There is little more important in a story than it's introduction. It's even more important than the epilogue, in many ways. Firm Foundations was meant to be the introduction to the Visionary series, and would serve to establish the Coalition's status. It was supposed to name the major players as well as hinting at each of their roles.
The visionary series would have one 'minor' thread for each character, group, organization, or some such categorization in the Coalition or allied to the Coalition, where said character(s) would accomplish some strategic goal as well as be introduced firmly and developed just short of their climax, which would be saved for the conclusion of the series. Six 'major' visionary threads would cover Regrad and his pursuit of the visions, which would one by one lead him to a philosophical discovery as well as what to do in the galaxy. The culmination would be a climax visioanry thread, where each of the groups which was in a previous Visionary thread would have the climax of their personal plot, contributing to the advancement of the main plot supported by the six discoveries Regrad had made. This would inevitably propel the Coalition towards a final confrontation. Vague? I've intentionally avoided detailing every point, because that would take the many charts I've written and inked all around my room.
The plan was to take years, but as usual, I've been a little overeager, and fumbled the most important part. Due to a lack of planning on my part and the embarrasingly open and nebulous invitation, not to mention a frustrating inability to get my own faction to discuss the thread, the plan, or even to post, the thread's just a mess and more of my terrible speeches (I admit, the speeches were sort of a hurt gut-reaction to reading Simon's dissection of my speech on the holo-net.).
As such, this blunder has threatened the entire strength of the series. I don't think it'll work as well any more, and so I must make a request of you all.
If I may, let me revoke this thread. Cancel it. Pretend it never happened. Let me try again. My mistakes are painfully obvious to me now, and I need this thread to go well or else I might as well just scrap the whole plan now and go back to writing about ketchup and comical explorers. A new thread would feel much more like an introudction to a series rather than another long-winded speech broken up by random introductions. It would also be written just by me (Sorry Irtar, we can work your stuff in somehow), because one of my key mistakes was sitting around waiting for other people - at TRF, a plan with other people in it is doomed to endless delay or poor planning.
So I request a measure of clemency from you all on this terrible mistake. It really is a lousy, lousy thread.
