Above: an image from stock photo site where I searched for “frustration”
Back to the list! Writing prompt 6: A half-elf starship captain embarks on a quest to find an ancient celestial artifact rumored to bestow magic powers on aliens before it falls into the wrong hands.
Now how do I turn this into something new and fun?
As referenced in last week’s post, this prompt has been lying fallow for ages. I wanted to do some elf-organic-mechanic take but I’m having trouble finding a hook for it. So. Let’s brainstorm instead.
Starship captain. Good guy or bad guy? What’s their motivation for hunting down this relic? Are they feeling duty-bound (like I am with this prompt)? What’s their personality like?
Artifact. What does it do? Are we trying to stop a war or a conquest or a supervillain or just “those other guys” who miiiight do something with it?
Magic powers. Okay. We can be wild here if we want to. Does it grant wishes? Does it turn solid to liquid or vice-versa or both? What can magic do in space that it can’t do in atmosphere, or would be cooler in space?
How do I fit a quest into a blog-post-size short?
Let’s start with the artifact. How about it’s water-based? It’s in a floating glob of water in space. Hey, don’t come at me with your math, this is magic sci-fi, I can do what I want. It’s difficult to locate because scanners are built for planets, not penetrating water globs. Sure, that works. Also it’s moving within the water glob. Which is planet-sized. What will that depth pressure do to a spaceship?
I was going to make it a seashell but I’ve not put it in a place with a shore. Eh, fine. The water glob has residents, probably; in fact, some of them probably get pretty big. It’d have zones. The deep center is going to be sparsely populated but the mid-deep ranges can grow some real monsters. One of the giant squids which the glob has now has tangled the artifact around one of its tentacles.
So what is the artifact? I’m thinking a sand-dollar-like ancient bone that was enchanted by, say, the combination of the stars and something when the creature it came from was young, when this water glob was a baby world. It has a power that forms things, say, and is one of the reasons the water glob world thrived in its infancy, attracting nearby random elements and space dust type stuff inside the glob to form helpful stuff that didn’t exist before. Currently it’s formed itself into a medallion of sorts with a necklace/strap made of woven kelp type plant material that tangled around said squid.
So what does this half-elf champ want with the artifact anyway? Their world is dying, maybe, and they want the power that the amulet will give for regenerative purposes. And it’s bad if the other guys get it because… limited uses? They won’t be able to use it? The other guys are trying to finish off the world?
Is it a race, then? Captain what’s-their-bucket versus their evil twin? Their evil counterpart? Their rival from a different world who actually is on the same journey? Is it a silly story, a tragedy, an epic? I’m a little hung up on this point and it’s hard to continue without knowing because that makes a big difference in how a character is portrayed.
Let’s take the easy route and go with an epic. Let’s say the half-elf is feeling a sense of duty/obligation. I could go full Spock and say they’re torn between their two halves, elf and human, but that’s been done a bit. Besides, it only says half elf, not what the other half is. What if it’s half sea creature? Hm. The elves of this planet are spacefarers and all the tech just responds to them. The sea people are swimmers and such. The sea people sent him/her/them on the mission because they have few of them who can go to space. Both sides are fighting against each other because yeah, we’re trying to go with some tropes to shorten it. They are initially going after it as a weapon but change their mind to try to revitalize the world instead. And they can get it because they can swim in the deeps and the full elves can’t. Sure, that works probably.
Okay. With some background set, we’ll try the actual story next week.
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