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pureamericanism · 7 months ago

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It's an almost banal truism that classic science fiction was largely a projection of the Frontier Experience - and, more broadly, the whole world-shaking events of the European Age of Discovery - onto an imagined outer space. Less frequently remarked is that the reverse is also true.

I grew up devouring Golden Age science fiction novels, and was a fervent believer in Mankind's Destiny Among The Stars. Well, the Space Age - like all the great dreams of thr 20th century - has turned out to be something of a damp squib, but I still want stories of fantastic voyages of exploration, adventure, science, discovery, and intrigue in a vast new world of far-flung outposts separated by titanic distances. So to scratch that itch, why not just...go back to the source?

If you want something like a story about an isolated asteroid mining colony, you can just read the memoirs of a surgeon at a Hudson Bay Company outpost! Why bother with Heinlein when you can just read the diaries of pioneer women, the tales of Yankee filibusters in Latin America, the authentic exploits of desert-island buccaneers, or the early adventures of the Portugese in the Indian Ocean? Do you want fraught tales of inteigue and war and high politics that extend to the farthest reaches of known space? A good book on any of the big 18th century wars for empire will satisfy. And can Star Trek remotely compare in imagination and excitement to the voyages of Cook and La Pérouse? "Strange new worlds, new life, and new civilizations?" Boy howdy, we got 'em! If you look at these things with fresh eyes, with the eyes of a science fiction fan rather than those of someone with access to an infinitide of pictures of them online, nothing could be more surprising than a dugong, a platypus, a redwood, a southern continent of solid ice.

All of this is really just an overly long preamble to my main point, though. Which is that I believe the story of Hernán Cortés, Montezuma, and the Conquest of Mexico to be possibly the greatest one ever told. The themes...bro, the themes! There is here a richness, a complexity and depth surpassing almost anything I can think of in legend or literature.

It is, of course, a science fictional First Contact story, in which two shockingly different civilizations who know nothing of each other suddenly find themselves facing each other down. And indeed, like any good First Contact story, one of the principal characters, La Malinche, is an interpreter! See how the resulting clash of civilizations eludes simple stereotyping - sure, it's easy to see the Spaniards as brash young interlopers into the sophisticated and urbane world of the Aztecs, whose capital was perhaps as much as an order of magnitude more populous than any city in Spain. But equally it is possible to see the Aztecs as provincials, isolated from a wider, older world that suddenly irrupts into their narrow one. Consider that Cortés supposedly got practical advice on political machinations and military strategy by - studying Caesar! Access to ancient wisdom penned by dead hands in far-off lands provides material aid to him.

Then there are the religious themes. It can be seen as a story about the triumph of Christianity, of the Church Triumphant, but what does it mean for a religion founded by a suffering martyr to become militarily triumphant? And what does it mean for thr religion of a suffering martyr to become triumphant over a religion of human sacrifice to the gods? This is a complex and multi-layered irony that spares no one. And consider the strange foreshadowing of the legend of Quetzelcoatl returning from over the sea. Shades of Frank Herbert, here, even (especially?) if the tale is a post-conquest invrntion.

And the role of technology in the tale. Yes, the steel and shot, the horses and hounds, the ships and sails were all powerful allies for the Spaniards, but these would not have sufficed without the smallpox virus - a reversal of Wells that still underlines the power of biology and of the very small even in the face of all our mastery over the brute world. But the conquest also would not have been possible without the alliance with the Tlaxcala and other local rivals and adversaries of the Aztecs. There are very pointed lessons in the social, political, and diplomatic sciences being demonstrated here. Some are obvious, and others very subtle - look at the ways these differing civilizations reacted under the extreme stress of this brutal war to see what I mean about the subtle ones.

I could go on, I could mention the strange aesthetic touches, such as the similarity in climates between the Valley of Mexico and inland Spain, and the parallels between Spain's role to Rome and Mexico's to Spain; or I could talk about the fascinatingly ambiguous characters of all the major players in this story, and the surprising arcs they go through; but not only am I already going on rather long, but I fear I may be making too light of what were, after all, real events, real events that resulted in piles of corpses, and whose tremendous human consequences are still felt deeply by tens of millions of people.

But I stand by my statement that it is one of the richest, profoundest stories I know of. The gods may be cruel, monstrously cruel, but they are artists, too.

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frecklenog · 11 months ago

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after spending an evening listening to jessie gender tell me about starfield, capitalism, gender, selfhood, and ursula k leguin, i had. some Thoughts about another science fiction series; one you're probably at least somewhat familiar with if you follow this blog or watch ms gender's videos.

to start off; hey. this is partially based on my own experiences, my understanding of them, and how that lens can be applied to star trek. it's also very much inspired by the work of jessie earl, whose channel i can't recommend enough. she's funny, intelligent, kind, and an incredibly gifted writer, and she's a gift to both the star trek, trans, and "video essay youtuber" communities. show her some love!

that said, i want to start by looking at star trek. we all know the vulcans, don't we? pointy ears, green blood — spock's dad's side of the family. gifted with telepathic abilities, vulcans are practitioners of the mind meld, also called things like a mind link, probe, touch, or fusion, which is exactly what it sounds like. it allows two (or more, on occasion) sentient life forms to exchange thoughts as though they were one being.

of course, this kind of thing is common in media. steven universe has gem fusions, which should be examined from a plural viewpoint in their own right. x-man charles xavier almost routinely delves into the minds of others. but rarely does it have any lasting impact on the characters. even star trek itself falls into this, with doctor leonard mccoy not getting nearly enough screentime in the voyage home to show off what must have been the intensely strange experience of carrying spock's katra within him. (maybe that's addressed in a novelization or comic that i'm just unaware of, but regardless, i haven't seen it, and i think that's a travesty. (and if you know of a book where that gets touched on oh my god give me the fucking link now-))

there are instances of star trek mind melds having lasting effects, as discovery shows part of sarek's katra being permanently linked to michael burnham, though that could be considered an extenuating circumstance, what with her being on death's doorstep at the time of the meld. which most trek fans probably already know, and is honestly more fantastical than i care to bother reading with a plural lens. however, star trek is a fandom with nearly sixty years of history, including hundreds of books and comics from various authors and publishers. these stories are plentiful, bizzare, and sometimes outright terribly written. i don't blame anyone for not having read them all — to do so seems like a terrifying task.

but the one i want to look at right now is a particular run of the star trek: the next generation comic, published in 2000 by wildstorm comics.

the run is called perchance to dream — a lovely, flourishing name for a comic where half of the plot could be it's very own jessie gender video for how much sexual weirdness goes on (but i'll leave that to the professionals). the part we're going to focus on is that the b-plot of the run surrounds captain jean luc picard, captain of the uss enterprise-d. the comic is set after the events of the star trek: the next generation season 3 premiere, best of both worlds: part 2. in that episode, the captain had been disconnected from the borg hivemind (after being assimilated in part 1), and he returned to duty as usual at the end of the episode (though he does choose to go on leave in the following episode). it's also set after another episode from later on in season 3, — episode 23, sarek, wherein picard preformed a mind meld with sarek in order to allow the aging ambassador better emotional control, as it was being ravaged by his bendii syndrome — essentially, vulcan dementia.

the a-plot of the run isn't really important to us, i'm afraid — although it reveals to us in the second issue that worf accidentally killed a kid on another soccer team as a child. suffice to say, one of the abilities of the aliens the crew has to play diplomacy with is that they can prod into people's traumas through their nightmares. they have a lot going on. it's a comic book from 2000, what did you expect?

and, speaking of things that are easily dated, the third issue of the run brings us to the second part of today's topic.

image id: a comic book page. beginning at the top, a narration box reads: "chief medical officer's log, stardate 48503.8. lieutenant commander data, doctor selar, and i have gone through the damiano [alien] records regarding the chova. while no direct way to combat the weapon was ever developed we have discovered that certain people were immune to the chova's effects and could destroy the weapon." doctor beverly crusher is beside the narration box, depicted from the shoulders up, facing slightly to the right and saying "there has to be another way." a vulcan -- doctor selar -- is viewed from the waist up, holding a padd in her right hand and facing to the right of the page. she is saying "we have been over the records six times a piece, doctor. if there is anything to find, it is likely that we would have found it by now." data, an android designed to appear as a human with pale yellow plastic skin, is holding a book slightly behind doctor selar. his mouth is slightly open as he speaks. "i believe doctor selar is correct. this is the only course of action open to us under the circumstances." to the right of this panel is another shot of beverly from the shoulders up, this time facing to the left. her expression is stern as she says "i know, i know, it's just-- it could kill him." in the next panel. beverly is shown from the back, and captain jean-luc picard enters, saying "you sent for me, doctor?" beverly responds, "yes, jean-luc. please sit down." below this, the left panel takes most of the remaining page. this time we see captain picard from the back, while beverly faces the reader head-on, speaking first. "we've gone through the records chief du're [irrelevant one-off character from the a-plot] provided. it turns out that there was one group of people who were immune to the chova when it was first used. mpd's." jean-luc repeats "mpd's?" curiously. to the right, data is shown from the shoulders up, saying; "mpd stands for multiple personality disorder. mpd can come about through psycholo--" but beverly interrupts him; "not now, data." end id.

ah, multiple personality disorder. a term that hasn't been clinically used since 1994. these days, we call this dissociative identity disorder (did), but it's one dissociative disorder of many, which is what beverly is talking about. for whatever reason, people with this sort of dissociative plurality seem to be immune to the specific trauma nightmares induced by these aliens. (finally, some good news.)

okay, neat! so, dissociative disorders and plurality have been canonically addressed in star trek. let's see how it goes!

image id also available unbroken in alt text. image id pt 1: beginning in the top left corner, beverly is shown from the shoulders up, facing the right side of the page as she speaks. "the point is the people who are afflicted with more than one personality would destroy the chova before it could affect them. the chova was only built for one personality. mpds would literally overwhelm it." in the next panel, to the right, picard is shown from the chest up, partially obstructed by speech bubbles. facing right, he asks; "how does this help us?" beverly is also in this right panel, although from behind, and nearly completely obfuscated by speech bubbles. she answers; "well, mpd was never a common occurance, and it's almost unheard of these days.there've only been two cases reported in the federation in the last two hundred years -- and damiano [the alien planet] hasn't seen a case in the last fifty."beverly continues. "however, we do have someone on the enterprise who has the makings of a classic mpd. i'd like your permission to ask this person to volunteer to undergo a mind-meld with doctor selar in order to bring the submerged personalities to the fore."

this particular line, i take umbrage with, as dissociative disorders are a lot more common than people might think, and star trek has shown us a future as tumultuous as our own present for decades. there would absolutely be people experiencing some level of multiplicity in everyday life both within the federation and without. but, again, this was written in the 90s, i think? i don't know how long it takes a team of professionals to make a comic book. but, i digress.

image id pt 2: picard responds; "permission granted, as long as it remains on a volunteer basis. who is the officer in question?" below, the leftmost panel is larger than the right. beverly crusher is shown in profile, facing right, with doctor selar and data behind her from the chest and shoulders up. picard is on the right of the page, slightly smaller, but also in profile, facing right to contrast beverly as he listens to her speak. "it's someone who's been exposed to an especially intense vulcan mind-meld, who lived another life for thirty-five subjective years— and who had a second personality grafted onto his own for a brief period by the borg. the next panel takes the entire width of the page, and much of the height. picard is shown in the middle, standing in a purple void. around him are three other male characters shown in bust. from left to right, they are; kamin, a humanoid man bearing great resemblance to an older imagining of jean-luc picard, wearing a plain blue shirt. sarek, a vulcan with grey hair, a turquoise shirt, and a green stone amulet on a large gold chain around his neck. he is cast in shadow and his eyes are not visible. locutus, an ashen version of jean-luc picard, with about a third of his face obscured by black metal exoplating and implants that surround his right eye. tubes come off of his face and neck, trailing behind him, and a red light made to shine at his point of focus shines from the side of his head. there are several yellow narration boxes, which read as follows. "sarek of vulcan. picard mind-melded with the legendary ambassador in order to lend him strength for an important negotiation — an act that almost cost picard his sanity." "kamin of kataan. a probe sent out by kataan before their sun went nova allowed picard to live most of kamin's adult life as a way to remember his people."

oh, yeah. did... did i not mention that that happened?

basically, he was targeted by a device that beamed him into the world's most immersive vr game — kind of like the one from rick and morty? if you watched that? if you didn't, sorry for bringing it up, and if you did, ditto. but it forced picard to live out an entire life as though he'd been abducted by aliens and placed in a sims game. though, ultimately, the plot intricacies of the inner light are beside my point.

image id pt 3: "locutus of borg. quite simply, the greatest nightmare of picard's entire life. the subversion of his intellect, his will, his very self to the collective of the borg." "all three are part of him, but they do not dominate. if picard does as doctor crusher suggests, he will subsume himself in order to let the others come to the fore. for sarek, for kamin, he would be willing." "but locutus--?" the next panel takes a little more than half of the remainder of the page. a narration box in the upper left reads; "then he thinks of his first officer, counselor, chief of security, chief engineer, and all the others who have fallen victim to this vicious weapon." the rest of the panel shows two sleeping figures, both humanoid, in what is presumably sickbay. the last panel takes the remainder. a narration box in the upper left reads; "and jean-luc picard makes the only decision he is capable of making." captain picard is shown from the shoulders up, facing slightly to the left and saying; "what do i need to do?" below his speech bubble is another yellow text box, which reads "to be concluded..."

...which is how issue 3 leaves us.

fortunately, we can pick up in issue 4 with ease, since these comics are over twenty years old. i'm going to do my best to limit my use of comic pages, juuuuust in case, but once we reach the sixth page, with the credits...

image id: a two-page spread. beginning in the uppermost left corner, narration boxes read; "welcome to the mind of jean-luc picard." "'locutus' was a personality superimposed upon picard when he was taken by the borg, meant to serve as the spokesperson for that cybernetic race's ruthless assimilation of what they described as the 'authority-driven culture' of the federation." "ambassador sarek of vulcan suffered from bendii syndrome. in order to keep the effects of this devastating illness from endangering his final mission, sarek entered into a deep mind-meld with picard in order to give the ambassador emotional control and stability." "kamin was a prominent member of the community of ressik on the long-dead world of kataan. a probe sent by the kataan people allowed picard to live kamin's life for several subjective decades, although less than half an hour passed in reality." "all of these personalities have made up a part of jean-luc picard, but he remained dominant." "until now." "this is the mind of jean-luc picard." the left page is mostly taken up by a large illustration of locutus, drawn in far more detail than before. trailing off to the right are two tubes or wires, as well as a speech bubble that reads "resistance is futile." also on this page are the details of the comic title, run, issue number, writers/artists, and copyright. taking up most of the right half of the right page is sarek of vulcan, drawn in less detail than locutus, but easily recognizable. his hair is a lighter grey, he is wearing white and cream robes and an amber amulet on a thick gold ring around his neck, and he is holding up his right hand in a vulcan salute/ta'al. depicted below sarek is kamin, drawn from the shoulders up, wearing a plain white shirt with a collar. below kamin is captain picard, also shown from the shoulders up, in his starfleet uniform, and surrounded by four lights, with two on either side of him. (there is also further copyright information beside him in fine print.)

...i'm pretty sure that this analysis falls under the "commentary" part of fair use. right?

but, regardless, this is kind of a huge thing to drop in a comic that virtually no one has bothered to read. i mean, especially when, amidst the clashing of picard's plurality with the a-plot, we get this panel;

image id: a single comic panel. kamin is shown from behind, speaking to locutus and sarek within a noneuclidean space with four circular white lights shining in the distance. "what is going on?" kamin asks. "we have been subdued for too long. but now we shall dominate, as we were meant to." locutus replies. sarek interrupts. "your logic is flawed, locutus. we are all merely aspects of jean-luc picard's mind." "you may be sarek of vulcan, but we are of the borg."

sarek is able to acknowledge himself, kamin, and locutus as "aspects" of captain picard, despite picard rarely if ever sensing them or their influence. picard is being, not just implied, but explicitly stated to have a latent form of plurality, and perchance to dream depicts it in a way that strikes true to members of my own system, at times, with certain alters first making themselves known in the front already well aware of who they are, and having existed without the my knowledge due to dissociative barriers that only came down later in life.

unfortunately, because this is a star trek media, locutus ends up assimilating kamin in the headspace and forcing himself into the front. however, as he does it, he says something that does, to an extent, resonate with the experience of being one among many, for better or worse.

image id: a single comic panel. locutus is shown facing the viewer, and his chin and the top of his head are cut off by the borders of the panel. his light breaks the plane of the panel to simulate the effect that it is shining into the "camera." locutus's mouth is open as he speaks; "for too long you have suppressed us, picard. but you are of the borg."

plurality is a defense mechanism by the brain to protect against trauma. it is, from what i have seen, more common among those who are already neurodivergent, which already presents in a myriad of ways. mixing the ugly truth of trauma with the raw reality of mental illness caused by it can result in certain alters feeling as though they are being suppressed by not being allowed to front and live their own life, depending on how the system functions. admittedly it is more common in fictional depictions of dissociative disorders for these alters to simply live their own lives in secret anyway, as is the case in the marvel tv series moon knight with marc spector, steven grant, and jake lockley (along with the other possible members of their system who may or may not be present depending on the canon, but those are the main three). but, in reality — or at least my experience — this more often translates to alters making themselves social media accounts, or using services like tupperbox or pluralkit on discord, or finding other ways to more discretely express themselves, such as icon changes or status updates.

but, getting back to star trek, this is ultimately a one-off comic. so captain picard saves the day with his secret alters, ends the mind meld with doctor selar, and goes back to living his life as a singlet, ready for the people of the future to be able to easily comprehend without having to read a very specific comic run from 2000.

...right?

image id: part of a comic page. each panel takes up roughly one quarter of the page each. in the first panel, counselor deanna troi is seen standing, having just entered captain picard's ready room. picard is shown from the back, sitting at his desk. "counselor! good to see you up and about." he greets her. "it's good to be up and about." she responds. "playing some old tunes?" [picard had been playing the ressikan flute prior to her entry.] picard responds. "mmm. i wanted to make sure that i still remembered how." in the next panel, we look over counselor troi's shoulder and across the desk at captain picard. "were you worried that you wouldn't?" she wonders. "actually, yes," picard answers. "after what happened..." the third panel shows picard facing the viewer head-on from the shoulders up. he continues, "i suppose i knew intellectually how close to the surface locutus, sarek, and kamin were. but i never really thought about it. they were — memories, experiences. no different from any other. but they're much more than that." the fourth panel shows counselor troi, facing slightly to the right as she speaks. "not much more. all three of them are part of you. but the important word is you. the fragmentation was artificially induced." picard asks; "was it?"

ultimately, yes, this is a one-off comic run that isn't very well known, and i only read because i took a personal interest in the subject matter. i knew going in that it wasn't going to fundamentally change the entire fandom's understanding of captain picard, or make the star trek fandom an instant haven for systems everywhere. but, still, captain picard has his doubts, and that truly touched me when i first read it as someone who was actively reckoning with the fact that past traumas that had impacted me more than i realized.

the comic goes on for a while longer, but the last thing it has to say on the subject of plurality is this.

image id: a single comic panel. counselor troi is seated in one of the chairs in captain picard's ready room, facing him from across his desk. she is on the left, facing partially right, and he is on the right, in profile facing left. the dialogue reads as follows. picard wonders, "was it [the dissociative fragmentation of his identity] truly a creation of the mind-meld, or was it simply breaking a dam that was already cracked?" riker interrupts over the comm. "riker to picard." "go ahead, number one," picard tells him. "it's time to beam down to damiano for the ceremony, sir." "thank you, commander."

and that's it. picard asks a question, then gets called away and never tells us his answer.

i think, at least subconsciously, that might be part of why i held star trek: picard to such a high standard.

to be clear, i hadn't read this comic when the first season of picard was coming out. but i was starting to grapple with my plurality, and i used fictional media as a means to do that (as is still evidenced by things like my system simon tag). the first season of the show was centered around both picard's relationship with both his legacy and his history with the borg collective. as mentioned in perchance to dream, captain picard had previously been assimilated by the borg collective — a cybernetic hivemind from the delta quadrant that absorbed cultures and species into itself, effectively wiping out the cultural histories of entire planets, at times, in their quest to become the "perfect" life form through a combination of genetic engineering and mechanical augmentation. and, as this happened, i came to know a young man named hugh who took form within my mind. a fictional introject, or fictive, of the character of the same name from season 5, episode 23, i, borg. with his help, i grew to further understand my own plurality, and saw the potential for our stories to be told in the wake of reclamations from the borg collective. the reclamation project became a hyperfixation, and—

and then came the jurati collective.

my own system bears no connection to the jurati collective, but it is a wonder, and can be examined through a plural lens as an allegory for our own experiences as dissociatives. many consciousnesses, all working together as one towards a common goal, and willingly. after all, what is a system if not a hive within one body?

and then came picard's third season, completely ignoring her, along with all the unique perspectives that stories surrounding her might have offered in favor of what felt like a final next generation movie.

ignoring me, it felt like.

is that silly? probably. but, try as i might, i am human, and so i have a propensity for illogic — no matter how much my autistic brain craves structure and definitive explanations in order to understand the world.

i'll be honest, i'm not sure how to end this. but, sometimes i remember the time in season 6, episode 20, the chase, when picard became incredibly excited about an ancient alien society that believed people were, indeed, collectives within themselves.

"...the kurlan civilisation believed that an individual was a community of individuals. inside us are many voices, each with its own desires, its own style, its own view of the world." -captain jean-luc picard

and i realize that, with the core tenant of this series lying in the infinite diversity of both the known and the unknowable — the building blocks are already in place. star trek is a media that has grown over the decades, and hopefully will continue to do so, because there are still so many ways for new and interesting and meaningful stories to be told within this franchise.

but, if you can't summon your representation from a nostalgiabait sequel/reboot within a preexisting intellectual property... there's nothing to stop you from crafting your own story and letting loose as many systems as you like.

#shut up emrys #star trek #star trek tng #star trek the next generation #the next generation #jean luc picard #captain picard #multiplicity #plurality #actually multiple #actually plural #first time using those tags. whoogh #uhhh. unsure of other tags..#i think that’ll do tbh

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angela-thefandomgirl · 5 months ago

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Title: Night

Rating: Up to Mature

Categories: M/F

Fandom: Star Trek : Discovery

Relationships: Michael Burnham/Rayner

Characters: Commander Rayner, Captain Michael Burnham, rest of the crew inevitibly

Additional Tags: Kellerun Genocide, PTSD, Romance, Character study, Death, Grief

Notes: Whilst I fully support the canonical pairing of Michael/Book for the TV show in fan fiction I genuinely think that there is a goldmine with Michael/Rayner. I have issues with that pairing though. Books actions in season four would have left me feeling betrayed, angry, and lacking trust in the man. That would not be conducive to me for a healthy, sustainable relationship. I mean how do you get past the actions that almost created a war? Which is why I do support the Michael/Rayner pairing. It is why I, to write my fics I am creating a slightly divergent AU where the original pairing can stand on its own and separate, whilst still enjoying the exploration of a pairing that should have been explored. tagging in 2 of the people I know will appreciate reading @clearwerewolfsong @tinderbox210

Night

Prologue

Some nights were harder others, those were the nights that the screams of the dead were louder than the thoughts of the living. Those were the nights when the thoughts of the battlefield, and the battle arenas and the deaths of compatriots, kinsmen and women, of lovers and family and the things the Breen had managed to put a gun to their head to force them to do, to their planet, to each other, screamed so loud, and demanded to be paid attention. Growing up happened in the blink of an eye, childhood ceased, death became normal and living was an anathema.

He'd walked the hallowed and the accursed halls of Breen battle arenas, smelled the blood of his species seeping into any porous surface, and held he body of his wife of six days as she lay in his arms bleeding. She'd survived her battle long enough to be thrown back into the cells they had kept them all in. If she survived it would have been the next step to the next battle. She hadn't. The injuries were too much, the blood loss too significant. They had been but children themselves, but they had carved out something for themselves.

He had caressed her cheek and held her face in his hand as her head had gently lolled to the side, the energy had been too much to expend just to hold up her head. He gently pulled it back to face him, tears unshed in his eyes, tears falling silently from hers. No words could be spoken for what was there to say, they had known it wouldn't be long, but in the minds of the young, love demands to be screamed from the mountains, and can never be denied. So they had taken what they could for how long they could take it for, and this was the early, bitter end.

Blood spilt on a dirt floor of the planets premier battle arena, the smell of old blood, vomit and excrement poisoned thier sense of smell, the dark an oppressive force that surrounded them, cloaked them in a privacy, and stole their final moments to see each other properly. An ignominious end to be sure. Her final declaration of love was mouthed, her blood had spluttered out of her mouth as she coughed one last time, the air she needed making the blood filling her lungs bubble, and then her eyes had gently closed, her final moments hearing her lover and husband declare his love for her.

The guards had come for her body the next morning, he’d taken two of the Breen with his own hands before they had put him down. It had earned him an audience with Tahal that day. She had looked at him like a piece of meet, the feeling had made his skin crawl. He'd spat at her feet expecting to meet his wife shortly thereafter, but she had laughed instead, had called him her favourite, that he was almost a Breen in his ferocity. He had hated her in that moment and all the ones thereafter. His rage had become ice cold in that moment. He had felt it grow and take root in the heart that had once house the love for his wife.

Where once his ferocity had come from a single minded drive for survival, now it came from a desire for death, his own and theirs, a never ending bloodshed that would only end in his heart failing him, as his wife’s had. And then they had left. And Starfleet had come. When all had been said and done, and the tallies counted Kellerun was down 65% of it's population, the forests that once was, was no more. Its beauty razed and stripped for whatever the Breen wanted, habitable homes had been decimated, and there was Starfleet stepping in, helping. He saw his chance there, knew that joining up, enlisting as an officer would help him take the battle to the Breen someday. One day he would have his chance at Tahal.

The day he put on the cadets uniform, he had compartmentalised his feelings, built walls so high that he thought they would be forever impenetrable, and then there was a her, and a ship, and a crew that were as unrelenting in their belief in connection as he was in his desire to one day kill Tahal, and slowly those walls that he had built, those compartments has begun disappearing and suddenly nights like tonight, where he was sat in his bed, sweat pouring, anger racing in his veins and a grief so visceral that pain seemed a paltry word for how he felt.

It was nights like this, that he would seek her out, knew that of the 300 or more souls on the ship she would understand. she'd lost so much that they were parallels in a universe of individuals and chaos. He'd read her file, read her chequered history. He had seen the decision that had lead to the mutiny, had understood that she had greater information, that her Captain had made a different choice. He had agreed with Michael. He had understood her thought process, had known he would enjoy working with her, even on that first mission and now he was her subordinate, she worked slowly on tearing down the walls. And she was the only one who would understand nights like this.

@clearwerewolfsong @tinderbox210

#burnham × rayner #rayner*#star trek discovery #michael x rayner #dsc

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biblioflyer · 6 months ago

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Finding hope in an Age of Apocalypse: maybe Xavier’s dream isn’t dead, just wounded.

X-Men ‘97 ends on a series of cliffhangers: the team split between eras, likely having to choose between helping a mortal enemy or altering history in unpredictable ways but probably for the worse, and with the present day team facing a new wave of anti-mutant sentiment and the potential for President Creed. Yet contained within this ending are seeds of hope.

This is part 5 in a series of discussions about the pessimism of the X-Men setting, its origins, its consequences, and whether that’s even a fair assessment.

Part 1 laid out some of the core conceits of the setting.

Part 2 discusses theories of historical change.

Part 3 is about the messiness of allegories.

Part 4 compares X-Men to other popular settings and their status quo or evolution.

I hold out hope the next season of ‘97 might complicate the status quo a bit. Maybe build upon Steve Rogers looking very unhappy when the Magneto protocol was authorized to show us humans and superhumans who are more willing to buck the system. President Kelly is likely to be seen as a big disappointment by idealists who want to work within the system, such as Steve.

If ‘97 does go forward with a transition from having a President who is sympathetic to Mutants but whose ultimate priority is order to a President who is a fire breathing anti-mutant extremist, that would be a fruitful way to bring in dissenting humans and superhumans. It would be interesting to see the status quo, from the perspective of supportive non-Mutants, move from unjust but seeming to have room for reform to one that is intolerable.

It’s very much not Captain America’s show and there is no obligation to depict him in a sympathetic way in the X-Men’s corner of the setting, but adding extra dimensions to the conflict by having a broader ideological mix of Humans would offset the fatalism of the first season and the potential extra gloom of a President Creed arc by bringing a smidge of optimism that Sapiens vs Mutatis does not have to be a zero sum conflict.

I’m just personally not a fan of settings without hope. It’s what frustrated me about the way the Star Wars Sequels wiped away the achievements of the legacy characters as if they had been built on sand and without even really giving us any appreciation for what, if anything, they did achieve. It’s what made the first couple seasons of Star Trek Discovery kind of a chore, not that there wasn’t hope, but you really had to dig deep to find anything approximating the idealism of TNG.

I know things are hard, I know the world is a mess, and I’m fine with fictional worlds being hyperbolically messy but give me hope dammit! I don’t want to come away from an epic journey feeling fatalistic about reality by finding no hope in fiction.

Which is incidentally why I want to thank the writers of ‘97 for capping off the season by having the touching moment with Scott and Cable and for Xavier being willing to die trying to break through to Magneto, even after everything Magneto had done.

Grim is okay if it's complemented by heroes being that much more heroic for contrast.

If I wanted bad people doing bad things, having bad things happen to them, and becoming worse people for it I’d reread Game of Thrones.

If I wanted all of that with superpowers, I’d pick up the original The Boys comics.

#x men 97 spoilers #x men the animated series #x men 97 #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #magneto #grimdark #setting meta #happy endings #captain america #steve rogers

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celestialvoyeur · 8 months ago

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You may have already heard the news but I wanted to announce it here too. I've recently had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with the wonderfully talented and funny @android-and-ale to illustrate their hilarious series Panic at the Disco. I've linked below my series of accompanying artwork on AO3 🥰 watch this space for future installments of the series!

#collaboration #art collab #this was so much fun #star trek #spirk #spock #james t kirk #k/s #kirk/spock #k/s fanfic #fan fiction #fanfic #fan fic rec #star trek fanart #star trek snw #star trek discovery

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donnerpartyofone · 6 months ago

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Are you into sci-fi at all?

Sort of! I'm not primarily a sci-fi person, but I'll indulge. I prefer fiction that has to do with the imagination, the unconscious, psychological pathologies, those kinds of abstractions; I don't usually like it when fantastical fiction involves too many rules or tries too hard to rationalize itself. But a few years ago I went on a tear of watching old (1940s-60s) sci-fi movies and I was having a blast; I won't be able to remember all the ones I watched, but some hits for me were THE GREEN SLIME, GOG, DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK, I feel like I shouldn't even have to mention FORBIDDEN PLANET...that kind of thing is very entertaining for me (and I would welcome recommendations). Usually the sci-fi I consume has some sort of horror element to it, like DEMON SEED or PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES or CUBE or something. For a few years I was in this cycle of watching old genre serials like Outer Limits while getting ready for work in the morning, and I think I watched every Star Trek thing up to Enterprise, which I hated. I hated that very non-Treky theme song and all of the characters and the look of the show and its gross sexuality and like, just everything about it. I tried a little bit of Discovery and I found it really cutesy and cloying, it has that Joss Whedon fan service flavor that I find extremely condescending and unpleasant; not even the promise of David Cronenberg or Tig Notaro could make me stick with it. It felt more Star Wars-y to me if that makes sense--like it's trying to be hipper and sexier and more youthful and action-oriented maybe, sorry if I'm not being very articulate but to me the point of Trek should be that it's REALLY nerdy, dorky even. It shouldn't resemble in any way the sham "nerd" quality that the MCU has. Probably nothing beats the original series but there's also a special place in my heart for DS9 just because it has absolutely no semblance of coolness at all; it's extremely dorky, the designs are hideous, it just does not try to satisfy any popular standards of appeal whatsoever. That takes some guts and I appreciate it.

...I don't really read any sci-fi if that's more what you meant, I'm not a very good reader in general because I'm always consumed with some research project that sequesters me in a very specific knowledge silo and then I miss out on a lot of actually-good/important books and also reading just for pleasure. But anyway TL-DR I don't indulge in a lot of sci-fi because I'm not into fiction that is overly concerned with making its own logic so airtight, but I certainly don't abstain either! Rec's are welcome.

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startrekexplained · 9 months ago

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The Spore Drive wasn't the first "magical" tech in Star Trek

As much as I dislike Discovery, there is one criticism that does make me laugh, well sorta. It's the criticism of the Spore Drive concept and how it is essentially a fantasy magic concept and not a science fiction concept. I happen to agree with this criticism, but the reason I find it so amusing is most of the people who say this (for example, Robert Meyer Burnett) have no problem with the Genesis Device from the early films. This is despite the fact it's basically Q levels technology that operates on magical principles and can even raise the dead! You know, just like the Spore Drive? Add in the fact the third film even has supernatural mumbo jumbo involving souls and it's clear magical nonsense is nothing new to Star Trek. There's also all the fantasy religious elements in DS9, which happens to be RMB's favorite Star Trek. I'm not saying you can't criticize when the franchise has magical fantasy nonsense elements, I do, but I do it consistently and not selectively like a lot of fans seem to do.

#star trek #star trek: discovery #star trek fandom

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silveragelovechild · 20 days ago

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You may have noticed, I post about Star Trek regularly but rarely post about Star Wars.

While all the movies aren’t great, Star Trek tells a variety of stories with a variety of villains.

Meanwhile Star Wars seems to tell the same story about mostly the same character over and over. After the Empire was defended by the Rebels in “Return of the Jedi” (1983), Lucas could have told new stories in the Star Wars Universe. But nope! In the sequels starting with “The Force Awakens” (2015) the Empire returns and defeats the former Rebels who become rebels again. They even brought back the emperor who died in 1983.

Another issue is fantasy versus science fiction. Star Trek is set in a science fiction universe, with at least an attempt to explain how things they work (with the resulting technobable). But Star Wars is pure fantasy with a princess that need saving, wizards, and sword fights. Sure Lucas tried to introduce Midicorians to explain how the Force works - but that must be the most reviled concept in the entire Star Wars lore.

Neatly all the ancillary Star Wars movies look to the past… the origin of Han Solo. Did we really need to know how he got his last name? And how the rebels stole those plans Leia needed in A New Hope!

Perhaps the worse sins are Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Vader is perhaps the greatest cinematic villain ever (especially because of his voice by James Earl Jones). But in Lucas’ prequels we learned he was actually a whiny teenage boy. WTF?!?

And Kylo Ren, Vader’s successor? Another fucking crybaby. My gawd! Is this suppose to be compelling fiction?

I had Disney+ for a few months but I realized I wasn’t interesting in watching any of the Star Wars show. So I canceled the service.

I do have Paramount+ and I like serval of its Star Trek show. Yes, Strange New Worlds looks to the past, but at least it has new characters. (Although I am not a fan of Discovery.)

#Star Trek #Star Wars #science fiction versus fantasy #wizards and sword fights #Han solo #Darth Vader #Kylo ren #james earl jones #whiney crybabies #technobabble

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pupintransit · 6 months ago

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A couple years back there was some drama in the SCP community. This is going somewhere i promise.

A story there, SCP-2721, went and made a lot of people very upset for reasons that only make sense if you're predisposed to not letting people have fun writing silly stories. Ostensibly the story documents a strange satellite orbiting the moon. It's made up of two parts, one mostly flesh and the other mostly machinery, connected together by a biomechanical cord. The Foundation doesn't know why it's there but the writings the satellite creates suggests something nefarious. The flesh part (LYRE) finds humanity via Tumblr and through this discovery forms a new identity as a trans woman. She starts a blog, becomes a Homestuck fan, and eventually the mechanical part (LORD) learns to be happy for her.

As a piece of fiction I do not care for it. It's a really interesting concept but I think it leans too hard into the Tumblr fandom culture and becomes alienating and embarrassing to read in a way I don't think the author intended. That's part of the negative attention it received. As much as i don't condone the vitriol the author received, the more I learn about Homestuck and its fandom the worse my life gets. But that wasn't why it got hated on en masse the way it did; It was due largely to LYRE identifying specifically as a trans woman.

There's plenty of stories in the canon of science fiction where aliens and robots learn about humanity and become "more human" as a consequence. There's an episode of Star Trek TNG where an alien develops a gender and gets in shit from her culture about it, and becoming "more human" was basically Data's whole ass character development. Why not have fun with that? Why not have something inhuman decide that, in discovering the intricacies of human society, that being specifically a trans woman is what speaks to them? It spoke to LYRE after all. She found a kinship with a group of humans she could relate to, and in so doing finds a new purpose and abandons the broadly hostile task she was created to perform.

So, here's why I'm leading this mini-essay with a review of a barely passable sci-fi story about a space abomination who learns that she's trans: I wish i were a trans man. Had I been AFAB and transitioned into a trans man I would have had a better quality of life than I do now.

Let's unpack that, shall we?

It's an unconventional thing to apsire to, especially as someone who is AMAB and is basically indistinguishable from a cisgender man right up until you get to my neovagina. For a lot of trans men that's their goal, to not get clocked and be perceived simply as "a man." It's my husband's goal at least, and he's told me (politely) that he doesn't understand the appeal of why being a trans man is aspirational to me. The things about the AFAB experience that I find envious are the sort of thing he transitioned to get away from.

For one, I would have loved a natal vulva. I adore my neovagina, do not misunderstand me. It will stand at the best decision i've ever made until they put me in the ground. But there's things it won't ever be capable of. I would have liked a larger clit for example, and it would have been so exciting to watch it grow in size the further into taking testosterone I get. It would've made sex easier as well. I'd be able to naturally lube myself up with way less of a warm-up, and I wouldn't have to dilate in order to maintain the health of that organ. Those aren't things i can accomplish with the body i have now.

Second, I might have liked having breasts. Smaller boobs run in my family so if I worked out my chest enough I wouldn't need top surgery; they'd just look like softer than normal pecs. Even if top surgery were something i decided i need, it wouldn't be near as disabling as my vaginoplasty. It would still suck on toast and i'm not pretending otherwise, but my husband and other trans masc friends were back to their normal lives by around a month and a half. I've still got at least nine more months until that's true for me.

And finally, and this one is still odd to say out loud for me but... I wish i were able to become pregnant. Occasionally I'll get into a dysphoric zone where it'll dawn on me that my vaginal canal doesn't lead anywhere. There's no uterus or ovaries or cervix attached to it. The only way i can think to describe it is that i feel a physical emptiness inside me. I never really wanted biological kids and for a long time I didn't want to ever be pregnant even if i had the parts for it. It does weird shit to your body after all, so me wanting to avoid it is understandable. But i don't want to avoid it anymore. I want to feel something grow inside me, and nuture a life with my body. I want to have a uterus, to ovulate, and to experience a pregnancy while still being masc presenting. And I could have done that if I were a trans man, but barring a very impressive advancement in medical science that won't be possible in my lifetime.

And I feel guilty about wanting to be a trans man for those reasons because so many of them hate their bodies for the exact same reasons I would want to love mine. Sure, there's plenty of transgender men who like all or some of their "female" body parts and don't feel the need to medically transition into something that passes as cis, but enough do and are vocal about their dysphoria to where i have a bad taste in my mouth for wanting what i do.

Writing this is a challenge as well because I'm trying to balance expressing my feelings honestly while simultaneously not romanticising a lived experience i don't have, nor infantilizing a group of queer folks by indirectly inferring that I know how they do or should feel about themselves. Am i doing a good job at that? I suppose i'll find after i post this fuckin' thing.

A question that gets posed to trans people a lot is, if you could push a button to become cisgender, would you do it? My husband would; being a cis man from the start would have solved a lot of his problems. I can't say that i would make that choice though. I could in theory push the button to make myself a cis woman and that would get me most of the way to where i want to be in terms of physical sensation, but i wouldn't feel like myself. I love being hairy, i love my masculinity, and i love being a man with a cunt. For me, what I want out of my life relies on my body being a specifically transgender one. My ideal transition goals would have me become a transgender man.

And is that honestly such a strange thing for someone AMAB to want?

Gender transition is a very unique experience for the folks who go through with it. Everyone wants different things, and even though i have trouble understanding why anyone would want a cock and balls (they're so bulky! and in the way! all the time!), I do understand feeling like your body is wrong or incomplete. In a perfect world we'd be able to design ourselves from scratch and pick whatever parts we want. Why not have fun with that? Why not make an active choice as a cis woman to give yourself a cock and balls, or give yourself a uterus and become pregnant as an non-binary AMAB? Culturally we view gender transition as being a shift from one end of the spectrum to the other, and it doesn't have to be. If you want to be one sex, both, neither, or in my case transition specifically into being a transgender man, that can and should be seen as a valid choice.

Maybe SCP-2721 isn't such a bad story after all.

#trans #genderqueer #non binary #enby #gender dysphoria #transition journey #i do genuinely not care about Homestuck #do not tell me about Homestuck

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