Sfdebris.net

So, this is a thread for posting and discussing ideas for fanfics you've had, particularly ones you've never actually written yet. Or just stories you'd like to see.

Please don't steal anyone's ideas without their permission.

I'll start with one of my stranger ideas:

"The Big Bang Theory"/The Dresden Files.

Yes, I'm talking about crossing a sit-com with a gritty, noir-ish apocalyptic urban fantasy series. I've written before, in passing, about the merits of crossing lighter, fluffier series with darker ones, as long as you take care not to let one approach overshadow the other. Its a balancing act, but you can get a lot of mileage out of the contrasts, and the clash between the two styles- contrast ultimately being the heart of both drama and comedy, depending on how you play it, and thus in a sense the core of all narrative fiction.

My idea was to make use of the surprisingly large number of secondary and tertiary Dresden Files characters who have ended up in California over the course of the series: Elaine, Warden Ramirez, Thomas's sister Inari and her ex-porn actor boyfriend, the general influence of the White Court vampires over the media, whatever. Have them run into some of the Big Bang Theory cast.

Particular plot-points include:

1. Trying to convince the "scientific" Sheldon and Leonard that magic is real. Would likely involve a Soul Gaze at some point.

2. Carlos Ramirez hitting on Penny while she's working as bartender.

3. Sheldon arguing contract technicalities with a fae.

4. Having Penny, as the most physically aggressive and competent of the BBT main cast (she's canonically gotten in a full-blow brawl with another woman, did Jr. Rodeo and target shooting for sports, and kicked a cybercriminal in the nuts), become a Dresden-style badass in-the-know mortal. There's a recurring theme in Dresden Files of ordinary mortals learning about the supernatural and becoming quite dangerous. Maybe even have her end up playing the Murphy to Carlos's Harry.

5. Penny getting tangled up with White Court bullshit during one of her attempts at an acting career.


Batman in the Matrix.

I just feel like this would really work. Particular points of interest include the clash between the military pragmatism of killing people who might be controlled by Agents vs. Batman's refusal to kill (especially if a Batman ally gets taken over by an Agent), and Bruce trying to come to terms with the fact that the city he's dedicated his life to saving doesn't actually exist, except in a computer.

Would explicitly not be Batman as the One. Would probably feature Barbara Gordon heavily later on, but would perhaps focus more on her role as a hacker than as Batgirl, given the setting.


Serenity if it took place in the "Game of Thrones"-verse (TV version for GoT, of course, since I'm more familiar with it than with the books). Serenity would be a sea-going trading ship, her crew would be from various GoT backgrounds. I'm not sure if I'd have it follow the canon plot of GoT, with the Serenity crew just going about their lives while the big events happen in the background, or allow their introduction to the setting to change canon.

Possible characterization/plot points include:

1. Mal Reynolds is now Malcolm Reynes (of "The Rains of Castamere"), last survivor of the house Tywin famously destroyed, who was smuggled out as a child by a loyal retainer. Or maybe a bastard who took the family name because there's no one left to tell him no. This would take the place of the destruction of Mal's home planet in his backstory, and give him a cause to be a rebel against the powers in Westeros, in keeping with his character. He eventually escaped to Essos and lived as a sell sword for a few years, until he made enough money to buy a ship- the ship, as per canon Mal, represents freedom to him.

For the rest of the main cast (names adjusted as necessary to fit into their new setting)- Zoe would be his first mate, of course, from some far off part of the world. Inara would be a high class whore from either King's Landing or Essos. Wash would be a sailor/navigator, possibly of Braavos. Jayne would be an Essosi sell sword. Kaylee- would be just a general odd-jobs person from some Essosi city, I think, since there's no real equivalent for "engineer" for her in GoT. Maybe her main job is to repair the sails and rigging. Shepard Book would be a former sell sword in the service of House Lannister, who converted to a minor off-shoot of the faith of the Seven. Simon would be a former Maester or Maester-in-training specializing in healing, who left to protect his sister as per canon. River would be some sort of seer, of course, possibly experimented on by Qyburn, prompting Simon to take River and flee the life of a Maester.

Either the Maesters want to kill River to cover up Qyburn's experiments (don't know if this would fit canon at all), or her mental/magical powers let her see something she really shouldn't have. Or both.

Possibly, to tie it into the main GoT plot, River was in proximity to Cersei and/or Jaime at some point, read their minds about the incest, and let something slip in her crazy ramblings, so now Cersei wants her dead. Or she reads Littlefinger's mind, and Littlefinger wants her dead. Or, even better- she read from someone the truth about Jon Snow/Lyanna/Rhaegar. This would basically undermine the entire justification for Robert's rebellion and kingship (just like canon River's knowledge of Miranda threatens the Alliance). Or all of the above.

White Walkers in place of Reavers, naturally.

Either Jaime or Ned could take the role of the Operative, though they are both somewhat different characters. The key similarity is "basically well-intentioned warrior doing something they know is wrong out of misplaced loyalty, who will eventually be forced to see the truth, and be shattered and possibly redeemed by it".

Mal's backstory would include working with Davos as a smuggler smuggling supplies to Stannis during Robert's rebellion. He stuck around for the Siege of Storm's End because at that point, the Lannisters hadn't yet turned against the Targaryens, and Mal was hoping to help defeat them. Storm's end is this version of Mal's equivalent of the Battle of Serenity. The twist is that in this version, his side won- But Mal still lost, because Tywin joined the rebels at an opportune moment, slaughtered a bunch of innocent people, and remained the power behind the throne. That should be enough to give Alternate Mal the necessary cynicism and bitterness for the character.

Edit: Apologies, also, if this is the wrong place to put this topic. Its just something that struck my mind, in part because fanfic provides so many new avenues to explore SF universes from new angles.

I will be eternally disappointed in the Stargate community, that no Teal´c PI story exists, I mean there is even a SG-1 fanfic, where the main characters are firefighters, because of a singe episode, why not Teal´c as private detective? What´s wrong with you people?

I'd imagine someone has already thought about these ideas...

Setting: 18 years after the end of the DS9.

A-Plot: The winner in the last Presidential election won because her campaign promise included a pledge to stop new member worlds from entering the Federation and ending deep space exploration. The citizenry blaming Star Fleet's policy of pushing out the frontier of known space for the Dominion War and repeated Borg invasions. So the only exploration is being done by a branch of Section 31, using USS Defiant-class ships as Section 31 can't hide anything larger.

B-Plot: with the death and destruction of the war, religion makes a big comeback in-universe. Christian Star Fleet officers demand chapels on Starfleet ships (like in the TOS days). The winner of the last Federation Presidential election openly is a believer in Vulcan Jesus and wants religion to be the central focus of Federation life.

Clarify Vulcan Jesus. Are we talking about a messianic figure in the dominant religion of planet Vulcan, or are we talking about some ancient astronauts theory that Jesus was a Vulcan or something?

The Romulan Republic, your ideas are fascinating but my god we are completely different people when it comes to taste, I think a lot of the things you have come up with in your time on this forum are interesting and well thought-out but part of me just cringes reading much of it. This isn't to do with you or the quality of your ideas, your analysis, your critique or whatever, it's just me and my narrow-mind and opinions.

The Batman in the Matrix one sounds like it has the most potential to be incredibly entertaining, if not disturbing in parts.
I detest The Big Bang Theory (although I love other nerd comedies such as The IT Crowd) and I'm just not that into The Dresden Files, so I'd probably give that a pass.
I would check out the Firefly\GoT crossover out of curiosity because I really like both of those franchises.

As for my own ideas:

-I'd like to see a fan-written season 5 of Farscape done right. A group of fans tried to do a fan-fic season years ago after Peacekeeper Wars, but it was utterly dreadlful, ridden with cliches, lacked creativity and was just really cringeworthy for a sensible person to read.
By 'right' I mean it forgets The Peacekeeper Wars and just starts off from where Season 4 ended, continuing the themes built up throughout the show, continues the character arcs, actually brings up creative plot ideas, both for the myth arc and individual episodes, and has an interesting twist or two placed at the right moment for good measure. It could go through the events of The Peacekeeper wars in more time and detail, as was originally intended and feature an actual, drawn out Hynerian coup and Nebari invasion plot.

-I wouldn't mind seeing a proper H.P. Lovecraft inspired cosmic horror story in the Babylon 5 universe, B5 was always very 'Lovecraft lite' and while the Shadows had some scary moments, they were neutered fairly quickly. I wouldn't mind seeing something that went all out with the horror, despair and hopelessness and featured some more powerful, strange, potentially malicious, aliens that just don't care about what their effect is on the protagonist and other victims of the story.

-A Stargate Atlantis fan rewrite would be interesting, it could start where Season 2 ended and create a more interesting and imaginative Pegasus galaxy, with some more interesting species and cultures, maybe develop the Wraith in a more complex direction.

-A post-reaper invasion Mass Effect story about a transhuman movement. The humans in the Mass Effect franchise were, like the humans in Star Trek, against genetic engineering for various political reasons. However, given the nature of the Reapers and the fact that humans came on the verge of extinction perhaps this movement would start arguing for the 'uplifting' of the human race or something, in order to better combat similar threats in the future. The Deus Ex games have explored this issue, particularly the second game with the 'Omar' faction, who were a group of adaptable, advanced cyborgs who wanted the human race to embrace transhumanism and travel into space. The story could explore the issue from multiple sides and points of view, including the alien angle and how they think and feel about the situation and the conflicted ways of their new allies.

Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:Clarify Vulcan Jesus. Are we talking about a messianic figure in the dominant religion of planet Vulcan, or are we talking about some ancient astronauts theory that Jesus was a Vulcan or something?

"Vulcan Jesus" = a plot device messianic figure from the dominant religion during the pre-Vulcan Enlightment Era, aka pre-Surak. Or it could be Bajoran Prophet-ism. Or Christianity to keep it simple for the audience.

Farscape and Teen Titans crossover.

John will be pleased as punch to finally have somebody who gets all his pop culture references, and maybe feel a little protective of these kids despite being dwarfed by them in terms of power (at least, depending on how far into the series the crossover takes place). Starfire might be able to help out with some deep space navigation as somebody who knows the wider galaxy more. Raven can get along with whoever the resident Mystic is. She'd have a lot to bond about with Zhan as spiritually powerful people in an ongoing struggle with their darker impulses, Stark she'd probably actually be able to help out, using meditation and mind-sharing to grant the poor screwloose a measure of inner peace and some healthier coping mechanisms. Probably will chill a lot with Neranti but have trouble with the whole food thing (does she even eat solid food?) As for Chiana >.> well that will depend on what her actual age is and how many titans are at the Age of Consent at that point in the continuity.

A few random ones:

Star Trek: Sloan's back to give Bashir a new mission ("You died!" "Section 31 agents are duplicated in case a suicide mission is necessary.") One of Section 31's agents, Gary Seven, has eloped with a Changeling and stolen a time machine to disrupt Terran history. Bashir is being sent because Gary Seven expects Section 31 to send their agents, he won't be expecting Bashir. At the same time, Bashir needs to avoid interfering with the mission of Kirk's Enterprise.

Madoka Magica (this one's really light): An American businessman travels to Japan, trying to put his broken family life behind him. He's here, with the help of a Japanese speaking colleague, to work out a business deal with a Japanese company. He struggles to understand the culture and hold his liquor while the events of the series happen in the background (Duncan frowned at the miso soup while Ren read the newspaper. If I have to come again, I'm packing a suitcase full of cereal. He turned to Ren, "What's in the news today?" "If I'm reading this correctly, the police found the body of a dead schoolgirl yesterday.")

Later, while waiting out the storm, Madoka's mother comes to them, panicked, looking for her daughter ("What did she say?" "I think she said she can't find her daughter. I said we didn't see her. Keep an eye out for a girl with pink hair." Duncan thought briefly. "She must be out there. Come on." "Are you crazy? She still could be in here somewhere." "You've never been a parent, Ren. If she's that upset, her daughter's out there.") While looking for Madoka, he's struck over the head with a girder and dies.

Then, he wakes up, on the plane ride over to Japan. He is aware of the time loop, but no one else is. As it repeats, time after time, as he grows more comfortable in Japan ("Why the hell did they send me if you speak perfect Japanese?" "It's new Ren." "New? You sound like you've been speaking it longer than my teacher!" If only you knew Ren...), he continues trying to unravel why he's been repeating the same few weeks, again and again and again. Sometimes he tries to break the loop ("I don't care! Sell me a ticket that puts me anywhere in North America!" "I'm sorry sir. The typhoon forced us to cancel all flights."), and other times he just takes a break from everything ("Where the hell were you?" "I took three days in Sapporo." "You can't do that! I don't know anything about renewable power!"). But every time, he's there, in the storm, looking for Madoka.

At the end of the story, he wakes up, as if the loop's restarted itself for the millionth time. Except, he's not on a plane, he's at home with his family. His daughter's alive, and everything is seemingly OK. So he sits down for breakfast, happy that can start over again.

Pokemon (kind of meta): The year is 2047. Triple-A game companies face bankruptcy as development budgets demand sales figures in the tens of millions to break even. Indie game developers choke out the success of smaller titles by the major companies. Hardware sales falter as third party developers focus their resources on personal computers and Android phones. Facing this challenge, Nintendo enlists the support of biotechnology companies to bring their franchises to life, starting with Pokemon.

Those are all hysterical, especially that last one, I love it.
Have the biotech Pokemon plot backfire and turn into a David Cronenberg\John Carpenter inspired horror story.

The problem I see with biotech is that so many pokemon are really non-biological entities, or at least nothing close to organic life as we understand it. Steel types, rock types, ghost types, etc.