I can't remember if it was a piece of fanfic or a PBeM Sim character, but there was someone very close to that. Wish I could think where it was again (was a while ago and gave up reading not long after starting).
I've never been able to get that trope. It sounds far more like a bloodthirsty chest-beating "warrior" type, versus any kind of uniformed soldier.
I'm sure there's a line in Knights of the Old Republic about how soldiers are people who take up arms against warriors (or something along that line), which I always thought as very fitting for Starfleet. Like it or not, the fleet is the armed services of the Federation, but these officers and crew aren't out looking for conflict, they fight to defend others. Yes, you might get members from species that are more aggressive or from a "warrior culture" (though even these would have moderation, no society that are purely warriors would survive long enough to develop space travel) but to get into and through Starfleet Academy they will be under the psychological microscope, to make sure that they have the correct mentality and emotional fortitude in order to make is as a member of the Fleet--they don't just let any riffraff in!
Mostly it comes from people who've never been through a war or fought in a battle or lost someone to a war. Just like those young men you see in videos of the First World War where they're heading off to war thinking it would be a glorious victory and they'd be home by Christmas. Those notions got knocked out of them real quick once the fighting started.
War stories can work quite well, if the focus is in the right place: the characters. Unless they are completely sociopathic and cut off from their emotions, then the conflict is going to take it's toll on them (even Vulcans aren't immune to such hardships, see what happened to poor Chu'lak), that is what a story should address and focus on within the context of a war. Yes, space battles can be exciting and yes, new technology can be shiny and enticing, but without any soul then it's just bland and unconvincing. I've never been a part of any armed forces and never faced combat, so those are things that I can't 100% get my head around, but if the story is about someone breaking down, or dealing with anxiety and depression, or questioning everything about their lives and the dreams they once had, then those are things that readers can understand and relate to.
When there's suddenly some graphic "shipping" stuff when there was absolutely no warning about that at the beginning. Kor
Yeah, the writer should let the reader know if there's going to be graphic sex in their story. Personally, I don't do graphic--limits your reading audience if you do graphic. Now, I do go innuendo and get risque at times--especially where Liz is concerned--but yeah, no 'color commentary' shall we say.
Agreed. Speaking of, er, romance, we all know there are some pretty messed up ships out there. (Incest, creepy age gap, etc.) *shudders* But what just mildly annoys me, as a pet peeve, are those ships where they just look like the author pulled two names out of a hat. You know, two characters who have never been shown to have any romantic tension, not extraordinary much interaction, and absolutely no romantic chemistry.
You probably won't like the relationship I've been building between Commodore Robert Wesley and Aliz Bathory then--their relationship has been three years building--their time. The thing is, May-October and May-December romances do happen, and I can speak from personal experience having once been on the May end of a May-October romance (I was 22, she was 40)--It does happen. The thing is, you have to build the relationship and that why you have alpha and beta readers who tell you to slow it down or to build a little more, etc. In other words, you have to make it plausible and something that evolves over time.
I think a peeve of mine is an OC that has never been a Captain, being handed some state of the art ship of the line (or some new super advanced prototype), and the whole story revolves around them overcoming some issue or fear that would basically make them a poor choice for a Captain to begin with, all because some higher up "see's something" (You're a wizard Harry!) in them.
So Mary Sues. BTW, I love your username. I'm picturing some person in some training exercise where they have to punch away tribbles that are thrown/shot at them.
Exactly. In my head canon, being given a Starship command is something that is highly competitive, that many Officers work for Just the chance at, even though they know that there is a good probability they might never be chosen, so any time a command opens up, there are thousands of candidates who meet the criteria vying for that spot, even if it's a lowly Oberth class ship. Starfleet only has a few thousand Starships, and probably Starfleet personnel in the low millions, so even getting a bridge job should be super difficult, only reserved for the best of the best, basically those with lots of drive and ambition, who busted their ass their whole life to get there.
Also, why is it everyone's ambition to be a starship CO? There are upsides to "shore" (starbase and the like) commands. And why would staff corps (roughly "operations/science, medical, JAG, etc.") officers in general want to become unrestricted line (roughly command) officers in the first place? Shouldn't they be aspiring to command within their area of expertise instead?
I blame the JJverse for making it too easy to be Captain. So you get oc stories where just like Kirk they do something amazing and get handed a ship on a plate. That movie should have promoted Spock not Kirk. One of my pet peeve apart from Mary Sues - Spock is the only Vulcan hybrid in the galaxy. Two hundred years after First Contact, billions of Humans and Vulcans and only Sarek and Amanda did the dance of the humpback beast? Please! I have a story where there is one Vulcan-Human female married to a human, a reviewer wrote I had too many mixed race Vulcans in the story. I told them if they think 1 out of 6 billion was too many they needed a maths tutor. Even if they were 100,000 that is still an extremely small number. I think some fans are in love with the idea of Spock being 'unique'. Another one is do not make a canon character a bitch or evil person so that your beloved ship can get together. This happen a lot with Spock/Kirk stores, where the writer turns Uhura into some vengeful witch who forces Spock into Kirk arms. I read a funny story where the writer made S/K the bad guys and Uhura the victim. Its even funnier when they turn Uhura into some saint who steps aside so that S/K can fulfill their destiny...what a load of crap!
Did they say onscreen that Spock was the only Vulcan/Human hybrid alive? Or maybe just the only one in Starfleet? Either way, I agree with you. These are species consisting of billions of individuals. So if anything hybrid characters are something one should have free range with; just as long as it's not an unbelievable amount of hybrids in one ship's senior staff. And yes, I am so sick of people demonizing main characters just for being part of a canon pairing they dislike, or even just posting a *threat* to the pairing they do like. Both Seven of Nine and Janeway get this treatment in JC and C7 fics, and it's really obnoxious.
I am guilty of having a character assume command of a ship when he was barely 30 (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: Captain Reihyn of the U.S.S. Orion), but this was during the Dominion War with a battlefield commission and he ended up commanding an 80 year old ship limited to a support role, so he wasn't on the biggest, best and most advanced ship of the fleet charging into battle at every opportunity--hopefully that was all fairly believable for those who read my mini-series.
On that list, bad grammar. But my biggest pet peeve by far is posting stories that are not finished. I want to read a story, not a draft. Worse is when the story is either never completed, or takes a long time to get the next chapter. So I try to only read complete stories. I remember once reading a story where in between Star Treks II and III, Kirk and McCoy traveled back in time and found themselves crossing over with MASH. As dumb as that sounds, the story was actually really good. Surprisingly really good. Then it ended practically in the middle of a sentence. Imagine watching TWOK ending when Spock enters the radiation chamber. And that's it. It was like that.
I think another reason for the 'baby' captains might be because some writers come in from Star Trek Online where your character is basically given command of a starship from the get-go. Game-wise, you pretty much have to do that, but story wise...no. Starfleet is not the 18th--early-mid 19th century British army where you purchased your commission. Character bashing in order to set up someone's dream ship is irritating, I'll agree. Playing semi-devil's advocate as regards the Spock as unique hybrid issue, in the original series, that was the way he was intended on being portrayed. However, that plot characteization went away with TNG and was pretty much put paid to once and for all with Enterprise. That being said, you probably wouldn't have that many Vulcan-Human intimate situations--barring the Vulcan embracing v'tosh ka'tur, that is. Now, other races with human such as Bajoran or Betazoid or Orion or others, that's another matter--it'd still involve some genetic tinkering with the help of the local Bones, Phlox, Bashir, Crusher, or EMH though to make it work.