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[taraljc]

loneraven's In Service is an absolutely awesome Scotty & McCoy friendship story, as they are sent off in a runabout to do their jobs while Enterprise does Enterprise things.

In other news, I am trying to mentally reconcile Number One's background in Vulcan's Glory with what we know about Eugenics

Comments

[sl_walker]

That or, you could say that her planet wasn't a part of the Federation and she left of her own accord -- she certainly could have gotten into Starfleet if she had asked for amnesty at a young age. I would imagine that an enlightened Federation wouldn't bar her from having a life, building a career; maybe, if you don't mind there being a slightly darker tone, to her actually even being encouraged to it, as she would be quite an asset to Starfleet.

Or, your theory, which works fine as well. ;-)

[taraljc]

From what I recall, the whole reason Julian keps his augumentation a closely guarded secret was because he would have had to have resigned his commission. Because he'd been somewhere on the autism scale as a child, but then his parents not only had him "corrected" but he was then part of a programme that had every single aspect of his development and physicality altered for extreme excellence. And the Federation is so frightened by the spectre of another Khan, they woul never have allowed an Augment in Starfleet. I need to rewatch the DS9 Augments eps again, tho. Cos from the ENT Augment eps, I remember the Denobulans engaged in genetic manipulation, and they were Fed members. So there must be some sort of rule or guideline that says 'up to here is fine--anything beyond this is illegal".

[sl_walker]

Well, Julian might have had to keep it a secret because you can get booted from Starfleet for lying on your application (ala TNG), not necessarily for the augmentation itself. And there may, indeed, be some kind of guidelines -- Number One might have skirted in. I imagine they probably do have some genetic capacities for deformities and that, or diseases.

But really, your theory's fine. I was just tossing out another idea.

And if you're in the mood for Scott and McCoy, here ya go: http://community.livejournal.com/fic_simplicity/25370.html (Me? Shamelessly self-promote an older story? Never.)

[taraljc]

I think it's the specific nature of the enhancements that preclude you from serving in Starfleet. That you can be genetically modified to correct genetic conditions and birth defects. But you can't be augumented specifically to be enhanced or exceptional, and serve in Starfleet. Like I said, I need to rewatch "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" and the two eps with the Jack Pack, as well as the ENT Augments epsiodes (I've seen the first one, but not the otehr two) with Arik Soong

[sl_walker]

Well, if it was a case of amnesty, it could also be that barring her from serving in Starfleet could be considered discrimination; after all, she had no choice in how she was engineered. But hey, any which way you go with it, I'm sure it'll be awesome and thoughtful.

[taraljc]

Found transcripts! (tho I plan on watching again anyway, cos I've been in a DS9 mood all week). At least in the 24th century, according to Bashir

[sl_walker]

The whole 'no women captains' thing irritated me, too; your explanation makes sense to me.

[taraljc]

What weirds me is that it's really only prevalent in fandom--in the canon itself, they may have been rare (Rachael Garrett, Tryla Scott, Erika Hernandez, kathryn Janeway, etc.) but there were, especially by the end of ENT, loads of female captains in Starfleet history. And if the second captain of a warp-enabled starship in the 22nd century was a woman, then it doesn't wash with me at all that Number One would have been held back from her own command based on her gender. Sure, it's retroactive continuity, but it's been around for 5 years now. Plus even in 1987, Scott wasn't a legend because she was a female captain. Scott was a legend because at age 28, she was the youngest captain in Starfleet history.

ETA: ah! I get it now. I haven't got to "Turnabout Intruder" in my rewatch, yet. So it looks like it's all becaus4e of Janice Lester.

[sl_walker]

Yeah. Though, she was a nutter, so I'm not sure how much her words could be trusted.

[taraljc]

Actually, I'm looking, and her line is "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair." which could just as easily mean she was denied a command due to being a total and complete whackjob, and so she blamed it on discrimination towards her gender. Tho you could even fanwank it to be about there being no room in captain's lives for relationships, a since she and Kirk are actually talking about their own past and why she left Starfleet.

[cmdr_zoom]

I blame it on the 60s (and Roddenberry's own casual sexism), myself. Simpler.
Forty or fifty years ago, the notion of a female commanding officer in a combat post was as "out there" as a white man kissing a black woman on TV.

[taraljc]

Yeah--but we're not in the 1960s any longer, which is why I'm surprised to see it in fan fiction written in the last decade. Sure, that may be the context it was presented in then. But since TOS, we've seen female captains from evera era of Trek. And no indication that they're rare or unusual. So I'm just surprised to see it appearing in stories written recently. I mean, the first 23rd century female captain we saw on-screen was over 20 years ago. Why is it still showing up in fic as if it's new and unusual?

[cmdr_zoom]

Slavish adherence to established TOS canon, of course!

[taraljc]

One line of dialogue versus a half dozen canon female captains on-screen, tho? One of whom was the second Starfleet captain of a warp-five capable ship, 100 years before TOS???

[liviapenn]

Yeah, but most people didn't *watch* Enterprise.

[budclare]

Except for the parts where Scott Bakula had his shirt off...