What are your favorite AU/non-canon ideas?

[Brandyjane]

This is a thread for discussing your favorite AU or non-canon ideas. They can be your own or things you've seen in other people's work that you liked. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Have another lead female character. I would have made Travis Mayweather into Mayweather Travis, a tough, experienced Boomer captain. I picture a character that's a little like Zoe on Firefly. She could be someone who stands up to Archer from time to time, but also be a potential love-interest for him. Sometimes she can be a little reckless, but other times she councils caution based on her knowledge of alien species. I like Anthony Montgomery, so I would have him play Malcolm's second-in-command, the top security man.

2. There is no TCW. The Romulans are pulling the strings the whole time, trying to disrupt the Alpha Quadrant so that they can move in and start conquering stuff.

3. Hoshi is part Augment.

4. Season Three - I would move "Impulse" to right after "Harbinger." T'Pol doesn't ingest Trellium-D on purpose. Instead, she's being affected by the little bit of Trellium that they were able to synthesize. It protects them from some of the anomalies, but they don't have enough shielding to fly right through the worst anomaly clusters. T'Pol knows something is wrong with her, but she suspects the Panar Syndrome is just getting worse. After "Impulse" she and the senior staff are aware that the Trellium is affecting her, but she convinces them that it's too dangerous to remove what little they do have from the hull. For the rest of the season, the others are never quite sure whether they can trust her judgment or not, but they also know that they need her expertise. She wants to continue her relationship with Trip, but he wants to wait until she is no longer under the influence of Trellium, fearful that she will later think he has taken advantage of her. (He hasn't and she doesn't.)

5. No space nazis.

6. TATV didn't happen.

7. Hayes doesn't die. I love him and he should have been in Season 4! (Though it did make great drama.)

8. If we only have four seasons, Baby Elizabeth doesn't die. (If the series continued, keep the story just like it was written.)

9. Get rid of the Masaro character and make the Terra Prime sympathizer Kelby or Rostov. Don't give us a character we've never seen. Make it someone we either know and love to hate (Kelby), or do something really shocking and make it Rostov, a semi-regular who we actually like.

[Misplaced]

I think my favorite AU I've seen in ENT fanfic is one where the "morning after" conversation between Trip and T'Pol goes differently.

I suppose the majority of my stories are AU, because TATV doesn't happen in any but one of them.

[Honeybee]

1) My favorite? Family Secrets and Ember, Spark, Flame are my two ignore TATV stories and they are my personal canon. TATV didn't happen, TnT did not break up after Elizabeth's death. That's an easy one.
2) I wrote an non Space Nazi time travel story in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Archer" and was kind of fond of how that one turned out. I should write a sequel since TnT end up married in that one.
3) In my E2 series, I had the crew blow up the spheres and settle on a planet and found a successful colony. Because they stopped the Xindi attack, they meet the second season crew Exploring in the Expanse looking for an Enterprise doppleganger. Lorian has a child and the younger generation are a lot more relaxed.
4) I love HopefulRomantic's Reconnecting series, in which the E2 crew and humans from the North Star planet are not forgotten and are woven into the story of the 4th season, including a Lorian/Karyn romance.

[Hummingbird2]

I know I've said this before, but I really wish they could've expanded Similitude into A Life Worth Living by Gabi. But it probably would've blown the budget.

[Honeybee]

Similtude -

That reminds of two scenarios.

1) Trip dies and Sim lives. That would have been an incredibly bold move for a Trek show, and given Trip/Sim an entirely new and interesting arc. I love Trip, but that sure would have been interesting to see.
2) Sim and Trip both live. Sim could have made occasionally appearances and even competed with Trip for T'Pol's affections. Would have been a very challenging thing to work into the storyline - but creatively interesting.

[panyasan]

One of the scenario's I have been toying in one or two of my stories is a rewrite of The Seventh. I didn't think it was very logical that a strong, intelligent Vulcan woman would get so upset by killing a "criminal" refugee that she was sent to a sort of mental institution to get part of her memory ereased. Plus the fact that when she is confronted with her past - she has a breakdown again and has to lean on Archer to do the right thing.

There are two explanations: T'Pol isn't right for any job with stress - so what is doing on Enterprise.
Or - my idea - the whole things has to do with the mystery of death of T'Pols father, when she shots the guy, she is attacked by his companion (spell ROMULANS) who is responsible for her memory loss. Because of this hidden trauma she get so weird in the episode The Seventh.

Hope this still makes sense....

[Brandyjane]

1) My favorite? Family Secrets and Ember, Spark, Flame are my two ignore TATV stories and they are my personal canon. TATV didn't happen, TnT did not break up after Elizabeth's death. That's an easy one.
2) I wrote an non Space Nazi time travel story in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Archer" and was kind of fond of how that one turned out. I should write a sequel since TnT end up married in that one.
3) In my E2 series, I had the crew blow up the spheres and settle on a planet and found a successful colony. Because they stopped the Xindi attack, they meet the second season crew Exploring in the Expanse looking for an Enterprise doppleganger. Lorian has a child and the younger generation are a lot more relaxed.
4) I love HopefulRomantic's Reconnecting series, in which the E2 crew and humans from the North Star planet are not forgotten and are woven into the story of the 4th season, including a Lorian/Karyn romance.

Family Secrets/Ember, Spark, Flame and all of Hopeful Romantics stories involving the E2 crew are some of my favorite stories ever! I really like how she writes TnT.

Similtude -

That reminds of two scenarios.

1) Trip dies and Sim lives. That would have been an incredibly bold move for a Trek show, and given Trip/Sim an entirely new and interesting arc. I love Trip, but that sure would have been interesting to see.
2) Sim and Trip both live. Sim could have made occasionally appearances and even competed with Trip for T'Pol's affections. Would have been a very challenging thing to work into the storyline - but creatively interesting.

Similitude is one of my favorite episodes just as it is, but somehow it still inspires a lot of great AU ideas. I'm particularly fond of the Trip dies/Sim lives scenario.

One of the scenario's I have been toying in one or two of my stories is a rewrite of The Seventh. I didn't think it was very logical that a strong, intelligent Vulcan woman would get so upset by killing a "criminal" refugee that she was sent to a sort of mental institution to get part of her memory ereased. Plus the fact that when she is confronted with her past - she has a breakdown again and has to lean on Archer to do the right thing.

There are two explanations: T'Pol isn't right for any job with stress - so what is doing on Enterprise.
Or - my idea - the whole things has to do with the mystery of death of T'Pols father, when she shots the guy, she is attacked by his companion (spell ROMULANS) who is responsible for her memory loss. Because of this hidden trauma she get so weird in the episode The Seventh.

Hope this still makes sense....

Please write this!

[Skywalker]

I have a Word document filled with ideas of how my Enterprise AU would look. Some ideas I came up with myself, and some I borrowed from others.

1. Humanity isn't quite so new to the interstellar community. The Vulcans don't hold them back so much, so their advancement of warp technology moves a bit faster, with Warp 3 being commonplace by the 2120s. Between around 2110 and 2130, the major space powers of Earth (which hasn't united yet) go to war with the Kzinti over the right to colonize systems that lie between human and Kzinti territory. After four wars, humanity has completely defeated the Kzinti and dismantled their space fleet, and in the wake of the conflict the various nations of Earth come together to become United Earth. By 2151, humanity has colonies on Luna, Mars, Callisto, and Titan in the Sol system, and colonies in the Alpha Centauri, Sirius, and Vega systems. The Earth Cargo Service was originally founded to transport goods between the various worlds of humanity, but by the mid-22nd century they've expanded their routes to include some alien worlds.

2. Henry Archer was a civilian scientist who was testing a prototype Warp Five engine, about twenty-five years before ENT, which went horribly wrong. The small science vessel he was on was destroyed. A nearby Vulcan ship might have been able to save the crew, but they decided not to try because the ruptured warp core's explosion would have destroyed both ships. Risking hundreds of lives for less than a dozen would not have been logical. This gives Archer a real reason to resent the Vulcans.

3. Trip is a native of Mobile, Alabama, who decided to become an engineer when he was a kid, after fixing a busted engine on his father's boat during a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. He should also be a little bit older than he was in the show, closer in age to Archer, with whom he became best friends after they met while working on the Warp Five project. He is also Archer's First Officer.

4. T'Pol was one of the first Vulcans to be born on Earth, and spent much of her youth in the Vulcan compound in Sausalito, California. This has given her a better understanding of human society, and is a major reason for her being assigned to Enterprise as an observer while the ship is returning Klaang to Qo'noS (which is about a month away, not four days). During an attack by the Orion Syndicate (not the Suliban), the Enterprise's science officer is killed, and T'Pol is forced to take over. After the mission, Starfleet is pressured by the Vulcan High Command into keeping T'Pol in that position. Though her growing up on Earth has made her somewhat familiar with humanity, it has made her more ignorant of her own Vulcan heritage, which would be explored and developed over the course of the show. She is also the daughter of a Romulan agent, though she doesn't learn this until later on.

5. Malcolm is a Major in the United Earth Marines, rather than a Starfleet security officer. He was born into a rich and aristocratic family in England, but that life bored him, so he joined the Marines in search of excitement and adventure. He was eventually recruited into Section 31, and by the beginning of ENT he is still one of their operatives. His job is to observe Enterprise's mission and report back any potential threats to the Section, particularly anything he can learn about a species called the Romulans. Section 31 has been hearing rumors about these mysterious aliens, and want to evaluate whether or not they pose a threat to humanity.

6. Phlox is a human named Philip Knox. He served as a corpsman during the Kzinti Wars before going to med school and joining the Interspecies Medical Exchange. He's been with the IME for nearly twenty years, and in that time he's gained an invaluable knowledge of alien medicine and physiologies, as well as developing some eccentricities after being around alien cultures for so long.

7. Hoshi is the descendant of an Augment warlord. While 150 years of separation have diluted most of her ancestor's physical enhancements, her mental acuity and linguistic skills are well above human norms. She is also excellent with mathematics and computer programming, and almost got busted out of Starfleet for hacking a Tellarite security mainframe (on a dare). One drawback of her Augment heritage is a somewhat aggressive nature, which got her into trouble a few times in her past. Once, she accidentally lost control and broke her CO's arm, and since then she's tried to suppress her aggression, hiding it under a quiet, timid facade, but this repressed aggression draws her toward the Marines, particularly Reed.

8. Travis is aged up a bit and a Lieutenant rather than an Ensign. Still a lifelong Boomer, he's seen more alien worlds than pretty much everyone else on Enterprise aside from T'Pol and Doctor Knox. Rather than the wide-eyed, naive kid he was portrayed as in the show, however, here he is more jaded about space travel, with kind of a "been there, done that" attitude. He loves to play pranks on his less experienced crewmates, and he knows a lot of "interstellar shortcuts" to help Enterprise get to her destinations faster than some of the routes depicted on Earth and Vulcan's star charts.

9. There is no Temporal Cold War, but Future Guy still exists, and is a Romulan from the early 25th century. After Romulus was destroyed by the Hobus supernova in 2387, Future Guy blames the Federation, believing they deliberately withheld their assistance until after Romulus was destroyed. He believes his world would have been saved if Vulcan and Romulus had reunited in the 22nd century, as the Romulans of that time had been attempting to do before Vulcan ended up joining the Federation instead. So Future Guy has found a way to project himself back in time to the 2150s, where he has begun manipulating events to try and stop the Federation from ever being born.

10. Future Guy initially uses the Orion Syndicate to stir up trouble and to try to break up the fledgling alliance between Earth and Vulcan, but the Orions fail. He then turns to a Kzinti terrorist organization, made up of zealots who hate humanity for what they did to their species, and provides them with the means to attack and destroy Earth. The Kzinti rush their prototype weapon, however, and it malfunctions after only a few seconds, cutting a swath from Alabama to Venezuela rather than destroying the planet. This gives Starfleet a chance to track the weapon's source, and Enterprise is sent in to try and root out these Kzinti zealots before they can complete their second weapon and launch another strike at Earth. After Enterprise locates and destroys the weapon, Future Guy finally focuses his efforts on the Romulan Star Empire, surreptitiously aiding them in weapons and technological development to ensure their victory in the coming war between Earth and Romulus.

11. Daniels is still around, but rather than being a member of some random TCW faction from the 31st century, he's a Starfleet officer from the 29th century. Starfleet gets wind of Future Guy's plot, and Daniels is sent back to the 2150s to keep an eye on Archer and make sure history unfolds as it's supposed to.

[Brandyjane]

You have some really exciting ideas, Skywalker! Once more we are in agreement about a lot of things. I had a story where T'Pol was born on Earth, and I think Hoshi should have some Augment blood, too.

As for Daniels, I would have him be a member of Section 31. He would always be there in the background, and it wouldn't be until a little later in the series that I would reveal that he's more than just a steward. But I would set it up so that if you went back and rewatched the whole series, you'd notice that he always seemed to be nearby when sensitive conversations were taking place or whenever there was some sort of action happening. Reed would also still be in Section 31, but he wouldn't learn Daniels' true identity until later.

Oh, and Chef would be played by the same actor who played Q. I'd only show him one time, and it would be such a quick glance that the audience would wonder if it was really him. He wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary, other than cook some amazing food, but I'd have a character mention that Chef could work magic with the food or something like that. I'd leave the audience speculating if Q was actually aboard the Enterprise doing stuff or observing, or if it was just a quick cameo by the actor. I'd never actually answer that question.

[mareel]

I love writing in AU's of canon-based and noncanon. I usually get pulled back into them again and again to keep exploring.

1. I love the alternative S3 world of diplomacy that I explored in "For Our Children" with Jonathan and Degra. I always wanted to see more of the Xindi, more of their ordinary lives and interactions. We never actually see a female Xindi primate or arboreal, for example. In future seasons, I would very much like to have seen some canon follow-up with them. Did they ever consider joining the Federation, for example. Failing that of course, I get to write it myself.

2. It's not a happy place, but I always love exploring the "Twilight" AU of "No Tomorrows".

3. My latest (and most surprising to me) AU obsession is an "E2" AU. It started as the setting for a monthly challenge response, but to do it justice I needed to understand more about these people and their lives there. I had a list of questions almost as long as the story. So, the originally planned fic isn't complete yet, but I've been learning the stories of several characters, across all of the generations from Esilia to Karyn (and, of course, the Jonathan and Malcolm of both timelines). I've never written any OC's before, and it's been interesting to sketch some from the 'middle' generations there. I haven't been archiving many of the drabbles that have come of these studies, since some of them could end up in the main fic in one form or another, but I've been posting them over on LJ.