Star Trek: Phoenix in Sunset's Isekai (Bonus: Promotion of Vic Fontaine's Newest Story!) · 7:43pm Aug 31st, 2023
So, for those who either missed the update or missed the addition of the link, I wish to let you know that Sunset's Isekai published its Star Trek: Phoenix chapter last week, which can be accessed and read here: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/441859/101/sunsets-isekai/breather-star-trek-phoenix
For those who may feel that they would rather not read a chapter outside of the main story, rest assured that any necessary information will be conveyed in future chapters.
I want to express once again my gratitude to Wanderer D for allowing my editor and I to dip our toes into the Isekai, and especially for the ease with which we managed to write the chapter together once we sat down to it. It came together remarkably quickly once we had the time, and that's a testament to our writing strength.
So, I mentioned my reasons in brief before for why I was alright with this crossover, besides just the fact that it's a great honor, and it comes down to me wanting to invoke a few aspects of older Star Trek beta canon that rarely get noticed by people these days. The Captain's Table is one of those, with the Sisko book especially being my go-to for how to relay a story told to others by someone going between the story itself and scenes outside the story. I followed that method fairly closely for earlier in Phoenix during Sunset's time on Viridian III, in fact. Plus, I like the idea of characters getting a chance to take some time to relax, recuperate, and then get back into the thick of things without it getting in the way of what they're doing.
But I also wanted to explore a facet of Sunset's psychology in a setting where she could indulge in her feelings openly. Her meteoric rise from a simple engineer on the Enterprise to first officer of the Phoenix and now its captain has been nothing short of extraordinary, and it's worn on her a lot more than she often shows. She's feeling the imposter syndrome pretty heavily right now, and so she needed someone's help to come to terms with it.
It's also something I wanted to touch upon ever since my original plan with her. Back in the early days of planning out the story there was a chance of her becoming captain right away, with the character that would later become Captain Liang being her first officer instead. I'm glad I didn't take this approach for a number of reasons, namely that it's almost a bit ludicrous how fast she's become captain as it is, and I didn't want to ape the reboot movies in their literal "Oh we'll just yeet you straight to captain from being in the Academy" silliness. Instead I wanted to give her time to grow, to come into her own with command, even though she already has natural leadership skills.
I also wanted to briefly touch upon an aspect to Sunset's character that I never had a chance to explore in a way that felt natural at any other point in the story, namely that unlike most versions of the character, this Sunset never becomes human. She never experiences the dysphoria and adjustment to a new form, and more importantly, never once wanted to picture herself as human. She is a pony, and as she was accepted as one, she never once wondered what it would be like to be human, or at least humanoid, instead. Not even when she met the Sirens: that only made her double down on her confidence of being herself. But, there was never a chance to properly explore this because it's not something that would come up naturally under almost any circumstance.
I believe I've mentioned this in prior blog entries, but in case I hadn't, there's also another aspect of this that made me want to explore the subject. Back during the planning stages for Phoenix, which originally didn't even feature her as a character and was entirely set around Twilight, I almost took an entirely different approach with the character. They still would've had a sisterly like relationship, but I considered making Sunset human, and leaving Twilight a pony.
I swiftly abandoned this idea for a large number of reasons, from the fact it made little sense for one to transform when the other didn't, to the issues it would raise with people not believing she used to be an equine and what that would do to her psychologically, to just all kinds of things. It would've resulted in an entirely different, and in my opinion, lesser story. If we want stories about Sunset coping with being human, well, they're a dime a dozen. Staying a pony, that's still pretty rare for her.
So allowing her to confront an actual human version of herself was a massive boon. I wasn't going to do that with the original Captain's Table incarnation of the concept, but thanks to the Isekai existing, it added an extra flavor to the equation that I think boosted the quality and meaningfulness of the chapter in the greater scheme of the story. And it allowed for more MLP flavoring in this predominately Trek-based crossover. I admit, it's been so Trek-based because it's the first Star Trek fanfiction I've attempted to write since I was fourteen, and Trek being so important to me personally, I've let it dominate. Which hasn't seemed to bother anyone who reads the story, but it's worth commenting on.
One more thing: my editor Vic Fontaine, formerly known as Grand Moff Pony, has written a new story that you should all go check out, especially if you like background ponies getting to have some time in the limelight, and you enjoy the Spanish culture bits from Phoenix. It's called "Missing Pieces," and while it's a followup to a previous story, it can still be read on its own. You can read it here: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/541385/missing-pieces
Thank you all, and see you next time with the next episode of Phoenix!
Sunset Phoenix hasnt been round Q much, otherwise her first thought would be the Continuum?
The pleasure was all mine! Maybe Sunset will visit again :)
As someone who erroneously read the whole first two seasons of Phoenix mistakenly seeing Sunset as the main character and failing to properly comprehend that she and Twilight are co-protagonists, the fact that there was any point in the planning in which Sunset wasn't even there is mind-blowing.
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To be fair, the change was so early on that there was never a full draft of the idea with just Twilight. At that point it was just the concept of Twilight joining Starfleet and trying to find Equus, with none of the main world-building in mind yet. It was only once I swapped to having Sunset involve that the rest of it came together.
Also it's understandable why someone might not realize Twilight is a co-protagonist, even though we frequently see her POV. She's always a step or two behind Sunset, and is developing in a different way. Some of that is because she's younger, some of it is due to how I chose to develop her personality for this story versus her canon self, and some of it is just the fact that Sunset is in a higher command position, which Star Trek has told us over and over means she's the most important. Even though that's not actually true in this story, it makes sense why someone might think that way. So no worries.