Author's Notes for "A Rolling Stonehenge"

Spoilers Ahoy!

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I had always wanted to have the crew end up back in Earth's history,
interacting with one of the Human Mythoi.  Can't ya just taste the irony of
having the only mixed, non-human crew ending up on ancient Earth?

Originally I had intended to have them meet up with Wainamoinen in
[i]The Kalevala[/i], but decided against it because:

1.  Very few people are familiar with [i]The Kalevala[/i] even though
it is one of the great epics of all time.

2.  There really aren't any easily recognizable Finnish landmarks
to have the character desecrate ;)

So, where to next?

I ruled out:

Summerian/Babylonian
Incan/Mayan/Aztec
Japanese/Chinese
Greek/Roman

for various reasons, and ended up with either Ancient Egypt or 
Celtic Britian.

Egypt originally looked quite interesting.  I knew I wanted Banjo
to have an opportunity to cut loose and I could easily picture him
waving around an ancient khopesh (khopsh) and slicing people to
ribbons.  There were also plenty of world-recognizable monuments
to have the crew mess with (ya know, the sphinx originally had a 
nice nose before the Menagerie's crew practiced rhinoplasty on it,
sort of thing).

However, when you get right down to it, Egypt is mostly desert
and has been really over used in the recent Mummy movies.

So, we're left with Celtic Britain and the landmark of Stonehenge.

I had actually written a much bigger part for Seetamyn.
He was going to get an ear-job and pretend to be Nuada - the first
King of the Gods.  (Legend has it that Nuada was involved in the
first great battle with the Fir Bholg (a rival clan of Gods) during
which he lost his hand/arm.  No longer being of whole body (a
requirement for kingship in Druidic culture), he was forced to step 
aside to his brother Bres.  Bres was a very unpopular King, taxing
everyone into poverty to enhance his own palace, so the physician
of the Gods, DianCecht fashioned a Silver Hand/Arm for Nuada.
There was a second great war and Nuada vanquished Bres.  Eventually,
Nuada abdicated to Lugh and even later Dagda, (The Dozen King) become
chief of the Gods.

I hope you can see the potential, here:

"Oh Great Nuada, why has your arm turned that lovely shade of green?"
Banjo, thinking furiously, "Tarnish, faithful one."

Finally, I went with a later parthenon and decided to have Banjo 
and Mantron grow a bit here.
Mantron's growth is going to be a bit more painful.
He's never had anyone be really close to him, so he's never
learned how to let go.

Banjo is learning to open up to and to trust at least certain
members of the crew.  He still has a ways to go.  He also is
making the painful discovery that concepts like Friendship,
Honor, Commitment and Duty are not the weak failings that
he had previously thought them to be.

He will face some real challenges in the next story and in 
Episode 8 - A Crisis of Conscience.

BTW - to anyone who thinks the ending seems rushed - good!
That will be further explored next episode.

BTW2 - anyone with a solid background in either Druidic lore or
English history will notice that several liberties were taken
with both  during this story.  There are several reasons for 
this, but for now, chalk it up to poetic license.


Anyone wishing to actually read the Kalevala can find a
pretty decent online translation at:
(http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/),