Star Trek: Production, a behind the scenes view of the process that has brought Star Trek: Exodus from the pages of a fan fiction archive on the internet to the small screen. This story is written by Hideout Writer, with the permission of RobertCanary, the creator of Star Trek: Exodus. Star Trek is owned by Paramount Studios, and any recognizable names belong to whoever they belong to. This writer is simply fooling around on the keyboard, making no profit from this venture.
Everything depicted here is fictional, and bears little to no account on real life. With that in mind, please enjoy this story.
His sleep, as usual, was not disturbed by dreams, and he arose at six. Three minutes later, he was gone. He found himself near a peaceful little cottage, with very little civilization nearby. A quick check of his local maps confirmed that while the cottage appeared to be in a well-tended paradise, the rest of civilization was only ten minutes away by car. He walked up to the door, and knocked three times.
The door opened, and a man peeked out. He rattled off in Swedish, and Alex blinked. "Uh, I don't understand…" he said. "English?"
The man rattled on a slight bit more, then said "Why are you here?"
"I'm looking for Anette Olzon, former lead singer for Nightwish." Alex replied. "Is she here?'
The man's eyes narrowed. "What do you want with her?" he asked. His English was heavily accented, and it took a brief moment for Alex to understand.
"I have an offer for her." Alex replied, swinging the leather case around to the front. He opened it, and pulled out the Amaranth file.
"Very well. If I ask you to leave, will you do so right away?"
"I will leave right away when asked." Alex promised.
"Come." the man led Alex into the cottage, to where Anette was laying on the couch.
"What is this?" she asked, her eyes taking stock of the situation at once.
"I'm working on creating a TV show." Alex said, holding the file out to Anette. "I wanted to cast you for the character of Amaranth…with your permission?"
Anette accepted the proffered file, and began reading it. When the glossy photograph fell out, Alex picked it up for her, so she wouldn't have to move, and handed it back to her. She smiled slightly, then finished reading the file.
When she was done, she put everything back, and handed the file back to Alex. "I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested." she said softly. "However, as you can see, I will not be returning to the stage for some time. The same goes for being on a set."
Ajax dipped his head sharply. "I understand." he said. "I was actually just hoping to get a full picture of you, instead of the hundreds of thousands of headshots on Google."
"What for?" Anette questioned. "Are you a stalker?"
"Hardly." Alex replied. "I am a skilled user of magic though."
She was about to turn to her guard when Alex reached into his pocket, and came up with a small thorn.
"Here." he said. "Would you like for me to prove my claim?"
"Certainly." Anette answered. "If you can't, you will leave."
The guard started moving closer, but Alex just breathed deeply, then muttered something. The thorn glowed, and began growing, becoming a single red rose. He held it out for Anette. "Proof positive." he said softly.
She looked at the rose, then back to Alex, and back at the rose again. "How…?" she said at last.
"Magic, like I said." Alex replied.
"How does my picture play into this?" Anette asked, picking up the rose.
"It goes into the profile." Alex replied. "I can then superimpose the contents of the profile onto the actor playing the part of Amaranth."
"So…someone else would be…in essence, wearing, my body?" Anette asked, her eyes half shut in concentration.
"While on set, yes." Alex replied. "Off-set, they would return to being themselves. This would prevent the danger of someone deciding to do things you would be highly unlikely to do, while in your body."
Anette thought about it, and the guard moved in closer, ready to escort Alex back out.
"I agree." she said at last. "So long as there is a legal contract that states that the actress will only be looking like me while on set."
"I happen to have such a contract here." Alex replied, pulling out three documents. "This is the contract, in duplicate. I'll need your guard to sign as the witness."
Anette signed, then the guard did the same. "Jared, could you find a picture that would be appropriate?" she asked.
Jared nodded, and walked out, leaving Alex and Anette alone.
"I must admit," she started, smiling. "This was the most creative way I have ever seen to get a photo and an autograph."
Alex smiled softly. "If you are interested in this sort of thing, you can look for the show this fall. It's called Star Trek: Exodus."
"I may just have to look that up." Anette smiled. "Thank you for not being star-struck. It's pleasantly refreshing to not have someone falling over themselves in my presence."
Alex snorted softly. "That was the easy part. The hard part will be boldly going into Paramount Studios headquarters, and asking for permission to do this."
"Really? Why is that?" Jared asked, returning with a picture. "Will this do?"
Alex gave it a cursory glance, enough to see that it would be perfect for what he needed, and nodded. "Yes, thank you." he said. "as for why it will be hard is because Paramount is huge. While I'm relatively certain that my offer should be irresistible, the fact remains that they could shut me down at any stage of the way, in which case, I will return the picture, and seek out a new project to start. Have a nice day."
With that, Alex touched two fingers to his forehead, and vanished.
When he was solidly back within the confines of reality, Alex set down his file case on the table, and conjured a Star Trek tricorder. Armed with the ability to scan anything, he went out to the field in the rear, and began looking to see about the drainage field that he knew was probably hidden there. For nearly four years, he had searched without avail, but then, he hadn't truly tried before now.
Once it was flagged off, he considered building an underground studio, but then thought better of it.
Instead, he put out an ad, seeking a female, somewhere between the ages of eighteen to thirty.
=/\=
A/N: Well, here's the second chapter. I'm having trouble getting the story to warm up for me, but I should start getting longer chapters soon. Now, if anyone has questions, comments, critiques, or their home is being invaded by turtles that know karate, let me know in a review!
And now for Responses to Readers:
RobertCanary: I agree, it is a little strange. It's not so bad for you though, you're just reading it. I'm actually using my first name in here as well, and I keep typing 'Ajax' instead of 'Alex'.