On July 18th of 2010, one Troper asked another his opinion on a simple yet unexpected question: "What would happen if the Imperium launched a full-scale invasion of the Touhou Project world?" After some bafflement at the left-field nature of this querry, the second Troper admitted that, while he would lean in favor of the Imperials, had no idea as to the ultimate outcome. Taking this as encouragement, the first then created a thread in Forum Games to depict this subject, and thus was The Imperium Of Man Comes To Gensokyo born.
While the game was a chaotic and maddened mess at first, due in no small part to the clashing egos of two wildly-divergent fanbases and their stubborn insistances that one side could beat the other with no difficulty, after a short while the introduction of new factions to the mix straightened things out, and a coherent plot began to form. While there were ocassional hiccups caused by players who simply did not get the shift in tone from the godmodding, almost parodic mess it had started out as and the story-driven, character-focused tale it later became, the game prospered and flourished; battles were fought, lives were lost, redemption was had, tears were shed and hearts were warmed. Yet like all good things, it would not last forever; after six months and more than eleven thousand posts, The Imperium Of Man Comes To Gensokyo came to an end on December 7th.
Yet this was not the end of the tale; a sequel had long been in the works, one that would rely far more on planning in advance than her impulse-driven predecessor, and after a month-long hiatus to give the plays time to calm down and cool their tempers, The Aquila and the Rising Sun--The Imperium Of Man Comes To Gensokyo
made her debut on the third of January, 2011. Set one hundred and fifty years into the future, the core cast is largely the same but, as a result of Gensokyo's new status as a sacred world in the Imperium of Man, changes have taken place. The plot is primarily divided along two lines; one focuses on the adventures of Inquisitor Arcturus and his acolytes, including amongst their numbers Remilia and Flandre Scarlet; and the other follows the trials of Lord Inquisitor Darius Bickerstaff, a puritanical inquisitor who nearly had all of Gensokyo put to fire and the sword in the first game. Bickerstaff was the father of Isaac Bickerstaff, a former friend of Arcturus' turned depraved servant of Nurgle, and while Bickerstaff junior met his end at Arcturus' hands, Darius remained largely blind to his sons atrocities and has never forgiven Arcturus. As the two groups struggle to complete their myriad assignments throughout the galaxy while heading inexorably towards a confrontation of deadly proportions, they must also contend with the far-reaching machinations of an unseen foe, whose schemes could ultimately spell the end of everything...
As the game's tagline put it, "Once, the Imperium of Man had come to Gensokyo. Now, the inhabitants of Gensokyo come to the Imperium of Man, and nothing shall be quite as it once was..."
For a general breakdown of the events of the previous game, go here.
Tropes exhibited in this game include:
- Animated Armour: An interesting variant: the as-yet-nameless Youkai created from a suit of Steel Judicators armour appears as a woman wearing the armour, rather than as a disembodied suit of armour. However, since the woman is merely a manifestation of the armour's will, it still counts.
- Anti-Magic: the Steel Judicators had a stash of psyk-out weaponry, used to great effect against the goryo hordes.
- Badass Normal: Anyone on the teams without access to magic or psyker powers.
- Combat by Champion: The Battle of the Basilica ends with a duel between Rina, the Priestess' Dragon, and Zolomon.
- Cult: The Cult of the Striking Cobra, a Chaos cult with a very obvious Snake Motif. Their leader is even called King Cobra.
- Expy: Trogg is an Expy of an Intelligence<4 character from a Fallout 2 Let's Play, and The Cult of The Striking Cobra is an expy of Cobra, complete with Cobra Commander analogy.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: As well as the ones already existing, Proserpina has a very Arabian feel to it.
- Good Is Not Nice: Even though the members of Arcturus' team are genuinely good people, they still belong to the Inquisition. The more experienced members of that team don't so much as bat an eyelash at murder and torture, when performed on the right people (as they percieve it, at least).
- Happily Married: Arcturus and Zee have stuck with one another over the last century and a half.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind and Battle in the Center of the Mind: There was one for the Murder Mystery arc, for Sakuya. This was performed in order to get rid of a crazed youkai that had nestled in her mind and plagued/controlled her.
- Lighter and Softer: Well... As much as one can have in the setting. Things aren't quite as dire as they were in the Imperium, but the time is still a grim one.
- To specify: for once, there are genuinely benign powers at work in the universe, who may actually have an impact on the current state on the Imperium, and humanity (IE. Completely screwed.)
- Knight Templar:
In my Imperium? It's about as likely as you think. That is, very. Inquisitor Darius is a particularly stellar example. Kills absolutely everything slightly new and different just to be sure, and is generally an all-around fundamentalist with a highly literal interpretation of the Imperial Creed. (Which admittedly can be summed up as "Kill mutants, heretics and aliens", which only has so many ways you can stretch an interpretation.) - Our Ghouls Are Different: They were first encountered by Darius and his team on the space station of the Janshiin Shipyards. They are humans infected with some for of spore, and either have a Zombie Gait or (in one case) move at lightning speed, have flowers where there eyes should be, have long claws, and are constantly moaning that something is eating away at them.
- Manchild / Psychopathic Manchild: Ogryns.
- Mayfly–December Romance: While juvenat treatments can prolong his youth and life for some time, Arcturus is not immortal and at some point he will die; his wife Zee, by contrast, was made a vampire in the previous game and will inevitably outlast him. This trope has been laying heavily on the minds of both parties involved, with neither willing for Arcturus to become a vampire unless there is no other option.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: Several of the characters are Youkai created from inanimate objects (usually weapons and armour) left by the original invaders. These take the form of typical youkai: girls or women carrying, wearing or manning the items in question.
- Though there are plans in the works for some aversions of Moe to come into existence.
- New Meat: Several (though not all of a military background): Guardsman Drake Lycetta, as well as Ichisen and Jisen Inaba. None of them have really done much to dispel the assumption, either; Drake breaks down in his first firefight and Ichisen goes berserk and nearly gets herself killed.
- No Place for Me There: The Priestess is trying to stop the decline of Gensokyoan magic, which is caused by her presence. Her plan is to seal Gensokyo away from the materium tostop any similar being coming into existence, then to kill herself.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Both main teams, to be honest, although Darius' retinue is marginally more organised. His retinue contains another Inquisitor who is too spineless to get his own retinue (preferring to depend on Ogryn bodyguards), a blank assassin and expert pilot, a space marine, a Cold Sniper, a barely-sentient biologically engineered killing machine, a relic-wielding cultist, an ailing techpriest, and a pair of undercover Gensokyoans. And that's not going into the mess that is Arcturus' team.
- Which is composed of a psychic Inquisitor, his vampiric Living Saint wife, a (different) vampire inquisitor and her Ninja Maid, a stormtrooper, two rabbit girls, the living embodiment of a tank, a newbie pilot with severe self-confidence issues, a techpriest and a particularly dimwitted Ogryn.
- Scaled Up: Subverted; King Cobra, despite his obvious snake motif and the fact he rises into the air amongst a cloud of darkness and hissing snakes, does not turn into a snake.
- So Much for Stealth: Averted, the eldar Indis isn't detected due to any mistakes he's made, but rather because an ork weirdboy immediately singles him out from the rest of the cast.
- Sour Supporter: The navigator of the Lysander, Alduous Quintarvus, is very grumpy and cynical in everything he does. Although given that his job involves looking into the Warp every day, it's hard to blame him.
- Talking the Monster to Death: A partial example during the Battle of the Imperial Basilica. Zolomon and the Bishop talk Rina, a dim-witted and lovestruck youkai terrorist, into limiting the battle to a one-on-one duel by attacking her philosophy and goals.
- Tank Goodness: Leona Manako Russaro, a Leman Russ Youkai in Arcturus' team.
- Time Abyss: The Chaos Space Marines on Vitalstatistix may have been around since the construction of the Emperor's palace
- Two Lines, No Waiting: As mentioned in the above text, this RP is largely focused on the adventures of Arcturus' retinue and those of Darius Bickerstaff and his acolytes. As the two plots occur simultaneously and the POV shifts between them with a certain regularity, this can and has led to a certain degree of Mood Whiplash—for example, while Arcturus and co. had just completed their first mission and were enjoying some pleasant, if introspective, downtime, Darius and his gang were fighting for their lives against a seemingly limitless horde of horrific ghouls.
- Weakened by the Light: Vampires, obviously. But also Reisen Udongein Inaba's two children, twins Jisen and Ichisen. Jisen is weakened by moon-light, and Ichisen is weakened by sunlight.
- Walking Armory: Leona, being the personification of a tank with four guns, carries around a missile launcher, an autocannon and a boltgun. In theory, she can carry any combination of up to three autocannons/heavy bolters / lascannons and a missile launcher.
