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delta-queerdrant · 1 month

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the best allies we could have (Alliances, s2 e14)

If Voyager’s Kazon arc has a peak, it’s “Alliances.” Here it is, the dramatic turning point in our understanding of Delta Quadrant politics! This episode has a kernel of something almost compelling, but like much of season two, it’s sadly undercut by storytelling failures.

We cold-open on a firefight with the Kazon. Star Trek battle scenes are so silly; why do the consoles explode? I guess the claustrophobic mayhem is a holdover from the nuclear submarine aesthetics of TOS. I will never not be amused by how Janeway’s hair explodes every time they’re in a fight. Are there no bobby pins in space?

A crewman dies in the battle, and we learn that two more have died in previous Kazon encounters, our first casualties since Durst got de-faced (lol) by the Vidiians. The tension is real - redshirt deaths hit differently when a small crew has trauma-bonded in space.

A faction of the crew wants to buy off the pursuing Kazon with Federation technology, but Janeway won’t turn her back on the Prime Directive. The Starfleet/Maquis divide, usually an afterthought, feels momentarily real. We’re treated to a three-way debate between Janeway’s lawful good authoritarianism, Chakotay’s collaborative ethos, and Tuvok’s detached realpolitik. “This isn’t a democracy, Chakotay, I can’t run this ship by consensus,” Janeway says, briefly inviting a utopian, communitarian vision of a Voyager actually run by consensus. But even she’s swayed by Tuvok’s (frankly, bullshit) suggestion that a temporary alliance with the Kazon has the potential to make the Delta Quadrant more stable as long as Voyager doesn’t actually hand over technology.

This is arguably a weak leadership moment for Janeway, who can’t adapt to the demands of her environment or crew, but maybe it’s okay to be a rules-y Taurus if you surround yourself with people who correct your worst impulses.

Janeway reaches out to Seska to try to broker a deal, which is fun because it’s genuinely unexpected and makes Chakotay so squirmy. Meanwhile Neelix makes contact with a Kazon acquaintance. They meet up in what I believe is the first “hive of scum and villainy” of the series. You know these people are up to no good because there are alien bikini girls!

Here Neelix encounters the Trabe, another local alien species who have their own story to tell. The episode both becomes interesting and loses the plot completely.

The Trabe tell Voyager that “over thirty years ago,” they enslaved the Kazon in an apartheid society. When the Kazon rose up, the Trabe lost everything. Now the Trabe are a landless people still persecuted by those they oppressed, even though decades have passed and many of the Trabe were children when the Kazon overthrew them.

Janeway is delighted - instead of allying with the Kazon, they can ally with the friendly Trabe! Chakotay agrees - the Trabe, after all, have openly acknowledged the harm their people caused.

Meanwhile, me: OMG NOOOO THEY FOUND WHITE PEOPLE IN SPACE

Previously I wrote about the Kazon as a parable for midcentury US race relations. Before I rewatched “Alliances,” I genuinely thought they were just clearance-rack racialized space baddies, but here the parallels to white Boomer experiences of the 1960s uprisings are unmistakable. It’s a resonant scene, but watching our command team fall over each other to befriend their new pals is… stressful.

The Trabe build on Janeway's proposal: together they’ll bring the Kazon together and negotiate for peace. But when the meeting begins, the viewer can’t help but notice that the Kazon seem like the most reasonable people in the room. They don’t trust the Trabe or Janeway, and they have a much better read on the power dynamics at play than Janeway does. Because the meeting is a fucking trap.

This episode is such a bummer. Maybe I'm being too charitable, but it feels like a genuine attempt at anti-white supremacist storytelling that missed the mark. Janeway, our audience surrogate, is presented with a complex political situation and immediately latches onto the group she identifies with: white-presenting people who have claimed the moral high ground after centuries as oppressors. Then the rug is pulled out from under her. White liberalism as a facade for violence is a very mid-nineties dynamic.

The full impact of this plot twist relies on the viewer sharing Janeway’s white myopia. If you don’t implicitly trust the Trabe (or the writers), you spend the whole episode screaming at the television. Why are our protagonists so clueless?

“I hope there's a lesson for all of us in this,” Janeway says in the final scene. “Although some of the species we've encountered here have been peaceful, others seem governed only by their own self-interests.” It’s not a good look when our hero has traveled 70,000 light years to learn that… politics are a thing? And why didn’t her command team didn’t save her from herself? Are you telling me that Chakotay, the Indigenous anti-authoritarian militant, is this politically naive?

If “Alliances” is at times a smart portrait of how an oppressor mindset operates, it’s undermined by an offensive caricature of resistance. Violent resistance absolutely can be fueled by an ideology of separatism and racial hatred, but the Kazon aren’t a resistance movement; they’ve won. Yet the Kazon resemble white peoples' worst fears of postcolonial "failed states." It feels like the writers genuinely believe that the political and social problems of formerly dispossessed people are of their own making, not recognizing the ways that white supremacy and economic imperialism still actively shape the lives of formerly colonized peoples. The Kazon only make sense in a universe where the Trabe are still economically and politically exploiting them, and that's not the universe we're shown.

We needed an episode with this shape, one that sets up the hard political choices of later seasons, and I can accept that requires our characters to exercise truly poor judgment. But this attempt at gritty politics doesn’t feel grounded in anything real, and the result feels disappointingly thin.

2/5 triangular tables.

#star trek #star trek voyager #kazon #janeway's hair #space racism

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aurianavaloria · 7 months

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New Fanfic Preview

Putting up a little WIP preview of my newest fanfic endeavor - a crossover fic of the sort I never thought I'd write but... here it is. XD

Enjoy! And I hope to have the full chapter out on Ao3 soon!

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Sicut In Cælo Et In Terra - Ch.1 WIP

2371 AD, The Delta Quadrant of the Milky Way

Ensign Tabitha Paige thanked Neelix with a polite dip of her head and a slight smile, taking her food-laden tray from the counter before stepping aside for the next crewman to be served. Then, frowning a little, she scanned her grey surroundings for her friends with equally-grey eyes; the mess wasn’t terribly crowded today, but it still took a moment or two to spot one’s comrades amongst the repetitive black jumpsuits, differentiated only by the slashes of red, gold, or teal across their shoulders…

A brief wave from the direction of the windows quickly caught her attention, though, and as soon as she spotted the owner of said hand, she couldn’t help but grin at him.

“There you are, Ned,” she said with a chuckle as she approached, amused to no end by the gold-shouldered human man dunking his roll into his soup with all the gusto of one who hadn’t eaten a decent meal in ages. “I thought Torres was going to hold you hostage in engineering all day.”

“So did I,” he answered with his mouth full, gesturing to one of the empty chairs with his free hand. “I swear, every day it’s another hoop to jump through to keep this hunk of junk from falling apart.”

Tabitha frowned, sitting. “Voyager is not a ‘hunk of junk’.” Then, after a moment, she grinned again, picking up her drink and winking. “She’s just a high-maintenance lady, that’s all.”

“Oho, so she’s that kind of ship, is she?” Ned chortled, elbowing the bulkhead adjacent to him as if he were doing it to another crewmate and not the vessel’s unfeeling wall. “Thanks for the clarification. So what’s her ladyship gonna need next, huh? A stop at the next planet for a fresh coat of paint?”

She snorted after swallowing the sip she’d just taken. “I think we could all use a stop at the next planet for a fresh coat of paint.”

His only answer was a hum of agreement as he dove into soup with his spoon. Sighing, she looked down at her own tray to see the same dish before her – what she assumed was Neelix’s best approximation of a classic vegetable soup. Only, several of the ingredients were quite unrecognizable, making her the slightest bit hesitant.

“I’m assuming it’s good?” she asked without looking up, logic suggesting that it had to be at least passable in quality, given Ned’s inability to come up for air for five seconds.

Then again, he did that at almost every meal.

His answer was accompanied by a shrug as he finally leaned back, wiping at his mouth with his napkin. “Not his best, not his worst. At least it isn’t overloaded with jalapenos this time.”

“Thank God,” she muttered, distinctly remembering the Talaxian’s spicier concoctions that sent even some of their toughest crewmen racing to the replicators for milk. One taste of his recent attempt at a meat-and-bean chili had left her lips and tongue burning for hours afterwards.

But, she realized, she wasn’t exactly the best person in the galaxy to assess the quality of spicy foods; she’d always been something of a wimp in that regard.

There are worse things to be a wimp about, she felt the need to remind herself.

Finally digging in to the bread and soup, she found Ned’s appraisal to be correct, much to her relief. It wasn’t spicy and it wasn’t bad. A win-win.

“Got room for a third Ensign at this table?”

Tabitha glanced up, so immersed in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed her roommate standing right next to her.

“Sure, Kat,” she answered hastily. “How’d things go with Kes, today?”

The short, slightly heavyset Japanese-American huffed out a sigh, plopping down in the chair opposite Ned. “As good as a day spent examining plant leaves in the ‘ponics bay can go.”

“Ah,” their operations-assigned friend said with a sly smile and a wave of his spoon, “it’s times like these I’m thankful I didn’t pursue my fleeting interest in the sciences.”

“Shut up, Walker.”

His only answer was a close-mouthed chuckle as he continued his meal, his comrades joining him in companionable silence.

Tabitha’s thoughts darkened a little, though, as she contemplated Ned’s comment and began to wonder if she herself had made a mistake in her own career. She and Katsumi were microbiologists by profession, the only two assigned to Voyager’s crew of roughly one hundred and fifty members. And though it was obvious to anyone that such specialists would be a necessary asset on board a science exploration vessel, the two women saw little action related to their field – so little, in fact, that they had been trained as supplemental field medics for away teams, spending more time in sickbay helping Kes and the Emergency Medical Hologram than they did analyzing any collected particles in engineering or the science lab.

Even amidst such an uncharted place as the Delta Quadrant.

Shaking her head, Tabitha forced those thoughts to the back of her mind, something that had become easier in these last few months. The fact that they were all stuck out here, trapped together aboard this little Intrepid-class starship going as fast as her state-of-the-art warp engines would let her go – and even then knowing it would take them most of their lives to return home, if she could get them there in once piece – had been a bitter pill to swallow at first. And the addition of Commander Chakotay’s rebellious Maquis crew hadn’t helped matters much. But slowly, over time, with Captain Janeway’s stalwart leadership, Kes’s gentle counseling, and even Neelix’s overly-enthusiastic efforts to give the crew a taste of home, the long eight-hour shifts had become less tense, the nights less tearful, and the moments in-between less hopeless.

Ned had done his best to help with that last part.

As if reading her mind, the engineer stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth before spinning the PADD that sat beside his tray towards her. “Here, I got something to show you.”

At least, that was how she interpreted his muffled words, judging from the inflection of his voice around the chunk of soggy roll.

The translators in their combadges couldn’t help with everything, it seemed.

Katsumi exchanged looks with Tabitha. “What, another holofilm of yours?”

“Yeeeeep,” he confirmed after washing down the last of his food, the beaming expression on his baby-faced countenance whilst he pushed his tray back and laced his fingers atop the table, betraying his pride. “And I think it’s my best one yet.”

“You said that the last time,” Tabitha said flatly as she took the PADD in hand. Squinting, she tried to read the title aloud, “‘Sicut In Cælo Et In Terra’? That’s Latin, right?”

“‘On Earth as it is in Heaven’,” Ned translated, grinning widely.

“The Lord’s Prayer,” Tabitha remarked, her brow furrowing as she recognized the phrase. “I didn’t think you were the religious sort.”

“I’m not, generally speaking,” he replied with a noncommittal shrug. “Go on, keep reading.”

Katsumi looked over her roommate’s shoulder. “Historical fiction… Catholic Crusades… based off of… Kingdom of Heaven, 2005…”

“Kingdom of Heaven,” Tabitha repeated, her brow furrowing. “Never saw it. Sounds like something my father would have enjoyed, though.”

Ned scoffed. “It’s only one of the most popular films of the twenty-first century. Due in part to Orlando Bloom, as far as I understand it.”

“Who?” the two women asked simultaneously, which resulted in both of them snorting their amusement.

The engineer sighed. “Leading man. Girls went gaga over him, back in the day. Don’t ask me why, I can’t tell you. All the other actors were better than him in it, in my opinion.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve always been fascinated with the era it’s set in, and this particular film is more than worthy of an interactive remake to give participants a… well, semi-authentic experience.”

“And lemme guess,” Katsumi leaned back in her chair and cast him a knowing look, “you want us to be your beta testers for this ‘semi-authentic experience’?”

“Please?” he asked with sheepish smile.

#fanfiction #fanfic preview #current wip #work in progress #star trek voyager #kingdom of heaven #st voyager #st voy #uss voyager #fanfic writing #my writing #aurianavaloria

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motelpearl · 2 months

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I'm watching star trek voyager so I'm gonna put my thoughts below & keep adding onto it (yes I'm going from tng -> voy & skipping ds9 for now at least even though I feel like I'm missing out on context bc trekkies seem to hold ds9 as like the gold standard of star trek but I watched a couple episodes & I just couldnt dig it)

the relationship of kes & neelix is so bewildering to me like what does she see in him like hes not even a bad person but he's just a lot dumber than her & has that "where's my hug" type guy energy also he's like so old not even in a sugar daddy way just in a boomer way like doesn't kes's species only live 9 years

I hope tom paris goes through some character development because as of right now he's soooooo annoying like referring to chakotay as an "indian" all the time......ugh one would hope we wouldn't still be doing that in the 25th century also I knew from seeing online discourse that chakotay's writing is stereotypical in a well intentioned but still badly-aged way & it's not ruining the show for me but whenever he closes his eyes & the panflute music kicks in I just sigh deeply

the vidiians are fucking terrifying bruh its giving a cure for wellness

I HATE HISTORICAL REVISIONISM IM SORRY BUT IT WILL NEVER FEEL COMFORTABLE TO ME EVEN IF THEYRE DEAD. NOT THE MARK TWAIN RPF IN TNG NOT THE AMELIA EARHART RPF HERE IT JUST AINT RIGHT

OKAY MAYBE I WAS WRONG WHEN I SAID NEELIX ISNT W BAD GUY BC WHAT DO YOU MEAN KES IS A PREPUBESCENT 2 YEAR OLD

not the voyager defeating an alien by becoming submissive & breedable (of course the voyager has a blue plasma trail & pronouns....)

JANEWAY WANTS CHAKOTAYS DICK SO BAD PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER GIRL WHERES YOUR DECORUM

tuvoks hairline is so fascinating to me

not belanna being lowkey in love with chakotay too & then them showing his bare ass in the next episode....rick berman was on this man like a fat kid on a smartie

FUCK THE KAZON UGLYASS BEASTS

seska needs to be in jail bruh

I SWEAR TO GOD IVE WATCHED ENOUGH STAR TREK THAT I CAN TELL JUST BY THE CAMERA ANGLES WHEN AN EPISODE IS DIRECTED BY JONATHAN FRAKES LIKE HE'S ALWAYS DOING WEIRD DUTCH ANGLE TRACKING SHOTS & STUFF LIKE THAT

so I heard that threshold is like the worst episode in the entirely of star trek & after watching it I honestly dont think it's that bad like sure it's an implausible premise but it's not as bad as like code of honor or sub rosa

NOT BEEF BEING A Q....TWO OF MY WEIRD NERDY INTERESTS ARE OVERLAPPING ALSO THE CAST LIST OF THIS EPISODE SCARES & EXCITES ME. FUCK Q SEXIST ASS MOTHERFUCKER FIRST HE CREEPS ON THAT TEENAGE Q THEN HE KILLS ALYSSA OGAWAS BABY NOW HE SAYS WOMEN CANT BE CAPTAINS & SEXUALLY HARRASSES JANEWAY. DIE.

I always wonder how they get the alien makeup on babies like in this episode with the baby with horns on its head & that one episode of tng where they showed baby borg. also the concept of teleporting a baby out of the womb for an easier delivery is hilarious

tuvok & neelix toxic yaoi?

bruh if this episode is setting up the possibility of suder just letting out his violent impulses one last time & going scorched earth on the kazon & the doctor helping him by means of holographic skulduggery & then tom paris showing up with a cavalry of fucking talaxians to lay the smack down I'm gonna laugh so hard

TOM PARIS FINALLY STARTING TO REDEEM HIMSELF

THE PORTRAYAL OF 1990S EARTH IS SO FUCKING FUNNY TUVOK WEARING A DURAG TO COVER HIS EARS PLEASEEEEE

time travel episodes stress me out so much though like PLEASEEE put the tricorder away. not belanna & chakotay getting kidnapped by hillbillies omg the shots where the guy kicks chakotay & then belanna kicks the guy were edited so weirdly

starling reminds me so much of elon musk

is the alien possessing kes bisexual?

too bad q got to die of old age instead of janeway giving him the electric chair

janeway gettin her lara croft on we love that

why cant vulcans just jack off during pon farr like I thought hand stuff was their whole thing

this isnt voyager specific but shuttlecrafts should really have seatbelts like the amount of times people randomly get injured because turbulence throws them out of their seats....WE SOLVED THIS ISSUE 500 YEARS AGO

not tuvok building the Doohickey

why are they leaving harry unattended on a borg cube WHY DOES STARFLEET NOT MANDATE THE BUDDY SYSTEM HES JUSTA LITTLE GUY & NOW HE'S GOING TO GET ASSIMILATED

WHAT THE JESUS IS THAT

awww bless kes I knew she would leave & I was worried she would die but I'm glad she left on a lighter note

"welcome to the worst day of my life" hi my name is belanna dark'ness dementia raven torres (yes I know losing the warp core is serious but that line was giving "we live in a society")

DID HARRY & SEVEN HAVE SEX. BRUH

eugh I wrote in my other star trek thread that borg assimilation is one thing that just gives me such deep discomfort like even though the borg gradually become sort of overdone the concept of assimilation becomes increasingly terrifying regardless like seven's backstory just creeps me out so much like the concept of her parents just being these sort of rebellious scientists who thought they were gonna make some great discovery out in the delta quadrant (sidenote I hope it gets explained more how exactly they got out there like did they go through a wormhole too?) & just stumbling upon these unimaginable horrors that they had no chance of fight & having to watch as their naivete & hubris destroyed their childs life & everyone they previously knew had no idea where they went or what happened to them EUGH ITS SO CHILLING

wait how did they get the warp core back was I not paying attention

tuvok getting his gilf certificate in the mail we love to see it

species 8472 are terrifying even though the CGI is so low-poly

okay this is a pretty pointless criticism but it annoys me how all the female characters wear heeled boots & on that note the grey turtleneck under the uniforms looks so ugly like post-s3 TNG had the best looking uniforms & this isnt coming from a biased place just bc tng is my favourite (also the movie era uniforms that were red & had random white straps were SO UGLYYYY & DUMB LIKE HOW CAN YOU TELL ANYONES RANK OR DEPARTMENT IF THEYRE ALL RED)

I hate the way the borg queens spine swings around like a cat's tail

opening the episode with harry kim getting his tiddies sucked....ON PRIMETIME TV? IN THE 90S?

I just know that anti-alien-sex law got put into place because of riker

since like late season 3 I'm finally starting to understand why trekkies say janeway has sexual tension with literally everyone

a vulcan shedding a single tear when hearing an artificial lifeform perform a piece of classical music? NOW WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT BEFORE......*taps chin pensively*

tuvok & neelix detoxified yaoi?

BARCLAY & TROI YASSS

NEVERMIND NOT BARCLAY BACK ON HIS HOLODECK BULLSHIT

not the space Irish again (also from what I've seen irish people are apparently really offended by the irish reunification of 2024 meme <\\\3)

if janeway were alive in 2024 she'd be on tumblr making posts like "I need to get sent to the seaside for my health"

I didnt expect the episode "virtuoso" to suddenly take such a resonant turn but in the age of generative ai it's strangely prophetic

the double whammy of seeing jeffrey combs & the rock as the guest stars in this episode

I got injured the other day & have been pretty much bedbound because of it & whenever a scene takes place in sickbay I think "spare dermal regenerator 🤲"

they bring back kes just to give her makeup that makes her look like Christopher Walken <\\\3

ugh I love troi shes such a queen

why does the borg queen look like this -> 🥺

honestly I'm kinda sad that I'm on the final season

poor tuvok man first he almost gets assimilated, then he gets mind controlled, now hes just trying to fuck but he's thwarted by political tensions

I kind of want to rewatch st: picard since I know seven's backstory now & have the context of the borg's decline like I saw trekkies saying janeway "handled them" but now I know the exact circumstances

omg I know chakotay & seven somehow end up together (at least for a while) when the show ends bc I've had so much of voyager spoiled (tbh that seems to the usual reason i watch shows, I get a bunch of it spoiled & then I'm like "but how do those dots connect") anyway that literally makes no sense bc I can't think of a time theyve ever interacted since seven became a character but like chakotay & janeway were RIGHT THERE THEYVE HAD TENSION SINCE SEASON 1 IM NOT EVEN A SHIPPER CAUSE IDC THAT MUCH BUT IT WAS RIGHT THERE (& I read the wikipedia page for each episode after I watch them cause idk I like learning behind the scenes stuff & in the "reception" section of each page theres always something like "fans were disappointed that janeway & chakotay did not bang like screen doors in this episode") LIKE THE FANS WANTED IT IT WAS A LOGICAL COURSE OF ACTION IT WAS SET UP SINCE SEASON 1 & THE WRITERS CHICKENED OUT. WHY THOUGH?

noooo belanna dont do eugenics ur so sexy aha

POOR TUVOK BRUH SEASON 7 IS JUST A YEAR OF TUVOK SUFFERING

THE DOCTOR MAKING PHANTOM OF THE OPERA REFERENCES....DID HE JUST BECOME MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER (even though he pronounces "fantome" entirely wrong)

"she's suffering from dysphoria syndrome" janeway trans?

I know this show was made in the late 90s/early 2000s but nothing hammers that point home like seeing the same exact fishing rod toy I had as a kid in this episode that aired a month after I was conceived

just when I thought the Q couldnt get more annoying....one of them is a teenage boy

NOT SOME WRITERS BARELY DISGUISED FOOT FETISH SEEPING IN.....I COULD NEVER BE AN ACTRESS

one thing that has never stopped annoying me is the fact that we literally see naomi wildman be born onscreen & then she goes from newborn -> 9 year old over the course of like 2 seasons

okay I finished it & I'll need more time to collect my thoughts but the basic idea is: I liked the show but I feel like there was lots of possibilities that went unexplored but one thing I especially liked is that unlike TNG (which is still my favourite trek) the female characters got storylines that didnt just revolve around interpersonal stuff (ie. family/romance) but actually got to use their specific skills

but now I'm rewatching the first couple episodes of because I honestly had no idea what was going on (I didn't even realize the doctor was a hologram until like halfway through season 1 & I didn't realize tuvok was spying on the maquis until like season 3) & one thing I have noticed is that NEELIX WAS SO FUCKING UNHINGED IN THE FIRST EPISODE LIKE HE COMES OFF LIKE HEATH LEDGER AS THE JOKER IN THAT SCENE WHERE HE VIDEOCALLS VOYAGER & STRUTTING AROUND THE TRANSPORT ROOM IN HIS PIMP COAT & ALL THE WATER STUFF LIKE WHO IS THIS MAN also belanna's makeup was so bad I'm sorry <\\\3

#motelpearl #star trek

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mr-geargrinder · 9 months

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Star Trek Rewatch Thoughts

Finished my rewatch of DS9, Voyager, and TNG. I've lost count of how many times I've rewatched TNG and DS9, but this was only my second time going through Voyager, because it just didn't click with me the first time through. Anyways, here's some thoughts.

TNG is fascinating to me because you can see them assembling the show as they go. They change plans pretty drastically, remove and bring back characters, and try to salvage others with a few last minute episodes. That left a permanent mark on the way I think about storytelling.

TNG is a pretty goofy show, but it takes itself seriously and there's a lot to be said about how dedication to the bit and some really charming actors doing their best can totally overshadow cheap sets and silly technobabble... and even when it doesn't, those goofy moments are still very charming too.

I only skipped a handful of episodes and most of them were Troi or Wesley episodes, for obvious reasons. Troi got a lot of bad episodes and Wesley is... Wesley. Someone who kind of embodied all the worst parts of Gene Roddenberry's silly utopian wish fulfillment fantasies. One of the things that I never noticed before was how the last season was filled with so many bad episodes, followed by one of the best series finales ever made.

Voyager was less bad than I remember. I found myself liking certain characters a lot more and hating others much more intensely. Janeway, Tuvok, and Neelix really clicked with me this time. I recall Neelix being hated for being the silly comic relief character, but he's got some depth! He's a sincerely, genuinely good person who is trying his hardest for the people around him and that really resonated with me this time around. Especially his interactions with Tuvok (minus the Tuvix episode).

Tom Paris ended up being the guy I liked the least because his three traits are "pilot", being a general shithead, and reminding Harry about every single time he messed up romantically in a list, over and over, and none of that really helped them sell him as a roguish hotshot with a heart of gold, or whatever. He's just a shithead.

Skipping episodes helped me to enjoy Voyage a lot more. Almost anything to do with Chakotay was skipped immediately. His bullshit tribal mysticism, literally made up by a con-artist who convinced Hollywood he was a Native American and an expert cultural consultant, did not endear him to me in any way. Robert Beltran did his best to portray the character with dignity and wisdom, but Chakotay just suuuuucks. The inclusion of the Maquis subplot was also a pretty big waste of effort, but the fact that it gets ignored for most of the series makes it easy for me to ignore.

Anything to do with the Kazon got skipped too. They're just lamer, dumber, more irrational Klingons and they have nothing of value to add to any story they're featured in. That also meant skipping a lot of the Seska plot, which was Chakotay heavy anyways, and I don't regret that. Seska was not compelling at all.

Likewise, the Vidiians got skipped without hesitation. Not only do I hate the body horror aspect, but they were an attempt to create a sympathetic monster faction in Trek, but they're just.... irredeemably bad. There's no reason for anyone to allow the Vidiians to keep living. Not because of their disease, but because they are organ stealing monsters who hack random people to bits to extend their lifespans a tiny bit, so they can keep stealing more organs. No thank you. Fuck off. Go away. There's a reason no one talks about you.

DS9 remains my favorite Star Trek. It's got some rough episodes, and it struggles at time between being a planet/anomaly/random-space-threat of the week and a smaller scale, single-location focused kind of story, but the entire cast does a fantastic job of switching between the two without skipping a beat.

I don't think there's a single character on DS9 that I can say I dislike and the few I could complain about are mostly ones who were there for a single episode or just didn't have the benefit of a few more seasons to develop them as much as we got with characters like Jake and Nog. Speaking of which, Jake and Nog are such a perfect example of how you can have kid characters in a trek show and have them work and develop naturally and feel like a natural part of the story.

One of the things that struck me that never occurred to me before is that DS9 is a show that is very, very much about the concept of "home" and all the complex ways the character interpret and grapple with that concept. Quark and Garak have a fantastic scene towards the end of the series where they both commiserate about how their home planets are changing rapidly and how they'll never be able to return to the planets they once knew. It's kinda there in nearly every character and plot and it's really fascinating.

I think the only episodes I skipped were a few of the "It's time to make O'Brien suffer!" episodes, and that one specific episode where they meet that insane lady who forces her anti-technology beliefs on everyone by lying to them and abusing them, and the moral of the story is "actual this is good and she's right!" -- Fuck that episode. I'd rather watch the board game episode.

The last stretch of the Dominion War is a little uneven, but it's still a strong arc overall. Could've maybe done without the Pah-Wraith stuff, and the Ezri and Bashir subplot is a little weak, but those are nitpicks.

Anyways, go watch Star Trek.

#star trek #tng #voyager #ds9

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grissomesque · 10 months

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Interestingly enough, I feel the complete opposite about Tom and B’Elanna’s relationship re: he does enough right most of the time that it’s noticeable when he doesn’t. I feel like he’s such a a shitty partner to her that it stands out way more when he is actually nice to her lol. Lineage and Drive make me cringe to watch because of how bad is he at showing empathy towards her. And I like him as a character! I just think he’s better person when he’s 1000 ft away from B’Elanna.

Also re: the wife guy stuff, I definitely think that particular piece of fandom revisionism started from people reading too much fanfic and forgetting what the actual source material is like. Plus, people have a tendency to just call any male character who’s married a wife guy

I guess what I mean is that when he's good with B'Elannna, it aligns with what we know of him as a character overall and with all of his other relationships. So the bad stands out in that context, if that makes sense.

For example, he's so protective of Janeway (Time and Again, Dreadnought, Deadlock, I'm even gonna say Worst Case Scenario because we all trust Tuvok's judgment here 😆) and we periodically see hints of that with B'Elanna, so I can look at that and go, okay, there he is. (Or I can look at it and go: HE BELONGS WITH JANEWAY! 😁) Then he does some rude shit to B'Elanna while B'Elanna is acting wildly OOC herself, and at that point I just tune it out, because it's a disservice to both of them.

I mean: she gets on his case about the holodeck, but she rock climbs and sky dives or whatever on the holodeck? He tinkers with old cars and she's an engineer? How is it possible that they have so little in common? Well, it's not, we're even told that they always wanted to design a shuttle together, and it's just bad writers making Some Dumb Point about Poor Vulnerable B'Elanna. They both deserve better.

I can't even watch Lineage. I hate both of them in that episode. And if my spouse tried to genetically modify my child behind my back I would fucking lose my shit. I know we're supposed to be sympathetic to B'Elanna in this one, and I'm not unsympathetic to her feelings and her experiences, but her actions, hoooooooooo boy it's a nope for me. And even the way it all resolves still feels super unhealthy to me.

The best part of Drive is the J/P of it all. Like! Not to get on my soapbox but Janeway is so into it, Tom is so into it, B'Elanna is so not into it, why not just call it a no fault breakup and find better partners!! B'Elanna is so right:

TORRES: There's a Klingon phrase my grandmother used to use. Mok'tah. It means bad match. That's what Tom and I are. I just hate that it's taken me three years to realise it. NEELIX: If you're really such a mok'tah, it must have been an awful three years.

Yes! It! Has!!

Listen, the best argument I can make is actually a bit of my own fic, if you'll forgive me. In Renaissance Man, the Doctor takes on B'Elanna's appearance, calls Tom lieutenant to his face, and Tom's like, want some chicken? Give me a break. No one is that clueless. So I wrote (and, uh, spoilers, I guess):

They’ve known each other for seven years. They’ve been together for almost five, and married for half of that time. So he knows, immediately, that something is wrong. He knows that something is wrong because when he calls to her across the empty corridor she stops dead in her tracks, anxiety clouding her eyes. Not her eyes; the Doctor’s. The Doctor, who doesn’t know why the name Kathryn would come out of Tom Paris’ mouth. But Tom doesn’t understand any of this yet. He only knows that she shouldn’t be looking at him like that, not if everything is fine. “What’s happened?” he asks, striding over to her. “I’m fine, Lieutenant,” she snaps. “I’m extremely busy.” His blood runs cold.

Because I am a bit single-minded about J/P, it wasn't until after I posted it that I realized how much that also speaks to P/T. Like, that's how it should've played out for them, realistically. But they once again sacrificed Tom's characterization for a bit.

Anyway. A thousand times yes to fanon wife-guy revisionism.

#tom paris #asks #meta

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wcrlds · 2 years

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I never should have gone to the surface. I’m too curious. I’m told it’s my worst failing.

Oh, she’s so… she’s so beautiful. Kes. I think one day she’ll see the sun.

Kes is an occapam. A series native to the delta quadrant, known for their strong telepathic abilities and short lifespan. Most occampans never see the sun, much less the stars, their planet was for centuries controlled by an alien. He gave them everything — food, energy, entertainment. It wasn’t enough for her. She was… curious, and everyone could see it. When she was born, her mother said: she is going to see the sun one day.

And she did. For the first time in centuries, an occampan left their underground home and reached the surface.The sun was glorious, more than she could have ever dreamed of. There, she met a man named Neelix. Kind, funny, he promised her he would take her to see the stars. But the Occampans weren’t the only people living on that planet. Another race, jealous of their prosperity and access to water, took her so she would show them the way to her city. She refused.

Eventually, she was rescued by the Starship Voyager, and there, among the aliens and the stars, she found her home.

If there’s one thing that this experience has taught me, Captain, it’s that there’s no time like the present.

occampan biology

body temperature: 16C (that’s why you often see Kes wearing several layers of clothes, tights under her dresses, boots to keep her feet warm);

lifespan: average of 24 years (they become adults at 5 and a half years old.) The occampa, due to their short lifespan, have increased mental capacity, learning things very quickly so they can contribute to their society. Despite their rapid lifespan, they age very slowly for most of their life. Only during the last year of their life they quickly age up - a process known as the Morilogium);

eating habits: they are vegans and they require less food than the average human;

physiology: their average height is 5′2″;

sleeping habits: they only require three hours of sleep per night;

senses: similar to humans;

skin: it has a grainier quality than humans, not as soft;

powers: eidetic memory and general telepathic powers;

character sheet

She has a dazzling, ethereal beauty, waifish and fragile. But Kes is not frail: there is a dignity to her bearing, an alertness in her look, that suggests a being of powerful intelligence.

name: kes;

nicknames: sweeting (by neelix);

age: 5 + (roughly 20 human years);

weight: 47 kilos

height: 160cm

body build: slim, elfin, delicate

eye color: green

hair color: brown;

skin tone: brown;

predominant features: occampan ears, large eyes, slightly far apart;

hair style: kept in dreadlocks, usually styled in buns or large braids;

voice: low, husky, softly-spoken;

good personality traits: joyous, attentive, bright, assertive,

bad personality traits: secretive, abrasive, worried

mood character is most often in: “It’s a joy to pretend to be this extraordinary creature, so open and everything so new. No sort of cynicism or precociousness or pretentiousness or sarcasm” - jennifer lien.

It bothers you that I’m making friends of my own. You always have to involve yourself somehow.

neelix and kes: neelix saved her, and for that she will forever be grateful. i don’t acknowledge they had a romantic relationship, i see it as a more of a familial relationship – neelix as sort of an older brother figure who feels responsible for kes and her safety. he is still controlling, possessive; he sees kes eternally as a child, but there is no romantic undertone to it.

Look at me, Captain. I’m the same Kes you’ve always known. I haven’t lost my judgment. I’m not under some alien influence. I believe something crucial is happening to me and I want to see it through.

kes, janeway and tuvok: kes sees janeway and tuvok as parental figures, especially tuvok. he became her mentor, her friend, the person she can turn to when her mind becomes a hurricane she can’t control. he is usually the person who can bring her out of her head. his guidance is extremely important because when it comes to important matters, he doesn’t show where he thinks she should go, he allows her to make a choice. to put it simply, kes worships janeway. she sees her as something larger than life, she is the manifestation of the wonderful ship they are in, she is stronger than a planet but willing to change and adapt when given new information. kes wants to emulate her. she is also the person she feels most comfortable to speaking about personal matters.

Just let me stay for a little while. I haven’t seen you much over the past few days. I miss you.

kes and the doctor: she was the first person to see him as something other than a machine, a thing whose only purpose is to serve the voyager crew. he was also the first person to see her as something beyond neelix’s companion. the sickbay was the safest place in the ship for her, just the two of them, discovering themselves in this strange new world. she adores him. they never have awkward lulls, conversation flows easily between them.

I don’t know what happened. I looked at the hypospray and it just came to me.

powers: oh, voyager, you really had to find the weirdest way to write kes out, huh. so, here is my whole spin on the whole thing. instead of her powers being something the writers can bring up from time to time for a plot line, I have that Kes is steadily working with them in the background. She takes a small break after she hurts Tuvok, but he is the first one to say that suppressing them will only lead to a more dangerous situation later. mastering her powers is essential to avoid a repeat of the incident.

teleknesis: the first one she masters, she is very proficient with it. most objects up to 100 kilos she can move without breaking a sweat, it takes more of an effort the heavier the thing is, but up to half a ton, she can usually do it. above that, it requires too much of her.

increased life span: as we saw in the other occampan group, using their powers, mastering them, increases their lifespan. Kes will live probably until she is 32, gaining 8 more years due to her increased control and contant use of her powers.

telepathy: its a work in progress, always. she struggles a lot in creating steady connections, slipping into other people’s minds, or overwhelming the other side with her emotions. she can reach the minds of people far away from her, up to one kilometer.

manipulation of subatomic particles: she can create fire, increase the speed in which atoms are moving, making plants grow more quickly, and she can also reverse the process, making things freeze. metal turns to water, water to ice.

teleportation: she can move herself, and objects (such as voyager) to par off places. it is not something she usually does, especially with objects, as it drains her. she can, however, teleport herself across short distances without much of a problem.

time travel + more complicated skills: the depth of her powers is never fully explored, she feels in her chest that she can do more, and she certainly wants to explore it, but she can see the fear in other people’s eyes when she uses her powers, it scares them so it’s never something that becomes a part of her life.

#⟨ the mayfly _________ ⋆˚ general.#really tempted to rewatchs easons 1-3 of voyager just for kes again #i'm missing her #anyways she is tiny she can punch a hole in space and time #me in the last version of this post: limited powers #me now: let me re-read memory alpha to see if i remember anything else

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soulerflaire · 9 months

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Voyager was definitely not great, it doesn’t hold a candle to most other Star Treks, but the rewatch was not as difficult as I expected. The series does improve significantly once Seven joins the crew, and most of the episodes are decent; there’s even some pretty good ones mixed in there.

There were some major flaws with the writing that never really get fixed though. The writers very much suck at writing romance. Every relationship is either cotton candy fluff or borderline toxic. Yet the show was obsessed with romance early on, which is part of why I had such a hard time getting through the early season on my last attempt at rewatching. It tones down as the show goes on, though there’s still very uncomfortable moments, and I really hate Tom and B’Elanna’s relationship. It turns B’Elanna into Tom’s love interest, robbing her of her character, which is a result of my next big gripe with the show.

Voyager is incredibly sexist. It may have a female captain, but wow the show does not treat women well. Half the species they encounter make it clear that women are little more than servants in their societies. Relationships have female characters changing themselves to make their men happy, while the men act like spoiled children (looking at you, Tom and Neelix). Whenever a female character falls in love with a male character, her personality goes out the window and she becomes “the love interest.” And don’t even get me started on Q.

The show also does not care about continuity. We have the infinite shuttlebay as the most famous example, but there’s all kinds of little things. Remember how it was such a big part of the Doctor’s character that the first time he was ever activated was after Voyager got sent to the Delta Quadrant? Except during one episode, we see that he was activated on Jupiter Station briefly, long enough to talk to Janeway. Major plot hole? No, it doesn’t really affect anything. But it would not have been hard to maintain continuity. Instead, they wanted to have that little interaction, so out goes the continuity. And don’t forget Wildman’s 10+ month long pregnancy, where she didn’t even realize she was pregnant at, what was it, 6 months? They added a throwaway line years later, but I don’t buy it.

I will give them a pass on Chakotay. They tried to do the right thing, have actual Native American representation. It wasn’t their fault that the expert they hired was a scam artist who lied to them.

Despite all this, Voyager does have some of my favorite characters. I like Tuvoc and Seven a lot. I like Janeway, though somewhat less than I did before. I liked B’Elanna before she turned into Tom’s love interest. I also liked Icheb, surprisingly. I would have liked more episodes to involve him, as long as they weren’t about romance.

All in all, if you like Star Trek, I think Voyager’s worth watching. It’s certainly not the worst Star Trek series. In fact, that should be its tagline.

Voyager: At least it’s not Picard!

#Voyager commentary

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bumblingbabooshka · 7 months

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The Doctor turning into women and having romantic dalliances with men is every kind of queer...to me.

#EMH (pretending to be B'Elanna after having just SPRINTED down the hall): You wouldn't shoot a pregnant woman would you ??;;#Tuvok: (in the most 'give it up' tone possible) ...Come with Me doctor =_=#Tuvok gets docked points for falling for the ol' 'cough cough im sick' excuse but gains them all back by getting suspicious and starting #an investigation all on his own in the background <3 #Also Janeway being held captive and being just kinda pissed about the whole situation...yeah #HEHEHE I like this episode it's funny but also the stakes are high #Janeway sort of smirking and doing the 'come here' motion when that alien man was like 'do you know how to fix this?' - her swag.....#Janeway (captive and stressed beyond belief about the warp core): Yeah I have time to serve dom vibes #Tuvok - Chakotay - Janeway: Each having uniquely bad days #(Worst Security disaster ever - Got put in a morgue for hours - Held captive and threatened with death: + Voyager stranded)#I know Chakotay was unconscious for the morgue thing but still #Chakotay: -opens his eyes to see Tuvok standing there-#(they share a look like 'yeah it's some LIFE THREATENING scooby doo bullshit again')#Hey Chakotay maybe next time don't tell the imposter that you know they're an imposter right to their face <3 #Just some tactical strategy for next time <3 <- I love him I'm just being a bitch HEHEHE it was funny to me #Doctor: Hey I know we're in the middle of a serious thing here but like. Why don't we. You know. Hang out???#Janeway: -sharp intake of breathe- ......ohhhh I don't really...DO hanging out.#YAY NAR~!!!!! GET HIS ASS~!!!#Nar I hope you live a simple but fulfilling life as a junk dealer or whatever it is you were talking about god bless <3 #Doctor: Now that I might die I have some last requests v_v Captain...throw my diary away. DO NOT. READ IT. Tuvok...I told Neelix about that #rash you got on your ass. We laughed about it for weeks. Sorry.#and then I smile and giggle and ass 'ass rash' to the Tuvok lore #SNRKEHEHE DAMN. HE GOT HARRY TOO???#'Sorry I said you sucked absolute shit at playing the saxophone. I should have phrased it more delicately...damn it. It all becomes so clea #when you face the end.' (Harry: You said w hat????) SEVEN-!!#Seven: Stay over there computer boy =_=#SNRKEHEHEHHEHHAHAHAH #Janeway:....Is he...? / B'Elanna: NO. I've got him =_= I just deleted all that spam. He's FINE.#livetweeting

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delta-queerdrant · 11 months

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maybe she's pieces of me you've never seen (Faces, s1 e14)

I am, it turns out, a sucker for an art that involves a lady-type person investing in a relationship with herself. I live for a self-rescuing princess.

A lovely example of this genre is the short comic "Radishes" by Casey Nowak, which you can find in their comics collection Girl Town. It's a slice-of-life comic about two young people playing hooky in a fantasy-world mall, and it depicts the protagonist coming face to face with herself and delivering the kind of loving self-talk that therapists are always giving us worksheets about. It's a comic about adolescence but, reading it for the first time as a fully 31-year-old woman, I may have gotten weepy. It's one thing to say the words aloud, another to embody the message in a face-to-face encounter.

"Faces" hits the same notes for me and stands out in a series that is generally curious about women and women's experiences but doesn't always hit the mark. The metaphor, to be clear, is mixed: are B'Elanna's human and Klingon halves a parable for race? Emotional dysregulation? Gender roles? The wobbliness of alien "race" as an essential category in the Trekverse is certainly at play here, conflating physical difference with behavioral difference in a way that's uncomfortable. So why is it so compelling?

The show starts with a bananapants cold open - a Vidiian lab where a phenotypically Klingon B'Elanna is undergoing medical experimentation. We learn that her genome has been reconfigured in order to test her resistance to the phage, producing a second, human counterpart constructed from her leftover genes.

The episode seems to want to say something about illness, but I'm not sure it's anything good. B'Elanna is a "pure specimen" and physically resilient against the infection, while her human counterpart continuously self-describes as "weak". B'Elanna's Klingon pain tolerance brings to mind the way racialized people are viewed as experiencing less pain. The episode frames her Klingon heritage as a source of strength, but "being mixed-race is good because you inherit positive racial traits" is... still a kinda racist and eugenicist message?

We also see B'Elanna using her sexuality to aid her escape, a trope I absolutely never want to see (male characters never resort to it!) The show thinks it's clever by having her use the stereotype of Klingon female hypersexuality against her captor, but as viewers we've been consistently shown this stereotype to be true, so it comes off as boring feminine wiles shit and not a judo move to flip the patriarchy.

Meanwhile, Tom and Durst bunk up with a Talaxian even more grating than Neelix and plot their escape. Poor Durst; it appears that extras on Voyager only get names when they're destined to die, have babies, or both. Tom attempts to comfort human!Torres with his bland sympathetic manner but in the process says literally all the worst things. Apparently he's lost the Vidiian "hot or not" competition, as it's Durst's face that's grafted onto B'Elanna's captor.

Roxann Dawson is really fucking good in these roles. As human!Torres, she's able to give voice to her inner turmoil; as her Klingon self, she's a total boss who embodies confidence, strength, and mad rodent-hunting skills. Their relationship is beautifully Jungian, a woman accepting that she must embrace her whole self to survive.

By the end, Klingon!B'Elanna has died, but her genetics and her body have allowed a reintegrated B'Elanna to survive. Again, there's so much to critique in the confusion of racial and Jungian images of dark and light halves and the framing of B'Elanna's mixed identity as a "fight." But, goddammit, I find it incredibly moving, because there is some subjective truth here: the shadow self inside us who says, yeah, no, you can survive. You can be unruly and make your own destiny. Go ahead, conform, play by their rules, but remember, I'm still here. And you need me.

4 out of 5 roasty-toasty rodents.

#star trek voyager #star trek #b'elanna torres #klingons

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void-tiger · 4 years

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We can still play with Shiro being “dead” while still surviving as particles within the BlackLion because Panicking Overprotective TeleportingLion Botched A Partial Teleportation

Because being broken down and removed even if he could technically be reassembled again (and reassembled without the implants Haggar stuck in him) functionally is Death...at least until he is actually put back together again and returned to the physical plane.

Shiro can get to grieve. And we can get to have Shiro. And NO dead clones.

#takashi shirogane #shiro #bp shiro #blacktashi #vld salt #it’s a teleporter accident brandon!#...technically breaking down a body into particles IS body death...at least until they’re reassembled #and even then...irl that would be a clone of the preTeleport Subject but...whatever. I’m ignoring that because it’s ignored by SciFi Tropes #(even if Startrek likes to play with botched teleporting A LOT)#...the worst one was Tuvix. I dunno if having him in stasis until Tuvoc and Neelix were back would’ve been ‘better’#just. why even have that episode. it added nothing except pointless whump #but the one that really stuck out to me was Hoshi from Enterprise #(I LIKED the first two seasons okay? but gave up watching s3 postEarthAttack.)#transporters as new technology. she’s understandably terrified of them. and has a Transporter Dream aparently?#of getting put back together wrong and disolving into Goop but continuing on as a Photons Ghost and saving her crew #when in reality...she’d only been delayed 2 minutes with no signature degradation #(think I was about 8 when that episode aired. but yeah. the one I remember the most. and that Intro still slaps)#(sadly I...admittedly cannot get into TNG. but yeah. Scotty. 70 something years. no degredation.)

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starbuck09256 · 4 years

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Snowy Lane of memories

MSR

Post revivial although super AU

Emily is alive and so is Maggie. Mulder and Scully have three other children as well. When Mulder and Scully are called away on a conference and leave their tribe behind how do they cope?

Tagging @today-in-fic

Day one Fictober

It’s been one week without their parents. While they originally thought it would be fun the Mulder kids really miss their parents.

Emily the oldest at 9 sits with her three younger siblings on the steps of the farm house. They are bundled up as snow swirls around the porch steps. It’s late february as the chill has moved in. Their grandmother is inside watching from the window as she stirs the crockpot of homemade soup. It’s been a long 7 days, and while she originally was thrilled to have such uninterrupted time with the three best kids she knows, there have been lots of tears. She bites her lip. Hating to admit her daughter was right, there was a reason why they didn’t often leave the kids. After everything that has happened to their family the level of codependency is somewhat suffocating. She always knew Dana would be a wonderful mother, and god is she, and fox is such an involved and exceptional father. They dote on these kids and it's not hard to understand why. Emily’s health issues, Jacksons and Williams unique sensing. The littlest one is such a combination of her parents. Maggie sighs watches the siblings sit on the porch nervously waiting for their parents to drive up the long windy drive.

Emily pulls the hat a little lower for her sister. Who happily looks up and smiles. Emily smiles too but turns to stare down the snowy drive.

Her brother William fearful “What if something happens to them on the drive from the airport?” he mutters, using his boot to kick a little snow off the step.

Emily looks over at him sadly. How horrible would it be that after everything that has happened to them their parents would be lost for something as stupid as ice and lack of snow tires.

“Dad grew up on the vineyard and he knows how to drive in snow.” she says calmly.

Always trying to channel her rational mother. Keep calm, think things through, don’t let your emotions dictate your actions or words. William still unsatisfied looks at his sister. Always the skeptic. Jackson nudges him with his shoulder. “

What have you missed the most this week Em?”

She smiles and loves that Williams twin Jackson is more focused on now.

“I miss dad’s ufo pancakes.” she smiles.

Thinking of how her dad would spread the fruit on top to look like it was flying. William nods. Em looks over at her younger brothers at 6 they are still annoying but at least now they can talk and play nerf guns with her.

“What about you Will?” William has been ringing the life out of his mittens and chewing on his lip nervously.

“I miss all the hugs.” he gives her a shy smile.

Her heart breaks a little. William might have been coddled a bit as a baby, and Grandma is pretty good about hugs but nothing matches a kid sandwich, in which both parents hug them and each other with their kids in the middle. Abruptly Jackson stands up marching down the stairs stomping his feet.

“What is taking them so long Em?? They were supposed to be here 20 minutes ago!” she watches as his anger flares and he kicks at the snow stomping out his frustration, snow starts to lift on its own and swirl around him.

“Jackson, jackson” she states as she sees rage building up in him.

“Hey count to 10 like mom does when you are upset.”

He groans in anger but as Emily starts to count with him his anger comes down, the snow stops flying all around him landing in a small heap beside his boots.

“What about you little one?” Emily asks her little sister who is just shy of 2.

Her sister all grins pulls the hat down on her head and closes her eyes and pretends to snore super loud.

They all giggle, their dad’s snoring a legendary sound that they have all heard when they had a bad dream or couldn’t get back to sleep.

Emily looks at her siblings at the way their intense eyes match each others, some blue, some hazel with flecks of gold. “I miss moms fuzzy robe and her perfume.”

Jackson nods. “I miss watching them dance to Elvis and Cher.” he grins.

Emily rolls her eyes. Only because mom lets you stand on her feet so you can dance too.

William chimes in. “right? Like dad doesn’t do that with you too Em.”

He’s got her there.

William’s voice continues. “I miss where we all lay on top of dad and watch star trek. Voyager is finally getting really good.”

Jackson nods. “I like that we all can’t stand Neelix.”

Emily laughs. “He is the worst and so boring.”

“Right?”

The smallest Mulder nods in agreement and starts to eat at her mitten.

Emily looks at her brother and moves closer; they all snuggle together and stare at the trees toward the giant metal gate at the end of the road. She looks to the side at the swing set and playhouse. The crumbling snow alien they built last week, and the tulips that have just popped out of the snow. She knows this trip was necessary, that being apart is sometimes good. But as she rubs her brother's arm and feels a small squeeze from the other brother she can’t help thinking that 7 days is far too long. Yes they have talked on the phone and video chatted. But it isn’t the same as you mom rubbing your back as she changes her voice to match the characters in a book. It’s not the same to have her help with your science homework when she isn’t next to you to smile in encouragement. She looks over towards the basketball hoop, how her dad will lift both her brothers up to do layups. She told them both she would be fine, she is a big girl almost double digits. She can make sure that will and jackson clean their rooms. She can make sure her sister brushes 4 tiny teeth. Then finally it happens they can see some headlights in the distance and they start to run. Even the newest little Mulder is going as fast as her little snowsuit will allow. It doesn’t matter that William lost his boot or that Emily's hat falls off half way there.

Finally they are there back in the arms of their parents. She looks up at her mom who has tears streaming down her face to her dad who is kissing every inch of his son's face as he squeezes the life out of the other. It doesn’t matter that they have fallen into a heap of tangled limbs wrapped around one another sitting on the cold snow.

She hears her grandmother in the distance. Feels her dad helping her up on her feet, rubbing his hand over her hair. She sees her mother lifting her sister into her arms as she holds onto Jackson's hand. Her dad’s voice cuts through the wind and snow. “So I take it you missed us?” he says with a sad chuckle and Emily can’t help but turn back to him as they walk to the house. She sees the fine lines in his face, the deep crevices in his face he hasn’t slept in a week it looks like. She gives him a big smile. Williams' voice comes up.

“Looks like you may have missed us more since you came home early.”

He is trying to be tough now, play it cool. Jackson doesn’t even bother trying as he hugs their moms leg. Emily watches as his dad leans over and gives his mom a loving kiss, she realized she missed that too. The blatant affection they have between one another. Her mom smiles.

“Yes your dad wanted to come home after 1 day but I told him you guys were fine and could sweat it out.”

Emily meets her mother's eyes and sees the pain and truth in her reflection. Her mom wanted to come home too, how these two made it 7 days is beyond her. As they walk to the house her dad spins her sister in the air with whooshing sounds. Her mother comes up pulls her close and whispers“we tried to get a flight 2 days ago but everything was cancelled for the storm, we even tried to get a car to drive it instead but the highway was down from a tree. Was everything ok? God we missed you all so very very much.”

Her mother's arms are tightly wrapped around her. She feels it then, the warmth, the smell of her perfume, the sound of her voice resonating in her ears. She missed her mom so much. She sees her grandmother on the steps with a dish towel in her hand. Emily nods towards her, grandparents are great but nothing beats having your whole family together again.

#fictober20 #todayinfic #msr #fluff #myfic #au #all together #snowy lane of memories #mulder and scully #xfiles #post season 9 #family fic

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falkenscreen · 4 years

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Star Trek: Voyager

Yes this show ended some time ago; that doesn’t mean that it’s not still underrated.

A relative late convert to Star Trek, this author committed to traversing the Delta Quadrant having finished The Original Series, The Next Generation, Discovery & Picard to date. Deep Space Nine is next; like the Doctor I don’t know anything about this ‘Dominion’ but they seem important and we’ll get there.

Having now finished Voyager, here’s the (spoiler-filled) thoughts of someone who came to the bridge afresh and savoured the light-hearted nature of the show. Yes TNG demanded more attention and the episodes herein that do are generally better, but for relaxed, semi-serialised adventure Voyager is a high point.

We’ll start with the negative and get to the fun stuff.

From the get-go there was a jarring disconnect between the premise and goals of the show. If a ship more advanced than any in the region is travelling really fast in one direction they’re not going to keep running into the same people; better begetting a saga poised for episodic rather than serialised fiction. The writers and audience were evidently a little tired at this point of TNG’s slavish devotion to wrapping everything up in 40-odd minutes so wanted to try variations on a theme; it was the right approach for the time accompanied by a smart premise that didn’t match.

And a stellar premise it was only set to be buoyed by the Federation-Marquis dynamic. Also partly squandered, corresponding grounds for strong tension and stories were left by the wayside – characterised by Chakotay’s ill-established, apparently immediate and seemingly endless trust in Janeway; together major failings of the show.

On continuity, and just so it’s out of the way; no they don’t show it but it’s clear the crew just manufactured more photon torpedoes like they did so much else.

Commencing with one of the best episodes, there is rarely a subsequent moment as character-defining as Janeway destroying the array. Don’t get me wrong, Kate Mulgrew is great, but she alike Kirk and Picard are, as fleshed out as they become, for stretches bare variations on a tired theme; young headstrong hotshot dedicates their life to the stars to become a reasoned, seasoned Commander. ‘Tapestry’ did it best and there was no need to explore this further.

Voyager had a general problem with characters that took several seasons to grow; it was a long time before Neelix stopped being grating and his earnestness became endearing. There is too very little you can relay about Tuvak beyond his being a Vulcan and a little sardonic, or Harry besides his yearning for advancement or Chakotay aside his membership of the Marquis and focus on his cultural background.

The stand-out worst episode of the entire show was Chakotay finding out that the Sky Spirits central to his people’s religion were actually from the Delta Quadrant; you can garner Robert Beltran’s clear ambivalence (at best) to such material. This author is aware of the significant tension between the actor and others on set; I can understand the frustration at a lead cast member belittling the series in public but the directions and emphasis the character took in later seasons was something else, as were the music cues whenever his or some others’ cultures came up.

Star Trek, and notably The Original Series, is often (but not always) shrewd for both telling stories addressing the place of culture, religion and community in people’s lives while not overly if at all drawing attention to particular characters’ backgrounds. To Beltran’s credit, he only made the disaffection perceptible on screen in the episodes that were of poor taste, as opposed to the ones that were just bad. There are many lousy episodes of The Original Series but what near always makes it enjoyable is Shatner et al’s absolute commitment to the bit. One of the very worst episodes of Voyager is the one where Harry is lead to believe that he’s actually from a planet in the Delta Quadrant full of attractive women; yet no one in Star Trek ever needs to look bored reading their lines. There are good ones and bad ones and we’re along for the whole ride.

There’s also that one where Tom and the Captain turn into salamanders, start life on a random planet and somehow transform back into their usual selves with these shenanigans never brought up again. Yeah that was awful but it was preceded by a generally decent few acts centred on exceeding warp limits; reputation aside it wasn’t quite down there.

On Alpha Quadrant folks being in the Delta Quadrant, as much as I missed the Klingons they did not need to rock up latently and near the very end; there were plenty of better ways to give B’Elanna an arc. One of the more interesting characters, she offered a variation on Worf’s overwhelming pride as a Klingon, though she barely got enough episodes to shine and these were predominantly featured much later on. And when the show stopped pretending Tom was the cocky pilot we’ve seen dozens of times before he too managed to get a whole lot more interesting.

It would have made a lot more sense for McNeill to just directly continue his character from TNG’s ‘The First Duty;’ alas.

Also welcome were the insights into the Borg; even if they became a lot less eerie it was great to learn that much more about them, though nothing, save the introduction of Seven, bettered the recuperating drones who were the ship’s first Borg encounter. The Borg children were also very funny (the related Voyager pick-ups in Picard were excellent) and should have stayed on the ship longer so Seven could say more things like “fun will now commence;” she can only say “Naomi Wildman” deadpan, as good as it was, so many times.

Heralded by such a superb actress, Seven and the Doctor thrillingly shared dual arcs akin but distinct to Data’s and each other’s, permitting us to relish their gradual growth and revel in their leaps forward. Seven’s narrowing down of eligible crewmen, unlike Chakotay’s later courting, was a particular highlight, as was her month of isolation when the crew were in stasis and the one where the Doctor overtook her node.

The Doctor however emerges the best character, far and above all others save the near as interesting Seven. Picardo’s charisma and stage presence, well-befitting an exaggeratedly humanistic, bombastic piece of programming, only propelled the most relatable arcs in the series; his desire to fit in and, as any, make a contribution. The Doctor’s opening number in ‘Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy,’ but one occasion where Picardo’s vocal abilities were graciously integrated into the series, by this author’s judgement is the funniest sequence in seven seasons.

‘Message in a Bottle’ with the Doctor centre was too among the very best of the series. Mining any opportunity for comedy we can nonetheless be grateful, alike TNG, that they kept the bald jokes to about one per season.

As asides, it was lovely to see Reginald Barclay return and realise his aspirations in one of the best and most heart-warming episodes of the saga, while the singular and very obvious inspiration one episode draws from Predator proved amusing for just being so unabashed.

‘Scorpion’ was amazing as was anything to do with Species 8472. Captain Proton, acknowledging the entire franchise’s schlocky roots, was a definite recurring highlight, with Mulgrew in one installment clearly having no end of fun alike the cast’s enjoyable turns in late 90’s Los Angeles alongside Sarah Silverman. Speaking of guest stars, seeing The Rock was a nice surprise though with hindsight they may never have cast him given Star Trek shrewdly chose to not have celebrity appearances overshadow the show. But hey, they can’t see the future; at least cleverly opting to obscure Jason Alexander in piles of costuming.

‘Year of Hell’ is good, but the premise befitted an entire season and alike the lacklustre finale nothing really matters (with some well-executed exceptions) if you can just go back in or erase time. There were many, many episodes that shouldn’t have been contained within forty minutes and deserved longer-form devotion, ala ‘30 Days.’ ‘Timeless’was a much better (and unusually technically-focused) variation on the aforementioned themes and it was fun to catch Geordi, as it was Deanna and especially Sulu. ‘The Omega Directive’ was cool; ‘The Thaw’ was great.

The fable-esque nature of the franchise has always been enjoyable and digestible given the show is partially aimed at kids, though there are episodes where it’s just a little too direct, and characters take a little too much pause. ‘Alice,’ the one where Tom almost cheats with his ship as an overly obvious parallel about why you shouldn’t have sex with other people if you have a girlfriend, if a good lesson, in execution was a tad much.

On reflection this author was surprised to discover some of the least generally favoured episodes, among them the Fairhaven double. It may be my great personal affection for Ireland but it makes perfect sense that given the time available this sort of world would be created and characters might pursue holo-relationships, a theme underexplored in Voyager yet still covered to great effect. The established technical deficiencies of holo-technology in such regular use should not come as a surprise when they recur.

The one where Kes comes back was actually a later highlight; her character was never very well handled and no it wasn’t that blast off into the sunset but sometimes old friends lose their way and it’s the job of old friends to set them on the right path.

Most surprising was the dislike directed at ‘Tuvix.’ The difference between Voyager and much heavier sci-fi is that herein characters make a lot of decisions that are hard, not ones that are difficult. The destruction of the array was devastating but not morally questionable within the confines of the show. As a tangent, you could argue that had Janeway made the decision to return to the Alpha Quadrant at the beginning of the series that it would have been the morally correct decision given that, as we see in ‘Hope and Fear,’ another highlight, the ship would not otherwise have been a factor in much disorder and destruction. The show was not however so expansive philosophically as to greatly tread such ground as the franchise otherwise managed in the likes of ‘City on the Edge of Forever.’

In ‘Tuvix’ Janeway, a figure, like Chakotay, who often shifted characterisation to fit the requirements of any given story, was faced with a difficult decision with no easy moral out nor ethically unquestionable approach. It was a refreshing change and correspondingly dark denouement to boot apparent in the likes of ‘Latent Image,’ another fine instalment with the Doctor.

‘Eye of the Needle,’ the only episode this author has watched twice to date and a deeply empathetic early high point, save ‘Balance of Terror’ is the best treatment of the guarded but necessarily relatable Romulans (I haven’t seen all the movies!). ‘The Void’ bookends the show as a later stand out while the in respects not dissimilar ‘Night’ bears one of the darkest challenges and finest, most resonant endings.

This brings us to the ‘best episode;’ one featured regularly in top ten lists but seemingly not a very favourite.

‘Blink of an Eye’ is everything that is exceptional and aspirational about Star Trek. Stranded in the stratosphere of a planet where time passes with greater rapidity, the curious presence of Voyager in the skies begins to influence the society to the point where the inhabitants develop space travel to face the spectre.

A commentary on the Prime Directive as deft as any and a relatively novel variation on both the time travel and petri dish tropes resplendent throughout sci-fi and Star Trek, the episode is also a fabulous meta-commentary on the place of the franchise in popular culture much less crude than Janeway bemoaning the Doctor’s fleeting interplanetary fans’ obsession with every aspect of his personal life. Incorporating a fair bit more science than is typically par, the astronaut’s moving decision to help them, as with his staring into the heavens as Voyager finally departs, speaks to the selfless ethos and sense of overwhelming curiosity so intrinsic to the most basic lore of Star Trek, the most beloved episodes and all that Gene Roddenberry best achieved.

It’s also an amazing meditation on first contact principles and pitfalls which unlike many episodes doesn’t borrow story bones from TNG.

A more than welcome reprieve from a pandemic, I didn’t spend as long in the Delta Quadrant as the crew but for what I did I was glad to relish with them.

Star Trek: Voyager is now streaming on Netflix

#xl #film/tv #voyager #star trek #star Trek: voyager #gene roddenberry #jeri ryan #kate mulgrew #roxann dawson #robert duncan mcneill #robert beltran #ethan phillips #tim russ #jennifer lien

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blue-mint-winter · 3 years

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Star Trek Voyager s07e24 Endgame

I can’t believe this is the end. It happened so fast? Still, it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, as far as endings go. I can live with it. They all came back home, safe and sound and the future ahead looks bright.

I can see why admiral Janeway would travel back in time. When they showed Tuvok in the institution, it was the last straw. Leaving Tuvok like that, after he was the pillar of reason and logic, holding the ship together for all these years, was simply unacceptable. (And yeah, Seven and Chakotay being gone was really bad too... But Tuvok! That totally justifies breaking the Temporal Prime Directive.)

The whole idea with the Borg transwarp hub was quite interesting, I’d like to know more about that. It must be a newish thing? I liked admiral Janeway vs Borg Queen confrontation, but still Voyager destroying the Borg and going home in a blaze of glory seemed a little too quick and unearned. It’s immpossible the Borg will be gone just like that. Maybe weakened but I’m sure they will adapt.

I noticed something in this episode - I liked Harry in it. I was glad his future self was a captain, I liked how competent and responsible he was and I liked his present self’s rousing speech - and then I realized I’ve liked him for quite a long time already. For the first few seasons I found him kind of annoying, but the feeling disappeared. Somehow on the way he became a better character. All of the crew became better during their journey. If I compare who they were in the beginning to who they are in this last episode, the change and growth is so noticeable. I feel proud of them :)

I guess I should comment about this Chakotay/Seven thing which I knew was going to happen since it’s public knowledge in the fandom and widely criticized. I can’t say I enjoyed it, it wasn’t offensive but rather just so random and out of the blue. There’s no foundation for this, since their relationship before that consisted of Chakotay usually doing something reckless on a whim and Seven cleaning up the mess after. And I don’t believe they are a good fit. The actors gave it their all, acting it, but I just don’t feel it. Chakotay giving up on Janeway and moving on is believable, but with Seven, of all people? Nah.

It was nice to see Neelix keep in touch and even play Kadis-kot with Seven on space skype :) And Icheb winning in that Vulcan game against Tuvok was a fun scene - though Tuvok was off his game. But I think it’s nice that Icheb’s playing it and Tuvok’s got a a more challenging opponent in him.

Goodbye, Voyager, I will miss you :)

#st #voy #star trek voyager #my thoughts

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summahsunlight · 4 years

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This Way Became My Journey, Ch. 21

The cave's walls were dark, thick. The only light was from the wrist torch. She moved through the tight cave, being careful where she stepped so she wouldn't slip and fall on the smooth rocks and dirt beneath her feet.

Up ahead she could see a large cavern. There was something there that she was looking for, she wasn't sure how she knew that, but she did. She entered the deep chasm only to find more rock, more dirt. Not what she was looking for. She pressed forward even more, now a voice in the back of her head telling her to go back. It sounded like Chakotay over the comline. 'Lieutenant, don't go any further until I get there.'

He sounds like my brother, she thought, ignoring his request.

It was foolish not to listen. Someone or something was standing in front of her, pointing a weapon at her. It was grotesque, with skin graphs and hair falling out, almost like a decaying corpse walking around.

The pain shot through her so quickly that she couldn't even register a scream. All that came out was a gasp for air, and then suddenly she realized, she couldn't get air.

'Lieutenant? Can you hear me?'

Chakotay's voice again, but she couldn't answer back, she couldn't breath, it was as if her lungs were gone…

With a start Sarah Barrett sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath, and was relieved that she could breathe. She suddenly realized that Chakotay was indeed talking to her over the comlink and it had been what had roused her from the nightmare. Shaking, she reached out and grabbed at the combadge that was resting on the nightstand. Pressing it between her thumb and pointer finger, she responded, "Go ahead Commander."

"For a moment I thought you were ignoring me," Commander Chakotay's voice chuckled.

"Sorry, I…my mind was elsewhere," she said. "What can I do for you Commander?"

"I'm on my way to meet with the Captain before reporting to duty," Chakotay told her. "She was asking about you yesterday. Should I tell her you'll be ready to report back to duty in a couple of days?"

Sarah got up off the bed and went into the bathroom, scowling at her mussed hair and drained appearance. "I'm going to see the Doctor this morning. If all goes like I'm hoping I'll be reporting for duty today." She reached for the hair brush that was on the sink and began to tackle the tangles that plagued her dark tresses. "I don't think I can spend another day reading, or organizing my sock drawer."

Another chuckle. "I'll let Captain Janeway know to expect you. Chakotay out."

Slipping out of her tangled nightgown she mumbled to the computer to activate the sonic shower. She preferred a good bath or a real water shower, but time was not going to permit it. She was due to report to the Doctor in less than twenty minutes. A quick sonic shower was all she had time for, to wash away the grim from a restless sleep.

It was easy to find her uniform, since she had been taken off the duty roster for a week and a half, it had laid on the dining room chair. When she had slipped out of her quarters to see the Doctor she had been clad in civilian attire, reasoning there was no point to traipsing around the ship in uniform when she wasn't on duty.

The fabric felt starchy against her skin. It also proved to be difficult to get into the tight fitting turtleneck since her rib cage was still sore from the crash. Gritting her teeth and bearing it, for she didn't care anymore how much pain she was in, she was going to report to duty that day. She was tired of so many things. There was only so much classic literature and reorganizing drawers one person could take. She had even rearranged the furniture in the living and dining areas to make the room more easily traveled. The Doctor would probably throw a fit if he knew she had done that with her tender ribs.

Tucking her hair back into a twist, she clipped her combadge onto her tunic, and with a final glance to make sure that her pips were on straight, left the quarters.

A few crewmen who were on their way to their duties stations or back to their quarters nodded their heads at her in greeting before going about their business. Everything had pretty much returned back to normal for them the moment Chakotay and Sarah had been transported back to Voyager. However, it was a different story, at least for Sarah. It was going to be a while for her to feel normal again.

The dreams were not helping her out any.

They had started when Harry Kim had come by to visit her and offered to 'cook' dinner for her. The two had shared some stories about what was going on on the bridge, how the Captain seemed ready to burst at the seams because she was solely relying on Neelix for diplomatic advice, and that the Talaxian had been bubbling about some planetoid that could go a long way in helping them with their dilithium supplies. In fact, it had been that night she had the first dream of being in a cavern, being stalked and then feeling a sensation of having her lungs ripped out of her body.

At first she had thought it was post traumatic stress. But now she was beginning to think otherwise.

"Deck five," she called out when she entered the turbolift. This trip had become routine everyday and if the Doctor was capable of making friends, Sarah was sure that they would be best buddies by now because she had been in sickbay so often the last ten or so days.

The routine was getting old, and she could tell it wasn't only getting old for her. The Doctor didn't seem practically thrilled when she showed up for her check up everyday. Then again, the Doctor didn't seem thrilled about anything unless he was in the midst of some medical crisis. So much for Starfleet's brilliant idea of leaving starships with a back up doctor; it was obvious that they weren't thinking long term solution when they programmed him. Otherwise, Sarah was convinced that the Doctor would have been programmed to be a bit more…understanding.

"You're late," the hologram snapped out when she entered. "And in uniform. Is there some change in schedule that I should be made aware of? Last I checked you weren't scheduled to report for duty for another two days."

Tom's right, his bedside manner does need to be improved if he's going to be our chief medical officer for the next seventy five years. "I'm getting sick of sitting around," Sarah replied, going to stand near the instrument table. "Just scan me, say I'm fit for active duty, and I'll go about my merry way."

The Doctor picked up a medical tricorder. "Are you in any pain?"

"Nothing I can't handle," she said.

The hologram heaved a sigh and put the tricorder down. "Why does this crew insist to go against their doctor's wishes?"

"Maybe you just got a crew with ADD," Sarah replied, with a teasing smirk.

"You're no better than the rest of them," he snapped. "I would think that the ship's counselor would hold herself above such pettiness."

"Sorry I don't live up to your high standards."

The Doctor placed the tricorder back onto the tray. "Other than the fact that your rib cage is still tender from the surgery, you're fit for duty. BUT I've already put a recommendation in that you do not go on any away missions until further notice."

Well, that is going to put a dampener on things. "You're the Doctor," she mumbled, unhappy about being restricted to the ship.

"At least someone on this ship realizes that," he returned, beginning to leave the room.

"Doctor, wait," she called out. "Can I ask you something?"

"I'm listening."

"I've been having these dreams, of being in a cave, looking for something. I hear Commander Chakotay tell me not to go any further, but I keep going," Sarah said. "I'm…I'm attacked by what I think is an alien, but I can't be sure, it looks more like a corpse. The last thing that happens before I wake up is I feel like my lungs are…are gone. Could it…could it be post traumatic stress?"

The Doctor didn't even bat an eyelash. "It's possible. But…you are the counselor, why are you asking me?"

She shrugged her slender shoulders. "I guess I just wanted a second opinion."

"I can give you something to help you sleep, but if the dreams do not go away I'd talk to someone about it," the Doctor replied.

"Talk to someone? To who?" Sarah inquired.

"You must have friends, Miss Barrett," he replied.

You're not alone. Chakotay. "Well…yes, I guess I do."

"Then my suggestion to you Miss Barrett is this, talk to a friend about your experiences on that planetoid. It wouldn't hurt you, only help."

"Hi Commander Chakotay, Mama's trying to get Ava dressed, she's being stubborn," Michael Janeway greeted, startling the first officer, who had not been expecting the boy to answer the door.

Like mother like daughter, Chakotay thought as he stepped into the quarters. Peering around the room he noticed that Tal Celes, the children's nanny, was not present. Usually when he stopped by in the morning before proceeding to the bridge, Tal was there, chipper as ever, playing with the children. "Tal isn't here yet?"

"She's sick, Mama said she was exposed to the worst germ carriers of all," Michael replied. "What do you think she meant by that Commander Chakotay?"

Chakotay shook his head, deciding to play it safe. "I wouldn't know," he replied with a smile, picturing the Captain uttering those words to her inquisitive son. "I'm sure your mother has taken care of those germ carriers, Michael."

At this moment Kathryn emerged from the baby's room, a wailing, but a fully dressed Ava, toddling after her. If the Captain was bothered by the little girl's crying, her face didn't show it. Instead, she reached out, grabbed her uniform tunic that was resting over the back of a chair and put it on. Smiling at Chakotay, she said, "Care to join us for breakfast?"

"I've already had mine, thanks," he replied, keeping his eyes on the toddler. Ava was demanding attention by clinging tightly to her mother's pant leg.

Kathryn responded by shrugging it off. "It's a shame; I heard that the rations were particularly dehydrated this morning." Her ignoring Ava only seemed to make the baby angry. She suddenly shrieked which caused everyone in the room to shiver at the high pitch. "It's also a shame that you won't have the pleasure of dining with my children, who absolutely love ration packs."

"That's not true, Mama," Michael protested, covering his ears to try and drown out Ava's screaming. "I hate them."

Chakotay chuckled. "Apparently, he hasn't learned the concept of sarcasm yet."

"He will, soon enough," the Captain drawled, finishing up with her tunic. With a final straightening of her uniform, she was all business as usual. "How much longer until we reach this planet that Neelix keeps boasting about?"

"Shouldn't be long now," Chakotay replied. "Just enough time to enjoy your breakfast with your delightful daughter."

Kathryn frowned at Ava who had now latched onto her mother's leg, wrapping her arms and own legs about it tightly. The woman pried the child free and looked sheepishly back at the commander. "I thought I was beyond this when Tal agreed to take care of them, however, I never took into consideration that children spread germs, quite frequently may I add, and she would get sick."

"Well, what's one more day in the ready room, really when you look at the grand scheme of things?"

"We're going to spend the day with you?" Michael asked, excitedly, his eyes lighting up, the thought of eating rations again for breakfast gone. "Do you think Tom will let me fly the ship?"

Kathryn and Chakotay exchanged glances. "I...I'll have to think about that one, honey. Maybe when you're older."

A disappointed look fell over the child's face but Kathryn was soon ushering them all out into the corridor and towards the turbo lift, where they would proceed to the mess hall. Ava seemed less than thrilled to be leaving, especially since her mother absolutely refused to pick her up and continued to sob all the way to the turbo lift, the ride to deck two, and the way towards the captain's private dining room. Stealing a glance at the child, who was practically running to keep up, Chakotay was struck with how much she resembled her mother, even at this young of an age.

Her eyes were just as bright a blue, just as fiery, her hair shimmered copper in the lights, and even the curve of her lips was identical of that to Kathryn. It was almost as if Kathryn had a little clone walking around. He chuckled at that thought. As if this crew needed two Kathryn Janeways.

"Commander? Have you heard anything I've said?"

Chakotay snapped his eyes up to meet Kathryn's. "I, ah…was distracted."

A smile played on her lips. "It's best to ignore her. She'll stop…eventually."

"I'm sure she will, now what were you saying?"

"We need to come up with a way of refining the dilithium, assuming Neelix is right, and that there is any on the planet we're heading too," Kathryn replied, as the walked along the observation deck.

"Lieutenant Torres has already asked permission to make modifications to the auxiliary impulse reactor," Chakotay answered her, watching as Michael went to peek out the large windows, briefly, trying to get away from Ava, who had resorted to following her brother around now since she wasn't getting a reaction out of her mother and the commander. "It could be converted into a crude dilithium refinery."

"The impulse reactor?" Kathryn repeated a grin on her face. They stopped walking, while the children peered out the large windows. "Sometimes I think B'Elanna goes out of her way to find solutions that ignore Starfleet procedures."

"Her arguments are quite convincing. She thinks it can be done safely."

"I'm sure it can," Kathryn said, starting to walk away again, not even telling the children she was moving. "Tell her I want regular reports on her progress."

Chakotay turned about to join her and saw that Michael jogged away from the window to catch up, Ava, who had stopped her crying for a brief moment while looking out the window, suddenly bawled again, and chased after him, her little feet laboring to keep up.

"Are you sure you won't join us for breakfast?" Kathryn asked him again, her eyes traveling back towards the children. "I was thinking of having eggs Benedict with asparagus, strawberries and cream…"

They stopped in front of the doors to her private dining room. Chakotay scratched his head for a moment, wondering if perhaps in all the commotion of the morning, she had forgotten that the replicators were still down from the Rupor attack a week prior.

She caught the look on his face. "I said I was thinking about it. I'm actually having ration pack number five; stewed tomatoes with dehydrated eggs."

"Mmm, sounds delicious, but I've already had my vacuum packed oatmeal this morning," he said, with a sneaky smile. Michael was making a face and he reached out and mussed his hair. "See you on the bridge."

"Bye Commander," Michael said, happily.

Kathryn watched him go for a moment, pondering the relationship that had started to sprout up between Michael and her first officer. Naturally Michael had latched on so to speak to the men, he loved it when Tom joined the children for lunch in the mess hall, and he was always asking Harry engineering questions. But for some reason, the bond between Michael and Chakotay was different. Chakotay was gentle with them, soft spoken. The children felt comfortable around him and Michael had taken to asking him life's questions, like a child would their father. This for some reason, bothered her. It wasn't that Michael was purposely trying to replace his father, the grief counselor back on Earth had told her that it would be good for him to find a surrogate father so to speak. Kathryn had always been comfortable when that roll had been filled by Gabriel Dawson, the children's uncle, but now, seventy thousand light years from home, the thought that her first officer could take on that roll, unnerved her at the same time it comforted her.

"Mama, are we going to eat?"

Eyes locking with her son's she realized she had been daydreaming. "Yes, sorry, I was thinking." She reached out and punched in the access code to the dining room. The doors swished open and the family was greeted with the smell of cooking food and smoke.

At the far end of the room, where the replicators had once been, was a couple of burners, that looked like they had hastily been put together, and were flaming. Kathryn, seeing the flames, instinctively stepped in front of her children, scooping a now shocked Ava up into her arms.

She wasn't surprised to find Neelix twittering about in the middle of this mess. "What is going on here?"

"Captain you caught me by surprise!"

"I could say the same thing," Kathryn snapped sarcastically, following Neelix back into what used to be her private dining room. "What are you doing?"

"Well, that's obvious Mama, he's cooking," Michael piped up. His mother shot him a glare and he shrunk against the wall, tucking his hands behind his back.

Neelix went on to explain that he knew the senior officers weren't happy with the ration packs so he decided to take some of the vegetables from the hydroponics bay that Kes had created and make a galley. "It wasn't easy. I had to completely reroute the Mess Hall power conduits and scrounge a lot of supplies from all over the ship, but that's my specialty making something out of nothing."

Kathryn shifted Ava onto one hip. How in the hell did he do all this without any of us noticing? "Neelix," she said, in her best command voice, gripping his arm with the hers that had been freed up by shifting Ava about,"who approved this?"

"Uh, well…no one."

"Uh-oh," Michael muttered from his spot on the wall. "Not a good idea Neelix." Being the son of a Starfleet captain, and the nephew of a Starfleet lawyer, Michael knew a lot about protocol, and that his mother was never happy when that protocol had been breached. The burners started to flame even more and he stepped back in fear of getting burnt. Neelix quickly went to drown the flames with a towel, Kathryn following behind him.

"You might have asked me first," she said, hotly. "This used to be my private dining room."

Neelix looked surprised at that. "Your, your dining room? Oh…ah I guess you'll be wanting me to get this out of your way."

"Bridge to Captain Janeway."

"Go ahead."

"We're approaching the rogue planetoid."

"On my way," she responded, turning to Neelix. "I want you to come with me. We will deal with this later." She gestured for Michael to come with her and left the room as Neelix hurriedly gave Ensign Parsons directions on how to keep the kitchen running while he was gone.

She had to admit that a galley would be nice, real food would be nice for a change, but it didn't take away from the fact that Neelix had not come to her first. Of course, how was he supposed to know such things, not being from Starfleet? The surprise of finding him cooking in the private dining room had done one positive thing; it had stopped Ava's crying. Kathryn felt it safe to put the child onto the floor of the turbo lift just as the doors opened to the bridge.

Pointing towards the empty engineering station she told Michael to call up some program that she had been working on to start his basic schooling. It wasn't much, she knew, but for now it was going to have to do. Tal had agreed to watch the children, but she had told the Captain, openly that she probably was not the best teacher for the children, seeing how Michael could do multiplication at the age of five, and she hadn't even been able to do that at the age of eleven.

The boy was eager to start the new lesson and climbed up into the seat that was too big for him, typing away at the console. Ava waddled after him and somehow managed to squeeze her little body into the chair with him.

Kathryn stole a glance at her first officer, a thought suddenly occurring to her.

"I already locked out the ship's systems. The only thing he can access is the programs you specified," Chakotay said, with a bemused look. "There'll be no action figures in the conduits today."

He has to bring that up, Kathryn thought begrudgingly. Before Tal, the children had run rampant on the ship, Kathryn not being able to keep up with them and her work. Michael had even gone as far as crawling into a Jefferies tube with Ava and playing around with a power conduit, later claiming that it had been Ava who put the action figure in it. Kathryn had never quite believed him. "What have you found?" she finally asked Harry Kim.

"We're picking up definite dilithium signatures, Captain," Kim answered. "The strongest readings are originating from ten to twenty kilometers inside the planetoid."

"It also looks like the there's a series of subterranean caves, with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere," B'Elanna Torres reported from the Science station.

"Class-M," Chakotay stated, standing next to Paris at conn. "It'll make mining a lot easier if we can go in there without environmental suits."

"How much dilithium are we talking about?"

"It's hard to get a precise reading. It could be anywhere from five hundred to…one thousand metric tons."

"Just as I said," Neelix declared, quite proud of himself. Kathryn already annoyed with him that morning, gave him a look that he didn't seem to notice. "I bet there are a few Yallitian engineers who'd give all three of their spinal columns to know where this planet is."

Kathryn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Commander," she addressed Chakotay, "take an away team down into those caves and do a preliminary geological analysis. Lieutenant," she said, now addressing B'Elanna, "you better get your dilithium refinery online."

"It'll be ready to go in three days."

Kathryn gave her a nod of approval while Chakotay told Harry to join him. She felt Neelix brush her arm as he moved behind her towards Chakotay. She turned towards her seat watching with amusement the look that came across Chakotay's face as the Talaxian crossed the bridge to meet up with him. Lowering her body down she heard Chakotay ask where Neelix was going.

"With you," Neelix answered, enthusiastically. "I've been studying my Tricorder Operations Manual. Lieutenant Torres has brought me up to date on dilithium geophysics." He turned towards Kathryn, who was listening to the exchange intently. "I've been preparing for this mission all week."

You can't fault him for wanting to help out. "Very well, Mister Neelix," was all she said before Chakotay disappeared into the turbo lift, with what she could have sworn was a I'll get you back glare.

Neelix sputtered after him. "I'll think you'll find me extremely helpful, Commander. I remember the first time I flew by this planet, I think it was about three years ago…"

"Deck four," Harry Kim called out desperately and the lift's doors closed.

Kathryn laughed silently and gazed at the back of Tom Paris' head. Neelix could be a little too eager which in turn made him impulsive at times, but his heart was in the right place, she concluded.

The doors to the turbo lift could be heard swishing open again and for a moment she thought that Chakotay had buckled and sent Neelix back. Turning her head she saw her counselor step onto the bridge. Kathryn couldn't help but feel warmed by her presence. The last week and a half had been awkwardly silent without the counselor there while she recovered from her injuries and infection which she had sustained in a shuttle crash.

"Reporting for duty, ma'am," Sarah Barrett said, sliding into an at ease position. "The Doctor gave me the go ahead to return to active duty."

"Welcome back, Lieutenant," Kathryn said with a smile, gesturing towards her chair. "Take a seat. We've missed you around here."

Sarah made her way down the steps and to the bench chair that she had occupied every duty shift until she had gotten injured. "Did I miss much?" she asked, with a teasing smile.

Kathryn shook her head. "No, just the same old same old. You know how it goes."

"I heard about Neelix turning your dining room into a galley," Sarah said. "If you want I can talk to him, it is after all my fault."

Kathryn raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Before Chakotay and I left on the mission to Karva, he asked me if there was a way he could help out around here more, I told him that I would sit down and talk with him when I got back," she replied. "But, we all know how the story goes from there. I guess he got a little impatient."

The Captain brushed her off with a wave of her hand. "Don't worry about. It was hardly traumatic; a bit of a surprise, but nothing that can't be easily repaired. Besides, I'm not sure I want him to dismantle the galley just yet."

"You don't?"

"He had a valid point that the senior officers, myself included, have not been too fond of the ration packs lately," Kathryn pointed out, glancing up at Michael, who every time his mother mentioned it was meal time would scowl in disgust and groan, not ration packs again.

Sarah noticed where she was looking and commented, "I see the cherubs are joining us today."

"I wouldn't know about any cherubs," Kathryn replied, dryly, "but the children are here. Tal's sick, and it's making me rethink the situation. I don't think it's fair to have her watch them six days a week; her only off day my only off day. Maybe I should be offering her a break, taking them two days a week. It would only work out to one day on the bridge; we can spend my day off in our quarters or on the holodeck." She saw the exasperated look that came over Sarah's face. "I know, I know, we'd have to step up security."

The young woman swallowed. "You do remember the time that Michael tried to access helm control, right? If Mister Paris hadn't been near by, who knows what would have happened to Voyager. Ma'am, I understand it's been difficult, but if Tal isn't complaining, maybe we should just…leave things alone."

"If it's not broke why fix it?," Kathryn said, with a shy grin.

"What we need is someone to be their teacher, someone aside from a babysitter, that way it gives Tal a break from having both of them all the time," Sarah suggested and immediately regretted opening her mouth. The Captain got a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Good idea, Counselor," she said. "Why don't you start working on candidates that you would think will make a good teacher? Of course I would have done it myself, but I don't know the crew as well as you do; this is a good assignment for you, and it fits in with the light duties that the Doctor suggested until you're one hundred percent back on your feet."

Tom Paris turned slightly in his chair to give her a teasing look and she felt her cheeks flush for a moment. Lowering her eyes, she focused on the gray carpet. "Yes, ma'am, I'll get working on it right away."

Kathryn laughed to herself and leaned back into her chair.

"Sickbay to the Bridge," the Doctor's persistent voice came over the comlink.

"Go ahead Doctor."

"Captain, I think you should come down here. There's been a medical emergency with the away team."

#star trek voyager #star trek voyager fanfiction #kathryn janeway #chakotay #tom paris #sarah barrett (oc)#harry kim #tuvok #b'elanna torres #neelix #kes #the doctor (emh)#janeway x chakotay #tom paris x ofc

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