy tribes warring and splitting apart until one found the jewel M-class of tremendous scale called Cronica, and its iconic red giant, Tratoes. This was the official founding of the "Lour".

But the webshows did not include any of these major changes. In fact, the webshows focused on a different planet called Alzera, and lead to the rise of the universe's first actual character - Mr.Freak. Mr.Freak is a giant horned lizard, like those found in the desert. Mr.Freak was always considered to be exceedingly powerful and more intelligent than the scorpies, and no reason was ever given to his existence other than that he was an asshole and he liked to cause incredible amounts of destruction.

Time passed and this world grew bit by bit. The scitor faded off the picture for the most part as the universe evolved. The concept of "Scorpy magma" and many features present in the Scitor arsenal were phased out.

Then came Junior high.

Society is a harsh thing. It despises those who are different. I was very different. Thus, I was the enemy. Endless, endless harassment and attacks forced me into a deep mental shell. During this period, the development of my world froze except for continued production of the webshows. I would never write a comic ever again by now. My attention turned completely to writing.

Then we got our first computer. By now I had already been introduced to Starcraft, which had just been released, and began serious gaming of that. But school was always in my way.

At some point in Junior high I struck a deal with both my typing class and my English class, whom of which I was already ahead several grades in. Because their work was so pathetic and so far behind my skill level even though I had never paid any attention, I opted to use their computers to work on my first true novel - Augostradia.

Augostradia, although still infinitely TERRIBLE in every possible meaning, was a huge leap forward for me as a person and as a writer. It was the first writing to ever bring the world into a cohesive form with a plot and with history, character interaction, and more. The novel spanned over 400 pages upon completion and to this day remains in printed paper in my possession.

The story focused on Mr.Freak and his ally, Anty, a giant perverted Ant who had an even more insatiable lust for destruction, as they lead the battle against the Scitor. Since I had phased out many of the Scitor's major weapons, and I ran into the odd similarities between the Scitor and the Zerg (who ripped off the Tyranids, dear god it's a never-ending circle!), I changed them enormously.

Scitor were still a bacterial/viral race, focused on one organism called the Collective. Unlike the Zerg and most other similar races in fiction, Scitor are always said to have individuality and the ability to think independently. They are merely linked to the central mind and cannot directly defy it. The mind acts strategically and not directly.

Amongst the new concepts of the Scitor was the lore that they had at one point been split into three totally different sects by some battle with another race. One sect was the Scitor as we knew it, one the Drennokk, and one another name I cannot recall. During Augostradia, the second sect appears and merges with the Scitor, creating the Skelmasha.

Then I finished Augostradia. At about this time I was in one of those classes for drug addicts and alcoholics again, and I had become involved with an online roleplaying forum called Magic RPG III. This was a very small RP containing about 5 members total. I was essentially an assistant GM who helped develop the bad guys for the most part.

I ended up creating the Zegredark. This race featured the Defiler, Ascherzon, a God who slept and regenerated from an ancient battle and his sons, the Templar, ferocious and powerful warriors who sought to break into material space and conquer all within. In the RPG, this equated to exceptionally difficult battles when Templar warriors would break into the world and attack. These warriors included ReKrain, Gull, and Na`Kull, as well as others who got phased out of the lore when the RPG died.

At around this time, a little before 2001, I started the second novel, the sequel to the first novel. This was also written in school. Again it followed Mr.Freak and Anty and their wacky adventures across galaxies. The Zegredark were introduced as well, but not in the same form that the RPG was using. Their form largely involved giant machines appearing and blowing up planets for no apparent reason, protected by slave races or giant robots. Eventually the third Scitor sect shows up, the Drennokk, and merges with the Skelmasha to form the Xy`Kranasha, a tremendously powerful foe.

At some point I thought, "This is awful". And scrapped that writing completely although I still possess it in paperwork. Then I dropped out of school shortly after, finally fed up with the harassment and pointlessness of it all to risk a serious confrontation with my grandmother and other parties involved. No such confrontation came - in fact, a member of social services praised me for dropping out. Okay. That's weird, but I went with it.

Once I finally broke out of the prison that was school, I experienced something for the first time in my life.

I experienced freedom. My mind, retracted into a hole all these years, exploded outwards and began to breathe and learn. When I first got my computer some years ago, I immediately transitioned making cassette tapes to making digital shows - thus, webshows, although they were never given to anyone. I made them for myself to remember the good times, as I was often very depressed and usually suicidal.

Soon I began the second book again. It was called The Sin War: Chaos Driven, a coincidence I later discovered from Diablo's major battle also being called The Sin War. Chaos Driven had no meaning to it, it was just some cheesy subtitle I thought of.

This was when the Lour Saga universe underwent a tremendous step in evolution.

The First Revision

Although MFTG/LS had yet to split apart yet, suddenly TSW's prose and universe became tremendously serious, but the webshows remained very inane and random. I started putting significant effort into the writing and even though it was still wretched I started doing things like using punctuation and paragraphs.

There's one thing to note - I have never, ever printed or writed. All of my writing was always done on the keyboard. And I have never been able to use homerow, only two fingers. From the very beginning I began to type extremely fast with two fingers, up to my peak around in 2004-2005 when I could easily reach 100 words a minute. Nowadays I am limited to around 70-80 because my typing has worsened from my disabilities, introducing many typos and word mixups that cost me a lot of time.

But during this period at the dawn of this new novel, which was basically the first Throne of Armageddon, I began to HUGELY develop. I was an individual who had been shut out by the school system and society my entire life. Suddenly, I was free! Free, and with the internet and games at my command, I rapidly learned and evolved and grew.

The serious prose of Chaos Driven was very different from what I was used to writing. The previous works always had a serious undertone with a comedic flesh, but this novel was very different. It still had scorpies and Anty, but they weren't completely homosexual and trigger-happy and retarded.

This novel starts off some time after Augostradia, with the Lour preparing for the inevitable arrival of the third Scitor sect. I never did figure out why they even knew about that sect in the first place, much less how they figured it would eventually come for them, but that was the prose. Instead, they get attacked by the Zegredark - specifically ReKrain who retained his lurker-like appearance from the RPG. Mr.Freak barely defeats him, and the novel goes on from there for about 106 pages. The Skelmasha eventually show up again somehow, and a new protagonist faction is introduced - the Confederacy. Also scorpies, the Confederacy is a highly industrialized faction with tons of resources and advanced weapons that hung out on the fringe of Lour space.

Then I just decided at some point, "Holy shit. This is a mess."

And I stopped writing.

The Second Revision

Something huge happened as I started to recollect myself. I was still making webshows, and I still liked that world. But I wanted to take the Lour Saga into a new direction. I liked the new serious tone, but I couldn't maintain it with the Lour as they were and with all these weird inconsistencies. Plus, basing my writing on a sequel to something as bad as Augostradia was a bad idea.

Between the death of the third book and my new revision, I attempted creating several new worlds. One was a fantasy world involving a cult of individuals who broke away from modern human society to a kind of a lost world, a valley of wonders, and lived like in the medieval ages. Except some demonic force wakes up in a tremendous cave network and slaughters almost everyone.

I modified this world a bit and turned the protagonist from some random guy into a Paladin and the whole setting in a full fantasy world. I had written about 100 pages of this novel before I lost it for some reason. When I lost it, I totally turned away from making new worlds and retracted from writing for a while. It was a devastating loss.

Then I looked back to the Lour Saga. Here is where I decided to totally split this world into two separate universe - the Lour Saga and MFTG. MFTG retained its humorous and inane prose, but Lour Saga was an entirely dead-serious world.

And I began writing the new Augostradia.

This variant of Augostradia again was multitudes better than my old writing. It again focused on Mr.Freak, who wasn't a horned lizard anymore - he was lizardfolk. And Alzera was his home planet and the home to his race, Alzerians. Curiously I kept Anty in the world as his original form - a giant ant. I suppose you can justify such a decision with technobabble and goofy sci-fi stuff, but I always felt it was a bit silly.

In the end the novel reached 122 pages in length, introduced the Scitor race in their future form, and achieved a milestone in my writing before I simply lost motivation.

By this time I had collected a huge amount of visions and material from my dreams. I had been slowly developing the Zegredark in my head for the novel to take place after Augostradia. But it was a while before I tried to write again.

And when I did, everything changed once more.

The Third Revision

Throne of Armageddon was born in my dreams and visions. A novel that did not tell of the universe's plight through the eyes of heroes, but the eyes of tyrants, demons, evil men and woman. The Zegredark at this time were considered the universe's ultimate foe, a foe of terrible power and scale.

I have documents almost ten years old with ludicrously stupid specs for Zegredark ships. Some ships trillions of times the size of planets - considered corvette-classes. But the Zegredark's technology was not advanced enough for that, even though they were always considered at the peak of evolution and technology.

When TOA was written, the Zegredark had been considerably cut down to size, although many of their ships remained outrageous in scale compared to those of the Lour. The novel started with Aumus, but when I began writing the Mauu character, I suddenly realized I wanted to tell it from her perspective.

TOA took quite a few strange turns during its early life. I was still experimenting with the new world freshly dragged out of my anus, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted out of it. The events concerning Gull were premeditated to provide foundation for the plot, but the endgame had never been truly decided.

Previous to this point I had created the Zelconian and the Galorians, as well as the DyiithJhinn. They were created a few years before the third revision and even a few novels and starcraft mods/campaigns were attempted on their behalf, but until now they had never interacted with the other parts of the Lour Saga, remaining relatively detached. TOA changed this, and they immediately became involved.

Early into production I realized that telling the story exclusively from the perspective of Aumus would have been foolish and painful. So I included Mauu into the perspective, soon followed by additional characters like Falru and even Ascherzon and Gull.

But the Zegredark needed an enemy. An enemy that could thrash them like fresh loli in an unsupervised school park.

Enter the Undead.

I created the demon race and the Abyss domain to compliment each other. The Undead were a demon race who used ships made out of energy and extremely potent Deimos-based weaponry to decimate the Templar. Although Templar ships were more than a match for Undead one-on-one, Undead had infinite numbers at their disposal and the ability to instantly reincarnate their souls and ships when they were destroyed. I also introduced Major Pain, to give the Templar a character to interact with from the demon side.

TOA spiraled out of my control from there on. My dreams and visions gave life to the world, but it largely walked with its own two legs. This was where I was at my prime and I could do anything and write anything. I started composing music, I was still modding starcraft to great extent, all was well.

TOA was always envisioned as being a very big novel. I was gunning for a thousand pages and then two sequels I hadn't thought much of. As time reached on and I started getting close to the 500 page mark, I realized I couldn't conclude the TOA story in only 1000 pages. Until now, I had separated TOA into two major pieces - Segments I called them.

I spent a time envisioning possible outcomes for the world. I had already had a few ideas in mind, but I didn't know where I wanted to go. Eventually I came to a decision.

The Fourth Revision

The fourth revision involved building a huge amount of backstory for Ascherzon, the Kyru, and everything else in the world, as well as the creation of many more races, new domains, and building the foundations for existing races.

The Four Revision was an expansion and re-imagination of the world. As I progressed further into the novel, writing became more and more difficult. My mental problems started seriously screwing with everything I was trying to do. At numerous occassions I considered the novel dead and even spent up to a year at a time doing nothing at all, but eventually I came back with new ideas and new perspectives.

TOA had become a deep reflection of myself. Every character represented a piece of me. Mauu represented what I desired in a person. Aumus was my ambition. Falru my conviction. Ascherzon my hatred. Gull my madness. Even Guola, the Devil, was a representation of what society turned my inner mind into - uncontrollable emotion of anger and rage.

Malkor was a character that had existed a long time independently of any of my worlds. In the RPG, he was an arch-demon. In TOA I chose to introduce him as a protagonist. The original intention was to introduce Gyramoch as well, who is related to him, and was a part of the original Divine Fellowship (Zelconian) aspect of the universe before it got completely rebuilt from the ground up prior to its introduction in TOA.

But Malkor and Auumar's stories both took a very long time for me to figure out and were a part of the reason why I expanded the TOA novel to include two extra segments, totaling four segments, an estimated 2500 pages.

But writing slowed a tremendous amount. Even as the world grew exponentially and I created races like the Anahn and their own histories and plots, my mental disabilities were simply becoming too strong. Multiple suicide attempts, many years in absolute sadness, and then finally the death of my dog all weighed down on me and crushed my spirit. TOA slowed to a death crawl before finally dying wholly and utterly a year ago. After my dog died I stopped making webshows, and the MFTG universe completely died in my head. I have never been able to laugh that way ever again. There are some wounds you simply cannot heal.

By now the universe had become absolutely tremendous. I had the entire plot figured out, many characters that remained to be introduced, battles, scenes, history... but none if it would ever see light.

That was until I started taking my drugs, and I had a few days where I experienced that moment from so many years ago once again. That moment of freedom. That moment of motivation and soul. Where I could wake up not wiping tears from my face but with a start and pronounce to myself, "Today I am going to fucking do something."

I made a model. Then I edited one. But these were too small scale. I immediately set my sights on my life's work.

Throne of Armageddon. I would not leave you to die. You are everything. Every waking day of my life has been made for you. All of my starcraft mods are an extension of my two worlds and then eventually my third world, Loladins of Legend. I have lived, I have died, I have suffered and bled and sacrificed everything for this one dream.

TOA's Resurgence

The high from my Zyprexa to Wellbutrin drug switch did not last long, and I once more fell into depression. But conviction burned strong in my heart and I wrote over two hundred pages from then to the end of 2009. At New Year's Eve, I swore a Blood Oath to finish this novel by the end of the 2010 no matter the cost.

I live and I suffer, but for no reason. So I give myself a reason. I give myself TOA. The embodiment of my spirit as a whole.

With this burst of aggression I tore into rebuilding and rewriting the novel from the ground up. Details left behind, 7-8 year old writing that stained my name, strange out of character actions, battles skimmed over, I would fix it all or I would die trying.

[1N73RC3P70R]

hmmm.... too long.. did not read XD

[IskatuMesk]

Thank you for your wonderful contribution.

[Master Jademus Sreg]

I read it.

"tl;dr" and its variants are among the most obnoxious and disrespectful responses one may express.

[Lavarinth]

hmmm.... too long.. did not read XD

No one asked you to.

[IskatuMesk]

That's a bannable offense on TL and it should be on here as well.

Especially from someone who's already proven unproductive and generally spammy.