Tom asks:
'Three Sides to Every Story'
Is "Chef Kaga" the first time the Klingon restaurant owner, seen in the episodes 'Melora' and 'Playing God', the first time the character had gotten a name?
Shame on you, Tom. He was named in Avatar.
(oops - Tom)
Was it difficult to write the techno-babble for the story, especially Rom's thinking out loud about how to scramble a newsfeed?
Actually, not as difficult as I'd initially suspected. I've got some experience with computer systems, myself. On top of that, during my day job, I work with what are, essentially, professional computer hackers. After talking with a couple of them, I tried to have Rom take an approach similar to one a contemporary hacker might use, but apply it on a Trek-tech scale.
Was it difficult to work your story into the limited continuity of the episodes that your story was set during?
Actually, no. I view working within an established continuity as more of a writing challenge than an actual impediment. The idea of filling in those back story blanks when there was such a bountiful front story to work with was great. I mean, one minute we've got Jake being told there's no resistance movement on the station, and the next time we see Jake it's during a resistance meeting. How'd he get there? One minute Ziyal is willing to follow her father into fire, the next she's going against his wishes and helping Quark break Jake, Rom, Kira and Leeta out of jail. Why? The idea of being in a situation to answer those questions is very appealing.
Was it your idea to tie your story in with the continuity of the Deep Space Nine Relaunch, or was it an outside suggestion?
Marco specifically requested that I not contradict This Grey Spirit, but even if he hadn't, I wouldn't have contradicted it, anyway. I'm the type that likes to take everything that's been established elsewhere into account.
'Q'uandary'
In 'Too Short a Season', wasn't Mark Jameson becoming younger, not older? I have to admit, that threw me when I first read the story.
That reference must have come across more vaguely than I'd originally intended. Now that I look at it again, I can see how it could be interpreted both ways, though. My apologies for not putting it more succinctly.
When Q first arrived in sickbay, what was it she was protecting herself from?
Do you remember that supernova that rocked the Enterprise? The explosive that caused it had been heading toward her.
When Q visited Deep Space Nine, it was during the first season. The Q Civil War began in the second season of Voyager, but Voyager didn't start until the mid-point of DS9's third season. So, wouldn't Worf have been on Deep Space Nine, rather than the Enterprise sickbay, or was there something I missed?
Notice the year given on that scene. There's a reason for it. We know that time works differently within the Continuum. This is why the historian's note states that the story takes place mostly (but not entirely) concurrent with the TNG episode "Tapestry". That's why it's Selar and not Beverly treating Worf. "'Q'uandary" was a story that I knew would challenge the timeliners. That's why I tried to put the years in wherever the story intersected "our" universe. Selar was pulled forward in time for her, but Amanda Rogers had spent years in the Continuum (even though "Tapestry" was just a few episodes after "True Q"). We know that the Q can travel our timeline with impunity--witness Q taking Picard back to the primordial stage of Earth's development in "All Good Things..." just for starters. We also know that the Q can take humans out of our timeline and put us back right where they found us. I chose to use that when building the cast for "'Q'uandary".
Why would the Q in the field hospital take on a Vulcan appearance, but use the human names?
It didn't seem necessary to put this in the story, but the names had to have come first. When it was decided that they needed outside assistance from someone sympathetic to the Q (read, Starfleet), Amanda suggested that the Q the outside doctor would be working with (Monica and Tenley) choose names for themselves to help the outsider feel more comfortable while they waited on help to arrive. When the Female Q settled on Selar, then she used the Vulcan-Romulan War in the same way that Q used the U.S. Civil War to make Janeway understand what was going on. Did you notice that as Selar acclimated, they all slowly reverted to a more human appearance, anyway?
Was the Q who visited Selar while she was making notes supposed to be the Q seen in TNG 'Deja Q'? That's what I got from the physical description, and I'm curious if I'm right.
You're right. That was intended to be Corbin Bernsen's Q. I've been concerned that that might not have come across, but everybody appears to be getting it.
Why would a Q, who became pregnant from touching fingers, have to go through the pain of child birth? She didn't seem to have the fun that humans do, so why did she get the agony?
Who said that the birth went precisely the same way it does for humans? Thanks to Selar turning her back at the wrong time, we still don't know exactly how the Q give birth. Just because they'd taken a human form, and the initial stages of the delivery seemed identical to a human delivery, this hardly means that the entire process went the same way. Look how quickly she delivered compared to a "normal" human delivery. Her water didn't break, either. There were some similarities to a human delivery, enough to surprise Selar and make her distracted mind think it might go that way, but if she'd actually looked, there were differences there, too. Subtle details can show the differences just as readily as putting neon signs over them.
How much fun was it to write Q as the nervous father during the delivery?
John deLancie's Q can be such a drama queen sometimes, can't he? I won't deny that it was fun, but writing the Female Q through that entire story was even more fun, to be honest.
Everyone always talks about how great an editor Marco Palmieri is, but New Frontier - No Limits is the first Star Trek project edited by Peter David. What was it like working for another Star Trek writer, especially one who has had so many successes with his published work?
Not quite as ulcer-inducing as everyone probably expected, although I wasn't writing Calhoun. In Peter's shoes, I'd probably be a bit more--shall we say, protective--of the captain I'd created than of an already-established character like Selar. I have a feeling Dayton Ward had a few more ulcers going in than most of the rest of us combined. I'm not sure what kind of notes the rest of the authors got, but "'Q'uandary" actually went through far fewer revisions than "Three Sides to Every Story".
At the TrekBBS, you posted that there was a reason your story in No Limits was about Selar. What made you a fan of the Vulcan doctor? Was it her one appearance, in 'The Shizoid Man', the performance by Suzie Plakson, or was it the way the character had been developed in Peter David's series of novels?
I've been a big fan of Suzie Plakson's since "Schizoid Man", actually. It stared with Selar, and was cemented by K'Ehleyr. I wish I knew what actually made me a fan of Selar, to be honest. There was just something sardonic about the way Plakson played her, and I've always been drawn to smart alecks (as anyone that's ever dealt with Keith can attest). The idea of a wiseacre Vulcan was just too good. Bridging the Selar we were given glimpses of and the more "ice queen" Selar that Peter has developed in the novels was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
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