kerravonsen | Fictional meme

Okay, this one is interesting. Grabbed from

astrogirl2 (hmm, does that mean they're a set? Where's "someone"3?)
Ask me what happens after the end of one of my stories.

Current Mood: tired

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

izhilzha.livejournal.com

What happens after Jim comes into the university to take Sight classes, and meets Blair, in your "Holding It In" (ha! I remembered the title!) Sentinel AU-verse?

From:

kerravonsen

And here I was expecting you to ask about "Verity"!

Jim gets Blair's attention from the start, though he's not sure why. Blair is observant enough to realize that Jim isn't just a psychic. More slowly, he finds that being with Jim helps his Empathy problems.

Jim himself is struggling with the life-change of being characterised a Psychic, but at least he doesn't have to hide his abilities. He wants to get the Sight training over with so he can stop being desk-bound.

This time, the one with the job-problem is Blair -- he's a full-time Professor, he can't just drop everything to go and help Jim. I'm not sure how that gets resolved.

From:

izhilzha.livejournal.com

Thanks! This is cool--I always loved that little snippet, which really is a full-blown AU without the usual pretensions.

And believe me, my first impulse *was* to ask about Verity. :-D I just thought maybe I should give you a break for once. Hee.

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

What happens in that PGP where they end up in a sort of faerie world?

From:

kerravonsen

Heh, you would have to pick the one that's stalled!

I don't know, there are too many possibilities.

However, I'm fairly certain that they manage to make their way through Faerie and out to the mortal realm again, but whether it's back to the B7 universe is an open question. On their journey they have hardships, trials and temptations, and it's very character-building. I just don't know what the particular trials and temptations are.

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

Pity, because I'd like to read it. :-)

From:

kerravonsen

The first thing I'm stumped on is the question of whether or not they can eat Faerie food without ill effect. Because if they can't, then they have to get out in one day or go hungry, and that kind of limits the sort of things they can do. No spending the night at Castle Perilous, for example. And if it does have ill effect, what is it? Does it really mean that they can never leave, or is it just that it's instantly addictive?

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

Eep. Yes, world-building can be a pain.

I'm using the food thing in a Star Trek crossover for Multiverse, and what's more it's canon in that universe. :-) I must finish that story...

From:

kerravonsen

Canon? What episode?

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

I don't remember, but someone who came from an alternate universe was slowly starving, so I'm using that. :-) It was years ago, but the person was brought by a malfunction in some experimental device, and I remember they appeared in a pit or perhaps the explosion crater. [shrug]

From:

kerravonsen

Oh, it's probably got to do with stereoisomers -- that's a nice SF device. Some organic molecules are symetrical, others have a distinct "handedness" which can mean that certain enzymes and catalysts can't bond to them. I think that's the principle behind some sugar substitutes: that they are chemically similar to sucrose, so that they taste like sugar, but they're a mirror image so they can't actually be digested.

So, if someone came from a universe where the handedness of most molecules was opposite to ours, they could eat things, but they wouldn't be nourished, or not nourished as well, thus slowly starving.

I don't know enough organic chemistry to know the full plausibility of that, but it looks cool from where I'm standing.

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

Yep, that was it! I believe Splenda is a reversed sugar molecule. I can't see Star Trek being in B7's past (though it's a nice idea) because then I'd have to explain what happened to all the aliens in the meantime. Mind you, it's still a fairly crap idea because the universes must have been congruent at some point, but if it was good enough for Star Trek... Actually it wasn't quite good enough for me (I have all sorts of problems with the ST AUs) but I'm going with it for this story. :-P

From:

kerravonsen

because then I'd have to explain what happened to all the aliens in the meantime

That's easy: there was a Ginormous war. The same war that forced all the Earth people into domes, made them lose enormous amounts of technology (such as transporters and replicators) and consequently turned the Federation totalitarian and opressive.

See, solved all your problems in one. (grin)

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

Yep. :-) But the steroisomers are a plot point; in fact several. Remove them and half my plot's gone. :-(

From:

kerravonsen

No need to remove the stereoisomers, though.

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

True: the war could explain the difference since the universes split. :-)

From:

kerravonsen

Oh, and if I recall correctly the B7 Federation is very anti-alien, so it might be that the aliens are still out there, they just don't interact with humans much.

From:

vilakins.livejournal.com

Good point, and I wouldn't blame them!

From:

mistraltoes.livejournal.com

Well, I'm glad

vilakins asked about this one, so I didn't have to! Because that could be seen as pressure, couldn't it?

Anyway. If you can't decide which way to go, why not take a piece of paper and make a little branching tree for the various ways you could go. When you find a branch that's filling in nicely, or that particularly intrigues you, or that you'd just like to write about, that's the direction you really want the story to go. :)