weakinteraction (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
weakinteraction) wrote2021-01-24 11:55 pm
weakinteraction) wrote2021-01-24 11:55 pm
Entry tags:
Dear Worldbuilder Letter 2021
Hi, I'm weakinteraction on AO3 as well as on here ... and I'm currently more obsessed with Star Trek than I have been at any point since I was a teenager. (This honestly wasn't originally going to be an all-Star-Trek-requests-all-the-time sign up -- I put in all sorts of noms for other stuff -- but by the time I'd used half my slots just to cover my different Voyager and Discovery requests, I just decided to go with it ...)
General likes
DNWs
Voyager
I started a Voyager rewatch in the summer and the pace of it has ebbed and flowed with RL events but I'm currently just reaching the end of S4. Suffice to say that it has left me with Questions.
First request
Characters: Borg Queen, Seven, Janeway, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: extent of territories of different Delta Quadrant powers, reasons the Borg haven't expanded even further
extent of territories of different Delta Quadrant powers - this has been bothering me because Voyager is supposedly heading home as fast as possible but keeps running into the same people. Either there are a lot of rather linear territories that just so happen to lie along the best route back to the Alpha Quadrant, or some of them are just huge.
One thing I have been appreciating more this time around is the sense that the Delta Quadrant has a history, with the Kazon having only relatively recently broken free of the Trabe, the Hirogen having not always been so obsessed with the hunt (speaking of the Hirogen, the sheer size of the Hirogen data network is something I'm interested in - are any of the other Alpha Quadrant powers dimly aware of them as something that occasionally encroaches on the edges of their territory?).
In terms of art, I'd definitely be very happy to receive a map (or astrometric chart, I guess, if we're being proper about it). Maybe even one that someone from the Delta Quadrant has annotated with all the places they know Voyager has been?
reasons the Borg haven't expanded even further - Borg space is vast, but it seems to me that there's no reason why it shouldn't be even more so; the Borg do not, to put it mildly, come across as satisfied with "enough". They can get all over the galaxy via transwarp -- does that explain why they're not too fussed about expanding further into the Delta Quadrant specifically, or is something else going on? Have they already assimilated everyone they deemed worthy of it? Are there other constraints on their growth? (Perhaps that only make sense to the collective from its hive mind point of view?)
Second request
Characters: Captain Janeway, The Doctor
Worldbuilding tags: how far did Janeway et al. go in considering Voyager a generation ship?, Delta Quadrant attitudes towards holograms
These two aren't as closely linked as the previous pair but the same pair of characters work for both -- I'm obviously very happy for others to appear as well, though, depending on how you decide to take things.
how far did Janeway et al. go in considering Voyager a generation ship? - there's a little bit of discussion of this during the series, and of course Naomi (and Miral, though only just in the eventual timeline) are born on Voyager, but quite a lot of the time it feels as though they're just absolutely convinced that something will turn up to get them home quicker so it won't really become an issue. Given that they had started thinking about it, though, what conclusions did they come to? At what point would they have had to change policies to actively encourage what Janeway apparently insists on calling "fraternisation"? What provisions were they going to make for training? How would they have dealt with people wanting to leave? (To be honest, I do find it odd that basically no one ever does, most of all in The '37s.) I can see a fun in-universe meta possibility with this prompt of some Very Extremely Classified files detailing the considerations around this -- e.g. maybe the Doctor's shipping preferences disguised as "genetic compatibility analyses"?
Delta Quadrant attitudes towards holograms - Different cultures seem to have very different attitudes, although many seem negative, with Dejaren being effectively enslaved and the Lokirrim suppressing a "photonic insurgency"? Is there something back in wider Delta Quadrant history in relation to holograms that has caused this sort of thing? It's interesting that the technology seems to be particularly widespread compared to being something very new for the Federation.
Discovery
I've loved Discovery from the beginning, and S3 did not disappoint. One of my favourite things about it is the way they play around with the existing Trek worldbuilding, mixing brand new stuff like the mycelial network with well-established things. (A good example of what I mean here is the whole Tyler | Voq thing where they never actually make a big fuss of this potentially being the same way Arne Darvin was disguised but it's left implied.)
First request
Characters: Carl | The Guardian of Forever, Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Kovich, Original Character(s), Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding tag: chimeric strain on the subatomic level in the Terran stem cell
I loved Kovich and Georgiou's scenes on Discovery's first arrival in the 32nd Century, and this particular line of technobabble particularly pleased me. Even given Georgiou's immediate (and glorious!) refutation of it, I have to admit to being intrigued. Part of this is that I've always wondered how it is that the Mirror Universe is so similar and yet so different (I am even undecided on whether this makes that more difficult to understand, or less -- and of course there's the whole "further away in the 32nd Century" thing which also raises a lot of questions), and part of it is wondering how it connects with other bits of Trek worldbuilding. (On that last point, this is very specific but I have started wondering whether or not the Ancient Humanoids from The Chase in TNG, who may or may not be the Preservers from TOS, had Mirror counterparts who seeded their galaxy with evil tendencies rather than just a computer program to display a hologram ...)
I've requested Carl in here too because he obviously knows a lot more than he's telling (or is able to explain in human-comprehensible terms, at least?), and also just because Terra Firma was absolutely great and I'd love to see more of him.
Second request
Character: Gabrielle Burnham
Worldbuilding tag: alternate timelines Gabrielle Burnham saw
I really, really loved how Perpetual Infinity opened out the scale of the Red Angel plotline enormously. Apart from the fact that the previous timelines all ended badly (though do feel free to focus on that as well if you want -- I like apocalyptic stuff), how much variation was there in both the small details and the big picture?
A straightforward narrative focused on Gabrielle's experiences as she had them would be great, but I can think of two different framing devices that might be interesting: Michael reviewing the suit logs (as seen in S2) and S3 Qowat Milat Gabrielle thinking back on the experiences that led her to where she is now.
Third request
Characters: Adira Tal, Charles Vance, Kovich, Gabrielle Burnham, Saru, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: how the ban on time travel is enforced, Kaminar in the 32nd century, state of the mycelial network in the 32nd century, 32nd Century Trill, holograms in the 32nd century
This is my request focused on the new status quo the Discovery crew find themselves in, so I've requested a combination of characters as native to the 32nd century (or arrived there earlier than the others, in the case of Gabrielle), or in the case of Saru, because he's Kelpien, for the Kaminar tag.
how the ban on time travel is enforced - is it just about suppressing the technology or are there other measures in place? What are the protocols for dealing with people who've time travelled to this time without knowing it's banned? (What would have happened to Discovery if the Federation hadn't covered up exactly where it came from?) Does anyone ever time travel back from further in the future, and if not how is the ban quite so effective?
Kaminar in the 32nd century - I was really, really intrigued by the hints of modern Kelpien culture that we got in S3, especially towards the end of the series with Su'Kal and his massive holodeck, especially the way the memory of the Ba'ul had turned into something positive. Saru and Su'Kal's time on Kaminar would be great, as would just general exploration of what things are like there now.
state of the mycelial network in the 32nd century - I am intrigued by this (and actually kicking myself as I write this for not nominating Stamets to go with this tag) because there are (it seems to me) at least some implications in the earlier series that the Spore Drive is damaging to the network, even if not as appallingly as the Terran reactor, but once they reach the 32nd century they're jumping around all over the place. How has the mycelial network changed in the intervening time? Is there any kind of residual memory of previous encounters with Discovery among the jahSepp?
32nd Century Trill - the relatively brief visit we saw to Trill showcases a lot of conflict under a seemingly placid surface -- what has been going on in terms of factional stuff, and for how long? What are the wider cultural implications of Adira's (eventual) successful joining? (It seems as though the secret from back in DS9 that way more people are capable of being joined than is generally admitted has been successfully kept this whole time, or even possibly the knowledge lost even as a secret?) What happens once Trill rejoins the Federation?
holograms in the 32nd century - perhaps inevitably, they seem to have become even more widespread, but it does feel as though they're seen as not really "alive" by the other characters, switching them off and on at will; certainly, in contrast to everything going on with the Doctor on Voyager being gradually accepted as a person not just than a program, or even Rios's various holos in Picard, they seem to be seen more as tools than anything else. What's behind that? Do they have designed-in limits in some way? Or is there some sort of settlement that they'll pop in and out and perform tasks as needed but they also get to have an independent existence inside a computer matrix somewhere?
Fourth request
Characters: Airiam, Keyla Detmer
(Shipping note: If you are writing about Detmer and want to include a shippy element, then what I said in the general likes section about multshipping definitely applies, but I just want to put out there that while I have been casually shipping Detmer/Owo since S1, the finale intensified my feelings about them significantly.)
Worldbuilding tag: cybernetic augmentations
What is it like to live with an augmentation? What are the limitations of the sort of technology we see in Discovery? Is there a reason why we don't seem to see very much of this sort of thing elsewhere in Trek set later in the timeline? Is it advances in other forms of medicine, or something else? What do the various non-Federation powers out there make of it?
First request
Character: Beverly Crusher
(Shipping note: as I said earlier, I do multiship like whoa in Trek, including for Beverly and Jean-Luc, but at the same time Picard/Crusher was basically the first ever ship I was aware of being invested in so if you do want to include that, even just very, very far in the background in a canon-typical pining way, you should definitely feel free.)
Worldbuilding tags: Beverly's year abroad as CMO at Starfleet Medical, theatre aboard the Enterprise
Beverly's year abroad as CMO at Starfleet Medical - what are the challenges of running medicine for the whole of Starfleet? How are things organised? What sort of bureaucracy did Beverly have to navigate? Did she spend the whole time back on Earth or were there trips elsewhere involved?
theatre aboard the Enterprise - what sorts of plays are the most popular? how much armtwisting does Beverly have to do to get shift schedules juggled so that her cast can get rehearsal time? which members of the crew are most/least interested? For what it's worth, I could definitely see art or in-universe meta possibilities with this prompt, e.g. promotional material, or reviews written by people in the audience (did Data try a spell as a theatre critic?)
Second request
Characters: Deanna Troi, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: Betazoid popular culture, growing up a half-Betazoid on Betazed, how telepathy affects Betazoid diplomatic culture
Betazoid popular culture - what sort of art/music/literature/etc. is popular on Betazed? How is it affected by the omnipresence of powerful telepathy? (For instance, can acting work at all, if the audience can tell that the actor is not the character - or can method acting work?) Is there some sort of telepathic art form that makes no sense to others, involving the projection of different thoughts and emotions somehow?
growing up a half-Betazoid on Betazed - this must be difficult for multiple reasons. How does a half-Betazoid character (and their parents) navigate it? (Deanna is an obvious choice for this, but I'd be equally happy with an OC, especially if they were half-Betazoid half-something-other-than-human ...)
how telepathy affects Betazoid diplomatic culture - it's always struck me that the ability to tell what everyone else is thinking must lead to a lot of candour (it would certainly explain a lot about Lwaxana), but that alone doesn't solve the issue when people want different things. What are the ways that telepathy influences diplomacy? Are Betazoids in general particularly seen as good diplomats within the Federation? Given that even some Starfleet officers seem uncomfortable with having their minds read, how do e.g. the Romulans react to it?
Deep Space 9
First request
Characters: Benjamin Sisko, Kai Opaka, Winn Adami, Kira Nerys, Leeta, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: Bajor in the Federation, Bajor's recovery from Cardassian occupation, Bajoran literature, Bajoran popular culture, Bajoran religious customs, life in the Bajoran resistance, What it means to have a non-Bajoran Emissary
So, for this request I'm focusing on Bajor with Bajoran characters (and a non-Bajoran Emissary ...). I'm not going to write separate bits for each tag as I feel it would end up very redundant, but Bajor is definitely one of the most well-developed alien cultures in the whole franchies, thanks to DS9 not being an in-motion show the way the others were/are, and yet it still feels like there's loads more to be explored. One of the things I find most intriguing about Bajor is the idea that their history stretches back far, far longer than that of basically everyone else, and yet so much of their current cultural climate is (understandably) shaped by their very recent experience of Cardassian oppression. What aspects of what we see of Bajor are shaped by their very, very long history and which bits are perhaps going to fade away relatively quickly as circumstances change?
And of course there's also the whole bit where their gods turn out to be provably real, even if everyone else insists on calling them "wormhole aliens". How involved were the Prophets in the earlier parts of Bajoran evolution? How have beliefs about and practice involving the Orbs changed over time?
Second request
Characters: Quark, Jadzia Dax, Ezri Dax, Original Character(s), Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding tags: Ferenginar and Everyday Life There, Trill popular culture, Shops on the Promenade, Restaurants on the Promenade
This request is kind of a combination of "life on the station" stuff and "other planets explored in DS9" (for what it's worth, though, I have deliberately all these tags and characters together -- I would definitely be up for either/both Daxes perspective on Ferenginar, or Quark's on Trill).
Ferenginar and Everyday Life There - from canon, we know it rains all the time and that (at least until Ishka started influencing Zek) it was one of the worst places in the galaxy to be female there. And also, being the Ferengi homeworld, that everything's extremely capitalist. But how do all these different aspects fit together? What's it like growing up there? (Slightly kicking myself for not nominating Rom in that regard, to be honest.) Or growing old?
Trill popular culture - there's all sorts of directions this could go in. What are the most popular forms of entertainment? What are the common tropes of Trill narratives? (e.g. Is the Trill equivalent of "secretly a princess all along" being suddenly selected for joining?) In general, what are the ramifications of the relationship between symbionts and hosts, and the asymmetry in terms of the number of joined vs unjoined Trill compared to their apparent relative status, on the wider culture?
Shops on the Promenade / Restaurants on the Promenade - we see relatively few of these compared to the implied size of the station as a whole. If you want to explore the ones from canon, that's great, but what sort of other goods and services are on offer? How much of the trade is strictly necessary, given everyone has a replicator in their quarters, and how much is really about keeping things functioning socially? (And, inspired by one of the worldbuilding tags nominated under TOS, how exactly do members of Starfleet pay for things?)
General likes
- I want to emphasise up front that I would, very genuinely, be delighted with anything created for any combination of character and worldbuilding tags I've picked (as long as it avoids my DNWs). Many of the worldbuilding tags are essentially prompts in and of themselves, to be honest, so if you've already got ideas, please do just go for it, but this letter is here if you do want more detail.
- In terms of Star Trek in particular, I love the way that the worldbuilding is a sort of patchwork of different ideas from different creators at different times, some of them very interested in maintaining internal consistency and others rather less so. I'm primarily familiar with the various TV series but I have dipped my toe in some of the other branches of canon, so feel free to bring in ideas from elsewhere if they're relevant to what you're doing.
- I am very happy with works that are very much focused on worldbuilding to the exclusion of almost everything else, character-focused pieces that have worldbuilding going on in what's affecting the character (when it comes to Trek it feels to me like the shows themselves often tease this sort of thing without following through that much in many cases). For most but not all of these requests I have included the "Any or No Characters" and "Original Character(s)" tags, but in the few cases where I haven't, obviously please don't hold back from including other characters, as long as at least one of the requested characters does appear prominently. Also, I am definitely not averse to shipping if you want to include it. I'm generally a multishipper, and to be honest particularly so in Trek: even when I do have pairings I'm particularly keen on, I am still open to other combinations of characters.
- I love canon-divergent AUs; if you want to explore the worldbuilding in question by taking a road-not-travelled approach, that's A-OK with me.
- Fic: I am in general happy with many different types of fic; just the characters doing something that they're stated to do in canon but with the details glossed over would be fine with me, if there's more detailed exploration of how they do it to show the worldbuilding. But I genuinely have no restrictions on things like person, tense, and am very open to epistolary fic, interactive fiction (which I've opted into on the spreadsheet), and so on. Again, go with your inspiration.
- In-universe meta: I basically consider this "also fic", but yes please to anything and everything that fits in the category of things you might find in that universe. Encyclopedia entries, newspaper articles, instruction manuals, teaching materials, etc. Even better, something that takes this a layer deeper, like a historical overview presenting bits and pieces from different sources and pointing out the contrasts/conflicts between them. I particularly love the sort of thing that presents a distorted view of the version we "know" from canon, but that you can see where it's come from (like "Living Witness" from Voyager). But in general, anything you can imagine that would fit into the meta category would be great.
- Art: I'm open to any and all types of worldbuilding art. Maps! Diagrams! Fictional landscapes! Portraits of characters illustrating worldbuilding elements (fashion, gadgets they're holding, etc.)! If you're inclined to include them, I do love Easter-Egg-y type stuff in art, and for some of these fandoms I would really love something that reproduced the feel of being from that universe, where appropriate (LCARS interface elements around the edges on Star Trek art are something I particularly adore). I'll be honest -- I don't feel like I'm very good at prompting for art. I've tried to provide some more specific ideas where they occur to me, but they really are just suggestions; if they're absent/not working for you, but something I've put in the other bits of the details has sparked off an idea, go with it by all means.
DNWs
- character or ship bashing (in particular, where there are conflicting canon ships for any ships you might be writing, quietly ignoring them/AU-ing them away/handwaving everyone as being happily poly are all far preferable to me to devoting large chunks of the fic to demonstrating that the canon love interest is The Worst and breaking them up; OTOH, angst where everybody feels bad about it can also work well)
- non-canon-divergent AUs like coffee shops, A/B/O, etc. (canon-divergent ones, on the other hand, are a big yes as mentioned above)
- pregnancy/kidfic (I mean this DNW in the sense of stories focused on the experience of requested character(s) having children - the requested character(s) appearing as children is generally fine)
- watersports
- scat
- emetophilia
- bloodplay
- breathplay
- vore
- violent non-con (coercion/mind control/etc. are fine)
- incest
- underage (my definition isn't quite the same as AO3's: what I don't want is people under 16 having sex; for characters in the 13-15 range I am OK with it being mentioned that they're sexually active if that's plausible given their canon circumstances, but I wouldn't want it front and centre)
Voyager
I started a Voyager rewatch in the summer and the pace of it has ebbed and flowed with RL events but I'm currently just reaching the end of S4. Suffice to say that it has left me with Questions.
First request
Characters: Borg Queen, Seven, Janeway, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: extent of territories of different Delta Quadrant powers, reasons the Borg haven't expanded even further
extent of territories of different Delta Quadrant powers - this has been bothering me because Voyager is supposedly heading home as fast as possible but keeps running into the same people. Either there are a lot of rather linear territories that just so happen to lie along the best route back to the Alpha Quadrant, or some of them are just huge.
One thing I have been appreciating more this time around is the sense that the Delta Quadrant has a history, with the Kazon having only relatively recently broken free of the Trabe, the Hirogen having not always been so obsessed with the hunt (speaking of the Hirogen, the sheer size of the Hirogen data network is something I'm interested in - are any of the other Alpha Quadrant powers dimly aware of them as something that occasionally encroaches on the edges of their territory?).
In terms of art, I'd definitely be very happy to receive a map (or astrometric chart, I guess, if we're being proper about it). Maybe even one that someone from the Delta Quadrant has annotated with all the places they know Voyager has been?
reasons the Borg haven't expanded even further - Borg space is vast, but it seems to me that there's no reason why it shouldn't be even more so; the Borg do not, to put it mildly, come across as satisfied with "enough". They can get all over the galaxy via transwarp -- does that explain why they're not too fussed about expanding further into the Delta Quadrant specifically, or is something else going on? Have they already assimilated everyone they deemed worthy of it? Are there other constraints on their growth? (Perhaps that only make sense to the collective from its hive mind point of view?)
Second request
Characters: Captain Janeway, The Doctor
Worldbuilding tags: how far did Janeway et al. go in considering Voyager a generation ship?, Delta Quadrant attitudes towards holograms
These two aren't as closely linked as the previous pair but the same pair of characters work for both -- I'm obviously very happy for others to appear as well, though, depending on how you decide to take things.
how far did Janeway et al. go in considering Voyager a generation ship? - there's a little bit of discussion of this during the series, and of course Naomi (and Miral, though only just in the eventual timeline) are born on Voyager, but quite a lot of the time it feels as though they're just absolutely convinced that something will turn up to get them home quicker so it won't really become an issue. Given that they had started thinking about it, though, what conclusions did they come to? At what point would they have had to change policies to actively encourage what Janeway apparently insists on calling "fraternisation"? What provisions were they going to make for training? How would they have dealt with people wanting to leave? (To be honest, I do find it odd that basically no one ever does, most of all in The '37s.) I can see a fun in-universe meta possibility with this prompt of some Very Extremely Classified files detailing the considerations around this -- e.g. maybe the Doctor's shipping preferences disguised as "genetic compatibility analyses"?
Delta Quadrant attitudes towards holograms - Different cultures seem to have very different attitudes, although many seem negative, with Dejaren being effectively enslaved and the Lokirrim suppressing a "photonic insurgency"? Is there something back in wider Delta Quadrant history in relation to holograms that has caused this sort of thing? It's interesting that the technology seems to be particularly widespread compared to being something very new for the Federation.
Discovery
I've loved Discovery from the beginning, and S3 did not disappoint. One of my favourite things about it is the way they play around with the existing Trek worldbuilding, mixing brand new stuff like the mycelial network with well-established things. (A good example of what I mean here is the whole Tyler | Voq thing where they never actually make a big fuss of this potentially being the same way Arne Darvin was disguised but it's left implied.)
First request
Characters: Carl | The Guardian of Forever, Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Kovich, Original Character(s), Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding tag: chimeric strain on the subatomic level in the Terran stem cell
I loved Kovich and Georgiou's scenes on Discovery's first arrival in the 32nd Century, and this particular line of technobabble particularly pleased me. Even given Georgiou's immediate (and glorious!) refutation of it, I have to admit to being intrigued. Part of this is that I've always wondered how it is that the Mirror Universe is so similar and yet so different (I am even undecided on whether this makes that more difficult to understand, or less -- and of course there's the whole "further away in the 32nd Century" thing which also raises a lot of questions), and part of it is wondering how it connects with other bits of Trek worldbuilding. (On that last point, this is very specific but I have started wondering whether or not the Ancient Humanoids from The Chase in TNG, who may or may not be the Preservers from TOS, had Mirror counterparts who seeded their galaxy with evil tendencies rather than just a computer program to display a hologram ...)
I've requested Carl in here too because he obviously knows a lot more than he's telling (or is able to explain in human-comprehensible terms, at least?), and also just because Terra Firma was absolutely great and I'd love to see more of him.
Second request
Character: Gabrielle Burnham
Worldbuilding tag: alternate timelines Gabrielle Burnham saw
I really, really loved how Perpetual Infinity opened out the scale of the Red Angel plotline enormously. Apart from the fact that the previous timelines all ended badly (though do feel free to focus on that as well if you want -- I like apocalyptic stuff), how much variation was there in both the small details and the big picture?
A straightforward narrative focused on Gabrielle's experiences as she had them would be great, but I can think of two different framing devices that might be interesting: Michael reviewing the suit logs (as seen in S2) and S3 Qowat Milat Gabrielle thinking back on the experiences that led her to where she is now.
Third request
Characters: Adira Tal, Charles Vance, Kovich, Gabrielle Burnham, Saru, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: how the ban on time travel is enforced, Kaminar in the 32nd century, state of the mycelial network in the 32nd century, 32nd Century Trill, holograms in the 32nd century
This is my request focused on the new status quo the Discovery crew find themselves in, so I've requested a combination of characters as native to the 32nd century (or arrived there earlier than the others, in the case of Gabrielle), or in the case of Saru, because he's Kelpien, for the Kaminar tag.
how the ban on time travel is enforced - is it just about suppressing the technology or are there other measures in place? What are the protocols for dealing with people who've time travelled to this time without knowing it's banned? (What would have happened to Discovery if the Federation hadn't covered up exactly where it came from?) Does anyone ever time travel back from further in the future, and if not how is the ban quite so effective?
Kaminar in the 32nd century - I was really, really intrigued by the hints of modern Kelpien culture that we got in S3, especially towards the end of the series with Su'Kal and his massive holodeck, especially the way the memory of the Ba'ul had turned into something positive. Saru and Su'Kal's time on Kaminar would be great, as would just general exploration of what things are like there now.
state of the mycelial network in the 32nd century - I am intrigued by this (and actually kicking myself as I write this for not nominating Stamets to go with this tag) because there are (it seems to me) at least some implications in the earlier series that the Spore Drive is damaging to the network, even if not as appallingly as the Terran reactor, but once they reach the 32nd century they're jumping around all over the place. How has the mycelial network changed in the intervening time? Is there any kind of residual memory of previous encounters with Discovery among the jahSepp?
32nd Century Trill - the relatively brief visit we saw to Trill showcases a lot of conflict under a seemingly placid surface -- what has been going on in terms of factional stuff, and for how long? What are the wider cultural implications of Adira's (eventual) successful joining? (It seems as though the secret from back in DS9 that way more people are capable of being joined than is generally admitted has been successfully kept this whole time, or even possibly the knowledge lost even as a secret?) What happens once Trill rejoins the Federation?
holograms in the 32nd century - perhaps inevitably, they seem to have become even more widespread, but it does feel as though they're seen as not really "alive" by the other characters, switching them off and on at will; certainly, in contrast to everything going on with the Doctor on Voyager being gradually accepted as a person not just than a program, or even Rios's various holos in Picard, they seem to be seen more as tools than anything else. What's behind that? Do they have designed-in limits in some way? Or is there some sort of settlement that they'll pop in and out and perform tasks as needed but they also get to have an independent existence inside a computer matrix somewhere?
Fourth request
Characters: Airiam, Keyla Detmer
(Shipping note: If you are writing about Detmer and want to include a shippy element, then what I said in the general likes section about multshipping definitely applies, but I just want to put out there that while I have been casually shipping Detmer/Owo since S1, the finale intensified my feelings about them significantly.)
Worldbuilding tag: cybernetic augmentations
What is it like to live with an augmentation? What are the limitations of the sort of technology we see in Discovery? Is there a reason why we don't seem to see very much of this sort of thing elsewhere in Trek set later in the timeline? Is it advances in other forms of medicine, or something else? What do the various non-Federation powers out there make of it?
First request
Character: Beverly Crusher
(Shipping note: as I said earlier, I do multiship like whoa in Trek, including for Beverly and Jean-Luc, but at the same time Picard/Crusher was basically the first ever ship I was aware of being invested in so if you do want to include that, even just very, very far in the background in a canon-typical pining way, you should definitely feel free.)
Worldbuilding tags: Beverly's year abroad as CMO at Starfleet Medical, theatre aboard the Enterprise
Beverly's year abroad as CMO at Starfleet Medical - what are the challenges of running medicine for the whole of Starfleet? How are things organised? What sort of bureaucracy did Beverly have to navigate? Did she spend the whole time back on Earth or were there trips elsewhere involved?
theatre aboard the Enterprise - what sorts of plays are the most popular? how much armtwisting does Beverly have to do to get shift schedules juggled so that her cast can get rehearsal time? which members of the crew are most/least interested? For what it's worth, I could definitely see art or in-universe meta possibilities with this prompt, e.g. promotional material, or reviews written by people in the audience (did Data try a spell as a theatre critic?)
Second request
Characters: Deanna Troi, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: Betazoid popular culture, growing up a half-Betazoid on Betazed, how telepathy affects Betazoid diplomatic culture
Betazoid popular culture - what sort of art/music/literature/etc. is popular on Betazed? How is it affected by the omnipresence of powerful telepathy? (For instance, can acting work at all, if the audience can tell that the actor is not the character - or can method acting work?) Is there some sort of telepathic art form that makes no sense to others, involving the projection of different thoughts and emotions somehow?
growing up a half-Betazoid on Betazed - this must be difficult for multiple reasons. How does a half-Betazoid character (and their parents) navigate it? (Deanna is an obvious choice for this, but I'd be equally happy with an OC, especially if they were half-Betazoid half-something-other-than-human ...)
how telepathy affects Betazoid diplomatic culture - it's always struck me that the ability to tell what everyone else is thinking must lead to a lot of candour (it would certainly explain a lot about Lwaxana), but that alone doesn't solve the issue when people want different things. What are the ways that telepathy influences diplomacy? Are Betazoids in general particularly seen as good diplomats within the Federation? Given that even some Starfleet officers seem uncomfortable with having their minds read, how do e.g. the Romulans react to it?
Deep Space 9
First request
Characters: Benjamin Sisko, Kai Opaka, Winn Adami, Kira Nerys, Leeta, Any or No Characters, Original Character(s)
Worldbuilding tags: Bajor in the Federation, Bajor's recovery from Cardassian occupation, Bajoran literature, Bajoran popular culture, Bajoran religious customs, life in the Bajoran resistance, What it means to have a non-Bajoran Emissary
So, for this request I'm focusing on Bajor with Bajoran characters (and a non-Bajoran Emissary ...). I'm not going to write separate bits for each tag as I feel it would end up very redundant, but Bajor is definitely one of the most well-developed alien cultures in the whole franchies, thanks to DS9 not being an in-motion show the way the others were/are, and yet it still feels like there's loads more to be explored. One of the things I find most intriguing about Bajor is the idea that their history stretches back far, far longer than that of basically everyone else, and yet so much of their current cultural climate is (understandably) shaped by their very recent experience of Cardassian oppression. What aspects of what we see of Bajor are shaped by their very, very long history and which bits are perhaps going to fade away relatively quickly as circumstances change?
And of course there's also the whole bit where their gods turn out to be provably real, even if everyone else insists on calling them "wormhole aliens". How involved were the Prophets in the earlier parts of Bajoran evolution? How have beliefs about and practice involving the Orbs changed over time?
Second request
Characters: Quark, Jadzia Dax, Ezri Dax, Original Character(s), Any or No Characters
Worldbuilding tags: Ferenginar and Everyday Life There, Trill popular culture, Shops on the Promenade, Restaurants on the Promenade
This request is kind of a combination of "life on the station" stuff and "other planets explored in DS9" (for what it's worth, though, I have deliberately all these tags and characters together -- I would definitely be up for either/both Daxes perspective on Ferenginar, or Quark's on Trill).
Ferenginar and Everyday Life There - from canon, we know it rains all the time and that (at least until Ishka started influencing Zek) it was one of the worst places in the galaxy to be female there. And also, being the Ferengi homeworld, that everything's extremely capitalist. But how do all these different aspects fit together? What's it like growing up there? (Slightly kicking myself for not nominating Rom in that regard, to be honest.) Or growing old?
Trill popular culture - there's all sorts of directions this could go in. What are the most popular forms of entertainment? What are the common tropes of Trill narratives? (e.g. Is the Trill equivalent of "secretly a princess all along" being suddenly selected for joining?) In general, what are the ramifications of the relationship between symbionts and hosts, and the asymmetry in terms of the number of joined vs unjoined Trill compared to their apparent relative status, on the wider culture?
Shops on the Promenade / Restaurants on the Promenade - we see relatively few of these compared to the implied size of the station as a whole. If you want to explore the ones from canon, that's great, but what sort of other goods and services are on offer? How much of the trade is strictly necessary, given everyone has a replicator in their quarters, and how much is really about keeping things functioning socially? (And, inspired by one of the worldbuilding tags nominated under TOS, how exactly do members of Starfleet pay for things?)