Coda

Author's Note:

I don't have the long and perfect memory of Soli Anon, but I do know where the influences on this story came from, and I want to give credit where it's due.

Ktak

The Ktak are an amalgam of people from three different Star Trek episodes: "The Cage," "The Paradise Syndrome," and "The Chase."

IMHO, credit for "The Chase" should have gone to Theodore Sturgeon, who wrote "The Golden Helix" long before TNG writers came up with "The Chase." In both "The Chase" and "The Golden Helix," the manipulators/sowers of DNA were benevolent. My own take on it is that such creatures would be arrogant and even reckless to mess with evolution on such a large scale, so that's how I wrote the Ktak.

In time sequence, for the purposes of "The Scream," first we have the events of "The Chase." A highly advanced species distributes its DNA to promulgate intelligent life forms in its own image. I call them the Ktak.

Second in time, the Ktak are the mysterious providers of protection in the much-maligned "The Paradise Syndrome." Even some of the worst TOS episodes often had one or more intriguing elements. As a music geek, I loved the idea of tone-based language, common to many animals on Earth, but also clearly an aspect of many Asian languages (which makes them so beautiful to listen to, again IMO).

[In my story, the planet/species name, Rrannimm, came from the only consonants that can be sung. So the Rrannimmese people, singers from birth. I cannot roll my Rs, and that is what gave me the idea of a speech impediment for Soli. I have always felt that I would have such an impediment if my native language called for rolled Rs, and Soli cannot make the complicated clicks that the Ktak, with their finely tuned muscle control over a complex tongue, are able to do.] Getting back on topic, the Ktak took it upon themselves to try to preserve an otherwise doomed species, and in the last generation we pay attention to, Keeper delves into the capacities of the Rrannimmese.

Third sequentially, we have "The Cage" (aka "The Menagerie"), wherein this species (again, in my story, the Ktak) has degenerated and is dying out. With the reboot of Star Trek in 2009, we did not have to assume that Captain Pike was abducted by this species as in "The Cage," merely that the species existed. I decided it was trying to be hide itself from the Federation.

CT2

John Varley wrote wonderful stories that probed the problems of human reproduction in space. Since the replicator was not available during the time of TOS, such limitations would be extremely important and would have to be enforceable. At the same time, nothing is absolutely predictable (thank you Star Trek Voyager), so contingency plans would have been made. As Janay said, some really pessimistic people would plan for worst case scenario. Not a factor in "The Scream," but definitely something the girlfriends would have discussed.

The Lights

The episode these creatures were pulled from was "The Lights of Zatar." I had already decided to refer to them as parasites (lice), so I also decided to have a parasitic organization (Cokindt) instead of Zatar. Figure out the reference if you want; it's not important. What is important is that the story line is a contrivance to have Dr. McCoy meet Soli Anon.

Music/Movie/Theater

There are tons of references and quotes, and almost none of them have anything associated with them to figure out the reference. For reading the story, it doesn't matter. If you are a fellow music/movie/theater geek, you'll either know or be able to find out the references. I hope you enjoy this side aspect.

Girlfriends

Now we get to the crux of my story. I am a woman, and me and many of my woman friends and relations are sick to death of the lack of believable women characters in movies, theater, and television. Movies are expensive, so I only go to those that require the big screen for maximum effect, and hoo-boy are the casts predictable: five to eight men, one woman. The Star Trek 2009 reboot was particularly egregious in this, because they made an explicit decision to get rid of Nurse Chapel ("Into Darkness") and then didn't bring back Marcus for no apparent reason when they put out "Beyond." Adding one woman per movie (Marcus, Jayla) is really, really irritating. And the "actress" who played Jayla was a dancer, so body perfection was all she was cast for. Sorry, dear. Also, too, in "Beyond" Spock and Uhura broke up. Since Spock has friends (Kirk and McCoy) we could hear his thoughts on the break-up. But since there are no other women, we cannot hear Uhura's thoughts because she has no friends! Really? Come on, people! She's wonderful – of course she would have friends and she'd talk to them about why she and Spock broke up! Geezum! Star Trek needs recurring female characters in addition to Uhura for this to work, and it should.

So anyway, back in April of this year I decided to try to come up with some fun and interesting female characters, and "The Scream" is the result. I'm an amateur, a newbie, haven't written a creative writing story since fifth grade, okay? But I came up with Janay and Soli, I love Janay and Soli, and I tried to make them into real, believable people. Janay is a mix of two friends of mine, and Soli is a mix of two relatives. They are science geeks (if you really read the story, you know that Janay is not a geek. She calls herself a geek, but she is actually very cool. Soli actually is a geek. If this is confusing, read the extended preface to "The Knight's Song" from Through the Looking Glass. What you are and what you call yourself are two very different things.

Anyway, the goal of this whole project, i.e., my story, is that the most important relationship is between Janay and Soli. Since this was a first effort, I agonized over the quality of the story and almost didn't post it at all, but then I remembered: my goal is a story where the most important relationship is between two women. Yes, I said that twice in one paragraph. I think I succeeded, so I posted the story despite other weaknesses I couldn't overcome due to lack of talent and/or experience. I'm satisfied with my characterization of McCoy, and with how his and Soli's relationship developed, but I still believe that the most important relationship is the two women's friendship, and I do hope the readers agree.

An aspect of writing the story that was very difficult was not exposing the interior life of Soli. I made a conscious decision to have her thought process revealed only through her words (whether oral or neural) and by descriptions of her facial expressions or physical tics, and I'm pretty sure that I wasn't 100% consistent. The character whose interior life is most revealed is McCoy, and that was fun, I confess. A little of Janay's interior, a little of Spock's. I hope it worked.

I am sorry Janay died. I put off writing chapter 6b until it could no longer be avoided, and I cried while writing it. I cried again while writing chapter 7c, wherein Soli comes to terms with her loss. The story told itself before I knew how much I would love Janay, and I had to be true to its arc, but damn, it was really hard.

I have a couple of back stories for Janay, and may pursue one or more of them as well, or just do my own reboot and have a world where she didn't die young.

If I have the wherewithal, I will write two more stories I have in mind for Soli, but this was such an unexpectedly huge time suck of a project, I may pass on them. Depends on feedback from family, friends, and fan fiction readers.

I hope you liked my story and that you might be able to take the time to give me some feedback. But most of all: Thanks for reading.