I love long answers. 
Sorry it took so long for me to get back to this.
No worries. I'm not always 'punctual' with replies, and responses are never mandatory.
That was one of the things I was wondering about. That was sooo brutal and I don't know a lot about that kind of "injury" and what kind of torture could cause that to happen. Well, of course, in Science fiction you can make it happen. What made you think to use the same machine the Scarrans used in WGFA? Since it didn't really torture him like you had it do in CoTN? Obviously the Scarren thought Kelvo 10 killed him and we know Scorpy did that just to fool the Scarran but it wasn't as brutal. So what made you want to use that machine to up the "ante" and let it devastate John's body?
First of all, it's not the same machine.
They try the mental one and it doesn't work. John beats the machine this time, which I love envisioning -- him taking each of their mental tricks and turning it around on them.
It had actually been a lot of fun through the first stages. He was starving now, but he could clearly remember the taste of the pizza and beer. They had used Aeryn again, and he had taken enormous liberties with that little delusion and gotten something far better than a meal out of it. He lay on the floor where he had collapsed and smiled at the implanted memory. That's when they resort to something far more brutal.
The problem with me attempting to explain why I made these choices is that there are often no choices involved during the process of dreaming up the story. The whole thing can, under certain circumstances, be a great deal more fluid than conscious choices.
When I first began dreaming up CoTN, I had two scenarios inside my head that I wanted to play with and write: I wanted to do the mind-melds with the other members of the crew, and I wanted to do the sex-in-Unity scene. That's really all I had in terms of a 'goal'. What came next was a vague sort of process of considering how to get John into a catatonic state. I really did NOT want to torture him. I considered head injuries, poisoning, some sort of telepathic interference, and anything else I could dream up, and when I plugged them into the bare bones of my story, every single alternative felt ... blah. Drama and "cost" was missing. By cost, I mean what is at stake for the characters. I decided that if John's very existence was at risk -- and by that I mean Aeryn getting John back -- that the drama would be maximized. At that point I sat down and started writing, and kind of let the story go where it led me.
The point I'm having trouble making here is that the torture had to be SO bad that even after accounting for the physiological damage John would make the decision to withdraw completely. I couldn't see any other way to have him fairly lucid while in the mental meetings with Aeryn and the rest of the crew and yet basically catatonic. I had to come up with his 'peaceful dreaming place', and brutalizing him was the only thing that seemed to work.
So that is why you had John have a hard time remembering things?
Again, there wasn't a strong sense of purpose behind it. It just sort of made sense and 'happened'. Imagine what the story would have been like if they had gotten John to the Delvians, they had gone through that group 'Meeting' where everyone finds out what was done to John, he emerges from the catatonia, and *ping* he's all well again. What an abrupt, anticlimatic end to the story. Half of what works about CoTN is that rehabilitation process and the question of whether he's ever going to make it all the way back, and whether he'll ever be John Crichton again. To provide that tension, I had to damage him both on a psychological
and on a physiological level. Thus, the brain injury, and the problems with his memory. I pulled from my own experience because I knew how frustrating and upsetting it can be to not know what's going on, and then tried to imagine what it would be like to have to cope with that long term. The rest just appeared on the page as I went along.
I liked that and I love what you had Rygel tell them when John was going berserk and tearing things up in the maintenance bay. Rygel is a lot smarter than he seems and he has a great grasp of what motivates people.
I adore Rygel. I think he's one of the most under-appreciated and misunderstood characters on the show. In one episode, he says something about how he has made every correct decision that the group has made ... and to a certain extent, he's right. He's selfish and has made some incredibly self-serving decisions, but he understands power, negotiating, and what motivates people. As for John tearing up the maintenance bay, that was to a certain extent an exercise in blowing off an excess of self-restraint. I'd been writing him so dependent and trusting for so long, I was in the mood for some illogical, explosive behavior.
And it fits because -- as the Delvians said -- as he began to sense who he
should have been, his frustration would become extreme.
But wouldn't you have to be pretty realistic when it came to "human" injuries? Although John had some crazy things happen to him in Farscape that couldn't happen in "real life". So maybe not. I guess that is the fun of writing science fiction. To be able to put them through impossible things and get by with it.
I think you've already answered it, but to expand a little ... What I don't have to be realistic about is how the injuries are inflicted, and whether they can be cured or overcome. I cured Alzheimer's in Birthright.
Jack even says it. If John were on Earth, it would be incurable. Same thing with the brain injury. We don't have the technology to restore that kind of extensive breakdown in the synapses. But the Delvians can do it.
Does that ruin the story for you just a bit when you can't have it the way you planned? When you read it after changing things were you as happy with it?
It doesn't ruin it.
I normally throw a temper tantrum in private when I realize I screwed it up, but I'd much rather rewrite it and have that portion of the science right (even if I use alien-science to fix it) than to leave it wrong. In Foot Falls, Aeryn's concern over the boys just cranks up her anxiety and exhaustion one extra level, and in the end serves the story better. I hadn't finished writing the story when I realized the science was wrong, so I didn't know how it was going to FEEL at that point. I go back and read it now, and it feels like I don't breathe through the entire story. What I was trying to avoid (one more worry for Aeryn) belonged in the story after all.
There is only one "patch" or flaw in a story that I can come up with off the top of my head that I wish I could have handled differently. In The Changeling, I honestly believe that there isn't any way in the universe that John and Aeryn would have taken the baby with them to the planet. One of my betareaders brought that up, and was extremely adamant that they shouldn't take him with them, and she was absolutely right. The problem I hit was that if D'Argo/DJ/Deke was safely on board Moya, John would have put all his energy into finding a way off the planet, and the real story -- which was about what it would take to turn John Crichton into a cold-blooded, willing killer -- went right out the window. So I patched the flaw the best that I could, and chose to live with it.
I have known people who have had Alzheimers and it is a devastating disease. Birthright is a good story and it tells of the devastation of the disease. My heart broke for everyone who had to watch John go through this. I loved that he got a longer life when he was cured.
Birthright was a weird story for me to write because it's a Jack story, and I generally don't like those. It was bizarre to have that one come to life all of a sudden inside my brain.
That's another story that grew out of the collision of two separate story ideas: the one I mentioned before (John coming down with a fatal Earth illness) plus a very strong visual image of John, Aeryn, and their son walking off into the night, dusters blowing a little in the autumn wind and the sound of their feet in the leaves. I wrote that right after we learned about the cancellation, so my mind was very much on what John says to Jack at the end of Part 5 (the original end of the story ... before I added Part 5-3/4):
John pointed into the night sky. “Look up. We’ll always be there. Even if you can’t see us, we’ll be there.” I wanted them to always be out there, amongst the stars. I still believe they are there, and probably always will.
Hope some of this makes sense.
It all made sense. I hope I made some sense.
I have been up almost 24 hours and I don't feel the least bit tired.
Ummmm ... why? ((((((((Sybil))))))))
I hope you've gotten some sleep by now.
