The Intergalactic Highway

As the topic says, what exactly do we want to write? I know that sounds a bit like a no brainer but there are a myriad number of ways in which we can approach this project.

So far, the available approaches that I've been able to think of are:

Closely Related Prequel

The Beast Wars Characters starring in a time before the Beast Wars

Loosely Related Prequel

Maximal and Predacon characters starring in a time before the Beast Wars, does not have to connect directly with BW but can allude to it.

Retelling

Same Characters, told with a new story and perhaps a new setting, does not have to follow the Beast Wars storyline directly.

Closely Related Sequel

The Beast Wars characters starring in a time after the Beast Wars (IE, Beast Machines).

Loosely Related Sequel

Maximal and Predacon characters starring in a time after the Beast Wars, does not have to connect directly to BW but can allude to it.

Feel free to discuss which path we should choose when we get started and most importantly why we should choose that specific path. If you have a novel approach (IE, one not covered above), feel free to suggest it.

I'll take this opportunity to say that your input is highly valued. If you have concerns, ideas, or questions of any kind do not hesitate to voice them.

My Take on this:

I believe that we should work on a loosely related prequel.

I think we have an incredible amount of room to manouver in. There are fully three hundred years for us to toy with and manouver in which simply arent covered in any canon circles whatsoever. Granted that Optimus Primal did mention that those years were "Peaceful" but that is a significantly relative term. Peace on Cybertron, perhaps. Peace Elsewhere? Not necessarily. And even then, if the any kind of war or fight was done in secretively, in the shadows so to speak, it's doubtful that anyone would have heard of any kind of war despite one being fought.

In addition, a loosely related prequel allows us to work with a brand new set of characters, allowing us free reign insofar as character development goes. It also lets us get at a generation that lived in the immediate shadow of the great war. If one were to consider the Great War to be WW2, then a contemporary period would be the 1960's and Vietnam (which is what I'm sort of aiming for with my Nanowars proposal).

It will also allow us to paint a picture of the Cybertron to be. In broad strokes, we'll be able to foreshadow the rise of the Tri-Predicus Council, the gradual insinuation of Maximal dominance of Cybertronian politics and diplomacy, and the introduction of new revolutionary technologies that completely altered the way of life of all Cybertronians via Protoforms, CR Chambers and internal nanotechnology.

In summation, I feel that a loosely related prequel is the direction we should take for the reasons I proposed above. Thank you for reading.

I've written prequel fics and an entire 14-fic sequel series. They are the best in terms of creative freedom. While I love "retellings", it's still limiting all of us to that one world and set of characters (unless we have it in a different setting).

I think a sequel or prequel is the way we should go, perhaps including the Beast Warriors, although they could play either large or small roles in the storyline.

There's only one problem with this. I am not at all clued up on G1 (I'm a Beast Wars fan only) and I have been told in the past by fans of both generations that the Cybertron I wrote was "very innacurate". I didn't care, because I had fun making up my own version of Cybertron, loosley based on what I had read and seen of it in BW, BM and TF:TM. But I don't know how everyone else is going to feel. Some of us might have a good G1 knowledge and be picky in the way Cybertron is portrayed, what's canon etc. whereas others might not care at all.

Just something to consider. I'll wait and see what people feel about the proposed ideas. Someone might suggest something entirely different that we decide to go with. That's the beauty of writing with a group.

I've got decent knowledge of the Cartoon G1 universe. The Comic continuity however I'm largely in the dark about.

I think it's safe to say though that the Great War ended before 2010 at the very least, which would put any prequel involving Maximals and Predacons in safe territory, provided we give a bit of breathing room for a peace treaty and sufficient time for technology to advance and encompass the necessary miniaturisation.

Another idea that occurred to me as I was writing this would be a "Mirror Universe" type series, where the Maximal Criminal Optimus Primal leads his crew of desperados in an attempt to gather energon and revive the dying Maximal Rebellion from their evil Predacon Overlords, but is pursued by the Heroic and legendary Predacon General Megatron, who seeks to reclaim the Golden Disk...

In my opinion I think a sequel would be best because, as Sapphire has pointed out, some of us know very little about G1 and everything that is established about Cybertron from that show. I think a sequel would be allowing the entire writing group a more relaxed and confident area to work in if we write something which is happening post-Beast Wars. Its familiar territory AND it has not yet been down (besides BM). We would almost certainly as writers and creators have free reign on almost all aspects of Cybertron, diplomatic tensions between Maximal and Predacons AND we'd be able to continue on with something we all already know about. I mean we only have been given tid bits of information about Cybertron in the BW era, so we'd have a lot of control of what we could make Cybertron be like in this series.

Another point is that we should be writing something that all Beast Wars fans would be interested in reading. If we do something pre-BW which includes aspects and overlaps of G1, we may loose some of our BW-only fans at the site and in general. If this series is to be set post-BW the readers know they are walking into somewhat familiar territory where THEY have the upper hand, THEY have the backstory, and then WE have something, that everyone loves and knows(fans and writers alike), to build on.

I do like the idea of having a secret war during an era of "peace", that is interesting to me, but for the previously stated reasons, I'm not so sure I'd feel comfortable as a writer, writing in such an unfamiliar era of Transformers.

If we were to make this series post-BW, then I'll put forward the idea that we should make the primary cast of this series purely our own invention. We can always have "guest appearences" by the BW cast members when the story allows (which would make those stories all the more fun), but I think we should set this series apart: keeping the same feel of BW but reviving it as a new series in the same universe. If any of you have seen Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis... I think we should do a 'spin-off' in the same vein of Atlantis... keep the stories seperate, but still in the same universe and have possibilities for tie-ins with it's mother series. I think we should think of this as "Beast Wars: The Next Generation" lol.... not exactly, but I hope you get my drift. Anyway...I'll have some more of my ideas on here when time and college permits lol, but for now... I just wanna see what others think too.... see ya!


Skyfire

Personally, I have been thinking of prequels (sp, sry) as being a great idea. Then again, I'm thinking of making this rather difficult, and going for using the BW-characters a lot in it. Honestly, I'd love to see circumstances (or possible circumstances) that caused the characters whom we really care for become who we know them as. Having read the previous replies to this, even though it'd be easier to use original characters, I feel that we should push ourselves. We're supposedly the "lead writers" of the current BW-fandom era, right? So why not push the envelope a bit?

Granted, I know that I'm being a bit biased, having been a Dinobot fan for so long, but I'd love to see how he came to be who he was. The same with Rattrap, and especially Rhinox. But if we're anything like what our reputations claim us to be, then we know that writing is something more than a talent or a passion. It's a specific muscle with a specific purpose: To give dreams life.

I'm getting off-topic. Sorry.

Okay, getting back to the issue: I'm a BW fan through and through, and nothing will ever change that. Honestly, as blunt as possible? I want to do a prequel. I honestly think that it'd be fun and a great challenge. So that's my vote.

I agree with what Sinead said, but I'm also a biased DB fan, so take my vote with due caution

I'd like to point out that a good knowledge of G1 is not entirely necessary if a prequel route is taken.

A Century of time for Cybertronian society does not herald nearly as much change as a century for Terran society. The people of 1906 would be utterly flabbergasted by the society and people of 2006, for instance, whereas with Transformers and Cybertronians in general, a century of displacement doesnt really mean a whole lot.

If we were, for instance, to throw Primal back one hundred years, there wouldnt be a massive culture shock. Cybertronian society is much slower evolving, hence the Cybertron that was alluded to throughout the beast wars wouldnt be a whole lot different at any point involving Maximals and Predacons in the past.

The history and culture of Cybertron as a whole was never fully covered, in the cartoons or the comics from what I can gather at Wikipedia, and attempting to tie in directly to it all would be an incredible pain.

Of course, this is the primary benefit of a group project. If any part of history alluded to appears to be deficient, we're bound to have a G1 Junky on board that will raise hell

Well, I'm all for a Prequel and Sequel but I really had my heart set on redoing the series, kinda like a remake of something for the new century. Adding stuff and taking out other less exciting and important diologue.

A sequel would be great because it means that we may or may not be able to change the dialogue that they go home right after The Nemisis is sent back into the ocean and erace Beast Machines all together.

A Prequel means that we can add more insight to the characters that weren't exactly developed in the series that we think the writers could have done better at describing.

Unfortunately, I can't make a vote at this point and time seeing as my thoughts on all three are the same. I'll check back and see if there are any other good points added to this discussion.


WW

Well, guys, you got me thoroughly confused now. You all have a point. I'm wondering wether we can't write something that will satisfy everyone's wishes. I already said something simillar in the prequel miniseries discussion thread.
Let's put it like this.
1. We have events that are happening post-BW. This way the future of the characters belongs to us. (Because if you're writing a prequel, what's gonna happen to them later is pre-determined and I don't much like that. I prefer more open endings.)
2. We disclose a major amount of the characters' past which nturns out to be important for the current storyline.
3. If we want to use characters like Dinobot (And I'm sure we do ) we'll have to alter the events that happened in the BW which is in a way a retelling.
Well, voila. Hopefully, everyone's happy. It's not very easy to write but it's not like I've just discovered hot water. This technique has been used in many good fics, i.e. Lady Dementia's Celestial Skies series.
So what do you think of that?


Yours,
Rainy

Hm. So it looks like what we're looking at doing is a COMPLETE retelling, huh? Almost like this:

~ Writing their pasts
~ REwriting the Beast Wars
~ Writing their futures (and effectively wiping Beast Machines offa the face of the planet)

Because not only is that a HUGE project, but it'll be a fun one. I'm for it, all the way.

Hmm, yeah, Sinead, now that you say it, it does sound rather huge... Great! (especially the wiping BM outta the face of the universe part Since we're such a big number of authors we should write something big, no?
Rainy

To be honest, sequels/prequels have been done a LOT. I could get behind either of those choices if they were different enough from what other authors have already written, but I'd prefer the "retelling" bit.

Ooo! Hey! Maybe we could write a fanfic series based on the original alligator Megatron/bat Primal pack-in comic! Y'know, it takes place on modern-day Earth, with the Transformers bio-engineeing Beast Modes, Megatron and Optimus being the ORIGINAL Megatron and Optimus, etc.? I don't think that's ever been done before!

Maybe we should do an expansion of season 2... we should create 13 original 'episodes' that fit within the already established stuff of S2... we could expand on some story arcs... create our own mini ones... do some backstory building episodes for some of our fav characters and just have fun with it. I think this option would be a good compromise for those that wish to do prequel(back story) stuff and the rewrites.

With this option we'd be fleshing out an already amazing season of BW... getting to know more about Tigatron and Airrazor before they're killed off... more about Dinobot's struggle... more development for Silverbolt and just we'd be working around the best material and characters BW has (except for DC, but maybe we could have him in an episode that has flash backs or backstory of Rampage)... anyway I think this option provides things for everyone here to have fun with.


Later...

sorry I haven't been popping up as often as I should, marching band is a real killer.

Anywho, I am really liking the idea of expanding on season 2 (and season 3?) There's just so much material and ideas to work with. Perhaps we could even discuss the idea of the Dark Glass episode?

is that the right episode I'm thinking about? (needs more chicken soup)