Blue Skye

Introduction

Introduction

At almost 85,000 words in length, Blue Skye (originally published as Blue Skye Dreams under an old pseudonym), is my most ambitious and longest fanfiction work to date, and since first publishing this story in 2000, I have received a great deal of feedback and many questions about it. Here are most of those questions.

I’ve never heard of Mechwarrior? What is this fandom?

The Mechwarrior/Battletech fandom originated as a tabletop strategy game created by FASA. Over the years there was a great deal of source material published for the universe in which it was set – 1000 years into the future where war is waged by massive robot-like machines. Later there was a tabletop roleplaying game, several computer games, many novels and even an animated series on TV (which was so, so bad).

How did this particular story come about?

I started playing the tabletop games and I needed a background for my main character. I started writing… and just couldn’t stop. The latter part of the story from Sept 3052 onwards, was actually played out as part of the game. I had also read the “Clan Trilogy” of books by Michael Stackpole. Blue Skye closely parallels the events in that trilogy, told from a different perspective. I was careful to ensure accurate timing of the events in my story compared to Stackpole’s.

Are the characters in this story original ones?

Margaidh (pronounced "mar-ged"), her mother, and Kristen are original characters created by myself. The Blue Skye mech is also my own creation.

The characters of Michael, Cowboy, Alek and Bertram were created by other players in the game.

All other characters are from the canon story, either from the game source material or from Stackpole’s novels. In some cases, such as with Domask Lewis, nothing more was known from the source material than a name and a favoured mech, the rest of those details were fleshed out by myself.

The mech battles in this story are great!

They are? Cool! Thanks!

How did you write them?

Every battle in the story was played out on the game board to ensure accuracy and consistency. What you see written here is exactly what happened on the board. I will admit to fudging a few die-rolls to ensure the right characters won, but nothing more than that. I just transcribed what happened, added appropriate description & dialogue, and that’s it.

Is the story finished, or is it a Work-in-Progress?

It’s finished, kind of, although I will confess that it has finished in a very unsatisfactory place. I would have liked to be able to write more, but that won’t be happenning, sorry. Just enjoy the story as it is.  (For now I am posting chapters one at a time on Wattpad).

NOOO!! Write more! Please!

This is the request I get the most and the answer is, sorry, no, I can’t. There are several reasons for this.

First, the roleplaying group I was involved with disbanded and the story was left hanging. I could have continued writing those characters myself but it wouldn’t have been the same. I don’t know what those players’ intentions were for those characters.

Second, with the advent of the Somerset Strikers TV series, a great many things were changed by FASA, about the published history of the Mechwarrior universe. The intended direction I had for Margaidh and her family no longer fit the canon storyline. One of the most significant changes was the withdrawal of the Land-Air Mech from the Mechwarrior universe. Since this was to be a primary feature of the later story it would not have been possible to continue the story under FASA’s new premise. There was also the annoying and significant change that the Clans had to lose.

Last and most importantly, the entire collection of source material was among items stolen from my home several years ago. Most of these books are out of print and are completely irreplaceable. I therefore have insufficient background knowledge to be able to continue the story.

Right at the end though, if you read the whole thing, I’ll tell you what WAS going to happen next…