Ciem: Difference between revisions

The Ciem webcomic series was a dramatic [[Pastiche]] [http://www.comixpedia.org/index.php?title=DSHW DSHW] [[Machinomics|Machinomic]] from Dozerfleet Productions which was in development from 2005-2009, an online think tank which specialized at the time in playing around with various comic book and drama tropes whilst simultaneously showing off the storyboard capabilities of mixing Photoshop with ''[[The Sims|The Sims 2]]''.

The series featured the misadventures of the titular Candice "Candi" Marie "Stevens" Flippo-Levens-McArthur / Ciem, a teenage girl in 2019 who finds out that Phaelite aliens mutated her father while he was a baby, which allows her to have centipede powers. From there, she realizes that she is supposed to help her [[Big Screwed-Up Family]] battle their archnemeses: The [[Fantastic Racism|genocidal]] Hebbleskin Gang, made up of Meethlite aliens.

The trilogy initially began in 2005 as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the ''Spider-Man'' [[Spider-Man (film)|film series]], and was a [[Spin-Off]] of an obscure comic called ''The Battle for Gerosha'', before becoming an entity all unto itself. The first webcomic was attempted once in June of 2005, once in March-September of 2006, and a satisfactory version was completed in January-October of 2007, being published to Mod The Sims Social in November of 2008 and completed in the DSHW [[|Machinomics|Machinomic]] format in January of 2009.

Due to its heavy reliance on [[The Sims|''The Sims 2'']] and related [[Game Mod|game mods]] as rendering tools, several tropes from that game are played with and repurposed rather freely. In spite of coming out around the same time as Starline Hodge's much more popular ''[[Candi]]'', the two have nothing to do with each other, [[Strange Minds Think Alike|in spite of some]] [http://dozerfleet.wikia.com/wiki/Candi_Levens_vs._Starline%27s_Candi remarkable similarities].

Also, in spite the first story's original subtitle, it has absolutely nothing to do with the horror film series ''[[The Human Centipede]]''. In fact, the realization of them being [[Similarly Named Works]] actually resulted in [[Writer Revolt]], where the author of ''Ciem'' decided to create an [[Ultimate Universe]] dubbed "Comprehensive Gerosha" in novella form to justify renaming the first story "''Ciem: Vigilante Centipede''." And while ''that'' is in [[Development Hell]], it got some high marks as a promotional tool for UGO.com, for the fact that nearly every character from the cast can be easily re-created with their HeroMachine software.

In November of 2009, development of ''Ciem 2'' was put on hiatus [[Author Existence Failure|due to the author suffering from health problems]] while also working on a murder mystery/thriller miniseries for DozerfleetTV and the Ferris State University Bulldog Television cable channel, titled ''Blood Over Water''. Following the demands of an internship, and as further response to ''The Human Centipede'' being released, all of Classic Gerosha continuity was abandoned for Comprehensive Gerosha. ''Ciem 2'' webcomic development was replaced with plans for a novel that would have had the same plot, and been dubbed ''Ciem: Nuclear Crisis''. Likewise, ''Ciem 3'' was canceled and replaced with ''Ciem: Condemnation''.

Eventually, Comprehensive Gerosha and the concept of a Ciem Trilogy would be abandoned altogether in November of 2012 in exchange for "Cataclysmic Gerosha." The new continuity reinvented several characters from previous continuities while writing others out entirely, consolidating all remaining Gerosha continuity into a single alternate history timeline that posed the question: "What if Obama's friends in the Muslim Brotherhood had suddenly formed a pact with the Hebbleskin Gang, and the result was China taking over the west coast to secure its interests in US debt?" The Phaelite Society of Earth in this version is shown forming an organization to serve as a liaison between itself and the national guard of what is left of America [[After the End]], appropriately dubbing itself "SCALLOP" after the scallop shell that is the Gerosha Stone that is the official symbol of ''The Gerosha Chronicles.'' (SCALLOP, of course, being a hat tip to SHIELD in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) The series in Cataclysmic Gerosha's timeline that would deal specifically with Candi and her friends (as well as the aftermath of other characters' stories) was initially dubbed ''Ciem: Cataclysmic Horizons'' in early November of 2012, before being quickly renamed ''Cataclysmic Horizons''. It was later retitled ''Sodality'' in 2013, around the Sodality of Gerosha superhero league that Ciem eventually joins. This was to emphasize the ensemble nature of cast in the series premise, as Ciem was no longer viewed as being interesting enough to carry the series as a solo main character.

==''Ciem''==