Monday, April 25, 2016

Author Notes: Behind the Scenes of Remnants - Prologue and Chapter One

I'm reprinting the prologue notes here to save time and space on the profile, just scroll past them if you want to get to the new stuff. Here I talk about the objective of this story, certain aspects of a few scenes and you get to see Shepard's face.



We Begin Again: After a long time coming we’ve published the sequel. Let me tell you it was a long time coming. Over the past year I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and refining of my writing style. I’m happy to report I feel I’ve improved significantly, that the break to work on something different helped rejuvenate my creative thinking. I know have more ideas in my head, both for this series and outside it, that it’s hard to think of what to work on in my spare time between updating this and it’s forthcoming companion story with Liara. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I hope to see you join me on that ride when it comes, as I’ve always appreciated your continued support. You’re all the reason I keep writing more or less. That and my overriding desire to tell crazy high-concept stories.

So at least, here we are the third story in this portion of the chronicles and more or less the halfway point. This story is structured a little differently than most as I’ll explain in a future installment of these author’s notes. For now, just know that we’re more episodic in nature with one chapter more or less leading into the events of the next as we travel along with this mismatched fleet of heroes. Of course I use heroes very loosely, considering Zek and his pirates are along for the ride. Varvok is more heroic than him and even he’s still a jerk. You’ll see them in action soon enough, but for now I think we should talk about one of our new characters briefly.

Taq: A female jackal is a rare thing in Halo media, they usually aren’t seen doing much. Which is weird considering their society is matriarchal. I thought it was time to introduce another lovely lady into the mix. Well, probably not that lovely, she’s still a Jackal. You can tell she’s a bit inspired by Lara Croft in some of her initial scenes, but less the current version that features a more modern heroine and more the old Croft who was a bit selfish in her pursuit of riches. Jackals are profit seekers by nature after all. I intend to reveal more of her in time, mainly because she features heavily into the story and I don’t want to spoil everything about her character. Suffice it to say, we got a lot of Jackal culture from a male perspective before. Now we’ll get to see it from a female perspective. Which again seems only fair given their position of power.

I only hope I’m not hounded by angry fanboys at some point bemoaning the fact I made another female character take center stage. I only say this because it seems these days any time a woman is introduced as a lead in films or comics people suddenly get angry for no genuine reason. Look, Halo and Mass Effect both have diverse casts, a lot of the players are women. The same is true of every damn piece of popular nerd fiction out there. If you’re seriously pissed off about badass chicks starring alongside Mad Max or taking the lead in Star Wars or whatever bullshit “SJWs ruin everything” conspiracy you have knocking around your noggin, please, inflict that one someone else who cares. I don’t. I happen to like making female characters of all shapes, sizes, creeds and capabilities. I like writing them and I like having them involved in the main plot. I always think of the character first before gender anyway, but I just happen to prefer switching it up with a badass chick or two. So if you’re about to get on my case like some have done for Lucasfilm over a woman being the lead of the first Star Wars Spin-Off film in history, back off right now. I’m not in the mood for that.

Apologies for sounding harsh, the past few weeks have been one of major disappointment for me regarding my fellow geeks. I’m mainly saying this for the general passerby and not my core reader base who I have built up. I am not too worried about people ragging on me for creating a female Jackal, in fact I fully expect more people to be interested in learning about her as time goes by. If writing these stories has taught me anything, it’s that the people who have come to love them are amazing, tolerant and supportive people who just want a good story. Don’t worry, we’re not going to get into gender politics or the like within the narrative too much. Neither the UNSC, Shepard’s crew or the Jackals and Varvok have much to offer on that. Trust me, nothing is more insulting to me than the misinterpretation of that subject in media, I’d prefer if they leave it alone if they can’t be bothered to research this garbage. Taq has a incredibly important part to play as this story of Space Piracy and Intrigue unfolds. I hope you all enjoy her as she joins our merry band of adventurers on their voyage back home.

Funeral: This idea was actually suggested to me by a reader. I already had a general idea of doing something like it, but this cemented it's place as the opener. It best explained the current position the UNSC members of the Makeshift Fleet to me personally. They've lost a lot of good people, some of them due to the enemies they're allied with, others due to a group of mutineers who have been brought under heel. There are cracks in the foundation between their own forces and mistrust of the Jackals and batarians. This ceremony is really the best way they can handle the crap that's gone down and it allows Holland to restate their mission. To properly ground them all in the importance of getting home, together. Even he knows the speech won't be enough to wash away all doubts, but it will help ease tensions for awhile.

Shepard talks with Zek: I've been meaning to do this scene for a long while. Zek finally gets to go one on one with Commander Shepard in his usual brash and unapologetically pirate-like manner. Zek is of course a lot of fun to write, mainly because of who he is. He's funny, he doesn't take much seriously, but he is a business man first and foremost, he thinks everyone has a price and he just needs to find it. Then we can all be friends... so long as Zek gets something out of it. He's like Aria, but less scary and probably a bit more selfish. He also has a mischievous side to him, which is nice to see  now and then as Shepard rarely has to deal with that on a regular basis.

Shepard just tries to handle it best he can, but Zek is a little nuts so getting through to him isn't as simple as most others. Also, the pirate was more than likely a tiny bit drunk at the time, so what do you expect? The idea of Shepard crew having to deal with Jackal pirates overall is a fun idea to me. Mass Effect 2 has a ton of serious characters with serious stories and while they have their funny moments they largely don't crack jokes every second, mainly because they're potentially all about to die on a mission. Zek and his pirates don't seem to think about that, they're just after their next score. They don't take to military grim and gritty all that well, they just want to make a profit while doing whatever they feel like. The only person who really fits in with them therefore is Kasumi, who is a thief herself and whose personality remains the most upbeat throughout the game. 

Shepard however is their leader, he doesn't always have the luxury to be that way and Zek himself is also a very different kind of leader from him. So overall, they work fairly well off one another as the man with a mission and an alien with a scheme. On the surface that may not sound too different, but it is. They both have goals, but a mission is more definitive and clear. A scheme is a hustle, it's by nature underhanded and uncertain. One is something a soldier had, the other is something a crook has, or in this case a pirate.

Shepard's Face: Since we're on the subject for the moment, before I get into the meat of this post, here's what you guys have been waiting for, Wade Shepard's face. He is my principle Shepard, although I have created many more since his inception.


This is how he looks in ME2, obviously. It changes a little in ME3 because of graphics and stuff, but still. As you can see, he has the handlebar mustache I described years ago, mainly because I feel that is a badass look that I myself can never get to work on me. Wade rocks it fairly well though I feel. I'd give you guys the code for him, but sadly ME2's codes are unreliable. If you really want me to I can open up ME3, those codes are usually more accurate. Overall, I'm glad I put this up, I hope you guys are happy to see what Shepard looks like in this story and that you now have a face to go with his dialogue.

The Objective: In order to understand what exactly my intentions are, I need to give you a little television history lesson, specifically Star Trek. Back in the 90s, during Star Trek’s explosion back into mainstream culture, the series spawned a different faction within Starfleet’s ranks, colonists who rejected the Federation of United Planet’s picture perfect utopian lifestyle after being hung out to dry by them. Their colonies were being attacked, their people forcibly removed, by a hostile alien force, but because the Federation had signed a peace treaty with those aliens the Federation did nothing. They formed the Marquis, a resistance movement that was a constant problem for Starfleet for years to come. 

Of course every time they used them they kinda painted them as in the wrong despite everything to the contrary saying they had fairly good reasons for abandoning the Federation, but whatever. The point is it was something interesting, a separate faction of Federation colonists who concluded the guys back on Earth were idiots and had decided to sacrifice them for a stupid “peace in our time” sentiment. They rejected paradise, Roddenberry’s utopian future no longer suited them. Around the same time their arc really started to take off, the second Star Trek spin-off was being created, Star Trek: Voyager. The premise of this show was actually really good, as different and fresh as one could make it. 

The plot was a Starfleet vessel, Voyager, would be sent hurtling across the known galaxy and so far into space that it was going to take them decades to get home. Alongside the regular Starfleet flunkies, you’d have a separate faction within their ranks, members of the Marquis, a whole second ship full of them. To survive this unknown region of space they found themselves in, both groups, with wildly different ideologies, would have to learn to work together and trust one another. You’d have internal ship problems, moral dilemmas based on differing opinions, leaders butting heads, agendas clashing, conflict at it’s most pure. Lost in Space with a modern spin and an actual plot. Sounds awesome right?

Well that was what it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t what the end product was. Voyager wanted to be different, but was scared of it’s own unique position to create drama it seemed. Because instead of going full throttle with dissension in the ranks, differing agendas and the problems such an alliance of necessity creates... they did nothing with it. The Marquis were a defined and separate faction for about one episode, the pilot. After that though? They all started dressing in Starfleet uniforms, even their leader, and eventually accepted the overriding authority of Starfleet back into their lives. You know, the people who they all felt had hung them out to dry? The guys who were actively making their attempts to resist the hostile aliens screwing with them difficult? Within a few episodes they’re completely absorbed into the Starfleet collective to the point you can barely remember who used to be who. There is no separate faction, there is no internal debate among anyone. They’re all just suddenly friends before the end of the first season and barely anyone holds any animosity towards the other for being a traitor or a government stooge. It’s a waste of potential and incredibly stupid in terms of world building. 

Try and visualize it this way. Say a bunch of Native Americans and US Cavalry men were abducted by aliens and transported several hundred million lightyears away from Earth. Somehow they takeover the ship together, but now they gotta get home. Do you think for a second the Natives, who have had their people forcibly removed, slaughtered and lied to repeatedly by these White Army Boys are just going to throw up their hands, wear the blue cavalry uniform and start following their doctrine implicitly? Fuck no! They’re not going to trust these people! They don’t like these people! Some of these people are the reason their mothers and sisters are dead! For all they know, one of these jackass White men has raped a few of their own people. Why the fuck would they suddenly surrender all identity or resistance to them just because? And I only use this as an example because, on Voyager, the Marquis’ leader was descended from Native Americans. And he allows his rebellion, which has a lot of similarities in regards to their cause concerning his people’s past, to be indoctrinated fully by the Federation once more. What the hell?

Now can you honestly see Varvok just giving in to the demands of his former human adversaries? Can you see Zek trading the Covenant’s authority for the UNSC’s? Can you see a bunch of batarians wearing Marine armor and being buddy buds with humans they came to kill? Can you see the average Marine just accepting the Jackals as brothers in arms after years of having their buddies get killed when a Jackal sniper puts a concentrated plasma bolt through their skulls? No, you can’t, because that goes against what the situation has established. These people don’t like each other! Taking over a ship and escaping together doesn’t make them friends! Holland might consider there’s a better chance that the war could be resolved peacefully, but that doesn’t mean he likes working with Space Pirates, nor does he trust them. Zek might hate the Covenant, but that doesn’t mean he wants to get back into the war under a different faction’s banner. Varvok turned his back on his mentor, but that doesn’t mean he’s a Shepard fanboy.

In situations like these, agendas clash, motivations differ, end goals aren’t the same, debates rage about the best course of action, mistrust exists. We’re dealing with former enemies working together. Throw in the animosity of a group of soldiers that mutined, who were against this Alliance from the start, and you have a powder keg. Not testing to see what it takes to keep that from exploding is a waste of a good plot. 

That’s what Voyager did with the Marquis and it carried over to every decision they made after, playing it safe every time. The ship would magically repair after every fight, they wouldn’t do anything against the Prime Directive to get home quicker, they wouldn’t even forge lasting Alliances to strengthen their own standing and protect their asses. They’d drift through the stars like it was just another Starfleet mission with no Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. This story is more or less a response to that, Voyager as it should’ve been. With Space Pirates and Rogue Alien Black Ops soldiers fighting alongside disciplined, xenophobic, hardened soldiers from an Earth that is more militaristic than ours. Humans have been fighting a war for survival for almost three decades now. And trapped in the middle is a man and his small ship that have triumphed despite their differences in the past. And this man, Commander Shepard, has to somehow convince these opposing factions that they need each other, slowly realizing that such a task is much harder than one would think.

That’s Remnants, the story of former enemies forced together and all the drama that entails. That’s why these chapters might read more like episodes than something from a book at times, we’re structuring it a bit after that concept. I’ve seen people do this before, with very mixed results... most of them bad. In my view, if you’re going to tell a more episodic story, one should view it like a continuing series of events. You shouldn’t try and structure it like a script, structure it like each chapter is one part of an evolving storyline. Each episode can stand on it’s own, but plays into the wider plot itself. Also, never tell the readers where the theme song goes, that’s friggin stupid.

Although if you must know, if I had to pick a theme song for this story, it would be Black Dragon by the Vines. If you feel like listening to that with each chapter update be my guest. Hell, pick whatever song you want, I won’t stop ya. 

Master Chief is Awkward: Hey, let's be blunt here. Chief was taken at a young age, forced to become a soldier and lived his whole life acting as the leader for his small group of friends. Yeah, this guy does not exactly have a very extroverted personality. Why do you think he rarely talks to people? It's not just because those early games didn't want to break immersion, or player identification, it's because Chief isn't big on conversations outside the circle of people he trusts and respects. Some average fanboy Marine is just going to confuse him because he doesn't know how the fuck to react to that. I'm not sure he's very comfortable being a hero, why else would he hate cameras? Chief in general is psychologically damaged no matter how you slice it and for that reason any interaction with other people is shaky.

That's why the scene with Kowalski and Ellingham goes like it does. Chief wants to get away from them. Not because he doesn't like them, he just has no idea how he's supposed to act with them. They're not in combat, they're not discussing strategy or tactics or trying to connect with each other on a slightly personal level. They're fans, they want to bask in his glory and that makes him uncomfortable because he didn't ask for any of this. He just wants to do his job. So he says a few words that will hopefully inspire them like it does for his own team and beats a hasty retreat once Shepard is called away. If Shepard had stayed, he probably would've had an easier time talking with two Marines he barely knows.

In a way, I actually get that. I don't really like random people walking up to me and asking questions. I prefer to be the one who engages them and even when I do it's brief and just maybe to joke at something happening around us. I don't really want to just randomly talk to someone in a big ass conversation if I don't feel like it and I don't want them to talk to me. It's just a thing. I'm more comfortable with talking over screens like this than actually in person. I have gotten better at it, but I guess I just feel more people listen to me when I'm writing all my thoughts down instead of speaking them. I guess that's why I can relate to Chief a bit more than some folks, he's an introvert and he's not exactly comfortable in crowds or with people.

And with that bit of personal life sharing garbage out of the way I think it's time to end these notes for now. Hopefully Master Chief can get a bit more comfortable outside his usual zone. But hey, to each his own, right?

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