Valjiir

[Mylochka]

Cher may have changed it recently.  I probably wouldn't have noticed it myself if it wasn't in my notes from her.

[Mylochka]

Working on the title illo for "Old Fashioned Man."  Pretty happy with it, but my graphics program is slowing down to a crawl when I load my Guardian on the Edge of Forever Model.  Very with the not good considering how many illos in the second half of the story call for the Guardian to be in the background....

[Buster's Uncle]

Would [feminine washing] Vulcan there happen to be a pre-reformation Vulcan from the past, by any chance?

[Mylochka]

No, he's a Vulcan who thinks of Pre-Reform as "the good ol' days." You can imagine that this view causes some problems...

[Buster's Uncle]

M, two bits of Valjiir continuity housekeeping you should look into:


Chekov is not in the Valjiir timeline (neither is Uhura, I think).  Surely you're not going to let that stand.


And somebody ought to do something with my theory of ST universe gravity and starship drives.  I recently wrote it up, so:

I have a theory about artificial gravity and warp drive in that universe...

Well, it starts with the plainly observable fact that everyone's artificial gravity is insanely reliable.

Clearly, none of this is original intent, but not only is it crazy reliable, but so cheap they put it everywhere, and every. single. species. that makes it into space has it.

So I conclude this:  in the ST universe, there's stuff about how gravity works that was discovered by the mid 90's.  Khan's ship had artificial gravity, and it wasn't spinning or accelerating.  So there's a way to make, dunno, a gravity deck plating cheaply that works for a very long time with little or no power input.  Every race discovers this application of the law of gravity pretty soon after they go into space.  The same, or similar, techniques make for a nifty non-reaction gravity drive, which Starfleet calls "impulse".  A slightly more sophisticated application involving the interaction of fields from two gravity generators distorts warps space-time and makes for a nifty FTL drive.  Thus, everyone and his mother has a FTL starship with two drive pylons of some sort.  Both types of drive take a lot more juice then the deck plates because the gravity fields, by the nature of the thing, are not static, but have to expand and contract and vary in intensity.  That Warp is probably by an order of magnitude more power-hungry than Impulse naturally follows.

I came up with that ST gravity theory about six months ago, and it kinda thrills me how well it fits the observable facts, and how much sense it makes.  I can't even think of anything in fake ST that contradicts this.  I'm amazed that it was even possible in a universe so thoroughly pawed-through by so many paws for so many years with no plan - it shouldn't be possible.  I think I win the innerwebs today -when I can get on, anyway.  The making sense game can be a lot of fun.

Of course, if someone made that much sense of something in Dr Who, I'd consider myself utterly topped...

[Valka]

I'm currently reading "Kiss the Cook" and wondering if Ruth will ever convince Spock to put on an apron and make something! 

[Mylochka]

She's certainly going to try!

Still working on Old Fashioned Man illos...

[Buster's Uncle]

FOUL!  I cry foul!

Mylochka has put a BUism into DelMonde's mouth.  Without credit.

[Mylochka]

"Good artists borrow.  Great artists steal."

[Buster's Uncle]

You are a great artist, you thief.

[Buster's Uncle]

I read The Dragon and Saint Del last night, so a few remarks are in order.

First I should acknowledge that Valjiir is founded in a personal vision of Star Trek starting a long time ago by two ladies, and that I'm not their natural audience.  My own views inform my reaction to their Sulu, who is not my Sulu, and I think it's important that I be upfront about that - I come not to bury Caesar, y'know, though I hope my feedback is helpful anyway.

Despite my joke about days getting shorter without someone being on the planet being shamelessly stolen and put into Del's mouth, I had no actual input into, or prior knowledge of, this story.

TDaSD, and I doubt my structural insight would be obvious to someone not a writer of stories, is a relationship tale of the sort that tends to appeal more to women than men, as is appropriate to the Valjiir universe.  Mylochka's inspiration was clearly to metaphorically lock two characters in a closet and make them talk - or in this case, three characters in two interconnected closets in varying combinations.  There is nothing wrong with that, and the tale is witty and funny and quite a success.

I think -I'm not sure- that the tale would have been strengthened by one or two sentences as soon as they were stranded to the effect that it was an uninhabited planet, a point I was briefly confused about, and that all that was at stake was keeping body and soul together while waiting for certain rescue.

I like that Chekov is getting his Valjiir due here.  The business about his chatting-up technique in bars was a nice integration of the brash young man seen in, for example, I, Mudd and The Trouble with Tribbles and the uptight Spock acolyte of, for example, The Way to Eden.  Mylochka, I do have to say that you almost always write the latter, serious, Chekov, and that I'd like to see more of the side of him that was a brash, hot-headed kid who more often appeared on the show.

Chekov is a funny little fellow, too, who liked to mess with people's heads for fun.  Witness that moment in (I think it was) Fridays Child when he made another "it was a Russian inwention" remark and grinned like a possum when no one could see it as he bent back to look into Spock's science viewer.  (Reminds me of how happy you can make a dedicated punster with applause in the form of groans, verbal abuse and death threats.)  He is the sober and studious young officer you like to write, but he is also brash and ballsy and has a subtle sense of humor not incompatible with typical RL Russian sarcasm.  I see him taking a lot less of Del's crap than in this story, and far less defensively, but ready with a snarky crack.  (Note that this is not an area where I think the actor is the authority, but Walter Koenig has said that he vastly prefers the hot-headed party Pavel.)  Spock's sidekick, sure, but with brass and droll wit.  He is someone who terrible things happen to, canonically, and we saw typically Russian pessimism from him on the show sometimes (The Deadly Years); work those things in, and give us a richer, deeper Chekov.  Thank you in advance.

So, very nice story, nice enough that I won't complain about "the dark power in the helmsman’s mind".  You've done very well, as I've come to expect from you.


Forum Note: if you need to mention Walter Koenig, be sure to structure your sentence so as to punctuate Koenig, or you will trigger my least-favorite entry in the swear filter and embarrass yourself.  There's a slur I'm going to remove from the filter the next time I have to roll up my sleeves and mess with the thing; I'll just have to take care of it if anyone ever uses that one as a slur.

[Valka]

Forum Note: if you need to mention Walter Koenig, be sure to structure your sentence so as to punctuate Koenig, or you will trigger my least favorite entry in the swear filter, and embarrass yourself.  There's a slur I'm going to remove from the filter the next time I have to roll up my sleeves and mess with the thing; I've just have to take care of it if anyone ever uses that one as a slur.

I don't understand...

[Buster's Uncle]

The last three letters...

[Buster's Uncle]

-And following on from previous:  as I mentioned in analog, one could handwave (well) much of the absence of the brash side of Chekov from previous works by establishing that Starfleet Academy, like RL officers' candidate schools really do sometimes, teaches that "Fortune favors the bold."  Even if he is as serious as you've always portrayed, I submit that perhaps he wants to impress senior officers who are not Spock with his courage, having reasoned that they will assume they can teach a brave young man wisdom, but not courage.

I still urge some revision of the thinking in future works, but ^that.

[Mylochka]

I read The Dragon and Saint Del last night, so a few remarks are in order.

First I should acknowledge that Valjiir is founded in a personal vision of Star Trek starting a long time ago by two ladies, and that I'm not their natural audience.  My own views inform my reaction to their Sulu, who is not my Sulu, and I think it's important that I be upfront about that - I come not to bury Caesar, y'know, though I hope my feedback is helpful anyway.

Despite my joke about days getting shorter without someone being on the planet being shamelessly stolen and put into Del's mouth, I had no actual input into, or prior knowledge of, this story.

TDaSD, and I doubt my structural insight would be obvious to someone not a writer of stories, is a relationship tale of the sort that tends to appeal more to women than men, as is appropriate to the Valjiir universe.  Mylochka's inspiration was clearly to metaphorically lock two characters in a closet and make them talk - or in this case, three characters in two interconnected closets in varying combinations.  There is nothing wrong with that, and the tale is witty and funny and quite a success.

I think -I'm not sure- that the tale would have been strengthened by one or two sentences as soon as they were stranded to the effect that it was an uninhabited planet, a point I was briefly confused about, and that all that was at stake was keeping body and soul together while waiting for certain rescue.

Thanks for your comments -- even though I know that this sort of romance-type fanfic is not usually your cup of tea.

You've made a valid point here.  Looking back I can see that I've failed to include some exposition in the narrative.  The lack of a few sentences explaining that they were able to find an uninhabited planet (which is pretty lucky...or perhaps this test run was purposefully routed through an area peppered with uninhabited planets that had been star-charted but not explored just in case they did need to crash land) and that the ship knew roughly where they were supposed to be and would be alert to any interruption of signal from them inadvertently has DelMonde acting a little out of character, doesn't it?  As a person who's not just an engineer by profession but a dedicated tinkerer by disposition, without an explanation that he's anticipating that the ship will be there to pick them up within hours, it's puzzling that he doesn't even try to fix the shuttle at all, isn't it?  Won't even try to fix the homing beacon...