StarTrek

Review – Demotion

Review – Demotion

Demotion sets up two separate story lines.

Background

This is a story to nicely bridge between Star Trek: Enterprise canon and the beginning of both E2 kick backs in time. There was a prompt about going AWOL, so there was the opportunity. I decided to dovetail with the canon Hatchery episode.

Heroes and Villains

Review – Demotion

Corporal’s insignia

There have been so many slash stories written about Major Hayes, it’s not funny. But I have never seen him as gay, so I wanted to riff on that a bit. So I wanted see what it would be like for Hayes to be mistakenly confronted with homosexuality. Furthermore, I wanted the person doing the confronting to be nasty about it. It wouldn’t be a little question, gently asked. Instead, it would be accusatory. It would be like an inquisition. In short, I wanted it to be like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Review – Demotion

The story opens with Corporal Daniel Chang combing his hair and otherwise getting ready for an assignation with Sandra Sloane. He’s guarding T’Pol, and he’s fine with that. But then Hayes tells him to guard her again. But Chang decides he has had enough. Ignoring Hayes’s orders, he instead goes to Sandra’s quarters. He is close to the door but hasn’t hit the chime or knocked yet.

Review – Demotion

Private’s Insignia

Hayes, nearby, calls him by name and tells him to report to the galley for KP duty as a punishment. Lili and Jennifer are walking by, and they see what’s happening, so they turn to go a different way. They come back quickly, though. It’s when they hear the sound of fabric being torn.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

So it’s a quick story, with fewer than 800 words. But I feel it nicely makes my point I had to establish Chang and Sloane as problem children before either kick back in time. I think Demotion does that.

Posted by jespah in In Between Days series, Review, 12 comments

Recurrent Themes – Members of the Press

Recurrent Themes – Members of the Press

The press should survive.

Background

Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | DNA | Members of the Press

Oh, the press! I suppose I have a bit of a love-hate set of feelings for them. However, they are, of course, necessary in a democracy. Yet they can be awfully intrusive. I well recall reading about Princess Diana’s death, from a car crash after a chase (and horribly hounding) by paparazzi.

So I’m kind of ambivalent when it comes to the Fourth Estate.

Press Appearances

Rona Moran

In Soldiers’ Marriage Project, and in Flight of the Bluebird, Rona is gossipy. It’s her job; she’s a gossip columnist. She is also over the top. However, she’s sensitive to people, and doesn’t take advantage of her sources and connections, and doesn’t belittle anyone except for her third ex-husband, Maurizio D’Angelo. And she even apologizes to him at the end of Flight of the Bluebird.

Craethe

He is a Daranaean reporter, seen in Take Back the Night.  Keeping with that species’ sexist ways, he mainly asks the crew of the NX-01 about their marital statuses and whether they have children. He gets a bit of a shock to learn that Erika Hernandez is a captain. He’s also shocked that Jonathan has never married, Malcolm is a father but isn’t married to Lili, and Phlox has three wives who each have three husbands. Lucy is another bit of a shock for him, that she is unmarried, has a daughter and she’s the one working, whereas her ex is the one at home taking care of their daughter.

Craethe reports on Mistra’s trial, back to an unnamed anchorman in the studio. There is also a nameless field reporter who reports on the protests that go on outside the trial. He even meets the Alpha’s Prime Wife, Dratha, and comments on her smell (e. g. her beauty) rather than her intelligence.

Troy Scott

In Where the Wind Comes Sweepin’ Down the Plain, he’s an anchorman in an alternate timeline and reports on a riot at what turns out to be where Otra is being kept. He comments on footage that contains an image of Anthony Parker with an axe.

Martha Fernandes

In Reflections Down a Corridor, she is seen reporting on the news from 2037, including a sideline interview with one Corporal Phillip Green.

Upshot

No doubt there will be more reporters and newscasters in my Star Trek fan fiction’s future, as the news, and the free reporting thereof, are an essential (yet sometimes abrasive) element in any democracy.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Themes, 0 comments

Recurrent Themes – Performing Artists

Recurrent Themes – Performing Artists

Performing artists in Star Trek? Sure.

Background

The performing arts are canon. In Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | DNA | Performing ArtistsStar Trek: TOS and TNG, members of the crew put on plays and the like in amateur productions, or characters go to shows. In VOY, characters might see a show on the holodeck, or even participate.

Then in the E2 stories, there’s nothing different and exciting to do a lot of the time outside of work, so the characters think up some entertainments.

Singing

In the E2 stories, the characters play a baseball game. As a means of opening the game, and to fill in the Seventh Inning stretch, Captain Archer finds a singer. Meredith Porter is an Engineering crewman and an older woman, almost as old as Lili. For the game, she sings America the Beautiful and Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

In the Romulan War story, Soldiers’ Marriage Project, a performance is not seen, but it is referenced – pop sensation Kurt Fong and soprano Rosumund Taylor sing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Fong shows up again, or, rather, the team responsible for answering his fan mail, in Gainful.

Lili also sings, but she’s not a professional. In Together, she sings O Pato to Joss. Then in Temper, she sings Arroz con Leche to Tommy. In Fortune, she sings La Petite Poule Grise to Declan. And in the E2 stories, she sings Maria Elena to, of course, Maria Elena, and reprises Arroz con Leche, but sings it to the infant Valleri Rostov.

Dancing

Aside from Shelby Pike, who had been a ballerina before she joined Starfleet, no one else is a professional. However, in Together, it’s revealed that Jennifer and Frank are particularly good. In Fortune, Malcolm gives Lili dancing lessons as a wedding gift.

In the E2 stories, people dance all the time, either at weddings or at various parties. Because Jenny is paired with Aidan, the pairing isn’t quite as good, evoking the fact that she’s not with the right person. Aidan’s no dancer. He mainly just facilitates her movements. First dates and early explorations of feelings are also expressed through dance, particularly between lonely male crew members and Ikaaran women in both of the kickbacks in time.

Acting

In Wider than the Sargasso Sea, aspiring actress Gabrielle Nolan is forced to star opposite aspiring actor and archenemy Desh, who is a Breen. They act as Jane Eyre and Rochester, respectively, in a production of Jane Eyre.

Actress Alyssa McKenna is mentioned in Soldiers’ Marriage Project, but she isn’t acting. Instead, she’s serving food for a charity.

Playing a Musical Instrument

In the E2 stories, Rex Ryan entertains everyone by playing guitar. He has a somewhat limited repertoire and mainly plays songs like This Land is Your Land. However, when he gets together with Meredith, and when she is pregnant with his child, they team up. He plays and she sings Danny’s Song (although in both kickbacks, they name their son Nicholas).

Philip Digiorno is a professional violinist. In An Announcement, he’s shown as a young man, and practices a mazurka while Leonora and Alex, his two younger siblings, listen in.

Historical professional musicians are seen in the HG Wells stories on several occasions, and time traveler HD Avery is tasked with fixing a lot of musical missions, most of which have to do with assuring a musician’s death. However, he also works to assure that the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon album is released. Other professional musicians seen in the series include Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper (JP Richardson), members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. Cobain and the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd have no lines, however.

Stand Up Comedy

While no one is an actual professional, Chip Masterson dreams of his moment of performing stand up in a little comedy club on Risa, where the audience is mainly composed of appreciative Orion slave girls.

Upshot

Where the characters go, sometimes entertainment follows in their wake. I know I’ll show more plays, songs and dances as more stories are written.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Themes, 0 comments

Spotlight on an Original Weapon – Phase Bow

Spotlight on an Original Weapon – Phase Bow

A phase bow serves a ton of purposes.

Background

Spotlight on an Original Weapon – Phase Bow

Hunting is Star Trek: Enterprise canon, and occurs during a visit to a so-called “rogue planet” where Eska hunters are seeking a creature that turns out to be sentient. Oops.

However, I didn’t want hunting to be too easy. Plus I wanted Doug to be more of a skilled hunter, and not just a blind shooter. Hence, when he hunts game (with or without Melissa, and with or without Calafan friends), he uses a phase bow.

Mechanics

Much like a standard bow and arrow,  a phase bow, instead, uses phased energy rectification (much like a canon phaser itself does), but the resultant emissions are pulses almost like what particle weapons emit. Arrows are, of course, unnecessary.

Phase bows come in several sizes. In Temper, I reveal there’s a smaller size for women. In Fortune, it’s revealed that the phase bow that Doug uses is huge, and is too heavy for Melissa to lift by herself, even though she is rather physically strong. There is even a child’s version available.

The weapon has a distinctive thwack sound, as small bursts of greenish light are propelled to their marks.

Aiming is possible either by eye or by using settings on the device. The image above is not an actual phase bow; it’s just a bow image. I imagine a real phase bow would have dials and switches and the like. This would be to change the settings for different-sized game, daylight versus nocturnal and any number of other modifications and options.

When Doug and Melissa use phase bows, they bring down either linfep or perrazin. So far, there are no scenes of anyone bringing down an elekai with a phase bow. However, those very large birds would normally require a lot of work to hunt, whether with a phase bow or any other type of weaponry.

In the E2 stories, there are no phase bows, so procul are dispatched with phase rifles.

Upshot

I’m not so sure I’ll have too many other occasions to show hunting. And not every hunter likes going old school. But I love the idea of a phase bow, and that it fairly seamlessly combines very old technology with the very new. Frankly, it surprises me that no one else in Star Trek fan fiction seems to come up with it.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Spotlight, 2 comments

Trek United Adult Trek Anthology – From Quadrant to Quadrant and Person to Person

Trek United Adult Trek Anthology – From Quadrant to Quadrant and Person to Person

It’s been a labor of love as well as a bit of lust. The Trek United Adult Trek Anthology is finally out! Travel with us, From Quadrant to Quadrant and Person to Person, and prepare to be seduced by Star Trek.

Barking Up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Trek United Adult Anthology - From Quadrant to Quadrant and Person to Person

Trek United Adult Anthology – From Quadrant to Quadrant and Person to Person

With 315 pages of content, punctuated with beautiful sketches and gorgeous screen captures, not to mention a breathtaking photo manipulated cover, the Anthology is a feast for the eyes and can put you, the reader, right into the action. Let’s look at the individual contributions.

The Alabax 9 Affair

Madison Bruffy‘s newest contribution asks a question about the Prime Directive. Does it cover a, shall we say, delicate diplomatic situation? Or has Captain James T. Kirk really overstepped his bounds this time?

Last Full Measure

For Lil Black Dog, when does duty end? In the face of impossible adversity, what more can a First Officer do, but show the last full measure of his devotion to his captain?

You Make Me Want to Scream

Who’s got a secret powerhouse lover at home? jespah reminds us that sometimes our expectations are unfounded.

One Night on Terok Nor

Rush Limborg follows Garak as he and Ezri Dax work through some difficult memories and, along the way, a state of grace is achieved.

What Lies Within Lies Between

For Jonathan Archer and Trip Tucker, lost memory means that something else bubbles to the surface. How can T’Pol make sense of it all? Pauline Mac explores this fascinating dynamic.

D’Storlin

When a hybrid child is pushed to the limit, a careless mistake, made in a fit of rage, changes his and his tormentor’s lives forever. jespah brings the ugliness of bullying to the Trek universe.

A Drone’s New Life

When 7 of 9 and the rest of the crew of Voyager make it to Earth, life changes. And, for her, as writer Laura McBride shows, those changes are for the better.

Ripples

What if the events of Amok Time didn’t go the way we all know they did? Lil Black Dog returns with an exploration of how things would unfold if Dr. McCoy had not been there.

Milk

Scotty’s got a date. And, according to jespah, it’s going really, really well.

Anvil of the Gods

Jean-Luc Picard makes the Dominion War come alive as a Vorta learns what some true believers do – that sometimes heroes have feet of clay.

Sorrow, Shared

In the E2 universe, a widowed T’Pol finds herself with a visitor who shares her grief. Honeybee gives readers something to think about.

Artwork

Fantastic artwork graces the Anthology. Bluetiger has captured the true essence of characters, from T’Pol to Scotty. Madison has added a number of promotional materials which have helped to round out this issue and create even more visual appeal. And then there’s the cover. ENTAllat‘s lovely photo manipulated cover brings together disparate elements and conveys the overall theme of the Anthology.

Feedback

We are writers and we are artists and we do it all for your feedback. Did we succeed in our mission? Is there something we missed? We would love to hear from you! Feel free to comment here, or on Issuu itself.

Looking to the Future

Will we do the Trek United Adult Anthology again? I don’t know. A lot of that will depend upon the reception that this, the first edition, garners. But if we do, would you like to write for us? Take a look at our selection criteria. If you’d like to try for a spot – and inclusion is not guaranteed – follow our submission guide. Plus I can be reached here if you have any questions. Onward, to the stars, and the stars in your eyes, from quadrant to quadrant, and person to person!

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Meta, Mixing It Up Collection, 1 comment

Inspiration – Exercise

How does Exercise fit in with Creation?

For the past five years, I have become much more of an exercise devotée. I had needed to lose a lot of weight and, through exercise in part, I was able to accomplish that. Hence working out has become a part of my life.

A lot of that comes in the form Naomi Watts walking exerciseof walking. And by walking around, I see things that I otherwise would not.

And that can sometimes bring on some unexpected inspiration.

Walkabout

For Boris Yarin, I grabbed his name from the Toyota Yaris. I have no particular affection for this car. It just so happened to be a name plate that I saw over and over again for a while there.

Daranaeans are mainly inspired by various dogs I’ve met in my travels.

Exercise also tends to help in terms of working out dialog. I can “hear” it in my head as I walk, and I am away from the keyboard (which means I am away from things like Facebook as well). Plus there’s music. For Pamela Hudson in particular, that character was so defined by her theme music that I received inspiration whenever I listened to Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good. I mainly listen to music when I am walking, and I would listen to that song over and over again as I was writing Intolerance and then, later, Together, as Pamela has a cameo in that book, too. It was, in many ways, like taking dictation.

Races

I don’t just walk. Sometimes, I run, and it’s was once in the context of 5K races (I ran between 9 and 12 every year until I hurt my knee). Because I was busy dealing with my pacing and timing, I usually could not work out dialog, etc.

However, the sheer act of racing has proven inspirational. I wanted one of the Digiorno-Madden-Beckett offspring to have a weight problem. So I settled on Neil Digiorno-Madden. Neil is the only one of the prime universe/prime timeline children to become a chef (Joss Reed-Hayes also becomes a chef and he even succeeds Lili and Will Slocum in that area, but he is from the first E2 temporal kick-back and is not a part of the prime timeline). Hence there can often be weight issues when you are tasting food all day long.

I also wanted Neil to be doing something about it, so he ran a 5K in Fortune. Eventually just that little story was told, in The Medal.

Upshot

I truly believe that working out and getting away from the keyboard have both helped a great deal in terms of keeping writer’s block at bay. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and one word in front of the next and you’ll get somewhere eventually!

Posted by jespah in Inspiration-Mechanics, 1 comment

Portrait of a Character – Francisco (Frank) Ramirez

Portrait of a Character – Francisco (Frank) Ramirez

Francisco is a kind of hero character.

Origins

For Reversal, I liked the idea of Jenny Crossman having a solid, stable relationship. Here she is, the Redheaded Bombshell, yet she stays at home most Saturday nights. Aidan MacKenzie, in particular, is frustrated by this. But she hasn’t told him how serious things are with Frank, although Lili does acknowledge that the picture of Francisco that sits on Jenny’s desk is “huge”.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Francisco (Frank) Ramirez

Frank Ramirez (Freddie Prinze, Jr.)

I wanted an actor with a Hispanic background to play Frank. He had to be good-looking but intelligent, and maybe a little goofy. I decided on Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Frank is a planetary geologist on Enceladus in Reversal. Jenny Crossman describes him as just, she knew he was the one. He visited her on a blind date, she explains to Travis in Together, and then Frank didn’t leave for several days afterwards.

Personality

Kind and sensitive, Frank is Jennifer’s rock. When she has to tell him what happened during the course of Together, he forgives her immediately and without reservation. All he wants is for her to be happy.

Furthermore, he becomes a father. His daughter, Ines, takes up with Melissa and Doug‘s second son, Neil Digiorno-Madden, and they have two children together.

Relationships

Jennifer Crossman

This is his main, defining relationship and he is never seen, in our universe, with anyone else. Frank is the quintessential good guy and there is no doubt that Jennifer has made the best possible choice.

Empress Hoshi Sato

Frank is a designated bed mate in the Mirror Universe, and there exists the very real possibility that he is her third child, Arashi‘s, father. However, since Arashi does not have the Y Chromosome Skew, and José Torres does not, either, it’s far more likely that José is the lucky fellow. He does not have much of a relationship with Hoshi and she chides him, during The Point is Probably Moot, for being a lousy performer. However, this is his ace in the hole, so to speak. He wants to be thought of as inadequate in that department, so that he can get out of it most of the time.  All he wants to do is work in Engineering. He doesn’t have time for the Empress’s bedroom games.

Pamela Hudson

In the first alternate timeline at the end of Temper, Pamela, Blair and Karin are all freed. Blair ends up with Doctor Morgan and Karin ends up with Josh Rosen. Pamela, however, gets right to business and goes after the highest-ranking available man on the ship. Chip Masterson is the new captain but he is taken by Lucy Stone. Hence she goes after Frank.

Shelby Pike

On the other side of the pond, in the prime timeline, Frank and Shelby end up together and are first seen as a couple during The Point is Probably Moot. Like most couples comprised of senior staff on the ISS Defiant, they must keep their relationship under wraps, and they very nearly blow it during Bread.

Theme Music

He shares two songs with Jennifer during Together. Their long-distance relationship is evoked with Maroon 5’s This Love. Then their wedding song is Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want Be With You.

Mirror Universe

In the Mirror Universe,

Portrait of a Character – Francisco (Frank) Ramirez

Freddie Prinze Jr. (Mirror Frank)

there is no room for planetary geology when there are worlds to conquer. Hence Frank is an engineer. But unlike Tucker and Crossman, he isn’t, initially, looking to get out.

At the end of that story, with Crossman and Tucker gone (and José Torres is not an engineer in that universe; Frank fulfills that role on that side of the pond), Francisco gets a promotion from the Empress to run Engineering. This he does without concern for further promotions and glory. His lack of further ambition, and his true competence, keep him alive.

Francisco eventually gets where he needs to be, but only by the time of He Stays a Stranger.

Quote

“You can always tell me what’s going on. Always. When I asked you to marry me, I didn’t mean it was just this one-time offer that could be rescinded at any time.”

Upshot

Frank is as much of a fantasy fulfillment character as Doug is. In fact, he’s more, for he does not have the violent streak that Doug is saddled with. It would be a far better world if more men were like Frank.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Portrait, Times of the HG Wells series, 12 comments

Review – Letters from Home

Letters from Home

Letters …

Origins

Review – Letters from Home

Mail Call at Stalag 17

One of my all-time favorite films is Stalag 17. And there is a scene where a fellow named Harry Shapiro receives a bunch of mail. It is far more than anyone else. So they ask him how that’s possible. Because none of them can believe it. Why should he get all the mail?

Harry strongly implies that the mail is from girls, and refers to himself as “Sugar Lips” Shapiro. He keeps up the ruse for a few minutes.

But then his friend, Stanislaus (“Animal”) Kuzawa, grabs one piece of mail and starts reading it. So it turns out, the mail is all from a finance company. Shapiro’s Plymouth is being repossessed.

The Tie to Star Trek

Review – Letters from Home

Star Trek: Enterprise establishes, in canon, that commerce and trade are still conducted, and people are still using money. Hence the time period works out rather nicely.

Furthermore, there are still automobiles (Tripp Tucker refers to driving an old girlfriend to Chatkin Point). Hence I knew I wanted Tucker for this story, which was in response to a prompt about letters from home. The mail, I decided, would be reflective of Harry Shapiro’s own travails with a finance company.

So for Tripp, the finance company contacts him after the Xindi attack. Of course, he’s more than a little put out by this. And the exasperating correspondence thereby begins ….

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I like how this one turned out. It’s got a bit of comedy as things go more and more over the top. I also think I ended it at the right point. Any more and the reader might’ve started to feel sorry for the finance company.


You can find me on .

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, In Between Days series, Review, 4 comments

Spotlight on an Original Nonsentient Species – Malostrea

Spotlight on an Original Nonsentient Species – Malostrea

Malostrea were fun to create.

Background

For the E2 stories, I wanted the Amity planet to not have any life on it which had developed a backbone.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Malostrea

Malostrea

Some animals would be just plain dumb, like the procul (similar to Animal Planet‘s The Future is Wild speculative critters, the megasquid).

The procul, to be sure, are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. But the malostrea (pronounced mal-oh-STRAY-uh) were meant to be smarter than all that.

Predators

If procul are prey (and they’re too dumb to be anything else), they needed to have predators.

The malostrea (the name is Latin for evil oysters, and the same word is used for both singular and plural)  were meant to be almost the Amity invertebrate equivalent of wolf packs.

Living

When they first get onto Amity, the MACOs spot a number of perfectly circular holes in squishy, swampy ground. The holes are too perfectly round to have just gotten there by accident. Something had to have made the holes.

They see the procul first, and then see the malostrea clambering out of their little dens. The dens are interconnected underground, much like mole tunnels.

Hunting

The first time these animals are seen, they are out to hunt procul. The procul are several times larger than they are, but the malostrea have a secret weapon. They are able to naturally secrete a substance known as tricoulamine. This nerve toxin acts fast, and if a procul is “bitten” (since these animals don’t have teeth or jaws, the poison is delivered by means of having a shell clamp down on a leg), the big beast goes down, stone dead, nearly immediately.

Once the prey is dead, the malostrea set upon it and tear it apart with their little clapping shells. Procul legs can more or less fit inside malostrea den holes, but the bigger parts of a procul have to be torn apart. The malostrea don’t really have any means of slicing straightly and perfectly, so the aftermath of hunting is a bit messy as the game is torn apart for transport.

Intelligence

Spotlight on an Original Nonsentient Species – Malostrea

Clams (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Two malostrea are captured and brought to Sick Bay for study. Andrew Miller and Diana Jones spend the most time with them. In order to tell them apart (they are virtually identical hermaphrodites), the two malostrea are spray-painted with a blue 1 and a fuchsia 2 and are dubbed Thing One and Thing Two (a reference to Dr. Seuss‘s The Cat in the Hat). It’s difficult for Diana and Andy to really study the malostrea as they are poisonous and unpredictable. However, there is a great deal of clapping and chattering going on. The two researchers surmise that it’s a primitive form of communications for, after all, these creatures hunt in a pack. There has to be some form of planning going on there.

Future

The problem with E2 details is that most of them can’t, by definition, follow through to the correct timeline. But the malostrea do. In the last of the E2 stories, I reveal that, on a planet called Archer’s Planet (the correct name for Amity), Eska hunters call them hard devils.

Upshot

I like them. I’d like to use them again somewhere, but I’m a bit stumped as to where.

Posted by jespah in Interphases series, Spotlight, 5 comments

Portrait of a Character – Lucy Stone

Portrait of a Character – Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone serves a lot of purposes.

Origins

The Mirror Defiant needed a Science Officer after T’Pol‘s death. And the Prime Universe NX-01 needed someone who could fill in at Science during the evening shift. Plus Jennifer Crossman needed a bridesmaid in Together. And so Lucy was born.

Portrayal

I wanted a strong but very lovely woman, so went with Alyssa Milano. Lucy is smart but she is also quite the looker.

Lucy StoneAt the start of Day of the Dead, Chip Masterson in particular is checking her out, until Tripp Tucker reminds him that he (Chip) is now married to Deb Haddon. And she is liable to take action if she feels their relationship is at all under threat.

But Chip has only a mild interest. This is because – unbeknownst to any of them – his and Lucy’s counterparts have a future together. But that doesn’t happen on our side of the proverbial pond.

Personality

Smart but serious, Lucy also is, at times, a bit careless. Neither of her two pregnancies are planned.

Relationships

Ben Collins

Portrait of a Character – Lucy Stone

He’s only seen on a communications screen during Take Back the Night, when she contacts him in order to speak with their daughter, Gina. Lucy reveals that they haven’t been in love for years, but she appreciates Ben, who makes it possible for her to be out there at all. If Ben did not want to be essentially a stay at home father to Gina, it’s likely that Lucy would not have gone into space at all.

Andrew Miller

Their relationship takes flight during Take Back the Night, when she finds out she’s pregnant. He vows to her that he will stand by her decision – whatever it is – with respect to her pregnancy. She decides to keep the baby, who is a daughter. They name her Vanessa. By the time of Fortune, I reveal that they are still together.

Mirror Universe

In Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses, Andrew Miller ends up working to get Lucy on board the Defiant. He refers to her as the top of his science class, so Empress Hoshi is interested. Normally, the Empress doesn’t like to have any female competition on board.

Portrait of a Character – Lucy Stone

Mirror Lucy

Unlike Pamela Hudson, Blair Claymore, and Karin Bernstein, Lucy isn’t a man’s plaything. And unlike Melissa Madden, she isn’t carrying on a betrayal of the Empress.

However, the Empress makes it clear that Andrew is off-limits.

Chip Masterson

In the Mirror, Lucy ends up with Chip (Chip cannot be with Deb Haddon, as she is dead). First shown as a couple in Temper, they conspire in order to get away. As the first alternate timeline plays out to its end, Chip proposes via communicator, in front of everyone. In the second alternate timeline, and in the prime timeline, they escape together, with his children, Takara and Takeo. And in Fortune, she breaks her leg. In order to make contact with a doctor, Chip sleeps with his arm on rocks that are embedded with callidium, the ore that allows for psionic amplification. He thereby makes contact with Lili, who in turn contacts Miva, who takes care of Lucy.

Quote

“She’s actually a little less peeved when she’s pregnant. Usually.”

Upshot

I think Lucy needs a bit more detail to her, and more depth. She is instrumental in a lot of ways, but I don’t really feel like I know her yet.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Portrait, 16 comments