Star Trek: TNG

Sep

2017

Review – Staying

Staying came about because I wanted to showcase the Barnstorming series.

Background

First of all, Staying arose directly out of The All Stars and served as a prompt response. This happened in an effort to get readers interested in the longer story.

Plot

Because I never intended Staying as a stand alone story, the plot ends up being rather thin. Instead, it showcases Mack MacKenzie and Kent Hoberman in an intimate moment which perhaps never should have happened. Since I liked the idea of a traumatized woman crying after sex (I suppose I have a heart of stone; of course I just mean a character), I reused the idea in the wholly original novel, The Polymer Beat.

Furthermore, the intention pushed the narrative along so that Mack would not have trauma with her true love (still not written yet!), canon character Martin Madden.

Story Postings

Staying on Ad Astra

Rating

The story is Rated T.

Upshot

While the story could have served as a decent introduction to the series, the readers really did not pick up on it. Read counts stayed low. And it can be tough to try to maintain and reinvent and continue a series where few if any people bother to read it. Hence the series is on hold and there are stories never even posted anywhere. If I pick it up again, I will need to finish those stories and that seems highly unlikely, given my schedule, my interest, and my desire to save my creativity for wholly original pursuits.

A pity, as I like Mack, Hobie, and Martin and their cohorts. They just came into my universe at the wrong time. Hence they may stay, forever (ish) in limbo. Sorry, characters!

In addition, do you like this page? Tweet it!

Finally, you can find me on Google+.

Dec

2015

Review – You Make Me Want to Scream

Scream? Oh yeah.

Background

For a prompt of the same name, I could not get a rather earthy idea out of my head. The trick was to make it all about unexpected people.

So many sexual-style stories are all about young people. Or they are pretty people. Or they are folks in new relationships. Hence the unexpected twist is that the people in the story are none of these things (although Keiko is lovely). Instead, these are people with a history and all of the regular domestic stuff we all have in our lives. They aren’t on the run or at war or in any sort of big adventure. Rather, this is the quiet adventure of their lives.

Miles and Keiko

Plot

So I told this short story in first person, entirely from the perspective of a woman. She frankly talks about sex with her husband and owns up to being rather loud. In addition, the narrator also admits to having a fondness for a certain slightly unconventional methodology. However, she doesn’t mention her man’s name or even the act at all.

I reveal the couple when he says her name aloud – and tells her that her scream during orgasm woke up their baby daughter.

Oops.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is rated T.

Upshot

I love this little silly story. Because why should the leading men and women get to have all the fun? And I particularly enjoy the fact that this story pulls in what happens after the curtain comes down. What comes after ‘happily ever after’? So much like in Doug and Lili‘s marriage, my main idea was to give the characters spice well into their forties and beyond.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on Google+.

Apr

2015

Review – Imprecision

Imprecision addresses an imperfectly formed memory.

Background

So for a Star Trek fan fiction challenge about nightmares, I went with a dream that evoked a memory that was imperfectly realized.

Plot

Wesley Crusher has been, at the start of the story, spending time in the company of the The Traveler.

Barking Up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Imprecision

Wesley Crusher with the Traveler

And this is a canon situation. However, also in canon, Wesley eventually leaves The Traveler. Hence in order to dovetail with Crackerjack, this event precipitates Wesley taking his leave.

At the start of the story, Wes wakes up from a nightmare. He remembers his parents fighting, and his mother throwing something. It’s awful; he recalls being a small child at the time, making it even more heart-wrenching. Speaking with The Traveler afterwards, together they decide that Wes actually wants to return to a regular life. This is a marker, an indicator that there is unfinished business out there for him. Furthermore, he wants to find out about that memory, which he realizes is something that he suppressed.

Returning to Regular Life

Wesley essentially gets a beam out to his mother’s quarters. And he has been gone longer than the regular passage of time would indicate. I had this idea because his time with The Traveler has to be odd and unique and special. So for Beverly Crusher, it feels like sort of a dream, and sort of not. She tells him that it’s a few hours before Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s wedding (another canon event).

Also, Wesley is hurriedly given a uniform, and it does not necessarily show his correct rank (that is canon, in the film, Nemesis). A little bored with the proceedings, his eyes alight on a young girl playing the French horn for the Starfleet Academy band, which is providing the music for the event. With some confidence mustered up, he talks to her, and realizes that this is why he left The Traveler. It is to meet Lakeisha Warren and begin a new phase of his life.

Story Postings

- Imprecision on Trek BBS
- In addition, Imprecision on Fanfiction.net
- Imprecision on Wattpad
- In addition, Imprecision on G and T Show forums

Rating

The story is rated K+.

Upshot

It was great fun to bring Wesley’s character in line and bring the canon of the Nemesis film together with fan fiction in the form of Crackerjack and the Barnstorming series.

Horn (instrument) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being able to write the first-ever meeting of Wes and Lakeisha was a treat, too.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on Google+.

Dec

2014

Recurrent Themes – Computer Technicians

Computer technicians are part of the future.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Sheilagh Bernstein’s file photo at the Temporal Integrity Commission

In time travel in particular, someone will have to be able to deal with computers. They are such a pervasive part of our lives. A time travel contingent can’t go to any time past about 1985 without seeing computers.

Further, Star Trek has always had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with computers. Truly, it’s with all forms of technology. The Original Series (TOS) often shows a dichotomy. This is between over reliance on computers versus good old fashioned human know-how. In The Next Generation (TNG), Data is so human-like. Should he have the same rights as a member of a naturally evolving sentient species?

Background

Amusingly enough (and highly reflective of the mores of the time), Original Series actors are shown really only using computers for work. The same seems to be true for the Next Generation, except when it comes to the use of the fantasy-fulfilling holodeck. Then, it’s no holds-barred.

You need to get to Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT) before you start to see people using computers for leisure pursuits. In the Catwalk episode, a crewman does a crossword puzzle on hers. Jonathan Archer even seems to use his for reading (although Malcolm Reed appears to prefer paper books).

Appearances

Hoshi Sato

As in canon, Hoshi (with the help of T’Pol) often has a task of not only handling the ship’s database, but also in interpreting aliens’ databases.

Charlotte Reed-Hayes Archer

In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, it is Charlotte, a descendant of Jonathan, Lili, Ebrona, Jay, Malcolm, and others, who sends the first kick-back’s full database to Hoshi. This changes the second kick back in time’s experience rather dramatically, as people already know who they ended up with. Then the second kick back in time meets the prime timeline version. But there isn’t enough time to load the entire database. And so the prime timeline is left with only knowing what we learned in canon. They never know that there were two involuntary trips back in time.

Sheilagh Bernstein

The specialist in ancient computers is a mid-level Temporal Agent working with Richard Daniels. In Another Piece of the Action, she ends up inadvertently insulting Spock a little, when she refers to his beloved computer system as being primitive.

Upshot

We move closer to real-life Star Trek types of experiences. So I fully believe we will use computers more and more. They will converge, probably. So smart phones and tablets will likely become more or less the same devices. Through it all, computer technicians will need to handle them. I will undoubtedly write about more people just like this.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on Google+.

Sep

2014

Portrait of a Character – Wesley Crusher

Wesley Crusher divides the fandom, or so it seems.

Origins

This character is, of course, canon to The Next Generation.

Wesley Crusher

A lot of Star Trek fans dislike this character intensely, and see him as a male Mary Sue. I agree that the writing for this character was not the best.

But that’s what Star Trek fanfiction is for.

Portrayal

As in canon, Wesley is portrayed by actor Wil Wheaton. There is no one else, so far as I’m concerned, who can possibly play this character.

Personality

Shy and nervous, but smarter than everyone else in the room, Wesley has to learn to rein in his intelligence a bit. However, it’s not that he needs to dumb things down. Rather, it’s more that he’s just not getting a lot of social capital for always being the first one with the right answer. Hence he needs to step back and give others a chance, even though he knows that he can do better most of the time.

Relationships

Robin Lefler

This canon relationship is briefly referred to in Imprecision, when The Traveler asks about an earlier dream. Wesley admits he was dreaming about having sex with Robin, and that he sometimes regretted that not having happened in real life.

Lakeisha Warren

When Wes meets Lakeisha, it’s pretty close to love at first sight.

She’s playing the French horn in the Starfleet Academy band, which has been asked to play at Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s wedding.

But all Wes can think of, all he can see and hear, is the lovely dark-skinned girl with the dark brown eyes.

Yes, Lakeisha and Wes aren’t the same race.

They marry, and are together for the remainder of their lives. As an old grandfather, Wes talks about her in Crackerjack.

Mirror Universe

There are, so far as I am aware, no impediments to Wesley existing in the Mirror. Frankly, I’m surprised that no one seems to have explored this scenario in Star Trek official fiction and fan fiction has barely explored the idea.

I like the idea of him being less obsessed with duty, and see him as being a lot like, well, like Wil Wheaton himself has become. E. g. a guy who does some acting but is also a force for good in the geek world. Maybe a Mirror Wesley could be the kind of positive force for good that is lacking in that universe.

The idea intrigues, and I may look into it at some time.

Quote

“Are you telling me you wanna leave the Enterprise and all of that and just stay here? Is that it? Because if it is, well, do me a favor and help me get the Monongahela working again. I’ll leave you here, if that’s what you really want, and I’ll take my chances out there with that, that infrared pulse! And I’ll tell Captain Picard and the others that we got caught by an infrared pulse and you lost your freakin’ mind!”

Upshot

I like redeeming Wesley, and maybe, in some small way, I have. I’m not sure. If I can get on a roll again with the Barnstorming series, he’ll be seen again, with Lakeisha, as he embraces young adulthood, love, and the world of work, like many young people do.

You can find me on Google+.

Jun

2014

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

Lily Sloane Cochrane is canon.

Origins

At the end of Star Trek: First Contact, Lily Sloane and Zefram Cochrane are shown holding hands. I ran with that as a relationship, and decided that they had eventually wed.

Portrayal

As in canon, Lily is played by Alfre Woodard.

This smart and interesting actress always seems to be working on fascinating projects.

Personality

Wise and feisty, Lily has lived through the worst of the Third World War and come out of it alive. She remains optimistic enough to feel that the Earth has a future, but realistic enough to know that building a Warp One rocket is the best way to fully realize that future.

Relationships

Zefram Cochrane

Semi-canon, semi-non, Lily and Zef marry. It’s later in life for them.

They don’t (I think) have children. Theirs is an affection born of a mature understanding.

In A Single Step, it’s the end of Lily’s life, and Zef is there, calling her Princess and begging her not to die. But lung cancer is going to get her, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. On her deathbed, she tells him to see the stars, and she’ll be hiding out in some nebula.

Mirror Universe

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

Mirror Lily

There’s no reason why Lily can’t exist in the mirror.

She’s smart, and might be able to get through life without using her body to snag a man and, presumably, some protection. Maybe she’d live a quiet life, away from the action.

Quote

“Listen, Old Man, neither of us can move that fast anymore. So don’t give me anything about how you’re gonna be my white knight or anything.”

Upshot

I like this character although I’m unsure as to where she’ll show up next. I had thought we would get to her in Multiverse II, but we never made it that far.

May

2014

Review – The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat

Future cat?

Background

Tarisian Dreams suggested that I somehow find a way for Spot and Porthos to meet. The only methods were, I felt, either time travel or a holodeck simulation. I chose the former.

Plot

It’s during the Xindi War, and Lili has only recently been hired. While starting dinner, she brings Porthos to the galley. He sits, hoping that’s she’ll drop something tasty. Will comes in and scolds Lili, as this is a Health Code violation.

Review – The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat

English: This is an orange/yellow tabby cat.

He insists that she return the beagle to Captain Archer‘s quarters. Lili does so, and departs as the ship is hit by a spatial anomaly. This creates a hull breach on B Deck. But this anomaly is temporal as well as spatial, and so it also results in Porthos being whisked away. And it’s over a century into the future, to the Enterprise-D, where Data, Spot, Geordi, Wesley Crusher, and Captain Picard all are.

On the NX-01, they fear Porthos is deAD. On the Enterprise-D, they try to get him home.

Plus I tell the whole thing from the perspective of Porthos, including his conversations with Spot.

Does Porthos get back to the right time period? Who helps him? And what happens to him and Spot, before he departs?

I guess you’ll have to read in order to find out.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I love writing animals’ points of view, and Porthos is always great fun. Spot was much more of a challenge, but readers have told me that I got cat POV correct. That was rather satisfying to read. Will they return? Absolutely, although I have no idea as to how to (if ever) get them back together again.

Mar

2014

Review – Dear Captain

Dear Captain, I …

Background

In response to a prompt about letters from home, I decided to go full throttle in the direction of mail that, most decidedly, is unwelcome.

Namely, spam.

The idea was to create a small comedy piece that would, as I often do, zig rather than zag.

Plot

There is not too much of a plot; this is mainly a collection of obvious spammy messages which go our intrepid future heroes. Because no one is mentioned by name, the messages could have been sent at any time, to anyone. Hence the story doesn’t really fit into any time period or series, and could cover any or all of them. I am not even certain as to which captain it is referring. It could be any or all of them, I suppose.

And when I have absolutely needed to categorize it (a necessity at some fan fiction posting sites), I tend to come down on the side of it being a part of the In Between Days universe, which takes place during Star Trek: Enterprise. So this makes some sense, as those people are the closest to use chronologically. They can maybe still be using email, and I write them as doing just that. Hence it all fits together rather nicely.

In addition, this gives us a deeper connection to that era than usual. I like the idea of them battling similar issues. It’s a lot like Tripp Tucker dealing with the financing company, in Letters From Home.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

As a bit of comedy, I think the piece works. And it’s no more than a bit of fluff, and fluff it is.

You can find me on Google+.

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.

Feb

2013

Spotlight on an Original Technology – Pulse Shot

Pulse shot?

Theory

In order to make some of my Star Trek fanfiction work, I needed a means of stepping from our universe to the Mirror, and vice versa. So in Reversal, this is accomplished via shared dreaming, and a crossover is performed by the Calafans by using power from the NX-01, the ISS Defiant, the amplifier dishes on Point Abic, Calafan group meditation and the sodium vapor flares emanating between the two smallest stars in the Lafa System, Fep and Ub. All of this, acting together, brings Doug from there to here, over the course of several hours. The Mirror High Priestess, Yimar (a teenaged girl) decides to leave the doors open in perpetuity. This has the effect of allowing Calafans to pass back and forth between both universes although other species still cannot.

However, the sodium vapor flares in particular are somewhat uncommon occurrences. Plus I wanted a technological solution.

Having read about dark matter, the truth is that it’s exotic and there’s an awful lot of it. It is ripe for fan fiction treatment, as it’s abundant and mysterious. Hence I decided that I would use it for the purposes of heading from here to the other side of the pond, or back again.

Practice

In Temper, the Empress Hoshi Sato has her Science Ensign Lucy Stone, with the help of Vulcan slaves T’Pau and Kefris, devise a means of moving from one universe to the other. In canon, she (Hoshi) is well aware that the Defiant is from another universe. It is an advanced design, with superior firepower, defenses and accommodations. It makes sense that she would be looking for a spare or two or two hundred. Hoshi is a person who wants to be known as a conqueror. So she may have realized it could very well be easier to subjugate our universe, instead of going out to hidden corners of the Mirror.

Three Shots

Therefore, in Temper, in 2161 the Defiant‘s main phaser is calibrated to twenty-one centimeters. And it initially fires a pulse shot into seemingly empty space. Because this works, Richard Daniels is summoned to the Temporal Integrity Commission, as he and Eleanor notice the time change immediately (an ornate sword she was lecturing about, Ironblaze, vanishes). This causes the first alternate timeline, and time becomes incoherent.

The Defiant

Due to temporal incoherence, a few years later, in 2166, another pulse shot opens a second passageway. But this time they fire it near the amplifier dishes. This shot opens things up more widely and it’s not just Calafans who can pass back and forth. Now humans and all other species can as well. At this stage, four people pass from our universe to the Mirror. This act changes history enough, and that triggers Daniels sensing the change but not the specifics.

Then there’s a third instance in 2178. But this is not new. Rather, it’s vestiges of incoherent time. The first repairs to the timeline need to happen in this time period. Richard knows this instance well as it coincides with a major, independently verified historical event in that alternate timeline. After fixing 2178, there is a fix for 2166. And once that is all done, Richard himself repairs 2161.

Aftereffects

Beyond the temporal incoherence, the other effect happens later. Some of the pulse shot is, simply, “lost”. But energy can be neither created nor can it be destroyed. This is according to the Law of Conservation of Energy (Thermodynamics). So where does it go?

The correct question isn’t where it goes. It’s when it goes. And when does it land? 2366, and it hits Wesley and Geordi’s shuttle, thereby causing the toss back in time in Crackerjack.

I have yet to write further aftereffects. I might use this plot device again.

Review – Staying

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Review – You Make Me Want to Scream

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Review – Imprecision

Background

Plot

Returning to Regular Life

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Recurrent Themes – Computer Technicians

Background

Appearances

Hoshi Sato

Charlotte Reed-Hayes Archer

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Portrait of a Character – Wesley Crusher

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Robin Lefler

Lakeisha Warren

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Zefram Cochrane

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Review – The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

Review – Dear Captain

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

Share this:

Like this:

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