Crossover "The Coming Storm" - Undiscovered Frontier Season 3 (Star Trek/nBSG/BattleTech/Mass Effect/Others)

[Big Steve]

I released these episodes in the same week back at Thanksgiving 2017, emulating the kind of "two hour opening" that some shows would pull off, such as DS9's "Way of the Warrior". I wanted to open Season 3 with a big bang, with 3-01 to set the stage and 3-02 to deliver the boom.

Partway through I realized that my original plan of Robert waking up in 3-01 lacked punch. It would come too quickly and wouldn't give the character the examination he deserved. That's why I reserved it to 3-02, and by doing so, I drew the obvious parallels to Star Trek: Generations and the choices of Kirk and Picard, and in doing so I showed how Robert's motivations made him particularly susceptible in ways they weren't - hence his initial rejection of departure - only for those same feelings to provide the push to make him accept leaving in the end. Because what defines Robert isn't stuff like duty and principle (Picard) or challenge and adversity (Kirk): it's family, his love of family, and his pain at the losses he's endured to family over his life. Family tied him to the fantasy far more strongly than it could Picard or Kirk, even if ultimately the need to protect the family he now has drove him to leave.

Angel going walkabout was something I did to give her something to do. Angel's one of the characters who sometimes suffers from her role. She fires the ship's weapons and punches people, either in training or in actual fights. Her place as Cat's protective big sister has to decline if Cat is to get any character development, and being the third point of the Robert-Julia love triangle was definitively ended in 2-10. I wanted to reflect on what she's like and the impulses she has to deal with problems through her fists and martial arts acumen. Jarod was the perfect character to connect with her on that given his own backstory. And, of course, it let me begin building up the season's element of Our Heroes coming to the attention of ancient forces.

Having Ariel Shaham become Captain of the Enterprise was something I decided upon only later. I always know Julia wouldn't get it (save when I toyed with actually destroying the Aurora in 2-18 and having the characters all transfer to the Enterprise, mirroring somewhat the original UF from 1999-2000), but the who was big. A former Facility Hand? Captain Laurent of the Challenger would've worked, obviously. In the end, though, Ariel Shaham was perfect, since it shows the effects of their actions in 1-12, and is a further slap in the face to the Nazis as the leader of the last Jews of their home universe gets one of the Alliance's most prestigious commands.

Conversely, King was planned from early Season 2 to become captain of the Excalibur.

Some stuff in 3-02 could've gone a number of different ways. I considered having the Quarians arrive to help save New Caprica, a nice thematic linking there. At one point the protags would've initially aided the refugee-held mine and Wilma would've flown a Viper along with Starbuck (a fun nod to the fact both properties were done by Glen Larson in the 1970s).

But Clara was always going to die.

And that was tricky. Many of you are probably familiar with Gail Simone's concept of "Stuffed in the Fridge", or as she put it as the name of a website on the topic, "Women in Refrigerators". It references the murder of new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend by a supervillain, who stuffed the body in Kyle's fridge. The point was an examination and protest of the tendency of male comic book writers (and writers in other genres) to kill or otherwise horribly harm female characters for the purpose of furthering the story of the main male character. The women in question are treated as emotional props for the hero, not characters in their own right.

It's a legitimate trope to be concerned with, but too much concern can stifle stories. It can make it feel impossible to actually kill characters off, even if the author feels it works, for fear of coming off like this.

I had that fear, so I considered the issue and made a decision. It would be impossible to not have Clara's death weigh on Zack. But I didn't have to make that the sole result. Nor did I have to have her "fridge-stuffed" as a helpless damsel. To undermine the "Women in Refrigerators" effect, I decided I needed to do two things.

I had to have Clara's death impact other characters, even if they are minor characters too, showing her importance in her own right.

And I had to give her death agency. She had to be an agent in her own death, by which I mean she acted on her own initiative and accord, keeping in the bounds of her character, and the tragic result was her death.

Hence the means of that end. Clara was a victim, certainly, but she met her end by making a choice to do something noble and brave, trying to rescue someone in an open firefight and bring them to safety.

And her death didn't just impact Zack. Cally, Galen, Starbuck and Anders, they all mourn for her. To the people of New Caprica, she wasn't just an outsider, she'd become a neighbor, a member of their community. And now she was gone. Another friend, another neighbor, claimed by the Cylons.

Anyway, by the end of all this, the stage is now set for Season 3 and the new status quo of the series. The voyages of Captain Robert Dale are over: the voyages of Captain Julia Andreys have begun.

Hell, I could with justice regard Season 3 as having another theme: "Julia Andreys is a badass spaceship captain". Starting later, I'll start to show you why I think that theme has merit.

 

[Big Steve]

So. 2-14 was the record for the largest nUF episode. Then 3-02 beat it, but that was understandable, it was an action-heavy episode.

Then 3-03 beat 3-02.

At this point I sighed heavily, but again, I had reason. Not so much the action aspects but that the story was as expansive as it was. It had a lot of detail and exposition due to the introduction of a new, original universe.

Said original universe is the creation of one of the co-creators of the Origins spinoff, Devastator. It's actually why I started talking UF with her as I proposed the idea of having the future Aururian world appear in an episode to give the Aurora crew a challenging diplomatic stand-off. We had a few exchanges of ideas on it. Then Captain-General got involved, added to it, and fully developed the Aururian home universe with aliens, the local history, and the powers that be.

The idea was always this set-up of two powers, each with virtues and flaws, and the Alliance not having a "good guy" ally to team up with. Both sides have bad parts to them. The Aururians treat aliens nicely, but are expansionist and have a reactionary streak to them. Meanwhile the League are a democratic nation that exploits less-advanced alien cultures in the same vein that the Third French Republic exploited its colonial territories.

Some would therefore argue the Aururians are more deserving of sympathy, for they don't exploit such races, but others would point to the League's ideals being of uplift and equality and that any failure to do so can be blamed on the military aggression of the Aururians, who seem to instigate the wars.

There will be an Origins episode that actually delves further into this universe.

As for the Yhi Sisterhood and Force-sensitives among the Aururians, that was a concept we added in development. It allows for further diversification of views of the Force, and of how it's practiced. As far as I know, we're not likely to see any Yhi sisters with lightsabers picking fights with bad guys (unless I'm forgetting something, I do that sometimes), because their focus is entirely on healing people and nature.

We get to see the beginning of this year's other theme, the return to "Zack Carrey Must Suffer". He is once again my chewtoy.

And we also see the start of "Julia Andreys is a badass spaceship captain". Here she is, making the big calls, walking the tightrope of protecting an Alliance colony and not provoking another interstellar war, and basically earning the big bucks in a way that Picard and Kirk would approve of (Janeway, presumably, would inquire as to why she didn't consider warrior cobalt tarantulas, and Archer would blame the Vulcans and demand the use of the Mind Bomb... yeah, sorry, had to ref Chuck of SFDebris there!).

Don't mind Miranda there. She's not up to anything bad at all. It's not Cerberus slowly expanding its tendrils across the Multiverse, unknowingly serving an ancient genocidal machine race. Don't worry about anything!

A final little note. Some of the colony characters, and the fact it's called the Oakland Colony, are from a little fic that I started with the Origins co-writers years ago as a side project, one we never posted publicly, that would've been an SF ISOT-like story with Human colony ships from a space-faring 24th Century Earth misjumping and being stranded in Aururiaverse Earth circa 1820, 1821. They would've ended up settling the site of modern day Oakland and eventually make contact with the Aururians of that time period as well as the French.

 

[Big Steve]

So, yeah. The Netflix Voltron series. You can blame SB's Bushranger for this, he put the idea in my head back in 2016 when he asked about the possibility after I finished Season 1. The end of Season 1 of Voltron: LD had a cliffhanger that worked just right for this, without even requiring much change from the actual resolution the show gave.

It was after some time I gave thought to the idea of Altean survivors in another universe. At first I was just going to finally have a case with multiple copies of a species in different universes, like Humans, but as myth arc stuff was developed with Captain-General the alternative outcome was decided upon.

For the record, Allura's mother Queen Fala was named for the original 80s Allura, or rather, her name in the original Japanese version, Golion. I don't remember if the series eventually named her or not, just as it did reveal its own surviving world of Alteans in the arc involving Prince Lotor.

Choosing the Fracture as their arrival point allowed for me to show more of NEUROM. We got a bit of them in Season 2 with 2-14, now we see their ships and get an indication of the threat they pose... and a hint of the true nature of their leaders (anyone who reads the description of the Alekto's home may notice a similarity with another facility shown in the second half of Season 2). Captain-General wrote the two ending bits with the Furies, I'll add. And don't worry, we'll see more of NEUROM as we approach the end of the season. They have a major myth arc role to play.

Cat and Pidge are an awesome team, BTW, it's just a shame we didn't see more of them interacting. Or, for that matter, Hunk's delight at meeting Hargert and getting to play in the Aurora kitchen.

Also, I now kinda wish I'd introduced Talara before 3-02, since this is only the beginning of her role in the season and in the series. But that's what happens when an idea comes too late for an earlier incorporation. She's kind of a fun character to write, although I struggle to give her a voice in my head that's not Allura's voice from the series.

If you're wondering if Voltron will come back... oh, let's just say it's in the cards. Queen Fala's got a role to play too, and she represents a power that has its own role in the myth arc. Also, maybe someone here on Sietch will recognize the origin reference for "Lady of Admirals". I think Captain-General was frustrated when nobody on SB got it.

As for Zack... don't worry, he'll be back. After all, he hasn't suffered enough yet, mwahahahahahaha.

Anyway, that's all for now. Tune in later for the big Yesterday's Enemies two-parter, the first episodes to directly lay the foundation for Undiscovered Frontier: Origins, and the first episode to directly incorporate material from @Harlock's stories.

 

[Big Steve]

So here we are. The formal set-up of Undiscovered Frontier: Origins. And the first official two-part episode since "The Human Condition" back in Season 1. Note that I will be keeping the "Last time on" segment to open 3-06 too.

This story was greatly enlarged from what was originally likely to have been the next entry in the Psi Corps/Telepath arc, which was to be the only major B5 story arc I was going to do. Once @Captain-General signed on, new plans were made and the idea of this two-parter was formed. Permission was sought from @Harlock and given to include the Dilgar as envisioned in his "The Dilgar War", with the story to be a tense military and diplomatic stand-off over the Dilgar and those ISA races so scared to death of them that they would be willing to go as far as genocide to end the perceived threat.

Enter also the Varmas, younger and elder (and you may recall that Zhengli was referenced back in 2-16 when Zack Allen was telling Zack Carrey about his experiences in B5 security, that was done to establish her existence), who will have their own big role to play.

Hawk's role to escalate things was due to my plan to have him show up again at this point in the series anyway. In retrospect, I should've really had his second appearance in the second half of Season 2, since having him yet again as an antagonist and tied to other forces planning mass-killings - which he was linked to in 2-01 - further soured the readers on the character and his movement. I've had to adjust. You'll see how in later episodes.

A late addition to the story was Wrex and Drack. Their roles might be slightly superfluous, but it gives another dimension and sets up story arcs to come in the main series and Origins, especially since we're just a few episodes away from the commencement of the first Mass Effect game's story arc. That said, the fan reaction to them was ecstatic, so at least I pleased the fans.

The scene of the tanks being smashed and the Darglan infants and fetuses within being destroyed is hands-down one of the darkest scenes through the franchise so far. It was fairly difficult for us to do, I recall.

Also, in keeping with the season's theme of Julia's badassery now that she's got the fourth rank strip, we get to see her making the hard ethical choices to oppose genocide, even at the threat of war. And we'll see more of that in the next episode.

 

[Big Steve]

And there we have it, folks. The stage is now set for Undiscovered Frontier: Origins. And yes, this two-parter yet again shattered the word counts. In fact, this two-parter was arguably a novel in of itself. If you stick with my analogy of the word count being the equivalent of a TV show's budget-busting big damn episodes, I'm making my theoretical studio budgeting producers very irate with how I keep blowing the budget on these grand stories.

And this was after we cut things, or at least ideas. For instance, I'd intended a scene from the POV of Tina Carmine, Andy Luttrell, and the others in Hawk's group on the Avenger, before Andy went over for the talks. I cut it for space reasons. The same happened to a scene of Angel and Helen talking, with Helen essentially calling for Angel to change sides (referring to how she opened Season 3, dispensing her own justice on frontier worlds).

There was also a change that... well, I really should've changed Leo's scene with Hawk. You see, in the original concept, the fighting wouldn't have started until after the Drazi forced a prisoner exchange that would involve releasing Hawk and Helen. This would've made Leo's scene of him warning about the brainwave infusers' effects on them far more reasonable, since he'd be anticipating that release. But then things changed and we didn't do the exchange, which begs the question of why Leo would talk to them as if they were going to be released, or would successfully escape. I really should've either had him hail the Avenger and talk to someone over there, or altered the dialogue with Hawk. I regret that I never did, we were just so busy with the other elements.

G'Kar's arrival to side with Our Heroes paid off 2-16 and Meridina's conversation with him. It's not hard to imagine that without his moral influence on the Narn, they would've shown up to support the Drazi, not the Alliance.

@Captain-General did a fantastic job writing the battle scenes in space, as well as touching up the other ones a bit as I recall (Tra'dur's bit of shooting Weyrloc Tral was her). The final scenes of the sixth post with Zhengli on that Dilgar station and Shai'jhur's conversations with Ari'shan and then Fei'nur were hers as well (actually, pretty much all the Dilgar stuff is mostly her).

I hope that together we did justice to @Harlock's work on the Dilgar, and I'd like to thank him again for letting us incorporate his work into this Multiverse setting. The Dilgar have alot of interesting story potential with them. And we've plenty more to show you!

As for the final tag bit, yeah, Zack's not doing well. And you can have some fun guessing who his drinking friend at the bar was, although I suspect many of you will figure it out. And I couldn't resist Robert making his long-awaited return to the series, after missing four really big episodes, with the Obi-Wan (or Jeff Sinclair) Dramatic Hood Drop. And if your mental image of him as this clean-shaven, combed-hair Midwesterner is still there, it's going to have trouble for a while: he's got the long hair and beard now, such that I jokingly used an image of Jeff Bridges' title character from "The Big Lebowski", "but younger", for him. Come the next episode, we'll be getting Robert and Zack having their own little adventure on the homeworld of one of the original alien species of the nUF setting.

Note that this was also the first of what's become three hiatuses to break up Season 3, as we posted this two-parter in January 2018 and 3-07 didn't go out until June. Thankfully you won't have to wait that long, 3-07 will go out tomorrow, and I'll likely be slowing re-posting a bit to accommodate Captain-General re-posting the Origins pilot and existing episodes.

P.S. I've joked that the season's unofficial theme was Julia becoming a badass spaceship captain. But this two-parter really kicks in another element: Lucy is starting to feel like an absolute badass (ersatz) Jedi Knight. And we'll be getting even more badassery from her in the upcoming arc.

P.P.S. Devastator wrote some of the Varma stuff as well.

 

[Big Steve]

One more thing!

@Harlock is now doing a new alt-universe B5 fic also based off of The Dilgar War material, A Fighting Chance, which is making use of the characters introduced for UF: Origins. Consider it heartily recommended!

 

[Big Steve]

So, the pieces of our new status quo are starting to move into place, with Robert returning home as the near-equivalent of a Spectre.

I knew early on that I wanted to eventually make Julia the Captain. Robert's story was going to start heading into the direction of learning about his Force connection (to use the term we all use in our heads, IC terminology aside). This, of course, left open the question of how I'd keep Robert as part of the Aurora crew. The idea of him becoming an operative of the Alliance was the most reasonable approach to take. Hence the founding of the Paladins.

Of course, the Paladins aren't meant to be like the Spectres. They'll get more oversight. More direct support. In general their purpose fits the Alliance's idealistic foundation. Although hewing to that won't always be easy.

As for the other Paladins, I figured it was a good way to take the character of Kane, and it also fits the kind of things Buck got up to in his TV series back in the day. Whether or not we get more known characters becoming Paladins, well, we'll see.

When it comes to the story itself, I do think I messed up a bit here and there. Ending two straight acts the same way invited a feeling of tedium.

I do enjoy what I did with the Gy'toran homeworld, though. Aside from Gersal we'd yet to see any of the original-creation species' homeworlds (Doreia will eventually be seen in Origins, I'll add). And the Gy'torans' love of "sailing" ships, including actual star-sailers, made an examination of their homeworld particularly interesting. I did some thinking on how to make Gy'sara feel unique, even if it was ultimately a backdrop to the Robert/Zack character story.

Bringing back the Keyeri was fun, even if they didn't do much. I very much want to give UF the feel that we're seeing only one slice of a very dynamic Multiverse, with guest characters off having their own adventures. Although I didn't bring up something I would later reference playfully: that is, whether or not Robert, *cough*, counted Druni's spots during his stay on the ship.

And of course, for the final note: poor Cat's having nightmares. You'll see why eventually.

 

[Big Steve]

And so here we are, the grand kickoff. Episode 1 of a four episode arc covering the events of Mass Effect 1, including a return to Adrana and the result of the events of 1-05 with the alien machine there. Given the delay I had in writing things, that was a four and a half year wait before firing that particular Chekhov's Gun.

This was one of my riskier ideas. Working the Aurora crew into the events of ME1 means either vastly expanding what the game did, and risking bloat, or having them compete with Shepard and the canon crew for screen-time. This is what I ultimately did, with compensation by having Shepard still centrally involved and by bringing her and the Normandy into the big mid-season finale as well.

Of course, showing Shepard's involvement would've felt like an extended guest-star dominated arc if I'd not made other changes, so I did give a personnel change by having Robert decide to join the Normandy for the time being (with the commiserate issues of his return home being involved). Of course, since he's basically a Jedi Consular at this point with how he uses his Force powers, it shouldn't be hard to guess which canonical Normandy crewmember he replaces. The next episode will clarify that of course.

I had a lot of fun with Cat, Vee, and Tra'dur having their little Citadel adventure. Although it is bittersweet given what was said in 3-07, and of course, anyone looking at the Origins character list knows where precisely I'm going with this.

If anyone wants to know about the battle Will and the Koenig crew talked about, you'll find it in the Origins pilot.

 

[Big Steve]

Part 2 of the Mass Effect 1 arc brings in Liara, but adds her to the Aurora crew. I did this because I have plans for the Asari xenoarcheologist, although some of those plans have changed slightly to accommodate new concepts.

Running Robert as a fourth member to a squad with Shepard and two others seemed the best way to make sure he got to work with each ME character throughout the arc. Starting out I hadn't planned on him getting his own lightsaber until the arc's final part, but after writing the sequence with the Thorian I realized I simply couldn't justify Robert holding off any longer. Not having the weapon made the Thorian fight more dangerous to his comrades, and he's not the type to jeopardize people over something like this. So starting from now, Robert has a lightsaber.

It's always fun to show Lucy being a badass ersatz-Jedi Knight, and this episode was no exception to that. It also lets me set up something that'll become bigger in the next episode regarding her interactions with Major Anders.

Tom Barnes gets to be cool again as well, and Cat is cute as always and has a good thing going with Tra'dur. Plus, heh, I just had to tease the two or three "Barli" shippers again with that scene of Tom introducing Tali to Scotty.

The bit of Robert killing the Thorian was risky. It can come off as Shepard's agency being undermined; she was going to spare it and Robert kills it anyway. But the Thorian's behavior in the game really doesn't lend itself to thinking it's willing to work with other species without enslaving them. Robert's Force-clairvoyance alerting him to that, and his instinctive decision to end the threat he foresaw, allows for some moral ambiguity about the Force and what it can do, as well as poor Robert confronting the fact he killed the creature like that.

As a final note, I decided to have some fun with the "Shepard can't drive" meme. Yes, my Shepard can drive, but she's a very... exact driver, and that can be scary.

 

[Big Steve]

I could say a lot about this episode. About using the Port Hanshan investigation storyline to bring up the mysterious "Pretenders" again, or yet another powerful being who wears sunglasses inside (whom does that remind you of? ). About Robert's continued issues with fine control of his greatly enhanced connection to the Force. About Lucy and Anders having their problems with each other coming to a head.

All in all, there was a lot in this episode I can cover.

But I'm going to single out two things that I find worthy of note.

Well, three.

One was that Teaser sequence of Lucy dealing with the Biotic terrorists. It's from an actual side-quest of ME1 I'll add. I loved the thought of doing that and having Lucy repeat what Meridina did to talk down Gina in 1-11. She just calmly extinguishes her lightsaber and sits on the floor, then talks them down. She could have easily ended that stand-off with her powers, but instead she talked them into a peaceful surrender. I consider this one of the better bits I did, and it hammers home that Lucy is walking that path that makes her fitting as the Jedi Knight character of this series.

The second bit ties into the first, and is something I forgot to mention in the 3-09 Commentary: Talara. I'm sure some people might've wondered what role Talara would play after the Voltron episode, especially since she didn't do much in the following episodes. Well, now we see the trajectory of her fate: she has the Force (as hinted in 3-04) and is to be Lucy's first student. This will mean a lot for both of them moving forward, as Lucy has to balance the needs of her missions with the needs of her student... and that's a balance that might not always work.

The third bit? Wrex. Specifically, I always thought ME1 kinda dropped the ball by having him show absolutely no interest in recovering anything from the Virmire base, once the genophage cure was made known. Sure, we know Saren did more than cure it, but certainly reclaiming genetic material and traces might still jump-start attempts to cure the genophage.

Therefore, that's precisely what I did. And then, heh, I used Wrex's role in 3-06 to set up him going to the Dilgar for help, particularly Nah'dur. Given what 3-06 and the Origins series has told us about Nah'dur's parentage, it's particularly interesting, eh? And yes, we're going to see more of this in the future.

Anyway, tomorrow we see the big conclusions of not just the ME1 arc, but the even greater conflict our heroes have been waging for two years now...

 

[Big Steve]

So here we are, the grand finale of the ME1 arc. I received some remarks that by this time people felt fatigue at the entire thing, but still enjoyed the conclusion. It's possible I made an error when I decided to follow it like I did, but the alternatives all seemed worse for what I wished to accomplish.

I diverged from the game more than I planned. Part of it was trying to justify the Council's order for Shepard to not go to Ilos better than the game did. Another was complaints from Captain-General and Devastator that I was following the game too closely, that I could do other things. In fact, at one point CG recommended I have the fight battle with Sovereign happen at Virmire, with the Aurora and an Alliance fleet showing up to destroy him even without a Citadel assault. But that would've undermined some of the stuff I wanted to do, so I went through with the Citadel fight.

I did change it though. In the original outline the battle would have been closer to the game. Sovereign would've entered the arms and tried to take over, Shepard and crew would have managed to re-open them, then the Allied fleet would've arrived and engaged. And it would've been larger: not just Hackett's fleet but a combined Multiversal force including the USS Enterprise-E making her grand first appearance (and yes, I know, Sovereign fighting a Sovereign-class ship). Cat would've used some of the bits from earlier in this arc, like the scans of the keepers, to work with Data to disrupt Sovereign's connection to Saren's body. Likewise Lucy and Anders would've expanded on their tactic in 3-09's climax, disrupting the Geth network to prevent their position from falling.

In the end, I went with what we have instead, and I do think it worked. It also lent greater gravitas to the fight with Sovereign in Saren's remains. And I did quite enjoy having Sovereign refer ominously to "the Starbreakers", showing that the Reapers are also familiar with the series Myth Arc Big Bad, the ancient and mysterious "Darkness".

I also got rid of Robert's "build his first lightsaber" sequence, since I'd decided to have him seek one out from Lucy at the end of 3-09.

Anyway, the arc is over. Sovereign's threat, which was the ending highlight of the Season 3 preview, is over. The Reapers are defeated... for now, mwahahahahahahaha!

But guess who's not defeated? Yep. It's time to cue Sabaton's classic "Attero Dominatus", because next up is the epic, 60k+ mid-season finale special, "All In", and the assault on Welthauptstadt Germania itself! The capital of the Nazi Reich beckons as our tired heroes are thrown into the battle once more! Co-written with Devastator and Captain-General, I'll add. If you wanted to see more Dilgar... you're gonna get more Dilgar. And we all wanna see more Nazis blowing up, I'm sure.

 

[Big Steve]

This is the largest nUF episode. And boy does it deserve it. It went through a lot of discussion between myself, Captain-General, and Devastator. Captain-General even wrote the basic outline since I was still busy with 3-11, then I worked it out to fit with what I wanted to do, then she and Devastator added to sequences like the Teltow Canal crossing, the fight in the university courtyard, and fine-tuning the space battles. CG also wrote the Shai'jhur scenes, and her part in joint scenes, while I handled the surrender.

I'd always had in mind that the episode of the Alliance winning the war would involve the protagonists launching a raid into the heart of Berlin. I wanted to have a number of their allies in various fictional universes featured. Prince Victor, Phelan Kell and Natasha Kerensky, the Aururians, Shepard and her team, Buck Rogers and Wilma Dearing. I'd even considered SG-1 joining them so that Jack would finally get to shoot ray-guns at Space Nazis. And the Dilgar were always intended to join in once I'd agreed to include them.

But they were very nebulous ideas. CG was the one who built an epic out of it.

Tom's role in the end, with his act of self-mutilation to save the ship, was another late addition. There's always an issue of making the space battles repetitive. "Oh no, the Aurora's lost shields, they take some damage, but they get out of it without significant casualties or loss to named characters." So this time, no. One of them was going to get the smelly end of it, and Tom ended up with that. It also gives him a chance to step up and do something badass, something beyond his usual role of being the foul-mouthed engineer. When the chips were down, he acted to save his ship, and he bled doing it.

And, of course, there's the bit in the tag. I seriously considered not having it, but a number of fans guessed already what I was going to do, and I decided it'd keep a tension in the setting for the mid-season break. Joined by having Dukat's joining the Dominion come in this episode's tag. The war is over, but the Multiverse is still a dangerous place.

In the next few episodes, our heroes will indeed discover how dangerous it is...

P.S. I wrote the actual surrender on the Aurora's deck, but CG wrote the scene in Milwaukee of the German air force commander who decided to commence surrender negotiations for the entire Reich.

 

[Big Steve]

This was a really busy episode, even for its relatively small size. I had a lot to cover to set up the new status quo, including the Collector attack on the Normandy, the fate of the remains of Sovereign, and revealing why Cat was having those nightmares. Plus I did the bit of Tom considering whether to wait for the organic arm or accept a prosthetic. I also had to establish Will's departure to his new role in Origins.

Long ago, when the series was first being laid out, some of these things were different. I didn't have the same myth arc elements that necessitated the involvement of Yellow, for one, and for another I hadn't conceived of Zack leaving for a while. In fact, the original idea for this would've been an action-packed tense episode of Zack and the Koenig arriving while the Normandy was getting shot up, beaming aboard survivors, and then trying to outlast the Collector cruiser while waiting for help. Tali would've had to help in Engineering, Joker would've ended up at the Koenig's helm, etc. And I had something... else in mind for Shepard. Indeed in my initial thoughts I didn't want to do the "Shepard mostly dies" part at all, but Kartr convinced me I'd change a crapload of stuff in MEverse and it might disrupt too much later on.

It also would've ended with the Dominion takeover of Cardassia.

But things developed in other directions, I brought aboard co-writers who added to the myth arc, and this is the result. I'd like to think it's a very solid story even if it's a bit spread out with all the different plots, and it ends with, really, the first time since 2-16 that the protagonists have all been together.

Of course, as befitting a story of this title, it leaves a lot of questions. What are the circumstances of that "might-be" that plagues Cat? What's Cerberus and the Centre up to with that piece of Sovereign? Who is this "Yellow", who can bat around our heroes with ease, and where does she come from? Why do I refer to Tom Barnes as "Tom" instead of "Barnes" now?

Lotsa questions to answer.

Anyway, I won't be posting the next episode until @Captain-General posts the first regular episode of Origins, as Origins 1-01 establishes what's to come in episodes 3-14 and 3-15. And even if she does so today, I'll probably wait until tomorrow for the other two episodes. And they're a doozy to be sure... but not as big as 3-16.

 

[Big Steve]

Doing both commentaries at once because... well, initially this was just one episode.

The original outline of the episode was that it would be mostly the Robert and Hawk plot, them helping the redoubt, and a small C-plot of the negotiations on B5. But there were complications.

One was my own excitement for the spinoff getting ahead of me. I had this big idea of guest-starring Elia, who is asked to join the negotiation team to advise, that came off as insulting to the character, such that it'd have a negative impact on her portrayal in Origins. On top of that, I royally flubbed her characterization in outline notes, adding to the problems. And since Origins plans were laid assuming she'd be in the episode, cutting her wouldn't work either.

More than that, Elia being present demanded that the negotiation plotline be given more "screentime" so to speak. So the word count started ballooning, especially once CT came aboard to write the scenes involving the Tau Atrea telepaths.

To top it all off, matters came to a head over Hawk. My decisions on 2-01 and not using him again until 3-05/3-06 came back to bite me. The fandom hated him. Hated! And my co-creators didn't like the character either. I'd completely failed to keep him balanced: what was supposed to be the Shadow Archetype of Robert instead was seen as a bullying coward with a big gun and it was argued I would never be able to recover the character.

And this was bad, is bad, because I had plans for Hawk.

So I had to adjust. The ultimate result was Rebekah bat Gurion. And thus the need to introduce her.

At about this point, I recognized that one episode wouldn't work. It was too much. And while the Battle of Germania episode was nearly novel-sized as well, it was so because it was action-heavy and had a lot of individual scenes. If you look at these episodes, a lot of the word count comes from the telepathic interaction scenes. And cutting anything from either plot would gut it.

So I made my choice. Episode fission.

I could've just added an episode, making it a 21 episode season. CG even recommended I make episode 20 the season finale and save planned finale for the Fourth Season premiere. But I said no, as there was material in the third season finale I planned that had to come in this season. And since I found need for a breather episode in the late season and prefer even-numbered ones anyway, I decided to fission the story. "A Certain Point of View" would become 3-15 and be the Tau Atrea story, while 3-14 would become "A Matter of Perception" and focus on the B5 diplomacy story. It would let me flesh it out, give Elia's presence more weight, and I even put in the subplot of Tom's issues. Since I'd already had scenes written in a certain way, I decided the most interesting thing would be to duplicate them. Hence 3-14's first act is Julia's perspective while 3-15 is Robert's, as was the tag, with 3-15 showing said tag from Robert's POV before acting as the culmination to both episodes.

Afterward I thought of how 3-14's title emulated 3-10's too much, so I ultimately changed it to "Values Judgement".

There's a lot I could talk about regarding these episodes, not just the difficulty of writing them, but the adapation on my overall plan that the issues with Hawk forced that led to adding Becca. How I wrote Julia's interaction with Ivanova, and even that small moment of Julia defending Zhen'var against Ivanova's insinuations (driven by Ivanova's intense grudge against Psi Corps). The way the negotiations ended up (That was actually near to the end and I was seriously considering the negotiations failing, but it would've contradicted elements to come in Origins).

Probably the biggest thing is the introduction of the new antagonist force: the Aristos. I'd only recently read some of Catherine Asaro's books in the Skolian Saga, and with few exceptions the Aristos are just fucking evil. They're one of the most malicious and cruel cultures I think I've seen in written fashion, and they indeed serve as a deadly and dangerous foe to Our Heroes. There is therefore great satisfaction in what the Tau Atrea telepaths did to the one, not to mention Lucy and Antonia dealing with the other to rescue the Toghatti twins.

Actually, while her role was relatively small, I like how Lucy's scenes worked. Not just giving her another chance to live up to the image of a heroic Knight of Life (or Jedi Knight if you prefer), but the quiet scene of her meditating with Talara, where she explains why Talara's training is orientated toward non-combat, or her putting the kids' toy back together for them just to be nice. Lucy is, I think, one of the better characters in the series, even if she's not part of the "Inner 7" as I call them (the original core of 7 that is: Robert, Julia, Zack, Tom, Leo, Cat, and Angel). She has a sense of humor and an impish streak of mischief, but she can be deadly serious and, when the chips are down, is virtually fearless.

Out of all the scenes I did with CT for this two-parter, I'd have to say my favorite is Robert's interaction with the kids. Originally it was meant to have more so that we could get the full telepath kid CUDDLE PILE going, but limiting it to four gives the scene something extra, a certain closeness I think that more kids would've ruined. The exploration of Robert's character, so soon after learning about Becca's painful back story and his fight with Hawk, lets us see more of just who this man is, what drives him, and what helps to make him a hero. And of course, sharing his connection with the Force telepathically gave an equal opportunity to show how others would feel about this spiritual element to the world, one not always explored in such fictions.

Honestly, I could probably go on, but I won't. These two episodes, despite all the trouble that went into getting them done, work for me, and are part of what is a very strong season.

If you're interested in how things went for Elia after going home, I'm sure Captain-General will get O1-02 out at some point.

 

[Big Steve]

First the credits: @Captain-General wrote the initial scene from Kendra Shaw's POV on the Pegasus, and Comrade Tortoise wrote all material and dialogue involving Colin, Max, and Isaac.

So here we are, one of the biggest wham episodes of the series. The SS-Cylon alliance makes their big move, and it could very well be the Alliance's 9/11. Their nightmare has happened: an organized and hostile force has the IU drive. And Robert's nightmares came true too: the SS attacking New Liberty, even if it was saved from complete destruction.

In my oldest planning this was initially a Season 4 event. I decided to move it up because this fits a bolt from the void far better (as before the SS exiles would've already been known) and totally not because I didn't want to wait even more for the crossover to come in 3-17.

Anyway, yeah, wham episode. Julia's been captured, the true nature of the Cylon leadership is revealed, the Order of Swenya's lost its HQ and a shitload of its history and most sacred sites, and the Alliance is reeling. On the positive side, the Quarians finally get to play the Big Damned Heroes role (I'd been wanting to work that into 3-02 and 3-12 but couldn't), and now we know there's some kind of dissension within the Cylons' ranks with Athenina going around undermining them.

On to 3-17, and the crossover I spent five years giggling in anticipation over.

 

[Big Steve]

"I'm the Avatar." BOOM! There it is! I first conceived of this waaaaaaay back in late 2013, while still working on the first episodes of Season 1 while The Legend of Korra Book 2 was coming out. After all, I've already got the Force, and other stuff. Why not Bending? It could even be tied into the Force given the importance of chi, which is basically life energy.

I was giggling when I first posted Act 4 10 months ago, given the ending with Ursa being named and the clear showing of Firebending. Indeed, this was a crossover I was carefully holding close to the chest just so I could maximize the "holy crap!"ness of it for the "viewers", heh. The hints were still there though, given how I described Miko in Robert's occasional Force-dreams.

Initially I was considering an even longer gap between Miko and Korra, with an entire run around the cycle first so that she would be the sixth Avatar after Korra, not the second. This would make the space-faring nature even easier to justify. But ultimately I wanted to keep things closer to Korra's time. This is about two centuries after Korra and Asami walked off for their Spirit World vacation (as seen in the Turf Wars comic), but I figured between Korra likely having at least another half-century left in her (maybe a bit more, depends on how you interpret the mercury poisoning damaging her body internally) and the following Earth Avatar having a fairly long, if not Kiyoshi-long, life, 180 years or so could pass before Miko's birth.

As for non-Avatar-related stuff, the scenes involving Julia were things I took care in writing. When I was younger I tended to have "the bad guys perform horrible horrible torture!" as a default, and it often came off as, well, as something it shouldn't be. I wanted to dial that element back and play it straight, showcasing the stakes every time Fassbinder and the SS put our heroes into their crosshairs. Now we see precisely what would've happened back in 2-05 or 2-08 or 2-11 if anyone fell firmly into Fassbinder's hands. I also wanted to get the audience primed for catharsis to come. We all want Julia to hold out and escape (and I had posts to that effect), and as this goes on, the more that will build.

The nanobots come from Catherine Asaro's novels. The Eubian Aristos use them on their providers, allowing them to inflict intense torture for the purpose of the Aristos enjoying transcendence: the semi-sexual euphoria that the pain of telepaths triggers in their brains due to how the Rhon Project went in the end. The team behind that wanted psions who weren't harmed by the pain of others, and they got what they wanted in the end... the same way a nuclear physicist looking to achieve fission in a reaction pile succeeds when said pile initiates like an atomic bomb.

And then there's the Aurora Chair. The SS Exiles have contact with civs our heroes don't, civs with their own nastiness, and we have to wonder what will happen if (when) the Alliance runs into these people.

It was a treat to write Bester as I did. For all his faults (and boy are they many), Bester is not so blinkered as to ignore something like what Robert and Lucy did. He considers telepaths his siblings, and Robert saved hundreds of them from a fate worse than death. That's far more than even Sheridan did, and Sheridan had other motives (striking at the Shadows... and of course there was that whole "use the worst cases as weapons" thing he pulled at the end of Season 4).

As for Mr. Hank, and the favor Robert now owes him... that will come in due course. As things are, Robert's teetering on an edge, as his treatment of Lord Haron showed. And it's only going to get worse before it gets better. If he's not careful, he may find the Dark Side too great a temptation to ignore...

A final note: Yay! Talara now has a lightsaber! She can be a badass ersatz Jedi Padawan now!

 

[Big Steve]

And so we get to our epic conclusion to this three episode arc. The SS Exiles messed with the bull and they got the horns. Plus ol' Fassie learns why you don't inflict a near-mortal wound on the mother of a Fire Nation Avatar right in front of her. He got Harvey Dent-ed pretty well.

This mostly went as planned. Originally Lucy was the one who talked Robert down, but Leo works just as well for that and really deserved a scene given Season 3's not given him the same prominence other seasons have. For Leo fans, don't worry, 3-21 will give Leo a big heaping chunk of plot.

Also, thanks to his new haircut, Robert's back to looking "normal". No more long hair and prominent beard for him... and if Julia has anything to say about it, neither will come back.

I admit I can visualize one piece of fan-art of Robert and Julia I'd love for someone to make. It would be a two timeframe image: the top showing them as 8 year olds, when Julia comforted "Robby" after his Oma Anna (Grandma) died, and the lower half labeled "Twenty years later" and showing them embracing as they did at the end of Act 5 after saving Ursa, when they broke down crying from pain and relief and joy at their reunion. It would really invoke the history between these two characters, and the bond between them.

The Five Nations' space fleet makes its grand appearance, and even if they don't quite have the baseline tech level of the Multiverse, they're plucky and brave, and they gave the SS Exiles hell before numbers and tech weighed in. But then thanks to Julia the Alliance fleet arrived and there was that good old staple of UF: the kicking of Nazi ass.

Also, yes, the Five Nations' fleet dreadnoughts are all named for past Avatars. We'll be seeing an Avatar Korra at some point.

I hope people enjoy the Avatarverse characters I've made. I'm trying very hard to keep the unique, even with similarities to earlier ones. Miko, for instance, is not just Korra with a more lithe build and Fire Nation heritage. She's got passion like Korra did, certainly, but she directs it differently. Komin Beifong is interested in tech and machinery, but he's not a Bolin nor a Sokka in that respect. He's a bit soft-spoken at times but he's not passive. And Yeshe, well, she didn't get quite as much characterization, but I don't want her to be an Opal or Jinora clone either.

Our protagonists still have work ahead of them, given the Book of Reshan and the mysteries alleged to be within, and the reasons why the enemy sought it. But given all that's happened, they're due for a break. So tomorrow I'll be posting the last complete episode of Season 3 so far, "Finding Peace", a breather episode to deal with the aftermath of this momentous first contact and everything that's happened. And we'll all get a view of future-time Republic City and the Fire Nation Palace!

And yes, there will be cabbages.

But before that, in a bit I will be posting the very first stand-alone special of Undiscovered Frontier, "Shining Like The Sky", which introduces another Alliance crew for us and explains just how Dr. Meier and his friends got home from New Liberty. And if anyone wants to know how Zhen'var, Abebech, and the crews of the Huáscar and Heermann reacted to the New Liberty and Gersal attacks, I believe that episode will be re-posting soon.

 

[Big Steve]

So, there we are. This is the last episode I've written so far, so Sietch is caught up with everywhere else (save QQ, where I'm re-posting at a slower rate).

3-19, as I stated in an earlier commentary, was ultimately added to the episode list when I fissioned 3-14 into two episodes. And it's really a good thing I did. Even though we've just three more episodes before the end of the season, the scope of the last three eps really demanded a breather episode I think. Especially since many fans were aching for more material about futuretech Republic City and the rest of Avatar world. This story allowed for that, with some humor thrown in ("My cabbages!").

Julia's part was important. Early on my plan was that she'd spend an episode or so off-duty getting cleared to return and then be back. But with the breather episode added and with the support of @Captain-General, I decided to have her gone for longer. With everything that happened to her, she needs both time to recover medically and mentally, indeed to be cleared as fit for duty. It's a tough thing of course, as it denies Julia a return to routine and the job that she enjoys even for all of its headaches.

This in turn influenced my other plan: Julia's t'ai chi training and Miko finding out about it, then asking for Julia to teach it to her since t'ai chi is basically the Waterbending martial art. Initially 3-18 would've had Julia in a slightly better shape due to the "kohltou", allowing for her to physically fight and showcase her stuff. When Captain-General disliked that part of the outline she convinced me that what I actually ended up doing was both more realistic and, by being more realistic, all the more powerful. Therefore this was to be the episode where Miko learned what Julia could do and came upon the idea of Julia teaching her. It showcases the bond forged in captivity by the two young women and, of course, gives me reason to involve Miko a bit more as the season goes on.

There was another consequence though: command of the Aurora. My initial plan was Meridina's command would be sustained temporarily until Julia's fitness to return was ascertained. But given the scene with Maran and Shai'jhur in 3-17, this would be a wasted opportunity. Having Kaveri Varma temporarily become Captain of the Aurora allows for the remaining stories of the season to be more interesting. It's a shift to the status quo that will rattle people, especially as Kaveri is cut from the Earthforce mold. It's not necessarily going to be "the Aurora crew experiences what it'd be like if Zhen'var commanded them instead", but it will lead to some interesting things I think.

And of course the last bit in the tag, as our protagonists crack the code of the Life of Reshan and discover the startling text encoded within. I look forward to showing their continued efforts in that vein in the next three episodes, culminating with the season finale "The Closed Circle". But I have to finish the Echoes of War books I'm contracted to write first.

 

[Big Steve]

So, even though I've been writing those "Breach of Faith" novels, over the last several months I took time now and then to write the final three episodes of Season 3, usually when I needed a break from the other stuff.

But I'm pleased to inform you that I will be posting those final three episodes starting on the 31st!

Edit: I'll be releasing on Sietch earlier than other locations.



3-20 "The Fury" - January 27th
A group of agents threaten delicate peace talks with the Dominion on Deep Space Nine.

3-21 "Sense of Worth" - Janury 31st
Leo faces prejudice and violence while helping a refugee camp of telepaths on a war-torn Earth.

3-22 "The Closed Circle" - February 7th
Robert and the Aurora crew rush to discover Reshan's Temple before the forces of darkness can reach it.