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The “Get Keru Laid” Campaign
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I have to say that hadn't occurred to me. They were prickly in Orion's Hounds because of the Borg issue, which was nicely developed into them having become friends because of the Borg issue in Destiny. But now they barely exchange words.
Now I wondered if i detected something in Torvig's sadness over White-Blue's departure. A gay relationship between a cyborg kangerostrich and a sometimes-incorporeal AI would be quite pushing the envelope
I'm sure that's definitely a part of it. There is sometimes a tendency for one character to be the pet project of a certain author, and other authors are either reluctant to step on the first author's toes or just don't know what to do with that character. (Not saying that happens all the time, but I can see it here and there.) The opposite is definitely possible, though. And surely it's not beyond the capabilities of the current author line-up to find something interesting to do with this guy.
Surely Keru and Hawk themselves count? Rogue established that they were a couple during First Contact, and that Keru had simply been off-screen during the events of the film.
Of course there are always a ton of on-screen characters whose romantic lives were never explored, but who might be gay for all we know. Just because people are usually assumed to be straight absent any evidence to the contrary doesn't mean that they actually are.
I'm not personally aware of any, not that it's really any of our business. But surely an author needn't have to be gay to write for gay characters. After all, I'm gay and I think I still did a decent job writing straight relationships.
Interesting... I was mildly annoyed when Anthony Montgomery, in his recent interview on Trek.fm, described his initial knee-jerk response to being offered an acting audition for the first time - it came off as thoughtlessly homophobic. I would hope his perspective has broadened in the intervening years in the acting industry. So it feels amusingly transgressive to give his character those dimensions...
That would be Etana and Richter - also Mangels/Martin creations, I believe, before being developed by other authors. But they are still very much background characters. I know there definitely are LGBT characters in existence in the books, but none of them seem to have any prominence.
I think back to this much-ballyhooed "first phase", when there was Keru, T'Prynn, Faulwell, Shar - all 'lead' characters who played major roles in the storylines. Now SCE and Vanguard are both finished, Shar has been reduced to recurring and possibly never to be seen again now that the Andorian storyline is resolved, and Keru has been reduced to a walk-on bit player.
Christopher has pointed out several that I'm missing in books I haven't read, so that's definitely my own bad.
Please don't think I'm not glad for the work that you and the other current crop of writers do, Christopher. I realise I may be coming off as picky and ungrateful, and you may be sitting there thinking, "God, nothing I do is good enough for these people!"
By the way you're pushing Live By the Code, it sounds like whoever your LGBT character(s) are in that book they are either already established major characters or will become so in the book. I haven't been following the RotF books because I wasn't really such a huge fan of Enterprise and I only have so much time and money. If I want to get what I'm asking for, perhaps I should revisit that decision.
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I was talking about LGBT characters in Trek Lit set during the tv series era. Hawke and Keru absolutely count as important LGBT characters in Trek Lit, but they were only on board for First Contact - a movie set after the TNG tv series era.
Checking Memory Beta, Keru left the Enterprise E sometime before 2376, so he may have been aboard during Insurrection, but it's not certain.
I'm not trying to diminish their importance, it's just that their involvement comes after that era.
It's a nit-picky point, absolutely. I just was wondering if Trek Lit had established more gay crew members during that earlier era. Of course there were bound to be gay characters we don't know about, but that's not all that satisfying of an answer, to me anyways.
Checking Memory Beta, Keru left the Enterprise E sometime before 2376, so he may have been aboard during Insurrection, but it's not certain.
I'm not trying to diminish their importance, it's just that their involvement comes after that era.
It's a nit-picky point, absolutely. I just was wondering if Trek Lit had established more gay crew members during that earlier era. Of course there were bound to be gay characters we don't know about, but that's not all that satisfying of an answer, to me anyways.
It just occurred to me that, assuming the Enterprise books have gone with the now-standard four-sex interpretation of Andorians, then that means that Shran was actually tri-sexual all along during the TV show. Of course that's nothing unusual for Andorians, it's their default position. By their standards, it would be more unusual if Shran were 100% heterosexual only.
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Oh yeah. Tri-sexual Shran. I'm not sure if any of the newer ENT books have touched on that, but absolutely, presumably most if not all Andorians are tri-sexual.
I'm not aware of it being explored anywhere much yet but surely some Andorians would be hetero or homo only. That would be a social problem with Andorians and their breeding problems.
So while there probably are Andorians out there who are gay or straight, I'd expect the majority of them to be tri-sexual.
I gave Keru a major storyline in Orion's Hounds. I don't recall if I did much with him in Over a Torrent Sea, but that's just from wanting to vary it up. Had I continued to do Titan, I wouldn't have seen him as any less worth exploring than anyone else.
I'm inclined to suspect that maybe the problem with the character, if there is one, isn't his sexuality so much as that he spent too long being defined by his grief at the loss of Sean Hawk, without enough other attributes being established to capture later writers' imaginations. Of course, all it would take is one writer to think of some interesting new direction to take the character.
I've never cared for the assumption that you have to belong to a group in order to understand or identify with it. All it takes is imagination, empathy, and the willingness to listen to other voices. And you can't be much of a writer if you can't get into mindsets different from your own.
The books are part of the novel continuity and thus they use the four-sex paradigm.
Isn't Keru good friends with Alyssa Ogawa and her son Noah? It's been too long since I've read the early Titan novels, but even this friendship was explored further, if I'm not mistaken.
Nonetheless, Ranul definitely needs a new partner and character development. He is one of the characters who makes Titan worth reading.
Nonetheless, Ranul definitely needs a new partner and character development. He is one of the characters who makes Titan worth reading.
In the DS9 novels, it's established that Shar loves one of his partners more than the others, which is frowned upon. Their first sexual interaction breaks a taboo.
In Peaceable Kingdoms, the couple who beget Ezrishar and her sister consists of two women.
I did really love the story of Shar and his bondmates, it was a great exploration of a truly alien race's romantic life. It makes me wonder how gay or straight Andorians are treated. I imagine as long as they marry the expected three other genders and have children, or at least try, then they might be free to have other relationships once they're past their breeding age. But maybe not.
And I'd imagine anyone who opts out of reproducing for any reason is socially stigmatized. But I'd think as part of the utopian Federation too much prejudice against non tri-sexuals wouldn't be tolerated.
And we have seen at least one Andorian having a relationship outside of a four gendered mating group, with Damora Sulu having an Andorian male partner (and a female partner too). I'd love to see that explored more. I haven't gotten to the point to read that book yet but I have heard about it.
And I'd imagine anyone who opts out of reproducing for any reason is socially stigmatized. But I'd think as part of the utopian Federation too much prejudice against non tri-sexuals wouldn't be tolerated.
And we have seen at least one Andorian having a relationship outside of a four gendered mating group, with Damora Sulu having an Andorian male partner (and a female partner too). I'd love to see that explored more. I haven't gotten to the point to read that book yet but I have heard about it.
Pascal Boudreaux is his name. He might get a more prominent role since he is Bashir's successor.
So who wants to place bets on whether the new TV series will finally admit that gays exist?
It's 2015 - I think any show that doesn't have at least one gay character is looked down on now, especially streaming-only shows which a recent survey showed blew normal network shows out of the water with regard to LGBT representation.
(Not a TrekLit topic I know, but this thread was already in flow, so...)
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It's 2015 - I think any show that doesn't have at least one gay character is looked down on now, especially streaming-only shows which a recent survey showed blew normal network shows out of the water with regard to LGBT representation.
(Not a TrekLit topic I know, but this thread was already in flow, so...)
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For what it's worth, Alex Kurtzman is on record as saying that the issue of LGBT representation in Trek "does need to be addressed." But that was back in 2008, so whether he's committed to that remains to be seen. As far as I can determine, no show that Kurtzman has produced to date has featured any LGBT characters, unless you count Xena: Warrior Princess.
True - sorry.
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