Deviant Rumblings in Warrax's Brain, A story planning thread...

Yeah, I suppose it would be, lol. Well, read on!

I love these ideas - Wedge creating another new kind of squadron - I wonder what he'll call them. Hope Squadron ?

I don't think we'd see much of Tycho, Hobbie and Wes all being involved - someone's got to look after Rogue Squadron. Perhaps Wedge would take Wes or Hobbie as his second (and moral support) as he did in the Wraiths.

Have you read Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand - good pilot/Jedi stuff in those books. Might give you some ideas for how Wedge's new command would use their abilities.

I haven't read them in a while, no, but I have plenty of ideas. And yeah, you're right, it'd probably be mostly Wedge and Janson, just like Wraith Squadron.

But since I'm mixing in Rogue Squadron doing some pilot training just like Wraith Squadron doing some commando training, it'll be nice to see each of the Fab Four for a little while. Not too much, mostly just brief cameos and some pointed training tips and such. That'd be covered in a few chapters, like 3-5 chapters I'd expect, nothing grand or long-lasting. Kind of like USASF training, really.

Actually, I'm inclined to make the Green Beret training model the basic architecture of the training, though with pilot training as the background rather than infantry training. Should be neat.

Hmm... The more I think about it, the more I wouldn't mind this being a LONG training session, the polar opposite of Wraith Squadron.

Few people, fewer still that pass muster and get accepted, but a long and arduous training process that does it. Wedge will have to be all scheme-y as to how to get resources and take semi-viable soldiers out of the fight for an extended period of time while the Forces of Darkness continue to attack. I can be all tension-y and dramatic as he keeps hearing about defeats where he might have helped, raids here and big battles there, commando ops this and espionage that, etc.

That might be an interesting angle to play for Wedge; we've seen what he's like in terms of making tough decisions before, but this would be a pretty nasty tough decision, a complex project with no short-term payoff that has to unfold in the middle of a bitter and intense galactic conflict.

If only there was an offical SW novel with these ideas ! Once you start this, you have to see it through, you know. I really want to read this.

Alright, but I'll need help to see it through!

OK, so a quick recap for the memory- and reading-impaired... aka, me.

Jaden Korr = evil, and in possession of the Scepter of Ragnos. He's reviving the Empire, and the Sith, with him at the top. Presumably with my normal attention to villains who aren't stupid. Every Dark Jedi I've ever seen from Palpatine on and backward, they're all retards, so I'm going to work to avoid "stupid villain" syndrome and make him an especially canny and devious bastard.

So, in light of this new conflict, both in terms of Jedi and the resurgent Imperial Remnant, Wedge decides he needs a new unit. He approaches Cracken about expanding upon Wraith Squadron, but is rebuffed and told to stick to Starfighter Command and what he's good at (rude and mostly incorrect, but it's Cracken and he's a pill).

So Wedge, in conversation with various pilots under his command, Wedge comes up with a new idea for the mixing of commandos, pilots...

And Jedi.

So he goes to Luke, they have some debates, some arguments, a knock-down, drag-out fight that strains their friendship, and eventually, they come to an agreement... one not so palatable to Wedge but better than nothing: Luke will send those borderline Force talents who barely show enough aptitude to touch the Force over to Wedge, and he will coordinate their training to focus on skills that will help as pilots. Wedge shows him how to do it without making them feel bad about themselves.

One of Luke's major beefs is that one of his students, his trusted students just went to the Dark Side, hence his reticence to send powerful Jedi into new and untested territory. But, as always, there is dissent among the ranks of the Jedi, room for intrigue, and therefore, room for one or two Jedi to slip through the cracks with more power than Luke had intended.

And of course, there's the spy...

So Wedge unveils a training program that he's slapped together in a short time frame and is otherwise making up as he goes, with the aid of various pilots and friends (Corran, Shalla, Wes, Kell, Face, etc). He tabs the Rogues for a few days, the Wraiths for a few days, and so on. There may even be some other entertaining cameos, but generally, the principle is that he's going to drill the crap out of them, send as much info their way as possible and try to develop a unit with some cohesion and really special skills. And he's going to do it in a really mean, nasty and completely armed-forces style way.

As I said, I'm going to be patterning this after the way the SEALs and Green Berets do this, so there's going to be pre-selection, where you show you're worthy of potentially being selected, then selection, then actual training. There's going to be a huge attrition rate, though maybe I'll have some fun and make it a little interactive, see which characters have support and such, which you guys like the most and want to see succeed.

And then, once all the training is done (and the intrigue within that), then the rest of the plot can unfold as Wedge takes the unit into action.

Thoughts, comments?

Sounds good. When's the first chapter due ?

Don't know. Might be later today, depends on how my planning phase goes.

I'm working on the candidates and the sub-plots right now, trying to sort everything out into some kind of semi-coherent structure instead of this entropic mess I've got in my notebook. The early stuff shouldn't be so bad, so I may take a break from all this stuff in order to open up with what Korr's up to and Wedge's convo that starts the whole process.

We'll see, I've got all night, it's not even 6pm yet and I have til around 10 or 11 before I need to goto bed.

EDIT: I'm also working on the training structure, since it's going to be long. I haven't decided whether it's to be Green Beret long or SEAL long.

If you're an 18X (no military experience), there's 6 months of pre-training before the selection process even begins. They also have an additional 3-week leadership course they have to take after SFAS (see below).

Then the rest of the selection process begins with SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection), which is now about 2 weeks long. Then you get to the Q course, which is between 1 and 2 years long.

You get 13 weeks of small unit tactics, SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) and CQC training (hand-to-hand combat).

Then you get Phase III, which is 9 or 15 weeks long depending on the language you're learning.

Then you get Phase IV, MOS training (where you learn your specialty), which is either 15 weeks long if you're not a medic, and 48 weeks long if you are. Then you do Robin Sage, which is 4 weeks long and is basically a simulation of actually being downrange and using everything you've learned over the last however long.

SEALs do a 6-month BUD/s training class (which is basically screening to see who really wants to be a SEAL), then 6 months of SEAL Qualification Training (at the end of which you're actually a SEAL), and then 18 months of pre-deployment training (which often includes cross-training at other SOF training courses like the Rangers or Green Berets, sniper school, the 18D medic course which I mentioned above, that 48-week one), that sort of thing.

So SEALs go for a minimum of 2.5 years before they get deployed, while Green Berets can go less than half of that.

I figure I'll probably go for a 12-month period and then leave it open to expansion later. Too much longer and it'll get phenomenally expensive and much more intense. He'd have to have a much higher attrition rate than he can afford at this point. Stage 2, maybe, but not right now. I can imagine the arguments he'll have trying to get everything sorted out so he can actual train his people in (relative) peace.

This post has been edited by Warrax on Oct 29 2008, 04:43 PM

HAHAHAHAHAH!

You guys are going to love it when you find out why Jaden Korr went to the Dark Side...

OK, I'm in the middle of writing the prologue now. Hopefully I get this done by a reasonable hour...

Hmm... I'm going to wait until I don't have a deadline hanging over me, I think I'm going to get some sleep and spend my time at work pondering how best to open the story. Something different than the traditional and cliche dark figure staring off into the night and pontificating...

OK, so I've cranked out just shy of 1,950 words over the first two chapters. Hopefully, the opening pace is decent, it feels a little like I've got too much exposition in there. You're supposed to show, not tell, and I think I told a little too much, we'll see.

A little bit of Fab Four action, some Corran (blech, but he's the char most readily in my mind after the Fab Four and Jace in the Rogues), some Jace... and one of my OCs.

Tykar is fun... he's not a prodigal pilot talent like a lot of my boring OCs, though he certainly belongs in the Rogues. I liken him more to the role of a Jesmin Ackbar or Piggy, his other talents are more useful... and that's precisely the point, as you'll see.

Chapter 3 should be illuminating.

OK, so that's Chapter 3 posted. Lot of dialogue... Feels very exposition-y, but it all seems relevant. I've been trying to make my stories more dialogue-oriented anyway, though this isn't quite what I had in mind.

At the end of the chapter, Face feels a little bit too much like a plot vessel and not enough like a character, but that was the way the conversation seemed to be going, him prompting Wedge to try and pump him for information while he's tired and broody.

I tried to show a little of Wedge being strategic, a little humor from various sources and then some downer emotion when Wedge mentioned Jaden. I also tried to sneak a few nuggets of SW history in there with references to the Battle of Ruusan (Rogue Squadron participated in that during the events of Jedi Outcast, but it's only obliquely mentioned during the game) and some of the other stuff from Outcast and Jedi Academy. Then a little bit of "bring you up to speed" recent history stuff to continue and show the present galactic situation.

It seemed to be a good time for all this because the story opened up with combat and a fancy dogfight, as Corellia's Dream noted in the main thread.

Chapter 4 promises to be much of the same, since it'll be mostly comprised of the Rogues and Wraiths presenting their ideas... then Chapter 5 will probably be Wedge and Luke talking. That one should present a little bit more tension.

What I want to do, somewhere in Chapter 4 (haven't decided whether it'll be beginning, middle, or end), I want to get a focus shift in there away from Wedge.

This fic should be properly Wedge-centric until the new pilots and trainees and such get involved, but there are a couple of perspectives that I want to explore.

One, the reader needs to get to know Tykar a bit better. They will during the training, of course, but I'd like to have him fleshed out a bit more than the others before the training starts so I can focus on them then, and I have time now.

And I'd like the rest of the Fab Four to be more present. Tycho and Hobbie seem like wooden parts of the background at the moment and only Wes is popping through because his sense of humor makes that pretty easy to do, even in small bursts.

I may insert something between my conception of Chapters 4 and 5, something to break up the dialogue. Maybe an investigation or an update, or the beginning of one of the subplots. Or I might do that before Chapter 4.

I'm not sure what it'll be though...

Chapter 4 goes straight to Luke shooting Wedge down and then eventually ceding Wedge's point, while limiting the number and type of students Wedge will get. Feels like it drags a bit, so when I re-write this stuff, which is inevitable, I'll try to fix that.

I'm warring with the idea of a focus shift; it's extremely common in Star Wars novels, even good ones like those by Allston, so I think I'm going to relent and show some of what the villainess is doing.

Thoughts, comments?

Still working on this; it's going reasonably well, but I'm back in the "perspiration" stage, where I'm doing character bios and stuff. I ended up weeding out a whole bunch of superfluous characters and tightening up my plot structure.

That and, you know, working 10 hours a day on night shift, lol. Ah, the life!

I'm glad to hear work is going on.

iek, night shift. (hug) just hold on and keep on writing.

The worst part is that I'm writing and there's no tangible progress, it's all backstory and character details and stuff.

My normal pathway to writing is obviously faulty, so I'm going over things in anal-retentive detail so that whenever I burn out of creativity, I have the tools with which to work through sheer perspiration. It's tougher than I thought, lol.

Bah, my opening chapters suck at setting up the Imperial conflict and have crappy continuity...

This training would have to take a fairly significant amount of time to do it the way I had planned, which is antithetical to basic practice during a really serious conflict. So I don't think I can actually START with a significant conflict in place.

I think I have to re-write and have Wedge messing around with his Generalissimo powers. And perhaps in a twist, he's doing it WITHOUT permission... hmm...

Wedge Antilles, subversive... That'd mess with people, and it'd make convincing Luke more interesting. Maybe he doesn't go to Luke, he goes through someone else.

Kyp is still too young, but Katarn is probably amenable and he's got Corran... Hmm.

What would motivate Wedge to do something? His own tactical prowess setting off warning bells to which no one is listening?

Thoughts/comments?

OK, so I'm reconceiving this project; last time, I didn't do quite the job I was hoping to. I like the core story idea, though, so I'm running with it. I'll have something up in the near future, I hope. I have a miraculously large amount of stuff to do, though. I'm running a 9km marathon in a few months!

I have a vague, misty idea as to how I want to do this. There are a handful of major plot threads that define this story arc, so what I'm thinking about doing is following each for three or four chapters and then switching.

First, I had to redesign the galactic situation and get more in-depth with Jaden. It became clear that, sans Death Star, Star Forge or other interminably evil superweapon, a year or two wouldn't be enough to turn around the Remnant. That kind of preempted my whole SpecOps thing, but I would not be deterred.

Basically, I've designed it so that the NR is in an economic crisis (har, har, inspiration...) and is making heavy cutbacks all over, but especially to the military. Consequently, piracy, civil wars, smuggling and other such problems are cropping up at a fairly significant rate.

Naturally, it becomes Wedge's job to stop all this. "We have the utmost confidence in your resourcefulness and ingenuity, General Antilles."

He's got the Lusankya group and that's about it, but he has some freedom to try new things, as usual, and of course there's going to be a significant battle waged for resources... which means butting heads with General Cracken, Borsk Fey'la and others. Naturally, ships are at a premium, and so there's a split between solving problems and chasing down leads for capital ships (where the shipyards fill in for our auto industry).

This means mechanics are, of course, in incredibly high demand and become the most important expense in the Fleet. Naturally, the military becomes reticent towards washing out those already in the training programs, and so Wedge is directed to recycle them somehow, even if they don't make active pilot duty. This causes tension on its own.

So, it's a little different at the start than I had planned, but Wedge will soon discover the need that drives him to his little plan, which I had planned on being uber-budget-concerned anyhow.

So, here we are: recession (even Depression), cutbacks, failing shipyards but a need for ships... enter the Remnant. While Jaden Korr wages and at-times brutal campaign to restore order and dignity to the Empire (including Integration for women and nonhumans), she's not ignorant of the NR's economic difficulties. In fact, she's got Imperial Intelligence pushing as hard as possible to sabotage certain aspects of the NR economy and polity, even as she tries to pull a Revan and leave important institutions and industrial machinery intact. She's inciting pirate gangs, issuing letters of marque to encourage privateers, she's trying to fan rivalries and old debts of vengeance, etc. Sabotage and sedition, all over, meanwhile blaming everyone but the Remnant. The guys she's having trained for this are GOOD, and as a result, the NR doesn't even suspect the Empire (which for all intents and purposes appears to be embroiled in a nasty, multifront civil war).

Wedge's intent to develop his commandos comes from the fact that he's been tasked with basically tempering the effects of piracy, smugglign and what-not all across the NR. It's broadscope and extends beyond starfighter command... and he's worried that if he succeeds at all, he's going to be forcibly promoted to Admiral and taken out of the cockpit, just to add a little more drama.

Meanwhile, he's still flying with the Rogues for now, breaking in 4 new pilots... one right from the Academy, a transfer based on merit, and two retreads who are quite talented but require the kind of focus and discipline only Wedge seems capable of imparting.

Cue the perspective shift.

Out on the back end of the Empire bordering the Outer Rim and the Unknown regions, Xander Batch grows weary of being undermanned and outgunned by the pirates and smugglers he's combatting. A decorated hero of the Empire short only of the inimitable Baron Soontir Fel and General Maarek Stele, the son of the now-deceased Grand Admiral Martio Batch and a man who flew for years under Grand Admiral Thrawn, he's reduced to backwater duties overseeing a terminally underfunded carrier group. We follow him for a while as he mops up messes all over the back of the Empire, only to see them collapse for lack of oversight, funding, etc. Then he runs into Jaden Korr, who is forced to kill the rear admiral runing the fleet because he refuses to cooperate with a woman, even a Jedi woman. Suddenly, life has true purpose and Xander is once again a warrior, and not a shell of a man. Defined by the conventional military traits of honor, loyalty and duty, Jaden's presence allows him to reshape the fighter group... and she brings the carrier group into her ever-growing core fleet.

This second POV will show how the new Imperial Navy is preparing, growing, and it will show how Xander's role begins to mimic Wedge's. He's got logistical problems to deal with, training issues, he's got to plan, innovate and implement tactics, etc. Before he goes after the NR, though, he's got the immense task of balancing the counterassault on piracy AND warlordism while leading the training of the new elite cadre of pilots that will be flying with Jaden's core fleet. That's a fairly monumental task, since the Imps are themselves afflicted by a weak economy and lacking the sort of nigh-unlimited resources they once enjoyed. As a result, this is a neat little foil for Wedge's own plight, or at leasxt that's the intent.

Of course, the third POV is Jaden and her own little drama as she reassembles the Empire. And then the Rogues POV will bounce to Wedge getting crafty once the Imperials really do begin to mobilize against them.

I think this incarnation is a little more compelling; less Jedi, at least at first. I know he's going to want to nab them eventually, but for now, he can work with an interesting, non-Imperial dilemma at first (well, at least MOSTLY non-Imperial, they're just helping along what's already happening) and then we can transition to Xander to see the parallels between he and Wedge, which will be fun.

Wow, that's a pretty epic prospect you've got mapped out there. It seems promising, and I like the parallel of Wedge and Xander both facing the same battles within their own military structure before they can fight a literal battle against one another.

Fey'lya is certainly likely to be an impediment to Wedge; they can't stand one another. He'll appeal to the popular vote in favour of military cutbacks, saying that the threat from the Imperials is negligable and that the money should be spent on public healthcare and schools instead. In council sessions he'll imply that Wedge wants more money in order to improve his own powerbase within the NR and that Wedge wants to be an admiral and is just interested in furthering his own career.
Which will annoy the hell out of Wedge, who isn't interested in power or advancing his career, which Fey'lya just can't grasp. Fey'lya is one of the few who can genuinely make Wedge lose his temper - and Wedge can be violent when provoked...

Cracken doesn't have any authority over Wedge - doesn't outrank him and commands Intelligence, while Wedge is Fleet. They could well find themselves competing for limited resources though, and a lot of Wedge's work will rely on getting good data from Intel so Cracken has a lever there. Iella is going to have a tough time, caught between them. (Syal is born 16ABY and Myri in 18 ABY, so Iella may be on maternity leave during your story)

Just some thoughts for you.

Interesting stuff. I know that Fey'la will be a problem. I don't know if Cracken will, since by extension, Wedge will be acquiring resources for Intelligence...

But I do question how much funding NRI really needs, I mean the only official funding they need is what they can nab for their actual training facilities and stuff and a very few other capital expenses. The rest, you have to imagine they fund in-mission.

Iella... is probably not yet on maternity leave, though that will likely happen a few months into the story and is a detail I definitely overlooked, so thanks for that.

Interesting stuff, thanks for your thoughts.

So, when will we see another part?