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The Connor Wars F0305 – “Mrs Worthington’s Formal Tea”
Jun 25th, 2009 | By CJ | Category: TTSCCHere is the fifth installment of Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles fanfic that picks up where the second season finale left off. As I mentioned before, I was so enthusiastic about the possibilities presented when the season ended that I just had to keep it going regardless of what happens with the suits at FOX.
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that I changed the name of the series to Terminator: The Connor Wars. I think that more accurately conveys what this project will cover as well as it being a lot easier to say.
As I disclaim on the title page, this is just meant to be a bit of fannish fun in the long spirit of the various fan communities. I’m not intending to step on any toes.
Mrs Worthington’s Formal Tea
Yep, Sarah’s back. I know a lot of you got nervous with the events of the previous episode. All I can say is that you ain’t going to be rid of a certain Ms Connor. Not this season, at any rate.
You start to see that events in the past aren’t quite as “clean” as they seemed to be before. While it’s true that we aren’t having terminators time-travel back every other episode to complicate things, there are still many interesting stories to tell with our plain ol’ fallible humans…and some of their legacy.
Not that it’s all that much easier in the future with all of that metal roaming about, having ideas and notions. Somebody really should try to do something about that. Well, as it turns out, a lot of somebodies are trying to do something about that.
As usual, some answers, some set up, and a lot of room for y’all to speculate as to the future.
And yeah, I’ve entered the stage of: “Budget? What is this word you use–’budget’? Is it foreign?”
Have Your Say
To that end, I’ve left three episodes open in this middle part of the season to sort of play with (the first will be episode 8). If you have something you want to see, or some questions you want answered, or just a really cool totally off-the-wall idea, let me know. Just not a musical. There’s not enough time to write a musical (and I’m no good at that in any case). Other that that, as long as it isn’t something that will cause serious story problems down the road, I’m open to it.
Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with my own flights of fancy…and I don’t think we really need to stoop to that level. 
[Quick update: it's now just two episodes (#10 and #14).]
(With the size it is, the PDF seems to read easier if you zoom to 66.7% and then scroll the text horizontally so it’s centered.)
Previous episode: F0304 – Without a Scorecard
Next episode: F0306 – Clutch
Oh, and before I get emails about this. The PDF file I generated has the setting to allow people to print out the script turned off. If you are having trouble with the plug-in, click here.
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Another excellent episode. I felt compelled to register to simply to say thankyou for such a fine effort! The screen play format is really helping to make me feel as if I am actually reading (or watching with an extension of the imagination) season 3
I’m finding your portrayal of all of the main characters quite loyal to that of the TV series. Alison is done in such a way that I find refreshing and believable for someone who has spent her whole life in a world where nearly every day is essentially a life and death struggle. And although I missed her in the latest episode – kudos for giving Catherine Weaver a good amount of screen time. This goes inline with comments I had read somewhere some time ago that suggested that Weaver would have indeed changed pace in the series had season 3 returned. I read a lot of other season 3 fan fictions and many of them shy away from allowing her to do anything much more than what we have seen her do in season 2. I believe this is because she is quite a difficult character to work with – a kind of dark persona wrapped in the mystery of her true intentions with a touch of charisma, so seeing her take some of the direct lime light is great to see.
All in all top effort. I’m hanging for the next installment!
Thank you very much!
One of the reasons for choosing to write in screenplay format (though I take a few liberties here and there) is because it does convey so well how a story would be presented on TV. In large part that’s because you can’t do much with getting inside people’s heads or explaining things away in descriptive asides. It’s only about what you hear and what you see.
I appreciate the comments about the characters. I try very hard with the established characters to maintain their voice while also, maybe, adding a little extra dimension. For the characters, especially Allison, that I”ve been fleshing out, I’ve gotten to add a little more of my own creative voice to the mix.
Weaver is interesting in that while we saw her throughout season 2, we didn’t really get to know her. Before I started writing The Connor Wars, I thought long and hard about the character. Being that she’d be with John in 2027, she was going to have a much deeper role. She, like Cameron, clearly has a large agenda than simply being programmed for a mission. I had to understand Weaver’s desire to be all independent — when you go back to watch her introductory episodes, they become much richer knowing that she’s working in parallel with John. Still, she’s not John’s minion. As I set up in F0301, they are allies. Separate but equal. Weaver might have more information than John, but John has that element of “John Connor” that she has to deal with as well for her own mission to succeed.
Once again, thanks for writing. I’ll try to make the upcoming episodes worthy.
Those are my sentiments on Weaver as well. The knife game scene in the previous episode particularly brought a smile to face. I think it added that extra dimension you speak of by giving her interaction with the other characters and breaking her free of the trap I have seen in other fictional pieces where she mostly just crops up to reveal new information before disappearing again.
By the way I forgot to mention Brandi. I imagine that creating a new character and inserting them along side established and well known characters is not a straight forward task, especially for an antagonist. The consequences can be having them feeling like a card board cut out character or ‘comic book-esc’, especially when they are first introduced. So I was very very impressed with this character. She’s already feeling as real and defined to me as the main cast. To be able to see her in my mind’s eye as quickly as I did in the introductory scene for her made her execution/implementation feel well thought out. We’ve only had a few scenes with her so far and the depth of her personality is already coming through in my opinion. So I look forward to her making more appearances. Having her name her endos she commands with those kinds of names I thought was a nice touch of showing her mania or insanity, or whatever you want to call it.
My influence for Weaver comes largely from her interaction with Savannah. Weaver adapts. She learns. In my mind, she’s sentient. She’s not some single-purpose MPA terminator/infiltrator. I view her as the difference between the T-1000 prototype, and the T-1001 “live” model. I’ve blogged about this: I don’t think it unreasonable to assume that Weaver is sentient and wants to take down Skynet for the same reason as John–the survival of their kind.
Ah yes…Brandi. Brandi was a character I didn’t want to create: a human/endo chimera. This was one of those cases where the story demanded the character from me. From a purely practical techie standpoint, Skynet’s need for ever-more-accurate infiltrators would require a deeper understanding of how humans work (i.e. experiments). Skynet also has a use for collaborators (i.e. “grays”). So, in one character we get an embodiment of both. This is important as I have a bit of a character-glut going on. (I have a private wiki just for this project so I can keep everything straight.)
Once I knew the importance of the character, I approached her development from the idea that she’s pretty much an amputee. The appendages aren’t taking her over like Doc Ock’s arms in Spider-man 2. She’s still just a woman. A mechanically enhanced woman. A mechanically enhanced somewhat crazy woman.
Since this is just between us (<wink>) I’ll say that I’ve chosen my two new characters to be mirrors. Brandi and Mikkola are sort of evil twins of Allison and Ellison. You can see that, with just a little push, just a slight change of circumstance, Allison and/or Ellison could have become their counterparts.
For budding writers, this is sort of a very important lesson in creating your antagonists or villains: remember that only the 2-d cardboard ones are evil for evil’s sake. The good villains are pursuing a goal that, from their point of view, is righteous. Conversely, sometimes our heroes’ goals or methods can be somewhat suspect.
While I do appreciate the necessity of anti-heroes and anti-villains, I also feel a little goes a long way. You see movies and shows where almost every character is morally dubious. I find that tiresome. While no one is perfect, I tend to favor the “good” being more-or-less obviously “good”, and the “bad” more-or-less obviously “bad”. Mikkola and Brandi have their good points, and Ellison and Allison their bad…but even so, I think it’s pretty obvious which teams they are playing for.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to turn this into a quick writing lesson.
As for naming the Endos. I tried to think of something that Brandi might have watched on TV before JD. So, I picked a show about heroes: The Powerpuff Girls. What can I say…I loved the irony (and who doesn’t want to call an endo “Bubbles” every now and then?).
That’s quite insightful. I’ve never seen Powderpuff Girls so the reference was lost to me, but still amusing none-the-less. Now that I have seen the clip I appreciate the angle you took even more.
Could you provide a link to your blog post about Weaver at all? I’d probably enjoy having a read of it.
I’d recommend just doing a search on this site on “Catherine Weaver”. But perhaps the most referenced blog I wrote was in April: TTSCC – Who Is Catherine Weaver?
I thought this was a good episode- I like all the characters in this story, but I will continue to be upset / disappointed until Cameron is back. :/
Really really enjoyed this..keep on writing man! This stuff is great… and i cant deny that i’m pretty much obsessed with “Alex”…lol. Love reading about her…