Still, all of the pieces were there. From the outset, I knew that I wanted to do something on a massive, epic scale. I wanted big battles, awesome characters, an intricate plot, and a bran muffin. Well, not really. I'm not a big fan of muffins. Anyway... sometime in late 1997, I began to toil around with the notion of bringing my ideas to life. And at the time, I had some very, VERY big ideas floating through my mind. Most of them did, in fact, make it to the Internet, but... as you shall soon see, my imagination quite frequently went overboard, and many of my grandiose visions had to be scaled back. My original concept for the series has always been the same. I have always wanted to deal with the Elorg, their emergence from subspace, and the ramifications that would have for the Federation and its allies. That never changed. However, every other facet of the series DID change. The ship, the crew, the names and locations... EVERYTHING changed. The First Frontier... The earliest versions of TFF took place aboard the USS Stardust, under the command of Captain Christopher Alan. Other crewmembers included Matthew Badger (first officer), Kristen Hawke (Operations), Erick Logan (Engineer), Amy Wrighton (Doctor), Bator (Tactical), Teron Faladon (no real purpose, as far as I can tell), Erin Hathatway (Helm), Kendall Johnson (Science), and Kielar Maas (resident Elorg). None of these characters are really too interesting. In fact, aside from operate their workstations, they didn't do much of anything. They were little more than pawns in my plot. They didn't see much in the way of character development... not that there was much character to develop. They were all of them slight variations of the Alan Christopher we all know and love. Even Kendall was an Alan Christopher clone. Doctor Wrighton was a little bitchy, Kielar Maas was noble and mysterious (he was also a wanted criminal, charged with murder in the Elorg Bloc). And Kristen Hawke was a former terrorist. I'm sure THAT went over well at Starfleet Academy. "ADMIRAL: So, you've slaughtered countless thousands of people on your homeworld? Well, that MIGHT be a blemish on your record... But Starfleet is a very forgiving place!" Our primary villain was an Elorg by the name of Gorvak To’Chall. And he was basically little more than an unfunny version of Doctor Evil. He always ranted about conquering the Federation and all that good stuff, but he never really had a reason for his evil ways. The restoration of the Elorg Bloc wasn’t really a major plot point. The Elorg came out of subspace, and To’Chall just wanted intergalactic domination and the death of all humans. You know, the basic evil plan. “HISTORIAN: So, Mr. To’Chall, why are you conquering the galaxy? TO’CHALL: Oh, it’s just a hobby. I’m actually just a clerk at Starbucks. Yeah. Been there two weeks.” The plot itself wasn’t that much more interesting. It was essentially an Elorg invasion of the Federation. The two fleets would meet, have a little battle, exchange some harsh words, have another battle… exchange a few more words… and so it continued. There wasn’t very much to it. After the Elorg War ended, the Velora arrived, and the process repeated. It was the exact same thing. Literally. I had planned to do this for seven years. Quite frankly, I don’t think it would have lasted much longer than two. Still, oblivious to this smoldering pile of dung, I forged ahead and created Star Trek: The Final Frontier. Back in 1997, I wrote everything out in script format. It was incredibly easy to crank out an episode in the said format; I could have completed all seven seasons in less than a year. But unfortunately, the format lacked both eloquence and emotional resonance. It was just one piece of bland dialogue after another, and it did very little to flesh out the story and the characters. By the time I reached episode 35, I came to the realization that TFF wasn’t quite what I had imagined. In fact, in retrospect, it was utterly wretched. It was fan fiction of the worst kind. |
||||||
The original Starlight. I'll have more on this later, and why it never made it to the Internet... |
||||||
Click Here to Continue! |
1997 |
The very first image I ever posted on the Internet. It's supposed to be the final battle in "Denouement," but really... it's just crap. |