One of Many old "Empires" Setting Ideas (Patreon)

The "Empires" universe I created was always intended to be a big place with a lot of story potential. One idea I briefly toyed with was a "Private Detective" idea set in that universe. This was still in the "furry" era as I was still finishing the science-fiction story in Yarf! so my mind was still operating in that mode at the time. 

I was thinking I'd do a bit of development and shelve this idea and maybe bring it up again later and I still might, although of course not with furries but with my original aliens. The idea was for a female Private Detective on a really crappy world largely overlooked by the economy; she's a single mother with a son who kind of fell into being a Private Detective on accident, and for the most part she uses wits, data, deduction and forensic analysis to solve crimes rather than brute force, since she is not really a natural fighter and only has a bit of basic civilian firearms training. In other words, more like a real detective than a TV type detective. 

The "working title" was going to be the detective's name, "China Holliday", which was itself just a two-word placeholder that wasn't intended to be permanent while I tried to think of a better name. The whole thing was just a sort of "what if" idea that may or may not be revived. 

Some character design stuff I was working on.

I also wanted to do a bit of work on her home side, and have her constantly having to shield her son from crappy elements of society, shady customers, and worry about things like appearing to be a normal mom to peers and not doing anything that might endanger her son or give the state a reason to take him away. Obviously if she is on long stake-outs or getting in the occasional fight she could be seen as "unfit" and have her kid put in a foster system. 

Basically I wanted a sympathetic character who was not a tough hero but more like the Jim Rockford type Private Detective; Rockford was a bit of a "hapless schmoe" rather than the "hard-boiled detective" that used action all the time. 

A lot of the technology reflected tech at the time I drew it, so late 80's/early 90's, because at the time I was more concerned with  getting the character right than developing common household items. However, it did get me to realize how little I had put into developing non-military tech. 

Holliday was going to have a friend on the police force, a sympathetic ally who also was a single mom and would sometimes cover for her and write reports creatively so that Holliday kept out  of trouble and out of the public eye. This would be done mostly to protect her son, the police chief herself was kind of an administrative careerist type that was largely interested in covering her own ass and hanging on until retirement. So basically not a selfless act on her part. 

Basically, Holliday would do the real leg work and uncover the crimes, and when the crooks became a threat to her, the police would swoop in and handle the rough side of things, and take the credit. This was of course done to "protect Holliday" and her son through anonymity, which Holliday was okay with since the police would also help he rout in other ways and allow her to keep her good reputation. The police force themselves were actually kind of lazy, ineffective, and corrupt but Holliday's work allowed them (and the chief) to appear to shine. 

Of course it also meant that Holliday's reputation as a Private Detective wasn't that great since publicly it appeared that she only worked small cases and she couldn't claim bigger successes since those officially became police victories. Frustration was baked into this particular story on purpose. 

Her kid, Cory, again with very 89's/90's clothing. Working on a civilian story idea, even though it was never published or went anywhere beyond these development pictures, still forced me to confront the fact that I still have a *lot* of work ahead of me to flesh out the non-military side of my setting.

Until later!