Battlestar aftermath

The revamped Battlestar Galactica prompted me to think about epic space war storylines, and how they could be developed in ways that hadn't been done before. Star Trek: Voyager was an attempt to do a remake of the Galactica premise within the Trek universe, right down to the Cylons/Borg parallels, but was handled badly, ending up a milquetoast "same old, same old." The new Galactica, from what I hear, is avoiding the trap of pat resolutions and easy answers. Resolutions have human costs. Even the "correct" decisions result in losses. Take, for example, the Colonial President's decision to abandon the ships (and their refugees) in the fleet that weren't capable of FTL travel. These panicked ships were soon slaughtered by a Cylon strike force in a painful scene that played out very well from a plot standpoint, but also from a SFnal one. In a spacefaring society, naturally there will be spacecraft that don't have those mythical FTL abilities.

Which got me to thinking--what if the Galactica scenario played out according to the laws of physics as we know it? An advanced, spacefaring society is invaded by an alien force, but none of the combatants have FTL abilities. That premise intrigues me. I don't plan on doing anything with it now, but I'm turning the idea over in my mind, fleshing some things out. Firstly, the invaders have to be invading this system for a reason--they have to be there. I'm thinking a supernova explosion of their homeworld, or something less catastrophic (remember, I want the science to be realistic), that gives them the choice of migration or extinction. Secondly, the biota of the invaders and defenders have to be incompatable--no touchy-feely "coexist in peace and harmony" ala Alien Nation, or melodramatic "we will eat you and steal your water" ala V. Both sides are justified in their actions, from their points of view, and both are sympathetic to a point. Both also commit atrocities from their perspective, as well as from the opposing perspective--although these are not necessarily the same. And both are non-human species.

This last part shares similarities with another SF project I have in gestation I'm calling End of All. It shares some Galactica elements as well, but is perhaps more influenced by some story techniques of Farscape than anything else. End of All exists in a universe sans humans, which is my reaction, I suppose, to the dull humanoid species populating the Star Trek universe. Alien perspectives and biologies are so interesting, from a speculative perspective, that I don't understand why there's such a lack of them in SF. (Well, that's not true. They're hard to do well, that's why.) End of All was conceived as a comic-format story, more or less ongoing. This new, untitled scenario may well lend itself to the comics medium as well. Or it may be a novel. There's lots of potential here, and I'm just as curious as anyone to see if anything significant comes out of these idle musings.

Now Playing: Altan The Best of Altan