Feedback Expanding Characters Family - Help

[Kitter Bitters]

This is a topic I’ve struggled with over the years. It seems like attempts made to expand my characters family go south. It’s a paradox in that I either don’t allow enough writers in or I let the wrong ones in and it crashes and burns. But I find myself drawn to wanting family because it’s easier to flesh out a new alt if they have some connection to an established character. Star Wars is also a highly family driven story.

When I ported Kat over here she had a decade of OOC history at other sites whose timelines centered on the rebellion or clone wars era. I didn’t want to lose the feel of her history so I did what many writers have done and pulled the old frozen in time and wakes up in this timeline backstory. Now I am finding it difficult to expand her lineage. Old family she once had such as a PC brother were important to her story but if I start porting them over I feel the story loses some believability. Realistically how many people can wake up over ten centuries in the future?

So the next obvious choice for family is to have descendants from the last thousand years appear. The descendant angle has merit but it feels overly complex when we account for a thousand years of family members. Would they still have the same name? Would the line die out? Is it realistic to have a house of characters live that long? A lot of the so called “ancient houses” in Star Wars inevitably died off. Would that happen ?

So I find myself wondering what I should do. I could change her backstory and ditch her being that old. I could make her only 100 years old since our timeline says not much is known about that time in the galaxy. That cuts back a huge family tree. I could just say screw believability and bring her twin and his kids over here, somehow saying they also miraculously woke up 10 centuries in the future. I could ignore the complexities of an old family tree and just make a descendant that’s a thousand years after Kat.

It’s something I’ve been struggling with so I thought I’d throw this out for some feedback and see if others had any helpful hints. I really want a rich family story with my character.

 

[Spek Zhio]

Hi! This really piqued my interest, as I agree with the sentiment that SW is a family driven story.

I also gave up on trying to find a stable 'party' - i.e., crew - for my character, let alone a family, since stable RP partners are hard to find - Which is totally understandable. Myself often being the 'unstable' one.

You asked for feedback, so here are my humble 2 cents:

Realistically how many people can wake up over ten centuries in the future?

In Star Wars? Very "realistic" - i.e., verisimilar. Stranger things had happened.

Would they still have the same name? Would the line die out? Is it realistic to have a house of characters live that long?

In a more grounded setting, the answer is no to all of those. In Star Wars... who cares?

So I find myself wondering what I should do.

In my opinion, you should do what feels right for you character development. If all you want is to port her background to a new setting, then the time spent is stasis is of no consequence. Pick the window that suits you best - 1000 years, 100, years, 10 years, it doesn't matter.

If the number of years is actually of relevance to some aspect of her that you're working on, then go with that - e.g., 1000 years.
Everything else can be worked around it.

OOC, if what you're after is to add depth to the character, then just use NPCs as family members. Then you won't need to rely on other people. However, if you want to establish partnerships with other writers, and have the relationships develop organically, then keep the number of PC family members low - compensating them with NPCs that you write for, if required.


On a different note, I might be interested in exploring this myself. Let me know if you want to discuss this further - it's fine if you don't. XP

 

[Kitter Bitters]

So basically I’m overthinking it?

 

[Danger Arceneau]

It’s very realistic to have lots of frozen people wake up. The Firrerreo race were put in long term ships with cryo cells to survive the black hive virus and sent out to space to die… only to be awoken centuries later iirc.

Also have the whole - stuck in a black hole orbit and the ship found, only to be rescued and find out that a month for them was like 10 centuries outside of it — think interstellar where that one planet one minute there was 7 years outside

So yeah, don’t overthink it, just rp!

 

[Spek Zhio]

So basically I’m overthinking it?

 

[Spek Zhio]

Also have the whole - stuck in a black hole orbit and the ship found, only to be rescued and find out that a month for them was like 10 centuries outside of it — think interstellar where that one planet one minute there was 7 years outside

Great point!

Now I'm thinking of a character that gets frozen for a millennia. Wakes up and discovers that their lineage is gone, all having mysteriously disappeared around the same time. Only to later find out that their entire family went looking for them and got stuck near the orbit of a black hole. Having aged no more than a month.

Sorry for the double post.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

It’s very realistic to have lots of frozen people wake up. The Firrerreo race were put in long term ships with cryo cells to survive the black hive virus and sent out to space to die… only to be awoken centuries later iirc.

Also have the whole - stuck in a black hole orbit and the ship found, only to be rescued and find out that a month for them was like 10 centuries outside of it — think interstellar where that one planet one minute there was 7 years outside

So yeah, don’t overthink it, just rp!

This is actually super helpful! Thank you

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Thank you both! This has helped me decide that I don't need to overthink it. I can find reasons her family is here.

 

[Vince]

Feel free to ignore this for it might complicate your decision a little.

I do not think you are overthinking things. I think it is extremely reasonable for you to think that it would be an unlikely coincidence to have your character's family members 'time travel' to the current era. In my view, Chaos is filled with unlikely coincidences so I wouldn't feel bad about going for one myself. There are, however, options. Personally, I think the concept of having a character frozen only to wake up 800 years later to be very intriguing. Everyone they knew or had even ever interacted with are now long gone - how does the character cope with that? How does she deal with a familiar smell or experience that reminds her of the past? There are a lot of interesting stories to explore there.

As for giving your character a family: I think one of the best ways is to have her find a new family in this timeline. Whether it be with another writer or NPCs, I think there are plenty of options to have a character form powerful familiar bonds with people in a situation like hers. I.e. you do not necessarily need to go back and bring her own family here, instead, you could let her form or join a new family in the current era.

As for descendants: I do not find it unlikely to have descendants at all. We are all descendants of people/beings who died... well, since the beginning of life on earth. Her blood would likely be rather diluted by this point though.

 

[Spek Zhio]

I can find reasons her family is here.

And, if all else fails, your character can start a new family...

 

[Judah Dashiell]

. I didn’t want to lose the feel of her history so I did what many writers have done and pulled the old frozen in time and wakes up in this timeline backstory. Now I am finding it difficult to expand her lineage.

I haven't read too much of Kats stuff however... Could she have a frozen son or daughter from the time she was frozen? Could be some awesome threads trying to find her child and piece the clues together.

Not sure if that contradicts anything you've wrote so far.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

I haven't read too much of Kats stuff however... Could she have a frozen son or daughter from the time she was frozen? Could be some awesome threads trying to find her child and piece the clues together.

Not sure if that contradicts anything you've wrote so far.

I have tried over the years to give her children but the other writer always bails on her. But I could say she had children from before. I could just tweak a few things and maybe do an NPC father. I think Romi did that with success. I could also give her a niece or nephew.

I think I had just been overthinking it and worrying about that time gap.

 

[Ever Dawnracer]

Family is the spice of life, KitKat.

Just find some people you trust and who will stick around to write them and then go have fun.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Thanks everyone. I think I was just thinking myself in circles and worrying too much when hey this is fiction and it’s okay to try some ideas even if they don’t stick

 

[Pal Veda]

From what I understand of Kat’s backstory, she was frozen because of some weird witchy stuff. Why would it not also make sense that her husband/brother/sister/parents/children/cousins/etc. were also frozen for all of the same reasons? I know you’ve tweaked a bit, but wasn’t it the situation where Kat and her twin brother were kind of prophecy kids for the witches? Sometimes people get the prophecy wrong. Sometimes they make contingency plans. Sometimes they know there is a chosen one, but unsure who is the chosen one. So to have multiple people related by blood or by physical proximity be frozen for the same reason would certainly not be out of the question. And if I recall, wasn’t there some major event on Naboo that caused her to wake from the stasis chamber? Would make sense others woke at the same time, or she goes exploring and finds they are still frozen there.

And of course there is the time void. Before I decided to jettison the early direction I was going with Padd here, we had Padd and Kat meet up and recognize each other. Padd just happened to slip through the time void and land in the same timeline as Kat, who was frozen. What are the chances of that? 100% if you write it!

Writing future family 1000 years later gives me Futurama vibes, where Fry is the professor’s great, great, great, etc. uncle after being frozen in time for centuries, even though the professor is like three times Fry’s biological age.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

From what I understand of Kat’s backstory, she was frozen because of some weird witchy stuff. Why would it not also make sense that her husband/brother/sister/parents/children/cousins/etc. were also frozen for all of the same reasons? I know you’ve tweaked a bit, but wasn’t it the situation where Kat and her twin brother were kind of prophecy kids for the witches? Sometimes people get the prophecy wrong. Sometimes they make contingency plans. Sometimes they know there is a chosen one, but unsure who is the chosen one. So to have multiple people related by blood or by physical proximity be frozen for the same reason would certainly not be out of the question. And if I recall, wasn’t there some major event on Naboo that caused her to wake from the stasis chamber? Would make sense others woke at the same time, or she goes exploring and finds they are still frozen there.

And of course there is the time void. Before I decided to jettison the early direction I was going with Padd here, we had Padd and Kat meet up and recognize each other. Padd just happened to slip through the time void and land in the same timeline as Kat, who was frozen. What are the chances of that? 100% if you write it!

Writing future family 1000 years later gives me Futurama vibes, where Fry is the professor’s great, great, great, etc. uncle after being frozen in time for centuries, even though the professor is like three times Fry’s biological age.

First of all I'm totally flattered you remembered my characters backstory! That means a lot.

You are right, Katarine and her twin were the object of a prophecy for dark Jedi witchy people so I guess there could totally be a way that the cult would want to preserve both of them together. I could certainly work this angle. Thank you! <3

 

[Pal Veda]

First of all I'm totally flattered you remembered my characters backstory! That means a lot.

You are right, Katarine and her twin were the object of a prophecy for dark Jedi witchy people so I guess there could totally be a way that the cult would want to preserve both of them together. I could certainly work this angle. Thank you! <3

You are the one that convinced me to come back to writing, and you encouraged me to bring back Pal instead of Hwo so that I wouldn’t get bored and leave again. So of course I read Kat’s backstory at Chaos!

If you need a partner or team to help explore the caves of Naboo for frozen family members, let me know. I think of Pal as having some gypsy/witchy elements in his past and wouldn’t mind getting tangled up in the supernatural with you.

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

Katarine Ryiah Obviously you and I are related. We look so much alike.

Nah but really, apart from all the replies here saying not to overthink it and to just handwave stuff, I would say there are ways of explaining things in a satisfactory way so you don't just feel like you're ignoring major plot holes.

For instance, the likelihood of Kat finding a descendant of hers would probably depend on their species. There are lots of long-lived aliens in Star Wars, any one of whom could be the father of her child(ren). They get the long life genes and are thus still alive a thousand years later. Or if not, their descendants could still inherit the gene and you would have fewer generations to contend with. So Kat might not find her daughter or son alive in 900 ABY, but she could have a grandchild who is still around.

It sounds like you've concluded that making an NPC father for the kid(s) is the option best suited to your purposes, so you don't need to worry about finding a partner you trust to write a romance first. But if you want someone to write the family, you'll need to find a good, consistent writer. I'd offer myself, but I've grown inconsistent as of late and don't have the time or the drive to devote myself to Chaos the way I used to. I'd recommend making friends with some of the folks in the major factions like the GA or TSO, as they feature some of the largest and most active writers on the site, and see if there are others interested in crafting a rich family story.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Thanks everyone.

I really like the idea of her twin trying to escape Order 66 by going to a planet where time acts differently. It would explain why he or his children are around all these years latter.