Inlanders - Stephen Reese

So this week I found an article deriding the concept of the prequel, a concept we’ve seen popularized in at least one major science-fiction franchise with the word star in its title. And I don’t disagree with the author that everyone’s favorite long-awaited origin story ended up dramatically inert. It wasn’t all that exciting to watch Darth Vader become Darth Vader.

I theorize that’s because Anakin Skywalker isn’t really a force to be reckoned with until the mask is on and he opposes his own son, a kid who must first leave his backwater podunk homeworld and be recruited into a galactic war of good vs evil.

Which of these origin stories is more dramatic? I say Luke’s.

Hence the boring prequel - the good stuff starts when Luke’s coming of age, not his daddy.

The author of the article I mention has a different theory.

He suggests the beginnings of epic tales - these sprawling sagas that spring from tiny, interpersonal buds and flower into entire cosmoses of conflict - are inherently less interesting because fewer people are involved in (or affected by) the drama when it seeds.

That’s an interesting idea.

Let me don my contentious hat and explore it.

My author admits being swept up by expansive…let’s call them “space operas”, with wide-ranging scope and repercussions for entire cultures (nay, civilizations; no, species!) where the primary players are perhaps representatives elect for their respective tribes and stand for everything their kind embody: ideals, goals and distinctive facial ridgings included.

He’s maybe partial to heady clashes of mores set against dense intergalactic skirmishes over precious resources, say, or holy land, or some long-forgotten, misperceived slight that somehow turned into a decade-spanning retributive slaughter.

And you know what? I dig that shit too.

As long as there are identifiable people (alien or not) at the center of the grand battle royale. No matter how loud the ion cannons or how dazzling the plasma gunfire, I’ll be looking for those tiny yet distinctive biological silhouettes cast against the vast backdrop of multi-generational strife and struggle. The “big picture” may be damn pretty, and high stakes certainly speed the pulse, and tragic, far-reaching consequences do indeed turn my crank.

But it has to start with people.

And people are inherently…small. It doesn’t take a million of them to foment drama. All you need is two of the little buggers, actually.

Like Anakin and his son.

And here I come back to the beginning.

If something happens somewhere that somehow explodes (fractally, exponentially) into a million somethings happening everywhere else that somehow affect the entire history of the universe, I have to say I’m more interested - intensely, passionately more interested - in the inciting event than in the resulting diaspora. Specifically because it stands a chance of being smaller, more personal, more…human.

Give me the bud, the seed, the soil; not the fully-grown plant.

That silent, frozen moment before Big Bang went boom.

The first dribbles of paint on empty canvas that hint at form in the void, figure against ground, order from chaos.

Not the fully-spattered, deeply layered canvas halfway toward the artist deciding it’s well and done.

The small stuff in the beginning is important.

It can repercuss forever.

And it gives good drama.

You just gotta pick the right beginning, the true beginning, the best beginning - and the right, true, best people responsible for setting the whole thing off.

I hope to heck I’ve done that in my novel.

- Stephen Reese