T’Pol

10
Sep
2013

Spotlight on Alien Hybrids

Background

Alien hybrids are 100% Star Trek canon. Spock is one, Worf’s lover, K’Ehleyr, is one, their son Alexander is one, etc.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Alexander | Alien Hybrids

Alexander, an alien hybrid (his parents are both human-Klingon)

For hybrids, I imagine that life is not easy. Even Worf, who is not a hybrid, but was raised by human adoptive parents, could not fail to get into what we would call trouble. Which is what most Klingon families would simply refer to as defending honor.

Fitting In

I write most hybrids as having some adjustment issues. Adolescence, in particular, has got to be difficult. But adults, particularly talented ones, are going to be a bit better situated.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Spock | Alien Hybrids

Spock

Consider Spock, the best-known hybrid of them all.

His backstory is loaded with teasing and other evidence of not being accepted. The vaunted tolerant Vulcans aren’t so tolerant when their race is mixed with another’s. This attitude is reflected by a lot of the Vulcans in the earlier seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise.  T’Pol, Soval, and others often look down their noses at humans. And in the fourth season, we humans do it right back to them, as John Paxton has a human-Vulcan hybrid created, Elizabeth Tucker, and the intention is to repulse everyone. But the opposite occurs, and Elizabeth’s death is haunting to not only her parents, Tripp and T’Pol, but also to others who will eventually form the Federation.

Overcompensation

Like we can see happen in the real world, people who don’t easily fit in can often overcompensate, and try to be better than everyone. Is that what happens with the canon character, K’Ehleyr? Possibly. But she’s also immensely talented.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | K'Ehleyr

K’Ehleyr | Alien Hybrids

It’s not overcompensation if you really are that good.

But I can’t help feeling that, sometimes, the writers may have overdone it with her. She can sometimes feel a little bit like the John Prentice character in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and can be a little too good to be true.

Add in a tragic ending and then there’s no way to tarnish her halo, eh?

My Own Hybrid Characters

They run the gamut. And the deeper future should, I feel, have a lot more alien hybrids, and in all manner of different combinations. IDIC means embracing a lot that we, today, would find more than a little peculiar. Here are some stand-out examples.

Interphases

The earliest timeline appearances of alien hybrids fit rather snugly with the canon ENT episode, E2. Since it’s canon that Archer married an Ikaaran, the idea is that there would be other alien brides. For my own sanity, I went with Ikaarans as being the brides in both iterations, although women of different species could very well have been brought aboard.

Aaron Gregory Archer

In the second kick-back in time, he’s the son of Jonathan and Esilia, and weds Lili and José‘s daughter, Maria Elena Torres.

Henry Archer

In the first kick-back in time, he’s the son of Jonathan and Ebrona, and weds Lili and Jay‘s daughter, Madeline Suzette Reed-Hayes.

John Phlox

In the first kick-back in time, he is the first hybrid child born, the eldest of Dr. Phlox and Amanda Cole.

Charles Tucker IV

In the first kick-back in time, he is one of the twin children of T’Pol and Tripp, and becomes the captain after Jonathan dies.

Lorian Cyrus Tucker

During the second kick-back in time, this canon character (his middle name is my own invention) becomes captain upon the death of Jonathan Archer. He is the only child of Tripp and T’Pol.

T’Les Elizabeth Tucker

During the first kick-back in time, she is the other twin child of Tripp and T’Pol.

Times of the HG Wells

Otra D’Angelo

This human-Witannen cross can see temporal alternatives.

Richard Daniels

It is canon for Daniels to say that he is human, more or less. According to the scan that his sister, Eleanor, demonstrates during Where the Wind Comes Sweepin’ Down the Plain, the siblings’ heritage breaks down as follows – 18% Calafan, 4% mirror Calafan, 13% descendant of Neil Digiorno-Madden, 41% descendant of Joss Beckett, 11% human, 5% other mirror human, 8% Vulcan. 

Kevin O’Connor

Kevin is half-human and half-Gorn, and weighs almost a quarter of a metric ton, but he’s the sweetest person you’d ever want to know.

Polly Porter

Polly is partly-Betazoid, but is mostly human and is missing most of the qualities of Betazoids.

Boris Yarin, MD

Boris is a dangerous combination of human, Xindi sloth and Klingon.

Alien Hybrids in Other Stories

D’Storlin

D’Storlin, a human-Xindi Reptilian hybrid has a lot of trouble and takes his frustrations out violently.

Rayna Montgomery

Rayna, a human-Klingon hybrid, gets kicked out of her regular school because she can’t get along with her classmates. Yet her school is full of alien hybrids.

Upshot

Hybrid characters should be a large part of most Star Trek fan fiction, unless the time period is ENT or earlier. And even the ENT era can readily accommodate them. After all, not every hybrid is partially human.

These characters can break and bend the molds of characterizations and species types. What about Vulcans with emotions, or Klingons without honor? Hybrids, it is likely, can change the paradigm in all sorts of ways.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Spotlight, 3 comments
07
Aug
2013

Self-Promotion

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 self-promotion

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.

Posted by jespah in Boldly Reading, Fan fiction, Meta, 3 comments
02
Aug
2013

Review – More, More, More!

Background

More, More, More! was one of the fan fiction first stories I ever wrote.

Barking up the Muse Tree | Jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | More, More, More!

It has some improvements, with a few character and situational changes. But it still shows, I admit.

For the first few stories, I based them on the five senses. This one was based on hearing. Therefore, it made sense to me for there to be music and dancing. But there’s a lot more (pun intended) going on than all that.

Plot

The captain is having lunch in his mess when things suddenly feel strange. He gets up, but he collapses. The steward, Preston Jennings (who has that job after Daniels and before Lili), expresses alarm, but the captain waves him off.

Then the captain barges in on a crewman. And then, in the hallway, he collapses again. But this time, he’s raving and he’s violent. Quickly, crew members bring him to Sick Bay (including, probably, Preston). And almost as quickly, he is temporarily relieved of command, by T’Pol and Phlox, with Hoshi as a witness.

But then Daniels appears, and suddenly the story is not what it seems.

What is happening? The captain’s brain is a colonization site for a tiny species. Of course, this is affecting him, and that will simply not do. Furthermore, while the tiny species might not be important to the timeline, Archer most certainly is. Daniels must save Jonathan’s confidence while, at the same time, preventing the destruction of the tiny species. The Nokarid do not mean any harm. They have no idea what is going on.

Music and More

More, More, More by the Andrea True Connection

During the course of the story, it becomes apparent that there’s going to be a mixer between the Enterprise and the Columbia. It’s to be a disco party, and the sound system needs tests. Every now and then, Chip Masterson‘s tests come through, loud and clear, on the intercom (originally, I had Travis doing this). The entire playlist was not up until I wrote On the Radio.

Here are the songs from the story.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is rated K+.

Upshot

I like it better now, certainly. There are a few parts that I would change, but I like the story enough to have given it a sequel. It’s redeemable, but I know my writing is better now. It’s pure fluff, and I rarely write pure fluff any more.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, In Between Days series, Review, 19 comments
22
Jan
2013

Portrait of a Character – Gary Hodgkins

Portrait of a Character – Gary Hodgkins

Gary Hodgkins starts out with a lot of strikes against him and doesn’t improve much.

Origins

I wanted a MACO who would be, at times, a bad guy, or a guy with some pretty hard luck. Star Trek: Enterprise canon didn’t really cover that, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t cover it in fanfiction. Enter Gary Hodgkins, who first shows up in Intolerance.

Portrayal

Portrait of a Character – Gary Hodgkins

Gary Hodgkins (Justin Long)

I wanted him to be fairly young and perhaps a decent-looking guy who has a lot of bad things happen to him. He deserves many of these bad things, both in our universe and in the mirror. Bad stuff can happen!

I selected Justin Long for this portrayal.

Personality

Duty-bound but sometimes difficult, Gary follows along in the mischief that Dan Chang often finds himself getting into. It isn’t until the end of his life in the first E2 kick back, and during the second, that he finally becomes a decent person. In the prime universe’s prime timeline, he doesn’t really get a chance. This is because, in Intolerance, he becomes permanently disfigured and disabled. This forces him to leave active Starfleet service. He’s often paired with Tristan Curtis as they are friends and sometimes, quite literally, partners in crime.

Relationships

Sophie Creighton

Because Gary dies young during the first kick back in time (and he has behaved rather badly), he has no relationship then. But in the second kick back, he and Sophie wed. I only give a little about their relationship but there’s a lot on their descendants.

Their grandson Richard marries Jolene Tucker, T’Pol and Tripp‘s (and Susie Money and Mario Lattimer’s) granddaughter. Jolene and Richard’s twins, Stephen and Stephanie, are married (respectively) to Marie Helêne Archer (granddaughter of Jonathan, Esilia, Lili, and José) and Connor Greer IV, who is the father of canon character Greer (although that character did not have a canon first name or even a first initial).

Mirror Universe

Barking Up The Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Justin Long as MU Gary Hodgkins (image is for educational purposes only)

Justin Long as MU Gary Hodgkins (image is for educational purposes only)

Gary has numerous issues in the mirror universe. He is seen in Coveted Commodity, loyally guarding the Empress in Sick Bay and spelling trouble for Travis.

In Temper, in the first temporal dislocation, he loses his life with a lot of other people from both universes when the Luna is destroyed in a head-on collision with the Bluebird.

In the second temporal dislocation, he dies during a Calafan slave revolt. And in the correct Mirror Universe timeline, he is falsely accused (as is Tristan Curtis) and is executed for helping Chip and Lucy get away with the Empress’s twin children, Takara and Takeo.

Quote

“The captain, when he told us all about it, he said he hoped it wasn’t due to a lack of trust. I mean, I can see how it could be really upsetting. He married an Ikaaran woman the last time out. To know that she kept something that big from him, I mean, that’s gotta be hard.”

Upshot

I’m not so sure where I can go with Gary, as he’s got to be off the ship (the nature of his disability means that he’s got to fly a desk). But there’s no reason why I can’t show him before Intolerance, or in an office or civilian capacity otherwise.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Interphases series, Portrait, 6 comments
10
Aug
2012

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Origins

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Hoshi Sato

This is a canon character, of course. Hoshi Sato (her name, literally, means “at home in the stars”) is the Communications Officer on the NX-01, with the rank of Ensign, which she retains throughout the entire run of the series. Also according to canon, she eventually  rises to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. This is a rank that I, semi-incorrectly, use interchangeably with the rank of Lieutenant. She also marries a man named Takashi Kimura. In the canon E2 story, she names her two children Toru and Yoshiko. I go with those as being the names of her prime timeline children as well.

Hoshi is also, in canon, extremely intelligent (probably a linguistic genius) but, at least in the first two seasons in particular, is a bit insecure. She is the most likely to jump if the ship is under attack or bumped. She is also likely to doubt her own obvious abilities.

Portrayal

As in canon, this character is portrayed by actress Linda Park.

Personality

In addition to her canon quirks, I tend to write her as still being a bit more tentative, even after the Xindi War. In There’s Something About Hoshi, she is encouraged by the captain to stretch a bit. However, the reaction there proves to be far too much for her, and she balks a bit.

In Together, she reveals a playful and sexy side but, in the end, chooses career over romance, failing to realize that Tripp is truly passionate about her.

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Hoshi on the Bluebird

She’s also caring. As Malcolm‘s First Officer on the Bluebird, she’s comforting when he receives the news in Equinox. She also defiantly says she will take the fall if there’s any real flak from the diverting of the ship to Lafa II instead of heading straight to the Klingon Neutral Zone, as planned. However, she plans her retirement at a young age, as she is seeing her children grow up without her, and fears she is missing out.

Relationships

As I write her, she has four main relationships, including her canon marriage, which I acknowledge in Equinox, Flight of the Bluebird, A Hazy Shade and There’s Something Else About Hoshi.

Sekar Khan

In the E2 scenario, she ends up, in both iterations, with the Quartermaster, Chandrasekar Khan. In canon, there is no name for her husband, so there is room to be creative in this area. Sekar is gentle and giving, but also keeps her from some of the worst of what’s out there. While he is no warrior, he intercepts problems and does his best to make her life easier.

Takashi Kimura

Hoshi’s canon husband is never on screen. I have really only written them as long-term marrieds, and never at the start of their courting.  That could potentially develop into a later project.

Ted Stone

In There’s Something About Hoshi, she laments about having settled during the E2 situation. For her, Ted seems to be another form of settling. This is because she sees him as being almost, but not quite, romantic. It’s as if he keeps missing his marks. When she is injected with a compound intended to make her irresistible, he is one of the few men who does not bother her, and is the only one of those who is heterosexual. He explains that the compound didn’t seem to work on him, as he was already there.

Tripp Tucker

Portrait of a Character – Hoshi Sato

Later Hoshi

They are forcibly paired up in Together, but they are the only couple who, truly, start off  in a non-hostile manner. Instead, they vow to “make the most of it”. The dance – literally – between them moves from fooling around to, eventually, a declaration of love on Tripp’s part, which Hoshi does not reciprocate. Unknowingly and unintentionally, she breaks his heart in her efforts to stay on the ship and remain able to work with everyone, including him and, presumably, T’Pol, his ex.

She is thoroughly unaware that he is still interested, even as they are heading into the time of the canon These Are the Voyages episode. Instead, she agrees to a date with José Torres. However, she might have a little residual jealousy, as I depict in Broken Seal. An anomaly hit briefly impairs her judgment, and she stages an elaborate prank against Commander Tucker. But it’s possible that some of that stems from Tucker’s attempt to reconcile with T’Pol, an attempt that, in keeping with canon, fails.

Theme Music

In Together, she has a theme of her own, Bette Midler’s Do You Wanna Dance? and one which she shares with Tripp,  Joe Jackson’s Kinda Kute.

Mirror Universe

Because I write so much about the Empress Hoshi Sato, her mirror counterpart gets a separate blog post.

Quote

“Well, I suppose if I had a dinosaur, I’d sleep better, too.”

Upshot

The quintessential young career woman, Hoshi Sato, in some ways, was not taken far enough in the series, I feel. In part this is because this character lost screen time, in favor of Tucker and T’Pol. But there were ways that the character could have stretched more. I hope to get a chance to write some more about Hoshi, and stretch her in my own way.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, In Between Days series, Portrait, Times of the HG Wells series, 50 comments