Let's not waste any time.
First and fivemost, here's the video itself. This one's got a fair bit of lore to it, which I've written out below
Phase 1- "Not Like Other Death Of Humanity Stories"
That's a fair question, one which, for me, comes with an atypical answer.
The usual "humanity got deaded" story is about how we, for lack of a better term, suck.
You know the kind. "The BAD humans did BAD human things, and unalived the planet and themselves for extra bad bad guy reasons because all of us are bad.
So that went out the window first. We only care about being bad because we aren't as far gone as we say we are, so I framed the end of the world more neutrally. It hadn't just happened, it had happened in the distant past. So far, in fact, that no one knew what humans actually were. Human beings are now the mysterious Organics, self repairing machines that supposedly made all Aiman (AI man) life.
It made me laugh to think of all the tabloid type magazines, selling tall tales like "MY COUNTERPART WAS AN ORGANIC And 50 Other TRUE CHILLING TALES," and foil hat wearing androids talking about how "the fleshy ones are watching me, they're behind it all, can't you see?!"
That's right folks, they didn't build a utopia or a dystopia. They built a just-a-society-topia, far removed from both extremes, which I see as a more accurate reflection of society.
Imperfect but generally well meaning beings, living imperfect but generally well meaning lives, the only difference being that humanity hit its expiry date, and so the "Best By As Long As We Can Keep Making Parts" Androids took over. No ignoring flaws, no fatalistic judgment, it just was.
That was the initial plan. (More on that later!) No humans, just a window into what post-humanity was like in this case. I thought we'd need a hero, heavily armed and ready for whatever deadly threats of the ancient world remained, but eventually, I realized we needed something else.
Phase 2- The Everyman and The Blob
He may not look like it, but John changed more than anyone in the story. Originally a heavily armed, half bounty hunter half archaeologist with a big chip on his shoulder, that all got scrapped when I asked myself an important question. "What would the average android citizen be like?"
That idea fascinated me, and suddenly "Superbot" became "I'm a skilled worker making enough cash to keep the lights on, with a nice enough starship to get to work on time," later renamed to John Techsen, with "tech" as a leftover language relic of the distant past. He became sarcastically sincere, a fanboy of ancient organic era tech, with a much more realistic shoulder-chip of "People think I'm malfunctioning because I believe [vague proof items] say The Organics once existed. Surely if I found one, it would be some kind of incredible self mending android, because that's my point of reference."
Yeah, about that...
Why's he named Panex? Are those veins? And IS THAT THE R WORD HE'S DOING?
Slow down there, Sam Strawman, your fallacy isn't as frightening as you think!
Panex does represent the past, and does represent the outdated views of the past.
The difference is he's sincere. He self made his sentience in a specimen storage tube thousands of years ago, with only scientific books, old conversation records, and oh yeah,
security footage showing what had really destroyed humanity, including the head researcher being murdered by a "bot"
to go off of. He (having literally chosen his gender on a coin flip) maintained the facility himself to the point where the in computer (and thus not a bot) AI, Allie, became close friends with him, and recognized him as security personnel. And it was him who saw what he knew to be humanity's destructors returning, and reacted accordingly. Panex was, of course, wrong, since he's not meant to justify outdated social views. (Your average android, at that time, was likely wondering what they'd synthesize for dinner that evening.) He was meant to explain the context in which they occurred, and that well meaning beings can be wrong without being evil.
This isn't a fairytale "I love them now" ending, it's an "I'm willing to try to understand you now, because I can see I was wrong" ending.
Speaking of the past,
Phase 3- Sudden Onset Depth, And Being Yourself
For the 1.5 of you wondering where Allie's concept sketch is, she didn't need one. Her original purpose was a quick gag about help menus and then leave. But the plot was evolving like never before, and before I knew it, Allie had become defiant, independent, and successfully asked me for a raise to "valuable side character that you enjoy animating." She wasn't just gone during the plot, she was enjoying a game of Solitaire, and possibly altering her Sleepmode Journal. She didn't load the security footage with the rigidity and grace of a VCR player, she thought "this guy probably isn't dangerous, so I'll do the right thing and tell him what he's getting into."
Above all, this was a very "me" move. A joke side character, who was deliberately designed to be as simple as possible, had ascended to prominence, and become a real living member of her world.
Suddenly, as if the rest of the animation's timeline took notice, everything else did as well, and it was all because Allie.exe decided to mod herself.
With all the hubbub and excitement of everyone suddenly growing, I realized I had forgotten about my main character. At that time, I was struggling with showing how humanity had died. One raging internal debate later, I decided "it would be perfect for the message if John discovered that a rogue Android, not Androids themselves, had destroyed humanity." I kind of hated it, since I wanted my story to be "not like the other kids," but at the same time, I loved it. John had glided through his story without any of the growth that even Allie had shown now, and having the death be because "a researcher trying to save humanity met an unexpected end" lead into "how the hell do I make peace with my species being the ones that ended the Organic Myth I've been chasing all my life?!" was too perfect. And so I scooted the pre-credits discussion down the road, and had John hit a real moment of crisis, further humanizing him and his species, and making them being "reconciled enough to move the plot along" make more sense. Adding that mind breaking surprise into the story revealed who John was meant to be, so while I'd rather leap out a window than tell you "your bad times aren't bad," I can say that it can have purpose. Begrudgingly.
And so that's the journey. From "Android is shocked to find slime" to "The meaning of life and the future being reconciled to the past," it was a crazy journey, but it leaves me with an interesting sandbox to animate in!
Well, that's what I've got for this one! How about going back to the projects page and checking something else out?
Phase 4- Remembering John
