The Age of Chaos: part 1

As a creative person I get stuck on ideas that never seem to leave me, but never seem to get done. The Age of Chaos - a four volume Sci-Fi work - is one of them. The germ of the idea started way back on April 1, 1996. I was watching an episode of Babylon 5, one of the best shows ever, and had an idea for a space ship.  The next day in school I started drawing, it was flat and 2D but it got my mind racing. I drew these space ships everywhere and kept improving them, and slowly coming up with history and factions for them basically back story. I wouldn't start writing the first volume of the Age of Chaos, The Conflict Within until early 1998.

The EAS Enterprise plus escort. 

Virginia Class Battleship

I was sitting in health not paying attention, so much of my early writing history involves me sitting in class not paying attention. I was day dreaming probably drawing a spaceship when a scene took form, so I started writing. I kept writing stashing the pages of louse paper into my note books. The story kept growing and I had no idea where I was going with it.  

The basic plot is as follows. The Earth Alliance is at an uneasy peace with its neighbors and pushing farther out into the stars when a Civil War starts up, fueled by oppression on Mars and other worlds most notably in the Slavic sector. As the Civil War picks up the humans are caught unaware when a much larger threat starts to loom, I'll give you a hint ET doesn't want to just phone home. 

My influences were from just about everywhere though mostly, Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Space Above and Beyond, and Tom Clancy. That last one doesn't seem to fit but his 80's techno thriller fingerprints are still all over the basic plot and feel of the story.  As I have gone on other places have worked their way into my influence list, like Dune, Starship Troopers and Battlestar Gallactica, but they don't have the same foot print on the story as the original influences did. Maybe it's because I'm not 13 anymore and see that I'm leaching ideas or maybe it is because they just don't fit as well into the story that I already have.

Of course when I started it wasn't this massive four book cycle that didn't come till 9th grade right now in early 1998 I'm just writing, writing and loving every second of it. But come summer I would fall out of love with The Conflict Within and move on to a different idea that was set in the same world that was 8th grade that was when the Aliens came into the picture. 

 The First Stand (1999)

While doing free writing in my creative writing class another story started taking shape that at first I didn't know was in the same world as The Conflict Within, but by the end of the day I knew it was not only in the same world but a sequel. I would take that story to completion over the next two or three mouths. Every class I was in you could see me pull this massive wad of pages from my blue day planer and start working. I was more into my story then just about anything else at school.  Once I finished that I started a few other partial stories that didn't go anywhere but that left me with all of these bits, and it wouldn't be until high school after a breef flutation with Fan Fiction that I would put all of that toghter as a massive series that still haunts me when I sit down to work on something else. 

To be Continued.