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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Gryphon
Charter Member
7000 posts |
Dec-29-05, 11:38 PM (EDT) |
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"Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
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LAST EDITED ON Dec-29-05 AT 11:47 PM (EST) Yup. That's what it says.I've mentioned this a few times, usually in conjunction with promotional materials for Cybertron Reloaded, but - Future Imperfect's wrapping up. Story-timeline-wise, Reloaded will be the last FI story. After Reloaded and Infamy, which run more or less concurrently, the Future Imperfect era - the age of the Earth Alliance, the establishment phase of the International Police and the Babylon Foundation, and the coming-to-age of the new generation of main characters - will be complete, and it'll be time to jump into the UF universe's fourth age. What'll that be like? Well... I can't really tell you that. Not in any specific detail, anyway. That'd give away a lot of the fun. What I can tell you: - It's been in the works for an awfully long time. Seriously. Some elements of what's coming have been kicking around in notes and in my head for more than ten years. I worked on plotting parts of the arc for the post-FI era with the late Derek Bacon, who died nine years ago this month.
- It's big. Really, really big. It might actually be bigger than the Core, not in terms of text length (although that's pretty much a given too), but in terms of what happens and how it affects the universe. It's a standard sort of hype statement, I know, but I genuinely believe that some of the things we have planned are going to make your jaw drop. Remember a while ago I said "beginning sometime soon, we're going to arc-plot you until you can't stand it any more?" Well, here's where it happens.
- It'll play off a lot of the things that have been developed in the background throughout FI, especially in the Symphony and more recent FI stuff (like the Bacon Comics tie-ins). You probably guessed this one for yourself; after all, what've I been doing all that for if it wasn't to make it pay off later?
That doesn't mean we're through with FI; as with the other eras, it's perfectly possible that new FI stories will appear later, set in the appropriate time period, to fill in some of the gaps. (The missing bits of Symphony No. 3 come to mind, though I'm not promising anything specific - I've got some ideas, and so do some of the other Suspects, but nothing really solid yet. We're just leaving our options open in case something does come together.) In fact, aside from Reloaded, there is still one major unfollowed thread to be wrapped up before we can really dive into the new era: Symphony No. 5, which should bridge the Symphony characters right across from FI into the new era alongside everybody else. You may notice that the post-FI era also doesn't have a name yet, but we're working on that. The titles are often the last things to come together. I've got a project in the works to follow up on Road Movie to Naboo that's nearing the 200K mark and still hasn't got a title. Oh, speaking of Warriors of the Outer Rim - yes, that stuff takes place after Reloaded and Infamy, which means when the new era gets properly introduced, Warriors will get moved under the appropriate umbrella. Same for the Transformers follow-up material set in that same timeframe. (That may need some revising once Reloaded is in the can.) So that's it, that's what I can tell you right now. I'm looking forward to being able to show you more - as I said, I've been working on this for a hell of a long time. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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WengFook
Charter Member
810 posts |
Dec-30-05, 04:04 AM (EDT) |
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4. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #0
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>It's big. Really, really big. It might actually be bigger than >the Core, not in terms of text length (although that's pretty much a >given too), but in terms of what happens and how it affects the >universe. It's a standard sort of hype statement, I know, but I >genuinely believe that some of the things we have planned are going to >make your jaw drop. Remember a while ago I said "beginning sometime >soon, we're going to arc-plot you until you can't stand it any more?" >Well, here's where it happens. >--G. >-><- >Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin >Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ I remember you saying something a few months back about a plot arc so big we can't even see where it starts or ends at the moment, something so big that we don't even see the foundations of the plot arc being laid right in front of our very eyes... and i'm taking your word for it :) Heres to a fantastic time in the next era of UF :) _________________________________ We few. We happy few. We band of buggered. |
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BobSchroeck
Charter Member
1513 posts |
Dec-30-05, 09:04 AM (EDT) |
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6. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #0
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>After Reloaded and Infamy ... it'll be time to >jump into the UF universe's fourth age. <LONDO MOLLARI>I was there, at the dawn of the Fourth Age of UF...</LONDO MOLLARI> <grin> -- Bob ------------------- Then the horns kicked in... And my shoes started to squeak. |
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dstar
Member since Oct-19-02
82 posts |
Dec-30-05, 09:41 AM (EDT) |
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7. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #0
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>You may notice that the post-FI era also doesn't have a name yet, but >we're working on that. The titles are often the last things to come >together. I've got a project in the works to follow up on Road >Movie to Naboo that's nearing the 200K mark and still Purely out of curiosity, 200 kilobytes, or 200,000 words? Shalon Wood |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
7000 posts |
Dec-30-05, 11:11 AM (EDT) |
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10. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #7
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>>You may notice that the post-FI era also doesn't have a name yet, but >>we're working on that. The titles are often the last things to come >>together. I've got a project in the works to follow up on Road >>Movie to Naboo that's nearing the 200K mark and still > >Purely out of curiosity, 200 kilobytes, or 200,000 words? 200 kilobytes. I pretty much only measure things by word count when I'm writing for book publication; online it's file sizes, and back at the Times it was column inches (which vary from paper to paper; at the Times one page of text written under Microsoft Word's default page setup would yield about 18 column inches). --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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dstar
Member since Oct-19-02
82 posts |
Dec-30-05, 01:00 PM (EDT) |
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11. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #10
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>>>You may notice that the post-FI era also doesn't have a name yet, but >>>we're working on that. The titles are often the last things to come >>>together. I've got a project in the works to follow up on Road >>>Movie to Naboo that's nearing the 200K mark and still >> >>Purely out of curiosity, 200 kilobytes, or 200,000 words? > >200 kilobytes. I pretty much only measure things by word count when >I'm writing for book publication; online it's file sizes, and back at >the Times it was column inches (which vary from paper to paper; >at the Times one page of text written under Microsoft Word's >default page setup would yield about 18 column inches). Okay. Most of the people I know measure by word count because they write in Word or some other obscenely bloated format that makes a size measure worthless, but I rather doubted you used Word since you're releasing text files... Besides, while I certainly wouldn't object to a 200,000 word story appearing from nowhere, I'd be rather surprised (isn't NXE:TMP the only thing that long that was released as one piece?). Shalon Wood
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Gryphon
Charter Member
7000 posts |
Dec-30-05, 01:13 PM (EDT) |
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12. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #11
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>Most of the people I know measure by word count because they >write in Word or some other obscenely bloated format that makes a size >measure worthless, but I rather doubted you used Word since you're >releasing text files... Nope, for the online stuff I'm still using a willfully-outdated version of GNU Emacs. Raw ASCII all the way. I've been thinking about doing some stuff with a more presentation-friendly style, now that I've fallen so far out of the habit of posting things to Usenet that I'll probably never catch up - it might be fun, for example, to do a website-only story with some fontology and embedded graphics, a la the BPGD files - but the limitations of HTML, my disinclination to spend the time learning CSS, and the general pain-in-the-ass value of doing markup when I'm trying to be creative don't lend themselves to that. The closest I've gotten is the City of Heroes/City of Villains stuff over in Misc, and those only got that treatment because they're so short. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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dstar
Member since Oct-19-02
82 posts |
Dec-30-05, 01:44 PM (EDT) |
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13. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #12
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Vel and I do almost-text only. _Italics_ and *bold* get converted into their html equivalents as part of the process which turns the text files into html files (adds a title, navigation links, links to the story's website and our main website, etc). I'm certainly not going to _write_ html. That's what computers are for. For what it's worth, it took me about an hour to learn enough css to do what I needed (including a two-column layout on the index pages), so it might not be that hard. OTOH, good text is almost always more descriptive than a picture, at least in my opinion. And you've amply demonstrated that you do good text. Shalon Wood |
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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-4-04
41 posts |
Dec-31-05, 11:00 PM (EDT) |
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15. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #14
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HTML isn't so hard, once you get used to it. Then again, it's taken me... eight months to get used to it? And I still don't have all the tricks down. Back on topic... As many times as I've re-read the UF works, from start to finish, I can't pick out any single thing that jumps out and says "Hah! There's where it's gonna start!" I've a feeling this has as much to do with Gryph and co.'s ability as writers as my lack of memory for finite details; perhaps why I get so much enjoyment out of re-reading? Any way you slice it, I think this is going to be great. I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the new stuff (wait, what're tenterhooks again?). --- RCW # X-91873: Making the world a better place (to destroy) AKA, he who codes his pages the old fashioned way. In Notepad... |
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BlackAeronaut
Member since Oct-21-05
87 posts |
Jan-02-06, 08:02 AM (EDT) |
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16. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #15
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I prefer a simple HTML base for posting stuff. It's a great compromise between plain ASCII (which I find is nice in it's own right - EPU being a shining example of this format) and Word Docs (nice to have, but a pain in the ass in a web browser). Over the years I've developed a simple system for inserting HTML into fics that I write. It's clean, simple, and the results are very readable. The biggest help is the <dd> tag, which inserts a line break along with an indentation. Not many people seem to know about this extroardinarily helpful tag and are endlessly using the <p> tag instead. The rest is pretty simple and elementary. As for actually coding all that text? *grins* Well, lets just say that copy/paste is your friend. Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "What? Under the dorsal guiding feathers!?" |
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Slarti
Charter Member
73 posts |
Jan-02-06, 09:19 AM (EDT) |
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17. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #16
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>readable. The biggest help is the <dd> tag, which inserts a line >break along with an indentation. Not many people seem to know about >this extroardinarily helpful tag and are endlessly using the <p> tag >instead. The rest is pretty simple and elementary. Uh. That's because the <dd> tag is for denoting something as a definition in a dictionary list. <p> is for denoting a paragraph. The other people who "endlessly" use <p>? Are doing it right. You? Are doing it wrong, by using a tag in a non-descriptive way in order to gain the incidental and questionable benefit of how some browsers present the tag by default. What you actually want is to use the <p> tag with the "text-indent" CSS style, either in a separate style sheet that gets included in your HTML or defined in each <p> tag with the "style" attribute. And this sort of thing is probably why Gryph sticks to plain text. :-) Slarti -- Chris "Slarti" Pinard - Just zis guy, ya know? Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?
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BlackAeronaut
Member since Oct-21-05
87 posts |
Jan-02-06, 10:39 AM (EDT) |
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18. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #17
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Hrm. So that's what it is. Funny how people and help files don't tell you these little things and I'd never seen any evidence of that tag working any other way than what I'd seen. o_o; Erk... Cascading Style Sheets... Call me weird, but the way I feel about CSS is the way someone defined the word 'Automatic' - more things that can break. I have trouble enough making sure that there's no typoes in my HTML code, which can be compounded by my natural aptitude at making gramatical and spelling errors. Example: ever codded a document in HTML only to discover several nasty gramtical errors that your grammar checker missed and you gotta scrap the HTML version and recode the corrected version and risk making errors again? ^_^;; Oh, nevermind... We're all only human so I guess you have made that mistake before. But you get the idea... I'm an engineer at the core and I stick to the old maxim: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sorry for coming off like a clueless f-wit; I just use what seems to work. Anyhow, is there a way to get <p> to put in only one line break instead of two? Is CSS my only option here? Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "What? Under the dorsal guiding feathers!?" |
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Slarti
Charter Member
73 posts |
Jan-02-06, 12:04 PM (EDT) |
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19. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #18
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>codded a document in HTML only to discover several nasty gramtical >errors that your grammar checker missed and you gotta scrap the HTML >version and recode the corrected version and risk making errors again? Uh, no? Why not just fix the grammar mistakes? The HTML should be incidental to the grammar of the text. >core and I stick to the old maxim: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sorry for >coming off like a clueless f-wit; I just use what seems to work. Except that, in its own way, CSS is keeping things simple. You code your HTML to define the structure of your document -- "this is a paragraph", "this is a list with these elements", "this is a nth level heading", etc., and then you use CSS to define the presentation -- how a paragraph looks vs. a list vs. a heading. Each does a different job. >Anyhow, is there a way to get <p> to put in only one line break >instead of two? Is CSS my only option here? Pretty much. Browsers know little of the "line break" concept, save for someone having snuck the <br> tag in somehow. Instead, there are margins and padding that define the space between elements, which is a presentational matter which CSS is intended to handle. Slarti -- Chris "Slarti" Pinard - Just zis guy, ya know? Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?
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Meagen
Member since Jul-14-02
247 posts |
Dec-30-05, 09:51 AM (EDT) |
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8. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #0
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>It's big. Really, really big. It might actually be bigger than >the Core, not in terms of text length (although that's pretty much a >given too), but in terms of what happens and how it affects the >universe. It's a standard sort of hype statement, I know, but I >genuinely believe that some of the things we have planned are going to >make your jaw drop. Remember a while ago I said "beginning sometime >soon, we're going to arc-plot you until you can't stand it any more?" >Well, here's where it happens.Most of Symphony and related bits so far has been the literary equivalent of a lovely candlelit dinner, with great food, fine wine and excellent conversation. There have been significant looks exchanged, and I believe I may have glimpsed candles and velvet bedsheets in the next room. I think I can safely assume that I will be shouting "oooh, yeah, arc-plot me more, baby" a lot in the near future. :) As a Nethack player, I find your respect for Surtur amusing. |
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WengFook
Charter Member
810 posts |
Jan-03-06, 10:43 PM (EDT) |
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20. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #8
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>Most of Symphony and related bits so far has been the literary >equivalent of a lovely candlelit dinner, with great food, fine wine >and excellent conversation. There have been significant looks >exchanged, and I believe I may have glimpsed candles and velvet >bedsheets in the next room. > >I think I can safely assume that I will be shouting "oooh, yeah, >arc-plot me more, baby" a lot in the near future. :) That was a very odd... example :P _________________________________ We few. We happy few. We band of buggered. |
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trigger
Charter Member
1133 posts |
Jan-13-06, 01:31 AM (EDT) |
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25. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #23
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>But has anyone suggested "The Great Unknown" as a title for this next >'age'? In that vein, wouldn't "The Undiscovered Country" or "The World of Tomorrow" be more appropriate? sorry, I'll stop kibitzing now, t. Trigger Argee trigger_argee@hotmail.com Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc. Denton, never leave home without it. "He who fears his fate too much, never puts it to the touch."
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Gryphon
Charter Member
7000 posts |
Jan-14-06, 01:01 PM (EDT) |
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28. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #27
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>>For all I know, Gryphon hates the film... > >I forget if he does or not...Mu; I haven't seen it yet. I plan to, one of these days, but I haven't been in much of a sit-down-and-watch-a-whole-movie mood lately. I think the last one I did was Fantastic Four (and it was OK, really, although the Thing effects were lame), unless you count re-watching BGC 7: Double Vision for research purposes yesterday. (I have to do this kind of thing every now and again. Left to its own devices, my memory will erode slightly, such that while I remember the setup for an episode of something, I won't remember how it ended. Or such that while I remember that Vision is hot, I'll fail to recall that she is in fact make-a-bishop-kick-a-hole-in-a-stained-glass-window Arcturan mega-hot. If you like '80s Punk Rock Hair. If you don't all bets are off.) Movie discussion, if one erupts from this, to private-mail, please. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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BlackAeronaut
Member since Oct-21-05
87 posts |
Jan-14-06, 03:01 PM (EDT) |
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30. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #28
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>she is in fact >make-a-bishop-kick-a-hole-in-a-stained-glass-window Arcturan mega-hot. >If you like '80s Punk Rock Hair. If you don't all bets are off.) Hrm... Is Vision supposedly Japanese in the anime? I'm weak enough for cute and/or hot Japanese girls... Add the 80's punk rock style and my defenses will be obliterated. J. Random Thought - Pipe Alita/Gally through 80's punk (probably not too hard to do)... the mind suddenly boggles. Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "What? Under the dorsal guiding feathers!?" |
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trigger
Charter Member
1133 posts |
Jan-15-06, 06:25 PM (EDT) |
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32. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #27
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>>For all I know, Gryphon hates the film... Well, it wasn't as much for the film (which I caught on a transnational flight; my recommended way (btw) of catching up on B-movies). It was more for the off hand reference to Skuld and Corwin as She Who Builds Tomorrow and the Son of Tomorrow. We can argue that the two of them effectively changed the course of UF forever when Skuld appeared in Twilight and Corwin derailed the original line of the Symphony. t. Trigger Argee trigger_argee@hotmail.com Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc. Denton, never leave home without it. "If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater the share of honour God's will I pray thee wish not one man more" - Henry V, Act, IV Scene III |
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Raptor
Member since Sep-9-06
4 posts |
Sep-09-06, 11:05 PM (EDT) |
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33. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #0
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If you write it, they will come... Like just about every other insane(Sanity is for the weak!)Eyrie reader, I eagerly await the coming storm. Ah, but shead a tear for FI, for it has brought us such great things like the Twilight series (It's the end of the world as we know it...), Warriors of the Outer Rim (Use the Force, Len!), and Symphony of the Sword, by far the greatest fan fiction I've ever read, and maybe the greatest story period. Just think of what the future may hold... "I don't think we're in Future Imperfect anymore, Toto..." "The Great Beast has come, Devourer of Worlds." |
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Peter Eng
Charter Member
485 posts |
Sep-10-06, 01:21 PM (EDT) |
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34. "RE: Beyond Future Imperfect?!"
In response to message #33
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> >Ah, but shed a tear for FI... >As I see it, there are a lot of stories in FI yet to be written. Even the Exile still has a few tales to tell. It's just that a new stage is ready to open. The players are in place, the scene is set, the script is in its final rewrite. I don't know about you, but I've bought season tickets. Peter Eng -- I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit." |
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version 3.3 © 2001
Eyrie Productions,
Unlimited
Benjamin
D. Hutchins
E P U (Colour)
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