Valjiir

[Geo]

Okay, am I officially endorsed to ROFL now?

[Buster's Uncle]

At what?  Laugh at me all you want.

[Mylochka]

Trying to get back to illustrating. Even though I have started illustrating several other stories, I'm working on illos for a story called "Kiss the Cook" www.valjiir.us/kissthecook.html because I don't have all my illustration "tools" in place yet. This story takes place entirely on the ship with no exotic locations or "guest stars" and therefore could be done with my (temporarily) limited resources...

[Mylochka]

This story is a result of my fondness for anime.  In the same way that during the 1960's and 70's almost every TV series or cartoon had to have a "evil twin" or "spend-the-night-in-a haunted-mansion-to-inherit-a-fortune" episode, the "cooking contest" is standard issue plot device for anime.  Pops up all the time.  After seeing a cooking contest plot turn up in a usually quite serious action/horror series I was following, I started reflecting on why this was a standard narrative convention for Japan and not the U.S.  I didn't get a lot further than supposing this had something to do with Japan's strong storytelling traditions centered around the competitive and demanding profession of sushi chef contrasted to the way cooking is usually relegated to the "women's work" dungeon in the U.S. Then instead of pursuing this line of cross cultural comparison any further, my brain started to whittle away at the thought -- How would a cooking contest episode look in the Valjiir universe?  This story was the product of my musings.

[Buster's Uncle]

...What I find interesting about this is that when they weren't entertaining guests on the Enterprise, they generally ate cubes of foam rubber, only a step short of "nutrient pills"...

[Mylochka]

True.   The Valjiir stories, these folks have an established tradition of occasionally having "I Hate Replicators" parties where they treat themselves to a non-reconstituted meal prepared by volunteers from amongst the crew.  I think this is a reasonable speculation on what starship personnel might do on long hauls between shore leave opportunities.  Space foam rubber might be super-future-nutritious, but it would probably get mighty boring mighty quick.  The cooking contest is one of these special meals... with the extra twist of having a chef contest as part of it.

In this story, several scenes take place in the galley.  The Enterprise's galley was referred to in the episode "Charlie X" but never shown on screen.  There were scenes set in the galley in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but that was very different ship design.  Therefore this set is my original extrapolation of what a ship's galley might look like based on other TOS sets.

[Valka]

No "Kiss the Cook" aprons? Or is that too 20th/21st-century? 

[Buster's Uncle]

I would think that in Valjiir, kissing the cook is something that would definitely happen...

[Mylochka]

  I actually thought about aprons, but I didn't have a model that would fit over the tunic....

[Geo]

I actually thought about aprons, but I didn't have a model that would fit over the tunic....

Captains shouldn't put their elbows 1) so low (it undermines their stature of command 2) so close to buttons&switches which could unleash havoc on everything and its cat in near space! 

That said, nice renders there.

[Valka]

Sulu isn't the Captain. 

[Green1]

The only ST folks I saw actually cook were Sisko (ds9) and Neelix (voy)

[Mylochka]

I'll speak with Sulu about his posture... We don't want him accidentally hitting the self-destruct button, do we?

Here's a picture of Chekov eating some foam rubber cubes and spheres while his girlfriend tries to talk him into entering the cooking contest.

[Valka]

He has to cut those teeny things up? 

I didn't realize synthesized food was so hard to chew...

[Mylochka]

Foam rubber is pretty tough...  Wouldn't want him to choke on it, now would we?

The story calls for a couple scenes to take place in a repair compartment located over the galley.  Here's my first try at this non-canonical set.  It's supposed to be cramped, but I think I've got it too small right now...