Bubbie trying to get Sharky’s attention…
Therapeutic head massage…
Our vocal boy…
Speed Racer…
Tripe treat time…
Sharky P.I.: Leaf Investigations…
Stubborn sleeper…
AMALGAVERSE MISSION #2 DEBRIEF
Congratulations to everyone on the completion of our second Amalgaverse mission!
As with our first mission, The Ghost Ship, I’d planned the story well in advance but, despite this, was waylaid by more than a few surprise votes that had me making adjustments on the fly. The biggest was the decision to allow Garak to have a go at questioning the imprisoned mercs. Writing that scene was a high point of this adventure for me. Sir Patrick Stewart passed away that day, so I included the Earl Grey tea as a tiny tribute to a great man.
There were also occasions where your ideas inspired some of the action. Most notably, someone suggested Odo pose as Dunsel during the stakeout beat. That idea stuck with me, and it grew into the later beat where Odo poses as Harven Zax in order to ambush the boarding party.
Fans elected to hazard the Klingon corridor, encountering those bioluminescent space barnacles that fed on our warp field. On the other hand, crossing the frontier would have resulted in an encounter with an echo wake left by an ancient species that would have effectively “phase-locked” the Enterprise’s warp field, dragging it into a higher-dimensional “shadow” trajectory. If that weren’t bad enough, the Orion Syndicate also awaited. On the other OTHER hand, crossing the Expanse at sublight would have seen the Enterprise caught in the residual gravitational memory of a star that went supernova so violently that it had left a scar in spacetime. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Romulans also awaited.
Our story is peppered with clues to who was who and what was truly going on, and if you review each beat, they’ll no doubt be apparent in hindsight. Faux Zax’s attempt to direct the kidnappers toward Milo (the real Harven Zax) and then follow them through the gate made it clear HE was the turncoat. Prior to that scene, however, the crew was given the opportunity to arrest someone. Had you chosen Lucinda, she would have willingly allowed herself to be imprisoned so that Milo (the real Harven Zax) could go free. Had you chosen to arrest Milo, then Lucinda would have revealed the truth right then and there. Had you chosen to arrest Robespierre, you would have gone down to the planet without the passcode and, possibly, handed your guests off to some very bad people. But, in the end, you chose to arrest no one and to allow the action to play out at the gate – which turned out to be the right call.
Like Maia in The Ghost Ship, the mercs – Algernon and Mira – were never meant to play such a large role, but after creating the characters, I saw an opportunity to get them involved after the Enterprise lost power. I’ve always been a fan of the colorful rogues and was sorry the fandom voted to let them off at the nearest port instead of inviting them to join the crew. But at least we got Dunsel who, in the original version of the story, was hopelessly compromised by the attempt to retrieve the data from his memory stores, effectively shutting down before giving up that crucial information. In the end, I found him too adorable to kill off.
Creating the videos to accompany the posts has truly been a learning experience. It would seem that the key to creating a great AI video is to basically trick the AI into producing what you need it to. In the end, I think they’re improving, and there were quite a few I loved looking back: Dunsel’s intro, the chatty mercs, Harven Zax pontificating. And the various visuals of the Enterprise-D in action were great fun, turning out better than I expected.
Overall, our #Amalgaverse adventures seem to have settled in at up to 10k views and roughly 300 comments per post. It would be nice to get those numbers up – and I’m hoping consistency will do that – but I think those are respectable numbers for a burgeoning series. This ain’t modern television, so our little series will be given the opportunity to find its legs – and audience.
Special shout-out to @ugorur who created an absolutely kick-ass Amalgaverse site. Check it out: https://t.co/QZl910JXQk
So what were your thoughts on The Delivery? How did it measure up in comparison to The Ghost Ship?
Rest up, because our third mission begins this week. Ready?
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