#when i named my romulan commander Ael

[mylordshesacactus]

time to take a big sip of water and check the notes on the--

[ecurai]

The thing about Inquisitor Ael--

(Who doesn’t exist, the Inquisitor hasn’t used that name in a decade if she ever did--would it have become so common as a name in the Star Empire, without Bloodwing, without an Enterprise worthy of trust, without that universe-shifting alliance? Would the name Ael be so ubiquitous now?)

(Regardless, that’s not her name, she’s not a person anymore, that was the name given an unwanted foundling of the Star Empire and holds no more meaning to the Inquisitor than a serial number--)

The thing is, she is all business. All the time. 

There’s no Terran showboating. Not in her. None of Leeta or Tilly’s faux-languid revenge fantasies, no smirking condescension, no playfulness, no smug monologues. When she taunts you, it’s with your swift and painful death--she doesn’t purr and flirt and give you a once-over and lounge against the wall while describing everything she’s going to do to you when she breaks you and keeps you as a pet. She doesn’t threaten to keep you alive to torture later.

She says it herself--she’s here to make sure the job gets fucking done.

And that says a lot in a high-ranking Terran officer. And none of it is good.

There’s a lot of ways you can read her vicious, knee-jerk, cold repetition of: I work for the Emperor. I serve the Empire and you’d do best to remember that.

In some versions of the Inquisitor (Eketha, for me), that’s pulling rank--admirals and favored captains are cheap, but the Inquisitor is a personal servant who takes her assignments directly from the Emperor himself. In others (Avarel, most humans), an expression of personal and overriding loyalty.

For the woman who is not and has never been Ael t’Dosais?

I work for the Emperor.

You can’t touch me. I’m not under your power. You don’t have authority to command me, not anymore. I have clawed and slashed my way through my entire life to get my back to the wall of knowing there are people who don’t have the authority to hurt me, and I know damn well that wall will vanish the moment I make a single mistake. 

Ael is a Romulan. Romulans are the only species with, effectively, no history in the Mirrorverse. They retreated into deep space and contacted no one and touched nothing and survived by not being worth conquering. Until Eisn went supernova. Until they were vulnerable. Until they were forced to flee into the dark where no one was waiting to help them. And a young, scrappy, traumatized colony security-for-hire strip of nothing had been fending for herself in a hostile world for as long as she’d been alive.

In the Terran structure? She has nothing.

She doesn’t get involved in Tilly’s little dramas and power struggles--she can’t. A Romulan in the Terran Empire doesn’t have status, can’t access the shipboard cliques that keep you alive, can’t gather a power base. She brownnoses whoever in the room is smartest and most competent--and uses her reputation as only caring about the job to get away with it, because Terrans hate brownnosers but if it’s sincere submission to authority the powerful ones will decide you’re worth keeping around.

(It jumps out at you, especially on a replay--how rarely anyone speaks to her directly except to give her orders. It’s no wonder she’s clearly fucking Tilly on the side--Tilly is one of the only people we ever see talk to her, even if it’s mostly condescending insults. How frequently she’s sent in first is different--that’s just a solid choice, she’s their close-combat expert. But she’s almost never consulted.)

Her entire existence is calculated around that--be worth keeping around. Be worth keeping around because you’re good at the job, because you don’t care about ambition or politics, because you don’t join factions or sabotage your team for clout, because you set your jaw and submit to the agony booth without blinking or backtalk or resistance and it honestly kind of freaks everyone out.

Because you’ve killed everyone that ever tried to put a knife in your back, and there have been a lot of them.

Because you’re a Romulan and you’ve been nothing your whole life so you weaponize it. It’s safer to be nothing, a nonentity, no name, no backstory, just the job. Terrans respect the job. An Inquisitor is worth keeping around, and safely in the shadow of whoever in the vicinity is strongest and most reliably intelligent. 

Learn to live with it. Learn to pretend that’s the same thing as safety. 

I work for the Emperor.

[stra-tek]

Dumb and Bizarre moments from Trek novels

Enterprise – The Good That Men Do

The Enterprise crew beam over to a Romulan ship to rescue some Aenar. Problem is, nobody’s supposed to know what Romulans look like until “Balance of Terror” 100 years later. Thus the Dumbest Reason In History was invented as to why the Romulans weren’t identified as Evil Vulcans during the raid. It was:

The lights were turned off.

Yep, that’s it. The lights were off. The Enterprise crew were wearing space suits and saw though night vision. Did anyone find that in any way convincing? Was I the only person banging their head against a wall? Without doubt, that wins stupidest, dumbest excuse ever in the history of written Trek. 

TOS – The Starless World

The Enterprise investigates a Dyson Sphere (long before Scotty crashed into one) on course for a Black Hole. A team beams down to investigate. Amongst them are Uhura and Chapel. When the team decides to stay the night with the locals, the guys and girls get separate huts of their own to sleep in.

Uhura sleeps in a flimsy underskirt and nothing else. A little strange, given that we’re on an alien and very possibly hostile Dyson Sphere heading for oblivion inside a black hole, with Klingons nearby. But it gets weirder: Uhura’s long-lost solo space explorer father starts calling to her in her sleep. So she gets up and heads outside to find him. Without getting dressed. On an unknown and possibly hostile world. She didn’t even think to take her phaser, communicator, tricorder, or anything that may have helped.

TOS – Killing Time (1st edition)

As close to Kirk/Spock as you're ever gonna get in an official Trek novel.

Archer’s Legacy

Captain Archer is a hero. He saved the world. He created the Federation. He gets two planets named after him. Archer IV even gets mentioned in TNG. The DS9 novel "The 34th Rule" says Archer IV's main export is ‘Archerian Slug Juice’.

That’s Jonathan Archer's legacy.

The Busy Romulan Commander (The one from “Enterprise Incident”)

She was said by her cousin Ael to have been exiled in “My Enemy, My Ally”, yet was the secret Preator in “Killing Time” and also kept a pet clone of Captain Kirk in “The Fate of the Phoenix”. It’s not so much what she did here, but all the stuff she had to do in between to get where she was in each one! And she's given a different name each time, too.

[whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer]

Another Tarsus IV fic rec. Thirty in all.

These recs are made of fics that are about Tarsus IV or reference Tarsus IV. Hope you enjoy. 

Rivers by n_anon on archiveofourown. Rated Mature. Summary: A tale of two people averse to the concept of destiny, but who can't seem to escape it.

The Cave by elospock on archiveofourown. Rated Mature. Summary: Most probably a slow K/S, post-STID. After Khan was defeated, the Enterprise was given a five-year mission to explore the uncharted and the unknown. However, things seem to be quite rocky between Captain James T. Kirk and his First Officer Spock. And they don't seem to get any better as Kirk's past resurfaces in disquieting circumstances...The rating might have to be changed to rape/non-con and graphic depiction of violence, though it doesn't concern the first chapters. It might eventually get pretty intense, though that part of the story is not written yet. Not for the fainthearted (though I don't know, it might not be that extreme... better be safe than sorry, in any case! And I don't want to mislead anybody either!)LLAP!

Five People Who Were Affected by Kirk's Death by Starsinger on fanfiction.net. Rated Teen. Summary: And One Whose Death Affected Him. Okay, so I'm trying my hand at this five things thing, and it'll probably be lame. Who knows? I don't.

Jim's Haunting Past by kiylitier on fanfiction.net. Rated Teen. Summary:Jim and Bones are contacted to secretly meet Pike at Star Fleet's headquarters. But when attacked in an alleyway injuring Kirk, a figure appears to bring back memories that were buried deep. Kirk goes instantly into PTSD causing Bones to worry about his friends. Who is this figure? What causes Jim to act so irrationally? A fight to save each others lives begin. Kirk/McCoy Injured

Murderer, Myself by heathersdomain on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Anton Karidian is dead - shot by his own daughter, who had been aiming for Captain Kirk when Karidian stepped in the way.But there's more to it than that. It doesn't take Spock long to see the discrepancy, to notice the difference, to realize its implications. The problem is, what to do once he's realized the truth: that Karidian died because Captain Kirk allowed him to?Post The Conscience of the King.

What You Are by melonbutterfly on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Spock and Jim are getting closer and closer, gravitating towards each other. They're not quite there yet, though, and Jim has something important to tell Spock.

Test of Time by notboldly on archiveofourown. Rated Explicit.  Summary: While balancing between two sides of a war, Jim is forced back in time to relive his worst memories.

Strength of Men by 1lostone on archiveofourown. Rated Explicit. Summary: While a deadly disease incapacitates the Enterprise, an old enemy of Jim's forces him to remember his time on Tarsus IV. Spock finds Kirk's pain unacceptable.UPDATE: 7, August 2015. Wow, this fic is five years old and I've changed a LOT as a writer since then. I hope, anyway. With the help of FoxyK I'm finally getting around to betaing this for typos. Most of the fic- plot points, etc- should stay the same, unless one of us finds something especially cringe-worthy!

Melt This Frozen Heart by Boonaddicious  on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Kirk receives a unique gift on an away mission - a gift that will bring his fears to the light, and test his relationship to the most important person in his life."Kirk took a deep breath and dropped his impromptu weapon. The energy had left his hands, but adrenaline still pumped through his system. He knew this would require quite a bit of explanation, but the sheer elation of having beaten this psycho with some preternatural ability made him feel like he could walk on water. However, his mood darkened when he turned to look at Spock.Spock was gripping his injured arm as he sat on the ground, and was staring at Jim with unmasked fear."

the violence of comets by viverella on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Jim has never once, in his life, believed in love. He wears his bare skin with only his own tattoo circling his ankle as a badge of honor.He meets a man named Leonard McCoy on a shuttle in Riverside, Iowa who believes exactly the opposite.(That AU in which everyone is born with a unique tattoo on their ankle that no one else has and every time you fall in love, their tattoo appears somewhere on your body.)

Crash of Expectations by vamprav on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: In another place, in another time Kirk hacked into the Kobayashi Maru and broke it. In this place and in this time Kirk hacks and the Kobayashi Maru and fixes it. But what's different about him, what made him change his mind. The answer is obvious of course. In that other place and in that other time Kirk was fully human. In this place and in this time he isn't. (Another T’Pring on Tarsus IV fic.)

His father's eyes by Captain_Mercurian  on archiveofourown. Rated Not Rated. Summary: “I found George's son,” Pike told him 21 years later with a gentle and somewhat guilty expression on his aging face. Spock felt numb all over. “He was rotting in Iowa and I convinced him to join Starfleet.” There was a slight pause. “He has George's eyes.”

Jim's Wounds by slytheringreen91 on fanfiction.net. Rated Mature. Summary: Jim beams back from the Narada with some 'not so superficial' wounds. What happens when Bones and Spock find out? Rating for language only.

Harnessing Starfire by Sherza on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: The Enterprise has a crew unlike any other. They are the best and brightest that Starfleet has to offer, the vast majority of them are painfully young, and they are largely untried. They are led by the most unpredictable and explosive duo that has ever graced Starfleet Command.Alpha and Beta Quadrants are reeling under the after-effects of Nero's second rampage. The Klingon Empire's fleet has been gutted. The Romulans are ominously silent. The shattered remnants of the Vulcans are desperately trying to save their culture and their people.All eyes are on the Enterprise, the boatload of children who succeeded where an entire armada failed. Depending on who you talk to, they are heroes, villains, or ignorant, blindingly lucky upstarts. After their rather explosive beginning, how will the Enterprise and her command crew fare?

Space Husband Ficlet Collection by Phyona on archiveofourown. Chapter Summary: Kirk was saved from Tarsus IV by Vulcans when he was fourteen, but the memory of Kodos the Executioner and his child soldiers still haunts him. It takes another Vulcan to save him when a man resembling Kodos comes aboard the Enterprise, reminding Kirk that he never truly escaped his past.Based on 'The Conscience of the King' from Star Trek TOS. Mentions of trauma, panic attacks, and starvation. (Link takes you to the chapter about Tarsus IV.)

Not This Time on SineadRivka on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: The crack of rock startled Spock, causing him to bark for a status update from Chekov. He wrapped an arm around his mother’s waist, fingers gripping hard enough that he hoped he wouldn’t bruise his human parent. And then the ground gave way. Distantly, the words, “I’m losing them, I’m losing them!” echoed from the communicator clipped to his belt.White surrounded them, and he felt himself falling . . .

Overcast Horizons by Ael on archiveofourown. Rated Not Rated. Summary:  Spending three years exploring deep space is starting to take its toll on the crew of the Enterprise. The discovery of a new planet should be routine, but this time, the consequences are greater than anyone was expecting.A rewrite of Star Trek Beyond, in the mutantverse.

To the Sea and the Sun by perhapsoneday on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Everyone's heard of the Kelvin Incident. The same can't be said for the Massacre of Tarsus IV, or even the name James T. Kirk. But for every two things that change, at least one remains the same.

Genesis by beamirang on fanfiction.net. Rated Teen. Summary: A Captain is all things to all people. Jim is running on fumes, and it takes more than good luck and nerves of steel to be the leader the crew of the Enterprise need.

Men and Monsters by  Aneeta Potter on fanfiction.net. Rated: Teen. Summary: Kirk's never really come to terms with the mess of his life before Starfleet, opting instead to ignore it. But when (one of) his childhood monsters reappears his past slams into the present.

The Reminders of Yesterday by Nibelethe on fanfiction.net. Rated Teen. Summary: During a routine mission, two years after the Narada incident, the Enterprise beams its Captain and away-team back from an uninhabited planet, only to find them drastically altered. No Pairings.

When Q Becomes Your Last Chance...  by  whiteraven1606 on livejournal. Rated NC-17. Summary: Jim Kirk gets himself de-aged and his crew can't figure out a way to fix it until Spock Prime makes a suggestion that leads to drastic actions.

Reunited by golden_rhythm on livejournal. Rated Not Rated. Summary: Written for this prompt on st_xi_kink: So, how about Kevin gets assigned to the Enterprise, and Kirk instinctively becomes big brother protective over the guy, even putting friendships and relationships on hold for Kevin(but no sacrificing the ship for him)! Taking a hit or almost dying for Kevin on a mission is fun!! Angst ensues! 

Streetlight People by adyblahblah on livejournal. Rated NC-17. Summary: AU. Strangers waitin up and down the boulevard, their shadows searchin' in the night.  Streetlight people, living just to find emotion; hiding somewhere in the night.

Marching On by Rusting Roses on livejournal. Rated R. Summary: For the Tarsus IV fic challenge #29: I want to see Jim forced to relive Tarsus IV--but not just because some aliens were sadistic or whatever, but as a test--and I would love the reward to be one of two things 1) either Vulcan is restored or 2) Amanda is alive again. I'll make you wait til the end to see which one I picked. The title is taken from the OneRepublic song Marchin On. 

The Handmaid of Genius by ladyblahblah on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: For the [info]trek_hc fic exchange.  When the replicators go offline, Jim reacts unexpectedly.

Wholesome Heart by WerewolvesAreReal on m.fanfiction.net. Rated Teen. Summary:  14 year old James Kirk finally encounters someone else on Tarsus IV, the first ray of hope he's encountered since the takeover. Mirrorverse, Tarsus ficlet.

Anything by IvanW on archiveofourown. Rated Explicit. Summary: Spock would do anything to be with Jim...for real.

Time's Divergence by logical_stimuli on livejournal. Rated Not Rated. Summary: Written for st_xi_kink http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/4104.html?thread=9589768#t9589768 Let's pretend that Spock Prime came through the same time Nero did, and Kirk lost both parents in the attack. Spock Prime raises Kirk, teaching him all he needs to know. Bonus points if Kirk ends up meeting nuSpock.You own my soul if you include the line: "He is just like you Jim. A bit more calm, a bit more knowledgeable, but I can see you in every move he makes. You'd be proud of him, dear friend."

can't watch you drown anymore, my friend by pieandsouffle on archiveofourown. Rated Teen. Summary: Normally, Nyota is happy than usual when Kirk shuts his stupid mouth. But this kind of quietness... it doesn't make her happy. It just doesn't feel right.

[mylordshesacactus]

Ael, 2, 14, 34, 53, 69, 89, 94 :P

2 - Do they like animals?

Ael is. Pretty neutral on the subject of animals. She doesn’t dislike animals, but she has no particular desire for one either. She’s the person a cat would seek out at a party because she’s the only one not cooing and courting its attention and therefore from the cat’s perspective the safest individual. And she would enjoy the opportunity to pet the cat, they’d get along great. She probably would not plan to then acquire a cat of her own.

14. How do they react to someone dying?

Well that. Depends on the person. She’s a Space Roman who’s a Klingon citizen, she lived through a massive disaster that brutally decimated her species’ population and then the more intimate destruction of the colony world she’d narrowly escaped to, and she’s a military commander now. People die. It happens. Sometimes you need to accept that reality and move on in order to honor their memory by protecting the people who are still alive.

That being said, she has a small and profoundly close-knit family. Losing any one of them would hurt her in a way she’s never experienced. I’m not saying she could never recover, but…she’d need time, and she’d never be the same again. 

34. How do they change throughout the story?

There’s a handful of events that very clearly divide Ael’s life into brackets. You know? Those events that divide your life into before and after this earth-shattering thing happened.

(ouch. possibly not a figure of speech to use around romulans. oops.)

That one colony spacer who picked her up after she got the shit beaten out of her by some bullyboys in an alley and offered her a job because hey, if a kid like you can hold your own like that three on one, I figure you can handle working security for me. Before that she was…aimless. A little hopeless, honestly. It was just a change at direction and a chance to get the hell out of Iuruth.

Then of course there’s before and after the destruction of Virinat, since that’s the event that catapulted her into the Romulan Resistance. Her capture and torture at the hands of Hakeev, and the miraculous rescue that shouldn’t have been possible, changed her a lot more dramatically. There was no question after that moment that they were a family, that every person on that ship would bleed and die for each other. That was when she stopped being afraid of the fire in her blood. And when Hakeev was finally killed, it was a freeing experience. It also marked the point where she and her wife finally admitted and acknowledged their feelings for one another, and when she officially adopted Veril. 

She had a lot to work through, and watching her go from a scared, abused kid who was thrust in way over her head and trying so hard, fighting so hard to be good enough, given so little support and completely alone…to the calm, centered, quietly competent commander of a warbird named Hope, surrounded by family, the recognized savior of worlds? It’s a lot.

53. How do they deal with their emotions?

She’s a Romulan so probably like. By challenging them to a duel in the forum or whatever respectable Romans did. wait no scratch that I’m pretty sure both Romans and Romulans deal with their emotions by assassinating their political rivals.

Unlike certain cousins she could name Ael is very much not from a culture where showing and embracing emotion is considered taboo. I think she’s always very open about showing how she feels, though she’s a quiet person who’s very careful with her words. She shows love through actions, personal anger she deals with carefully through appropriate channels so as not to do anything she’ll regret. If she’s angry at someone in her family they both step away, cool down, and then sit down together in a neutral location and talk things out; they all live on a warship, they can’t afford to let hurts fester. You never know when you can lose someone. And bone-deep rage is reserved for big things, world-affecting things. 

Those things, thankfully, she can deal with by shooting them with laser cannons.

69. Would they ever wear a flower crown?

that’s a very disappointing question for the number 69

Probably. She’s a little perplexed by fashion. If someone put it on her I don’t think she’d take it off.

89. Can they remember a lot of information at once?

Ael inherited my poor memory for rote memorization but she can put together context clues from old conversations and cultural anecdotes really quickly.

She can also rattle off a long list of every single thing Sela has ever done to screw over the Romulan people when certain individuals insinuate they’ve never done anything wrong, Sela.

94. Do they have a more submissive or dominate personality type?

why was this not number 69

In Ael’s case, in terms of personality definitely she’s more dominant; this girl is scrappy as hell, she’s not gonna give up without a fight.

In the more traditional connotation of dominant/submissive, she’s a total sub honestly. people might not think that looking at the futch decorated warship commander who’s an honorary Klingon admiral next to her slightly more feminine wife the ship’s doctor. but those people have never met Satra.