Crossover Fanfic Discussion

POSTED BY: zoid
UPDATED: Sunday, February 13, 2005 19:23
VIEWED: 5230
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ZOID

Saturday, February 12, 2005 5:52 PM

Ruthie wrote, in part:

Quote:
...What happens? Do the BSG people seek to make allies against the Cylons? What would the Allience make of another 'independant' military force arriving in its midst? How would Serenity get caucht up in the middle of this? What would Zoe make of Starbuck, and vice versa?...

Thanks for your imaginative input; you've gotten it just right. I quoted this one part of your response because I don't necessarily think the BlueSun/Alliance and the central government of the BSG Colonies would necessarily be ignorant of one another. Allow me to explain a bit...

In FF, differing planets have differing forms of government and legal systems. Some have slavery, others do not. I also presume variations in governmental models: monarchies, technocracies, and perhaps variant feudal systems based on Asian models of historical record. (NB: Has anyone else considered that the Firefly premise might be a reversal of the Asian experience in the American Old West? Perhaps the Chinese settlers of the system's Core Worlds use Anglos to do the 'coolie' work out on the Rim, similar to Chinese immigrants who worked on the Transcontinental Railway? Consider TTJ.)

It might also logically follow that the Colonial Government (BSG) allows for individual systems to determine their own sociological models, if for no other reason than it's too cumbersome to try to tightly structure them all into a single ideology. So, the "Articles of Colonization" might set down some basic rules, but the individual system is left to interpret them legally.

For instance, while the Articles might specifically ban "Slavery", perhaps a system's hierarchy could sidestep that by legalizing 'indentured servitude'. The two are basically the same -- the servant is bought and paid for -- but the lawyers could keep you out of hot water, based on the wording.

The BlueSun/Alliance might therefore be in nearly continuous contact with central Colonial Government, while exercising its inalienable Article-given right to determine its own local governmental style. Think of the US and the UK: Two different ways of doing business internally (monarchy vs. republic, social vs. private medicine, actual beer vs. lightly alcoholic soda water, et cetera), and yet allied quite closely in geopolitical affairs.

There is a historical model for such cultural diversity; we're living it right now...

Please continue to provide insights. I think we're on the right track. And don't forget, I'm just a participant, not a moderator of this conversation. I'm only offering input, which may be accepted or refuted.

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
I'm not familiar with Blake's 7, which never aired in the US (to my awareness). For the purposes of this discussion, though, I'd prefer to stick with the Galactica + Firefly concept, to stay on point...
_________________________________________________

"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity

ZOID

Saturday, February 12, 2005 6:01 PM

Channain:

RP = Role Playing? I'm fairly stupid when it comes to most of these acronym-thingys. No, I meant what I said: This is for purposes of assisting those who are interested in writing crossover fiction. If someone else wanted to subsequently turn it into a role playing scheme, I've got no objections to that. But I'm specifically looking for any kind of creative input in setting up the working boundaries of the combined worlds. Some of our UK Flans have a better idea on some of the complete parameters of the BSG 'verse, too. Their input would also be appreciated (no spoilers, though, please). Sort of a "No, that won't work, based on later revelations" sort of thing, maybe.

My ultimate goal is to allow those who are so inclined (myself included) to write fiction of various lengths, with characters of both series interacting. How about a crisis-driven, engineering problem-solving story featuring CPO Tyrol (BSG) and Kaylee? The Battlestar develops a mechanical problem for which it will take an unacceptably long time to mill a new part. Kaylee pulls one of her 'terrifying space monkey' repairs to save the day, helping them elude a Cylon battleship. Richard Dean Anderson cameos as the Chief Engineer of the mechanical system's manufacturing corporation; he insists that Kaylee's 'MacGyver' of a fix won't work, and then is proven embarassingly wrong...

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity

RUTHIE

Saturday, February 12, 2005 6:05 PM

I'm from the UK, and have seen the whole first series of BSG.

Nothing you have suggested would seem to be to go against the way the series develops.

I'm confused at just how you are envisioning it, Zoid - in your first post, it sounds as though yor are trying to 'bend' the two scenarios to make them fit together (making Zarek a Browncoat etc), wheras your second post sounds more along the lines I was thinking - just take the two as they are, and bring them together.

I'm imagining the reports from the rim - a huge fleet of space vessels has been spotted - can it be that there ARE aliens after all? Tha Allience fleet is summoned - as many ships as can be mustered...
Co-incidentaly, a little transport ship called 'Serenity' just happens to have been doing a job in that sector. As the 'alien' fleet advances, they happen to pick up some stray comms signals, including visual - the 'aliens' are human!

Can the Allience be convinced in time not to destroy the newcomers?

*******************
Ruthie
*******************
By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. (R.A.Heinlein)

ZOID

Saturday, February 12, 2005 6:09 PM

AURaptor wrote:

Quote:
Zoid, are you are mind reader or what?

Yes.

When Joss created me, He made me a psychic, non-violent, cretinous type; but that was as far as He was willing to go. I was kinda hoping for one of those bony forehead plates, too...

Pattern recognition is my prime modus operandi, "and it's brought me a galaxy a'fun I'm here to tell you."

Mentally,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity

CHANNAIN

Saturday, February 12, 2005 6:26 PM

Quote:
RP = Role Playing?

Yes, sorry, my bad. I've been deep in it for so long that I just think "RP" these days

And everything you said was totally awsome, only, you meant Richard Dean Anderson, right? Not Harry? With the MacGyver reference and all, I was thinking Rick, not Harry.

Anyway - Good Writing!

Chan

Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/

ZOID

Saturday, February 12, 2005 6:58 PM

Ruthie responded:

Quote:
...I'm confused at just how you are envisioning it, Zoid - in your first post, it sounds as though yor are trying to 'bend' the two scenarios to make them fit together (making Zarek a Browncoat etc), wheras your second post sounds more along the lines I was thinking - just take the two as they are, and bring them together...

Hopefully then, one of my series of posts above have clarified it somewhat.

That's kind of the point of this exercise. If a group of people wanted to write some crossover fanfic, it would be helpful to have some ground rules that readers could count on.

You seem to be suggesting that FF and BSG would be unaware of one another's existence, and that would fuel some conflict between the two. I think it would be more satisfying to have them aware of one another, from the get-go.

I predict that a 'they don't know about each other' scenario is going to be less fertile than a 'they are intimately linked' scenario. In your scenario, after the initial conflict is resolved there would be a lot of cultural alienation that would keep them from meshing productively against the common Cylon threat. In my version, the Alliance and Colonials would have a built-in basis for cooperation, as well as a built-in basis for social unrest.

I would have Zarek be one of the founding fathers of the Independent movement across the galaxy (i.e., a failed revolt across many systems, including Firefly's), imprisoned after the uprising was crushed in the various systems in which it arose. But, his anti-government ideas inspired the downtrodden, including Mal, Zoe and other Browncoats. He would, therefore, be a hero to Mal, and any Browncoat would be 'on the outs' with Purplebelly-types like Roslin.

The conflict for our heroes would then be reassimilation into a larger society, fighting injustice within the system, while fighting a common enemy (Cylons). This would provide an on-going subcontextual conflict for the stories, much as it did for the Firefly series.

As a final note, I think one could've taken the Tom Zarek story out of the BSG universe and made it a compelling Firefly story with very few adaptations. If Tom Zarek had been a Browncoat leader, and the Alliance society had offered him a second chance similar to the one Apollo had offered him, he and other Browncoats might have opted back in. The post-Civil War US had a Reconstruction period that offered similar amnesty for former rebels. But the Reconstruction was fraught with evils of its own making; food for thought, when considering how well Zarek/Browncoat leadership's deal with the Alliance might actually pan out.

Still, we're working on this 'bible' idea together, and that's what I'd hoped for. Perhaps you could describe how the conflict would be perpetuated after the initial contact between Alliance and Colonials? It seems rather a dead-end, after the first episode or two, but I'm probably just being single-minded...

Respectfully,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity

ZOID

Saturday, February 12, 2005 7:04 PM

Channy wrote:

Quote:
...you meant Richard Dean Anderson, right?

Oops! I is a mo-ron! I'll go fix it; but I admit you're right: I got it goofily wrong.

And thanks for pointing it out. The only thing worse than the embarassment of making such a silly blunder, is leaving it uncorrected...

v/r,
-zed

P.S.
Was I thinking Harry Dean Stanton? Who knows what passes for cognition with zoid...

RUTHIE

Saturday, February 12, 2005 9:08 PM

(Alcohol warning - but not TOO much, I hope.....)

Quote:
I would have Zarek be one of the founding fathers of the Independent movement across the galaxy (i.e., a failed revolt across many systems, including Firefly's), imprisoned after the uprising was crushed in the various systems in which it arose. But, his anti-government ideas inspired the downtrodden, including Mal, Zoe and other Browncoats. He would, therefore, be a hero to Mal, and any Browncoat would be 'on the outs' with Purplebelly-types like Roslin.

Hmmm. Well, maybe I do have the advantage on you here of having seen all of BSG (so far). Or perhaps it is a difference of natural inclination. But I don't see Zarek as any sort of hero, or Roslin as a Purplebelly. Perhaps a few more monthe, and more eps, are needed to be sure we are basing interpretations on the same information.

I think the problem I have with your scenario (as I understand it) is that there has been no hint in Firefly of any power greater than the Allience, or in BSG of colonies known, but not attacked by Cylons.

Wheras both have a backstory that includes Earth as a historical/mythical place. So I see the link as in the past, with the possibility of being resumed in the future, rather than in the 'present' of either series.

To put it in an SF-sort of way, and assuming that the two series won't 'officially' intermingle, I see the timelines diverging at the point we are at - i.e. during BSG's search for Earth, and Firefly's independance from it. In the 'official' series/films, the BSG convoy goes a different way, and so never finds the Firefly 'Verse, in our alrenative scenario, they turn left, not right, and meet.

As for story development, I've got ideas, but food is ready now, so will post later/tomorrow :)

*******************
Ruthie
*******************
By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. (R.A.Heinlein)

ZOID

Sunday, February 13, 2005 8:16 AM

Ruthie:

Y'know, one of the common problems of human beings in general is a certain casual myopia. We seldom see things from the other guy's perspective. This failure of imagination leads to a lot of the world's ills: war, persecution, bigotry, ethnocentrism, the French... Okay, so it's not really the raison d'etre for the French, but I figured it was as good an excuse as any.

Before you jump to conclusions, let me lay down a cushy mattress for you: My point is that we know practically nothing about the rank-and-file Alliance citizen, nor about their form(s) of government. Are Alliance leaders elected? Is its citizenry in the majority happy, healthy and fulfilled? I feel it's supportable to argue that the Alliance is very similar to modern capitalist democracies of the West. Are those of us who live in these societies 'evil', simply because we live in them, and defend our families and way of life from those who would destroy our governmental and economic systems?

Firefly fans see Malcolm Reynolds and his comrades as heroes, because we are intimate with his story. We see Purplebellies as 'evil' because we are not intimate with their individual stories. We see Roslin and Adama (but I intend to make a special case of him later in this project) as heroes because we are intimate with their story. This is what I meant by saying "casual myopia". On both sides of every conflict are human beings who feel (more or less) fully justified for their beliefs and actions. And since logic so seldom applies in matters of belief, both sides may argue quite compellingly -- and with equal lunacy -- that their cause is Just.

How about a little pertinent thought experiment? From a Firefly-only perspective, how would the common Alliance citizen (surely, 98% of them are good, honest folk) feel about the failed Independent Revolt, and those who espoused that cause? Do you think they'd feel as patriotic about their way of life as we do, or as a Colonial citizen would? Wouldn't they equate Mal's thievery, brigandism and illicit bobble-head doll smuggling to the same sort of outlaw behavior Zarek got imprisoned for (depending perhaps upon the network they tune to for news)?

One of the things I like most about Galactica is that it in many ways is analogous to that untold Alliance side of the Firefly story. That's why I originally came to the conclusion that the two stories could be married. Yin and yang, if you will.

On the other hand, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree with the whole crossover notion. Some ideas seem promising, but work their way into an intractable knot. Still, I'll sit and listen for a while, and see how (or if) the thread proceeds...

Pensively,

zoid

P.S.
Had another crossover story idea: Cylons meet Reavers. Of particular personal interest: Reavers operate without core containment, meaning high levels of radiation, which we know Cylonic bodies cannot tolerate. Maybe, when Cylons disappeared after the truce they moved in right next door to the humans who became Reavers; Reavers developed higher tolerance to radioactive environments as a defense mechanism against Cylons. Tasty.
_________________________________________________

"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity

HOTPOINT

Sunday, February 13, 2005 11:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
I feel it's supportable to argue that the Alliance is very similar to modern capitalist democracies of the West.

We know that there are at least a few Alliance Worlds that have a functioning aristocracy. We also know from Jaynestown that indentured servitude is legal and taking a supposition from a throwaway comment on Shindig that "Why Banning Miller, what a vision you are in that fine dress. Must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days just to get you into that get-up" that slavery is not only practiced it's likely legal to boot or else we wouldn't see the upper classes at a society function talking this way.

Additionally from an economic standpoint there are certainly major restictions on trade (to the extent that smuggling of wobbly headed dolls is profitable and necessary) so I don't think you can say that the Alliance is a proponent of lasse-faire free-trade capitalism either.

However it could very well be akin to late 18th Century Britain with an elected parliament (although not based on universal suffrage), an aristoscracy, informal Empire in the colonies (like the East India Company) and merchantalism (economic nationalism with stong tariffs etc) rather than lasse-faire capitalism.

To think that the Alliance is like a modern Capitalist Democracy would be to go against established facts in my opinion. That wouldn't necessarily make it evil though.

...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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