Prequel Miniseries Discussion

[Razor One]

This is the thread to discuss the idea of having 4 miniseries, each six episodes long and focusing on the history and events of a particular character in BW prior to BW.

Candidates for this kind of Prequel:

The Entire Cast

Choice favorites:

Dinobot
Rattrap
Rampage
Optimus Primal
Megatron
Depth Charge

The Choice favorites are the ones that are, in my humble opinion, the ones most likely to offer considerable depth and emotive resonance for the reader and the writer alike.

Four miniseries stretching for Six episodes each will give us considerable room in which to write, and will result in a full "Season" of pre-Beast wars characterisation.

Feel free to discuss and propose ideas for plot points and storylines and so forth.

[Razor One]

My Ideas:

Dinobot

Wow, how and where to start?

Two good lines come to mind when I think of Dinobots history.

The first goes all the way back to his youth. I imagine him as a kind of headstrong rebel, chafing under the tutelage of a wisened old predacon (possibly decepticon) warrior, who teaches him concepts of honour. Of course, no road is a smooth one, and it's doubtless that he gave his teacher a great deal of trouble.

The second is closer to the Beast wars, about how Dinobot fell in line with Megatron and possibly covering the theft of the golden disk itself.

Rattrap

Once again, how and where do I start?

The first general idea is a 007'esque spy that pushes things a little too far and is forced to take a vacation on the Axalon by the end.

The second general idea is something more akin to a Private eye type story, hunting down a certain predacon thats roughing things up, until said predacon strikes a little too close to home for RT...

Rampage

Oh Boy. Another rich storyline nexus.

A regular character that undergoes brutal ethicless experimentation and becomes the brutal near-immortal crazed killer we know and love?

The story of his escape from Omicron and the subsequent levelling of the colony?

The beginnings of his "playful" rivalry with Depth Charge?

Optimus Primal

It's intimated that he's been on exploration missions prior to the Axalon, which was slated as his first mission.

A story dealing with how he became commander material would be quite prime.

Another approach would be to simply cover an adventure he might have had as a low ranking officer with a set of unique characters.

Megatron

A story dealing with how Megatron became the digruntled disillisioned "Criminal" that set out to restore the Predacons to power comes to mind.

Another one comes to mind about Megatron discovering the secret of the golden disk and the subsequent recruitment of a crew, theft, and escape from cybertron.

Depth Charge

A story that covers his life before and after Protoform X went nuts comes to mind.

A story that covers the hunt for Protoform X also sounds good.

And another story that covers Protoform X's capture and how the maximals turned X over to the Optimus and co and how Depth Charge dealt with that.

Sorry if any of this is badly worded, it's late and I was inspired >_>

[Miss Special]

What about Cheetor? Sure, he's young, but that doesn't mean he can't have a backstory, too.

For instance, maybe he was a civilian who somehow got caught up in something big involving (maybe) Optimus and whatever he was doing, and so Cheetor decides to follow Optimus.

Or something. Point is, don't forget Cheetor. Or the rest of Megatron's starting crew. Like Tarantulas.

...especially Tarantulas.

[Lord Skyfire]

I'm just about to leave my house but I wanted to comment that if we do a 6 miniseries or whatever... I think they should all be set in the same time... meaning they shouldn't just be unrelated in terms of time in this pre-BW universe we'll be creating. Maybe we could somehow overlap these seperate stories somehow... I just don't want this to turn out as 6 sepereate mini-series of stories with no cohesion as a whole series. Now I know that this kinda limit what we do, but what we have some kinda event on Cybertron that would be the 'ribbon' that strings each of these miniseries together in one grand plot, yet still serve to focus on all these characters' pasts. Maybe it could be that throughout a 20 yr (or w/e) time frame that we tell all of these stories in we have the effects of a growing Predacon terrorist movement appear in each of these character's lives... some more than others ofcourse.. but it'd be a neat way to keep this series together somehow... to have a 'bigger picture' and maybe we could have this pred movement somehow lead up to the theft of the golden disc AND Beast Wars. Anyway theres my thoughts.... I think this series is a great idea!



Sky

[Wicked Woman]

Yeah! I saw an episode of CSI Vegas how they have four different crimes to solve but they still saw someone that wasn't part of the case (but still a main castmember) notice or hear something.

e.g: In Grisom's case, he hears Sara and that other guy talking about a shower but doesn't know what they're talking about (his POV) when it comes to their case, we find out that they had to take a chemical shower because the house they were investigating in was contaminated with a large amount of deadly fungus.

Getting back on topic now I think what Lord Skyfire is trying to say is that we should intertwine the cast's appearances.

e.g: Rattrap is running from or after something, he then bumps into some unidentified person (who will be called Cheetor in the Beast Wars) and keeps running on.

That could be an interesting thing. What do you all think?


WW

[Razor One]

What about Cheetor? Sure, he's young, but that doesn't mean he can't have a backstory, too.

For instance, maybe he was a civilian who somehow got caught up in something big involving (maybe) Optimus and whatever he was doing, and so Cheetor decides to follow Optimus.

Or something. Point is, don't forget Cheetor. Or the rest of Megatron's starting crew. Like Tarantulas.

...especially Tarantulas.

Cheetor is a more difficult pickle to handle. Despite his distinctly yellow coat of fur Cheetor was incredibly green at the start of the Beast Wars and in all likelihood the Axalon was his first big shot Exploration.

I suppose it would be possible to cover how he was before the axalon, the subsequent training he had to go through in order to get on board (I doubt they threw any tom dick and harry they found on a random spaceship headed for who knows where) and his acceptance aboard the axalon.

Now Tarantulas I definitely forgot about. In fact, it may be possible to link him to Rattrap somehow and intertwine their stories somewhat. Obviously they cant meet face to face but it would be interesting to try.

The idea thats forming in my head currently is that Tarry is up to his usual shady work on Cybertron, and Rattrap is tasked (somehow) to track the bot responsible for said shady dealings.

Hrrm, perhaps Tarry is engaged in some fieldwork for Megatron? Researching the security around the Golden Disk, getting information, bribing a certain security guard here and silencing a hapless one there...

Rattrap tries to track down the bot responsible of course but engages in some... questionable ethics getting the lowdown and so forth, resulting in his superiors giving him a few years "Vacation" aboard the Axalon.

Tarry would have a suitable scapegoat and puppet for Rattrap to get, of course, so the two would never have to actually meet.

As for how well linked we want the stories to be, we'll have to wait until we begin to pump out fully fleshed storylines I think. Once we've planned out how we'd like each series to progress seperately, then we can begin to work on crossing over into one another and working that in. This way things dont become convoluted and messy.

As it stands we can approach this miniseries Episodically or Serially.

For purposes of clarity, handling things episodically would be telling 6 seperate, tenously related stories describing the evolution of the character. In other words, 6 or so defining moments in that characters life. It's a tall order but if you feel up to it start planning now

Handling things Serially would entail telling one long story spread out over six parts and wouldnt be too terribly different from the many series we already currently have on hand written by individual writers.

Or you could mix and match methods, telling 2 storylines going for 3 episodes each (2 Three part stories in other words) or by telling 3 two part stories, etc, you get the idea.

That should be enough fuel for the fire, now lets get brainstorming

[Sapphire]

I know it's not exactly the same, but I'm in the middle of writing a prequel mini-series for Optimus, Dinobot, Rattrap and Cheetor. I've completed Rattrap's story and I'm halfway through Cheetor's: http://www.bwint.net/memoryjunction.htm It's called a Trip Down Memory Junction.

I'd write more but I am in a mad rush. I just saw this and wanted to make you guys aware. I'm still up for doing a prequel, but I've already started writing something like what's been suggested.

[Razor One]

I wasnt aware of that at all Sapph =\

I'll start reading up though, there should still be plenty of room in the FanFicVerse to accomodate similar backdrops

[Rainynight]

Hey, guys!
Hmmm, I realize this is gonna sound strange and potentially stupid but I don't much like prequels because you know what's gonna happen to the characters in the future and... ON THE OTHER HAND it's fantastic to find out more about certain characters' past.
My point is, is there any way we can write the fic to be focused on revealing the characters' past but not actually be set in the past?
i.e. we can have a storyline that is happening here and now but it somehow depends on what happened to all of them prior to this time.
I probably sound crazy.
Yours,
Rainy

[Sapphire]

Hey Rainynight! Good to see you here.

Hmm... "A Trip Down Memory Junction" is set in current BW timeline with flashbacks to the characters' pasts. Here's the blurb:

"Rhinox took a bad hit during a battle and while Optimus, Cheetor, Rattrap and Dinobot are waiting anxiously for his recovery, they decide to take their minds off the worry for a bit by talking about what led them to being on Earth. This mini-series will deal with the histories of the above four characters. It is my own interpretation of the little hints on their backgrounds that the writers of Beast Wars let us know. It's called "A Trip Down Memory Junction" because it also deals with how the fates of each of these Beast Warriors were tied to each other, and eventually to how they met."


I am halfway through the next fic in the series (I've just been too busy to complete it).

I suppose you could still do a similar prequel series which can actually tie in with the canon BW series, slightly modified. Here's an idea:

We write BW as set in the BW we watched and loved. Instead, however, we write our own "in-between" episodes, in which the characters are having battles and encounters which reminds them of certain battles/encounters they had in their past, and cues a flashback for that character. Each episode could focus on a different character. In fact, that's a LOT like what they do in the TV series "LOST". It's an excellent formula, one which could quite easily apply to the Beast Warriors, and would allow us to tie in a Beast Wars set-on-earth plot, with a prequel sub-plot of sorts. It is a nice mix. What do you think?

[Rainynight]

Yeah, I like that a lot better than writing just a prequel And you're right, it is a great formula!

[Razor One]

Alright, this idea appears to be the one thats garnered the most interest. I do like you're idea about a present-day beast wars reflecting on a past-histories cybertron Sapph so I reckon we should go with that.

We should have a central plot (duh) told from the stance of each beast warrior.

So, objetively

Event A
Event B
Event C

Subjectively

Event A as percieved by Character X
Memory A Triggered in Char X
Memory A in Char X Triggers Action by Char X (Event B)
Event B triggers Memory E in Char X
Memory E triggers Event C

Etc.

I'll see if I can come up with something that would work as both an action based story and as a catalyst for this kind of exposition.

So far the only idea I've come up with is a memory-triggering virus that Tarantulas creates that backfires somehow. He'd probably "Test" the virus on a rather unwilling predacon first before using it on the maximals.

Once we've got a centralised plot figured out it may be prudent to assign characters to certain authors who write those characters best, and perhaps have multiple authors write from the same character viewpoint and see what comes up.

Of course, exactly what memories that come up for each character will prove to be quite interesting

[Beastbot]

Depth Charge and Rampage's stories would probably overlap too much to justify giving them seperate miniseries, IMO. Tarantulas I could DEFINTIELY get behind, though...