Klan Klang Fanfic

[C-Rod42]

At the recommendation of Bolt, I have decided to set up a new thread here, so... take 3! My apologies.

Is there anyone who's a fan of the Macross series, especially Frontier that can help me with a fanfic idea concerning Klan Klang please? Here's the pitch...

"A year prior to the events of the series, a patrol unit stumbles across a derelict ship with only one survivor: a fifteen year old boy in a cryogenic chamber. The Frontier thaws him out, but they discover this boy was frozen during the time of the war between the humans and the Zentraedi. Now, this boy must deal with a whole new world while under the care of the enemy he grew to fear: the Meltran Klan Klang."

Can anyone help me co-write this story please?

[Bolt]

[C-Rod42]

10 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Thank you. I don't know if you saw the message I sent you, but do you think you could use Discord? It would help me.

[C-Rod42]

Oh, I just got your message. Sorry. Didn't see it.

[C-Rod42]

One of the things that helps me write a story is a tool called roleplay. To sum up, I play a character, someone else plays a character, and we create a scene as best we can. That's why I need someone with good knowledge of Klan to pull this off.

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's an interesting idea... but, from a timeline/continuity perspective, there are some problems with the premise.

The biggest problem would be the question of how that kid managed to leave our solar system.  Rudimentary cold sleep technology was available to the military before the start of the First Space War, but the SDF-1 Macross was the only ship Earth had with a working space fold system (for as long as that lasted) until after the First Space War had ended and post-war production of ships for emigrant fleets had begun.

The 55th Large-Scale Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet headed up by the titular emigrant ship Macross Frontier is something on the order of 25,000 light years from Earth in 2058, and had been underway for approximately 17 years at that point.  Space fold systems weren't available when that kid's ship would've had to launch, and getting out that far without one would take hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of years at sublight speeds.  

I'm also not entirely sure how Klan Klan would find the time to rehabilitate a kid who'd been in cold sleep for fifty years.  In 2058, she was a high school senior getting ready to go on to college and working for Strategic Military Services as a Queadluun-Rhea pilot.  That's a pretty full calendar right there.  

[C-Rod42]

3 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm also not entirely sure how Klan Klan would find the time to rehabilitate a kid who'd been in cold sleep for fifty years.  In 2058, she was a high school senior getting ready to go on to college and working for Strategic Military Services as a Queadluun-Rhea pilot.  That's a pretty full calendar right there.  

Oh... I thought she was older. Like in her 20s. Well, this could help her career. Rehabilitating a relic from a previous life, helping him adapt to the new world. There might be some benefits for her.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, C-Rod42 said:

Oh... I thought she was older. Like in her 20s. Well, this could help her career. Rehabilitating a relic from a previous life, helping him adapt to the new world. There might be some benefits for her.

Yeah, being a minor character doesn't get Klan a lot of coverage in the show or official publications.  Her exact date of birth isn't given AFAIK, but her year of birth is given as 2040 and her age as of the start of Macross Frontier's story (on 26 February 2059) is given as 19, which would suggest her date of birth is in January or early-to-mid February 2040.  Her bio says she's a student at one of the universities in the fleet, and is studying biology.  The movie version de-aged her a year by moving her year of birth to 2041 so she could attend the same high school as the rest of the cast.

Rehabbing a recently defrosted kid suffering from PTSD is more a job for a psychologist, not a cellular biologist.

 

As a way of working around the chronological problem with the premise, I'd propose the kid instead be a survivor from an emigrant fleet or research fleet that was attacked and wiped out by a Zentradi branch fleet that stumbled across it.  There are emigrant fleets that've gone much MUCH farther than the Macross Frontier fleet (e.g. Megaroad-04, which made it all the way to the far side of the galaxy to discover Windermere IV in 2027), so a cold sleep escape capsule from a destroyed research fleet or emigrant fleet would be a way for the kid to have been traumatized by the Zentradi without the impossibility of getting 25,000 light years from Earth before fold systems were available to the military or general populace.

[C-Rod42]

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, being a minor character doesn't get Klan a lot of coverage in the show or official publications.  Her exact date of birth isn't given AFAIK, but her year of birth is given as 2040 and her age as of the start of Macross Frontier's story (on 26 February 2059) is given as 19, which would suggest her date of birth is in January or early-to-mid February 2040.  Her bio says she's a student at one of the universities in the fleet, and is studying biology.  The movie version de-aged her a year by moving her year of birth to 2041 so she could attend the same high school as the rest of the cast.

Rehabbing a recently defrosted kid suffering from PTSD is more a job for a psychologist, not a cellular biologist.

 

As a way of working around the chronological problem with the premise, I'd propose the kid instead be a survivor from an emigrant fleet or research fleet that was attacked and wiped out by a Zentradi branch fleet that stumbled across it.  There are emigrant fleets that've gone much MUCH farther than the Macross Frontier fleet (e.g. Megaroad-04, which made it all the way to the far side of the galaxy to discover Windermere IV in 2027), so a cold sleep escape capsule from a destroyed research fleet or emigrant fleet would be a way for the kid to have been traumatized by the Zentradi without the impossibility of getting 25,000 light years from Earth before fold systems were available to the military or general populace.

That definitely works, but I still want to go through with Klan being his caretaker. I just need to figure out a reasonable way to pull it off.

[Gerli]

Or just make the discovery of the survivor being made by another member of the Pixie Squadron... maybe Klan Klan Sempai? Michael Sister can be a link between the boy and Klan if you connect the dots and make a believe story

[C-Rod42]

Are any of you confident enough with Klan's character that you could possibly roleplay as her so we can construct a good scene for the story?

[Bolt]

You could also flip the time line and have it take place after Frontier.  I'm no Meltran but I'm sure someone can assist you.

[Gerli]

Roleplay? Why? You must tell a story using the characters but you don't need to be "them". I think the most important part of storytelling in Fanfiction is creating connections between your characters (the boy) and the character that the show already create (Klan) so the readers can use them as anchor point to enter the story.  (Sorry if i sound weird, English is not my first language) 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Gerli

[C-Rod42]

It helps me write a good story when I roleplay. Some of the best work I've done over on Fanfiction.net was because I roleplayed with someone. That's how I co-write. If any of you are willing to give it a shot, please tell me. 

[Gerli]

8 minutes ago, Bolt said:

You could also flip the time line and have it take place after Frontier.  I'm no Meltran but I'm sure someone can assist you.

Wait... there are Meltran in the Forum? 

 

[Bolt]

Didn't you know ?

[C-Rod42]

Okay, so Bolt and Gerli are not gonna do the roleplay co-writing. Is there anyone else who can roleplay as Klan for this story?

[C-Rod42]

Alright, here's the thing: I don't want the Klan fic to take place AFTER the series. I would like to do it a year BEFORE the series. This story is going to become canon compliant. I know that I can fudge the technology enough for the cryogenic kid thing to work. If one of you guys can help me figure out a reasonable way for Klan to have to be the caretaker of the kid, that would help. 

The whole point of the story is for this teenager to become part of the new culture and let go of everything he had lost, and for he and Klan to go from distrusting each other especially since he has to deal with her naturally 12 meter size on a regular basis to becoming practically family. 

I know I can pull this off, but I need a roleplayer to give me a hand. Will you guys be able to help me in this way?

[Seto Kaiba]

23 hours ago, Gerli said:

Wait... there are Meltran in the Forum? 

Well, I know one member on the forums who's built like macro-Klan... except, y'know, not 10m+ tall. 

 

 

16 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

This story is going to become canon compliant.

You're gonna have a LOT of problems with your idea if that's the case.

 

16 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

Alright, here's the thing: I don't want the Klan fic to take place AFTER the series. I would like to do it a year BEFORE the series.

That'd put it cheek-by-jowl with the events of Macross the Ride.

Klan doesn't have a lot of free time in 2058.  She's still a high school student in her final year before heading off to university, and she's working as a pilot for Strategic Military Services during that period.  She's involved in SMS's operational testing of the fleet's new VF-25 in simulated and actual combat as an aggressor platoon leader for simulated combat, she's involved in SMS's support of the fleet's New UN Spacy against a rogue Zentradi fleet that attacked that year, she's involved in providing security for Vanquish League events in Island Reno (Island-15), and she's also involved in SMS's assisting the NUNS against the anti-government group Fasces.

She's not really in a position to take in some random kid she just met.  You'd think if anyone were going to do that, it'd be one of the adult officers in the Macross Frontier fleet's Strategic Military Services branch office... like Major Ozma Lee, Captain Henry Gilliam, or Colonel Jeffrey Wilder.  Gilliam would probably be the logical choice since Wilder's single and Ozma's already got a young ward of his own (Ranka).

 

16 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

I know that I can fudge the technology enough for the cryogenic kid thing to work.

You don't really have to fudge anything WRT cryogenics, the prewar UN Forces had cold sleep tech built into some of their fighters (the SF-3A) and the next-gen VFs in Macross Frontier have cold sleep functions integrated into the EX-Gear.  It's technology they've had for at least fifty years by the time of Frontier.

 

16 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

The whole point of the story is for this teenager to become part of the new culture and let go of everything he had lost, [...]

It's not really a new culture, though... the Macross Frontier fleet went to extraordinary lengths to faithfully recreate prewar cities like San Francisco, Shibuya, and Beijing.  The aesthetics of technology deliberately mimic pre-war Earth, though the actual technology's much more advanced.  Consequently, people don't really live a lot differently than they do right now.  People live in apartments and rowhouses torn right out of the bay area and downtown Tokyo, they go to school, they work in offices, they have the internet, cell phones, they go to trendy coffee shops, theaters, hang out in parks, etc.  Very little has changed, and that's deliberate.  The only thing that's really gone away is the old concepts of national identity, since Earth's nations no longer exist... though there are some fleets that recreate that thing for kitschy reasons like Macross-11 being a rather cliche expression of nostalgia for Americana.  The only things that'd really stand out in the Frontier fleet are that there's a part of the cityscape devoted to accommodating Zentradi at their natural size (Island-3) and air racing with giant robots is a popular professional sport. 

The kid might have problems acclimatizing to the local culture in another, much more different fleet like Macross Galaxy where a lot of day to day life occurs in cybernetically-imposed augmented reality and the government's a full-blown corporate dystopia along a very similar line to Weyland-Yutani.  Even in the Macross-7 fleet, about all that'd really stand out apart from the weird retro-futuristic cars is the occasional future-y extreme sport and the option to telecommute to school via VR.

 

16 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

[...] and for he and Klan to go from distrusting each other especially since he has to deal with her naturally 12 meter size on a regular basis to becoming practically family.

Why would Klan distrust him?  Klan wasn't a clone soldier, she's a natural-born New UN Government citizen who was raised among humans and grew up in a human culture with human values.  The only thing that sets her apart from humans is her DNA.  Michael Blanc is her childhood best friend and crush.  In almost every respect, she's an entirely normal 18 year old girl in 2058.  All that she has to set her apart from other normal girls is her day job is as a mercenary for a private security firm instead of flipping burgers or stocking shelves.  Compared to several of her coworkers like Ozma Lee and Chelsea Scarlett, she's lived a pretty normal life.

[C-Rod42]

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I know one member on the forums who's built like macro-Klan... except, y'know, not 10m+ tall. 

 

 

You're gonna have a LOT of problems with your idea if that's the case.

 

That'd put it cheek-by-jowl with the events of Macross the Ride.

Klan doesn't have a lot of free time in 2058.  She's still a high school student in her final year before heading off to university, and she's working as a pilot for Strategic Military Services during that period.  She's involved in SMS's operational testing of the fleet's new VF-25 in simulated and actual combat as an aggressor platoon leader for simulated combat, she's involved in SMS's support of the fleet's New UN Spacy against a rogue Zentradi fleet that attacked that year, she's involved in providing security for Vanquish League events in Island Reno (Island-15), and she's also involved in SMS's assisting the NUNS against the anti-government group Fasces.

She's not really in a position to take in some random kid she just met.  You'd think if anyone were going to do that, it'd be one of the adult officers in the Macross Frontier fleet's Strategic Military Services branch office... like Major Ozma Lee, Captain Henry Gilliam, or Colonel Jeffrey Wilder.  Gilliam would probably be the logical choice since Wilder's single and Ozma's already got a young ward of his own (Ranka).

 

You don't really have to fudge anything WRT cryogenics, the prewar UN Forces had cold sleep tech built into some of their fighters (the SF-3A) and the next-gen VFs in Macross Frontier have cold sleep functions integrated into the EX-Gear.  It's technology they've had for at least fifty years by the time of Frontier.

 

It's not really a new culture, though... the Macross Frontier fleet went to extraordinary lengths to faithfully recreate prewar cities like San Francisco, Shibuya, and Beijing.  The aesthetics of technology deliberately mimic pre-war Earth, though the actual technology's much more advanced.  Consequently, people don't really live a lot differently than they do right now.  People live in apartments and rowhouses torn right out of the bay area and downtown Tokyo, they go to school, they work in offices, they have the internet, cell phones, they go to trendy coffee shops, theaters, hang out in parks, etc.  Very little has changed, and that's deliberate.  The only thing that's really gone away is the old concepts of national identity, since Earth's nations no longer exist... though there are some fleets that recreate that thing for kitschy reasons like Macross-11 being a rather cliche expression of nostalgia for Americana.  The only things that'd really stand out in the Frontier fleet are that there's a part of the cityscape devoted to accommodating Zentradi at their natural size (Island-3) and air racing with giant robots is a popular professional sport. 

The kid might have problems acclimatizing to the local culture in another, much more different fleet like Macross Galaxy where a lot of day to day life occurs in cybernetically-imposed augmented reality and the government's a full-blown corporate dystopia along a very similar line to Weyland-Yutani.  Even in the Macross-7 fleet, about all that'd really stand out apart from the weird retro-futuristic cars is the occasional future-y extreme sport and the option to telecommute to school via VR.

 

Why would Klan distrust him?  Klan wasn't a clone soldier, she's a natural-born New UN Government citizen who was raised among humans and grew up in a human culture with human values.  The only thing that sets her apart from humans is her DNA.  Michael Blanc is her childhood best friend and crush.  In almost every respect, she's an entirely normal 18 year old girl in 2058.  All that she has to set her apart from other normal girls is her day job is as a mercenary for a private security firm instead of flipping burgers or stocking shelves.  Compared to several of her coworkers like Ozma Lee and Chelsea Scarlett, she's lived a pretty normal life.

Okay, let me rephrase the question: in what scenario could you see Klan having to be saddled with this kid?

[C-Rod42]

@Seto Kaiba Let me take it one step further. It's hard for me to let go of a previous idea, but... let's say I did decide to set the story after the events of Macross Frontier. How would I get Klan and this kid, who I will call Travis, saddled together where he has to deal with her in her natural, Meltran form and she has to deal with his distrust and understandable prejudice towards her species? I don't want to rip off frostymug's United We Stand story on Fanfiction where Klan is so bitter and resentful about Michael's death, she takes it out on the OC. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to have it done before the series.

[Gerli]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I know one member on the forums who's built like macro-Klan... except, y'know, not 10m+ tall. 

She must have a strong back to support all the extra mass 

Sorry for the off-Topic Rod, please continue with the topic.

[C-Rod42]

Thank you. So, again I ask... how do I ensure that Klan and Travis end up having to be together during his assimilation into the Frontier?

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

@Seto Kaiba Let me take it one step further. It's hard for me to let go of a previous idea, but... let's say I did decide to set the story after the events of Macross Frontier. How would I get Klan and this kid, who I will call Travis, saddled together where he has to deal with her in her natural, Meltran form and she has to deal with his distrust and understandable prejudice towards her species?

As I've said, I don't think there really IS a realistic way for Cpt. Klan to end up saddled with responsibility for a kid who's only a few years younger than she is.

The Island Cluster-class Macross Frontier was a BIG emigrant ship.  Island-1 was home to roughly five million people, and the fleet's total population was approximately ten million.  In a fleet with so many civilian families, it's hard to conceive of a reason that a college student and career mercenary like Klan Klan would be the only person willing or able to take some kid who was discovered in cold sleep regardless of whether it's before or after the series.  It's more believable for someone like Ozma, because he's much older (26 in 2058).

IMO, it would probably be easier to create an OC to fill the role who was an older, more established OC to fill the role you had envisioned for Klan.  Someone who's past the age where they'd still be in school.  

 

5 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

I don't want to rip off frostymug's United We Stand story on Fanfiction where Klan is so bitter and resentful about Michael's death, she takes it out on the OC.

"Bitter and resentful" sounds pretty out of character for Klan... she's more resilient than that.  

[C-Rod42]

21 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As I've said, I don't think there really IS a realistic way for Cpt. Klan to end up saddled with responsibility for a kid who's only a few years younger than she is.

The Island Cluster-class Macross Frontier was a BIG emigrant ship.  Island-1 was home to roughly five million people, and the fleet's total population was approximately ten million.  In a fleet with so many civilian families, it's hard to conceive of a reason that a college student and career mercenary like Klan Klan would be the only person willing or able to take some kid who was discovered in cold sleep regardless of whether it's before or after the series.  It's more believable for someone like Ozma, because he's much older (26 in 2058).

IMO, it would probably be easier to create an OC to fill the role who was an older, more established OC to fill the role you had envisioned for Klan.  Someone who's past the age where they'd still be in school.  

 

"Bitter and resentful" sounds pretty out of character for Klan... she's more resilient than that.  

Hmm... what if the kid, Travis, wasn't under her care, but the two would end up in positions where they had to be part of each other's lives?

[C-Rod42]

Wait... idea coming up. What if he was under Ozma's care, so he had to live on the military base. Given the kid's fears of Zentraedi, what if Ozma wanted him to get over it using Klan?

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

Hmm... what if the kid, Travis, wasn't under her care, but the two would end up in positions where they had to be part of each other's lives?

That'd work, there are plenty of older officers in SMS who could probably take a kid in.

Henry Gilliam might be a good option there, since he's a mostly undeveloped character and an old friend of Ozma's who's in at least his mid-20's.  He'd have regular contact with the members of Pixie Platoon given that he was part of Skull Platoon and would've been part of the VF-25's operational evaluation program.

 

2 hours ago, C-Rod42 said:

Wait... idea coming up. What if he was under Ozma's care, so he had to live on the military base. Given the kid's fears of Zentraedi, what if Ozma wanted him to get over it using Klan?

Strategic Military Services doesn't have a military base as such... just an office building and dock in Island-1, and the Macross Quarter.  

As seen in the series, Major Ozma Lee lives in a terraced townhouse in the replica San Francisco section of Island-1.

(Ozma and Ranka's townhouse is the only time we see the living arrangements of the main cast in the series.  The only other homes we see in the series are the Saotome family's sukiya-zukuri style Japanese mansion that was Alto's childhood home and the mansion of Richard Bilra, the founder and owner of SMS's parent company Bilra Transport, neither of which would be what you'd call typical living quarters.)

[C-Rod42]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That'd work, there are plenty of older officers in SMS who could probably take a kid in.

Henry Gilliam might be a good option there, since he's a mostly undeveloped character and an old friend of Ozma's who's in at least his mid-20's.  He'd have regular contact with the members of Pixie Platoon given that he was part of Skull Platoon and would've been part of the VF-25's operational evaluation program.

 

Strategic Military Services doesn't have a military base as such... just an office building and dock in Island-1, and the Macross Quarter.  

As seen in the series, Major Ozma Lee lives in a terraced townhouse in the replica San Francisco section of Island-1.

(Ozma and Ranka's townhouse is the only time we see the living arrangements of the main cast in the series.  The only other homes we see in the series are the Saotome family's sukiya-zukuri style Japanese mansion that was Alto's childhood home and the mansion of Richard Bilra, the founder and owner of SMS's parent company Bilra Transport, neither of which would be what you'd call typical living quarters.)

Okay. And what logical reason could I give for Travis having to consistently interact with Klan? 

[C-Rod42]

Guys, maybe not in the role of a roleplayer, but since the start, I asked for someone to co-write ob this story. Are any of you willing to do that?

[C-Rod42]

If anyone is wondering what I would like from a co-writer, here's what I believe I need...

1. A good, solid foundation of the Macross universe and its characters because I lack it big time.

2. To be invested enough to actually write this story with me and offer up ideas if they so desire.

That's... pretty much it.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/9/2019 at 8:13 AM, C-Rod42 said:

Okay. And what logical reason could I give for Travis having to consistently interact with Klan? 

Well, your OC is supposed to be 15.  He and Klan would both be high school age, so he could be enrolled at Mihoshi Academy with the other principal characters of Macross Frontier sans Ranka and Nanase who go to a private all-girls school instead.  If he's in the space navigation major at Mihoshi Academy he'd be in a position to be around people who are around Klan a lot like Michael Blanc.

[C-Rod42]

3 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, your OC is supposed to be 15.  He and Klan would both be high school age, so he could be enrolled at Mihoshi Academy with the other principal characters of Macross Frontier sans Ranka and Nanase who go to a private all-girls school instead.  If he's in the space navigation major at Mihoshi Academy he'd be in a position to be around people who are around Klan a lot like Michael Blanc.

True. @Seto Kaiba would you be willing to be my co-writer for this story? I really need the help.

[Seto Kaiba]

24 minutes ago, C-Rod42 said:

True. @Seto Kaiba would you be willing to be my co-writer for this story? I really need the help.

To be honest, I don't have the free time to take on another fan project.  I'm only barely keeping up with the development of a website for my Macross translation work, and my day job leaves me with very little free time as it is.  I'm also not much of a writer when it comes to prose, I'm more of a researcher.

[C-Rod42]

2 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be honest, I don't have the free time to take on another fan project.  I'm only barely keeping up with the development of a website for my Macross translation work, and my day job leaves me with very little free time as it is.  I'm also not much of a writer when it comes to prose, I'm more of a researcher.

Fair enough, and you've been very helpful. Any chance you could recommend somebody?

[C-Rod42]

Good news, everyone. I found a co-writer! I'll try to keep you all in the loop as to how our progress goes. Also, we need a Klan Klang tag.