"Remembrance of the Fallen"
is a Star Trek Online fanfic by StarSword and takeshi6, an Intercontinuity Crossover between Bait and Switch and The War of the Masters Shared Universe written for Literary Challenge #68: STO Halloween.
The prompt was for a Halloween Episode, but StarSword decided fairly early that a straight-played version just wouldn't work for his cast (only one of his named characters is even from the United States, and Halloween is primarily an American/Western European thing). However, given the structural similarities of the Bajoran religion to Roman Catholicism, it seemed logical that they would have something vaguely related, so he started brainstorming for a fic with his primary character Kanril Eleya. Meanwhile Takeshi 6 was developing something similar for his Masterverse character Tiana Lanstar, and the two authors decided to collaborate. The groundwork laid for the resulting Bajoran holiday, which ended up looking more like the Latin American Day of the Dead than Halloween, was reused by StarSword soon after for "To Absent Friends".
It's April 2413, several months after Tia Lanstar's Bajoran wife Sobaru Lanstar was killed in a Heroic Sacrifice battling the Fek'Ihri along with most of the crew of the USS Wolfram. Tia, a convert to the Bajoran religion and now many months pregnant with their child, travels to the battle memorial on Goralis to visit her wife's grave for the Bajoran Day of Remembrance. While there, she reminisces about the first time she and Sobaru celebrated it, along with their Starfleet Academy tutor for Spring 2403, one Kanril Eleya.
Tropes:
- Burying a Substitute: The memorial cemetery on Goralis and Sobaru Lanstar's grave on Bajor are both composed of cenotaphs because the bodies were incinerated.
- Call-Back:
- The framing narrative is a sequel to Sobaru's death in the Masterverse fic Faces In The Flames.
- To From Bajor to the Black. Thrass gives Kanril Eleya the job of tutoring Tia and Sobaru in return for forgiving some of the bad grades she incurred after a messy breakup. Eleya's initially uncomfortable with the idea of tutoring Sobaru and Tia due to the campus rumor that they're a couple, since she's coming off of a nasty breakup with her boyfriend of a year, who was offered early graduation and a plum assignment on the USS Planck and left without saying goodbye. This after they were talking about getting married.Eleya: (to Thrass) You’re putting me next to a blue-on-blue?* After Dalton?
- Call-Forward: Commander Haelivthras "Thrass" th'Shvrashli from "The Universe Doesn't Cheat" reappears as Eleya's major advisor.
- Continuity Nod:
- To the first chapter of Bait and Switch when Eleya introduces herself to Tia and Sobaru as follows:
- And to Eleya mentioning in "From Bajor to the Black, Part II" about how her Academy roommate Jasmine Velasquez frequently kicks her out of the dorm on Friday nights because she brought back a hookup.Thrass: Anyway, think of it as something to do when Jazz Velasquez kicks you out on Friday nights.
Eleya: How do you—
Thrass: I’m your professor. I know everything.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": Eleya, an upperclassman to Tiana and Sobaru, puts a twist on the old standby with non-commissioned officers that you don't call them sir because they work for a living.Eleya: Oh, and by the way, don’t call me "sir". I work for a living. Or I used to, at least.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty/That's an Order!: Eleya draws on her old "Sergeant Kanril" voice after Tia says half the problem they're having in Principles of Electronic Countermeasures is because Sobaru can't sit still.Eleya: Yes, well, I think I can handle it. (to Sobaru in a harsher voice) Sit down.
Sobaru: (drops into a chair immediately) Sitting down, sir.
Eleya: (snorts) Okay, you can get up. I was just checking to see if "Sergeant Kanril" worked on you. - Epigraph: From the Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matt Stover.“The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins—but in the heart of its strength lies weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.”
- Every Scar Has a Story: Upon learning that Tia's brother Tiida died fighting the Orion Syndicate, Eleya explains that she got the scar on her face the same way.
- Fantastic Religious Weirdness: The Day of Remembrance has been opened to non-Bajorans since Bajor opened diplomatic relations with the Federation.
- Framing Device: Tiana visits Sobaru's grave, and reminisces about an encounter with Kanril Eleya at Starfleet Academy ten years earlier.
- The Glomp: Sobaru does this to Tia when she learns about Tiida's death and how Tia is now all alone.
- Halloween Episode: More of a Day of the Dead Episode. The Day of Remembrance is one of the Bajoran faith's lesser holy days, focused on celebrating the memory of dead family and friends.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Between Bait and Switch and The War of the Masters. StarSword mentions in the author's notes that he currently doesn't know if the two continuities will fully merge.
- Interspecies Romance: Two human/Bajoran ones mentioned, Eleya's ill-fated romance with Jerrod Dalton, and Tia and Sobaru's cadet romance that turned into a marriage.
- Invented Linguistic Distinction: Kojami Sobaru notes Kanril Eleya, both of them Bajorans, to speak their mother language Bajor'la with Kendran accent.
- Multicultural Alien Planet: Played subtly. Eleya notices that the construction of Sobaru's given name indicates her being from Hathon Province, while Sobaru notices a Kendran accent to Eleya's Bajoran when they meet face to face.
- Never Found the Body: There are no bodies at the cluster of grave markers for the crew of the USS Wolfram. They were all either turned into Fek'Ihri or incinerated when the Wolfram's shipboard Artificial Intelligence Raging Heart vented drive plasma into the infected compartments to stop the Zombie Apocalypse.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Offscreen Tia overheard an idiot armchair-quarterbacking civilian say that her brother's death was a Stupid Sacrifice and that he could've done it without dying, and the only reason the guy got off with just a broken arm was because that was when SFPD got there.
- The Only One: Part of the reason Eleya is given the assignment of tutoring Tia and Sobaru is because Sobaru is Bajoran, and Eleya is the only other Bajoran on campus at the moment who has taken Principles of Electronic Countermeasures (officer recruitment on Bajor has apparently been somewhat thin in the past couple of years).
- Pardon My Klingon/Sir Swears-a-Lot: Eleya, as usual. Sobaru wonders if she got it during her time as an enlisted crewman in the Bajoran Militia, but Eleya says her mother was always telling her to watch her language."I think it did get worse after boot camp, though."
- Someone to Remember Him By: Tiana is in her third trimester with a baby conceived in vitro using technobabble applied to Sobaru's genome.
- Subject 101: Averted. Eleya is assigned to tutor Tia and Sobaru in WEP 125, Principles of Electronic Countermeasures. She also mentions having a Romulan 111 class and a CMD 305 exam.
- To Absent Friends: The main content of the Bajoran Day of Remembrance. You leave food offerings of the deceased's favorites at their graveside and share stories about them with your friends and family.
- "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation: Eleya asks her major advisor if she has to take a gig tutoring a pair of first-years for extra credit to make up for the bad grades she incurred after Jerrod Dalton left her.Cdr. Thrass: No, you can still pass if you get a 90 or better on your remaining assignments, which shouldn’t be a problem. But my personal preference would be to have the extra room to maneuver.
Eleya: You could’ve just said ‘yes’, sir.
