Story talk:Star Trek: Conflict

Creator's Background
I created Star Trek: Conflict because I was upset with the way TNG made the Enterprise-C just disappear without it making much of a difference (in the end, a Klingon-Federation war still erupted, just at a later date).

''As an artist, I tried to make the story, like most other Star Treks, a social commentary on the present time. The only difference I've made is that instead of having our vices and problems mirrored in the alien races encountered, I've had them directly represented by a corrupt Federation. My reasoning for turning the Federation into a corrupt democratic government was that I wanted to open Star Trek to the possibility of revisionist history. I drew upon the novel Wicked as an excellent example (I saw the Federation as presented in TNG as the Land/Wizard of Oz as presented in the film and the children's books of the Oz series: a good little world where nothing bad happened and leaders were able to make rather questionable rulings but everyone accepted it as good-natured. In short, too good to be true. For Conflict, the Federation is like the Land/Wizard of Oz as presented in Wicked: a land of depravity, corruption, racism, uncertainty and conspiracy where a tyrant takes control, hushes up any resistance, slanders any who oppose him as wicked and everyone loves him for it).''

Edward Shield
''I needed a main character, but I didn't want someone who seemed to have all the answers, like Jean-Luc Picard. I wanted a captain who broke the rules and yet was still the good-guy (more like James T. Kirk, Benjamin Sisko or Jonathan Archer). But I wanted also to make my character different than the afore-mentioned. He would not get all the women like Kirk or Archer, nor would he have a "destiny" that he had to embrace like Sisko (in fact, it would be that very lack-of-destiny that afflicted Edward Shield later, where he has to discover whether or not his life has a purpose).''

''Most revolutionary of all Star Trek characters, I wanted someone who was not perfect. I wanted a character who had some personal demons he had to face, one of which was his father. Furthermore, I wanted someone who even doubted his own abilities, which is doubled by the amount of casualties of his ship he has on his conscience. Unlike any of the other captains, who had loyal crews from the beginning (with the possible exceptions of Kathryn Janeway, Benjamin Sisko and maybe Jonathan Archer), I had it that his crew didn't trust in his abilities, they mutiny against him, they want him dead, and then they have to earn his trust and thereby he earns their respect and loyalty.''

In short, Edward Shield is the perfect flawed hero, who has to rise to the challenge in order to become a hero.

Lianna Young
''At first, when I first say Voyager, I thought it was feminism invading Star Trek. But as I started to watch it, I began to get into it and my perspective changed. Now I'm more amiable towards Voyager. It was with that amiability that I created a female captain for the Enterprise-C's sister ship. However, I also wanted an imperfect character, like Shield. So I began by making her not just a feminist, but an extreme feminist (the ones who make the fight for women's equality harder by their anti-male actions and behavior). She hated her male crew and hates men in general. When I saw DS9, I saw that I had, unconsciously, created a character somewhat like Intendat Kira: but it was not the same. Mirror Kira was intended to be a narcissist, but so far, I have had Young keep her own counsel on her opinion of herself.''

''My decision to make Lianna Young bisexual was in no way an insult to homosexuals or bisexuals (on the contrary, I've met several in the past who were very nice people). Originally, it was part of her back-story about how she became to hate men, because she was sexually abused by her father she never trusted men. Initially, she comes to lose her hatred of men through her interactions with Shield (who saved her from molestation in the first episode). Later on, I made the bad-buy admirals hedonists, rapists and perverts, and so I changed my view on Young. She would represent bisexuals/homosexuals in a positive light, as opposed to the negative light they are getting in our society today.''

Nox
''A pattern I've detected throughout the Star Trek saga is that they have someone who (either in the present day society or in the in-universe society) was once counted as an enemy be a member of the crew and therefore a "good-guy": ex. Sulu and Chekov, who were Japanese and Russian respectively, where on TOS in the 60s when WWII was fresh in our minds, in addition to Communist Russia: even Spock, whose appearance was similar to the 60s idea of the typical "devil", and even Uhura, when in the 60s, segregation was at its maxim. Worf, a Klingon, on TNG when, for so long in TOS, the Klingons were portrayed as the bad-guys. Quark, Rom and Nog, Ferengi, whose race had been introduced in TNG as the bad-guys who'll cheat you out of your house-and-home, are the "good"-guys in DS9, in addition to Odo, a Changeling as a good-guy on DS9 when most of the Changelings are for the Dominion, one could even say Kira, whose Bajoran people were portrayed in TNG as rule-breakers and the violent-revolution-types: in addition, Elim Garak, a Cardassian who aids the Federation, when most of his race are portrayed as the enemy. In Voyager, the Maquis, who rebelled agianst the "good" Federation, in addition to Seven of Nine, one of the all-consuming Borg who are considered by many to be the personification of pure evil.''

''The pattern I saw was that Star Trek was taking our preconceived notions of the "enemy" or "non-person" and making them our allies (dare I say, our bed-partners). But, among other races it had ignored, such as the Q, I saw that Star Trek had neglected one of its oldest enemies: the Romulans.''

''For Nox, I wanted someone who would come into the world of the humans and make trouble. Nox is completely opposite to the "socially-evolved man" as presented in TNG canon: he's impulsive, a little selfish, he takes vengeance, he holds grudges, he gets offended, he lashes out, etc. But I didn't want to make him someone that no one liked: he does have moments where he is unnaturally honorable, and he even has some humorous quirks about him (his love of cookies). Nox was the anti-hero who would make us rethink our preconceived notions about Romulans.''

''In addition, this was a chance for me to explain Romulan lore more than Star Trek ever got to. Nox explains the V-ridge that only some Romulans possess, as well as a rather interesting notion about the Vulcans. According to Nox's explanation, the two races were once one people who embraced violence and "barbaric" behavior. Then Surak begins his reforms (Nox describes him as one who disregarded the "old ways", which the Romulans embraced).''

Loghri
''Star Trek always introduced a new alien race in every new spin-off (Vulcans in TOS, Betazoids in TNG, Changelings in DS9, Talaxians and Ocampans in Voyager, etc). In keeping with that tradition, I introduced the Reuians.''

''For introducing a new race, I saw that Star Trek had usually resorted to having creatures that were almost 75% human with one or a few tiny asthetic differences (the best races had more differences and were less human: ie. Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Andorians, Cardassians, etc.). Though some of the others who looked mostly human were good nonetheless (Bajoran, Bolian, Betazoid, Trill, Ocampan, etc.), I wanted something that was very different.''

''The Reuian is both completely alien and yet (to atheists) very familiar. I made it eight feet tall, muscular and hairy like a gorilla, and gave it a semi-exposed exoskeleton as hard as rock. I made every feature about it have a purpose (three eyes give it superior peripheral vision, the hair catches food, the rock-skeleton makes it more endurable), and then I began to think about culture. I wanted Reuians to be someone with the honor of a Klingon and yet the technology to outmatch even the Federation.''

K'hallA
''Klingons have been one of the most-used alien race throughout the Star Trek saga, and I feared that having one would delapidate this already used creature. But my own admiration of the Klingons and their honor-based society made me reconsider. I was also unhappy with the Klingon main characters in the Star Trek saga: Worf seemed to be somewhat ashamed of his people, kept them to himself as if it dishonored him to speak about them, and was quite content with living with his undo shame, believing that it was real when he knew it full-well it wasn't. B'Elanna Torres was more Human than Klingon: she seemed to be afraid of her other half, and tried to be as human as possible; she ate human food, spoke human language, adopted human customs and disregared those of the Klingons.''

''I wanted a Klingon who was proud to be a Klingon, who wanted to represent the true Klingon-culture in the Federation, where I saw that human ideals were glorified. Therefore I made K'hallA: full-blooded Klingon, yet with all the richness of her culture, pure and unadulterated.''

Rookwood
''I personally liked the Terran Empire of the mirror universe. I saw several similarities between the Federation and the Empire, more than some people would like to admit. I toyed with the idea of having a mirror universe character become a permanent character in Conflict. The idea was to see the clashing cultures, some of the similarities between the Federation and the Empire, and to get someone who was so opposite to the "federation man" of TNG.''

The Ships
''Instead of having just one ship, I decided to have two ships (in the tradition of having one ship and its sister ship). This way I could explore more possibilities and do what had never been done before.''

The Admonitor
''For the USS Admonitor, I wanted to go (though I didn't know it at the time) on the same track as Sisko's Defiant (as opposed to the Defiant that became a Terran ship): size matters not. Though the Admonitor is admittedly somewhat larger than Sisko's Defiant, its not as large as the vaunted Galaxy-class starship.''

''When I was making the Admonitor, I decided also on having a smaller ship since the Galaxy-class starship Enterprise-D was needlessly too large. It was probably 20% crewman and 80% civilian; it was a space city. When you're exploring space (or in this case, fighting for your life), do you really need all those civilians to add collateral damage to your record when you come under attack? So I designed the Admonitor to be a ship more for function than fashion.''

''When I first wrote the rough draft idea for Return of the Kelvans, originally called "A Whole New World", I needed a way to reach the Andromeda Galaxy in short time, but I wanted it to be a deliberate venture. So I invented the Warp Pooling Pod, which seemed as a logical means of upping the warp factor and making the A-galaxy reachable. I made the maximum speed of the Admonitor Warp 10.2, before I knew that the limit to Earth's warp engines was Warp 9. When I discovered this news, I didn't alter my original story too much.''

''I made the Admonitor the one and only prototype of a Federation vessel augmenting Starfleet technology with that of an alien race (the S'srelli) who were capable of trans-warp speeds. This opened up new doors of opportunities for the ship to have better fire-power, better weapons and better technology. The trade-off was to have the alien technology new and untested, which meant that it would take time in order to master. In addition, the alien race would want their technology back, as would other races. This would make the Admonitor itself part of the story more than ever.''

Bookworm1138 22:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)