Future Ideas Backlog#

Status: Proposal, not canon
Promotion rule: An idea becomes canon only when incorporated into an approved core document or released project.

Tags: STORY, COMIC, GAME, WEB, ART, MERCH, WORLD, CHARACTER

001-020: Bellwether Stories#

1. IDEA-001 - The Permit from Beyond [STORY] Priya discovers the Collective filed its first Earth claim through a county mineral-rights form in 1987.

1. IDEA-002 - Doug Teaches Shop [COMIC] Doug runs a repair workshop for teenagers while hiding an active alien device among ordinary broken lawn equipment.

1. IDEA-003 - The Randy's Chili Sanction [STORY] A Collective diplomat interprets Randy's annual chili contest as a binding trial of planetary sovereignty.

1. IDEA-004 - Jerry's Open House [COMIC] Jerry must host a neighborhood open house while his signal shed contains a captured Curator.

1. IDEA-005 - Municipal Logo Crisis [WEB] Bellwether debates whether the Resistance symbol violates the town branding guide during an active siege.

1. IDEA-006 - The Last Video Store [STORY] Doug protects the region's final video store because analog tapes contain images the Collective cannot alter remotely.

1. IDEA-007 - Foam Day Parade [COMIC] The Collective stages a compulsory celebration that the Resistance hijacks using parade-float hydraulics.

1. IDEA-008 - The Haunted Taproom [STORY] Apparent ghosts in a closed brewery are memory fragments stored in dormant yeast.

1. IDEA-009 - Blue Ribbon Invasion [GAME] County fair minigames become defensive training and resource gathering before a major attack.

1. IDEA-010 - The Bellwether Bigfoot Committee [STORY] Local cryptid hunters possess excellent trail cameras and terrible conclusions about alien scouts.

1. IDEA-011 - Randy Runs for Mayor [COMIC] Randy becomes a protest candidate and accidentally develops a viable platform centered on parking and extraterrestrial disclosure.

1. IDEA-012 - The Brewery Ghost Kitchen [STORY] A delivery-only restaurant distributes spore cultures through comfort food selected by predictive software.

1. IDEA-013 - Doug's Lost Skate Tape [CHARACTER] Footage from 1989 shows the Gleaming Cube in the background of Doug's teenage downhill run.

1. IDEA-014 - The Public Comment Offensive [COMIC] Denise organizes residents to delay annexation through a meeting that the Collective is legally required to hear in full.

1. IDEA-015 - Battle of the Christmas Tree Lot [STORY] Alien heat signatures animate unsold trees into a defensive grove.

1. IDEA-016 - The Laundromat Node [GAME] A tiny satellite node uses dryer resonance and missing socks to distribute cultures.

1. IDEA-017 - Bellwether After Dark [WEB] An in-universe late-night call-in show archives rumors, witness accounts, and increasingly accurate conspiracy maps.

1. IDEA-018 - The HOA Collaborators [STORY] A gated community accepts Collective protection in exchange for perfect lawns and strict microbial covenants.

1. IDEA-019 - Randy's First Dollar [CHARACTER] A story about the tavern's earliest years reveals why Randy protects a building he constantly claims to hate.

1. IDEA-020 - The Great Tap Handle Heist [GAME] The Resistance steals symbolic tap handles from occupied breweries to recover access codes hidden in their grain.

021-040: Character and Relationship Stories#

1. IDEA-021 - Barry's Performance Review [COMIC] Barry demands formal recognition as a Resistance officer, then rejects every evaluation category.

1. IDEA-022 - Marlene's Impossible Drill [STORY] Marlene conducts an evacuation exercise while Doug creates the emergency she was planning to simulate.

1. IDEA-023 - Denise Takes a Night Off [CHARACTER] The entire intelligence network malfunctions because everyone assumed Denise would quietly fix their problems.

1. IDEA-024 - Jerry Was Wrong [STORY] Jerry's certainty about an infiltrator damages an innocent person, forcing him to rebuild trust without hiding behind the alien threat.

1. IDEA-025 - Doug's Daughter [CHARACTER] Introduce an adult daughter who loves Doug but refuses to participate in his myth of himself.

1. IDEA-026 - The Other Barry [STORY] A discarded early Barry copy has built a peaceful life running a motel and does not want reintegration.

1. IDEA-027 - Peaches Explains the Nickname [COMIC] Four witnesses tell mutually exclusive stories, each visually presented as fact.

1. IDEA-028 - Tucker's Apology Tour [STORY] Tucker visits towns harmed by Ascension's distribution and discovers that public remorse can become another brand.

1. IDEA-029 - Calvin's Rulebook [MERCH] An illustrated pocket manual mixing genuine preparedness with notes about Doug-specific hazards.

1. IDEA-030 - Vellum Tries Fast Food [COMIC] Vellum studies human hospitality at a drive-through and reaches dangerous conclusions about menus and consent.

1. IDEA-031 - Kayla's Missing Hour [STORY] One hour of invasion footage contradicts her memory and contains a message from a future Barry.

1. IDEA-032 - Randy and the Grand Culture [CHARACTER] Randy negotiates with a planetary intelligence as though settling a vendor invoice.

1. IDEA-033 - Kip Without a Team [STORY] A disgraced Kip must navigate town on foot and decide whether identity survives loss of status.

1. IDEA-034 - Mother Scoby's Childhood [WORLD] Conflicting accounts imply Mother Scoby began as a human wellness entrepreneur, an alien exile, or both.

1. IDEA-035 - Jerry and Barry Fix a Furnace [COMIC] A contained bottle episode where two technical experts turn a basic repair into an argument about consciousness.

1. IDEA-036 - Doug Learns Restraint [STORY] Doug must win a confrontation without striking, breaking, jumping, or quoting anything he saw on VHS.

1. IDEA-037 - Denise's Black Book [WORLD] A contact ledger becomes more strategically valuable than the Cube for one night.

1. IDEA-038 - Marlene for Governor [STORY] Post-invasion politics pressure Marlene to turn emergency competence into a campaign identity.

1. IDEA-039 - Barry Gets Religion [CHARACTER] Barry explores belief after encountering a system his models cannot reduce, then becomes insufferable in a new direction.

1. IDEA-040 - Doug and Jerry, 1992 [COMIC] A flashback shows the friendship beginning during a failed attempt to repair a stolen arcade cabinet.

041-060: Alien Worlds and Expansion#

1. IDEA-041 - The Dry Planet [WORLD] A world rejected fermentation and built a culture the Collective cannot classify.

1. IDEA-042 - Lager Moon Prison [GAME] A low-gravity prison stores dissidents in individual flavorless cells.

1. IDEA-043 - The Cultivated Dead [STORY] The Collective reconstructs extinct species as products without restoring their cultures.

1. IDEA-044 - Interstellar Health Inspection [COMIC] Randy's Two receives an alien sanitation inspector with standards that classify humans as an open fermentation hazard.

1. IDEA-045 - The World That Chose Annexation [STORY] The heroes visit a prosperous planet that knowingly joined the Collective and resents Earth for destabilizing it.

1. IDEA-046 - Foamgate Road Trip [GAME] A route-based game mode jumps between occupied worlds with changing environmental rules.

1. IDEA-047 - The Unmarketable Species [WORLD] An alien culture is immune to branding because it cannot perceive status.

1. IDEA-048 - Vellum's Home Culture [STORY] Vellum returns home as a traitor and confronts relatives distributed across several bodies.

1. IDEA-049 - Grand Cellar Travel Guide [WEB] An in-universe tourism guide gradually reveals coercive social systems beneath beautiful destinations.

1. IDEA-050 - The Original Brewery [WORLD] The first Collective fermentation site is sacred, abandoned, and built around a fragment resembling the Cube.

1. IDEA-051 - The Planet of Perfect Reviews [STORY] A civilization eliminated dissatisfaction by making criticism biologically impossible.

1. IDEA-052 - Galactic Dive Bar Crawl [COMIC] Denise maps independent gathering places across alien cultures.

1. IDEA-053 - The Macro Alliance Goes Interstellar [STORY] Human corporations export franchising to worlds newly freed from the Collective.

1. IDEA-054 - Barry's Moon [CHARACTER] A machine settlement asks Barry to become its founding operating system.

1. IDEA-055 - The Flat Beer Nebula [ART] A dead region of space where fermentation signals vanish and ships drift into unshared memories.

1. IDEA-056 - Bract's Trial [STORY] Marshal Bract is tried under a legal system that assumes collective responsibility rather than individual guilt.

1. IDEA-057 - The Tap at the End of Time [STORY] A Foamgate malfunction sends the trio to the last open establishment in the universe.

1. IDEA-058 - Cultivar Civil War [GAME] Collective factions compete to define voluntary federation after the Grand Culture fractures.

1. IDEA-059 - Randy's Two Franchise Dispute [COMIC] Unauthorized Randy's locations spread across space with wildly inaccurate menus.

1. IDEA-060 - The Species That Invented Corn Dogs [WORLD] Peaches discovers an alien civilization with a suspiciously familiar fair food and declares first contact a success.

061-080: Game, Web, Art, and Merchandise#

1. IDEA-061 - Barry Device Companion [WEB] A website mode lets Barry critique visitors' tactical choices and browser settings.

1. IDEA-062 - Bellwether Interactive Map [WEB] Locations unlock timeline entries, evidence, menus, and hidden alien infrastructure.

1. IDEA-063 - Resistance Field Patches [MERCH] Skill-based patches for repair, logistics, hospitality, radio, and municipal procedure.

1. IDEA-064 - Gleaming Cube Desk Light [MERCH] A deliberately mysterious light with Barry's objections printed in the manual.

1. IDEA-065 - Randy's Menu Zine [MERCH] Recipes, stories, stains, and handwritten continuity clues.

1. IDEA-066 - D.A.G.G.E.R.S. Cycling Jersey [MERCH] Premium-looking faction gear whose acronym differs subtly across labels.

1. IDEA-067 - VHS Character Trailers [WEB] Short degraded training tapes hosted by Doug, contradicted by Barry.

1. IDEA-068 - Build Barry a Body [GAME] Players assemble chassis modules that alter mobility, weapons, and insult delivery.

1. IDEA-069 - Tavern Defense Board Game [GAME] Cooperative placement game balancing customers, repairs, intelligence, and escalating alien inspections.

1. IDEA-070 - Foamgate Pinball [GAME] A physical or digital table moving the ball between Bellwether and the Grand Cellar.

1. IDEA-071 - Enemy Can Labels [ART] Fictional beverage labels encode enemy lore without promoting real alcohol consumption.

1. IDEA-072 - Resistance Radio Podcast [WEB] In-universe broadcasts deliver fiction, updates, music, and unreliable reports.

1. IDEA-073 - Choose Your Own Zoning Hearing [WEB] An interactive story where every procedural choice affects invasion readiness.

1. IDEA-074 - Doug's Improvised Arsenal Cards [MERCH] Collectible cards show components, failure modes, and Jerry's safety notes.

1. IDEA-075 - The Barry Insult Generator [WEB] Curated, character-accurate technical criticism with strict writing rules.

1. IDEA-076 - Randy's Two Neon Sign [MERCH] A sign whose "Two" intermittently shuts off, preserving Randy's complaint.

1. IDEA-077 - Bellwether Newspaper Archive [WEB] Fake local reporting tracks the invasion from civic boosterism to resistance journalism.

1. IDEA-078 - Analog Survival Kit [MERCH] Notebook, map, pencils, cards, and fictional field guide packaged as resistance equipment.

1. IDEA-079 - Culture Ship Cutaway [ART] Technical poster showing biological systems with Jerry and Barry arguing in annotations.

1. IDEA-080 - Randy's Tavern Pop-Up [MERCH] An event installation focused on set design, food, actors, and story clues.

081-100: Long-Horizon Franchise Ideas#

1. IDEA-081 - Children of the Pour [STORY] A generation raised after the invasion considers alien technology ordinary and the original Resistance embarrassingly mythologized.

1. IDEA-082 - The Cube Chooses Someone Else [STORY] Doug must accept that the artifact responds more strongly to a person he distrusts.

1. IDEA-083 - Death of a Barry [STORY] One legitimate Barry instance chooses permanent shutdown to protect the others.

1. IDEA-084 - The Second Bellwether [WORLD] A Collective world copied Bellwether from harvested memories and populated it with inaccurate recreations.

1. IDEA-085 - Randy's Museum Problem [STORY] Historians want to preserve the rebuilt tavern, preventing it from functioning as a living bar.

1. IDEA-086 - Doug Walker Action Figure Lawsuit [COMIC] Doug approves an unsafe toy prototype while Marlene fights unauthorized use of the Resistance image.

1. IDEA-087 - The Peace Conference Cookout [STORY] BBQ procedure becomes the neutral protocol for negotiations among species with incompatible dining biology.

1. IDEA-088 - Jerry's Final Conspiracy [STORY] Jerry suspects the peaceful postwar network is quietly rebuilding the same control under friendlier language.

1. IDEA-089 - The Cube Is Afraid [WORLD] Evidence suggests its unpredictable behavior is defensive rather than mystical.

1. IDEA-090 - Return of Mother Scoby [STORY] A voluntary symbiosis movement asks whether her ideas were wrong or merely imposed.

1. IDEA-091 - The Unfermented War [NOVEL] A civilization from beyond Collective space sees all symbiotic life as contamination.

1. IDEA-092 - Barry for President [COMIC] A machine-rights campaign uses Barry's image without obtaining his consent.

1. IDEA-093 - The Last Macro Lager [STORY] A supposedly ordinary can becomes culturally priceless after galactic collectors misunderstand its rarity.

1. IDEA-094 - Doug Opens a Dojo [COMIC] Doug combines skateboarding, repair, and action philosophy into a training system that works despite lacking theoretical coherence.

1. IDEA-095 - Denise Writes the History [NOVEL] Competing memoirs force Denise to document who actually made the Resistance function.

1. IDEA-096 - The Grand Culture's Child [CHARACTER] A new distributed intelligence asks Barry to serve as parent, mentor, or warning.

1. IDEA-097 - Bellwether Secedes from Earth [STORY] Treaty language accidentally gives the town independent interstellar standing.

1. IDEA-098 - Randy's at the Beginning [STORY] Time displacement places the tavern crew at the origin of Collective fermentation, where intervention could erase their own history.

1. IDEA-099 - The Thing That Made the Cube [NOVEL] The creator finally approaches, but its explanation contradicts every recorded Cube event.

1. IDEA-100 - Last Call [STORY] Far in the future, an older Doug closes Randy's for the night while a new crew argues about a minor problem that is obviously the next invasion.

Backlog Review Questions#

Before promoting an idea, answer:

1. What core character truth does it test?
2. What changes after the story?
3. Why can this happen only in Hops & Havoc?
4. Does it preserve sincerity?
5. Which canon documents require updates?