Welcome, Research Associates!
This is Black Mesa: Extraterrestrial Research Division or BM:ERD for short! This is askblog is run by @themarginalartist as an alternate take on my AU Xenian (Original Fic + Just art on art only blog + Xenian AU / Xenian Shenanigans from my main blog) of HLVRAI by Wayneradiotv and co, and this blog is a restart of the original @blackmesaerd. Don't worry if you weren't here before, or haven't read the fic at all, we're starting right at the top of the story!
A quick explainer of my AU: Basically all of this stems from the question of, "What if Benrey was telling the truth that he and Gordon knew each other as kids?" it's just that they actually were both aliens from Xen, not just Benrey. Xen is not just a place, but there is an avatar/goddess that runs the place which created them. There are also some original creatures/worlds involved but that's for later. ;)
Okay, but like, what is this exactly?
An ask blog! Think of it as RP-lite or a TTRPG. I, Margi run the main story but it doesn't mean you all can't affect things too! Send in your asks anonymously (or not) as "research associates", you'll affect how things go in the story! Especially in the smaller moments and conversations with our cast of characters!
What is a Research Associate, though?
Why it's you! Or a character! Many people based them on the emoji or "call signs" of their anons in the previous version. Some notable examples are 🐉🐈, 💀, 👑, Goat, Tabby, etc. Just be aware sometimes emojis are assholes and it may not show up for me. I use mac and iphone it just be like that.
Think of RAs as the... less fortunate extras of Black Mesa. Experiments gone wrong (or right), disgraced scientists, interns that met some unfortunate fates, it's up to you what happened to them, just know they don't really remember their lives outside of Black Mesa, They are the lowest tier in our chain of command at Black Mesa, just above the caged critters themselves. But they are also a very important part of the team! After all, who else is going to be in the line of fire for getting samples from feral aliens...
Jokingly we refer to the Discord (link here) as the RA Hivemind, an interconnected web of thought across all the RAs of Black Mesa. Send memes, reach consensus in the direction you want to head in with your fellow RAs, theorize about the future. It all is going to happen here!
Well obviously the asks that come in and my own writing, we aren't the same people as the last time this ship sailed! Additionally we're going to go to a more "sessions" format where I announce the day that I'm taking asks and the time I'm starting to do so. Posts to notify when the next session is happening will be here on this blog, @themarginalartist, and on the Discord.
Some of the cast characters have adjusted lore and backgrounds to them, not terribly much for most, but as I've rotated them over the years in my mind they evolved a bit. Expect adjustments in how they talk about things, their pasts, and some of their relationships to Black Mesa and each other. There might be 1 or 2 new characters... And there's some old plot beats we're scrapping, changing, or shifting when they happen and of course one or two new ones.
One of these big changes is we're going to spend a good bit longer in what I call "Arc 1" which is the time period in the lab with our feisty little Xenians and of course most of the "Science Team" prior to the 21 year time skip. We won't be playing the this part of the story as day by day as that would take ages, so expect some light time skips to keep things humming along. Though a session will be a full lab day or so.
Other changes will mostly be small things that aren't as consequential say for example celebrating halloween happened in the last version. We're going to be a little more... nebulous about time for holidays and such just to keep the story rolling.
And of course, there will be an official ending this time. It is planned. We'll get one this time, come hell or high water. And it won't be whatever was going on with me back then.
What's not changing, I hear you ask?
The sprites. Like hell I'm redrawing all of those dear lord. Plus they still look pretty good
Some of the 'comic' artwork I did for special events/cutscenes. (There might be some new ones though 👀)
Tagging! I will still tag characters with their own tag, a running 'entirety of blog' chrono tag, and arcs / chapters / sessions to help folks navigate. Black Mesa Clip Notes (tags) will be running strong. Let me know if you need something tagged for any reason.
I will say that most of our plot is going to follow the same 'core' to the old blog, the idea is that this is just a cleaner version of the story, with a little more development with characters where it counts and we hit that ending I was going on about.
How long is this thing gonna be?
Long? I dunno. I'm still planning certain things out. Each session will have an end goal to get us progressing through the plot, but I do not currently have a grasp on the exact number of sessions it'll take us to get to the end.
Ayo, what about HLVRAI 2?
I dunno? Right now my goal is just to run the updated story and wrap it up. If plans change I'll let y'all know lol. But honestly I have no idea how HLVRAI 2 is gonna fit into things here until it's more complete.
Thank you for reading through all of this, please read the RULES next!
