What Inspired Scions of Oth?
I've been writing for over 20 years.
Holy crap, I'm old.
If I'm being honest, though, I was telling stories long before I actually started writing. Even before I knew how to write, I would draw pictures and dictate the story in the picture to a family member. I've always been drawn to storytelling, since the very beginning.
I've also been drawn to science fiction since before I can remember. I grew up in the 90s (mostly, anyway), so I grew up watching cartoons like every kid was supposed to. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, X-Men—all with strong sci-fi undertones of one sort of another, some subtle and some overt.
But at some point I was exposed to what is probably the most pivotal inspiration on my science fiction journey. Star Trek: The Next Generation.
My parents owned and operated their own business when I was growing up, so my evenings were often spent there. We would get home later than most families. Dinner was always after 8pm and the TV was always on. And more often than not, my parents and I were watching Captain Picard and his crew on another one of their adventures.
This cemented a keen interest in science fiction into my psyche. I would dream of the future, what it might be like, and where we as a species might go. It was something fascinating and terrifying and brand new to my young brain that soaked it up like a sponge.
If you've read Scions (and I assume that if you're reading this blog post, you've at least read a little), you might see some resemblance between Star Trek and the world I've created. But it's not quite a carbon copy. There's a certain feel to Star Trek that is definitely absent from my writing, even though it was a big inspiration for me.
What I think did carry over from Star Trek, though, was the integral role of the ship's captain. They were the main character, and everything extended outward from them. Without them, it would be a very different story.
Then I read Dune.
Dune is a lot of things. Politics. Religion. Family legacy. It's a rich world that is both harsh and beautiful, and fleshed out expertly by Frank Herbert in his own distinct style. To me, Herbert is the Tolkien of science fiction—a master builder of worlds with no equal.
The political intrigue was exciting to me. The clashing cultures forced to tolerate or cooperate with one another made Dune feel real long before the most recent film adaptation introduced the story to the next generation.
But as much as these two, Dune and Star Trek, inspired me, neither of them was the ultimate catalyst for the series. They formed the foundation of my understanding of science fiction, but the seed of the story that eventually became Scions was something different.
If Star Trek is Scions' mother, then my entire series would call the Battlestar Galactica reboot 'daddy.'
To my surprise, I'm not alone in this. There are a lot of writers around my age that hav e been inspired by BSG, so I've found.
It was like Star Trek... but it wasn't. It was science fiction... but it was gritty and human. You could reach out and touch it in a way you couldn't with other science fiction stories. It was within reach, like you could see a path from today to the distant future where all of that could be a reality.
But let's not talk about the series finale...
Scions of Oth has a little bit of all of these mixed in with it. Definitely not equal parts. I lean heavy into the BSG inspired stuff for most of it, but a lot of what's been happening in season two (starting with episode 10) pulls more from that mysterious political intrigue that was present in Dune.
I'm excited to see where it goes next.
As always, happy reading.
-Jack
