Star Traks Forum

3.2 Comments

Spoilers

Y'know, the thing with these Crash Course stories is that they take so long to write, I really can't remember what I was thinking about at the beginning by the time I reach the end. This story in particular. I started writing it in September and finished in February. Normally I don't like to draw things out so much, but the irregular posting schedual for CC gives me that flexibility. The other side of that delay, however, is that CC as you all know is very much based in real life. And, to put it bluntly, real life really sucked ass last semester. To the point where I didn't even want to think about it, much less write about it.

I said after doing the Wrath of Khan spoof in 3.1 that I wanted to put more fiction into the CC stories. That didn't happen in this one. I've taken some liberties with timelines and such, but it's still very much an art-imitates-life story. The scary thing is, I only made it about 2 weeks into the semester with this story. I still only want to do one more CC story after this one to close up third year, so it will have to cover a wide span of time.

So. Comments for this specific story. As Alan noted when I sent him the draft, this is the first CC story that really has a clear 'enemy', in the characters of Chief Buzner and ASI Salen. I don't expect them to be long-term characters, but for this story and at least half of the next one, they're going to be the chief 'opponents'. I wish I could say that I planned it out so that our cadets would have an antagonist, but in truth it just worked out that way.

The other thing I wanted to convey in this story was the optimism that all the cadets had at the beginning of the semester. The SNAP staff is ready to go, the pip-men are ready to go, there's a lot of new leadership at the Academy and a lot of potential. And towards the end of the story, we start to see this begin to change.

I promise that my next posting in two weeks will bring us back to Silverado. I'll probably lay of the CC for a while, as I now have a posting deadline to meet and between 2 and 8 Silverado stories to write.

As always, your comments are welcome.

By the way, I went back and re-read 3.1 before I finished up 3.2. Holy crap! I don't know how I missed it the first time around, but that story is MORBID. Depressingly morbid! I mean, I was reading it and thinking to myself 'Geez, there is NOTHING funny about this!'

Bad on me.

Okay, I have to open this feedback by saying:
Imagining a Parian doing a Caboose line is comedy GOLD! Even without the notation, I recognized the milk/spiky kittens line from RvB.
Okay, that geek moment out of the way, I didn't even notice that CC has been without any kind of real antagonist until you pointed it out. I guess I just thought of the cadets' impending graduation as the "antagonist", and to a lesser extent, the various upper-classmen and Academy faculty, though none have ever really filled a "villain" role as well as Buzner and Salen did this story. Even then, before I read the comments, I didn't really think of them as villainous or bad guys; they're just one more challenge the cadets have to face to get to graduation. Honestly, it seemed to me that Buzner and Salen were just doing their jobs as they saw fit. Sure, they were a bit overzealous about it, and they could have, no should have been a little more tactful, but as was pointed out in the story, they come from a different mode of educational discipline, grudge or no grudge, and there was inevitably going to be a little bit of "culture shock" as a result.
So yea, yet another insightful (and apparently thought-provoking) insight into Academy life. Looking forward to the next one, as usual.

Crash Course 3.3 - Downhill

Verone, Veksai, M'Kr'gr and Bahred work to get their Brute Squad lowers through the last of SNAP, just in time for real life at the Academy to come crashing down in the conclusion of Year 3 of Star Traks: Crash Course.

www.khobrah.net/silver/crash.html

b-guy wrote:Crash Course 3.3 - Downhill
...“Bet you fifty credits they left him off the list on purpose,” Veksai grumbled, “Just so they could watch him blow up at us,” (footnote 2)

(footnote 2) I wish this was completely fictional. I really do... http://www.khobrah.net/silver/crash.html

Likewise here as well.
A typical official release: Such dysfunctional behavior never occurs

Take Care ! GTG

Crash Course 4.1 - Homestretch - Part 1

It's the beginning of the end...or the end of the middle part. Either way, with less than a year left before graduation, the new senior-classmen have a ticking time-bomb...get everything finished, or fail to graduate. And not everybody is on track...

This is the first of the Crash Course series finale...part two will be coming up in the New Year, since our next posting weekend will have a small Christmas surprise in it.

www.khobrah.net/silver/crash.html

If you're a geek for making that TNG reference, then I'm a bigger geek for getting it. Granted, it took me a minute to catch the reference, but I did get it without looking at the notation.

Crash Course 4.2 - Final Sprint

The final story of Crash Course has arrived, and there really isn't much to say about it. The time has finally come to take a look around, think about what you've learned and accomplished...and say goodbye.

In addition to the standard .doc format, the entire Crash Course series is now available as an ebook.

http://www.khobrah.net/silver/crash.html

Happy New Year!

Brendan

So... what happened to Homestretch Part 2?

Homestretch Part Two became Final Sprint. I decided I liked that title better.