Entropy, Ltd. plot outline

When we last left our intrepid adventurers... er, world, something, there was a war beginning. Rather, one that’s been going on for just shy of 20 years (assuming this is 2418, where the timeline was last updated).

Now, this universe didn’t have much of a direction formerly. There were a couple of side-plots (most notably the Calypso and the pseudo-story line of the Confidence), but none of these actually went anywhere in any form other than a rough outline/idea/personal account, a’la “Let’s not bother writing this but pretend we did anyway.” And that’s where things remained stagnant until inspiration struck again.

This inspiration came in the form of one ring-tailed creature, known to this world (and others) as Sethrik R. Taniil. A master of Tane Saru Do (The Way of the Sprung Monkey, and eventually I’ll figure out just what the official title of a master of Tane Saru Do is), he’s 5’11” standing on plantigrade feet, digits on all limbs numbering four, casual, laid-back, fun-loving but responsible, and completely male and mostly heterosexual. Hell has indeed frozen over.

Now, a story centered around Sethrik alone wouldn’t last very long, at least until it was torn apart by “insert yourself here” story critics. So, Sethrik needed some cohorts, inspired by my friends David and Becka, respectively, are Piotr and Kitty Dferahgo. Piotr is a 25th century Space Weasel (his affectionate title in the story), wielding a sniper weapon of some kind that’s longer than he is tall (and I’ll work out exactly what a sniper rifle in the 25th century entails sometime), who wears only cargo pants, sporting some tools of the assassin trade such as grenades, clips, grappling hook and rope, et al.

Kitty, Becka’s avatar, is an anthro puma (more on where each of these three new races fits later), who’s the “tech head” of the group. Rivaling the Velox for pure engineering know-how, she keeps any and all mechanical aspects of the story from falling apart as much as can be expected. As you might guess by the fact that she shares a last name with Piotr, she and him are hitched (yet another parallel to real life), but how exactly the relationship came about will require some careful plotting.

Considering that these three characters are all of races not yet outlined in my universe (Ringtail, Weasel and Puma, respectively), I’ll have to do a bit of tinkering with the Backbone of my universe. This is how I’m going to “weasel” in these three species (pun intended ;):

1. Sethrik is a ringtail, of the family Procyonidae, a trait also shared with raccoons, or the Maskawan in my universe. As such, I’m writing in ringtails as a subspecies of the Maskawan, sharing the same homeworld (appropriately named Procyon).

2. Piotr, of the weasels, is a bit more difficult. Since I have ferrets, the Chawi, I’m going to lump weasels in with them since they’re more or less identical species. Unlike the Ringtails & the Maskawan, Piotr’s subspecies is less removed from the Chawi, and therefore both species will be called “Chawi” even though they’re slightly different.

3. This is also true for Kitty, as I’m expanding the Tak, formerly cheetahs, to include more, if not all, big cats, pumas among them. As Piotr is a “Chawi”, Kitty is a “Tak”, which makes for more interesting plot development since the Chawi are allies and the Tak, up until now, are not.

It’s long been in my mind to set the story line around these three running some kind of trading/transport business from a ship I’ve already designed (but have yet to name and classify). The old Ferengi axiom “War is good for business” (Rule of Acquisition #34, I’m such a nerd) describes their situation pretty well. Loyal to the alliance, they help transport supplies as civilian supporters, helping out the allied effort from an outside perspective, and making a living on the side.

How they came into this business is uncertain. There’s always the old “Father dies and leaves the business to his only son”, as I’m pretty sure Sethrik will have no connections to any other family members, and he’s the only one of the three young/well-adjusted enough to inherit such a thing. This of course begs the question of how he gets involved with a Chawi assassin and a Tak loyalist.

One thing I’m whittling into shape is where the conflict in this storyline comes from. The most obivous way for these three to run into conflict, as transporters, would be something they ended up taking for transport. I could piggy-back this story off the Confidence mission plotline (read) and say that the scrolls recovered from the Tak desert moon were given to this trio as a way to transport them safely within the alliance without drawing the attention of a military effort. This could also be how Sethrik encounters his two cohorts, Piotr perhaps assigned to the mission with his mad assassin skillz (in addition to Sethrik’s martial arts abilities), and Kitty joins them as a Tak defector, to help support her people in a round-about way that the DNS triad & Akula under their control doesn’t want them to know (read more of the Confidencemission plot).

In fact, that seems like an excellent idea. Imagine the compensation (monetary) they’d all receive for a successful transport! But then something has to go wrong to make good conflict. Having the transport go off without a hitch wouldn’t be very interesting, and whatever happens must impact the storyline long-term to make for a sustained story, comic-book style. Or it could be just book length, no need for a comic. One of the many future adventures of this trio, brought together by this mission and remain together through future situations.

What happens to them would probably involve one of the enemy catching wind that the scrolls are on this ship,