Q-Basic Gorillas



"Lord Quirini of the Ice Chimps: "Do you have any last words...is it...Stacy?"

Stacy Mirafuentes (turning into an eagle): "Just three: Monkey...go...boom!" (flies away while Quirini takes banana bomb to the face)"

In 1991, IBM and Microsoft released a game for MS-DOS and simply titled it Gorillas. The actual file was Gorilla.BAS. Compiled in the Quick-Basic language, it was a very simple game in which players had gorillas on buildings and took turns throwing exploding bananas at each other. Players had to account for angles, velocities, and wind speed to see who could blow up more of the other guy's gorillas before time ran out. Add a few motherboard beeps to the 1812 overture, and the end result was awesome. Except....it wasn't good enough for the think tank Dozerfleet Productions, home of the Gerosha Chronicles and Stationery Voyagers.

In 2003, a full 12 years after the game's release, the Dozerfleet founder proposed in an open chat room the possibility for a film based on the Gorillas. That premise was met with mostly scoffing, and the others at TeenChat dismissed the pitch as trolling. The basic idea was proposed yet again in 2004/2005-ish on The Ring Forum at EZBoard; only to be laughed at there as well. Undeterred, the idea sat on a shelf until 2012. It has now been developed almost to the point that a rough draft script can be forged just from the wiki article at DozerfleetWiki.

The plot revolves around ancient Africans who were sent to protect powerful ancient relics from being captured by evil exiles from Canaanite nations who fled after their homes were destroyed by the Israelites. The Africans failed to protect all the relics, and one of them turned the relic guardians and their enemies into humanoid primates. The different primates splintered off into different factions. The good guys turned into Gorillas, and assembled their own underground kingdom under the rule of the wise Queen Qilanta of the Q-Base Temple. Centuries later, the evil Ice Chimps want to steal the most powerful of the remaining relics - the Omni Transmogrin - so they can turn all of humanity into cats and Take Over the World. The current Topaz Division of Gorillas sent to battle the Ice Chimps in North America is headed by Col. Flix, who was declared a war hero before he even properly enlisted due to his rescue of the Gorilla princess Quilmara.

Meanwhile, young office intern Stacy Mirafuentes receives a package from her uncle. She does not at first realize that he had just bestowed upon her guardianship of the Gorillas' sacred artifact. Her mother, boyfriend, and everyone at her church are soon attacked by the Ice Chimps and turned into cats, as the Chimps battle with her to steal the Omni. They eventually do so, but not before the Gorilla known as Burrpatch stops them from killing Stacy. As the Chimps await the arrival of their leader Lord Quirini to begin the felining of America, Stacy finds herself a reluctant ally to the Q-Basic Gorillas.

She later discovers that a bug has been placed on her that tracks her movements, and decides to leave the Topaz Q-Base so that she doesn't lead the Chimps right to the Gorillas' home. The Gorillas manage to get the bug off her leg as they are out of town and away from base, but it sends out a distress signal before self-destructing. Several Ice Chimps descend from the sky and attack. Lord Quirini discovers that he needs Stacy to make the Omni function properly, and orders his Chimps to kidnap her. With Col. Flix missing, the Gorillas feel they're down on their luck. But they decide to face the Chimps in an epic showdown of banana bombs and buildings collapsing. Just when all hope seems lost, the missing Col. Flix arrives to even the odds. Together, Stacy and Flix must find a way to defeat Quirini and revert to human everyone the Chimps have turned into cats - even if they have to destroy the Omni to do it!

The story was deliberately structured to be "in the spirit of" Transformers and Battleship meet Rise of the Planet of The Apes. It has two sequels also being outlined: Orangutans of Fire and Beneath the Golden Dome.

Tropes present in all three stories:

 * A Father to His Men: Sort of. Flix gets much reverence and awe for how well he can fight, but is pretty much viewed by the others as an eccentric older brother.
 * Always Chaotic Evil: The Ice Chimps, Pyrangutans, and Ethermangs are all descended from Amalek, the ancient enemies of ancient Israel. Since the New Testament happened and they were unable to intervene in that time period due to Jesus' entire narrative receiving Contractual Immortality, they want to destroy the modern world out of revenge.
 * Ambiguous Disorder: Flix's non-fighting personality is modeled after Grissom from CSI, so it makes sense they'd have similar personality tics. It is also what keeps him from developing a massive ego, as he is constantly receiving praise for being similar to his other inspiration.
 * An Ice Suit: All the Ice Chimps require one to survive. Their visors are therefore their Achilles Heel.
 * Anyone Can Die: In the first story alone: Abelina, Tom,, Aqhat, Pigat, and others die. Oftentimes horribly. Other than BB and Akilina and possibly also Flix, almost nobody has any real Plot Armor. In the sequels, even more Gorillas are sacrificed, leading to a Dwindling Party.
 * Artifact of Doom: The Omni Transmogrin can cure the Ice Chimps of the need for cryogenic suits, and can even revert the Gorillas to being human. It can also turn anyone into almost any type of talking animal. In the wrong hands, it can turn all humanity (permanently) into cats! The Felinus Transmogrin, by contrast, can only turn someone into a cat or revert them.
 * The Vase of Ethermangs counts as one in the third story.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Col. Flix finally rejoins the Gorillas, and immediately curb stomps many of the Faceless Goons that the other Gorillas struggled with. He becomes essentially a walking Deus Ex Machina.
 * Colonel Badass: Col. Flix, Col. Rotoro, and Col. Veyour. Flix has practically become the Chuck Norris of Gorillas, so his enemies are always looking for ways to keep him distracted. Only Veyour shows no respect for Flix; but is at the same rank.
 * Destination Defenestration: How Akilina finishes off Aqhat.
 * Deus Exit Machina: All the Big Bad villains are Genre Savvy enough to understand that the single most guaranteed way of standing any chance of victory is to force Col. Flix to embark on a side mission. Otherwise, his God Mode Sue tendencies would kill all the drama. Alas, they can't seem to keep him away quite long enough.
 * Elements of Nature: The Gorillas have an Earth/Metal theme, the Ice Chimps have a Water/Ice theme. The Pyrangutans are Fire, and Ethermangs have an Air theme.
 * Everything's Better With Monkeys: Subverted with the Ice Chimps, played straight with the Gorillas.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Quirini.
 * Five-Bad Band: While the Ice Chimps are legion, there are a few that appear to be more important than others.
 * Big Bad: Lord Quirini
 * The Dragon: Role seems to rotate, but Aliyan appears to be the most prominent right hand for Quirini.
 * Communications Officer: Niqmad
 * Dark Chick: Pigat
 * The Brute: Mishtam. Subverted in that it's BB who executes him.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero: Stacy fills in for Flix, sort of, until Flix can arrive near the end.
 * The Lancer: Screechie
 * The Big Guy: Burrpatch, whom Stacy first encounters.
 * The Chick: Akilina
 * Kid Appeal Character: Banana Breath ("BB" for short,) who acts very childish at times but can still competently fight.
 * From a Certain Point of View: Cited word-for-word by Akilina after she tosses a banana bomb at a church window as a fake-out to Aqhat. He is about to accuse her of wasting her ammo, but gets punched in the face. As he begins burning up from room temperature, she tosses him out a window and reminds him that "waste is relative."
 * Genius Bruiser: Col. Flix is a recluse whose personality is modeled on Gil Grissom.
 * MacGuffin: The Omni Transmogrin, which can turn anyone into a cat or change them back to being human. It can also cure the Ice Chimps of needing to live in cryogenic suits.
 * Large Ham: (Almost) everyone. But especially Quirini. His mannerisms are copied from Prince John, after all.
 * Monumental Damage: The Ice Chimps destroy Lansing Community College's library and computer lab building; but amazingly don't damage the capitol building in spite threatening to destroy Lansing's city hall. The Pyrangutans also tear lots of things up in Mexico City; and the Ethermangs go to town with Jerusalem.
 * One-Ape Army: Flix may have mild trouble taking down Quirini himself, but the other Ice Chimps are rightly terrified of him.
 * The Stoic: Col. Flix. A shy hermit, he often does things apart from the other Gorillas. But he will come together with his team when he needs to. He seldom expresses any emotion other than "determined" or "urgent."
 * Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: The Ice Chimps in the first story attacked Lansing. After joining with the Pyrangutans, they threatened all of Mexico while co-opting its criminal element. And by adding the Ethermangs to their roster, they were able to threaten the entire world (mainly the Middle East, but the whole world by extension.)
 * Stuff Blowing Up: It does want to be like a Michael Bay movie, after all.
 * Transmogrinned Primates are Bastards: The Ice Chimps look very much like aliens. Not helped in that their Sims 2 artwork uses a suit from Star Trek that's been kit-bashed together with repainted Magneto helmets and given Tron Lines. But as many alien tropes as the fanfic plays with, the villains are ironically not from space. They still kick as many puppies as they can manage.

Tropes unique to the first story:

 * Audience Surrogate/The Heroine: Stacy Mirafuentes. She's an office intern who goes from flexing out early on a Friday afternoon to battling for survival of humanity all within a matter of a few hours.
 * Badass Damsel: Stacy ultimately saves herself from Quirini, using Flix as a distraction. She then turns it around and uses her escape efforts to distract Quirini so Flix can easily dispose of him.
 * Baleful Polymorph: Part of Lord Quirini's Evil Plan to Take Over the World somehow involves turning humanity into cats so that they're easier to enslave. His followers don't even bother trying to question his logic.
 * Camp Straight: Word of God is that Quirini is as straight as all the other Ice Chimps; but his speech mannerisms are modeled after several villainous lions from the Disney Animated Canon, making him sound awfully flamboyant.
 * Child Eater / Eats Babies: Brassandra, who is executed by Flix for doing so. Qilmara is so impressed with Flix's courage and integrity by how he disposes of Brassandra, that she helps Flix get enlisted to the Topaz Division. From there, Flix is promoted to Col. Flix.
 * Creator Provincialism: Downtown Lansing gets destroyed by the Ice Chimps.
 * Doom Magnet: Like a typical Dozerfleet female protagonist, Stacy's constantly threatened with losing her head, and her loved ones are the first to be turned into cats. As for the Call to Adventure? She's Ignorant of the Call until it reveals that it knows where she lives. Then, she's Resigned to The Call, having never got a chance to refuse it.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: See Stacy's Mom (below)
 * Only the Chosen May Wield: The Omni Transmogrin was entrusted to Stacy by George, so it therefore only works at maximum efficiency when it's attached to Stacy. Irritates Quirini because he was hoping he wouldn't have to kidnap her to operate it. Not because he hates being a kidnapper; but because he feels kidnapping missions are a waste of time.
 * Stacy's Mom: Parodied by way of Stealth Pun, as Stacy's boss shows a hint of romantic curiosity about Anna Mirafuentes. Stacy herself pretends not to notice.
 * The Starscream: George tries to use a Batman Gambit to turn Aliyan into this..
 * There Are No Police: Or military either, apparently. The Ice Chimps are so efficient at disappearing, that the police are clueless what to do. The only time a cop does anything is to pull Stacy over, which only leads to his entire squad being killed by Pigat. Partially justified with the Michigan National Guard, as they're turned into cats.
 * Phlebotinum Overload: Using a transmogrin on one victim at a time is safe. Using it on a massive number of victims simultaneously will cause the transmogrin to explode, destroying it permanently.
 * Vasquez Always Dies: Pigat is the first to actually die (killed by .) Abelina gets killed by.
 * Worf Had the Flu: Due to an excursion with another division that led to him being trapped, Flix is missing for a majority of the story. Leads to the tagline "Where's Col. Flix?" The team + Stacy are forced to find ways of operating without Flix to lead them.

Tropes unique to the second story:

 * Darker and Edgier: Quirini and the Ice Chimps only wanted to turn all humanity into cats and rule them. When forced into a truce with the Pyrangutans, they want to enslave humanity and brutalize them into submission. By the third story, the Ethermangs are straight-up for the Kill'Em All approach.
 * Fallen Hero: Col. Veyour only joined the cause because he didn't know what to do with his life as a humanoid gorilla. He found himself promoted through the ranks to colonel, but it never meant much to him. Indulging in the works of depraved academia, he loses faith in the Qilantan cause by the day. He finally decides that being "open-minded to the future" requires him to sympathize with the Ice Chimps. He eventually takes this to its logical extreme: betraying the Gorillas.
 * National Stereotypes: Invoked when Lord Incendimore begins recruiting the most brutal gangs of the Mexican drug trade to his cause.
 * Whip It Good: Lord Incendimore uses an electrified Whip Sword as his primary weapon. While impractical, it is one of the few things giving him a fair chance in battle against Col. Flix.

Tropes unique to the third story:

 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: King Solomon sealed away the Ethermangs. Muhammed considered freeing them at one point after capturing a relic he believed could be used to tame them. His reasoning was that they could be useful for the cause of jihad. However, a close friend talks him out of it. Therefore, the Dome of the Rock is built on top of the underground prison that holds a relic containing the Ethermangs. Both Solomon and Muhammad decided to make no mention of knowing where the Ethermangs were imprisoned.
 * Enemy Mine / The Good, The Bad, And The Evil: Israelis and Palestinians are forced to work with each other to overthrow the Primates of Fire, Ice, and Ether. In spite their shared mistrust of the Gorillas, the Israeli and Palestinian forces agree to work with them as well.
 * Evil Versus Evil: Hamas as opposed to the combined forces of Ice Chimps, Pyrangutans, and Ethermangs. They decide It's Personal when the Ethermang's reason for kicking Hamas out of Palestine is: "If you were actually able to do our job and destroy Israel, you would have already done it!"