I'd like to thank the writers and actors of Time Force for their inspiring work, Sir Stack for his website of incredibly detailed episode descriptions, and Jillun's Mirai Sentai Timeranger site for its summaries of the Japanese series Time Force was based on.
The series Power Rangers Time Force consists of four major story arcs (all of which are available on videotape) and many other, stand-alone episodes. This novella consists mainly of those story arcs, but a fair amount of material comes from other episodes, usually in the form of plot elements.
Mission is composed of: Force From the Future parts 1 and 2, Something to Fight For, Ransik Lives, and A Parting of Ways, with a villain and some plot elements from Time Force Traitor.
Ambition is composed of Worlds Apart, Quantum Quest, Clash for Control parts 1 and 2, and Quantum Secrets, with elements from Bodyguard in Blue and Trip Takes a Stand.
Destiny is composed of Frax’s Fury, Dawn of Destiny, Fight Against Fate, and Destiny Defeated.
Sacrifice is composed of Calm Before the Storm, and End of Time parts 1, 2, and 3.
This is all episode interpretation with added material. Some scenes are taken almost word for word from the series, some are original, most are somewhere in-between. The scenes involving the villains especially tend to be very different from the series.
Changes in the story:
The main idea was to write the series as a science fiction novel, with a more cohesive overall plot. Yes, I know the idea of a villain traveling back in time to change history to suit himself has been done before. It’s an interesting idea, and it’ll be done again.
I’ve taken the most liberties with the villains. While Ransik and Frax are pretty much unchanged, I’ve mercilessly reduced the number of their mutant allies to three so we can get to know them a little and take them more seriously. My version of Conwing in particular has little resemblance to the Conwing in the series. Here, Nadira is portrayed with a better side all along, instead of the rather abrupt about-face she does in the series.
Trip and Katie – Trip is no longer an alien, both are genetically engineered humans (or mutants?) here, because it fits in well with the rest of the plot.
Eric – I’ve expanded his role a little, because I like him.
Alex – the story offers one possible explanation for the character’s rather bewildering changes.
Miller – He's based on two characters from the series; the one referred to in the credits as 'Guardian Number One' in Quantum Quest, and the Guardian Miller who appears all too briefly in Dawn of Destiny.
Mr. Collins – How to refer to him. A reviewer on www.fanfiction.net brought this up and it's actually an interesting question, one I gave some thought to while writing. Calling him "Mr. Collins" all the time seems so formal, and doesn't feel right. Calling him "Alan" just doesn't feel right either, so I called him "Collins" most of the time, except when another character is thinking of him in more formal terms.
Other Episodes – A reviewer on www.fanfiction.net brought this up too. The other episodes in the series for the most part didn't add to the basic story or character development. And I didn't want to end up with Gone With the Timehole.
Zords, Megazords, etc. – All gone, with the one exception of the Q-Rex, which is almost a character in the series. It exists in my story in slightly altered form.
Time frame – The characters in the series who came from the future were from the year 3000. This is such a long span of time that the English language may not exist anymore, and there would be changes in technology and society that we can’t imagine. I thought it was way too much time, and made my future Rangers come from 2200. Two hundred years is plenty of time for technology to advance to the point that it would seem like magic to us.
There is no Gluto in my story because I didn't like him. To put it mildly. Sorry, Gluto fans.
The Other Side: I wanted to see if I could dream up a plot that made sense and make up interesting original characters. Somehow the themes of artifical mutants, mind control, and a mutant femme fatale suggested themselves. Maybe my mind was being controlled... (Actually, Power Rangers has always been really big on mind control, and I now realize Angela came from a remark I read somewhere about Contemptra - one of the mutants-of-the-week, who forced Wes, Lucas, and Trip to fall in love with her. Someone said it would have been fun to see Eric mooning around in the throes of love, too...)
Also at this point, Jen and Katie were gone and I didn't intend to bring them back, so I needed women in the story. That's why my mutants are all women. Also that's the immediate reason I introduced Gaby, as a permanent female character.
In my AU version, there's no way to explain other Ranger teams, and frankly I don't care for the other series nearly as much as Time Force. Therefore Gaby was also created as an eventual love interest for Eric. The reader must decide whether that was a wise choice, and whether she has escaped total Mary Sue-dom. I gave her some similarities to myself - similar profession and working environment, similar family background and interests. Write what you know, they say. I know myself, therefore she'll be a good character. Wrong. It made her much harder to write, harder to get a feel for her personality.
I also intended Emma to eventually be a love interest for Wes, but more on that later.
My beta readers had interesting reactions to the infamous end of Chapter 10. Reader C: "He's a creepy would-be rapist!" Reader J: "She deserved it! Look what they did to him!"
The Second Time: This whole story arose out of my sadistic desire to write a tear-jerking death scene. Unfortunately, neither of my beta readers shed a tear. I still blubber every time I read it, but I cry at anything.
In the original version of this story, which was posted for a couple of weeks, Jen and Alex had gotten engaged again. At the end, Wes had finally accepted losing Jen forever, and Emma was about to return. (Reader J: "Wes is such a baby!") Actually, I think this makes a lot of sense, and spent a lot of time debating whether to change it.
I did make the change, for two reasons. One, a crazed Wes/Jen shipper might show up on my doorstep with a butcher knife. (Seriously, every author who wants to be actually read has to take the readers' wants into consideration.) Second, know how you've heard writers claim their characters take on a life of their own? It's true. Wes just wasn't buying it. He wanted Jen or no one. Time Over started as an effort to bring Jen back again.
The scenes with Jen in the future at the ends of the first four chapters were stuck in at the last minute in an effort to appease the above-mentioned Wes/Jen fans. Now I'm glad, I think they turned out to be a valuable addition to the story.
For some reason I became very fond of Ray. Maybe because he shares my love of comic books.
Time Over : Once I decided to use Jen again, I had to have a reason for her to enter the story. Somehow the whole alternate reality business occured to me, along with the idea of parallel storylines in alternating chapters, finally merging. I also decided on an overall villian, to tie everything together and to make the three stories a trilogy, and added short bridge sequences to the ends of the first two stories.
It proved very difficult to write the love scenes for Eric and Gaby, it's hard to get him to behave in any way resembling romantic. Hope it's halfway convincing.
Doing the Conwing POV was interesting, the first time I've tried it with a truly evil character, although Connie has some unexpected depths.
Kane was named after Bob Kane, creator of Batman; and Bill Finger, an early Batman writer. Klezmi was named after part of the hostname of a frequent visitor to my website.
Believe me, it was hard to think of a way to get the ending I wanted. Originally I toyed with the idea of the 'alternate reality' Jen existing here, while the 'original reality' Jen was alive and well in the future, and engaged or married to Alex. Somehow the idea of two Jens just seemed icky... so I dropped it. Hope you like the final version.