Recurrent Themes – Administrators

Recurrent Themes – Administrators

It may not amount to a terribly glamorous role, but someone has to run things. Enter the administrators.

Background

This role is, of course, canon, although it is not often shown on screen or in any real depth. After all, it is kind of boring.

Who wants to watch someone checking on rations and preparing reports and signing paperwork?Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | DNA | Administrators But it is still absolutely necessary for someone to do just that.

Appearances

Commandant Kerig

Seen 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 corruption.  Eriecho’s attacks, recalled in Beats and Recessive, assure that something or other happened, and he looked the other way. Or he was a willing participant, like is seen in Eight, where H’Shema trades sexual favors for powdered milk to feed the helpless Vulcan infant. Kerig is the height (depth, perhaps) of corruption in the timeline.

Annette ‘Windy’ Bradley Pollan

Windy attends Kent State during the 1970 massacre and meets Rick (in Ohio). In an alternate timeline, she and her friends fight for social justice, including Alison B. Krause, who is a real-life victim from the shooting. But that timeline has to be altered and, instead, Windy is restored to her original destiny, which is to rise through the ranks at the Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles.  She ends up as the epitome of the soulless bureaucrat. Her less than optimal fate prompts Sheilagh to redouble her efforts to allow the new timeline. Not only would it save Alison’s life, it would, in a way, save Windy’s.

But that cannot be, and so the restoration sticks and Windy is back to being a paper pusher.

Arashi Sato

Empress Hoshi‘s child with a mystery father is good with numbers. Arashi doesn’t really want to become Emperor, even though he is certainly smart enough  (and may very well be the smartest of her offspring). Instead, he performs collections, often sending his younger half-brother, Izo, out to do the strong-arming.  But Arashi would never sully his hands with such a task. He’s far too busy counting money.

Colonel Jacob ‘Jack’ Shaw

Shaw is another methodical type of leader. In a way, he is a kind of counterpart to Kerig in that he is also a kind of ‘keeper’ for Saddik and Eriecho. But  if he’s at all corrupt, it’s only minimally (it’s been suggested to me that the gamete trading he engages in with his fellow sanctuary administrators isn’t completely on the up and up).  Shaw is motivated to try to save the Vulcan race.

Upshot

They might not be glamorous, but nothing will ever be properly funded without them. Administrators make things go!

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Themes, 0 comments

Review – Where O Where

Review – Where O Where

Where O Where does HD want to be?

Background

For a prompt about the parental point of view, I decided to go with a short story about perhaps my second-favorite (with the favorite being Lili) rebellious teenaged character, HD Avery.  So just how does a pair of staid farmers deal with their rock and roller musical genius son?

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Clockworks | Where O Where

Clockworks

On October 12, 3104, a teenaged HD Avery makes it clear that he will never become a farmer like his parents.

I had had Hank Avery III and Bev in my head but there weren’t a lot of opportunities to write them. In fact, they weren’t originally farmers. At first, when the HG Wells stories were more original than Star Trek fanfiction, the Averys were suburban New Jerseyites, and Beverly was a bit of an alcoholic cougar.

However, in the newer version, they are a much starker contrast to HD, who seems almost like he was found under a cabbage leaf rather than be their biological son. For people who aren’t so sure they even like music or art as worthwhile pursuits, they get a child who can sight-read music and play perfectly by ear, with ideal pitch and tone.

Music

The music is, of course, Pearl Jam’s Last Kiss.

And I’m not even so sure why this was the song. It was just in my head at the time but, truthfully, it could have been nearly any song with a fairly spare melody line. In addition, the video is not official; I can’t seem to find an official music video for this song.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

So I would like to, at some point, return to HD’s teen years. I describe him quite a bit as being an obnoxious, immature kid, but I don’t think I quite captured that here.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Review, Times of the HG Wells series, 1 comment

Portrait of a Character – Thomas Digiorno-Madden

Portrait of a Character – Thomas Digiorno-Madden

Thomas Digiorno-Madden is a bridge character.

Origins

In order to get the open marriage/arrangement really going among Lili, Doug, Melissa, Norri, and Malcolm, and to really amp it up and certainly require that Melissa have a connection to the Beckett marriage, the best and easiest way of accomplishing that was for her to conceive Doug’s child during Together. There is no planning for Tommy at all (or for Kevin).

But the truth is, the arrangement cannot exist or at least begin without him. He is absolutely indispensable at the beginning of his life and, it turns out, at the end of it as well.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Thomas Digiorno-Madden

Kiefer Sutherland as Thomas Digiorno-Madden (image is for educational purposes only)

Tommy is played by actor Kiefer Sutherland. I had originally thought of Tommy as being dark-haired. But I thought of Sutherland in 25, and could not get him out of my head.

I love this image of the actor, and I have used it, with a flame in place of the ’24’, as the cover of Seven Women.

Personality

Duty-driven and honor-bound, Tommy is the kind of person who Erika Hernandez utterly depends upon and, later, so does Captain Robau. If you don’t know who Robau is, Google him. I can wait.

Relationships

Cindy Morgan

Tommy mentions her in Seven Women, that it was sort of a secondary relationship versus Joss and Jia. They were essentially forced into a one-room schoolhouse on Lafa II, and there were few romantic prospects. But she wasn’t the one, and they both knew it.

Takara Sato Masterson Tucker

Takara, the Empress Hoshi Sato’s only daughter meets Tommy in a dream during Fortune. I had originally decided that that would be it, and they would not see each other again. Temper would remain an outlying temporal fluke. But then the idea of then being together in dreams was be a good one. So I wanted her to be his only semi-attainable love match.  During Eight, in the Out of the Caves of Lafa II chapter, she reveals that she believes her son is really Tommy’s. I’m not so sure how I feel about that, as there are virtues to making Tommy the father or making Charlie Tucker IV the father.

But either way, Tommy and Takara are a bit like what would have happened to the overall storyline if the crossover in Reversal had failed, and Doug and Lili could not truly be together. It made sense for some of the endings to not be such happy ones.

Theme Music

During Temper, Tommy’s music is Green Day’s When I Come Around.

Mirror Universe

It is impossible for Tommy to have a Mirror Universe counterpart, as he is already a Prime Universe/Mirror Universe crossbreed.

Portrait of a Character – Thomas Digiorno-Madden

Kiefer Sutherland as Tommy in the Mirror Universe (image is for educational purposes only)

In Temper, though, it is established that he and also Marie Patrice are having the easiest time adjusting, and Tommy is drawn more strongly to that side than any of that crossbred generation. It’s likely that the two things that draw him are the possibility of a much faster command and Takara herself.

Truth is, Tommy in the Mirror is meaner. But he probably would have been similar to what he became, a lifelong soldier. In many ways, Tommy is Doug without real love and a home in his life. The most significant thing he contributes to the timeline (assuming he isn’t Charlie Tucker IV’s father after all) is the sacrifice that ends his life.

Quote

“Here come the flames.”

Upshot

Tommy’s adult life is not well-documented. There is a lot more to tell. He will be back.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Portrait, 3 comments

Review – Pat the Bunny

Review – Pat the Bunny

Pat the Bunny? What?

Background

Pat the Bunny came about as a strange left-turn style answer to a writing prompt. Hence, in order to write about natural or artificially created disasters, I chose a scenario for the Mirror Universe Borg where they would be defeated by the oddest of foes. And to make it even more interesting, this foe would be about as opposite to a warrior as you can get in the animal kingdom.

Furthermore, it would hearken back, just a little bit, to Hugh and the Borg, the canon episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where a young Borg boy is returned to the collective and starts a sort of individualistic revolution. And it would also be a call back to the canon episode of Star Trek: Voyager, where Icheb is introduced (he was conceived and became Borg as a means of implanting a virus into the collective. Icheb’s own parents considered him expendable).

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Clockworks | Pat the Bunny

Clockworks

In 3104, Richard Daniels and Aramjul Sika find out just why the Borg never really got any traction in the Mirror Universe.

As an earlier mission for Rick (and one where he does not seduce anyone), I wanted a short mission where he and a historian would get in and get out, but there would be one, big, kind of crazy consequence of what they had just observed. Temporal shenanigans aside, history is often strange.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

So I liked putting Rick into a new and exceptionally weird situation. And I also enjoyed the opportunity to shout out to the Sika family, a clan of Xindi sloth I had created in The Puzzle and then followed through with in Achieving Peace. After all, it isn’t only Lili‘s family that makes it to the deep future.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Hall of Mirrors, Review, Times of the HG Wells series, 0 comments

Portrait of a Character – B-4

Portrait of a Character – B-4

B-4 got a bum rap in canon.

Origins

The character is canon, from the film, Star Trek: Nemesis. The Barnstorming series takes place after the conclusion of that film. Hence B-4 is a logical addition to the Enterprise-E‘s crew.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – B-4

Brent Spiner as B-4 (image is for educational purposes only and is courtesy of Memory Alpha)

As in canon, B-4 is played by actor Brent Spiner.

Personality

A bit stiff, and also learning all the time, B-4 doesn’t understand that the crew is somewhat sad to see him. While they don’t blame him for Data’s demise, he is too much of a painful reminder for them. So they unwittingly shun him. Martin Madden is one of the few people who spends any significant time with him; Geordi LaForge also does.

Relationships

B-4 is an android, and at a somewhat lower functional level than Data. Hence B-4 is, as such, incapable of having what we would call a relationship.

Mirror Universe

B-4 and Data don’t have Mirror Universe counterparts. The closest is Lore, who is evil but who comes from our universe.

Quote

“Universe to universe crossovers can currently be divided into four types, with a fifth type being unknown. The first is ancient, and is accomplished only by Calafans. This species originates in the part of the Milky Way galaxy where the septum between two universes is at its thinnest. Amplifying dishes located on Lafa II, at a spot that the natives refer to as Point Abic, help to focus Calafan meditations and dream states. Dreaming and meditating Calafans are able to readily cross over, although only between the home universe, which vibrates on the twenty-one centimeter radiation band, and the mirror, which vibrates at twenty centimeters.

“Prior to 2157, the dishes prevented Calafan crossovers during their conscious, nonmeditative states. However, the mirror High Priestess, known as the teenager Yimar, commanded a change in the frequency emitted by the dishes in her universe, thereby permitting conscious, nonmeditative crossovers, but only by purebred Calafans in either universe.”

Upshot

This highly intelligent and highly functioning android is an integral part of the Barnstorming series. And, as such, will be back.

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Posted by jespah in Barnstorming, Fan fiction, Portrait, Times of the HG Wells series, 0 comments

Progress Report – May 2016

Progress Report – May 2016

Posted Works

Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | QuillMay 2016 was  yet another sparse month as I graduated from Quinnipiac University but was not quite done with class work. With a Capstone project due, and the summer to do it in, my focus understandably shifted, and it was far, far away from new fan fiction writing. Instead, I posted older works, as I have been doing for some time now.

On the G & T Show forums, I began to post Together.

On Fanfiction.net, I continued posting You Mixed-Up Siciliano.

On Wattpad, I finished posting Flight of the Bluebird and then added  Equinox, Confidence, and Education as parts of Later Days.

Milestones

See the Stats page for individual read and review counts.

WIP Corner

As my Capstone project ate up my life, it was not easy to write much of anything outside of that. Instead, I concentrated on preparing for NaNoWriMo and performing some research.

Prep Work

As noted, I worked on some NaNoWriMo research mainly. I did spend some time getting drafts into Wattpad in order to make my life easier for posting. I just check everything one last time, and out it goes. Very convenient and easy!

This Month’s Productivity Killers

School! Graduation! Podcasting! I was pushed, hard, in directions that were rather far away from writing either wholly original work or Star Trek fan fiction.  We also went on a short vacation to Cape Cod just before my graduation, and we attended a Red Sox game later in the month.

I cannot honestly see June getting any better. I think it is going to be like this until I hand in my Capstone project, which is due on August the twelfth of this year.

In the meantime, I just need to keep my head above water. It is not easy!

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Progress, 0 comments

Portrait of a Character – Monisha Padir

Portrait of a Character – Monisha Padir

Monisha Padir didn’t get enough screen time.

Origins

As I wrote Concord, there needed to be a way to get Malcolm back from 1776. There had to be a reason he was there in the first place.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Monisha Padir

Aarti Mann as Monisha Padir (image is for educational purposes only)

Monisha is played by actress Aarti Mann.

As is often the case with non-white characters who I write, it is important to me that people of the correct ethnicity ‘play’ them. I also like this lovely actress, who has good comic timing and seems to be very intelligent. I have ‘cast’ her in some of my original fiction, too.

Personality

Smart and creative, Moni is a historian. So in 2285, as a way of testing the potential of time travel, she and Makan Sinthasomphone attempt to send Agent Robert Lennox to the April 1775 Battle of Lexington. But things don’t go according to plan. In part, it is her creativity that helps to put things right.

Relationships

Monisha has no known relationships, and she is not on screen long enough to establish any.

Mirror Universe

There don’t seem to be significant impediments to Monisha existing in the Mirror Universe.

Portrait of a Character – Monisha Padir

Aarti Mann as Mirror Monisha (image is for educational purposes)

A beautiful woman in that rough place probably wouldn’t be a historian, though.

Unfortunately, the way I write Mirror Universe women is that they are often overly sexualized. Monisha probably also would be, too. This is particularly as the study of history isn’t exactly of value there. That is, except in the context of conferring greater glory on despots.

Quote

“I wonder what they would have seen. I hope it wasn’t just poor Agent Lennox being jettisoned into deep space with neither a ship nor an EV suit.”

Upshot

I would love to be able to pull in her and Sinthasomphone again some time, although I am unsure of when and how I would do it. But the development of reliable time travel has the potential to be a rather interesting story.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Interphases series, Portrait, Times of the HG Wells series, 0 comments

Review – Marvels

Review – Marvels

Marvels are, a bit, relative.

Background

For a prompt about the marvels of technology, I again decided to go in a somewhat different direction and write, instead, about the marvels of a far simpler age. In this case, it was 1417. In this case, I wanted an era that was thoroughly unfamiliar and would not be tainted by thoughts of knowing about Christopher Columbus or Ferdinand and Isabella or anyone else from our history books.

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Clockworks | Marvels

Clockworks

In 3102, Temporal Agent Richard Daniels and a historian are accidentally sent to 1417 Cordoba instead of 1616 Padua, and Rick meets Irene of Castile.

The original time period chosen, 1616 Padua, was to observe Galileo. Instead, the time portal malfunctions, and Rick and the historian are instead sent almost two hundred years earlier and some 1800 or so kilometers to the southwest.

However, they are in luck. There’s a small acting troupe. Even more amazing is the fact that there is an actress (I did not realize, until after I had released the story, that an actress during this time period and in this particular place would be nigh well impossible).

The troupe performs a kind of pastiche of play acting, slapstick, and singing. And then the townspeople pay them with food, including a chicken, that they roast over a campfire. Afterwards, Rick wastes no time in seducing the troupe’s sole actress, Irene, who tells them all about the most incredible piece of technology she has ever seen – a horizontal grinding wheel pulled by a pair of oxen. It’s a far cry from the time portal. Irene, too, is more enchanted by the tech she’s seen, whereas Rick is more blasé.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K+.

Upshot

I liked the idea of making the grinding wheel, for Irene, to be the most incredible thing, ever. Furthermore, I think we take our technology for granted at times. I revisited Irene, in The Stranger.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Review, Times of the HG Wells series, 1 comment

Portrait of a Character – Ethan Novakovich

Portrait of a Character – Ethan Novakovich

Ethan Novakovich gets more air time in fan fiction than in canon.

Origins

The character is canon. The truth is, I forgot about him for a while. Sorry! But this was a character who was seen exactly once, and very early in the show’s lifetime. And so I created a character named Ethan, and completely forgot about this character until the E2 timeline.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Ethan Novakovich

Henri Lubatti as Ethan Novakovich (image is courtesy of Memory Alpha and is for educational purposes only)

As in canon, Ethan is played by actor Henri Lubatti.

The actor has found work since Enterprise, including some recurring work on 24.

Personality

Shy and also a bit studious, Ethan is a bit of a plant nerd. Given the chain of command, he should be working for, first, Naomi Curtis, and then Shelby Pike, in the Botany Department. The truth is, I barely wrote him and so he is a bit of a mystery to me, too. His quote isn’t even that interesting.

Relationships

Colleen Romanov

They get together in both iterations. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Colleen reports that he is shy and she had to attract him by claiming to have found a new life form in one of the cargo bays.

Mirror Universe

There are no impediments to Ethan existing in the Mirror Universe, although the character is not present in the canon MU episodes.

Portrait of a Character – Ethan Novakovich

Henri Lubatti as the Mirror Ethan (image is for educational purposes)

Shyness practically equals death in the Mirror, so he would have to be considerably more assertive. If he is with Colleen, then the circumstances of their relationship starting would be far different.

Quote

“One of the orange trees seems to be dead.”

Upshot

Should this character return? The truth is, I just can’t see it.

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, In Between Days series, Interphases series, Portrait, 0 comments

Recurrent Themes – Jokers

Recurrent Themes – Jokers

Jokers are fun to write.

Background

I like the idea of lightening up a story with some joking. Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | DNA | JokersTruly, when I have written comedies, it tends to be prank wars. In particular, there are the pranks shown in Broken Seal and Where No Gerbil Has Gone Before.

Appearances

Aidan MacKenzie

In Gerbil, Aidan is a part of a prank whereby a goat statue is stolen from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and beamed to the front yard of Starfleet Headquarters. While Meredith, Judy, Liz, Michael, and Tripp are all a part of the theft (er, borrowing), it’s Aidan who brings a pistol and heats up the bolts, thereby allowing the statue to be stolen in the first place.

Chip Masterson

Probably the king of all of my joker characters, Chandler has a flair for the goofy. In Gerbil, while he gets help from Jenny, José, Derek, Josh, and Brooks, Chip is the one who actually steals the stuffed gerbil toy from Tucker’s quarters.

In Broken Seal, he and Aidan are actually innocent, but his terror is of losing his rank. And in Brown, in the Mirror Universe, he and Aidan passively allow Empress Hoshi‘s ship to be overrun by mice. And finally, in Together, he dreams of doing stand-up comedy in a little Risian nightclub.

Travis Mayweather

Travis acts as Hoshi’s accomplice during Broken Seal, but he’s never the instigator.

Malcolm Reed

Along with Tripp, Malcolm pranks Hoshi by telling her that there’s been a slight transporter malfunction, and a birthmark has moved. This dovetails well with canon, as the Vanishing Point episode had her fearing that exact issue. Unlike Tucker, though, he apologizes immediately.

Hoshi Sato

Infuriated by the prank, and affected by a small spatial anomaly, Hoshi goes into full-on revenge mode, eventually switching the films at Movie Night.

Tripp Tucker

While others willingly take part in the shenanigans that go on during Where No Gerbil Has Gone Before, Tripp (along with Aidan and Chip) is one of the instigators. A big part of this is because he wants to get his stuffed gerbil, Stella, back. But for him, it’s also fun. He’s also not above giving Hoshi a hard time in Broken Seal.

Upshot

There will always be a place for comedy in my Star Trek fanfiction!

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Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Themes, 0 comments