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Story Workshop

STORY WORKSHOP

Now, it is time to plot our story ahead. Yes, I may have plenty of stuff for the main storyline, ideas for what the next Episode will be, but I bet all of you may have ideas for the storyline ahead as well, so I would like to start a little workshop where we pool our minds into paving the path forward.

I realise, however, that some might have more than one idea for an Episode, and unfortunately, I will be asking you all to only pitch one Episode plot each. I very much would like to avoid everyone throwing as much stuff on the wall as the can just so that something might stick. That won't be constructive at all. No, instead, I want you all to pitch one story premise or Episode each, and only one. That way, only the plotlines you really believe in will end up in the workshop, and we go from there.

Of course this is not mandatory, btw. I do not expect everyone to throw their hat into the ring. Not going to force you to either, lol. It will be a fun thing, this project.

I tried to set up criteria and such, but I felt it was too restrictive for you guys. So, in short, the floor is yours! :)

Best,

Auctor Lucan

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #1 –
Woot!

Okay, so I really liked to pitch the idea of the Nopefish! :P

Because we've had trouble with sentients and their ships and pretty much everyone wants to killz us! Now on top of it all, a fish the size of a dyson sphere maybe swallows us whole and we find whole ecosystems living inside the fish, and we even find an enemy ship (you pick) inside and we have to fight them off as well as find our way out of this gigantihugemunguonormous fish.

As I write this though I wonder if this is better as a Interregnum moment rather than a full blown episode. But I think it can be expanded on.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #2 –
what sort of restrictions are there on... sanity of the idea? like not 'on weed' or gibbering squirrel?

Zrinka is actually tame compared to some I have played on other sites.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #3 –
I'm already a gibbering squirrel...

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #5 –
I like the idea of the Theurgy stopping at a neutral port, perhaps during the next interregnum. During that time, any number of colorful NPCs from alien merchants to who knows what could be conjured up to interact with the crew.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Auctor Lucan on
Haha, well, we are writing a serious story, that we are. So... the Nopefish would in that case not be called a nopefish, for example. ;)

Best,

Auctor Lucan
Well I'm glad to know that because Nopefish is just my working name.

How about Tetraodontifornope Giganticus?  Scientific name, and called the Dun Ghotl' in Klingon legend as they were the only ones to meet this monstrosity before.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #7 –
To be fair, the USS Enterprise under command of Captain Kirk, did encounter a giant space born Amoeba that destroyed the USS Intrepid. There was also the cosmozens that were under Farpoint Station, the Crystalline entity, Gomtu (all encountered by the USS Enterprise-D and that giant space born whale thing that ate starships by luring in crew with their deepest desires (encountered by the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant).

So a giant spaceborn nopefish would not be all that out of place. :3

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #8 –
Next episode?  Some classic Trek stuff.  Doing good things for good people, a strictly local plotline that only peripherally connects to the overarching story.

Basically, Theurgy doing what a Federation starship should be doing when it comes across people having a really rough day.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #9 –
My latest idea:

We pick up and answer a distress call from a Federation patrol or science ship (something small, not able to defend itself very well) currently under attack from Orion pirates, or something similar.  After chasing the thugs off we render what aid we can, hoping to prove that we have no hostile actions towards the Federation, just the parasites.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #10 –
And then we discover that whole ship and its pet monkey has been infected....

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #11 –
So I've been tossing around an idea. The crew of the Theurgy encounter a previously unknown ancient species who primarily stick to their own world due to cultural taboo and what not. Warp capable, with exceptionally powerful weapons. They've been monitoring Starfleet communications, and know about the parasites. Upon seeing the Theurgy, they mistake the Theurgy as part of what is going on with the parasites. This would probably devolve into a cluster-furball, weapons fire, explosions, lets blow our entire CGI budget on this one. Would be up to the crew of the Theurgy to fight back, or try and convince this race that they mean no harm and are not infected. Could they become new allies? Or a potentially new, very powerful enemy.

Just tossing this out there.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #12 –
I still have a vengeful race of carnivorous cat people bent on a bit of galactic exploitation.  What if they actually got their hands on something truly terrifying... say, one of the TOS planet killers from Doomsday Machine?  Or if a telepathic kzin gets hold of a Gomtu or a Farpoint alien to turn it into the throneship of their assault fleet?  I  know we have the asurians breathing down our necks but I would love to see the kzinti finally step up their plans to make the Federation suffer for all those centuries of humiliation.  Perhaps they form an alliance with some rogue Klingon houses (a la House Duras).  I mean, let's kick the political status quo on its posterior.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #13 –
My idea is much more "Classic Star Trek" than anything revolving around the current parasite issue, so I am not sure how well it will work, but here goes.

Quote
With repairs still underway the Theurgy is forced to a slow impulse. Long range Scans detect a large unknown object approaching and the Theurgy is forced to prepare for combat while still trying to fix that which is broken. Tensions rise.

The large unknown object turns out to be a large pod of space faring life forms similar to Earth's whales. The beautiful sight offers the crew some respite from the high tension of so many previous encounters. The chance of scientific learning is too great to pass up so after some debate the ship travels with the pod to learn as much as possible.

However all is not well when a small fleet of ships approach and begin "fishing." The caught between a hunter and it's prey, the Theurgy will soon be forced to decide who may live and who must die.

Definitely some morale choices to be made, but not the high flying tension of the past few episodes, so it might make a better Interregnum than a full on episode.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #14 –
I have an idea as well, though I may paint too broad of a picture with my strokes.

As we sit, the Theurgy is on the run and we have exhausted our supply of potential allies (maybe? dunno if that's all played out yet or not.. but assuming so..).  Since we have no one to turn to, the Theurgy escapes to unfriendly space.  This would be an alien race/faction/planet (known or unknown to the Federation) that is neutral to our parasite problem but generally unfriendly toward Starfleet and the Federation.  The kicker here is that through negotiations with them (ahem that's a Diplomatic Mission!) we turn an unfriendly people into our ally.  This will likely also involve humanitarian issues, moral and ethical issues, etc as we will probably have to help their society in some meaningful way before they agree to aid us.

Perhaps this race/faction/planet has knowledge about things that we don't and with our knowledge combined we see a broader picture.  Perhaps they simply agree that as it stands with the parasite infestation, the Federation is corrupt and must be stopped.  Either way, when the actual battle comes (much later down the line, hopefully... cuz let's not take out our Admirals all at once), these new unlikely allies will be INCREDIBLY useful for reasons X, Y, Z.
"Relationships are not my strong suit; I deal in evenings."
 - Jaya Thorne, Asst. Chief CONN Officer, Ensign [Show/Hide]

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Triage on
Quote from: Auctor Lucan on
Haha, well, we are writing a serious story, that we are. So... the Nopefish would in that case not be called a nopefish, for example. ;)

Best,

Auctor Lucan
Well I'm glad to know that because Nopefish is just my working name.

How about Tetraodontifornope Giganticus?  Scientific name, and called the Dun Ghotl' in Klingon legend as they were the only ones to meet this monstrosity before.

Fred..

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #16 –
Quote from: Auctor Lucan on
Haha, well, we are writing a serious story, that we are. So... the Nopefish would in that case not be called a nopefish, for example. ;)

Best,

Auctor Lucan

Hmm.. that knocks out my ideas.

- ship thrown into a cartoon-physics universe
- Nopefish is close enough to Giant Space Hamster
- captain gets infected with something, somehow ship gets shrunk down to sub-atomic size and has to go fight infection inside captain's bloodstream

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Reply #17 –
ENT: E(2)  (E Squared)

In this episode of Enterprise, NX01 was thrust over a century in the past, before First Contact, and the crew was thus forced to be a generational ship to assist their future selves. Tucker's and T'Pol's son (three times the age of his father when they met) was the 'other' ship's captain and long story short, assisted Capt. Archer and crew in a space battle on a battered but still functional NX-class 100 years old and still kicking ass.

I had this idea of there being a fork in the timeline:

Tholians (officially or unofficially) are working on something they captured in the nebula, which astounds our heroes: It's a Theurgy-class, ours in fact, but it's clearly much older. This doesn't make any sense until we realize the Tholians are trying to use history as a weapon and research, using a Defeated Theurgy from a doomed timeline to cause further temporal sabotage or whatever it is those mother-buggers (The joke being they're a matriarchal society) are up to. We raid this Tholian base and rescue the ship and its crew, which, plot-twist... are Theurgy's crew's descendants.

The 'Other' Theurgy crew reconnects with some of their original 'parents', it seems to be interesting, romantic, almost even comic when some pairings produce interesting offspring (ahem-- kzinthi-caitians). But then temporal threats occur, one misfortunate 'other theurgy' redshirt's parent dies from his or her wounds during the Tholian battle, and aforementioned redshirt ceases to exist (ie Back to the Future, like what almost happened to Marty.) Thus opens up spots of melodrama and worry about messing with the laws of providence and all that, when suddenly, hostile forces are spotted in the area. Other Theurgy, long story short, sacrifices itself to make it look like Theurgy is officially destroyed, while Theurgy somehow, after a bittersweet section of development and instrospection, gets itself ready for the next big fight.

I don't know enough about Tholians, aside from their fine Silk and tendency to steal temporally/dimensionally-mislocated ships.

Who knows, maybe the 'other' theurgy survived, or at least some of her future crew did.
Lt. Commander Leon "Striker" Marquez
Chief Tactical Officer, USS Theurgy
"No one left behind."

Ensign James "Jimmy" Mariner
Security Officer, USS Theurgy
"Showtime!"

Lieutenant (J.G.) Alessia "Angel" Garcia
Valravn Fighter Pilot, USS Theurgy
"You're not the only one with a gun,"
 

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #18 –
Quote from: Striker N7 on
ENT: E(2)  (E Squared)

In this episode of Enterprise, NX01 was thrust over a century in the past, before First Contact, and the crew was thus forced to be a generational ship to assist their future selves. Tucker's and T'Pol's son (three times the age of his father when they met) was the 'other' ship's captain and long story short, assisted Capt. Archer and crew in a space battle on a battered but still functional NX-class 100 years old and still kicking ass.

I had this idea of there being a fork in the timeline:

Tholians (officially or unofficially) are working on something they captured in the nebula, which astounds our heroes: It's a Theurgy-class, ours in fact, but it's clearly much older. This doesn't make any sense until we realize the Tholians are trying to use history as a weapon and research, using a Defeated Theurgy from a doomed timeline to cause further temporal sabotage or whatever it is those mother-buggers (The joke being they're a matriarchal society) are up to. We raid this Tholian base and rescue the ship and its crew, which, plot-twist... are Theurgy's crew's descendants.

The 'Other' Theurgy crew reconnects with some of their original 'parents', it seems to be interesting, romantic, almost even comic when some pairings produce interesting offspring (ahem-- kzinthi-caitians). But then temporal threats occur, one misfortunate 'other theurgy' redshirt's parent dies from his or her wounds during the Tholian battle, and aforementioned redshirt ceases to exist (ie Back to the Future, like what almost happened to Marty.) Thus opens up spots of melodrama and worry about messing with the laws of providence and all that, when suddenly, hostile forces are spotted in the area. Other Theurgy, long story short, sacrifices itself to make it look like Theurgy is officially destroyed, while Theurgy somehow, after a bittersweet section of development and instrospection, gets itself ready for the next big fight.

I don't know enough about Tholians, aside from their fine Silk and tendency to steal temporally/dimensionally-mislocated ships.

Who knows, maybe the 'other' theurgy survived, or at least some of her future crew did.

If we do this my character jack can live up to 250 years old. I'd love to play old man jack as I have been working towards that idea after I blinded him.

I'd even be willing to have the original young jack die on the older ruined theurgy and the older version live on the younger version of the ship. Because why not add a grandfather paradox onto everything else.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #19 –
Quote from: Kaligos on
If we do this my character jack can live up to 250 years old. I'd love to play old man jack as I have been working towards that idea after I blinded him.

I'd even be willing to have the original young jack die on the older ruined theurgy and the older version live on the younger version of the ship. Because why not add a grandfather paradox onto everything else.

I swear if time gets messed up any more than it has I'm going to need aspirin just to be able to think about the temporal mechanics of our shenanigans.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #20 –
Um....from what I could find on Memory Alpha, Klingon life spans capped out around 150-175 years....certainly not 250 :(

I still like the idea of old man jack tho :D

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #21 –
Quote from: Brutus on
Um....from what I could find on Memory Alpha, Klingon life spans capped out around 150-175 years....certainly not 250 :(

I still like the idea of old man jack tho :D


from Life spans memory alpha:

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Life_span


"No exact lifespan has been given for Klingons, just approximates. In 2370, Odo observed that Kor "must be a hundred years old" and his "best friend," Koloth, was "probably a hundred and fifty years old." This observation was made over one hundred years after their encounter with James Kirk, when they were already accomplished adults."

I honestly don't know where I got 250 from either, but at the same time the klingons we saw in that episode were still powerful warriors and their advanced age did not seem to slow them. Those qoutes come from the DS9 Episode Blood Oath.

There is also Khayless, who is the klingon Moses, and his ancient legends were more akin to religious stories, but that guy was... ancient by the time he decided to 'ascend to the stars.'

Now i'm not saying that Jack is a god, but I'm also not saying that he isn't (but yeah he would probably be around 80 depending on the timeline of the ship. Enough time that he could be a cranky old blind man who is fed up with nonsense.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #22 –
Of course if we find a time displaced version of our ship, not only will it be overrun by the Thundercat progeny of Deacon and K'Ren   (  (laugh)  ), just imagine the round of "I told you so's" we're going to have to deal with from the Devoted.  ;)

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #23 –
Heck the Devoted may not even be around anymore, they may have been replaced by a new cult.  The Cult of Havenborn. :p
Defeat, Genocide; why quibble with semantics.

Re: Story Workshop

Reply #24 –
I can see it now: "If you'd just fucking listened to us and made the Morali the Captain..."
 
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