Frak, I accidentally made Tony Stark a Trill...

[WarpTenLizard]

This is the third "Oberon" related thread I've created so far.

If you're sick of hearing me ponder this fanfic and want me to just write the damn thing so you can read it, well...

Sorry. But I have about eighteen projects and goals I'm working on, and I'm trying to *shrink* the number I attempt to put my all into at the same time. This one is gonna wait a bit longer.

A wise person on the last thread said I should get out of my own damn way, and I am taking that to heart. Nothing honestly worries me about the story any more, I'm pretty comfortable with it now. But I'm still going to list some potentially problematic things, to see if I can get any suggestions or feedback on how big of a problem it is.

1.) I accidentally made Tony Stark a Trill.

Nuvo Auz was originally inspired by the many snarky YouTubers I follow, many of whom are brunette goateed guys who passively hate everything. Only after writing a bit did I realize this character felt familiar, and went "God damn it, I made Tony Stark a Trill." Well, at least Auz isn't a mechanic.

Until I realized engineer was the *perfect* job for this character. With all his past lifetimes, he has all these different eras of technology to draw from. (For confusion's sake, I'm assuming Trill developed similarly to Earth.) Having a guy with a dozen half-tamed personalities cope by building weird things also seems a lot more interesting than some snobbish physicist just pouring over PADDs of science-y stuff.

I refuse to alter his deadpan personality, or his appearance. He does have two very un-Stark things going for (against?) him. He's NOT a badass (he prefers to avoid fights), and he has infinitely more common sense than Iron Man. If/when he meets Tony Stark on the holodeck, Auz will be losing his patience with him very quickly.

I guess my only pondering is, does the Marvel fandom overlap enough with the "Star Trek" one for the similarities to be too annoying for too many people?

I accidentally made the pilot a Jedi.

Lt. Etannis is an Ocampa from Suspira's Array, and basically an inverted Kes. Bubbly and adventurous, Etannis had no interest in advancing her mental abilities, or ascending to a "higher plane" like her colony was obsessed with, preferring the physical world. She found her way to Starfleet using a difficult form of precognition to find wormholes and other shortcuts to the Alpha Quadrant (the wormhole Voyager used in "Endgame" is a major help), and speeds through Starfleet Academy with her Ocampan total recall.

Due to her Ocampan memory, Etannis has maps of space saved in her head. Seeing the future is NOT something she can normally do easily, but a small mild version of it helps with her piloting....like a Jedi. She also lives in fear of turning to the Dark Side, like Kes did.

If this is a major problem, let me know, so I can ignore you and write this character anyway.

Oh, and if you're picturing someone like Kes, stop that. Etannis is a tall, lanky ginger, with a personality more on par with Tonks from "Harry Potter," or Alice Cullen, from the series I dare not name.

I anticipate a lot of people already loath Etannis and Nuvo and want to set them on fire. And that's perfectly fine, since they're not supposed to be universally liked, in or out of universe.

And the "Dune" Navigator

I decided my mollusk alien should be the wormhole expert. Hey, where've we seen that before?

The Security Chief might notice this....

Lt. Tiago is the chillax, fun kind of guy who might be familiar with enough literary references to lampshade all of these similarities.

But then he's Chief Garibaldi from B5. And Tom Paris. And Star Lord. And John Crichton.

FRELL.

What about her, instead?

...on the other hand, the resident pop-culture fan on the Oberon could be the one we least expect--Commander Zaffar. The first officer with the tragic backstory, the science prodigy background, and the seemingly solemn demeanor.

I like the idea of her turning out to be a fan of superheros and classic fantasy ("Alice in Wonderland" and "Sherlock Holmes" are still being rebooted today; I see no reason for "Harry Potter" or superheros who've been around about a century already to abruptly vanish from pop culture just because starships get invented.) With her once being a mother, it would make sense if she read these stories to her kids or played them on the holodeck with them. I like the idea of Zaffar surprising and annoying her shipmates every now and then with these references. (Not constantly, obviously.)

So what does Ze do then?

The human ex-Maquis was inspired by largely by Ragnar, from Tim Russ's "Star Trek: Renegades." And it's important to me that the Oberon's security chief be a human with no special powers, paritally for irony's sake. But I'm still struggling to find traits for his character that haven't been done to death.

I know that Lt. Ze Tiago is from Brazil. His mom was his best friend, and he spent most of his life as a drifter. To him, this job is just another train car he's hobo-hopped onto. He's a fan of his nation's unofficial Disney mascot Jose "Ze" Carioca. (And he introduces Etannis to the character. And Etannis develops a crush on the character. Who is a cartoon parrot. And her boyfriend Lt. Spoiler gets jealous. Of the cartoon parrot. And laments about it to a cameo-ing Tuvok.) Ze sometimes thinks of opening a bar, where all the cool ruffians of the galaxy will hang out. (Spoiler...) And..... that's it. I don't know what sets him apart from Tom Paris, Han Solo or Russell Crowe from "the Nice Guys," sans being a little bit older.

I guess I'll just let this one develop out as I write.

Lt. Olivia Sutherland:

A supporting character, not on the senior staff.

Olivia is transgendered, but I don't want her character to revolve around that. She's basically an "average" human, who's anything but to a human in the 21st Century. She's from the moon, she's ethnically Australian, she happens to be trans, and she has some PTSD and anti-Cardassian prejudice from the Federation/Cardassian War. Basically, her being trans shows that being trans is not "weird" in the 24th Century, any more than living on the moon is.

But I still have a few (hopefully paranoid) concerns....

• People flipping their tits when Olivia explains her situation to an alien, because she says that Humans have two main genders, and doesn't include those who identify as stop-signs.
• People wanting Olivia's role inflated, purely because she happens to be trans. (I just am not familiar enough with the community at this point to be interested in writing a major regular character that's trans. I wouldn't do it well. And I don't have any room in the main cast anyway.)
• How "masculine" she's allowed to look, physically. If it's slightly noticeable that she used to be male, is that an offensive stereotype? If you can't tell at all, does she have "passing privilege?" If she's got a great sense of fashion, is she "going out of her way to show off she's female?" (I don't intend for her to be like Angel from "Rent", but still.)

It's getting late. But if I think of anything else to add, I'll update this post with it.

Feedback is appreciated, but not necessary. As I said, I'm now pretty sure what I want to do with this story. But I figured it can't hurt to hear thoughts, if anyone happens to have any.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

1.) I accidentally made Tony Stark a Trill.

From the sounds of things he doesn't seem very much like Tony Stark, maybe a few physical traits but they're not copyrighted by Iron Man--I have dark hair and have sported a goatee (full beard now, easier just to let it grow) and am developing a passive hate for everything as I get older . As for him being an engineer, with hundreds of years worth of memories and experiences and skills he'd be able to lend his hand to anything (just look at Ezri, she's a Counsellor by training but also a scientist and engineer), so him being at Ops would be a good fit as he'd be able to cover and support anyone who needed it.

I accidentally made the pilot a Jedi.

We have seen that Ocampa do have a lot of mental abilities so Etannis having precognitive abilities is not inexplicable. If she had spent time on the 'higher plane' (which could be a realm in subspace through which wormholes traverse) then this ability could be linked to that, she was looking for an escape and when she discovered that she could trace wormholes she found a way out, then after meeting (off screen) with the Voyager crew she discovered somewhere else she could go to escape from her life. As for falling to the 'dark side', we all have that in us and we're not powerful telepaths. She could see how much being non-corporeal affected her people and wants to avoid it herself and stay grounded--though if her precog ability was linked to the higher plane existence then she would have the struggle of wanting to remain who she is but knows that she can help the crew find more of what they seek.

And the "Dune" Navigator

I've not read or seen Dune (I'll hand in my geek card now), so this would be something new to me.

The Security Chief might notice this....

I'm not seeing what the issue is. Security officers don't all have to be the strong, gruff or silent type, they've been through some hard times and will have learned to embrace and enjoy life as much as they can, so may be a little more lightsome.

What about her, instead?

This wouldn't be so much 'pop culture' as it would 'literary history', 350-400 years will have passed between now and then and whilst today, and whilst the works of Shakespeare are still studied in schools and adapted for stage and screen, there has been a lot more that has come along since then to keep the masses entertained (such as comic books). Whose to say what fads and trends may develop between now and the time of Trek (especially seeing as how television didn't last long after 2040)

So what does Ze do then?

Not seeing the issue with making him a rogue/scoundrel with a heart of gold. It's a trope that is identifiable but one that you can make your own, especially with his reasons for joining the Maquis and what he did during his him as a 'terrorist'.

Lt. Olivia Sutherland:

We saw in "Profit and Lace" that swapping ones sex is an easy and fairly straight-forward procedure that no one bats an eye at (it may not be the most trans-sensitive piece of television ever, but it does show that such changes aren't the arduous process they are today). As such I wouldn't think she'd ever need to talk about or explain it, you could easily just have slipped a line in a conversation in the mess hall talking about childhoods, where she mentions that "when I was a boy, my friends and I...", so if anything it wouldn't really be a defining characteristic, just like Etannis having red hair.

The only time a character has had to explain their sex to an alien was Riker with the J'naii Soran, otherwise it typically doesn't come up in conversation and, if it did, if she identifies as female then she would say that she was a female. Whilst representation matters, the fact that sex, race or orientation aren't issues by the time of Trek, it's just who they are then I wouldn't think you'd need to have anything that focuses solely on the topic (unless of course they encounter an alien species such as the J'Naii or another that biologically switches sexes [like the common reed frog] and one member the crew encounters wants to remain the one they currently are). We've seen on numerous occasions how adept Starfleet doctors are at altering appearances, making humans look like Klingons or Romulans, so I suspect that she would have as feminine an appearance as she wanted.

Hope some of my rambling thoughts help.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

I LOVE YOU.

From the sounds of things he doesn't seem very much like Tony Stark

This.... is seriously exactly what I needed to hear.

If she had spent time on the 'higher plane' (which could be a realm in subspace through which wormholes traverse)

Okay, how the damn frell did that idea not occur to me? I WILL be crediting you when I use that! Thank-you a trillion! For that, and the long, thought-out response.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Don't mention it. I can sometimes get so engrossed in a project that I can't see the wood for the trees, which is why doing a little brainstorming here can help.

Right now, that's to the headache that work is, my muse has well and truly bolted, so if I can help spark thoughts and ideas with others then I'm happy to offer my thoughts and suggestions--have another idea of my own trying hard to brew in the back of the mind but not getting any traction, so I might try putting up the bare bones and see what others think.