View source for User talk:RandomDSdevel/Sandbox/Works in Progress/Projects/Once More Into the Breach, My Friends…

== Other Discussions ==
* [http://morfs.yuku.com/topic/61/Possible-FreeRIDErs-CrossOver Possible FreeRIDErs CrossOver] ([http://morfs.yuku.com/ 'MORFS' forums]:)  '''Pending Closure…'''
* [[User talk:Jetfire#What Will Arka's Future Hold?|'What Will Arka's Future Hold?']] ([[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]'s [[User talk:Jetfire|talk page]]:)  '''Awaiting Feedback…'''

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== Disussion On the 'Possibility of [[FreeRIDErs (setting)|''FreeRIDErs'']] Cross-Over Stories' ==

Hello, fellow FreeRIDErs!  I've read pretty much all of the stories here and like them a ''lot'', but I was wondering if there might be any chance that any of you would be interested in helping me hash out this idea that I had about the possibility that we as a community might be able to confirm (at least in this story universe) the hunch that Madison Brubeck had about the possibility that the 'Many Worlds' theory might actually be ''real'' near the end of '[[User:Robotech Master/Spotted Stowaway|Madison Brubeck and the Spotted Stowaway]]' by coming together to write some stories about characters from other story universes getting transported to this one somehow and having an impact on its history.  The universes that I think I might like to involve in this story arc are currently the [http://morfs.nowhere2go.org 'MORFS' universe] and the MAU ('Morphic Adaptation Unit') universe.  I've already started discussing how I might bring somebody from the 'MORFS' universe into this one [http://morfs.yuku.com/topic/61/master/1/?page=1#.VBnGI0smTnc here], so you guys are quite welcome to go on over there if you want to help me hash out the details of such a story as I start writing it.

Since it's rather ambitious of me to undertake such a large endeavor as my first published story, I also have one other idea that could fall back on if the one that I discussed above doesn't pan out (although I really hope that it will work out well!)  I was thinking about how somebody who has elected to have their body preserved with [[wikipedia:Cryonics|cryonic]] freezing on Earth today might still be alive enough to be revived by Zharusian cryotechnologists if they could get their hands on his or her now–cryonically-frozen body and if this body had gone through cryonic freezing soon enough after its owner had died, hopefully in accident of some kind (I know that it does sound kind of sick for me to be wishing somebody in this story universe's past bad luck, but such bad luck would actually turn out all right in the end since whoever originally owned the body found by Zharus cryo-techs could be revived as somebody relatively young.)  

The reason that I'm suggesting this is because of how I think that it might be useful to have somebody with technological knowledge similar to that of the Totalians and cultural knowledge of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries similar to that of people from Zharus along during the trip to Totalia which the [[User:Robotech Master/Totalia Prelude|prelude]] of the 'Return to Totalia' story arc of ''FreeRIDErs'', among other stories in the ''FreeRIDErs'' universe, says is going to happen in the next part of its 'Return to Totalia' arc in order to help smooth relations between Zharus and Totalia over somewhat.  As such, I might write a story about somebody from modern-day Earth whose frozen body is obtained by Zharusian cryo-techs somehow either if my other idea from earlier doesn't pan out or after it does if it does.  All in all, what do you guys think? 
—&thinsp;[[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 14:47, 17 September 2014 (EDT)

:Hey, [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]]! I'm really glad our stories moved you enough to want to consider adding to them. Not to brag or anything, but I've always thought that one of the things that made a great story great is how much it catches the imagination of its readers and makes them want to come up with stories of their own. 

:Crossovers are a fun idea in general. Back when I was writing for Superguy Listserv, I wrote a series called "The Grand Tour" which took characters from my Superguy stories into several other Internet fiction universes of the day. It was a lot of fun. However, I don't think FreeRIDErs is really the kind of comic-book setting that lends itself to that kind of crossover. Well, it's still definitely comic booky, but in a different way. 

:That being said, there's no reason you couldn't write them anyway. There's a lot of fun to be had in non-canonical "What If" stories. I've written a couple of them myself, a couple of far-future stories in the Chakona Space and Paradise settings that took ongoing trends in the series and extrapolated them to their logical conclusions. In fact, the ones I did for Paradise, [[User:Robotech Master/The_Future_is_Paradise|"The Future is Paradise"]] and [[User:Robotech Master/Paradise_Forever|"Paradise Forever"]] impressed Jon enough that he invited me to work on FreeRIDErs with him, and the rest is history. (In fact, part of the idea behind "Paradise Forever" was to provide a sort of "Riverworld" style space where characters from different settings might meet and cross over with each other.)

:The 20th century cryonic freezing idea is interesting. I'd even considered it myself, and sort of used elements of the idea in my "Slightly Foxed" story, though Chuck/Charlene is from a couple centuries further along than the 20th. But it's a little bit of a cliché, and it feels a little hard to justify scientifically in the setting. (It's not clear that anybody being cryonically frozen now will ''ever'' be revivable.) Anyway, the concept has already been done so well in novels like [http://www.amazon.com/World-Out-Time-Larry-Niven-ebook/dp/B005EOZBAG/terrania-20|''A World out of Time'' by Larry Niven] that doing it in FreeRIDErs feels like gilding the lily. Not to say I couldn't be convinced if someone came up with a plausible enough treatment of it.

:In any event, I'm so busy lately I barely have time to write on any of Jon's and my stories, let alone crossovers with settings I'm not familiar with. If you were to write such a thing, I'd be happy to read it, though. Good luck! And no matter what, I hope you keep enjoying our stories.

:P.S. About the date thing, you might want to click on "Preferences" up at the top left, then "Date and Time," and select the city closest to you in your time zone setting. Though it turns out even that may not affect the date set when you post something with the tilde signature...

:—[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] ([[User talk:Robotech Master|talk]]) 17:24, 19 September 2014 (EDT)
::Sorry that I haven't responded to this thread in quite a while, but I've had my reasons.  First of all, I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I've lately been somewhat sidetracked by watching [[wikipedia:Transformers Prime|''Transformers Prime'']] due to the facts that, for one, I thought that watching the series might inspire me to come up with a cool vehicle mode for one or more of the RIDEs that I intend to involve in my story and that, for another, I wanted to get a little more familiar with some of the ideas from the source material that helped to inspire ''FreeRIDErs''.  Now, though, I'm starting to think that it wasn't such a good idea; after all, it's distracted me quite a lot from what I should really be doing — that is, writing my story!  Second of all, the fact that you responded to my original post relatively quickly in such a friendly manner while also revealing how you got started writing stories (wow, you've been doing it for ''over 20 years?'' That's amazing!) sort of made me develop even more respect for you and your efforts than I had already acquired by reading the latter, so it kind of took me a little while to work up the nerve to reply to you; sorry about that.  Thirdly, I ''have'' been doing ''some'' work on my story by transcribing some older attempts at something like it from college-ruled notebook paper to Word documents like I [http://morfs.yuku.com/reply/304/Possible-FreeRIDErs-CrossOver#reply-304 mentioned] I was doing over on the [http://morfs.nowhere2go.org/ ''MORFS'' universe] [http://morfs.yuku.com/topic/61/Possible-FreeRIDErs-CrossOver#.VDbvwb4mTAM thread] dedicated to discussing this effort of mine.  I'm about to update [http://morfs.yuku.com/topic/61/Possible-FreeRIDErs-CrossOver#.VDbvwb4mTAM that thread] with a notice that I've finished importing the first of my many previous attempts into Word in preparation for merging the best parts of all of them into the Word document that I've set up as a target destination for my final story [https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=289534415E45234A!187&authkey=!AMtxCe1uQ_xxrYM&ithint=file%2cdocx here], so I ''am'' moving things along, albeit slowly.
::When I'm done piecing the beginning of this cross-over together, I wouldn't mind at all if you checked on its progress every once in a while.  I know that you haven't had much time to work on your literary pursuits lately, but please feel free to make small corrective edits and leave suggestions (either in this thread or as comments in the Word document once I've finished collecting my thoughts) on the plot, characters, and whatever else that you feel needs improvement.  Again, though, I know that you're busy, so please try not to spend too much of your free time helping me with my endeavors and get at least a ''little'' work done on ''Return to Totalia'', all right?  I look forward to reading a lot more of it!  I'll be sure to keep you and whichever other FreeRIDErs are interested in my efforts updated on ''my'' progress either here or on [http://morfs.yuku.com/topic/61/Possible-FreeRIDErs-CrossOver#.VDbvwb4mTAM the ''MORFS'' thread], so check back often for reports on it, 'cause I'll be looking for some from you!  I don't want to impose on you ''too'' much, though, so I thought I'd stop bugging you and ask [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] if I could borrow some of the context from his story [[User:Jetfire/Spies Among Us|'Spies Among Us']] for part of the beginning of my story.  I was thinking that maybe I could have my story's main character, a [http://morfs.nowhere2go.org/ MORFS] survivor, accidentally use her subspace abilities while fleeing from some people who would like to kidnap her and coerce her to work for them and pull a ship that was originally on its way to resupply Zharus's friends in the Martian resistance with, among other things, either a new DINcom or the means, namely those provided by a gabber, to make another one that [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]'s spies-in-training could then pair with one back on Zharus in order to keep in touch with their contact in the Marshal Corps.  Here's the thing, though:  can a DINcom be paired with another after it has been constructed, or, if not, would I be free to mention the development of a DINcom with these capabilities in the part of my story in which the supply ship plays a part, or would I have to wait for you, [[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]], [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]], or someone else to write a story in which such a device is developed?  
::If the last case is true, then there's still plenty of time left for that to happen since this work of fiction might take me some time both to start in earnest after gathering my materials and to finish, but would I be able to mention the creation of such an important invention before somebody else retconned it back into the main ''FreeRIDErs'' chronology if I had to?  I'm asking this because I know from [[User:Jetfire/Spies Among Us|'Spies Among Us']] that it's highly unlikely that a preconfigured DINcom would survive a trip through subspace (but why is that, anyway?  Maybe that's something I should ask [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] instead, though…)  Anyway, that's all I have for you on my crossover story for now, but I do have a few comments on your reaction to my idea about a cryonically-frozen person from the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, before the invention of what 26<sup>th</sup>-century Zharusians would consider to be 'modern' cryotechnology, might be revived by Zharusian cryotechnologists.  I understand both your concern that such a scenario would be scientifically untenable even in the context of the ''FreeRIDErs'' universe and your worry that a story narrating such circumstances would be too redundant to add much to the chronology.  But I've been thinking…:  would the cryonic preservation of an entire body really be necessary for the successful resurrection of a quinquagenarian individual?  Wouldn't all you need to revive such a person be data describing his or her bodily and mental composition?   
::The former could be obtained today with a DNA sample, and the latter could be had by scanning really thin slices of a brain that's undergone treatment with [[wikipedia:CLARITY|CLARITY]] created with a [[wikipedia:Microtome|microtome]] into a computer using an [[wikipedia:Electron microscope|electron microscope]].  Zharus already has data from the 21<sup>st</sup> century and before, so wouldn't it be a relatively simple task to retrieve this data and use it to reconstruct a person using Zharusian nanotechnology if it were to have been preserved by the merit of being input into an archive of data maintained by, say, a major hospital or medical research institution after being collected from a victim of some accident?  (As unappetizing as that may be to both you and myself, taking the data required to resurrect a human who would be ancient by the time of his recovery from an accident victim would allow the patient to be somebody young and healthy, and that creates many more opportunities for adventure than the revival of an old geezer — not that some veterans of the ''FreeRIDErs'' universe haven't gotten themselves into some crazy situations, mind you… — , don't you think?  Granted, creating such a story isn't right up front up on my to-do list given that I'm already working on something else major, but I think that such a story might be pretty good if the main character doesn't run away from the problems of being 'woken up' after a 'long sleep' like I read the main character of Larry Niven's ''A World Out of Time'' did.  What do you think?  
::—&thinsp;[[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 17:46, 9 October 2014 (EDT)
:::Okay, I've asked [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] [[User talk:Jetfire#What Will Arka's Future Hold?|here]]  about the possibility of collaborating with him/her (which is he/she, anyway…?) on this project as well.  On another note, this sub-topic is getting rather big, so should I maybe move it to its own page?  I'm seriously considering setting up a staging area for the project which I've been discussing here with you, so I'm assuming that it would be a good idea to group this together with that?  
:::—&thinsp;[[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 14:28, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

== Does Another Setting 'Category' Apply? ==

Should I also categorize this project as belonging to the 'Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations' story universe ported to Shifti by [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] since it's a cross-over of that magnitude?  <br />
—&thinsp;[[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 20:31, 29 November 2014 (EST)