Just Another Day

A series of parody Free Space mods written by Axem. These are widely considered to be among the funniest things to exist in Freespace, and achieve this effect by vaporizing the fourth wall and not taking themselves even the slightest bit seriously. Every aspect of the game is played with and used for a joke at some point or another.

The stories follow the adventures of Alpha 1, the Player Character and best fighter pilot in the GTVA, as he does battle with all sorts of bizarre things in a plot that makes no sense at all. The campaigns are as follows:

  • Just Another Day: Alpha 1 goes through a Knossos to discover a world in which anything is possible, and the inhabitants are involved in a deadly war, lead by a mysterious god-like being named FRED.
  • Just Another Day 3: Shivans on a Plane: Alpha 1 is back, and his life is made even more nonsensically hellish as the universe tries to get him court-martialled for no particular reason. And there are some Shivans. On a plane.
These mods provide examples of:

"And now we come to the sixth mission of 'Just Another Day' (which is one more than Deus Ex Machina)."

  • Deus Ex Machina: Frequent, and Lampshaded.
  • Episodic Game: In a prank by Axem, on JAD 3's release date, he only released the first mission of the campaign, claiming that the rest would follow in the coming months. After everyone had a good panic and Axem had a laugh, he released the full campaign the next day.
  • Face Heel Turn: Alpha 1 briefly joins FRED in order to take down (Not) Derek Smart, then immediately pulls a Heel Face Turn back.
  • The Faceless: FRED doesn't have a face, so he steals Admiral Bosch's whenever he wants to communicate.
  • Fan Girl: Holley is one for Alpha 1. Delta 1 also comes with his own squad of fangirls.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The forces of EEEEVILLLL[1].
  • Genki Girl: Holley in JAD 2.2.
  • Grammar Nazi: The Grammar Inquisition (whom nobody expects) act like this, but they are not Nazis. Those would be the Nazis of Irony.
  • Groin Attack: Both mecha bosses in JAD 3 have their weak points in that particular area, and taking that out destroys the entire mecha. In JAD 2.2, one level has the objective of destroying Shivan ships' beam turrets, which causes them to recoil. The Beta Tester explains that the beam turrets are the ships' "sensitive parts"
  • Groundhog Day Loop: In JAD 2. And you will actually keep looping the same missions until you figure out how to break it.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Despite proudly declaring that each campaign contains copyright infringement, the references are always just different enough to avoid trouble. Ironically, the only thing for which this is totally averted is Jack Thompson (who, naturally, is a villain).
    • Terran Frakking Command, played by the face of Samuel L. Jackson.
  • Moral Guardians: "We are the PCP: Politically Correct Police."
  • No Fourth Wall: Lampshaded as early as the third mission.
  • Noodle Incident: Project ETAL was apparently blown up "in hilarious circumstances involving Kool-Aid and a beaver."
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: "Due to legal concerns, Derek Smart will not be appearing in this mission."
  • Once an Episode: Disco music
  • Only Sane Man: Alpha 1
  • Plot Armor: An actual law of the universe: Alpha 1 is the Player Character, therefore he cannot die[2]. Everyone is aware of this!
  • Puzzle Boss: The final mission of JAD 3 is actually kind of challenging, and requires you to figure out each enemy's weakness before moving on.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The N00b Squad from JAD 2, who make a reappearance in JAD 2.21.
  • Reality Warper: FRED
    • Alpha 1 doesn't warp reality so much that reality warps around him so that he always has a way out of whatever weirdness he finds himself in.
    • Alpha 1 gets a taste of reality warping when he discovers how to use cheat codes in JAD 2. This culminates in what is essentially a reality warping war between him and FRED in which they both try to out-hax the other.
  • The Rival: Delta 1 starts out like this to Holley in JAD 2.2.
  • Time Limit Boss: The final boss of JAD 2.2 It takes quite a bit to take out the three cores, plus there is a scripted sequence. All in all, it is very tough to end the level with the countdown at anything higher than 00:00:00.01
  • Sequential Boss: FRED in all his incarnations. Alpha 1 gets annoyed by it.
  • Shout-Out: All over the place, to dozens of different things, including other |Freespace mods. JAD 2.2 is particularly notable for including so many shout outs to Neon Genesis Evangelion that it's hard to tell whether Freespace or NGE is the series really being parodied.
  • Staying Alive: "Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, staying allllliiiiivvveee--" *Record Needle Scratch* Oops, sorry. I meant to say: FRED, who returns from such inexplicable "deaths" as being swallowed up by a Plot Hole. (Granted, it is kind of hard to kill someone who more or less controls the universe.)

Alpha 1: "Oh, hi FRED. I was wondering when you'd show up."

  • Summon Bigger Fish: Alpha 1 summons the game developers at one point to help him against FRED.
  • Tempting Fate: "Now all we need is a supernova..."
  • Too Dumb to Live: Just about everyone. Terran Command in particular.
  • Updated Rerelease: JAD: Special Edition and Collector's Edition, the latter of which contains the former.
  • Viewers Are Geniuses: To fully appreciate the joke of The Reveal, you must have knowledge of what the mission builder does with non-ASCII characters if they are input[3].
  • Zombie Apocalypse: How exactly the zombies can fly fighters and capital ships is never really explained...
  1. ↑ (Enormous Erudite Evil Empire Vindicated In Laws Lacking Luddite Laymen)
  2. ↑ well, in canon, anyway. It's still possible to die and lose a mission
  3. ↑ The character is simply made invisible, which allows a designer to appear to give two ships the same name without actually giving them the same name, which FRED does not allow
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