So I was looking through the early parts of Symphony No. 5 yesterday, thinking about what could be done to tighten it up a little, and the first thing I was reminded of was what an awkward beast the S5 Prelude in A Minor is. More than half of it takes place before the end of Symphony No. 4, for no better reason than it involves scenes I hadn't thought of before finishing that Symphony off, and the transitions are a bit awkward.

So I thought about it for a while, and tried a couple of different permutations, and this is what I came up with.

The opening scenes, which are set on Jeraddo in September of 2409 - in between In for a Penny and The Revolution Will Be Televised - are now part of In for a Penny. The first act of the story involves Utena's clash with Bastila over the Duelists' Castle and the start of her autumn as IPSF Commodore - one sense of being "in for a penny"; the second act, transplanted in from the old Prelude, now involves what the Duelists of Jeraddo get up to at the beginning of the school year, and Ezri Tigan's unexpected arrival and first test among them - another sense of being "in for a penny".

Meanwhile, the scene in which B'Elanna O'Brien volunteers for the Klingon Forces becomes Televised's fifth epilogue. As it deals directly with the effects of the Klavaarite coup on the lives of the characters involved in it, and fits there chronologically, I think it makes sense for it to be there, and not in a story situated in the following Symphony.

Of the Prelude's remaining scenes, all but one are set after the 2410 New Year and Vortigern's 2, and the one that doesn't - Kate and co. on Ishiyama in mid-December, a week or so before Vortigern's 2 - deals directly with the setup of what she and Juniper are doing in S5, namely moving to New Avalon. As such, they can stay where they are, in a cut-down opening piece to S5 now called Overture in A Minor.

These are structural and logistical changes only, involving no actual alteration to the material itself. The affected scenes all still happened as and when they happened in the story - they're just presented in more logical places than the constraints of when they were originally written allowed for, and should a) make more sense to new readers, if any and b) help the transition between S4 and S5 flow more smoothly.

The new versions are in place on the S4 and S5 index pages, just where the versions they replaced used to be. You'll be able to spot them from their revised copyright dates and, in the Overture's case, by the shorter length and new title.

That is all, for now.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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