Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code by Christopher L. Bennett Review Thread

I believe the first "novelverse" story to reference Lydia Littlejohn was S.C.E.: The Future Begins. (What was the vague reference to her in Articles?)

 

I don't recall Littlejohn being mentioned in Articles, but she was mentioned in To Brave the Storm as the newly elected United Earth president attending the signing ceremony for the UFP in 2161. In fact, that must be the book ThelinNV was thinking of, because I don't find any reference to Littlejohn in any of my books.

 

^There we go. Sorry, I do most of my posting during breaks in my workday and often don't have immediate access to all the books. I will say, I thought a "Littlejohn Room" was referenced in Articles, but it is very possible that I am mistaken.

 

Just did a search in my ebook copy, and nope, no reference to Littlejohn in Articles.

 

That got a smile out of me, when I immediately thought of Spock's extended visit to the Here Come the Brides version of 19th century Seattle. Still not entirely sure how Barbara Hambly managed to sneak that one in under the RADAR. Of course, according to the handful of references that exist for HCTB canon, she misspelled "Stempel."

 

Wait, didn't you say you drew "as much as you could" from IDW's incompatible Gary Seven stories in the first DTI novel, as well as draw from DC's comics, which aren't overall consistent with the novelverse?

 

I often include or exclude individual comics in my personal continuity on a case-by-base basis rather than by series. At the time I wrote Watching the Clock, I felt that at least a few of the IDW Gary Seven issues were compatible, though #6 was later contradicted when From History's Shadow came along and presented the fate of the two agents Gary was sent to replace in a different way. I subsequently decided to treat the whole IDW Assignment: Earth as separate (part of IDW's overall "Byrneverse"), and the minor nods I included can be considered simply homages.

As for DC Vol. 2, I consider most of its movie-era run to be consistent (or at least reconcilable) with the novels, and of course it was the original source of the name "Aegis" for Gary Seven's backers, a name that Greg Cox incorporated into the novelverse in his Gary Seven books.

 

Is Morgan Kelly the first trans character in Trek-Lit? I'm having trouble remembering any others.

 

Does Quark count?

 

"Profit and Lace" shouldn't count for anything of any sort.

But in seriousness, I believe she is, yes!

 

As far as I know, yes. There have probably been some genderfluid shapeshifters here and there, but as for characters who've surgically transitioned from one sex to another, I can't think of any others.

 

Of course, there are a few whose genders are not exactly conventional (am I the only one who pictures Timothy ["Gene/Jean" from Quark] Thomerson as Burgoyne?). And of course, we mustn't forget that "all twelve Sulamid sexes claim to be male, especially the ones who bear the children."

 

I think Hermats would count as intersex -- or bisexual in the original, biological sense of the word.

 

Well, I think the whole species can all just **** themselves.

 

I had to a Google search on Thomerson and I don't see Burgy there.
I always pictured Bowie as Burgy, which is how ze looked on the novel cover art.
I'm not aware of any other actual trans characters in Trek.

 

You'd probably have to have seen the series -- Buck Henry's spoof of every science fiction franchise that existed at the time, from Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon to Star Trek, to Space:1999, to Star Wars -- in order to get my reference. It may have been inspired by the gag in "The Trouble with Tribbles" where Korax calls the Enterprise a garbage scow, as Adam Quark is the captain of an actual spacegoing garbage scow.
In Quark, Thomerson played Gene/Jean, the ship's engineer, a "transmute," with "equal numbers of male and female chromosomes," who randomly shifted between stereotypically macho and stereotypically hyperfeminine personas. The entire series (all eight episodes) was released in 2008 on a single DVD, but has evidently gone out-of-print, and the street price has more than doubled.

Incidentally, to those who actually do remember the series, if the music sounds vaguely familiar, it ought to: it was by the same guy who would score Mork & Mindy a few years later. And aside from the obvious ST spoofs, there's a ST connection: Jerry Finnerman was the cinematographer for four episodes.

 

I've always thought Katherine Moennig (The L Word, Young Americans, Ray Donovan, L&O: SVU, etc.) would make a great Burgoyne.

 

Never heard of her, but I loved her Aunt Blythe as Martha Jefferson, in 1776.

 

Well, yeah, with that context it does make more sense.
Bowie will also be my interpretation of Burgy though.

 

There is something to be said for using names consistently like that, even if the details of the various stories don't add up. It makes things less confusing. (I appreciated that the 09 Trek canonized some of the previously established character names for Kirk's parents and Uhura; it still irks me a little that Star Wars's Kylo Ren was Ben Solo instead of Jacen.) Not to mention that Aegis is just a darn cool name for a race of mysterious unseen spymasters.

TC