Alara Rogers' Writing Journal

they flutter behind you, your possible pasts
some bright-eyed and crazy, some frightened and lost
a warning to anyone still in command
of their possible future, to take care...
-Pink Floyd, "Your Possible Pasts"

Being dead wasn't boring, Janeway had found, but it was frustrating and lonely...

Author's Note(s): This is part of my series "West", stories exploring Janeway's fate after what happened to her in the bookverse. It's actually envisioned as the second story; Strange New Worlds is currently the first, although it's a placeholder and I intend to expand it. Also, while it probably goes without saying I feel the need to say it: I'm very grateful to my beta, Rocky, for her assistance with this work, but any mistakes are my own and anything you don't like about the story is my fault. :-)

Disclaimer: This story is set in the Pocket Books universe; it takes place after "Before Dishonor" by Peter David, and draws on events from "String Theory" (a trilogy by Jeffrey Lang, Kirsten Beyer and Heather Jarman), "Star Trek: Destiny" (a trilogy by David Mack) and "Full Circle", a novel by Kirsten Beyer. There's also a throwaway reference to "Q-Squared" by Peter David, although most of that novel was jossed by Voyager canon, and another to the events of the Excalibur series by Peter David, and specifically to the concept behind the short story "Q'uandary" by Terri Osborne in "No Limits", the Excalibur anthology, although I do not consider the exact details of that short story binding on my fictional universe. Bookverse stories or novels that I have not specifically mentioned may or may not be "canon" for this universe; since books contradict each other and get jossed by canon, I pick and choose what parts of the bookverse to treat as "canon". Of course, as always, this story is based on "Star Trek: Voyager", which is owned by Paramount Pictures. All characters are created by Paramount, except q, created by Heather Jarman, and Queria, q-ling and the asshole Q, all created by me.

Warnings, spoilers, pairings: This is not a pairing-fic, but it's not entirely gen either; there are background and/or flashback pairings of Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Paris, Janeway/Q, Picard/Q, Janeway/Picard, Q/"Lady Q", "Lady Q"/original female Q, Harry Kim/q (young female Q created by Heather Jarman in "String Theory"), and Q Jr unsuccessfully hitting on q. There is non-explicit het sex in flashbacks, including sex between giant sentient salamanders. There is also canonical character death, multiple times. Consider all the books named in my disclaimer to be spoilered except "Full Circle" and "Q'uandrary".

Summary: Q gives Janeway a gift containing all of the memories from her time in the Delta Quadrant that she lost to amnesia or temporal loops, or which belonged to an exact double.


Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

( Your Possible Pasts 6/6 )

( Your Possible Pasts 5/6 )

( Your Possible Pasts 4/6 )

( Your Possible Pasts 3/6 )

( Your Possible Pasts 2/6 )

they flutter behind you, your possible pasts
some bright-eyed and crazy, some frightened and lost
a warning to anyone still in command
of their possible future, to take care...
-Pink Floyd, "Your Possible Pasts"

Being dead wasn't boring, Janeway had found, but it was frustrating and lonely.
( Things To Do In The Q Continuum When You're Dead )

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

More of the XXY universe, where all mutants are of the opposite sex. This was written in the mid-90's and ignores all later X-Men canon.

( At Home With The Mutant Menace )

( First Genesis, Pt. 3 )

( First Genesis, Pt 2 )

The XXY Universe was originally created as a joint writing project/shared universe, based on the premise that all of the Marvel mutants would swap gender, but no humans, aliens or altered humans would unless a. it was needed to maintain a heterosexual couple that had a child or b. it would preserve a heterosexual couple that seemed to be more interesting than if they ended up the same sex.

The logic behind "why mutants" was that, in the real world that the Marvel universe is based on, men disproportionately get to be scientists and astronauts. Most of the "human" super-powered characters got their powers from roles that are stereotypically masculine. Any *one* individual of them could logically switch, but if *all* of them do the universe no longer bears even as much resemblance to ours as the Marvel universe does. I mean, what are the odds that one universe would contain Dr. Brianna Banner and Dr. Redina Richards and Paula Parker and test pilot Betty Grimm (hell, given the time period, is a female test pilot even possible?) and engineer/inventor Antonia Stark and... you get the idea. I mean, the convulsions you have to apply to the timeline to get Stephanie Rogers the Super-Soldier... it's an awesome idea, but it's not very logical unless you're wiping out the entire history of patriarchy *or* you change the story a lot.

Whereas mutants are born with their powers. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets what power, there's no sex-linking; any given mutant could have been either sex and they'd still get the same superpower. So by changing all the *mutants*, we stayed within the boundaries of a universe that could make sense without throwing out the entire history of woman's oppression, while at the same time highlighting what would have been different if the genders had been different.

I wrote three full-length complete stories in this universe. The first, "First Genesis", is a retelling of the first mission of the X-Men (who are called X-Factor in the XXY universe because if there are four women and one man, a name with "man" in it makes a lot less sense), from the point of view of John Grey. The second, "At Home With the Mutant Menace", is a story about the family life of the villains, and since Mystique, Destiny and Rogue have hooked up with Polaris' Mutant Menace (again, not the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants because most of them are not brothers), it's told from the point of view of 10-year-old Rogue. The third, "Bittersweet", is femmeslash between Carolyn Xavier and Erika Magnus. (And this predated the Max Eisenhardt retcon for Magneto's name, so yes, her name is Erika, and no, I'm not going to change it.)

( First Genesis )

Mad World 1/?

Chapter 1 (Teaser): Unreliable Omniscient Narrator

I know everything that's happening here. That makes sense, if you think about it. I used to be God, after all. Of course I know everything that's going on in the city.

Dixon Hill is walking to his office, because the cross-town bus has square wheels today and Dix can't afford a taxi. Giant flying dogs don't come cheap. On his way, he tosses a handful of minnows at the newspaper vendor. "What's going on in the world, Will?" he asks.

The bearded newspaper vendor grins at him. "Absolutely nothing, Dix. Absolutely nothing." He takes Dix's minnows (two of which are still wiggling, fresh-caught) and hands him a sheet of newsprint with nothing whatsoever printed on it. Dix takes it, scans it, and hands it back to Will, reassured that there's no news. No news is good news, after all.

On his way, he passes Geordi LaForge. LaForge has a large, stale loaf of Italian bread in his hands. He's swinging it against the side of a building, and tiny bits of it crumble, the breadcrumbs falling to the ground where they vanish, devoured by invisible pigeons. "Hello there, Geordi! How's it hanging?" Dixon Hill shouts.

"Ah, you know, Dix. Same old, same old." The bread cracks in half. LaForge picks up a new loaf. "It's not exciting, but it keeps the fish coming in."

"That it does, Geordi, that it does."
( The Dancing Doctor meets Spot the Cat and his/her muscle; Durango the gunslinger meets Worf the landlady; and Dixon Hill meets God. I mean me. I mean I am God. )

Posting this older fic in part because of the existence of st_genderswap and their apparent lack of any TOS (as opposed to AOS, which they have tons of), in part because I hope to get to the next fic in the series next year.

I should preface this a bit. TOS is an extremely sexist show. It was created in 1966 so this should surprise no one, and we know Roddenberry pushed the boundaries as far as he could, but I'm not interested in making the argument that the lack of any women in commanding roles except for Number One and Spock making comments that sound a whole lot like he thinks nearly being raped by Kirk would be good fun for Yeoman Rand and the fact that a crazy woman was able to argue that Starfleet excludes women from being captains and *no one contradicted her*... and so on and so forth... was all an artifact of the time period we should just pretend didn't happen for the sake of believing that the 23rd century is the utopian sexism-free future. It's *not*. TNG-era's a lot closer... and to be frank, ENT-era is closer, and this makes *sense* because of backlashes and cycles. The Victorian era repressed women a lot more in many ways than the Elizabethan era. The 2000's weren't as good for women as the 1990's, and the 1950's weren't as good as the 1920's.

So in this genderswap series, in which both Kirk and Spock are female (we haven't met female Spock yet), I actually took the observed sexism of the 23rd century seriously. Now, in AOS (the movie), I wouldn't do that. Even though there is only one woman shown doing anything important in the movie, she is much more of a BAMF (it stands for bad ass mother f*****) than she was in TOS, and her intellectual chops and status are much visibly higher. There is very little evidence of systematic sexism in AOS, so if I did an AOS genderswap like everyone else is doing, I would not use it to explore sexism nearly so much. But TOS is sexist, and I can't pretend it's not, and the thing about a society that does sex discrimination is that it creeps into your bones, so you can get things like feminists who take no shit from anyone *still* believing that space is noplace for a pregnant woman. THIS DOES NOT REFLECT MY PERSONAL OPINION, and it never has.

I don't think the TOS Federation is a utopia. Hell, I don't think the TNG/DS9/VOY Federation is a utopia, and I think they've gotten closer to it. So if you see weird skeevy bullshit that bugs you, like totally patronizing attitudes toward women who are giving a child up for adoption, or an unserious party guy making captain before a massively more qualified and ambitious woman... it's there on purpose, and it's supposed to be weird skeevy bullshit.

( Jane Kirk's Enterprise: Sacrifice )

For the matrithon, prompt "Silva LaForge, saying goodbye".

( Goodbye )

For the matrithon, prompt "Lwaxana Troi, loving the alien".

( Loving the Alien )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Written for Ad Astra's "Haunting Challenge", turned upside down. Like the entire West series, this contains spoilers for the Pocket Books Star Trek novel "Before Dishonor" by Peter David, and even a detailed summary would be a spoiler, so: Janeway and Seven meet again; also, Janeway contributes to the education of a baby Q. Strong J&7, implied background J/C but that one's not going any further. Sorry, J/Cers.

( West: Ghost In The Machine )