Fan Fiction Lesson: The Usefulness of Nuttiness

Nanites speaking through Data.

One of my Star Trek: TNG fan fiction characters is a member of the Diplomatic Service, Office of First Contact. This is a Federation office, not a Starfleet office. However, he, along with his boss, are seconded to the Enterprise, which, as Starfleet's flagship finds itself in a great many first contact situations.

My character, Meke, becomes more and more interested in First Contact with non-biological life forms, such as nanites and robots. His boss is an "old-school" diplomat who favors biological life forms. The boss also believes that all aliens are sweet and well-meaning and never at all intent on universal domination.

When the boss entirely misreads the Borg situation, in part because he ignores the resistance-is-futile component of Borg culture, he is replaced.

Meke's new boss is more insightful--but this created a writing problem for me. In real life, Meke would become more and more specialized (see Numb3rs, "First Law" for an excellent example of how two fields can appear superficially similar on the outside--hey, it's cyber-stuff!--yet are in fact quite distinct in terms of specialization).

However, I didn't want my character to become so specialized that he would disappear (not every episode deals with Data and machines). What should I do? 

I gave Meke's boss, Max, a whole host of personality quirks.

Max is competent, even insightful, but occasionally tactless. He develops sudden dislikes for a first contact encounter and refuses to go further. He gets "exhausted" by certain situations and hands everything abruptly over to Meke.

One might ask, "How could someone like this end up on the flagship of the Federation?"

One would answer, "Seriously? Hasn't everybody had bosses like this that got promoted up the food chain way too far and way too fast?"

Max isn't a bad guy, so Meke doesn't try to get him in trouble. In fact, Max lasts right until he fails to pinpoint the true nature of Alkar, the vampire-like diplomat. Nobody else pinpointed Alkar's true nature (until the Enterprise, that is) but somebody has to be the fall-guy and Max is it.

In other words, I ultimately have Max get dismissed for reasons that have nothing to do with his actual tendency to foist his work on his subordinate.

More importantly, I figured out a way for my character to continue to handle first contact situations with species outside his specialization. Consequently, I was able to involve Meke in the episode "First Contact," starring the amazing Bebe Neuwirth. In "Half a Life," Max throws up his hands when Timcin changes his mind (again), leaving Meke to handle the fall-out.

This kind of approach is surprisingly common in series--the writers need to provide reasons for characters to stick around. Giving quirks, oddities, and idiosyncrasies to characters is one approach. Greg's hero-worship of the CSI team plus his manic boredom in the lab explain his decision to go out into the field, lending it a patina of fictional realism. Linda's flightiness coupled with her kind nature explain why she doesn't leave her job with Dr. Becker. Rimmer's constant need to complain to someone explains why he remains Lister's bunk-mate.

Quirks, oddities, and idiosyncrasies can keep characters present in an ongoing series. They can also get taken too far. And they often have a shelf-life. Even I determined that eventually Max would hit a wall and lose support. There's a gap in time when Meke is the only First Contact envoy on-board. And even that won't last forever.

Eventually, Xander goes out and gets himself a job. Kyle finds his calling. Neelix discovers a new community. While Naomi simply grows up. Finding the balance between the static narrative and the organic narrative is a writing challenge--and, one could argue, a life challenge as well.