Silverado Posting & Discussion

This is the place to discuss the various Star Traks series and stories.
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Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by b-guy »

Series:Star Traks: Silverado
Author:Brendan Shust
Website:http://www.khobrah.net/silver
Status:Posting Season 5


Space. It's big, it's scary and there are lots of weird places to go.
These are the adventures of the starship Silverado.
Her crews never-ending mission: to keep her in once piece.
To escape insults and ridicule.
To boldly go where nobody else has been stupid enough to go before!











Hey All,

New Silverado!

OK. Basically, I was getting sick of the never-ending Matrian story arc I've neem working on. So I set it aside long enough to put together a random Silverado story. It's on the new 'Specials' page. Enjoy!

http://www.khobrah.net/silver

Brendan
Last edited by b-guy on Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by b-guy »

Halloween 09 Comments:

OK, I know halloween was a month ago. As I said above, I was getting tired of working with the Matrian story line. So many plot lines to resolve, so many characters in so many different places. Even though it's getting closer to the end, I just really wanted to do a single story where I could take my characters, have some fun with them and them leave everything the way it was when it started. Hence, the halloween thing.

I was specifically vague on the timeline, as I wasn't sure where this really fit in with the Season 4 stuff. I wrote Valtaic there at the beginning as opposed to Johnson. Although after his initial spat with Yanick he doesn't really do anything. I sort of wanted to give a chance to explain why he bothers taking part in those Silverado arguments I love so much. The gag with Stafford`s log recorder started with me going `Crap. I don`t want to put in a stardate. Hey! Let`s zap somebody!'

I also wanted to go back to basics on some of the characters. We saw a lot of change with Wowryk at the end of Season 4, with her being put in the First Officer position, and I'll tell you that carries well through Matrian Uprising. I wanted to go back to the good old "I'm just a regular old Doctor that beats people with a crucifix" Wowryk. Which, by the way, let me slip a few Machinima references in. We see Jall doing his best to get on Stafford's nerves, which I missed. (Jall, sadly, has been written into a bit of a box in MU. I might have to do something about that soon.) I also wanted to show Stafford spending a bit more quality time with Jeffery, as the two of them spend a lot of time fighting when you consider they were supposed to be really good friends when the series started. Finally, I wanted to show Stafford being grumpy and a bit petty. The whole 'we're in this to save the planet' and 'look at me I'm minister of planetary defence' attitude that he's had in the latter half of Season 4 and in MU is fitting for the character, I think, but it's really not as much fun.

In short, MU has put the Silverado crew in a situation where they have to try to be the heros. (Key word: TRY!) I wanted a story where they got to be their good old, screwed-up selves.

Most of the gags were fairly unoriginal, in my opinion. I'm not sure where the Proton Prod idea came from, but I do remember thinking that there was no way in hell I'd let any of these people play with a live proton pack. C'mon, I don't even think we should be giving them phasers. And the Hazardous Team is so called for a reason!

I'd originally wanted to explore the whole idea that the groups of ghosts were acting out the Seven Deadly Sins, but I sort of got to the point where I realized that the story I wanted had been told and that carrying on was just beating a horse on life support. I'd always planned to have Yvonnokoff come in at the end, a reference to the Casper movie in which the undead have to be conselled in order to cross-over. Getting her dialogue in turned out to be too much of a pain, so that become kinda truncated.

As always, your comments are welcome.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by borgcrazy »

Halloween 09
This was a lot of fun. Granted, it didn't really serve much purpose besides seeing the characters screw up (epically screw up) but this is Traks, damnit! Not every story needs a point or to serve the story arc. Sometimes it's good to just be able to point, laugh and say, "Man, these guys are idiots!" Which is exactly what this story did, and did well.
I did like the various references throughout the story, though having just finished the Ghostbusters video game, I was wondering why they limited themselves to just the Proton Packs. I quickly remembered that the other additions and upgrades were unique to the game... not that it matters since most of the additions are more dangerous than the basic proton stream.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

I'll echo what BC said for the most part. This was a fun read, and it was nice to see the crew back together on the ship and handling a mission considering everything that's been going on with the Matrian storyline. What you said in the comments about the seven deadly sins plot makes sense. When I read it, I was kind of surprised at how quickly that was dropped. I assumed you were gearing things up for Wowryk to resolve the problem, since the seven deadly sins are a Catholic notion, to my knowledge. Using Yvonnokoff to handle things worked well, though, and it was good to see her again considering that she wasn't a big part of the Matrian plotline.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by borgcrazy »

The seven deadly sins are actually a general Christian concept, but the Roman-Catholic church puts more emphasis on them than most denominations. I'm sure there's some historical, political reason for this, but most denominations see all sin as equally evil, including "the Big Seven", so they're not singled out as much.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by b-guy »

Ok folks,

I'm supposed to start posting again this weekend. Due to post-vacation-ness, I won't be able to throw up the story until tomorrow.

Also, I'm still deciding some last-minute details w.r.t what exactly this run is going to be. I just finished the 8th story, and I'm still nowhere near ready to wrap things up. I'm seriously considering exploring a few storylines that I hadn't considered before and expanding this run into a full Season 5, with a mid-season break. I'll make that decision before I post the first Silverado story...in two weeks. I'll be posting new Crash Course tomorrow. (I only anticpate 3 more CC stories over the next year)

Have a good night!
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by borgcrazy »

b-guy wrote:Due to post-vacation-ness, I won't be able to throw up the story until tomorrow.
Ew, what did your momma tell you about eating the super-large nachos before going on the rollercoaster? Now that you've gotten your throw-up on there, you can't even...
...
Oh, right. I've just been informed that you didn't mean that kind of "throw up". My bad...
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by b-guy »

New Silverado

Feels like it's been ages! But Silverado 5.1 - We All Fall Down is now posted on the brand-new Silverado Season 5 web-page. That's right folks, we're going for a full season ride on this one! (Possibly with a mid-season break.)

5.1 - We All Fall Down

Matria Prime has fallen, the Qu'Eh are in control and most of the Silverado crew is hiding in a strange underground bunker. Stafford is pushing to tear the place apart, Jeffery is trying to get Sylvia back together and Queen Anselia of Matria is pretty much preventing anybody from doing anything. So what happens? Check out the new Season 5 page to find out!..

http://www.khobrah.net/silver
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by b-guy »

5.1 - We All Fall Down Comments

Spoilers

Actually, there really won't be that many spoilers. Honestly, it's been close to a year, probably, since I started writing this story. I can't remember much about what I was thinking.

OK, a thought: Start cleaning up this mess! I had Fifebee merged with Sylvia, everybody was campued out in the installation hallways and nobody had any information whatsoever on what was happening on the surface. So we needed to start clearning a few things up, notably Sylvia.

I should note as well that this story is the first half of what was going to be the first book in the 'Matrian Uprising' mini-series. I'd deliberately focused on only the characters trappen in the installation for the entire book, with the second book being the characters still up on Silverado. The third book was originally supposed to intermingle the two storylines, but at that point I realized that the three story format wasn't going to work. So the first book got chopped in half, with this as the result. So you may find that the story cuts off in an off place.

I'll add anything that else that comes to mind later. For the moment, I have mucho homework to do.
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Re: Silverado Posting & Discussion

Post by borgcrazy »

We All Fall Down
I didn't get the feeling that this story ended in a weird spot - felt like a pretty normal "To Be Continued" to me.
That said, I think Chris hit it on the head when he was wondering what was happening to the crew, then started going down the list of times they'd been in similar situations. I think that it's the fact they keep finding themselves in these kinds of "stranded with no hope" situations that they're breaking down and falling apart now. I'm guessing most of them didn't join Starfleet just to simply get stranded every other month (or is it up to every two months now?) Okay, so to be fair, most of them probably didn't expect to get assigned to a recycled clunker of a ship either, but that's beside the point - even a second-hand starship like Silverado can still boldly go where no one has gone before, she just needs slightly more regular maintenance than newer ships. This being forced to sit around on their hands and wait to either figure something out or get rescued would get on ANYONE's nerves, I'd imagine. Add to that there's nothing saying the next mission (whenever they get to leave Matrian space again...) won't end up the same way.
That's not to say I'm saying you're being repetitive or anything - far from it! - but the strain that being forced into such situations time after time has gotta be taxing on anyone. On the writing front, you've done an excellent job keeping each situation fresh and different, which keeps it interesting. This Matrian arc has got to be the most epic thing you've done (and probably one of the more epic storylines of all Traks), and so far, you're handling it quite well. So well, in fact, that I'm torn - on the one hand, I can't wait to see how it all plays out, but on the other hand, I don't want to miss what happens next, even if it means putting off seeing the ending. Very rarely do I find myself desiring both so strongly.
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