I think I've found another original crossover...

[Comartemis]

This one moves the Sailor Moon timeline forward by fifteen years or so and takes place during the S season.

The spread of the internet has given Hotaru a place where she can be herself without being feared by her peers, so she's become something of a network junkie, spending all her free time on message boards and chat rooms. The first time Chibi-usa shows up at home, Hotaru pulls her over to the computer and shows 'Usa her favorite computer game; a popular little title called 'The World'.

That's right, a Sailor Moon/.Hack crossover.

Hotaru guides 'Usa through the process of making a character and getting set up, but a few hours into the game session, 'Usa suddenly loses conciousness, and Hotaru's efforts to wake her produce no results. 'Usa is carted off to the hospital and Hotaru returns home determined to find the cause of 'Usa's attack. She loads up her highest-level character, heads to the area Chibi-usa was visiting...

...and walks right into Skeith.

One Data Drain later, Hotaru has pulled a Tsukasa, with her physical body in the hospital and her mind trapped in the game. Skeith's attack has jarred loose memories of the Silver Millennium, and countless years of combat training puts Saturn right at Skeith's level, but Skeith has infinite HP, and Saturn's mind has been disconnected from her Star Seed, leaving her with zero magic power and no Twilight Bracelet to make up the difference.

Meanwhile, the Inner Senshi enter The World seeking a way to bring Chibi-usa and Hotaru out of their comas. Beginning at level one, the Inners follow the path of all low-level residents of The World, leveling up, completing quests, gathering information relating to the comatose players, learning how to apply their own magic to the digital field, and inevitably meeting up with Kite and Black Rose.

As the Senshi and the .hackers unravel the mystery behind The World, the Soldier of Death and The Terror of Death engage in a running battle across The World's servers, but Morganna has more pressing concerns than a bunch of data abnormalities, because Skeith's attack on Hotaru has unleashed a distinctly malevolent presence into The World...

[Spokavriel]

Trying to leave it there to prevent Mistress 9 being too blatant? It's an ok start but I don't know enough about .hack to really say how that end of it is.

[Cyber_Skaarj]

I'm assuming this has taken place after Tsukasa is able to log out again? If so, how would Aura feature in this? Would she know of Hotaru and her plight and help her out? Or would she be too busy helping Kite and BlackRose?

Now, I can help with info on the .hack//SIGN series if you need it as I have the DVD box set, but I've never played the games, so I don't know much there.

[Comartemis]

I'm assuming this has taken place after Tsukasa is able to log out again? If so, how would Aura feature in this? Would she know of Hotaru and her plight and help her out? Or would she be too busy helping Kite and BlackRose?

Actually... I'd completely forgotten about Aura.

Well, to my knowledge Aura spends her time fleeing from Skeith until the end of Infection at which point she's cornered and Data Drained, so let's try this; Aura's assistance allows Hotaru to bypass the game's rules (jumping between areas without a Chaos Gate for instance), but she's already given the Book of Twilight to Kite so either she makes a copy of it and Hotaru gets her own bracelet, or Aura and Skeith continue their game of cat and mouse with Saturn trailing behind; Hotaru knows that Aura and Skeith hold the key to her escape from The World, but she's at a loss as to how to defeat Skeith, so she settles for making sure Skeith never manages to drain Aura until the showdown at the end of Infection.

*EDIT*
Had another thought; not all of the girls are newbies to The World. Ami is an experienced Wavemaster, about level 30ish, who serves as the girls' guide through the early levels (Ami as the group's most powerful member... heh).

[Staren]

Sounds like a fun story. One little thing I would consider though. Ami might get enough of being the sideline member of the party in RL, so she might have gone for Heavy Blade or something else besides Wavemaster. Might add another plot point to play around with.

[Comartemis]

One little thing I would consider though. Ami might get enough of being the sideline member of the party in RL, so she might have gone for Heavy Blade or something else besides Wavemaster. Might add another plot point to play around with.

Or a twist on that idea; Usagi knows she's a liability in RL combat and she's sick of it, so she picks the ever-popular jack-of-all-trades, the Twin Blade, rather than taking the obvious route and becoming a Wavemaster who specializes in healing.

Keeping in mind the need for a well-balanced team, here's the lineup as I see it:

Usagi: Twin Blade
Ami: Wavemaster
Rei: Heavy Blade
Makoto: Heavy Axe
Minako: Blademaster
Hotaru: Long Arm

If this was a .hack//G.U. story, it'd look something like this:

Usagi: Adept Rogue
Ami: Harvest Cleric/Shadow Warlock/Twin Blade
Rei: Shadow Warlock
Makoto: Tribal Grappler
Minako: Steam Gunner (just watch where she points that thing...)
Hotaru: Flick Reaper

If anyone can think of a way to *make* it a G.U. story, let me know...

[Cyber_Skaarj]

As much as I don't know about the main storyline after .hack//SIGN, I know even less about the new G.U. story. As far as I can tell from looking it up on wikipedia, it's even more weird than the .hack project (the first anime and games), if that's possible.

Personally I think you should stick with the original story and not touch the G.U. one. As few people who have even heard of .hack, even fewer have heard of G.U., and lets face it, they're not the easiest of anime/games to get into and understand.

Besides, the original classes names are so much better then the new ones. Harvest Cleric? I think I'll take Wavemaster thank-you-very-much.

[mondu_the_fat]

Canonically, there might be some problems making one character an adept rogue. Adept rogues level up extremely slowly compared to other characters -- assuming that they are adventuring together and sharing XP, an adept rogue will be left in the dust. They just don't make for good team dynamics.

Making the story occurring during .sign might be better. For one thing, there were a lot of other adventurers involved with Morganna, not just Kite and Blackrose. This can be evidenced with .liminality, as well as the ending of the hack games -- the battle with Cubia was occurring World-wide with various other players involved, including those that were never even mentioned in the series and games. You can get the Scouts to be involved in a completely parallel story and trying to unravel The World's mystery on their own, with the dot hackers as being background or flavor.

but she's already given the Book of Twilight to Kite so either she makes a copy of it and Hotaru gets her own bracelet

Having 2 bracelets running around in The World leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Kite is already The Messiah of the series for the simple fact of owning the bracelet. 2 of them is overkill, and probably canonically impossible, even for Aura.

Had another thought; not all of the girls are newbies to The World. Ami is an experienced Wavemaster, about level 30ish, who serves as the girls' guide through the early levels (Ami as the group's most powerful member... heh).

Cool idea, you'd also have a richer character for Ami in illustrating how Ami, hacking, and how the world views hackers. Or maybe she's actually Helba, or knows who Helba is. Or maybe Plutokiss was actually a viral weapon from the Silver millenium... or that the CEO of CC corp _is_ from the silver Millenium.

[Comartemis]

Adept rogues level up extremely slowly compared to other characters -- assuming that they are adventuring together and sharing XP, an adept rogue will be left in the dust.

You sure about that? I'm playing G.U. Volume 2 right now, and the only difference I can see is that I've become a jack-of-three-trades but a master of none; I don't see any difference in how I level up.

Having 2 bracelets running around in The World leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Kite is already The Messiah of the series for the simple fact of owning the bracelet. 2 of them is overkill, and probably canonically impossible, even for Aura.

Agreed. It was just a possibility I was sort of considering. I think it makes more sense for Usagi's purification abilities to manifest themselves as a Data Drain while she's in The World.

Or maybe she's actually Helba, or knows who Helba is.

Let's take a closer look at that. Who else do we know in the Sailor Moon universe who carries a staff and tends to speak in riddles?

[mondu_the_fat]

You sure about that? I'm playing G.U. Volume 2 right now, and the only difference I can see is that I've become a jack-of-three-trades but a master of none; I don't see any difference in how I level up.

100% sure.

That's a PS2 game mechanic. It wouldn't make sense that in the PS2 game the main character would level up slowly compared to his companions. But then again in the PS2 game you can level up to 50 within a few days real time. In the first set of .hack games you can level up a 0 level character to 99 within a couple of hours just by making them join parties of high level characters. If we were to use that mechanic, a level 30 ami can level up the rest of her teammates to her equivalent within a day or so.

The problem with adept rogues, within that universe is clearly stated in the various e-mails and forum comments within 1st game. Adept rogues level up a lot slower (especially weapon skills) than than other character classes.

Personally, I think "adept rogue" is just a character class createdthat was created by cyberconnect so that the player wouldn't be so tied up using just one set of weapons. I know some people were disappointed when they found out that Kite can only use daggers/knives. In order to balance such a character class storywise, they took the old D&D route -- half-elves (who were essentially fighter/cleric/magic-users) took a boondoggle amount of XP to level up.

off topic: I really have got to get my PS2 fixed. I've been waiting for disc 2 for months... even if the protagonist is a major asswipe.

I think it makes more sense for Usagi's purification abilities to manifest themselves as a Data Drain while she's in The World.

That, at least, is more plausible than Hotaru getting a bracelet copy.

[Comartemis]

even if the protagonist is a major asswipe

He gets better. Haseo *was* quite the asshole in volume 1, especially to Atoli early on, but by the time you unlock his third form (fairly early in volume 2) he's become much more decent towards his teammates, particularly

Spoiler

Alkaid.

/Spoiler

Making the story occurring during .sign might be better.

Making the story occur during Sign brings about a number of problems; for one, Skeith isn't active until the very end of the series. Second, Sign was less about Aura, Morganna, and The World itself and more about Tsukasa; there really wasn't a villain to pit the girls against, unless I make them mix it up with Sora or the Crimson Knights.

The best I think I can do if I base the story off of Sign's storyline is to rewrite the series with Hotaru as Tsukasa and the Inners as Bear/Mimiru/Subaru/Crim/Sora etc; it'd probably work well enough, it's just not very original.

You can get the Scouts

Please, call them what they are; Senshi = Soldier. "Sailor Scouts" makes them sound like they're affiliated with the Girl Scouts.

May DIC burn in hell for their wanton mutilation of the original series.

You can get the Scouts to be involved in a completely parallel story and trying to unravel The World's mystery on their own, with the dot hackers as being background or flavor.

Not really sure I could make that work either; if Hotaru and Chibi-Usa are DD'd by Skeith, the Inners' path will inevitably lead them to Skeith, just as it did with Kite and BlackRose; "all roads lead to the sea," as the saying goes (I think I just made a Minakoism...).

Besides, .hack's storyline is convoluted enough without me adding a whole new side to it.

[Muramasa]

I think this crossover is a great idea. Well given that I know a decent bit of the series and have played the original 4 games. It sounds like a lot of work too because this kind of crossover relies heavily on the dot hack universe and so far that series has a chronology that lasts about 14 to 20 years depending on where you're starting from.

I also think it's a bad idea to give another bracelet to Hotaru. Perhaps maybe link her to one of the phases? I think Corbenik seems appropriate on this instance. Death and Rebirth. Err... or something like that.

I'm kinda curious though, what would be Kite's role? and How would he interact with the senshi?

[camk4evr]

Had another thought; not all of the girls are newbies to The World. Ami is an experienced Wavemaster, about level 30ish, who serves as the girls' guide through the early levels (Ami as the group's most powerful member... heh).

Honestly, I can see Usagi (and possibly Minako as well) as being familiar (if not very advaced) with the game as "The World" is fairly popular and we know Usagi likes to play video games (I'm not sure abou the others).

What would the Outers and Tux-boy be, in the game? I can't really see them sitting this out while Chibi-Usa and Hotaru are in trouble.

[Comartemis]

Mamoru is a college student at this point in the series (I think) so I doubt he'd have much time for online games prior to 'Usa's coma. Haruka and Michiru don't seem like the type to play them either, especially Michiru; maybe I've just read Suburban Senshi too many times (Where H&M have zero computer literacy ) but I can't picture high-class girls like H&M (Michiru especially) playing an online game.

Pluto has set things up so she's in the perfect position to manipulate the game's events. (.hack fans, you know exactly who I'm talking about )

As for Usagi being a high-level player, I think I'll pass on that. I like this idea of Ami being the strongest member for a while better, but I can just say that Shingo deleted Usagi's character a few months back so she's an experienced but low level player.

[camk4evr]

Just because they wouldn't normally play the game doesn't mean they wouldn't play it if they thought doing so would let them save Hotaru (it's reason Blackrose started playing The World, afterall).

So you plan to have Stesuna be Helba? Seems fitting somehow ^_^