Star Trek

Aug

2013

Focus – Ikaarans in Star Trek Fan Fiction

Focus – Ikaarans

Ikaarans are canon.
A focus (unlike a spotlight) is an in-depth look at a Star Trek fanfiction canon item and my twist(s) on it.

Of course, all of fan fiction is like that, but the idea here is to provide a window into how a single canon concept can be used in fan fiction.

Background

With almost nothing to go on, Ikaarans were ripe for reinvention. The only person of even partial Ikaaran blood who is ever seen in canon is Karyn Archer.

Part-Ikaaran, part-human Karyn Archer

The only alien characteristic that can be seen is the rather pronounced ridge running from her forehead to her nose. Her nose is also wider than most humans’, although she might have had human ancestry providing that look. She also has crow’s feet, but those are more likely to be signs of aging and stress. Furthermore, she is apparently of Asian descent, which seems to indicate a kinship with Hoshi Sato or Dan Chang or any other Asian crew members rather than any Ikaaran features.

Language

Clicking languages have been around since prehistoric times and, genetically speaking, at least the peoples who speak them can be traced back a good 35,000 years. I believe it’s highly likely that, when we go into space, we’ll encounter click languages. In canon, the only such language is Xindi Insectoid, which appears to be a function of the shape of that alien race’s mouth parts.

For the Ikaarans, my idea is that they would be speaking in clicks by choice, rather than necessity. But they would speak names and, therefore, the intonation would be slower.

Culture

There is no information on Ikaaran culture so I created all of this. I decided to make their society completely against birth control, not even bothering to invent it. Therefore, their planet, Ikaaria, would have gross overpopulation. In order to alleviate the burdens of a huge population, two things would happen to their society.

First, they would send their young people out to work, in single-sex work gangs. They would farm or mine, mostly, as a form of community service to their race. These work groups would go out every four years during one festival, and would return in another. By staying offworld, they would not consume as many resources. Plus they would create or obtain more resources, and bring them back at the end of their work commitments. In addition, they would be separate from the other gender during peak fertility years.

The other means of controlling the population would be more sinister. Instead of birth control, their scientists would alter their genome. Hence, as a result, they would all have a kind of self-destruct sequence in their genes. They refer to the disease as the decline, and it is uniformly fatal, and kills Ikaarans before they turn 50. As a result, they don’t trust scientists much, and they don’t trust doctors. But they don’t need doctors.

Empathic Healing

Doctors are unnecessary because Ikaarans can heal themselves, and each other. They can heal members of other species, too, so long as the organs are more or less equivalent. In The Three of Us, the Ikaarans Jeris and Jobiram are able to heal Lili and Jay, but Jay has internal injuries that they cannot do anything about. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, a weapon is devised by the Imvari and the Xindi Insectoids, and that weapon is specifically designed to counteract Ikaaran empathic healing. When that weapon, which uses percussive shock, is used, the victim must be attended to very quickly for doctors to be able to do anything at all.

In The All-Stars, the team’s trainer is an Ikaaran. This therefore opens up the possibility of giving many on-field injuries more or less instant cures without rehabilitation. No more disabled list!

Romance and Family Life

Ikaarans are generally monogamous and enjoy humans’ company. The gift of a living thing is the equivalent of a marriage proposal. Ethan Shapiro gives Bithara a perfectly ripe orange as his proposal gift in The Three of Us. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Jonathan gives Esilia his dog, Daisy, as his proposal gift.

With the help of scientific information from Jobiram and Jeris, Phlox is able to perfect human-Ikaaran interbreeding, and hybrid children are born, including Karyn’s ancestor, Aaron Gregory Archer, named after Jonathan Archer‘s old friend, AG Robinson.

Upshot

This species could have been fascinating in canon, but they are never really seen and the viewers don’t get to really know anyone. As a tabula rasa, they’ve been a lot of fun to create. I’ll try to find other occasions to show them, in addition to the upcoming sports series.

The Ikaarans will be back.

Aug

2013

Self-Promotion

Yes, self-promotion matters!

This is in response to the Boldly Reading blog prompt #5.

Sell yourself. Sell your story.

The prompts to date have been of a more reflective nature. Asking you to pose questions of yourselves. Not an easy thing to do. However, I think this next prompt is a little harder to do. I want you to sell yourself. Sell your story. Sell your character.

This is a little opportunity to give yourself a little love. This is a chance to advertise a story of yours you have a soft great big proud spot for. To talk our arms off about a character or characters of yours that you positively gush over. Perhaps maybe you’ve a story that’s been missed over or a character not quite got by the readership. Well, here’s your opportunity to tell us about them in your words. Don’t worry about it being egotistical (cos I’m telling you to do it – so there’s no vanity of vanities going on). Don’t suggest another person’s story/character to write about (cos that will be a prompt down the line). Just write about a story/series/character of yours you want to shine a light on.

Love, Sex, Forever and the Afterworld

For Star Trek fan fiction, a truly irresistible scenario is ENT’s E² episode.

Lorian

In this canon story line, the NX-01shoots back in time to 2037, and the ship turns generational. In canon, Hoshi marries and has two children, Toru and Yoshiko. Phlox marries MACO Corporal Amanda Cole and they have nine children. Jonathan weds an Ikaaran woman named Esilia. Tripp and T’Pol wed and have a son, Lorian. Travis marries MACO J. McKenzie (I name her Julie). And Malcolm dies without offspring.

That’s Star Trek: Enterprise canon.

My Spin (and Self-Promotion)

Fairly recently, I wrote a series which encompasses this time period. I wanted to add an extra layer to it all. So there are actually two kick backs in time. One is, in some ways, happier than the other. But they both have their purposes.

Lili is of course present, as is Jay Hayes, who is not in the episode but naturally had to have been there. One group of secondary characters who make appearances are the characters from The Light, such as Karin Bernstein, Andy Miller, Josh Rosen, Ethan Shapiro and Azar Hamidi. Azar is given a love interest, Maryam Haroun, and a rival, the canon character R. Azar, who I have named Ramih.

Other secondary characters in the mix are Chip Masterson, Deb Haddon, Brian Delacroix, Craig Willets, Jenny Crossman, Aidan MacKenzie, Quartermaster Sekar Khan, MACO Frank Todd, David Constantine, José Torres, Chef Will Slocum, canon MACO Daniel Chang, Sandra Sloane, Shelby Pike, Gary Hodgkins, Tristan Curtis, semi-canon character Patti Socorro, Diana Jones, Meredith Porter, Rex Ryan and several others, enough to populate a ship with nearly ninety regular crew members. Time traveler Richard Daniels even makes a few appearances, as does Jay’s old girlfriend, Susan Cheshire.

Four Books

There are four books in total. The first of these is Reflections Down a Corridor. The crew begins to come to grips with the fact that they are never, ever going home again. People, tentatively, begin to explore each other. And the ship starts to commit to surviving in the Delphic Expanse. They obtain two planets, Amity and Paradise, and begin to hunt procul. But watch out for the malostrea! And, in addition to Xindi, the Enterprise also has to deal with a species from my own fiction, the Imvari.

The second book covers more of the many hookups and relationships, both positive and negative, that such a scenario generates. It also contains some rather disturbing scenes. It’s called Entanglements and is the shortest of the four pieces.

Three and Four

The third book, The Three of Us, continues the first kick back in time, as the uneven ratio between men and women begins to be better resolved. The Ikaarans are brought onto the ship. I have expanded their culture and physiology beyond the scraps from canon. There is one main triad that is the three people of the title. But, there are other groups of three that the reader should be looking for. And this is also where Lili’s dreaming starts to get interesting. Her subconscious fears are allayed by dreams of the not yet born Doug Beckett. Even more disturbing scenes pepper this story, and a reference in Multiverse II should be a bit clearer here.

The fourth and final book, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, brings the first kick back in time to 2154, as the second kick back occurs. And it then slips in more final pieces of the puzzle as the second kick back (as in canon) meets the people of the prime timeline. And, after Jay’s canon death, his will is read, and bequests are given. Because the beginning of Everybody Knows is quite rough on the characters, Lili is again comforted subconsciously. But this time her comforter is Malcolm’s counterpart, the as-yet unborn Ian Reed, a character seen in the story Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses. As in The Three of Us, disturbing sequences are placed within the story line, and readers of Multiverse II will recognize one character.

Why It’s Part of My Self-Promotion

It’s not just because it’s a labor of love, dense with characters and plot. I also like the message of it, the overall arcs, too. Depression gallops among the crew. People do bad things. And they also do very good ones, and I like to think that the characters are believable. I visit the below decks world over and over again, and not just from Lili’s perspective. Time passes, and when you’re not exploring, that time sometimes passes in odd ways. People say things about each other (or write them in log entries) that are cruel, or are kind, or are incomprehensible. Behavior is not always justified or understood. And that’s what real life is like.

More Self-Promotion

I have seen other fan fiction about this time period, and it is often extremely ‘shippy. I will admit that Entanglements in particular is pretty relationship-centric. But in some ways it has to be. Time is ticking and people have got to line up their ducks. And they do so in strange ways, some of which are more romantic than others. And they sometimes have Buyer’s Remorse as well.

I also wanted to give it some action outside of bedrooms. There are a few battles, and some nasty crimes, which have consequences and aftershocks. Not everyone comes off well. Sometimes silly things happen, too. Through it all, I present the message, that real love is forever, and it crosses every plane we can think of, and a lot that we haven’t. It’s hopefully loud and clear but not too heavy-handed.

I put a great deal of work into working out the plotting and giving the characters their due. It’s a bit of a cast of thousands or at least dozens. Personalities don’t always shine through as well as maybe they should. But I like to think that most of the characters are knowable, even if they aren’t sympathetic.

Upshot

There is a time commitment in reading this series, to be sure. But I hope that the reader feels rewarded at the end. And I hope that others will take a chance on it. I hope they’ll follow my self-promotion.

Aug

2013

Portrait of a Character – Kirin (Kira) Sato

Kirin has a changing destiny.

Origins

At the end of Reversal, Empress Hoshi is looking for a little brother for her son, Jun. But Jun’s father, Ritchie Daniels, is dead – or, at least, that’s what the Empress believes. Plus she wants a different father for her second-born. Her strategy is to have a lot of children, all from different fathers. This is to cement her partnerships with as many of the men on her senior staff as possible. Aidan MacKenzie is a more logical choice than might seem on the surface. He has just been disgraced and busted to babysitter. But he is someone who is going to harbor growing resentment. Therefore, she needs to shield herself somehow. Because Aidan could become a serious threat. Plus, despite his low status, Aidan is attractive; this justifies Hoshi’s interest in him.

In First Born, I make it clear that the existence of Jun is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which being that Kirin should have been the Empress’s sole successor. However, in order that Jun could be suffered to live, Kira must be subordinate. As a result, they rule jointly upon Hoshi’s death, as is indicated in Who Shall Wear the Robe and Crown?

Portrayal

Kira is played by Korean actor Kang-Ho Song.

Portrait of a Character – Kirin (Kira) Sato

Kang-Ho Song as Kira MacKenzie Sato

I like the actor’s look but admittedly I know very little about him. But I believe that Snow Piercer may be his first English film.

I like that he’s decent-looking but not knock-out handsome.

Personality

Tall, a bit awkward and smart, Kira is possibly the most sympathetic of the royal children in Temper. He cares about Marie Patrice, and is her choice. But she is also a social climber and so she flirts with Jun and also threatens to go to Takeo, not knowing that Takeo is gay. She sometimes mentions Arashi and Izo in that way, too. For her, love takes a back seat to what she can get out of a potential mate. Kira’s father has the lowest status on the ship, but at least he’s known, unlike Arashi’s sire. That status counts for a lot in Empy’s world. And so it matters to Kirin as well.

As a teenager, his name embarrasses him. It means dark, but he feels the -a ending sounds feminine. He wants everyone to call him Kirin instead, which means giraffe. In Temper, I reveal that giraffes are extinct in the Mirror Universe.

Relationships

Marie Patrice Beckett

Throughout Temper, Kira chases Empy, but Empy (mainly) resists. They have some moments together, and some heat. But when it comes time for her to consider losing her virginity, she tells him that she’d rather give it to Jun. For Marie Patrice, that’s a way to raise her status. However, by the time the first alternative timeline in the story ends, Kira is the only one who she says good-bye to, and they kiss their farewell.

According to Rick Daniels, Kira marries an unknown woman, but they never have children. Furthermore, Kira predeceases Jun. And so for a while Jun is the sole Emperor once the tandem relationship dissolves with Kira’s demise.

Theme Music

Kira’s own theme is the Fine Young Cannibals’ She Drives Me Crazy.

Prime Universe

It is impossible for Kira to have a Prime Universe counterpart, but his analogue is Declan Reed, as they are both essentially outsiders.

Quote

“Something’s happening. Not just this – but you – something’s happening with you.”

Upshot

This somewhat put-upon character is the most positive portrayal of all of the royal children in the alternate timelines in Temper. And in the prime timeline, even though he remains on the ship (rather than escaping, like Takara and Takeo do). And he is somewhat under the Empress’s influence. Yet he still turns out to be a fairly decent human being. In Bread, crew members say he’s a bit of a wimp, but in He Stays a Stranger, he is shown to have something of a heart. It’s possibly to have some sympathy for Kirin, a dark giraffe of a man.

Aug

2013

Scenes, Settings and World Building

World Building for Fan fiction

Does world building matter in fan fiction?

The fourth Boldly Reading blog prompt for Star Trek fanfiction asked the following questions –

For your fourth blog prompt I am going to ask you to consider the setting. I’ve written a post touching on this before where I find that settings/locations often shape a story. So tell me, how do you choose your settings – be it planet, ship, ship class, heck Trek era even? How does the setting shape your story? What world building lengths do you seek as a writer / as a reader? Do you like descriptions and to paint the scene or do you leave it to the imagination of the reader. However you choose to interpret this prompt, have at it.

A Sense of Place

The location of a story is, easily, just as vital as its characters. After all, the characters interact with it as much as they interact with each other. Do they duck their heads as they walk? Are they breathless because the locations are far-flung? Is it cold in there?

Sensory Perception

When we go to various places, we experience them in manners that are not purely visual. Hence I’d like to talk about five rather dissimilar story scenes in the context of the five senses.

Vision

Eriecho‘s life is a jumble of various visuals.

Compass

In Release, she goes from Canamar Prison to a transport and then, eventually, to a Martian Sanctuary. Putting together the look and feel of Canamar involved describing elliptical things, such as a reference to hanging up laundry, or her adoptive mother H’Shema’s fondness for the color green.

The sanctuary has its own visuals, like the temporary-style buildings that look like quonset huts, to the benches and rough-hewn tables at the community dinner (a reference back to the eating area when I attended a small summer camp in Maine in the 1970s).

The people are also indirectly described, including Colonel Shaw referring to a female Vulcan who looks like a runner and a guy with great teeth (her adoptive father, Saddik). The reader should get a sense of place and people, but not a perfect one. There’s still a little mystery. The characters still get a little privacy.

Sound

Shrapnel

In the Multiverse II storyline, the best use of sound is in a collaborative post with Templar Sora, called Spin.

Templar Sora’s character, Seymour Sonia, is injured, badly, the bones of his left arm shattered by an exploded grenade. He is pulled out of the war zone by the head of Resistance Cell #4, one Rita Spinelli.

Rita is tough and angry and more than a little damaged. But she needs good soldiers and, even with wounds, Sonia is probably a better bet than most others. She brings him to a small, rough cabin. And begins to remove the shrapnel from his arm.

Every now and then, as the two characters talk, the sounds clink or thunk punctuate their statements. The reader does not have to be told what’s going on, or at least not that much. Instead, the reader can almost hear it.

I write plenty of musical fiction, where character actions reflect song lyrics, but I believe that Spin gets across the sounds of an unfamiliar scene better than just about anything.

Smell

For Daranaeans, scent is so much more of an indicator of feminine attractiveness than anything else. So much so that the females are divided into three castes, and it’s based on smell rather than visuals.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Cria | World Building

Cria, a tween secondary female Daranaean

In Take Back the Night, the legendary beauty, Dratha, is described by the panting popular press as having an extraordinary aroma. They are far less concerned about what she says than about the air about her. This is in line with the overall sexism of the Emergence series – women are second-class citizens.

What’s their planet like? I like to think that it’s got a great deal of what we would call natural beauty. Part of that would be to promote Daranaean health (and the lower caste females practice some forms of folk medicine in The Cure is Worse Than the Disease and Flight of the Bluebird, so hedges and whatnot are necessary), but also for Daranaean comfort. I cannot see this world as having any sort of pollution – Daranaeans would notice.

Taste

Chicken soup

For Penicillin, the premise was, to me, irresistible. Major Hayes is sick, and he doesn’t want anyone to know. Lili, of course, figures it out when she hears him coughing. And so she vows to make him something that will help him feel a little better, and keep quiet about his minor illness, but extracts a return promise from him. He’s got to smile more.

The story ends with a spread of chicken soup (and vegetarian vegetable soup for the vegan characters) with all sorts of trimmings. Hayes is last in the chow line and thanks her for her thoughtfulness and discretion. I revisit this scene at the end of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, when Hayes wills her his lucky nickel, in payment for his outstanding chicken soup debt.

Touch

Touch can be thrilling, and it can also be awkward. For Treve and Pamela Hudson, in Complications, it’s both.

Touch

For their first time making love (which may very well be the first time that any human and Calafan ever had sex), Treve and Pamela become, well, there’s no good way to say this.

Stuck.

Without becoming pornographic, the reader gets inklings of this, as Pamela talks about normally getting up afterwards for various reasons, and Treve letting her know that it’s just not going to happen in this case. At least, not anytime soon.

The reader, again, does not need to have a perfectly clear picture painted in order to have an idea of what is going on.

Upshot

Where it all happens is as vital as when, and what happens, and who it happens to. Before even starting a fiction, the world building is one of the first things I think of. If I can’t work world building out to my satisfaction, I’ve found, that can often hamper my creative efforts considerably.

Location matters.

Aug

2013

IDIC and Crossovers

Crossovers and IDIC mean what to you?

This was Templar Sora’s great blog prompt. He asked two questions.

What kind of crossing over do we do as writers?
What kind of crossing over do we want to see?

My Own Crossovers

I’ve done the crossover dance many times. A lot of it is in the context of interphases.

A Single Step

So for A Single Step, a story about first contact with the Caitians, I pulled together elements from TAS, the Star Trek: First Contact film and even a smidgen of ENT. An elderly Zefram Cochrane and his wife entertain the first Caitian that any humans ever meet.

Another Piece of the Action

For this collaboration with thebluesman, we crossed together a bit of ENT (the Daniels character) with TOS. Kirk and company meet the Iotians again, in Another Piece of the Action.

Concord

Concord pulled together ENT and the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan film. Work on the Genesis Project sends Malcolm Reed back to 1775.

Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead cobbled together ENT with Wesley Crusher’s warp bubble experiment on TNG. Tripp Tucker ends up in 1945 Upper Bavaria.

Fortune

Lili and Q argue and eventually help each other in Fortune, a riff on VOY’s The Q and the Grey.

It’s a Small Universe After All

So for a weekly writing prompt about bringing together characters that would not normally be

Kaitaama

seen together, It’s a Small Universe After All.It is the story of ENT character Kaitaama being held hostage with TOS’s James T. Kirk.

More, More, More!

Daniels shows Jonathan Archer scenes from TOS’s The Cage, TOS’s The Corbomite Maneuver, and an unnamed TNG episode with Q in More, More, More!

Multiverse II

This enormous Round Robin story, Multiverse II, is a crossover by definition. Canon and original characters mix genres and eras.

These Are the Destinations

This work in progress will cross between ENT and a very specific TOS episode, and a little bit with the Kelvin timeline as well.

Crossovers I’d Like to See

So I’m not sure. I think one kind of crossover that I don’t want to see is anything relying too heavily on deus ex machina. That generally means anything with supernatural elements like vampires, or comic books. I don’t mind characters making contact with spiritual-type elements. Lili does a lot of this, particularly in Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. But it’s in the context of conversations. And nothing really out there happens, like characters rising from the dead, for example.

But flat-out characters being bitten by radioactive spiders and suddenly getting superpowers? I just don’t want to see it. I don’t want to have to cross stories that are pretty close to being realistic with those that are so far away from realism as all that. Maybe I’m just not adventurous enough.

Because I enjoy history very much, I think what I would really like to see is more of a stylistic crossover than an actual character and scene mashup. So has anyone ever written Star Trek in the style of Ernest Hemingway, or Miguel de Cervantes?

Now that’s what I’d like to see.

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 (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!”

Jul

2013

Progress Report – July 2013

July 2013 was busy.

Posted Works

I began the month by posting a weekly free write on dreaming about Eriecho, called Beats. In addition, I added an IDIC gay first kiss story, called Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation. I finished spinning out Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Plus I contributed to the Multiverse II Round Robin story. I added a story for SL Walker’s Arc of the Wolf series, a short humor piece called Victory in Maine.

Also, I added the following stories to In Between Days context: Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation, Bribery, Equilibrium, Complications and Consider the Lilies of the Field.

I added the following stories to Times of the HG Wells context: Briefing, One Last Gift, Shake Your Body, He Stays a Stranger, The Sweetest Universe, Another Piece of the Action and Happy Stuff 3111.

On Fanfiction.net, I added Equilibrium; Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation; Saturn Rise; The Play at the Plate, All You Need is Love, The Best Things Come in Pairs and Complications.

On Archer’s Angels, I added Where No Gerbil Has Gone Before.

Milestones

Individual Read Counts

For individual read counts, the following stories have 10,000 or more on one URL –

All of these come from Ad Astra.

More Accomplishments

The following stories have between 5,000 and 9,999 reads on one URL –

Again, these numbers are all coming from Ad Astra. More than a Will to Live is closest to 10,000 of this group.

Combined Read Counts

The following had combined read counts of 10,000 or more, in addition to the three above which did that on just one URL –

Fortune
Intolerance

Apart from the two others at over 5,000 reads for just one URL, the following combine to 5,000 – 9,999 reads when you consider all the postings’ URLs –

A Long, Long Time Ago
Ohio
Spring Thaw (this milestone was attained this month)
Where the Wind Comes Sweepin’ Down the Plain (this milestone was attained this month)
You Mixed-Up Siciliano

WIP Corner

I continued working on The All-Stars.

Prep Work

I shared the first chapter of These Are the Destinations, in an effort to unblock the writer’s block I have been suffering with regards to that particular story for the past – no exaggeration – 18 months. So I was able to draft a second chapter, and both were well-received. I have the semblance of a skeleton of an outline, but it has been difficult to make any more headway on that story.

And I also found out that there was fan information on some of my work, at a wiki, including on Lili. I began to work on filling in the blanks there as much as I could, as it is clearly a good way to attract more of a readership.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

Finally, there were more family issues, and they often curtailed productivity and creativity. I also had to really throw myself into looking for work. Working on the wiki, too, would at times derail my other creative efforts.

Jul

2013

Portrait of a Character – Sandra Sloane

Sandra Sloane is a bitch with a long history.

Origins

I wanted a Star Trek fanfiction crew member who would be bitchy and nasty and, at times, crossing the line into prejudice. Say hello to Sandra.

Portrayal

Sandra is played by Leighton Meester.

Barking Up The Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Leighton Meester | Sandra Sloane

Sandra Sloane (image of Leighton Meester is for educational purposes only)

I wanted an actress who doesn’t look like she’s mean on the outside, someone who seems to be keeping it together. After all, if Sandra’s nastiness was obvious from the get-go, Starfleet never would have hired her in the first place.

Personality

Brittle, impatient and trying, Sandra does not suffer fools gladly. In There’s Something About Hoshi, she loudly and rudely complains that the Arisians won’t ask for directions or help and just take things – like, in her opinion, typical males. The others may be thinking it, but she’s the one who says it.

In Demotion, she nearly has a midday encounter, but rejects the fellow when she sees and hears him being dressed down by Jay, his superior officer.

E²

During the first kick back in time, she becomes clinically depressed. But in her, the manifestation is of an increase in aggression. When Malcolm comes onto her, she loudly and angrily declares him to be closeted and, as a result, he loses a great deal of his confidence. She also creates and passes along a number of rumors, enough so that Frank Todd feels the need to publicly come out, in order to assure the other gay crew members that they are not alone and should not be afraid.

Her increased aggression also leads to a significantly increased sex drive, and she ends up essentially seeing a demand and fulfilling it, as a kind of ship’s comfort woman. Even though she’s on the birth control shot, she becomes pregnant, but does not know who the father is until Phlox performs an amniocentesis test.

In the second kick back in time, she heads her own depression off at the pass, at least at the beginning. Also, she reveals her stepfather had been racist and homophobic. Hence she had picked up on that as a child, and that it had an influence on her behaviors.

Relationships

Daniel Chang

When her unborn child is revealed to be Dan‘s, they somewhat reluctantly end up together. They marry in order to raise the child, Kimberly, but Dan is not only untrue – he ends up committing a foul act. Dan and Sandra are both found guilty and are both sent to Paradise to work. When Sandra’s sentence ends (hers is shorter than his), she gets a divorce.

Brooks Haynem

During incarceration on Paradise, Sandra and Brooks bond. Brooks had been married to Sandra’s only friend, Sophie Creighton, but he and Sophie had gone through a divorce by then. With Brooks, Sandra has a better life – probably the best possible life that she can have during either kick back in time.

Tristan Curtis

When Brooks prematurely dies during the second kick back in time, and Tristan does not, they end up together. They have a daughter, Penny, but things are not right and they separate before Sandra’s own untimely death.

Mirror Universe

Barking Up The Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Leighton Meester | MU Sandra Sloane

MU Sandra Sloane (image of Leighton Meester is for educational purposes only)

There is no reason why Sandra would not exist in the Mirror Universe.

Given her nastiness here, it’s entirely possible that she’s the opposite there. And she may even be as kind and moral as anyone can be there.

I don’t know; I never wrote a Mirror Universe version of Sandra.

Quote

“I won’t pretend that I’m Miss Congeniality or anything. That I’m nice. ‘Cause God knows I’m not. I don’t suffer fools gladly. But I didn’t know what they were really being used for, the anonymous messages. Now you can believe me, or not. I only care insofar as I’d rather not be kicked off the ship. Even Paradise is a problem ‘cause there’s no medical care and no entertainment.”

Upshot

Someone has to be the bad guy, and Sandra is always a delight to write, as she often says and does the things that everyone else is thinking. I know this is not the last of her.

Jul

2013

Review – The Further Adventures of Porthos – the Stilton Fulfillment

A Stilton fulfillment? Don’t worry; I will explain

Background

After The Adventures of Porthos, there was a call for a sequel.

The Further Adventures of Porthos – the Stilton Fulfillment

I got the chance to provide one when the Trek BBS had a monthly challenge in December of 2012 for ironic wish fulfillment. Porthos would get what he always wanted – more cheese – but it wouldn’t quite agree with him.

Plot

The Caitian Ambassador and his family are coming to the NX-01 for dinner. The captain is anxious for everything to go right, and wants to perhaps convince the ambassador to become a more formal ally. The ambassador’s young daughter. Parenelsa, is shy and sweet, but she warms up to Porthos, who begs at the table. And so she feeds him.

And feeds him and feeds him.

The problem arises when Porthos has a reaction. That is, he breaks wind. Malcolm, who is at the dinner and is bored out of his mind, volunteers to take the dog to Sick Bay. For Malcolm, it’s also a chance to get his own treatment, as he is lactose intolerant, a revelation I first made in Intolerance.

And then the ship is attacked.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

The story works out well. A lot of little players get shout outs, including the idea that this is something of a sequel to A Single Step, too. Lili even makes an appearance.

My peers agreed with me, and the story won the monthly challenge.

Jul

2013

Spotlight on an Original Planet – Paradise

Paradise is a lovely original planet.

Background

In the E² Star Trek fan fiction stories, it becomes obvious very quickly that the Enterprise needs a planet.

Ceti Alpha V

Because, in Reflections Down a Corridor, they have gone back in time, to 2037. So the Delphic Expanse is not like it was. They learn from a Xyrillian, Tre’ex, that there are a few planets which no one has claimed yet. One of them, known in the prime timeline alternate (the ENT episode, Twilight) as Ceti Alpha V, they claim and hold a contest to name it. The top vote-getter is José Torres‘s choice, Paradise.

In Star Trek canon, the planet is barely habitable. But that serves the prime timeline and an alternate. I like to think that, a good century before, things may have been better.

The planet is also, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, as being the exile location for Khan Noonien Singh and his followers, during the prime timeline.

Paradise in the Delphic Expanse

There is no reason why the NX-01 can’t have a beautiful planet. It does work out a lot of plot points. This includes how to get the crew and their descendants to survive for the ensuing century. And also how to get them to live, and live well. This is without detection by either the people on Earth or the aliens of the Delphic Expanse and elsewhere.

The planet has to be habitable in case the ship becomes overcrowded. It has to be arable. And it must be the kind of place where you can grow a lot of different kinds of foods. But I didn’t want things to be too easy or perfect. Hence the Enterprise needs to claim a second planet, Amity. But Paradise works out well just the same.

Highlights of Living and Working on Paradise

Of course, crops are grown there. Malcolm gets his pineapples. And Shelby grows oranges, too, which Will wants. An elaborate tree-planting ceremony happens on August 29th of 2037. The participants dig holes in the ground. They plant an orange tree and a coconut palm. This is amidst slips of real paper on which the crew write their anonymous wishes.

During Entanglements, T’Pol suggests that more permanent settlements might be desired on Paradise, as the male to female ratio remains uneven and it might alleviate some of the sniping.

The Three of Us opens with a baseball game on Paradise, and then, eventually, it becomes the location of the first phase of criminal punishments. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Paradise cannot be visited too often, as that would interfere with the NX-01 from the first kick back in time. But there is one secret mission there, all the same.

By the end of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Paradise survives. But there is no more evidence of civilization. This protects the prime timeline rather neatly.

Return to Paradise

Because of the connection with the Augments, and the eventual damage to the planet, there can be no return. At least, not unless a lot of terraforming work happens. In the Times of the HG Wells, Admiral Carmen Calavicci and Rick Daniels do talk about Ceti Alpha V, so it is not completely gone. Perhaps, by then, there is repair and restoration.

Focus – Ikaarans

Background

Language

Culture

Empathic Healing

Romance and Family Life

Upshot

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Self-Promotion

Love, Sex, Forever and the Afterworld

My Spin (and Self-Promotion)

Four Books

Three and Four

Why It’s Part of My Self-Promotion

More Self-Promotion

Upshot

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Portrait of a Character – Kirin (Kira) Sato

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Marie Patrice Beckett

Theme Music

Prime Universe

Quote

Upshot

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World Building for Fan fiction

A Sense of Place

Sensory Perception

Vision

Sound

Smell

Taste

Touch

Upshot

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IDIC and Crossovers

My Own Crossovers

A Single Step

Another Piece of the Action

Concord

Day of the Dead

Fortune

It’s a Small Universe After All

More, More, More!

Multiverse II

These Are the Destinations

Crossovers I’d Like to See

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What do I like to read?

Challenges

Characterizations

Give it up for Templar Sora!

Upshot

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Progress Report – July 2013

Posted Works

Milestones

Individual Read Counts

More Accomplishments

Combined Read Counts

WIP Corner

Prep Work

This Month’s Productivity Killers

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Portrait of a Character – Sandra Sloane

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

E2

Relationships

E²