Date: 26 May 2013 18:46 Title: Chapter 1
Your first story on Ad Astra! Your first review! W00t!!!
I like the concept a great deal. Certainly the idea that a Vulcan could have been living in our midst, undetected, is irresistible.
It begs a few questions - what happened if/when he needed medical care? How about with his interpersonal relationships as others aged and he did not (or, at least, he did not become infirm when he would be expected to be)?And what did he do during Pon Farr?
I think what you have here, actually, is more like three stories, and perhaps they could work better as three separate chapters. E. g. one devoted to an overall bit about Mestral staying and getting along in the world, a second to his relationship with Mike and his love of sports and how he was around other fans. All of that raw emotion could conceivably be a means of observing the human race, perhaps complete with a report or diary entries. The third piece could be 9/11. And maybe even a 4th, bridging piece, to Cochrane.
Because that begs another question, if he's around for the Cochrane flight, did he help design the Phoenix, and even put it together? If so, then we'd owe a lot more to Vulcans than just their initial guidance as we developed our warp programs. And it would also make the reader wonder about the development of the Prime Directive. An involved Mestral might even be a staunch advocate for a Prime Directive, as a means of maintaining scientific objectivity or even having a moral component of letting people do for themselves without influence or interference. Or maybe even a fatalistic approach, particularly after seeing so much human destruction on a grand scale - maybe staying out of things on more primitive worlds is a means of judging their worthiness, to see if they can rise up out of what might seem inevitable nuclear destruction?
Thought-provoking ideas; I would love to see you expand upon them some more.
Author's Response: This is the second piece to my story, the first one has not been uploaded or approved yet.