Birth of a legend
(1997-February 2002)
seaWolf ASV first emerged in my head in around 1997, not long after ITV here in the UK showed the last episode of seaQuest 2032, “Weapons of War”. Of course, being only 13 at the time, I did not quite have the ability, or the patience, to create a decent series.
I made a rudimentary start on it back then, setting up the basic idea for the series, originally titled “Excalibur : The seaQuest Continues”, and set only a year after sQ 2032. I planned to incorporate the crew of seaQuest into the new sub’s personnel (Hudson, Ford and Piccolo were all intended to have been killed in the first episode, which destroyed the seaQuest and caused war to break out on two fronts, Macronesia and the Chau-Di, tentatively called “A New Horizon”). There were no scripts written at the time, and my ideas were lost when I upgraded my PC.
The ideas lost, I thought no more about a seaQuest series, until 1999, when ITV repeated all three series of seaQuest in full, and I first started using the Internet to its full potential. I came across an interesting site while surfing one day. seaFire ASV. This was the first seaQuest fanfiction site I had come across (although I had found the old UEO Mainframe site, and SEAPOC), and it’s popularity, even 3 years after the series had ended, as well as its top-class images, music and scripts, persuaded me to give “Excalibur” another try.
This time, I was prepared. I created a detailed Writer’s Guide, including a less refined version of the timeline now seen on this site. The pilot episode, “Dawning” was written over Christmas that year, and I was building ideas for stories. The newly renamed “seaWolf ASV” was underway…
The original logo for the series ©1999 MW
But then, came problems. I was having problems with the second episode, “Neptune”, and difficulty in coming up with ideas for further episodes.
I temporarily abandoned “Neptune” (eventually scrapping the original idea, and starting again) and started work on the third episode “The Higher Cause”. Here, I introduced the key plot in the series, the new Macronesian super-sub “Archangel”, which would become the Excalibur’s primary nemesis in the series. This episode remains almost fully intact in this version of seaWolf.
So, what changed? Over Summer 2000, the seaFire website slowly converted to a non-seaQuest based series, called Deep Angel. The creators were apparently worried about copyright infringement, especially since they were planning to release a PC game based on their series. (All of this, of course, was unknown to me, at home, on summer break, with no access at home) The seaFire series vanished, and, come Autumn 2000, I was left slightly at a loss as to where to go with the series. I was contemplating abandoning the whole idea, and working on an unrelated concept (another sci-fi project, called “starFire”). Then, I came across seaQuest 2047.
This series, like seaFire, was extremely popular amongst the dwindling seaQuest fan community, and I started taking an active role in their message board, which, until April 2002, acted as the “hub” for seaQuest fans worldwide. The series managed to combine images, music and great writing to create a highly successful venture. This was a great encouragement, and I made the necessary steps to revamp the seaWolf idea, rewriting the pilot, and recommencing work on “Neptune”.
Of course, this took a great deal of time, and it was only in September 2001 (ironically, on the 11th), that I completed the revamp, creating a series more relevant to today’s changing world scene. It was cleaner, more refined (compare the two versions of “Dawning” and of “Neptune” to see) and was more in line with the vision I had.
With no web design experience, and still no Internet connection at home, I was limited to starting seaWolf on a Yahoo! Groups page, which is still up at groups.yahoo.com/group/seawolfasv. On October 16th, 2001, the pilot episode went up on the site, along with images and promo videos created myself, with my limited seaQuest video library (two, in total!), and Microsoft Movie Maker.
The two versions of the seaWolf logo used at the time of the series launch, October 2001.
Of course, problems still happened. “Neptune” again caused me problems, but, with the encouragement of the others on the 2047 message board, I finally completed it in late November, 2001. I also had help, first from Daniel G. Williams, who created a new logo for me, without being requested:
New seaWolf logo, created by DG Williams, November 2001.
and secondly, from Jason Ram, who was a great supporter of the series from episode 1, and one of my main encouragers. He is now part of the writing staff, contributing story ideas for Episodes 113 and 117, amongst others. The original Excalibur mesh seen on the site (v1.0) was as a result of a copyright infringement on my part, with the use of an image from seaShark CSV (A spin-off from sQ 2047):
Original Excalibur image, ©2000 James Maxwell (MCHMM), Mesh ©Stuart Stitt.
Everything was then on schedule. “The Higher Cause” was released in December, and, after a Christmas break, “R&R”. I was forced to upload all my files from school, and this was both difficult and time restricting (I couldn’t get new scripts or images, etc. up as soon as they were available).
Then came the key story, the three-part episode “Archangel”. This would be the first major test for seaWolf, a story evolving over many parts to a convincing conclusion. Part One went out smoothly in mid-January. Part Two was completed only a week and a half later, but, because of illness, the episode’s release was to be delayed by a week. That week, it turns out, would be disastrous. At school, a new server was introduced, which prevented access to Hotmail, where all my seaWolf correspondence came in, and Yahoo! Groups, where the seaWolf page was situated. The episode release was in serious jeopardy. I created a temporary site at www.geocities.com/seawolfasv (where this site is now located) to put up the episode. But, even this was to be snatched away from me, as the server prevented all access to private home pages. I was stranded. The story was left hanging on a cliffhanger at the end of Part Two. (Not a bad thing, necessarily…) Part Three was still written for late February, but now there was no way to get it out on general release…
Beyond the darkness
(February 2002-May 2002)
With the sudden cut-off of all seaWolf sites, the series was thrown into chaos. After several weeks of careful consideration, I decided to put the series on indefinite hiatus from the web, and continue working on the series ‘behind closed doors’. During this time, I began building this website.
Episode 108 “Statements and Declarations” was begun, but soon became bogged down in problems.
I decided to lay off the series for a while, and instead take a greater role in the seaQuest fan community. When the seaQuest 2047 site had to be dismantled in March 2002, suddenly things looked very bleak all round. Suddenly, there was nowhere for fans to meet up. But, thanks to G, and his Battlecruiser Saratoga site, a new board was set up, and a new beginning was underway…
Shortly after this, G and DGWilliams contacted me, with the idea of banding together to create a unified front around which to relaunch the seaQuest web franchise. The state of play so far had been too fragmentary, too many people working in too many different directions. If seaQuest on the web was to be saved, we needed to be united under a new ‘hub’ site.
As we began to discuss how to go about this mammoth effort, my efforts to revive seaWolf continued. The web site was coming along in leaps and bounds, and this proved the catalyst for one of the turning points in these dark days. On April 21st, I sent out a series of posts entitled “Fleet-wide Yellow Alert” to several contacts on the board, and to around half a dozen seaQuest Yahoo! Groups I was a member of, asking for help from writers, CGI artists, and just anyone who wanted to help.
As the replies came back, I managed to get Archangel Parts Two and Three up on the group site in late April/early May, by a long and difficult process of e-mailing, copying and pasting. Then, came another lifeline. In order to get the site up before I got an Internet connection, I needed to bypass my school’s proxy server (not the most legal thing in the world to do!). And I found a way (that I’m not going to go into here, mainly ‘cos of the slight illegality of the process!).
And so, on May 28th, the new seaWolf ASV web site went on air. Although major re-coding was and still is required on the site, it continues to grow and new sections are coming on-line all the time.
Now, the real work could begin…
A New Hope
(May 2002-present)
Coming soon...
