Here's the thread for discussion of the new Plotline story "Destiny". Let me know what you think here!


I know that the story starts with something totally different. Bear with me; this gives us some insight into Nimrod's past and is our first actual point of view story set before the Great War, during the 'Golden Age' of the galaxy. Not too much detail, but hopefully enough to put things in perspective a little. The rest of the story will be mostly action; this is the BIG one, what we've been building up towards all this time... Although I suspect that from here on till the end of the Plotline it'll be mostly a fast-paced epic conflict. Anyway, let me know what you think about it, and let me know if you want to see some more flashbacks to the Golden Age or to Nim and Zali's past...

Cheers!

There haven't been a lot of posts in the discussion threads, so I thought I might use this space to do some running commentaries on the stories as they go.

"Destiny" is a story I've been waiting probably ten years to write, and we've trudged through a whole lot of words in order to build to this point. Some of the scenes that occur later on are some of the main reasons I decided to continue the Plotline, and the reason I've been writing so many stories up to this point.

The Prologue:

I think this went quite well. I was hoping to write a story-within-a-story, something with a clear beginning, middle and end, and keep it all around ten pages or so. I'd also been itching to write something that occurs during the galaxy's Golden Age, and I think the history surrounding Zalaria and Nimrod is one of the most interesting and compelling, and I also think they are two of the best characters in the series. So, it was good to see them (and mainly Nim) while they were young, to see that they were indeed children at some point. It was also fun to play around with Nim's budding abilities and latency for tech. I've been asked to write more of what happens to them after that, so I'm considering how to do that either in the future as a standalone story, or keep using flashbacks interspersed with the main storyline. I'm not sure yet where to go with it, but I mainly want to focus on what's happening on Varnus, right now. It's a lot to keep in your head.

By the way, don't forget about Nimrod's small, ancient medallion he found in the opening scene. It was actually Celestial technology, and will have a part to play later on, as well as playing a role throughout his lifetime. The device can actually control or "dominate" other technologies, which would enable you to, say, open a locked door or bypass security systems, activate a damaged computer system or even a ship, teach you all about how to use a new weapon, etc.


The Main Story:

Okay, so we're off to a fast start here with Jinx fleeing the Jedicon. I decided to pick up right where "Fading Glory" left off, and I wanted this story to jump right into the action and not let go the whole way through. But then I realized I had some logistical issues to worry about. Each scene happens from a certain character's point of view, so in order to begin those scenes, I felt that I had to give a little detail of what they were doing in order to have the proper pacing and "build-up" of those action scenes. After all, action for action's sake is meaningless, I feel. Everything needs to have a sense of purpose, and drive the story forward.

So, I had some setbacks as the Brightblade/Generator scene stretched out longer than I had expected, and scenes with Thrakus and Xar "setting the stage" for the action proper. But it had to be done, and now that things are clipping along, I feel it works much better.

On the other hand, the story is turning out much longer than I'd earlier anticipated. I've hit 44 pages on my MS Word file, and I'm not even halfway! "Fading Glory" ended up at 100 pages, but I'm think this one may go longer. I count 28 more scenes to write, and some of them are long or involve multiple parts. I hope all the action doesn't have the opposite effect on the reader and turn out boring...

This is also the largest-scale, coordinated series of scenes that I've ever tried to write. It happens to be one gigantic battle, but keeping up with where everyone is, what is going on, and what time it is occurring relative to each other is quite the challenge. Putting the timestamp (ex. "1040 Hours") in each scene means I have to constantly check what's happening at what time, figuring out how simultaneous scenes relate to each other, and keep going back and making adjustments. It might be easier without the timestamp, but it's a tradition we've had for quite a few stories so I didn't want to lose it just because the story all happens within a single day.

It's also interesting in that the battle is occurring in four parts, all at the same time: The Jedi vs. Jedicon in the Royal Palace, the ground battle in Vectur around the Palace, the battle in the air (with Maarek Stele), and the space battle (with Donitz in the starfighter perspective and Gaius in the fleet perspective). So that could actually be considered five parts! As they heat up we'll be switching back and forth between them. One hard thing is trying to figure out how the NI can hold its own even for a little while, without being totally overwhelmed by the AD. It's tough and forces you to be creative, hopefully it won't sound silly or preposterous. I want to showcase some of the unique and crazy tactics that Nimrod employs, as well as some Force techniques and such. In short, I'm planning to pull out all the stops on this one. The battle may start small-scale, but by the end I think it'll become something like you've never read in SW fiction before!

By the way... some of the Titans are illusions, we'll just have to wait and see which ones are real and which aren't. But in the meantime its going to cause even more headaches for our heroes as they try and slow down the unstoppable armada that Nimrod has brought to bear on Varnus. So let's dive in and digest a few more scenes, shall we?

I recently returned from a trip to Malaysia (got to go to Dubai, too) that took about 2 1/2 weeks. With that and the holidays I hadn't done much work on the story, but during the trip I did a lot of brainstorming and got a lot of new ideas and worked out some things that I think will make it much better. I'm also going to re-work a few scenes that I've already done, though those changes probably won't be reflected in the version on the message board. The main change I am making is that the command center in the Royal Palace won't be destroyed after all; GSP and Zalaria are still there until later. I hope this won't be too confusing as I add new sections on to the story.

Things are going to get more intense from here on. Stay tuned and hopefully we'll have some more posts up soon!