Fanfic and Original Characters

God guys. I know I keep talking about this fic that I'm writing, but it's really taking over my brain. Why is it that all my fic ideas are epic ones? This is why I've never tried writing before, because I just don't think I can write an *epic* as my first fic.

And this epic fic? Just got bigger. I had the main idea for my Sex Bot Fic, but I wasn't really sure how I wanted to end it. I was kind of leaning towards John either dying in battle, or going off to live in exile to have his hot robot sex. Now though, I've decided that since this is Terminator, why not end in war and time travel? John and Cameron are going to go back in time and try to *stop* the second war. Which of course spawned a whole other fic idea for how they go about it (with possible tragic consequences for their love). *headdesk*

This is all a lot of planning and big ideas considering I only have about a page of the thing written. Which brings me to my next question to the writers on my flist: How do you come up with your original characters.

There aren't a ton of characters in the Terminator fandom that have names *and* live. I'm hoping to grab some from the prequel novel I'm reading but I'm not done it yet so I'm not sure if they'll live. :S Also I need "bad guys" and am not sure how to present them.