It seems that life has decided that I needed some time to get back to my writing, so I’ve been looking to my old standards for a little inspiration. And hey, if it works for me, maybe it’ll work for somebody else out there. The following are the main reasons Cartel Incorporated came to fruition, and still serve as wellsprings when I need them to.
Back in 1997, I happened upon a PC game at the local outlet that promised the ability to “Build, trade, fight, and think”. In X-Beyond the Frontier, you took control of an experimental shuttle as Kyle Brennan, Test pilot extraordinaire. Something goes wrong on the maiden voyage, and you find yourself transported across the universe, dropped into alien space with only your wits and your damaged spacecraft available to help you survive. The game allowed you to run a vast network of stations and ships, and was my first true sandbox experience. Since I was deeply involved with the early internet at the time, I decided to set up a fan site for the game running on an old PC in my computer room, and fashion it to resemble what the interface on one of the pirate stations in the game might look like. I was also exploring 3D modelling at the time, and the site served as a platform for me to showcase some of the ship designs I had created. The community grew and the site took on a life of its own, sporting a twice weekly internet radio show and some very popular, if somewhat questionable, galleries and forums. Those models, that site and those forums gave rise to the character Grimm and his empire, Cartel Incorporated.
Back in 1994, science fiction on television was at the top of its game. Shows like The X Files, Babylon 5, Seaquest DSV and the like were taking us all on incredible journeys across inner and outer space, pushing societal boundaries and stoking the imaginations of millions. Enter the Stargate. A device capable of creating a stable wormhole that connected our planet with another, light years away. All one had to do was step through the event horizon, and in a matter of seconds they would emerge on another world, full of intrigue and danger. I was hooked immediately. Jack O’Neill’s snark, Carter’s endless intellect, Daniel’s compassion and Teal’c’s sense of honour were a perfect foundation to build out a platform that allowed the writers to tell hundreds of incredible stories, rife with intrigue, intelligence and an incredibly relatable human factor. To this day, I go back to the collection of episodes, starting with the movie and ending after Atlantis if I feel the need to replenish my faith in humanity.
The Stargate movie preceded the television adaptation by a few years, but during that time a new kid on the block garnered my attention so completely, I never missed an episode when they aired. B5 had it all. Cool ships, interesting alien races and politics, and enough levity to make it utterly enjoyable for twenty-something me. Being a fan of the Tron franchise, seeing Bruce Boxleitner’s portrayal of Captain John Sheridan was the initial selling point, but soon enough the cast had reeled me in and I was hooked. The fact that it was a complete story helped as well, not just an episodic way to sell commercials. characters grew and evolved, stories twisted and turned, weaving a tapestry that pulled everything together in the end. Something I aspire to.
There are more, of course, but were I to list them all here we would end up with a curated list of thousands of titles, and I’d much rather get back to telling the stories of the Cartel boys.
