Griz T. Orc

October Update: Star Trek: The Free-Use Frontier

Added 2020-10-19 06:52:28 +0000 UTC

So, I like watching cartoons more than any grown man should. When I saw the first episode of Lower Decks, the new Star Trek cartoon, I immediately wrote it off as a shallow copy of Rick and Morty full of more references than jokes and using shock instead of actual character writing.

But I kept watching, and in spite of my best efforts, it grew on me. And it got me curious about this Star Trek show that I've seen in just about all of pop culture. Lucky for me, just about all of it I could ever want is still on Netflix.

Flash forward to today and I've seen all of Star Trek: TOS and half of the animated series, with plans to watch the movies and then the 80s show after that. Worse. I'm writing fan fiction about it.

Fanfiction which you can read right here.

Of course, part of this is cynical. It's common for artists to draw plenty of fanart to grow their following and not just their own original characters. But I'm also thoroughly hooked on the franchise and the idea of a post-scarcity utopia, so it was a blast to write. This is the first time I've tried working within a Story Engine, going with a setting that doesn't steadfastly move from a beginning to an end, but can instead "reset" back to a bit of normality. Something that I can tell episodes in. It's a fun experiment, and if the response is good, I'd love to write the rest of this episode and more.

Of course, when populating an entire starship, part of the challenge is filling it with a cast of characters. And since this is already a fanfic, I decided to cheat. Joining the studly Tim Stone on his voyage you'll find a crew of familiar women. The names were slightly changed, they are all much more comfortable about sex, and more, but they do still use the same broad strokes of archetypes.

So here is the same story with the original names, taken from a particular equestrian animation.

Again, part of the reason is because fanfic is meant to grow an audience. Plus, have you seen the features on fimfic? It makes Literotica look like they're in the stone ages. I could rant for a solid hour on just how many amazing bells and whistles it has for readers and authors.