Sailor Ranko hardcore rewrite

[Cheb]

Sailor Ranko hardcore rewrite (no name yet)

Point:
To re-tell the story from the scratch, making it Darker and Edgier, based purely on mangas (with the Canon zealotry as a must) while weeding any fanon mercilessly. With Ranma-chan's hair vehemently black, no less.

This idea itches mightily, even if it would most probably be my undoing. Honestly, the chance of success is about the same as the chance of the Hubologist shuttle to reach the orbit.
But still, it itches insufferably.

My two reasons are:
1. I cannot stand all the fanon seeping out of every crevice in Sailor Ranko & sequels anymore.
2. I want a more suitable basis for my «Your Destiny is Annuled».

Premises:
*The events happen during the Black Moon arc SM-wise, post-Kumon Ryu, pre-Saffron R-wise.
*Ranma is NOT a wimp angsting about necessity to kill the enemies.
*The Senshi are of «shoot first, examine the smoking crater later» mindset as they are in the manga canon, with the mobility of a space fighter plane and corresponding powerlevels. Ranma is no match for them nor for their enemies when it comes to aerial or sub-orbital combat (Remember how did they finish Kunzite? SM fled straight up playing bait, he gave chase, the Inners followed him in turn. When they left the atmosphere, there was nowhere to hide for him and no hostages to threaten, so they just blasted him.)
*There are no reasonable plot devices to make the uber-rich girl Ami tutor a complete nobody - so this line gets dropped (there was a good one where Genma and Ami's mother knew each other and agreed to that to help each of their child's perspective problems. I'm not parroting it.)

The skeleton of the plot so far:
R&Ak walk through the park at night, patroling (remember, there are no cops in the Ranmavrse). The reason is the locals got scared after one local boy was found as a charred corpse. (The schoolgirls could gossip all they like about the «internal combustion» -- the locals are wiser, they «know» there must be evil spirits at work). Ranma has a bad feeling like he could almost remember something ugly happening.

R&Ak stumble onto Koan burning people for fun. Akane gets mild or medium burns trying to protect the small girl who still gets burned alive (like in the SM canon). Ranma kicks Koan's ass, but she teleports away with the help of her UFO. Ranma declares holy war on the bitch with the black crescent on her forehead.

Rei wakes up having seen the incident in her dream (vaguely). She is confused.

Ranma follows Akane to the hospital where she gets redirected to the Juuban hospital as it has a better equipped burns ward. Souun is informed by phone. He detonates scaring the living daylights out of everyone around him with a bankai-scale demon head. But then Genma manages to calm him down and explain that this way Ranma and Akane would stay together, away from the distractions. Genma paints a dramatic picture of Ranma quickly and inevitably falling for the injured Akane, Souun grabs onto the idea, both parents celebrate with tears of joy (and sadness for his hurt little girl, in the Souun's case).

Leaving the sleeping Akane Ranma goes on his quest for revenge alone as he properly assessed Koan's threat level and saw that any of his rivals and fiancees would end a smoldering husk in the first seconds of combat. But Akane figures him out and secretly decides to tag along... When the pain stops.

Meanwhile the Pink Abomination drives Usagi up the wall -- until she suddenly realizes she was angry at a little kid and feels ashamed of herself (Canon).

Ranma follows the trail of UFO sightings eventually zeroing in onto the Rei's school, what with the nuns with black crescents on their foreheads. The Canonical scene follows with Koan posing as one of the students and predicting for people their date of death during the school festival. Then things get different. When Koan confronts Sailor Mars Ranma is there, he goes close and personal and prevents Koan from trapping Mars in a flame barrier so she doesn't get kidnapped. Sailor Moon kills Koan just like she did in Canon, to Ranma's approval. Then Luna makes her entrance startling Ranma for a few seconds. The senshi use this distraction to disappear, not wanting to get him involved, for his own good (not knowing he's already involved). Ranma is left envious of the girls' power.

Akane sneaks out of the hospital blindly stumbling around until she comes to the Crown arcade, in a dire need to rest. There she makes friends with the girls, mostly Makoto. She tells them her story, they try to dissuade her from investigating further but she doesn't relent. They are all exasperated at her stubbornness. Eventually they tell her that there are such people as Sailor Senshi who have already dealt with the threat. Relieved, Akane loses the driving force that allowed her to walk around despite her injures. The girls say their good-byes as she is ambulancied back to the hospital. The stray pigtailed girl outside the windows finds this talk very interesting.

[Insert one more snippet of the SM canon involving Chibi-Usa, something that is very different from the anime]

When Ami helps to find the malfunctioning water pipe on the school grounds, Bertier states that dowsing without a pendulum is the work of the devil, just like she did the canon. When she turns to walk away, there's a a pig-tailed girl in the Juuban High uniform watching her.

Like in the canon, Bertier challenges Ami on TV to a chess match. When the battle begins, Bertier gets delayed by a pig-tailed girl and then killed by Sailor Moon without accomplishing anything. Mercury doesn't get kidnapped. Unfortunately for Ranma, this doesn't go unnoticed by Crimson Rubeus and Prince Demando who watched Bertier's progress.

*Beyond this point the Black Moon SM manga arc plot is FUBAR.

*Ranma understands the need to train Akane -- but they both fumble all their attempts

*Akane protects chibi-Usa at the cost of being kidnapped. BM demands that Ranma brings them The Gizmo. Really nasty choice.

*Ranma demands relentlessly to be given a fuku, learning the backstory in the process. In the end there _is_ a rune on her forehead but no one could recognize it.

*Luna discovers a record in the Moon mainframe about a sorceress who had a strong star seed but was refused the position as she wasn't of ideologically right mindset: she was driven by revenge and arrogance. She then went to the Sun in an insane and illegal attempt to make herself a soldier of the Sun. She was never seen again -- but short thereafter Metalia emerged from the sun. So as Ranma _could_ be her, they are reluctant of digging deeper. There's a possibility it was that sorceress who woke/gave birth to Metalia in her attempt. More, the rune means «rage/fore of chaos».
The sun is not evil nor good here, it's the embodiment of Chaos which gives us life but also takes it away. It gives power to exist, it gives power to burn yourself out. So is Sailor Sol's nature and the source of conflict between Ranma and the rest of the crew. Ranma represents a raging force of nature where SM represents the life's inherent desire to persist in spite of that force and continue on.
Should the nature of Ranma's power prohibit him from gaining the thousands of years lifespan with the rest of mankind who pledged their life to Neo serenity?

*Desperate Ranma tries to hijack someone of BMC during their teleport home using the Thousand Sea Fist. His infiltration fails and he is imprisoned in the same room of death as Akane (he is outnumbered, outgunned, and they do have _really_ good surveillance equipment).

*Soon after that, Venus and Jupiter are kidnapped, the truth uncovered, the rescue expedition underway. Before leaving, SM prays at the crystal column of prayers in the Silver Millennium and a strange transformation item appears with Ranma's rune. She takes it with her.

*Events progress more or less according the SM canon. SM gets kidnapped by demon hands.

*When SM breaks through, she brings all three transformation items so Ranma transforms and fights alongside Venus and Jupiter.

(...plot outline not finished yet)



#Focus: BM conflict
- I'd expect them to expend the cannon fodder first. Would they wise up? They are arrogant bastards but they aren't stupid.
- their main focus is still Rabbit.
- would they concentrate on the most irritating obstacle? Yes. The more their plans are thwarted, the more firepower they'd bring into the 20st century.
- leads to using the demon hands, there's no saving throw against that. Whom would they kidnap? Logically, Rabbit (but that would be The End, so it's plot-impossible) and/or SM. Whom I need them to kidnap, plot-wise? Akane, then Ranma.
- possible outcome: they capture Venus, then Akane while she protects Rabbit.

#Focus: Akane maturing
- she's seventeen but the Inners are more mature than her (at least in their judgement if not in their everyday behavior). That's a good plot point.

#Focus: turning Ranma from a rogue element into an dependable soldier?
A good one.
- minus: there is not much conflict between his dream and his duty.
- plus: there's conflict between his character and what he has to become (the Senshi are Lawful and loyal to their sovereign).

#Plot target: Ranma has to teach Akane seriously.
Obstacles:
- Belligerent Sexual Tension(tm) -- override by hardships together?
- it'd take ages for her to reach his level -- divert by focusing on her improvement and his respect?
- he's probably as losy a teacher as he is a schemer -- get outside help?
- too large a gap between them -- begin with Haruka? I'd have to stretch this into the S arc anyway.

#Plot target: they have to marry
Obstacles:
- the other fiancees
- too early.
- postpone to the Usagi@Mamoru's wedding keeping the love dodecahedron intact? Illogical but fanbase-wise.

What do you guys think of it? Should I continue with it -- or should I concentrate on my other idea, writing a GPL'd image editor to succeed GIMP and put Photoshop to shame in the great name of Linux?

P.S. Stupid OpenOffice for Windows, auto-replacing quotation marks for Russian even when I'm typing in English. The Linux version is smarter, it uses correct quotation marks depending on the Language property of the text.

[Dumbledork]

The only Sailor Ranko rewrite I'd like to read is one without Ranma/Akane

[LawOhki]

The sun is not evil nor good here, it's the embodiment of Chaos which gives us life but also takes it away. It gives power to exist, it gives power to burn yourself out. So is Sailor Sol's nature and the source of conflict between Ranma and the rest of the crew. Ranma represents a raging force of nature where SM represents the life's inherent desire to persist in spite of that force and continue on.
Should the nature of Ranma's power prohibit him from gaining the thousands of years lifespan with the rest of mankind who pledged their life to Neo serenity?

Perhaps you should change that up, considering what the Sun is, it should be a force that creates life but is so powerful that it will destroy life if it gets too close to that power.

Chaos is so cliche and fanon to apply to Ranma. (Most of the craziness happens because of other people that he gets caught up in.)

[Spokavriel]

Sounds like your proposing Ranma's ability is the Genesis Device from Star Trek II

[three headed dog]

Interesting. I would like to see a version that follows canon more. I like many of the things you are proposing, particularly getting rid of the part with Ami tutoring Ranma. I didn't really like that for a few reasons (not all of which I'm going to mention). 1. I do not think Ranma needs tutoring. 2. Even where he to be tutored to catch up in one class or another or for advanced classes I really hated that they made it so he didn't know basic arithmetic (in the webcomic at least). 3. I don't think either Ranma or Ami would be good teachers at first (I think both would be very good teachers eventually but not at first). Simply because they both are too good at the things they do and would have unreasonable expectations for their students (I learned it seeing it once why the hell haven't you gotten it already; I've shown you how to do it three times or skipping things that they think the student(s) should already know/blindingly obvious to them though not to the student).

there are no cops in the Ranmavrse

Not true. They exist they just don't do anything storywise (basically none of the characters would want them involved and the Chonaikai ask the Tendo's to deal with somethings that the cops don't for some reason). You also have to take into account Japanese cultural mores where people are far less likely to turn to the legal system (USA more than any other country, Japan roughly one lawyer for every 8,000 people and since most of those are corporate lawyers the number is actually less; probably should also take into account all the police scandals there were which is part of the reason people don't trust them and the fact that until recently the Yakuza operated quite openly -police do not seem trust worthy at all when you can walk down the street and the organized crime syndicate has a building that is not disguised at all even straight out states on the sign that it is run by them). Remember Ranma stated that he should call the police for sibling abuse during the time he pretended to be Ryoga's sister. Shinosaku dressed as a female police officer. Also, in the anime at least (not sure about the manga), Ryoga asked at a kōban (police box) for directions (though if I recall correctly we do see a police box in the background during the manga).

saw that any of his rivals and fiancees would end a smoldering husk in the first seconds of combat

Kind of doubt that. Ranma is not stupid and will ask for, or trick the person to get them to, help if he thinks he needs it (he didn't mind them tagging along to fight Taro or Herb and he has even asked people like Akane for assistance on occasion) and Cologne, Happosai (who can be coerced into helping easily since he has a soft spot for children), and some of the others could help in this situation and Ranma would view them as capable of lasting much longer than a few seconds. I find it more likely that he would view it as not needing any assistance and thinks that most of them would get in his way/be hindrances rather than them not being able to fight the person (because some of them have the tendency to backstab him).

I also wonder will you have Ranma seek out magic items some of which he knows about which could be quite useful depending on how they are used in battle, such as the gale force wind fan?

Thinking about the sun as his power source. I'm going to agree with LawOhki about the sun being chaos and not just because of the fanon Ranma being a chaos magnet. The sun is powerful but it is not chaotic it is fairly structured. Instead just making it a very powerful force of nature fits better, at least I think so.

[WG_Writer]

I have to say here are my opinions:

First drop the powered down element, if you are going to depower him that much stop your story as a fuku fic proper, its as bad as him just dressing the part. Remember in his fight with Herb he used a final attack that crushed a mountain, and you are saying his powered up levels are going to be weaker?

Having a limiter on him is fine if you want him to have a normal senshi level, but having a blitz mode kinda like the neko-ken would fit more in character for what you seem to be writing.

I think you should keep the original idea that Serenity granted Ranma's last incarnation senshi status at the last minute, thus nobody knew it actually happened.

Or for your twist of having neo-serenity do it have her send it back in time or something and this gives the senshi the problem of an unknown Sailor Senshi running around. Not like that never happened before...

Story wise, you might want to concider losing Akane entirely, Fire was known to pair the two intentionally and while Ranma would go to the ends of the earth for her its just as easy if not easier to have her killed off by the fire nut and him go off seeking vengence.

[LawOhki]

I have to say here are my opinions:

First drop the powered down element, if you are going to depower him that much stop your story as a fuku fic proper, its as bad as him just dressing the part. Remember in his fight with Herb he used a final attack that crushed a mountain, and you are saying his powered up levels are going to be weaker?

You neglected to mention that all that power was just from Herb's spent ki. Ranma just sent it back at him and was not the one who created such a ki bomb.

[Spokavriel]

Or if you look at the Saffron incident Ranma was skilled not strong the power there was mostly from the two powerful artifacts and Saffron's own energies. While he is extremely skilled Ranma isn't a power house like his victories might make him seem to be. Lucky and highly skilled yes strong well... He's strong enough to use his skills against these monsters but its not from use of his own power.

[Cheb]

>The only Sailor Ranko rewrite I'd like to read is one without Ranma/Akane
>Story wise, you might want to concider losing Akane entirely...
But...“2. I want a more suitable basis for my «Your Destiny is Annuled».” -- which has a long-stretching plot with R&Ak and has a lot of half-finished chapters in stock.

I'm not sure now. The more I think of it, the more I'm inclined to leave “Your Destiny is Annuled” as a sequel to the original “Sailor Ranko”. Cuz I like the anime personalities better.
Which, in turn, would free _this_ fic to follow its own path, not necessarily Akane-centric.
But I still like the idea of her involved.

>...easier to have her killed off by the fire nut and him go off seeking vengence.
That's _too_ dark for my tastes.

>First drop the powered down element [...] Having a limiter on him is fine if you want him to have a normal senshi level,
These are _manga_ Senshi, which means they are magnitudes stronger than their anime counterparts. Think of Nanoha powel levels and abilities. Jupiter is especially known for using a binding spell before blasting her incapacitated opponent into oblivion.
Sailor Moon's power is tremendous. I don't think Saffron would be able to outgun her
Plus, the bad guys are known for casting a truly epic level spells of very nasty nature and Ranma isn't known for his magic resistance.
Not to mention that unlike the Senshi Ranma cannot truly fly, nor can he teleport.
Of course, he'll be able to compensate for most of that with his ingenuity, but not all of it.
Especially when there are _many_ bad guys with godlike abilities he didn't see yet. The Demon Hands, for example, able to grab anybody through time and space, ignoring even the strongest barriers.
P.S. When the Black Moon attacked the Earth of the future, they killed every living thing on the planet in a single attack. There were only two survivors: Serenity in her crystal hibernation cocoon and chibi-Usa who held The Crystal.

>I also wonder will you have Ranma seek out magic items some of which he knows about which could be quite useful depending on how they are used in battle, such as the gale force wind fan?
Oh, I didn't think of that... Of course he will, but on the other hand the issue is pressing and searching for one would be a quest on its own. Still, he'd try to find _something_ if it doesn't hinder his search too much.

>...Ranma is not stupid and will ask for, or trick the person to get them to, help if he thinks he needs it (he didn't mind them tagging along to fight Taro or Herb and he has even asked people like Akane for assistance on occasion) and Cologne, Happosai (who can be coerced into helping easily since he has a soft spot for children), and some of the others could help in this situation and Ranma would view them as capable of lasting much longer than a few seconds. I find it more likely that he would view it as not needing any assistance and thinks that most of them would get in his way/be hindrances rather than them not being able to fight the person (because some of them have the tendency to backstab him).
Well...
Happousai: Absolutely not. It's a life and death fight and he's too prone to stupid distractions.
Ryouga: Ranma would be afraid of him rushing headlong but his toughness may or may not include resistance to fire. The only chance to survive Koan's attack is to dodge it. And the bitch is fast. My premise is Ranma is only able to dodge when unencumbered with protecting someone.
Anyone else: would be too slow.
Cologne: would be feasible, but then again, Shampoo might drag along and Ranma would hate to see her burn.
In the end, it's mostly his fear of any of the fiancees tagging along and getting killed that would make him go alone.

>Thinking about the sun as his power source. I'm going to agree with LawOhki about the sun being chaos and not just because of the fanon Ranma being a chaos magnet. The sun is powerful but it is not chaotic it is fairly structured. Instead just making it a very powerful force of nature fits better, at least I think so.
Perhaps you should change that up, considering what the Sun is, it should be a force that creates life but is so powerful that it will destroy life if it gets too close to that power.
>Chaos is so cliche and fanon to apply to Ranma. (Most of the craziness happens because of other people that he gets caught up in.)

It's not just...

...Crap! I'm late for work! More later.

[Ran]

The only Sailor Ranko rewrite I'd like to read is one without Ranma/Akane

Whereas I would not read a Sailor Ranko rewrite that dropped Ranma/Akane. =)

[Fellow Sufferer]

#Focus: turning Ranma from a rogue element into an dependable soldier?
A good one.
- minus: there is not much conflict between his dream and his duty.
- plus: there's conflict between his character and what he has to become (the Senshi are Lawful and loyal to their sovereign).

*Luna discovers a record in the Moon mainframe about a sorceress who had a strong star seed but was refused the position as she wasn't of ideologically right mindset: she was driven by revenge and arrogance. She then went to the Sun in an insane and illegal attempt to make herself a soldier of the Sun. She was never seen again -- but short thereafter Metalia emerged from the sun. So as Ranma _could_ be her, they are reluctant of digging deeper. There's a possibility it was that sorceress who woke/gave birth to Metalia in her attempt. More, the rune means «rage/fore of chaos».

So... how come that an ideologically unsuitable person should be "lawful and loyal to their sovereign"? Who says he has to become somebody he isn't? The way I see it, Ranma's previous incarnation seeked power to accomplish her own goals, and found it (I also don't get how it is illegal to do so, if she's doing it on her own and without outside help - what, did Serenity somehow laid claim on Sun's power? Did pre-Ranma use her own technology to become a Soldier?). Whatever else is different, in this case Ranma turned out the same - he wanted power to beat his enemies. So why he has do change, why he has to acknowledge somebody's authority over him? If someone is stronger than him, he does not back down, does not bend over - he sees such a person as a challenge.

Other than that, an interesting idea I'd like to see realised.

[Cheb]

...about the sun being chaos and not just because of the fanon Ranma being a chaos magnet. The sun is powerful but it is not chaotic it is fairly structured...

As I see it, _any_ natural power is derived from chaos (think entropy) with the universe itself created/born from chaos. Some go further personifying it as the almighty demon Azatoth, but I think that would be going too far (not to say too Lovecraftian and/or satanic ). Let's just stop on the physical world being a product of Chaos.
With the more powerful a natural power source is, the more chaos it brings.

I'll have to write a conversation between the Senshi on this matter.

Whereas I would not read a Sailor Ranko rewrite that dropped Ranma/Akane. =)

Thank you! Thank you, mate! (wipes tears away with his sleeve)
You've returned my belief in myself! How could I even consider making this NOT a R/Ak fanfic?
(Yeah, I know, they would have a hard time becoming a working couple. Which just makes things so much more interesting! )

Who says he has to become somebody he isn't? The way I see it, Ranma's previous incarnation seeked power to accomplish her own goals, and found it

See below. A rogue Senshi is dangerous. As a team, they support each other allowing them to resist corruption.
A lone Senshi would be on her own, much more vulnerable.

Ranma would be always a threat of becoming another Galaxia unless he learns to work in the team and rely on the team. Which is something all Ranma characters are extremely lousy at.

I also don't get how it is illegal to do so, if she's doing it on her own and without outside help - what, did Serenity somehow laid claim on Sun's power?

It's never stated directly but the Chaos favorite pastime is corrupting the Senshi or killing them and raising them as its zombie soldiers. So anyone who is not a fervent paladin has a high risk of being subverted.
All the Senshi were tempted at least twice through the manga.

It's never stated directly but as the Sailor Senshi are a galaxy spanning institution with a lot of member civilizations, there should be some rules and traditions (even if traditions are all the institution is). There seems to be a natural order where a few chosen warriors protect their princess who is the strongest warrior of them but plays that role only on rare occasions, focusing mostly on resurrection and other princess duties.

(FYI: there were three such squads shown in total:
1. Sailors Mercury to Jupiter (4) are guardians of Princess Serenity/Sailor Moon
2. Sailor Starlights (3) are guardians of Princess Kakyu/Sailor Kakyu
3. Sailors Juno, Ceres, Vesta and Pallas (4) are guardians of Princess Serenity/Sailor Chibi Moon)

With the power of the sun too primal and chaotic, no one in their right mind would consider creating such a link. So pre-Ranma basically went to do something considered extremely foolish, extremely dangerous, not to say putting her outside the established power structure.

Did pre-Ranma use her own technology to become a Soldier?

Yes.
Which makes her actions even more dangerous.
With the galactic civilization being techno-magic in its base, it would be surprising for many people to not possess various advanced technologies... With the power always being a problem and various demons offering lots of it... for a price.

The SMverse may not be Lovecraftian but it definitely leans in that direction.

(FYI: When one has enough power... The old Queen Serenity just willed the planetary castles into existence. The Silver Millennium (aka the Moon castle) was fully restored when SM fought with all her power, and that was just a side effect!
Plus, I strongly suspect that Crystal Tokyo was also just willed into existence -- with the main spire/palace being just another manifestation of The Crystal.)

Other than that, an interesting idea I'd like to see realised.

I'll do my best even though I'm distracted too easily

[LawOhki]

As I see it, _any_ natural power is derived from chaos (think entropy) with the universe itself created/born from chaos. Some go further personifying it as the almighty demon Azatoth, but I think that would be going too far (not to say too Lovecraftian and/or satanic ). Let's just stop on the physical world being a product of Chaos.
With the more powerful a natural power source is, the more chaos it brings.

I'll have to write a conversation between the Senshi on this matter.

The big bang would be the "chaos", stars turn the chaos into a structured system.

[Cheb]

Mmm... So I have to think on that. Thankfully, the first chapter or two doesn't have to deal with this, so I can flesh it out later