Star Trek: Horizon - First, a teaser. Next...?

[ThomBoyer]

Hello, my name is Thom, and I'm a writer in recovery. I've had some ideas that had been gnawing at me for quite some time, and they have the audacity of being set firmly in someone else's playground, no matter how I may try to separate them. This story's been showing up to me in bits and fragments for years now, and I'd like to clack the proper keys to set it up. The story's not firmly in continuity (hence, fan fiction), but it lends itself a lot to DS9's mythos. The project refuses to leave my head with any title other than "Horizon," no matter how I attempt it, be it screenplay, novel, streaming fragments, or musical. The centerpiece is a cluster of Starfleet personnel and civilian passengers left stranded after the destruction of their brand-spankin'-new ship in the Cardassian annex of Bajor. The term I like to kick around in my head is "survivalist space opera," as far as specificity goes. I'm still debating between a few formats and POV, but for teaser's sake...

Captain: Josephine Berlioz of the USS Horizon, NX-10416
Year: 2328
Near the Cardassian border, in a universe that could be our own…

“The lavabo refused to suck the blood away like the swirling black hole it had presented itself as. The crimson puddle grew deeper and fiercer and lapped on the rim, a torrential ocean engulfing this little altar girl's eyes. My eyes were transfixed, refusing to unlock from the crimson, eating away at the virgin metal. The man in the purple vestments scoffed and flung his hands away; he wouldn’t even accept the towel over my left arm. I had been pouring water for him. I wanted to pour him water…
“‘Pulse is back!’
“Thirsty…my mouth tasted like the bowl.
“‘Can you hear me? Hey, Cap, can you hear me?!’
“Black like a priest’s shirt. The bowl in my mouth became liquid. I heard a softer voice, crunching through a cavern, ‘Josie, are you with us?’
“Metal again, so much liquid came and went with each breath. I think I jolted upwards, heaving blood to the stone beneath me, as though I were young again, back on the altar. Everything seemed so dark…dark, thick, and cold. ‘Are you there, Josie?!’
“Truth be told, I was pretty out of it…”

I'm still in some pre-writing stages, and I have a few endings in mind. I'm thinking about a three-year story, not sure how many installments or frequency of posting. Some friends and I had done some drafting a few years ago in an HBO-style season structure (roughly three seasons of twelve episodes each) in an aborted screenwriting exercise. I guess my question is, how would anyone who's interested like to see this presented? I used to be best-versed in screenplay format, but I've been thinking of tackling this as a diary, nothing but Capt. Berlioz' log entries, or just straight third-person omniscient, since I've actually not tried it before in any meaningful capacity. Hope to hear back from a few of you!

 

[CeJay]

Well, I certainly like the premise. Generally I'm interested in any Trek fic which attempts to do something a bit different (probably because I'm trying to do that myself right now). And this sounds very promising. Something akin to 'Lost' in Space (hopefully not quite like the cheesy sci-fi show by the same name)

The teaser was just a little bit too short for me to get a good idea of what this is going to look like. Truth be told I found it a bit jarring.

I hope you decide against the script format. I personally am a big anti-script advocate as I don't believe it to be a good format to tell a written story (I'm sure there are exceptions).

First person would be very interesting, hasn't been done much. Log entries are also interesting but might take away some dramatic effect. Third person is always a save option and allows the most flexiblity. In the end its really your call and you should go with whatever you feel is most appropriate for the story you are trying to tell.

I do hope to see some of this soon. I am intruiged.

 

[Gibraltar]

I'm going to jump onboard with CeJay here in regard to script-based stories. I find them especially difficult and distracting to read. I believe you'd get many more readers, and subsequently more feedback, by posting a prose-based story.

Just my $0.02

 

[hellsgate]

ThomBoyer: I really like the idea but (without meaning to rewrite your project or demean you as an author in any way,) I'd just like to ask you a question.

'why not go with an older established starship that's been recommissioned for its next five year stint a-la the Enterprise-A.'

I personally have a fondness for the Loknar-Class & its variants through the eras between "Enterprise" & "TNG". Such as the Valley Forge-Class available for viewing here:

http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/startrek/TMP_ValleyForge.gif

That way, it lends a certain feasible/realistic credibility to a crash on Bajor. Something goes askew during an armed confrontation & results in a face-first belly-flop into a forested area lending the crew a chance to escape from the crash-site somewhat undetected for a little while.

I'd love to have you submit both your script & prose versions to my fan fiction site for fans of both formats to enjoy them.

 

[ThomBoyer]

Thanks for the response here. As I said, I've tried putting this project together through several incarnations for years, and I think the time has come to stir the pot. Most likely, it will be written as a series of memoirs coupled with log/diary entries of the incident, unless I get the old team together to tackle it in script form again. A few years ago, two friends and I had gotten so far as breaking down an eight-act pilot movie, running down episode-by-episode of the first "season," and planning the general three-year structure. The big question is in regards to how much of the old material to keep, etc...

hellsgate - I actually hadn't been familiar with that ship design, very nice, I must say. The one I'd been working with mentally was a tri-nacelled Excelsior variant, tentatively dubbed Horizon-class. It's fairly important to the story (well, Josephine's character arc, anyway) that the ship would have been the only of its kind. And I never said the crash happened on Bajor , though some major events happen there.

Expect to see plenty of Cardassians, Klingons, Bajorans, bars, betrayal, quick lives, quick deaths, the Federation News Service, slow lives, slow deaths, Section 31, hitchhiking, sex, music, and isolation in the cosmos...so long as it takes some seblance of the form I'm seeing now.

 

[RevdKathy]

Please remember to keep all that within the pg13 range - it sounds like a rollercoaster!

 

[hellsgate]

RevdKathy & ThomBoyer: Exactly why your story should be submitted to "Star Trek: New Worlds" as there aren't any PG13 limits. Except, I expect a commonsense content-warning / disclaimer to be written into the first few lines of the document if you decide to push the "NC-17" literary boundary a bit and/or add photoshop'ed pictures to your prose / script document.

http://www.geocities.com/trekwriter31/FanFic.html