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Original Opening, Circa 1997 - Bob Schroeck - 01-15-2004
This came up over in Future Steps, when someone asked about DW crossing over with Twister's metaseries. I noted that DW was originally intended to do just that, in the version of the BGC world visited by both Twister and Ed Becerra's Legion.
I realized that I had the following material still handy on an archive disk, and pulled it off. It's the original first (fragmentary) draft of the opening of the story, and it predates Lisa Vanette's role in the story. In the wake of the other discussion, and in light of how close we are to the end, I thought it would be fun to share some of the earliest beginnings of the story with you.
(And despite the major changes it's undergone, would you believe that outline for the part I'm writing right now has been virtually unchanged since the middle 1990s? Talk about keeping your eye on a goal...)
Anyway, enjoy. Ed, I'm at work, otherwise I'd've called and check that this was okay; I'll probably call tonight and confirm. If you object for any reason, I will delete this thread, okay?
-- Bob
Part I: Here We Are in MegaTokyo, With All The Clams We Can Eat
"Carry on our wayward son,
There'll be peace when you are done.
Lay your weary head to rest; Don't you cry no more..."
-- Kansas, "Carry On My Wayward Son"
MegaTokyo, Japan. June 28, 2036. 8:17 PM Local Time.
Edward Anthony Becerra (called "Ed" by his friends, also known as
Anthony Edwards, Legion and -- to his immense disgust --
Goldeneyes) was indulging himself in one of his favorite vices:
the company of beautiful and intelligent women. This particular
evening (like many others) he was sharing dinner in one of
MegaTokyo's more expensive French restaurants with the two women
who were arguably his favorite neighbors. Sylvie and Anri ran the
"Flights of Fantasy" art shop several doors down from his own
bookstore. Like him, they also made their home above the shop they
operated.
And like him, they were far more than they seemed. But secrets
shared -- as theirs were -- make for strong friendships, and the
pair had befriended him almost immediately upon his arrival in
MegaTokyo. It was a friendship that knew no debts to one
another, but Ed had kept up the pretense of "owing" them dinner
for many months now. Tonight was yet another episode of
"payment" that the two ladies gracefully accepted without
believing the supposed "debt" at all.
Ed's lady, Minerva, was absent from this meal...
...
Legion doing dinner with Sylvie and Anri. Use this to fill in
some brief background to identify the world to the readers. They
discuss transfictionality and dimensional travel... prep some
kind of "what else could happen now?" setup, the payoff being
Looney's arrival. Maybe something like:
...
...Anri studied her silverware nervously. "I mean," she began,
"after all, Darlene showed up, and then you arrived a couple
years later. How long until the next visitor? And what if it
isn't someone as nice as you two have been?"
Ed absently chewed on his mustache as he gave his answer some
thought. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," he
replied. "It was pure chance that Minerva and I ended up here,
and so soon after Twister did. There are an infinity of
universes out there, so the odds of there ever being another
extradimensional visitor to MegaTokyo are infinitely small."
*Right, baby?* he added silently to Minerva, who was at the
moment in orbit on board Ed's ship, the Calypso. This Earth's
Clarke orbits were littered with decades worth of space junk,
and as much from her own urge for neatness as for the safety of
the ship, Minerva had been slowly and unobtrusively cleaning
them up for months.
*Actually, your math's off bigtime, b'wana,* she answered
immediately. *Sure, there's an infinity of destinations for a
visitor, but there's also an infinity of universes for a visitor
to come from. It evens out, boss. Elementary calculus --
otherwise the area under a curve would always be zero.*
*Math's not my strong point, Min, but if that were so, we should
be up to our hips in otaku avatars and other cross-time visitors.
So why aren't we?*
He "felt" her grin. *That much is obvious -- they're almost
certainly evenly distributed across the size and lifespan of a
"typical" universe. Any way you cut it, it's a sucker's bet to
expect you to be the last visitor this universe'll see. But the
odds that another one'll land in this here-and-now? Close to
nil.* There was a pause, and then she said, *Oh, no.*
*Min?* Ed sent. *What is it, baby?*
*You'd think, lover, with all that we've gone through, I would
know when to keep my big mouth shut.*
*Huh?* He must have said it aloud, because Sylvie and Anri were
gawking at him in puzzlement.
In orbit, Minerva sighed. *Boss, I'm detecting a spike of energy
similar to the one that heralded Twister's return. We've got a
new visitor in town.*
* * *
At that moment, over a mile away, in a garbage-strewn alleyway
near the base of the Tokyo Tower, a speck of rainbow-colored
light suddenly appeared in midair. Almost as soon as it had
become visible, it expanded into a ring surrounding a flat black
disk, nearly ten feet across, floating a less than a yard above
the grimy pavement. A moment later, a human figure dressed in
gray was dumped unceremoniously out of the disk, and it vanished.
In an office high atop GENOM Tower, a lavender-haired woman
jumped, startling a subordinate, when a dramatic and unexpected
pulse of psionic energy washed over her and all her psychic
metasenses shouted "DANGER!".
In a fractally-complex cavern deep under the outskirts of
MegaTokyo, a petite, red-haired girl felt the lattices of magic
in and around the city suddenly warp, and just as suddenly
rebound, leaving her with a migraine that lasted several hours.
Sylia Stingray found herself leaping from her armchair to stand
staring tensely out of the great glass windows of her penthouse
home atop the Silky Lady building.
At AD Police headquarters, an officer named Bochinski felt a
brief, vague sense of unease and turmoil. After a moment's
puzzlement he shrugged it off.
And Edward Anthony Becerra held his head and groaned as an
ominous sense of foreboding filled him.
* * *
And after this point, the scene of Doug's awakening from chapter 1 begins, and is almost word-for-word identical with what was released.
-- Bob
---------
There is no spork.
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - Star Ranger4 - 01-16-2004
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! What a great way to open a story!"I was an Otaku before those kids came along and changed the meaning of the word."
-- HM "Howling Mad" Wilson to more than one team-mate.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - WengFook - 01-16-2004
that was very good ^^ *sigh* things would definately have been different if all these nice people were in the universe at the same time
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - Bob Schroeck - 01-16-2004
It certainly would have been the first triple-insert fic that I know of.
-- Bob
---------
There is no spork.
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - WengFook - 01-16-2004
well more technically if you count all of ed's personalities
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - offsides - 01-17-2004
Quote:Well, other than Undocumented Features - after all, that thing _started_ with three SI authors and just kept going from there (not to mention all the other people who were inserted in lesser parts in the early stuff)...
It certainly would have been the first triple-insert fic that I know of.
Offsides
Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large
Re: Original Opening, Circa 1997 - Bob Schroeck - 01-17-2004
Well, yeah. I meant -- and it should be obvious -- three separate insert series that converged on a single point.
-- Bob
---------
There is no spork.
Hmmm. - Logan Darklighter - 01-20-2004
Is it too late (or too silly) to suggest that Doug visit said universe -later-? Maybe this is how he really cues into the whole idea of transfictionality.
"Uhm, Hi, Sylia, it's me, Doug, I could use some help, could you ask Priss and - what do you mean who the hell am I? Don't you remember? No? Good grief, what the hoek is going on here?"
Re: Hmmm. - Bob Schroeck - 01-20-2004
It might be fun, but it kinda conflicts with the current plan for the Walk as a whole now. Besides, Twister seems to have evaporated completely off the Net, and I'd really rather do something like that with his permission. Twister/Darlene/etc. is, after all, his creation.
-- Bob
---------
There is no spork.
Re: Hmmm. - WengFook - 01-21-2004
sigh.... what a pity...
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.
Re: Hmmm. - Scrambler - 01-23-2004
Man, we need to see if anyone knows how to get in touch with him. The most likely person other than Ed would be Bert van Vliet. Heck, Twisted Path was the first fanfiction I ever read, and the place I first heard of Undocumented Features, so I'm rather partial to him.