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After finishing my work on the huge, yet to be released comic book adaptation of the pre-hispanic Nahua / Mexica " LEGEND OF THE FIVE SUNS" cosmogonic myth (also including other myths from Central Mexico), I took some "vacation time" ~around 1 week or two - to work on sketches which I previously made during last year's INKtober. They're mostly inspired by original stuff I used to draw and write as a 9-10 years old back in 2004, and also on extant characters. Some influences are blatantly visible (like those from the Rockman X game series' "Maverick" designs, or some elements from ATLUS' Shin Megami Tensei Persona series), others are more smooth. That said, they're also part of an original story split between the future and contemporary times, in which these are the futuristic counterparts of the main characters, from the "present" (which was set in 2004-2005). The future was originally meant to be sometime in 21XX, but in this new version of the story, it comes much closer.

In this future, where humanity has turned into cyborgs, and mass extinctions happened on Earth - but mortality, in some ways, has been overcome by a transhumanist recycling of every "unit" that dies, in a complicated, fully automated system interpreted by some as an "underworld", a "consciousness management machine" or "karma machine" - the Earth is mainly split by two warring factions, the city of NEO ALEXANDRIA and THE RESISTANCE. The city of Neo Alexandria is humanity's last bastion, ruled by Anna Philopator, a top notch cyborg envisioned and created by Archibald Graham, the interdimensional magician, entrepeneur and traveller who broke the barrier of sleep, space and time, and who acquired a Silver Key. This most wise and wicked cheater has become a "time criminal" (independent time travellers or time manipulating magicians who often get the wrong attention of the interdimensional group of time enforcers known as the " Crossbills") but also one of the main universal forces, who believes to have understood the logic of chaos and mastered it. Eventually, even though not a Crossbill, Archibald managed to make peace with them and let his plans go smoothly. The existence of Neo-Alexandria, what he calls the Golden City, also depends on his exploits in other dimensions, and he considers it to be the perfect dimension, one where his creation rules all, envisioning perfect bliss, balance and oneness. Archibald Graham, in this dimension, is a cyborg himself - one often known as The No Fayan Cyborg - and in other dimensions, including the present, he's Anna's father.

The Resistance opposes Anna's rule, and lead their group to fight for the destabilization of Anna's imposed control and automation over cyborgs. They may not know exactly how things used to be before the "synchronization", but believe that the sentient beings could exist for their own purposes before. Outnumbered and often outsmarted, the Resistance is resilient, despite sometimes foolish, but their decision to stand - which has costed them their lives many times - has begun a larger quest which exposed them to the nature of things, some most hidden, like the "Underworld" which recycle them. There's more than one underworld, though - there's Duat, overseen by the Egyptian Gods who have often helped the No Fayan faction, which Archibald is part of for some time. There's also the three judges of Hades, who are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus (plus an ally, Moros, who likes to hide himself), who have supported the Resistance for long even before their formation. The Resistance, however, isn't by far the only threat to Neo Alexandria, and some common enemies are known to have sponsored the Resistance a couple of times. One of such enemies is the intergalactic, sadistic SPECTRO Organization, whose eponymous leader aims to either turn Anna to his side, or create a twisted copy of her. This is Plasmaex, who used to infiltrate Neo Aexandria for a while, and earning Anna's trust, becoming her vizier, before her plans were revealed and she was expelled. SPECTRO is a vicious and manipulative, immortal Alien A.I who wants to convert Earth into a fully automated mass destruction weapon inhabited by androids, thus reducing all sentient life to machines he can easily read. Biased views from the Resistance could assume his goals don't differ greatly from Anna's own, though Anna and her father naturally know a lot more about sentient beings than SPECTRO does, and whether they admit it or not, the Resistance has depended a lot on Spectro to live up for this day - even in the concurrent present.

Subcommander Aurelia, one of the leading individuals from the RESISTANCE, is the future self of Nina Everton, a nerdy and geeky student from Bykear High, in Ashville, California (no need to mention it's all fictional), who has in past years acted as a super heroine/vigilante known as the WASP. The first time she met "Aurelia", Aurelia was her social sciences teacher, and seemed to have no memory of her past, and even less knowledge of her link with her student Nina. Eventually, she would realize that she comes from a possible future and isn't completely human, but a cyborg, and was sent to the past to deliver a message, or to undo that terrible future. Later on, she would join Ann in a team to take part in the Spirit Fight Tournament, one that would see the destruction of an entire universe, its past, present and future. Her past self, however, would continue to live on the next dimension, one created by the power and memory of the last dimension's last survivor, Ann, who was cursed to carry on the memories that were. In this brave new world, though, cracks started to appear as well, in past and the future, as the cyborgs of the Resistance still struggled for the last of their freedom against Neo Alexandria, while both were watched by even darker forces from the underworld (Duat and Hades) and the space above (the No Fayan and the Moche, the latter ones associated with the intergalactic SPECTRO Organization).

The years have surely turned the somewhat shy Nina into a way more cheery Aurelia (she keeps that persona even in an utmost tragic reality, something that makes her different from Aztek X, a fellow resistance freedom fighter), and their cooperation to undo the dark future isn't necessarily perfect. Also, the fact that Nina in the present is the best friend of Ann, who in the future is the tyannical yet beautiful "Cleopatra" (a.k.a Anna Philopator) - despite she won't admit it - the main enemy of the Resistance, has proved somewhat shocking. More shocking than that, though, is that during her amnesia, Aurelia, as a teacher, has been very close friends with her student Ann, even more than to her past self Nina. What hasn't particularly changed over time in both personas, however, is their assurance that they're smarter than they think, even though it (generally) don't come out straight as an arrogance.

TRIVIA: The term "subcommander" here has been inspired by its usage among the EZLN. Maybe not the entire Resistance, but at least Aurelia and Aztek X draw personal inspiration from the efforts and ways of organization of the EZLN in Chiapas.

I hope you like it as much as I did producing it!

And don't forget to follow and share my work at:

Behance | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Description

After finishing my work on the huge, yet to be released comic book adaptation of the pre-hispanic Nahua / Mexica " LEGEND OF THE FIVE SUNS" cosmogonic myth (also including other myths from Central Mexico), I took some "vacation time" ~around 1 week or two - to work on sketches which I previously made during last year's INKtober. They're mostly inspired by original stuff I used to draw and write as a 9-10 years old back in 2004, and also on extant characters. Some influences are blatantly visible (like those from the Rockman X game series' "Maverick" designs, or some elements from ATLUS' Shin Megami Tensei Persona series), others are more smooth. That said, they're also part of an original story split between the future and contemporary times, in which these are the futuristic counterparts of the main characters, from the "present" (which was set in 2004-2005). The future was originally meant to be sometime in 21XX, but in this new version of the story, it comes much closer.

In this future, where humanity has turned into cyborgs, and mass extinctions happened on Earth - but mortality, in some ways, has been overcome by a transhumanist recycling of every "unit" that dies, in a complicated, fully automated system interpreted by some as an "underworld", a "consciousness management machine" or "karma machine" - the Earth is mainly split by two warring factions, the city of NEO ALEXANDRIA and THE RESISTANCE. The city of Neo Alexandria is humanity's last bastion, ruled by Anna Philopator, a top notch cyborg envisioned and created by Archibald Graham, the interdimensional magician, entrepeneur and traveller who broke the barrier of sleep, space and time, and who acquired a Silver Key. This most wise and wicked cheater has become a "time criminal" (independent time travellers or time manipulating magicians who often get the wrong attention of the interdimensional group of time enforcers known as the " Crossbills") but also one of the main universal forces, who believes to have understood the logic of chaos and mastered it. Eventually, even though not a Crossbill, Archibald managed to make peace with them and let his plans go smoothly. The existence of Neo-Alexandria, what he calls the Golden City, also depends on his exploits in other dimensions, and he considers it to be the perfect dimension, one where his creation rules all, envisioning perfect bliss, balance and oneness. Archibald Graham, in this dimension, is a cyborg himself - one often known as The No Fayan Cyborg - and in other dimensions, including the present, he's Anna's father.

The Resistance opposes Anna's rule, and lead their group to fight for the destabilization of Anna's imposed control and automation over cyborgs. They may not know exactly how things used to be before the "synchronization", but believe that the sentient beings could exist for their own purposes before. Outnumbered and often outsmarted, the Resistance is resilient, despite sometimes foolish, but their decision to stand - which has costed them their lives many times - has begun a larger quest which exposed them to the nature of things, some most hidden, like the "Underworld" which recycle them. There's more than one underworld, though - there's Duat, overseen by the Egyptian Gods who have often helped the No Fayan faction, which Archibald is part of for some time. There's also the three judges of Hades, who are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus (plus an ally, Moros, who likes to hide himself), who have supported the Resistance for long even before their formation. The Resistance, however, isn't by far the only threat to Neo Alexandria, and some common enemies are known to have sponsored the Resistance a couple of times. One of such enemies is the intergalactic, sadistic SPECTRO Organization, whose eponymous leader aims to either turn Anna to his side, or create a twisted copy of her. This is Plasmaex, who used to infiltrate Neo Aexandria for a while, and earning Anna's trust, becoming her vizier, before her plans were revealed and she was expelled. SPECTRO is a vicious and manipulative, immortal Alien A.I who wants to convert Earth into a fully automated mass destruction weapon inhabited by androids, thus reducing all sentient life to machines he can easily read. Biased views from the Resistance could assume his goals don't differ greatly from Anna's own, though Anna and her father naturally know a lot more about sentient beings than SPECTRO does, and whether they admit it or not, the Resistance has depended a lot on Spectro to live up for this day - even in the concurrent present.

Subcommander Aurelia, one of the leading individuals from the RESISTANCE, is the future self of Nina Everton, a nerdy and geeky student from Bykear High, in Ashville, California (no need to mention it's all fictional), who has in past years acted as a super heroine/vigilante known as the WASP. The first time she met "Aurelia", Aurelia was her social sciences teacher, and seemed to have no memory of her past, and even less knowledge of her link with her student Nina. Eventually, she would realize that she comes from a possible future and isn't completely human, but a cyborg, and was sent to the past to deliver a message, or to undo that terrible future. Later on, she would join Ann in a team to take part in the Spirit Fight Tournament, one that would see the destruction of an entire universe, its past, present and future. Her past self, however, would continue to live on the next dimension, one created by the power and memory of the last dimension's last survivor, Ann, who was cursed to carry on the memories that were. In this brave new world, though, cracks started to appear as well, in past and the future, as the cyborgs of the Resistance still struggled for the last of their freedom against Neo Alexandria, while both were watched by even darker forces from the underworld (Duat and Hades) and the space above (the No Fayan and the Moche, the latter ones associated with the intergalactic SPECTRO Organization).

The years have surely turned the somewhat shy Nina into a way more cheery Aurelia (she keeps that persona even in an utmost tragic reality, something that makes her different from Aztek X, a fellow resistance freedom fighter), and their cooperation to undo the dark future isn't necessarily perfect. Also, the fact that Nina in the present is the best friend of Ann, who in the future is the tyannical yet beautiful "Cleopatra" (a.k.a Anna Philopator) - despite she won't admit it - the main enemy of the Resistance, has proved somewhat shocking. More shocking than that, though, is that during her amnesia, Aurelia, as a teacher, has been very close friends with her student Ann, even more than to her past self Nina. What hasn't particularly changed over time in both personas, however, is their assurance that they're smarter than they think, even though it (generally) don't come out straight as an arrogance.

TRIVIA: The term "subcommander" here has been inspired by its usage among the EZLN. Maybe not the entire Resistance, but at least Aurelia and Aztek X draw personal inspiration from the efforts and ways of organization of the EZLN in Chiapas.

I hope you like it as much as I did producing it!

And don't forget to follow and share my work at:

Behance | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter