Feedback on HTL

  • Thread starter Thread starter Raptor
  • Start date Start date
I don't see why we should disregard out of hand an idea like killing Kruger in the year 2681. By the birthdate listed on the CIC he's at the ripe age of 68 in 2681, and he hasn't been seen/mentioned/acknowledged in any WC media since the year 2671. For all we know he's already dead. Kruger can't be compared to Blair (Kruger isn't even mentioned/referenced in the games, and Baen has anything but any intention of continuing their WC line of books at any time in the near-to-distant future)... let's keep the Aces exciting, unpredictable... if killing a guy like Kruger off in one of our PBMs is best for the storyline, let's quit this bullshit posturing and just do it by god (I'm not saying we *should* kill him necessarily, just be open to the idea). This same "let's not do this or that because Origin might become Origin again 10 years from now and do Wing Commander VI and contradict this" reasoning is the same reason in the Aces in 2681 we still have David Quinson as President of the Confederation. I'm guessing this is just for the simple reason that no book or game beyond Fleet Action has told us there has been a new President in the years between 2668 and 2681. 13 year presidency, eh? So if Wing Commander XI comes out, set in the year 2719, and WC in any media has still not informed us if the Confederation has a new President, Quinson will be serving his 51st year as President, right?

C'mon, people... let's grow some balls in this club.

- Neo
 
I have absolutely no problems with pushing the timeline ahead where it will contribute to good writing and an exciting storyline. The Border Worlds as they're written in HTL are a good example of that. We haven't seen anything of them post WC4, so how they're in 2681 is a matter open to interpretation. I choose to write them as a young and hungry nation that is growing fast, developing its military agressively, and doesn't take shit from anyone. That makes the Border Worlds faction an integral part of the story, and one of the things that keep it frest for the readers.

Killing Kruger though, doesn't have such an impact, and I don't really like the idea of bringing a canon character into the story just to kill him. The way I see it, there needs to be massive and overwhelming need for us to do something like that. Let's push the envelop by all means, but let's not make changes to the canon universe simply for change's sake.

As for new writers in the club, there are a a lot other reasons why we're not seeing new writers. Without new WC products being released, there won't be tons of new fans joining the community, so the average age of Wingnuts has to be go up. Most of us are now in college or beyond, with jobs and other responsibilties. As we talked about on the Aces board a while back, that leaves less time for writing.

As for HTL, it's hardly churning its wheels. True, the PBM is a lot bigger than the original plan, but the storyline is pushing inexorably towards its conclusion. Given that only a dozen writers out of the 500 people in the club are involved in HTL, it's hardly fair to say that HTL is stifling other writing efforts. The way I see it, the way for the club to get storylines going is to get people outside that dozen involved, rather than for the dozen writers in HTL to rush a successfull PBM to a forced conclusion, and then throw themselves into another project.

PS: As for Quinson, maybe this President David W. Quinson. :D

Best, Raptor
 
I just found out what WCAC was 2 years ago and i think that are 2 many PBM Chapters for me to read. So i just read the Ones posted on CIC.

I loved the last one and I also have a question. After HTL & MTV will there be another Campaign in ACES Universe?
 
True...

I'm not sure I agree on the whole Quinson thing...I seem to remember he came into office after the old president resigned in fleet action, and there are historical precedents (William Pitt, Franklin Roosevelt) of presidents who have extremely long terms, especially during wartime. And seeing as how the Confed is huge, I can see elections being largely spaced out in terms of years.

I also love the club-wide campaigns the Aces do. And I agree with Raptor leader...the last chapter was great. Why not a whole campaign of odd, new approaches to Wing Commander? Not that there's anything wrong with a good carrier-kill, but too much of anything and you lose your appreciation for the flavor. Know what I mean?
 
Writing

Speaking from personal experience, I wrote Blue on Blue as an Indy for a couple of reasons - KOM had just wound up (or rather, was wound up by someone taking it brutally in hand because it had, as far as I understood, ground to a churning, confused halt, or at least a sluggish, aimlessly wandering crawl) and there was no way I could access that material. MTV was being discussed and planned behind closed doors, as indeed, I think, was HTL - but by the time they were announced I had got well on with BOB - which in itself was 50% longer than originally planned in my head - so even when you're in control of your own project, it can get away from you without anyone else interfering! I turned down both, initially, though somehow I later got sucked into HTL. Never mind, it's been good fun so far, if hard work at times.

Where was I - oh, yeah - I still never read much Aces background at all. I've never read a single WC book, but I have read the background material from all the games - even though I never played the second one (my brother loved it though... whatever). But at the time, I'd just finished playing WC3 that I'd picked up through a budget mail-order firm and was well into WC:P. It was the games and not the club that had inspired me to write - the club was just the natural outlet I found.

So, IMHO, no games, no new writers. There's nothing stopping anyone writing new INDY stories (any WC fan can do that) or even setting up another PBM - should you be mad enough and brave enough. Rap was, and some fools got up and went with him when he screamed "Follow me, lads!" Maybe someone else needs to do that with the other new writers who want to flex their creative talents, and give the newer members something they can get into from the start. It could even be set earlier, back in the war or something. No worrying about screwing up 'canon' then.

If there's no new writing, blame the wankers who've killed Wing Commander, not HTL!
 
Re: Writing

I would definitely love to see a new PBM in the club. For one thing, it would be good for those who want to write. For another, a little competion between storylines is always good, because it spurs you to try harder. The big reason that we hit the ground running when we started HTL was that we had to prove ourselves. We weren't the writers who had finished KOM (most of them were in MTV) so we had to push ourselves hard to get attention and respect. I would love like to see another storyline do the same, give HTL some heat, but it's going to take a lot of hard work from someone.

Unregistered: If you liked "Maluk Tawus", you'll love the set of stories we've got coming up. We've got a Valentine's Day special story arc (for Feb 14th in the storyline), a nice creepy Halloween story for Halloween in real life, some dastardly goings on from the Movement, corporate warfare, you name it. :D

Best, Raptor
 
I did have two questions though about the last chapter...whose R'deck and Ksihrak? Was that the old WC3 emperor or something? And who is this 'Troy' Sosa apparently is in love with?
 
Tsk, Tsk. Troy is Troy carter, aka Catscratch. I would have thought he was annoying enough to stick in anyone's mind. :D R'deck was introduced for the first time in this story, so we'll have to wait and see. Kshirak was a character in a previous (non-HTL) story that Av wrote. He tried to overthrow the Assembly of Clans and replace it with a new Empire.

Best, Raptor
 
He didn't attempt to create a new Kilrathi empire, he *did*, and in the Aces era just after Secret Ops the Tenth Kilrathi Empire stands beside the Assembly of Clans (IoW, TTBB). Although I'm not sure where you got the idea that anyone tried to overthrow the Assembly... where was this written about? The Tenth Empire wiped out the Andorrans (most of them) and of course cleaned house on the previous regime (the Ninth Empire)...

- Neo
 
The Illusion of War is an indy (for the benefit of non-Aces, an induvidual story written by a club member rather than a club effort), and hence has no effect on the club storyline. The destruction of the Andorrans never took place in the club timeline, and the same goes for the idea of an existing new Imperium replacing/co-existing with the Assembly of Clans. Neither of those events are part of the timeline because they cause serious conflicts with existing writing and the canon universe. They have *never* been accepted as part of the club timeline, and Av himself clearly marked that story as an indy when he published it.

I know you like the idea of the Andorrans being gone and a new Empire, and that's fine. As I've said before though, if changes of that magnitude are to be made, they should be done with the knowledge and consent of the entire club. Blurring the line between a club storyline and an indy hurts both kind of writing. Not only that, it hurts the Aces as a whole if we don't keep a consistent storyline. Slotting in earth shaking events from an indy just because one or two of us like the ideas in them does that, and it makes life hell for people like me who actually have to try and keep the whole thing coherent.

The bottom line line is that major changes (the destruction of an entire group of people, the rise of new Kilrathi Empire) are made by the club storylines. We shouldn't try and shoe-horn in ideas from an indy just because we think those are cool. We've already had this discusssion on the Aces board, but since you don't seem to have taken note, I'll say it again. I have more than enough work to do in keeping the storyline on track without dealing with that kind of thing.

Best, Raptor
 
Re: mmmm....

Yeah, I know that feeling. :) This has to be said, though. The Aces seem to be starting down the road where we blur continuity beyond all recognition, and that's a trend I don't like at all.

Best, Raptor
 
OK...

OK, so what happened to that club-wide vote you were supposed to do for making IoW & TTBB Aces-canon (so that we can SEE what the Aces want)? Hey, why not just make a poll on this forum, and direct Aces to it via E-mail and the Aces board.

Name some of these "serious conflicts," please. How in the *hell* could (for the most part) destroying the Andorran Republic create conflicts with the canon material? Seems like it would be good to me. And a Tenth Kilrathi Empire co-existing with the Assembly... so what? We already know there's clans and pirate groups & such still feuding with Confed and amongst each other... why couldn't there be a larger group calling itself a "Tenth Empire" in there somewhere?

- Neo
 
Re: OK...

Well, for starters, the Andorrans are a quiet, isolationist faction that have no effect on the rest of the Universe. They may not be canon, but there's nothing to stop us sticking them into a corner and ignoring them if we want to. On the other hand, a resurgent Kilrathi empire armed with all of Andorra's resources and technology would conflict majorly with the state of the Kilrathi as they're shown in WC:P, and they would a heck of a lot harder to ignore. given the nature of the Kilrathi.

As for the rest: Where does everyone get this idea that I'm the one who does everything that's to be done in the club? What with maintaining the mailing list, sending out stories for people who want them sent, and running HTL, I'm kind of busy as it is. A club wide vote isn't simply a matter of setting up a poll and letting everyone click away. The last time that we did something like that (the election of the NTRB), we had anonymous voting, registration to vote that was checked off against the club mailing list, a website to let everyone who was running for the NTRB get their message accross, independent people tallying the vote, the lot.

And before we do any of *that*, we have get the club's consent to the idea that indies can be made *retrospectively* into club storylines. Once that precedent is set, it will remain for good, and that means major changes to the way we organise storylines. We've always had the convention that indy writers could write anything they wanted because it wouldn't impact the rest of the club. (Do you really think that anyone would have let you write a WC/Star Wars crossover if there was the chance it could be shoe-horned into a club storyline sometime later?) If we went down that road, we have to redefine what people can and can not write, which club members may or may not be comfortable with. I don't know about you, but I have enough to do as it is without trying to remake the entire club over. On the other hand, if you have the time and the energy for that kind of project, I wish you the best of luck.

Best, Raptor
 
My point was you volunteered to do some kind of club-poll on this subject on the Aces list in a reply post of yours on the board. How you intended to do this or why you decided to take this on... I can't answer these questions for you, but you seemed to agree it was worthy of a club-wide vote and agreed to issue it.

- Neo
 
Eh? Here's what I said in my post on the Aces board:

"First of all, we should check with Av whether he wants those stories to be official or not, as he didn't offer an opinion in the last thread. He might be perfectly with them as Indyies.

Second, the last club wide vote we had (the election of the NTRB) was done by secret ballot, and I don't see any reason why this should be differant. A major change to the universe like this (officially killing off one faction and massively strengthening another) should be done properly. The trouble with doing it in a public forum like this board is that people can be pressured to vote one way or another when they otherwise might not have."

All I said there was how I thought it *should* be done, not volunteer to do it myself. Just because I do the adminstrative tasks for the club like maintaining the mail list (hell, someone has to), it shouldn't be assumed that I do every job that comes up. It's not like I have a whole heap of spare time on my hands. :)

Best, Raptor
 
Oh, OK. Somehow I thought I remembered you officially agreeing to do it or something somesuch. No big deal, I apologize.

- Neo
 
I haven't read TTBB or IoW (are those books?), but I do remember, having recently replayed WCP, that the Kilrathi you see there are in the Cult of Sivar, and probably not that representative of the Kilrathi as a whole. I remember the book False Colors had a warlord who was more than well equipped. There's gotta be a core of a Tenth Empire out there somewhere.
 
Well, every Kilrathi system shown on the WC:P map is designated as part of the Assembly of Clans, as opposed to the human systems, which are designated both Cofed and Union of Border Worlds. Also, keep in mind that Confed seems to have free reign of Kilrathi space, and I doubt they would be comfortable with a new Empire.

As for IOW and TTBB, they were independant stories written by a member of the Aces club, but were not actually club storylines.

Neo: No Problem. :)

Best, Raptor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top