Discussion You Know You're a Fan Fiction Writer When...

When you read, watch, or play some form of media (game, book, etc) and wonder how to cross it over with another universe.

 

I often think along similar lines when engrossed in a good book or game (especially if it's a series). However, rather than thinking about how to cross such a thing into Star Wars, I wonder how the premise and overall plotline could be told within the context of the GFFA. As opposed to its original location and such.

 

I was reading Star Trek: New Frontier again and what popped into my head was a New Frontier and Star Wars crossover.

 

If I had a dollar for every notion of Trek/Wars crossovers that've ever been voiced/typed...

Hell, it's something I'd like to write...someday...

 

...when you feel dismay that the first challenge out of the One True Pairing thread is an argument between your two, that does not get resolved at the end, and you balk at putting your two through that.

Although I love crossovers, I have never done a SW/ST one, and only really like them if they treat the franchises fairly.

I can recall my favourite of the comparison comments: The Death Star doesn't care whether your planet is M-class or not.

 

Nobody said that it remains unsolved FOREWAH.

 

Still, I just don't want to go there. Yet.

 

Courage!

(continuing in the other thread, because it's on-topic there, so people don't have to chase it)

 

I've done two SW/ST crossovers that are posted on FFNET and a quasi one that is posted here.

For me it would border on cruel and unusual to bring a ship from ST to SW simply because of the vastness of the galaxy and the punch SW ships have vs ST ships. But I'm sure that ST characters could put SW characters to shame with the knowledge that they have on various subjects. I doubt Admiral Piett or Admiral Akbar would be able to offer Engineering any meaningful help if half the Engineers were dead and they needed to stop a reactor core meltdown. I don't know about other ST captains but Janeway at least could lend a hand stabilizing a warpcore.

At the end of the day it really boils down to what you want to do and what the genre is.

 

In this case the Starfleet captain is Mackenzie Calhoun.

 

I'd keep in mind they'd have to have a basic understanding of protocols and various disaster scenarios and how to manage them. They do have to understand how things work at the very least, even if they don't understand the detailed inner workings. They may not understand exactly how each part or anything works, but as long as they understand the emergency protocols (how to cooldown, for example), they should be fine. And I expect that of any competent commander - to know the basics, to know what to do in most, if not all, situations, and to be able to get creative if those situations fail.

As well it'd be difficult on either ship to kill all the engineers, as they likely wouldn't all be clumped together in one room. (Unless it's their annual Sabaac night, LOL.) All they'd need is one or two persons who understand the more elaborate details to aid in disaster response.

 

Read some of the books a few years ago and there was quite the interesting almost mismatched crew and amusing dialogue.

Don't remember a lot about the series though.


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Except that the underlying basis for Star Trek technology is almost as different from Star Wars tech, in just about every realm, as it is possible to be. In Star Wars, the computers don't talk to you, while in Star Trek, they do and can even provide emergency tutorials (lol); at the same time, Star Trek tech has been "on the scene" and evolving for only a couple of hundred years at most (as of the latest TV series), while Star Wars tech was around in (roughly) the same state for well over twenty-five millennia—at the time of the films. Part of the charm of Star Trek, however, is the ability to unwrap complex problems and reason one's way toward a practical solution, such that any competent team of Starfleet engineers could have the powerplant of, say, a Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser digitized and analyzed inside a day. Give'em a week, and they'd be able to start building Victory-class Star Destroyers.

And yes, I would say that it would be a fair trade-off, as this makes up for the fact that Star Wars warships are so vastly overpowered compared to even the latest Starfleet vessels.

 

No doubt there are differences as you mentioned. My opinion was not lessening them, it was merely pointing out that a Starfleet Captain is not definitely "more capable" or "knowledgable" than a Star Wars commander. They'd both probably be entirely lost in the other's universe, at least until they had a chance to get used to everything around them.

 

Wonder if transporter technology would present an advantage to Star Trek vessels? I'd say yes, insomuch as it can be a surprise factor a creative Star Trek universe captain can use.

 

This discussion is one of the signs we are fan fic writers.

What I meant with my comment about knowledge was a personal opinion and I was using the first episode of Star Trek Voyager in which the Chief Engineer of the ship is killed along with several engineers and the warp core was damaged. Since they need the warp core the captain helps the uninjured surviving engineers make emergency repairs.

I have no doubt that Admiral Piett knows the protocol where a damaged reactor is concerned but my point really was if he was in a similar situation I personally don't think he could assist the surviving engineers with emergency repairs unless he studied engineering either in his spare time or heavily considered being an engineer.

Now I'm curious; how well trained are Imperial Officers. Obviously the Stormtroopers only seemed to need to pass the firearms safety course and how to march in formation. But are the officers trained in emergency repairs? Part of me says yes simply because it would be practical on some level.

I have a lot to think about.


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Yeah, I don't think anyone but a nuclear engineer could fix the reactor. But I don't doubt that any commander should be able to understand basic information at the very least. Perhaps they're not repairing couplings in the reactor, but they know what it means when various mechanisms fail!

My head canon says in the Navy they are trained in basic engineering, ship functions, navigation, basic emergency medical care, mechanics, basically anything you would need to understand the ship's basic (or intermediate) functions and so on. They would also need instruction for anything else though - strategy, tactical studies, leadership, etc.

YKYAFFW when you have a headcanon of what various officers must know after serving in the Academy.

 

My GM used to source the deckplans for my game's , Marauder-class corvette from the Colonial Chrome website in the UK.

The owner of the site designed deckplans for SW vessels, and seemed very knowledgeable in his own way, and while he did not champion his opinions on many things, there was one thing that he got serious about, and that was the idea of any person on a spaceship in the Star Wars universe, accessing their own engines to try to fix them inflight.

He was able to accept Artoo and the other astromechs going onto Padme's ship's hull to conduct repairs, but doing the SW equivalent of having techs going through Jeffery's tubes, and doing stuff to their engines from inside the ship, anywhere other than a drydock, or planetside, that was a no-no.

http://www.colonialchrome.co.uk/Pages/Rants/Rant_Chair.html

Looking at the page, which are actually his points against Captains having chairs, and the Engineering bit; he actually does make a good point: compared to Star Trek, the ships in Star Wars really do go overboard with redundant engines.

Eleven engines on a Blockade Runner? Really?

Frag up a warp core on a Starfleet vessel, and that is pretty much your lot, in terms of interstellar travel.
SW vessels do tend to be able to still go, if a single engine or the primary hyperdrive motivator gets knocked out.

 

...When you make yourself cry by watching interviews with people who have almost lost loved ones, just so you can write it more accurately.

 

YKYAFFWW.... you spend a good 15 minutes reviewing your own old fanfic work while writing a new one to pay "homage" by tossing in some light references. Names, places, and other miscellaneous titles that nobody would ever catch as familiar except for you, for private entertainment.

 

I do that. In my roleplaying too, which tends to please my GM no end, referencing some old part of his storyline, that my character has participated in.

On the plus side, I tend to make myself laugh due to a joke or something funny in one of my old posts; on the negative side, I see where I have forgotten something, and been giving the wrong information for a while.

Admiral Volshe , that is definitely suffering for your art! I am impressed!

 

Sith-I-5 I always do that in my Roleplaying posts! And here I was afraid that I was annoying other players by referencing things that happened a month ago in-game, but...a year or more ago out-of-game.

 

Oh my goat, that is absolutely hilarious...I want to do the same.

That said, I know butter is butter in SW, but what would be the equivalents of lobster and zucchini?

 

What I usually do if I want a specific Earth animal to sound "spacey" is to take a look at the scientific classification and use the Latin terms. Though it doesn't sound just as good in this case, it becomes nephropids and cucurbs.

 

I've done with with animals and plants a couple of times.