Portrait of a Character – Eriecho
Eriecho comes from a place I did not expect.
Origin
I originally didn’t want to write Vulcans. I had had a lot of trouble making T’Pol more than a cardboard character with comments about logic or fascination. Vulcans were, to me, a difficult species to flesh out.
But then the challenge: write about the JJ Abrams Universe. But all you need to care about are three things:
- The destruction of Vulcan.
- There is no more USS Kelvin.
- The destruction of Romulus .
After that, it didn’t matter. And so I chose the first piece as the focus for my story. And so Eriecho – a name I had originally thought I would use for a Klingon woman – began to take shape.
Personality
Born on a transport to Cannamar Prison, Eriecho starts out, in Release, as a person who has never known freedom. I wanted her to be tough, too, as she would have to have been. There is nothing soft about Cannamar, a location that is canon but never on screen. My descriptions of Cannamar are similar to those of a Tandaran prison.
As a tough prison broad, Eriecho has survived by her wits. But the only Vulcan she has ever known, Saddik, who isn’t even related to her, has not taught her emotional suppression. Hence she was an emotional Vulcan, and she was a lot easier to write. The sole mother figure in her life is the only other female in Cannamar, the Suliban, H’Shema. When Release begins, H’Shema is already dead. And Saddik and Eriecho get their release from Cannamar, but they’re on their way to Mars.
Portrayal
For Eriecho, I wanted a tough woman who was not unattractive. I hit upon Mariel Hemingway in Personal Best. Hemingway just struck me as being a good mix of tough but vulnerable, and also pretty, e. g. someone who was redeemable, despite her background, and lovable, despite her history. The idea of Personal Best (which is a film about a lesbian athlete) is not a statement about Eriecho’s sexuality.
Quote
“I have never had free time, unrestricted and unfettered before. I am afraid I will not know what to do with myself.”
Life After Prison
Release is, of course, about their release from prison. But after getting out, what happens? This is partly explored at the end of Release but also in the sequel, Double Helix. For Eriecho, who is a Vulcan without actually being too Vulcanesque, the answer lies with the Suliban.
Upshot
At the end of Star Trek XI (Star Trek 2009), Vulcans’ lives have been diminished considerably. But for Eriecho, her life has been expanded and enriched in ways she could not have dreamed.
[…] For Star Trek, there is likely to be a third film in the JJ Abrams universe, and it will likely come on or around 2016 as that is the 50th anniversary of the TV series. Abrams will not be directing it. It will be interesting to see who gets it. For me, the JJ Abrams universe means more Eriecho. […]
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[…] He is what is called, in canon, V’tosh ka’tur. That is, he does not suppress his emotions. Eriecho doesn’t because she was never taught to, and Saddik generally doesn’t because he was in […]
[…] wanted Eriecho to eventually have a love interest, so that she could have a silver lining from the horrible […]
[…] Eriecho, Saddik, and H’Shema […]
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[…] readers asking for a sequel to Eriecho‘s origins story (Release), I wanted to explore the Suliban side of her family. Enter […]
[…] only briefly, Kerig is the warden for Canamar Prison while Eriecho and Saddik are being held there. The meeting of the three of them hints at more than a little […]
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[…] a prompt about ordinary life, I decided to make Eriecho an amateur gardener. This made some sense, as prisoners these days and in the past have certainly […]
[…] Trek fanfiction writers thought I would write about Lili. Instead, my thoughts turned to Eriecho. I wanted the night of her and Saddik‘s release to bring on a nightmare, where she would, in […]
[…] order to continue the saga of Eriecho and Sollastek (and Saddik and Valeris), I decided to bring a canon character into the JJ Abrams […]
[…] are about Christmas. I wanted one to be about Thanksgiving. And who would be more grateful than Eriecho and Saddik, the ex-convicts from Canamar […]
[…] also posted a new Eriecho story, which expands Beats and The Mundane World and is a response to the Expand Your Mind […]
[…] from everywhere imaginable, and that led directly to the concept of grabbing convicts. Hence Eriecho, Saddik, and their clan were all […]
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[…] after posting Release, there was a call for a sequel. Readers wanted to know what had happened to Eriecho and Saddik. And I was only too glad to oblige. The characters had grown on me, too, and I wanted to […]
[…] not so Eriecho, who barely knows anything about Vulcans, or what it means to be one. So as the story […]
[…] forums, I finished the Daranaean Emergence series by posting Confidence. I then started posting the Eriecho series, with Release, Beats, The Mundane World, A Gathering, Double Helix and began to spin out […]
[…] Desperation. Plus I answered a prompt about “sock drawers”, setting it in the Eriecho–Saddik JJ Abrams Universe. I named it The Mundane World. Also, I answered a prompt about […]
[…] relatively similar to the following season’s Canamar episode, was some of the fodder for the Eriecho […]