The Space Opera Working Thread

reply to post by nenothtu


Cool! So, we might finally find out what happened to the Penny!
Okay....
thanks!

reply to post by badgerprints

Hey you! Are you back for a while? Just what we need!
*Winks back*



peace

reply to post by nenothtu

Since time has changed, and we're in a different reality now, he may still be aboard the Penelope, and may have never left her.

That's what I was thinking.
Would be way cool to have the Penelope back aboard!

peace

reply to post by silo13


I'm thinking about it. I really am, but there are factors to consider.

Unfortunately, in his wanderings, our friend Badger has come across some unsettling talk. Something about a very large and powerful UAE ship that was attacked. Most of the crew is reported as lost and the surviving occupants being taken as slaves. The craft was supposedly stripped of it's vital components and is, according to gossip, floating derelict in an infamous "graveyard of ships" somewhere out in the uncharted reaches of our galaxy.

I'm afraid Badger would have a lot of work to do before he could join the rest of the Space Opera in the new timeline. Of course it would be a parallel timeline and he would still be able to communicate behind the scenes with everybody in the working thread. All input would be duly considered.

Think of it as a darker, grittier version of the old timeline. With cynical humor and sarcasm to spare.

It would be a big job and I couldn't do it alone. I'd need some help. Not just any help either. It would need to be a heavy hitter. Along with my own supporting characters, I'd need a reliable and trustworthy writer to play off of. Maybe someone who's got his own ship and is familiar with the Penelope as well. Someone righteous and daring.
Maybe someone like........SLAYER?????????? (Dum-Dumm-DUMMMMMM!!!!!)

We could call it the "Prodigal Space" timeline, or some other vaguely over-dramatic slice of pretension.

reply to post by badgerprints

If you're going to make it a part of this series count me in. At the moment I'm 'off' the Yydryl with a handful of crew and we're headed - well - we're not sure yet!

And as you (maybe) remember - I just roll in the glory of tying up lose-ends. That's what I've had in mind - going 'back' to conclude the story on why CindyMars disappeared - along with Whisper and Antar. Three key character stories that have never been - concluded.

The Yydryl and her occupants (all NPC's at this point - everyone else is off Ship) could maintain Ship/Yydryl and as I said - Silo and Newman - are at the disposal of 'cleaning up the past' --- or forging forward to the future.

Something for you to think about.

And yeah - nice to see you.

peace

reply to post by badgerprints


Well there you go. I've thought about returning. My characters and ship did make a safe get away. But the Opera has been moving along nicely IMHO since then. Maybe another spin-off thread? I dunno. I'd like to hear more Opera writers opinions both pro and con.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Yes. Yes. Yes.

Rubs hands and giggles in an evil manner.

The game is afoot.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Go on, then! I've no idea how you old-timers regard me, but, hey, if we can weave it together.....

I have a loom!!!!
(Not a 24/7 loom, mind y'all, but.........yeah, a loom........I call Muse)


Was thinking of a spin-off myself! But, hey, K-4 is really cool!!!
We are just getting started there!

reply to post by wildtimes


Well,
This old timer regards you as being in good company so you're top notch as far as I'm concerned.

I've been gone awhile and don't see that I have the right to jump in and muck up the works for you long standing contributors but thought that I'd like to resurrect my badger character and maybe do a complementary story line with a less grand scope than you guys have been carrying. Slayer left around the same time and I thought he might want to pitch in but he's not obligated. I didn't talk to him about it. I just knew he enjoyed writing and thought he might like to work with me on it.

I think we should do it without any interaction with the existing story as it is. I just wanted to get everyone who is actively writing in on the decision before we went ahead. Like Slayer said, we could write it in another thread if it bothers anyone. Destroying the Penelope is a pretty big step anyway so it would be good to let everyone have a say. If it goes well then some time in the future we could reunite the characters.

You guys go for it!

I don't see a problem with writing in the same story thread if you want to. We already have 3 or 4 separate story arcs going on, and one more can't hurt anything.

With the repair of the Big Rip, we are in an alternate time line, where a lot of the previous story line never happened, and no one in the universe knows it except those of us who were present at the repair. We can't tell anyone of the "old" history we recall, because no one else will recall it, and they will think we're nuts. This means that you can essentially re-write your entire back story for your characters, and it will still be valid. Most of the previous story events "never happened", but some of them may have - you can add and erase that story as you like in the "new" time line. The canon of history in this time line has not yet been established, nor has it been established just how far the divergence is between the "old" time line and the "new" one. All I can say for sure is that the Opi Buzzard attacks never happened, so Earth still is, and your characters will not recall that it was ever destroyed.

it might be best to keep the Penelope "salvageable", rather than a total loss. I was going to blitz her when everyone left, and Luder had a bout of melancholy over her destruction. A towable frame and a Missing crew (did they abandon ship? Where might they be?) ought to work, I would think. maybe you've something else in mind, though. makes no difference to neno - he's been discharged from service. Might irritate him that Lt James is gone, but then again it's never been established that Lt. James is aboard Penelope in this time line.

Luder has mentioned the possibility of coming back a couple of times, but right now he's up to his elbows in his UA trilogy which is about to be published, so he's a bit too busy for it, I think.

Neno has been granted a claim on a solar system towards Opi space and the Black Rock Archipelago, but only 45 light years out from Earth or so, and that is where the bulk of the characters are at the moment, I think. Any location in the UEF is wide open to you.

reply to post by nenothtu


OK I'm lost now. I thought I knew.


Where's the P exactly and her condition?

I was reading along for months there after I left.

Sorry for the delay, ah' got held up back there.
Welcome back and I too -am looking forward to it!!

reply to post by wildtimes



Wildtimes.

It's all good.

Sorry, was busy on other threads. This sounds like it might get interesting in a positive way.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Well,
It looks like the P is just fine along with earth in an alternate timeline now that the big rip is fixed. Neno seems to think that things are hunky-dory and that the blackbirds are his buddies but .....

Since we left the P before the present timeline changed, we were possibly far enough away from localized time threads to be changed ourselves. I.e. our preception of time is unchanged and intact along with our history of events.
Time is actually a localized event in reality and when it is changed in big chunks, like the time rip, there are a lot of loose ends. Time is so malleable that at the very center of the universe there are localized pockets of intense gravity that are actually trillions of years in the past. Gravity waves have been created and detected to travel at more than 65 times the speed of light. This means that there are gravitational forces that are created by exploding stars that are just seconds old while the local timeline of the same star has changed by millions of years. When things like TIME RIPS get thrown about WILLY NILLY, there's ALWAYS fallout. I think we may find that our happy little slice of old time Opera Space has changed for the worse.

Just a feeling...

Anyhoo....
Badger has been getting weird stories about the P or a ship similar to her being destroyed and he's making a long long trek (no pun intended) to find out what it's all about. You never know. Maybe there will be two P's. One fully functioning and operational while the other is out there floating amongst the other bones.

I personally think any doubles we meet along the way could end up being very unlike what we knew in the past. Maybe even purely evil twins of the members in the new timeline.

And we haven't even decided if we're going to go looking for the P.

Decisions, decisions.

Who's up for chocolate cake and tequila?

reply to post by badgerprints

Did you say chocolate cake? That's a scary thing right there, lol. (See story line)..

Either in the same thread or out - either way - they're your characters and you should do with them what you will either way. I'd like to see it in the same story thread - as Neno said 'the more the merrier' - and it is extremely cool to see how things 'mesh' of their own but leaving and making a side by side thread - why not?

reply to post by SLAYER69


Penelope's location has never been established after the repair of the Big Rip. When we left, she was in orbit around that planet where the fight with the Opis occurred, but there is no reason, really, to assume she is still there in THIS time line, nor is there any reason to assume that the meeting with the Yydryl ever happened in THIS time line. That meeting happened to us in the old time line, and matters only to the readers and the characters. It HAS been established that at least neno was on the Penelope at some point in THIS time line, because he got his discharge from service based upon his station there.

Luder wanted to put her back at Alpha Centauri, in that war - from the very beginning of the Space Opera, but he didn't come back to do that, so she could be anywhere. You can place her anywhere you like to further the story now. It appears that Badger wants to put her out in the celestial boonies, wrecked, and that works as well as anything else.

reply to post by badgerprints


Now that right there is some intriguing stuff... potential twin Penelopes, Evil Twins for the characters who slipped through in the re-ordering of the Big Rip from alternate timelines, alternate universes, alternate realities, whatever alternates one is comfortable with (I'd imagine they are all just different ways to say the same great big mind-breaking alternate concept).

back in the sixties, the concept was explored in at least two sci-fi shows of the day - Lost in Space, in "The Man from the Fifth Dimension", and the original Star Trek in "Mirror, Mirror". Both episodes had the current characters meeting up with Evil Twins from alternate realities.

The blackbirds aren't exactly our friends, we just never went to all out war with them, because they were never forced out of their own space by the Big Rip, because that rip "never happened". the battles around Black Rock probably DID happen, since that area is contested, in the bad lands between UEF and Opi space. One would think there might be some friction in the claims there. Borders often have that effect.

A strange thought just struck me - what if OUR neno IS the "Evil twin"? After all, he's the one from the alternate dimension!

Yup, I can see possibilities where you are going! make mine tequila and chocolate cake instead of chocolate cake and tequila!

ETA: maybe the Lost in Space episode was called "the Antimatter Man" - I can't recall exactly, it's been 40 years!

Whatever you all decide is fine by me...
I'm still the "new kid", ---
I'm excited to see where/how it goes!

Can you direct me to some particular points in the Opera that will help me become familiar with the characters? I haven't researched the P at all, as she was not present during the time I've been involved.

Or, when you make your entrances, will you be giving a small synopsis of background (like in later volumes of series...when they briefly get the reader caught up or aware of backstory)...

Welcome!




I suppose I should add that often posts by the others stimulate my Muse and I tend to just grab hold and join my characters in. Please just let me know. Both of my newest characters are unknowns, pretty much. Still working out their backgrounds and histories. We do know they knew each other and had a falling out of some kind, but had worked together or at least put their heads together around the Shadow Diamond that has just been found.

BIAD has a full posse of bad guys involved in that, and Alaag Tlaa is their enemy; that's about where we were last I read.
We could have the P crew knowing all about it and being somehow involved behind the scenes (now coming forward), or they can have their own separate completely different story line, whichever. Just let me know!!

Ah,
One last monkey in the wrench. It's the same time for Slayer and I but strangely enough, the local timeline has progressed by years. Presumably, according to astrophysicists and tin hat types, in a cosmic effort to smooth out near space remnants of quantum tomfoolery, vis-a-vis the time rip. Even repairs in the continuum leave lumps and scars. Maybe quite a few.

I think that might be a good general direction to go in but being that we're out of place and time as well as outcasts from the Evil P (which we don't know about yet) we will need to take time to figure this all out.

Only a few small ships. We're trying to be low key. Did I mention that Badger has a bounty on his head for desertion? When that pesky timeline was artificially repaired, badger never got to his first duty post on the P. Now he's persona non grata for a crime he didn't commit. This means lots of sneaking and snooping in the back alleys and low rent planets.
Something a bit slower. Like a mystery to be solved.

By the way, according to rumor the P wasn't destroyed. It ended up in normal/altered normal space where the original timeline was played out. Unfortunately, it was attacked by a marauding twin. Evil P. Which was a by-product of the aforementioned quantum tomfoolery. Who'd a thunk it.

Of course, at this point it's all conjecture. I haven't really given it much thought.

reply to post by badgerprints

Sounds like you've got it rolling around pretty well for not giving it much thought. But, that's how we writers are. It comes in waves and then recedes, sometimes tsunamis, other times drought....

we're, well, different. In any case....it's very nice to meet you!