Populate my spaceship
May. 13th, 2011 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI sat down with a story idea. I wasn't going to write up much about Beatrice meeting Malcolm because it's total Star Trek Enterprise Mary Sue self insert stuff. Because that's what I do when I can't get to sleep. But then I realised in the 'verse I've set up I can start with the same setup - Enterprise hits a mine and Malcolm goes out to defuse it - but it wouldn't go at all the same past that point. I could get actual story out of it. Only now I need to name the ship (Not Enterprise, not least because that's a primary value of a different society than the one I'm setting up), and name the crew, and populate it with more women (two thirds male crew? WHY Enterprise WHY?), and just generally have a ship that Isn't Enterprise.
This starts with ship design. The engines go underneath, not behind. This is because the engines define underneath, on account of pushing the ship into you. If they have a saucer section it looks more like a starbase than a Federation starship. And I'm not thinking a saucer section is a good idea. Maximise the target area why don't you! Paint it up like an RAF circle too, just for fun! So, no. Not a saucer. More like a skyscraper. It doesn't have to be streamlined if it never plans to come down.
So then I wandered off to look for actors to be everyone. ... because otherwise I'd just start writing actual story, and who wants that? So I was looking for Malcolm Park, even though I know full well he's just going to stay Malcolm Reed in my head, and trying to make him Asian gets unfortunate in the visuals department. Found lots of peoples. There could be a ship with Lexa Doig, Tia Carrere, Kristin Kreuk, Dean Cain and Lou Diamond Philips. I found a page http://www.mixedfolks.com/aactors.htm and it says about Lou Diamond Philips "His father is Scottish/Irish/Cherokee and his mother is Filipino/Hawaiian/Chinese/Spanish." In an attempt to demonstrate the whole Earth got into space in as efficient a number of actors as possible that really helps. Also there should be Tahmoh Penikett, because pretty.
Any suggestions? If you were filling up a starship for a five year mission, who would you want around? Or at least, who would you want them to look like?
I still need to find someone for Beatrice to look like. Or some two, really, cause she gets her face rebuilt half way through. So far I'm sure she's black with cornrow hair but that don't really narrow it much. I can't decide how old she is. Even relative to Malcolm. It's possible she doesn't know. Starship travel involving real physics and relativistic speeds would complicate that rather. Also how old she looks depends on how recent the surgery is. I do know she and Malcolm are both average height for their gender, ie short for television. 5'4" and 5'8". I looked up a bunch of my favourite actors and they're all 5'8" or 5'9" according to their profiles (according to fans who stand next to them actors must sometimes count their sticky up hair. I guess being a short bloke isn't so easy.) On TV they stand next to people who make them look tiny. Weird.
I'm going to go look at pictures, maybe design an explorer ship.
This starts with ship design. The engines go underneath, not behind. This is because the engines define underneath, on account of pushing the ship into you. If they have a saucer section it looks more like a starbase than a Federation starship. And I'm not thinking a saucer section is a good idea. Maximise the target area why don't you! Paint it up like an RAF circle too, just for fun! So, no. Not a saucer. More like a skyscraper. It doesn't have to be streamlined if it never plans to come down.
So then I wandered off to look for actors to be everyone. ... because otherwise I'd just start writing actual story, and who wants that? So I was looking for Malcolm Park, even though I know full well he's just going to stay Malcolm Reed in my head, and trying to make him Asian gets unfortunate in the visuals department. Found lots of peoples. There could be a ship with Lexa Doig, Tia Carrere, Kristin Kreuk, Dean Cain and Lou Diamond Philips. I found a page http://www.mixedfolks.com/aactors.htm and it says about Lou Diamond Philips "His father is Scottish/Irish/Cherokee and his mother is Filipino/Hawaiian/Chinese/Spanish." In an attempt to demonstrate the whole Earth got into space in as efficient a number of actors as possible that really helps. Also there should be Tahmoh Penikett, because pretty.
Any suggestions? If you were filling up a starship for a five year mission, who would you want around? Or at least, who would you want them to look like?
I still need to find someone for Beatrice to look like. Or some two, really, cause she gets her face rebuilt half way through. So far I'm sure she's black with cornrow hair but that don't really narrow it much. I can't decide how old she is. Even relative to Malcolm. It's possible she doesn't know. Starship travel involving real physics and relativistic speeds would complicate that rather. Also how old she looks depends on how recent the surgery is. I do know she and Malcolm are both average height for their gender, ie short for television. 5'4" and 5'8". I looked up a bunch of my favourite actors and they're all 5'8" or 5'9" according to their profiles (according to fans who stand next to them actors must sometimes count their sticky up hair. I guess being a short bloke isn't so easy.) On TV they stand next to people who make them look tiny. Weird.
I'm going to go look at pictures, maybe design an explorer ship.