Number One #1 -- TNG Fanzine Review

[amado1]

Cover photo taken from Fanlore, because I didn't bother to take photos this time. Really, I didn't plan on writing a review, but I have Some Thoughts!

In general, this is a really high-quality zine. The cover illustration is easily the worst in the whole zine, and I'm baffled why they chose it. BEKi's work is usually much better than that, and the interior features multiple great Riker portraits. Maybe those portraits had already been used for other zine covers; I know for certain that I saw the "A Fine Line" cover in there.

Now, in this zine, every single story is written by BEKi, and every single illustration is drawn by her too. It's a one-woman show. I was jealous of her drawing skills before, but now I'm jealous of her writing skills too. There was one early line that made me want to scream -- something like, "Fear thickened in his veins like a coolant leak ballooning out of a broken tube". Well, it was better when BEKi wrote it XD Let me give a quick overview of each story with my thoughts.

1) The First Officer's Duty.

This takes place during "Chain of Command," when Picard is taken captive by the Cardassians. Riker deliberately provokes Jellicoe until Jellicoe relieves Riker of duty. Then, Riker is free to plan a secret rescue mission. This story though, is rigorously canon-compliant, and in the end, Riker's secret plan is ruined when Jellicoe asks him to pilot the shuttle. Riker has a duty to Picard, but he has a greater duty to ensure the safety of his ship, so he's forced to abandon his rescue plans and do as Jellicoe asks.

I loved this one. It portrayed Riker in my favorite light -- humorous, emotional, but very competent. I love stories where you can really SEE why he got the first-officer job. (In "The Fifty-Year Mission," one of the Star Trek writers muses over why Riker always seems so incompetent in the show. In his opinion, Picard is Gene's stand-in, and Picard perfectly reflects Gene's style of leadership. "The captain is always right; no one should ever question his decisions." One element of the show that always frustrated me is that we'll get these delicious, lengthy ethical discussions where NO ONE is clearly right or wrong, and everyone brings up valid points ... but you know that whatever Picard says, the show will prove that he's right. Riker's job as a character is to provide those "what if..." discussions, and to always be wrong.)

Edit to clarify: I don't think the show PORTRAYS Picard as someone who thinks he's always right and never lets his subordinates get a word in. In fact, imo it does the opposite. But the writing itself, the narrative itself, usually bears out that the captain is always right. It's not accurate to say that gentle, level-headed, thoughtful Picard reflects Gene's abusive leadership style; it's more accurate to say that Gene saw himself as the unquestionable captain, and this attitude was forced onto the writers, who often had to make bad script changes to reflect Gene's views.

My only complaint/critique of this fic is that the pacing is awkward -- obviously, because it's a canon-compliant fic squeezed into just a few scenes of a full-length show.

2) Ain't Life a Bitch? (1)

A very short ficlet where Tom Riker beams onto the U.S.S. Gandhi only to discover that his new captain is Captain Jellicoe. Tom, of course, has no idea why Jellicoe is so 'thrilled' to see him.

This one was short, competently written, and ironic, but it's repeated three times throughout this zine, each time with the same formula and writing. The transport chief changes names and races with each version. The captain changes to a different well-known character each time too. This one is the best, but we'll see that "Ain't Life a Bitch #2" was so bad it ruined the zine for me.

3) The Rest of the Story: Frame of Mind

A depressing little ficlet where Riker yanks out the neural probe from "Frame of Mind" and promptly falls down dead. Oof. It's meant to be funny, but BEKi writes it with the seriousness of a real action scene, full of suspense, and the abrupt ending is just o__o oh that's fucked sdjhshfdkdsf

4) Afterburn

The first novella of the zine! I wonder, a lot of times, why the older Trek writers didn't explore "The Host" more often. Riker gets implanted with a parasite. The parasite is Beverly's lover. The parasite totally takes over Riker's body. He and Beverly have sex. Then the parasite gets transferred to someone else, he and Bev break up, and Bev and Riker are just ... left with this! So much fanfic fodder, but when I look through old fics, it sometimes seems like no one was really interested in exploring it.

...Maybe they read this novella and figured there was no point in trying to top it XD

It's fantastic! After "The Host", Riker seems okay. But after some time passes, he suddenly falls ill again, and Beverly discovers that he's facing death -- from an archaic, totally eliminated disease called "the flu." Riker shouldn't have caught it; like all Federation kids, he was vaccinated. And this isn't a mutation, or anything strange, it's just straight swine flu. And it's killing him QUICK.

Eventually, Beverly manages to cure him, only for Riker to fall ill again. This time his appendix bursts on the bridge, in the middle of a tense diplomatic discussion. When Beverly examines him again, she realizes that his organs are eating themselves ... all because she suppressed Riker's immune system when she implanted Odan, so his body wouldn't reject the parasite.

This is a great novella. The whump and hurt/comfort is off-the-charts, and written deliciously old-school -- Riker remains competent, good-humored, and stoic throughout. The emotional tension between Beverly and Riker is fantastic. It stays gens, but there are hints that Riker's feelings for Beverly may be more than platonic -- that maybe that's why he volunteered to be the host; because he, more than anyone onboard, couldn't stand to see Beverly hurt if Odan died. And there are similar hints from Beverly, pointed remarks from Deanna. It's great.

The only critique for this one is possibly outdated: the "reveal" that Riker's immune system was suppressed is. Not a reveal. Not for anyone who watched network television in the '00s. We've all been so inundated with medical dramas that when Beverly finally figures it out, we're like, "WHAT? That's IT?? I thought you were a DOCTOR!!"

5) Ain't Life a Bitch 2

After the high of "Afterburn", I got slapped in the face with this story.

Let's talk racism!!

"Afterburn" had it too. Little things that made me cringe concerning Alyssa Ogawa, who is described as having "almond eyes" and being "Oriental." Oriental?? Are you from the 50s, BEKi??? But I think I vaguely remember hearing that Star Trek fans adopted "oriental" as a misguidedly "progressive" term -- like, in the future, that's the accepted signifier, because people don't identify themselves by their home countries anymore... I don't know. "Almond eyes" is something modern writers still struggle with, so I waved these off, only to get steamrolled by "Ain't Life a Bitch."

Here, the captain is Elizabeth Shelby. Nothing bad there. But the transport chief is Chief Joseph Thunderhorse, "but my friends call me Geronimo." In this tiny ficlet, BEKi somehow packs in dozens of jokes about Joseph's race. He warns Tom not to accidentally go into the women's head, because the "squaws" will scalp him. (The scalping joke is repeated multiple times). He calls Tom, "Kemo Sabe". He compares white men to "us Indian savages" in two separate jokes. He doesn't know what a trombone is and refers to it as... God, I don't even remember. A Great War Spear or something like that, all capitalized.

It was egregious.

6) Ward 47

This is a somewhat cringey hurt/comfort story following "Frame of Mind." (Maybe I was biased against it because "Ain't Life a Bitch" left such a bad taste in my mouth). It's very similar to the hurt/comfort stories you see all over the place these days, usually featuring a stoic, dignified character absolutely losing his shit, wailing, whimpering, curling up in a corner, etc.

(Granted, "Frame of Mind" itself is pretty full of this)

After escaping Tilonus, Riker has recurring nightmares that he's still being held in Ward 47. When he wakes, he has trouble deciding which version of reality is real: Ward 47 or the Enterprise? Deanna and Picard agree that this is normal after a bad trauma, but they can't convince Will of that. He's convinced he's going crazy, that his PTSD symptoms are totally abnormal and he's still being held on Tilonus.

This story got much better toward the end, when the focus shifted away from Riker/Troi comfort scenes and toward Picard + Riker. Picard, with his experience in the Borg, relates deeply to Riker's current struggles. When Troi catches Riker recreating his traumas in a holodeck program, she encourages Picard to talk to him. Picard, it turns out, does the same thing -- he has a holodeck program of the Borg cube, because it comforts him to go in there, withstand his fears, and turn the Borg cube off. It shows him that he has control.

Great premise, actually, but shoddy execution for most of the fic. Definitely the weakest of the serious stories in this zine.

7) The Obligatory Bald Joke

A ficlet following "Frame of Mind." Riker has gone entirely bald, and hopes that it's just a trauma response. But Beverly sadly informs him that when he yanked out the neural probe, he also yanked out all the brain cells required for growing hair. It's permanent!

8) The Host: A Matter of Perspective

Two vignettes with identical prose and dialogue. In the first, Riker shudders through the trauma of being Odan's host...or so Deanna thinks. In reality, what was so horrible was just having sex with Beverly.

In the second one, the names are switched so that it's Picard comforting Beverly as she shudders about sex with Will.

I don't have much opinion on this one. I would probably like it, if I hadn't known it came from the same writer who did "Afterburn", where the scenario was treated with respect, and there were hints of shipping between Bev and Will. The juxtaposition of these two in the same zine by the same writer was just a little odd, that's all.

9) Intermission: Three Sketches of Riker by BEKi.

I didn't take pictures :( They were good. Trust me!

10) Ain't Life a Bitch 3

No racism in this one ... I think. Since it follows the same formula, with just the names switched out, I skipped most of it. This time, the captain is Khan Noonien Singh.

11) The Missing Link

Hnfghgfhhgh okay. This novella was wonderful. If you look at my reviews from "Ain't Life a Bitch 2" onward, you can see that I was NOT impressed with the zine. Maybe I was just pissed because of the extremely racist fic, or maybe there was a genuine lack of quality. But this fic was legitimately excellent, I have to admit that.

BEKi's awkwardness with race was on display here too, with two OCs. One, Bishop, might be Black -- it's hard to tell, as BEKi skirts around directly addressing it and just describes him as "dark" in a way that made me unsure whether he's Ye Olde Dark and Handsome Spaniard or, you know, Black. The other OC is Dr. Li, a Chinese scientific genius and black belt martial artist, who is also described nonstop as Oriental.

But Li is ... very different, I guess, than Joseph Thunderhorse. That's at least partially because Li is given an entire novella to develop. BEKi takes pains to subvert stereotypes by giving Li a thick Southern drawl and the personality of a lecherous frat boy, and while these attempts are transparent, they also ... uh, kinda work. Like, I really love Li, he's a very likable three-dimensional character.

OK, the plot:

Admiral Necheyev (Sp?) wants to set up a defense network against the Borg, with certain planets as nodes. The Enterprise has been assigned to approach the planet Nirkassia for this purpose. Critique: it's unclear whether Nirkassia has actually attained warp travel, or if the Enterprise has simply been given a one-time waiver to make first contact with a pre-warp society.

Before making first contact, they observe the planet and notice two races: the sentient, leonine, and extremely savvy Nirkassians, who are covered in mood-ring fur and have long clawed fingers. The Nirkassians love science and have a society based around the pursuit of knowledge. The other race might not be sentient at all. They're called bipedals, or bypes, and they strongly resemble humans. But they're wild, undomesticated, and apparently haven't developed language.

Before the Enterprise makes contact with the Nirkassians, it wants to determine if the bypes are sentient. Riker, Troi, Bishop, and Li are sent undercover as bypes to figure it out. In the Barrens, wearing synthetic fur bikinis, they examine the bypes and try to communicate (without the use of universal translators, which they weren't issued this time around ... if a Nirkassian finds them, and hears them speaking, it'll blow the Enterprise's cover before first contact is made).

Riker is wounded badly in an encounter with a male bype -- a club embedded with shards of bone cleaves his shoulder and biceps. He and Bishop meet up with Troi and Li, who have the medikit, but before tending to Riker's wounds, they find a strange spacecraft hidden in the desert and decided to go inside (Critique: this spacecraft is never explained).

While there, Riker's team is discovered and stunned by Nirkassian hunters.

OK. Change of POV. Learner Rrrrrsha is a Nirkassian researcher, an expert on bypes. She mostly just buys captive bypes from hunters and observes their behavior in a caged environment, then vivisects them. For science. Rrrrrsha is a surprisingly sympathetic character, though of course, she starts off seeming like an unhinged villain. She has a pac of bypes in her cage, including one dominant male, three cows, and one chit. When she offers fruit, the chit darts forward and takes some, but the dominant male brutally beats the child and steals the fruit for himself, offering none to his starving cows. Rrrrrsha vivisects the dom male first, then all of the cows, but saves the chit for a while ... it's smarter than most, and might be worth watching.

When a new pac is brought in, Rrrrrsha finds the makeup extremely suspicious. There are two dom males, one non-dom, only one cow, and no chits. She's never seen a pac with two dom males before ... and even weirder, one of the dom males is wounded, but still alive! The pac hasn't cannibalized him yet. She's intrigued. She suspects the hunters have lied to her; they must have gathered up some strays, and when they wake, they'll kill each other. And undoubtedly, the cow will kill the chit leftover from the last group. Cows always kill chits that aren't part of their pac.

But... when the pac wakes up, they don't do that, at all. The cow vocalizes gently to the chit, but doesn't approach him. The cow touches the wounded dom, and the other dom is just ... fine with it? He doesn't attack her? He doesn't attack the wounded dom? And even the non-dom touches the cow sometimes, and neither of the doms do anything about it. Rrrrsha is perplexed. It goes against all her behavioral studies. Maybe they're hormonal deviants, but even so, it's wild to think that so many deviants would find each other and survive.

As they wake up, she decides to offer them some fruit. The wounded dom stands and approaches her, vocalizing, but not aggressive. He peeks into the bowl of fruit and takes one. Then, to Rrrrsha's shock, he tosses it casually to the cow instead of eating it himself. The cow sections it into pieces of fruit and gives one to everyone ... even the chit! The "furry" dom (unusual for a bype because has a beard) pops his own tiny section of fruit in his mouth and then does something Rrrrrsha has never seen before ... he politely sticks out his hand for more. Shocked, Rrrrrsha hands him another fruit. It's sectioned off. He sticks out his hand for more. It's sectioned off. Holding his last section in one hand, the furry dom asks for more, but Rrrrrsha, flustered, realizes she's out of fruit. Instead of flying into a rage when he sees the empty bowl, the dom vocalizes to his comrades...

...and hands his own last piece of fruit to Rrrrrsha, to make sure she has food too.

Rrrrrsha's entire world is rocked. Over time, she notices other strange things about the pac. For example, the hunters said each pac member had strange technology hidden beneath their furs. Rrrrrsha has never seen anything like it on Nirkassia. At one point her research partner, a sullen bype-hating male named Mmmmmn, picks up a container (the medikit) and the cow starts vocalizing excitedly and reaching through the bars. Rrrrrsha starts to hand her the medikit.

"Are you insane?" Mmmmmn asks.
"It's hers," Rrrrrrsha says.

But Mmmmmn insists the tech is council property now, and it's his duty to examine it. While he takes apart the phasers and communicators, not knowing what they are, Rrrrrsha sneaks one phaser into her pocket. She also secretly empties out the medikit and hides its contents at the back of her desk drawer. She fills the container with random tools, knowing Mmmmmn isn't likely to notice the change or the missing tech.

I love the dynamic Mmmmmn and Rrrrrsha have. Rrrrrsha is older, clanless, and bipedal research is her lifelong pursuit and passion. Mmmmmn is young, married, and passionate only about technology. He desperately wants to be in engineering instead, or exploring space travel, but he's stuck here. As a result, he gets frustrated with the bypes' stupidity and is often violent with them. He sees nothing unusual about Rrrrrsha's new pac and insists that they're just hormonal deviants, and Rrrrrsha's been duped. At the same time, though, Rrrrrsha is clearly the boss and is able to manipulate, scold, and bully Mmmmmn into doing what she wants, so it's a bit different than the typical Boorish Manager and Idealistic Young Employee trope; their positions are reversed.

As time passes without a check-in from Riker, Picard decides to initiate first contact with the Nirkassians. It's a few days before he can broach the subject of his missing team, and the council is dismissive; if his team went into the Barrens, then they were undoubtedly torn apart by bypes. They don't quite understand Federation technology, so when Picard tries to explain that he could use communicators to locate his team even if they were dead, the Nirkassians don't seem to get it. Picard is certain his team must be in the Learner's Institute, where the metal alloy buildings render the Enterprise's sensors useless.

In the meantime, a board of Learners are pushing Rrrrsha to dissect one of the pac. It's standard procedure. But Rrrrrsha resists. She's too fascinated by them. Once, she did a physical exam, and she meant to do it on Troi. But when she and Mmmmmn entered the cage to retrieve Troi, the pac moved seamlessly into a protective formation. When Mmmmn reached for the cow, the males attacked in tandem, breaking Mmmmmn's grip and shuffling Troi to the back of the cage without harming anybody. Rrrrrsha was amazed. And since Riker seemed willing to volunteer as test subject, she took him instead. She discovered that his heart was on the wrong side, that he lacked a brow ridge, his eye sockets are too shallow, and he has three extra spinal columns. Just as strange, he has no scars (other than his wounded shoulder) and is in peak physical condition. His lung capacity is astounding; his ribs are hidden beneath a thick layer of muscle and fat.

(He won't let her inspect his genitals. Rrrrsha tries three times, but each time, the dom snatches his loincloth back, gesturing wildly and vocalizing. On the third try, he gestures at Rrrrsha's crotch while vocalizing, then puts a hand on her hip. He gently tugs at her trousers like he's going to undress her. Alarmed, Rrrrrsha jumps back and snatches at her pants ... and then gets it. She's never met a modest bype before, but she lets him keep his pants on.)

It's clear to Rrrrsha that her new bypes are sentient. They have some rudimentary intelligence, even if they don't have a language. They must be a new evolutionary step toward true humanity. They're passive, kind to each other; they have impulse control, they're capable of strategizing. They even seem to understand most of her gestures, even if they don't always choose to obey her commands.

Hm, well, eventually, Rrrrrsha pleads her case to the other Learners that her pac is too valuable for dissection. The Learners agree. But shockingly, a high-ranking council member named Sssste steps in and insists that Rrrrrsha proceed with vivisection. Rrrrsha is devastated. She knows she has to dissect Riker -- it's only logical. He's the weakest. His injured arm is horribly infected and he's refusing food. But she can't bring herself to do it. She's too fascinated by him. How can a wounded dom, especially the smaller of two doms (Bishop is taller), command so much obedience from his pac? And the fact that he handed her his last piece of fruit sticks with her. Instead, grieving, Rrrrsha chooses the non-dom male -- Li.

(Li is saved at the last minute when a hunter brings in a feral bype. The hunter has assumed that this bype, loose in the city square, was an escapee of Rrrrsha's pac. Rrrrsha uses this to her advantage and dissects the bype instead ... and finds her pac is cold and reserved afterward, refusing to interact with her the way they used to. It hurts her heart, and she can't fully understand it.)

Afterward, Troi starts using Riker's uneaten fruit to draw on the floor, trying to communicate that she needs the medikit. Rrrrsha doesn't understand; she considers it a total waste of food, and a disappointing show of stupidity from her favorite pac. But Li, who used to sculpt penises out of his roommate's leftovers in the Academy, amasses enough fruit pulp and rinds to sculpt a medikit that Rrrrsha actually recognizes. She gives Troi the contents she saved, and watches in awe and SHEER FUCKING TERROR as these animalistic apes suddenly become doctors. Horrified, Rrrrsha sinks into the corner and huddles there, unable to do anything but watch as Troi injects Riker with antibiotics and patches up his wound. Rrrrsha has just wanted animals use medical tech so advanced that she didn't even recognize it as medical tech. Did they invent this stuff? What the fuck does she have on her hands here? Waking up, Riker smiles at her, reaches through the bars, and says something that makes her stomach sink right to the floor: "Rrrrrsha."

However, the ruse Rrrrsha used, dissecting a feral bype instead of Riker, doesn't fool Sssste. She visits the pac and insists they vivisect Riker. Sssste, of course, has an advantage over Rrrrsha -- she's actually met Picard and she KNOWS this pac is Picard's missing team, not a new evolutionary step for the local bypes. Sssste doesn't trust that Picard comes in peace. She wants to dissect these captured humans, learn how their brains work, and gain an advantage when her homeworld inevitably goes to war. She gets Riker on the dissection table.

Horrified, clamoring for help, the pac starts vocalizing. All of them are chanting Rrrrsha's name (the only Nirkassian word they know). Rrrrsha, flustered, tries to run out of the room, but she gets too close to the cage. Bishop darts his hand through the bars and grabs her lab coat, tearing it open. A phaser clatters to the floor and Bishop tries desperately to reach it, but it's too far. As Sssste raises a laser scalpel to dissect Riker, Rrrrsha makes a split-second decision and kicks the alien technology into Bishop's reach.

He stuns Sssste and Mmmmn in a heartbeat. Then, turning his phaser on Rrrrsha, he fires it at her feet repeatedly, forcing her to back up against the wall. Iron-faced, Bishop sets the phaser to 'kill.' He vaporizes a piece of furniture to Rrrrsha's immediate left. He vaporizes a desk to her immediate right.

And then he switches the phaser off and tosses it through the cage bars to her feet.

(I loved that. This, and Riker saving his last piece of fruit for Rrrrsha, are my favorite parts. Totally Starfleet. A gesture of friendship and caring from Riker, and from Bishop, first a gesture that demonstrates his power, then one that shows total trust by surrendering his weapon to the "enemy").

Rrrrsha understands. She seals Riker's wounds and lets the rest of the pac out of the cage. Soon, the Enterprise converges on Riker's location, with Data and Worf running their own rescue mission while Picard works with a helpful council member -- it all comes together at the right time, and the pac is saved. Picard arrives with his universal translator, allowing Rrrrsha and a semi-conscious Riker to really communicate and introduce themselves for the first time.

My final critique, a mild one, is that the ending wraps things up a little unconvincingly. My impression of Nirkassian society is that the council will NOT be pleased with Rrrrsha, that she's definitely going to lose her job (maybe her life) for betraying Sssste. But Picard assures her that won't happen, and.... that's it. We're just supposed to trust him, I guess XD But the overall quality of this novella was so high that I didn't care. Bishop and Li were great OCs, ceding the stage to Riker and Troi, but providing necessary elements and (for Li) even having their own mini character arcs (his involved a difficulty with expressing positive emotions, and a deep-seated anxiety that it will drive his fiancee away; instead of telling her he loves her, he rags on her all the time and has a bad habit of insulting everyone around him. Facing vivisection forces him to face this personality trait and figure out his guilt and whether he can change). Bishop played, essentially, the Worf role -- competent, war-like, aggressive, he's there to question Riker's peaceful decisions and protect the pac. It provided some good tension within the group, and also helped to showcase Riker's competence, while also allowing him to doubt himself. 

Overall, I think I'd give the final novella 5 stars, but I'd still rate the zine as a 3/5, and I would have serious reservations about recommending it to my Asian and Native American friends. BEKi's racism strikes me as the type of sheltered, Christian girl racism that you see sometimes -- especially in nerdy, lonely kids who read old garage sale books from the 50s instead of making friends. You know, the kind of kid who learns the word "mulatto" from a 1949 novel they liked, and then never learns that we don't use that word anymore. I should say there was another, more minor element that made me wrinkle my nose -- in the story "Ward 47," Riker and Picard both talk about how they cope with trauma by praying to a higher power. NO THANKS. Ugh! Whether it's an official book or a zine, you can't escape the devout Christian writers trying to sneak some religion into Riker and Picard.

I do have Number One #2, which is also an all-BEKi show, so I'll probably read that one next/soon. I'm honestly very glad that I could get my hands on these, but I'll admit to a little bit of sour grapes, in that I *really* wanted #3-6, the non-BEKi issues. Those issues feature some of my favorite writers, and I'd kill to get my hands on them XD