Neverworld
From DreyNet
Neverworld is the result of my English Composition thesis project during my senior year of college. It was a work of collaborative fiction between myself and 20 or so participants. It was written over email.
Contents |
Developing the Story
When reading a good science fiction or fantasy novel, especially one that is part of a series, I always notice the depth to which the fictional world has been developed. Some authors go so far as to draw maps of their world, write entire histories, develop the cultural background of the inhabitants and invent fictional languages for the characters to speak and write.
I wanted to do something similar for a story of my own. I thought I could create a whole planet and people it with an alien race. I would develop a history and a culture for them. I would think of a bizarre new ecology and strange but realistic animals. As my project progressed, I found that it was pretty damn hard to do all that in the time I had.
A lot of what went into the final world which I designed came from ideas I have had for stories over the past several years. When I was in high school, I imagined a world where everyone was black or at least the same race. I wondered how people would treat each other in such a world; whether new kinds of prejudice would appear. This idea was the seed for creating the Geden, the natives of the planet Geda.
Having attended a Christian high school, some of my story ideas are influenced by Biblical, spiritual and/or metaphysical subject matter. At one time I began a story about Biblical events from the perspective of Lucifer, but angel stories had become so cliche in the Christian fiction genre that I gave it up to look for new subject matter.
Ideas like these helped form the religious mythos of Geda. The "gods" that rule the planet, Gede and Gesta, are actually the angels assigned to guard the Garden of Eden mentioned in Genesis. They abandoned their post and as punishment, God told them they would have to guard the garden forever. He removed the garden from Earth and flung it into a parallel dimension where it grew into another an entirely new planet.
As on Earth, a race of humanoids developed. They were known as the Geden. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, had a rule about any alien races that were created for the show. He said that they must always be humanoid and their faces may not be totally obscured. He wanted the aliens to retain a semblance of humanity so that the audience could always relate. This was my philosophy with the Geden. I didn't want them to be too bizarre, otherwise the readers/players would find it difficult to relate to them.
So the Geden were like humans, but they had orange skin, uniform brown gold-flecked eyes, four fingers and toes, and they had better hearing and vision. To make them a bit more interesting, I also gave them telempathy, the ability to communicate thoughts and emotions without speaking. This was also a useful device that explained how they could talk to humans without knowing English.
Some time later I realized that the Geden seemed similar in appearance to the protagonists in the Pini's comic, Elfquest. It was completely unintentional.
Almost as a whim, I decided that the average Gedan lived to the age of 40 spans (a span is not quite as long as an Earth year). Around the age of 40, they underwent massive brain trauma and almost always died. Those that survived were viewed with special awe and they went on to live for 40 or more spans. This little detail developed into what the Geden call the Change. A major plot line developed because one of the players, Professor Istvan, wondered if there were a way to avoid the Change.
So I started with these vague ideas of a planet and an outline for a race to live there. But this was not interesting enough to me.
I have been fascinated with the idea of blending different genres into a single fictional world. There is a role-playing game called Shadowrun which combines William Gibson's cyberpunk dark future with fantasy creatures and magic from Dungeons & Dragons. This concept is also played out in many post-apocalyptic literature and films. People living in squalid huts, hunting like primitives, yet their clothes are decorated with transistors and diodes. They could have a spear in one hand and an old automatic pistol in the other.
I went for a similar blend of contrasting genres in Neverworld. The Geden were on the technological level of the Romans, but they also used hover vehicles and rifles which they obtained from the humans.
I thought it would be interesting to have humans from earth living on the planet. Somehow they had been whisked away from their own world and deposited on Geda where they had to make a new life. How did they get there, though? My original idea was that Lakruul, the evil son of Gede and Gesta, had maliciously created dimensional holes in the time-space continuum through which people from earth could be sucked through.
This was too simple. As the story progressed, I developed the idea of how humans came to live on Geda. In earth's future (around 2050), a megacorporation known as TimeCo begins to conduct experiments with time travel and travel through other dimensions. In a drastic temporal mishap, the entire facility, along with the city of Washington is transported to Geda. This accident sends ripples backwards through time as far back as 1830. These ripples cause openings in time-space to appear. I came up with different events that could trigger the activation of one of these openings.
I thought it would be interesting to explain the mysterious disappearance of planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle as temporal holes that led to Geda, the Neverworld. But I never really implemented that in the story.
People that suffered great trauma or went into comas could also be transported to Geda. Professor Dave Herrold (he teaches ceramics) got his hand caught in a clay blender and blacked out because of the pain. When he woke up, he was in Neverworld. Troy Cummings was hit by a car on his way home from the Center for Contemporary Media and went into a coma. While his body remained in Putnam County Hospital, a solid psychic representation of himself went to the other world.
The nuclear detonations on Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened huge rifts, drawing everyone who died there into another world.
Meanwhile, TimeCo is busy trying to discover a means that will allow them to return to Earth. All of their experiments have failed, but they usually result in people from Earth being mysteriously displaced from their ordinary surroundings.
The Geden didn't take too kindly to their world being invaded by humans, so they usually treat humans with dislike and mistrust.
I had the beginnings of something here. An interesting world to explore and develop. There were possibilities for all sorts of tensions and plots. But I didn't know what to do with it yet. I didn't know how to make it live and move.
Characters
(Players are shown in parentheses)
Geden
- Andrumed - See "Chang-Fortusma"
- Antares - Inquisitor for the Caiden Regents. (Bill New)
- Arraumai - Librarian at Great Library in Caiden. Mother of Ardura. (Istvan)
- Ardura - Spy for the Regents. Daughter of Arraummai. (Beth Kieffer)
- Bogan - Friendly Gedan who takes Hudan and Bishop in from the cold.
- Garion - Profiteering merchant of Japanese art (Riley Chiorando)
- Graed - Young, power-hungry Regent-in-training.
- Grand Regent - Corrupt Geden in power in Caiden.
- Magdeg - Mate to Arraummai and father of Ardura. Died of the Change.
- Shalundar - Regent of Caiden.
- Sherna - Nosey friend of Zenda.
- Zenda - Female art shop owner. (Nadine Farid)
Shun-Gede
- Bellshire - Systems analyst, engineer, electrician. (Greg Stephan)
- Chang-Fortusma - A Shun-Gede leader of old. Previously known as Andrumed. His name means "The bell that rings destiny."
- Danx - Coordinator of Intelligence Operations.
- Dlareme - Warrior/Mage. Brother of Gemoduna (Scott Thornberg)
- Gemoduna - Warrior. Brother of Dlareme. (Jon Clem)
- Hanify - Smuggler. Tekumel's father. Known to Antares.
- Jakratha - Weapons engineer/specialist. (Ryan Houlette)
- Juleva - Intelligence agent. (Josh Vaughn)
- Lareesh - Strong-willed female medic/warrior. Potential love interest for Gemoduna.
- Mateg-Matek - Operations commander of Sector Greyshade.
- Ralen - Genetic engineer. (Dawn Gauthier)
- Tamak - Inteligence agent. (Jim Basney)
- Targur - Intelligence agent and vehicle expert. (Eric Amidon)
- Tekumel - Gedan under interrogation by Antares.
Human
- Ken Andert - Student at Notre Dame. Beth Kieffer's fiance. (Ken Andert)
- Corina Bella - Waitress at a truck stop. (Jessica Rios)
- Bishop - See Master Gamesman
- Bumba - Tommy Pucci's huge bodyguard.
- Ricardo Cazador - Spanish New York cab driver. (Rod Musser)
- Chantal - Nice young girl (Gene DeClark)
- Walker Cincinatti - Badass (Tom Chiarella)
- Byron Craft - Friend of Troy Cummings.
- Troy Cummings - Student at DePauw University. (Troy Cummings)
- Donna - One night stand for Walker Cincinnati.
- Sean Es - Former public relations consultant. Now a fence in Elsewhereville. (Chris Gottbrath)
- C.S. Farland - Medical intern (Kim Hemmerlein)
- Thyraxxis Hellfist - Lord of Chaos.
- Dave Herrold - Art professor at DePauw University. (Dave Herrold)
- Hudan - Self-given name of half-Gedan/half-human. He doesn't realize he is actually Lakruul.
- Kayne - Battle General of the Brotherhood of Chaos.
- Kerry Martin - Friend of Troy Cummings.
- Akira Matsushima - Yakuza boss in Motz.
- Nowhere - Dimension-wandering vigilante.
- Beth Kieffer - Student at DePauw University. Ken Andert's fiance.
- Madeliene Powers - British cellist and high school German teacher. (Anna Klump)
- Tommy Pucci - Former Italian mob boss. Elsewhereville fence. Owns "Villa Pucci."
- Pung-Lao - Japanese dwarf that works for Walker Cincinnati.
- Tevlev Retsel - Degenerate noise musician (Les Longino)
- Lora Scholar - Female body-builder (Mark Seketa)
- Kevin Waltman - English major at DePauw University (Kevin Waltman)
- Yoshi - Ex-member of Yakuza on Earth. Freelance fixer and gunrunner.
