Tag: Story
Creating a Plot
von mr_werns am 15. Aug. 2011, unter Origins Development
Since 2009 it has been a long time and the news about the delays writing the script for Star Trek 12 opens space for speculations.
How could it be that a (financial) successful movie – which is the holy grail for Hollywood – has to wait so long for it’s sequel? I don’t want to join the “what’s the matter”-discussion which is ongoing through forums and fansites, but I want to draw some parallels to Star Trek: Origins.
Sure – we involve ourself voluntarily in our freetime and without being paid in this project. Job, family, private life – all that has priority and is delaying big movements. Ressources are rare and if somebody has no time/desire, there is no option to counter that. Nevertheless I want to leave some lines about how hard it could be to write a working story in which the plot is exciting and the characters are believable.
The first draft of Origins – in that time yet aboard USS Lexington and playing while TNG – had one main idea: Let’s create a game dealing with Star Trek and the Origin of the Borg.
There where many interesting approaches and in the beginning the main goal was, to throw everything which was somehow “cool” together. In that period of production I were doing that alone – I thought I could create such a game like e.g. A Final Unity by my own – a point of view I fortunatly do not share anymore today 
Somedays I realized that the plot – which I’ve written down on 5 or so pages – would work even better if happen some hundrets years before aboard the Enterprise NX-01.
So there was a huge cut and a turn around for Origins – increasing the problems as well.
While aboard the Lexington I took care of the timeline and tried to integrate characters – if somewhere mentioned – into the story, which was apart from that very open and unbound. There where many things I could imagine from scratch.
Aboard the Enterprise on the other hand there where many well known characters and already happend events which has to be integrated in a respectfully into Star Trek: Origins. In the beginning I thought that this task would be more easy because of the background of countless episodes and much information at e.g. www.memory-alpha.de instead of create everything out of nothing but very soon I realized that the more of available material was increasing the trouble
While writing you have to take care of not creating something, which might stand in conflict with episode XYZ and this is harder than you might think. So it took a long time till the first real draft was finished.
In that period the Origins-team was growing so there where many new point of views, ideas and critics, so that some parts where completely rejected, supplemented and/or added. Altogether a very time-consuming process because if you’re sitting at home alone and just writing down what you think what is best, it happen all along the journey that you lose focus and that you imply that your readers/gamers would have the same stand of knowledge you have reached by doing research in countless encyclopedias. The first feedback of the team was in consequence of that a knockdown 
Ok it wasn’t that bad, but if you’ve worked so much on a story you hope that everybody else will like it – well … that wasn’t (exactly) the case
In the meantime we kept up with the times and the story was developed together in a wiki and a forum. A progress which took a long time, too, and which created some more frustrations because of some back and forth between different story-versions. Main focus of the revision was to create a believable motivation of the different characters of the game. There is (nearly) no worse thing, than a protagonist who is doing something and nobody could really follow his motives for his acts. We didn’t want to create a game with the niveau like Transformers, including a nice face but no brain So we were twisting, inventing, rejecting, inventing…
Somedays this process leads to a bad motivation of all members of the team and we decided to stop the discussion and that the new ideas and ways which we had on oure journey till then, should be worked out in detail “in silence”. Exactly this elaboration is now complete and as a result there is a exciting and sweeping story and some tricky puzzles as well. It is time now to give this story a face. The working-together has made the story of Origins a grown-up and it has become so much better, that I can’t express how thankful I am for my team-colleagues and co-writers!
Of course we would like to have finished more than we have today, but as Orci & Co are used to repeat over and over again “… we didn’t want to rush it…”
It was worth the time to concentrate on the base of the story and we now can go on working on the conversion to a game. Point one for that goal: Scribbles … many scribbles
One experience we could made was, that the process of creating a story is never really over… But the range of changes decreases and at that point we’re standing now. There might be changes to details but the main-plot is ready to face the world.
I can just hope that people could say that about Star Trek 12 soon, too… I hope the authors have used the 2 years till now to prevent such crater-wide plot-holes which have made watching ST11 a hard task for me sometimes. But – after the years with Origins – I can comprehend that the creative process, which is needed for writing a good story, is full of dead ends and stumbling blocks. It is even more fulfilling, when you could close the laptop after another long writing-day and you can say to yourself “it is done!”.
With this little insight view to the production of Origins till now and with a short excerpt of the prologue of Origins we wish you all a nice week and we wish to thank you very much. Although there is not much to see till now, there are already loyal fans! You are the best motivation for us! Thank you!
Star Trek: Origins – August 2011
Prologue
March 2153.
When a ship, crashed almost 100 ago, and some corpses are discovered at the Arctic Circle Starfleet is very eager to find out what this strange finding is all about. Immediately a research expedition is sent to the site to start the investigation.
It is Admiral Forrest who calls the Enterprise NX-01, one of the most modern and up-to-date ships of its time, for help, when the contact to the artic research team is lost and all that can be preserved of the small research station are ruins.
At that time none knew what evil they were up against. Nobody had ever heared of a species called “Borg”. Even though they had the a sligh idea of how overwhelming their enemies technological advantage was they were willing to fight’em.
Paradoxal this story will have its start almost 200 years from now, when a group of Borg will be trying to assimilate Earth – an attempt that will fail due to the intervention by the NCC 1701-E commanded by captain Jean Luc Picard. The same attempt they will repeat shortly after the third World War. Captain Picards Crew is able to prevent this too, but has to suffer big losses, in order to do so.
To defy the unfathomable capability of resistance and adaptability of the borgs collective could only be achieved by few and most of those who even dared fell prey to the hive mind. To meet one’s death was one thing, conciously loosing your own existence was another. Whitnessing yourself killing friends and family, beeing stripped of your free will and your ability to resist has to be a dreadful experience. To extradite your former friends to that same fate, by injecting them with Nanites into their blood circuit, is a cruelty of other dimensions. All you have to do is pierce their soft skin with your nanotubes, an intermixture of a hose and a blade, integrated inside your forearms. Mothers don’t know their children anymore. Brothers turn against each other. Lovers tumble into tragic chaos and eternal suffering.
In the collective there is only one voice. Identity is eradicated, remaining only as an echo, freely recallable for all in the collective. Your thoughts are the collectives thoughts, and the collectives thoughts are your thoughts. That complex system works much like a hive of bees with billions of drones. A huge organism with only one goal, to expand, to enhance themselves and achieve ultimate perfection in everything. Those who defy that urge and resist, are assimilated or annihilated. Those who don’t submit are extinguished. Whole worlds ceased to exist and amazing cultures are robbed of their peculiarity. Remaining mutilated as a part of the collective, mixed with thousands of assimilated races, their former members carving out a miserable umbral existence. Sorrow, compassion, mercy – fundamental values are unknown to the Borg. Just the pure anxiety for perfection dictates their actions.
As a result of their strive and to achieve their goals, the reanimated Borg assimilated the research team and fled from Earth, using a cargo ship. Soon the ships appearance had been changed almost beyond recognition, because it has been altered and upgraded piece by piece. Engines, weapons, navigation – the Borg made use of all their skills to transform the defenseless cargo ship into a serious opponent.
When the Enterprise was finally able to capture the modified frighter, the collective was prepared to shut down the earhtlings ship. Crewmen of an attacked frighter, assimilated and brought aboard beforehand, sabotaged vital systems of the Enterprise and Captain Archer had no choice but to catapult the Crewmen just saved, by dint of an airlock, into space. That was the only way to prevent the Enterprises destruction and his Crews death.
No one knew then that besides the Borg another party was present. Observing. Passive. Biding it’s time…
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The Romulan War
von mr_werns am 01. Jul. 2009, unter News
Da werkelt man fleißig und überlegt sich eine spannende Geschichte in einer spannenden Epoche des Star-Trek-Universums, braucht ein bisschen länger und was ist: Man merkt man ist nicht alleine
Voraussichtlich im Oktober diesen Jahres erscheint – zumindest auf englisch – Star Trek “The Romulan War” von Michael A. Martin.
Vorbestellen bei Amazon
Hier der Klappen-/Info-Text aus dem englischen Original:
STAR TREK: Enterprise – THE ROMULAN WAR: BENEATH THE RAPTOR’S WING
by Michael A. Martin
[trade paperback]At the start of the twenty-second century unconditional war swept across the Earth. A war that engulfed the great and the small, the rich and the poor, giving no quarter. Each side strove for unconditional victory, and as battle built upon battle the living began to envy the dead.
Chastised by the cataclysm that they had unleashed, the governments of Earth banded together. Humanity vowed to put an end to war, and to strive for the betterment of every living creature. A united Earth created Starfleet, an interstellar agency, whose mission was to explore the cosmos, to come in peace for all mankind. A naïve wish, yet man persists in the belief that peace is the way. Banding together with other powers to form a Coalition of Planets, humanity hopes that the strength each can offer the other, will allow for peaceful exploration.
The rise of the Coalition strikes dread within the Romulan Star Empire. They feel the growing reach will cut them off from is rightfully theirs. But, the Romulans know that the alliance is fragile, that the correct strategy could turn allies into foes. Perfecting a way of remotely controlling Coalition ships and using them as weapons against each other, the Romulans hope to driving a wedge of suspicion and mistrust between these new allies.
One ship, one Starfleet captain uncovers this insidious plot, Jonathan Archer of the Enterprise. Determined not to lose what they have gained, out manned and out gunned, the captains of Starfleet stand tall vowing to defend every inch of Coalition space. The tide begins to turn. The Romulans now plan to strike at what they see as the heart of their problem. With nothing left to lose the Romulan Star Empire engages in all out war against humanity, determined once and for all to stop the human menace from spreading across the galaxy.
Wir sind gespannt auf diese Fiktion, wenden uns nun aber wieder unserer Story zu, die in einem Buch durchaus auch eine gute Figur machen würde
Quelle: www.trekmovie.com
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Ich will einen Director's Cut!
von mr_werns am 15. May. 2009, unter News
Bei einer Sondervorstellung in Los Angeles standen die Drehbuch-Autoren von Star Trek XI, Orci & Krutzman, Rede und Antwort und erklärten einige der Szenen die es vermochten so machem Star Trek Fan die Tränen in die Augen zu treiben – im negativen Sinne…
Im Blog Darth Mojo sind die Antworten auf viele Fragen erschienen und da die meisten “Probleme” offenbar durch die Schere im Schneide-Raum entstanden, bin ich für einen Director’s Cut- oder Special-Edition-Release von Star Trek XI!
Denn: Mit der Erläuterung funktioniert der Film viel eher, als ohne.
Seht selbst…
*** AB HIER SPOILER ***
Hier die Erklärungen von Orci & Krutzman zusammen mit dem Kommentaren vom Blog-Autor, darthmojo:
WHY TIME TRAVEL?
Many (including myself) have wondered what the point was of going to such great lengths to reconcile existing Star Trek cannon with a new story. Why bother with all this alternate-timeline hooey? If you’re rebooting the franchise and starting over, then just start over! The problem with that, according to Kurtzman & Orci, is that audiences might have assumed this new movie was simply an attempt to tell a story about Kirk & Spock from back before the original series, and everything that happened in Trek lore is still destined to happen. Where’s the fun in watching this crew take on the galaxy if we know Kirk will eventually be killed by Soren, Spock will become an ambassador to Romulus and everyone else lives? By history being altered, nothing has yet been written – Kirk really could die on the next mission and Khan might end up selling shoes. With a whole new timeline, stories are no longer beholden to “established” history and while everything we know and love is still there, how it plays out is no longer written. If you’ll pardon the cliche, essentially it means that everything old is new again!
THE CORVETTE
A deleted scene established that Kirk’s stepdad is a real bad mofo, and he forces young Kirk to wax & polish the car. He threatens that if he finds even one spec of dirt, he’s going to beat the kid senseless (I still think it’s a dumb scene, but at least this provides a lot more motivation for it). Other tidbits about this scene: The Beastie Boys song may be a blatant attempt to make Star Trek seem more hip, but if you look closely at the dashboard, the station playing it is listed as ”oldies.” Also, what the hell is a cliff like this doing in famously flat Iowa? Again, close eyes will see that the sign Kirk blows through reads “quarry” (i.e. a man-made pit). Another scene of 10 year old Kirk that didn’t make the final cut (I’m not sure if it was filmed or not) also involved a young Carol Marcus! Props to the boys for diving so deeply into the Trek mythos (they both admit to being Wrath of Khan junkies).
FAMILIES ON BOARD?A fan asked why George Kirk’s pregnant wife was on board the USS Kelvin, since families weren’t supposed to be brought on board until the Next Gendays. “Because she’s a Starfleet officer” explained the dynamic duo. This is also alluded to in another line about Kirk’s mother being off-world.
25 YEAR WAIT
After the incident with the USS Kelvin, did Nero and his crew really just hang around the black hole for 25 years, playing Fizbin and waiting for Spock to emerge? Couldn’t they have used that time to, say, help Romulus avert eventual disaster? Turns out a major cut scene explains what happened during that time frame. After being rammed by the Kelvin, Nero’s ship was crippled; a convoy of Klingon Warbirds captured the crew and held them in a prison camp for all those years. Eventually the Romulans escaped, reclaimed their ship, blew up 47 Klingon vessels and returned to their mission (some of this is discussed in dialog which remains in the film). The good news is that these scenes were completed and there is hope they may surface on the DVD.
COINCIDENCE ON HOTH
The motherlode of the film’s many handy coincidences involves the banished Kirk conveniently running into Spock Prime (as the writers coined him early on) in his cave on Delta Vega. Much to my surprise and delight, even this jaw-dropping moment has an explanation! In the minds of the creators, the focus of the plot is that Nero’s destruction of the timeline has altered history to the point that the all important friendship of Kirk and Spock is now threatened. If these two don’t come together, the fabric of space and time itself is endangered (as we have witnessed by the universe itself being saved countless times over the last 40 years). Kirk “coincidentally” running into Spock Prime is an example of fate itself trying to bring these two together. That’s how important it is. In fact a line about this was included during Spock Prime’s mind-meld speech, but was removed at the last minute (the writers said this particular was labored over more than any other section of the script and they now regret not including the line about fate). While this doesn’t completely forgive a very hackneyed sequence, it does address the most egregious moment in the film and I appreciate that an attempt was made to address it. In the wake of criticism over this scene, perhaps the line will be restored for the DVD release. It would make a world of difference.
NEXT ON JERRY SPRINGER
A lot of people found themselves scratching their heads over the unlikely romantic pairing of Spock and Uhura. The inspiration for this came from the original series, where apparently there are scenes of these two flirting (if anyone reading this remembers which episodes they’re talking about, please fill us in). Since the rough-and-tumble badboy is always the one to get the girl, the writers wanted to pair Uhura up with the less obvious choice. Besides, since Uhura is a smart, mature woman, they felt that she would probably gravitate towards the more interesting, intellectually mature man.
GREEN GIRL BLUES
There was a lot more material further explaining Kirk’s relationship with the hot green chick. Since she worked in the computer lab, Kirk was essentially sleeping with her to gain access to the simulation computer so he could cheat on the Kobyashi Maru. In a cut scene, Kirk tells her that if she gets an email from him while he’s taking the test, she should open it; she does, and it launches a virus which installs his cheat-patch.
SPOCK, MEET SPOCK
Why didn’t the universe explode when Spock Prime met New Spock? What about all the time-honored SF theories that going back in time and meeting yourself will lead to anti matter explosions, tears in the fabric of space/time and dogs and cats living together? In doing their research on the latest fringe science theories, the current thinking is that events which create huge paradoxes (like going back in time and killing your grandfather) no longer will result in cataclysm, but the instant creation of an alternate universe which allows for the new reality (and I’ll back them up on this, since I’ve read material on the subject that basically says the same thing).
ALL BLOWED UP
Why did Kirk feel the need to fire all weapons at a doomed ship? After all, Nero’s vessel was mere seconds away from being crushed inside the black hole. Not true, said the Trek scribes – Nero’s ship was built to travel through black holes, so if Kirk hadn’t done anything, the bad guys would have slipped away and emerged god knows where (and when) ready to do more evil.
LENS FLARES: THE MOVIE
Why on Earth did JJ Abrams turn Star Trek into a two-hour commercial for lens flare plugins? I have to admit, upon my second viewing of the film I found this visual motif to be highly distracting and irritating. Flares, reflections and luminous ghosts simply appear everywhere, even without any obvious sources. The reason? JJ wanted a visual metaphor that stated “we have a bright future ahead of us.” No, I’m not making this up.
EXPLOSION SURFING
Would creating a big explosion on the event horizon of a black hole really create a shockwave that the Enterprise could surf to safety? No. But the explosion would alter the nature of the event horizon and create a space-time ripple that would… do something. Ok, my memory of this answer is a little shaky, but the pair did impress the crowd with a well researched solution that did make sense – you’ll have to listen to the podcast for the details.
Overall, I have to offer props to Kurtzman & Orci for having good answers to just about every moment in the film that elicited a “WTF?” Had some of these cut scenes and dialog been retained, the truck-sized holes in plot and logic might have just been big enough to squeeze a Smart car through. I’m impressed that so much thought did go into moments that most people wouldn’t think twice about – but, then again, give me a million dollars and a year to write a Star Trek movie and I guarantee you I’ll do a whole lot a thinkin’!
Quelle: Darth Mojo
Einzig die Frage warum man ein schwarzes Loch im Innern eines Planeten erzeugen muss (!) wird nicht beantwortet, aber vielleicht bekommt man ja bald auch für diesen Stolperstein eine Brücke…
Ich würde mich sehr darüber freuen, wenn es tatsächlich eine “richtige” Version des Films in den Handel schaffen würde und werde auf jeden Fall die Augen offen halten.
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Auf zum Feinschliff
von mr_werns am 11. May. 2009, unter Origins Development
Nachdem die Story von Star Trek: Origins nun endlich fertiggestellt ist, widmen wir uns nun dem Feinschliff und der Ausarbeitung der Dialoge sowie der Locations.
Natürlich werden wir uns hier ein paar wirklich kniffelige Rätsel überlegen, damit auch Adventure-Puristen auf Ihre Kosten kommen, aber keine Sorge – für all die anderen – wir achten darauf das alles schaff- und spielbar bleibt
Damit hier demnächst auch die Vorfreude geschürt wird, arbeiten wir parallel noch an einer kleinen Besonderheit – also: immer mal wieder vorbeischauen
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Tag der Arbeit ;)
von mr_werns am 01. May. 2009, unter Origins Development
Intriegen, Spannung, Action, Täuschung … Star Trek: Origins hat viel zu bieten.
Der Feiertag eignet sich perfekt dafür wieder in die Tasten zu hauen und endlich das große Finale in Buchstaben, Sätze und Kapitel zu bannen.
Das wird ein hartes Stück Arbeit für die Crew der Enterprise – einer solchen Bedrohung standen sie bisher noch nie gegenüber!
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Befürchtungen – zum Teil aufgehoben :)
von mr_werns am 28. Apr. 2009, unter News
Da fällt einem ein Stein vom Herzen
Lange Zeit bengten wir ob die Geschichten von Star Trek XI bzw. Countdown evtl. zur Story von Origins querschießen würden, jedoch kann ich nun nach der Lektüre des sehr gut gemachten Comics erleichtert behaupten: Nein – das passt! 
Im Gegenteil. Manche Dinge – die ich hier natürlich nicht näher benennen kann – ergänzen sich sogar recht gut.
Sehr gut Herr Orci, Herr Krutzman … die Sammelklage von millionen Star Trek: Origins-Fans wird ausbleiben. Alles schön “Canon” bis jetzt
Der romulanische Senat – Star Trek Countdown
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2160
von mr_werns am 28. Jan. 2009, unter Origins Development
Ein spannendes Jahr…
Fünf Jahre nach “Terra Prime”.
Ein Jahr vor “These are the Voyages”.
Das vierte Jahr des terranisch-romulanischen Krieges.
Das Jahr in dem die Geschehenisse von “Star Trek: Origins” spielen werden.
Nach dem etwas enttäuschenden “Finale” von ENT, bringt dieses Spiel – sobald es endlich fertig ist – hoffentlich die Fan-Base wieder etwas in Bewegung und zeigt, das man nicht nur auf den neuen Film warten muss, sondern noch mehr in Sachen “Star Trek” passiert
Da die Story und das Spiel-Konzept im Grunde schon soweit sind, das man auf Akquise nach helfenden Händen gehen kann, wird hoffentlich nicht mehr allzuviel Zeit vergehen, bis es hier wieder Neuigkeiten gibt.
Bleibt also gespannt.
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Teufel im Detail
von mr_werns am 27. Jan. 2009, unter Origins Development
Um dieses Projekt ist es lange wieder ruhig geworden, aber das Schreiben einer guten Story unter den Umständen eben nicht einfach mal nur Zeit dafür zu haben, ist gar nicht so einfach.
Nichtsdestotrotz: Wir nähern uns einer finalen Version. Der Schluß-Teil benötigt noch etwas Feinschliff, aber dann steht die Geschichte um Star Trek: Origins.
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Storyelement
von mr_werns am 18. Jul. 2007, unter Origins Development
Für manche sicherlich ein Begriff: Das Omega-Molekül. Ohne zu viel von der Story zu verraten, kann jedoch bereits angekündigt werden, das diese sehr instabile und gefährliche chemische Verbindung eine wichtige Rolle bei Star Trek: Origins spielen wird.
Von den Borg wir das Molekül wegen seiner “reinsten Perfektion” bewundert, wenn man ihnen solche emotionalen Charakteristika zusprechen möchte. Trotz seiner enormen Komplexizität ist das Molekül voller Harmonie – Ordnung im Chaos also.