Fanfic ideas

[A117]

Hello everyone ...
I am new to writing fanfics. Just started in 2003. Currently I am writing Catalyst with the background setting in the Babylon 5 universe. I was inspired by both AlbertG (Those Who Stand) and RenS (The Best of Both Universes). I like the way they protray the character interactions of both the Star Trek and B5 universe.
I wrote my own (I try to make it as different as I can from all those awesome ST/B5 crossovers out there. What's the point of writing a fanfic if your fanfic is just a carbon copy of theirs?) - it takes place right after Star Trek: Nemesis.
Since all the best villains and heroes have been used up from the ST/B5 universe - Those Who Stand (Yonji Sinhidrea), A Thin Veneer (Minbari, I like it! This was unique!), The Best of Both Universes (The Builders, Shadows and Vorlons), Shadows and Dust in The Pattern (The Borg, etc ...) Can anyone out there give me a few suggestions on villains that I could use that have NOT been used yet in any ST/B5 crossover?
Or any fanfic ideas that they have been tossing around with but not yet used in any ST/B5 crossovers?
Any suggestion or help would be deeply appreciated.
Best Wishes to All ...
117
PS: I post my Catalyst fanfics on www.mediaminer.org/fanfic in the Non Anime / Sailor Moon / Ranma portion. Or if you wish to send it privately, please do so to alienx117@yahoo.com

[classicdrogn]

Welcome to the party! Is your @nick a reference to the stealth 'fighter' (more a light bomber as deployed, I say) and if so, can we call you Wobblygobbly for short? (joking, grin)
Gamilons, Kzinti, whatever the bad guys from Iczer were called (Cthuwulf?)... Unicron, Tormetron, the G2 comics Decepticon Empire... the angel-ships from Maps... Hell, Freiza and his planet traders can pretty much go one-on-one with starships. Medical Mechanica, or the bad guys from Gall Force or Gunbuster. The Go'ald.
Canon bad guys form either? I think you're out of luck, unless you somehow work one of the TOS Q-like races into an adversarial role and give them some minions.
As a personal request - consider featuring a Prometheus class tactical cruiser. Prommie kicks much ass.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[drakensis]

From Star Trek
Tholians, Gamilons, Breen, Dominion
From Babylon 5
Pretty much any of the existing factions or subfactions - imagine the PsiCops buying tech off the Ferengi, to use in the Telepath War.
From Elsewhere
Spoilt for choice really:-
Mesa (from the Honorverse) the ship tech would be pretty overwhelming, so tough they shrug off near-miss nukes
Posleen (Legacy of the Alldenata) just for sheer numbers
Voltarian Confederacy (Mission Earth) Jettero Heller must inflitrate the Interstellar Alliance to prevent the rise of a rival power
Necromunger (Chronicles of Riddick) The last Furyan takes refuge on Babylon 5
Zeon (Gundam 0079) The colonies rise against the Earth Alliance, with an army of Mobile Suits
Genom Corporation (Bubblegum Crisis) which would be a bit like the early UF, but still has potential
Kronos (Biobooster Armor Guyver) the Vorlons may have left more than telepathy when they mucked around with the human race's genetics
Kabuto (Tenchi Muyo!) he wants the Great Machine and nothing will get in his way
Steel Angels (Steel Angel Kurumi) several attempts to duplicate Data's technology have been released into an alternate dimension...
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[classicdrogn]

---

Genom Corporation (Bubblegum Crisis) which would be a bit like the early UF, but still has potential

---

Am I the only person in the world who thinks UF Core 1 & 2 were the best, aside from certain technical points? Kei, Yuri, and a buch of college kids vs. The Evils of The Universe... I dig.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[drakensis]

I don't know about best, but I did enjoy them a lot and still do.
What I meant was that Genom vs. Star Trek has been done already so being original is harder, not that the UF stuff was bad.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[A117]

>>>Welcome to the party! Is your @nick a reference to the stealth 'fighter' (more a light bomber as deployed, I say) and if so, can we call you Wobblygobbly for short? (joking, grin)>>>
That's new ... when I came up with that alias I was thinking in more of a character from a TV series than the American stealth bomber ....
>>>>Gamilons, Kzinti, whatever the bad guys from Iczer were called (Cthuwulf?)>>>>
I know about Iczer but who are these other two guys?
>>>Canon bad guys form either? I think you're out of luck, unless you somehow work one of the TOS Q-like races into an adversarial role and give them some minions.>>>
Seems that all the best ones have been taken, used and recycled ten times over ....
>>>As a personal request - consider featuring a Prometheus class tactical cruiser. Prommie kicks much ass.>>>>
What is a Prometheus class tactical cruiser and where does it come from?
Thanks for the suggestions ...
117

[A117]

>>>>From Star Trek
Tholians, Gamilons, Breen, Dominion>>>>>
I know about the Breen and the Dominion but who are the Tholians and the Gamilons? I have heard of the Tholians being mentioned somewhere in ST: Nemesis but have never seen them before.
>>>>>From Babylon 5
Pretty much any of the existing factions or subfactions - imagine the PsiCops buying tech off the Ferengi, to use in the Telepath War.>>>>>
A good idea. I would have to try that one ...
>>>>>From Elsewhere
Spoilt for choice really:-
Mesa (from the Honorverse) the ship tech would be pretty overwhelming, so tough they shrug off near-miss nukes
Posleen (Legacy of the Alldenata) just for sheer numbers
Voltarian Confederacy (Mission Earth) Jettero Heller must inflitrate the Interstellar Alliance to prevent the rise of a rival power
Necromunger (Chronicles of Riddick) The last Furyan takes refuge on Babylon 5
Zeon (Gundam 0079) The colonies rise against the Earth Alliance, with an army of Mobile Suits
Genom Corporation (Bubblegum Crisis) which would be a bit like the early UF, but still has potential
Kronos (Biobooster Armor Guyver) the Vorlons may have left more than telepathy when they mucked around with the human race's genetics
Kabuto (Tenchi Muyo!) he wants the Great Machine and nothing will get in his way
Steel Angels (Steel Angel Kurumi) several attempts to duplicate Data's technology have been released into an alternate dimension... >>>>>
Necromunger (Chronicles of Riddick) The last Furyan takes refuge on Babylon 5 ... Riddick would probably end up having the Vorlons for lunch and the Shadows for dinner.
Kronos/Vorlons ... This idea has potential ....
Kabuto ... Who is Kabuto?
Steel Angels (Steel Angel Kurumi) several attempts to duplicate Data's technology have been released into an alternate dimension... Is this a new series?
Just a side question ... It's a little embarassing but .... what is the Great Machine (I don't watch every episode of B5 and ST so I might have missed out a few things in between)?
Thanx.
117

[Star Ranger4]

There are two Promethei... one was a Starfleet ship that was allegedly designed specifically for opening a can o whuparse on the enemy, the other is from Stargate and is the lead ship of a US spacefleet.
The great machine is from B5, and its the planet B5 orbits. In one episode the old caretaker/operator is dying and the b5 crew make there way into it (Finding out it actually IS a machine of some unknown purpose in the process) and eventually one of their number takes over the 'caretaker' position. Its also the episode in which "Zathras" first makes his appearence"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

[classicdrogn]

Gamilons are from... Space Battleship Yamato, I think - blue skin, red eyes, big space fleet that wants to destroy the earth. Amanda Dessler from The Symphony of the Sword is a Gamilon, but they haven't been used in UF in their origijnal adversarial role except as individuals.
Kzinti are your basic cat-aliens detailed in seven or eight volumes of short stories by Larry Niven known as "The Man-Kzin Wars" and which have also appeared in Trek - and one of the early Trek slash/alien lemons was responsible for Niven's draconian stance against fanfic ,which is admittedly a reason not to use them, though about the only thing unique about them is their species name, as they're identical in every significant aspect to every bunch of enemy cat-men I've even seen anywhere, right on down to Hanna-Barberra's Mr. Jinx if you count Pixie and Dixie as humans instead of mice.
The Prometheus class tactical cruiser is the four-nacelle ship from the Voyager episode Message In A Bottle that can split into three seperate parts to swarm enemies. It's roughly comparable in size to Voyager, with a slightly larger crew, but is designed along the combative mindset of Sovereign rather than the science-first Galaxy and Intrepid classes. All three bits are capable of independent warp flight, and the prototype, captured and manned by Romulans who could barely operate it, took out two Defiants and an Akira, plus two of the big TNG romulan warbirds after being retaken - at which time the total crew complement was two holographic projections and the ship's computer. Official info is scarce, since it had the one episode in the limelight and then a few seconds in the fleet scene of Voyager's final episode, but it's a very sweet ride, and since Janeway is an Admiral at SFHQ by the time Nemesis happens, they're probably in production by then. My best guess is that they're intended for shipping escort and patrol duties, since provision is made to merge the powplants when it's combined for efficiency, to get the standard five-year cruise duration, and one ship that can split into three is good when you may have several merchies to protect in a convoy and no backup for hours at best. The engineering hull pair is pretty locked, but the saucer section could probably be replaced with one holding more sciencey stuff as martial fervor dies down again in the Federation to give it a mission profile similar to TOS-Enterprise or what Voyager found themselves doing.
Star Trek Armada II mod screenshots
Bravo Fleet RP sim information
USS Panther City RP sim infomation
article by Rick Sternbach on designing the Prometheus - has good line art of the final version
LCARScom.net page, with a small image of the bridge
Ex Astris Scientia - Prommie is about halfway down here
Ship-O-Rama has many screenshots
All in all, it is very much a Sovereign writ small and given a special trick - the main advantage to that most likely being cost of construction and a smaller crew requirement, at a time when people are calling for more military protection against something like the Dominion war happening again, and Starfleet is quietly very concerned about the info Voyager has given them about the Borg, particularly data passed on from future-Janeway about the losing war with the Borg they were fighting in her time - and for those reasons, a likely candidate for armed recon in a possibly hostile area, since it has the teeth to fight back as well as anything else, but is ultimately a smaller investment of resources if that proves not to be enoguh - and looks less threatening than the three-times-bigger Sovereign or four-times-bigger Galaxy, for that matter. The same holds true for sending one to accompany a larger ship, since there's little point to a trekfic without the Enterprise of the era involved.
(One of my fragments-without-a-story ideas is USS Hecate, a Prometheus class with the aforementioned saucer refit after her original Alpha-hull was destroyed in combat, doing TOS style exploration on the frontier away from the Triangle, along the route taken by the Enterprise-A in Final Frontier - on the opposite side of the galactic core from Voyager's path as well. You could site your B5-space there, if you're not doing a parallel univere thing... Another is that the Trek timeline is very farr off from what the universe would normally follow, and hence why it's so easy to disturb and change completely away from the Federation we know, where most universes can have major, pivotal events change and still follow roughly the same course except for the immediate results. Look at all the different people who are supposed to be Harry Potter's father, and yet he still ends up gonig to Hogwarts, being freinds with Ron and Hermione, and being destined to fight the Dark Lord, even when said Dark Lord is not the same one, is himself Harry's father, or both.)
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[drakensis]

The Tholians are a race encountered in TOS episode The Tholian Web. They remain on iffy terms with the Federation in the TNG era. Gamilons aren't from STrek at all (it was kind of late when I typed that)
Kabuto is how I type Kagato when it's late at night
Riddick could probably take on a Vorlon and a Shadow, but possibly not the entire race. However, arguably he could see the Shadows, which might worry Morden a little. He'd probably play off Zack, Garibaldi and Marcus quite well.
Steel Angel Kurumi is an anime of the combat maids genre. There are two series - one set in the 1930s and one in the modern era.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[classicdrogn]

An OUTSTANDING Trek stellar cartography site Looking at the maps here and on other sites, the region I mentioned before with reference to USS Hecate would be rimward of the Cardassian Union - definitely a place you want a scout with teeth.
- CD
Edit: Where I wrote 'Akira' class, before, that's wrong. I don't rmemeber the actual designatin (Akula maybe) but it's essentially the Galaxy-class answer to cutting up the Constitution design and moving bits around to make the Miranda, and the Connie Refit for Wrath of Khan's Reliant. Mostly saucer, thgohu it does have an abbreviated engineering hull, underslung nacelles and a ventral weapon pod, though supported by a single pylon instead of a rollbar as on the Mirandas.What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

Nebula. That's the Nebula, which I've always thought was one of the neatest things the Trek designers ever came up with.
The Akula, as far as I know, was another Constitution kitbash - the one with the saucer and nacelles mounted one above and one below, and nothing else.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[classicdrogn]

Well, it's propably the least ugly TNG ship, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. As far as I'm concerned, canon design ended at Reliant and began again with Sovereign and Prometheus, anything in between is a bad hallucination hiding the ships they were actualy using. Galaxy-ugliness was the main reason I never watched TNG. (though Voyager wasn't TOO bad... visually. Plot? Yuh. Picture #8 on this page is a model of the Voyager in CD's Magical Happy Land, with the option of adding a pod as in #6, but with a flat edge forward and point aft. The sad thing is that it was almost used, then the studio said they wanted moving parts. Personally, I would have made the little sectins at the back of the warp nacelles telescope in and out to tune the warp coils for optimum speed and or efficiency then. Typical stupid studio descision that Braga probably signed off on.)
I had some other thing to mention, but have forgotten, as usual. Probably more than one.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[WengFook]

---

Riddick could probably take on a Vorlon and a Shadow, but possibly not the entire race

---

hmmm I disagree... Riddick is capable of anthing from breaking out of a triple max prison 90 times to going up against a race of necromongers and winning... because ou keep what you kill. o.o _____________________________
HK-47: "Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds"
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Jinx999]

Some things I'd advise strongly against:
1) Throwing everything into the mix. Just because the universes have lots of interesting races and factions there is no need to use them all. I'd especially advise against changing enemies in mid fic.
2) Showing favouritism to one universe. Don't have a single StarTrek ship slaughtering hordes of B5 ships or visa-versa.

[Custos Sophiae]

I think crossovers work best when they are roughly balanced, or told solely from the weaker side. Otherwise, except in the hands of the most skilled, they too often share the faults of the worst SIs; godlike characters/ships riding roughshod over the locals, solving all the perceived problems of the subordinate universe with a deus ex machina, etc.
Also, a level playing field makes for better character interplay, since they meet as near equals.
Bearing this in mind, I'd begin by saying the Trek and B5 universes don't have the same physical laws. The differences are unnoticable in everyday life or within the domain of currently known physics, but it does affect ultratech.
Warp drive, subspace, and related technologies, including shields, simply don't work in the B5 universe, at least not for the intended purpose. They might start radiating neutrinos, or telepathic static, or they might just melt to slag, but they cannot be made to work by Trek rules, even if 10,000 Scotts laboured for 10,000 years.
Where B5 tech is better, of course, the Trek tech might find its performance improved because its no longer trying to walk uphill in the teeth of a blizzard. Similarly, if B5 moves to the Trek universe. Another advantage is, Q can't exist in the B5 universe or Vorlons in the Trek uinverse, it would be like trying to run a Windows program on Linux, without a emulator.
(Emulators are possible, metaphorically, but only if you understand pan-dimensional physics well enough to hack the machine code, and even the Q don't play in that league. There may be other ways to finesse the technological incompatibility, but they are, at best, only a little easier, and they all have drawbacks]
Choose the damage levels carefully, and this puts the Enterprise on a par with the B5 ships. They won't be able to rely on their big guns to solve all the problems; they'll have to talk, which means plenty of juicy character interaction.
[It might seem the Enterprise has nothing useful left to offer B5, but they'd still have artifiical gravity, the universal translator, and other peaceful technologies. More importantly, they'd have a fresh approach, unclouded by Vorlon meddling.]
You can probably get a few chapters of material out of the Enterprise crew adjusting to their damaged ship, and their slow realisation that many of its systems are incompatible with this new universe. Then, after a month at impulse, they limp into B5, giving them a new set of challenges - lots of material for character exploration there.
Once you've set the stage, of course, you need a villain, but all the major Trek and B5 races have been used. You can either transplant a hostile race from some other source, saying it was in the B5 universe all along, or you can use villains with some dimension-hopping powers.
One among many such possibilities is the Cthulhu mythos.
Cthulhu and friends can easily be retrofitted into any universe, and they are recognisable major villains.
When the first ones were young abominations walked the stars, creatures that should not be.
Not all seas are of water. From the hyperspatial abyss that underlies the sea of stars were the elder gods born, in a time that might be the distant past, or the far future, for in those depths, deeper than the first ones dared plumb, time runs strangely. There are currents, the mad seers claim, that can sweep ships across the sea of time, and there are cities built to an alien geometry. [Which all means the elder gods can be both older and younger than the first one.]
In those cities dwell the elder gods, and their servants, chief among them their high priest Cthulhu and his star spawn. Now, those dread cities are rising from the depths, casting a shadow before them.
The telepaths are the first to sense it, their minds filling with visions of the elder gods, visions that leave even the strongest gibbering wrecks. A few, such as Spock and Bester, will eventually manage to pull themselves back to some semblance of sanity, though their eyes will ever be haunted, but most will never recover. Most had their minds utterly shredded in the first milliseconds of contact.
Knowing what is coming, the Shadows and the Vorlons abandon their plots and flee. With no one pulling the strings and the telepaths all mad, the B5 universe lurches to total war while paranoia runs rampant.
Next, the shadow of the elder gods, creatures that do not belong in any rational universe, warps the very structure of space and time, creating temporal anomalies and dimensional gateways, which is when the Enterprise enters the scene. [It's best if both the Enterpise and the villains arriving together is not a coincidence.]
Naturally, people will blame them for the problems, accusing them of being the scouts for an invasion. Resolving that allows for plenty more character scenes.
Then the slave races of the elder gods arrive, rising out of hyperspace to lay planets waste, starting with the weaklings who actually need ships, followed by wave after wave of stronger races, until come Cthulhu and his peers, any one of whom can destroy a planet bare-handed, and after them, the elder gods themselves. This allows for a lot of thrilling battle sequences.
Ideally, our heroes will stop the invasion before the elder gods arrive. Once they've worked out they're all on the same side, they'll need to work out what's going on, then venture into the depths of hyperspace themselves (for which, conveniently, the Enterprise happens to be well suited) and confront the elder gods in their eldritch city even as the final battles rage in the normal world, a thousand last stands.
Winning won't be easy, but if it was you wouldn't need heroes to do it. Great heroes need great challenges to show their mettle, which is why triumph over adversity is a classic tale. It's also why easy victories make for weaker stories.
You can tell the same basic story with many other villains, of course. Nor would it change much if they were invading from other dimensions rather than from some hidden recess of the B5/Trek universe.

[Kokuten]

---

You can tell the same basic story with many other villains, of course. Nor would it change much if they were invading from other dimensions rather than from some hidden recess of the B5/Trek universe.

---

Interesting possibilities also can be generated from flight..
a plausible _failure_ scenario, which leaves the Big E and, say, a few Whitestars, a flock of Starfuries... fleeing across the multiverses, searching for a way to take the Chthuloids out, trying to warn the new races/faces they encounter..
I'm picturing Picard trying to argue down mirror-universe Kirk, with Bester and Troi looking _very_ disturbed, since, well, it's a mirror universe.. water swirls backwards, cats are loyal and dependant, and psi feels _wrong_.
I'm picturing Kirk being _very_ distracted by Honor Harrington, and/or Data having interesting conversations with one Nimitz..
you get the idea. Pretty much any space-travelling universe can be drug in as part of the refugee convoy.
but it'd be tough to keep the trail of destruction plausible.. I can't see Washuu having issues with Tentacally Thingies from Beyond..
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Custos Sophiae]

it'd be tough to keep the trail of destruction plausible.. I can't see Washuu having issues with Tentacally Thingies from Beyond..
In principle you could. She's not actually omnipotent so you're free to say the eldritch horrors are stronger.
However, that would probably mean making them so strong that the likes of Enterprise surviving their first encounter would be too unbelievable. Also, Washuu wouldn't fit the mood of such a fic.
However, there are plenty of other universes - Stargate, for example, or Lazarus Long (before Number of The Beast). I can see Lazarus and Kirk having quite a bit to talk about.
I see four possible endings: the refugees are subverted, becoming another minion race (which would be too negative for most tastes), they find a universe whose laws don't allow eldritch horrors (then, in the sequel, the refugees build themselves a civilisation in this brave new world, from the ground up), they find a universe whose defenders can repel eldritch horrors (the Marvel universe perhaps, or maybe Dr Who), or, having accumulated the best of a dozen universes, the refugees finally find somewhere they can stand and fight, a universe with laws friendly to all their technology.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Warp drive, subspace, and related technologies, including shields, simply don't work in the B5 universe

---

Not entirely true. B5 does have FTL communications that seem to work much like Trek's subspace radio. And shield technology does exist in B5 -- but only the Vorlons have it. It is very much ultratech there.
And just because one setting has standardized on one variety of FTL doesn't mean others aren't available. Just because one setting doesn't show a line of technical development doesn't mean it's impossible there. Different civilizations have different priorities and develop along different lines, and people have a tendency to find something that works, perfect it and stick with it.
One thing in favor of this scenario, btw, is that that one B5 TV movie has already hinted that the Cthulhu mythos intersected the B5 universe.

-- Bob
---------
It's a "magical" land. I think "magical" is ancient Greek for "pain in the butt". -- Bun-Bun, Sluggy Freelance, 11/9/03

[classicdrogn]

Rather than some cosmic threat beyond imagination, why not go for a completely differnt take than the existing ones - have the agressive, invading enemy whose ships hit like superdreadnaughts, move like fighters, and are the size of a patrol boat be the FEDERATION - well, the Mirror Universe counterpart, anyway; the Earth Imperium or something like that. Picard, the Ent-E, and whatever other supprt he happened to have when he went through whatever spatial anamoly took them to B5 land, allied after a suitable period of misunderstqnding and suspiscion with local forces, trying to thwart an entire invasion fleet of the warlike 24th century.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Custos Sophiae]

---

Warp drive, subspace, and related technologies, including shields, simply don't work in the B5 universe
Not entirely true. B5 does have FTL communications that seem to work much like Trek's subspace radio. And shield technology does exist in B5 -- but only the Vorlons have it. It is very much ultratech there.

---

It may look the same, but is it actually the same underneath? There can, after all, be mutiple theories explaining the same facts, only one of which is true in any one universe. For a concrete example, both standard radio and graviton pulses can be used for light speed communications, but they're certainly not the same level technology.
Maybe Trek shields are standing waves of Higgs bosons while Vorlon shields are carefully engineered discontinuities in the soace-time metric - two plausible technologies that could reasonably have a shielding effect, but very different in their inner workings.
Also, for shields to be plausibly ubiquitous in Trek and yet ultratech in B5 would take more than cultural blindness to explain. There are too many people involved, geniuses from dozen alien cultures, and humans, at least, don't stop all experimenting merely because they have a theory that works well enough. Some people are never satisfied.
It would require a conspiracy, and in both universes, since Trek hasn't invented jumpgates, which I find a little much to swallow.
However, I've got some idea how the scientific community works, from personal experience. I suppose many readers, lacking such a background so reliant on stereotypes of science, may find such universal cultural blindness plausible enough.
Maybe the two universes have fully compatable laws, and their differing tech is purely a historical accident. Maybe, they don't, and a Trek shield generator in the B5-verse would be so much junk.
A fanfic author can choose whichever answer best suits their purposes, and disabling some Trek tech in the B5-verse, or vice versa, does have advantages.

[A117]

WOW!!!!
That's some input! Especially about the Cthulu Mythos and how it ties a lot of loose ends between the Federation and B5 universes! I like that. I was using something similar along that line ... At the beginning of the story ... This is where everything starts ...
And Betrayal and Envy sought to usurp the Great Old One ...
I do have one more question ...
In the movie Star Trek: Nemesis ... the Reman Warbird Scimitar was described as a ship superior to any ship of Federation or Romulan design ...
In AlbertG's fanfic (Those Who Stand) the Enterprise and the Ambassador were clobbering all the poor inferior B5 ships to shreds except for the Shadow ship which gave it quite a fight.
In RenS's fanfic (The Best of Both Universes), their ships were also clobbering the poor B5 ships.
I have no idea how the Scimitar rate in terms of firepower against the B5 ships so I used the above as a guide.
Since the Enterprise-E was clearly outclassed in everyway by the Scimitar in ST:Nemesis, my guess is that the Scimitar would totally clobber all the poor B5 ships.
Their shield power would also be twice as strong, maybe more ... I don't know ...
I only know it was struck with more than ten photon torpedoes and it was still at 70% strength! And that did not include the hits by both the Romulan Warbirds!
I'm just guessing ... here ....
What's your opinion, everyone?
117

[Bob Schroeck]

By the way, A117, welcome to the forums! I somehow missed that you were a new user until now, for which I apologize. Usually I catch first posters within a day. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your time here!

-- Bob
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It's a "magical" land. I think "magical" is ancient Greek for "pain in the butt". -- Bun-Bun, Sluggy Freelance, 11/9/03

[ECSNorway]

I think part of the issue is one that's more of an externally imposed cultural difference.
A lot of tech that's ubiquitous in Trek but uber in B5 (like shields) is something that came about in Trek because the different races worked together. It's the whole basis of the Federation.
In B5-verse we don't have that cooperation. That's what Delenn found so fascinating about humans, later in the series: the way they build communities, and open them to other races. It isn't just the Clark administration that's xenophobic there, everyone is - Clark's just a bit more militant about it than most humans. Drazi, Vree, Abbai, Minbari, Centauri... never really gave any thought to the kind of cultural and scientific cooperation that's at the very root of the Federation.
And that's why, in A Thin Veneer, the Federation really scares the shit out of the Minbari. Not because they're more technologically advanced (though they are, and that annoys them)... because they're perverts.

Who's behind it? I did say after all, externally imposed. My own guess would be the Shadows and Vorlons. It's all part of their little game, making each race its own petri dish so they can't grow together. That's what really scared them both about Sheridan's alliance, because he was pushing exactly that agenda.
Makes you wonder if the Organians and Melkots and Q are playing their own game against the Shadows and Vorlons, in A Thin Veneer, doesn't it?--
"Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of General Zod has been approved."
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Bob Schroeck]

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Makes you wonder if the Organians and Melkots and Q are playing their own game against the Shadows and Vorlons, in A Thin Veneer, doesn't it?

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Well, remember that the Metrons (from "Arena") showed up early in A Thin Veneer and told the Vorlons to keep their grubby paws off the UFP folks... It looks like the Metrons are the Federation's "keepers".
As for the Q and the Organians... they both seem to be way more powerful than any First Ones other than Lorien, and Lorien's just one guy (unless he's the projection/embodiment of an entire noncorporeal race or something).

-- Bob
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It's a "magical" land. I think "magical" is ancient Greek for "pain in the butt". -- Bun-Bun, Sluggy Freelance, 11/9/03