Draft 1... This is the first draft of how I wanted to present writers access to my ideas or intellectual property that is truthfully best shared rather than hoarded. However, I am NOT simply "giving away the farm."
The "precipitating events" I show here were among early ideas. I have two other alternatives which will be forthcoming, and which I think are more "literary fun" than the ones below. The overall concept is pretty much the same, but the major gloabal events leading up to the validation of UNAUN are different.
At this point, there is no real point in your attempting to pen any material, mainly since I have yet to provide you information about:
- the crews
- the ships
- the missions
- the unsavory characteristics of some humans in leadership who will pull every dirty trick to sabotage UNAUN's existence
- the updated "bible" and other specifics
Stand by...
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SHIFT COLORS! is a product and an adventure environment that enables the writing of a whole new type of naval warfare and naval humanitarian action. It can be considered as an alternate world similar to contemporary Earth, but with some liberties taken with History. (These liberties are absolutely necessary to enable the creation of this world.) Alternatively, writers can use real world events and information (such as names as sitting/dictating/opportunistic and other types of presidents, leaders, czars, premiers and so on) in order to make sure their stories captivate or rivet the intended and drawn in reader.
As a writer who buys into the SHIFT COLORS! Program you have the opportunity to command a ship.
You choose your command, and for how long you wish to write your history and tales as one of the ships characters. Each ship has over 350 men and women, all of multinational origin, with some ships having more balance than others. Each command is led by a commanding officer who is not or may not be predisposed to waiting for all the answers (from higher authorities). This was a trait requirement before each prospecting commanding officer was secretly approached and recruited by the New World Benefactors.
If you are particularly literate and prolific a writer, you may exploit this to your great benefit. In the Starboard and Port Chair, you are the CO or XO of a ship. Whether as a writer you believe in national sovereignty, human shields, conspiracies, UFO craft, supernatural or other powers or entities, you have something to say. You will be one of 15 ship drivers, if you are the commanding officer.
If you a less than prolific writer, you may find another author for whom you either ghost write or with whom you co-author. It is up to you and that person or group of writers to work together to create a seamless, entrancing, contemporary, realistic, and stinging if not condemning but yet usefully expository piece of work. You are not encouraged or expected to create seditious, libelous, defamatory, or war-inciting material, but if you have a wild imagination that is tamed by reality and a good understanding of humanity in its capacity to be benevolent as well as violent, then you should exercise your knowledge.
Even if you are not a (temporary) commanding officer of a ship in the UNAUN fleet, you may become a crew member who is actually just a writer who is co-writing with a primary, ghost, or co-author.
It may commendable that an author can churn out or formulate stories upwards of 400 pages, but the current market vagaries tend to act as a gate keeper to the publication of nautical warfare adventures. Most of the authors who write these stories are former officers. The pure enlisted point of view or perspective seems to be absent. Yet, there are a larger number of former enlisted personnel than officers. It should not matter that former or current officers have degrees or are considered to be true warriors. Enough committed former enlisted sailors are quite capable of producing just as entrancing and plausible material. UNAUN is committed to proving a venue for this transformation.
With
the SHIFT COLORS! program you, the consumer in the Real
Earth (as opposed to the fictional/alternative world), do the
following:
- learn the ship
- decide your role or roles for which you can write
- choose a command (a ship)
- write your story
After becoming a Customer of and an author in SHIFT COLORS!, you must or should turn your literary spigot to full blast. Here are your orders:
++++++++++++
Background:
You are an enlisted sailor or commissioned officer in your respective nations navy and you are hoping for a promotion to the next step up from seaman recruit to Admiral. As a commanding officer you have been a little too effective and have amassed a number of disgruntled peers all recommending your summary retirement or being passed over for flag promotion. Sensing this, you initially fight this with trying to explain yourself in the technical journals, but the major publications refuse to run your piece. However, you have been watched by others who like in you what they are locating in other navies.
A new navy is being built, but most likely not by your nation of birth. It is a secret that even your own nation holds closely, but it knows the truth will face light in less than a year. That year has caught up, and now recruiters have caught up with you.
(NOTE: At this point, interchangeably, United States and Unified States will be used. This is because the current/contemporary and alternative/near-future possible world are integral and indispensable to the creation and sustenance of SHIFT COLORS!. Keep in mind that as an author you will have certain liberties to balance your personal or national perspective of the other writers publications. However, there are certain rules to which all authors subscribing to SHIFT COLORS! must adhere. They are described further below. Before you take political offense to the below scenario, keep in mind that many nations building warships tend to initially collaborate on existing or proposed ship designs. Many people may not know that even the United States current USS Arleigh Burke class destroyers was modified and presented in model form (and, possibly blueprinted) for conceptualization purposes. So, national ego, national superiority, treason, or either youre with us or youre against us should not have any legitimacy for assailing this project.)
Two new political and military entities have been created:
ZAUARAN Zone of Anti-Unilateral Action Region of Asian Nations: introduction under fire
ZAUAREN Zone of Anti-Unilateral Action Region of European Nations: introduction under fire
Here is one possible introduction of a new commanding officer:
ZAUARAN Zone of Anti-Unilateral Action Region of Asian Nations: introduction under fire
ZAUARAN is the Zone of Anti-Unilateral Action Region of Asian Nations, formed by China, France, Germany and Russia, to name the known funding agent nations, who want to control their hemisphere or product shipments without influence from or interference by the Unified/United States. Deep incursions into the regional policing by the Unified Nations led to some excessive political collateral damage that was horrific to even the most staunch opponents of terrorism. The ZAUARAN, reemerging into the technology manufacturing industry with move vigor than in the past 10 years provided key funds necessary to fund the first 2 ships, built in open shipyards. At first, the Unified States had not correctly appreciated the connections or the implications, but after more similar 6 combatants appeared, all emerging from an enclosed construction facility thought to be creating a secure transportation barge, the Unified Nations protested. But, it was too late.
Also, because you did not disclose contact with a foreign national power offering you post-Navy career options, there was no connection drawn. You were not asked for information. You were only paid to take a cruise on what you thought was a distinguished guest ship visit on a well-known ship, and after all, you had only discharged 4 months ago. You were allowed to command the ship from port, and due to the expression on your face, your excellent seamanship, and commanding presence, you were presented with combat scenarios which were more than live fire exercises. Your ship was strafed by escaping ex-military Chinese convicts (provided by China, but convicts who thought they were being chased for return to captivity) who managed to commandeer a missile patrol boat, carrying live weapons and escapees who figured to sell the weapons to some operatives on the black market. Various caliber weapons fire struck your ship, and the Chinese officials on board, feigning a need for technical help to save the ship, (after squibb-like devices shatter the Bridge windows and kill both the CO and the second in command; the senior tactical action officer is reportedly killed by strafing fire as he was topside making his way from the boat deck to the inside of the ship) request you take control. You are summoned to the combat information center after the Bridge is glass-blasted and squibbed out of habitability authorize. Fervent pleas for you to defend the ship (fight the ship in your former parlance) override your concerns about what your former commanders would think if this got into the news. You settle into the Tactical Commanders seat, assess the situation, bring weapons on line, warn the ship on international frequencies (false presets which no candidate has time to verify are real frequencies) and provided Chinese tactical net, (to the consternation of your assessors) and are left with no choice but to bring the craft under weapons fire. Translating officers and some obviously English-speaking personnel smoothly and expertly carried out your orders and the craft is destroyed. After standing down, you are congratulated, but quite unnerved with wondering if you just killed innocents or real escapees. Presented with this opportunity, and the professional salutes of the sailors in the CIC, you are hesitant, but accept. You have 4 weeks to arrange your personal affairs upon return to the Unified States. All your debts, upon your arrival, have been paid off (your assessors know more about you than you prefer to have be true). Your career left you unmarried and, due to your personal restraint, childless as far as you knew. Upon flying out, you are told that your citizenship, patriotism, and loyalties were called into question and a nationwide hunt was on for you, and you quickly depart with your new employers, and Air China was already at 45,000 feet. A pair of US aircraft gave chase and then shadowed the passenger craft, but the pilots ignored them. (Yes, this aircraft was equipped with perimeter defensive decoys, sensors, and other technologies to defend against shoulder-fired and similar weapons.) The chasing craft were under orders not to close to within passenger viewing range, only fly behind, directly over, or directly under, as there was no need to alarm the passengers-- this time. The Unified States would find another way to retrieve you. And, other potential defectors would be watched.
The New Fleet
There are 15 ships in the class, and new classes are joining the fleet. All are ZAUARAN member nation ships. Each ship is to be commanded by a seasoned, multinational assortment of disaffected, early-retiring, combat-seeking, restraint-capable former medium-sized warship ship captains. However, some nations were deliberately excluded from UNAUN membership. ZAUARAN Regional Naval Defense Force is a 4-year tour of duty at sea with much action guaranteed, ranging from anti-piracy, drug interdiction, regional vessel inspection, vessel escort duties, and local authority to use any weapons in the appropriate situations without first contacting higher command.
However, you are responsible for adhering to the ZAUARAN RNDF rules of engagement in order to preserve this prototype organization funded by China, France, and a few undisclosed but not-too-difficult-to-discern nations. No member nation is out to destroy the Unified Nations, but each is deliciously viewing it as an opportunity to alter the world balance of power, purportedly to make the global stage more level and less tilted and elevated.
It was formed after the Unified States undertook deep surgical, as well as non-surgical strike action against terrorists who destroyed the Pentagon, the Seattle Space Needle, and two of Chicagos tallest buildings in the year 2004. In 2003, no fewer than 25 Unified States Ships were attacked randomly and repeatedly in their own ports. Five were sunk in the harbor, and the rest reduced to hulks too expensive to repair. This led to the realization that there would be diminished fleet protection against pirates and other adversaries operating or planning operations in the Pacific Fleet. Asia was on the verge of taking over the technology world, and its low-profile stance against the Terrorists played a role in the Asian Territories not suffering much onshore damage. It was rumored that Japan and China specifically paid the Terrorists to not bring the attacks to these shores, something that simmers in the mind of the Unified States President, who won the 2004 election after his brother left office.
History Lessons
You learn more history about your new employer and take it into perspective. Since your former employer possessed a less-than-impressive level of loose restraint permitting a range of weapons to fall into the hands of irresponsible, irrepressible, and proven lethal buyers and users, your guilt is assuaged. Your political and local indoctrination are deftly, professionally, and not-too-falsely characterized.
Unified States in Ship Construction Doldrums
The Unified States defense industry is in the doldrums, and they are so desperate to keep the critically important shipyards alive that the Unified States offered to construct for other nations. However, the Asiatic region, with its own large shipbuilding infrastructure, lobbies fiercely and victoriously to accept only the technology aspects of the ships it respected and previously feared: the missile launching systems (but, not the missiles themselves, as there is concern that the Unified Nations has secret chips embedded to allow it to hijack, abort, or U-turn the missile onto its launcher), the radar suite, and the engineering aspects. The rest they would build on their own.
The Linux operating system pervades the Chinese landscape, as it was an accidental and budding solution to eliminating several conditions mandating that China could not join the Global Trade Organization until it, among many things, resolved and demonstrated that it would continue to combat software piracy. Rather than surrender to the technological control of the Unified States megalomaniacal software institution, which was regarded as the worlds vacuum cleaner of information for use by the Unified States Central Information & Intelligence Authority, China banned any uses of that companys software. It thus rid itself of the charges of wanton disregard for intellectual property and simultaneously secured its rightful assertions for preservation of national security.
Ecological Concerns
Moreover
what you dont know is a major, global-consequences natural
disaster is about to erupt and will for the next 200 years increase
the utility and need for naval forces more than any other forces that
could be globally-deployed.
PRICING TABLE GOES HERE:
Shift
Colors Product is: Price
(US$) Price
(US$) after Multi-Product Discount Annual
Fee (US$) Deck
Plan (blueprints) $85.00 $65.00 $0.00 Compartment Locator Information (included with plans) (Paper and Software; Software runs only in Lotus Approach) $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 Personnel Database (Paper and Software; Software runs only in Lotus Approach) $#45.00 $30.00 $0.00 Ships General Description Book (Paper) $25.00 $15.00 $0.00 Writer Licensing & Royalty (you can publish up to 10 books for the indicated price , but, you may write any number you wish if kept unpublished) $100.00 $0.00 Captaincy (You choose your writing role, but certain characters command a superior author and demand cohesion with the other 15 ships) $0.00 $25.00 XO/2nd in command (You choose your writing role,but certain characters command a superior author and demand cohesion with the other 15 ships) $0.00 $25.00 Department Head $0.00 $15.00 Division Officer $0.00 $0.00 Junior Officer $0.00 $0.00 Chief Petty Officer $0.00 $0.00 Petty Officer $0.00 $0.00 Rating $0.00 $0.00
(Note: Japan's Maritime Self Defense Foce uses a term for Office Manager that replaced "officer" related terminology, to diminish the appearance of a military structure. This burden/limitation/restriction will be rescinded in UNAUN for the purpose of having a uniform command structure across the UNAUN organization. It will not confer "militarization" to Japan or other nations, just create a command structure to UNAUN.)
Each product has a separate price, which is reduced by almost 25% if you buy in bundles of 3 or more.
Your task, if you choose to volunteer, will be to flesh out characters who already exist in name. Some of the sister ships may or may not be filled in all billets.
Neither my ship drawings nor any of my personal library (my addiction to book-buying is strong and has been since I was about 13 or 15 years of age) belong to my company/employer, and the Articles of Incorporation of my company reflect this. I designed this as a hobby and decided to share it with the world. Share, literally, is not totally honest since I am charging, but what you get is mentioned above.
Moreover, should the product take off globally, and if it is optioned into a film (I use the term film for quality, mind-bending, thought-provoking, wake-the-drones from typical rubbish, whereas I use the term movie for your typical churn, shoot, burn, kick or blastem ups, the typical pointless skin flicks, and stupid-make-you-laugh-to-forget-the-real-world celluloid (or 0s & 1s, these days) flicks), it will be best handled as an international endeavor, as I deeply am opposed to my work being localized to a market less than interested in embracing, exposing, coming to terms with, or otherwise absorbing the issues of other people. Commercialization is not a motivation for allowing the film or series production of SHIFT COLORS!. Author contributions will be recognized.
SHIFT COLORS! is about waking the world of drones (I guess I live among most of them...), mainly to help shape the future. No, I am not a Gene Roddenberry, but everybody has a story to tell. Recognizing my own limitations, I decided a few years ago that Id just open this thing up, since I alone could not possibly do justice to my ship. That so many people have fresher, vibrant material to offer made me realize that I needed a fleet of ships to scatter about. Moreover, I realized I was and still am less than impressed with the typical format of four-to-11-cast members in the typical sci-fi or military show or ensemble who always are officers. And rarely, if ever, do we see the lower decks, the junior officers, the ratings or so on. Worse, in a typical production, minorities are simply, economically and by word count, discounted. Unfortunately, that is a money-driven marketing failure. Better to focus on what a limited-capacity audience can handle, right? Well, I prefer and enjoy viewing imports and like some of the shows that churn actors and actresses from time to time. I presume this is to keep fresher points of view from perspective of the characters as well as keeping up with the expectations of the viewing audience. Its time for a world in the military genre that is more than serving just one nation, more than just serving a hand full of actors or unions or egos, and so on. Realistically, this would be very complex to do in one studio, and ultimately, myopic or less than enthused studio executives would explain away to any extent to limit their expenses. But, theoretically, multiple studios using stock footage, superior digital processing facilities, and good use of sets and stories and real-world events can create a virtual naval force that ties together multiple nations in the real world. I think it is time for collaboration between nations at the studio level! This could encourage citizen level dialogue. I personally believe that any war fought by nations should not just involve the leadership, the corrupt ranks, and any true-to-the-core war mongers who want to spill blood out of bigotry, racism, xenophobia, or the like. Citizenry need to be involved in order to enforce the position that governments are supposed to exercise the will or interests of the public not run off on their own agendas and dupe the public or abuse the public. I firmly believe that most wars are instigated or exacerbated by policy makers and most certainly not by the average civilian taxpayer. In the mean time, regular persons sick of the sound bites and internal psyops, and deceptive lines can go on living and reshaping the world via SHIFT COLORS!
Some fundamental rules about SHIFT COLORS!
Author rights limitations:
In no case does the author gain ownership or copyright over the characters. Best analogy: Star Trek. Many authors contribute, but in no case does the sanctioned (authorized) publications of their works transmit or commute to them any rights to spin off their own Star Trek. Typically, most of the fan-written novels never become movies or series episodes, so there is not much opportunity for such authors to influence (alternatively, contaminate) the visual world of Star Trek. Nevertheless, any for-profit writings and distributions of SHIFT COLORS! inspired stories must conform to some rules. Not-for-profit stories, if ever later released or published, must also conform once presented for publication or caused to be published. Otherwise, dilution of importance of SHIFT COLORS!, however slight, would become disruptive.
Keep in mind that if you publish stories in any genre that depend upon, or use details from SHIFT COLORS!, and you simultaneously have not licensed to do so, you must consider yourself in breach of copyright, trademark or other protections. So, while you do retain copyright of your book, you do not get copyright to the components of the SHIFT COLORS!. Otherwise, I would lose control or total ownership of my work. The closest analogy you can find, I suppose, to comfort yourself, is that of Star Trek. Authors and contributors to that world gain recognition, but in some cases the introductions become a copyrighted or owned product of the enterprise or commercial venture.
But, what you DO get (and naturally so) is you have COPYRIGHT of your book. That Ill never take away. This way, you have the ability to hone or show off your writing skills, and may even create your own world, make your own web site, and may even outshine me.
Rotation of characters:
Note: in general in SHIFT COLORS! the characters will rotate, or arrive and then move on. Not all characters have to, however, as this is a prototype navy.
Capricious killing off of characters:
However, there will be no capricious killing off of a character just because a masked writer chooses to exercise a little digital death to kill off a character of particular nation, religion, race or ethnicity, or gender. Some ships have African American captains, female or male, and executive officers of the same. Some ships have Asian or East Indian commanding officers or engineering officers (CHENG, for Chief Engineer). Some ships have low-level but rising star enlisted personnel. Some are defectors, while some come from nations which couldnt care less about their nautical pursuits.
Constraint and legal obligation of characters:
However, some or ALL characters are required to either suspend or renounce their original citizenship in order to effectively serve ZAUARAN RNDF, principally because, whether in the real world or an alternative and nearly similar world, many nations egos demand to know where its citizens loyalties lie. Personally, I think a human beings loyalties belong to the world first, and then to locales a distant second. In the year 2003, humans have been around for too long for political fiefdoms to continue to wrangle and manipulate citizens at the lowest possible of levels, from taxation to job access, from hunger to homelessness. If nations can spend BILLIONS of dollars toying around in low altitude orbital devices, chase criminals around the world, lavish its leadership with costly body guards, travel, medical and dental benefits, retirement packages and more at tax payer expense, then there is no excuse for homelessness. If CEOs of the worlds leading nations can ever be as mind-bogglingly rich as a handful who individually outstrip the rest of the worlds population combined, then there is no reason for joblessness. Idle people can be put to work, fed, educated, given some kind of meaningful, non-servitude opportunities.
Systematic or surreptitious destruction of UNAUN or SHIFT COLORS!
Authors surreptitiously engaging in strategies to sink or introduce demolition ships in a systematic campaign to destroy UNAUN, SHIFT COLORS!, or any aspect of this world are not desired. As discovered and confronted, such authors will be ejected from the program either by real name or any aliases or pseudonyms known or discovered. Any work submitted for publishing to SHIFT COLORS!, by default, will be subject to review, editing, and other typical processes to prevent or minimize jarring in consistencies in the program.
Any works published and masquerading as official episodes or segments of SHIFT COLORS!, by definition, will be illegal or in breach of copyright laws, trademark laws, and other provisions created to protect intellectual property, created works, and so on. As a rogue author, your only consolation is to create your own little world that is not derived from any blueprints of or sold by UNAUN. Turn your focus to Star Trek or some other saga and create your own spin that is unique or non-infringing. However, unlike many other successful ventures, I have no intention of preventing you from actually writing a story in the world of SHIFT COLORS!, but you must keep in mind publishing laws. You may not pass off your work as authorized or legitimate. Any work that is ultimately published will have endured the typical editing or reviewing process, and will be subject to rejection or refusal of official blessing if it is not in keeping with the SHIFT COLORS! world.
Any provisions not explicitly covered herein are reserved for or by David Syes, SHIFT COLORS!, or other ventures named or created by David Syes (myself).
Ideally, wherever you are, as an author, citizen, taxpayer, or such, your local or national government will allow for venting, so long as it doesnt fundamentally or surreptitiously recommend the completed overthrow your nation by force, bloodshed, or other hostilities. One should not be so vile or stupid as to equate the intellectualization of citizenry with the act of coup, revolution, or other forms of overthrow. A more astute, educated, less-lazy citizenry, by definition, must, be a force of change. An enlightened citizenry would not allow for war, bloodshed, or even for homelessness, starvation, pestilence, and personal political greed. However, this is the real world until enlightenment suddenly seizes the populace while simultaneously reforming or ejecting stalwarts.
Finally, it really is time for a number of nations to churn their leadership top to bottom and replace them with people who are not former warriors or bitter officials pining for the long-lost-glory days. Its time to remove petty materialistic types (from political figures, to megalomaniac software CEOs, to other types of tycoons who view the planet as theirs or their familys, the citizenry as mere eventual or preordained converts or adherents or buyers or consumers, and not to be dissuaded from handing over the money. It is time to end international crime, global protein mal distribution, poll manipulation and more. Moreover, it is time to stop the destruction of nature preserves, rain forests, and time to end the use of sweat shops. For example, manufacturers who operate in malfeasance and consumers who knowingly buy from such malfeasant apparel sweatshops should themselves be shoved into an unbearably oppressive sweatshop for 3 months of rapid stress, weight loss, loss of family time, freedom, and whatever else is happening to individual. Maybe, just maybe, some changes will take place.
UNAUN will, in a literary fashion, try and sometimes fail to deal with these issues.
Happy writing!