Plot, plot, fizz
News on The Project shortly. It's much like pulling teeth. That haven't erupted.
However, I'm currently hammering on Slow Boat to Fast City..
I very much like to grab the standard tenets of genre fiction and appropriate the hell out of them. There's a reason that Liberium Scientia stuck so very, very close to the rules of cyberpunk, if not the trappings.
Thus, hard boiled crime fiction. I see a few things I need:
- A city near a wasteland. Functionally,it's a place that scrambles to maintain its validity as a place near somewhere that's convenient for the placement of bodies. Well... Mars. Check.
- A war that's either just ended or is sufficiently long and intermittent for a veteran pool in need of dirty work. Ongoing conflict between separatist (called Barsoomist) settlers, lukewarm war against Soviet interference. Check.
- Fast money with few checks or balances. Mars is a pretty freewheeling plutocracy, with little American law outside of the U.S. Marshal's office and the federal offices at the base of the Olympia elevator. Check.
- A MacGuffin factory. Check and double check.
At present, a standard Slow Boat to Fast City story can be most effectively summed up thus:
These guys go here and here to stop these guys from getting these from these guys. Once they're done, they deliver the merchandise to this guy and do this with them.
Time to write a pitch.
However, I'm currently hammering on Slow Boat to Fast City..
I very much like to grab the standard tenets of genre fiction and appropriate the hell out of them. There's a reason that Liberium Scientia stuck so very, very close to the rules of cyberpunk, if not the trappings.
Thus, hard boiled crime fiction. I see a few things I need:
- A city near a wasteland. Functionally,it's a place that scrambles to maintain its validity as a place near somewhere that's convenient for the placement of bodies. Well... Mars. Check.
- A war that's either just ended or is sufficiently long and intermittent for a veteran pool in need of dirty work. Ongoing conflict between separatist (called Barsoomist) settlers, lukewarm war against Soviet interference. Check.
- Fast money with few checks or balances. Mars is a pretty freewheeling plutocracy, with little American law outside of the U.S. Marshal's office and the federal offices at the base of the Olympia elevator. Check.
- A MacGuffin factory. Check and double check.
At present, a standard Slow Boat to Fast City story can be most effectively summed up thus:
These guys go here and here to stop these guys from getting these from these guys. Once they're done, they deliver the merchandise to this guy and do this with them.
Time to write a pitch.