Star Trek

May

2014

Portrait of a Character – Phlox

Phlox is a great character.

Origins

This Star Trek: Enterprise canon character is one of two alien members of the NX-01‘s crew (the other is the Vulcan, T’Pol). The Denobulan species is a creation specifically for ENT.

Portrayal

As in canon, Phlox is played by John Billingsley.

The actor is well-cast and it’s hard to think of anyone else in the role. Much like Leonard Nimoy and Vulcans, Billingsley essential defines what it means to be a Denobulan.

Personality

Personable, cheerful, and kind, Phlox is also, at times, a bit baffled by humans. For starters, at the beginning of the series, he can’t quite figure out the idea behind pets.

Relationships

Feezal

Feezal

This canon relationship is with his second wife, of three. There are no canon names for other two. I’ve never written her except in the context of Phlox missing her after the Enterprise goes back in time, during E².

Amanda Cole

Also canon, in the E² episode, Phlox and Amanda get together, a scene that I show in both Entanglements and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

Mirror Universe

This character exists in canon.

Mirror Phlox

At the end of the pair of canon ENT Mirror Universe episodes, his fate is unknown. But I figure his days are numbered. Hence, in Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses, I have Empress Hoshi order his death. When Beth Cutler is given two syringes, one with the proven fast nerve toxin, tricoulamine, and the other with replicated orange juice, the Science technician knows that both shots will kill whoever receives them. But she hesitates until Hoshi tells her that she’ll be next if she takes any longer. The choice is to inject either Phlox, or Ian Reed, Malcolm‘s counterpart. With a small sympathy to her fellow Terran, Beth gives Ian the proven fast killing agent. Therefore Phlox, unfortunately, suffers at the end.

Quote

“Your mating rituals do fascinate me. Always a complicated minuet of sorts. Mind if I observe?”

Upshot

I don’t write Phlox that much, except in the context of E² stories and Intolerance. Part of that is to pave the way for other physician characters, such as Blair Claymore, Pamela Hudson, and Cyril Morgan. It’s also because, until Reflections Down a Corridor, I wasn’t really all that comfortable writing him. He’s absent from a lot of my main timeline, and nearly all of my Mirror Universe timeline. Will he return? Yes, although many storylines shut him out completely.

May

2014

Review – The Best Things Come in Pairs

Pairs? Yes.

Background

They can refer to playing cards and couples, and this little story touches on both as a play on words and for a little bit of humor. In response to a Star Trek fan fiction prompt about losing, I wanted to write a story about a losing poker hand that, instead, ends up being a winner. Hence the plot.

Plot

It is maybe a year after the end of Fortune, and Treve takes Pamela home after a date. They have been going out for a good year. She has been a bit pushy about getting physical, but he has been pulling back. As of the time of Saturn Rise, they have exchanged ‘I love yous’.

This is the first time that Treve has actually gone into Pamela’s new apartment on Lafa II. She has immigrated there, partly to be near her elderly uncle, Doctor Cyril Morgan, and partly to be near Treve.

So they are a little drunk, and there are playing cards on the table. Hence Pamela suggests a game of strip poker. Since Treve has no real idea of how to play, she feigns losing and, as a result, gets her man. Treve certainly does not object to this!

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

So this little short story is meant to be a little silly, maybe, and a little amusing. Plus it segues rather neatly into Complications. A touch of happy ending mixed with some humor? Then sign me up.

Apr

2014

Progress Report – April 2014

April 2014 saw a lot of expansion.

Posted Works

First of all, on Wattpad, I began to introduce that readership to In Between Days, and posted a set of prequels I called Before Days. I added Concord and then began to post Conversations With Heroes.

On the G & T Show Forums, I finished posting Intolerance. I then posted The Cure is Worse Than the Disease.

In addition, on Fanfiction.net, I posted Confidence and then hit the E² time period and began to post Reflections Down a Corridor. I imported Confidence to Fictionpad.

Plus I added Coffee as a drabble, to Ad Astra. In response to my own prompt about innocence, I posted a story about Skrol and Tr’Dorna, Losin’ It.

Milestones

Revved Up made it to over 14,700 reads! With over 165 comments, it is now my most-reviewed story, ever. Shake Your Body, Reflections Down a Corridor and Crackerjack all exceeded 5,000 reads on one URL. A Long, Long Time Ago exceeded 10,000 combined reads. Intolerance exceeded 20,000 combined reads!

See the Stats page for individual read and review counts.

WIP Corner

I wrote some more of The Obolonk Murders, a wholly original story, and transcribed quite a bit of it into Word.

Prep Work

I finished optimizing all of the posts and pages of this blog. This was somewhat slow going as there are a lot of posts! I was also rewriting, interlinking more, updating images, retagging, and otherwise improving the older posts as much as possible.

Also, I improved the look of the site, trying new things, adding images, changing keywords, and otherwise attempting to optimize it.

I have started to move the as-yet unreleased posts to HootSuite rather than SocialOomph as there are more tracking options on the former.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

Once again, I had a ton of school work at Quinnipiac University.

The semester was winding down and so my class partner and I spent time on our final project as it was about 30% of our final grades.

You can find me on Google+.

Apr

2014

Review – An Announcement

An announcement to the family – a big one.

Background

Norri (Red)

This was a Star Trek fanfiction prompt about family. Rather than have Leonora come out, I decided to instead have her announce that she had met someone special. That person is Melissa Madden. Leonora is, of course, happy.

Plot

Catherine Bell as Melissa Madden (image is for educational purposes only)

In Fortune, I had rather vaguely established how the two women had met (and then more detail is offered in Red, which was written much later), but not the aftermath.

This was a good chance to show that scene, particularly since I already had a bit of background of Norri’s father disapproving to some extent. While Dino isn’t necessarily homophobic (albeit some people read him that way), the way I see him is that he’s a bit huffy that his little girl is growing up perhaps a bit too fast. After all, her brothers, Alex and Phil, have not yet declared their love for anyone. So this statement of hers changes everything and upends his world a bit.

Hence I feel it is more that Dino is a bit blindsided by the declaration. Belinda, his wife, sets him straight, and the story ends with a promise to have Melissa over, and soon, so that she can meet the family. There is even a brief reference to her brother Phil’s violin playing, another shout out to Fortune.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

In particular, to get Norri in front of more readers, I think the little story works pretty well. At some point, I’ll write their first dinner together, I imagine.

Apr

2014

Spotlight on Original Nonsentient Species – Perrazin

Spotlight on an Original Nonsentient Species – Perrazin

Perrazin were almost an afterthought originally.

Background

As I wrote the In Between Days series, it became necessary to create nonsentient food animals for the Calafans. Furthermore, I had already established that both Doug and Melissa enjoy hunting, partly for sport, but mainly for food. In Together, I briefly mention perrazin and described them as big, blond buffalo. By the time of Temper, I wanted to start that book with a hunting scene, so it was time to show perrazin.

Origins

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Highland cattle | Perrazin

Perrazin (these animals are actually Highland cattle)

When I first came up with the idea, this absolutely was what I was thinking of. These animals are actually Highland Cattle.

Imagine them with tusks and you’ve got perrazin (puh-RAH-zen).

Omnivorous and nasty, perrazin will graze and will eat olowa much of the time. But if the opportunity presents itself, they will also eat linfep. Prickly and unpredictable, they will charge at anything they find strange. And, as Doug says while hunting them with a phase bow, they find a lot of things to be strange.

They graze and hunt in packs, almost like a cross between cattle and wolves. During the hunt, it’s also revealed that they’re rather lazy hunters, preferring that a meal simply fall into their metaphoric laps. When presented with the opportunity, they can also be cannibals, a fact that shocks Melissa.

They also, according to Lili, taste like a cross between beef and pork. She jokes to Naurr, in Dear Naurr, Dear Lili, that she’s practically eating one all by herself during her pregnancy with Joss.

Upshot

Every culture and every society needs animals. Often, in canon, animals were overlooked when planets were explored. It seemed as if most places were animal-free! And that’s just not reality here, and I seriously doubt it would be the case on any planet where we find life.

I feel that there will always be diversity, and there will be animals that maybe don’t look like this, but they might fill similar niches. Viva perrazin!

Apr

2014

Review – Half

Half works as a play on words.

In response to an Andorian Week on the Star Trek Logs site, I decided to do a short story on a teenaged Talla. Talla is a canon character, the daughter of Shran and Jhamel.

Plot

Shran with Talla as a young girl

In keeping with canon, I decided that the pirates from the abysmal These Are the Voyages episode would be back, and they would again be looking for the Teneebian amethyst. Furthermore, Talla is, in canon, a half-breed, and her pea green-colored skin would give that away immediately. Shran, in canon, often referred to Jonathan Archer as a ‘pink skin’.

I extrapolated this to mean that Andorian society would be accepting of this kind of casual racial prejudice. Therefore, Talla suffers persecution by her classmates, for the color of her skin. In order to try to tell them off, she claims that they still have the amethyst. This gets Shran back into trouble.

Trouble

Barking Up The Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Aenar | Shran | Jhamel | Talla | Half

Aenar and Andorian, Shran and Jhamel

Forced back into hiding, Shran bids farewell to his family and seeks refuge on Malcolm‘s ship, the USS Bluebird.

And then Malcolm, along with his crew, including Ethan Shapiro, comes up with a plan to get rid of the pirates, once and for all. Inadvertently, his solution also presents a solution for Shran, Talla, and Jhamel, and the problem of their mixed marriage fitting in, in Andorian society.

The story dovetails well with later Emergence stories, Fortune, and even the E² timeline.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I meant the story to be a bit of fluff, and that’s about all that it is. I think I accomplished what I set out to do. However, the bar wasn’t exactly set that high.

Apr

2014

Review – Take Back the Night

Take Back the Night!

Take Back the Night Background

Once The Cure is Worse Than the Disease was posted, readers began asking me about a sequel. Nobody wanted to leave it the way it had been left, which was with Doctor An Nguyen becoming disillusioned and the Daranaeans left to their own devices and sexist ways, with lip service being paid to the Prime Directive.

I decided I wanted a small piece of a revolution, and so I got an idea. There would be an injustice, and the women would rise up.

Plot

The real Take Back the Night movement is about women holding forth against violence against women, including rape, particularly date rape.

For the Daranaean, the elder Inta, this would be a form of marital rape that would spark the powder keg of a plot. I had already established that third caste women had no right to refuse sexual relations, and so the beginning is her refusing to sleep with her husband, Arnis. In fact, the first word of the story is simply her saying, “No!”

That is the only word she says in the entire piece. And in fact, that is the only word I have from her. Yet it is enough.

Violence

For her refusal, she is hit, hard, and she falls to the floor, hitting her head. This causes her death and, just as importantly, the death of her unborn fetus.

While her death is not actionable, the first legal question is whether the death of the unborn child is. This is, of course, distasteful to most of us, but I figure that alien cultures may very well have rather alien ideas about justice and mercy.

Take Back the Night

As the story unfolds, someone other than Arnis gets the blame. Hence the Cochrane and the Columbia both play a part in helping that person be exonerated. And they also help in having the real killer charged with the crime.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K+.

Upshot

I think this is one of the better stories I have written, as the action moves from Daranaean home to both starships, a space battle, and eventually a courtroom and even the Beta Council chamber on Daranaea. Perhaps the best part about the story is that, while it resolves the immediate issue, it doesn’t fix all of the Daranaeans’ problems overnight. There’s plenty more story fodder, and many injustices remain. But at least there are a few less of them. I’m very proud of this story.

Mar

2014

Portrait of a Character – Dave Constantine

Dave Constantine has been through a few changes.

Origins

For Frank Todd to have a boyfriend in Star Trek fanfiction, there had to be someone. I liked the idea of some contrast between the tough MACO and the object of his affections. While Dave was originally also a MACO, I later made him a stellar cartographer.

Portrayal

I see Jason Patric in this role. I like the actor’s look but he’s also had a rough life (this is of course an image of him when he was rather young).

Jason Patrick as Dave Constantine (image is for educational purposes only)

But, in real life, Patric has had a hard time of it, having to sue for parental rights to his own child. I see him as melancholy and, for real, I gotta figure he must be.

Personality

Dave is one of the gay crew members on the NX-01. A bit bookish and sensitive, he’s a foil for Frank Todd, his great love. Frank reports that Dave can be rather lovesick at times.

Relationships

Frank Todd

In the prime timeline, Frank and Dave get together in Detached Curiosity and Idle Speculation, where they talk about the E² timeline and the fact that they had ended up together. In The Way to a Man’s Heart, Frank asks Lili to make a special dessert for Dave. Lili bakes a blueberry pie, recalling that Dave enjoys blueberries. By the time of There’s Something About Hoshi, their relationship is in full swing. However, by the time of Shell Shock, Frank’s alibi is that he’s at a gay bar during the time the crime occurs. Is he with Dave? It’s not specific, but he probably isn’t. Does that mean their relationship came to an end? I’m not really sure, myself.

In the E² timeline, they get together after Frank rather loudly and angrily comes out, during the events outlined in Entanglements. During the second kick back in time, in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, they again take up with each other.

Mirror Universe

Dave gets a brief shoutout, as a professional catcher, in The Play at the Plate.

Jason Patrick as Dave Constantine (image is for educational purposes only)

As a mirror baseball player, much like Joss Beckett during the alternate timeline events of Temper, being a professional ball player means he can usually get out of killing people in order to get ahead in life.

Quote

“I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate what you said.”

Upshot

Gentle and caring, yet fiercely proud, I want to explore Dave as a character as much as Frank has been explored. He’ll be back, by himself and with his great love.

Mar

2014

Recurrent Themes – Blueberries

Why blueberries in Star Trek fanfiction?

A part of it is the visual appeal. There is no question that they are a pretty presentation on any plate. But then I started putting them into all sorts of places in my fiction.

They just have the right sort of appeal as a food that many people enjoy and can relate to. Everybody knows what a blueberry looks like, and what it tastes like. It is a way for space adventures to gain some down to Earth appeal.

Appearances

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Blueberry Pie | Blueberries

Lili’s Blueberry Pie

Jay Hayes and Dave Constantine in particular are blueberry fans.

Lili gets this information out of Jay when she first meets him during the events of Harvest. As a result, blueberries figure thematically throughout the time they know one another. With Dave, she learns of his preference during The Way to a Man’s Heart. By making Dave a blueberry pie, it reminds her of Jay.

During the E² stories, Lili is constantly putting the blueberry jam jar in front of Jay. He sometimes notices, sometimes he doesn’t. This detail thereby serves as a subtle reminder of how much she likes him. She is paying attention, even to that. In addition, in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, she feeds him his last meal before he goes to rescue Hoshi (and, in Star Trek: Enterprise canon, he’s killed). The last thing he eats is a handful of blueberries that Lili gives him, right before she hugs him and tells him to be careful.

Blueberries show up briefly in Saturn Rise and Fortune, too.

Upshot

Beautiful and sweet, blueberries, to me, symbolize not only simplicity and

wholesomeness, but also a means by which people can safely connect.

After all, or at least it seems this way, doesn’t everybody like blueberries?

Mar

2014

Portrait of a Character – Tristan Curtis

Tristan Curtis has problems in all timelines and universes, it seems.

Origins

Tristan originally arrived in Temper (I named him Craig, and then I wanted that first name for Craig Willets), and in the Mirror Universe, as a garden-variety bad guy.

Portrayal

I see the actor Johnny Galecki for Tristan Curtis.

I like this smart, likable comedic actor who can also play sensitive. Also, I think it’d be a kick to see him in a not so nice role.

Further, I like the idea of someone who seems harmless to be a Security crewman and, inevitably, a pretty awful guy in some scenarios.

Personality

Prickly and a bit off, Tristan is quite the outsider. In the E² stories, he is out of the genetics sweepstakes in the first kick back in time. He and Daniel Chang take out their frustrations in some horrible ways, particularly in The Three of Us. Because Tristan is something of a follower, it’s entirely possible that he was just following what Dan or Gary Hodgkins was doing. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, he understands what a horrible person he was. Given a chance to do better, he takes it.

In the prime timeline, he plays cards with Malcolm, Hoshi, and Sophie Creighton, in Cobbled Together, and hits on Sophie. In Shell Shock, he’s one of the accused. Much of the time, he works with Gary Hodgkins, and the two are friends.

Relationships

Sandra Sloane

During the second kick back in time, Sandra is somewhat bereft, as Brooks Haynem has died young. Because Tristan is looking for a better life for himself, he goes after Sandra, although she is often a rather mean person. They have a daughter who they name Penny (which is of course a shout-out to Galecki’s series, The Big Bang Theory). However, before Sandra’s death, they separate. After her death, it’s unclear whether Tristan gets into another relationship, although he probably does not, given the dearth of women on board.

Mirror Universe

In the Mirror, Tristan is a guard. Paired with Hodgkins, the two of them guard T’Pol when she’s in the brig, and then witness T’Pol’s death, in Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses. They also guard Empress Hoshi when she’s pregnant with Izo, in Coveted Commodity, and they try to listen in as Travis and Doctor Morgan discuss the baby’s condition.

In the alternate timelines set up in Temper, they die when José Torres crashes the ISS Luna into Malcolm‘s ship, the USS Bluebird. When the prime timeline is restored, they are executed for failing to prevent Chip Masterson from escaping to the surface of Lafa II with Lucy Stone and his children with the Empress, Takara and Takeo.

Quote

“We’re gonna die down here, Mayweather. Don’t shoot! We’re done here.”

Upshot

Even gentle-looking people can be monsters. They can be deadly, and they can be abusive. Tristan shows that. He has few chances, in my fiction, to be a good guy. I don’t think I’ll change that. I like him wicked.

Portrait of a Character – Phlox

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Feezal

Amanda Cole

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

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Review – The Best Things Come in Pairs

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Progress Report – April 2014

Posted Works

Milestones

WIP Corner

Prep Work

This Month’s Productivity Killers

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Review – An Announcement

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Spotlight on an Original Nonsentient Species – Perrazin

Background

Origins

Upshot

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Review – Half

Plot

Trouble

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Take Back the Night

Take Back the Night Background

Plot

Violence

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Dave Constantine

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Frank Todd

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

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Recurrent Themes – Blueberries

Appearances

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Tristan Curtis

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships