Saturday transcripts.
From
Mike Ciaravella and John Helfers' Lunchtime secrets:
-John reiterated that they are launching a Jihad-era fiction line. They're talking with Herb about being a consultant for the line
-What happened to the Kell bloodline when the Exiles rejoined the Wolves? That answer will remain a mystery a while longer
-Mike talked a bit about Trial of Birthright. Picks up minutes after the death of Devlin Stone, what has been created and destroyed on Terra and what will come from this. They finished an editing pass the night before. It's pencilled in for a July release
-Internal discussions are ongoing around the unfinished Case White novel Victor Milán was working on.
-Why did nobody make a trueborn child of Joshua Wolf and Natasha Kerensky? Good question, they might give an explanation somewhere down the line.
-What's going to happen to the story after ilKhan's Eyes Only? Still in small chunks? More a Ray question but they're working to 3-5 year plans.
-How do you balance filling in holes with moving forward? It depends on the plot, where it's centred and what they're focuing on. They want to leave some loose threads for players to fill in themselves too.
-Will the highlanders take employment with Liao again? Discussing the Highlanders' next steps is a current thing, they'll reveal it in the fiction.
-There have been internal hiccups with audiobook production, but there will be more on the way
-CGL have been working with Pirhana Games on MW5's story.
-Will there be more fiction featuring McCarron's Armoured Cavalry? Yes
-How does Gray Noton make a standard Rifleman do the things he does? John says he's that good, Mike insists he had advanced tech.
-They've discussed Jim Long writing new fiction, possibly featuring the Black Thorns
-Will there be a Solaris-centred Shrapnel issue? Yes, 17
-Any movement on reissuing Star Lord, Far Country and the other missing novels? Not presently, they go back to the rights holders on occasion to see if they've changed their mind
-Will Shadows of Faith be completed? That's a Loren question.
-Will other BattleCorps fiction be reprinted? They'd love to but there are capacity issues with Phil running Shrapnel and John running the novel line.
-Can we canonise the UrbieLAM? John said it was a Ray question. Ray immediately posted "No" in chat.
-I had suggested a Legacy II featuring a Warship earlier in the con, they liked the idea and discussion on the steam suggested LCS Invincible which went down well.
-Will there be a timelost Jumpship story again like Living Legends? No plans, maybe a good idea for Shrapnel? Ray popped up in chat to say there is an upcoming story featuring a misjump.
-Is Pope Leo getting fiction? No.
-Are there going to be a lot of deep-cut characters in Legends II? Yes, it's a good mix of new, old, and surprises. John hasn't taken a close look at it but Mike wrote some of the profiles, he says there are definitely some deep cuts.
-CGL has managed to get scans of some of the old comics, they are working on reissuing them. (John didn't go into detail on whether it was Malibu, Blackthorne, Spider and Wolf or what)
-How do authors come up with new Camospecs? Do they visualise or write something and let an artist interpret it? Usually CamoSpecs is ahead of them for unit colours as they work with the game production side. If they need to create a new unit, they sometimes bring them to CamoSpecs but it's usually best or easiest to come up with some colour ideas and let them do their thing.
-Any plans to give more of a spotlight on Lyran leaders? That has come up recently in discussion. Yes, but you might not like what happens.
-Will the Lyrans become a worthy superpower? They do need saving and desperate times call for desperate measures.
-What's the next step on the fiction journey? That's being mapped out now. In the chat Ray said they'll be in the ilClan era for a long time but there are lots of interesting stories in the works. They're in "Phase 1" now with plans out to "Phase 4"
-Raven Alliance novel? Mike Ciaravella is working on one.
-Will they fill in the pre-3025 era? Little by little, two pre-3025 German novels are in the process of translation and will go through fact-check to see if they can be considered canon
-Will there be a sequel to Damocles Sanction? Maybe, Mike's plate is very full right now
-Any intelligence units/agents as protagonists in upcoming fiction? Yes, particularly Voidbreaker
-When will Honour and Glory be wrapped up? Soon, Jason Hansa's last piece is in editing, it might be split in two.
-As a new hopeful contributor, what should you do? Established characters or find a corner? John says find a corner and develop it, the bigger elements are very complicated and harder to get a handle on.
-What is Jason Schemetzer's next project? They're working on that now, John would like it to be another Dragoons ilClan era book.
-is the Republic really gone, or will a remnant form? Trial of Brithright will deal with this to some degree.
-Mike's favourite eras are Jihad and Dark Age.
From
Talon's interview with Loren Coleman:
-Asked about the decision to include a pre-painted mini in the star league forcepacks: Loren really wanted to do it while Randall was reticent around whether it'd improve sales, which is the reversal of their usual dynamic. Loren sold him over in part by suggesting they theme the packs around the Star League.
-Shadows of Faith crashed after 10-12 chapters and Loren only kinda realised what went wrong recently.
-Den of Wolves is about 20,000 words from being done, 10K each from Loren and Mike Stackpole. Loren's writing was derailed by his family tragedy of course, but they're hoping to get it finished soon. The book is going to be more Jamie, Joshua and Natasha meeting and teaming up and will end around the decision to form the Dragoons. They're hoping to do a sequel about the formation of the unit and then if they decide to make a third novel it'd be the arrival in the Inner Sphere and their first contract.
-Will they do another kickstarter? Probably. What will be the theme? Nobody knows. It'll probably be era-agnostic but it will probably have fiction elements, of course.
-Have they considered making BattleTech model kits? Yes, and they "might have something going on for that"
-Will ComStar return? Never say never
-Will there be more Destiny support? If they have the right project. It did OK, but there's no great drive to do more with it.
-The Star League Forcepacks pre-empted the FedSuns and Kurita ones, partially because Loren really wanted to do the pre-paint but didn't want anyone to think one of the factions was being shown preference.
-Any chance of other LAM packs? They joked about Ray saying on-stream that they needed more LAMs (but probably no)
-Why are Savannah Masters two to a base? Because they're small!
-Any chance of Infantry? Probably not in plastic in true scale, but maybe if they find a good way to do it.
-Updates on visiting PAX Australia? Unofficially they've been given a booth but they don't have confirmation yet. As soon as they know they'll be telling us.
From
John's Interview with Michael Ciaravella:
-John is intending to reissue the Capellan Solution books in a single volume
-They talk about about how the ilClan/Capellan story had to be split up because the scope was so big, and the Cappellan side was given to Tom Leveen. Mike's 40,000 words over the limit on his current draft for Trial of Brithright.
-hardest things for John to edit? The spine novels, there's so many moving parts, so many references, timeframes... it's a lot to keep straight.
-Will we see more of Zeta Battalion? John hopes so
From the
graphic novel roundtable:
-Mike Stackpole and Bryan Young will be writing the story, Eldon Cowgur will be artist.
-They're writing Full Script (which is where the writer gives a description of the page, number of panels and disposition on page, then what's in each panel and dialogue), this has been the standard comics script style since the 2000s
-Ray is going to work to ensure that the comics fit the tone and fit into the story in the universe
-There will be some established comics writers contributing to volume 1, but contracts have yet to be signed
-the stories will be mercenary themed
-volume 1 will be more of an anthology, 2-3 will be a single ongoing story.
-Each volume will be 88 pages long, expect them to come out over a span of years, not a monthly format
-Era is ilClan
-When asked about comics or creators that would have a similar vibe to the BattleTech comics, Bryan talked about Walt Simonson's adaptation of Alien and Jeff Smith's Bone in terms of economy of storytelling and techniques. Everyone agreed that the tone should be BattleTech as opposed to feeling like another SF comic. Stackpole explicitly talked about how if there's a multi-page battle then damage should accumulate over time and performance should drop off and so on.
-Why not adapt the Warrior Trilogy? John would be open to serialising comic adaptations of the big comics. Stackpole pointed out that the pacing of comics is very different to prose, citing how you can get inside a character's skull, but in a comic that has to be expressed in body language. You can have a page detailing a character's internal conflict before answering a question but in a comic that would be a couple of panels. Bryan brought up how the scale of storytelling is different, there's a lot more material in a novel than in a movie or comic. If you're adapting a novel to a comic or movie you have to cut stuff. He also cited screenwriter Graham Greene who was well-known for doing adaptations and apparently only had a good time when he was adapting a short story.
-will the character be wearing coolant vests and briefs or coolant suits? Depends on the story and character, it'll be used as a visual cue for the characters.
-Release format (Full retail or digital+PoD) has not been determined. Kickstarter backers will get digital for sure, John would love to go full retail.
-Will there be variant covers? maybe
-Will PPCs be lighting bolts or balls of energy? Byran said they come in a glass, it's grain alcohol cut with something. More seriously it'll probably be an energy beam like the cover of Shrapnel 15
