Star Trek: The Original Series

30
Jun
2014

Blogging Community (Trek)

Blogging Community (Trek)

As a part of Blog Like a Boss week, I wanted to comment a bit on the blogging community we have here, at both Ad Astra and also how it branches out a bit.

Keeping Up With the Bloggers

Blogging Community (Trek)

A dirty little not so secret bit of information is that there are a ton of abandoned or semi-abandoned blogs out there.

Hence I decided to showcase blogs which have at least one post in calendar year 2014. Fortunately, there were quite a few.

Been There, Geek’d That

Rogue Jawa is fairly new to the blogging community.  I like his attitude and his direct way of confronting the oddities that we often find in the Star Trek fandom. It may be a big tent, but there’s always going to be some sort of odd squabbling. He takes it on, head on.

Ramblin’ & Writin’

When SL Watson gets cooking, her blog can get very active. I know she’s been writing in the Supernatural fandom; I’d love to see her back blogging and back writing Trek but I know that blogs are the kinds of writing that are often set aside for a while. Plus sometimes, you just get into a fandom and it kinda swallows you. No sweat. It’ll still be here.

Full Speed Ahead

I really love how MD Garcia has put this blog together. It’s visually stunning and stuffed full of all sorts of interesting tidbits about process, characters, scene setting, and more.

FalseBill’s Blog

FalseBill keeps up with blogging well, and his content is often tongue in cheek but never stale. Much like at Full Speed Ahead, the blog is pretty to look at, and covers a wide spectrum of writing, including original content only found on the blog.

Trekiverse

Truth is, Trekiverse is a different animal, as it is the home of more than one blogger and is intended to support the Trekiverse site.  That site is an archive of much older Star Trek fanfiction, coming from the newsgroups alt.startrek.creative, alt.startrek.creative.all-ages, and alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated, and/or directly submitted. Great to see a new home for these old favorites!

zeusfluff’s Star Trek: TNG Fanfiction and Prompts Blog

Another new blogger, zeusfluff has jumped in without fear. This blogger is doing a great job with cross-promotions, which is (shh, don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret!) one of the points behind these blogs.

The Farthest Star

JayLR’s blog is mainly about Star Trek: Swiftfire, but he’s taken to answering some of our older blog prompts.  It’s neat to see a new take on an older prompt. And that reminds me: I need to come up with some fresh prompts!

Miranda Fave’s Meanders

MF’s blog is another visual stunner, just lovely and filled with great images. What I also like about his blog is how he gets into his posts. They aren’t quickies; they’re well thought-out. He’s also a thoughtful reviewer, and that shows in his blogging.

Boldly Reading

No tour of our personal Trek Blogiverse would be complete without a glance at Boldly Reading, which is our book club’s blog.

Blogging Community (Trek)

Miranda Fave and I have tried to make it visually appealing and keep it fresh.

We’re taking this summer off, though, so that we can turn our attentions more fully to the 2014 version of the Twelve Trials of Triskelion. Plus I’ve got schoolwork.

Fan Fiction Archive Blog

Every other week, I write a blog roundup post, to cover all of the above bloggers. Furthermore, I’ve been promoting the 2014 version of the Twelve Trials of Triskelion.  Fortunately, finding up to date content has been pretty easy this summer.

Whither Our Other Blogs?

There are a number of blogs that have gathered a bit of dust. And so I exhort you, fellow bloggers! Blow that dust off! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Or, something like that.

I love blogging, and I love reading others’ blogs in the blogging community. ‘Nuff said.

Posted by jespah in Meta, 7 comments
31
Jul
2013

What Do I Like to Read?

What do I like to read?

As a part of The Twelve Trials of Triskelion, the program is coming to an end, but we on Ad Astra are looking to keep it up. As a result, we’re looking to expand blogging. And now there’s a new book club, called Boldly Reading, with its own blog!

So – the first prompt is – what do you like to read? what fanfic story type/era/character and heck even name an author here you gush over do you like to read?

And so I’m thinking.

Challenges

While I love the Star Trek Enterprise and The Original Series eras, that doesn’t necessarily define what I read. More often, I go looking for a good story, and then whether it fits into my own personal era preference doesn’t truly factor into it. Good stories are good stories.

I also have great respect for people who put themselves out there for the challenges, in particular, the monthly challenges. For newer authors in particular, it has got to be daunting. It presents the old what if they don’t like me? fear that I suspect all authors have inside us.

Once I’ve read a challenger (even if they don’t win, and even if I didn’t love their story), I try to look at more of their works. Sometimes people are just off, and one story didn’t hit its marks but that doesn’t mean that others won’t. But if I have disappointment enough times, I’m done. That is, unless it’s for a monthly challenge. And I can’t honestly say exactly when that moment occurs, but I know it when I see it. Then I’ll read all of the entries because I don’t think I can vote in good conscience without reading all of that month’s entries.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to love the author who has disappointed me. Unfairly or not, that person now has more of a hurdle to climb over in order to get my love. But it’s not an impossible hurdle.

Characterizations

For authors not involved in monthly challenges, I am looking for good characters. I love action sequences, but the truth is, they’re hard to write. Sometimes what you’re thinking of just does not translate well to pixels. But characters can. Someone who is not a Mary Sue. And someone who doesn’t just get a description in some huge data dump. It’s as if the author were picking the character out from a police lineup. Someone who I can hate or love or be repulsed by or laugh with or at or want to hug or kick. Someone who stays with me.

Give it up for Templar Sora!

One author whose works I have loved pretty much from the beginning has been Templar Sora.

Star Trek Online read

Star Trek Online (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two of his characters I have particularly enjoyed are Jessica St. Peter and Seymour Sonia. Jess is an unlikely leader. She’s a person thrust into the role when everyone around her falls down on the job. Or they are too scared or damaged or inexperienced to step in. And, as a young leader, she deals with something that a lot of young leaders in fan fiction never seem to have to deal with – insubordination by people who think she should not have her place.

Enter Seymour Sonia, the consummate jerk. Everything from hitting on Jess (before she gets a command) to openly being hostile to her, he’s a fun character to despise. The beauty of this character is his passive-aggressive nature. I have found that often jerk characters are written as utterly one-dimensional, as authors might feel they have to stack their decks. After all, who could possibly hate a Starfleeter?

Try me.

Upshot

I love a lot of what I’m reading. But to really hit the stratosphere, give me a character where all I want to do when I see him in a scene is yell, “Bite me!”

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 4 comments
14
Sep
2012

Recurrent Themes – Engineers

Recurrent Themes – Engineers

Engineers make everything go.

Background

While watching Star Trek: Enterprise (and The Original Series and the other series, but particularly Enterprise), I was struck by how together and cute and all of that Tripp Tucker is.

And that is just not my experience of most engineers.

This is not an insult and I hope it is not taken that way. Rather, most of the engineers I have known have been shy and withdrawn people, far more comfortable with engines, wrenches, etc. than people. Scotty is much more of the epitome of a true engineer to me, and Geordi is pretty close as well. But Tucker, to my mind, is a bit too well-socialized, as is Miles O’Brien.

Appearances

engineers

NX-01 Main Engineering

Of course Tucker is canon so he’s is a lot of my writings. But I do try to write him with angst (Together, Temper, and Fortune) or at least a feeling that he’d rather look at an engine than talk or think about something more esoteric, like politics (Intolerance).

As for Geordi and Scotty, I try to give them different degrees of depth. Both of them have  romances or at least the promise of romance in my fiction. In Crackerjack, Geordi finds he’s falling for Rosemary Parker, but because of the time difference, it can never be. Scotty has somewhat better luck with M’Ress in Milk. As for Miles, he’s a family man. But he’s got a certain other talent, as demonstrated in You Make Me Want to Scream.

Other engineers and engineering students, because I made them, fare somewhat differently.

Judy Kelly and Michael Rostov

These canon characters marry in my E2 stories.

Bron

This Gorn character reveals he is an engineering student in Truth. He describes a good career ahead of him as a civil engineer, where he can provide for Sophra and, hopefully, win over her parents.

Levi Cavendish

This odd genius is misunderstand by nearly everyone but Otra D’Angelo.

Freela

In Wider Than the Sargasso Sea, this Klingon character is disappointed that a Breen is working in an engineering office where she had hoped to get an internship, and shows some prejudice when she tells Gabrielle Nolan that she has to cross that firm off her list if a Breen is working there. Like Bron, she is studying civil engineering, but she’s further along in her studies than he is.

Josh Rosen

This crewman only works in engineering in our universe (The Light) and is revealed to be in Security in the Mirror Universe in Temper. It’s unclear what his actual duties are.

José Torres

This character is an engineer in only our universe but not the mirror (Reversal), where he’s a security crewman. In our universe, he starts off as third in Engineering, behind Tucker and Crossman. A lot of his work involves monitoring the warp containment field, plus he often runs the transporter. In the E2 stories, he does all sorts of odd tasks, including building an ultrasound machine.

Jennifer Crossman

In both universes, Jennifer starts out as the secondary in engineering, right behind Tucker. On the Defiant, it’s likely that she worked the night shift at least part of the time, which may have been how she at least initially hooked up with Aidan MacKenzie.

Frank Ramirez

So as a corollary to the characters who are only engineers in our universe, Frank is only an engineer in the mirror (here, he’s a planetary geologist). Eventually, in The Point is Probably Moot, he rises to the level of First Officer of the Defiant, when Andrew Miller commits suicide (Escape).

Kevin O’Connor

Kevin is the Chief Engineer for the Temporal Integrity Commission (Temper, The Point, etc.). He’s a lumbering beast of a man and is part-Gorn, tipping the scales at nearly a quarter of a metric ton.

Deirdre Katzman

Deirdre is Kevin’s young protegée and enjoys old time travel fiction, so she names the time ships (HG Wells, Audrey Niffenegger, Jack Finney, etc.). See A Long, Long Time Ago.

Von

This Ferengi engineer works mostly on an older style ship called the Penar (The Point is Probably Moot).

Yilta

This Calafan engineer is Kevin O’Connor’s love interest and works on Calafan time ships like The Light of Lo.

Makan Sinthasomphone

This engineer works on temporal mechanics for Section 31 in a forerunner to the Temporal Integrity Commission.

Upshot

They keep it all together, and they keep it running like a top. Without engineers, there really couldn’t be any Star Trek at all.

Posted by jespah in Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Interphases series, Themes, Times of the HG Wells series, 2 comments