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Topic: Star Control Television Series (Read 22759 times)
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Death 999
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And the four Pkunk captains should be a lot of fun too. Always have them arguing over the interpretation of the omens, and occasionally one of them says something really wise.
Also, there needs to eventually be an on-board Frungy-pit to accommodate the new allies, but we should NEVER see the game in progress.
We could also see a LOT of Utwig masks.
The shofixti maidens could be unfrozen early, and quickly have to be put back in stasis so they don't get too old.
There could be interesting dynamics if Zelnick sells a second egg fragment to get a Mauler ship... culture clash with the captain there.
And of course when Zelnick tours his new purchase he is revolted at the secondary weapon, but all sales are final. And he only discovers about the use of the egg cases to research better slave harnesses afterwards...
The captain of the Mauler could be a corporate deadweight who was promoted past his or her (say, her) level of competence. It was then determined that a captain was needed for the Mauler being sold, and rather than the furnace, she wouldn't be much of a loss as a captain. So she is borderline competent, and requires significant adjustment to the new atmosphere.
Of course, to maintain a feel-good tone, this change will enable her to blossom. Also helping will be that all of the crew of the Mauler except the captain will have to be Syreen-sucked Mycon, so they can be furnaced without quite as major ethical issues.
Also, assuming the Drruge captain was female, we could have an amusing plot thread as she tries to compete with Talana... note that if she's not hanging in her chains she will be free to wipe her nose drool, and that would take care of the worst of the aesthetic problems. Also, girls with tails == cool.
As far as Hayes is concerned, we could show Zelnick TRYING to take his practical advice, like about mining, but being frustrated with the actual execution, since Hayes won't be there 90% of the time. Hayes will be the only person Zelnick can have a simple conversation between equals as collaborators -- the other ship captains are subordinate, and the aliens, though allied, are not usually going to be really close collaborators.
Zelnick will try to keep a brave face for the crew, but after mining out Alpha Centauri and suffering hideous losses, he's going to have to pour it out somewhere, and it's going to be with Hayes.
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« Last Edit: September 14, 2004, 09:40:46 pm by Death_999 »
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Art
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Interesting ideas all...
I find the Hayes/Zelnick dynamic to be interesting in the game. The thing is that Hayes is obviously quite a bit older and wiser than Zelnick; however, Hayes defers to Zelnick a lot, addressing him as "Captain" and giving him ultimate authority over the operation. It could be because Hayes has always been a proper military man who needed a leader to defer to, or because Hayes really does see great potential in the boy that needs to be drawn out, or, interestingly, because Hayes is at heart a little bit afraid of Zelnick and what he can do. Zelnick himself is a strange, slightly alien weapon in Hayes' hands -- he's the one with the huge, alien starship that no one else can make work, and that puts him in a really odd, tense position of power versus everyone else.
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piratebob
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I think one of the best scenes would be the confrontation with Tanaka. This old, honor-bound warrior, finding the SIS, and babbling a confusing stream of insults. Zelnick, bewildered, trying to reason with him before finally giving in to his emotions and verbally blasting this senile old alien, and then Tanaka finally getting it. That would be awesome to see.
Another good one would be first contact with the Orz. Translator's note, and then a stream of Orzish.
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Cronos
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[Intro]
Fade in, a large blue starship glides against a black sky in the foreground. In the background, Saturn and it's magnificent rings, the sun in the distance.
Scene change, the Bridge of the Vindicator. The captain asks for a status report from, Velts. The crew is gradually introduced but an air of tension is in there. No answers to signals. None picked up.
The earth appears on the main screen, blue, serene, beautiful. The crew sighs in relief. Earth is still there, but the tension remains, they still havent picked up a signal. The captain wishes, idly, that Captain Burton was here to witness this event and makes mention of those he "left behind".
A gasp, the crew snaps their gaze to the viewscreen in horror. The earth slowly turns orange and then a bloody red, cue in "Starbase - Under a Red Sky". Nearby a glint can be seen, silver and rotating, the starbase. As they close in radar scans detect a vessel approaching, hailing them. The captain, still dumbfounded as to what it is thats wrong with the earth dumbly orders an open channel.
Cue in opening Ur-Quan "Interloper" sequence from the start of the game. The vindicator closes to the starbase, noticing that power outages are everywhere. A signal is recieved.
End of Teaser, cue Theme Song "Hyperspace" 
I have a friend that can write scripts so if need be I can get that transcribed. If anything I think we should use a mix of Precursors and original music.
The first season would be all about exploration, just visiting the local area, dealing with the Ilwrath, first contact with the Pkunk, Melnorme and initial contact with the ZFP as well as, perhaps, a return to Vela in the final episode.
Season two would include the making of allies. Discovering the Orz and the resulting extremely creepy fate of the Androsynth, darting through Ur-Quan space to get to the ZFP homeworld, convincing the Spathi to join the new Alliance, roughing it up with the Vux, meeting with Tanaka, dealing with an increasing number of probes ("Another Probe!? Thats the 12th one this week!") and making a cliff hanger with the Vindicator about the enter Quasi-Space for the first time...
Season three would involve hunting for the necessary parts for the portal spawner, initial encounter with the Thraddash, Druuge, Utwig/Supox and General Zex, the Plight of the Syreen and the insanity of the Mycon. The cliffhanger for this one, would be a confrontation with the Talking Pet and the Zombified Blobbehs of dewm!!! (Formerly known as the Umgah).
Season four would have the captain dragging in Zex's beast in exchange for the Maidens, Tanaka being overjoyed at the prospect, contact with the Yehat, both the Starship Clans and the Royalists, the Distress of the ZFP and ending with a dramatic cliffhanger with first contact with the Kohr-Ah.
Season five would be progressively darker then the previous ones. The ZFP may have been saved but the Quasi Space generator took a beating and the Vindicator is trump trash in the middle of Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah space. Captain Decker, a side character of an escort ship decides to sacrifice his ship and crew to give the vindicator time enough to hyperspace out as a dozen Kohr-Ah Marauders enter the scene.
Upon the captains return to the starbase, he finds that the Spathi have up and left, that a mysterious fleet is on the move nearby and that based upon computer simulations, the Kohr-Ah would win their war in a matter of a single year. The only bit of GOOD news is that the Shofixti have returned and are eager to help the new alliance in any way (leading to the introduction of a Shofixti side character).
The captain heads for the Spathi and discovers their fate. Dismayed, he collects the hyperspace caster.
Eager to improve the situation, the Captain gets into gear and heads over to Yehat space. On the way he encounters the Pkunk fleet on the move to their inevitable deaths in Yehat space. Unable to convince the Pkunk to return home, he continues to the yehat. There he confronts four Yehat Terminators with evidence, hard solid evidence that the Shofixti are reborn. The Yehat Captain coldly replies that he must obey the orders of his Queen and moves to attack. Cue in dramatic music as the Terminators close in on the Vindicator. At the last second, two of the Terminators break formation and Attack their brethren, downing the Royalist forces in a single swift strike. Cue in the conversation of the Yehat, Honour and the fate of the Shofixti in a cutscene.
Despite this, however, the rebirth of the Shofixti has triggered a catastrophic civil war amongst the Yehat. Cut to a scene of terminators innumerable fighting, retreating, shielding and being destroyed all to the cue of dramatic and epic music. The season ends with the captain in utter shock, realising that instead of helping to end a war, he has only started one.
I'll get the rest down later. Sleep required.
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Death 999
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Why would the Earth suddenly turn red as you get close? I figure it was just a game bug that it appeared blue from a great distance, yet was red up close.
Also, the alliance did know about slave-shields before, so there would be no doubt as to what the effect was.
Personally, I would start with the pilot being the story leading up to the beginning of the game. Otherwise the question of 'how the heck did we get here?' is quite strong.
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0xDEC0DE
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Now that we're indulging ourselves with discussion of what plot points we would like to see if a show were ever produced, I see another problem with the idea: Television has already had a multi-year scence fiction story about Earth fighting and losing a war against an alien power, a starbase (space station) being cut off from Earth and seeking to restore freedom, ancient alien powers battling each other for doctrinal supremacy, a quest to unravel the mysteries of the ancients, "alien" aliens, and cross-species romance: Babylon 5.
Hell, in Season 4, the Vorlons and Shadows even deployed their versions of "planetary siege units", and the results were much more impressive than Dreadnoughts and Marauders. A Star Control series would be an "also-ran"; all of its themes were handled before -- quite adeptly, I might add -- and then some.
Again, that's not to say that I wouldn't watch were someone dumb enough to put it on the air, but I'd think that the possibility of such is nil.
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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t042544
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I think the big difference is Babylon 5 was completely serious. You need to look at the idea of a Space Dramedy, I mean how cool would it be if Captain Picard would shoot first and ask questions later. All of the current series show a superior human race who is too good to be fighting. What happens when they don't know what to do and they make a huge galactic mistake. It is easy to do comparisons and show similar series on TV, look at all the CSI series and family sitcoms. They are all identical. However, they all appeal to a certain demographic. Star Control would appeal to male 18 to 34 demo. Paul Reiche has said in the past how similar he has thought Babylon 5 was to Star Control. Look at how close Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 were. I personaly think it is a splendid idea. More importantly is sounds really, really fun to watch.
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Death 999
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Collossal differences between B5 and SC:
The Vorlons are strongly unequal to the Kzer-Za.
The tone of B5 is very different:
The threat does not start off as 'we must go hidden from the great enemy, or else they'll destroy us'. Heck, even against the shadows, they knew where the station was all the time, and chose not to destroy it because they found it useful.
The Earth government is not an enemy in SC. There is no oversight of Zelnick, no orders to weasel around ('observe the chain of command!').
While there will be some diplomacy and a touch of intrigue, it will not be a show ABOUT intrigue and diplomacy.
The action follows the wandering ship, not the space station. White stars notwithstanding, B5 was about B5.
The alien races have very different tones and feels in SC2.
I think saying they're the same thing is kind of like saying that The Grapes of Wrath is just a remake of the Aeneid.
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0xDEC0DE
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The Vorlons are strongly unequal to the Kzer-Za.
At the risk of falling into the trap of "Worf vs. Chewbacca", "Godzilla vs. Ultraman", "Terminator vs. ED-209", etc., what do you mean by this? And qualitatively, is there a difference? Both are the "top dog" in their respective fictions.
As for the rest, yes, the details were different, but you have to admit that the "main" story/backstory elements were so similar it's almost eerie. Although I have to admit this could be seen as an asset, since history likely judges Babylon 5 as a success.
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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Megagun
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I'd say we make this thing by ourselves.. Nothing too shabby and such, basically some 3dsmax moddeling, combined with some 3dsmax scripting and someone with a very fast PC to to the rendering.. Nothing with sound when we get started, just the main gfx and rendering stuff. Sound might come later..
I'd say it (at least) might be able to make something nice.. 3dsmax might be replaced with something else... Any good free and easy software perhaps? Though I think most of us have any 3dsmax version (I have 2.5, and perhaps 6.. not sure)..
"The Story" can be told by either some Starwarsish text at the start of a episode, or something like a flashback..
And Cronos: that thing you wrote down was nice.. Even though it was the Sc2 story.. 
Well.. I'm up for it... It'd be nice to see when the project will die .. It probably needs a community completely supporting the project, though..
edit: and ofcourse it wouldn't be a real Television series.. As long as you can convert each episode to a video cd.... We might be able use this to get a wing in the door, you see?
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« Last Edit: September 16, 2004, 08:43:18 pm by Megagun »
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0xDEC0DE
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I'd say we make this thing by ourselves..
That's the spirit! Does anybody know an amazingly hot blue girl to play the Syreen?
I'd say it (at least) might be able to make something nice.. 3dsmax might be replaced with something else... Any good free and easy software perhaps? Though I think most of us have any 3dsmax version (I have 2.5, and perhaps 6.. not sure)..
Blender is free, rather feature-packed, and supports distributed rendering, so you could put together an "ad-hoc render farm" comprised of volunteers, and without having to pirate software (piracy is so 1990's anyways...)
That's not to say that video production is easy, or cheap. You'd need a screenwriter to make a "series bible" (basically a guideline for writing scripts for the show), as well as a script for the pilot (that'd likely be the show you end up making), a team of people to storyboard the script into something cohesive, work on costume design, set design, etc., people who can build sets, costumes and props, organise a shooting schedule, etc., people to work the cameras, and actors to stand in front of the cameras.
And that's just for pre-production; a project like this would require a massive amount of post-production, which means video editors, graphic technicians, sound engineers, etc. In other words, there's a good reason they call it the "entertainment INDUSTRY".
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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Tiberian
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Star Control is not so much like Babylon 5 in story telling, only the story. As said before, SC follows the ship, B5 the base. But here is the crux. 'Crusade'. Following the ship in B5 universe... The ship even looks just like the mother ship in SC3 and there are similarities to Vindicator as well.
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Death 999
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OK, so all 5 people who watched Crusade before they heard the grim truth about it from someone they trust will say there's a similarity.
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