Red Asphalt

Title: Red Asphalt
Series: Battletech/MechWarrior
Original Publication: August 2012, Classic Battletech Forums

The last (for now) part of the Grand Theft Agro series, Red Asphalt serves as a wrap-up of sorts, closing off some storylines while opening new ones up. It also was intended to show the change and evolution in the timeline from the earlier fics; conflicts grew and forces became larger, but there would still be those people who, by their actions, can make a world of difference. It also serves to show the changes in the characters, their motivations and their goals, especially when a changing world shifts the proverbial goalposts.

As normal for me, there's a lot of character introduction. This is a necessity; very few carry-over characters appear in this one, which meant that a large cast of newcomers were required. However, a few of them should be sticking around for the future.

The Best Laid Plans

Title: Best Laid Plans
Series: Battletech/MechWarrior
Original Publication: May 2012, Classic Battletech Forums

When I decided to upgrade Grand Theft Agro from a one-shot to a series, my mind began plotting out a long-term story arc; more to the point, it decided where to end that arc first and then worked backwards from there. Of course, that finale was a long way off and just about everything changed along the way, but a few elements of what was originally planned survived.

The end result was Best Laid Plans, a continuation from Salting the Earth featuring some of the (surviving) characters and incoperating the ending that I had planned all along. It also served as a handy end to one particular character set, bringing them up to the end of the published Dark Age material. For the moment,  this marks the end of their storyline, but not the end for them as a whole.

After all, with Era Report 3145 due soon there's no telling what may be within...

Salting the Earth

Title: Salting the Earth
Series: Battletech/MechWarrior
Original Publication: May 2011, Classic Battletech Forums

The last in the Grand Theft Agro series, Salting the Earth is also the biggest of them. It's the accumulation of storylines and plot threads and concepts and ideas that had been coming together for some time. It was also a bit of a "bounce back" after the darker tones of Stacking the Deck, in not having a "villain-centric" piece. And yes, as allways, there's character introductions. I'm addicted to them or something.

Otherwise, it's full of everything else you expect from the series: Schemes, plots, personal agendas, betrayals, double-crosses, badly written romance, bacon, cars, giant robots blowing things up and so forth. There's a few experimental scenes which I'm not sure how well they worked out, as well as a deliberate attempt at non-linear storytelling.

Also, see if you can guess the fic's big reveal before you get to it. I dare you.

Stacking the Deck

Title: Stacking the Deck
Series: Battletech/Mechwarrior
Original Publication: March 2011, Classic Battletech Forums

The fourth in the Grand Theft Agro series, Stacking the Deck was a bit of a departure in theme and tone from the previous ones. This one is more 'villainous' in nature, being done mostly from the perspective of Bannsons' Raiders, a charming group of individuals at the best of times. The main point to the fic was to explore a faction that was otherwise under-represented in the Fiction (and probably never will get much else) while trying to figure how an organisation made of mass-murdering serial puppy kickers would actually work.

While as allways there's a swarm of new character introductions, most of them are guest stars. Phew!

Take On Me

Title: Take On Me
Series: Battletech/Mechwarrior
Original Publication: February 2011, Classic Battletech Forums

After A Brighter Future and a Better Life, I was on a roll. And a big part of that roll was an eagerness to do even more. ABFaaBL was written with the idea of "maybe I could make a series out of this", featuring a lot of potential ideas that could be re-used or explored further, not the least of which was the enigmatic TF Allen. The result was Take On Me, which was deliberately written to be a "next in series" rather then an entirely stand-alone fic.

The biggest advantage was the groundwork done in Brighter Future; I no longer needed to introduce swarms of characters for the long-term, and could instead focus on those that were guest stars for the chapter. And in many of these cases, they would return further down the road. The character you introduce today is one that can make many guest spots tomorrow!

A Brighter Future and a Better Life

Title: A Brighter Future and a Better Life
Series: Battletech/Mechwarrior
Original Publication: January 2011, Classic Battletech Forums

Grand Theft Agro was a lot of fun and opened up a bucket of new ideas for me that I decided to run with. It was letting me explore a time period that I was very interested in that was otherwise under-utilized in fanfic, as well as a faction that I had a growing appreciation of. So I decided that rather then just being a one-shot, I'd turn this into a huge-arse series of ever-increasingly long stories with a rough over-arcing storyline.

The first of these, A Brighter Future and a Better Life, served as an introduction of sorts; Grand Theft Agro was more of the prelude or something. The end result is that it is big and has oodles of characters, most of which will barely be seen again.

Grand Theft Agro - Deleted Scenes

Title: Grand Theft Agro (Deleted Scenes)
Series: Battletech/Mechwarrior
Original Publication: NA

Grand Theft Agro holds a special place for me as it was my first published work. Yay. However, before that happened, it also needed to have the ever-living crap edited out of it. The end result was that two entire scenes hit the cutting room floor, trimming about a third off of the story before it was done. It was necessary and, more to the point, it didn't hurt the story to do such.

However, at the same time, I also felt that they were too good to waste, especially given that they feature a character who, while largely absent from the published version of the story was still important for what I had planned. Likewise, they give a lot more background and motivation for the protagonist.

The deleted scenes are available here. The full, published story is available on Battlecorps. You should go read it. Now.