Entries tagged with the sentinel

Crossposts: http://marbleglove.livejournal.com/47459.html

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Plot-bunny: Stargate / The Sentinel

I am once more back to reading a bunch of The Sentinel AUs around the idea that of what if Sentinels and Guides were a known thing. And it occurred to me that pretty much all of the stories have Sentinels as the primary powerful individual and the Guides as their support, to help them achieve all they can achieve and all that. Power dynamics and social situations vary, story by story, but the focus remains on the Sentinels.

But what about the reverse: There are these Guides, who just think outside the box and trail blaze new paths for whole populations and are destined to achieve great things if they can just survive long enough and avoid assassination by the power structures who don't want any new paths cleared.

And Guides just get themselves into so much trouble and the Sentinels are the ones who find them and imprint on them and become their body guards and their war leaders.

And so of course Daniel Jackson is a Guide, even though he's depressed and doesn't think he'll be able to change society because he got laughed out of academia; and Jack O'Neill is a Sentinel who thought he'd found his purpose in the military and lost it with his family. But then they meet and go through the Stargate and now Daniel doesn't even care about the whole Guide thing because he's too busy actually accomplishing amazing things and meeting amazing people to care about some stupid destiny marker or whatever. And Jack is scrambling behind him to keep him protected and going, come on, I'm your Sentinel I need to keep you safe, please stop throwing yourself into danger!

And Sam and Teal'c kind of look at this dynamic and are like, wow, Jack, you are not going to accomplish protecting that guide on your own. So, I guess you now have a team to help you with that because he's a guide that's a guide.

Meanwhile, Rodney McKay is a Guide who thinks any Sentinel within his immediate vicinity should be making sure he's safe and any Sentinel outside of his immediate vicinity is out of sight and out of mind.

And John Sheppard, who has always had mixed feelings about his Sentinel status because his father wanted him attached to an ambassador or politician, and he liked his freedom too much to want to be tied to a single person, finds himself just enthralled with Rodney who is accomplishing what no one else can do and manages to be super demanding and super accommodating at the same time to all of John's issues.

Crossposts: http://marbleglove.livejournal.com/46957.html

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Plot-bunny: Stargate Atlantis / Sentinel

Real life has been draining enough that I've largely reverted to fandom lurking even more than previously. (which is saying something, because previous levels of activity were not setting the bar very high.) And I've been reading a lot of really self-indulgent stuff that, for me, includes a lot of fanfic of the Sentinels & Guides Are Known AUs.

Of course, there's no escaping rabid plot-bunnies when reading that much of a single topic area, at least not for me.

And thus I have a plot-bunny for a Stargate Atlantis fanfic set in the type of Sentinels & Guides are known and have various legal protections AU.

The idea starts with the standard trope of:
Rodney McKay is a Sentinel who doesn't think he should need a Guide and John Sheppard is a Guide who's been hiding his status in order to maintain his military position

However, it turns out that McKay is right, that he doesn't really need a Sentinel because:
1. he's very careful (and vocal) about policing his own allergies
2. the things he works on are so massive or so infintesimal that not even he could see them with physical senses anyway, so there's no need to push his senses since he's dealing with galaxies and electrons
3. his sense of "protect the tribe" is on just as massive a scale as his science, so he's determined to ensure that humanity survives on different planets and has the capabilities to protect themselves etc, and he's not interested in protecting any particular individual

Second however, is that Radek Zelenka didn't pass his background check to get onto the Atlantis expedition. He's from the Czech Republic and was part of the protests in the 1980s. Obviously this can't stand since McKay wants Radek on the expedition, and thus McKay declares that Zelenka is his Guide and thus has to come on the expedition regardless of the failed background check.

Everyone knows that McKay is lying, except that there's just this shadow of a doubt, because McKay and Radek really do work together extremely well, they're both super smart and can pass any of the variety of standardized tests to weed out fake pairings, and it's really a bit taboo to question a sentinel about the appropriateness of their guide as a guide. So, everyone *strongly suspects* it's a lie, but McKay is officially down as a bonded sentinel and Zelenka is officially down as a bonded guide.

Then along comes Sheppard, joining the expedition at the last minute, and unaware of all the unofficial versions of the official files.

So, of course, Sheppard and McKay are excellent matches for each other. But, and this is the thing, they're all adults. Not only are they all adults, but they're also completely disconnected from Earth for some time. So McKay joins Sheppard's SGA-1, and Sheppard starts hanging out more in the labs, and everyone side-eyes all three of them for a bit but mostly get distracted by trying to stay alive and generally running for their lives.

And then they get back in contact with Earth.

*grin*

I'm not entirely sure what happens at that point, but I think maybe people from Earth (Blair and Jim maybe?) come in a delegation to make sure everything is okay and deal with all the psychological trauma that must have been experienced and are just kind of boggled by how well everyone is doing and how poorly any of this is going to fit into any sort of template report.

("You can't just declare that you have a sentinel-guide bond to every single person you want to make sure stays on the expedition, Rodney!"
"Why not? It's true!"
"It's not true!"
"But you can't prove it's not!")

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Plot-bunny: Lie to Me / The Sentinel

I’ve been watching Lie to Me, which is oodles of fun. I remain dubious of the actual prevalence of the various tells, but it’s still oodles of fun. And it’s certainly based on science, at least as much as CSI or Numb3rs, so I’m cool with it.

Despite the fact that I have only ever watched a couple of episodes of The Sentinel, I have enjoyed the fandom immensely. One bit that crops up periodically is the scene in which Sandburg descibes Ellison as a human lie detector.

Given the apparently fame of the Lightman Group and the research ability of Sanburg, surely Sandburg would have found Dr. Lightman’s various articles and books about micro-expressions and force fed the information to Ellison.

Of course, now the two groups need to meet up.

Lightman: “They’re amazing. The two of them are simply amazing.”

Torres: “What happened?”

Foster: “Cal is just annoyed that Detective Ellison called him on every one of his lies.”

Lightman didn’t deign that with a response. “It’s amazing that a man who is so talented at spotting lies is so incredibly bad about telling them. Especially when he tells so very many.”

Foster: “Okay, yes, that was odd. Did you see how he lied about how he found half of his evidence?”

Lightman: “It was blatantly obvious.”

Torres: “Who’s “they”?”

Lightman: “What?”

Torres: “ “The two of them are amazing.” It’s what you said. Who’s the other amazing person?”

Lightman: “Ah yes, the verbose Mr. Sandburg. Some sort of police consultant, been rooming with Detective Ellison, and isn’t bothered at all by having a friend and partner who can read his every thought on his face.”

Lightman looks surprised and rather jealous as well. A hint of attraction, which in turn surprises Torres. She wondered if he was attracted to the man or simply to the idea of someone who didn’t mind being constantly monitored. Upon consideration, that thought made him sound rather stalker-ish. All of them were sort of stalker-ish that way, really. She shook that thought off. Foster was saying something.

Foster: “Just the opposite, I’d say. I think Ellison was more frustrated by his partner’s sharing than Sandburg was embarrassed at being so closely observed.”

Lightman: “Yes. Aside from Loker, I don’t know anyone who sticks to the exact truth. And, well, Loker would not make a good police consultant.”

Torres: “So Sandburg told the exact truth? That should make the assignment easy. Why were you called in at all? To confirm what he said?”

Lightman: “Saying he told the truth might be over stating the situation. But, he never lied.”

Foster: “No, he talked, and talked and never said anything he didn’t believe. He never even refused to answer a question, at large part because he never stopped talking long enough for one of us to ask him a direct question.”

Lightman: “Rather clever, that.”

Foster (ignoring the interjection): “I know a great deal more about New Guinea than I ever wanted to, and a great deal less about the murder.”

Lightman: “His theories about the tribes of New Guinea were actually quite fascinating.”

Foster: “And Dr. Lightman was not helpful.”

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plot-bunny: Sherlock Holmes / The Sentinel

I just went and saw Sherlock Holmes. It was vast amounts of fun, although the relationship between the movie and the original stories is mostly the time period and the names. The character's... well, maybe "inspired by" is accurate enough. Loosely inspired by. Anyway, still oodles of fun.

One of the gifts that was given over Christmas this year, was The Improbably Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, an anthology with stories written by Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Tanith Lee, Anne Perry, Laurie R King, and many others. They are definitely fanfic, several of them AU. (Lo, the wonders of an iconic series that is out of copyright.) Definitely fun.

Anyway, this combination of influences had me thinking about Sherlock Holmes, which (who?) is not one of my standard fandoms. Thus, the idea I have is more a premise than an actual plot.

Consider the characters:

Sherlock Holmes is a strung-out junky genius who observes all sorts of details.

Dr. Watson is a loyal side-kick, doctor and unofficial biographer who helps keep Holmes grounded.

Doesn't this sound a lot like a Sentinel - Guide pairing, a la Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg? What about if neither of them (Holmes and Watson) are aware of Sentinels, or possibly just have a lot less information on them even than Sandburg, and yet still have to deal with the issues at hand?

Could be interesting.

Current Music: REM

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old plot bunny for Sentinel and Highlander

This is an old Sentinel/Highlander story that I thought up and plotted out and then stuck in a corner of my hard driver. It still holds a place in my heart even if uses way too many cliched plot devices for me ever consider actually spending the time to develop further. Anyway, I found it the other day and decided that rather than allow it to continue collecting dust, I'm going to put it out to pasture along with all of the younger and more rabid plot-bunnies. Enjoy.

( Plot outline )

A few scenes are:

( Blair Sandburg freaking out about arresting a member of his defense committee )

And

( Epilog with Joe Dawson )

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plot-bunny: NCIS / Sentinel

The Sentinel is a fun show with the basic premise that some people (Sentinels) have hyperactive senses (sight, hearing, etc, including psychic visions) that let them do all sorts of impressive things but also come with weaknesses that require someone else (a Guide) to help them control.

Canonically, the existence of Sentinels and Guides are not widely known although there are some shadowy government types who have a clue. However, there's a significant subset of the fandom that writes AU stories in which the phenomenon is well known and well documented. I like this variation.

And given that I'm still neck deep in my obsession with NCIS, of course I have an idea for a crossover.

I have this idea that Gibbs is a Sentinel: after all he always seems to know what people are saying, even when they're across the room, knows when people are lying to him, and gets "gut feelings" which are generally dead accurate. So I have this idea that Gibbs is a Sentinel and he knows it. He has always known it and was perfectly fine with it. In fact, Shannon, his first wife, was his Guide.

Then she dies and he suppresses most of his abilities. He attempts to replace her every so often looking for a red-headed woman to marry and it generally goes poorly for all concerned. (That's canon.) But he doesn't tell anyone about his first marriage (again: canon) or being a suppressed Sentinel.

Then Tony DiNozzo arrives.

Tony may or may not know he's a Guide, but it's not a flashy thing, and in canon mostly means he likes people and gets along well with most people. But he is a Guide and he while he doesn't know that Gibbs is a Sentinel, Gibbs certainly knows that Tony is a Guide.

When Gibbs hired Tony, he didn't think it would matter. As time passes however, Gibbs discovers that his senses are beginning to present themselves again. Because he won't actively seek Tony's assistance with them, Gibbs can't use them to their fullest extent, but they're still better than before. Plus, Tony and Gibbs are each able to do things like successfully order and/or beg each other not to die. (Both Sentinel and NCIS canon) So Gibbs is trying to deal with his senses and Tony's presence and having a Guide again without telling Tony that he's been co-opted as Gibbs' Guide in the first place.

It would be oodles of fun and I really want to read this story. If someone knows something similar or writes it up, please let me know.

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Plot-bunny: Stargate: Atlantis / Sentinel fusion

First, some background:

The old show "Sentinel", for those of you who don't know, is about a cop who has highly developed senses (hearing/vision/touch/taste/smell) as well as various mystical senses and is thus called a Sentinel. An anthropology grad student helps him deal with the sense without getting overwhelmed and be able to use them to their best ability to catch the bad guy of the week, and is thus called a Guide. All of this is done while trying to keep the fact of the sense a secret so as to avoid government laboratories. There's a lot of stress on the Sentinel needing a Guide.

Within the Sentinel fandom, there's a fairly popular genre of alternate universe stories, in which Sentinels and Guides are well known and quite useful resources. The fandom likes to deal with power issues and whether the Sentinels should subjugate the Guides or vise versa. However, regardless of the way the power goes, it's generally a theme that one of them can demand the presence of the other, even from society at large. There's even more stress on the two being bound together by uber mystical bindings.

So I have this idea in my head of a Stargate: Atlantis fusion with this alternate Sentinel universe.

There's Rodney McKay who's gung ho to go to Atlantis, and create the grand unified theory of everything. However, he needs the right people to get it done and he wants Radek Zelenka on his staff. Zelenka, unfortunately, has revolutionary ties and does not pass the background check. Rodney gets a bit pissy about this, then has the brilliant idea of declaring that he is a Sentinel and Zelenka is his Guide, thus Zelenka must be allowed to go with.

While this is patently a ploy to get his way, the government licensing agents for Sentinels come, Rodney passes all of their tests and nobody can figure out how he's cheating. (He is after all, brilliant.) They already knew, of course, that he had various allergies, and he says he never zones because he is brilliant and always thinking of too many things to ever zone on just one, especially something as trivial as a physical sense. And he says he has no problem with geographic boundaries because he's an astrophysicist and clearly his territory is the rest of the galaxy.

Zelenka is equally clearly not a guide, but this is even easier to fake because no one has ever developed a perfect way to identify guides.

Finally the government agents throw up their hands and say, fine, he can take Zelenka but if Zelenka is supposed to be his guide, then Rodney will have to be responsible for any security breaches he causes.

Rodney smirks triumphantly.

Meanwhile John Sheppard is a guide and has gone through life perfectly happy to hide that fact. He wants to fly planes and that's not really a good job for someone who's expected to be part of a duo.

Then they both get to Atlantis and John realizes that the way Rodney was faking being a Sentinel was that he wasn't faking. He is, in fact a Sentinel who was just more interested in the extremes of physics than in anything even his hyper senses could tell him.

They were both perfectly happy going through life as they were, until, of course, they are trapped together in a closed society on Atlantis, both of them needing every last skill they each possess and more to keep alive.

While, of course, never letting on that John's the Guide rather than Zelenka.