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weakinteractionThanks so much for creating for me! I loved this exchange last year and am really looking forward to taking part again. Please don't read anything into the varying lengths of different sections; it's almost all to do with whether I went down the "yes, all of these tags" route or tried to focus in on some particular aspect; for the former ones, I've probably gone a bit overboard in trying to cover all possible combinations. (And I will freely admit that there is a lot of crossover with last year's letter; I did nominate some tags exactly the same way again on purpose to make sections reusable ...)
The most important thing is that I would, genuinely, be very happy with anything created for any combination of character and worldbuilding tags I've picked (as long as it avoids my DNWs). Many of the worldbuilding tags do seem to me to be prompts in and of themselves, to be honest, so if you've already got ideas, please do just go for it, but this letter is here if you do want more detail.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- exactly the same as this dreamwidth account. I'm requesting Fic, Art or Meta for all of the fandoms below; please note that in some cases I have suggested certain characters that might fit well with particular worldbuilding tags, but that shouldn't be taken as meaning I'm not open to them being explored in other ways. (In all but one fandom, I've requested the worldbuilding-by-itself-is-fine "Any or No Characters" tag, so I really am open to anything.)
Spoiler Warnings: the Machineries of Empire section contains spoilers for Raven Stratagem; the Discovery section is spoilery up to S1E13.
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General likes
Do Not Wants
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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
General note for this fandom: I am intensely agnostic about SMAX. I have no preference at all as to whether you include ideas from it, ignore it completely, or treat it as a source of inspiration without feeling bound to the details.
Characters: Corazon Santiago, Deirdre Skye, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I ship Corazon/Deirdre.)
I would in general be happy with explorations of the worldbuilding from the perspective of any of the faction leaders, not just the four in the tag set, or OCs from the factions. Or things with no characters at all, especially on the meta front.
Worldbuilding: Impact of discovery of human psi powers on society, Previous Flowerings, Religion on Planet, Social Engineering, Transcendent Thoughts
Impact of discovery of human psi powers on society -- The game does jump quite quickly from the early mind worm attacks revealing that psi powers are real to empaths everywhere, and there are later bits that imply the far future implications, like the Telepathic Matrix, but especially in the early days it must have caused huge ructions in a society that was already only precariously clinging on in an alien world. What does it mean for ideas about privacy? How does it affect people's view of what it means to be human? Do some factions shun telepaths? (Or are they just too useful even in the ones that we might imagine would be suspicious, especially in fighting mind worms? And obviously all the faction leaders seem to turn out to be powerful telepaths, given the connections they form with Planet.) Or were there hints that there was something to it even back on Earth? (maybe all those '60s parapsychology experiments caught on to something?) For art, I would be very up for something that gets at the same type of vibes as some of the related Secret Project videos (from the creepiness of the Empath Guild one to the outright horror of the Psychic Amplifier to the everything's-great-or-is-it Telepathic Matrix one).
Religion on Planet -- How does life on a new world affect religious views? The Gaians are an obvious candidate here: the Weather Paradigm is a very early project and comes with its own Gaian prayer. But what sort of belief systems existed among Deirdre's followers on board the Unity? What is Deirdre's role, and how comfortable is she with it? That sort of thing. If you're up for doing fictional Christian theology, I'm also intrigued by how the Believers adapt their take on things. There are implications in some of the in-game quotes that they put the expulsion from paradise front and centre, but then there's also all the endgame "We Must Dissent" stuff. But I'd also be interested in, e.g. how the University (which I kind of assume is at least officially atheist) handles rituals around major life events, death, etc. or whatever weird rituals the Hive use to help people "extend [their] awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity", and so on. Art-wise for this, I'd love some religious art from Planet.
Social Engineering -- the social engineering screen is seriously my favourite game mechanic ever; none of the later Civ takes on the same idea have quite given me the same feeling of pressing a lever here and getting an outcome over there but also an unintended consequence to deal with in the corner. How do the faction leaders weigh up these choices? (Given that these often determine diplomacy as well -- what do they do if their neighbour is pushing for something that isn't necessarily what they would go for?) Or taking a more ordinary citizen's level view of things, what's it like to go through an upheaval? (The fact that you just have to pay a bunch of money for it with none of the disorder in Civ II suggests that the Psych Chaplains and similar are doing a lot of stuff to people to get them to accept new models, for example.) Art-wise, some sort of chart or diagram representing connections between different areas? Or a map produced by a probe team of the likely willingness of an enemy population to adopt certain models? Or a propaganda poster?
Previous Flowerings -- this one seems most obvious as a match to Planet character-wise, but if you want to have one of the human characters discussing it with Planet/having some sort of psychic vision/etc. go for it. But I would love to know more about what Planet thinks in those moments of godhood before the dieback. Is it all quite philosophical, or is it a desperate attempt to try to survive? Art-wise, something representing the connections within the fungus all across the planet, maybe?
Transcendent Thoughts -- What are they, anyway? In some games, I seem to have an awful lot of them. I would be up for anything here from pure philosophy to invented science. Art-wise, any sort of numinous representation of a transcendent thought itself would be awesome, or something about the Transcendi -- how they seem themselves vs their reality of living inside a computer, somehow?
A lot of these tags could definitely be combined together. (e.g. how do the Believers integrate the existence of psi into their theology? To what extent do the musings of the Transcendi recapitulate Planet's millions-of-years-earlier thoughts?)
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Doctor Who
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Ace McShane, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, The Doctor's TARDIS, Eighth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, Third Doctor
(I have far too many Who ships to list, but Doctor/TARDIS is always a key one.)
Worldbuilding: Development of Dalek time travel before the Time War, History of the Inferno universe, Pre-20th-Century organisations dealing with aliens, Why is the Earth such a popular target for alien invasion?
Development of Dalek time travel before the Time War -- the Daleks have time travel from their third appearance onwards, and it features in most but not all stories after that, but the sophistication of it varies greatly. Genesis shows that the Doctor and the Daleks can definitely meet out of order, so is it possible that the DARDIS-enabled Daleks of The Chase and Masterplan are much further along the Dalek timeline, trying to stop the Doctor early on in his timeline? Is the Dalek timeline constantly being rewritten by the Time Lords/the Daleks themselves? What did Davros have planned for the Hand of Omega?
History of the Inferno universe -- was there a single point of divergence, and if so what was it? Or is it more like Trek's mirror universe where all of human history is just a little nastier? Feel free to have alt versions of other characters we didn't see in Inferno (including the Doctor and the Master) around in whatever roles you want. (For what it's worth: I have read Face of the Enemy, so feel free to use stuff from that if you also happen to be familiar with it, but at the same time completely different interpretations are also very welcome.)
Pre-20th-Century organisations dealing with aliens -- obviously Victorian Torchwood and the Paternoster Gang would qualify here, but would there be organised efforts in other times and places that have had contact with extraterrestrial life? Who cleans up after all the historicals? Did some shadowy person recruit Shakespeare after his encounter with the Carrionites? After Fires of Pompeii, did the Caecilius family do as they were told and keep quiet about things, or did they start to put two and two together? Do Giuliano and Marco (oh, and I ship that, incidentally) organise some sort of Renaissance UNIT after their encounter with Mandragora? Exactly how clued up were the citizens of Atlantis before they got destroyed three times over? (I could go on and on and on and on; feel free to play with any historical story, or go into some part of history that canon doesn't; just because the Doctor wasn't there doesn't mean there weren't aliens ...)
Why is the Earth such a popular target for alien invasion? -- Canon hints at answers to this from time to time (most notably in New Who in Runaway Bride) but there's never a complete picture. Is it at some strategically important location within the galaxy? Exactly how many Deep Secrets are buried at the core? (There's a definite possible link to the Inferno prompt here if you feel that way inclined, and indeed all of this prompt could link to the previous one as well.) Do time-active/time-aware people know something about the relevance of human history? (There's a definite hint in Frontios that the TARDIS going so far into the future that that "Time Parameters Exceeded" message comes up is correlated in some way with the end of human history, and Utopia does something similar though with a different Very Large Number.)
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Quantum Leap
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Al Calavicci, Lothos, Sam Beckett, Alia, Ziggy, Zoey
Worldbuilding: Are there Leapers from further in the future?, How computers can be aware parallel timelines simultaneously, Origins of Evil Leapers
I ought to say that I'm happy with stuff on either side of (or straddling) the line between vaguely scientific-sounding and more mystical explanations in the same way as the show did, because while most of my own ideas that I give here run more in the direction of the former, the latter is fine too.
Are there Leapers from further in the future? -- and I suppose the follow-on question is "If not, why not?" What happened after Sam vanished? Did any of the other people at the Project try to follow him? Was it mothballed (but then maybe disinterred further in the future)? Did it get shut down by the government? (How much did the government know about the Project in the first place?) What if one of Sam's descendants leaped into Sam (a la Leap Between the States) while he was leaped into somebody else?
How computers can be aware parallel timelines simultaneously -- is this where the "quantum" part of "Quantum Leap Accelerator" comes in? Ziggy and Lothos can both do it, and it's clearly a key part of their role in their respective projects. But how does it actually work? What happens when a change to the timeline affects the history of the computer itself? (We saw a small example of this with the renaming of Ziggy to Alpha in Leap for Lisa, but what if a more drastic change occurred?)
Origins of Evil Leapers -- I know the Evil Leaper stuff isn't universally popular but I still remember the "whoooa" feeling of the series' worldbuilding expanding enormously as what was going on with Alia and Zoey (and OK, I do love Carolyn Seymour A LOT) was revealed in their first episode, even if it never quite paid off as much as I would have hoped. (This could clearly be combined with the further-in-the-future thing, but I'm not wedded to that as an explanation.)
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Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds
Characters: Victor von Doom, Stephen Strange, Owen Reece, Susan Storm, Valeria, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I ship Victor/Stephen.)
Worldbuilding: boundaries between patches of different universes, altered memories, building of the world, Doom radiation, role of the Foundation
Building of the world -- Anything about what was going on when they first built Battleworld would be awesome. From how it's described in canon, it seems to have been very difficult to get the different patches of reality to coexist (see the next two prompts!); I'd love something about what that looked like in practice. On the meta level, something about the legends the inhabitants later tell of that time would be fascinating. Art-wise, something showing Doom exerting his power, or Stephen doing magic, or anything like that, would be great.
Altered memories -- Most people in most parts of Battleworld seem to accept their new reality. How is this maintained? What exactly are the new memories that Doom gave them like? What happens when the old memories start to poke through?
Boundaries between patches of different universes -- How exactly does this work? How significant are the effects and do they persist in a significant way even at the time that the miniseries takes place?
Doom radiation -- Do areas of Battleworld that Doom doesn't know much about have a sketchier quality to their existence than others? (This could lend itself to some interesting art, I think, if you take "sketchier" fairly literally.) Is this why Stephen is seen reporting on lots of minutiae in his Sheriff role in the early issues? What happens when Doom really wants to exert his power?
Role of the Foundation -- Where does Valeria's Foundation sit in relation to Stephen's operations? Exactly how much influence does she have over Doom? Caseficcy type stuff of them investigating Battleworld would be great. For art, diagrams of gadgets Valeria invents?
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Bad Blood (Taylor Swift)
Characters: Arsyn, Catastrophe, Headmistress, Lucky Fiori, The Trinity, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I am more than happy for other characters to appear as well. I ship Arsyn/Catastrophe.)
Worldbuilding: Apocalyptic scenarios, Origins of the Organisation, Technology, The Trinity as gestalt entity, Training manuals
Origins of the Organisation -- dig into the backstory. How long has all this been going on? (I mean, they could be the modern day inheritors of some secret sisterhood stretching back into antiquity, if you want. Maybe an interesting direction for art -- a Roman mosaic or something representing their millennia-old predecessors?) Who betrayed whom, why and how often? And so on.
Technology -- they seem to have a lot of stuff that's basically working on magic/rule of cool; how does it all work "really"? In art terms, this is definitely where a lovingly detailed diagram wouldn't go amiss, but a portrait of Catastrophe or one of her friends tooled up would be awesome too.
Training manuals -- this is more of a tag for the meta category, I guess, but something detailing why they put people through all the stuff Catastrophe goes through in the video would be awesome. It could be built into a fic, I suppose, and in art terms diagrams extracted from a manual would be great.
Apocalyptic scenarios -- why is everything exploding in the end? what was in the briefcase in the first place that was so important and is it linked to that? has the world been heading into a dire situation for a while, or is it all very sudden? Art-wise, maybe the scene of destruction after the final battle?
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Machineries of Empire
Characters: Ajewen Cheris, Garach Jedao Shkan, Kujen, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Original Hafn Character(s), Original Servitor(s), Kujen
(I ship dirtybadwrong Jedao/Kujen, and if I'm honest Cheris/pretty much any woman who crosses her path, although they're not in the tag set.)
Worldbuilding: Calendrical mechanics, Earlier calendrical regimes, Conflict between factions, Other spacefaring civilisations, Servitor culture
Calendrical mechanics -- anything and everything about how it works very welcome. What is the intersection between belief systems and playing with the laws of physics? Obviously Kujen would be an obvious candidate for exploring this, as the inventor of the whole system, but how Cheris organised her calendrical spike would also be interesting, or anything about the day-to-day maintenance of the high calendar, either from the Rahal point of view (towers, remembrances, etc.), the Vidona one, or from the point of view of people like the Mwennin who maintain their traditions surreptitiously while paying lip service to the outward forms.
Earlier calendrical regimes -- it's made very clear that things have got significantly worse over time in the heptarchate/hexarchate, even within individual non-immortal characters' life times. Were any of the earlier versions of the calendar at least slightly bearable? What sorts of things get changed apart from the addition of remembrances? But I have to admit what I'm really hoping for here is something that plays with the idea that we have a calendrical regime in the here-and-now without realising it. The mentions of "invariance" in canon hint at relativity to me; is it that Einstein supplied such a convincing model that humanity locked itself into a particular regime (that didn't allow FTL and exotic effects) without even knowing it, until eventually it was replaced?
Conflict between factions -- politicking and bureaucratic maneouvring are clearly a key part of life in the hexarchate for those involved in the factions, but has it ever spilled out into open warfare? Or do the shifting alliances between the factions maintain at least a ceasefire? Then again, we know the Liozh were purged.
Other spacefaring civilisations -- Raven Stratagem tells us that the Hafn "count as human", which suggests that there are both humans-outside-the-hexarchate and genuinely alien aliens out there. How does it all work? What types of alien are there? Did anyone have anything similar to calendrical mechanics before it was invented, or have they all just copied it with adaptations to their own needs?
Servitor culture -- I love the little servitor-POV sections that sneak in here and there, and the intriguing hints about their society that runs in parallel to humanity but is largely ignored. They seem to be fairly devoted to humans, but, given how awful the hexarchate is, why they should be is a bit of a mystery. What do they do in their "time off"? What do they make of humans like Cheris who do make time for them? For art, I'd love a picture of a servitor, or even better, a whole group of servitors with different forms having a meeting.
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Harry Potter - Books 1-7
Characters: Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding: Wizarding Economy
Wizarding Economy -- This is a much more focused prompt than most of the others, but I'm so glad I spotted that someone had nominated this, because I started overthinking this aspect of the HP worldbuilding about a month ago when I reread Philosopher's Stone for the first time in ages and got to the bit in the vault at Gringott's, and I just can't get it out of my brain. How does money work in the wizarding world? How many things do people actually need to trade, or is it more that if you want a good version of something, you need to go to someone who's a specialist? Since they can magic up almost anything, how does the wizarding world end up with stores of value that are seemingly so similar to the Muggle world's? Is it one of the exemptions to Gamp's Law, and if so how? Are the goblin inscriptions on the coins actually some sort of enchantment that means that they will work as a currency? (Part of me wonders if it's some sort of magical equivalent of cryptocurrency. Is the fact that the numbers of Knuts in a Sickle and Sickles in a Galleon are both prime significant in some arithmantic way?)
Some slightly more specific prompts if you're that way inclined: What does Harry end up doing with all the money he inherited? (I would prefer this not to go down a Lord Potter route, though.) Were the Weasleys always poor or did one of Ron's ancestors make poor investments? Does Hermione ever find herself in trouble with Gringott's for creating the fake Galleons used by the DA?
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Star Trek: The Next Generation
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Ro Laren, Worf, Geordi La Forge, Reginald Barclay
(I ship Beverly/Deanna, though I don't see them as an exclusive couple, and Deanna/Worf in a their-love-is-slightly-doomed-but-it's-canon-they-could-have-made-it-an-AU way.)
Worldbuilding: Life and Work on a Federation Medical Ship, Utopian Earth, Sociological Implications of Holodeck Technology, Non-Federation citizens in Starfleet
Life and Work on a Federation Medical Ship -- anything from dealing with how they deal with major crises to more everyday stuff would be lovely here. There must be lots of empty space on a ship like this when it's not actually in full crisis mode; how do the crew deal with that? Are there lots of superstitions? What's the day-to-day admin like? I could definitely go for a Captain's Log or similar meta-style piece here. Art-wise, a scene from life on board, a diagram of some particular piece of medical apparatus, or something like a cutaway diagram of the decks would be amazing. (For what it's worth, if you've offered this in conjunction with Beverly, I would be very, very happy with stuff exploring life on board the USS Pasteur from the All Good Things alt-future.)
Utopian Earth -- how does the post-scarcity society they've got going on Earth actually work in practice? (Feel free to attack this from any direction, from sociological to where does all the energy for the replicators come from or anything in between.) Is it really as Utopian as all that? Is everyone very earnest and self-improving, or is Starfleet primarily an excuse to get all those sorts of people off-planet to leave everyone else to have fun? How does the memory of the horrors of the 21st Century affect people's views of their lives now? Feel free to explore this from the perspective of any of the specific characters I've requested (on shore leave, or when they were cadets?), original characters or no characters. Art-wise, any sort of scene from Earth would be great; maybe some views of famous landmarks as they have ended up in the 24th Century? The show liked doing this with its matte paintings on the rare occasions it did go to Earth, but there are vast number of places unexplored.
Sociological Implications of Holodeck Technology -- (I've included Geordi and Barclay in my character requests as they seem to be good characters for exploring this but as always that's just a suggestion.) At the start of TNG, the holodeck is this shiny brand new thing that none of the characters have ever seen before (if you want to try to reconcile that with how Discovery's "battle simulator" from over a century previously looks very, very holodeck-like, feel free!), and it doesn't even have its own characters until midway through S1 with The Big Goodbye. But it very, very quickly seems to become ubiquitous. The show does play around with issues around it (e.g. with Moriarty and Barclay, and also all the stuff Voyager does with the Doctor) but there's a sort of baseline assumption that everyone's a Starfleet officer and very busy and focused on their jobs, Barclay being presented as an exception. What does it mean for society as a whole? Is holodeck access rationed in any way? (Surely even in the post-scarcity society computational cycles are a finite resource, given that the Enterprise sometimes managed to get distracted into using up its entire computer core on running holodeck things.) Or can people get their own holodecks in their homes very easily? Does it create a whole generation of shut-ins? Or does the overall philosophy of 24th Century humanity include ideas that prevent them from getting too distracted? Do people worry about the fact that malfunctions seem to be quite frequent? What does holodeck technology mean for crime? Is it ever used as a diplomatic tool? Crossing over into DS9 for a minute, how does the Federation view Ferengi holosuites? (The Ferengi don't have anything resembling the Prime Directive; is there handwringing about cultures that ought not to be contacted being exposed to the technology when the Ferengi trade with them?) Art-wise, I think there's definitely an opportunity to do literally anything you want here, portraying things inside a holodeck program. But if you want something more specific, maybe people using it to fly?
Non-Federation citizens in Starfleet -- I'm primarily envisaging Ro and Worf for this one* but obviously feel free to use different perspectives (including Nog from DS9, if you want to). What's it like to be a Starfleet cadet who doesn't come from a Federation world? (Obviously this would be a bit different for Worf with his adoptive human family than it would for some others?) What sort of attitudes do the instructors and other cadets have? Once they've graduated, are there any restrictions on the sorts of assignments they can have? Would there be a problem with them reaching the rank of captain or admiral? Do Section 31 surreptitiously keep an eye on them? etc.
*Actually, I can't quite shake the idea that timeline-wise Ro and Worf ought to have been Academy contemporaries. Did they just never happen to meet? Or do they not acknowledge it when they meet aboard the Enterprise for some other reason? Or is it that Ro joined late having been stuck under the Cardassian occupation?
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Star Trek: Discovery
I'm conscious that I'm taking a risk requesting an ongoing canon; if anything in my prompts ends up contradicted by the final episodes of the season feel free to ignore it/AU the hell out of things/etc.
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Saru, Paul Stamets, Philippa Georgiou, Sylvia Tilly, Michael Burnham, Gabriel Lorca
Worldbuilding: Different subspace domains, The Spore Drive, High degree of convergence between Mirror Universe and Prime Universe in this era, Kelpien Biology, Kelpien History & Culture
Different subspace domains -- I love how with the mycelial network the show has made subspace much, much weirder than it was generally treated as in other series. (Though there are hints of it in Schisms in TNG and arguably fluidic space in Voyager.) What other types of subspace are there? What can be found there? What is "regular" subspace like? Art-wise, a "map" of different layers or whatever of subspace would be amazing.
The Spore Drive -- How exactly does it work beyond "insert fungus and sentient navigator"? What exactly happened so that it didn't become ubiquitous later on? (Recent episodes have definitely started to hint at some possible fairly dark explanations for this; feel free to roll with this or invent some other reason.) Art-wise, schematics etc. would be awesome.
High degree of convergence between Mirror Universe and Prime Universe in this era -- this really intrigues me, given that the Terran Empire has had access to the Defiant and its technology for the best part of a century. And of course by the time DS9 rolls around the Terran Empire has been destroyed. Obviously from one perspective there's the storytelling fun that happens from seeing different versions of the same characters, which is what underpinned the TOS version that Disco is somewhat bound to, but is there some in-universe explanation for the close parallels? Especially given the number of assassinations in the Mirror verse, the fact that the same people are around in roughly the same roles seems very surprising. Is there some sort of process driving such convergence? (In terms of the requested characters, feel free to use either or both of their normal universe and Mirror universe selves here.)
Kelpien Biology / Kelpien History & Culture -- Short version: I love Saru, tell me more about him and where he comes from. Slightly longer version: I love the idea of a sentient species that has evolved from prey instead of predator. What differences has that caused in biological and/or cultural senses? We get a few hints from some of Saru's statements and his attitude to things, but there's definitely more to dig into here, I feel. How does the sensing-death thing work, and how abstract can the threat be before it doesn't register? (And why didn't it work with Mirror Lorca?) And why are there so few Kelpiens around in the prime universe?
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Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Characters: Jessika Pava, Paige Tico, Rose Tico, Maz Kanata, Rey, Leia Organa, Kylo Ren, Snoke
(I'm only not requesting the more general character tags here because I found I had enough characters I wanted to definitely request, but feel free to treat this as an "Any or No Characters" request if that's the way your inspiration takes you.)
Worldbuilding: Resistance recruitment, Different types of Force user, Role of the Knights of Ren, Snoke's Origins
Resistance recruitment -- how does the Resistance come by new recruits? How open can they be? How much is Leia's personal involvement a draw to those who join? The story of how Jess, Paige or Rose joined up would be great. Art-wise, a recruitment poster would be fantastic.
Role of the Knights of Ren -- We know next to nothing about them, except that they're probably some other students of Luke's academy who went with Ben when he left. Fill in the gaps however you see fit! Some specific ideas: Did they start the whole thing from scratch or are the Knights of Ren an ancient order of Dark Siders whose trappings they took on? Are they affiliated with the First Order directly or more off to one side? Do they owe allegiance primarily to Kylo, Snoke or someone else?
Different types of Force user -- "I'm no Jedi, but I know the Force", Maz tells Rey. In TLJ, we finally get to see Leia using the Force, and Rey seeming to be moving towards quite a different way of doing being a Jedi. (Or is it perhaps an old way, similar to Qui-Gon's "Grey Jedi" thing?) And we still don't really know exactly what Dark Side philosophy Snoke and Kylo Ren were operating under, except that they don't seem to be Sith, exactly. Basically, any exploration of the different ways of being a Force user with any or all of the Force sensitive characters above would be really interesting.
Snoke's Origins -- so, er, yeah, what are they? In particular, what's his relationship (if any) to Palpatine? Was he waiting in the wings all along or is he from somewhere in the Unknown Regions, finding the remnants of the Empire fleeing there and taking advantage of them?
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The most important thing is that I would, genuinely, be very happy with anything created for any combination of character and worldbuilding tags I've picked (as long as it avoids my DNWs). Many of the worldbuilding tags do seem to me to be prompts in and of themselves, to be honest, so if you've already got ideas, please do just go for it, but this letter is here if you do want more detail.
My AO3 name is weakinteraction -- exactly the same as this dreamwidth account. I'm requesting Fic, Art or Meta for all of the fandoms below; please note that in some cases I have suggested certain characters that might fit well with particular worldbuilding tags, but that shouldn't be taken as meaning I'm not open to them being explored in other ways. (In all but one fandom, I've requested the worldbuilding-by-itself-is-fine "Any or No Characters" tag, so I really am open to anything.)
Spoiler Warnings: the Machineries of Empire section contains spoilers for Raven Stratagem; the Discovery section is spoilery up to S1E13.
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General likes
- I love worldbuilding in all its forms; my favourite canons split pretty evenly into ones where the worldbuilding feels all wonderfully detailed and I just want even more of it, and ones where I have a ton of nagging questions that I want filling in/inconsistencies I want to see resolved.
- That said, I am definitely not averse to shipping if you want to include it. I have listed for each fandom any ships I particularly ship among the selected characters, but I am in general open to being persuaded on any given pairing. I multiship all over the place and don't have any hard NOTPs.
- I love canon-divergent AUs; if you want to explore the worldbuilding in question by taking a road-not-travelled approach, that's A-OK with me.
- Fic: I am in general happy with many different types of fic; Just the characters doing something that they're stated to do in canon but with the details glossed over would be fine with me, if there's more detailed exploration of how they do it to show the worldbuilding. But I genuinely have no restrictions on things like person, tense, and am very open to epistolary fic, interactive fiction, and so on. Again, go with your inspiration.
- In-universe meta: I basically consider this "also fic", but yes please to anything and everything that fits in the category of things you might find in that universe. Encyclopedia entries, newspaper articles, instruction manuals, teaching materials, etc. Even better, something that takes this a layer deeper, like a historical overview presenting bits and pieces from different sources and pointing out the contrasts/conflicts between them. I particularly love the sort of thing that presents a distorted view of the version we "know" from canon, but that you can see where it's come from (slightly random example if you know it: "Living Witness" from Voyager). But in general, anything you can imagine that would fit into the meta category would be great.
- Art: I'm open to any and all types of worldbuilding art. Maps! Diagrams! Fictional landscapes! Portraits of characters illustrating worldbuilding elements (fashion, gadgets they're holding, etc.)! If you're inclined to include, I do love Easter-Egg-y type stuff in art, and for some of these fandoms I would really love something that reproduced the feel of being from that universe, where appropriate (e.g. for Star Trek, something that had bits of LCARS interface round the side). I'll be honest -- I don't feel like I'm very good at prompting for art. I've tried to provide some more specific ideas where they occur to me, but they really are just suggestions; if they're absent/not working for you, but something I've put in the other bits of the details has sparked off an idea, go with it by all means.
Do Not Wants
- Especially for this exchange, I would very much not like to receive any AU that isn't the canon divergent kind.
- Please no character bashing. (These are all canons where I like almost everyone and the people who I don't like -- e.g. Miriam from SMAC -- I want a nuanced take on.)
- Apart from that, the only other things I was strongly DNW enough about to put in the sign up box (that aren't automatically covered by the "it should have worldbuilding in it" baseline) are all smut-related things that I think are fairly unlikely to come up, but just in case: please no underage, incest, watersports, bloodplay, breathplay, emetophilia, scat or vore
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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
General note for this fandom: I am intensely agnostic about SMAX. I have no preference at all as to whether you include ideas from it, ignore it completely, or treat it as a source of inspiration without feeling bound to the details.
Characters: Corazon Santiago, Deirdre Skye, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I ship Corazon/Deirdre.)
I would in general be happy with explorations of the worldbuilding from the perspective of any of the faction leaders, not just the four in the tag set, or OCs from the factions. Or things with no characters at all, especially on the meta front.
Worldbuilding: Impact of discovery of human psi powers on society, Previous Flowerings, Religion on Planet, Social Engineering, Transcendent Thoughts
Impact of discovery of human psi powers on society -- The game does jump quite quickly from the early mind worm attacks revealing that psi powers are real to empaths everywhere, and there are later bits that imply the far future implications, like the Telepathic Matrix, but especially in the early days it must have caused huge ructions in a society that was already only precariously clinging on in an alien world. What does it mean for ideas about privacy? How does it affect people's view of what it means to be human? Do some factions shun telepaths? (Or are they just too useful even in the ones that we might imagine would be suspicious, especially in fighting mind worms? And obviously all the faction leaders seem to turn out to be powerful telepaths, given the connections they form with Planet.) Or were there hints that there was something to it even back on Earth? (maybe all those '60s parapsychology experiments caught on to something?) For art, I would be very up for something that gets at the same type of vibes as some of the related Secret Project videos (from the creepiness of the Empath Guild one to the outright horror of the Psychic Amplifier to the everything's-great-or-is-it Telepathic Matrix one).
Religion on Planet -- How does life on a new world affect religious views? The Gaians are an obvious candidate here: the Weather Paradigm is a very early project and comes with its own Gaian prayer. But what sort of belief systems existed among Deirdre's followers on board the Unity? What is Deirdre's role, and how comfortable is she with it? That sort of thing. If you're up for doing fictional Christian theology, I'm also intrigued by how the Believers adapt their take on things. There are implications in some of the in-game quotes that they put the expulsion from paradise front and centre, but then there's also all the endgame "We Must Dissent" stuff. But I'd also be interested in, e.g. how the University (which I kind of assume is at least officially atheist) handles rituals around major life events, death, etc. or whatever weird rituals the Hive use to help people "extend [their] awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity", and so on. Art-wise for this, I'd love some religious art from Planet.
Social Engineering -- the social engineering screen is seriously my favourite game mechanic ever; none of the later Civ takes on the same idea have quite given me the same feeling of pressing a lever here and getting an outcome over there but also an unintended consequence to deal with in the corner. How do the faction leaders weigh up these choices? (Given that these often determine diplomacy as well -- what do they do if their neighbour is pushing for something that isn't necessarily what they would go for?) Or taking a more ordinary citizen's level view of things, what's it like to go through an upheaval? (The fact that you just have to pay a bunch of money for it with none of the disorder in Civ II suggests that the Psych Chaplains and similar are doing a lot of stuff to people to get them to accept new models, for example.) Art-wise, some sort of chart or diagram representing connections between different areas? Or a map produced by a probe team of the likely willingness of an enemy population to adopt certain models? Or a propaganda poster?
Previous Flowerings -- this one seems most obvious as a match to Planet character-wise, but if you want to have one of the human characters discussing it with Planet/having some sort of psychic vision/etc. go for it. But I would love to know more about what Planet thinks in those moments of godhood before the dieback. Is it all quite philosophical, or is it a desperate attempt to try to survive? Art-wise, something representing the connections within the fungus all across the planet, maybe?
Transcendent Thoughts -- What are they, anyway? In some games, I seem to have an awful lot of them. I would be up for anything here from pure philosophy to invented science. Art-wise, any sort of numinous representation of a transcendent thought itself would be awesome, or something about the Transcendi -- how they seem themselves vs their reality of living inside a computer, somehow?
A lot of these tags could definitely be combined together. (e.g. how do the Believers integrate the existence of psi into their theology? To what extent do the musings of the Transcendi recapitulate Planet's millions-of-years-earlier thoughts?)
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Doctor Who
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Ace McShane, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, The Doctor's TARDIS, Eighth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, Third Doctor
(I have far too many Who ships to list, but Doctor/TARDIS is always a key one.)
Worldbuilding: Development of Dalek time travel before the Time War, History of the Inferno universe, Pre-20th-Century organisations dealing with aliens, Why is the Earth such a popular target for alien invasion?
Development of Dalek time travel before the Time War -- the Daleks have time travel from their third appearance onwards, and it features in most but not all stories after that, but the sophistication of it varies greatly. Genesis shows that the Doctor and the Daleks can definitely meet out of order, so is it possible that the DARDIS-enabled Daleks of The Chase and Masterplan are much further along the Dalek timeline, trying to stop the Doctor early on in his timeline? Is the Dalek timeline constantly being rewritten by the Time Lords/the Daleks themselves? What did Davros have planned for the Hand of Omega?
History of the Inferno universe -- was there a single point of divergence, and if so what was it? Or is it more like Trek's mirror universe where all of human history is just a little nastier? Feel free to have alt versions of other characters we didn't see in Inferno (including the Doctor and the Master) around in whatever roles you want. (For what it's worth: I have read Face of the Enemy, so feel free to use stuff from that if you also happen to be familiar with it, but at the same time completely different interpretations are also very welcome.)
Pre-20th-Century organisations dealing with aliens -- obviously Victorian Torchwood and the Paternoster Gang would qualify here, but would there be organised efforts in other times and places that have had contact with extraterrestrial life? Who cleans up after all the historicals? Did some shadowy person recruit Shakespeare after his encounter with the Carrionites? After Fires of Pompeii, did the Caecilius family do as they were told and keep quiet about things, or did they start to put two and two together? Do Giuliano and Marco (oh, and I ship that, incidentally) organise some sort of Renaissance UNIT after their encounter with Mandragora? Exactly how clued up were the citizens of Atlantis before they got destroyed three times over? (I could go on and on and on and on; feel free to play with any historical story, or go into some part of history that canon doesn't; just because the Doctor wasn't there doesn't mean there weren't aliens ...)
Why is the Earth such a popular target for alien invasion? -- Canon hints at answers to this from time to time (most notably in New Who in Runaway Bride) but there's never a complete picture. Is it at some strategically important location within the galaxy? Exactly how many Deep Secrets are buried at the core? (There's a definite possible link to the Inferno prompt here if you feel that way inclined, and indeed all of this prompt could link to the previous one as well.) Do time-active/time-aware people know something about the relevance of human history? (There's a definite hint in Frontios that the TARDIS going so far into the future that that "Time Parameters Exceeded" message comes up is correlated in some way with the end of human history, and Utopia does something similar though with a different Very Large Number.)
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Quantum Leap
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Al Calavicci, Lothos, Sam Beckett, Alia, Ziggy, Zoey
Worldbuilding: Are there Leapers from further in the future?, How computers can be aware parallel timelines simultaneously, Origins of Evil Leapers
I ought to say that I'm happy with stuff on either side of (or straddling) the line between vaguely scientific-sounding and more mystical explanations in the same way as the show did, because while most of my own ideas that I give here run more in the direction of the former, the latter is fine too.
Are there Leapers from further in the future? -- and I suppose the follow-on question is "If not, why not?" What happened after Sam vanished? Did any of the other people at the Project try to follow him? Was it mothballed (but then maybe disinterred further in the future)? Did it get shut down by the government? (How much did the government know about the Project in the first place?) What if one of Sam's descendants leaped into Sam (a la Leap Between the States) while he was leaped into somebody else?
How computers can be aware parallel timelines simultaneously -- is this where the "quantum" part of "Quantum Leap Accelerator" comes in? Ziggy and Lothos can both do it, and it's clearly a key part of their role in their respective projects. But how does it actually work? What happens when a change to the timeline affects the history of the computer itself? (We saw a small example of this with the renaming of Ziggy to Alpha in Leap for Lisa, but what if a more drastic change occurred?)
Origins of Evil Leapers -- I know the Evil Leaper stuff isn't universally popular but I still remember the "whoooa" feeling of the series' worldbuilding expanding enormously as what was going on with Alia and Zoey (and OK, I do love Carolyn Seymour A LOT) was revealed in their first episode, even if it never quite paid off as much as I would have hoped. (This could clearly be combined with the further-in-the-future thing, but I'm not wedded to that as an explanation.)
General | SMAC | DW | Quantum Leap | Secret Wars | Bad Blood | Machineries of Empire | HP | TNG | Disco | SW (Sequels)
Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds
Characters: Victor von Doom, Stephen Strange, Owen Reece, Susan Storm, Valeria, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I ship Victor/Stephen.)
Worldbuilding: boundaries between patches of different universes, altered memories, building of the world, Doom radiation, role of the Foundation
Building of the world -- Anything about what was going on when they first built Battleworld would be awesome. From how it's described in canon, it seems to have been very difficult to get the different patches of reality to coexist (see the next two prompts!); I'd love something about what that looked like in practice. On the meta level, something about the legends the inhabitants later tell of that time would be fascinating. Art-wise, something showing Doom exerting his power, or Stephen doing magic, or anything like that, would be great.
Altered memories -- Most people in most parts of Battleworld seem to accept their new reality. How is this maintained? What exactly are the new memories that Doom gave them like? What happens when the old memories start to poke through?
Boundaries between patches of different universes -- How exactly does this work? How significant are the effects and do they persist in a significant way even at the time that the miniseries takes place?
Doom radiation -- Do areas of Battleworld that Doom doesn't know much about have a sketchier quality to their existence than others? (This could lend itself to some interesting art, I think, if you take "sketchier" fairly literally.) Is this why Stephen is seen reporting on lots of minutiae in his Sheriff role in the early issues? What happens when Doom really wants to exert his power?
Role of the Foundation -- Where does Valeria's Foundation sit in relation to Stephen's operations? Exactly how much influence does she have over Doom? Caseficcy type stuff of them investigating Battleworld would be great. For art, diagrams of gadgets Valeria invents?
General | SMAC | DW | Quantum Leap | Secret Wars | Bad Blood | Machineries of Empire | HP | TNG | Disco | SW (Sequels)
Bad Blood (Taylor Swift)
Characters: Arsyn, Catastrophe, Headmistress, Lucky Fiori, The Trinity, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
(I am more than happy for other characters to appear as well. I ship Arsyn/Catastrophe.)
Worldbuilding: Apocalyptic scenarios, Origins of the Organisation, Technology, The Trinity as gestalt entity, Training manuals
Origins of the Organisation -- dig into the backstory. How long has all this been going on? (I mean, they could be the modern day inheritors of some secret sisterhood stretching back into antiquity, if you want. Maybe an interesting direction for art -- a Roman mosaic or something representing their millennia-old predecessors?) Who betrayed whom, why and how often? And so on.
Technology -- they seem to have a lot of stuff that's basically working on magic/rule of cool; how does it all work "really"? In art terms, this is definitely where a lovingly detailed diagram wouldn't go amiss, but a portrait of Catastrophe or one of her friends tooled up would be awesome too.
Training manuals -- this is more of a tag for the meta category, I guess, but something detailing why they put people through all the stuff Catastrophe goes through in the video would be awesome. It could be built into a fic, I suppose, and in art terms diagrams extracted from a manual would be great.
Apocalyptic scenarios -- why is everything exploding in the end? what was in the briefcase in the first place that was so important and is it linked to that? has the world been heading into a dire situation for a while, or is it all very sudden? Art-wise, maybe the scene of destruction after the final battle?
General | SMAC | DW | Quantum Leap | Secret Wars | Bad Blood | Machineries of Empire | HP | TNG | Disco | SW (Sequels)
Machineries of Empire
Characters: Ajewen Cheris, Garach Jedao Shkan, Kujen, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Original Hafn Character(s), Original Servitor(s), Kujen
(I ship dirtybadwrong Jedao/Kujen, and if I'm honest Cheris/pretty much any woman who crosses her path, although they're not in the tag set.)
Worldbuilding: Calendrical mechanics, Earlier calendrical regimes, Conflict between factions, Other spacefaring civilisations, Servitor culture
Calendrical mechanics -- anything and everything about how it works very welcome. What is the intersection between belief systems and playing with the laws of physics? Obviously Kujen would be an obvious candidate for exploring this, as the inventor of the whole system, but how Cheris organised her calendrical spike would also be interesting, or anything about the day-to-day maintenance of the high calendar, either from the Rahal point of view (towers, remembrances, etc.), the Vidona one, or from the point of view of people like the Mwennin who maintain their traditions surreptitiously while paying lip service to the outward forms.
Earlier calendrical regimes -- it's made very clear that things have got significantly worse over time in the heptarchate/hexarchate, even within individual non-immortal characters' life times. Were any of the earlier versions of the calendar at least slightly bearable? What sorts of things get changed apart from the addition of remembrances? But I have to admit what I'm really hoping for here is something that plays with the idea that we have a calendrical regime in the here-and-now without realising it. The mentions of "invariance" in canon hint at relativity to me; is it that Einstein supplied such a convincing model that humanity locked itself into a particular regime (that didn't allow FTL and exotic effects) without even knowing it, until eventually it was replaced?
Conflict between factions -- politicking and bureaucratic maneouvring are clearly a key part of life in the hexarchate for those involved in the factions, but has it ever spilled out into open warfare? Or do the shifting alliances between the factions maintain at least a ceasefire? Then again, we know the Liozh were purged.
Other spacefaring civilisations -- Raven Stratagem tells us that the Hafn "count as human", which suggests that there are both humans-outside-the-hexarchate and genuinely alien aliens out there. How does it all work? What types of alien are there? Did anyone have anything similar to calendrical mechanics before it was invented, or have they all just copied it with adaptations to their own needs?
Servitor culture -- I love the little servitor-POV sections that sneak in here and there, and the intriguing hints about their society that runs in parallel to humanity but is largely ignored. They seem to be fairly devoted to humans, but, given how awful the hexarchate is, why they should be is a bit of a mystery. What do they do in their "time off"? What do they make of humans like Cheris who do make time for them? For art, I'd love a picture of a servitor, or even better, a whole group of servitors with different forms having a meeting.
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Harry Potter - Books 1-7
Characters: Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding: Wizarding Economy
Wizarding Economy -- This is a much more focused prompt than most of the others, but I'm so glad I spotted that someone had nominated this, because I started overthinking this aspect of the HP worldbuilding about a month ago when I reread Philosopher's Stone for the first time in ages and got to the bit in the vault at Gringott's, and I just can't get it out of my brain. How does money work in the wizarding world? How many things do people actually need to trade, or is it more that if you want a good version of something, you need to go to someone who's a specialist? Since they can magic up almost anything, how does the wizarding world end up with stores of value that are seemingly so similar to the Muggle world's? Is it one of the exemptions to Gamp's Law, and if so how? Are the goblin inscriptions on the coins actually some sort of enchantment that means that they will work as a currency? (Part of me wonders if it's some sort of magical equivalent of cryptocurrency. Is the fact that the numbers of Knuts in a Sickle and Sickles in a Galleon are both prime significant in some arithmantic way?)
Some slightly more specific prompts if you're that way inclined: What does Harry end up doing with all the money he inherited? (I would prefer this not to go down a Lord Potter route, though.) Were the Weasleys always poor or did one of Ron's ancestors make poor investments? Does Hermione ever find herself in trouble with Gringott's for creating the fake Galleons used by the DA?
General | SMAC | DW | Quantum Leap | Secret Wars | Bad Blood | Machineries of Empire | HP | TNG | Disco | SW (Sequels)
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Ro Laren, Worf, Geordi La Forge, Reginald Barclay
(I ship Beverly/Deanna, though I don't see them as an exclusive couple, and Deanna/Worf in a their-love-is-slightly-doomed-but-it's-canon-they-could-have-made-it-an-AU way.)
Worldbuilding: Life and Work on a Federation Medical Ship, Utopian Earth, Sociological Implications of Holodeck Technology, Non-Federation citizens in Starfleet
Life and Work on a Federation Medical Ship -- anything from dealing with how they deal with major crises to more everyday stuff would be lovely here. There must be lots of empty space on a ship like this when it's not actually in full crisis mode; how do the crew deal with that? Are there lots of superstitions? What's the day-to-day admin like? I could definitely go for a Captain's Log or similar meta-style piece here. Art-wise, a scene from life on board, a diagram of some particular piece of medical apparatus, or something like a cutaway diagram of the decks would be amazing. (For what it's worth, if you've offered this in conjunction with Beverly, I would be very, very happy with stuff exploring life on board the USS Pasteur from the All Good Things alt-future.)
Utopian Earth -- how does the post-scarcity society they've got going on Earth actually work in practice? (Feel free to attack this from any direction, from sociological to where does all the energy for the replicators come from or anything in between.) Is it really as Utopian as all that? Is everyone very earnest and self-improving, or is Starfleet primarily an excuse to get all those sorts of people off-planet to leave everyone else to have fun? How does the memory of the horrors of the 21st Century affect people's views of their lives now? Feel free to explore this from the perspective of any of the specific characters I've requested (on shore leave, or when they were cadets?), original characters or no characters. Art-wise, any sort of scene from Earth would be great; maybe some views of famous landmarks as they have ended up in the 24th Century? The show liked doing this with its matte paintings on the rare occasions it did go to Earth, but there are vast number of places unexplored.
Sociological Implications of Holodeck Technology -- (I've included Geordi and Barclay in my character requests as they seem to be good characters for exploring this but as always that's just a suggestion.) At the start of TNG, the holodeck is this shiny brand new thing that none of the characters have ever seen before (if you want to try to reconcile that with how Discovery's "battle simulator" from over a century previously looks very, very holodeck-like, feel free!), and it doesn't even have its own characters until midway through S1 with The Big Goodbye. But it very, very quickly seems to become ubiquitous. The show does play around with issues around it (e.g. with Moriarty and Barclay, and also all the stuff Voyager does with the Doctor) but there's a sort of baseline assumption that everyone's a Starfleet officer and very busy and focused on their jobs, Barclay being presented as an exception. What does it mean for society as a whole? Is holodeck access rationed in any way? (Surely even in the post-scarcity society computational cycles are a finite resource, given that the Enterprise sometimes managed to get distracted into using up its entire computer core on running holodeck things.) Or can people get their own holodecks in their homes very easily? Does it create a whole generation of shut-ins? Or does the overall philosophy of 24th Century humanity include ideas that prevent them from getting too distracted? Do people worry about the fact that malfunctions seem to be quite frequent? What does holodeck technology mean for crime? Is it ever used as a diplomatic tool? Crossing over into DS9 for a minute, how does the Federation view Ferengi holosuites? (The Ferengi don't have anything resembling the Prime Directive; is there handwringing about cultures that ought not to be contacted being exposed to the technology when the Ferengi trade with them?) Art-wise, I think there's definitely an opportunity to do literally anything you want here, portraying things inside a holodeck program. But if you want something more specific, maybe people using it to fly?
Non-Federation citizens in Starfleet -- I'm primarily envisaging Ro and Worf for this one* but obviously feel free to use different perspectives (including Nog from DS9, if you want to). What's it like to be a Starfleet cadet who doesn't come from a Federation world? (Obviously this would be a bit different for Worf with his adoptive human family than it would for some others?) What sort of attitudes do the instructors and other cadets have? Once they've graduated, are there any restrictions on the sorts of assignments they can have? Would there be a problem with them reaching the rank of captain or admiral? Do Section 31 surreptitiously keep an eye on them? etc.
*Actually, I can't quite shake the idea that timeline-wise Ro and Worf ought to have been Academy contemporaries. Did they just never happen to meet? Or do they not acknowledge it when they meet aboard the Enterprise for some other reason? Or is it that Ro joined late having been stuck under the Cardassian occupation?
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Star Trek: Discovery
I'm conscious that I'm taking a risk requesting an ongoing canon; if anything in my prompts ends up contradicted by the final episodes of the season feel free to ignore it/AU the hell out of things/etc.
Characters: Any or No Characters, Original Character(s), Saru, Paul Stamets, Philippa Georgiou, Sylvia Tilly, Michael Burnham, Gabriel Lorca
Worldbuilding: Different subspace domains, The Spore Drive, High degree of convergence between Mirror Universe and Prime Universe in this era, Kelpien Biology, Kelpien History & Culture
Different subspace domains -- I love how with the mycelial network the show has made subspace much, much weirder than it was generally treated as in other series. (Though there are hints of it in Schisms in TNG and arguably fluidic space in Voyager.) What other types of subspace are there? What can be found there? What is "regular" subspace like? Art-wise, a "map" of different layers or whatever of subspace would be amazing.
The Spore Drive -- How exactly does it work beyond "insert fungus and sentient navigator"? What exactly happened so that it didn't become ubiquitous later on? (Recent episodes have definitely started to hint at some possible fairly dark explanations for this; feel free to roll with this or invent some other reason.) Art-wise, schematics etc. would be awesome.
High degree of convergence between Mirror Universe and Prime Universe in this era -- this really intrigues me, given that the Terran Empire has had access to the Defiant and its technology for the best part of a century. And of course by the time DS9 rolls around the Terran Empire has been destroyed. Obviously from one perspective there's the storytelling fun that happens from seeing different versions of the same characters, which is what underpinned the TOS version that Disco is somewhat bound to, but is there some in-universe explanation for the close parallels? Especially given the number of assassinations in the Mirror verse, the fact that the same people are around in roughly the same roles seems very surprising. Is there some sort of process driving such convergence? (In terms of the requested characters, feel free to use either or both of their normal universe and Mirror universe selves here.)
Kelpien Biology / Kelpien History & Culture -- Short version: I love Saru, tell me more about him and where he comes from. Slightly longer version: I love the idea of a sentient species that has evolved from prey instead of predator. What differences has that caused in biological and/or cultural senses? We get a few hints from some of Saru's statements and his attitude to things, but there's definitely more to dig into here, I feel. How does the sensing-death thing work, and how abstract can the threat be before it doesn't register? (And why didn't it work with Mirror Lorca?) And why are there so few Kelpiens around in the prime universe?
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Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Characters: Jessika Pava, Paige Tico, Rose Tico, Maz Kanata, Rey, Leia Organa, Kylo Ren, Snoke
(I'm only not requesting the more general character tags here because I found I had enough characters I wanted to definitely request, but feel free to treat this as an "Any or No Characters" request if that's the way your inspiration takes you.)
Worldbuilding: Resistance recruitment, Different types of Force user, Role of the Knights of Ren, Snoke's Origins
Resistance recruitment -- how does the Resistance come by new recruits? How open can they be? How much is Leia's personal involvement a draw to those who join? The story of how Jess, Paige or Rose joined up would be great. Art-wise, a recruitment poster would be fantastic.
Role of the Knights of Ren -- We know next to nothing about them, except that they're probably some other students of Luke's academy who went with Ben when he left. Fill in the gaps however you see fit! Some specific ideas: Did they start the whole thing from scratch or are the Knights of Ren an ancient order of Dark Siders whose trappings they took on? Are they affiliated with the First Order directly or more off to one side? Do they owe allegiance primarily to Kylo, Snoke or someone else?
Different types of Force user -- "I'm no Jedi, but I know the Force", Maz tells Rey. In TLJ, we finally get to see Leia using the Force, and Rey seeming to be moving towards quite a different way of doing being a Jedi. (Or is it perhaps an old way, similar to Qui-Gon's "Grey Jedi" thing?) And we still don't really know exactly what Dark Side philosophy Snoke and Kylo Ren were operating under, except that they don't seem to be Sith, exactly. Basically, any exploration of the different ways of being a Force user with any or all of the Force sensitive characters above would be really interesting.
Snoke's Origins -- so, er, yeah, what are they? In particular, what's his relationship (if any) to Palpatine? Was he waiting in the wings all along or is he from somewhere in the Unknown Regions, finding the remnants of the Empire fleeing there and taking advantage of them?
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