From "Ed Reynolds" <ed>

Apologies if this comes out incoherent. Some joker decided to set
off the fire alarm a few times in the wee hours of the morning.

Todd may have more to say on the matter, but as far as I'm
concerned 'Pendragon' has a grand plan. The plan is that there is no
grand plan. That isn't a non-answer. We've deliberately decided to
not lock ourselves into planning. For those that have stuck around
for my previous rants, you'll know that as time goes on, I'm finding
myself less and less enamoured, to put it mildly, with the idea that
sitting down and developing some grand storyline and locking
yourself into that. The series is too collaborative, too fluid for
that. I simply don't believe you can know characters in the same
detail sitting and dreaming up big plot ideas as you can when you
actually outline or particularly when you actually write. When you
see tension, when you realise that there are other options, you want
room to develop, to change. You want to build outwards from the
characters, not from without through some kind of monolithic arc.
And characters aren't straight-forward because things suggest
themselves to you on the page that aren't apparent in the cold light
of planning. Thinking about the future is fine. Locking yourself
into it is, I believe, very dangerous. The day it locks down so that
you can't tell stories without clunking into the ramifications
of 'grand plans' set down years ago, I'm gone. That's not me trying
to be prick, particularly. I just can't get excited by this kind of
inertia. The excitement is in having plot develop from characters
and character depth and intrigue emerges from the story over time. I
genuinely think this is better for the wellbeing of TGS -- we can
have open-ended closure. We can grow, our characters can change. The
only time we're likely to be screwed, frankly, is where other people
(almost exclusively 'Timedancer') trample on us. But that's a
disclaimer.

I haven't discussed this with Todd. He may disagree. However, there
are several assumptions I'm currently making. They are assumptions.
They are not fact. They have not been fully discussed. But they are
guiding lights. They're not fixed in stone.

1. Uther Pendragon will return.
2. Duval will not be able to stand the pressure from his own people
to act against Arthur. The friction at the head of the Society will
escalate.
3. Duval will at some point be unseated as head of the Illuminati
Society by William Powell.
4. Powell will be a more ruthless figure than Duval. I suspect he's
more like Duval used to be when he was merely a cold and
Machiavellian individual that had shut himself down to the feelings
of guilt he had, aggravated by Arthur and Elaine. But Powell's not
without honour. It might even be interesting to have him sober up
with the reigns of power. But I don't know, because we're not there
yet.
5. I don't think Lancelot ever will/can rejoin Arthur. He may take
back his society. He probably won't. I don't see that at this stage
as particularly likely myself. He might be okay with it, but from
the point of view of the others that ship will have sailed.
6. New Camelot will build an army of knights from around the world.
It will eventually gain support. Eventually, though.

There are other things but I don't have time time and certainly
don't have the energy to rehash season 5 plans that are deliberately
left as organic starting points. If you want to know a little more
about the ideas behind Camelot, I suggest a document on the secure
site under useable proposals that I wrote up a while ago. If you
want to know about character arcs, I'll happily supply them. These
don't really affect other series except insofar as those arcs will
eventually bang up against plot points.

Now, I understand you guys want to come to cross-series arrangements
to keep continuity pegged, and that's good and fine and noble. I
don't think it's impossible for TGS to co-exist with other series. I
think the best thing would be to work out where in these other
plans, since you guys are insisting on developing them, the cut-off
from 'Pendragon' should be.

For a 'Bad Guys' point of view, this shouldn't be terribly
difficult. The Illuminati is the Illuminati. It doesn't change,
particularly, whatever the bosses may say. Powell is not going to be
able to control this behemoth any more than Duval can. Where you
want to do things with characters that are primarily or
significantly 'Pendragon' characters, we'll have to talk about ways
we can keep the series independent without sacrificing continuity.

Todd, as I say, may have other thoughts. But to reiterate the plans
as I see them: the plan is to stay as free from setting stuff in
stone as humanly possible. This is not the same thing as having no
plans and if anyone is still unclear on the difference I'm happy to
go into it in as much detail as they require (and probably, knowing
me, more).

Ed

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