Unthinkable Wings

For sophia_gratia, who ancourages my worst tendencies to get theology in my fic.

Title: Lead, Kindly Light.

Fandom: DS9
Character: Kai Opaka
Words: 608.
Warnings: None relevant.

Summary: ( It was only after she had died for the third time that the existential questions began to bother her )

I thought I would have a bash at this, even though some of the questions are a bit daft, because it gives me a chance to talk about Trek!

1 - Which Star Trek is your favorite?

Deep Space Nine, without a doubt. Long plotty arcs, a brilliant ensemble cast of characters - and some wonderful recurring guests, such as Garak, Dukat, Cassidy, and above all the superlative Kai Winn, politics, people who don't necessarily love Star Fleet but aren't 'bad guys', and did I mention the characters? One of the wonderful things about Nine is the web of relationships and interactions between the main (and minor) characters, the way the backstory keeps affecting them - and I also love the fact that they took Worf and O'Brian and made them into truly memorable characters. I love the sense of friendship (especially because sometimes it gets complicated and strained) - Jadzia and Ben, Kira and Jadzia, the developing friendship between Julian and Miles, Julian's fascinated, slashy relationship with Garak.

The fact that it treats faith much more richly and intelligently than any of the other Treks, of course, makes me even more fond of it. Ben's journey, over the series, is pretty brilliantly done - the reluctant acceptance of a vocation that turns out to be something even more fundamental. Kira, whose faith and her struggles with it (and her struggles with working for the Emissary) are fundamental to what makes her Kira. And the handling of the dark side of faith is just as good - Winn is a tragic and all too believable figure, and I suspect every priest has the potential to turn into her. And then there's Dukat, who wants to instrumentalise the Pah Wraiths as he has consistently tried to instrumentalise everything to do with Bajor, and gets turned into a tool himself. But I find Winn's fall scarier, because that's the sort of corruption of the good that happens all the time, without any special effects, and sometimes without anyone noticing.

The runner up is classic Trek (and the movies), because that's where it all started, and because of the wonderful trio of characters at the centre of it: Kirk, Spock, and Bones. Or to be honest, Spock, Kirk, and Bones, because Spock was always my favourite. Also, I love the way TOS can veer wildly between the serious and the moving to the honest-to-God crack. I mean, you'd hardly believe "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Shore Leave" were the same series. And sometimes you get the same weird tension in the same story. "The Naked Time" has some exceedingly funny scenes (Sulu swashbuckling and addressing Uhura as "Fair maiden!" and Uhura's dead-pan, "Sorry, neither"!), and some heartbreak as well.

It follows that "Trials and Tribblations" is one of the best things ever and guaranteed to make me smile. (But is it my favourite episode EVAR? Watch this space).

( The rest of the questions. )

I was poking around youtube (as you do), and found this trailer introducing Deep Space 9 to an unsuspecting world. It's interesting to see, in retrospect, how they sell it (though I do wonder why they picked chunks of the TOS-crew film sound tracks to accompany it). The narration is deeply cheesy (though occasionally subverted, as when we cut from a promise of "exotic pleasures" and a massage or something in a holosuite, to Kira telling Quark "If you don't take your hand off my hip you'll never raise it again." I'd forgotten Quark was quite that sleazy early on), but the selection of clips does give a decent feel for the first season, I think. Though of course it dwells rather on the links with TNG.

Four minutes long. It's rather a shame we don't get that much detail in trailers for new series now - though admittedly they'd probably get very dull if you didn't like the look of things!



So: good intro to DS9, or not?

Watched Past Tense. There are moments when it feels like a party political broadcast (Julian and Sisko's last exchange, mostly), but it's a frightening and well-realised dystopia that actually feels more current than it did at transmission. I'd forgotten how good it was.

Also, while the computer terminals are a bit of a futuristic! fail, decent use of the internet, and the costuming department did a beautiful job. The use of vaguely Depression era, but twisted/ modified clothes probably helped the budget, but they're pretty believable as a near-future look while suggesting the mass poverty, unemployment, and lack of health-care that creates the crisis the episodes focus on.

It's probably a good idea that I have never particularly been the type of fanfic writer who goes in for the high-school AU type of story, because after all, if the characters don't have their canon pasts, are they really the characters? A strict AU where one thing's changed and you go on with the consequences from that is one thing, but "The crew of the Enterprise work for a fashion magazine!" is just ... not my sort of thing.

So I shan't be writing the Church of England AU version of Deep Space Nine, and not merely on grounds of taste. You should all be jolly grateful that you are not having a story inflicted on you which would involve Sisko as the reluctant new incumbent of a small, struggling urban parish, Kira as his curate and a militant member of WATCH, Dukat as the priest of the next door, Forward in Faith, parish, Miles as the luckless parishoner and PCC-member who - due to his technical expertise as an electrical engineer - gets to stop the church falling down, Odo as the churchwarden, and Garak as a newish parishoner who used to go to Dukat's church but has left for murky and unspecified reasons. Sisko would be a widower, and have had his arm twisted into taking the parish by the bishop (Picard?) It would also feature Bariel and Winn as incumbents of other nearby parishes - Bariel has SCP written all over him; I'm not so sure about Winn, but she would become Archdeacon after Archdeacon Opaka dies unexpectedly (possibly in unexplained and vaguely murky circumstances).

So, as I say, you've been spared dialogue like:

"Dear me, these frontals really are in a shocking state. I can repair them, of course, but." Elim pursed his lips disapprovingly. "Are you sure you wouldn't like me to run up some new ones? I would be happy to. When I think of S. Chad's, Father, all that gorgeous Watts stuff..."

Ben gritted his teeth. "I think these are more than adequate for our needs. I'm sorry we don't live up to the glories of Chads."

Elim smiled, "Oh, tat isn't everything, I'm much happier here than at Chad's - at least these days. Though I must say, I may not like the man, but Fr Dukat does say a lovely Mass."