AUTHOR: Phy DATE: 9/04/2003 01:08:00 PM ----- BODY: Aerie intro

As you approach Aerie from space, you notice a couple of things. First, it's a remarkably normal looking place - blue oceans, brown and green continents, white clouds. As you get closer, you notice that there's a good mix of clouds, but it is the storm clouds that get your attention. After your burn into the atmosphere, you regain control of your bearings and continue your observations As you get closer, you start to notice something peculiar about some of the storm clouds. For one, they appear to be staged about, not always following what would appear to be a complementary weather front. Some, in fact, are positioned around in places where there is no other discernable weather at all.

Getting closer yet to one of these , you notice two of the great storm clouds in rather close proximity to each other in an otherwise clear sky.

Drawing nearer, you notice with a shock that these storm clouds each contain what appear to be castles in their midst, great halls and spires with stone and wood and wildly fluttering flags. Even that observation is tempered when the flashes start flickering.

It is not hard to see what's going on, seeing the blue and green beams darting and blazing back and forth between them.

There are men in those castles, and they are fighting.



Failing to find something that evokes the majesty and wonder that I see in my head, I'm working on a section that doesn't fit the piece but will serve as a placeholder for wonder until I come up with something else. It is more about the mood than the text, or the scene, or the mechanics of the scene. It is the impact of the introduction that I'm after.

It's like this - I can't shake that very visual impact that introduces the first Star Wars film (by which I mean Episode 4), and I have half an idea that I'd like to introduce some kind of visual flair into my first introduction to Aerie.

I realize that this next segment asks more questions than it answers, and that's fine. It serves one purpose only - to provide a placemark for wonder, and to set a stage right out of the gate. --------