Terran Empire

Aug

2016

Portrait of a Character – Rellie

Rellie is a kind of short order cook.

Origins

During Temper, the only intelligent way to get Lili onto the Defiant was for her to be disguised as a Calafan slave and work in a kitchen. This meant creating a kitchen manager (the position would not really be that of a head chef). Enter the Xindi humanoid Rellie.

Portrayal

Mia Sara as Rellie (image courtesy IMDB)

Rellie is played by actress Mia Sara. This lovely actress has a long history and has science fiction cred.

Personality

Efficient and smart, she will only go so far to look out for her charges. They are (Lili, Polloria, and Aliwev) adults and are not really her responsibility. She just wants to save her own skin, or at least make her job easier. When Lili arrives, and knows how to cook, it’s as if a dream has come true for the oppressed slave kitchen manager.

Relationships

Rellie has no known relationships.

Mirror Universe

Rellie has only been a part of the Mirror.

Mia Sara as the prime universe Rellie (image is courtesy of the DC Comics wiki)

Does she exist in the prime universe?

It’s an interesting question.

I sometimes confuse her a bit with Dayah, who is also a Xindi humanoid, and is of a similar vintage.

But their fates are rather different, even though they are both oppressed women. Rellie, like a lot of Mirror Universe women, has to be ruthless and self-serving. In our universe, those personality traits would be looked upon as flaws.

Quote

“We must always tell them that we can do anything they ask. No matter if it seems at all impossible or difficult. You have been doing this for years. Surely you know that by now. Never show any weakness.”

Upshot

I created this character for a specific purpose, and I think she fulfilled it fairly well. Since her placement was the result of the second alternate timeline in Temper, there are any number of other Mirror Universe niches she could fill. Maybe I’ll pick her up again.

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Aug

2016

Focus on the Terran Empire

The Terran Empire is a huge part of my fan fiction.

Focus

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

A lot of what happens in the Terran Empire absolutely defies logic (Vulcan pun only partly intended). Even in a multiverse with seemingly infinite (or thereabouts) universes with infinite variables, it makes no sense that our heroes’ counterparts would all be serving together.

Okay, so it’s really just a vehicle for tossing a bunch of evil twins onto the screen. Let’s run with that.

In order to make it all work, I decided on a few helper characteristics which would explain things better. Of course the real reason why there are a lot of men in the Mirror Universe is because of who was hired, particularly during the TOS era. For a show and a premise that were touting sex and violence, men would have to be hired in order to up the violence ante. For my fanfiction, I explain this away with the Y Chromosome Skew.

But what about the Terran Empire? First off, the TOS era would have undoubtedly showed a white man in power. Certainly, in canon, the person in charge is a man. But then ENT comes around, and Hoshi Sato declares herself Empress. To my mind, she would have a need for a successor and she could succeed as Empress if she operated under Machiavellian principles.

Hall of Mirrors and the Succession

A review of the Mirror Universe stories I have written creates a semblance of a decent history of the place. The first story is The High Cost of Dissidence, where Lili‘s counterpart’s family dies. Under Emperor Phillip (tyrant Phillip Green in our universe), Charlotte’s father is arrested as a dissident for daring to speak his mind.

Next is Paving Stones Made From Good Intentions, where Doug, a mere child, is sent away to a brutal school.

After ENT Canon

After the canon MU episodes comes Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses, where Hoshi kills off all rivals (including T’Pol, Ian, and Phlox) and the Emperor, and consolidates her power ruthlessly.

In between, Hoshi and Rick Daniels hook up during The Stranger, and she becomes pregnant. His death is faked and she gives birth to Jun.

In Reversal, the Empress Hoshi is ensconced in power but is bested by Doug as Jennifer, Tripp, and Beth also escape.

Next up is Brown, where Hoshi is pregnant for a second time (by Aidan), and Chip holds back while José and Frank sniff around her.

In Ceremonial, Tripp and Beth have their own child, Charlie, as they become citizens of the MU Lafa System.

By the time of Coveted Commodity, she is pregnant by Travis.

Next is Gilded Cage, where Aidan is further disgraced and is planning to leave. The Conspiracy advances that subplot.

In Temper, when Travis is killed, Hoshi taps Andrew to take his place. When Andy meets Melissa for the first time, it’s shown in The Play at the Plate. He plans his escape when Melissa dies, in Escape, a deed that is seen from another angle in Shake Your Body.

Fortune shows more of the Mirror, including fast-forwarding ahead to not only Melissa’s death, but Norri‘s as well.

At about the same time as The Play at the Plate, Susan is looking to give up drinking, in The Pivot Point.

Much later, in Bread, a Mirror Leah Benson escapes to Andoria and is reunited with Diana Jones.

HG Wells and the Terran Empire

The royal family is reunited in He Stays a Stranger.

The Empress’s less than dignified death is shown in Who Shall Wear the Robe and Crown? She is succeeded by Jun and Kira.

During TOS, the Captain’s Woman, Janice Rand, is killed by Marlena Moreau in That’s Not My Name. The crime is investigated as Rand was allegedly the Emperor’s niece, in It Had to be You.

And finally, in Mirror Masquerade, Travis and Hikaru Sulu are switched, and it’s up to the Temporal Integrity Commission to put everyone back where they belong.

Upshot

With my fanfiction, Hoshi’s life reads a lot like Caligula’s or Nero’s, and that was by design. In bits and pieces, it ended up being a somewhat epic saga. It could use more development in later years. In the Barnstorming series, I add a Mirror connection, but the Empire is supposed to be gone by then. But I like it and will find a way to bring it back.

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May

2012

Spotlight on Original Technology – Radiation Band Testers

Two universes, two radiation bands. If you need to know who belongs where, you’d better do some testing.

Origins

In Reversal, and then in Temper, the concept of two universes and crosses between them, comes to the fore. There has to be some means of checking a person’s universe of origin.

Radiation Bands

The concept comes from two TNG episodes. In Galaxy’s Child, a spaceborn life form known as “Junior” is threatening the Enterprise and is absorbing its energy.

In order to “sour the milk”, the energy signatures are changed to a different background radiation band. It is revealed that the band for our prime universe is twenty-one centimeters. This comes from a very real concept known as the Hydrogen Line.

In Parallels, Worf steps through several quantum realities (e. g. several universes), but eventually a quantum signature is matched and he can be returned to his correct universe. I have taken the ideas and combined them.

Here, There and Everywhere

If we are a twenty-one centimeter background radiation band universe, then surely there must be a twenty, a twenty-two, and so on. For my fanfiction, the twenty centimeter band universe is the mirror. The twenty-two, as is revealed by Eleanor Daniels in Where the Wind Comes Sweepin’ Down the Plain, is a place where, on Earth, the dinosaurs never died out. Hence a mirror-type situation could not develop there.

Heritage

Radiation bands are inherited, and a cross-bred child will split the difference.

Hence the children of Doug and Lili and Doug and Melissa have a twenty and one-half centimeter band, reflecting his twenty and the women’s twenty-one centimeter bands. Per Eleanor, until crossovers became more common, a radiation band of anything below twenty-one was a sure sign that someone was one of Doug’s descendants.

Calafans, who can easily shuttle back and forth, and who have origins that are readily determined by the color of their skin (silver for here, copper for the mirror), are not tested, as there is no need.

Testers

Tabletop wand scanner

Testing is accomplished in a few ways. During Temper, on the mirror side of things, the testers are table-top devices with wands. Eleanor is in possession of one (she is a docent at the Temporal Museum, with a specialty in the Terran Empire) and she demonstrates its use during Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain. The image shown is actually a bar code scanner. Imagine it plugged into some sort of a tabletop device, possibly something appearing to be a lot like a personal computer or the like.

Pendant scanner

For our side of the pond, the scanner is a pendant worn around the neck, but devoid of any charm or decoration. The pendant is worn and then placed against a person, much like the mirror universe’s wand, so that a determination can be made as to which universe is the origination point for a particular person. The image at right is actually a UV tester. Imagine it attached to a longer cord and worn around the neck, although with the shorter cord it could conceivably be worn around the wrist.

Upshot

While the eventual future of these testers is as a curio, their history is far from pleasant for, during the war between the universes in Temper, anyone with the wrong band, on either side of the pond, is often shot on sight, with no questions asked. This shameful heritage is meant to drive home more of the horror of the Mirror Universe.

Terran Empire

Portrait of a Character – Rellie

Portrait of a Character – Rellie

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

Like this:

Focus on the Terran Empire

Focus on the Terran Empire

Focus

Background