Hound55
Crimson Flame
Simple Unicycle
Qia
SkaiC H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L
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G R E E N L A N T E R N
H A L J O R D A N ♦ T E S T P I L O T ♦ C O A S T C I T Y ♦ B. 1944
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:
"In brightest day, in blackest night... Uh, line, Kilowog?"
Coast City never treated Hal Jordan well growing up. It had its own wonders, certainly. Beaches up and down the coast as far as the eye could see and rolling tracts of perfect morning dew suburbia in the hills beyond the city proper. But in Coast City, awash with lights and crowded in by the restful giants of the wartime ammunition factories beyond, you could never see the stars.
By Hal's measure, the war was the cause of all of his problems. Not Korea, the really big one where everybody joined in, Hal always had to specifiy, the one dad bought the farm in. That crack always bought him a bop on the head and some grumbling about "respect", so Hal supposed that the admonishment was the war's fault, too. It was the war that pushed the light out of the sky, changed it from the town of his parents' childhood that made Mom's voice perk up when she spoke about it into a thing of iron and concrete. It was the reason Tommy Tanaka from next door had gone, too, and he was the only kid that Hal could get to play pretend Flying Ace and Red Baron with him.
And then there was Dad, who Mom cried about when she thought Hal had finally drifted off to sleep. Hal figured he must've been a real important guy. In the stories Mom told him, he had some kinda magic in his heart that he must've plucked out of the sky that Mom said let him fly faster and higher than anyone else. For Hal that settled it, if Dad could do it maybe he could too, maybe even finally reach up and touch the stars that had gone missing over the city.
But flying wasn't in the cards for Hal. Instead he was saddled with a pair of coke bottle lenses and instructions to make sure to eat his carrots if he wanted any kind of shot at the controls of an airplane. Hal's first kiss ended up telling him he had carrot breath, but he figured it was worth the trade. As long as he could look forward and keep stepping towards the sky, he'd make it through anything, school, college, break ups, even every damn page of his aeronautics textbook.
Still, for every carrot he swallowed and every precaution he took to keep his eyes in mint condition, it was a miracle he got any position at all. A battery of failed FAA eye exams meant he'd never be a combat pilot, he'd be lucky to even get a job flying rubbernecking tourists across the country.
But Ferris Aircraft didn't need a combat pilot, it needed a technician that knew his vehicle inside and out. It helped that Dad did some work for them at the start of the war, that old man Ferris had a long memory, and that his daughter had a knack for finding the best in her flyboys. Hal wasn't combat-ready, sure, but he could piece together more about the quality of a test aircraft just after takeoff than most pilots could after full flights in them.
It was like this for some years, mornings spreading his wings over the Californian desert, and nights writing aching reports about every bump and hassle and errant knob his craft had on offer. That is, until the night he saw his first Coast City shooting star, a twinkling emerald jewel that came down, down, down.
It is he who shall next bear the ring, the star told him as it slotted itself upon his finger, leading him to the corpse of its former wearer. Abin Sur was dead -- and an alien, but Hal ultimately decided that the dead part was the more pressing concern -- murdered in his own spaceship.
Over the next days, the organization Hal found himself conscripted in, The Green Lantern Corps, would place a sector wide blockade on the planet. No entry or exit from Earth's solar system under any circumstances, the powers that be wanted a locked door mystery. Leaving Hal and the remnants of Abin Sur's team to keep the peace among an increasingly restless population of aliens who didn't expect to be staying on Earth for quite so long.
By Hal's measure, the war was the cause of all of his problems. Not Korea, the really big one where everybody joined in, Hal always had to specifiy, the one dad bought the farm in. That crack always bought him a bop on the head and some grumbling about "respect", so Hal supposed that the admonishment was the war's fault, too. It was the war that pushed the light out of the sky, changed it from the town of his parents' childhood that made Mom's voice perk up when she spoke about it into a thing of iron and concrete. It was the reason Tommy Tanaka from next door had gone, too, and he was the only kid that Hal could get to play pretend Flying Ace and Red Baron with him.
"Ma says its coz' of the war we got ta' move."
"How's that?"
"Ma says the people here used ta' keep us in cages, then. N' that things ain't got any better since."
"No better...? Do you got cages in your house?"
"I thought about that too, but Dad says this city is just a great big one."
And then there was Dad, who Mom cried about when she thought Hal had finally drifted off to sleep. Hal figured he must've been a real important guy. In the stories Mom told him, he had some kinda magic in his heart that he must've plucked out of the sky that Mom said let him fly faster and higher than anyone else. For Hal that settled it, if Dad could do it maybe he could too, maybe even finally reach up and touch the stars that had gone missing over the city.
But flying wasn't in the cards for Hal. Instead he was saddled with a pair of coke bottle lenses and instructions to make sure to eat his carrots if he wanted any kind of shot at the controls of an airplane. Hal's first kiss ended up telling him he had carrot breath, but he figured it was worth the trade. As long as he could look forward and keep stepping towards the sky, he'd make it through anything, school, college, break ups, even every damn page of his aeronautics textbook.
Still, for every carrot he swallowed and every precaution he took to keep his eyes in mint condition, it was a miracle he got any position at all. A battery of failed FAA eye exams meant he'd never be a combat pilot, he'd be lucky to even get a job flying rubbernecking tourists across the country.
But Ferris Aircraft didn't need a combat pilot, it needed a technician that knew his vehicle inside and out. It helped that Dad did some work for them at the start of the war, that old man Ferris had a long memory, and that his daughter had a knack for finding the best in her flyboys. Hal wasn't combat-ready, sure, but he could piece together more about the quality of a test aircraft just after takeoff than most pilots could after full flights in them.
It was like this for some years, mornings spreading his wings over the Californian desert, and nights writing aching reports about every bump and hassle and errant knob his craft had on offer. That is, until the night he saw his first Coast City shooting star, a twinkling emerald jewel that came down, down, down.
It is he who shall next bear the ring, the star told him as it slotted itself upon his finger, leading him to the corpse of its former wearer. Abin Sur was dead -- and an alien, but Hal ultimately decided that the dead part was the more pressing concern -- murdered in his own spaceship.
Over the next days, the organization Hal found himself conscripted in, The Green Lantern Corps, would place a sector wide blockade on the planet. No entry or exit from Earth's solar system under any circumstances, the powers that be wanted a locked door mystery. Leaving Hal and the remnants of Abin Sur's team to keep the peace among an increasingly restless population of aliens who didn't expect to be staying on Earth for quite so long.
C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:
Green Lantern Year One, you've heard the song a hundred times before but never from these instruments. Truth be told this is a boilerplate Green Lantern set up, chock full of power rings, intergalactic law, and more aliens than you can shake a Kilowog at. My main goal here is a pretty steep difference in execution, less a space police procedural with the nigh-omnipotent protectors of the galaxy, and more a journey of willpower and deceit as Hal navigates the increasingly complicated politics of the Green Lantern Corps and the people its meant to protect, couched in the adventure of a Green Lantern that has to figure out far too much of this for himself.
This is a story about cops and power, about lurking murderers, long shadows, and the infinite reaches of space. Most of all, this is a story of the power of human resolve.
This is a story about cops and power, about lurking murderers, long shadows, and the infinite reaches of space. Most of all, this is a story of the power of human resolve.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
I'm changing some things about the Green Lanterns, eat my shorts. The things of import are as follows.
-The power rings tend to be much less powerful than they are usually portrayed in the DCU. All but the best Green Lanterns often have trouble maintaining constructs of significant power, leaving such applications of their ring much less useful. As well, the ring overall does much less of the work, each Lantern must earn every benefit the ring bestows upon them, even the Lantern basics of flight or interstellar travel.
-Speaking of changes to the rings, each bearer tends to have a specialty. I won't say too much about what exactly these can do, but know that a Green Lantern can do more than a fnacy light show.
-For my story, the nature of the power rings toes the line between the mystic and extraterrestrial technology. They are said to be as old as Oa, the agents of a power that is still not fully understood.
-As well, Green Lantern Corps members are not the only ones that have gotten their hands on these handy dandy power rings, even the green ones. The Corps is instead simply the largest organized conglomerate of ring bearers who, with the assistance of their Guardians, have forged an organization dedicated to intergalactic policing.
-Speaking of changes to the rings, each bearer tends to have a specialty. I won't say too much about what exactly these can do, but know that a Green Lantern can do more than a fnacy light show.
-For my story, the nature of the power rings toes the line between the mystic and extraterrestrial technology. They are said to be as old as Oa, the agents of a power that is still not fully understood.
-As well, Green Lantern Corps members are not the only ones that have gotten their hands on these handy dandy power rings, even the green ones. The Corps is instead simply the largest organized conglomerate of ring bearers who, with the assistance of their Guardians, have forged an organization dedicated to intergalactic policing.
S A M P L E P O S T:
GREEN LANTERN in: LITTLE WING
“A Green Lantern’s first flight is a rite of passage. It is a demonstration of his mastery, not just of the fundamentals of his ring, but of the infinite force of his own will. Through flight, a Green Lantern is--”
“Kilowog,” Hal interrupted the creature standing two heads over him, “I asked for advice, not Sinestro’s flying speech again.”
Hal was still getting used to reading the big guy’s expressions. The structure of his face was somewhere between a warthog and a hippo, with rough pink skin that looked like sandpaper. His face shifted, opening up his parapeted lower jaw and cracking what Hal assumed was a smile.
“It’s all the advice they ever gave me, poozer. You just gotta work with it,” Kilowog said. He was sitting on the remains of one of the lawn chairs Hal had dragged out here for them, sagging with splintered plastic legs that had cried out and collapsed under the alien’s weight. But still, he sat in it, evidently it was better than getting California desert sand all over the ass of his uniform.
They were out in the reaches of Death Valley, hidden from prying eyes by plumes of cacti and the endless expanse of desert all around them. Hal liked it, out here. Away from the lights of the city, where the stars could come out of hiding and whisper of their mysteries unabated. It was like being out in the far ocean, with rolling waves that stretched to the horizon beyond and where the sky seemed to swallow up the whole world. But here in the desert, the rippling waves were frozen as sand and grit, no longer moving with the tide but sitting in meditative silence.
According to Sinestro, Hal and Kilowog’s boss, meditation was exactly what he needed if he ever intended to get his ring to take him into the sky. That was one of the things he didn’t understand, flying from his angle was never about meditation. It was about reflex and constant movement, keeping an eye on all your dials and instruments, keeping your hands flowing like water across the test console to be wherever they were needed.
“Well, fat load of good that’ll do me,” Hal said, “we’ve been out here an hour and my will definitely doesn’t feel infinite.”
“An hour that you’ve spent, nonstop, trying to take off like Superman,” Kilowog said. He scratched at the icon of a lantern on his chest with a white-gloved, four-fingered hand.
“What, you have any better ideas?” Hal whapped the ring on his finger like it was a malfunctioning TV set.
“Have you tried asking the ring?” Kilowog shifted in his seat and more plastic snapped and broke, bringing him closer to the desert below.
“Asking the -- okay, you know what? I’ll humor you.” Hal turned his gloved hand over, staring now at the icon of the lantern embossed on his ring. “Ring, how do I fly?”
There was silence, except for Kilowog’s snorting laugh. “Ask it to fly, dummy, not how.”
Hal took a moment to stick his tongue out at Kilowog before extending his arm and sticking his ring into the sky. “Ring… Fly.”
Nothing.
“Hm… Ring… Go?”
Nothing.
“Ring zoom. Ring flash! Ring alakazam!” Hal shouted. Kilowog couldn’t keep it together anymore and guffawed, his shoulders heaving and his hippo-jaws jumping open and closed.
“Kilowog! Goddamn, I knew you were hazing me.” Hal kicked the ground and sent up a plume of dust.
“Aw, man, that one’s a Corps classic,” Kilowog wiped tears from his eyes, “what is ‘hazing’ by the way?”
“I -- you don’t?” Hal rubbed his temples. “When I was growing up, I worked at one of these big chain grocery stores that were popping up all over the city. And one day, we got this new kid, Matt, and I told him to head down the checkout and grab the shelf extender. Checkout sent him to the deli. Deli sent him to produce. On and on, until he finally gave up looking for it. That is hazing. What you did to me is hazing.”
“Right. But what happened to the shelf extender?” Kilowog asked.
“There was no,” Hal saw the same smile creep up on Kilowog’s face, “no, no, you won’t get me again. C’mon, let’s figure this out. How did you do it, your first time?”
Kilowog pawed at his chin. “Hm. It’s been awhile… I just thought about what it would be like to fly. And I made the ring do that.”
“Very helpful, Kilowog.” Hal slumped into the sand beneath. Why couldn’t Green Lanterns just use planes like everybody else? If they could make these rings then they could certainly figure out the concepts of lift and drag.
Wait. Why couldn’t he use a plane? He’d already been taught the basics of ‘constructs’, simple shapes and objects he could make manifest out of the ring. What would stop him from…
“Stand back, big guy. I think I have an idea.” Hal said.
“Standing back,” Kilowog said, staying firmly planted in his seat.
Hal started small, as he had been taught, willing the first mote of twinkling green energy from the ring, causing it to coalesce into an elongating rectangle of emerald, gaining more detail as it expanded. The shape curved off from rectangle into tube as it grew beyond Hal, tapering into a distinct nosecone. The rest spread into a shape Hal knew well, forming a canopy over his head and spreading a delta of wings out behind him.
“Woah Jordan, you’re not flying anywhere in that thing. Probably can’t even maintain a construct that big, let alone --” Kilowog started,
“Just, just lemme try this, alright?” Sweat beaded on Hal’s brow as he defined the space around him, eking out his dials and instruments from the featureless green before him, his altimeter, airspeed indicator, the works… But it wasn’t enough, not yet. It didn’t feel right.
“Kilowog can you, ah…” Hal hoped the alien couldn’t see the red on his face through the shimmering jet canopy, “can you pretend to be Air Traffic Control, or something?”
Kilowog nodded solemnly and covered his mouth. “Breaker breaker nine to five, this is Biiiig Poozer, you read me Highball?”
“I changed my mind, shut up,” Hal snapped. He closed his eyes and focused, tighter. The swoop of his craft’s aileron, the way his stabilizers swept into the air around him, the press and shudder of what it would feel like to his the airbreak...
“This is Highball, reading you loud and proud Big Poozer…” Hal mumbled to himself, “let’s get this show on the road.” Hal reached for the throttle, right where it would be in his test plane, and his hands closed around something solid. He pushed forward and felt the engine spinning up in his heart, imaging the plane creaking forward steadily around him. More, more.
He reached out for the instruments, feeling their smooth plastic and glass surfaces and knowing instantly what they would tell him, arranged just so in the cockpit. He knew what they’d do, what they’d tell him as he rose into the sky, information streaming through his eyes and telling him every practical detail of his plane. He knew this, and he knew it well, just like he knew the feeling of air whipping across his skin and sweeping his hair. He knew how high he was, of course, he had to, he could practically feel it from the air pressure. His heading, his vertical speed, his navigation, that all came to him, too, as the great body of the plane rose up about him and the notion of his instruments faded into the background.
Now there was just Hal and the plane, Kilowog and Sinestro and Carol and the job and the ring and Abin Sur all seemed so far away. No, instead there was the lift and drag across his jet, the ripple and roll of each piece of his fighter, working all together in one contiguous whole, one of the finest flying machines every built.
Hal was there, the place he always reached in the sky, where the plane stopped being a plane and instead became an extension of himself, the wings slicing through the sky were his own, forging his path forward. But… He had forgotten one detail.
He never disengaged the landing gear. He reached for it in his cockpit, as he had with the throttle, and his hand passed through empty air. Nuts. Hal’s eyes opened to search for the missing instrument.
There was no landing gear.
There was no plane.
He was flying.
P O S T C A T A L O G:
A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.
