TOS

14
Mar
2017

Portrait of a Character – Christopher Pike

Portrait of a Character – Christopher Pike

Christopher Pike is a terrific character in any timeline.

Christopher Pike

Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike (image is provided for educational purposes only)

I am still trying to figure out if I want Shelby Pike to be related to him. But why the hell not?

Hell, maybe she should be.

Christopher Pike Origins

In the Original Series, he is a handsome, intelligent captain . He is just as impulsive as Kirk. But Pike has a tragic accident yet gets a kind of illusory happy ending. In the JJ Abrams universe, he dies heroically.

Portrayal

As in canon, this character is played by Bruce Greenwood and, after he suffers his disability, by Jeffrey Hunter.

Personality

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Christopher Pike Disabled

Christopher Pike, Disabled

Like most of us, Pike does not consider what might happen if the unthinkable were to occur. But it does.

So in the prime universe, he is rather badly injured. Just how conscious and aware is he? I write him as being heartbreakingly conscious of the world around him. Plus this is so much so that he flashes Morse code.  And it is better than any therapy when Nyota Uhura understands him.

Relationships

Pike’s only known canon relationship is with Vina, from The Cage and The Menagerie. However, given the illusory nature of the setting, that ‘relationship’ seems a bit unreal, too.

Mirror Universe

There are no impediments to Christopher existing in the Mirror Universe.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Mirror Christopher Pike

Mirror Christopher Pike

Like many Mirror Universe men, I would have him sporting the Y Chromosome Skew. Hence this would make him more powerful . Furthermore, he would be much more interested in women, but also a much better father.

Quote

There was a series of beeps. “He says,” Nyota explained, “that’s he’s very happy to have such beautiful company.”

Upshot

Pike, like the main character in Johnny Got His Gun, deserves to return.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on .

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Portrait, 0 comments
03
Mar
2017

Review – Another Piece of the Action

Review – Another Piece of the Action

It’s another piece!

Another Piece of the Action Background

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Another Piece of the Action

Another Piece of the Action (cover by thebluesman)

During the time period just after You Mixed-Up Siciliano, in January of 3110, Kirko, Spock and the boys join Temporal Agents Richard Daniels, Sheilagh Bernstein, and Deirdre Katzman in handling Bela Oxmyx and his cronies. This is a collaborative story with the bluesman.

Isn’t the cover just fantastic? Justin made it. I have a copy (signed by him) hanging in my computer room.

Plot

As a means of getting back to the story, we decided on time travel. The Temporal Integrity Commission would have to fix the problems which Kirk and company had compounded at the end of the canon episode, when someone left a communicator behind.

I decided to use Richard Daniels, Sheilagh Bernstein, and Deirdre Katzman as my part of the cast. These characters would have the specialties needed, e. g. a jack of all trades like Rick, a computers person like Sheilagh, and then Deirdre would be the engineer.

Justin (the bluesman) opted to mainly handle the canon characters as we wrote the story. Together, we weaved a story whereby the plot would be fixed, our characters would happily cross over and work together for a common cause, and we even got to throw in a little humor and flirting along the way. Plus Sheilagh tells Spock his computers are primitive.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

We had a blast with this collaboration. I would have loved to have done it again. But sadly, Justin passed on, on December 22, 2016.  He was a dear friend and a kind, talented, patient, and generous collaborator. I miss him.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on .

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Review, Times of the HG Wells series, 0 comments
15
Sep
2015

Recurrent Themes – Plant Lovers

Recurrent Themes – Plant Lovers

Plant lovers inform many of my stories.

Background

Botanists and plant lovers are canon. In the original Star Trek series, Sulu and Rand both attend to plants. Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | DNA | Plant Lovers In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, Keiko Ishikawa O’Brien is a Botanist.

For an older ship like the NX-01, I felt like there absolutely had to be a Botanist.

Appearances

Naomi Curtis

Only seen during If You Can’t Stand the Heat, I’ve retconned her and now consider her to be the first Botanist on the NX-01 Enterprise. Much like Preston Jennings is shifted over to Navigation and Lili O’Day is hired for the Xindi War, Naomi is thrown over for the better skilled and more versatile Shelby. A pity for Chef Will Slocum, as she’s an early love interest for him. But they do get to fight off the Darvellians together.

Shelby Pike

Pike is the best-realized of my botany and plant-loving characters. Her talents range from growing food crops to keeping everyone sane with flowers, colorful fruits, and other pleasant reminders of home.

Eriecho

A true gardener and homebody at heart, Eriecho grows yellow peppers. It’s at her garden patch that she and Sollastek first scandalously hold hands.

Von

Recurrent Themes – Plant LoversA Ferengi engineer at the Temporal Integrity Commission, Von is also an amateur gardener, and gives Sheilagh Bernstein a yellow tulip while she’s deciding whether to join the commission.

Michael Nolan

Gina Nolan‘s late husband is in his Beijing lab, studying Bajoran dicotyledons, when he’s killed during the Breen attack on Earth.

Other Characters

The Hayes family and the Warren family farm during Concord, but that’s more a matter of survival and economics rather than study. Many of the Daranaean women also garden. And in particular they will grow Krivian weed, which is shaped into a type of boxwood-style hedge. But that’s not just for beauty’s sake. They can chew Krivian weed in order to determine the gender of a fetus a pregnant woman is carrying. In the E2 timeline, Esilia and the other Ikaaran women farm as a part of their obligation to their government.

Upshot

They may have their heads in the stars, but their feet are on the ground; they’re the gardeners, Botanists, farmers, and plant lovers of Star Trek.

Like this page? Tweet it!

You can find me on .

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, In Between Days series, Interphases series, Themes, 1 comment
03
Jun
2014

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

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.

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

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.

Portrait of a Character – Lily Sloane Cochrane

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.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Portrait, 4 comments
25
Mar
2014

Review – Dear Captain

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.

Review – Dear Captain

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 .

Posted by jespah in In Between Days series, Review, 5 comments
03
Aug
2013

IDIC and Crossovers

IDIC and Crossovers

Crossovers and IDIC mean what to you?

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

  1. What kind of crossing over do we do as writers?
  2. 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 IDIC and crossovers

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.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 6 comments