Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

The Tressaurian Intersection has been released. A decade after the wrapped up shooting, and about six years since they released act three, they finally went and finished it. It was shot in standard def, so no HD option is available.

Anyway, my thoughts without spoiling.

The acting is pretty good throughout. There are parts here and there that could have used an extra take or two (Mainly with Jimm Johnson/James Culhane, who played Garrovick). The effects are trying to recreate the 1960's feel. What I get from it though is that this is what TOS trek would have looked like with a bigger budget.
The sets are flawless, and the story is engaging and VERY TOS. That's a plus for me. There is an issue with act one being quieter than the rest.

What is obvious is that a lot of love went into this. Especially if what I read about the temperature in the studio is true. You can tell on a few of the actors as they're really sweating at times.

Anyway, as far as fan films go, this is probably among the best.

Edit: The following was added on May 11th 2013

Just re-watched TTI again. I have to add more to what I wrote above.

This is the only TOS fan film I have seen that feels 'right'. The acting may not be perfect from beginning to end, but it doesn't matter because I am able to lose myself in the story of what's going on.

Productions like Phase II and Continues just feel like facsimiles of TOS, due to them recasting Kirk, Spock and McCoy. No matter how well Vic Mignogna can impersonate Kirk in Continues, or no matter how much a like Doc John in Phase II, they'll never be Kirk and McCoy.

As I dislike reading Elder Scrolls stories that feature the Dragonborn, I'm starting to feel the same way about TOS fan films that use the original characters, or where we meet the ancestor's of future characters in the other shows (Tasha Yar's Grandmother in Phase II B&F). I've seen Kirk and Spock in TOS, give me something else. Also don't use stunt casting to try and draw me in.

This is where Starship Exeter's second episode really did it right. They don't have any familiar actors, or characters (Chang was in their first episode which I thought wasn't particularly well done), and they don't mention the Enterprise or Kirk, even though Garrovick has a tenuous connection with them.
His uncle died while commanding the Farragut when a young ensign/lieutenant? Kirk was unable to fire on a cloud creature. You also have the fact that Exeter's previous crew were all killed, and Kirk was the one that found it in orbit of the planet that promised 'eternal youth' with the demented Captain Ronald Tracey.

I feel other fan films would have shoehorned the mentioning of Kirk and/or the Enterprise in, but it's not needed.

Ten years it took to get this out of the door, and I must say that it isn't disappointing. Not in the slightest.

One Year On/Original Sci-Fi fic/ESS/TUToT/future posts

Prepare for the scattergun of a post that follows.

ONE YEAR ON
It has been one year six days since my first post. My last post was actually on the exact day, one year later.
I'm glad that I started this blog. It's become somewhat of an online diary, because as I read through it I can see everything that I've done in the last year, and it makes me feel somewhat accomplished in regards to my writing. How I've gone back to fix a story, only to then go back again because I've progressed and seen that it still needed work. It also cements my mindset at a certain point, and perhaps I'll look back and wonder "What was I thinking?"

ORIGINAL FIC
My OF is going quite well thus far. There are already things I know I'm going to change on my second draft. One thing I made sure I did from the get go was add diversity in both ethnicity and gender. One of my leads, if not the lead is African born and my second is Hispanic. Heck the first character I introduce is the President of the Planetary Union and he's Arab.
The premise of this story has been done before, I'm not going to pretend that it's a new idea. My goal though is to be more involved with the people of the story, to see different perspectives from people in different areas. Though mainly it's military/government/and a little bit of civilian. (though I'm thinking of expanding this in draft 2)

AN ELDER SCROLLS SAGA
I'm happy with the way this is progressing. I'm sticking to releasing the Prologue/Chapter 1 in June. Whether it's the beginning middle or end of June is another matter.

THE UNTOLD TALES OF TAMRIEL
This is a cool little community page on fanfiction.net started by someone by the username your.daily.dose.of.fanfic. I'm a staff member (Albeit a rather useless one) along with SuperGreG and also Augustinian Frog. The community's goal is to find decent original fiction set in the Elder Scrolls universe that isn't just a novelization of the games or that feature the playable characters of the games.
I'm hoping that someone comes across this, who'll take some interest (After-all I myself have found gems after reading random blogs).
The-Untold-Tales-of-Tamriel (I'll be making a proper post about this later if I remember)

FUTURE POSTS
I may expand this blog, or I may make a new one where I'll be maybe reviewing books I've read or albums I've heard. This is all a maybe though and is far from set in stone. I also was going to say something else here, but forgot while writing the rest of the post. D'oh.

Elder Scrolls Online - AKA Why I'm Not Buying

First off here's a link to a review by Angry Joe. Second I haven't played ESO. All I have to say is based on several opinions that I have heard.

It outlines pretty much all of my fears of why Elder Scrolls doesn't work in an MMO space. The commentary of how you're sneaking and then another player comes in hopping about like an idiot, or going to the cave to kill spiders on a side quest only to find other players standing around farming them. It just breaks immersion. You're so aware that this is a game that you can't become wrapped inside the world, cannot become immersed.

Full price plus the subscription model isn't worth it. Not when Skyrim and Oblivion can offer such better experience.

Another thing, is apparently how the loot works. It's on a first comes gets it. Essentially whoever gets it first has it and everyone else has to wait a minute or so till it respawns. Dumb. I don't want to be doing a quest to find a guy called "Mr Snuggles" runs in hopping about like an idiot, grabs all the stuff then runs out. It'd really irritate me.

If it ever goes free to play, then I may take a look, but to buy something that is barely an ES game and is an average MMO just ain't worth it.

Edit: Holy moly. This post was made one year after my very first post.

An Elder Scrolls Saga Part 3 and Other Stuff.

ESS: Of Tooth and Nail
I have the outline, and I've begun to write part 3 of my Elder Scrolls fanfic. Already I can tell that this is going to be massive with huge amounts of characters in all different locations all doing different things. I might actually burst through the 100,000 word mark (so far my stories are from 70,000-80,000 words [approx])

In a way, this marks the end of a trilogy, even though it's not the end of the story. The end point is really just yet another start. Will it be of another trilogy? I'm not sure, but I already know the gist of book 4, and what it will entail.

Original Fic
I'm also writing an original fiction. It's sci-fi set in a universe I created. My earliest document on this is 25th March 2012, and some of the ideas began well before then. Writing fan fiction was a gateway into this, writing my own story, that I actually own. Playing in other people's universes is fun, but at the end of the day it belongs to someone else, and I can never really claim any ownership for it, apart from the original characters I created, but they are so entwined in those owned universes that the two are integral.

So far I'm trying to write 1000 words a day, though sometimes I go over that by an extra 400, but other times I struggle to get as many as 1000.

What this means is that I will be spending less time on my fan fiction, yet I do still enjoy writing for them, so they probably won't stop, just slow down.

An Elder Scrolls Saga: Old Wounds - Breaks 80.000 Words.

Trivial for some, but not for me.
Right now, I'm writing my Trek fiction, but on the side, I'm updating ESS:OW. Just adding in a few bits of detail into the chapters and correcting mistakes (Possibly adding new ones while I'm at it)
Last chapter I updated was 17, which knocked me over 80,000 words. (Though it's actually less, as I've got the chapter number at the start and at the end of each chapter I have  the date it was updated)
Still, I have 9 chapters left, then I'll move onto Dagger in the Wind.

On further news, my Trek fic is nearing the end. The next chapter will feel a bit like wrap-up, but the chapter after I hope will be a bit of a surprise regarding what happens. Then it'll be wrap up, and a slight teaser regarding what comes next. (I've got a lot of arcs that I want to get to)

After my Trek story is done, then it'll be onto An Elder Scrolls Saga: Of Tooth and Nail. After that, I'll probably go back to trek, as I don't have any urge to return to my Fallout series.

Deviant Art

So I've had a Deviant Art page for years now, but rarely every used it. I posted a manipulation of an image of the Lucky revolver from Fallout New Vegas a few years ago now, to make 4 weapons. Lucky, Skill, Power and Will. Was pretty proud of it at the time, and had forgotten about it till I decided to start uploading new stuff. My second thing was just a GTA map, a sort of what if another Island was added.

Well anyway, I've started uploading pics related to my fan fiction stories, such as Starships, and I've even got an unused image that I was going to use for a cover for my Elder Scrolls fic. If anyone comes here from FF.net then maybe you'll be interested to check it out. Or not.

Link is to the side >>>>>>>>>
with a link to my nexus page and to my FF.net profile.

Music Helps Me Write

Sometimes I can't think of what to write next in a story. I know what happens, it's just filling in the details, making it interesting etc.
Usually when I'm struggling, simply staring at the last paragraph I wrote, I like to put on some lyric-less music, usually soundtracks, and usually connected to what I'm writing.

When I was writing my Elder Scrolls stories, I mostly listened to the Elder Scrolls Soundtrack, by Jeremy Soule.

With my Fallout Story, I listened to Mark Morgan's 'Vault Archives', which is the Fallout 1 & 2 Soundtracks that he remastered. I also listened to the FO3/NV Soundtrack by Inon Zur (Gotta love that name)

With my Trek story, I have been listening to the TOS soundtrack (Got the LaLaLand Records' TOS soundtrack collection, which is 15 CD's) The 'Doomsday Machine' soundtrack is something special, I mean wow, does that episode have some really good music. In fact TOS has good music all throughout, It's just that some cues such as the Kirk/Spock fight music from Amok Time has been overused, and turned into a cliché.

I have also listened to Bear McCreary's Battlestar Galactica Soundtracks on occasion while writing. (Usually when I'm writing a fight/battle scene) I have all of them, and think that Bear is probably the greatest TV composer in recent times. The stuff he comes up with is pretty unique. There's no soundtrack like a Bear soundtrack.

On a side note, on FF.net, I was looking for other Star Trek TOS fan fiction, that wasn't on the Enterprise, or connected with the crew. Found absolutely nothing, so I might be unique in that regard, which is nice.