Let me know what you think. I'm very happy with it, but I wanted to get some feedback before I made it 'official'.
EDIT: Krossroads refresher
In season 2 of ST(R), the fifth episode of the year is called 'The Krossroads Epiphanies' (yes, with a K). It is going to be ST(R)'s answer to the original show's 'Assignment: Earth', though not in the sense that it has anything to do with the story or plotline of that original episode (it doesn't) but in it's intent as a prologue for a spin-off series. As Assignment: Earth was meant to introduce a premise and a set of characters, so too will The Krossroads Epiphanies.
After that myself, and the gentleman you know as 'Tupperfan', will release the the pilot episode of Krossroads 1.01 - The Beginning of the End.
Krossroads will have it's own domain and it will feature no Starfleet characters as regulars. It will take place far outside the world of the Federation as envisioned in ST(R). It's a harsher environment where people make their own rules and the laws aren't quite so clear. The title comes from the primary setting: 'Krossroads Station' (named for it's owners/operators, Joan and Emery Kross, and their five surviving adult children). It's an outpost situated in one of the busiest, most culturally diverse, and densely populated star systems in the galaxy.
Here's a bare-bones description of the regular cast:
Emery Kross (Morgan Freeman)
The Patriarch. Runs Docking Control. While he is a compassionate and friendly host to the guests on his station, he is emotionally closed off from his children, save for his favorite: the eldest son Cyrus (with whom he worked side-by-side). Shortly after the birth of his youngest child (commonly known as Flick), Emery left his family?’s church, becoming a non-believing atheist. His bitter loss of faith brings him into conflict with his daughter Bessie and her husband Brother Wayland often. However, out of respect for his wife Joan, she is never the target of one of his anti-religion tirades. He also has a mistress that she is very much aware of (but the two never speak of her).
Joan Kross (Judi Dench)
The matriarch. Maintains the family home upstairs from Docking Control, and spends most of her time caring for Flick, who was born with a mental handicap. She and her husband Emery long ago stopped sharing a bed, but there is still a great love between them. She is very close with the eldest daughter Ava, who is living in the same room she grew up in. Joan is also an astonishingly talented singer and songwriter. Plus, while she has kept her faith, she has grown more moderate in her view of church dogma with age.
Gwen Kross (Kandyse McClure)
The youngest daughter and blacksheep of the family. Of all the children, she is the only one to have ever left home. Taking off as a teenager, she wanted to see the galaxy; and during her travels over the years became a jack-of-all-trades (yet a master of none). However, she must return home when she receives word that Cyrus, the eldest son, has died. After the funeral, Gwen initially cant wait to leave again, but eventually she realizes that her place is on Krossroads Station; that she must carry on helping to run the family business in her brother?’s place.
Ava Kross (Gina Torres)
The eldest daughter. She tends the station?’s small inn and diner (which was originally named after her). The pleasing child and nagging (self-elected) family organizer, she is very unpopular with her siblings. She is also gay, a secret that she hides because of her mother?’s and sister Bessie's religion (which will be explained further as a new christian sect that grew up in the future). While she desperately tries to gain her father?’s approval, Emery is probably more detached from Ava than any of the other children (including Gwen, whom he secretly admires).
Bessie Pearle (Lilakoi Moon)
Joan and Emery's middle daughter. She is married to 'Brother' Wayland Pearle, a wealthy 'man of the cloth' ministering in the system. Bess is chatty and outwardly very pleasant, but she is actually quite the snob. Even her students?—she teaches at a religious school on one of the planets?—find her prissy and superficial. Her father believes that she has forgotten where she comes from, and anytime she visits the station the two degenerate into all manner of arguments regarding class and religion (with she taking the conservative line and her father Emery taking the liberal position).
Duncan Kross (Gary Dourdan)
The middle-son. Bessie?’s fraternal twin. The station?’s handy-man and starship mechanic. The quiet one. His best friend was his older brother Cyrus; the two did everything together, up to their involvement in the still burgeoning movement to form a workers-union in the system. Though he?’s told no one, he suspects that Cyrus may have been murdered as a result of their activism. Duncan has an alien wife and the two have a hybrid child (names and background TBD) which is a source of conflict between himself and Bessie (who?’s hard-line interpretation of her religion preaches against inter-species marriage and breeding).
'Flick' (Percy Daggs III)
Emery Jr. is the youngest of the Kross children. And, while Flick is mentally handicapped, he is also brilliant with math and memorizing information, in addition to what appears to be an erratic precognitive sense. Also, he has the uncanny ability to unite the family; all he has to do is get himself into some kind of danger, whether that be wandering into the docking area to hang out with some of the more unsavory traders, or strapping on a pressure suit and opening an airlock. Flick loves everyone in his family, but he has the most special bond with his sister Gwen. During her long absence, he spoke of her constantly, and often spent entire days drawing pictures of her and/or begging his mother Joan to sing songs about her.
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my
skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath
and disappeared, my heart went cold, and only hollow
rhythms resounded from within.
Cool. Very Firefly. Johnny is an inspired choice for the theme music.
Up there we were heroes, fighting robot bitches...
Priest: Great wall of prophecy, reveal to us God?’s will that we may blindly obey.
Crowd: Free us from thought and responsibility.
Priest: Your words guide us.
Crowd: We are dumb.
Seriously, that's amazing, editing, song, images...Where did you find the images of the space station? It looks quite a lot like what I drew to guide me through the creative process!
And fuck, you wrote sic infit! Nice!!!
The only thing, and it's minor, very minor, I'd write sic infit in smaller letters, making them fade in and out a little later, while the last notes of the tune are staying in our mind.
You keep putting me on the pedestal, Tup, and you'll never be able to knock me down again.
But seriously though, dude, thank you so much.
And fuck, you wrote sic infit! Nice!!!
It's a great idea. I had to.
The only thing, and it's minor, very minor, I'd write sic infit in smaller letters, making them fade in and out a little later, while the last notes of the tune are staying in our mind.
I basically did at first, but I really wanted to go with that thing BSG does at the end of it's credits. You know how when the 'Battlestar Galactica' title itself just sort of abruptly 'lands' all big and bold right at that end of that crescendo? Same idea here.
Also the notion with that last shot of the somewhat crucifix-shaped station (a deliberate implication) just sort of hanging out there in space, like a beacon, cut off abruptly by a vague latin phrase in big letters suggests (at least to me, anyway) the idea that Krossroads Station is some sort of mystical juncture (almost as if the station itself is the 'god' that Johnny is singing about) and all those 'ramblers, gamblers and long-tongue liars' should head his warning.
Did that make any sense at all?
Captain Kokomo II wrote:
Dude, that was awesome! I must say that Johnny was a great choice!
Gotta love Johnny. That's a prerequisite in order for anyone to be cool. If you dont like Cash, you're uncool and there is no hope for you. Period.
Forsythe-1 wrote:
Now get Morgan on the phone dammit...
Emery needed 'weight', someone that commands respect, someone that looks and sounds like he's in charge...so who better that Morgan Freeman?
Rich wrote:
Try saying that Judy Dench has already signed up.
In the sense that I tend to choose actors that one could reasonably assume might do something like this, I initially thought Dench was too serious, to revered of a performer, to fit into that paradigm...but then I remembered that she does Bond, which, while certainly not mindless action, isn't exactly Shakespeare either.
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my
skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath
and disappeared, my heart went cold, and only hollow
rhythms resounded from within.
Not that I mind the comparison (who would?), but it was more Deadwood and Carnivale that were foremost on mind.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen either show. I'm going to have to catch them at some point.
Up there we were heroes, fighting robot bitches...
Priest: Great wall of prophecy, reveal to us God?’s will that we may blindly obey.
Crowd: Free us from thought and responsibility.
Priest: Your words guide us.
Crowd: We are dumb.
Tupperfan wrote:
Where did you find the images of the space station?
The 'ambience' (the fire, the ancient text, the eye etc) is cobbled together from a documentary about Mary Magdalene, an Enigma video and two snippets (almost still-frames) from the opening credits of the film Stigmata.
As for the space station...to be honest, I dont remember.
It's from a total of like 5 seconds of footage from some video game demo that I found on YouTube months ago (the name I saved it under was 'space-station' but that phrase wasn't in any of the tags). I liked the fact that the space-station was vaguely cross-shaped and rather industrial looking (which was a good fit for Krossroads, I thought). Before I ever got the idea of slowing it down and breaking it up, to use in a credits sequence, I planned to hold it up as an example of what we wanted if we ever got someone to design a Gabe Koerner-like CGI model for us. I completely forgot I'd seen it (let alone ever downloaded it) and when I tried to find the actual clip again, it either had been taken down, or I was just too dumb to figure out how to locate it.
That's about as 'canon' as the thing is at this point. Someone could remain entirely faithful to it and still extrapolate their own detailed design elements.
Hell, if one were so inclined, they could even use that image for the www.krossroads.net site-header in much the same way Gabe's E is included in ST(R)'s. Hmmm....I think I'm gonna work on that one myself, actually.
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my
skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath
and disappeared, my heart went cold, and only hollow
rhythms resounded from within.
In the sense that I tend to choose actors that one could reasonably assume might do something like this, I initially thought Dench was too serious, to revered of a performer, to fit into that paradigm...but then I remembered that she does Bond, which, while certainly not mindless action, isn't exactly Shakespeare either.
I think you're right about that, except that I'm not sure if either of the two leads would be willing to consider doing TV, not that it matters.
"The way to a girls bed is through her parents. Have sex with them and you're in."
-- Zapp Brannigan
You're right, of course, it doesn't really matter. But I still like to approach things as a producer actually would (just to put the 'series' in the virtual series); and while I would have agreed with you before I saw Edward James Olmos and Mary MacDonald sign on to do Battlestar Galactica...well, I cant anymore.
Years ago, I couldn't have imagined actors the caliber of Olmos and MacDonald agreeing to do not only sci-fi, but sci-fi on basic cable. However, with the advent of all the high-end programming on HBO and Showtime (and then later USA, FX and, to a lesser degree, Sci-Fi) the line between film and television has really blurred, making episodic TV drama much more attractive to the best actors in the business.
Dont get me wrong, though; I'm, not saying I'd 'cast' some guaranteed 'weekend opener' movie-star like Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, John Travolta or Angelina Jolie in any of the ST(R) roles. There's a dichotomy of sorts...you just kind of have to instinctively know if the 'status' of the actor you're choosing coincides with the caliber of the work you envision. Would Freeman and Dench do a TV show? If it was a good one, yes (like Olmos and MacDonald), I think they would. Sure, that means I'm setting the bar pretty damn high for Tup and myself, but what the hell.
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my
skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath
and disappeared, my heart went cold, and only hollow
rhythms resounded from within.
It certainly wouldn't hurt to have an a or b-lister drop in as a guest star if they're right for the part. After all, there are several notable examples in Trek - Ashley Judd and Kelsey Grammar come to mind.
Up there we were heroes, fighting robot bitches...
Priest: Great wall of prophecy, reveal to us God?’s will that we may blindly obey.
Crowd: Free us from thought and responsibility.
Priest: Your words guide us.
Crowd: We are dumb.
Jeremy wrote:
You're right, of course, it doesn't really matter. But I still like to approach things as a producer actually would (just to put the 'series' in the virtual series); and while I would have agreed with you before I saw Edward James Olmos and Mary MacDonald sign on to do Battlestar Galactica...well, I cant anymore.
Years ago, I couldn't have imagined actors the caliber of Olmos and MacDonald agreeing to do not only sci-fi, but sci-fi on basic cable. However, with the advent of all the high-end programming on HBO and Showtime (and then later USA, FX and, to a lesser degree, Sci-Fi) the line between film and television has really blurred, making episodic TV drama much more attractive to the best actors in the business.
Dont get me wrong, though; I'm, not saying I'd 'cast' some guaranteed 'weekend opener' movie-star like Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, John Travolta or Angelina Jolie in any of the ST(R) roles. There's a dichotomy of sorts...you just kind of have to instinctively know if the 'status' of the actor you're choosing coincides with the caliber of the work you envision. Would Freeman and Dench do a TV show? If it was a good one, yes (like Olmos and MacDonald), I think they would. Sure, that means I'm setting the bar pretty damn high for Tup and myself, but what the hell.
Fair enough, and it must be said that with films like "The Lord of The Rings" and "Batman Begins" and shows like "Heroes" and "Galactica", the respect of the industry for genre productions (as well as the quality of the productions themselves) is at an all time high. You couldn't have got McDonald for anything but Batllestar, and you couldn't have got Freeman for any Batman film but "Batman Begins".
I think a lot of the most respected artists in entertainment are really starting to appreciate that Sci-Fi doesn't have to be "Star Wars", and that Sci-Fi/Fantasy has a great potential to strike the perfect balance between drama, thematic elements and straightforward entertainment for the masses.
"The way to a girls bed is through her parents. Have sex with them and you're in."
-- Zapp Brannigan
You couldn't have got McDonald for anything but Batllestar, and you couldn't have got Freeman for any Batman film but "Batman Begins".
Exactly.
I think a lot of the most respected artists in entertainment are really starting to appreciate that Sci-Fi doesn't have to be "Star Wars", and that Sci-Fi/Fantasy has a great potential to strike the perfect balance between drama, thematic elements and straightforward entertainment for the masses.
Yeah. I'm trying to figure out when that happened exactly. I remember reading some article claiming that it was because of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly), but I cant seem to remember the name of it, or how to find it again. Apparently, all three shows are very popular with actors (like....all of them).
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my
skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their breath
and disappeared, my heart went cold, and only hollow
rhythms resounded from within.
Jeremy 01/17/2025 03:20:07 Heh...those were my favorite parts.
Sim 01/17/2025 03:17:08 compared to the version i posted on trekweb, i added a few details, in case you haven't noticed ... was too tempting throwing ann coulter and bill o'reilly into the mix
Jeremy 01/17/2025 03:11:52 Oh, they're not written yet. Gotta finish season 1 still.
Sim 01/17/2025 03:10:42 sounds very promising! i'll check out the mirror episodes soon!
Jeremy 01/17/2025 03:06:55 One of my heroes, actually.
Jeremy 01/17/2025 03:06:25 Hmm...Huey Newton, maybe.
Sim 01/17/2025 03:04:20 jer, i'm glad you like it! do you have a proposition for the role of CRN chairman? it was the one role i had the hardest time finding someone for ...
Jeremy 01/17/2025 02:57:01 If you wanted to check it out, the subject of alternate history is also addressed in the second from the top entry of the Essays section (For Now We See Through a Glass, Darkly).
Jeremy 01/17/2025 02:56:28 He really wasn't the radical people make him out to be. Otherwise, it was a very chillingly possible scenario.
More 
Guests Online: 1
v6.00.307 ? 2003-2025