Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

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Destructionator
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Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Destructionator »

I've been toying with the idea of reviving some ideas from my main 'verse from back before it hardened up, from before I cared as much about keeping the full continuity and characterization. Basically, taking some of the stuff and combining it with softer tech and a more fantastic setting to make a setting for weekly adventures, in the spirit of Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek: TOS.

Since I've been busy more often lately, I don't really have the time to do it all by myself, but I think that will be fine; the restrictions are loose enough to allow a whole crapload of stuff into it. It can live off third party contributions. (Not unlike a weekly TV show!)

So, what I'm proposing is a pretty open 'verse, taking contributions from anyone who wants to offer them, with only a few restrictions:

1) Continuity is not necessary; reset buttons are fine in weekly adventures. However, you should try to maintain it when you easily can. Characterizations, especially, should be maintained, along with the basic framework. You may choose to pick up continuity with anyone else's work though, of course.

2) Let's not go wild inventing new techs of the week. Aliens of the week are ok. Planets of the week are awesome. But techs of the week aren't so cool. New tech should be invented if it fulfills any one of the following goals:

a) It can be logically extrapolated from existing tech (or magic) in the universe (real or fictional). Go nuts with this - it is half the fun of taking contributions!

b) It lets you tell a really cool story and you can get rid of it at the end of the week. MacGuffins can fall under this. Once you introduce something though, it is fair game for other authors to expand on it in accordance with clause (a), so try to be a little careful.

3) Try not to rape physics and biology and sociology and whatnot. You don't need to try too hard; again, Stargate and TOS are inspirations here and we all know how silly they can be, but don't say something patently stupid.

4) Please do invent strange new worlds, new lifeforms, and new civilizations! That's where the real fun will be. Also feel free to invent not-so-strange new worlds and lifeforms if you need it for your story. (Again, think TOS if you want.)

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For the technology set that I'll throw out as the base, we have most everything in the ASE-verse (which is real life stuff + near future extrapolations + magic point to point FTL jump drive and energy shields) plus the following:

Star Trek style warp drive: an easier alternative to ASE jump drives to getting your characters into the action. Flexible but a little slow.

Point to point transwarp conduits: lets ships pass through at very high speed from one end to a corresponding end. Must be set up ahead of time. Lets your ships and characters get between established places extremely quickly.

Stargates: gives an excuse to have your characters walk around on strange alien worlds without the comfort of a starship overhead. Only little stargates are possible; no supergates. I'm not quite convinced I want them yet, but am not opposed to it.

ST:TNG style shields: just because they are cool. "Shields up!" is one of the best lines to yell. Gives your ships more survivability in battle too.

Star Trek phasers: the stun setting is just too useful to leave out of an action-adventure series. Gives some variety to starship guns too.

TNG tricorders: because they look cool. Capabilities are limited though; it is just to quickly track things down to save setup time for the real plot.

The jump point communication from the ASE-verse is moved over too. You can have FTL comms, but rather heavily restricted. This is cool as it can leave your ship and characters stranded on their own more easily. Stargates work like they do in the show; if the gate is open, radio waves pass through it, elsewise, the characters are on their own.

Transporters: because landing the ship and taking off over and over again is a pain in the ass. I think I want to limit them to pad-pad transports only. Advantage there is you can still get your characters into the action rather quickly (have the landing shuttle carry a transporter pad, then you beam up and down from there), but you can't so easily get out of it; you don't have to break the transporter every week to increase the danger on your landing party.

Portals: naturally occurring (probably) phoenomena that let you do various exotic stuff. Could be time portals (I might have just played Chrono Trigger again last week....), could be portals to bizarre places (like in Stuart Slade et. al.'s Armageddon????), or anything like that. Again, plot device to let you explore more cool places more than anything else.

The warp drive might use magic fuel. Running out of warp fuel when isolated could be fun.

A magic space engine might be added too, but I think the warp drive (bending the laws of physics just a wee bit more...) makes this unnecessary.


And fantasy magic can be allowed too.


You can see almost all the special tech has one thing in common: they make getting into weird situations easier. Everything else should be able to be done with extrapolating real life stuff, pure magic, or making up cool settings and civs.



------

Stuff we'd write: tech pages going into details or building on the above, characters, ships, civilizations, and hopefully, a lot of short stories.

Well, that's the pitch and the basic setup. Anyone interested?
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I like the idea of a collaborative Star Trek type universe, with the emphasis on exploration and adventure and what-not, but I'm confused about how you can include three forms of superluminal travel AND 'fantasy magic'. First, unless the stargates work in pretty much the exact same way as they do in the tv show (built by a previous civilisation, covering a range of undiscovered inhabitable planets) would they not be a little redundant for exploration when one already has point-point instantaneous space-travel? In a situation like that stargates would only be useful for transportation between established worlds.
And fantasy type magic, how do you envision this fitting in with the rest of the setting? Come to that, what do you mean by fantasy type? Magic dressed up in a sci fi costume (psionics, 'quantum energy patterns' and so forth) or just out and out magic with wizards and witches and priests of awful gods whose names must not be spoken strolling around the Federation? Or one of the other infinite number of possible angles that I haven't thought of?
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Dakarne »

Fantasy magic is pretty much where this idea breaks down; Adam seems to have a 'call it as it is' policy... except that more or less breaks the flow of the world considerably unless he's doing Star Trek: Imperium of Man (and even they call it psionics!) or something like that.
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Ford Prefect »

Even as much as the call it psychic powers, it's still just magic. The Logical World dropped the 'psychic powers' stuff and just started calling it quantum magic, and it worked out well enough. I don't see it as much of a gamebreaker, so to speak. I thought it detracted from ASE, but this is nearly as 'strict' in comparison.
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Destructionator »

speaker-to-trolls wrote:I like the idea of a collaborative Star Trek type universe, with the emphasis on exploration and adventure and what-not, but I'm confused about how you can include three forms of superluminal travel AND 'fantasy magic'.
Fantasy magic can be a kind of catch all to allow bizarre settings and life forms that otherwise can't exist.

I mentioned Stuart of SDN's Armageddon???? which used magic to allow the antagonists to exist and to strengthen up their abilities (throwing ball lightning, the mind control powers the demons had, and so on). The humans of the story fought or reproduced it with technology (tin foil hats!) and explained it away with "science" (quantum technobabble bullshit - IMO that would have been better left more vague), but that doesn't change what it is.

My thread here on LibArc discusses the Lavos creature from the Chrono Trigger games and how it might fit into a harder science universe, but still includes some magical abilities to fill in the gaps (namely, how a natural creature can evolve successful interstellar space travel).

Star Trek had whole shitloads of magical beings (Gary Mitchell, Charlie X, the children who shall lead, Trelane, the thing from Day of the Dove, the Q, the Organians, the Traveller, that bullshit that turned Picard into a ghost, the "evolved" light people in TNG, the Prophets... and I'm sure I'm forgetting many, and I purposefully left off some more examples from TOS that could be explained by holodecks (Spectre of the Gun, The Cage, The Savage Curtain)) and Stargate had the ascended ancients, the Nox, the crystal skull giant aliens, and I'm sure many more, but it has been years since I've watched the show.

Many of those stories were pretty cool. It'd be a pity to have an episodic series of a universe without the potential to tell stuff like that.
First, unless the stargates work in pretty much the exact same way as they do in the tv show (built by a previous civilisation, covering a range of undiscovered inhabitable planets) would they not be a little redundant for exploration when one already has point-point instantaneous space-travel? In a situation like that stargates would only be useful for transportation between established worlds.
Indeed, this is why I'm not sure if I actually want them. The Stargate is a brilliant plot device to check out more stuff, but the warp drive and transporter does the same job.
And fantasy type magic, how do you envision this fitting in with the rest of the setting?
It would make more weird things to check out. Magic might be naturally abundant on some new planet, changing how natural life evolved, letting you see all kinds of otherwise impossible creatures. (Maybe even all natural bio-ships and such; Encounter at Farpoint has yet another Star Trek example.)
Come to that, what do you mean by fantasy type?
I tend to view the difference between science fiction and fantasy as thus:

In sci fi, you start with some assumptions and tell the story from there. 'If tech X exists, what happens? What does the world look like?' Stuff like that.

In fantasy, you dream up the setting and story first, and make up stuff as you go to allow it. 'I want to visit dragons living in flying castles. What changes to the world are required to allow this?' These changes are often what I classify as fantasy magic.

(And 'plain' magic is a term I use very often, applying it to just about anything that is impossible in the real world. FTL drives are magic, transporters are magic, characters throwing fireballs from thin air is magic, etc. Explaining it as anything else would just be technobabble bullshit and would add nothing to a story. In universe, it wouldn't necessarily be called magic, but you just as well could, and probably make decent in-universe arguments defending that decision.)
Magic dressed up in a sci fi costume (psionics, 'quantum energy patterns' and so forth) or just out and out magic with wizards and witches and priests of awful gods whose names must not be spoken strolling around the Federation?
I see no relevant difference. You can call it whatever you want, but it is still the same thing: a way to do something that is otherwise impossible.

If you want to call it "energy beings" or "psychic powers" or "the force" or whatever, go ahead, but it is still all magic, so I'll refer to it as such in the out of universe posts. Where it differers from technology though is the foundations for the tech in the setting should be rather constant; you don't suddenly add whole new gadgets to your story, but an alien that shouldn't exist or has some kind of seemingly arbitrary new power is ok if it lets you tell a cool new story (just don't over-do it).
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Destructionator »

Ford Prefect wrote:I don't see it as much of a gamebreaker, so to speak. I thought it detracted from ASE, but this is nearly as 'strict' in comparison.
A couple differences from there are relevant:

1) ASE 'verse's magic is there just for fun and is purposefully segregated from the bulk of the plot. Separate but equal doesn't really work. For this 'verse, it would be another bit of slack in the rules for telling another story, conceptually equal to the warp drive: possibly necessary to kick off potential plots.

2) ASE's magic system is actually extremely well defined and rather limited in scope - it is a sci-fi magic system (a hard sci-fi one at that) rather than a fantasy system (using the definitions I gave in my above post). Again though, being segregated from everything else means it doesn't get the attention it really needs to feel like it belongs or is worthwhile. Again, here, it is the opposite: it would be loosely defined, to give authors some slack.

3) The ASE setting doesn't give much room to integrate it in and give it that attention anyway. While non-canon ase adventures have included some bits where it is useful (meeting weird aliens, starships clashing over heaven, space marines going to hell (oldie, but a goodie!), etc.), the canon setting is far to strict to really explore it in detail. A weekly action-adventure setting, by contrast, has plenty of room to play around.

If a canon ase-verse crew came across Satan (or Dark Jedi), it would be absurd; it just doesn't fit in there. If the Doctor or Captain Kirk comes across them, it is awesome, kicks serious ass and is remembered as another one of their fun exploits.


This setting is much closer to the space opera side of the spectrum than the ASE has been for many years. Magic is nothing to fear in such a universe.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Mobius 1 »

(Snark: ASE had a plot? Where? It sure as hell isn't on the OZ)

Yeah, I'd be interested in this. Perhaps take an established group of characters and pass them around to the different participants to see their take and original story.

EDIT: Actually, I really like the idea of passing around the same characters. You don't have to do conspiracy arc-based metaplot in between the various peoples (it's just won't happen), but you could have the participants coordinate to provide cohesive character development. You could have them reference the previous episodes, so that the story flows and people are required to read the previous stories. In short, I don't want total one-shots set in the same verse, but full-on arc-insanity wouldn't be needed. Some nice bit of continuity and character nurturing would be best.
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

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Mobius 1 wrote:(Snark: ASE had a plot? Where? It sure as hell isn't on the OZ)
It is, in great part, the rise and fall of a well meaning but arguably misguided empire and the tackling of numerous technical challenges along the way. I touched upon some of it on OZ, but haven't really been writing most of that up for quite some time now. (Hell, I've barely been writing anything that is really on topic for quite some time now.)

Maybe I'll do a plot summary next time I have some hours to burn. I'd surely have more success in doing that than writing a fic (which is still on my plate, but I'm a shitty writer with little time, so it is going very slowly) and you'd still see what I'm talking about here.
Yeah, I'd be interested in this. Perhaps take an established group of characters and pass them around to the different participants to see their take and original story.
[...]
Some nice bit of continuity and character nurturing would be best.
That certainly sounds good.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Mobius 1 »

Maybe I'll do a plot summary next time I have some hours to burn. I'd surely have more success in doing that than writing a fic (which is still on my plate, but I'm a shitty writer with little time, so it is going very slowly) and you'd still see what I'm talking about here.
That'd be awesome.
That certainly sounds good.
Indeed. Though what sort of team should we run? Some hybrid scientific/military venture that mixes a couple of hard-as-nails commandos provided for the security of the team with diplomats, anthropologists, xenobiologists, techs, and etc would work best, methinks.
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Question; if there were to be a central cast of characters, would the universe mostly be explored through their interactions with it? For example if I came up with a civilisation I wanted to insert into the universe would it be, not required, but expected that there be a story about the crew of the CSS Exposition meeting them, at least at some point in the future?
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

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Mobius 1 wrote:Indeed. Though what sort of team should we run? Some hybrid scientific/military venture that mixes a couple of hard-as-nails commandos provided for the security of the team with diplomats, anthropologists, xenobiologists, techs, and etc would work best, methinks.
Yes, something like that.

We'll want a primary cast, probably the captain and a couple others; hopefully, the leaders of the other teams. Then there is the scientific team, the ass kicking team, and the bridge bunnies and friends.

I don't think much else is really necessary. Too many characters mean less time to develop each one which means they remain relatively lame.

I propose people like the following as the primary trio: Captain Picard, Commander Spock, and Tek Jansen. Then each has their staff, where you can invent characters as needed (and after one is invented, you should reuse him/her when appropriate).
speaker-to-trolls wrote:Question; if there were to be a central cast of characters, would the universe mostly be explored through their interactions with it? For example if I came up with a civilisation I wanted to insert into the universe would it be, not required, but expected that there be a story about the crew of the CSS Exposition meeting them, at least at some point in the future?
Probably yes. I don't think you should feel limited by this though.
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Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I imagine from your statements here and elsewhre that the CSS Expositions (I'll keep calling it that until someone offers a serious name, sorry) main job would be scientific, with some military types on board just in case This Shit Gets Real. Still, how much political/military business do you imagine them carrying out?
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Re: Possible second 'verse for me: collaborative episodes

Post by Destructionator »

I dunno; as much as makes interesting writing.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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