"Brother on Brother, Daughter on Mother"
is a Star Trek Online fanfic by StarSword, with the assistance of Worffan101. Written for Unofficial Literary Challenge #27, it stars Captain Kanril Eleya of the USS Bajor.
Leading a multinational task force against the Borg as a commodore, Eleya discovers an Enemy Civil War between the Borg Queen and her progenitor One of One. Using the fighting as a distraction, she lands a MACO unit led by Lieutenant Rachel Connor in a Borg installation to retrieve data. But with Connor and her team, little is completely as it seems.
Tropes:
- BFG: An M2 Browning heavy machine gun (modified with an ammunition replicator) carried as a squad automatic weapon by Connor's heavy weapons specialist Jose Luiz. "It puts huge holes in Borg." Also K'lak snipes a Borg drone off Luiz's back using an anti-materiel phaser that blows it to fragments.
- Call-Back: One of One reappears from A Voice in the Wilderness, and Starfleet's continuing manpower issues since the Iconian War get a mention. Additionally the Vaadwaur are now fighting the Borg alongside the Delta Alliance.
- Canon Discontinuity: Apparently Star Trek: Enterprise and the Temporal Cold War arc in STO never took place in Bait and Switch (STO)'s continuity, though Taryn briefly refers to an Alternate Timeline that was a "cesspool of nonsense" from conflicting temporal incursions and was ultimately erased from existence entirely. The 'Verse instead seems to draw its version of ENT events from Reimagined Enterprise, since it's mentioned that NX-01 was commanded by Chen Hwai (and there was apparently another version where Abner Bowman was in charge instead).
- Deuteragonist: Lieutenant Rachel Connor, an illegal human Augment and a MACO officer, created by Worffan 101.
- Distant Finale: A possible November 2421 where Eleya is now an admiral and she and Gaarra, who is commanding the Bajor on a five-year mission, have several sons. She delivers a daughter, whom they name Taryn.
- Enemy Civil War: By releasing One of One back in A Voice in the Wilderness, Eleya seems to have accidentally created one in the Borg Collective.
- For Want Of A Nail: The Mirror Universe is explained as having split off from a similar timeline to the prime universe, one where the Western Roman Empire took slightly longer to fall due to Flavius Aetius overthrowing Emperor Valentinian (instead of Valentinian assassinating him) and defeating the Vandals, "then the Nazis, Trumpers, Optimum, and the Krasnov junta were a little more successful."
- Foreign Cuss Word: Alicia Gantumur once swears in Kurdish.
- Frontline General: Eleya is addressed as Commodore Kanril during the mission, which rather than being an actual rank as in TOS, follows the modern US Navy usage: a form of respect for someone below the rank of admiral who has been given a job that would normally be assigned to one.
- Ironic Echo Cut: Eleya deploys the ground attack teams and remarks to the audience that "it's all up to the gropos now."Eleya: I hate this part.
(scene transition)
Rachel Connor: I love this part. - Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Because they aren't affected by Borg Deflector Shields, the MACOs use firearms during their ground assault up to and including a modified M2 Browning heavy machine gun.
- Living Lie Detector: Rachel Connor's enhanced senses allow her to pick up on subtle telltales from somebody lying. But this doesn't translate to being any better at lying herself: Gantumur doesn't believe her explanation for surviving an assimilation attempt, and Reshek Taryn comments that she cleans Connor out every time they play poker.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Belka Saris is really Reshek Taryn, Eleya and Gaarra's daughter from a possible future and a member of Starfleet's Over-the-Top Secret Time Police unit.
- Multiple-Choice Future: Reshek Taryn, a Time Police officer, describes the overall timestream using the metaphor of a rope, made of strands of probabilistic outcomes.
The author explains further in related forum posts that some outcomes are more probable than others (as a way of explaining alternate timelines' tendency towards In Spite of a Nail similarities). - No-Sell: Because of her Bio-Augmentation, Connor can no-sell Borg assimilation.
- Shout-Out:
- Lampshaded when it looks like Taryn is going to make a reference to Doctor Who by quoting the Timey-Wimey Ball line from "Blink" and Eleya finishes the quotation for her.
- "I've never beamed twenty people from two targets onto one pad before!"
- Spotting the Thread: Petty Officer Belka Saris was added to Connor's team right before the mission, and Connor's enhanced senses pick up something off about one of her explanations. Later Master Chief Kinlo discovers that Belka actually erased part of the data, and Eleya forces her to come clean about her real intentions: she's Time Police stopping One of One from learning how to Time Travel.
- Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard:Gaarra: So, we're going to have a daughter.
Eleya: Probably. Remember, time is a rope.
Gaarra: (laughing) That has got to be the silliest metaphor I've ever heard in my life! - Take That!: In addition to describing the Temporal Cold War timeline(s) as a "cesspool of nonsense", the story lists an apparent victory by Donald Trump in an alternate timeline as one of the factors leading to the creation of the Terran Empire. (And in real life, that has unfortunately come true, so we could be in for a lot of trouble....)
- Three-Month-Old Newborn: Averted in the Distant Finale: Eleya describes her newborn daughter Taryn as "wrinkled and red in the face and perfect."
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: "I was—will be born in 2421."
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Timey-wimey rope, actually. The true nature of time is explained as being like a rope made of strands of probabilistic outcomes. As explained by StarSword in related posts and by Taryn in-universe, a rope can tangle and loop back on itself, but if you pull on it the strands all move in basically the same direction (an "inertia" property meant to explain why you keep having basically the same people in basically the same place). But if damaged (by major temporal incursions), it frays. Enforced in that the author was deliberately trying to come up with a more inclusive explanation for the nature of Star Trek Time Travel, as well as one that didn't lead to the Time Police looking like "either idiots or tyrants (or idiotic tyrants)".
- Took a Level in Badass: The Borg under One of One. Two spheres take down a tactical cube thanks to additional weapons.
- We Have Reserves: Connor remarks disgustedly about the expendability of Borg drones, having once been one herself.
- You Are in Command Now: An entire Defiant wing ends up led by a lieutenant commander because the formation flagship was destroyed offscreen.
