Crewman Daniels

Jan

2019

Review – Overtime

Overtime suffered – a lot – from my burnout. It took me years to finish it!

Review – Overtime

For the final wrap-up story in the Barnstorming series, I put it off and put it off forever. Frankly, I had forgotten about it. But then I started to run out of stuff to post on Fanfiction.net, and that meant I needed to finally finish the series already.

Background

Because Rick Daniels has not fully restored the timeline, he needs to run through and change everything – again. With the help of Mack and Marty, and the rest of the gang, the timeline is finally fully restored.

Plot

With incomplete timeline restoration, Rick Daniels has to work with the temporal natives in order to catch a thief/vandal in the act. While the perpetrator is not aware of how damaging her actions are, he cannot tell her the truth. Instead, he confides in Mack to help him catch the perpetrator right before she does her damage.

At the same time, Crita is fretting about getting married as Marty and Mack’s thoughts turn in that very same direction. But there’s only one possible way to marriage for them, and that’s to contest the unfair and ineffective Cousin Marriage Law.

In addition, untied loose ends included Wesley Crusher and his girlfriend, Lakeisha Warren; Future Guy (and Gal); and getting Mack some measure of justice. There was a lot to think about, and to plan.

Furthermore, it was important to me to shout out to various older series because I had (and still have) no idea if I will ever write any more Star Trek fan fiction.

Pressure, much?

Music

The story does not have any appreciable music or musical themes.

Story Postings

Overtime on Wattpad
Overtime on Fanfiction.net

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

Once I started to push myself to finish in 2018, the pieces started to fall into place. Some nagging plot points slowly resolved themselves. I will admit I spent a lot of time saying goodbye to characters, but that is completely understandable. I do not intend to write any more fan fiction but you never, ever say never, eh?

After all, These Are the Destinations and Paradox are still not finished….

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Sep

2018

Review – Time Out

A Pretty Harsh Review of Time Out

With Time Out, I abandoned the sports theme completely and instead did some personal head canon repairs. That is, I had put characters into an alternate temporal scenario and then I needed to get them back to the prime timeline. And I had to do this without destroying the continuity I was creating in the Barnstorming series.

Background

At the time I first wrote this story, I was even more burned out than before. I was absolutely running out of things to say, and so I shuffled the cards, big time. This also rather neatly plugged a hole in the Times of the HG Wells series. Now, that was a hole that only I could see. But I do like to be consistent.

The hole in the Wells timeline had to do with Dana, who hooks up with Rick. Once I realized I would rather she was Marty’s great love, she would have to somehow not fall prey to Rick’s charms.

Plot

Time Out stepped outside of the sports theme entirely for a very new story line. Instead of being a coach, Mack MacKenzie, is now called Dana, and she is the Tactical Officer on the Enterprise-E. As before, Martin Madden is still the First Officer. However, other players are in new places. And it’s all because of the accidental firing of a pulse shot.

At the same time, Marty is investigating an odd phenomenon which seems to directly relate to the O’Day-Hayes-Beckett-Digiorno-Madden-Reed family. New relatives show up, including the exceptionally annoying Tamsin Porter. Much like in the prime timeline for this series, Porter has the hots for Madden, and the radiation band cycling phenomenon still exists. It is one of the drivers of the plot.

Story Postings

Time Out on Wattpad
Time Out on Fanfiction.net

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

One thing this story did well was show just how hit and miss so many of the time travel missions should have been during the Wells series. It was also a chance to showcase an earlier Rick, one who hasn’t yet met the Becketts. Hence for him, the time frame for the story is pre-Temper.

In addition, it brings up one interesting point. For the temporal and spatial dislocation in Crackerjack, it’s due to the remnants of a pulse shot. Originally, I had wanted it to be a post-Temper leftover of Empress Hoshi‘s doings. But what if it was due to experiments by Szish, the Gorn who built Mack’s ship, the Cookie? With the other references to the Crackerjack dislocation, this could be a way to wrap that up as well. I am currently trying to wrap up the final book in the series, so I might use this insight.

But I was flagging, and it shows.

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Jul

2018

Review – Play

A Brutal Review of Play

With Play, I continued the Barnstorming saga. However, I started to run out of things to say.

Background

To continue the Barnstorming series, I had to give Dana and the rest of the gang something to do. The main invention was a fake Tellarite game called Kreesta. I wanted the most ridiculous kind of a sport imaginable. Hence Kreesta is a cross between competitive eating and table tennis. And yes, it is just as messy and undignified as you are probably thinking.

Plot

Play is the second story in the Star Trek TNG/ENT Crossover series, Barnstorming. The story follows Dana MacKenzie and her traveling sports team, as Martin Madden investigates a mysterious phenomenon. The story, at its end, sets up a crossover with ENT and with the Times of the HG Wells series.

Music

The story does not have any major music or musical themes.

Story Postings

Play on Wattpad
Play on Fanfiction.net

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

The real problem with this story is the one for the entire series. I was horribly burned out and so the ideas did not come as freely as before. In addition, I was ready to write a lot more wholly original works, full-time. This meant taking time away from truly developing this story line. And then at the end, I copped out in a lot of ways, and dovetailed into the old family.

That is because I essentially grabbed the first canon character I could think of who could work, and I made him the anchor character. Martin Madden is the initial anchor character, but then Rick Daniels becomes the secondary. As a result, the story line got increasingly muddled and weird. And then it took a left turn into time travel, but that did work to fix a hole in the Wells series. So, yay? Maybe?

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Oct

2016

Review – Souvenirs

Souvenirs of time travel can really do a number on Rick Daniels.

Background

Temporal souvenirs.

For a prompt about remembrances, I wanted to clarify a bit of time travel lore that I had been rather vague about. In A Long, Long Time Ago, I refer to temporal tourists who take various souvenirs. Helen Walker grabs the quarter flipped right before the plane takes off on February 3, 1959, resulting in the deaths of the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly.

Therefore, it made sense to me that Rick would take similar souvenirs from each of his honeys. Hence I had him steal a pair of quarters from Windy, plus he had a photograph of Milena that Noemy had taken, but nothing else.

Plot

Clockworks

So the story is about how Temporal Agent Richard Daniels remembers his conquests.

Note: this story breaks later fan fiction.

However, the main reason it breaks it is because of a slight confusion in the dates, nothing more.

And in a way, it leads right up to The Stranger. Richard Daniels has a lot on his plate, and he meets a lot of women. But he also has to allow any number of good people to die. I believe that this would horribly mess with just about anyone’s head. I feel even in the deep future we would not have quite gotten over the guilt many people would feel at having to sit back and watch innocents suffer. Hence he comforts himself by bedding women in time. But Milena Chelenska is different from all the rest.

Story Postings

Rating

This story is rated K.

Upshot

I think the concept is a good one although I am a little annoyed at myself for getting the dates wrong in my own time travel story!

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Sep

2016

Portrait of a Character – Alice Trent

Alice Trent is a time traveler.

Origins

This character was originally going to be a regular cast member but I didn’t really have room for her. Hence she showed up during The Point is Probably Moot in an alternate timeline.

Portrayal

Alice Eve as Alice Trent (image is for educational purposes only)

Alice is played by Star Trek: Into Darkness actress Alice Eve. Of course she has Star Trek cred from that.

Personality

Personable and polite, Alice in the regular timeline is a manners and protocols specialist. She is interviewed by the Temporal Integrity Commission as a possible companion agent for Rick Daniels. Paired together, they could conceivably cover historic state dinners, which is exactly what they end up doing.

In the alternate timeline, she is also an Islamophobe.

Relationships

Alice has no known relationships. Rick does not hit on her as he is already realizing that he’s in love with Milena Chelenska.

Mirror Universe

There are no impediments to a Mirror Alice existing, however as time goes on, all true counterparts have smaller chances of existing.

Alice Eve as MU Alice Trent (picture is for educational purposes only)

This is due to the passage of time and the addition of more generations (and, therefore, more variables).

Regardless of what she’d be doing in the Mirror Universe, it would have nothing to do with manners and fish forks.

Quote

“Why would you want to help those infidels? Are you all nonbelievers?”

Upshot

I have no place for this character, and I wish I did, as she could potentially be compelling. Maybe Carmen hires her after the events of He Stays a Stranger.

Now there’s an idea. And maybe I’ll see if I can explore it one of these days.

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Dec

2013

Review – November 13th

November 13th Background

November 13th works as a bridge story. It connects In Between Days to Times of the HG Wells.

For a Weekly Free Write called ‘berth of a career’, I got the idea of a messy bunk in my head, and could not get it out.

In Between Days

Adding to this idea was the Star Trek: Enterprise canon tidbit that Daniels had roomed with a slob. In order to anchor between In Between Days and Times of the HG Wells, it made sense to have a younger character.

That younger character would be connected to Daniels, hence bridging the gap between In Between Days and the deep future of The Times of the HG Wells.

Plot

Clockworks

Craig Willets, now an older man, would be dictating his memoirs, when he’d remember something quirky from his past.

The date is what triggers it for Craig. He remembers a very specific, yet puzzling, event.

On that day, back in 2151, he was just minding his own business, but was remembering his old roommate, who had left in a hurry. It had been explained to Craig that Daniels had been a time traveler. Craig wasn’t sure how he felt about that. As a slob, he has no idea, but a pair of his boots are missing.

Forward into the Past

The action then shifts to 1699, where Daniels is preparing to bed Jennifer Crossman‘s ancestor, the widow Lucretia Crossman, in Penn’s Woods. This is to be Rick’s first temporal conquest. He’s eager to get going, and then realizes that he forgot something back in 2151.

Penn’s Woods at Bowman’s Hill (Photo credit: tgpotterfield)

He excuses himself and goes to the only private place – the outhouse. While in there, he taps out a quick message to Craig and has the boots sent to November 13th, 2151. Why that date? That’s what date it is in 1699. But it does not match the date when Daniels departed from the NX-01. Craig realizes, much later, that his old roommate made a mistake with the date.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I like the slight silliness of the story, that something so mild and minor could bring the two series together.

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Jun

2013

Review – First Born

Background

First Born has an irresistible background, I feel.

Barking Up The Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | First Born

First Born (Jun Daniels Sato)

In response to prompts about disciplining and decisions, I wrote First Born, a story about Richard Daniels, the Empress Hoshi Sato and their son, Jun Daniels Sato.

The story works as a bridge between In Between Days and Times of the HG Wells. Other such bridges include November 13th and More, More, More!

First Born Plot

In Reversal, I established that the Empress had given birth to Daniels’s child, but she thought him (the elder Daniels) to be dead. But Daniels isn’t dead.

Therefore, there had to be another side to the story.

This story explores the fallout at the Temporal Integrity Commission, and in time itself. Eleanor Daniels, Rick’s sister, is a docent at the Temporal Museum on Lafa II. She begins by lecturing about Empress Hoshi’s five children, but suddenly she shakes very, very slightly and ends her sentence talking about Hoshi’s six children.

Uh, oh.

Fallout

Rick is hauled into his boss, Carmen Calavicci‘s, office. She is, understandably, livid. Carmen has been looking the other way for a while as he’s been bedding women in time. She has been figuring that it’s a way for him to cope with the fact that there are often deaths, or he has to restore deaths. So she has been kind or, at least, indifferent. But this is something else entirely, as the Mirror government is breathing down her neck. They demand that Jun Sato‘s existence be wiped out, thereby restoring Aidan MacKenzie‘s son, Kira, to his rightful position as first born heir.

Rick and Carmen meet with a Mirror government representative and begin to sort everything out. Rick wants Jun to live, but how much of a pound of flesh with the other side of the pond extract in order to make that happen?

Story Postings

Rating

The story is rated K+.

Upshot

I like the interplay among Carmen, Rick, and the Mirror representative (Ray Jiminez), as they essentially wheel and deal the past. It makes you wonder if that might eventually really happen.

Review – Overtime

Background

Plot

Music

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Rating

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A Pretty Harsh Review of Time Out

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A Brutal Review of Play

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Review – Souvenirs

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Portrait of a Character – Alice Trent

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

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November 13th Background

Plot

Forward into the Past

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Background

First Born Plot

Fallout

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