Announcing a new fanfic: Knight Rider Generations

[KFCreator]

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you all know that I've set up a page and Twitter account for those interested in following along with the progress I make towards completing a novel-length fanfic based in the Knight Rider universe. It will be set in the present, and yes, the same A.I. we all know and love will be in it, albeit in a new, modern custom car body. There is so, so much more to this than just that though as I'm really striving to not only include classic characters and introduce new ones but also to have this serve as an in-depth tie-in for as much of the Knight Rider Universe as possible (with continuity that actually makes sense). Come check us out, and please share with other fellow Knight Rider fans!

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/krgenerations/

Twitter:
@KnightRiderGens

[KFCreator]

Hey guys, for anyone who hasn't yet checked out the page on Facebook or followed along on Twitter, now is a great time to check it out. I've tried to put up some posts that would be of real interest to the fan community and am really trying to get this thing going. The support of you, the fans, are what is going to keep driving me to want to see this project through to completion and I would love input from anyone who has any ideas or feedback. Please make your voice heard and spread the word about this as I'm hoping this can be the one project that can help unify our fan base together. Thanks!

[Knight Racer]

I have a suggestion for your storyline. In the pilot from the 2008 series, we see Kitts parts hanging around the mansion garage. So we know his body has been disassembled but the country is nowhere to be found We know Michael Knight was always on secret assignments but don't know what he is doing currently. What if he never truly retired. What if Kitt was installed in a 2002 Trans am or a Camaro? I could let you use my photos hopped artwork for those 2 cars if you'd like. A storyline I always wanted to pursue was the period of time from between when Michael Knight left flag or flash disbanded and Dr. Graham started working on Karr for the military. It would answer many questions about what happened to the foundation. Kitts deactivation, and more. This period would probably include Michael Traceur graduating military school and joining the rangers. Hime remembering his childhood visits from his father and his mysterious black trans am with a pulsating red light. Maybe a few memories of his father speaking into his watch not knowing why he did that since the car nor his watch ever spoke back. We can collaborate more on this if you're interested pm me.

[KFCreator]

Thanks for the input and ideas, Knight Racer! I have general storylines already fleshed out for 2 novels to some extent. The first novel still isn't titled but it will be set in 1990 and serve as a finale to the classic series, answering the question "What caused Michael to feel burned out and leave FLAG and retire to the mountains?" I have an amazing idea for what I'd like to do for that story, but am trying to find a way to make it work logically right now.

For the second novel, that one is going to be "Knight Rider Generations" and will be set in the present and will follow up with what happened to Mike, Sarah, the Knight 3000 after the 2008 series ended and will introduce a new crew of characters and bring back the classic KITT we all know and love, but just the AI. The car body will be a custom design based off a current production model of a sports car (just like what they did with the Trans Am for the classic series), and will also bring back Michael Knight Sr., Bonnie, RC III, and some other familiar faces from across the Knight Rider universe (including Team Knight Rider and Knight Rider 2000). Some of these classic characters will feature much more prominently than others, but of course the main focus will be the new crew and the new driver of KITT. The storyline for this novel is more tightly locked down but I still need to figure out the middle part of the novel and how they arrive at the end of it (which I already have figured out).

My goal with both of these though is that they're not simply just 2 more fanfic entries into the Knight Rider world. I'm hoping these will both be such good stories that they can serve as (unofficial for now) canon. To that end, I'm working very hard at constructing a timeline of notable events in the Knight Rider universe that tie together as many of the series and TV movies together as possible in a way that makes logical sense (however, I am leaving out Knight Rider 2010 as it was basically Knight Rider in name only). I'm also putting together a Knight Rider Writer's Bible for any other fans that want to jump into doing fanfic. Both of these documents, when completed, will be made free to anyone who wants them.

I definitely wouldn't mind collaborating with you on this, and that's also true for any other fans out there that want in on this. This is meant to be a production made by the fans, for the fans. And, hopefully, we'll succeed in drawing in new people who have no prior knowledge about Knight Rider at all and getting them to become fans too.

[Knight Racer]

It's going to be tough to work out a history that can stick since in TKR episode KRO Jenny mentions that Devon died and in kr2000, Devon dies on screen. So unless there was some sort of cover up for Devon to go underground and fake his own death to continue living until his second death.

I'm also trying to wrap my head around a history where Kro comes after kitt but then the TKR vehicles, then back to a single car since Flag decided not to make the cars invulnerable when creating the 5 TKR vehicles but then decide to make a second generation Karr then a ki3t. Wait ki3t was more vulnerable then kitt since when you shut off his AI, you shut off his nanotech healing systems. Then you go to the Kift and kitt's reactivation from decades ago. It might be possible.

[KFCreator]

Yeah, TKR is the hardest one to make work and of course even a best effort will provide some inconsistencies but to be honest, when trying to pull together any franchise's universe, there are always going to be things that just conflict with each other no matter what. It's hard to find a very well established franchise that avoids timeline/plot inconsistencies altogether. However, I'm really just cherry picking with TKR and while I haven't yet gotten around to rematching all of the episodes from that show and making notes as I go to see what I can make fit, and what I can't, I do have a rough outline of the major points it tried to address and surprisingly, it doesn't conflict with other things as much as I expected.

As far as the vehicles go, it's not as difficult to make that fit logically as you might think. It makes sense that FLAG would have still needed a car and driver after Michael retired and KITT was mothballed. Enter KRO and Janzen. But that obviously didn't work out so they tried the 5 vehicle approach, which worked to a limited success but we can speculate it obviously wasn't financially feasible ultimately for FLAG to keep financing 5 vehicles and drivers. That was 1997. Then we come to the events of Knight Rider 2000 and KIFT and Shawn. We don't know what happened between then and the 2008 series but we know FLAG was shut down for a number of years for unknown reasons. Then 2008 comes along and we get the Knight 3000. The reason that KI3T came before KIFT could be explained in the same way that starships in Star Trek don't always have registry numbers in numerical order. Or how software developers don't always follow version numbers the way you think they might. Or how the iPhone 6 was actually the seventh generation of the iPhone. It could just be a name and doesn't follow the actual generation of the product it is. FLAG doesn't necessarily have to name the third generation KITT as the Knight 3000, they could decide it was going to be called KIFT and when the fourth generation came around, they could have decided to call it the Knight 3000.

[Knight Racer]

Oddly enough, the hardest thing to swallow from that statement is believing that kift came before ki3t and that it would be accepted by the audience. I could care less about the enterprise having registration numbers be out of order but a version number coming before another, I haven't really heard of.

[Matthew]

I think there's a far more logical explanation for the order with which the two AI's are seen. Remember, Russell Maddock was to begin with, egotistical in the extreme creating his own AI with his own voice for the vehicle he ultimately christened the Knight 4000.

As we saw though, it lacked the humanity of the Knight Industries Two Thousand, an AI we learn Dr. Charles Graiman was involved in creating. It's easy to imagine that he would present the infantile Knight Industries Three Thousand AI to Maddock in the late 90's, and be rebuked.

Graiman, understanding that his creation would learn about the world it was born into and eventually become the kind of humane AI that partnered Michael Knight in the 80's; would ultimately return to its development following the tragic failure of the government's resurrected KARR AI project when his role in the Prometheus project forced him into hiding.

Matt

[jup]

I...don't think I would even want to try and explain how in the year 2000, the US law system is all using stun guns, criminals are put into deep sleep and the world is kind of modified. But, it all gets majorly messed up by 2010. But, only after the world partially heals itself from the millennium issues by 2008.

[KFCreator]

I like Matthew's explanation of how KI3T came before KIFT. I only posited one possible choice among many that one could come up with to explain that.

Jup, to your point, I'm consciously choosing to ignore 2010 in my timeline since, like I said, it really only is connected to Knight Rider in name only and a very loose interpretation of the car and driver out trying to make a difference in the world. As far as Knight Rider 2000 goes, things like the use of stun guns, cryogenic incarceration, etc can all be easily dismissed if we assume that those were just experimental programs that just didn't pan out in the long term for one reason or another.

When you have a franchise based around a crime-fighting vehicle that possesses the world's most advanced AI (even by modern standards) using 1982 technology, suspension of disbelief needs to be inherent for the audience. My goal is to try to make everything fit as locally as possible in the timeline, and taking creative license to explain some of the more outrageous things is going to be needed.

[KFCreator]

Hi everyone! I just made a new post over on the Facebook page (and also there's a link on the Twitter account) detailing the new cast of characters. Some changes are sure to be in store for the development of them (and it dawned on me that I might need to already make one alteration) but I'm hoping that everyone here will be excited to check it out and follow along with how things progress. It's so tough because I want to give away so many secrets about these new characters and the overall plot but that would spoil a fair chunk of reading the book when I'm finally done with writing it. However, I highly encourage any of you to post comments to the posts over on Facebook (or here on KRO) and contribute to feedback for me so that I can take that to heart and make this an even better present to all of the fans!