Without further ado:

http://www.geocities.com/startreksaratoga/MAIN.html

I'd like to hear everyone's impressions on the first episode, on the pilot, on the general plot of the series ... how do you think it'll pan out from this episode ?

Who's your favourite character ? Who do you hate ? Who should be shoved out of the closest airlock ? Who should take up residence in a loony bin and who would you serve under ?

Any comments welcome,

First, it's pretty well written. The story flows pretty well and pacing doesn't seem to be a problem. The introduction of the characters is pretty good, but there was a bit of confusion in the Kenyon/Shelby/Novotny meeting near Main Engineering. It was hard to pick out who was talking and who knew whom from previous assignments. The descriptions of the characters was vivid and done pretty well also. The description of the ship could use a bit more work, though. Kulai's mental survey of the exterior didn't seem complete enough to get a good picture of how radically this ship differed from the rest of the Excelsior class.

Second, you may want to look at some of the finer details of the story. It's still a bit nebulous to me as to whether this series is prior to or after the Dominion War. The presence of a Cardassian Neutral Zone (by the way, do you mean the Demilitarized Zone?) hints at pre-DS9 yet the mention of Cardassian political turmoil suggests a post-DS9 period. Another facet to look at are the names you've given some of the characters. Your captain is named Alynna Nechayev. There's a real Star Trek character named Alynna Nechayev and she's a high-ranking admiral (she appeared in a couple episodes of TNG and DS9). You're first officer is named Edward Jellico, but there's a real character named Edward Jellico who was captain of the Cairo and the Enterprise-D (TNG's "Chain of Command"). Also, the chief engineer's name of Peter Shelby hints strongly at a relationship of some sort to Commander Shelby (TNG's "Best of Both Worlds"). If you're chronicling a period of Trek history before TNG's run, it would be possible for them to have served aboard the same ship together at some time. But this leads to a minor nitpick of the ship's registry. Generally but not always, the registries are roughly chronological. Your Saratoga is 41xxx while Sisko's Saratoga from DS9's "Emmissary" is 31xxx. But this a very minor point that is open to great debate (I just wanted to make you aware of the potential problem).

Its going to be hard to get all those characters to fit right with the personalities that are established for them later..

Anyway, if this is focusing on established characters but earlier in their careers, this could lead to some problems. One of the hardest things, I've found, in writing Star Trek fanfiction is using some of the real characters and having your own portrayal of them match the real writers' and actors' portrayals of those characters. If hard to do, and when I write Trek fanfiction I almost always use my own characters. If someone from the canon Trek universe makes an appearance, they are in and then out fairly quickly (so that it's not so easy to screw 'em up).

The series is set in 2348, about 15 years before the beginning of TNG. The Saratoga actually began as the Excelsior, became the Hood before we came up with a good plotline and decided to use the name Saratoga ... don't worry ! We've figured out how the Saratoga's name goes to, technically, an older ship ( the Miranda _is_ older than the Excelsior Gamma class ) and this'll turn up somewhere in the third season ( if we get that far ) !

Erm, yes, Anvek ... I knew that the name came from somewhere but I couldn't remember where. Now I know ! I hope you don't mind, if you do, then I could probably change it, if not, consider it a tribute to TOKYO !

There's a description of the Bridge somewhere in the story ( Act 3 methinks ) and the basic sketch in the ships page.

Thanks,

Using previously established guest characters as main ones is a cool idea. Personally, I'm fond of taking a piece of Trek canon and using it as a spring-board for my own work - so I definetely like how you came up with the characters.