Main Menu

Q&A with the creator of Chronicles:CE

Thu, Mar 13, 2014 10:29 PM


I have a hard time explaining what it is exactly I'm trying to do with Chronicles:CE to my friends and family when we're talking about it, so I thought I'd put together a small list of some of the questions I've gotten and how I can best answer them. A few of them I just threw in because I'm sure someone's thinking them. If you have a question about the Chronicles:CE universe, please feel free to post them to this article or our Facebook page and we'll try and get them answered for you.

Q. What is the community driven story scheme you've dreamed up?

You know when you're watching a really cool show and it's over and you get up and start jumping on the couch pretending your in the movie along side your heroes? Me, too! I mean, that's what truly makes these stories great, they makes you want to be apart of these worlds. That's why we've created such massive fandoms. I don't know how many stories I've dreamed up based on other movies, all the "What if's?" The problem is, as amazing as those stories are, they only take place in our heads. Some fans are so enthralled with their stories that they submit them fan sites and it become fan fiction. What's remarkable is that some of those stories are just as good as the original developer's. But because they're only considered fan fiction, they never get a chance to become a part of the true story we all know and love.

And that's where Chronicles:CE is different. We're trying to take that enthusiasm people put into fan fiction to the next level. We want those amazing stories that you've come up with, and we don't want them as fan fiction. We want them as fan lore, we want to make them apart of the Chronicles:CE universe. We've tried to create an amazing Sci-Fi type universe that takes inspiration from as many possible stories out there without getting too crazy so you can adapt your personal stories and make them apart of it.

Q. So I can just write up any story and add it to the Chronicles adventure?

Not exactly. It has to fit in with the universe that we're building. You'll get a good impression of what that universe entails by reading the main story arc (the works created by myself or others on the lore team.) Once you understand that, you can modify your idea so that it fits in.

We're trying to give you as much freedom as possible, but we also don't want something that's completely ridiculous. It's really important to us to respect the story and the story process, and produce something that's actually contiguous. That's why we've put a submission/approval process into place, to make sure that the submitted works are actually enriching the overall story, not taking away from it.

Q. Can writers make their own characters or do I have to use ones that you've made?

Heck ya, you can make your own! You can make your own series of stories that follows your own character through the Chronicles:CE universe. The way we've build the Chronicles:CE universe, there's three big governments, each having about 20 planets. There's over 7 billion people on Earth right now, so try and figure out how many people inhabit the Chronicles:CE universe, especially when you start adding things like space stations, Enterprise-like star ships, privateer ships and so on. You could even build a character based on yourself and tell us what you'd be doing in this type of world.  If you're feeling stuck for an idea, I've already introduced several minor characters throughout the story, tell us where you think their story took them off to. If you want to do your own series of stories, contact us so we can discuss your plans, we'll make you your own Saga to contain it all.

Q. Can I use characters from other movies and stuff, like a cross over?

As awesome as that would be, there's some very legal repercussions from doing that kind of stuff without the owner's permission. We do have a section for that kind of stuff, a fan fan fiction if you will. However, if you really want to make it a part of the Chronicles:CE universe, you have to get permission from whatever entity owns that franchise. If you manage to pull that off and can show us proof, we'll gladly use it as Lore.

Q. So what can we expect to see from Chronicles:CE? What's your plan for the future of Chronicles:CE?

Right now, I write all of the main story arc myself and I also do all the programming on the website. Because of this, my duties are a little wide spread at the moment. My goal is to try and spend two weeks a month on story content and the other two week on site improvements. (At least until I can sucker some programmer into volunteering to give me more time to work on story.) Unless in the case of a natural disaster, you'll be seeing at least one chapter from me every month to add too the main story arc, but hopefully more. Now that most of the introductory chapters are out, I'm hoping to move to a new format that will cover a smaller amount of scenes using much more detailed. Hopefully this won't require as much time, meaning I can put more stories out in shorter periods.

I've also recruited a couple of my good friends and family to make up my art team. I'm sure you've notice there isn't much art to go with our works right now. They started a little late, so they're still playing catch up with all the content already developed. You should start seeing a lot of those question marks on the reference page starting to disappear over the next couple weeks. Once they're caught up and not working on any concept designs for upcoming release, I'm going to start pushing them to work on trying to add some comic book type art to add to the main story arc, the plan is to create a kind of a story/comic hybrid layout where you'll have about one comic page for everyone five pages of text (but they don't know that yet, unless they're reading this :) ) We also encourage our fans to supply as much fan art as they can, we'll link it into our stuff as well.

Q. What inspired you to create the Chronicles:CE universe?

The original idea for the story started when I watched Star Ship Troopers a long time ago, longer then I really care to admit. While I enjoyed the movie, one of the things that I didn't like was how everyone in the story went off and joined the military. I kind of thought, "What a wasted opportunity to show so many different aspects of the future." I mean there's government and the corporations, not to mention personal and entrepreneur adventures. After that, it was just a matter of defining my characters, finding out what made them special. Once those elements where in place, the universe just kind of built itself around them. As I was inspired by other stories, I would always think of how something similar would play out in my universe. I ended up with so many ideas over the years, I finally decided to start writing them down, just to get them out of my head and make room for more. I felt this story was just too good to keep to myself, so I decided to use some of my nerd skills and create a website so I could share it. With any luck, maybe others might enjoy it, too.

Q. What made you decide to do it as a community based project?

Well, that all comes from a controversial piece of fan art that made it's way up onto what is now called the Doctor Who Hub Facebook page (I'm a huge Whovian.) It was a picture of River Song and David Tennant's Doctor where she attempted to straighten a missing bow tie. Noticing he wasn't complete yet, not her Doctor. Lot's of fans were like "Awwwww" Others were like "Matt Smith had barely accepted the role. He hadn't even picked out his costume yet. It's just a fan's imagination." One brave fan stood up and said something to the effect of "We know. We don't care. This is awesome and as far as I'm concerned, this is lore in my book."

That's what got the wheels turning. That's when I realized that we fans are just as enthusiastic about our fiction as the creators, maybe even more. There were so many characters I had briefly met developing this story and wanted to get to know more. There was no way I would have enough time while working on the main characters' story to do so, though. By opening the story to allow other's contributions and let them expand on the Chronicles:CE universe, I could get to know these characters and many more. Maybe even get a different perspective on my own characters. I then pointed at my website and using my best Captain Picard voice I said, "Make it so."

Q. Is there going to be any aliens in your story?

Of course! What kind of futuristic sci-fi doesn't have aliens? We're actually going to introduced an alien race in this next chapter. Other then that, it's still a pretty big galaxy. As it stands, even though the human race has spread to the stars, it still takes a very long time to get anywhere. So much that a large amount of the galaxy is still unexplored. To give you an idea of how much, get a CD or DVD and a pencil or pen. Now imagine the CD or DVD is the Milky Way Galaxy and place the end of the pencil or pen about where our solar system would be. The part covered by the pencil represents the known universe of the Chronicles: CE story. In the known universe, we've found several planets steaming with life, just none of it has been intelligent (so far.) But whatever lies outside of that is totally up to your imagination.

Q. Chronicles:CE is a futurist science fiction based story, are there any plans to expand your community based story concept to other genres?

YES! I actually have an amazing fantasy based story that's been intruding on my ability to sleep lately. Whether or not it gets implemented depends completely on the success of Chronicles:CE however. If we decide to implement it, or any other story, we'd have to make sure that it doesn't take away from the development of Chronicles:CE, and that we can manage both entities separate of each other.

We hope this answers any questions you might have about Chronicles:CE. If not, feel free to ask them and we'll get them answered!

-Rick

Comments on this post

You must be logged in to add a comment.