Hi guys and gals! Please excuse me while I have a bit of a brainfart here and throw some ideas at you all!
How about a fanfic set aboard a small freighter, an Antares-class like Kassidy Yates' ship in Deep Space Nine? It's captain is a former Starfleet science officer just to keep things tied to Starfleet? The freighter is a bit of a battered old thing and is called Wayfarer perhaps? Well perhaps not that maybe something more individual!
Only a small crew of maybe four or five. The freighter operates out of a space station located somewhere outside Federation space.
The captain was a lieutenant in Starfleet but either left or was discharged for some reason, and has fallen back on his training a couple of times to get out of a tight spot. He has to adjust to a very slapdash way of running a vessel and deal with his small crew of non-Starfleet personnel. On the crew are a woman who is essentially his second-in-command and who shares the piloting duties. Perhaps just an engineer and a cargo specialist responsible for loading and unloading cargo. Certainly only a couple of people. Who aren't particularly keen on Starfleet or the utopian, superior United Federation of Planets. "It's not that I'm not interested captain, it's just that it'd be nice to occasionally hear a story that didn't start with 'when I was in Starfleet'..."
The ship itself is an old and battered freighter with about 40,000 light-years on the clock, several not very careful owners and hardly any service history! Not quite falling to bits but certainly having seen better days! Everything onboard is obsolete and it has only very basic defensive shields and navigational phasers, nothing that can do much damage to anyone who comes attacking!
Then we have our space station, the homeport for the freighter. Situated above a planet outside Federation territory in unclaimed space, the station was constructed a hundred years ago by someone or other and just sort of been adopted by its current cartel of owners who have turned it into a hub of commerce for the surrounding sectors. To borrow a description of another space station, it was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travellers from a hundred worlds!
The story itself is still VERY basic in its concept. We'll begin with the freighter under attack by a pirate ship somewhere in space where it is taking a beating, but the captain manages use some piece of Starfleet knowledge or experience to scare the pirate off or maybe destroy him. Maybe in a moment of inspiration/stupidity he runs to his cabin, rips open a load of boxes looking for something as the freighter is pounded by weapons hits and finally emerges with his old Starfleet uniform, pulling it on as he stumbles down the corridor to the bridge! He generates a subspace message that appears to come from an incoming ship and contacts the pirates, telling them that he is Captain Jones of the USS Macguffin and to call off their attack (something silly but fun!) The crew just rolls their eyes and groans!
This would be the prologue. We'd then see the freighter and crew docked at the station orbiting a world outside Federation space in the Beta Quadrant somewhere, where the captain is struggling to repair the damage caused by the fight with the pirate ship because he is so strapped for cash. The station master is a particularly menacing individual who is demanding unpaid docking fees, he visits the ship and lifts our captain into the air by his collar and gives him a week to pay. Maybe this man is a Nausican or something and is threatening to sell the contents of a storage bay belonging to the captain if he doesn't pay up. Perhaps that bay contains something or immense importance to the captain, who knows!? Perhaps this station commander is just a small part of whatever cartel operates the station, some sort of mafia-style organisation along the lines of the Orion Syndicate whose influence extends over many sectors?
So the captain is contacted by a mysterious (ooooooh!) individual who wants to be taken to a forbidden (oooooh again!) world inside Romulan or Klingon space. He obviously doesn't want to do this but the stranger offers to pay for the repairs to the freighter plus a considerable sum to make the journey, so the captain reluctantly accepts. He pretty much KNOWS this is going to turn out badly (mysterious stranger: check! forgotten world inside forbidden space: check! It's such a cliché that why not just acknowledge it and have a bit of fun with the idea, give this stranger a dark cloak that shrouds his face in shadow, maybe even the last member of his race, the whole nine yards!) so much so that when this 'simple job' turns catastrophic he practically rolls his eyes at how inevitable it was, but has no choice in the matter!"So this is the job that's going to get me killed..." It's either take the job off the mysterious stranger or shut up shop.
The story would flow out of a scenario like this. Something about the planet is obviously the macguffin that drives the story but I'm not quite sure what that is yet! Perhaps whatever this is is also wanted by Starfleet and the Romulans or Klingons and ultimately finds the battered old freighter facing down a top of the line Starfleet ship commanded by someone our captain knows, or a massive Romulan Warbird!
Anyway, this is the idea that has sprung to life inside by brain last night so I'd love any feedback you guys can provide!
Heap praise on such a revolutionary concept for a fanfic if you wish! Brutally and mercilessly rip it to shreds if you desire!
* On second thought, I think I'll give the freighter a girl's name! Perhaps the captain named it after his mother or something! The Annabelle? "Kirk to Annabelle! One to beam up!" Does it work? SS Annabelle? Not sure! The Lucy? The Tethys is a name I've seen somewhere that I quite like. The Cassandra? That's quite nice. "If I can't get the Cassandra's deflector dish repaired then we're gonna get holed by the first micrometerorite we come across the next time we go to warp!"
*Also for some reason I see the little three or four man crew as human, not sure why. Is four humans out humaning it up suitable for a Star Trek fanfic or do I need an obligatory Spock, Data, Odo, EMH character who doesn't understand human behaviour to point things out and so on?
How about a fanfic set aboard a small freighter, an Antares-class like Kassidy Yates' ship in Deep Space Nine? It's captain is a former Starfleet science officer just to keep things tied to Starfleet? The freighter is a bit of a battered old thing and is called Wayfarer perhaps? Well perhaps not that maybe something more individual!
Only a small crew of maybe four or five. The freighter operates out of a space station located somewhere outside Federation space.The captain was a lieutenant in Starfleet but either left or was discharged for some reason, and has fallen back on his training a couple of times to get out of a tight spot. He has to adjust to a very slapdash way of running a vessel and deal with his small crew of non-Starfleet personnel. On the crew are a woman who is essentially his second-in-command and who shares the piloting duties. Perhaps just an engineer and a cargo specialist responsible for loading and unloading cargo. Certainly only a couple of people. Who aren't particularly keen on Starfleet or the utopian, superior United Federation of Planets. "It's not that I'm not interested captain, it's just that it'd be nice to occasionally hear a story that didn't start with 'when I was in Starfleet'..."
The ship itself is an old and battered freighter with about 40,000 light-years on the clock, several not very careful owners and hardly any service history! Not quite falling to bits but certainly having seen better days! Everything onboard is obsolete and it has only very basic defensive shields and navigational phasers, nothing that can do much damage to anyone who comes attacking!
Then we have our space station, the homeport for the freighter. Situated above a planet outside Federation territory in unclaimed space, the station was constructed a hundred years ago by someone or other and just sort of been adopted by its current cartel of owners who have turned it into a hub of commerce for the surrounding sectors. To borrow a description of another space station, it was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travellers from a hundred worlds!
The story itself is still VERY basic in its concept. We'll begin with the freighter under attack by a pirate ship somewhere in space where it is taking a beating, but the captain manages use some piece of Starfleet knowledge or experience to scare the pirate off or maybe destroy him. Maybe in a moment of inspiration/stupidity he runs to his cabin, rips open a load of boxes looking for something as the freighter is pounded by weapons hits and finally emerges with his old Starfleet uniform, pulling it on as he stumbles down the corridor to the bridge! He generates a subspace message that appears to come from an incoming ship and contacts the pirates, telling them that he is Captain Jones of the USS Macguffin and to call off their attack (something silly but fun!) The crew just rolls their eyes and groans!
This would be the prologue. We'd then see the freighter and crew docked at the station orbiting a world outside Federation space in the Beta Quadrant somewhere, where the captain is struggling to repair the damage caused by the fight with the pirate ship because he is so strapped for cash. The station master is a particularly menacing individual who is demanding unpaid docking fees, he visits the ship and lifts our captain into the air by his collar and gives him a week to pay. Maybe this man is a Nausican or something and is threatening to sell the contents of a storage bay belonging to the captain if he doesn't pay up. Perhaps that bay contains something or immense importance to the captain, who knows!? Perhaps this station commander is just a small part of whatever cartel operates the station, some sort of mafia-style organisation along the lines of the Orion Syndicate whose influence extends over many sectors?
So the captain is contacted by a mysterious (ooooooh!
) individual who wants to be taken to a forbidden (oooooh again!) world inside Romulan or Klingon space. He obviously doesn't want to do this but the stranger offers to pay for the repairs to the freighter plus a considerable sum to make the journey, so the captain reluctantly accepts. He pretty much KNOWS this is going to turn out badly (mysterious stranger: check! forgotten world inside forbidden space: check! It's such a cliché that why not just acknowledge it and have a bit of fun with the idea, give this stranger a dark cloak that shrouds his face in shadow, maybe even the last member of his race, the whole nine yards!) so much so that when this 'simple job' turns catastrophic he practically rolls his eyes at how inevitable it was, but has no choice in the matter!"So this is the job that's going to get me killed..." It's either take the job off the mysterious stranger or shut up shop.The story would flow out of a scenario like this. Something about the planet is obviously the macguffin that drives the story but I'm not quite sure what that is yet! Perhaps whatever this is is also wanted by Starfleet and the Romulans or Klingons and ultimately finds the battered old freighter facing down a top of the line Starfleet ship commanded by someone our captain knows, or a massive Romulan Warbird!
Anyway, this is the idea that has sprung to life inside by brain last night so I'd love any feedback you guys can provide!
Heap praise on such a revolutionary concept for a fanfic if you wish! Brutally and mercilessly rip it to shreds if you desire!
* On second thought, I think I'll give the freighter a girl's name! Perhaps the captain named it after his mother or something! The Annabelle? "Kirk to Annabelle! One to beam up!" Does it work? SS Annabelle? Not sure!
The Lucy? The Tethys is a name I've seen somewhere that I quite like. The Cassandra? That's quite nice. "If I can't get the Cassandra's deflector dish repaired then we're gonna get holed by the first micrometerorite we come across the next time we go to warp!"*Also for some reason I see the little three or four man crew as human, not sure why. Is four humans out humaning it up suitable for a Star Trek fanfic or do I need an obligatory Spock, Data, Odo, EMH character who doesn't understand human behaviour to point things out and so on?
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