Battleship: Code Lyoko- Behind The Guns (Behind The Scenes)

[PeaceKeeper2014]

Part 1: Now and Then

The Carthage Awards had arrived almost a month or two ago. It was where the best of the best stood in line to recieve the highest honor in XanasLair and beyond, the Carthage Award. It was a symbol of victory, glory, and even fame of an author and their creation, the story that got them there. And, to a surprise to the author, Battleship: CL made the cut for nominations.

The competition was fierce. Stories, old and new, rallied themselves for the battle for the title of Best of 2012. Ultimately, vote after vote, discussion after discussion, the results came. And, that's when it hit Battleship: CL the hardest. At the final day of results, everything fell apart for the story. It was a close ruling... but, it tore the victory away at Code Lyoko's first naval combat adventure. Instead, old time favorite GITM took the Best Action slot. When Peace Keeper 2014 saw the results... it tore him apart.

"I made a promise to myself that I would get the award for Best Action." Peace said. "I made a huge promise. I promised to win it for the Navy, for the Armed Forces. I promised to win it for my dad when he was gone for RIMPAC."

He felt shameful at the results. He accepted it. However, his first shot was gone. In terms of Navy talk, it was a miss. Far from his target. For about five minutes, he reflected on how he approached it. But, nothing came up. It was another fantastic year for the winners. It was a fantastic day in XL history for the winners. For PK, it was anything but fantastic. He hid his feelings from the XL community to avoid the changing of the results or anything of the sort. He had to accept that months of dedication, over hundreds of hours of preparation, did not even get him where he wanted to be.

"I often stayed up every single weekend just to get the story rolling." he said, explaining his working process. "I even skipped some family time to do it."

The Carthage Awards, he thought, was going to be the day he officially became one of the fandom's best young writers. But, it fell short. Really short. The run was great and his head is racing with what to do next. Either he finishes the story or abandons the project after so much hard work. It will, most likely, continue to be written. And, maybe, Battleship will drop it anchor at the number 1 spot...

Rewind almost three-four months back, at the month of May, and school is about to end for PK. And, a weekend he was always waiting for, had just arrived. Why was it so special? Because, that's when he would go see the Battleship movie with his Navy father and his older brother. Rewind even more, almost a week or two, and PK found himself at the computer on Pixlr, goofing around with a Battleship poster and a picture of Yumi.

"I just randomly did it." PK stated. "I never even planned to do it, until it hit me." Erasing the background, he pasted it onto the Battleship poster, then creating an idea that he truly saw potential in, a Battleship/CL fan-fiction. That's when it started, almost a week before it came out in theaters in the US. To PK, there was a lot of work to be done. A LOT of it.

To make it feel like Battleship, but to keep it like Lyoko, he developed the plot more carefully. He was inspired by the ideas from the movie, so he took them and re-written them in a unique way. As he went along, he made things up in his completely. But, what he made up had to make sense. That's when piecing it together became the most difficult, yet easy part.

"I usually visualize the ENTIRE scene in my head, like a movie clip, with all the angles, sounds, characters, movements, dialogue, etc." PK explained. "I had to capture the immersive feeling of the B:CL universe to get it right." Having not scene the movie, PK had to do extra research by watching movie clips, re-watching the Battleship trailers, and listening to the dialogue in the trailers.

"Everything seemed to jump out to me when I do that." Peace said as he continued to work. "It was really, really difficult, however, to piece it together, even if I did all of that." The plot was coming together well as he focused on the core plot piece of Battleship: CL, the naval element and the 3D conflict.

The plot was divided into almost two-three parts to give deep immersion. The first element is the naval combat with Yumi and Ulrich. The second element is Odd's struggle against Xana while fighting with the military. The third element is Aelita and Jeremy's activities to help the fight against Xana. All of these would then later smash together in one epic struggle against Xana.

"I really wanted the reader to actually feel like the story is coming to life and you're watching every single aspect of it." Peace explained, clarifying his planning. "I think people would actually like to watch three or more major POVs."

Now, there was the biggest plot element of all... the Navy Aspect. PK made the Navy Aspect very important, because of the fact that the story salutes not just all of the Armed Forces of NATO, but honors the soul of NATO's strength and defense... the Navy. The Navy's aspect of warfare takes place on land, air, and sea. However, their best kind of combat is naval combat. To get the best feeling of the Naval Aspect, Peace had to some research on Navy combat, watching missiles launch from ships, watching the C-WIS mini-gun fire, and more.

"I really wanted Code Lyoko's first Naval adventure to be very special and very close to the Naval Aspect." PK replied to the interviewer as he continued to plan. "It's really important to give the reader the feeling of the Navy, the good feeling, the suspense."

Naval combat plays a clear role in the Naval Aspect plot device in Battleship: CL. It's not just random explosions and eye-candy. Naval combat is intense. It's slow and fast at the same time, it's loud and quiet, it's huge and small. It's strategic and non-strategic. It's anything but mindless.

"I had to watch RIMPAC exercises and reserach it just to see if it can work." Peace said, doing extensive research. "With enough luck, maybe it can happen." The combat varied as battle situations shift dramatically, like in real life. It takes Murphy's Law into serious account. If it can go wrong, it will definately go wrong.

Later, with more Battleship: Code Lyoko- Behind the Guns, we're gonna take a look at the origins of the fictional, large naval NATO exercise known as NATO NAWG, and we'll find out how the hell the USS Missouri got there in the first place. And, we'll take a look inside Yumi and Ulrich's role, as well as Jim's role and also Mark Hugh's role, the US Navy officer turned captain.