Images From Civil War

 

If you've been reading this blog over the past five years or so you'll know this banner from the Civil War page, but just in case you don't know what Civil War was all about, click on the link below and give that a quick read. I'll wait here for you.

http://twoshedsreview.blogspot.com/2021/11/what-is-civil-war-originally-written.html 

Now that you're back, you'll also know that in recent times I've been making use of various AI apps to help me speed up the process of converting the hard copies. The stories were originally written on good old fashioned typewriters, and later on an electric typewriter. They were kept in Lever arch files, and I began re-typing these stories up manually on my PC, which as you can imagine was a very time consuming affair.

A few months ago I purchased an overhead scanner, which basically took photos of the pages, which I then converted into PDF format, and then converted into text form by Google's Gemini AI program. It certainly sped things up. allowing me to finish posting all of the chapters here onto this blog in about three months or so.

During that time though I had wanted to create a few images to go with the stories, but as I've always been a bit crap at using graphics programs I mainly used Google to locate images from the various universes I'd combined to make up the Civil War universe.

Here's a few I made up with a couple of online services.

  

You'll probably recognize this collage from the main Civil War page, which features characters used in the story. In case you don't know who they are:

 

Top row, from left to right: Captain John Sheridan (Babylon 5), Devon Adair (Earth 2), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars).

Middle row, from left to right: Colonel T.C. McQueen (Space: Above and Beyond), Ambassador Spock (Star Trek), Commander John Koenig (Space 1999)

Bottom Row, from left to right: Duncan MacLeod (Highlander), Roj Blake (Blake's 7), Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

 

I also created these images to use in the stories, but I actually forgot about them until a few months ago.

 

 

Kerr Avon and Cally, members of the Liberator crew from Blake's 7.

 

 

From the Star Trek universe Voyager's first officer Commander Chakotay, and Lt. Commander Ro Laren, Chief of Presidential Security in the Civil War story.

Babylon 5 Chief Medical Officer Dr. Stephen Franklin, and Lt. Xon, the Science Officer of the U.S.S. Lohengrin, a character originally created for the aborted Star Trek: Phase Two television series.

And finally, former commander of the Terrok Nor space station Gul Dukat, although I don't think I used him in the series.

 

With the advent of several AI services available online I began to think again about creating images to use in the stories, and one thing I remember discussing with my brother Paul many years ago (Paul was the co-creator of the original Valkyrie Chronicles series) was who would play who if the series was ever made into a film. It was just pure speculation really, because I always wrote these stories for my own personal enjoyment, as a hobby. But it was fun to speculate though.

 

I began to speculate again a couple of months ago, and using the Dola AI app, I came up with the following.

 

I always thought that British actor Simon Callow would have made a perfect Captain James Watt.

 

The Dola AI app also made this video of Callow as Captain Watt.

 

 For the part of first officer Commander Pendragon, who was later promoted to Captain and given command of the Pegasus station, we chose James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. Ian Holm was one of Paul's choices to play the part of immortal wizard and roving Federation ambassador Dr. Phineas Magus.

 

Rocco Sisto played the part of Sarek's aid Sakkath in Star Trek: The Next Generation, so we chose him for the role of Sutek, the Valkyrie's science officer, and later first officer. For the role of Chief Medical Officer Gourlak Singh we chose Vijay Armitage, the former tennis player turned actor who also appeared in the James Bond film Octopussy.

Ensign Archer Greenleaf was an elf from the Time of Legends who later became first officer of the Pegasus station. I chose Orlando Bloom because he played Legolas in the Lord of the Rings.

 

The last two images were basically generic type of images. On the left, the Insectoid Chief Engineer Lt. Commander Lom, on the right, the green skinned telepathic ship's counselor, Trospheo.

Finally, here are three more images created with the Dola AI app, showing, from left to right, Roj Blake, Duncan MacCleod, who was an Admiral and Starfleet Commander-in-Chief in the stories, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Will there be any more Civil War stories? Well, I have to admit that I enjoyed going through the old stories in the past few months, and getting that overhead scanner and using the Gemini AI app certainly made things a lot easier.

 

All I will say is never say never. Besides, I have been thinking of ways to add other fictional universes into this one. 

 

Watch this space.