Empress Hoshi Sato

Aug

2017

Recurrent Themes – Killers

Recurrent Themes –Killers

Killers drive plots, and even create them. For many victims, someone has responsibility for their ends.

Doug Beckett, one of the killers (image of Steven Culp is provided for educational purposes only).

Background

Murdering, of course, appears in canon all the time, from the numerous red shirt deaths in the original series to the end of Tripp Tucker‘s life in the execrable and otherwise forgettable These Are the Voyages.

Appearances of Killers

Douglas Jay Hayes Beckett

Doug’s crimes have been outlined before in this blog. The Mirror Universe ends up being quite the ruthless place when I write it. And his crimes come to life in Fortune when Q shows them to Lili. The final killing, of Deborah Haddon, is an accident seen in Reversal.

The Empress Hoshi Sato

In order to consolidate her power, Hoshi leave a trail of bodies in her wake in Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses. And in the case of Dr. Phlox and Malcolm Reed‘s demises, she uses Crewman Elizabeth Cutler as the agent of destruction.

Verinold

The incident happens quite by accident, when trying to steal a shuttle during the E² time frame (second kick back in time). Hence the Ikaaran, Verinold, ends up as a killer. He drags Daniel Chang into space without a pressure suit. As a result, Verinold ends up banished to the tiny, dim world which Sandra Sloane has named Speakeasy.

Upshot

While all higher-up Mirror Universe denizens become pretty much murders by definition, I wanted to make it so their actions would have some meaning. And in particular, that makes Doug’s crimes all the more horrific, as so many of them occurred due to some of the flimsiest excuses.

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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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Feb

2016

Portrait of a Character – Travis Mayweather (Mirror)

Origins

This character is canon, and he is one of the only people unambiguously left standing at the end of In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II (Hoshi is also alive but it’s somewhat unclear about the other main characters).

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Travis Mayweather (Mirror)

Anthony Montgomery as Mirror Travis Mayweather (image is courtesy Memory Alpha)

As in canon, Travis is played by actor Anthony Montgomery.

I think the actor did a bang-up job and, since he’s improved as an actor, I would love to see him pick it up again.

Personality

Ruthless, nasty, irresponsible, and more than a little dumb, Travis is an interesting choice of henchman and lover for Hoshi. She continually corrects him and puts him down in public, but he provides a huge public service for her. Because no one wants him in power, Hoshi remains safe. As for Travis, he remains fairly safe as his relationship with Hoshi is non-exclusive and she actively seeks other fathers for her elder children. As a result, there are few rewards to replacing him, and men like José, Frank, Chip, and Aidan do better to remain more subservient. Travis is the one with a target painted on his back.

Relationships

The Empress Hoshi Sato

The Mirror Travis, while he is dying for some fun times with women like the Mirror versions of Melissa Madden and Shelby Pike, is beholden to the Empress. In Coveted Commodity in particular, he is essentially led around on a leash. His only hope is to pass on his genes to Izo and work to assure his son’s survival. This he does by blackmailing Dr. Morgan into agreeing to help Izo, even after Travis’s death. This Morgan more or less does (although, like most denizens of the Mirror, Morgan’s word isn’t worth much).

Theme Music

Everybody else in Temper seems to have gotten a theme song except for Travis!

Prime Universe

The Prime Universe Travis is a rather different guy and is covered in his own post.

Quote

“Use knives or swords. It’s more fun.”

Upshot

In Temper in particular, I really got a chance to let Travis have it with both barrels. He dies in three separate timelines. Once is by Jun Sato; the other two times, he’s fragged by his own troops. An ignominious end, no matter how you slice it, for an evil man who was ‘only following orders’.

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Jan

2014

Review – Escape

Escape Background

Escape has irony on its side.

Hall of Mirrors

For a weekly prompt about escapes, I chose what would be, to some, the only way out of the mirror.

Suicide.

For Andrew Miller, who has become the Empress‘s toy, and has been so for years, life is too much of a burden, and he wants it all to end, and end soon.

And so he goes about figuring out how to end it all.

Plot

Sick of everything, and sick of the Empress, Andy sets about putting together the means and opportunity to kill himself. He obtains a tricoulamine capsule but the later investigation shows it’s from Crossman Pharmaceuticals and is of an older design, so it was possibly from the earlier doctor, Cyril Morgan.

It’s all because of the death of Melissa Madden, a fact disclosed in Fortune. After Andy and Melissa meet (during The Play at the Plate), a sexual relationship develops between them. When Melissa becomes pregnant, Andrew will have to get her off the ship without the Empress finding out, as Hoshi will kill both of them. Because he can never see his child, he at least wants to try to support the baby, who they have agreed to name Tommy.

Andrew asks his friend, Josh Rosen, to help set up a dummy fund to help support Tommy and Melissa. Josh agrees to launder the funds and make it appear as if it’s an account comprised of the payment of old gambling debts from Game Night. Melissa’s death, in a shuttle crash, moots all of that work.

Several years later, Andrew has the nerve, the means, and the privacy. He write a short note and takes the drug, thereby finally getting away from Hoshi.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I like this neat and tidy little story, and reprised it in The Point is Probably Moot, where I cover the aftermath.

Oct

2013

Review – The Play at the Plate

The Play at the Plate – In response to a prompt about obstacles, I immediately visualized a catcher blocking the plate in baseball.

Background

Hall of Mirrors

That led my thoughts to mirror baseball, and I also thought of Game Night, which is my Star Trek: Enterprise fanfiction Mirror Universe counterpart to Movie Night. Hence the story began to fall into place.

Plot

It’s 2162, not too long after the events of Temper and Fortune, and Andrew Miller is calling for bets for a mirror baseball game as catcher David Constantine seeks to block runner Ty Janeway from scoring. Andrew is the Empress’s current toy. But in walks the new pilot, Melissa Madden.

Dumbstruck and more than a little smitten, Andy takes Melissa’s bet. And, when she loses, she offers to allow him to come to her quarters and collect. But Frank Ramirez reminds Andrew that it is just not a good idea. Andy, to his detriment, eventually ignores that sage advice. And that is a very bad idea indeed. Because, essentially, Andy is sealing his own fate. This is not a happy fate at all.

Story Postings

Rating

The Story is Rated K+.

Upshot

I like the little inklings in here, that there is something that could potentially be between them, but the Empress Hoshi Sato will never let Andrew break free. Furthermore, when the principals conspire, and later when Andrew makes his escape, these decisions haunt him. Andrew Miller is very much a tragic figure in the Mirror Universe. He is the person who, amidst an environment where everyone takes whatever they want, he cannot have just what – who – he wants the most.

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Sep

2013

Review – Bread

Bread is yet another story where the title has multiple meanings.

Background

In February and March of 2013, a challenge came from the Trek BBS – write about independence.

And while I suppose I could have written about a planet or a nation or a people gaining their independence, or of a young person striking out on their own, I decided to zig where others might zag. Hence I wrote about elderly people losing theirs.

The concept and its execution were appreciated well enough that I won that month’s challenge.

Plot

Following both the prime universe and the Mirror Universe, these are two parallel but not quite parallel stories about Leah Benson and Diana Jones.

Bread

In the mirror, Leah furtively looks around as she begins a meal. It’s made clear, very quickly (and hearkens back to the same conditions in Reveral and Temper in particular), that MU food is bad. So the fact that there is bread is a minor miracle. Quietly, and to herself, she says the Hebrew blessing over the bread, confirming something Josh Rosen mentions in Temper, that faith abides in the mirror, or at least some form of Judaism does. The way I write the Mirror Universe, the practicing of any faith, and not just Judaism, is done mainly in secret, much like the crypto-Jews and conversos of Spain during the Inquisition.

Prime Universe

In our universe, Leah is the official Starfleet Rabbi. So the story begins with her attending a banquet and weeklong set of official meetings regarding admitting three new worlds to the new United Federation of Planets. These are the Caitian home world, Denobula and the Xyrillian home world. This is the culmination of earlier contacts with Caitians, in A Single Step and The Further Adventures of Porthos – The Stilton Fulfillment. Furthermore, it is a natural progression for that species (in canon, there is no first contact date for Caitians, whereas first contact for Xyrillians occurs during ENT and first contact for Denobulans takes place before ENT’s pilot episode) and the two others.

The idea behind the banquet and set of meetings is not only to welcome the new member worlds but to also demonstrate to other worlds that the Federation is tolerant of differences. Religious and spiritual leaders, including Leah, say a few words about religious tolerance and intolerance on Earth throughout history. In addition, all admit they have been on both the giving and the receiving ends of persecution and bigotry. The Daranaeans, in particular, pay attention.

Back to the MU

Back in the mirror, Leah is looking to leave the ISS Defiant. Izo Sato decides he is going to seduce her. And never mind that’s she’s over seventy and a lesbian, to boot. Josh offers a small measure of protection and he, Shelby and Frank start to hatch a plan to get Leah away. For Frank and Shelby, this is a dress rehearsal for what they hope will be their own endgame. The plan is to fake a shuttle crash, and strand Leah on Andoria.

Back to Our Side of the Pond

In our universe, Leah is married to Diana, but things are not right, and Diana’s memory is failing. It’s an early sign of Irumodic Syndrome, the canon malady suffered by Captain Picard at the end of the running of TNG. Diana’s caregiver is an Andorian, and Diana is beginning to not recognize even her.

Leah makes up her mind; she needs to be at home and become Diana’s primary caregiver. She confides this to Jonathan Archer, and he commiserates, telling her a bit about his father’s own battle with Clarke’s Disease. He offers her a part-time solution, and encourages her to try to be able to work at least a little bit, because otherwise she will lose herself in Diana’s incurable illness.

As the denizens of the mirror plot and plan, Leah remembers there is one person on Andoria who she knows. And it turns out to be the mirror version of Diana. Leah also remembers her own part in the death of Leonora Digiorno, from Fortune. And so that further connects the two halves of the story.

Will the mirror Leah get out? Will either version of Diana remember? Do faith, love and family abide, no matter what they look like, and no matter what the conditions and odds? Find out by reading the story.

Story Postings

Bread – original posting
Bread on Ad Astra
Also, Bread on Fanfiction.net
Bread on Fictionpad
Bread on Wattpad
In addition, Bread in In Between Days context
Bread in Hall of Mirrors context

Rating

The story is Rated T.

Upshot

I really love this one, as it continues the Reversal not-quite parallelism and the meditations on aging. I also feel it helps to fulfill the promise of femme-slash. E. g. same-sex relationships (and marriages) exist in the future, of course. However, I feel that writing them just as sex and angst isn’t enough. All relationships, particularly longer-term ones, have chambers that aren’t bedrooms. Leah and Diana are dealing with the very real problem of aging and losing independence, and no longer being who you were. This story, I feel, gets across that idea well, and I love how it turned out.

Aug

2013

Review – Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses

Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses is yet another multi-dimensional title. The rocks would be a shattering of conventions. The looking glass of course is a reference to the Mirror Universe. And the glass houses naturally are exactly where you don’t want to throw any rocks. Furthermore, I decided on rocks rather than stones as they imply irregularity and roughness. This contrasts with Paving Stones as there the action follows set patterns and traditions.

This story upends those traditions and it shows just how Hoshi changes everything.

Background

I wanted a transitional story, a power grab, showing Empress Hoshi getting where she wanted to be.

This would take place between the end of the canon episodes, In a Mirror, Darkly and In a Mirror, Darkly II and before Paving Stones Made From Good Intentions.

Therefore, it had to be before Doug became a Lieutenant Commander, running Tactical (after defeating Chip Masterson and Aidan MacKenzie in a competition). Ian (Malcolm‘s counterpart) and T’Pol had to still be alive. Phlox would still be the doctor; this would be before Cyril Morgan.

But things would be changing.

Plot

Hall of Mirrors

Having declared herself Empress, Hoshi has to consolidate her power. She has to eliminate threats and pick up allies. This means ruthless Machiavellian efficiency.

Furthermore, she has to get rid of the Emperor, who I write as a descendant of canon mass murderer Philip Green. Green brings along only three bodyguards, foolishly underestimating her bloodlust – my original characters, José Torres, Brian Delacroix, and Andrew Miller.

The story is punctuated with quotations from Sun-Tzu‘s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Story Postings

Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses – original posting
Also, Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses on Fanfiction.net
Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses on Fictionpad
In addition, Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses on Wattpad (slightly bowdlerized to meet their community standards)
Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses on G & T Show forums
Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses in In Between Days context
Finally, Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses in Hall of Mirrors context

Rating

The story is rated T.

Upshot

I like how it turned out. In particular, I enjoyed putting together Hoshi’s plan and showing her nastiness. Her impatience with science and with delays, her casual approach to murder and her lust are all on display. I really like the final product.

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.

Aug

2012

Review – Coveted Commodity

Coveted commodity?

Background

I originally wrote Coveted Commodity as a response to a Trek BBS challenge about a new day dawning. I decided to put a mirror universe spin on it, and so I went with the mirror Travis making a turning point type of decision in his life.

Story Highlights

Mirror Travis

The tale begins with Travis Mayweather sitting in Sick Bay, waiting for … something. The Derellian bat makes another appearance; its loud shriek causes Travis to unsheathe his sidearm, “ready to shoot that damned bat”. But who or what is Travis waiting for?

The exposition brings it together, that he is waiting on Empress Hoshi. She is pregnant with his child. And there are complications.

For people in the mirror universe, particularly men, signs of weakness are not only degrading, they’re downright dangerous. Hence what is happening to Travis’s son could not only harm the child at that time and later, it could also harm Travis’s own standing.

Plus, this is not the Empress’s first child. That honor is reserved for Jun Daniels Sato. This is, instead, Hoshi’s sixth.

Travis begins the story indifferent as to outcomes. But he becomes mightily interested once it becomes clear that the fetus has issues. Furthermore, Doctor Morgan gives him a choice – allow the surgery (the fetus has a hole in his heart that must be repaired in utero), but also allow the doctor to kill off Hoshi. The doctor’s tempting offer is a corker – end Hoshi’s reign of terror, but also kill off your own son; kill off your son due to inaction on your part; or allow the surgery and allow Hoshi to live.

Travis’s Choice

Travis chooses the latter option. His new day dawning is that he decides he wants to be a father. This is in keeping with the way I have written mirror universe men. The way I write them, they are violent but they are also good fathers. They want their children to survive, and will do anything to assure that (including violence). Hence Travis’s sole option is to permit the surgery but not allow the doctor to kill (or fail to resuscitate) Hoshi on the table.

In Temper, it is revealed that the choice works for the child (Izo) but Travis is not allowed to enjoy the fruits of his choice. Time is somewhat incoherent in Temper, but the events occur after the surgery and, in the alternate timelines and in the restored proper timeline, Travis meets his end.

Story Postings

Rating

Although the story does have some adult elements (Hoshi is a woman with children from multiple fathers), the rating is K.

Upshot

I think execution was pretty good on this one. Once again, much like in First Born, a mirror child’s life hangs in the balance, and the father must make the right choice so that the child may survive.

Recurrent Themes –Killers

Background

Appearances of Killers

Douglas Jay Hayes Beckett

The Empress Hoshi Sato

Verinold

Upshot

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Review – Souvenirs

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Travis Mayweather (Mirror)

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

The Empress Hoshi Sato

Theme Music

Prime Universe

Quote

Upshot

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Escape Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – The Play at the Plate

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Bread

Background

Plot

Prime Universe

Back to the MU

Back to Our Side of the Pond

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Background

First Born Plot

Fallout

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Coveted Commodity

Background

Story Highlights

Travis’s Choice

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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