Date: 09 Apr 2009 02:44 Title: Act 1
LOL! Yes, I will definitely have to re-read this again after I make my way through it. It's well-written, but I fully admit to feeling lost.
Author's Response:
Thanks, Steff.
There must have been a Blackberry or two lurking about somewhere nearby ;-)
MuSpace is, as far as I know, unlike anything else in the Star Trek Universe so might present a bit of a conceptual hurdle at first. It may be a special problem for experienced fans, who may try to understand it in terms of canonical ideas such as an Alternate Timelines or Quantum Realities. It is neither of those.
The idea stemmed from near death experiences, where time dilation has been one of the reported symptoms of the experience. It's been proposed by some that the 'tunnel' observed by some people that experience this phenomenon is the portal to heaven. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not.
Without giving it all away, what if MuSpace is at least an instance of the altered reality called heaven, or vice versa? Could MuSpace be one of the unlimited possibilities of existence that Q mentioned in All Good Things ? Or is it merely another Q playground?
If people and objects could be sent to and from MuSpace it would shift the balance of power to those that could control it. Existence in normal-space time might hardly matter any more.
There are a couple of love stories happening, and some tense, gritty moments with a interesting guy who likes to introduce himself this way: "I am the Homunculus L3P2, Third leadership adjunct of Partition Two, Progenitor Unimatrix, the End of Time." He a real fun-loving guy!
Date: 07 Apr 2009 17:37 Title: Teaser
Looks to be an interesting start; tied directly back to the first part of this story of yours. Not easy keeping track of all of the plot elements, but I have a feeling this might be one of those series that requires a couple of readings for it all to click together and all things to be caught.
Author's Response:
Yeah, you're right. The opening scene for the teaser is growing in length with each episode and will fully converge with the other plot elements in Episode 4. And you're also right that I am definitely asking something of the reader, but it's still far from the complexity of a Lord of the Rings or anything like that.
My local cheering section here at home didn't buy in at all until I said, "Okay, Blackberries off ! ", then read them the first episode. I notice more than a few similarly architected series elsewhere on the site and I find I have to print them first to really 'Grok' them, to resurrect the old Robert Heinlein term. Some of the writers on Ad Astra have some heavily invested designs, and the committment required for that is nothing short of heroic.
If I've learned anything from the other work on this great site is that it's a lot easier to attract and sustain interest if you have a strong, interesting protaganist on which the plot elements can sort of hang until the story works its magic.
Many thanks, as always.