IDIC and Crossovers
Crossovers and IDIC mean what to you?
This was Templar Sora’s great blog prompt. He asked two questions.
- What kind of crossing over do we do as writers?
- What kind of crossing over do we want to see?
My Own Crossovers
I’ve done the crossover dance many times. A lot of it is in the context of interphases.
A Single Step
So for A Single Step, a story about first contact with the Caitians, I pulled together elements from TAS, the Star Trek: First Contact film and even a smidgen of ENT. An elderly Zefram Cochrane and his wife entertain the first Caitian that any humans ever meet.
Another Piece of the Action
For this collaboration with thebluesman, we crossed together a bit of ENT (the Daniels character) with TOS. Kirk and company meet the Iotians again, in Another Piece of the Action.
Concord
Concord pulled together ENT and the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan film. Work on the Genesis Project sends Malcolm Reed back to 1775.
Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead cobbled together ENT with Wesley Crusher’s warp bubble experiment on TNG. Tripp Tucker ends up in 1945 Upper Bavaria.
Fortune
Lili and Q argue and eventually help each other in Fortune, a riff on VOY’s The Q and the Grey.
It’s a Small Universe After All
So for a weekly writing prompt about bringing together characters that would not normally be
Kaitaama
seen together, It’s a Small Universe After All.It is the story of ENT character Kaitaama being held hostage with TOS’s James T. Kirk.
More, More, More!
Daniels shows Jonathan Archer scenes from TOS’s The Cage, TOS’s The Corbomite Maneuver, and an unnamed TNG episode with Q in More, More, More!
Multiverse II
This enormous Round Robin story, Multiverse II, is a crossover by definition. Canon and original characters mix genres and eras.
These Are the Destinations
This work in progress will cross between ENT and a very specific TOS episode, and a little bit with the Kelvin timeline as well.
Crossovers I’d Like to See
So I’m not sure. I think one kind of crossover that I don’t want to see is anything relying too heavily on deus ex machina. That generally means anything with supernatural elements like vampires, or comic books. I don’t mind characters making contact with spiritual-type elements. Lili does a lot of this, particularly in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. But it’s in the context of conversations. And nothing really out there happens, like characters rising from the dead, for example.
But flat-out characters being bitten by radioactive spiders and suddenly getting superpowers? I just don’t want to see it. I don’t want to have to cross stories that are pretty close to being realistic with those that are so far away from realism as all that. Maybe I’m just not adventurous enough.
Because I enjoy history very much, I think what I would really like to see is more of a stylistic crossover than an actual character and scene mashup. So has anyone ever written Star Trek in the style of Ernest Hemingway, or Miguel de Cervantes?
Now that’s what I’d like to see.
Glad you mentioned the crossovers between actual series, versus different shows and what-not. I have certainly noticed you do that a lot, which is awesome (and makes complete sense in your TI stories).
As for the superpowers and what-not…I’m a little torn. I think it could be done, but it would have to be done well. I think too many of us (and probably myself included) would fall into the fanboy/girl trap and go the route of being over-the-top, versus trying to make things make sense in a realistic way. “Vampires” versus “Aliens that share traits and behaviors with the Vampires we made up in myth.” Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks for the insight!!
I think I could see Buffy, because the characters are drawn well and aren’t Mary Sue-ish. They’ve got dimensions, and they have foibles and they have flaws. But Superman just seems too, I dunno, super.
PS Thanks – and BTW I loved trekfan’s unfinished Ghostbusters crossover so perhaps there’s fangirl hope for me yet.
Ha! Red Dwarf and Star Trek Mirror Universe and Prisoners of Gravity, with shades of X-Men and Knight Rider in the Alternate Mirrorverse. The ShadowKnights are a massive crossover.
About the only nod I made to Red Dwarf (a series that I adore) is that a star is a red dwarf, which I dunno if that’s even possible. I do have shoutouts, e. g. Calavicci and Beckett are from Quantum Leap, and there are a ton of references to Desperate Housewives, to people named Rex and Bree, to Crossman (for Marcia Cross), etc.
I caught the QL ones; I loved that show. Not the others so much. History gets a lot of nods in my stuff, but most notably in ONOW.
The Housewives references are for Steven Culp. I’m meh about the serious but not re him. 🙂