Date: 20 Aug 2013 06:23 Title: Washing the Muck
Review begging wasn't kosher in 2009 and it still isn't. Just so you know. See, now I won't be reading the next one until you remove that little note down here, Mistral. ;) However, I really did enjoy this one and quite enjoyed Sanjay going all badass at the end there. The situation was well handled both tactically and diplomatically, and the pacing and plot were terrific. Good work!
Author's Response: What note? I can't find anything that relates to what you are referring to! Gah!
Date: 20 Aug 2013 06:14 Title: Hoist By Their Petard
Well well! I am on tenterhooks here and you just keep giving nuggets of intrigue. Anyone ever tell you that you're a wicked tease, my friend?
Date: 20 Aug 2013 06:10 Title: Finding the Needle
Oh is that an awesome arsenal! Louis was also quite clever here, though even with it narrowed down I don't envy Mitchell any. It is shaping up to be an awesome, multifaceted climax here and I am still really enjoying reading it.
Date: 20 Aug 2013 05:43 Title: Grifters, Guilt and Garbage
Oh, that is so cool! I love the twists and turns so far, and I cannot wait to see what Shand is observing there with his Andorian awesome. This is a delightfully fun little tale thus far, especially with the clever and plotty shenanigans going o.
Date: 20 Aug 2013 05:34 Title: Decadence and Deception/One Of Our Commanders Is Missing
Oooh, the plot thickens. We have our intrepid XO under attack, our dynamic duo with her, a very large group of possible refugees (or pirates) and who knows how much worse it will get before it gets better? Great pacing in this story so far. It makes me want to keep reading.
Date: 20 Aug 2013 05:25 Title: The Delta Has Ears/Who's Kidding Who?
Shand! Torres! I about squealed. Great little bit of Nog backstory, tying this into canon. And also a heck of a case of intrigue going on. You know it has to be a trap, but you're just not sure HOW. I am looking forward to finding out.
Date: 20 Aug 2013 05:17 Title: Someone's Knocking At the Door
LOL! Poor Nog. Ah, after the first mission, who can blame Sanjay for wanting a boring one? I have a feeling that he will be SOL in this case, however. Even so, I am definitely looking forward to seeing what happens.
Date: 25 Jun 2009 05:13 Title: Washing the Muck
Interesting, that! One question about how the FCC operates...obviously they can't erase all the damage, and all the knowledge, that would come from this sort of "first contact." Are they mainly there to help restore those societies, or are they going to be doing some kind of massive-scale Men-in-Black neuralyzer type routine as well?
And I noticed the mention of the Yamato...I take it this takes place during TNG's early seasons, if not before the series?
Author's Response: Yamato is, I'm assuming, a rebuild. There should be one in the Fleet most times and Star Fleet is in its rebuilding phase post-Dominion, so a new Yamato made sense. And I like the name.
Date: 25 Jun 2009 05:08 Title: Hoist By Their Petard
Wow...I'm amazed that little friendly-fire incident was handled as...ahem..."pleasantly" as that! Something like that could have seriously led to a LOT of bad feelings...
Date: 25 Jun 2009 05:04 Title: Finding the Needle
Interesting to see all the non-regulation weapons your team carried in...I could never imagine that on the sanitized TNG-era Enterprise! I wonder, though, is there some kind of regulation about the manner of death these weapons can inflict, to determine whether they're allowed or not?
And from a chapter earlier--good twist, to explain how these two planets got to be at odds with each other!
What I can't wait to find out is, how is it the Cardassians didn't know anything about these people? (And the Federation, too--but the Cardassians in particular are damn thorough, so to pull one over on them, it's gonna have to be pretty major!)
Author's Response: The Security people are trained to scale up the level of violence on an "only as needed" basis. No soldier(and Security is more military in its approach) goes into a potential fight without calling upon all available assets. Also, given the weakness of the Kirk-era Enterprise Security Dept(it was the one blight on an otherwise great ship) many captains have taken to finding a competent Dept Head and giving them a bit of free rein to run things as they see fit. Since Damian is ex-Marine, Sanjay places a lot of trust in him and doesn't ask to many questions-only the results count. The Cardassians(its implied) don't know about these races because the same org that caused the trouble worked at keeping a low profile-IMO.
Date: 25 Jun 2009 04:48 Title: The Delta Has Ears/Who's Kidding Who?
LOL, the debut of Torres and Shand, I suppose? I really got a kick out of that! After having seen them interact in the Round Robin, and in "Interrogation," it's really fun to see the first reaction of the more...shall we say..."normal" crew aboard your ship to them. ;-)
You have an interesting scenario building, and I'll be very interested to see where this goes.
The only thing that hit a slightly sour note for me was...it always jars me out of the story when someone brings race (of the human variety) into it. To be fair, the same thing happened both times on DS9 where the writers did that. I like to think that human society is both beyond discrimination AND dragging up the grudges that come of it.
I apologize if I sound bitter about it; I truly don't mean to.
And I definitely intend to keep reading!
Author's Response: Torres and Shand came out of no where-a moment of whimsy that took on a (frightening) life of its own. Then a challenge came for a funny story so I wrote the Interrogation-they were the only "funny" characters I had. From there they've slowly evolved into characters I really want to continue writing about-or they're making me, I'm not sure which. The inspiration for the conversation was the bridging scenes of Winona Rider and her parents conversations from the movie Heathers, believe it or not.