Ciem: Condemnation

Ciem: Condemnation is a canceled sequel to Ciem: Nuclear Crisis. It was intended to be similar, though not identical, to Ciem 3. It was also to be the final part of the Ciem Trilogy volume of the Comprehensive Gerosha Collection. Chronologically, it takes place a few years before Abolition.

Plot
Following Gary and Darryl's deaths, the McArthur family is now free to keep Charlie without constant harassment from the courts. Some time has gone by since the previous story's events, and Candi his now happily the mother of the toddler Frank McArthur. Donte's cancer appears to be gone, but so are his powers. Candi takes a job working as a bartender, and the city begins to see less and less of Ciem as the Hebbleskin Gang appears to have left for good. News arrives that Duke Arfaas has died, and there is much rejoicing in town.

After an uneventful day at work, Candi come home and helps put the kids to bed. She discusses with Donte the possibility of starting Charlie in school the following year, and Donte agrees. He brings up how relieved he is to have Arfaas gone. Candi reminds him that Lloyd Kolumn is still at large, and to not celebrate too much. They know it won't be long before Evansville has a new threat. The two retreat into their room, presumably to have sex.

Meanwhile, Kolumn appears to be operating a Hebbleskin-controlled prison facility near the coast somewhere in California. Two minions bring him the illusionist Phexo Delusia and a red-headed teenage girl named Kari. Kari is almost immediately placed on a chopping block, with the executioner threatening her with the ax. Delusia struggles in vain to help her friend out, while Kolumn demands to know what Delusia's second power is. However, Delusia proves uncooperative as she tries to break the shackles that limit her abilities. Kolumn, in a rage, orders Kari's death. The Meethlite executioner wastes no time at all, and Delusia watches the innocent girl's beheading. Kolumn warns Delusia that he will drown her, along with all the other prisoners, once his grand scheme has been put into place. He warns her that if she continues to be insolent, then it will be Delusia herself on the block. She is sent back to her cell. Kolumn receives a video from one of the patrols, warning him that he won't like what he finds.

In the video, Kimiyato addresses her concerns about how Arfaas promised her that she would be the one to hunt down Ciem and the Mukade. She complains that she'd trained her whole life to be an assassin. And while she was often clumsy at most tasks, she was good with a sword; and deserved to be viewed as more than "that annoying Japanese bitch with millipede powers." She finishes off by saying she has stolen the Milliblob potion, and will use it to destroy Evansville with if she fails to kill Ciem. She concedes that she'll let Kolumn handle Mukade.

Candi heads to downtown Evansville after work one day to meet with Jeral, who has returned from his exile in Florida. Jeral reveals that he has married a woman named Emily, who is working with him on a cure for his plant-man condition. They are assaulted by Lobe, even as the city begins holding a celebration of the mayor's birthday. The battle that ensues between Ciem and Lobe results in Lobe falling off a rail track and breaking his neck. Not wishing to soil her reputation, Botan pretends to battle her. He fears that she'd be accused of murder, so he makes a tree devour Lobe. In this way, Botan attempts to take the fall in the event that a crime is perceived.

No sooner does Botan vanish after staging the murder of Lobe than Milp perceives a chance to do battle with Ciem. However, Milp is easily defeated. She retreats, using the mass spectacle of public curiosity to keep Ciem busy. From there, she raids the McArthur house. She beats up Charlie after killing the babysitter, taking note of the fact that Donte and Frank have already left to visit Darius and Lex Philippine. Candi returns home to find Charlie beaten up, and immediately knows who's responsible. However, the hospital staff has on its board a spy working for Kolumn. The spy works to create doubt amongst the other nurses that Candi's tale is reliable, making Candi out to be a child abuser. When Charlie wakes up briefly and defends his mother, the spy calls in reinforcements. Charlie and Candi are both gassed, and Candi is abducted. Kolumn orders that she be cuffed with one of his bracelets, thereby rendering her centipede powers null.

Candi awakes inside a cell with other Phexos, with Kolumn hurling accusations against her. She decides to be patient with all of them. However, her attempts at escape prove futile. Kolumn begins drugging her periodically, making her complacent so that she won't be able to fight her way free. He begins taunting her on a daily basis, placing her on the block with the promise that one day, the axe will come down for real. She learns from the other prisoners that her execution day will be the same day that Kolumn plans to flood the facility and drown all the others. She begins to be haunted by past memories of past misdeeds, wondering if her fate isn't entirely deserved.

Meanwhile, Kolumn and Milp begin spreading havoc all over Evansville to divert attention away from the holocaust happening in California. Darius reveals that he's tired of fighting, refusing to take on the threat in his own backyard. He prepares to retreat from his underground base in Evansville, making way for his other base in Kentucky. Dolly grows frustrated with Darius' inaction and cowardice. She steals a Denny pill from Candi's stash, then attempts to steal the experimental "Earwig" prototype suit. She is initially captured by Darius. However, he failed to observe her taking the Denny pill. He has her beheaded for "treason," then thrown into the Earwig suit's storage room out of spite. He is about to take the suit and Dolly, but receives word that Milp has deduced where the base is located. Donte and Frank discover Darius' corruption, as well as the fact that Donte's own mother Betty has become a spy for Kolumn. They flee the base with Lex, searching for another place to stay until Lex can stage a coup to gain control of his own father's base. Dolly reattaches her head using the Denny pill's abilities, then continues on with her plan after she is certain everyone has left. She fails to heed the warning that the AI backvisor built into the Earwig suit's helmet is still running a Hebbleskin-programmed aggression module.

Dolly's plans to find a way to California and save Candi's life are slightly derailed when she discovers that her suit is unable to fly. The chaos and gang fights breaking out in the streets, however, end up providing her with temptation to begin doing Ciem's job for her. However, she finds out that she is unable to keep the helmet's bloodthirst at bay. She proves herself to be a much more brutal vigilante than Ciem ever was. Botan's misguided efforts to help her out result in the helmet seizing temporary control of her mind, causing her to want to fight Botan to the death. Much to his shock, her sheer determination makes her a match for his every power-based move. He is forced to retreat to a dark, dry place. Cut off from his resources, he slowly loses the ability to regenerate. The Earwig AI is ready to cut him to pieces, finally killing him. However, Dolly regains control just long enough to pry the helmet off. She looks at the shrunken Botan ashamed, then flees. Botan collapses, weakened from the battle. Milp seizes the opportunity to place an AI backvisor on Botan, turning him into an obedient slave.

Dolly makes her way to California, determined to use the suit only once more if necessary. She begins to have flashbacks to all the murders her suit has committed, disgusted to think that she may have to surrender her services to it again. Meanwhile, Lex stages his successful coup and takes control of the Evansville base. He has Donte and Jeral guard it, while he goes to the hospital to save Charlie. Lex arrives in the nick of time, as Milp tries to kill Charlie. Lex uses his military training to trick Milp into falling out of a window. She is able to climb walls, and saves herself from a deadly fall. However, she vows to become the Milliblob and eradicate all of Ciem's friends. She is tired of being the laughingstock of the Hebbleskin Gang, respected only by Arfaas himself.

Her taking of the potion turns out to be a success. She turns into a ginormous millipede, forcing a section of downtown Evansville to be her nest. She orders Botan to create a giant wall of various plants, thereby shielding her. He also becomes her full-time bodyguard, keeping police and National Guard from doing anything to her. Word gets back to Darius that Lex has taken over the base, and that Dolly somehow survived and escaped with the Earwig suit prototype. He immediately realizes he will be at risk of losing everything if he doesn't do something to look heroic. He flies over Botan's "Forest Funnel Town," and climbs in using his mecha. The Milliblob begins generating slime projections of her former self as Milp, which attack the mecha from all directions. Darius fights them off, managing to lure the Milliblob to the surface. He wounds her, but not before he and his mecha are destroyed.

Dolly arrives near the facility right as Flooding Day has been declared. She puts the helmet on, and immediately begins fighting security guards as she makes her way to where the Phexos are kept. Her body count begins to number in the dozens. Meanwhile, Candi says goodbye to her new friends Charlotte and Kyle. She is hauled off to the execution room. Right as Dolly makes her way to right over some of the prisoners' cells, she overhears what sounds like Candi dying. The thought of failure causes Dolly to fly into an unstoppable rage, as the backvisor takes complete control. Candi is beheaded by one of Kolumn's guards. However, she begins to wonder why she isn't dead. She didn't have any Denny pills on her. Delusia creates an illusion that her head landed someplace other than where it did, causing Kolumn and company to celebrate madly while holding up the illusion. Delusia grabs Candi's body and real head, and then exits the room. She locks it, then reattaches Candi's head to her body. She also uses her powers to detach the bracelet from Candi's arm, cutting off the supply of drugs. She uses another illusion to trick a guard into shooting another guard. A gunfight soon breaks out, and the flooding mechanism is accidentally tricked. Delusia herself gets shot by a stray bullet, and dies. She grew too weak from draining her power to keep Candi from dying. Candi starts to regain her senses. She steals some clothes from the guards. Kolumn and his men suddenly see that Delusia tricked them, and panic knowing that they will die inside the facility along with the Phexos they'd captured. Candi uses her slowly-recovering powers to steal some keys. She begins breaking Phexos out of their cells as the facility's water level begins rising. Increased security arrives on the roof in order to deal with the Phexos that escape onto it. Candi, Charlotte, and Kyle let the other Phexos fight off the Hebbleskins' security guards while they fight for Dolly's mind. Candi manages to get Dolly's helmet off in the nick of time, smashing it and tossing it into the ocean. Dolly explains the situation back in Evansville, and the heroes agree to head back.

They arrive within a day, and discover that Botan and Milliblob have all but completely destroyed Evansville. Candi heads inside the Forest Funnel Town with her friends to attack the Milliblob. However, Dolly discovers that Milliblob blood reverses the effects of Plantmanism. She deduces that the key to curing Jeral of his condition is inside of Milp's blood. As the others are quickly overpowered by the Milliblob's projections, and she begins suffocating them, Dolly takes a lucky shot with a pistol and blows up the backvisor on Jeral's head. Jeral comes to his senses and switches sides. Dolly informs him of the possible cure, and also informs him that he is the only hero left in the area that can actually defeat the Milliblob. Jeral decides to go along with the plan, turning the Forest Funnel Town walls against the Milliblob and planting roots inside her body. She is forced to let Ciem, Mukade, and Meerkat go free as she is ripped apart by Botan's weeds. Jeral then collapses on the ground, slowly reverting to what he looked like before becoming Botan. The heroes collect their thoughts and plan what to do with their futures. They realize that theirs is a hollow victory: They stopped Milp and sent the Hebbleskin Gang to its doom. Former library position holder Dolly Malestrom is revealed to be the Gifted "liPo" of prophecy that decimated the Hebbleskins, not any of the Flippos. However; Evansville is completely destroyed. It could take years to rebuild the town.

Kyle and Charlotte end up alternating between living in New Orleans together and living in Tokyo together. Candi and Donte move their family to Kentucky, where Candi takes a job as a CSI. Jeral and Emily pick up the shards of their broken lives, seeking a new direction for them now that the scourge of Botan is gone. Jeraime and Dolly return to their lives, but move to Gerosha until Evansville can be rebuilt.

Epilogue
Jeraime and Dolly end up having two children: Fran and Gunther Malestrom. Lex Philippine ends up taking over all of Darius' old operations, and implements numerous reforms. He moves his base to the Gerosha Cemetery. Candi and Donte have two more children together: John and Dana McArthur. Charlie grows up to be a successful businessman. Frank strikes out initially as Emeraldon II. However, Frank eventually dies in battle. Miriam and Marina are captured and beheaded by die-hard Arfaas sympathizers, even though decades pass since Arfaas' death. And one month after turning 53, Candi herself was finally captured and beheaded. Those same Hebbleskin remnants were about to execute Dana, but were interrupted by the Gray Champion. Donte's health problems return, and he dies a short while later. Charlie ends up in custody of John, while Dana moves in with her cousin Lex. Matt is killed with a shotgun blast, leaving Dana's cousin Andy Baret also an orphan living with Lex.

Dana gains a boyfriend named Devin Spanz, who joins the team to save Gerosha from Botan's old enemies: the Phaletori. Andy begins operating as a biker vigilante dubbed "the Pitohui." Dana takes over Candi's old role as Ciem - albeit, with a much-updated costume. Miriam's children become part of a band in Gerosha, one that sings protest songs to promote overthrowing the Phaletori as a ruling regime. The stage becomes set for Ciem Tomorrow. Meanwhile, Candi an Donte are shown arriving in Heaven. They find it to be a massive place, with a lot of rolling hills. The Pearly Gates appear to be in the distance. Denny and Angie arrive to welcome Candi and Donte in and show them around. Stan and Shalia show up also; followed by Miriam, Marina, and their spouses. Candi is delighted to know that finally, her family can be together again, free of fear of the Hebbleskin Gang harassing them any further. Candi's body is shown as being buried in the Gerosha Cemetery, right next to her other deceased family - as well as the tombs of Gerosha's early heroes.

Concept
While very few items from Condemnation were to be transferred over to Sodality, the story in its original incarnation was a mishmash of a variety of other works. Much of the plot structure was transplanted wholesale from the canceled 2009 version of Ciem 3. A bold experiment was tried with this one: changing around the characterization of Darius Philippine. Since he was such a major character, it seemed like a waste to have him be a boring hero who simply gave up. Instead, he's portrayed as weak and corruptible this time. That experiment in recharacterization does not transfer over to further continuities, as it was felt the portrayal in this version went too far.

Kolumn's cruelty was brought up several notches from even what it was in Ciem 3, in an effort to make him seem more of a threat. This had to do with the fact that every new interpretation of Milp seemed to make her less and less competent. Both this story and Ciem 3 before it were inspired partially by the ending of Spider-Man 3, at least in regards to the Forest Funnel Town battle. It was partially for this reason that the story was abandoned: being too similar to its inspiration. However, the nail in its coffin came with the 2012 elections. Obama's unexpected victory rendered the first two parts of Comprehensive Gerosha even less plausible, even by the universe's own rules. Therefore, the entire narrative was scrapped for further writing and production.

Visuals
The book cover for Condemnation was never completed as original envisioned, due to cancellation of the series. However, the base for it involved a highly-modified photo of the same building that was used for Nuclear Crisis. This time, the building's facade rather than its side was used for an angle. Toppling of the street lamps, as well as the addition of other debris, required Photoshop CS6. A trial version of that software was employed specifically for purposes of creating the effect, which was not as easily done in either Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS2. The "content-aware" features in CS6 proved significant. Had it been completed, a costume-damaged Ciem would have been surrounded by plant matter and Milliblob ooze. She would have had costume-damaged Meerkat and Mukade models standing next to her, the three of them searching for a way to win their battle.

There were suspicions that the clothing models would have been even more complex to produce than the ones for the Nuclear Crisis book cover. On January 13th of 2013 around 7:59 PM EST, a quick-rush substitute was provided specifically for the wiki's purposes. This recycled the model pose from Nuclear Crisis, and included an interweaving of vines to represent Botan's influence. The Milp, Meerkat, Mukade, and Earwig models were scrapped.

Elements recycled for Sodality
The show Sodality implements from Condemnation the least. While Milp does get to be in it, she is only a fraction of who she was otherwise. She is reduced to the role of a minor recurring villain. She ends up making an impression by killing Darius Philippine, and becomes the reason for Dolly to become the Earwig. Botan is never turned into Milp's minion in the new series. Instead, he is a part-time hero aiding the girls. There is little overlap between his story arc and Milp's.

A lot of elements from Condemnation did not transfer over. Charlie effectively doesn't exist after Condemnation, and neither do a lot of the other minor characters. Frank's birth is moved forward in the narrative. John and Dana's future conception is left open-ended, as is Candi's fate. Lloyd Kolumn is so completely reinterpreted as to effectively not exist. Jeraime's blindness is eventually healed. Also due to the new narrative's playing around with character interpretation, Dolly is slightly younger and shorter in Sodality. Her marriage to Jeraime is a source of some controversy in the story's world as a result.

Meerkat and Mukade are also given more of an arc in the fourth season. This is so that they serve more plot relevance than just to show up as additional help for Candi later on. As a consequence, they don't get to battle Milp. Rather, thwarting Judge Terry Beliah's agenda becomes their moment to shine.