Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

This is the place to discuss the various Star Traks series and stories.
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

It seems like we just started this run, but we've already come to the end. Amazing how a couple of months can go by in the blink of an eye, isn't it? Why, just yesterday I was...

Okay. Before I get all misty-eyed here, I'll just get to the preview:

Captain Reginald Bain did exactly what a captain should do. He overcame those holding his ship and crew prisoner, and he got back home. So how come it's looking like he made a huge mistake? Find out as the Dillon Consortium tries to collect on some "Contractual Obligations."


We're legally-mandated to show it to you on the Star Traks: Boldly Gone page which is represented by the court-appointed Star Traks Nexus and Corner Grocery Store at...

http://www.star-traks.com
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by Ruler J »

What an end! (to this season anyway). You actually had me going there for a bit- thought Marsden would be left behind, (you have written off a character before, nice reminder of Arroyo), or Tovar would do the silly romantic thing and leave the ship to get himself trapped with her. Lucky thing Tovar's parents were around.
I loved their explanation of leaving Tovar behind, though I do still feel like giving them a good slap. Some people just aren't mature enough to be parents...I should probably stop there before I rant on. My girlfriend teaches in a primary school, with students from very afluent families, and the stories I hear from her...well, there's quite a few there who, like Tanta and Jimsok, need a bit of sense and maturity beaten into them.
Other parts that stayed with me- Prosak's little bit hoping that, with the Romulans gone, it'd be like the good old times with Bain. She's no longer first officer, they tried to kill her, I'm just wondering how long ebfore she flips out and does something crazy to the Romulans.
And speaking of the Romulans, I think Nortal is now my second favourite all time character (after Bain). How can you not love somebody who shouts "Your massive mechanical menace cows no one!"
Previously writing: Incongruous Voyages Season 2 (since 2007)
Currently writing: Incongruous Voyages Season 2
Futurely writing: to the dictionary, to include the word "futurely"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

Comments on "Contractual Obligations"

So we have come to the end of another run, but, since I covered a lot of the elements of this storyline in the comments for the previous two stories, I don't know how much I really have to say here.

As you would expect after two stories of mess making, this one was about cleaning things up. More than that, though, it may be the first time that Bain has ever questioned himself or his methods. He took action without all of the facts and very nearly cost the Multeks their civilization. Then fixing that mistake nearly cost his adopted son the woman he loves. If this were a drama series, one of those things probably would have come to pass, forcing Bain into some deep soul searching that possibly would have changed him forever. Fortunately we're writing comedy here, so you get the tension with only a fraction of the angst.

I've noticed, though, that the idea of family not necessarily being about biology has been a recurring theme in the Traks that I've written. In Original Traks, Dillon's parents basically used him as a lab rat. In Waystation, Beck had her sister issues. And in Boldly, Tovar's relationship with the Bains has been one of the core elements of the series. If I were to attempt to psychoanalyze myself and figure out why I keep coming back this idea, I would have to say it's probably due to the fact that my own family is so spread out. I saw either set of grandparents maybe once a year for a couple of days due to distance, and my aunts and uncles are all over the US. Now my brother is literally on the opposite of the country from me. I think because of that, I've tended to have deeper emotional connections with my friends. They are in many ways my family.

Moving from there to more ridiculous matters, we come to the giant robot. Why did the casino turn into a giant robot? Because it made me laugh. With all that was going on between Tovar, his parents, Marsden, and the Bains, we needed some silly. A giant Bradley Dillon robot fit the bill. And now the Multeks have a giant robo-Bradley head floating around their space like that thing out of the old Transformers movie (the animated one. Not that stuff Michael Bay has been putting out. That's a whole other rant). In any case, I thought it would be fun for Bain to take on a giant robot. And then I decided it would be more fun for him to really want to take on the robot and not get the chance.

As I think I said in the comments to the first story of this three-parter, this storyline has been floating around for a while. I think I had the basics of it figured out back in series six or seven, which, when you take into account the five year gap between eight and nine, is a long time. Even then I knew exactly what the last line was. And then we changed it. Tovar and Marsden getting married was something I came up with shortly after I finished the original version of the story, so I wrote a second ending where that was included. After Anthony and I talked about it and what it would mean for the series, we decided to go ahead and get them hitched. It made for an upbeat ending to the run. In case anyone is curious, there was never a thought of ending this one with a cliffhanger.

So that's the run. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be back with Series Ten...at some point. Hopefully next year. I'm not about to start making promises, though.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by Captain B »

Obviously real life has interloped quite a bit on my part as I haven't posted on the forum in a while.

*reads Alan's story comments* Yup, that about covers it!

This was a very interesting run for Boldly, and felt largely...disjointed for me. This is probably the least I've been involved in a story run for Boldly so it's definitely fitting Alan give most of the comments. As Alan mentioned, I wrote much of Story #1, then just stopped. I didn't have a clear idea where to go with it, and Alan graciously picked it up. Then we sort of split Story #2.

Other than writing a few paragraphs of Story #3 and helping with the plotting of that one, that was about it for me. The storyline with Tovar's parents was completely Alan's invention, and I love what he did with it. There was definitely some closure needed there, and combining that with figuring out what happened with the Multeks was simplicity itself. Well, not quite simplicity, it actually got downright messy, but that's what makes this stuff funn.

As for the earlier stories, I did enjoy getting to much around with the Breen one more time and continue the adversarial relationship with the Kirk hologram. It also felt good to abuse Selex a little bit. Let's face it, he deserved it.

I'm glad Alan talked about the writing process. It's interesting to have a shared series. There's a lot that Alan and I have in common in terms of writing styles, but there are also some stark differences, and I like to think Boldly somehow weaves those together. In the early days of Traks, Alan and I took turns dipping in to each other's worlds. I wrote "Starfleet Red" for the original series, and "Close to Home" for Waystation, and he wrote "Cat-Astrophe" and "Alternative Programming" for Vexed. Then Alan pitched in a LOT with both plotting and writing some sections of the book "Out of Time." That book would still be incomplete (15 years later) if not for Alan's helping me sort out a million disparate plot threads.

But the first real joint writing effort (as I can recall) was the Vexed Year 4 story "Double or Nothing." There is a completely different version of this story out there that I had actually finished, but was not at all happy with. It had to do with Ardek and Romulan malfeasance, and wasn't particularly funny, and overly plot-heavy. So one day Alan came by and we started writing, almost from scratch, a completely new story, involving Ardek and a casino, and a malfunctioning android, Kitty Larkin. To this day this is still one of my favorite Traks stories.

What was fun about it was that we literally wrote the thing in more or less one sitting, and took turns writing.

I think, but could be wrong (man that was a lot of years ago...) but that collaboration (among others) gave way to the idea that we could write a whole series together. And it has been great fun since.

In terms of what comes next for Boldly, Alan's actually stopping by today and I think we will spend a bit of time on the plotting. We've got some rough ideas already and I'd like to say the next series will come out fairly quickly, But, like Alan, I won't make promises (cause we've been down that road before :) )

Anthony
Currently writing: Somethin'

Favorite Traks Quote: "Free unnecessary enemas for everybody!"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

Anthony and I have been promising it for a long time (<cough>Twelve Years<cough>), but we are FINALLY ready to announce that Star Traks: Boldly Gone... Series Ten will be premiering on August 12th. And yes, we mean August 12th of this year.

So...since it's been a little while since Series Nine ended, these next few weeks could be a great time to refresh your memory by rereading those stories here:

https://www.star-traks.com//boldly/stories/series9/

(Or you could wait a few weeks. We're going to post a "Previously On..." summarizing some key points before the run starts. But reading the actual stories is more fun.)
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

The 13 year hiatus has officially ended, and the first story of "Star Traks: Boldly Gone..." Series 10 has been posted.

I'll post comments next weekend, but in the meantime, Anthony and I hope you enjoy "Legend of the Bain"!

https://www.star-traks.com//boldly/stories/series10/
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

Comments on “Legend of the Bain”

Before I talk about the story itself, I should say a little bit about the delay in posting Series Ten…if 13 years even qualifies as a delay. It’s more of a gaping chasm of lost time. Anthony and I definitely didn’t plan on it taking this long (Of course we said that about the 5 year gap between Series Eight and Series Nine as well), and we actually had most of this run written years ago. More on that later.

So what happened? Most of it was the vagaries of real life. When we posted Series Nine back in 2010, I was a married man with two young kids and a full time job where I was taking on more and more responsibilities, so I was already writing a lot less than I used to. But then my marriage ended, and I found myself raising my kids basically by myself. I won’t go into everything else that happened during that time, but I was busy and writing Traks just fell way down the list of things that I had to do.

I’m not complaining, though. My kids are grown and doing well, and I’m married again to a wonderful woman. Things are good.

On to the story…

As I said earlier, Anthony and I had gotten a lot of work done on Series Ten over the years. The problem was that that a lot of what we’d written wasn’t quite working, and with everything else going on in our lives, we didn’t have the time or the focus to really dig into the issue until more recently.

“Legend of the Bain,” however, remained pretty much the same as it was written…whenever that was. Really, it’s a pretty direct follow-up to where things were left at the end of Series Nine and gives the crew a chance for some downtime, which they didn’t really get in any of the previous run. I would say that it was nice to be writing about Waystation again, but for whatever reason Waystation Prime looks and feels completely different to me in my head. That said, I was able to use a bit of the final Waystation story to help resolve things with the Dillon Consortium, and I had a lot of fun giving Craig Porter a brief cameo.

As this was the start of the run, a lot of what happens in the story is setting things up for what comes later. I’m guessing that was pretty obvious. I think it also stands pretty well as its own story. I’m happy with a lot of the character interactions in it, and it’s always fun to let Bain loose.

We’ll be back in two weeks with “Primary Sources.” Will the Anomaly actually get to go somewhere in this one? You’ll just have to wait and see!
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

We’re back with the second story of Series Ten. A momentous discovery deep in the Beta Quadrant has the USS Anomaly traveling very far from home. Pasts will be confronted! Relatives will be met! Relationships will be tested! And a toilet will be repaired! (But we won’t say whose!) All of that and lots more awaits in “Primary Sources,” available now on the Star Traks: Boldly Gone Series Ten Page!

And next week, we will be posting authors’ notes right in this very thread.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

Comments on “Primary Sources.”

This is a long story in Traks terms. Granted, when I started writing original Star Traks, they were mainly “books” and some really short short stories, but by the time things settled out, most of the stories ended up being somewhere in the 20-25 page range in Microsoft Word. That pretty much holds true for a lot of Anthony and Brendan’s work as well. This one was 47. There are a few reasons. First, there’s a lot of ground…er…space to cover. I also wanted to let the opening sequence with the Marsdens breathe a bit and go into what it was like for them to explore this (I have to say it) strange new world. And finally, it’s the last run of stories. Why not go super-sized? It worked for Ted Lasso (Or didn’t depending on your feelings about the final season of that show).

Marsden’s parents aren’t a huge part of the story, but I did really enjoy writing the scene where they meet Tovar and the Bains. It also felt right that they’d put Marsden to work as soon as she got there. I think a lot of us have had similar experiences while home to visit our families. I usually ended up providing tech support in one way or another. Fortunately, no toilets were involved. Really, though, I didn’t want any big family drama there. It wasn’t the focus of the story, and there was absolutely no reason for them to not like Tovar.

As for the other main relationship of the story, Prosak and Snotch, Anthony did the bulk of the initial work. Snotch was tossed into an uncomfortable scenario (not that I feel sorry for the guy) and soldiered through as best he could until he just couldn’t take it anymore. I did feel it was important that Bain and Tovar were suspicious from the start. At least twice in original Traks, I had people get onto the Secondprize with malicious intent and pretending to be someone they weren’t. I really didn’t want to go to that well again. Besides, the Anomaly was rushing off to a momentous find. Why would they let a complete stranger on board during that unless they had a reason? I hate when characters on shows and in films become idiots just so the plot can happen, so I wasn’t about to do that in this story.

When Anthony and I started writing Boldly, I’m not certain that we had a clear plan for the Pliggeri. I vaguely recall thinking that they might become the series’ main antagonist, but we obviously didn’t end up going that direction, which I’m glad about. But with the series ending, it was definitely time to start answering some questions about them. In the end, they just didn’t like the way the neighborhood was going (Too many damn kids!), so they moved.

That’s it for this story. Next week…well…you can’t lose a whole planet without some fallout.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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Re: Boldly Gone Posting and Discussion

Post by cmdrajd »

Comments for "Welcome to the Party."

Back in the comments for the first story of the run, I mentioned that Anthony and I had most of the stories finished before we decided that we weren't happy with the direction and decided to rework things. The issue was that the Dillion Consortium plot took up the entire run, and we didn't want to have our final six stories all be focused on a single storyline. There were still standalone stories to tell, and really the Consortium were never the big antagonist of the series anyway. Having them take over the entire last run felt unnecessary. And we'd already done big, run-consuming arcs with the Vulcans. I really didn't feel that we lost that much by compressing the Consortium plot into 3 stories instead (Or more if you include the last couple stories of Series Nine). We hit the points we wanted to hit without dragging things out.

Really I don't have a whole lot to say about the story itself. The A and B plots both involve falling into a Consortium trap and then finding a way out of it. On the Anomaly side, I enjoy getting to use the ship's support craft in creative ways. They're one of those things I think about in Star Trek episodes on a regular basis. The ship will be in some dire situation, and I'll come up with some way to help using a shuttle. Using the Anomaly's support ships to deal with the asteroid trap was fun to write and worked well to get them out of that scenario. Our assumption has always been that the Consortium captains are not Starfleet caliber but also overconfident to an unwarranted degree.

Tori Burke, or at least the suit controlling her, shares that overconfidence, which is how Bain is able to flip the trap she set for him into a trap for her and the Consortium. As for the location, there wasn't any real reason for it to be a restaurant centered on fried foods. It just made me chuckle and allowed me to make a really terrible X-Men reference. We really loved the empty suit gag. It's incredibly silly, but it's the kind of silly I love. And I think it wouldn't have had much room to breathe if it had happened in the original version of events. I didn't want Burke to be a victim in all of this. Yes the suit had control, but, as she says, she generally agreed with it. She's ambitious, a loyal Consortium employee, and struggling to make up for 20 years lost to being in stasis. She just isn't quite ready to kill Vioxx, since he's the one person who has tried to get close to her. I don't see a romance blooming there, but I do think he will follow through on visiting her at her rehabilitation colony.

As for Prosak, this run is pretty rough on her. We already had her RommaVulc beliefs challenged during the Vulcan war, but in the end, the architect of it all wasn't an actual Vulcan. Now she's having to face that she may never measure up to the expectations of these people she's emulated for years. So far, she's not handling it well, but after rock bottom (and a bit of holographic slaughter), there's nowhere to go but up, right?

While Prosak may be struggling to find a way forward, Dr. Nooney gained some clarity about his own future. Nooney has never been a main character in Boldly Gone and mainly has existed to provide to silly exuberance or overly-thorough exams. Having him decide that he'd rather be on a cruise ship just felt right. We're sure that he's going to be very happy there.

Next week we head into the second half of the final run with a story unlike any we've ever written for Star Traks before.
"I'm not insane -- my mother had me tested." - Sheldon Cooper, "The Big Bang Theory"
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