To many of those in our present generation, America during the 1850’s would have been a harsh place to live. White land owners, Black slaves, and Native American Indians all shared their own set own set of challenges and difficulties.

The Native American way of life in this time period was a very simple one. It was a community based lifestyle that centered on hunting, fishing, farming, and trading for survival. Although Native American is a very collective term, the different tribes are very different from one another. The Apache tribe of the South and Southwest differed greatly from the Sioux Indians of the Dakotas. Some tribes were quite peaceful to outsiders, while others were went to great lengths to preserve their cultural way of life. Some tribes were more accustomed to trading and conversing to the settlers than others.

One thing that remained the same for everyone throughout the west was the common theme of limited supplies. The farther west you would travel, the scarcer the general stores and potential traders became. All of your supplies had to be hunted, grown, or found. The most valuable item that one could come across was a breed of cattle (buffalo and oxen included). Depending on whom you were out in the west changed how you would utilize it. For most European, and American settlers, cattle were meant two main things: food and labor. Cattle could help drive heavy wagons much easier than man could on just his two feet alone. If the cattle were to die, the average explorer would end up eating its flesh, often leaving behind carcasses. Native Americans were a little bit more creative when it came to such a versatile tool. Cattle could not only be used for labor and food, but many Indians removed the hide to use for clothing, especially in the colder months. Even the bones were used for either tools or weapons. In certain rituals, the heart of the animal was saved and then later buried. Nearly the whole animal was used.

The summer of 1854 seemed to have abnormal weather. It was much hotter in years passed, and as a result, the ecosystem in the Nebraska Territory was thrown for a loop. There was less rain, and this drought caused a lot of the vegetation to shrivel up. Many wild buffalo migrated to find better grazing areas. Two Native American siblings were surprised to find a lone cow wandering down by one of the last few flowing rivers. A thought popped into their head to bring this gift from the gods back to their village elders.

I regained consciousness; although I wish I hadn’t. I should be dead. No one could survive an explosion like that and live. One by one, I became aware of my senses as they observed my surroundings. Assessing your situation was somethin the academy taught us, rather than let experience be the teacher.

Taste. I can taste the blood in my mouth. It had a sort of metallic taste to it. I could barely gather up the energy to spit it out.

Touch. Every part of my body hurts. My nerves are alerting me to cuts, scrapes and bruising in all kinds of places. However, I don’t feel any broken bones. The snow that I am half buried in acted like a giant ice pack. Some of my nerves are still a long way from waking up.

Smell. The chilly air blew the scent of blood and burned flesh up my nose. I am not the only victim of this tragedy, but I may be the only survivor.

Hearing. The sound of snow being shoveled flowed into my ears. How? An explosion that massive should have killed everyone on that train. As I listened closely, I heard gears grinding. Rather than footsteps on fresh snow, I heard a wheel rolling over it.

Sight. I slowly opened my eyes to the sight of an orange robot shoveling snow. He was the shape of an inverted pyramid and rolled around on one wheel. Frankly, if it were not for the immense amount of pain that I was in, I would think that I was in the afterlife.

Once my “savior” took notice of me, he waited for me to gather my strength, and get to my feet. I had no idea where we are headed, but anywhere is better than a pile of snow and blood. I could barely make out what the robot was saying, but I did recognize one name that he mentioned: Handsome Jack. It was that bastard that gathered all of the best treasure hunters in Pandora. He wanted all of us dead, so he could have the treasures of the vault for himself.

There is no point in even thinking about the vault until I get off of this cursed glacier. My only guide is this silly little robot. A booming roar echoed throughout the cave he brought me to. I froze. By instinct, my right hand reached for my belt. My gun must be buried back in the snow along with my sanity.  A giant four armed monstrosity slid into the cave. His eyes locked on to the robot.

“The gun! Get the gun in the cabinet!”

The monster proceeded to rip out the robot’s only eye and exited the cave as quickly as he came. The damage was not too severe as his speech function (or ramble function as I consider it) was still operational.  He told me the Bullymogs were native to this wasteland. I heard a woman’s voice. It sounded like it came from inside my head. This was not the first time I heard her voice. She spoke of four vault hunters before me who changed the land forever. If I am to get any closer to finding the vault, I have to return the robot’s eye back.

Following fresh tracks on snow and ice is never easy. The ambushing pack of smaller Bullymogs did not seem to have much pity for us. I had to babysit the robot, as well as be his eyes. I took aim down the sights of the pistol and shot each of my enemies multiple times. They succumbed to their wounds. Frozen in blocks of ice were extra magazines and health vials in case I get injured.

As we approached a frozen wall of ice, the familiar roar rang out. This time, I had a weapon at my side. The great beast jumped over the wall and charged me. I was able to doge his frontal attack just barely. These fractions of a second I am off balance are going to cost me. As I aimed for him, he hoisted two boulders over his head. They were flung through the air directly at me. I shot twice and managed to break one. The second caught me on my left arm. Reloading is now going to be much harder with a bruised arm. My last three bullets seemed to hit their mark as they hit him in his head. The knuckle dragging eye sore fell at my feet as one of his four arms loosened, and the robot’s eye rolled out. Once we get off this glacier, I can make my way to the vault.

Here’s a link to my original story: http://mith.umd.edu/digitalstorytelling/?p=491

I believe that my story can have many branching paths if it were to be converted into an E-lit. I would have my E-lit mimic the format of “These Waves of Girls”. I would like it to have an older style of HTML to give the user the freedom of what links to further explore, and which were of less importance. Even though the user has their own freedom of depth of exploration, the branching paths would still place them back at the same conclusion.

One thing that I would try to avoid while creating this e-lit is making the seperate pages to lengthy. One of the main problems that I had with “These Waves of Girls” was that it took me awhile to sift through a lot of the content on the pages. I really began to lose interest before I could see how these branching paths would end up re-connecting. Although the style of the website did seem a little bit outdated by today’s standards, its simple aesthetics actually were the first thing to catch my eye. The website had a bit of a retro feel to it.

To begin to set the mood for my E-lit, I would have a repeating image of cherry blossom petals falling in the background. I would also like to have a Japanese Koto playing in the background (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxo2skx59lU). This would begin to set the mood of an older Japanese theme. Setting is a major feature that I want to focus on. In a book, the setting is described to you. That imagination of the setting may be slightly different from person to person. In my e-lit, I want to show the viewer the exact setting that I envisioned in my head.

Within my first paragraph, I allude to a Revolution that has previously passed. This was referring to the Meiji Revolution that happened in Japan. It has been alluded to in certain Japanese anime and manga such as Rurouni Kenshin. To find more about the causes and consequences of the Meiji Revolution, I would link them to a page such as this one: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/japan/japanworkbook/modernhist/meiji.html I would also show videos of the Meiji Era in pop culture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ2IODnJOiM (There would also be a pause button for the Koto music in order to accommodate the users viewing the video).

I would also like the viewer of my e-lit to research some more information on both the protagonist and antagonist.

(http://www.japanese-armor.com/images/products/b005.jpg)

This is a picture of typical Japanese samurai armor. Within this picture, I would like a link that would redirect the user to this webpage: http://judoinfo.com/samurai.htm. Here the viewer can view background information on samurai while the main characters are introduced. To the average user, this webpage may seem a bit wordy, so if I could, I would find a way to highlight certain sentences to accommodate some of the curious users.

After the introduction the setting of the battlefield is described. I would place a “continue” button at the bottom of the page where the user is re-directed to another web-page I have created (I do not think that my story progresses fast enough to copy the same format as 21 steps). Instead of cherry blossom petals in the background, and calm music playing, it is replaced by a more obscure theme. There is a full moon placed centered in the background with the sound of wind blowing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PJjdcL6cQ). As the battle in my narrative continues, the tension heightens. In many shows and movies, when this happens, there is an audible heartbeat. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNEeJT51PoQ) A sound just like this will be playing as the reader reaches the paragraph where Rai-Shin sizes up his opponent. I also want to make a big contrast between these two pages. The first page has a calmer atmosphere as it tells you the background and setting. Because my narrative isn’t exactly a fairy-tail, I want the viewer to feel the tension that I have built within the narrative.

In the next paragraph, I mention a sword technique dubbed “Ryu Shou Sen”. Assuming that Google translate is correct, I would replace the English words with the Japanese letters (龍翔セン). If these were bold, the reader would be more drawn to it and less likely to skip over it. Once clicked, they would be directed to Google translate (http://translate.google.com/) where they would be free to copy and paste the characters into the website.

In my final paragraph, I have Rai-shin break Lee’s thumb. As many people know, samurai live by the Bushido code. Those who lived by this code felt that the greatest nirvana was experienced when death was incurred on the battlefield. In our eyes we have truly consider Rai-Shin a hero for sparing his best friends life. But in the times of the samurai, that was almost unheard of. Do you think that Rai-shin made the best decision to spare his friend? With a crushed thumb, it may have been difficult for Lee to perform Seppuku (Japanese ritual suicide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku) Although I did not specifically allude to this in my narrative, I would definitely include this in my e-lit. Rather than just accompany  my narrative, I would like my e-lit to help spark some interest in the older feudal Japanese traditions and cultures.

Although it was a time of peace throughout the land, there was still much turmoil to be settled. It seemed so recently that the taste of blood was still in the air. The men of these times fought not only for themselves, but they also fought to drown out the unyielding cries for blood coming from their dormant swords.

The once proud samurais were now filled with a new type of pride. Rather than fight to defend the motherland like they had previously done years ago, these men turned to each other for the same satisfaction that they received from The Great War three years ago. Murder and marauding was no longer a necessity; now it had become a sport.

Two men stood calmly in the moonlight. The gentle wind whistled as it breezed between the stalks in the bamboo forest. Rai-shin stood rooted like a tree on the left while Lee wavered uneasily on the right.

“There is no need in proceeding. Drop your weapon and we can end this senseless bloodshed between us,” said Rai-shin. Lee’s only response was a straightforward rush across the battleground. With his blade still sheathed, Rai-shin ducked below the lateral attack. With a quick sweep, Lee was knocked off of his feet.

Rai-shin leaped backward to place distance between him and his opponent. Time seemed to crawl as he analyzed his opponent. The eyes of his adversary had grown dark. His opponent’s breath had changed to a heavy pant. Based on that fact alone, he could tell that Lee’s heart rate was increasing. Whatever adrenaline had been pumping through his blood stream had surely increased his reaction time. Rather than hold the sword with grace and respect, Lee’s knuckles turned white and his wrists cracked as he clenched the hilt. The last thing Rai-shin managed to notice was that Lee stepped forward in a low manner starting with his left foot. From the countless battles he and Lee fought together, Rai-shin knew that his opponent’s attacks always began with his dominant right leg.

Lee’s strike started down low close to the ground and ran vertical up to the sky. At this point Rai-shin unsheathed his sword at an angle to parry the blow. This was the first time our hero had shown his sword to any opponent since the war three years ago. “Your Ryu Shou Sen was weak. The Lee I know to pays much closer attention to his sword techniques during battle.” Lee’s eyes grew colder as they focused on his opponent.

Lee was determined to end the battle with one final blow. Rai-shin quickly flipped his sword around so the cutting edge faced away from his opponent. Saving Lee became his number one priority. The sword seemed to crash down in a silver flash as it reflected the full moon. It came down on Lee’s thumb. The impact was strong enough to break his thumb. The pain was paralyzing. “I have spared your life,” said Rai-shin solemnly. “However, with your injury, you won’t be able to to hold a sword properly for the rest of your life.” Rai-shin left his opponent writhing in the bamboo forest as he walked off just as the sun began to rise.

My name is Emil and I am currently studying as an Electrical Engineer.

I have always had a fascination with electricity and engineering alike, but in high school, my thirst for knowledge was never quenched in those fields. In fact my favorite DC superhero is Static Shock, while my favorite Marvel superhero is Iron Man (Electricity, Engineer, see what I did there?)

I think my favorite hobby would have to be playing video games. I don’t really have a preference to the genre of video games, but my favorite video game company would have to be Nintendo. They have been with me since I was four years old (even though my first console was a Sega Genesis when i was 2) The company in my opinion has shaped the world of gaming the most in its few decades in business.

Before college I was a television junkie. Nowadays, due to my busy college schedule, I can’t find a lot of time to watch a lot of tv. I think television is the main reason my eyesight is so horrible. When I watched television, like a lot of my nineties brothers and sisters, toonami was the best cartoon block to me. It was what got me into anime and a lot of the Japanese animation scene. My favorite anime was Rurouni Kenshin (which is what my avatar will be very soon). I liked it because it had action and remained very comedic throughout.

Being from Baltimore, Maryland, I am a very big Baltimore Ravens fan. I may not like a lot of football, or know the rules, but when it comes too the pigskin, I am a big Baltimore fan. I am not to big of a Orioles fan, but I can be a fan of the Baltimore Blast. Pretty much the two football sports interest me.

I find it hard to introduce myself through a blog post. Sometimes I find it easier to get to know me through physical interaction.