Elucidations on Terra:

Discussion about The Never Ending Quest.

Moderator: Extend-A-Story Moderators

Post Reply
Knight Random
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri May 09, 2003 8:47 pm
Location: Middle of nowhere, IN
Contact:

Elucidations on Terra:

Post by Knight Random »

It's quite fortuitous that I decided to pick up this thread just as Anableps and Lost Soldier (who were involved in the Terra Prime spinoff plots back in the day) have returned. Now if only Ragan would come back... :) Anyway, this thread is to explain some of the obscure references and things I was hinting at in the three Terra Prime episodes I wrote a few days ago. [39106, 44292, 33750] This post is so long that I had to post and write this in several segments, because there's no way anyone could write or read this in one sitting.

For anyone new to this, this spinoff thread diverged from the mainline "As the Fur Flies" thread shortly after the events summarized in Book 3 Part 6 on MSG's site, in episode 27341 by Anableps. I hope to put together a more detailed synopsis of this thread now that several other thread have intersected with it in the near future, unless of course Anableps wants to.

Anyway:

The Black Prince--Basically, I brought him in because I wanted to have a villain who would replace Randall Flagg. In MSG's episodes, Randall Flagg, a sadistic demon from Stephen King's horror novels, is a frequently recurring major villain. Actually, he was killed off shortly after he was introduced, but thanks to time travel he frequently comes back to give the Champions problems. He was the one who was responsible for torturing the ATFF version of the Betrayal by Moonlight Fred into selling his soul. He also later manipulated him into becoming a cosmic being called the Brazen Man, who knew the secrets of the Crystallics, powerful Atlantean artifacts which can do things like transform peoples' entire being, and the slipgates, Atlantean dimensional portals which were responsible for bringing people from outside the multiverse into Terra Prime in the first place. (This was the work of another writer--the hints about the slipgates apparently didn't fit MSG's vision of the thread, and as far as I can tell he left it completely unexplored.) It was the havoc Flagg wreaked through the Brazen Man and disrupting the Dark Tower, which is somehow integral to the functioning of the multiverse (another Stephen King plot element) that necessitated the creation of the Eternal Champions in the first place. Although as mentioned he was killed by the Rules and Agents shortly after he first appeared, he kept coming back and messing around with peoples' lives and plotting against the Champions.

Although I certainly felt Flagg and the original Brazen Man were interesting villains, I wanted to phase them out for several reasons. First, I wanted to create more suspense by having a villain who is currently alive in the present. Second, I'm not a huge Stephen King fan, although I think the Dark Tower plot elements worked pretty well in the ATFF context, and without them we wouldn't have the Eternal Champions and the thread would be much less epic. Nonetheless, I wanted to phase them out a bit. Thirdly, I wanted to shake up the Champions a bit, and part of that would be pitting them against a recurring villain who was quite different from the ones they'd faced before. Finally, when I was discussing how the plot elements in the spinoffs were developing vs what MSG intended for the main thread, he mentioned that one reason the Office of Evil might be planning something so audacious and powerful that it might kill a Champion even though most of the leadership was removed when they found out to what extent they'd been backing Flagg was that this made the way for some ambitious "young bucks" in the Office of Evil. Fortuitously, around the time the spinoff started, Anableps introduced the Black Prince in another of his excellent episodes. I thought he'd fit the role I had in mind well because he was much less overtly cruel and yet more devastatingly subtle than Flagg was and would present a new kind of challenge for the Champions. He also came across as a good iconic villain displayed a lot of charisma and charm and perhaps even a certain nobility. It admittedly required a lot of retroactive continuity to get the thread he was in to fit with the ATFF spinoff storyline, but it's certainly not too implausible for a subtle demonic villain like him to decieve Fred to that extent.

I also wanted to expand on what life in the Offices was like a bit, as well as on the geopolitical (for lack of a better world) layout of the multiverse, so I took the opportunity to lay the groundwork for that a bit too. One clarification--in MSG's episodes, it's been established that the immediate superiors of the Champions aren't quite the true supreme power of the multiverse. They work for "Higher-Ups" who keep their nature mysterious, or perhaps are not understandable in human terms. This is to allow for some religious flexibility. Nonetheless, it's also been established that they have afterlives. The Office of Evil has a number of souls of the dead under its jurisdiction, so presumably the Office of Good does too.

Biodata--Almost but not quite the same thing as "matrix" from MSG's episodes, biodata is a concept from the Doctor Who novels. Basically, it's like DNA except that it's fourth-dimensional and it includes a person's entire life experiences. It's possible that biodata describes someone's matrix. The Doctor Who novel villains Faction Paradox, a cult of rogue Time Lords who encouraged temporal and social anarchy, especially time paradoxes, often altered their agents' biodata. I didn't explain this concept nearly well enough in this episode. Basically, it was retro-retroactive continuity to explain MSG's retroactive continuity that the Fred who'd been damned to Hell in Betrayal had been evil all along but hadn't been responsible for his actions as Thaobath, explicitly contradicting the original episodes. I now remember that this was also a plot in the Red Pyramid thread, an attempt at a sort of next step beyond ATFF that I abandoned because it was too convoluted even for me. It was explained and used much better in 16659 in that thread. I might edit this episode, as it might make more drama in his relationship with Jarlath if Fred 8 really had been evil for most of Jarlath's childhood but is now seeking redemption.

More tomorrow.
Knight Random
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri May 09, 2003 8:47 pm
Location: Middle of nowhere, IN
Contact:

Part II

Post by Knight Random »

The Great Old Ones--these are powerful forces of cosmic evil from H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. In Lovecraft's stories, they once ruled the universe and will one day return and destroy everything. Cthulhu who sleeps in the sunken city of R'yleh is the one everyone has heard of, but there are others such as Shub-Niggurath the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young and Hastur the Unspeakable. Lovecraftian elements were brought into the Doctor Who universe in the novel All-Consuming Fire. Several of the Doctor's enemies were retroactively explained to be Great Old Ones: the Nestene Consciousness (squidlike aliens which created the plastic-dummy-like Autons) were the offspring of Shub-Niggurath, Fenric (said to be the embodiment of evil in the Doctor Who universe) is Hastur the Unspeakable, etc.

Helen--not a pre-existing character. The name was inspired by the role of the mythological Helen in the Faust legend. As noted, the inhabitants of the Office of Evil are not the supreme force of evil in the universe and even people like the Black Prince might have more human impulses. Also, as noted, I see him as having a certain nobility to him. The relationship with Helen was intended to hilight that. And yes, the implication is that both the Black Prince and Castellan are involved with her. The people in the Office of Evil probably don't have much patience with monogamy. It also provides a kind of distorted mirror of the Jarlath/Astra 9/Annafrid relationship.

Earth-616 and Hypertime: As noted in an earlier thread, these are the Marvel and DC Comics universes, respectively. Elements from these will be explained more fully when they're introduced. Comic book crossovers such as this will primarily be involved in the Doctor Who: Eternal Champion branch of the spinoff, which as with the version from mainline ATFF is the somewhat more lighthearted and obscure-crossover-oriented branch. Etrigan is a demon who has fought many DC heroes and made a major appearance in the Swamp Thing issues written by Alan Moore (author of Watchmen). He is devious and cruel and speaks entirely in rhyme. He is also the half-brother of Merlin. (Who in the DC Universe, as with certain versions of the Arthurian myth, is half-demonic.) He has been imprisoned in the body of Jason Blood, a sorceror from the days of King Arthur, and they have battled for domination of their body for centuries. Naturally, Jason Blood and Etrigan are going to be a major variable in the Shadow War. A good, comprehensive site dedicated to him is here.

Castellan--Castellan is an established EAS bad guy who has appeared in several threads before, notably in the Vjorica thread that began in episode 914 and the White Hand thread summarized on Anableps's site. It was primarily the version from the latter thread I had in mind when I involved him. He is also known as Crucius--the Crucius from 39103 is his analog. This thread's Castellan in my mind is someone who sees all morality as inherently oppressive but is not someoone who sees himself as evil. He can even be capable of compassion, in a somewhat abstract way, and might even sabotage some of the more evil plans of his allies. Of course, he's also a genocidal lunatic. For what it's worth, I had Adrian Viedt from Watchmen (a book I didn't particularly like, but found thought-provoking) partially in mind when I introduced this version of Castellan.

The Starfleet scandal--A problem with a potential coup in Starfleet was mentioned in episode 26449. Although Scott apparently defused this, the political tensions might not necessarily have gone away, and I mentioned it to help emphasize that the Black Prince was encouraging political tension within the Champions' allies throughout the multiverse.

The Shadow War and the Little Girl--these are plot elements that originated in the Prince Cederik thread, summarized on WolfRun's site. MSG apparently only meant to bring in these plot elements as explanation for how the Fertals and Artizzas became Champions, but I realized the potential of a multiversal Shadow War as an overarching plot for the kind of thread I wanted to write. It was stated in 25209 that there are several analogs of the Little Girl and one of them is severely punished, but I strongly suspect that they all have some sort of common consciousness.

Well, that was relatively short after all. If anyone is confused about anything else, just ask.
Post Reply