(META) With Regards to the Turtledove
I’m sure you can guess what this is about from the title.
So, the timeline won a Turtledove! Specifically, you all voted for it as the Best Pop-Culture Timeline.
I was not expecting to win it at all, frankly, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this had been nominated. So I want to thank everyone who voted for the timeline in the poll, as well, it wouldn’t have won without you.
It’s important to also mention that this timeline is by no means a solo effort, and I must thank
@tornadobusdriver,
@Ogrebear,
@Drorac, and especially
@The Chimera Virus for the work they’ve put into this as well. (If you think you should be listed here too, please tell me, as I've probably just forgotten you.)
But I didn’t want to just thank you, I wanted to give a little something in return, so I’m making this an update like the one year anniversary one. So, this will be split into four parts: “What Was”, “What Might Have Been”, “What Will Be”, and “What May Be”. So yeah, it’s more of a “behind the scenes” update.
What Was
So, the last update took a little while. Both of us working on it hit creative blocks at points, and we changed a couple of stories after the update. But we discussed a few other things during our many talks, and I think we have a much better idea of where Odyssey is going to go in the future.
So, I’m going to touch on a couple of retcons that we’re pulling with the timeline, neither of which are massive changes, but I thought you deserved to know anyway.
- Lt. Barclay will be played by Michael Jeter, not Dwight Schultz. Jeter is better for the type of characterisation we want to do with him. This will have a very minor effect elsewhere where we need change an actor in ODY season 1 (when Jeter guest starred originally).
- Julian Amoros will become Julian Bashir. I’m having a very hard time getting his name right when I write, and Bashir works much better with the character’s ethnic background.
Generally, I try to avoid retconning, but these are a couple of cases where I think it will work in the timeline’s favour.
What Might Have Been
So, what with it only having been three months since the last update where I told you a couple of the ideas that I didn’t use, there’s not a massive amount here, but I thought I’d tell you all some of the other ones anyway.
1: The Other Captain Sisko
So, I may have lied a little last time, and this is mainly because I wasn’t sure whether I was going to do this or not. So, I wasn’t originally going to have Laurence Fishburne as Sisko after I decided against Capaldi, but rather Andre Braugher. I’d already settled on having Sheridan in the show at this point.
But I was seriously considering writing Sisko out at the end of Season 3 of DS9. I was going to lean into the Babylon 5 influences a little more, and have Sisko sent back into the past of Bajor, hence the description of the Emissary as being “A Bajoran not of Bajor”. Sisko was very much going to be a Jeffrey Sinclair-type character, and Sheridan would take his place as station commander. However, this gave me the problem of not being able to do a lot of the Sisko stories I wanted to, so I decided against it.
2: Dax Leaves Early
I won’t reveal my current plans for Dax, but suffice it to say that they are different to OTL. But for a while, Dax was going to be written out during Meridian. I was going to replace her with a male homosexual Klingon, to explore Klingon society. This was mainly because I wasn’t sure what to do with her character, especially since I had no plans for Worf to appear in the show.
As you might be able to guess, the male Klingon turned into K’Rene, and suddenly, I had more ideas for Dax. So, Dax stuck around. I don’t think it would be hugely surprising that many of my favourite characters from TTL are the ones that are either wholly or partially original to the timeline (Kelly, K’Rene, Evek (we saw very little of him in OTL, so much of his character is original).
3: The Other Captain Janeway
Sisko wasn’t the only captain I had some trouble casting. For a very long time, I had planned for Nicola Bryant to have the role, as I believe she was considered in OTL. This had the interesting side-effect that for a little while, all three “TNG era” captains were played by Brits. But I decided against her in the end, especially when I saw some of Claudia Christian’s acting, and saw that she was what I wanted for TTL’s Janeway.
What Will Be
So, here’s a little sneak peak at the plans for the future, specifically, the remainder of 1997.
The rough plan for the year is this:
1.
Season 2 of Star Trek: Odyssey (done)
2. Season 4 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
3. Star Trek VIII
4. Season 31 of Doctor Who
5. 1997 Big Finish
6. Merchandising 1997
7. Titanic
8. Marvel and DC 1997
9. Video Gaming 1997
10. Disney 1997
11.
MYSTERY UPDATE
12. Music 1997
As you can tell, this is going to be a real bumper year. I make it about 14 updates still to come, and that’s not counting the various Appendix updates that will be coming in-between (DW companions for now, but more to come).
I’d previously shied away from touching on anything related directly to politics in the timeline (apart from diversity), but that will be changing a bit. There won’t be any strictly political updates, apart from maybe the MYSTERY UPDATE, but I will mention how politics has changed, or not, in updates where it is relevant. (Next season of Doctor Who will be a case of this).
Also, I’ve mentioned doing a thread set in the Star Trek universe of TTL in the past, and I’m still working on that. I have a good draft for the initial update, so hopefully I’ll put that out soon. That’ll be over in Fandom AH, but I’ll post a link here too.
It will use Kelly as the “POV” character, though I did run into some writing problems when I realised how close he is to being
the archetypical Mary-Sue (fresh out of the academy and posted to the Enterprise), but I think I’ve managed to write him in a non-Sue way. As we get further into the timeline, I realise that I’ve done a lot of worldbuilding for TTL’s Star Trek in my head that we don’t get to see here. Hopefully, that thread should give me an outlet for that. It’s more of a “Lower Decks” style thing, focussed on characters rather than the plot of the episodes the updates will take place in. Effectively, it’s my headcanon for what’s happening in TTL’s Star Trek beyond the updates here.
What Might Be
Okay, I’m not going to give any of the timeline’s story away, but I’ll be talking about a couple of the creative choices I’m considering.
Firstly, I’d like to bring more media into the timeline. I know I enjoy timelines with pictures more (because I apparently am still a child), so I’d like to do something with that, just to make it feel more alive, rather than just words on a screen. This would be things along the lines of Wikiboxes for the seasons, photos from the sets of TTL, etc. It could be fun, and would give me a chance to explore something other than strict writing.
Also, I want to continue fleshing out the Appendix, which I’ve started doing with the various companions, but I’d like to cover some of the concepts from the shows of TTL. As aforementioned, I do a lot of worldbuilding in my head, and I’d like to put some of that onto a page. I’d like to explain how the Web of Time works ITTL, especially as I’m doing it a little different to what it was in OTL, but that won’t be until after S31 of Doctor Who, as that will introduce a related concept that I want to tackle with that too. If there isn’t any interest, I’ll leave them be, but I’d like to do them.
Right, hopefully we’ll be back to a more regular update schedule. I’m not sure whether the next update will be DS9 or an Appendix update, but it should be out either tomorrow, or the day after.
So, I thank you all again for continuing to read this, and for voting this Best Pop-Culture Timeline 2020. I’ll see you all soon.