It worked for David Weber...

I have been keeping up with my vow to start writing again. I've mostly being doing exercises like character studies, writing the same seen in different styles, and working on being more expressive in my descriptions.

But I've come up with what I think would be a good plot for a SF series: Napoleon III and the rise and fall of the Second French Empire. Short form: Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, nephew and heir of the more famous Napoleon, spends most of his early life in exile, returns to France after the declaration of the Second Republic, get elected President as a political outsider (gee does that sound familiar?) and few years later launches a coup and declares himself Emperor.. and the mob supports him. At first.

The mid 19th century was a wonderfully chaotic period in Europe. You still have Hapsburgs running around loose, Italians are agitating (and fighting) for national unification, and the Prussian Kaiser with the help of some dudes named Otto, Helmuth, and Albrecht, setting up an empire of his own. All marked by wars, intrigues, espionage, blackmail, and the ever-popular Paris mob.

Make Terra and her possessions France. Prussia and the Germanic States can beSigma Draconis and the nearby systems. Do the same thing for the various other states. Tweak the back story a bit to get rid of a lot of the royalist baggage. Make the Great Houses commercial enterprises. Many on Earth supported the first Napoleon (a Star Fleet Admiral) when he seized power and pledged to unite humanity under Terra's banner. Many Terrans still feel that as humanity's birthplace and still home to the largest population of humans, they are better than the other colony worlds. The colonies, many of whom have been settled for centuries, disagree.

In structure it would be more Stackpole than Weber. No Grand Admiral Duchess Steadholder Dr. Honor Harrington! Instead, follow several lead characters from different factions and see all sides of the intrigues. Along with the major players (and I'm really intrigued at the thought of a space-based von Moltke) I think my main viewpoint character would be an officer in Terran Naval Intelligence. One with enough "Bonapartist" ties to get him on the inside of things, and be handed the interesting portfolios.

Somebody tell me how to pitch this

"Siege House"

Sixteen people are put into a building.. and have to fortify it and defend it. Each episode features an assault challenge. Use MILES for the gunplay. Winning the challenge results in rewards like comfort foods, better protective materials. Each episode would also have an individual challenge for immunity, and at the end of the episode the "After Action Review" where one defender is voted out. But here's the twist. The person voted out goes to work for the aggressors. They know your defenses, know who the leaders are, and help plan the next assault and can win their way back into the game by accomplishing a specific task during the assault. This would force two people to be voted out.. one permanently! You could go the two-team route with the winner of each siege challenge determined by the number of "survivors." I can see the merge episode.. the two teams have five minutes to salvage materials from their house before the bulldozers move in! Of course one episode each season would feature a zombie attack

Hosted by Jesse Ventura.

I'd watch it!