Proposing A New Direction for Season 10

[Meds]

Oh, no Jen, I don't mean TOS, I mean new movie era, like picking up right where the film ends. And yes, although I tried to be a full time participant in the last two seasons, I wasn't able to keep up writing due to personal time constraints. However, the summer gives me a break from racing and my training will be more flexible and I will have more time.

I have been involved with the RPG from it's inception, have read for the Ready Room and the drama you are putting together, have encouraged and complimented every one involved, but I say one thing critical and I get jumped. I understand the investment the core RPG writers put into the work, and it is a work of art. Sometimes, it's not perfect but it's the result of blood, sweat, and tears and that's all that matters. It's strong enough to take a few knocks, especially coming from someone who loves it like I do. Was I engaged by the last season? Not so much. Was it bad? Of course not, you guys did great. Am I in a position or have the creative chops to lead us in a new direction? Not on your life, you all are talented beyond me. If this thread is a discussion of Season X, I wanted to share my thoughts. If the plan is to do as you guy's have outlined, I'm game to give it a go. :)

As long as you are in your lycra Bryan i reckon you'll take it as a new challenge ;) LOL.

Serously though i think the change of  direction will be re-freshing and a challenge and that is the key.

[Feathers]

I for one don't want to start again with a whole bunch of new characters. Not so much for my own sake really, as Galdar's only been here a season but for everyone else who's spent years working out who they play. To have finally got D'Callan 'right' for instance and then have to throw him away seems a real shame and a waste of effort. To have to start again would rip a lot of the fun out of things I suspect.

Also, given that this allows character mistakes to be sorted out I don't think starting off a whole load of new characters helps there either. You can't fix mistakes you haven't made yet and until you've written a character for a bit I doubt the mistakes are identifiable.

Time and place doesn't worry me so much but binning all the characters does both as an understudy author and a RR listener. I feel I know these guys! Even if they do get 'tweaked' they are still likely to be recognisable. I don't want to listen to a whole bunch of new ones. (Of course if some people want to rewrite from the ground up that's fine. I just suspect most people won't)

[Bryancd]

I am protective of the folks I'm moderating and the work they're doing.... and I did say that I would be willing to go with your idea if the majority liked it. I'm trying to be diplomatic here.

Like a lioness protecting her cubs ! :) Let me be clear, i am not advocating tossing out the current characters, I just though it would be fun to move them to the new movie era and tweak them accordingly. Galdar can be the first Ferengi in Starfleet! If we get to make up new canon, then all of our characters, maybe even K'arath. It's just an idea but if no one digs it, that's fine.

[Feathers]

Ah, OK. I was sure you'd suggested throwing all the characters out to move to the new era. No matter then.

[Dangelus]

The more I think about it the more exciting this new direction is. Got to start thinking about what changes I would like Lester's character to have!

[Bryancd]

The reason I thought to take the characters back to the new Trek movie era as we now know much more about it. We know what the Federation and Starfleet and the ships and the uniforms look like. We have a framework to build off of that's new and exciting. Everyone is so jazed about the new movie, let's play in that sandbox. It will allow new writers an easy touchstone to join in. It gives all of us the chance to have our characters be in those new outfits, facing these new challenges. If we do this in a future version of that, it does allow us to keep character continuity intact, but we have to make up the new realities of this Federation. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like, but I can totally imagine Ensign Dunn running around on a JJ starship in the JJ universe.

[X]

I think the consensus is in and we should go ahead and start moving forward with putting the characters together, so that we can be prepared to start the next season in less than a month. I think that once everyone gets an idea of their characters, we should get them down and move to the next step. A general timeline should be up soon enough to assist with that. Migraines not withstanding, it shouldn't be that hard to assemble a bare bones and then add individual histories.

[Bryancd]

I think the consensus is in

oh...it is?

[X]

I think the consensus is in

oh...it is?

yep yep! It's not a unanimous consensus, but it is by far a majority consensus. 1 wanting writer TOS the rest going with the proposal. Seems a pretty obvious conclusion there.

[Bryancd]

Seems pretty obvious you didn't read what I wrote, but that's ok.

[X]

Seems pretty obvious you didn't read what I wrote, but that's ok.

Byran, I honestly and fully read what you wrote, but I didn't agree. I don't think that we know more about that era. I actually think we know a LOT less about that era. We don't even know the size of the Enterprise. I know it would be easy for some characters to just port into that time, but for others it would be difficult if not impossible. Sure you can change everything up to make it work, but why? The way that was proposed seems the best idea to me. It also seems easier from the standpoint of putting together a cohesive story. The proposal works for most of the people that will be writing. If we have to take another survey on if we like it or not each time a new idea is posted, the three week gap between seasons is going to rush by with nothing accomplished.

If you have a serious counter proposal, write it up and plot it out then post it like Jen did. I don't think that a few lines of text to sell your idea works for me. there was some effort put into coming up with that proposal, I think it's only fair that a counter proposal has at least the same level of effort in presenting it. Since it wasn't presented as a proposal and a few lines above that, you said you were willing to give it a shot, I thought you were pretty much just giving your opinion, not actively suggesting a new idea.

When I said 1 writer wanting TOS, I didn't mean old TOS, I meant the new movie era. When I say TOS, I mean Stuff having to deal with Kirk and Spock. Even books set in the Enterprise E era featuring the TOS cast still get labeled as the TOS era. So if that made it seem like I wasn't reading what you wrote, I was. TOS was just easier to frame the time line as opposed to the JJ movie era.

[Rico]

Let me just step slightly in here.  I have made a few comments, as others have as well about this idea.  I think now it is up to Jen & Kenny and anyone else they wish to consult with on what they want the next season of the RPG to be.  I don't think much more will be gained by saying the same thing over and over.  I trust their judgment and they will have my support and I trust the support of all the RPG writers with whatever conclusion they come up with.  If they wish to continue to get more views and opinions, I suppose that's fine.  But I think maybe other people from the RPG should chime in too rather than just a select few.

[Bryancd]

I am game for what you guys have said and thank you for clarifyinfg, when you said TOS it sounded like, well, TOS! :)

[Feathers]

Wasn't there a whole thread about acronyms for the New TOS era... Perhaps we should adopt one of those for future cultural references :)

[Jen]

The quite a few regular contributors have already commented here. We're only missing Kenny, Dinghead, KC and Institches....I'm not even sure some of them are rejoining. I've PMed them to ask them to look at the thread, let me know if they are returning and offer their opinions if they are.

Something that just hit me that would really throw a wrench in my character and others, is if we go with the movie era (TOS or whatever you want to call it :)  ), is that Spock is the only Vulcan in Starfleet. For reasons I can't say at this point, Sevryll has to be in Starfleet too. It not only messes with Galdar's availability to join the fleet (because Ferengi first contact doesn't happen until TNG), but it limits the abilities of people wanting to play Bajoran, Klingon or Vulcan officers in this game. A setting in the future opens the door to more possibilities. If people want to go that route we have to step all over what the movies are coming up with by including characters we want to play in this game.