Star Trek: Sojourner

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

About three years ago I began work on a fanfiction with a mostly-original Star Trek ship and crew, the USS Sojourner (NCC-74654), an Intrepid-class starship. I named it (probably foolishly) Star Trek: Babylon, because "Babylon" meant "gateway of the gods" and the story involved a gateway to another universe.

Anyway, looking back at it I'm considering revamping the story, making it more original and clearing up a lot of the bad writing. Also, I'm thinking of writing a prequel to show the Sojourner and her crew as they fought the Dominion War with some... Shall we say less than conventional tactics. ^_^

So, if you have comments on the story, or suggestions for the revamp and prequel, feel free to leave them here. Here's a link to the story:

Star Trek: Babylon

Major selling points:

-Captain is creative, ruthless but stays within Starfleet bounds. He's also very personable and his own rather checkered past makes him less uptight than other captains. Originally named Adam Lee, but I've decided that due to the fact he was born and grew up on Mars, I've decided to name him Carter Jones, in reference to John Carter from Edgar Rice Burrough's Martian Chronicles, and J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter from DC Comics.

In any event, Jones takes a more Jack O'Neill approach to command, and is one of those relatively few Starfleet officers who supports a strong military ethic. To explain his animosity towards Seven of Nine, the revamp will make him a survivor of Wolf 359. During said battle, he lost his arm and now uses a prosthetic. While he has moved mostly past that incident, having a genuinely friendly nature and twisted sense of humor most of the time, it made him harden inside in regards to combat, and especially the Borg.

-Operations officer, Mitena Haro, is cute, fun-loving, and very genki, as well as a computer expert. She also sneezes a lot, and due to her Bolian physiology her body fluids are highly acidic. Which, as you can imagine, makes it a bit difficult for her to get a date, but she keeps her good cheer and has a twisted sense of humor.

Probably why she gets along so well with the captain.

-Kes is brought back due to Q's interference and becomes the ships' CMO following the loss of a great deal of the command staff due to the fact they were attacked during an officer's conference. Which makes more sense than most of the officers dying randomly.

-Overall, this crew is composed of people who are very talented and devious, but don't quite fit the mold of the standard Starfleet officer. Delinquents, weirdos, outcasts-Captain Jones takes them all in and gives them the chance to do their jobs. And more often than not, they flourish.

So, thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Feel free to express it.

 

[BakaNeko]

*Will add more after reading through* But let me start off with Kes. So she won't be ascended to a higher dimensional being?

Also any reason on why a Intrepid Class ship?

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

*Will add more after reading through* But let me start off with Kes. So she won't be ascended to a higher dimensional being?

Here, she did, but she returned to mortal (and now human) form thanks to Q. The reasons are outlined in chapter 2 of ST:B. Q helpfully sent her to Dominion space, where the Sojourner had been caught behind enemy lines when the war began, in her Voyager shuttlecraft.

Sojourner was hiding in a solar system with a few gas giants, repairing damage she'd taken when a Dominion patrol squadron had jumped them. She'd been equipped with metaphasic shielding so she could perform some surveys on a few O-type stars in the region, and they hit her in such a system. Her captain and first officer were killed, along with the chief medical officer and chief engineer, along with ten additional crewmembers. Lieutenant Commander Carter Jones assumed command and used the Sojourner's metaphasic shielding to escape through a star, before warping away and hiding. So they picked Kes's shuttle up, brought her aboard, and finding that she had medical training put her in Sickbay, which she was too happy to take over.

As for why an Intrepid-class? I love the design, and considering how Voyager did in the Delta Quadrant on her own I think the class would be decently suited to combat operations. Though of a very creative bent, to be sure.

 

[BakaNeko]

Just finished chapter one. First off, your link leads to chapter three by the way.

A Dolphin? :huh!: Hope you do know that dolphins are very mean ocean dwellers, not nice and cuddly like Flipper. Also in the movies (Voyage Home) I think they're extinct...

Naming conventions, USS Archangel? Maybe you should use the standard way, naimg ships after people, places and personality traits. Now if the Archangel was a class definition that I think I could stomach.

Borg Nation?! That's interesting...

Edit: I'll be picturing the "Voyager Standard" with Sovereign class armor, thankyouverymuch.... Sort of like the Voyager Season 9 CG pics.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Just finished chapter one. First off, your link leads to chapter three by the way.

A Dolphin? :huh!:? Hope you do know that dolphins are very mean ocean dwellers, not nice and cuddly like Flipper. Also in the movies (Voyage Home) I think they're extinct...

Naming conventions, USS Archangel? Maybe you should use the standard way, naimg ships after people, places and personality traits. Now if the Archangel was a class definition that I think I could stomach.

Borg Nation?! That's interesting...

Oops, heh.

I do. Twee is on Sojourner because his tail language is not very complimentary, and he sings to annoy those who he feels have offended him. He sings well, but it's very melodramatic.

Just a note: Dolphins hate sharks more than anything else, so much of Twee's profanity is based on sharks.

Probably. I named it after a Sovereign-class starship in Star Trek: Armada. I'm partial to the name Constellation though.

Well, Unimatrix Zero probably survived the destruction of the Borg Queen, and it lets me make some interesting protagonists.

Edit: Well, while I otherwise disliked the Voyager finale, I have to admit I liked the deployable armor concept.

 

[BakaNeko]

...This might be my hangover clouding my judgment, but can you make sure the dolphin gets replaced in your revision?

I'm in ch3 and it's getting difficult to picture him, not to mention that the "cute companion trope" should be avoided at all costs. (Read: Wesley, Will Robinson, Mokona and others).

Something that I think you should seriously consider is introducing important characters right off the bat. You've just written them "as is" and I'd like to know if there's a backstory to flesh them out.

Maybe have a chapter thats a "status log/report" by the captain or third-party observer, using it to narrate on the crew, and fill in the histories one might need to care about your crew...

Are your views on Seven-of-Nine still the same?

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

So what if he's cute? He's also foul mouthed. Maybe that would detract from his cuteness. Plus, as I am not limited by a budget, I can put virtually anyone on the crew, mwahahahahaha!

... Still, the cute trope might be a bad thing. And of course, the Star Trek: USS Liberty fanfiction universe already has a dolphin chief engineer.

Suggestions for a replacement?

Yeah, the story does seem written as though I've already written a prequel describing them... Maybe I should just write the prequel and then work on the original story. I have a backstory in mind for each character, but I wouldn't mind input on them. Here's a list of the characters:

Captain: Lieutenant Commander Carter Jones
-Human male
-Hails from Mars
-Survivor of Wolf 359
-Prosthetic arm
-Excellent in hand to hand combat
-Jovial, sarcastic, devil may care except when it comes to the Borg.
-Creative and ruthless


First Officer: Lieutenant Dirk Castor
-Triskellion male (descendant of former gladiators)
-Superb hand to hand fighter and sniper, has a family spear in his quarters.
-Ladies man
-Worships Kirk


Tactical officer: Lt. Wyn
-Angosian female
-Cool, efficient, former Angosian super-soldier. Somewhat lousy social skills.
-Excellent markswoman and hand-to-hand combatant. Prefers projectile weapons to phasers.
-Enjoys music, in particular hard rock. Finds it appropriate to fight to.


Security officer: Lt. (jg) Savern
-Andorian male
-Boisterous, proud of the Imperial Andorian Guard tradition
-Very proud.


Operations (science) Officer: Lt (jg) Mitena Haro
-Bolian female
-Goofy, energetic, occasionally scatter brained.
-Computer expert; has received discommendations for accidentally hacking classified material.


Conn/Navigation officer: Lt (jg) William Koroshiya
-Human male
-Hails from Okinawa
-Former fighter jock. Assigned to Sojourner after striking a superior officer when he was not allowed to search for a squadron mate after her disappearance.
-Lazy, sarcastic, very intelligent. Shikamaru-ish.
-Incredibly natural talent for piloting


Chief Engineering Officer: Lt (jg) Twee'le'iek (Twee)
-Dolphin male
-Bubbly, cheerful, but very disrespectful and uses foul language in his native body language often.
-Genius, but often comes up with bizarre ideas after eating too much mackeral.
-Sings a lot and often does so to take revenge for implied disrespect.


Chief Medical Officer: Lt (jg) Kes
-Field commission

As to Seven of Nine...? Still not particularly impressed with her, and she and the captain will have even more animosity towards eachother than in the original, but I'll be more fair this time around with the revamp.

Besides, she's not in total control of her actions in the story anyway.

 

[BakaNeko]

Up to chapter 5, and I'm glad it's now in the meat of the story.

If you drop in the background information like you did with Archangel's captain and Janeway being classmates, you can keep everything in the same story and not have prequel/add-on chapters that single out histories.

Umm, are you planning on keeping Onegai Teacher in your revamp? Because I'm not to worried about the enemy that you've hinted at taking out the Galatic Federation.

Why? Because in your own opening, any society not getting past relativity can't match the Federation or "civilized" space-faring cultures. And relativity is something thats a fact in Onegai Teacher, but not in Star Trek.

And let's not forget every Federation Starship comes with "god-mode". Their warp fields do everything but slice bread.


I've got no good suggestions on a replacement for Twee'. Make him human? Replace him with the Emergency Engineering Hologram that looks like James Doohan? See, no good.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Up to chapter 5, and I'm glad it's now in the meat of the story.

If you drop in the background information like you did with Archangel's captain and Janeway being classmates, you can keep everything in the same story and not have prequel/add-on chapters that single out histories.

Umm, are you planning on keeping Onegai Teacher in your revamp? Because I'm not to worried about the enemy that you've hinted at taking out the Galatic Federation.

Why? Because in your own opening, any society not getting past relativity can't match the Federation or "civilized" space-faring cultures. And relativity is something thats a fact in Onegai Teacher, but not in Star Trek.

And let's not forget every Federation Starship comes with "god-mode". Their warp fields do everything but slice bread.


I've got no suggestions on a replacement for Twee'. Make him human? Replace him with the Emergency Engineering Hologram that looks like James Doohan?

Well, on Onegai Teacher-Truth be told I was putting in those characters simply because the basic back story of the manga was interesting to me. I updated both the technology of Mizuho's people and changed their location-They have observed Earth in the past, having made several long-range exploration missions to the Milky Way Galaxy.

Mizuho transferred to Starfleet Academy when Kei Kusanagi was in his last year, and they graduated together, but their relationship did not become intimate as it did in the manga due to the fact they were assigned to different ships afterwards. Mizuho's mother and little sister managed to get commissions in Starfleet (how is unknown).

Unfortunately for Mizuho and her family, the Galactic Federation felt that the United Federation should be absorbed, and prompted Mizuho to act as their spy in preparing for invasion. Mizuho and Starfleet managed to prevent this, and destroyed the GF's transwarp gateway that would allow them to get to the Milky Way again.

I could just change all this, but I kind of liked this sub-plot in the story.


I have considered going for full crack and making an exocomp the chief engineer.

 

[BakaNeko]

I'm hip deep in Chapter 7, kinda jarring. There's a shift in your writing style. In the direction of better.

Raii Empire?? Lightbringer? what? Where was that ship they scanned earlier?


Edit: I got lost and drowned. Huh? HUH?! What's going on? Consider starting line breaks with locations, please?


PPS: Damnit, okay the buzz is getting me. BUT looking back I'm talking about what I can see NOW is an Alternate Harry Kim scanning the Zhukov.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

I'm hip deep in Chapter 7, kinda jarring. There's a shift in your writing style. In the direction of better.

Raii Empire?? Lightbringer? what? Where was that ship they scanned earlier?

Ah, thank you.

Ship they scanned earlier...? Who are you referring to? It's the same ship, the Zhukov.

 

[BakaNeko]

Chapter 8, nice ramming maneuver. There might be a fact conflict, I don't think a ship in slipstream could stay connected to a probe.

But it's been years since I saw that episode and I never cared for the clichÚd neon lights they slapped on the warp core and called "Quantum Slipstream".

I liked this chapter, keep it. It was funny and I knew what was going on for once.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Chapter 8, nice ramming maneuver. There might be a fact conflict, I don't think a ship in slipstream could stay connected to a probe.

But it's been years since I saw that episode and I never cared for the clichÚd neon lights they slapped on the warp core and called "Quantum Slipstream".

I liked this chapter, keep it. It was funny and I knew what was going on for once.

Well, if anyone asks the Archangel was in normal space before it made the jump to slipstream. <_< >_>

Next few chapters, you might not like as much.

However, here are some pics I commissioned of the Kasumi's crew:

And of a few of the senior officers for the Sojourner:

 

[BakaNeko]

Which ship is the Kasumi? :blink:

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Which ship is the Kasumi? :blink:

Read chapter nine and all will be made clear.

 

[BakaNeko]

Chapter 9 was awesome. So awesome it was like reading a new story all together.

Whether that's good or bad, it's up to you.

First off, I love Ben Sisko. I really do, so I thought why is he still alive? Had to remind myself that it wasn't the "Mirror Darkly" AU.

Also you have to keep Data consistent. In TNG , he was getting damaged by every little thing, like a bucket of bolts. Then later on he's breaking down doors and flying through space. Set a limit, stick with it and don't forget about them.

I'm not too sure about when you had the AU Federation conquered, but factor in that you may have erased Dr. Soong and Data might not exist at all.


"Floating Treefort FleetÆs " You make them sound like Jurians.

Okay I'm done with chapter 10. I think you wrote yourself into a deadend with the fight. It sounds like you totally destroyed one of the Sojourner's nacelles. Like tearing down a ship's main mast, you might've heaped too much damage in the latter chapters.

I know it's a tough ship, but they'll need a drydock to repair that.

You gave the ship one of the most devastating injuries that one could receive in Star Trek.

Alright, now I've found an inconsistency. Two warp engines? For Star Trek, the Warp Core is the engine and Nacelles are very simply the "wheels".

Quantum Slipstream was a modification of the warp drive and uses a ship's main deflector to generate a slipstream. A ship traveling at slipstream speeds don't have to open or close anything to "slip" into, since it's the ship is still in space/subspace.

It's not a separate engine...

Edit: Excuse me while I go get a drink... An alcoholic one.

 

[SotF]

Dolphins do still exist in the Star Trek universe. The Enterprise D apparently has an entire set of decks with a habitat for them according to the Tech book.

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Yeah, this definitely shows how much I need to work on the story all together.

So, I think I'll write the prequel as more of a reimagined background for the Sojourner and her crew. And then rework ST:B as it progresses.

So, if I get rid of Twee, just what sort of officer should I replace him with? Lee is a captain who doesn't respect authority and is rather laid back and sarcastic. Haro's a goofball. Wyn is anti-social. Castor is a horndog and Kirk cultist. Kes is, well... She has her own issues.

So, what should I put in instead?

 

[BakaNeko]

Do you have anyone serious? -_- I mean sort of like the straight man (like the vulcans).


Nandeyone!

 

[SoftRogue]

Yeah, this definitely shows how much I need to work on the story all together.

So, I think I'll write the prequel as more of a reimagined background for the Sojourner and her crew. And then rework ST:B as it progresses.

So, if I get rid of Twee, just what sort of officer should I replace him with? Lee is a captain who doesn't respect authority and is rather laid back and sarcastic. Haro's a goofball. Wyn is anti-social. Castor is a horndog and Kirk cultist. Kes is, well... She has her own issues.

So, what should I put in instead?

Well, damn, AJ. You PM me asking questions; then you go posting things like this...which is basicly what I was going to PM back to you.

Any way, like I was about to PM you; I'd suggest a couple of chapters (one or two at the most) showing the Sojourner and her crew at the end of their previous mission (and how they handled it) and how they spent their time before they got their latest mission. Or, even better, since the Sojourner was just upgraded to what you're refering to as Voyager standard; that would mean they were most likely in drydock.

In other words, shore leave. :snigger:

In other words, when Capitan Lee arrives to resume command of the Sojourner, he is forced to deal with whoever is in charge of the drydock facility; explain several insidents...bail a crew member or two out of the brig? Things like that...

As for Twee, well, there is another character from ST that I like (I mentioned my opinion of Kes in my PM) that could fit. Ro Laren. Geordi showed us that a helmsmen can make the jump to engineering. And, since the fate of Ro is unknown and the wiki lists a plausible possiblity, it could happen. :huh.:

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

BakaNeko: Wyn serves as a straight man, given her disposition. But I've always been a big fan of Vulcans, so why not? I'll add T'Kal, a Vulcan engineer who served on the Enterprise-D in the short story "Calculated Risk". Aside from the fact Barclay had a crush on her, she's a blank slate. Huzzah!

She can serve as chief engineer. Mitena, Savern, and Dirk can be the whack jobs of the crew, heh.

SoftRogue: Ro Laren? I always was a big fan of her. I'm just not sure how she'd end up on the Sojourner. Maybe they pick her up from a hidden Maquis base on a world in the former Demilitarized zone? They'll need all the help they can get, surviving behind enemy lines.

Well, like I said, I was thinking of writing a few short chapters to describe some of the things Sojourner did during the Dominion War, like this:

- - -

It had been rather simple, really. Rig a shuttlecraft to broadcast their warp signature and send it to dance around outside the system. The Dominion patrol had fallen for it, hook line and sinker, while Sojourner had approached the supply depot with her warp nacelles, deflectors, and nearly everything else turned off.

Lee leaned back in the captain's chair, frowning in the dark bridge illuminated only by red emergency lights.

"So... What happened in the program you saw this manuever performed?" He asked Mitena. The Bolian coughed.

"Er..."

"The ship missed the first shot, and had to reactivate it's systems, and was promptly blasted by hundreds of laser armed defense satellites," Dirk stated in the first officer's seat. Mitena scowled.

"You didn't have to say it like that!"

"It's what happened!" Dirk shot back. Lee sighed.

"Right... Let's just hope that we do better..."

The supply depot came into view.

"Is there enough EM to get a definite lock without going active, Wyn?" He asked. The Angosian shook her head.

"No."

"Position of the patrol?"

"Still out of passive range, sir," Mitena stated. Lee shrugged.

"What the hell... Let's go to active and blow that piece of junk out of the sky. Photon torpedoes."

"Photon torpedoes locked..." Wyn's console beeped, as several dark shapes began appearing in the viewscreen. "It would appear that several Dominion defense satellites were left behind." The Angosian's eyebrows rose slightly.

"They are locking on."

Mitena gawked at the glares she was receiving from the captain and first officer.

"Oh, sure, blame this on me!"

- - -

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

I'd just like to point out the tremendous irony of me getting an interest in Star Trek again when the new trailers for the new movie are coming out.

It's like I have a popular culture sixth sense or something...