Super Robot Wars: Unlimited Generation is a Livejournal RP set in the Super Robot Wars universe.
All the characters are members of the Galaxy Defense Force and fighting to protect the Earth from all of the original series' enemies. Unique among Livejournal games in that a significant portion of the gameplay was in AIM Chat-based "missions" - between 1 and 3 per week; this feature was kept for the offshoot mecha_dressing and its Spiritual Successor Super Robot Wars Unlimited Generation Alpha.
The roleplay can be found here.
It concluded in 2011.
Unlimited Generation provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Occurred from time to time when certain people had to duck out of the roleplay for various reasons, leaving a character arc or even a series hanging.
- Ace Custom: Regularly happened with characters getting new upgrades for their machines post-series (or sometimes just late in their story), such as Duo's Deathscythe Spirit, Axel's Soulgain Mugen, and Patrick's Dynames Tau accompanied by a number of automated grunts.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Prominent examples of people having a bigger role than they did in their original canon include Sochie Heim, Signum, and Anew Returner.
- Also applied to mecha, with the game's willingness to use obscure units, MSVs (especially from SEED), and units that haven't actually appeared yet in the canons the game supposedly uses, like Banpreios, Laevatein, and Shin RyuKoOh.
- Almighty Janitor: Axel Almer (silly version) is the base's janitor, despite being one of the more powerful fighters both in and out of his mech.
- Anime Theme Song: Yes, the roleplay has its own opening.
- Apocalypse How: Due to the various canons involved, the GDF had to deal with averting everything between Class 0 and Class X.
- Ascended Meme: *bans Deus*, Deus being a former player, became a meme after many shenanigans in the OOC chat. Then, when the final battle on the Silentium homeworld came around, the heroes discovered that the final boss was a machine named the Deus Imperator. How was it destroyed? By Simon combining Gurren-Lagann with Megas XLR and GaoGaiGar... then crushing it into light using a drill-augmented Goldion Crusher. In other words? The GDF dropped the banhammer on Deus.
- Back for the Dead: Kittan missed out on the final Gurren Lagann missions. That didn't stop him from showing up in the Grand Finale and outdoing his canon death.
- Beach Episode: The mission Beach Rescue Operation.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: This is Hauwsr's ultimate fate. Rather than face death by Janus and Saturnus's hands because of causality reversal, Hauwsr causes the Black Hole Engine to self-destruct.
- Big Bad Wannabe: In the Gundam 00 finale, Ribbons. Yes he was a threat in the Reborns, but the focus of the final mission was Setsuna having a clash of ideals with Kira Yamato and dueling him instead. In the end, Ribbons was taken down by Patrick using a barely functioning Ahead.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Riki's farewell speech. Played for laughs.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Pretty much every Disgaea mission ever, though especially so in A Netherworld Encore: Evening of Darkness, in which Laharl distracted the mod (Li-Chi) running the mission by mail-ordering her a model of the GP-02. Another mod (TK) had to finish the mission.
- Li-Chi 'accidentally' apologized in the IC chat before 'realizing' she said it in the wrong chat.
- During Braves! Death At Dawn!, not only did the GaoGaiGar narrator talk up the GGG's last resort, 'the miracle machine, Projectile X,' but in addition Axel responded with "I like what that mysterious voice was saying. Let's trust it."
- Break The Game Breaker:
- It's become somewhat of a running gag that the 00-Raiser, one of the strongest mobile suits at the disposal of the GDF, is constantly being totaled on missions.
- The Cathedral Terra also had to be sealed inside a pocket dimension to keep it from succumbing to the laws of physics.
- And let's not forget the Soulgain. It gets trashed on just about every single mission Axel sorties in. But thanks to its regenerative abilities, it's usually good to go again by the next mission.
- Brick Joke:
- When Masaki was dropped, the excuse used was that he had gotten lost on his way to pick up a pizza. Two and a half years later, he returns... and still has the pizza with him.
- In a conversation they had following their duel, one of the things Cagalli mentions to Shinn is that he should be glad she's not charging him for the Akatsuki's repairs, referring to a running gag from more than half a year ago where Shinn would have to pay for the repairs the Strike Gundam (technically Orb property at that point) out of his own pocket.
- When Masaki was dropped, the excuse used was that he had gotten lost on his way to pick up a pizza
- Broad Strokes: Lamia and Axel's canon incorporates a mix of both the plot from Super Robot Wars Advance and Super Robot Wars: Original Generation.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: The fate of Loran at the end of ∀ Gundam's finale, wherein he lost the use of his legs. Loran's handler was planning on dropping him and wanted a decent in-game explanation for Loran leaving.
- Brought Down to Normal: The eventual fate of Laharl, who attempted to hack the game to the point of being omnipotent, but in the end dropped his level down to a measly 3. More than enough for Prinnies to take him in a fight.
- Came Back Wrong: Saturnus and Janus in the finale due to manipulation of Claustrum and Discordia's powers. Justified because, if they came back right, they would have no reason to fight against the GDF.
- Cherry Tapping: Patrick Colasour kills Ribbons Almark with the useless vulcan cannons of a mook robot that had all of its limbs blown off.
- The Chessmaster: The big bad of Goblin, Norton, wants to be one so bad that he actually made chess piece-themed robots. These ChessBots moved and attacked like actual chess pieces.
- Christmas Episode:
- Complete with a Grinch as the enemy. In fact, the GDF attempts to use Christmas spirit on him, only to have it backfire.
- A second one happened, with a festive ending: A mass team attack based off the lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas, topped off by Santa himself dealing the finishing blow via Colony Drop with a giant pear tree.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Hauwsr: whenever something goes terribly wrong or just gets on his nerves, a steady stream of cursing can be heard from his office.
- Combining Mecha:
- Gurren-Lagann and GaoGaiGar, for starters.
- Having Gurren-Lagann opens up infinite possibilities. Like the time it combined with the Eternal.
- Crossover Combo Villain: Lots of them, but Grahf makes a habit of it, always showing up at just the right time to give the villain of the day the Power and give the players and characters an Oh, Crap! moment.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Shiro H's character arc starts as this, plus occasional bouts of insanity, taking the Enemy Without in as a Split Personality, and lots of model robots.
- Demoted to Extra: Inverted with Auel in contrast to his treatment in Super Robot Wars K and Super Robot Wars L and then taken a little bit further. Whereas in those games, he's only around for cutscenes (if even that), he's managed to survive for quite a while, even outliving Stella.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The final boss of Hildebrandsleid was a Lovecraftian horror from beyond the cosmos; its name was Msspld Cthulu (Misspelled Cthulhu).
- Early-Bird Cameo: Prior to showing up once again to serve as a boss for an upcoming Gundam SEED Destiny mission, Cagalli stumbles into the Dual finale with the Akatsuki.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: This tends to happen when you have over a dozen enemy factions all running around at once.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Even if we just include the original canons, we have two groups of aliens with entirely different M Os, multiple mercenary organizations, creatures from Hindu mythology, and then there's everything dealing with Hildebrand.
- First Church of Mecha: Played with, then inverted by Livejournal Original Chanda. Her mecha is at first believed to be Kalki, the 10th and final avatar of Vishnu, but eventually it turns out that Chanda is the Avatar. Her mecha is Devadatta, Kalki's White Horse.
- For Want Of A Nail: The Gundam SEED Destiny plot was derailed well before the canon actually started due to Shinn Falling into the Cockpit of the Strike (due to not having Mu) during Blue Cosmos's attack on Orb. As a result, most of his issues with Kira were out in the open and patched up rather quickly.
- Four Is Death: There are four Imperati: Claustrum, Discordia, Janus, and Saturnus.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Has happened quite a few times, but as Bright is an NPC, he wasn't responsible. The most famous instance was Simon slugging Shinji Ikari in the face for trying to fight alone.
- Godwin's Law of Time Travel: Frequently, the time traveling organization GAF (Galaxy Attack Force) answers questions about why they do or do not do various things with the explanation, "Because then the Nazis win."
- Going Down with the Ship: Carrie, Ray's Defecting for Love moment. Her Redemption Equals Death was justified in OOC chat by the statement that she'd gone too far to pull a believable Heel–Face Turn.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: The Grand Finale pulls out all the stops, complete with Ginga, Erio, and Caro, Rozalin and Adell, the Protodeviln, Shu, Lune, and the Divine Crusaders, Leonard Testarossa, Rika, Takato, Henry and Jeri of the Digimon Tamers, and even the previously unseen Inspectors showing up to lend a hand.
- Grand Finale: Besides epic dedicated missions for the conclusion of individual plots, there was the two-part climax of the RPG - SILENTIUM and EARTH, the latter of which was the largest mission (by line count) in the whole game by almost 50%.
- Guest-Star Party Member:
- During the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann finale, Ryouma Nagare returned with the Tengen Toppa Getter Emperor.
- During the Disgaea post-finale mission, Chidori Kaname showed up mainly to translate Bonta-kun's words for everyone while complaining that Sousuke had all the time in the world to fix that defect.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: The Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack canon put a surprising number of people through one, particularly Ennil, Julius, and Char.
- Heel–Face Turn: Aside from all the canon ones, the vengeful Silentium soldier Anguis eventually decided to stop being a Jerkass and help the Earthlings overthrow his government.
- Hero of Another Story: The usual in-game excuse for when a character is dropped prior to the conclusion of their plot is that they were transferred to a different GDF base, where presumably their stories continue on.
- Huge Holographic Head: Subverted in Hildebrandsleid. Boss Head, the leader of GAF, appears to be huge, floating, disembodied, half transparent blue head wearing Indiana Jones' hat and a clown nose. You can squeeze the nose. It honks.
- Humongous Mecha: Interestingly enough, not every series represented is a mecha anime/video game. Notable exceptions include Digimon Tamers, Disgaea, and Lyrical Nanoha. The first two were allowed because of the game's need for players when it first opened, the last because... really, who can say Nanoha isn't /m/?
- Katanas Are Just Better: During the ∀ Gundam finale, the sword fight with Gym Ghingham got extra focus when Gym threw out a sword for every combatant on the field to use. Lockon tries shooting him with a pistol, but "Oh my god, the man is like a bear." Gym just takes the bullets and keeps going. Lockon decides he needs to learn how to use a sword, and fast.
- Killed Off for Real: Out of player characters, there was Neil Dylandy, Captain Daitetsu, Emma Sheen, Connor O'Tormey, Char Aznable, and Kittan Bachika.
- Lethal Chef:
- Shiro with anything that's not an apple-based dessert confection. As it turns out, though, this is entirely intentional on his part.
- Jamil and Kusuha made inedibly bad "health cookies" and shared them around the base. For extra irony, the one person well-known for liking disgusting food (she not only ate Shiro's non-apple cuisine, she combined it to make it worse) got one of the only good cookies, with similar results to the rest of the base.
- During the April Fools Day mission I Hunger, the Earth was attacked by Unicron, Galactus, and Sinistar. They considered the option of feeding them Nia's cookies.
- Let's Play: Yes, there is an LP treating this like a video game. Started by Prof (mod, plays Sousuke Sagara, Patrick Colasour, Klan Klang, and Sho Musashi), and continued by Chris (plays Simon, Domon Kasshu, Tetsuya Onodera, Kamille Bidan, Garrod Ran, and Athrun Zala).
- Made of Explodium: The game continuously lampshades this, narration giving such crafts the nickname "made of SEED Battleshiptonium".
- Made of Indestructium: When Ryuusei became a Zonder, it was formed of mecha models and old video game consoles, including Game Boys, Super NES', NES', and one Virtual Boy. Good ol' nintendium.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Par of the course, this being Super Robot Wars. However, the finale takes it to the next level, with the Silentium fleet of enslaved thralls including units of the Reavers, Protoss, Orkz, the Iron Tribe and various assorted Star Control 2 races. Not to mention evil duplicates of Gunbuster, Aquarion and Mazinkaiser.
- Mood Whiplash: Several missions due to putting silly and serious canons together in the same mission. One of the best examples is Lionheart, which took the early episode of Nanoha where a kitten finds a Jewel Seed and becomes a Mega Neko and replaced the kitten with Calumon. Then the actual plot of the Tamers episode it was named for kicks in.
- Non-Player Character: Excluding enemies, the game has General Hauwsr, Bright Noa, Gendo Ikari, and Lordgenome. It used to also have Ingram Prisken and Lee Linjun, but both have since pulled Face Heel Turns.
- Noodle Incident: Subverted with the infamous Cake Incident involving Mid-Boss. Although those present don't like talking about it, the events of said incident are archived and occurred "onscreen", so to speak.
- No One Could Survive That!:
- Shiro Amada and Kira Yamato are the reigning champions of this. Any time they end up MIA, the other characters take bets on when they'll return.
- Shiro Amada died so many times that during the Bangai-O finale, Mrs. M summoned "the spirit of your fallen comrade Shiro Amada" to give them advice. Everyone was very confused, except Riki. "Oh, no! Shiro! I'll never forget you! I knew the alcohol would be your downfall!"
- On the other hand, X doesn't survive "that" and still finds ways to return.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Averted with the Destiny Gundam. Even though Kira and Athrun stole it from ZAFT, Heine used the one meant for him during the finale and Durandal used a machine meant to beat the Destiny at its own game.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Near the end of the Earth Cradle mission, things were looking good. The only guy left to worry about was Archibald in a fairly basic Ashsaber while everyone else, though worn out, would have plenty of strength to beat him. And then Grahf had to give him The Power.
- The Zeta Gundam finale pulled two, one right after the other. First, the Jupitris launched four Psyco Gundams. Then, after a brief speech from Mineva, the Gwanban responded — with four Big Zams.
- One-Steve Limit: Certainly not followed. The game had three or four Shiros, for one.
- Original Generation: Besides the Banpresto originals, a collection of original characters with their own canons were developed for the roleplay.
- Plot Armor: Hildebrand's nigh invincibility was due to being part of a Stable Time Loop. The universe just wouldn't let the thing break until it was supposed to. Hildebrand Kaiser was basically Made of Indestructium.
- Power Copying: Julius stole and copied some Silentium super-beam-saber tech. This actually wound up turning against the people using the copies, since the Final Boss knew how to just...turn them off. In a straighter example, Asuka also held onto the copy-Lance of Longinus that her Eva got stabbed with and used it until the end of the game.
- Reality Warper: The Imperati and the Silentium High Council are basically this. Individual Imperati are tough enough when limited to only being able to warp one of matter, energy, time, or space. Then, they start combining...
- Redemption Equals Death: After being captured after his attempt to drop Axis on the Earth, Char sorties one final time in ESCALATION, only to be killed a ways into the battle.
- Revenge Before Reason: Anguis. He wants to inflict as much pain upon Bullet as possible for killing his lover to the point that he focuses exclusively on him. He can afford to, though — his mech is tough.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Happens occasionally during mission descriptions, including the infamous line "The shit (meant to be shot) pierces-"
- Rule of Cool: The FAQ states "In accordance with the strict rules of SRW continuity, you are only allowed to diverge from canon if it is totally awesome."
- Rule of Drama: Averted. More than a few missions will feature a serious plot event and a more humorous one (usually Disgaea) at the same time.
- Screw Destiny:
- The general state of mind of the GDF; but when you have so many Super Robot series, it's not surprising.
- Saturnus used his causality reversal to declare that the Twin Satellite Cannon would be used against them, and Janus threw up a shield. Garrod decided to cheat destiny instead — by using Requiem's relay stations to redirect both the microwave beam and the Twin Satellite Cannon's shot.
- Settled for Gay: Alex married Julius so he could do her taxes for her.
- Ship Tease: The main source of ship tease has been Duo Maxwell. He's been teased with Kaname Chidori and Asuka Langley Soryu, but OOCly, everyone knows nothing would ever come of those due to having their own love interests in the game. Given the kind of girls those two are, the jury is out on whether he has awful luck or he's getting off easy.
- Shout-Out: If it's a mecha series and not actually in the game, someone has probably referenced it. Witness Shinji's predilection for Inazuma Kicks or Shiro's anything ever. Hell, even stuff that has been actually in the game gets randomly referenced - Asuka tends to use Getter Robo OVA moves when powered up by the plot.
- Token Minority: Parodied in the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers-based April Fools' joke mission, where Touji and Mila were drafted into the makeshift team and given robots for no other reason than that they were disabled. The mysterious being in charge insisted upon following the formula of children's shows from The '90s.
- Uptown Girl: Teppei/Sara, though the latter's more of a Fallen Princess... and then we find out that Teppei didn't even find out Sara was rich until the epilogue, because she never thought it was important enough to mention. Awkward.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Here.
- White-and-Grey Morality: What the recent Orb mission mainly consisted of. Aside from a small Blue Cosmos detachment, everyone involved (the GDF and even the A-LAWS and ZAFT) were justified in trying to stop him. It's just that Cagalli was there in the Akatsuki, wanting to drive them off so Orb could solve its own problems.
- Worthy Opponent: Saturnus and Janus skirt the line between this and Friendly Enemy, being fairly good sports and choosing to retreat when the GDF's managed to beat them (in spite of the difficulty).
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
- Players were led to believe that the penultimate Maha Avatara Kalki mission was that canon's finale. The plot twist wouldn't have worked nearly as well without the OOC statement.
- In the Gundam SEED Destiny finale, even after defeating Rey and Durandal, the group became divided over what to do with the Requiem superlaser. Said argument went on for a good while after that and only ended when Kira rigged the Requiem to explode.
