Yes folks, this is where you get your chance to ask Dust Traveller (a.k.a. Chris, a.k.a Luggage Puppy ) about his creation,--an official forum where fans of his may request him to clarify his ideas and elucidate certain areas of the plot which may not be fully evident to them, (and where the geekiest members of his fanbase can nitpick and obsess over every single detail of the storyline and setting and bug DT to give them all sorts of irrelevant information like what are the blood types of all the characters and what is THE NATIONAL FLOWER OF SAILOON AND WHY DID GOURRY AND LINA ONLY HAVE ONE KID AND WHY ISN'T SYLPHIEL IN THE STORY AND IS REZO EVER GONNA SHOW UP?!! HUH??!! HUH??!! )
Ahem.
Seriously, if you have a legitimate question about the story, just send it to Chris Cuellar and he'll do his best to answer it for you as soon as he can to the best of his ability.
***Here's the latest batch of questions and answers , the first one courtesy of Korean fan, Eunie. DT's answers appear in orange:***
I want to translate SoC to a foreign language (in this case, Korean) may I?
Previous Batches of Questions
How did such a terrible weapon like the Battlecannons find their way into
the peace-loving and pacifistic hands of the Sailoonian Guard and more
importantly, past Queen Amelia?
(These are courtesy of THarlequin)
Aheheh... of COURSE you can. I think I'd better be remarkably clear on this
subject: translating a mammoth fic like this is NOT going to be an easy
task. As it stands, it's at well over 200 pages, with more to come. So I
hope for your sake that you can commit to such an arduous undertaking... but
anyway, if you want to translate SoC to another language, link to it, do
fanart for it, pretty much anything, the current policy is just let either
myself or AA know about it (or even both since if you tell me about it she's
going to know anyway and vice versa.) We are NOT going to tell you to screw
off... hell, WE should be thanking YOU! One little detail I should mention
though... I have three conditions on translations:
1) The work should be
translated as closely as possible. I understand that english does not copy
literally to Korean (or YE GODS Japanese) but please try not to make me
sound any more like an idiot than I actually do. I don't need your help to
sound retarded, I do that quite well enough.
2) Provide a link to myself or
AA to your website so that people can get to your translation from the
official SoC website.
3) If fans of the translation have questions, please
forward a translated copy to myself, so that I can answer them.
That's it!
Once again, anything that increases exposure on our collective work is cool
with us. Hey, just remember that both of us have more than just SoC out
there, though AA is FAR more prolific than I am. If you like SoC, look
around... we're out there. Due to matters of taste, I will not put links in
the Q & A section, but logic dictates that such things will be in...
*GASP* the SoC link section! A novel concept!
This question comes from jado245
Are there any other collabrative projects between AA and you?
Welp... not currently. This is the first work that AA and I have
undertaken, but if there is one thing that I have discovered, it's that AA
and I work together very well (almost scary well) so it wouldn't surprise me
if something else popped up down the line. AA is a very busy girl, working
full time and doing the Hamlet Manga AND a new project called Elder Star
with QOS, so anything new will probably be way down the line. I should also
note that I am quite busy as well, working for Uncle Sam and doing the
various projects that I do, BUT since writing tends to go alot faster than
artwork, and since I couldn't draw my way out of paper bag, I'm always on
the lookout for artistic talent. As any of my online friends will tell you,
I come up with new manga ideas approximately once or twice a week, so IF AA
finds herself with some spare time, and IF I find myself with some spare
time, I have right now 6 different manga concepts that are basically ready
to go.
Well, that's it for this batch of questions, folks...Stay tuned for future updates...
***These questions (which have been heavily paraphrased) come courtesy of the Queen of Swords. ***
I think it's entirely possible that she DIDN'T know about them. Like most
frontier bases, a certain amount of trade and under the counter (read as
Black Market) dealing is done with foreign countries. Merchants travel
through Sentinel all the time, and it is highly unlikely that such saavy
commanders like Tess and the generals of Sailoon would let such an
opportunity slip past them. More importantly, from a military perspective,
once the proverbial Pandora's Box of gunpowder is opened, a country that
does not keep up with the times is courting suicide, as Poland learned in
their fatal charge against the German Blitzkrieg... cavalry against tanks
and machine guns... god what a slaughter. Granted that the technology level
is quite different, but even in this still early stage of the gunpowder
inventive stage, cannons are a requirement. If an army using cannons laid
siege to Sentinel, and Sentinel didn't have cannons, then they might as well
just start flying their new flag now and get the messy business of being
wiped off the face of the planet out of the way. Still, it is entirely
possible as well that Amelia DID know about it. Pacifistic does not mean
stupid. If she did know about it, which she probably did, they probably sold
the idea to her as a more of a "deterrent" (no one would think to attack us
if we have these... I mean, who would be stupid enough? If we have cannons,
there won't ever BE another war) then as a weapon. That sounds about right.
What type of cannon technology are we talking about here?
I'd say smoothbore, early early stage models. For those of you who don't
have a clue what I'm talking about, Smoothbore cannons are cannons in which
the barrel is smooth on the inside. Modern cannons use a spiral set of
grooves that run the entire length of the inside of the barrel. This groove
forces any projectile fired from them to spin, which increases accuracy and
distance... a spinning object has a tendency to remain parallel to the
ground longer, hence it has less drag and does not wildly tumble. This is a
actually the main theory behind the gyroscopic system that the F/A-18 Hornet
uses to determine an artifical horizon and it's heading though in the case
of heading, INS (Inertial Navagation System)is the main system now, while
AHARS (Artificial Heading And Reckoning System I think... it's been a long
time since A School, and we just call it ASN-50 gyro system or "that
incredibly complicated bitch of a troubleshooting job that the Squadrons
always send in with no friggin' clue which of the damn components (of which
there are four, displacement gyro, power supply, CAC, and indicator) is
actually bad so they send them ALL in, thus creating more work for me
AHHHHRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!" in the shop where I work) is more of a backup
system. A spinning object (gyroscope) will remain parallel to the ground no
matter what Angle of Attack or odd movement an aircraft makes, hence it
provides a constant source of information as to where the ground is, which
as we all know is the most important thing to a pilot... But someone please
slap me because I've gotten horribly off subject. Anyway, rifling wasn't
invented for quite some time in our own world after the invention of the
cannon, so I see no reason why the Slayers world should be any different.
Also, because the cannon technology is still really new as far as Sailoon
goes, and they aren't commonly used, I'd say these cannons are also (as
depicted) extremely unwieldy as well as unreliable and just downright
dangerous to the user. Now if they had Jillas working for them...
Are we going to see any ships being used, and if so, will they mount
cannons?
As far as ships go, I don't CURRENTLY have any plans to include them in
future chapters, but as we all know, nothing is particularly set other then
the framework for the plot (scary isn't it? I know as much about future
chapters as you do, save that I actually know what plots are going on in the
different character's heads). As for cannons being mounted on Sailoonian
ships, I very much doubt it. The cannons in question are huge, and cause
lots of accidental fires, which as a sailor I can tell you are big no-no's
on MODERN navy ships, let alone wooden ones. Not to mention that while the
theoretical Sailoonian general MIGHT be able to sell the whole deterrent
thing with a fortress, I doubt he'd be so lucky with a warship. So cannons
on ships? As much as they would probably help considering their current
situation, I doubt it. Not to say that Amelia is stupid, it's just that she
has a very set world view and in a sane world, things like a war with a
fanatical race bent on revenge being led by the biggest nihilistic jerk
since Lagato Bluesummers from Trigun wouldn't happen. Then again, As we all
know, the world WE live in isn't sane, so how the hell could the Slayers
World be any better?
Tess and Valgaav- Yes, this was entirely intentional. So I'm a weakwilled man who bends for the whims of my fans. So sue me. Sniff. I haven't actually fallen so low as to actually include yaoi though... but I thought the chemistry would be there, considering. It was just a wierd little detail I threw in at the last minute.
2. Amelia and Zelgadis
You have alluded to a problem between A/Z. Why would Zelgadis avoid his friends? I couldn't see him doing it because of Pixie. To me, Amelia seemed to want to seek forgiveness. I don't know
Zelgadis isn't avoiding his friends because of Pix, nor is there really a problem between him and Amelia (though Lina seems to think so). What is actually happening is Zelgadis has decided (rightfully so considering the evidence) that whenever he asks Lina (or Lina asks herself) to help him find his cure, he inevitably ends up caught up in the middle of some mad scheme (I think the evidence from Slayers Next and Try speaks for itself) that never does get around to him finding his cure. He knew that his old group (especially Amelia and Lina) wouldn't allow him to "go off on his own" as it were, so he alluded to simply having "giving up" and refusing to see anyone. Zelgadis has big issues with how he looks, if you notice, he sometimes avoids Amelia for this reason. I don't think they'd end up together until he gets cured... he's just too "ashamed" of himself. Amelia assumes that it's something SHE'S done, since it couldn't be something Zelgadis has done (If you notice, she kinda hero worships him) hence the "problem" between them... really more of a sad misunderstanding. Alot of problems in Slayers seem to come from "misunderstandings".
3. Xellos: Chapter 17
Why would Xellos tell Lina and company to go to Sentinel City when their was no mention in the previous chapter of Zel and company leaving the mountains?
The answer is simple. Who was telling them to go? Xellos knows that the smaller group hasn't left the mountains yet, however, the LAST thing he wants is the two groups to meet. If this hasn't become readily apparent yet, I guess I have to be a bit less subtle. He's gone so far as to BLOW UP the larger group in order to avoid the two groups from meeting. If Lina's group goes to Sentinel, assumably to save Mina from Gaav, then they can't interfere with what he NEEDS to happen to the smaller group in Katatoe. Still, he wasn't lying when he said that if Lina and her group didn't go to Sentinel, then Mina would die. He just neglected to mention that everyone else would probably die as well. See, he knows the real reason behind why Talon is attacking Sailoon. Why is Talon attacking Sailoon? Ahem... Xellos, I'll let you handle this one. ::Xellos smiles:: That, is a secret...
4. Luna Inverse
Will she make an appearance in this story? I am surprised that Lina would not a least think about going to her sister for help considering she is the Knight of Cepheeid (hope I spelled that right).
I won't discount the possibility of Luna making an appearance in my story, just like I won't discount the possibility of ANYONE making an appearance. As far as being a major plot development or Deus Ex Machina, I'm afraid not. Why didn't Lina come to Luna for help? Well that's pretty simple. There are two main reasons one story, and one author. The story reason is that Lina is terrified of her older sister. She avoids her at all costs... has a psychosomatic reaction to just the mention of her. She once said she'd rather face a dark lord with NONE of her powers and her hands tied behind her back than her sister. I don't think Lina would even consider her sister as an option. Her hands aren't currently tied you see.
Now for the author reason. I am lazy. I already have enough damn characters that I had to think up from scratch. Since the series never mentioned a bit about what the hell she was like or how she fit into the world, I'd have to come up with all that on my own. I apologize to any Luna fans out there, but I really don't see HOW you could BE a Luna fan since she has exactly .3 seconds of air time in the entire series, as a STILL CUT in the friggin' BACKGROUND of the OPENING!!!
Ahem.
Well, if that's all, I hope this has cleared up a few misconceptions, confusions.... etc. etc. Thanks for the email and the congratulations, and I'll get back to ya later.
Don't quit scrutinizing the story... it keeps me... well if not honest, then at least really really sneaky.
Chris, LP