THE TERNARY

Surrounding the city of Nova is a deep forest filled with harbingers of death. Out they creep each night, set upon terrorizing the city from all angles. Stellite is one of the brave citizens of Nova who has dedicated his strength to protecting the people of his city in the way he sees fit. He has friends who stand beside him, enemies who stand across. And there is one who breaches the line of friend and foe, who gives no thought to any but him: The mysterious half-machine, half-alien known as Specimen IFN.

Stellite is not the only protector of Nova, but he is by far the strongest. When Nova begins to be overrun by the threats of the forest he may have no choice but to reach out to Specimen IFN for aid. But Stellite barely knows her and danger may be closer at hand than he thinks. His life and his home hang in the balance and Stellite must put his trust in someone so far out of his control she might as well be on another planet for all it matters.

DTRO differs from TMD mainly in the details. While DTRO focuses on internal threats—people in the city who abuse themselves and others via their powers—TMD focuses on external threats leveling pressure upon the characters. I chose this route because as the story has evolved the characters desired different things and the old DTRO setting failed to work anymore. With TMD, my aim is sto strike a balance between external forces that the characters have no control over, and the desired agency of the characters in fiction. I don’t want TMD to be a series of things happening to my characters. There must be a balance between that and the characters moving the world around them through their actions.

TMD is set in a mixture of modernity and futurism. It centers a valley city with both a high degree of connectivity and a sever case of isolation. There is a mystery surrounding the threats from the forest. These lingering questions haunt the story, steeping what could be a metropolitan sci-fi in the hues of urban fantasy and horror. Blaine is no longer a high-octane villain torching swathes of the city on a whim. She is now a harried lab researcher missing chunks of her own life with only dreamlike recollections of actions she’s not in control of. She splits her professional life with a rich personal one, from spending time with and checking up on the safety of her family to gushing about the new midnight footage of Stellite holding back a swarm of forest-dwelling spider-like creatures.

Raylan is just as committed to justice as he was during the time of DTRO. Now he is the son of one of the most prominent figures in the city. He lives a life under the radar of the press and dedicates himself to the safety of Nova. Raylan has changed the least through iterations. He still believes in goodness. He still believes everyone deserves a chance to be saved. He wonders, more than anyone, what’s really out there in the trees. He is capable and strong, able to handle the responsibilities of the city with only himself and a small handful of other powered individuals. But over the course of the beginning of the story, Raylan begins to wonder if he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew. It seems like things are growing beyond his control and he has no way of stopping it.

When I began writing Threat, Misdefined, it was not called that. It began as a roleplay in which I played one of my favorite character archetypes at the time (circa. 2016), “often-violent pyromaniac with unsupported mental health problems.” In the first iteration of TMD (Threat, Misdefined) Specimen IFN was known as Inferno. She was loud, prone to the most vicious flame-based attacks I could think of, incredibly rude, and overall I didn’t have any more direction than that with her character. Inferno was supposed to be a forced alter ego of Blaine Morrison (family name since redacted and tbd for TMD). Blaine has since become a clever, passionate lab researcher who suffers from chronic pain both due to congenital conditions and prosthetic issues. Blaine has been here since the beginning. She is integral.

Once the story began to grow past the roleplay in my mind, it became “Do The Risks Outweigh?” It was a clunky title, but I have kept the sentiment in more recent drafts. I have finally solidified the core ideas of this story and what I want to explore through the narrative. The phrase “do the risks outweigh the rewards” is a heavy philosophical question. It’s usually explored in the hypothetical sense although it can be discussed practically. Do the risks outweigh the potential rewards? Is it worth taking this chance, making this move, despite the immense risks? Will the payoff be worth what you have to sacrifice?

That phrase, that hypothetical, was a core idea of Do The Risks Outweigh. In DTRO, the hero Stellite was one of the powered humans who took one look at his powers and said “yep, I have to do good with this.” Throughout that story, Raylan stresses this ideal he has, his philosophy for the city. “Everyone in this city deserves to be saved.” He believes in the goodness of people but not naively. He has seen his fair share of horrors and he knows just what people are capable of. But he believes that people are born good and that evil is thrust upon them, ingrained in them, that they are indoctrinated into evil.

He faces off against normal people who suddenly became imbued with or were born with immense power. They became more. And some of them put that to use in ways which only benefited them. Raylan does not kill with intent. He trusts his justice system. (He can trust them.) He knows that he is not always the right person to try and convince these “villains” that what they are doing is not worth it. He asks, more often than not, if it’s worth it. Right to their faces. “Is this worth it? What are you getting from it? What is it about doing things this way that gets you what you want? Are you sure there isn’t a better way? Have you even tried? Tell me what you think you need. I am here to help. I am here to save you. You deserve it. You deserve to be saved. You should get a chance to turn things around. I am here to help. I am here to help.”

Raylan doesn’t give up on Blaine. Throughout the story they have ups and downs, and Blaine—Inferno, rather—doesn’t always want to hear what he has to say. She believes she is irredeemable. She thinks that out of all the people that have ever been villains, she’s the one who can’t be saved. It’s in part due to the reason for her powers , and in part due to her own insecurities. She doesn’t see herself as a strong person. This really shows through when she tries to fight against Inferno and doesn’t succeed, being dragged along for the ride while she’s made to torch the city. Over and over. Stellite always comes, because that’s his job, and she’s not convinced it’s for any reason other than to stop the city from burning. He tells her that it’s for her, too. That he’s here to save her. That she deserves to be saved. It sounds like a promise, like truth, from his mouth. She wants to believe it but it’s so difficult. She’s not strong, not like Stellite who can pick up buildings and saves villains from themselves on a weekly basis. It’s just not going to work for her.