Portrait of a Character – Izo Sato
Izo Sato brings up the rear of the Empress’s family.
Origins
In canon, at the end of the second Mirror Universe episode in Star Trek: Enterprise, the newly-proclaimed Empress Hoshi Sato has taken a new lover, Travis Mayweather. However, I realized that, in a Machiavellian sense, this would not necessarily be the best move for her, to only be with him, and stay with him. After all, people would be constantly gunning for her – and that’s canon, anyway. Superior officers are always in danger of being knifed or phasered by ambitious underlings.
Hence I decided that a hot, young and round-heeled Empress (also canon) would likely cement her partnerships with her senior staff via the bedroom. If most/all of them are male, all she’s got to do is sleep with them. And with the Y Chromosome Skew, if she gets pregnant by them, they will keep her alive, at least for a while. This is in order to ensure the continuing survival of their children. Therefore, she’d plan to have several children by the various male members of her senior staff. She selects Travis as a sire last, because she is most confident in his compliance and loyalty. Their son together is Izo Sato.
Izo’s very existence almost does not happen. This is because, during pregnancy, it’s discovered that there is a hole in his heart. The choice is given to Travis – fix the hole and the Empress goes on, or let the Empress die on the table and, presumably, become the next Emperor. Travis doesn’t want to rule and be constantly watching his back and so, in Coveted Commodity, he decides to allow Izo to live, even as Hoshi names the child and Travis has no say in the matter whatsoever.
Portrayal
It’s incredibly difficult to find a part-Asian, part-African actor.
Matsu as Izo Sato
I selected Matsu from the Japanese singing group, Exile. His real, full name is Toshio Matsumoto.
Matsu is an actor, too, and reportedly has a starring role in a futuristic drama (it’s difficult to get information as a lot of it’s in Japanese, and I have to rely on Google translations). In this video, he’s the guy with the multicolored headband and the dreadlocks: Carry On by Exile.
Personality
Matsu as Izo Sato
Nasty and bratty, like all six of the Empress’s children, Izo is also dangerous, and grows up to run the Empress’s secret police. In Temper, in the first alternate timeline, he stays out of the fight for Marie Patrice Beckett but he does tangle with someone else.
The name Izo means “iron“, but Izo is far from being honorable or morally strong.
Relationships
According to Richard Daniels, Izo eventually marries in the correct timeline, but he dies childless. I don’t have a name for his wife yet.
Leah Benson
In Bread, it’s 2192, and she’s in her mid-seventies and is a lesbian, but it doesn’t matter, as Izo is interested anyway. Given the lack of women aboard, it would appear that this is either before Izo’s marriage or he is cheating. He’s thirty – she is over twice his age – but he still, at the very least, wants her to service him. Furthermore, he has had several failures and so is looking for what he believes will be a compliant, easy score.
Pamela Hudson
In the first alternate timeline in Temper, once José Torres is killed, Pamela, Blair and Karin are freed and take up with other partners.
Matsumoto Toshio as Izo Sato
Karin goes with Josh, Blair goes with Dr. Morgan, and Pamela ends up with Izo. Again, she is a lot older than he is – she is over fifty, whereas he is still a teenager. But it does not matter to him. During this alternate, during a Calafan-style dream, Pamela gets a chance to do to Izo what, presumably, most people, both male and female, would want to do.
Prime Universe
Izo does not have a prime universe counterpart although, like the other Sato offspring, he does have an analogue in the Beckett–O’Day–Madden–Digiorno–Reed family. That person is Tommy Digiorno-Madden, as they are both impulsive warrior types.
Quote
“Am I gonna feel good?”
Upshot
I write the Mirror Mayweather as being mainly a loose cannon. Although when he learns that Izo has issues in utero, he does go to bat for the child. Izo carries that to the next generation and continues as a difficult thorn in many people’s sides. While Kira and Jun are almost heroes (at least, for people in the Mirror Universe), and Takara and Takeo have a chance to become almost moral, it’s Arashi and Izo who remain villains no matter what.
