Complete Control Design Notes

Decay tends to happen every century or so. Usuallyly the few dozen strongest neos get out of it with their elixirs fully intact. Most neos lose their elixirs entirely, while a few hundred may notice their powers have severely waned.

I oughta make it happen at some point in the plot, to demonstrate it instead of just talking about it. But what would be the best time to do so? Maybe at the end of Anarchy. Just as society has begun to rebuild itself for a new age of superpowers, the proverbial rug is swept from right under everyone's feet. And the vox populi are left at the mercy of the strongest few.

Saturday:
I'm having trouble giving names to people. Like, I have character ideas, but I don't know what names to give them. Should everyone have a meaningful name? Should I stop thinking too hard about all of this? And I don't want to give everyone the only names I know (aka western names) if there's gonna be characters from all over the globe.

For now, I'll start naming new characters, but none of them are permanent. For instance, the university girl mentioned on the previous page is named Stella now.

Sunday:
Character pair to be introduced in season 5: reporters who don't have superpowers but want to get into the thick of all of this neo business anyway. Let's call'em Clarice and Ryan for now.

Monday:
Villain to be introduced in season 5: Cedric. Tall, short black hair, English. Cedric is Ueli's most powerful sub-ordinate as well as his connection to the modern world, being only 50 years old as of the first episode of season 5. He has a varied elixir, as well as a mind that has been engineered to naturally block telepathy.

Cedric's role is to organize people and events. He leads troops, makes business deals, and controls public relations. He has a sharp tongue, and a sadistic streak a mile wide. He's the kind of guy who would make you want to hand yourself over before getting you himself.

And with that, we have a solid Five Bad Band:
Big Bad: Ueli.
Dragon: The Farmer.
Evil Genius: Cedric.
Brute: The Queen Alight.
Dark Chick: The Storm.

Tuesday:
So who tried to scar our heroes' elixirs all the way in the beginning of season 1? There's probably a long chain of command ending at the top with Cedric. I imagine scarring would-be neos that can't even light a match would be something that Cedric would assign to run-of-the-mill mooks.

Wednesday:
It's not the Queen's reign itself that makes her a villain, really. It's more the fact that she's susceptible to bouts of psychotic rampaging on account of having lived for over half of a millennium and experienced many hardships over that time. Stubborn person that she is, she continues on her conquests despite the risks her authority come with.

Human bodies are nothing to the sheer raw power of an experienced neo. When your enemy can rip apart a skyscraper with their mind, people seem really fragile. This is why most (all?) Encore employees are required to undergo surgery that replaces many of their body systems with synthetic organs made out of much durable materials.

Friday:
Mason and the rest of Encore don't go out fixing the world's problems with their vast resources because Ueli won't let them. If they were to indulge in philanthropy, it could garner them a lot of the world's support. So that becomes as restricted for the higher-ups as regular fighting is.

Saturday:
By the final few seasons, the main heroes will have been condensed into their own group of a few dozen neos after several disasters in season 5 bring them together. They are the Third Act. They are headed by the four main heroes.

Character to be introduced in season 2: Paul, a French man in his early twenties trekking through Europe. He is an orphan from an early age, raised by a butcher until he decided to go out on his own. Meant to invoke the Fool Archetype. His elixir grants him access to his own little pocket of subspace.

Monday:
I`ve mentioned the big accident that starts the show, and the protagonists recuperating during a one-year time skip. I`ll make the accident and hospilization episodes 1 and 2.

Tuesday:
Episode 3 should focus on a day in the life of one of the four protagonists, one year after the accident. I think I will pick Olivia. Near the end of the episode, her elixir starts acting up, as is common for most new neos. Small fires start periodically sprouting around her over the next few weeks. This freaks her out, so she attempts to solve this mystery, meddling-kids-style.

Last Wednesday:
Elixirs "close" as suddenly as they open. There is no societal pattern determining when exactly one's powers stop working, they just cease to exist. This is what prevents alchemists from indefinitely sustaining their bodies and telepaths from hopping from physical form to physical form, lest either group attain immortality. Granted, an elixir can last for much longer than the average human lifespan, which gives us individuals like our villains.

Thursday:
Episode 4 will switch to another character, Alex, who has also been going through some strange shit. When he's alone, objects everywhere around him start vibrating. At the end of the episode, he manages to make the quaking stop on command and can lift small objects with his telekinesis consciously.

Friday:
Episode 5 features Emily on the run from a group of people (did a friend of hers get in with the wrong crowd and now they're chasing the both of them? Did she have a fight with her family?). Her power starts warping her all over a nearby building, culminating in her teetering over the roof.

Saturday:
Episode 6 features Isaac and his telepathy showing through. Throughout the episode, he begins hearing the thoughts of the people around him. One friend secretly has a crush on him, another is doing drugs, etc. The episode ends with Isaac arguing with one friend. In a fit of rage, he unknowingly uses his telepathy to force the friend to give him an answer. From the friend's reaction, Isaac can tell something's up.

Sunday:
Episode 7 focuses on an agent of an unspecified organization (later revealed to be Encore, the good guys) investigating new neos, who happen to be our main heroes. Their mission is to garner a profile on each one, to see whether or not they're dangerous. In later episodes, this and other agents will indirectly guide the four neos to each other, so that they may learn more about themselves and superpowers in general.

Monday:
Emily's powers revolve around reality warping. She achieves this by breaking the energy barriers that hold up the fabric of reality and separate universes. When the walls collapse, Emily can send objects through the holes to instantaneously change their positions in the universe. This is how teleporting works.

Also, by accessing other universes, Emily can alter the laws of physics in specific regions. For instance, there is a universe where thermal energy works in reverse. If Emily is in the region, she can make things cold with her thermal elixir.

Tuesday:
Isaac's mental scenery consists of abstractly set strings and glass panes. His methods involve misdirection, illusion and traps. A victim of Isaac's telepathy is likely to feel tugged at by many strings, and trapped in a sort of hall of mirrors reflecting different parts of their past and personality.

Wednesday:
The development of Alex's powers will focus on versatility. At first, his abilities are simple: making cars hover, flinging boulders, flying in a straight line, etc. Over the years, he will learn to control more objects at once, grab smaller objects, and maneuver them with greater detail.

Thursday:
So originally I gave Olivia alchemy and heat powers. Good combo, I thought. I gave Emily electro-and-photokinesis, but they never really felt like things she should have. So I've given them to Olivia. I risk making her overpowered, but I think the electrokinesis, at least, will compliment her chemical powers.

Friday:
There will be (mostly) no secret identities in the Neoverse. One quarter of the neo population is telepaths, and identifying a masked vigilante is relatively easy. To compensate, Encore offers reliable protection for families of neos.

Won't stop a few idiots from donning costumes at night.

Episode 8. So the agent from before (let's call him Ji-hu) wants to guide our quartet to each other. What he doesn't know is that he's drawing the attention of a couple of Daniel's thugs. Here could be the beginning of the main story arc of Neo Birth.

Sunday:
Isaac Testardo is the brains of operations. The smart guy, the one who gets into people's heads. His telepathy allows him to make calculations and process thoughts hundreds of times faster than normal. He can read minds and take control of them. Assuming they're not telepaths, he can control whole crowds of people.

Isaac values the ends over the means. When he works on a project, he does so with great determination and enthusiasm. He finds things to do and sticks with them. He does not cut corners to hasten completion, and does not waver from his goals. He tends to ignore criticism and is slow to change his mind. At best, he is steadfast and loyal. At worst, he is unforgiving and stubborn.

Isaac enjoys all sorts of arts, like painting and music. He likes to test his boundaries, both with himself and with other people. This tends to get him in trouble.

Over the course of the show, Isaac contemplates how his powers affect his worth as a human being. His powers effectively grant him the mental manpower of an entire city, but does that make him a priority? How many can be sacrificed for the sake of a definite victory? Does having an elixir give him a right to rule?

His arch-enemy will be the Queen Alight, a tyrant who desires nothing less than the whole world to be subject to her reign.

Monday:
More on Isaac. Over time, Isaac develops a psychic sense of death. When a person dies, he feels it, and it's not very nice. This will tie in with his contemplations of the relations between him and the people he protects. As the wars get bloodier and bloodier, he becomes one of the bitterest characters about it all.