I'm planning a major reboot of my story universe. There are some things that are bothering me about it, and I want to start from scratch. Even though I'll be changing a lot, I will try to adapt all my existing stories into. In fact, I've already done some tweaking to The Jaws of the Wolf, and it will likely be the first story I update. Here are most of what is planned in the reboot.

Humanity and Colonies
* The largest change is that Earth remains fragmented, and never fully joins the Chakharan's Federation. Most countries do not join, as well as most US states, leaving mostly just California, New York, parts of Europe, Australia, and a few other scattered countries that work with the Chakharans, and have some privileges of membership, without being full members.

* Most colonies that are established become independent, even though they still rely on freight, transport, defense, etc. from home. Some human colonies choose to become full members of the Chakharan Federation (still thinking of a permanent name for it). Ak'tae (Zeta2 Reticuli), having been initially built up for human colonists, by the Chakharans, is a staunch member of the Chakharan's Federation.

* The Chakharans find all this very frustrating. The Zephenidians find it rather convenient.

Species

* There will be very little change. I might tweak their names, but most, if not all should be present. The most changes might be in the Zephenidians, but.

* The V'nari Syndicate has it's paws in more crap than most are comfortable admitting.

Technology

* Hyperspace will largely be the same. Some terminology may be slightly different. The transition to and from hyperspace will be faster, though still not instant like Star Trek's warp drive.

* Some changers are coming to the teleportation technology, some of which is already added to The Jaws of the Wolf. The process and other aspects is more streamlined.

* Minor tweaks will happen to weapon technology. Projectile weapons will be a bit more common. Plasma weapons would generally shoot in pulses of bursts. Steady beam weapons will be rarer. Some plasma rifles will use Flechette type ammunition, which can carry a plasma charge further and more accurately. That means a target would get a small shank of white hot tungsten, in addition to the fourth degree plasma burn you'd also receive.

* The layouts of many ships will be changed or tweaked for better realism. The biggest change will be that the small Kha’Szhyk class Zephenidian ships will no longer have that U shaped corridor, and be open, with the sleeping births on the port and starboard sides. I draw some inspiration from Star Trek's La Sirena, a ship that's about 50% larger than the Kha’Szhyk class ships in my stories.

History

* First contact happens a bit later, like in the early 2070s, and almost doesn't happen at all. Many Chakharans were prepared to write off humanity altogether and abandon earth to the Zephenidians.

That's right, I'm still around. Just been busy and asocial.

As time goes on, I'm becoming more and more convinced that true consensual sex may be relatively rare, possibly even an illusion. I feel I might have railroaded someone into a sexual situation, or had others railroad people into doing stuff with me, or with them, etc. All too often, people, instead of genuinely consenting, just resign themselves to sex, for some weird reason. In some cases, they think it would help keep the friendship together, or something similarly bad.

As I explore my past, I've become more disgusted at what I've seen and been through. If I had a time machine, and could go back in time to erase past sexual experiences, I'd probably erase everything from everyone, except from, maybe, two or three people, tops. Sex makes me feel gross, predatory, evil, like I might hurt someone, or be hurt by someone, etc. I'm too old for this shit.

Even in this age of affirmative consent, yes means yes, etc., I suspect, even that won't be enough. as people feeling resignation to proceed with an encounter, will just say "yes" to get it over with. It's way too dangerous to be a sexual creature in a world of such sexual immaturity. I wish I could just snap it out of existence, and start over. But alas. I'm burnt out, I have no more interest, and I may be done, forever. It's been over half a decade of soul searching on this. Every time I think I resolved this issue to some satisfaction, I find something else in my memories which makes me realize that I can't trust anyone, even myself. The only thing I can do, is move on, as an asexual being.

I'm worried this may be affecting my writing, as well. I need to still be able to write sex scenes, and feel good about doing so. As of now, I've been very busy, but also stuck with crippling writers block.

The Wolf Pet rewrite is posing major problems. There is actually a lot wrong with that story. It was one of my earliest stories, been rewritten about 20 times, and I feel certain things don't quite work. The main issue is the huge info dump. There are just too many things which are told, but not shown. There are some subplots which I've brought up in the narrative, and couldn't explore, further, due to pacing issues. So ultimately, Wolf Pet cannot be a novella.

Wolf Pet needs to become a novel.


I've already started working on it.

I must apologize in advance. A lot of my material is going to disappear for a while. The reason is this. I've been giving things a lot of thought, and realize that a lot of my stuff needs to be rewritten. I'm going to be doing a reboot of sorts of my story universe. All my previous work will be redone to reflect the changes. The Jaws of the Wolf is almost ready to re-posted. I'll be working on Wolf Pet next, and that will need more work. There are some parts I may take in a different direction.

Too many people give sexual consent because they're afraid. Others give sexual consent because they don't want to hurt the feelings of the other person. How do we determine if the consent is truly good, and not done out of some weird kind of fear? I've been wrestling with this for a few years, now. I fear that a lot of my intimate and sexual experiences involved unacceptable levels of poor consent. Just because someone says yes, doesn't mean they truly want it.

Working on the 4.0 version of Wolf Pet, now.


Wolf Pet needs extensive work, considering its one of my oldest stories. I first wrote it in 1993 or 1994, in a college creative writing class. Due to the length limitations of the assignment (partially because we had to photocopy our stories for the entire class for critique) the story was much shorter, and very basic. I've since expanded the story, but it still needs much more work.


I'm fixing a lot of problem areas, to make the story as good as it can be. No, I'm not going to make the story sexual or a fetish piece, other than the incidental pieces described in the story, already. The main character does not enjoy, nor will enjoy his captivity, in this story.

As far as the fixes, I'm trying to do more characterization stuff, as well as changing how and when stuff is explained, which should improve the flow of the story.

I just completed a major update to Jaws of the Wolf. Due to issues with FA's file update, I had to re-submit the entry, so any faves will need to be re-done.

The story is updated to 4.06 (it may show up as 4.051 for a time, but it's the same). Though the overall story is the same, I made numerous updates.

The main changes include

Expanded scenes
Some additional character development
Minor tweaks in the descriptions, including making scenes less static.
Better attempts to maintain active voice, POV consistency, etc.
Possibly minor changes in my universe's continuity, though it would be subtle (doesn't effect this story).
And for this story, The Jaws of the Wolf, I made the title more relevant to the actual story.