Roundtable story (open for submissions, please)

[Rusty Edge]

[ One of the magic ponies spoke up. "We're just along for the ride. ]

Hilarious!

[Buster's Uncle]

[Side-comments go in brackets - not the other way around...]

[Valka]

Captain Janeway paced up and down the length of her Ready Room. She glared at Seven of Nine, as though Seven was personally responsible for the sudden invasion of mismatched socks and ponies. She held up her coffee cup, and Seven could see a sock sticking out of it.

"THIS SOCK DRANK MY COFFEE!!!" the captain yelled. "It didn't just fall into the cup - it jumped in and drank it!"

Seven's eyebrow raised in Vulcan-like surprise. "Socks have no digestive system, Captain."

Yes, we do, the sock corrected. Its mental voice gave an impression of satisfaction. Your captain has excellent coffee.

Janeway contemplated throwing the cup against the bulkhead, but realized that action would not bring back her precious coffee. "That was the last of my supply until I get my next batch of replicator rations!"

Seven mentally shuddered to think what a caffeine-deprived Janeway would be like if she had to go three more days without coffee. She fixed the sock with her best Borg glare. "I am going to get the Captain another cup of coffee, and you are not going to steal it, is that clear? Because if you do, I will throw you into the ship's recycling system and you will be stripped down to your bare atoms. Not one thread will remain."

The sock blanched. That would be murder! it protested in outrage.

[Buster's Uncle]

That was when Spirit of Fun reappeared.  She pawed the deck with a cute, multichromatic, hoof, whinnied adorably, and pointed her tail at the Captain, enveloping her briefly in an aura of shifting hue.

Janeway stiffened upright, crossed her arms as if posing, and barked "Seven! Replicate me a Napoleon hat!"


[Seems to me that we ought to consider whether we want more to make a real, if monumentally silly, story out of this -in which case we might have to conference about vague plot/direction and ideas- or just keep winging it and trying to make each other laugh, which is easier when everything is a surprise.  This has certainly not gone along the sort of track I imagined when I wrote the first sentence -which is only the nature of the thing we're doing- or what I've tried to cue in my contributions...]

[Valka]

[I'm going for a scenario in which the socks can find their mates back on Earth or whichever place they were lost. Somehow they achieved sentience, and their ultimate goal is to find their mates. But with sentience comes the need to figure out how to get along with others. One thing I want to address is whether or not the Voyager crew actually wear socks. I don't remember ever seeing that.

I honestly can't relate to the ponies part of the story; I don't know enough about them.]

[Buster's Uncle]

[Y'know, my original idea was to use 7 and Naomi because you like 7 (and I like 7 with Naomi) - but I've no interest in doing a Voyager story, which is why the dimensional rift was right there in the first sentence - get them off the ship, tour a silly (magic?  fantasy milieu so they can be princesses?  something else entirely?) place or several, have some weird, un-Voyager, adventures; not a formula for a good Voyager story, as that show's strength was an entirely different kind of adventure, flying around and blowing stuff up.

Oh well; it doesn't pay to be invested in the plot going anywhere particular, or what's the point of a roundtable?

The magic ponies was a 'little girl' touch - they turn out to be a convenient plot device if we choose to use them for that, but you and I are about a generation too old for magic ponies - send them home, if you like.  If you can think of some equivalent girl thing from 1971 or so, when you were about that age, to replace them -magic plot powers not necessary, but a plus- (I can't think of any, but I remember early 70's pop culture well enough to roll with whatever) have a party.

---

...It's still someone else's turn to write story, next - I did set up for Janeway to act like an over-the-top parody of Janeway for a while...]

[Valka]

[In 1971 I was 8 years old, and living on an acreage. I have no idea what was popular here back then. I also don't get the Napoleon reference.]

[Buster's Uncle]

[See the last phrase in my last - she's been zapped, and some Captain Bly action might be funny.  Dressing up as Napoleon is a common shorthand for madness...

I was sorta thinking about the criticism people who don't like Janeway -and that's Mylochka and all the lady fans I talked to around the time Voyager premiered- make, that she's a man's idea of a tough woman, not much like a real tough woman...  I worked in her posing to give an order, like she did every time the first two seasons.  Could be amusing to turn her "You just [bleeped] with the wrong guy" -she did actually say that at least once- 'tude up to 11.

On the other hand, she might just have wanted to do Waterloo cosplay and will get over it fast...]

[Buster's Uncle]

[It's still someone else's turn.

Throwing out story ideas to inspire each other and/or help us get pulling together would probably be good, too.]

[Buster's Uncle]

[Shall we wrap this sucker up and start something else?  It's been over a week waiting for someone to dash off a line...]

[Buster's Uncle]

[Looks up from watch, pulls out calendar to check]

[Valka]

It might be best to wrap it up, at least for me, since I really don't understand the pony references. That makes it hard to play off them and think of different directions to take the story.

Now lost single socks are what I do understand... and this was a worthwhile exercise, since it gave me a couple of ideas for a fanfic.

[Buster's Uncle]

[The ponies are generic - I was just thinking of little girl stuff for them to react to like little girls. 

Whatever could be made up about them, even subverting the whole Care Bears infantile caring is sharing thing.  Anything, as long as it's fun.  I didn't watch any of that crap, either - I'm no bronie.]

[Valka]

[I'm not saying it's wrong to watch MLP, and if guys like it, so what? I'm just saying that I'm not into it. And I'm not one of the people who were horse-crazy as a child, either. I was up on a horse exactly once in my life, and I prefer riding something that doesn't make its own decisions about where it wants to go.

In the context of the story, neither Seven nor Naomi were ever exposed to horses, with the possible exception of holodeck programs.]

[Buster's Uncle]

[Naomi was born onboard in the Delta Quadrant, of course, but how do you know little Annika Hansen never rode a horse?

Maybe there's an idea for the story...]