Hoshi Sato

Aug

2012

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Origins

Hoshi Sato

This is a canon character, of course. Hoshi Sato (her name, literally, means “at home in the stars”) is the Communications Officer on the NX-01, with the rank of Ensign, which she retains throughout the entire run of the series. Also according to canon, she eventually rises to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. This is a rank that I, semi-incorrectly, use interchangeably with the rank of Lieutenant. She also marries a man named Takashi Kimura. In the canon E² story, she names her two children Toru and Yoshiko. I go with those as being the names of her prime timeline children as well.

Hoshi is also, in canon, extremely intelligent (probably a linguistic genius) but, at least in the first two seasons in particular, is a bit insecure. She is the most likely to jump if the ship is under attack or bumped. She is also likely to doubt her own obvious abilities.

Portrayal

As in canon, this character is portrayed by actress Linda Park.

Personality

In addition to her canon quirks, I tend to write her as still being a bit more tentative, even after the Xindi War. In There’s Something About Hoshi, she is encouraged by the captain to stretch a bit. However, the reaction there proves to be far too much for her, and she balks a bit.

In Together, she reveals a playful and sexy side but, in the end, chooses career over romance, failing to realize that Tripp is truly passionate about her.

Hoshi on the Bluebird

She’s also caring. As Malcolm‘s First Officer on the Bluebird, she’s comforting when he receives the news in Equinox. She also defiantly says she will take the fall if there’s any real flak from the diverting of the ship to Lafa II instead of heading straight to the Klingon Neutral Zone, as planned. However, she plans her retirement at a young age, as she is seeing her children grow up without her, and fears she is missing out.

Relationships

As I write her, she has four main relationships, including her canon marriage, which I acknowledge in Equinox, Flight of the Bluebird, A Hazy Shade and There’s Something Else About Hoshi.

Sekar Khan

In the E² scenario, she ends up, in both iterations, with the Quartermaster, Chandrasekar Khan. In canon, there is no name for her husband, so there is room to be creative in this area. Sekar is gentle and giving, but also keeps her from some of the worst of what’s out there. While he is no warrior, he intercepts problems and does his best to make her life easier.

Takashi Kimura

Hoshi’s canon husband is never on screen. I have really only written them as long-term marrieds, and never at the start of their courting. That could potentially develop into a later project.

Ted Stone

In There’s Something About Hoshi, she laments about having settled during the E² situation. For her, Ted seems to be another form of settling. This is because she sees him as being almost, but not quite, romantic. It’s as if he keeps missing his marks. When she is injected with a compound intended to make her irresistible, he is one of the few men who does not bother her, and is the only one of those who is heterosexual. He explains that the compound didn’t seem to work on him, as he was already there.

Tripp Tucker

Later Hoshi

They are forcibly paired up in Together, but they are the only couple who, truly, start off in a non-hostile manner. Instead, they vow to “make the most of it”. The dance – literally – between them moves from fooling around to, eventually, a declaration of love on Tripp’s part, which Hoshi does not reciprocate. Unknowingly and unintentionally, she breaks his heart in her efforts to stay on the ship and remain able to work with everyone, including him and, presumably, T’Pol, his ex.

She is thoroughly unaware that he is still interested, even as they are heading into the time of the canon These Are the Voyages episode. Instead, she agrees to a date with José Torres. However, she might have a little residual jealousy, as I depict in Broken Seal. An anomaly hit briefly impairs her judgment, and she stages an elaborate prank against Commander Tucker. But it’s possible that some of that stems from Tucker’s attempt to reconcile with T’Pol, an attempt that, in keeping with canon, fails.

Theme Music

In Together, she has a theme of her own, Bette Midler’s Do You Wanna Dance? and one which she shares with Tripp, Joe Jackson’s Kinda Kute.

Mirror Universe

Because I write so much about the Empress Hoshi Sato, her mirror counterpart gets a separate blog post.

Quote

“Well, I suppose if I had a dinosaur, I’d sleep better, too.”

Upshot

The quintessential young career woman, Hoshi Sato, in some ways, was not taken far enough in the series, I feel. In part this is because this character lost screen time, in favor of Tucker and T’Pol. But there were ways that the character could have stretched more. I hope to get a chance to write some more about Hoshi, and stretch her in my own way.

Jul

2012

Review – Waiting

Waiting? For what, exactly?

Background

I wanted to follow up on The Light, and continue to follow the original characters who I introduced in that work. Hence, I wrote Waiting. It was also a response to a prompt of the same name.

Characters

At the end of The Light, Ethan Shapiro has just seen his friend, Andrew Miller, get the girl – Karin Bernstein. By all accounts, Ethan approves of the match and, certainly, has taken no steps to prevent it and has raised no objections. But all is not as it seems.

In addition, their friend Azar Hamidi has watched the exchange, a kind of little dance among the participants.

Together with Shelby Pike, they wait on the chow line as Lili O’Day serves dinner. Shelby notices Andy and Karin acting strange and, perhaps, overly anxiously. She sits down with Hoshi Sato and Maryam Haroun. Shelby comments knowingly that it’s likely Karin and Andrew’s third date. Hoshi agrees. Maryam doesn’t know what that means, so one of her friends whispers to her. Maryam, a little shocked, mentions that she won’t do that until she’s married. That is, this is going to be the date where Andrew and Karin go all the way.

When they have departed, Azar and Ethan commiserate. Azar notices that this bothers Ethan, but vows to keep the secret, so long as Ethan keeps his (Azar’s) own secret about harboring a bit of a crush on Maryam. For Azar, it would not be proper to go on dates until he was introduced to her family.

Religion

woman_in_hijab (Photo credit: xgthox)

As Shiite Muslims, Azar Hamidi and Maryam Haroun are of one sect. Another Muslim character, Ramih Azar, is Sunni (he is not in this story). But Maryam and Azar are the more religious two of the three Muslim crew members. The question of which sect is more observant is a complicated one, and I don’t pretend to answer it.

All I go with is that Maryam has lived in a Western city (Winnipeg) whereas Azar is from Iran. Ramih, on the other hand, is Indonesian. I settle the matter by making it so that Maryam wears a hijab and is very strict about who to marry and how far to go before marriage. In the E² stories, I reveal that she was only kissed twice before marriage, whereas Azar has had some sexual relationships. But for Azar during Waiting, all he wants to do is get closer. He may be thinking of other things, but is not prepared to push them at that moment in time.

As for Ethan, he is finding that he is very interested in Karin and, by allowing Andrew to get there first, he’s kicking himself. He’ll have to wait for everything to play out over time.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I think the story came out pretty well. I didn’t want to make it too clichéd in terms of who retains their virginity, who has a sense of shock, who is aggressive, etc. However, I also wanted to handle the diverse religious elements respectfully.

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Jun

2012

Review – Harvest

Harvest is one of those stories which starts off as minimal. But then context gives it meaning.

Background

Lili has to, at some point, join the NX-01. She is more or less drafted during the Star Trek: Enterprise canon Xindi war. She is to replace steward Preston Jennings. Lili also replaces an unnamed sous-chef and an equally unnamed pastry chef. Non-combat personnel really need to go.

I had already showed her being drafted in Voracious. Hence this would be a scene that would take place not too much later.

There were hints about this story, too, in He Stays a Stranger, where a far more mature Malcolm and Lili, in a shared dream, recall their first meeting –

[They] saw the day they had first met, a day near the start of the Xindi War, when Captain Jonathan Archer had brought a new sous-chef onto the NX-01 and introduced her to the senior staff as she served a Harvest Salad, her specialty from her old restaurant, Voracious. They shook hands and looked in each other’s eyes then, too, and Malcolm remembered he had thought that her eyes and hair were pretty and she had a lovely smile, and Lili remembered that she had thought he seemed very intelligent and well-mannered, not to mention a little cute.

The Set Up

Harvest Salad

For a new sous-chef on a starship, her first day had to involve making a meal. I also made sure to have the meal coincide with Major Jay Hayes‘s first day as well. That way, there could be the canon tension between him and Reed as an underlying part of the story.

Tripp Tucker‘s very recent bereavement was also part of the tale. As Lili is a chef, I also wanted to give a canon shout out to Hoshi‘s canon experimentation with cooking in the Singularity episode.

The meal is a Harvest Salad, one of Lili’s specialties.

The Meal

The captain and the senior staff wait as the chef and the new sous-chef are a bit late. Hence the captain makes use of the time to introduce the new MACO CO, as it’s also his first day. So there’s already a bit of tension between Hayes and Reed by the time Chef Slocum and Lili walk in.

Lili is nervous meeting new people and starting a new job. She fusses over the placement of the flatware. Then she forgets she’s still holding a teacup when she comes over for introductions. She drops it twice – once, when Phlox grins at her too widely. The second time is when she and Malcolm are chatting.

Because the salad contains various fruits and nuts, it can symbolize some of the disparate elements that are coming together. Lili spends some of this time asking various senior staffers what some of their favorite foods are. And she promises to give them portions with extras of their favorites. Malcolm’s canon love of pineapple, and Tripp’s canon love of pecan pie, both come out. Jay Hayes reveals a preference for blueberries. However, I don’t show Captain Archer’s preference for strawberries until Protocols.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is rated K.

Upshot

I like how it turned out; plus people liked it. The idea of Lili giving the senior staff a little taste (quite literally) of home, and promising to provide a little bit of comfort right at the start of the canon Star Trek: Enterprise Xindi war was an irresistible premise.

May

2012

Portrait of a Character – Andrew Miller

With Andrew Miller, who was originally part of The Light, I wanted a character who was half-Jewish and half-Christian (Presbyterian). Andy is also something of a foil and a romantic rival to Ethan Shapiro for Karin Bernstein‘s affections, and is a part of Waiting. Then later, in Fortune, as the results of that rivalry are finally shown.

Portrayal

Adrien Brodie as Andrew Miller (image is for educational purposes only)

My vision for Andy was of a somewhat tall, dark-haired Jewish guy, and so I hit upon the idea of Adrien Brody. I also liked the idea of Brody, given the very ethnic nose he’s got. So Andrew, even though he’s half and half, shows his Jewish roots rather plainly in his looks. I also liked the idea of him having something of a hangdog, mournful look to him. Andy, while a generally fun guy and a good friend, is perhaps a bit sad in his life.

Romance

While his actions in the The Light and Waiting show him as being the romantic partner of Karin Bernstein, things turn out somewhat differently for Andy. In Take Back the Night, he is dating Lucy Stone, the new Science Officer after T’Pol‘s departure. And in Fortune, he is still with her – and she is more of a true match for him. In the E² stories I am writing as of the posting of this blog entry, Lucy is not on the ship, so he instead ends up with Shelby Pike.

Quote

“You know we’ll stand with you, man.”

Mirror Universe

MU Andrew Miller (image is for educational purposes only)

Andrew’s life in the mirror is far tougher. In Temper, in both the primary timeline and in one of the alternates, he ends up with the Empress Hoshi Sato, and not necessarily fully willfully. In Fortune, Escape and The Point is Probably Moot, the consequences of a different romantic choice come to the fore. Here, he fathers Melissa Madden‘s son. Andy’s life does not end well in the mirror, but at least it’s on his own terms.

Career

As a mid-level Science Crewman, who eventually becomes an Ensign, Andrew works in the Biology Lab, a position somewhat similar to canon character Ethan Novakovich. In the E² stories, because they need an additional doctor, Andy trains to be a medic. His duties include delivering babies.

Upshot

Well-liked and upstanding, but a bit bratty at times, Andrew rises to the occasion when he must and, overall, does the right thing, in both universes.

Mar

2012

Portrait of a Character – Chandler (Chip) Masterson

Chandler Masterson’s name was, perhaps, the easiest part of him to come up with. He’s homage to Star Trek Deep Space Nine actress Chase Masterson.

It wasn’t until Together that I established that Chip’s real first name is Chandler and, yes, that’s a connection to the show Friends.

However, I didn’t see Matthew Perry in the role. Instead, I see Jason Bateman, mainly because of his work on Arrested Development, where he is the level-headed person amidst all the crazies.

Chip, in my fanfiction, is sometimes level-headed, but also willingly joins in with the silliness, often as a partner in crime with Aidan MacKenzie. Chip definitely has a silly side and, in Together, he even dreams of doing stand-up in a little club on Risa.

On the NX-01

Chip starts off in Tactical, which is where he gets to know Aidan. However, by the time of Together, he has transferred over to Communications. He acknowledges that he is a natural gabber and better suited at connecting people as opposed to blowing stuff up. Like Aidan, he’s an Ensign.

Movie Night

As the person with probably the best appreciation of the arts on the Enterprise, Chip picks the movies. He has eclectic taste, serving up everything from Stalag 17 to Dirty Dancing. In Broken Seal, he and Aidan, who acts as the projectionist, are even blamed for the problems with The Seventh Seal.

He also conducts a little discussion afterwards. Attendance is spotty at best. In Intolerance, for Dirty Dancing, he talks about the soundtrack, which is a mix of 1960s and 1980s music, and has the attendees try to guess which decade a particular song came from.

Relationships

Chip and Aidan are not only friends, they are also roommates. Chip also appreciates Hoshi Sato as his boss. In the E² stories I am currently writing, he also helps to train and accommodate the newest member of the Communications team, Crewman Maryam Haroun. Because Maryam is a Muslim and needs to pray several times per day, Chip’s night shift sometimes starts early or can end late, so that he can cover when Maryam is praying.

In Together, Chandler helps Deborah Haddon pick up the pieces and they begin dating. By the time of Temper, she’s proposed to him, and they are married by the time of Fortune. During the initial celebration of the first child born to a crew member becoming a parent, he begins to thank the captain who corrects him and instead tells him that the celebration is for Malcolm.

Quote

“So this Klingon, an Andorian and a Vulcan walk into a bar. And the Klingon’s a male, super-tall. And he’s completely buck naked, except for a strategically placed piece of string to which there’s attached this note. So the bartender gets curious and he reads the note, which says …”

I’ve never finished the joke. Have at it in the Comments section if you’d like to write a punch line for Chip’s joke.

Mirror Universe

Chip in the MU has a lot more on his mind, and has no time for antics. He never switches over to Communications, and instead is promoted to run Tactical at the end of Reversal (his start in Tactical is shown in Paving Stones Made From Good Intentions). He also runs Game Night, intended to be the counterpart to Movie Night. Chandler takes bets like a bookie (betting in the MU is canon) and collects like a loan shark.

Because he loses Deborah, he ends up, eventually, as one of the Empress’s conquests. Chandler fathers her twins, Takara (the only girl) and Takeo. All of the Empress’s children have meaningful names. Takara means treasure while Takeo means warrior. These are her fourth and fifth eldest of the six total children, and are being raised to be as bratty as the others, as is shown in Coveted Commodity. In Temper, with its three separate alternative timelines, Chip’s fate differs. The only constants are Science Officer Lucy Stone, and his two children with the Empress. Fortune follows Chip to his later life, and He Stays a Stranger to a much later time in his life. As one of the only halfway decent people in the Mirror Universe, Chip represents a bit of hope in that wasted landscape.

Upshot

Portrait of a Character – Chandler (Chip) Masterson

Jason Bateman (mirror Chip)

Traveling the stars is serious business, and the Xindi and Romulan Wars were no laughing matter. But the crew always needed a release from unrelenting problems. Without someone like Chip, life on the NX-01 would be so much tougher. Even the crew of the Enterprise needs a little whimsy in their lives, and for that, Chandler is your man.

Feb

2012

Review – Brown

Brown adds to the Reversal story.

Background

I wrote Brown in response to a weekly free write challenge on Ad Astra where the subject was pests.

I had established a rodent infestation on the Defiant in Reversal, and had originally intended for the mice to be a bit of comic relief (after all, the Star Trek Mirror Universe can, at least in my fan fiction, be overwhelmingly negative and dark), but they took on lives of their own and became more of a symbol for the chaos and inattention to detail that I’ve laced the MU with.

Terran Empress Hoshi

The Empress Hoshi Sato‘s sleeping around is partly, canon, partly my own doing. I envision her as a bit like Livia in Suetonius, who has unparalleled ambition for her offspring. But for Hoshi, it’s also a matter of survival. She seduces the upper-level men on the Defiant, has a child with them and, if they have even a shred of decency, they will work to at least ensure the survival of their own child.

Synergy

The story put the two concepts together as Hoshi is followed not too long after the end of the events depicted in Reversal, and she is pregnant by Aidan. But she’s not the only pregnant female aboard, as she has found.

I have experienced mice infestations, and they can get rather bold. There’s also a feeling of invasion, where it seems a bit like your home is no longer your own. For Hoshi, the mice also symbolize a breakdown in authority. All she wants is for the mice to be gone, and they just seem to be multiplying. For Aidan and Chip, shown here a little bit like two partners in crime – which is a role they often fall into in the Prime Universe – the presence of the mice symbolizes a bit of subversion. It’s a small victory for them to see Hoshi squirm.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is rated K but there are some fairly adult concepts in there.

Upshot

The Queen of the Mice

I like how it turned out, and I particularly like the economy of words.

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Sekar Khan

Takashi Kimura

Ted Stone

Tripp Tucker

Theme Music

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

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Review – Waiting

Background

Characters

Religion

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Harvest

Background

The Set Up

The Meal

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Andrew Miller

Portrayal

Romance

Quote

Mirror Universe

Career

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Chandler (Chip) Masterson

On the NX-01

Movie Night

Relationships

Quote

Mirror Universe

Upshot

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Review – Brown

Background

Synergy

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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