Plan B *topic moved at Ozz's request*

[Ozzallos]

...

[iiradned]

Sounds intriguing go ahead and write it up.
Beryl's overlord is Metallia, no c.

[Sunshine Temple]

Nodoka may have also taken a magic potion to make sure her child is male.
But if anyone has enough will to force a son I guess it's her. She did go for the contract.
One wonders what other changes her sheer force of will did :p
As for picking the generals. They'd have to be people Nodoka and Genma were close to 16 years ago. That does eliminate a few canidates.
Do like the timing. Beryl would want her backup to be nearly an adult if anything would happen. Why she did this so early.
Also the new Beryl would have no memories for anything after her cloning.
So she'll be in the dark to start with ^_^

[Ozzallos]

...

[Rei-chan]

Heh, looks interesting there. Go Beryl and all that.

[B'man]

Has a hint of stories like Negawarrior, Finishing What You Start, etc. And we all know how great those two were/are.

...minus the controls or evil influences of Metallica.

If I didn't already, I'd love you for that one sentence, Ozz.
I hope that the memories, Jusenkyo etc don't result in the usual full-time-girl Ranma/Beryl. I have a feeling that's why you put in the qualifier that B never finished the job. There could be some nice unease/tension caused by stuff like the Senshi fighting someone who some of them find attractive, or realising he doesn't have the story quite right, except they can't help him/her since he's not only powerful but vehement about his beliefs. And of course the inevitable seeing Beryl in Ranma.

[Atlan]

'clap clap clap'
Nice idea, and a perfect counterballence to Heir to the Empire.
The generals- what if they wern't cloned? A fragment of their starseed or a duplicate of it were used instead?
That gives the leway to put them into our favourite charecters.
Some might say- akane, shampoo, ukyo, kodachi
Others might say- Ryoga, Mousse, Kuno, ?
I say- Shinnosuke, Ryo Kumon, Herb, Tarou (for the pair of generals in love, forgot their names, herb and anyone could work)

[crystlshake]

It sounds great. The friction and Ranma's own views/luck should offer up a lot of fun character conflict.
And really, you cant go wrong when you have Metallica picking up the reighns to the megalomaniacle role. The power of music is something that the senshi havent had to face too often. Nothing like a music influenced mob to ruin a magical girls day.

[Musouka]

Why not, just for the heck of it, make the cloned generals female? The fiancees as generals? Akane the youma generator anyone?

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

'clap clap clap'
Nice idea, and a perfect counterballence to Heir to the Empire.
The generals- what if they wern't cloned? A fragment of their starseed or a duplicate of it were used instead?
That gives the leway to put them into our favourite charecters.
Some might say- akane, shampoo, ukyo, kodachi
Others might say- Ryoga, Mousse, Kuno, ?
I say- Shinnosuke, Ryo Kumon, Herb, Tarou (for the pair of generals in love, forgot their names, herb and anyone could work)

Depends if he's going in the Anime direction or the Manga direction. In the Manga direction the Generals were never in love with each other.

[SoftRogue]

Metallica spelled as such is just for my amusement.

I honestly would love to read a fic (even a spamfic) in which Metallica had possessed Beryl.
As for the Generals, I say Ranma is on her own. Why? Because the four Generals belonged to Tux-Boy, not Beryl. They didn't start working for her until after Metallia possessed her. In fact, in the manga Marmou has four stones that are the remains of the Generals.

[Frog]

SoftRogue brings up a good point. In the anime it always seemed like the Generals were Beryl's but mangawise, they belonged to Endymion before Beryl corrupted them. Now, while this isn't really that much of an important thing (since most R/SM fics seem to base themselves on the anime) I think it would be a good point to keep in mind for this particular Ranma characterization. Afterall, it helps to further the image that Ranma/Beryl was a single woman misled to fight against nearly unsurmountable odds. However, her drive for 'patriotism' was known to challenge even unsormountable odds, even if she were on her own.
At least that's the impression that I get *shrugs*

[Innortal]

You might want to set Metallia's death earlier in the Ranma-verse, unless you plan to introduce Ranma/Beryl before the Outers.
As an alternative to the deadman switch, you can also have that when Usagi wished for everyone to have a normal life, Beryl was sent back to be reborn as well. Just that Nodoka and Genma moved from Juuban for ... other reason (cough*bill collectors*cough).
If the Crystal has will, it might have ensured she was reborn male, or chaos decided to flip the coin. When Earth felt Ranma was better mentally prepared to be a Senshi (why? no clue, obviously the Earth is not feeling well), it drew them to Jusenkyo. Hell, even the Nekoken could have been planned to give them a closer tie to living nature, and not youma.
With no Ranma pre-Beryl saga, that means Setsuna was eventually planning for those enemies Ranma faced. When the world was reset, it changed things in such a way that she was sometimes lost (explains why Pluto was occasionally killed, wrong about Saturn, etc...).
As such, it might end up bringing in a few elements of the Earth Princess.

[Ozzallos]

...

[Innortal]

LOL, we have Mousse, Taro, Happosai, Kuno, Kuno Sr., and Ryoga.
Pick your Dark Generals, including the happy couple.