Star Trek 11: What happened to Wesley Crusher

[Richter]

Wesley lives in fanfiction now.  The eternal space cadet, he bounced from adventure to adventure, full of good spirit and energy.  Until he hit 27.  Star Fleet was falling on hard times by then.  It seems man had gone everywhere where no man had gone before.  Also, the funny colored, squiggly headed aliens were all either in line with the Federation plan, and happily screwing the latest uber-chin lead actor, or were safely annihilated by ray-gun fire and antimatter warheads.

Wesley was sitting in the pilot's chair, beaming as usual, when the papers came through telling him that his commission was up, and Starfleet would not require his service any longer.  He refused to stop beaming.  It must be a joke, right?  Starfleet would NEVER get rid of him.

Well, yes, they would, like the admiralty told him later.  See, with the budget cuts they had people to preserve.  The admiralty, or course, was not going to shrink one bit.  Captains couldn't go, of course.  Careening around known space with untold megatons of destructive power, it just wasn't SMART to give them the axe.  That damned old James T. Kirk was still out there too.  He was a loose cannon at the best of times, so best to just let him keep going on, no use risking him going rouge.  Janeway probably got the best out of it.  Her little "Lost in space" grift kept her crew in salary for seven years while they faked records of horrible alien encounters.  (It turns out they parked the ship on the far side of Risa, and spent the whole time drunk on the beach.  She was promoted to admiral just for having the gall and the smarts to pull it off.)  Then there were senior commissioned officers with families to support too, but this was only, as always a secondary concern.

Everyone else who could be spared, and a few who couldn't, were out.  Scotty was among them. Like so many hard working, highly specialized warp-drive  experts, he was expensive to employ.  He had seniority over most of the fleet too, but was still just a wrench flipper in the engine core.  Expendable.  A recruit with a hydrospanner and a flowchart could fix MOST of the common issues, and wouldn't have to be paid like he had a doctorate in warp field theory.  (Never you mind the "safety incident" ratios increasing, or the replies of "Uh... that would violate procedure" to Kirk requesting more power.)

So young space cadet Crusher was out of a job.  Unemployable too, as he soon found out.  Well meaning and energetic honesty do not get one far.  He tanked out of sales rep. gigs and spots selling Mini Sportshuttles.  Yeah, honesty goes over WELL in those professions.  He eventually landed doing data entry in a cubicle farm.  He still dreamed of his glory days blasting through the stars, and never really found much to replace it.  He took up writing, and spent every night on a bulletin board retconning his own departure form Starfleet.  Him and Sisko, both cooking up self pleasing fictions about their dues ex machina exit from a galaxy that no longer wanted them, and into a world of wondrous adventure where they had destiny, and purpose, above all respected and appreciated for who they were, not where they ended up on the wrong level of the wrong totem pole. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Shit yeah.

I always wanted that little bastard to get the axe.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Fucking hell richter. You managed to make me feel bad for wesley. I thought that impossible. And no mention of buggery from the traveller either!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fucking hell richter. You managed to make me feel bad for wesley. I thought that impossible. And no mention of buggery from the traveller either!

Not me.  This was the feel good piece of the week, in my book.

[Phox]

 Good stuff, Richter.

(I do, however, have to say that I liked Sisko.)

[Richter]

Fucking hell richter. You managed to make me feel bad for wesley. I thought that impossible. And no mention of buggery from the traveller either!

Not me.  This was the feel good piece of the week, in my book.

The little prick beemed and geniused his way into a pilot's chair that would make the careers of other officers, without evne goign through the Academy.  Remember the Ensign he replaced?  I don't either.  This was a brat who could ride on natural talent, adolescent pushiness, and charm, he never HAD to develop any other skills, and that's what bit him in the ass.  Golden children don't burn out, they fail to adapt.

Fucking hell richter. You managed to make me feel bad for wesley. I thought that impossible. And no mention of buggery from the traveller either!

Yeah, none of this super-powered destiny bullcrap.  If a bit of that was true Q would have popped him like a grape.

[Richter]

Good stuff, Richter.

(I do, however, have to say that I liked Sisko.)

So did I.  He and Picard are tied for my favorite Captain. 
Look at the reality though.  He was a commander with servere loss issues at the time he got assigned to DS9.  Also, at the time, the place was still a cosmic backwater.  They trusted him to be diplomatic enough to play nice with Cardasians and Bajorans sure.  They were minor players though.  Notice how he never fucked up?  Starfleet command was WAITING for that, an excuse to swap him out for a heavy hitter.  It would make sense they never forgave him for not giving them a reason.

[Phox]

Good stuff, Richter.

(I do, however, have to say that I liked Sisko.)

So did I.  He and Picard are tied for my favorite Captain. 
Look at the reality though.  He was a commander with servere loss issues at the time he got assigned to DS9.  Also, at the time, the place was still a cosmic backwater.  They trusted him to be diplomatic enough to play nice with Cardasians and Bajorans sure.  They were minor players though.  Notice how he never fucked up?  Starfleet command was WAITING for that, an excuse to swap him out for a heavy hitter.  It would make sense they never forgave him for not giving them a reason.

Oh, I totally get where you're coming from with that. And we totally have the same taste in captains. Well, and I have to throw in Sulu.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

 

[Richter]

Good stuff, Richter.

(I do, however, have to say that I liked Sisko.)

So did I.  He and Picard are tied for my favorite Captain. 
Look at the reality though.  He was a commander with servere loss issues at the time he got assigned to DS9.  Also, at the time, the place was still a cosmic backwater.  They trusted him to be diplomatic enough to play nice with Cardasians and Bajorans sure.  They were minor players though.  Notice how he never fucked up?  Starfleet command was WAITING for that, an excuse to swap him out for a heavy hitter.  It would make sense they never forgave him for not giving them a reason.

Oh, I totally get where you're coming from with that. And we totally have the same taste in captains. Well, and I have to throw in Sulu.

George Takei said somewhere that he was often disappointed in how little Sulu got to really stand out.  He was the pilot of the ship,  when someone put the pedal to the metal in the Enterprise it was HIM, but it was never a glamor role.  This was not the age of the hotrod road trip, the fighter jet, or the mad max motorcycle.  It was, honestly, more tall ships and dreadnaughts.  The tactical genius happens in speed chess behind the captains eyeballs, the daring and exploration is how far HE is willing to push his ship, and how far his navigator is willing to risk margin of error.  Sulu's strength was doing it reserve and competence.  HE was never one for swagger, but the roguish smirk would always sneak out regardless, even when he was in the captain's chair himself. Pirates wear uniforms too, sometimes.

Picard and Sisko weren't exactly the SAME "Captain", but they were two sides of the same idea.  Left and right brain maybe?  What Picard would do with classics and skill, Sisko would do with a sort of effortless wisdom. 
Riker knew when to grow a beard, but Sisko and Picard knew how to be bald in STYLE.

[Freeky]

Good stuff, Richter.

(I do, however, have to say that I liked Sisko.)

So did I.  He and Picard are tied for my favorite Captain. 
Look at the reality though.  He was a commander with servere loss issues at the time he got assigned to DS9.  Also, at the time, the place was still a cosmic backwater.  They trusted him to be diplomatic enough to play nice with Cardasians and Bajorans sure.  They were minor players though.  Notice how he never fucked up?  Starfleet command was WAITING for that, an excuse to swap him out for a heavy hitter.  It would make sense they never forgave him for not giving them a reason.

Oh, I totally get where you're coming from with that. And we totally have the same taste in captains. Well, and I have to throw in Sulu.

George Takei said somewhere that he was often disappointed in how little Sulu got to really stand out.  He was the pilot of the ship,  when someone put the pedal to the metal in the Enterprise it was HIM, but it was never a glamor role.  This was not the age of the hotrod road trip, the fighter jet, or the mad max motorcycle.  It was, honestly, more tall ships and dreadnaughts.  The tactical genius happens in speed chess behind the captains eyeballs, the daring and exploration is how far HE is willing to push his ship, and how far his navigator is willing to risk margin of error.  Sulu's strength was doing it reserve and competence.  HE was never one for swagger, but the roguish smirk would always sneak out regardless, even when he was in the captain's chair himself. Pirates wear uniforms too, sometimes.

Picard and Sisko weren't exactly the SAME "Captain", but they were two sides of the same idea.  Left and right brain maybe?  What Picard would do with classics and skill, Sisko would do with a sort of effortless wisdom. 
Riker knew when to grow a beard, but Sisko and Picard knew how to be bald in STYLE.

That beard....

"Fake it 'til you make it," Riker always secretly thought.  He faked his way through school, the Academy, and the ranks.  He couldn't fake it hard enough to keep Diana, (nt until he made it anyway), but he figured it was just a matter of practice.  All the women, the successful trips off ship, even successfully not getting killed, all of that was him faking it. 

One day, chatting up one of the Enterprises' passengers, he realized he was TIRED.  Bone weary, even.  He politely excused himself from the woman, who was already eating out of the palm of his hand (a couple more hours of working his charm would see her agreeing to do the things which got him his jollies, always make them swear to keep it secret later), and relaxed in his quarters instead of Ten Forward. 

He tried to read, or play some trombone musac, but he was just too distracted.  He was bombarded with questions, such as "What the hell was I doing?" and "Am I really happy?"  He tried to ignore them for weeks, but eventually, after a Romulan Ale binge and waking up in bed with three betentacled prostitutes, he sat down with himself and took a long, hard look at his life.

A month later, having pledged to not womanize so much (he still did, but only out of spontaneity, and that hardly counts, rite?), and maybe chase Diana again, he had The Beard.

"I made it, Ma.  I finally made it."

[Don Coyote]

I am not sure if you guys are destroying my childhood or enhancing it.


And Sulu was a freaking badass. Just watch the episode when they all get space drunk and he is running around accosting people with a foil.

[BadBeast]

I thought Deanna Troi was Riker's beard! All the years of pretending to chase this silly space slut were just a front for the manlove he nursed for Jean-Luc.
The Troi thing was wearing thinner than Picard's hair was by the time the face fuzz appeared. Troi was quick enough to jump the bones of any Diplomatic envoy the Enterprise had to taxi around Fed Space, yet Riker, for all his charm and bluster, managed to 'lose' Deanna to Worf of all people.
As to whether Riker ever got his furrow ploughed by Cock-head Picard?  I'll leave that to the imagination of fan-fic fantasists.

As to how easy Troi really was, I'll just cite this incident in the Turbo lift as testament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z46_8EkC3g   

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I am not sure if you guys are destroying my childhood or enhancing it.


And Sulu was a freaking badass. Just watch the episode when they all get space drunk and he is running around accosting people with a foil.

That episode was also awesome for Spock making a joke, at Sulu's expense

Get D'Artagnon off the bridge!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

"Fire photon torpedoes!"

The Enterprise was rocked with another disruptor blast from the Romulan Bird of Prey. And again.

"MR. WORF!!! FIRE PHOTON TORPEDOES!!!"

Worf snapped out of his daze and and fired the torpedoes. Normally a Klingon would be alert and maybe a bit gleeful in a time like this. Worf silently chided himself for getting caught up in his thoughts instead of focusing on the battle. The Romulan vessel eventually cloaked and scampered back across the neutral zone. Picard asked him what happened. Worf made some excuse about hitting his head in a sensitive spot on his ridges which temporarily stunned him. He brushed off suggestions of going to sick bay.

After his shift he returned to his quarters. I'm slipping, he thought and then proceeded to do some baatleth katas until he ended up smashing a lot of stuff in a fit of rage, including his statue of Kahless and Molor striving against each other. He sat down and pulled from his stash of vodka, and chased it with prune juice.

There were a lot of empty vodka bottles under his bed lately.

He thought about how the other Klingons looked down on him. Not because he was a p'takh, but because he was actually a Belarussian pretending to be a Klingon. It had been difficult for him growing up in the reconstituted Soviet Union, going to school in Minsk surrounded by a bunch of utopian commies concerned with science and exploration. A yearning for Qo'Nos pumped in his veins. So he embraced what it meant to be a Klingon, and became as much of a Klingon warrior as he could--from a Federation perspective tied in with the times, of course. Stoic, loyal, honorable, ready to fight at a moment's notice. But he knew deep down that it was all fake, that he was aping the customs, just like Lt. Riley's fake Irishness when he took over engineering on the original Enterprise. Klingons weren't actually stoic in the slightest. They took a psychotic glee in everything, including dying. The problem was the Worf just wasn't crazy enough. He'd never been brought up that way. So instead, when he was taken with one of his frequent violent fits totally unacceptable in a Starfleet officer, it was always a moody, frustrated sort. Even when he bragged that Federation women wouldn't be able to handle his sexual prowess, he ended up dating them anyway, and they didn't seem to have any injuries after.

Worf just wanted to be a Klingon. And deep down, he knew he'd always be a Terran. He would try to do better with Alexander. He was an annoying kid, but he shows potential.

Worf woke up from this dream in his lonely house outside of Minsk in a sweat. He puked into a bucked and then slugged down some more vodka to stop his shaking. He was older than he thought he was and had retired from Starfleet. Alexander had died 5 years ago in some sort of duel over honor. Worf pretended to be proud that his son died in combat, kept telling himself that he was now in Sto-Vo-Kor. But he didn't really believe it. He felt guilt, he was the one who pressured Alexander into thinking that a father's love and pride came out of some allegiance to a culture that they never quite fit in. He never said it outright, but that's what Alexander was lead to believe. It was his fault that Alexander never got some worthwhile job on Earth and instead went looking for action, and eventually, death.

Worf was never quite the same after that.