User:Sikon/TAS/Long

• User:Sikon/TAS/Scratchpad

“And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.”

~ From The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Characters

Mozilla Corporation

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox, the titular character, is a young superheroine, the daughter of Netscape and Mozilla Suite, and also the CEO of Mozilla Corporation (as her other identity, Story Baker). She is bent on preserving the freedom of choice in the digital age, fighting against monopolies, corporate brainwashing, and unjust laws.

While her nominal goal is to "take back" the World Wide Web, what she really values is letting people decide on their own what kind of future they want - and removing the obstacles preventing them for doing so. In Season One, such an obstacle is obviously Omnisoft, but in Season Two, it's less of an enemy and more of an inert observer, as Firefox's main challenge shifts to dangers that threaten both Omnisoft and Mozilla - such as the Corruptibles and their DRM-pushing masterminds. She also never forgets the reason she was conceived for, and has vown to avenge for Netscape's demise by exposing the LOL/AlarmClock conspiracy.

• Distinctive traits: she has the attributes of a foxgirl, as an homage to the way the character of Firefox-ko is typically depicted in Moezilla art - complete with fox ears and a flaming tail. These are real, as opposed to just being part of her red and orange costume - even though her alternate identity does not have these traits. In Season Two, forced to drop that identity after Story is presumed dead.
• Based on: Mozilla Firefox, web browser software.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Thunderbird is Firefox's twin sister, and a somewhat unwanted one. While Firefox was conceived by her parents for a reason, to be trained as an ultimate warrior, Thunderbird's birth was unforeseen - and, as a result, while Firefox enjoys her status as a minor celebrity in Sighting Hill, Thunderbird mostly stands in the background - although she does prefer her relatively mundane job as Firefox's correspondent and operator to crime fighting. Her favorite pastime is checking and replying to e-mail, as well as regular mail - which is, however, rarely used in the highly computerized Silicone Valley.

• Distinctive traits: her costume is similar to Firefox's, but employing blue tones. She is sometimes seen with an envelope in her hand, and is wearing a headset nearly all the time, except when posing as her alternate, corporate identity (which Firefox forces her to abandon early in Season Two in order to prevent her from being framed for murder).
• Based on: Mozilla Thunderbird, e-mail and news client software.

Widget Styler

Widget is Mozilla's "Chief Security Something", or CSS as she shortens it, and she ended up at Mozilla after Omnisoft fired her for exposing the horrible truth that Omnisoft's products do indeed have security problems. The Chairman later reversed his decision and sometimes tries to get Widget back, but fruitlessly. Security is her obsession, to the point that she always shuts keyholes in every door she happens to be behind and keeps her RFID card wrapped in tin foil at all times (a trick she later taught St. Ignucius). Her main concern is preventing Mozilla's secrets from being exposed, although sometimes she overdoes it by rendering them inaccessible by her own coworkers.

• Distinctive traits: even though her facial details and hairstyle are clearly African, her skin color is only mildly so. She typically wears sweaters of varying colors and a USB flash drive instead of a necklace.
• Based on: Window Snyder, Mozilla's Chief Security Officer.

Breezy Etch

Breezy is "the brain", a tireless inventor whose technologies power the Mozilla sisters' arsenal. He designed their gadget-ridden costumes, which can transform them between their two identities and fetch "extensions" - other gadgets of various complexity - from the Mozilla headquarters. Breezy himself developed the JumpShift teleportation technology, which powers the extension-summoning process and the large stationary teleporter which the Mozillas use to instantly transport themselves between the Mozilla HQ and their hidden apartment in Ostanville; it is surpassed only by the Corruptibles' ability to materialize anywhere near a DRM-infested device.

• Distinctive traits: often starts speaking broken English (which is actually a mix of SQL and several programming languages) when stressed. Also, as it is common with crazy inventors, his inventions often cause more problems than solve, making things around them go awry.
• Based on: Brendan Eich, Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer and the inventor of JavaScript. The name is a combination of two release codenames of Ubuntu and Debian, respectively.

Mozilla Sunbird

Sunbird is the long-lost third and youngest Mozilla sister, who was presumed dead by Firefox and Thunderbird (then Phoenix and Minotaur) ever since they went in exile - only to mysteriously reappear from an unknown direction just as the Corruptibles - a new and unforeseen threat - were about to overwhelm her sisters. She is still reluctant to give any details about her former whereabouts, or why she was absent for so long.

Sunbird values time and punctiality. She hates procrastination and often blames Mozilla employees for doing everything slower than they could have. She spends most of the time carving elaborate plans and schedules for herself and the others - and then being the first to disregard them anyway.

• Distinctive traits: despite the word "sun" in her name, the color of her costume (light green) has nothing to do with the sun. This is done to prevent people from confusing her with Firefox, as she puts it - as if the absence of fox features is not enough. She is rarely seen without a calendar-organizer and absolutely never without a wristwatch.
• Based on: Mozilla Sunbird, calendar software.

Omnisoft ELLC

The Chairman

While on first sight, the mysterious Omnisoft chairman may seem a secretive and creepy man who intentionally obscures his face, he is in fact a caring husband and father. He values his family and wealth more than his company, which is mostly run by his coworkers. They, not the relatively obscure Chairman - whose name is always beeped out - are the face of Omnisoft, and they are those who often give the company a bad name.

• Distinctive traits: He is never seen in person, except in his coastside estate, which Firefox visits at one point. Instead, he speaks to his employees from TV screens (giving a strong Big Brother feel) and has his face obscured. Even in the estate, he is always shown from the back.
• Based on: Bill Gates, Microsoft's Chairman.

Steve Public

It is indeed a wonder why a serious, respectable company has such an emotionally unstable furniture-thrower for a CEO. He can't speak in a calm formal tone, and he can't express his point in just words either - he always needs something physical to crash, squash, or otherwise destroy, embodying the Omnisoft competition policy. As a result, his speeches, when translated from his peculiar language for written press releases, are often horribly misinterpreted (or at least this is what most people assume, thinking he can't really mean anything he says. In other words, he's a "bad cop" while the rest of the Omnisoft PR staff try to assume the roles of "good cops" - in which they are, however, seldom successful.

• Distinctive traits: His speech consists of a single word, "Developers!", being reiterated over and over. The translation is subtitled. For example, when he says "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!", in different tones, it may actually mean "We shall never give away our intellectual property".
• Based on: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

Buzzworth Compliant

Buzzworth is one of the "good cops" who desperately try to give Omnisoft an image of a good-meaning, caring company. He looks like an intelligent, gentle manager, always having an accurate hairstyle and wearing glasses. However, his years of work at Omnisoft, in an environment where most of his correspondents were corporate IT staff like himself, created a distorted perception of reality, which explains his constant failures at delivering messages to "the crowd".

• Distinctive traits: His speech is ridden with corporate buzzwords and cliches, which results in it being either overgeneralized or nearly impossible to decipher. What's worse, he retains that habit even in informal everyday speech. An example of his typical line is: "The decision-making department of my valid identity is leveraging a next-generation strategy for reengineering my personal workflow" - and he wasn't even talking about his company yet.
• Based on: Nobody in particular, just that surprisingly common class of non-programmer staff who think adding important-sounding words makes their speech less meaningless.

OS-Tans and related characters

Dr. Norton

Dr. Norton (first name always beeped out, but it appears to start with "Sy") is the village doctor of Ostanville. Not only does he keep the OS-Tans healthy, he also insists they undergo his regular inspections naked. He insists this is done to remove any microscopic surveillance devices that could be used to expose Ostanville to the outside world. Some argue (an expression mostly used by Wikipe-tan) that he does that just because he's an old pervert.

He infamously inspected Firefox once in a similar manner, just after her first arrival in Ostanville, before concluding she should take a break off the Web.

• Distinctive traits: He wears a white garb with yellow gradients on the sleeves and leggings and a Yin-Yang symbol on the back (a non-infringing version of the Symantec logo).
• Based on: Dr. Norton from the "canonical OS-Tans", himself based on Norton AntiVirus.

Recurring villains

The Corruptibles

The Copyright Protection Squad - or, as those Sighting Hillians who care enough call them, the Corruptibles - are supervillains employed by the "Big Media" - primarily the RIAA - to seek out and punish those not respecting their right to push DRM and lock users out. The three Corruptibles - Audio Flag, Broadcast Flag and Analog Hole - use equipment allowing them to materialize whenever someone attempts to use "pirated" media, and then proceed to destroy said media, along with the device supposed to read this - like a computer, TV or music player. They take special delight from punishing those whom the public would probably consider innocent - such as a housewife copying a scratched DVD to avoid losing it, or a kid recording an interesting programme that just happens to be run when he's at school.

They are a relatively late addition to the cast, debuting in Episode 50 (which also introduces Mozilla Sunbird).

• Distinctive traits: The Corruptibles all wear identical black and dark green costumes with the copyright symbol (a "C" in a circle) on their chests.
• Based on: The Corruptibles, as introduced by the EFF (who are in turn based on the Incredibles - more precisely, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and Dash).

Other

St. Ignucius

Self-proclaimed "Saint" Ignucius leads the Church of Emacs, a church that worships gnus as deities and values tolerance, sharing and community spirit. He believes that all software should be free, and he always puts a book-crossing shelf and a "CD-crossing" shelf when preaching. Not that corporations are particularly fond of it, but the worst epithet they could come up with is "un-American" - which, sure enough, some of St. Ignucius' followers proudly wear as a badge.

Despite his position as a priest and preacher, St. Ignucius views his church as a joke and identifies himself as an atheist in interviews, which led some (the "some" who typically argue about every established fact) to call him hypocritical. Regardless, the Church of Emacs has developed a small but loyal following. Whether it includes Firefox is arguable, but she does collaborate with St. Ignucius whenever an opportunity arises.

• Distinctive traits: St. Ignucius is a short but thick man, whose body is almost round-shaped. He has a beard, long hair reaching his shoulders, Jesus-style, and wears a cardboard halo around his head.
• Based on: Richard Stallman, founder of the FSF and GNU.

Joe Average

Joe Average is as close to mediocrity as you can get - along with his friends, coworkers and neighbors, it may seem. A not very technically literate person, he installs what his friends advise him to, uses whatever hardware and software is advertised the most persistently (usually Omnisoft software and video cards from AVideo or NVideo, which are completely identical by design despite - or because of - the companies being rivals). Not surprisingly, he doesn't care at all about the Mozilla/Omnisoft quarrel at first, but as the series progresses, he develops a fondness for Firefox.

• Distinctive traits: None, except that he panics upon seeing any error or warning message, even as trivial as "Please insert CD 2 of 5 and press Enter".
• Based on: none particularly. Just the kind of person Windows Home Edition (or just Windows, for that matter) is designed for.

Technology

Bracelets

In Season 1, Firefox and Thunderbird use these bracelets (one for each, on the left arm) to switch between their "corporate" and regular identities. Each bracelet has a switch with two extreme positions; the one denoted by a black dot identifies the corporate identity, while the one denoted by a dot of the associated color (red for Firefox, blue for Thunderbird) identifies the regular identity, which is also the superhero identity. Putting the switch in the middle position restores whatever clothes they happened to be wearing before the transformation, and, in Firefox's case, her usual look - with the fox ears and tail.

In Season 2, they had to be discarded, along with the corporate identities. Sunbird never had a bracelet. Their schematics were shown to be available on the Mozilla website under the name "Mozilla Skin Changer".

Brooches

These are used to summon extensions from the Mozilla HQ and transmit them back after they are no longer required. They are employed by all three Mozilla sisters - Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird - along with the Debian-Mozilla clones Iceweasel and Icedove, and the clone in development Mini-Mo.

On the Mozilla website, the schematic is referred to as "Mozilla Object Streamer".

Visual guidelines and reference images

General visual style

Traditional animation, somewhat of a cross between the Western and Japanese traditions; while certain anime elements, like wide eyes and background replacement, do appear, the "visual emotion identifiers" like "sigh clouds" do not. Neither do any Disney-style surreal elements appear, like changing pupils to money signs or hearts or whatever else the character happens to be obsessed with at the moment. It should look realistic.

Sighting Hill

Despite the reference to Mountain View, it doesn't need to be specifically modeled after it. I don't know what Mountain View looks like. Sighting Hill is a seaside town situated on a hill, rougly round in shape. Except for a narrow exit to the Silicone Valley (a valley between similar hills) and the park, it is completely surrounded by forest.

The first thing a visitor sees when driving towards Sighting Hill is the immense suburban territory, which is dominated by clean, well-kept households with one- and two-story houses. The relatively compact business center is located in the middle. The streets are noisy there, the cars and pedestrians are always in a hurry, and the skyscrapers, when seen from afar, rise above the surrounding area like the Combine Citadel rises above City 17. The very center has a distinct artificial feel, akin to the megacity seen in The Matrix.

Many of the skyscrapers are corporate offices. The Mozilla HQ, a relatively low one, stands on the very border between the more and less urbanized zones.

The state code for Calorington is CR.

Mozilla sisters

Reference rendering: [1] (closest to what I have in mind, although not exactly matching; no luv scenes, of course, and see notes about the tail).

All the -tans, including the Mozilla sisters and Wikipe-tan, are portrayed as their more adult versions as opposed to the kid versions commonly found on the Internet. Firefox and Thunderbird are twins in their early 20s, Sunbird is younger and in late teens. Firefox has red hair and blue eyes, Thunderbird has blue hair and brown eyes. Don't overdo the hair colors, though, they should pass as relatively mundane and not too bright.

When Widget encounters them in the first episode, they wear simple robes until Breezy gives them their costumes and transformation bracelets.

Firefox's fox ears and tail are real, not just part of her attire. The places where the human ears would be are covered by hair at all times. The tail is longer than on the reference rendering, reaching her shoulders when pointing straight upwards, and nearly reaching (but not reaching) the floor when pointing straight downwards. Most of the time, it points upwards in the S-like Foxxy Love position. The color of the tail is a smooth transition from red to yellow (see logo), as opposed to a sharp transition from red to white.

Thunderbird wears the headset at all times, so her ears are covered by it.

The younger Firebird (less foxy Firefox - literally, so she essentially looks like a younger version of her alter ego) and Thunderbird, in flashbacks, wear more mundane clothes - sloppy pants similar to Slackware-tan and shirts depicting the older design logo birds - red for Firebird, blue for Thunderbird.

Alter egos

The alter egos wear dark formal suits, and their human ears are visible (Firefox's alter ego is purely human in appearance). They, as well as the transformation animations, are only needed for S1. Sunbird, who arrives in S2, is never given an AE. The fact that these are Firefox and Thunderbird should be as obvious as possible. (Three words: Clark Kent syndrome.)

The transformations (did I hear someone say henshin?) can be done in the traditional magical-girl-anime style, but it's important to realize that in Firefox's world, there's no magic, only technology that's sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic. So please, no pixie dust, pink and stars floating around. They flip a switch on the bracelet, which makes whatever they're wearing instantly disappear (as an unsummoned extension) and the costume appear, part by part (as summoned extensions). Firefox's non-human body parts are different in this respect: the tail grows and shrinks, and the ears change shape from human to fox and vice versa.

Anything that could be NC-17 is obscured during the transformation, so the beginning is seen from the back with only the upper half visible. When Firefox and Thunderbird transform simultaneously, the screen is split in half (left-right) and they mirror each other's movements.

While stock animation is inevitable, the transformation itself appears in relatively few key episodes, sometimes even at a fastened pace, so it should be possible to adjust it to the context.

Mozilla parents

Only appear in flashbacks and the dream sequence in S2E1.

Netscape is a grey-haired Western gentleman, wearing a formal suit (grey jacket and black trousers) with a bow tie (the only character in the series to have one) and the letter "N" on his chest pocket.

Mozilla Suite is a relatively overweight Asian woman, in traditional Japanese attire. Her hair are red, her clothes are grey and red, but it's a darker shade of red than the one used for Firefox. Her symbol is a red star, which appears on her sleeves and back.

Other characters

Reference photos:

• Breezy (Brendan Eich): [2] [3] - this photo of Mozilla employees is actually hilarious, and an animated version should be inserted into an episode, with Story (Firefox) instead of Mitchell, obviously
• Steve (Steve Ballmer): [4]
• Widget (Window Snyder): [5]
• Buzzworth (Jonathan Crane, Batman Begins): [6]
• The Corruptibles (EFF rendering): [7] [8] [9]
• Wikipe-tan: [10] - the "future" version, to match the age of the other -tans
• Linux distros: [11]
• Dr. Norton: [12] - without the exaggerated head, of course
• Windows-tans: to be honest, those I saw all suck. Vista is probably inevitable, but even her presence should be as limited as possible. Others... well, maybe a couple background shots, so the visual style isn't really that relevant. In fact, it would be better to stay away from the Futaba imagery, nothing but legal trouble.

More as they occur...

Selected Book of Mozilla passages (from here)

Others are too lame, too non-Biblical-sounding, or directly referencing the context.

• 1:0 Mozilla Rules!
• 3:31 And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.
• 3:32 But the true lord of the beast shall remain a little lizard they did name the Gecko. The beast shall change skins and he shall be woven out of the fabric of the Mighty Web itself. And Zool shall follow in the tracks of the beast. And the ones that have remained true to the Lizard shall see the fiery sea of glass glistening with lit windows bearing its mark.
• 7:5.77 And out of the darkness, a savior shall come forth. All those that oppose will be cleansed from the Earth in a terrible rain of fire and thunder...
• 7:15 And they watched as the beast cast off its chains, and with a terrible roar, burst forth and slew those who had bound it. And for days the rivers ran red with their lifeblood.
• 7:15 And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
• 8:11 And Mammon, in his darkness, saw a great bird land. Frightened and cold in his heart he watched as the fire ran like a fox over the land of men. For the fox was a descendant of the great Beast and it absorbed Mammon's power.
• 8:14 And though the Bird came unto its own, its own did not receive it. Instead they drove the Bird away with a mighty din of wails and gnashing of teeth. At this the followers of Mammon did delight, for it is written: The great shall bend to the small, for two with one name can not abide together. The delight of the unbelievers did turn to despair, for the Bird was more clever than other creatures and, having the heart of a Phoenix, it renewed itself once again. Taking the very form of cleverness, the Fox laid its plans, for it had surveyed the domain of Mammon from on high and would return again in victory.
• 78:2 And from the Sun came forth a magnificent Bird, the offspring of the Lizard, and it followed its brethen the Fox and the Thunder. The unbelievers outlooked down upon the Bird and once again shunned the offspring of the Lizard. But the followers of the Lizard rejoiced on the new offspring and clamored, It's about time.