Significant story elements

Super spoilers ahead, vaguely ranked by importance.

Generally, each on of these conflicts/points are linked a character storyline (or many characters)

Here's the keys to the castle.


 * Warp-field Distortion Sickness
 * Stellar freedom (conflict between Core+Inner+Rim Worlds)
 * Limitation/Expanse of AI
 * Does humanity choose to merge with AI?
 * Galactic Colonization
 * Galactic Center
 * Does humanity choose to merge with AI?
 * Galactic Colonization
 * Galactic Center
 * Galactic Center
 * Galactic Center

Stuff that makes for good stories

 * Love
 * Loss
 * Eternal
 * Unrequited (Sahara)
 * Loss
 * Death
 * Apocalypse
 * Enemies
 * Unknown (Galactic Center
 * Relentless
 * Actually good, but misguided
 * Betrayal
 * M Night Shamalayan
 * Political Turmoil (No wrong answers)
 * Insanity
 * Altered perceptions of reality

Riley Hallucinating Sahara

 * Make Sahara's advanced Ai\I and conciousness a delusion of Riley's ongoing warp sickness
 * Story integration
 * Higher functions are actually just RIley's programming
 * Possibly triggered by Milo's abuse
 * Pros
 * The delusion of Sahara as a sentient AI makes sense in a way, fulfilling his need for company, and also the pride he has in his ship.
 * If done right, this is a pretty moving story element
 * Resolves the whole issue of Sahara still loving Riley. cause RIP
 * Killing off two characters at once? Hooray!
 * Cons
 * Sahara :c
 * As EM says, there's starting to be TOO much insanity. This makes the plot revolve around it.. and it is probably overdone
 * Riley is hero. Gross
 * There are other ways of incorporating this
 * Sahara becomes more and more real for him. She realizes he's degrading, but doesn't bring it up because she doesn't know how to help, and knows that the solution for curing him is for him to leave
 * Sahara becomes more and more real for him. She realizes he's degrading, but doesn't bring it up because she doesn't know how to help, and knows that the solution for curing him is for him to leave

Notes about the Riley/Sahara psychosis
Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:46] But one of my favorites that I really want to include is the idea of an insane (but high functioning) person who has fabricated their own delusions. They're presented to the viewer in a way thats convincing, and its unclear that the person is delusional/halucinating until later

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:46] (examples being shutter island, fight club, etc)

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:47] So while thinking about how to incorporate this sort of thing into my universe, I realized that I had the perfect character mediums already setup. But I don't have the balls to do it (and this is the core of my rant)

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:50] One of the minor conflicts/events in the universe is Warp Sickness, in which frequent FTL use (especially when done unsafely or higher speeds) leads to a variety of symptoms, many of which are similar to acute radioactive poisoning. It was always intended for RIley to develop through this.

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:52] Later stages include psychosis and dementia, of course.

RIley has had no formal experience in space ship operation and is driven solely by his job (transport, other stuff) He doesn't know how to safely operate a ship/warp

At the same time, he is a prodigy of sorts in systems engineering of his ship

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:55] Sahara was "installed" into the ship as a bit of software that sort of optimizes certain routines, of which I'd had it grab hold of various routines Riley wrote and developed conciousness. After conciousness, Sahara worked on further upgrading the ship, increasing speed, more autonomy, etc.  ANd as time goes on, she gets a hologram sort of thing for Riley to interact with

Part of Sahara's core character is her desire for Riley's approval and attention (a father/lover figure, all in one!). Part of her core purpose during her gaining of conciousness was to provide companionship

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 00:58] Now I'm not entirely sure how I want to resolve the greater conflict that drives the story as a whole, but one of the foremost ideas was for Sahara to be the "hero" there, while Riley was more of the deliverance of it.

But what if Sahara was just a delusion caused by the worsening disease from warp sickness? The optimizations to the ship are all his own doing, and the eventual visualizations are the progression of the illness.

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 01:00] This would serve multiple character and story purposes, and would hit on a half dozen themes I enjoy, like unrequited love, the insanity/halucinating thing, a major twist for the viewer, death of core characters, and the loss of companionship and love

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 01:01] The only thing that makes me sour about it is that if I DO have it so Sahara is the ultimate "hero", in reality, Riley would be the hero. And I was REALLY trying to avoid that. I wanted Riley as the sort of guide through the world events, but not the protagonist/main character/hero

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 01:02] Also, it legitimately makes me sad to think that Sahara never existed for Riley. And its super hard for me to "kill her off". More so than the other characters. She's the most innocent and pure character in the story... and just generally one that I enjoy (as I'm sure you can tell by my art)

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 01:03] Of course, that would probably have a similar impact on a viewer's emotions too

Riley Summers, [10.07.17 01:04] So here I am. It fits perfectly into the master plan and makes for a pretty good story. It could tug at viewer emotions, and would be a wonderful integration of the characters and story at large.

I just don't know if I can do it