s3yang Wrote:I actually thought there was going to be a funny mix in of Millie Nocturne. The auction scene felt a lot like the first episode of Lost Universe, including the really really low bid for the girl.Actually, I think the annotations noted that the auction scene was originally drafted and abandoned ten years ago, and... ah, here we go.
For years, The Crying of Lot 490 was one of those tragic fragments that litter my little electronic portfolio - a story that started with a gimmick and then never found an actual story to tell with it. It had Gryphon buying another character at an underworld auction, just to try and save her from something worse, and then having to flee from people who were trying to kill them both for their own reasons, but then unfolded, or tried to unfold, in a completely different direction. None of what would end up being the core references for Star-Crossed even existed back then.
In that version, Gryphon and his unwilling acquisition were going to end up takign refuge at a derelict WDF Deep Space Patrol base in the Enigma sector - Crescent Rock, a hollowed-out asteroid and former home of the patrol vessel Delphinus - and presumably wild and crazy adventures would have followed from there, but I never was able to get a handle on exactly what they would have entailed, and the initial gimmick never really clicked for me either. In the old draft, the character Gryphon ended up buying was an import of Millennium Nocturne from Lost Universe, but they never got along well enough for the dynamic between them to settle into something conducive to wacky adventures. She wouldn't believe he wasn't the Butcher and kept an eye out for ways to cash in on the price on his head - they were like Spike and Faye without the chemistry. Eventually it just got annoying and I tossed the whole thing in the bin.
And while I'm at it, I'll note the audio versions are coming out at the same time, and they're great for people not sitting in front of their computers at work. G does a great Elcor voice
