FA+
Shop
Uncanny Coincidences While Writing
10 years ago
Ready, Aye, Ready!
I'm sure many a writer has stumbled into this at one point or another, where you're writing a story with a certain idea and find a franchise that you had never heard of before yet features an uncannily similar idea to your own. "Ideas are a dime a dozen," as the saying goes, but sometimes you can't help but feel that, upon encountering that idea, you start adopting aspects of that idea into your work.
This has been the case on occasion for myself while writing the Immortal Trinity Chronicles and Pokémon: Forgotten Army, in addition to my inspirations for both.
--
Immortal Trinity Chronicles
When I had initially conceived of ITC nearly a decade ago, it was originally a modern fantasy story born out of an obscene fascination for Warhammer Fantasy Lizardmen, (presumably) dead story series called "Saga of Blood" and "Primals" (by Stormdrake and Darker, respectively), and my own Catholic beliefs at the time. Since then, the story has been revised into what it is today: a near-future military science fiction with token inspirations from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and the Andromeda Strain.
With that said, it hasn't been without its uncanny resemblances:
Deus Ex
By the time I had encountered the series in 2011, I already had in mind the idea of an international task force that answers to the UN and consists of what are effectively nanoaugmented supersoldiers. Cue me finding out about JC Denton and UNATCO. With that said, this was an idea I already had in mind, and any reference to the series at this point would only be made tongue-in-cheek by characters with in-universe knowledge of the franchise which, considering that ITC's main arc starts in 2032, is something of a niche.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within
Yet another idea of a multinational task force with access to advanced military technology that wasn't lost on me, and that was the biggest appeal I had with the rebooted franchise when I delved into it in 2013. With the presence of tech-oriented characters in the series, not to mention an alien species, another tongue-in-cheek reference may be made at a later date.
Act of Aggression
Chimera is a UNO-funded multinational task force that serves in the capacity that NATO (which disbanded in-universe) used to: as a quick-reaction force. Barring references to nanotechnology, this is an uncanny description that is near-identical to what the Trinity Task Force is supposed to be. Whether I start including UAVs and BMPT Terminators in its force composition remains to be seen however.
--
Pokémon: Forgotten Army
P:FA has proven to be an interesting journey, starting off inspired by Wasserbienchen's Pokemon Nuzlocke series In Black and White, especially a few choice lines by Elesa where she talks about pokémon being weapons and trainers effectively being soldiers, and spiraling from there.
Other inspirations at the time of conception include Machinegun Preacher, XCOM, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and Rainbow Six.
Granted, much of the following coincidences piled on because of the fanfic nature of P:FA.
Metal Gear Solid V
Because I am setting up Orre to be a failed state in the setting, I couldn't help but put two and two together with Cipher being a shadowy organization with collusion throughout and beyond the region, although this was already a feature in the MGS series up to now. In addition, the game has since influenced me to include a possible venue to explain how PCOM, the titular "Forgotten Army", was able to survive without government support, although I very much doubt that it would set up shop on some oil rigs.
This brings me to my next uncanny coincidence...
Act of Aggression (again)
The background behind the Cartel is that it's a PMC with stolen prototypical technology that has been able to subvert national governments to serve its interests as an NGO superpower. Again, this sounds very much in line with Cipher's mode of operations in Orre. At the same time, the titular unit would find it to be a real pain if Unova put two and two together and realized that it is the exact same project that they had shut down. To that end, a kind of private military front that the Cartel makes use of to conceal its black ops actually sounds reasonable.
--
No doubt that others may crop up over time, but this is what I've noticed so far.
This has been the case on occasion for myself while writing the Immortal Trinity Chronicles and Pokémon: Forgotten Army, in addition to my inspirations for both.
--
Immortal Trinity Chronicles
When I had initially conceived of ITC nearly a decade ago, it was originally a modern fantasy story born out of an obscene fascination for Warhammer Fantasy Lizardmen, (presumably) dead story series called "Saga of Blood" and "Primals" (by Stormdrake and Darker, respectively), and my own Catholic beliefs at the time. Since then, the story has been revised into what it is today: a near-future military science fiction with token inspirations from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and the Andromeda Strain.
With that said, it hasn't been without its uncanny resemblances:
Deus Ex
By the time I had encountered the series in 2011, I already had in mind the idea of an international task force that answers to the UN and consists of what are effectively nanoaugmented supersoldiers. Cue me finding out about JC Denton and UNATCO. With that said, this was an idea I already had in mind, and any reference to the series at this point would only be made tongue-in-cheek by characters with in-universe knowledge of the franchise which, considering that ITC's main arc starts in 2032, is something of a niche.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within
Yet another idea of a multinational task force with access to advanced military technology that wasn't lost on me, and that was the biggest appeal I had with the rebooted franchise when I delved into it in 2013. With the presence of tech-oriented characters in the series, not to mention an alien species, another tongue-in-cheek reference may be made at a later date.
Act of Aggression
Chimera is a UNO-funded multinational task force that serves in the capacity that NATO (which disbanded in-universe) used to: as a quick-reaction force. Barring references to nanotechnology, this is an uncanny description that is near-identical to what the Trinity Task Force is supposed to be. Whether I start including UAVs and BMPT Terminators in its force composition remains to be seen however.
--
Pokémon: Forgotten Army
P:FA has proven to be an interesting journey, starting off inspired by Wasserbienchen's Pokemon Nuzlocke series In Black and White, especially a few choice lines by Elesa where she talks about pokémon being weapons and trainers effectively being soldiers, and spiraling from there.
Other inspirations at the time of conception include Machinegun Preacher, XCOM, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and Rainbow Six.
Granted, much of the following coincidences piled on because of the fanfic nature of P:FA.
Metal Gear Solid V
Because I am setting up Orre to be a failed state in the setting, I couldn't help but put two and two together with Cipher being a shadowy organization with collusion throughout and beyond the region, although this was already a feature in the MGS series up to now. In addition, the game has since influenced me to include a possible venue to explain how PCOM, the titular "Forgotten Army", was able to survive without government support, although I very much doubt that it would set up shop on some oil rigs.
This brings me to my next uncanny coincidence...
Act of Aggression (again)
The background behind the Cartel is that it's a PMC with stolen prototypical technology that has been able to subvert national governments to serve its interests as an NGO superpower. Again, this sounds very much in line with Cipher's mode of operations in Orre. At the same time, the titular unit would find it to be a real pain if Unova put two and two together and realized that it is the exact same project that they had shut down. To that end, a kind of private military front that the Cartel makes use of to conceal its black ops actually sounds reasonable.
--
No doubt that others may crop up over time, but this is what I've noticed so far.
I find it interesting that you bring up cynical tropes on technology though, because that was hardly my intent while writing ITC and P:FA.
Thus far, the mantle for most influence goes to Act of Aggression, seeing as it's a near-future setting whose premise is disturbingly close to what I've been trying to work on so far in both ITC and P:FA. However, where ITC was already on those rails before I came across the game on Steam, the coupling with MGSV where P:FA is concerned goes far beyond the initial premise that I was intending for the setting, which was already influenced by other near-future settings ("Forgotten Army" also happens to be the moniker of a Russian-backed militant group in Tom Clancy's EndWar, for instance), with nothing to say of events that are ongoing in the Third World.
Ultimately, it's not about the technology - it's about people in general. In a strange way, while I have a low opinion of humanity as a whole, I have every hope that it can improve its condition by whatever means necessary.