So…apparently, Aaron wants to visit his darkest hour sooner than intended. I’ve been thinking, and maybe draft 3.5.1 is in the offing (which basically means another fast forward and 3.5, like 3.0, becomes background for everything that comes later). Anyhow, that’s what’s percolating in my brain, and has been since about 5:15 this evening. We’ll see what’s born of it after I sleep on it, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea–the more it makes sense to me, more sense than starting it with the mission that breaks him and telling that story pretty much start to finish.
Enter the A’duuin!
So I came up with what the consortium of non-human races that have positive relations with the Epsilon Alliance call themselves: The A’duuin. It fit better than something like “the League” or anything like that (the League just makes me think of the League of non-aligned worlds from Babylon 5). Colloquially, humans of the Alliance simply term their non-human trade partners and sometime allies as “the Races.” But these people wouldn’t call themselves that. Hence, A’duuin.
Basic update – 2.18.09
So the rough page count on the thesis stands at fifteen, including a page of figures (which is actually just a map from Caroline Shenton’s fantastic article from EHR 114). About…hm. Half of that is actual things written that I’ve thought through and mulled over in my brain. All single spaced. Still a ton of work to do, though — a huge, major ton of work to do, which may either commence tonight or tomorrow morning, I’ll decide after I’m done writing this (the sister brought me coffee from Starbucks, so I’m going to be up for a wihle longer, that’s for certain). As for Epsilon, the count stands at six and a half pages (a shade over 4,000 words) on draft 3.5 (waiting on feedback from a couple folks on the beginning; I’ve been scribbling notes in a notebook like crazy for a couple weeks, though). Not a bad start, considering I hadn’t really touched it in more than a year. Things are looking to become far darker and strangely more interesting the more I stew over concepts and ideas for the story.