The 26th Century

I figured that since there was an "Episode Reviews" thread for the episodes of the main series, I would create a review for the sub series "The Draconian Wars". That way, I can hear all the feedback from people. Please, if you enjoyed it, or have any suggestions for improvements, tell me. Just make sure to put the episode number on the subject line.

I'm aware that this may sound self-centered and unnecessary, since I am the only one contributing to that section of the website at this time, but when other people do post their work there, it'll be a lot less messy to keep the reviews on the "The Draconian Wars".

Just read the second episode.

Good story, loved the ship fight action sequences. Curtis and Cynthia are becoming more interesting characters and I can easily see why you'd want profiles put up for them on the site. I must say having an episode use the Utto or Satel was a thought I'd have never thought of. I just thought of them for that one time use in Time and Again. But then again in season three I'll be connecting some stories together I doubt any one would suspect would ever have certain elements from them come up again. As for the flip side to this review, calling fighter ships or Z-87s "fighter planes," I bet is confusing to readers unfamiliar with the 26th Century stories in general. It makes it sound like air craft are being used in space. Little things did pop up again how ever but not as frequent as in episode one. The only time this confused me was in a part just before act four. Over all the story did capture the spirit right for what makes for a great Buck Rogers story ever if it was Wilma and Fox focused. Which is still good. Those two don't get attention very often so it was nice seeing them how they were in the spot light.

Good job, OB .


Erin

Thank you. This was a nice episode to write, and I kind of consider this the second part of the introduction story, mostly because it deals with the premise of the series: a war between Earth and Draconia. I tried to make most of the scenes in the middle of the story action-orientated, because I realized that I would have to do a lot of talking scenes, and that would have been very boring.

I put Wilma and Fox in the spotlight for a reason, and I'm glad that you liked it. Unlike the main series, I plan on using Fox as a character in most episodes. I'm assuming that most people who read this will already be familiar with the main series, so I didn't really feel that I had to really make Buck known to most extent. The first episode, Buck was used throughout because I wanted to set the scene between Curtis and Buck. Believe it or not, Cynthia was originally designed as a random, faceless type of soldier would do "soldierly" things when needed, but stay in the background when she wasn't. However, I could see some potential to use her as Curtis's assistant.

Third (only more point after this, so bear with me), I used the Utto and Satel because I wanted to tie this episode in to a statement that was made about weapons of mass destruction still being on the planet. I figured Curtis could receive some of those weapons on the black market. One goal of this series is to remain as consistent as possible to the main series. If I could, I would actually number which episode each story would come right after, because the goal would be to fit them intricately. This story, for example, would come right after "Metamorphosis" (it was actually supposed to come after "Time and Again", but I dragged my feet for so long that I finished "Metamorphosis", and I figured the war theme would tie in better there).

Finally, I read your suggestions. I will make sure to call them "fighter jets", which does sound better than planes. Also, I'll look into Act 4, and see if something doesn't flow right. Areas that need improvement are just as important to mention in reviews as the good points.

...I can't believe I messed up the title to some thing I wrote. And to explain, I went to be ultra early last night so when I was typing that first post I meant 'Again in Time'. On the plus side I didn't know last night was the change. Thank goodness the cell phone automatically updated it's self and I still had an alarm go off when it should .


Erin

I wanted to post this yesterday but due to the outage ...rrrr .

Any way this is Mariet's review of the third episode .

It was interesting to read an episode completely written by another author! The pace was a bit slower than I'm used to from your episodes, and I kind of missed the happy end But of course, the reason for both is that this episode is clearly not meant to stand on its own; the story will continue in the next episode.

So this Curtis character, was he invented by Anthony or is he from the original Buck Rogers stories? I didn't recognize him, but maybe that's because I'm most familiar with season 2 of the TV series. I liked the feminist touch (Cynthia)!

Erin

Thank you, Mariet. You did catch on to why the ending was what it was. Actually, the episodes are going to be getting less plot-deep from here. The reason being was that I wanted to take the first three episodes, and saturate them with plot and a premise for a series. Besides the obvious main plot, which is the relationship between Charles and Buck, and what really happened five hundred years ago, there are actually about four or five other themes that I'm going to expand on later in the series, all of which are somewhere in the original three episodes. Needless to say, in terms of plot, you can bet that almost all the important (in terms of plot) episodes are can be traced in someway to these three episodes.

As for the character Curtis, he was actually just a character I made up. I wanted to create someone who would be a challange to Buck from his own time, while also being a Draconian agent. The name was just made up by my mind. I learned after creating episode two that Charles Curtis was actually a Vice President of the United States, but that didn't have any factor on creating the character.

Once again, thanks for the review. They will start getting a bit more fast paced. I already have story 4's plot almost complete in my head, and the teaser is almost finished.

Think I might have already stated this in a PM but if I didn't know better I'd say you were updating a 25th Century story.

Really like how Cynthia and Curtis were written & Buck in the UN. Always been good at public speaking like that and you wrote that bit well .


Erin

Thank you for the review. Again, I've only seen part of the first episode of the original series. But I'm glad that it feels like an original Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode (in essence, of course).

I think I alluded to the fact that there were only nine countries left in the world, or something to that effect. Well, the United Nations has a much more powerful role now, so Buck had to be a good speaker if he didn't want to die. But I'm really glad that you enjoyed that part.

I'm doing things backwards here, because so far I've only read the third story (which I enjoyed, even though I hadn't read the previous ones -- see comments above) and now I'm off to read numbers one and two!

Mariet

Wonderful! You'll have to tell us what you thought about them.

OK, here are my thoughts!

I really like your original character Curtis, because he has many different sides to him. He's not just a cardboard villain: he has an understandable (if wrong) motivation to hate Buck, and besides being crazy and ruthless he also has positive character traits. So it's a pleasure to read about him. I also liked Cynthia. You could say she's the Draconian version of Wilma! Also I liked the story plots, in particular I enjoyed the way you ended some of the Acts. For example, the end of Act Three in the first story where Buck believes that Curtis has killed Wilma (dramatic!) and the end of Act One in the second story where Buck says, "Now all I have to worry about is closing this suitcase" (funny!). I reread the third story and though I had already liked it when I read it the first time, I enjoyed it more now that I knew everything that went before. I'm looking forward to the next story!

Mariet