Date: 07 Jun 2012 15:26 Title: Chapter 41
The Borg Resistance!!! Awesome! The twists and turns are coming in really fast now and it feels so gratifying. It's all been carefully setup: the characters, the plot elements and the players. Now the interesting bits are coming! I really like how you have developed this story in terms of it plot, and I think Maren is probably your best character. Brilliant but very vulnerable in a way when it comes to Icheb, she's one of those tortured characters; my favourite sort!
Date: 20 Apr 2010 19:55 Title: Chapter 41
Oh boy-"Welcome to the war you started." WOW-great line there. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...and it seems the Federation has proved that here.
Date: 15 Jan 2010 03:29 Title: Chapter 41
For a interlude this scene had a lot going for it.
First being the appearance of Bashir again, the way you describe him works pretty well with the original source material. He's grown up alot since the early days of DS9, shedding many of his naive tendencies. But just like in the later seasons of DS9, we can still see trace elements of those habits. After all, his naivety and his idealism weren't destroyed, they were just ... painted over by the events around him. You do an excellent job portraying him.
Second, what the hell, between this and the challenge entry, I've pretty much decided you are the undisputed queen of the soft, gentle moments. I mean, there's fine line between soft and overly mushy, but this hospital scene toes that line perfectly. We can feel the anxiety, guilt, anger and shame that John is feeling, and the concerned, yet ready-to-kick-her-ass mentality of Adele as well.
As to the scene on the resistance ship, it's hard to give a full analysis yet of this section because you left such a nice little cliffhanger there. But, these guys are intriguing. They clearly still posses Borg tendencies, but I love seeing them grappling with thier now-unrestrained emotional levels.
It's almost Data's search for emotions in reverse. Instead of trying to find them, they appear to be trying to learn to control them.
As always, great work, and I wonder... how did sweet ol' Icheb start a war?
Oh yeah, walking, talking, making out with Maren biological weapon...
Author's Response:
Thanks for the review.
I'm glad you like Bashir. I always feel like I'm handling a breakable object when I write him, because Niners are such a devoted bunch and I don't want to get him wrong. But you're right, he's grown up a lot (he was 27 during DS9 season one, and he's 44 here), but still retains a fundamental idealism underneath it all.
Re: mushy moments - I do try to toe the line with the emotional scenes. Mostly, I want them to be believeable. I could see John sitting there not knowing what else to do than just be there, but I couldn't see him doing anything crazy like kissing her or making some emotional speech, and I couldn't see him marching off to do his duty unless flat-out ordered to do so, either. My goal is to keep these people in character. Adele, too -- she's compassionate, but she's a starship captain, too, and her chief engineer is acting like she's going to be a liability.
The Borg do have a little bit of the Data-in-reverse thing going. I hadn't thought about it quite that way. We'll be seeing much more of them in upcoming chapters.
Those last two lines of your review made me laugh. Someone needs to make Maren a t-shirt -- "My Boyfriend is the Bomb." (Well, okay, he's not really a BOMB, but you know what I mean. Hehe.)
Date: 04 Jan 2010 08:57 Title: Chapter 41
Adele is justly angry with Maren, not so much for what she did, but why. Their upcoming confrontation isn’t a conversation any captain should have to have with their chief engineer, a member of their senior staff.
Then again, I can also see Maren’s side of the equation. She’s in love with an ex-Borg drone, so she knows that there could still be real people trapped within those Collective controlled bodies. And as she’s too young to have served in the Dominion War and hasn’t had to develop the innate responses to uber-threats like those officers and personnel who had to fight such threats as the Jem’Hadar doubtless have… such as shoot first and leave your questions to the forensic pathologists to answer.
Again, the captain’s having to play camp counselor in order to keep her security chief in line, because he’s too busy agonizing over his unrequited love for Maren from her bedside when he should be at his post. Don’t get me wrong, I love your characters, but it must sometimes feel to Adele like she’s been sent into the Delta Quadrant with the cast of 90210 (the original, thank you… and yes, I’m dating myself). 
Forgive me for saying so, but I want to take Icheb, Maren, and John back in time ten years and post them to Gibraltar for a month to get a taste of stress-based decision making. 
And now we know… the Resistance… some kind of former-Borg renegade group perhaps stemming from the future-Janeway’s anti-cyber weaponry and destruction of the Borg Hub? They’re obviously blaming the Federation for their war, and Voyager’s the only Federation vessel that’s been out this far.
As always, compelling, intriguing, and addictive are the adjectives I’d choose to affix to your work.
Author's Response:
I like your summary of the Adele/Maren situation -- pretty accurate, I'd say. Her upcoming discussion with Adele should be interesting (at least, I hope you will think so!).
Oh, and luckily for everyone, John is NOT the security chief. He's only a very promising (promising, that is, if he could detach himself from his friends a little like he was able to on the Titan due to their not being there) lieutenant JG in the security department. He gets to order ensigns and enlisted around, but he's not in charge of everything. (And hey, I watched the orignal 90210, too, so if you're old, so am I! And Adele probably does feel that way at times.)
I cannot begin to imagine the field day that your senior staff would have with those three (especially if we're talking Pava and Liana!). Something tells me they'd be whipped into shape in no time. Though, in their defense, I should point out that they were all separated for the last two years and functioning quite competently before they were assigned here, and before that, there wasn't all the angst ... Icheb was with Maren, and John was completely used to that. So all the interpersonal drama is fairly new to them.
Re: the Resistance ... I hope this will prove interesting. This is not a neat and clean war by any stretch. That trial by fire you wanted to send Icheb, Maren and John to on the Gibraltar? Oh, yeah, it's coming.
Thanks so much for the great review and nice comments!
Date: 03 Jan 2010 00:04 Title: Chapter 41
I love how Adele rocks up in this scene and how Maren's actions have in part angered her, with Adele calling her a slip of a girl and contemplating throwing her into the brig for her stunt. And in fairness, she would be within her rights. And it has to be said, she may need to do so if the Advisory Board get wind of the true motivations behind Maren's actions. It really could mean the end of her career. Which would pose a bit of an issue if she was drumrolled out of the fleet - as stranded away from the Alpha Quadrant what would she do? Walk about the Tesseract corridors bitching about the new Engineering chief? Hmmm. Anyway, sidetracked.
Love how Adele though keeps herself very composed. Her part Betazoid nature comes in handy for helping her deal with a whole flux of emotions. Having tto deal with the Borg has to be troubling nevermind having actual Borg drones onboard at her majesty's pleasure. This cannot be an easy thing to contend with but Adele comports herself admirably. Speaking of Admirals, wonder what he is going to do with the Borg drones? Sidetracked again. But she also uses her Betazoid heritage to her advantage with John. She can sorta read him and apart from picking up all *that* going on with him, she senses his evasion of the truth. Of course the mystery behind that means she could call John's bluff if he himself didn't think he'd been rumbled.
Now as to John. I mentioned how he is the Poster Boy of Starfleet - not just in terms of his easy likeable personality and skills but because even when being flippant and sarcastic about the perils of Starfleet he actually believes in the mantra he spills out.
And it is nice and refreshing to see a character genuinely believe that and be proud of that aspect. Nice too that Adele sees some of that Starfleet ethos and attitude is what influenced the rather naive Maren when she decided tro spare the drones. Contrast this to Icheb's friends pointing the finger squarely at the Federation.
What's his beef then? Why are the Federation so blamed by him? And why is it so necessary to win their support? Lots of mystery surrounding their motivation. They appear to be the good guys - acting as a Resistance to the Borg. So what's that all about?
I like Icheb trying to stay in Icheb mode, even when captured, quoting Starfleet regulations and trying to reason with his captures whilst not cooperating. He continues to be a fascinating character that I forget at times he didn't get that much air time on Voyager. Also the troubling notion Icheb hints at regards their need to retunr him. What danger is he hinting at if not just supremely confident in the crew rescuing him? A little troubling.
Oh and the whole John bit was just ... well for a tough ole guy he's emoting a lot of feelings and is one mixed up and conflicted guy as his emotions for Maren butt with his loyalties and friendship to Icheb. It is one very tricky and heartbreaking situation he finds himself in not to mention that upon waking, Maren asks almost immediately after Icheb. Talk about sticking it in the ribs.
Author's Response:
Adele is not thrilled about the situation, that's for sure, but she sees her crew as HER crew, even the ones she had doubts about from day one due to youth, Borg-ness, or both (*cough*Maren-and-Icheb*cough*). As far as she's concerned, if anyone is going to ruin Maren's career, it will be her, and not the creepy admiral or the obnoxious lawyer from the advisory board. So she'll protect Maren until she can talk to her and find out what really happened in engineering and where Maren's mind is in regard to their mission.
John is totally a Starfleet poster boy in many ways. Deep down, he's very idealistic, even though he likes to pretend he's not. And his situation with regard to his friends IS difficult for him ... mixed up and conflicted pretty much sums it up.
As for Icheb's "friends," they are resisting. But the situation is a lot more complex than it was when Janeway was cruising the DQ. You'll see in the coming chapters why they've got issues with the Federation, while also needing their help.
And then there's Icheb ... yeah, we all know I think he was criminally underused on VOY. Then again, if he'd been used much more, it would probably be harder to write this story, so I guess I should be glad. As for why he's so insistent he has to get off that ship ... remember what he was bred for.
Thanks for the awesome review!