The Wedding of Wesley Crusher

One of our favorite fictional blogs is Captain Picard's Journal, which in our current (still work-in-progress) hierarchy would be a Derivative Blog--in this case deriving from the popular characters and situations of the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe of television episodes, movies, and books.  This was an inspired choice for a blog because the show is so universally well known, the story world is so detailed and developed, and becaues the character is already known for the "Captain's Log" narratives that drove each episode.  In fact, if you're familiar at all with the show at all it's impossible to read CPJ without hearing the actors' voices in your head. And although it is billed as Picard's blog, there are plenty of "guest posts" from other characters as well.

There are a couple ways to go with a Derivative Blog. One is to play it straight as a tribute to the source material, and another is to parody the source material.  Either way, the reader gets more out of the blog if they are already familiar with the show/movie/book on which it is based.  CPJ goes for a bit of both approaches but parody and humor predominate. By painting the characters in broad generalizations and letting us get into their heads, we discover pettiness, ulterior motives, hypocrisy, and unprofessionalism that Gene Roddenberry would never have put up with.  In other words, these people are just like the ones in our own lives!

CPJ plots tend toward the short and simple, which makes the story easy to read and follow, but there are also longer story and character arcs--like the one involving Wesley Crusher's engagement and pending marriage to... um... an Amazon warrior from Planet Wondawowman.  Wes's finacee, Karena, is the daughter of the Amazon queen, who looks suspiciously like Lynda Carter did in the 1970s and who is appropriately named Diana.

In real life, actor Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley, is in his 30s by now and already married with children, but CPJ takes place during Next Generation's historic prime, when Wes was still a promising young cadet that everybody loved to hate--or now a promising young Ensign that everybody loves to hate, having only just graduated from Starfleet Academy.  And since we're already outside the show's established canon, it makes sense to throw Jadzia Dax and Seven of Nine under Picard's command, from the Deep Space Nine and Voyager incarnations of the series, respectively.  In the alternate universe of CPJ (which also has its own alternate universe of the Star Trek alternate "mirror-mirror" universe), anything can happen--which is why we're so looking forward to Wesley's and Karena's wedding.

Which, by the way, readers have been invited to.  We urge you to attend.