The Darth Maul Estrogen Brigade Interview with Nicole

Interviews by Fans
Title:	The Darth Maul Estrogen Brigade Interview with Nicole
Interviewer:	Kristiina
Interviewee:	Nicole (Darthcleo)
Date(s):	1999
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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Nicole was interviewed for The Darth Maul Estrogen Brigade.

Some Excerpts

I saw the birth of Sith Academy, and I really loved those early stories, where we would simply take Phantom Menace characters and use them to vent our frustrations. At the time, I was struggling with a beta OS, and a service provider that wasn't very cooperative, so I wrote Darth Maul gets Internet Access. I wrote that using a pencil and paper, in less than three hours. It was fun to write, and it just felt good. I had all those frustrations inside me about technical glitches left and right, and laughing at them was good therapy ;-) SA has moved on since those early stories to become a full blown soap opera. It took me a while to appreciate the newer SA, but I realise it had to evolve to keep it interesting.

A group of women on Rec.Arts.SciFi.Starwars.Misc (also known as RASSM) were discussing how sexy and appealing Maul was. Someone by the name of AmidalaEp1 (yeah, the list aunt) mentionned she was looking for help in starting an Estrogen Brigade. I knew what Estrogen Brigades were, but I had never been interested in them till I saw those four words together: Darth Maul Estrogen Brigade. I told her I'd help, and I put together a few pages, based on her comments and the other founding members. There were six of us at the beginning. I've pretty much implemented everything they asked for except for one, which I regret not having done. They wanted a place so they could talk about themselves, presenting the members of the Brigade. Eventually I delegated this to ECircles. So the idea is not mine by far, I just helped in making it a reality. The first webpage was online May 25th, not quite a week after the movie opened in North America.

At first, I thought we would attract about 10 women, and we'd have fun together for a couple of weeks then move apart after that. I guess that's why my initial design for the site didn't allow for growth. I had to discard it real fast. ;-) But what surprised me the most was the interest in the press, which started with the San Francisco article, but kept going for a couple of months. I even received a paper from Australia, and there was a mention in Empire magasine, a huge publication from the UK. It was the first time one of my sites was mentionned in print .. No, that's not quite true, my Due South site was mentionned in a book, but by the time the book got printed, the site no longer existed.

I'm not sure Maul was meant to fit in Vader's boots. First Vader was there for three whole movies (I don't consider Anakin as being Vader), and Maul was sadly a throwaway character, meant to keep us busy and averting our attention from the Phantom Menace that is Sidious/Palpatine. However, within those parameters, Maul stole the movie in my opinion. When I was a kid, I was a Luke gal. I was impressed by Vader, but Luke was my hero. I went into TPM, thinking I'd fall for ObiWan, but I left the theater totally mesmerised by Maul.

Since Maul is not coming back, the DMEB will slow down ( it has already done so noticeably). It will reach a point where I can bring it back to the original server. I'll drop everything but the message board, the chat room and the fanfiction I think. The pictures, audio and video will be saved on a CD Rom. The mailing list will keep going as long as there's an interest. Attached to the DMEB are now the SPEB and the DVEB. Both of these should be able to strive through the next two movies, since their respective characters will be featured. We're slowly getting the BFEB off the ground too. Even if the DMEB dies, it will have offsprings that will carry its memory ;-) It's kinda sad that so much work (and fun) will disappear, but the Internet is ever moving. Also I have never intended the DMEB to be a Ray Park display and it will not follow his career in great details. Darth Maul was more than just Ray Park, although he's the one who can fight the way I like it. I will most probably follow Ray's career, but I am just as interested in following Iain McCaig and Peter Serafinovicz .