Star Traks: Howlers

[b-guy]

New Star Traks: Howlers! #9 - Who Let the Dogs Out?

Apologies for the title. But we really couldn't help it, and as the final chapter in the Howlers saga, this was our last chance to use it. Speaking of last chances, having finally learned the truth about the Howlers Initiative, the USS Vilkas, and Ensign Greg Mayle, it's the last chance for the Howlers to break free and somehow get justice for what's been done to them. How will they do that, you ask? With just a bit of unexpected help...

This is it, folks. After twelve long years, this relatively short saga comes to its end!

[b-guy]

Comments for Howlers 8 & 9

Phew. It's done. It's over. the Howlers story has been in told, a satisfying (to me) ending has been reached, and the back burner that has been occupied by the Howlers for nearly twelve years is now empty. (OK, well I'm putting together an e-book version, so my Howlers work isn't totally done.)

Howlers 8 & 9 were originally intended to be a single story. Maybe a bit longer than normal, but one last story to wrap things up. Obviously that didn't happen, but when I look at the two of them together I can honestly say that the overall structure I'd envisioned for the series final hasn't changed much from what I had envisioned when I started working on 8, but man a lot of the details changed.

The rough idea I had for the ending was "Howlers escape the Farkas with the help of some of the crew. Howlers leak the story to the public. Section 31 can't just disappear them anymore, they end up in the care of Starfleet Medical. As happy an ending as I think was possible. I had a few questions going in...I wasn't sure if all the Howlers were going to escape using the slaver ship, or if they'd split up and keep some on the Farkas to distract the Vilkas while the rest tried to spill the beans. I wasn't sure how the Vilkas would show up exactly, but I had decided many years ago (when I wrote Howlers 5) that Mayle was one of the original Howlers. When Mayle finds the Vilkas database, there's a reference to one of the berserk Howlers being impaled in the gut with a girder. That was a opening I'd left myself in case I decided to go that direction. I'll admit I tend to do that a lot...leave little hints when I have ideas, but keep them small enough I can drop them without it being an issue.

I guess something that stands out about this story is that several scenes and revelations wrote themselves in a way that surprised me, or caught me off-guard. Belis' talk to Travs at the start of 8 about the Howlers needing to hurry the help up was absolutely me channeling my frustration with the pace of my writing, but the realization that Wolfman and Sibbit would be ready to give them all the data they needed without them needing to ask for it surprised me as much as it surprised Mayle. And the thing with the slaver ship was NOT me trying to misdirect you guys...I added that ship in an earlier story specifically for it to be their escape craft. It was Syl who decided 'Fuck that, we're doing this OUR way'. The Howlers deciding to take the aeroshuttle was a lovely surprise towards the end of writing 8, and admitted screwed me up a bit because I'd specifically said they wouldn't take a Farkas support craft due to tracking devices.

The story was split when I realized I was 10k words in and they'd just barely escaped. I'd figured out a few months ago that they'd be using the Vonna Show as a means to spill the beans...honestly, I think that realization was one of the things that finally gave me the motivation to get back to work on the story. A fun chance to tie in my other characters. But I was also getting impatient, and eager to wrap things up. The scene with the Vilkas and the Defiant getting into a standoff over the Howlers wasn't in the original draft...I jumped straight from 'Vonna believes them' to 'Epilogue/Aftermath'. I had a sentence in the aftermath along the lines of "Oh yeah, the Vilkas caught them briefly, but the Defiant and a bunch of reporters chased them away". Alan suggested that it would be more interesting if I actually wrote that scene to keep the tension going and so the transition to aftermath wasn't so abrupt. I whined about it, but he was right...I needed someone to motivate me to overcome my laziness.

The last thing I want to comment on is the ending. I will refer to my own comment on Howlers 1 from this very forum, posted Jan 23 2012 (And I realize my dates on the Nexus are a year off)

But the biggest change was the ending. Originally, the last scene was very different. I won't say much about it, as Alan suggested pushing it back for a season/series finale. But it would have closed things up neatly and made the story stand more firmly on it's own; as a one-shot story, never to be repeated. I'd like to do more Howler stories (am actually almost done #2), so I went with an ending that left things open instead. However I don't know how far I'll be able to go with this concept. I'd like to see at least 6, like a Boldly Gone season.

So. Alan was right. I had to change a couple of things, to account for Morreth being gone the setting being The Farm instead of the Farkas. But the series finale is in fact the original ending from Howlers 1. Which is a really nice way for me to bring this thing around full circle.

Oh, and The Farm was another one of those fun, unplanned surprises. I was trying to think of where Starfleet Medical would keep officers exposed to a weird shape-changing virus, then realized that Lower Decks had beat me to it.

Anyway, that's it! It's done! Who-hoo!