Despair Gerosha

"Despair" Gerosha is one of many narrative universes to comprise the overall Gerosha multiverse, homeworld of The Gerosha Chronicles in Dozerfleet Comics. "Despair" Gerosha is also the first universe to feature a version of Ciem mythos that has become a template for every Ciem origin story since. The universe lasted from March of 2006 until October of 2006, and was an attempt to reboot Gerosha Prime and repair the works in that continuity. It was canceled due to hardware problems, noted below. On top of this, "Despair" Gerosha is the first Gerosha continuity to adopt the use of "Dozerfleet Productions" as the name of its parent brand, as the brand changed its name to that in May of 2006.

Early history
At some point in the past, the Marlquaan was put in place by God in the event of a event that would happen near the end of time. However, the risk it posed was that it would find ways to invariably be used before its intended purpose. That happened when a man named Zeras Carpathius was first struck by it and became the first Marlquaanite. Through him, the Meethlites first came to be. As they began experimenting on themselves, a power struggle led to the Green Meethlites becoming a nation unto themselves. They eventually colonized the world of Phaelon, leading to the Phaelon-Metheel War when Phaelites and graphite-colored Meethlites refused to peacefully coexist. Also at some point, a faction of Phaelites landed on Earth and were stranded. A group of troublemaking Meethlites were also exiled to Earth. They began creating Phexos and Meethexos to combat each other with.

The Phaelites formed a society that would eventually being to operate under guidance of the US military, and would come to be a sort of agency unto itself. The Meethlite fugitives eventually became a global menace known as the Hebbleskin Gang. All of this tampering with the Marlquaan, with genetic engineering, and more would prove risky for everyone involved. In WWII, the first major conflict of a Phexo and Meethexo on Earth would come into play for either side. "Centipede Charlie" became a war hero.

But that was only part of the story. A dangerous substance known as "nin-chyo" would be discovered in China. It would lead to two radioactive projects in China being created from it - the Ming-Yo and Ming-Cho. Several Marlquaanite rubies were also created. It attracted some good - like the Beamer's Ruby guardian Hester Prynne and Miles "the Oraphim" Wealthington. Even John Domeck, Miles' good friend, would get together with his wife Kicked Deer to defend the Marlquaanite rubies. But evil sought to achieve that power too. The Shrouded Entity became one of the most powerful Marlquaanites ever, and even got his jollies by pretending to be the Devil himself. It would take Oraphim trapping him in a block of ice in Greenland to protect 17th-century Massachusetts from the menace.

However, Shrouded Entity had a very destructive effect on the Umpid family. His corrupting influence led to young Sarah Umpid growing up to become a witch that went by the moniker of "Meshaluta." She would also find a way to bond with the Marlquaan - but only in a way that she'd be able to unlock in the event of her demise. A secret society of occultists and New World Order-aspiring types formed called the Society of the Icy Finger. They sought to rule the world after getting their hands on as many Marlquaanite rubies as they could. John Domeck did all he could to stop them.

John's heroics cost him the life of his wife. He and his daughter Marge were about to be executed, but got struck by the Marlquaan and traveled through time instead. Marge find herself in the year 1995, where she grows up and becomes a superheroine in the Miami area. John finds himself at some point in the 21st century, where he dons the mantle of the Gray Champion for himself after discovering he has ghost mimicry abilities courtesy of the Marlquaan. He is aided in his quest by Heeshwa Pwong, the daughter of a museum curator. He must face the villain who brought him into the present, who's become a very real threat to the greater Boston area.

Meshaluta's influence would be felt for many centuries after her demise. She is murdered with gunpowder explosions and fire in her own house, after being betrayed by the Rintolin family. She initially worked with the Rintolins to keep the Icy Finger from harming Rintolin stocks and estates. Zachariah Rintolin changed his last name to Rintel, hoping to escape the curse. This only worked for a short time, when Meshaluta deduced the ruse and swore to destroy the Rintels one way or another - even from the grave. One member of her coven, Sanction Harlem, gave a bone-chilling poem right before being executed for witchcraft. Another of her cult followers, Sam Wrikon, would be blamed in Colorado for a silver mine accident. He'd be executed by being trapped in a cabin and stung to death by bees. He became the ghostly Honeybee Samuel and terrorized the cabin.

The Battle for Gerosha
Main article: The Battle for Gerosha

The Phaelites and Meethlites' creations occasionally clashed, but things would come to a boiling point in the late 1980s in Boonville, Indiana. After a breakup-turned-ugly that occurred between baseball player Steve McNolan and his girlfriend Alison Ligash, the pregnant Alison became a target of violence by the Hebbleskin Gang. This was after Steve sold her out to them, out of revenge for her deciding that Tobey Flippo treated her right. However, Tobey and Alison turned to the Phaelites for safety. They married at some point. In exchange, the Phaelites demanded the right to perform two different experiments on Alison's firstborn child. Stan Flippo was fused with a centipede using the Phexo program, allowing for one his children to inherit centipede-themed superpowers. Before that, a small amount of his DNA was extracted and used to make a half-clone. Volunteer scientist Insila Murtillo was impregnated, and gave birth to a son she named Ploribus. As Ploribus grew up to become a major National Guard figure, he changed his last name to "Philippine." Stan could not be allowed to know about these parts of his past until much later in life.

However, Stan's mother died around the time he was 15. His stepfather Tobey would die a year later. After an encounter with the vicious serial rapist Dwayne Lloyd, Marissa Hood conceived a child named Shalia. Shalia would grow up to become very talented and intelligent - though disadvantaged for being black. Shalia lived with Marissa in a shack in the woods outside of Craterville. It was there that she met Stan for the first time, as he was taking care of himself. The two were almost immediately star-struck with the sight of one another, and fell in love quickly. When Marissa died some time later, the young Stan and Shalia got married.

They decided to live peacefully in Boonville's outskirts, where they had their firstborn child: Reily. They pursued their dreams for 12 years, but then Reily was abducted by the Hebbleskins. Sgt. Luddin and Fantisk Hebbleskin set to work putting their sympathizers and plants in the Craterville-Gerosha area, and began to spell trouble for Stan and Shalia. Before Shalia knew what hit her, she was a political prisoner; and the city of Gerosha was being occupied and controlled by Hebbleskin operatives. Stan became a fugitive, looking for a way to save Shalia's life. Patrols formed, and Gerosha turned into a police state. With his programming wearing off, Officer Lionel Sanchez helps his fiancee Trina Domingo escape from death row along with their daughter Amelia. A jailbreak occurs, and Shalia escapes. She and Stan are eventually reunited. A covert ops specialist with the National Guard going by the name of Mitch Brandel takes out "Jeanette the Bunny." He proceeds to help other members of the resistance escape, though he has to shoot and kill police chief Franklin Smonds to do it.

During their time in taking back Gerosha with help from their new friends, Stan discovers the truth about his origins. He and Shalia also discover that Ploribus has rescued Reily and kept him safe. However, he also recovered the orphan Erin Wyer. Reily and Erin get along like a brother and sister, so Shalia considers adopting Erin. After Sgt. Luddin and Fantisk are killed in action and Gerosha is reclaimed, the other Hebbleskin plants and sympathizers are arrested or driven out. Gerosha regrows after the battle, and absorbs the remains of Boonville.

Stan and Shalia build the Triangulum together. Reily grows up to marry Ashlee Kornsdall, and they become world-famous chefs. They have a son named Kirby together. Stan and Shalia also have several more children: Mike and Jeff, Tom, Candice, Miriam, and Marina. They are run off the road and assassinated in the year 2006 by the Hebbleskin Gang, leaving their not-yet-grown children to decide where they will turn for help. Most are able to fend for themselves or make a living for themselves. Candi, Miriam, and Marina find themselves in Erin's custody.

Meshalutian Trilogy
In 2011, Hurricane Nekoda would lay siege to Louisiana. The Rintel family, being targeted by Meshaluta, would survive her assault amazingly enough. She would try to target the Colorado Rintels next, but would only succeed in killing one of them. This failure cost her Honeybee Samuel as a useful minion. She would finally be defeated once and for all in Boston by the Rintels of that region - and by Cassie Manning.

Ciem
This version of events is much-more-similar to what is found in the 2007 webcomic than one universe prior, but still has enough differences to be documented accordingly.

Around the year 2019, Candi reveals herself to be a Centhuen Prototype to her sister Miriam. The Hebbleskin Gang is rumored to have returned to Gerosha to finish the job of killing off the Flippo family. One evening while Erin is returning home from work, the Hebbleskins set an ambush. They were hoping to kill Candi, whom they suspected of being the "Gifted Flippo" that was allegedly prophesied.

Ciem 2
Miriam learns that Melvin Markus has set up her boyfriend Steve McLaine, and now he has information on both of them. The Hebbleskins make an attempt on the McLaine cabin to capture both, but they escape their separate ways. Steve learns that the Hebbleskins want the Queen Illaka Ruby and the Ming-Yo, both artifacts of which the Chinese government has laid claims to. They have framed Miriam for involvement in trying to seize it, forcing her to have to go underground to clear her name. Miriam decides to visit Dirbine and try to find her sister Candi. However, she finds herself being constantly stalked by Chinese agents. She tries running through neighborhoods to get away, much as Trisha Montoya had to do to get away from Yenti Roy. Alas, Miriam isn't so fortunate. She is arrested by Dirbine police.

Meanwhile, Candi seeks out consultation on what to do about her fears that Denny may not still be alive. The issue begins eating her up to the point of making her ill. Donte retires as police chief, and the new one, Merle Hourvitz, is revealed to be a Hebbleskin sympathizer. He tries to have Candi removed from her job, claiming she has no credentials and that it was only through "corruption" that Donte got her promoted. Vienna Dockler, a CIA agent along with her partner Betty Harmin, has seized the Ming-Yo and is hiding in Dirbine with it after being told by her father in the CIA to do so. As the Chinese government tries to get a hold on the Ming-Yo, a terrorist group from China called the Mik-Non also tries to get it. They launch a full-scale attack on Dirbine, hoping to draw out whoever has the Ming-Yo.

As all this is happening, the Hebbleskins capture a sea captain who didn't pay extortion fees on time. Dr. Leone transforms him with aardwolf and hyena DNA into Captain Aardwulf. However, Aard goes insane immediately and kills Dr. Leone. He quickly goes rogue, adopting a "Gollum" manner of speech and plotting to kidnap Miriam so he can get his hands on the Ming-Yo and Queen Illaka Ruby. His reasoning is that he can trade them for ransom money enough to buy his own country, which he will then use to have servants feed him a never-ending supply of termites.

Candi manages to get Miriam out of the police station just long enough to run into the sheer chaos erupting in the streets outside. The two of them flee to Latin Town, and Miriam goes on Channel 26 to comment on goings-on and clear her name. She tries to hide in a motel with Candi. However, Vienna Dockler tracks the girls down. Capp Aard tracks down Vienna, and makes off with the Ming-Yo. Ciem gives pursuit, but is distracted and her powers glitch. Aard knocks her out of his way, then makes off with the Ming-Yo. Candi comes to, but gets to the motel too late. Aard has already made off with the Ming-Yo and Miriam. Vienna vows to go after them, leaving Candi with a means of tracing her. However, Candi collapses. She has a vision in which she sees Stan and Shalia. They tell her that all is well, and that Denny is deceased. She is free to love again. She returns from her vision, and her powers are restored in full. Donte arrives, revealing that he is back from treatments. He'll need more, but his powers are stable. The two of them arrive at an industrial building. Vienna has tried to negotiate with Black Rat and General Xiang to work with her to get the Ming-Yo away from Capp Aard. However, Aard kills Black Rat and knocks out Vienna. Donte uses the distraction to steal the Ming-Yo. Aard begins growing weaker in mind and body from exposure to its radiation. Donte uses his powers to shield himself from the radiation, then flies off to the Gulf of Mexico to destroy the Ming-Yo. Ciem attempts to free Miriam, but Aard smells her presence and a fight ensues. She lures him out to a park. Miriam and Vienna work to clear Miriam's name right as the SWAT teams arrive. Aard melts into a puddle, his cells turning to mush from his radiation poisoning. Candi flees the scene. She later discovers that Donte made it out okay. The two meet up in Vacaville, CA. They get married in a double wedding with Steve and Miriam.

However, there was one overlooked detail. Jeraime's nephew Henry Malestrom becomes L2 the Llama, and swears revenge on Ciem for blinding Jeraime for life.

Team Gray

 * John Domeck / Gray Champion
 * Heeshwa Pwong
 * Mrs. Pwong
 * Miles Wealthington / Oraphim

CIA

 * Vienna Dockler
 * Betty Harmin

Phaelite Society

 * Insila Murtillo
 * Ploribus Philippine
 * Nancy Philippine
 * Lex Philippine
 * Phaelites
 * Phexos

Meshalutian cult

 * Sarah Umpid / Meshaluta
 * Sanction Harlem
 * "Honeybee" Samuel Wrikon
 * Hurricane Nekoda

The Battle for Gerosha
Gerosha Prime didn't begin with multiverse structure in mind. It rather began as a way to incorporate numerous ideas from 2001-2004 into one greater whole. The US Army Band and Chorus' 1999 album God Bless the USA provided heavy inspiration for writing a patriotic, Americana-themed love story for the rags-to-riches world of Stan Flippo, and how he met his wife Shalia and overcame cultural prejudices against their love. This was supposed to happen in the same world as the Meshalutian Trilogy, which was a J-horror-style set of tales inspired heavily by The Ring. There were hopes at some point to also introduce the Gray Champion mythos revised in 2002 from its 2001 form into the fold, so there could be some superhero work as well.

The Flippo family's adventure quickly took a sci-fi turn in The Battle for Gerosha, as the simple romance quickly ran out of places to go.

Ciem webcomic trilogy
See also: Ciem in various media

While the Dozerfleet founder was on occasion doing yard work outside, he came across a number of garden centipedes. The Battle for Gerosha seemed very limited, like it didn't fully explore the scope of what was possible. Also, bringing the Gray Champion back seemed premature. Another hero would have to be created, and used as a test run to see what was possible. Semi-original superheroes at that point had never been done in The Sims 2 before. Therefore, it seemed only fair that the soon-to-be-named Dozerfleet Comics should set the precedent for all Sims players that would wish to also enter the superhero genre into their games.

Major inspiration for graphic design for the Ciem trilogy that would follow came from the DVD for Spider-Man 2, which was considered the benchmark at the time for high standards. The original Ciem stories didn't quite measure up with desired goals, but set a precedent for how to take what was originally going to be a Spider-Man parody made for The Sims and turn it into a mythos for a character who was something in her own right.

Next in terms of complication was determining which of Stan's multiple children should be selected. He had so many, because the Sim for Stan wanted ten children as part of the game's Family Aspiration. He had Ploribus, who was already defined as a National Guard hero. He had Reily, who was already defined as becoming a master chef and a married man. Erin was adopted, so she didn't count by the biology meter. Therefore, Stan and Shalia's other children were rushed into production with cheats and hacks. Mike and Jeff didn't seem like they'd be interesting or worth pursuing in any way. Likewise, Jason and Tanya didn't seem all that interesting. Vince vanished from the game due to a glitch, making him inaccessible. This left Candi, Miriam, and Marina. Of those three, Candi was turning out to be the most interesting. She was therefore chosen to be the Phexo child of Stan's who developed Centhuen Prototype powers. As ideas further began to flood for how to expand on her world, the entire Sims 2 game was re-worked to make a mythos that revolved around her. "Ciem" is short for ciempiés, the Spanish word for "centipede." Other names were toyed with, such as "Centigal," "Centi-Girl," and more. But only "Ciem" actually carried.

Others
The other franchises were imported almost wholesale from prior universes. This included the Meshalutian Trilogy. However, import happened almost to these franchises' peril. Emphasis on Ciem quickly clouded out work on anything else.

World and Flippos
Gerosha Prime was initially destined to happen entirely within the world of The Sims 2, as opposed to later versions which were separate universes from their medium. This is why Gerosha Prime has cameos of Mortimer and Bella Goth in Ciem 3. Stan and Shalia's appearances, much like in Test Gerosha, were geared towards replicating their Sims Deluxe appearances in Proto Gerosha as much as possible. The entire Phaelite plot line began initially as a way to cover for an accidental save that made Ploribus Philippine a permanent part of the game, which happened after Stan was used on an experiment with the game's alien impregnation feature. Insila Murtillo was retconned in to serve as Ploribus' mother, to avoid male pregnancy being an issue as was the case in Sims 2. To distinguish from Phaelites, the Meethlites were created with a custom skintone file in The Sims Body Shop.

The generation of Stan and Shalia's multiple children proved frustrating, however, when its was discovered that the children didn't blend parental skintones. All children were designed to be either like one parent or the other. This resulted in Reily, Mike, Jeff, Jason, Candi, and Miriam being too pale. Tanya, Vince, and Marina turned out too dark. It was not known at the time how to perform Sim surgery with SimPE, or else that venue would have been pursued to correct the error. Likewise, the Flippo children had a tendency to develop the wrong eye color. Candi Prime developed blue-gray eyes like what Stan Prime had. There was little experimentation with the stretchSkeleton cheat either, resulting in Candi Prime being one of the tallest Candis ever designed.

The Ciem suit
Costumes proved to be a very difficult thing in the early era, when it was not entirely understood how bitmaps wrapped themselves around meshes. The absolute earliest incarnation of the Ciem costume was a case study in this. Candi's initial Ciem suit had small, circular pore openings for her centilegs. She had 64 tentacle-like centilegs that were able to stretch out 32 ft. long each, making the placement of pores on her suit rather chaotic. This was lowered to her having 32 centilegs a version later that only had a length of about 16 ft. each. A later version would lower the number to 16 centilegs of about 10 ft. long each at max length. Eventually, heavy use of tentacle-like centilegs would be done away with entirely in favor of mechanical retractable whips with Comprehensive Ciem. The centilegs would be reduced to stinger-like projections only about three inches long each and only ten of them on her body. The 2007 version of Ciem also saw the end of the era of small pores in the costume. As of the 2009 version of Ciem 2, the Ciem suit would be revised to include large square patch areas near centileg openings.

Initial eyepiece work proved the most difficult part of costume design, as there was no way to get a face paint to act like a true mask. Some details would invariably have to be fudged in Photoshop. The Ciem mask was not the most difficult aspect, though there were plenty of bugs to work out in perfecting its design. What was truly seen as difficult was creating a credible look of a superhero outfit based on the limited supply of in-game costumes, with only Photoshop Elements and Sims 2 Body Shop to serve as tools for repainting suits. The first-ever Ciem suit turned out to be an extremely hideous-looking brown concoction. This was corrected with a primitive design for "the orange suit," which became the default Ciem suit for nearly every version of the mythos to come after. Despair and Classic Ciem suits were modeled very closely off of the initial design used for Ciem 2 Ciem Prime. All suits used as a base template a white ski outfit that came with the Sims 2 base game. One major trick to getting those suits which followed after Ciem 1 Ciem Prime's suit involved wrapping the texture map around a bikini mesh, as opposed to keeping it wrapped around the original ski outfit mesh to which it originally belonged. The white ski outfit was chosen because it had the simplest design out of all three ski outfits that were offered - making it a lot easier to re-paint. Another Ciem suit design was attempted for Ciem 3: Curse of the Millipede. However, its futuristic look didn't test well on Candi. It was used toward the very end as a costume for Dana to wear.

Others
Other characters' outfits were not as well-thought-through as Candi's Ciem suit was. Most were given Base Game template suits that had been re-purposed for their respective stories. Milp's outfit was a recolor of the Ciem suit made to look like a dark-purple ninja assassin's attire. The centipede emblem, which was still poorly-defined, was given shorter legs to make it a millipede. Captain Aardwulf was given an aardwolf facepaint modeled after a picture of an aardwolf taken from Wikipedia. His suit was a basic repaint of an in-game pirate outfit. L1 the Llama was merely Jeraime Malestrom in a team mascot outfit, one which came standard with the Sims 2 athletic career. He was shown with brown hair at first, but it was later revealed that the brown dye functioned as a sort of mind control. As it wore off, he had blond hair. This was done to excuse away failure to paint an AI backvisor on him properly. Dolly and Lindsay's S1 and S2 costumes were little more than Social Bunny outfits that had been unlocked from the game with debug cheats. S2 was actually the exact same pink Social Bunny outfit that had earlier been used for Jeanette the Bunny, whom Mitch Brandel fought. Donte's "Captain Emerald" suit was the game's "Captain Hero" suit - the one unlocked at the top of the Law Enforcement career.

Production
Standards were still very fluid in 2005, as the Dozerfleet founder had only just begun to learn HTML and didn't know CSS very well at the time. Instead of full-blown DSHW 1.0-M, which was used for the 2007 Ciem remake, The Battle for Gerosha was made with what is now called "version 0.5." Later 2005 comics were made using primitive 1.0-M techniques. The whole initial idea behind making DSHW was to have the flexibility of the Sims 2 Story Exchange, but without having to use that actual service. This meant more flexibility with content - particularly scenes of implied sex or scenes of intense violence that would not be allowed normally due to the game's "T" rating.

Music
Initial works published in this universe did not include a soundtrack. However, Ciem 2 sought to change that by having its DSHW main menu open with a clip of "Come On - Simlish Version" by Steadman. The Dozerfleet founder had the rare fortune of getting permission from the band members themselves to feature it. In an e-mail, Simon Steadman himself commented: "And best of luck with Ciem 2!" Eventually, this approach was abandoned in favor of a short theme tune for all Ciem media. It was modeled after the music style employed by Danny Elfman for use in Spider-Man 2.

Tie-in works
Three tie-in works happened in correspondence with Gerosha Prime. Only one sort-of took place in the same universe. That was Corando's "Don't Lose Hope" Music Video. Said project featured Tina Nares in a few scenes, a girl who also made a cameo in Ciem 3. The main Corando band members, however, do not appear at all in Ciem 3 itself. The same guest cameos from the Campus Ministry Center appear with different names in Lo-Mun's Cooking Adventure, in which Lo-Mun (based on real-life Ho-Yun Lee) complains about how she didn't get a part in Ciem 3. Finally, Ciem 3 was packaged with Star Flops: Curse of the Medium Side. This took place in a parody Star Wars universe, but featured lot of the same design aesthetic as Ciem 3.

Cancellation
Plans to finish Ciem 2 and have the entire original Ciem trilogy online came to an abrupt end in March of 2006. Slight improvements in technique led to a desire for a remake of Ciem, filling in various plot holes and expanding ever-so-slightly on Candi's life before she met Denny. A new plot for Ciem 3 was also desired, to erase problems with the original. Ciem 2 remained back-logged in production. However, it was the work that had the fewest issues with its content - and would therefore require the least amount of revision. Also, there was the issue of Vienna Dockler's friend Betty Harmin, who made off with the Ming-Yo's twin project the Ming-Cho. Gerosha Prime left no openings in its format to explore a side story with non-superheroes addressing the problem of how to dispose of said Ming-Cho. Even The Battle for Gerosha didn't hold water in light of improved techniques for screen capture and storytelling.

Therefore, the entirety of Gerosha Prime was taken offline and sent into the Dozault. A complete reboot was initiated in 2006. Due to the failure of that reboot to hold together, for reasons that would be documented in detail, frustration with those reasons led to that version being abandoned. Its contents were thrown into the Dozault until they could be revived in a better fashion and without the problems that doomed the former. Due to this short time span before the reboot universe was abandoned, it was given the label of "Despair Gerosha."