For the title game: project 47 👀
@zeawesomebirdie come on down! You're the next contestant for the WIP game! [Legally safe knockoff version of music from a certain game show plays]
So I generally have a hard time naming things, so "Project 47" is pretty much a codename for a scif/fantasy hybrid original universe that spun off from a Final Fantasy/LoZ crossover. I say scifi/fantasy hybrid because while it's a near-future setting with an intersystem capable spacecraft, magic exists and in fact the spacecraft (technically an aerospace ship) runs on magitek (pretty much it's a fantasy themed airship, running off fantasy tech, with conventional rockets attached so it can reach orbit.)
I've talked about this project a bit before: here and here. So this time I'm going to ramble some about one of the major characters, Miras. Miras is an Avestren (a bird alien), the name was chosen back with "Project 47" was a FF/LoZ crossover and she was originally a Rito. Now this was back in the Wind Waker days and I had already decided to retcon the Rito as full birbs but kept the arms turning into wings thing. (Fun fact, Teba's appearance is actually pretty close to how I was picturing female Rito: raptor beaks, white feathers, dark wingtips. Cause well, *points at Medli*)
Miras started development as a fresh soldier having just graduated from an elite military academy (at some point I used the recurring "Red Wings" name from the Final Fantasy franchise) on her first assignment. Find the wielder of a legendary magic weapon who would save the world.
Eventually, I purged the LoZ elements from the project so it was purely Final Fantasy. At this point, Miras was no longer a Rito, but an unnamed bird race that fit the typical six limbed (arms, legs, wings) anthro bird mold.
After deciding to cut out the obvious Final Fantasy material (races, lore, etc.) and turning Project 47 into its own thing, Miras changed. She is now a Gunnery Sergeant in the Takara Alliance Defense Forces, Husark Corps, she's in 30-40's, has a mate and several children.
Normally Avestrens are flightless, their wings evolved/devolved back into arms. The fossil record for their people is broken so when and how this happened is unclear, but if you ask the clergy of a religious group known as the Children of Korus they'll say that Korus punished them by taking their wings for some unspecified sin. Miras however is a member of the Husark Corps, and elite military unit whose members have undergone surgery to install cybernetic devices.
These devices are mostly internal, however there are a series of semi-retractable "spikes" on the spine. These "spikes" provide a mind-to-machine interface with a flightpack that contains a fantasy based thrust engine and swarms of nanites. The nanites coalesce and harden to form wings, which are used for gliding and flight control. They can also be used defensively or offensively while on the ground. Basically it's my way of having flying bird people with arms and avoiding the logistical problems of six limbs and wings in the way.
Some basic information first, Miras is 2.05 m tall, weighs 47.6 kg, has light green eyes, and like typical female Avestrens has grey and white plumage (grey on back, white on underside). Avestrens have unique color stripes around their eyes and down the sides of their neck, and hers are dark red. In addition every Avestren has unique banding marks. Miras has a necklace pattern, bare chest, and broken stripes on her belly.
Avestren names are complicated, with a very long formal name that combines the individual's first name and family name. Avestrens do not marry in the human sense, so an individual would chose the family name of one of their parents (traditionally chosen along gender lines). Miras is her common name, "Mir" derived from her first name and "as" from her father's family name.
Miras mother is a member of the Children of Korus' clergy, and her father is a sapientologist (what Star Trek would call a xenoanthropologist, in universe an anthropologist would study specifically human cultures). As is tradition with members of the Children of Korus' clergy, Miras was trained to follow in her mother's footsteps. However, when Miras came of age (around 15) and gained her adult plumage a dark secret was revealed. She had a necklace pattern, and her siblings and parents did not. The only way to have that pattern is if one of your parents has it.
Long story short, the tesal (an Avestren word for adult male) Miras thought was her father was in fact not her biological father. This scandal became a crisis of faith for her and she instead decided to follow in the footsteps of tesal who raised her. Thus she chose his family name.
Unfortunately for her, fate had other plans. After the end of her freshman year in college she and her human BFF went to a government building to pick up some passports. (The human BFF was going on a overseas family trip over the break.) While they were exiting the building, a man bumped into Miras and she was about to tell him off. The man looked at her like she was a monster and that threw her off, he half-ass apologized and walked off. Miras and her friend went back to the car and when they got there the friend realized she left her cellphone at the security checkpoint.
As she makes her way back, the building explodes...
The friend dies, the man from before turns out to be a human supremacist and was gunning down survivors of the explosion, Miras is forced to fight and kill him, is wounded in the process and barely survives.
This incident triggers a global war (the human supremacist group had received assistance from another nation), Miras eventually joins the military. (But not before getting together with her mate and having her first brood, for reasons that are similar to Harth's reasoning in @unmaskedcardinal's Rito Chronicles in one scene, maybe in Age of Intolerance?). The war ends rather abruptly when an entire continent on another world freezes over in an instant, and a nation that had remained neutral in the war confronts the opposing airfleets with vastly superior technology and basically demands they stop fighting, while also giving them scientific evidence that the gods are real and are in fact energy beings on another plane of existence, and bring up prophecies of a Second Celestial War.
Miras remains in the military, a cold war starts between the Takara Alliance and its enemies, proxy wars cause no one wants to break the treaty and piss off the Pazran Coalition. She eventfully has a second brood, joins the Husark Corps (her mother didn't like that very much, but they still have a good relationship), and by the time the story proper would have started, she's become a drill instructor and had gone back to school to finish getting a degree in sapientology (a Master's IIRC). It's then that an Admiral from the Takara Alliance Air Defense Force approaches her with an opportunity, put that degree to work on the Korus and join the ground survey team on the world with the frozen continent.
Whew... Okay that's enough for now, though I'll happily ramble more later. *wink*
Thanks for the ask!
WIP game
