"It was rather impressive how a politician could make something as dramatic as the wanton destruction of hundreds of freighters, a colony numbering seventeen thousand, and a Galaxy-class starship sound as exciting as a recitation of the Ki Baratan comm directory."
"Flaihhsam s'Spahkh"
(literally "Memory of Spock") is a Star Trek Online fanfic by StarSword, written for Unofficial Literary Challenge #9: "In Memory of Spock" on the STO forums.
On the 23rd anniversary of the (apparent) death of Ambassador Spock in the Hobus supernova, Romulan Republic officer Morgaiah t'Thavrau visits the memorial to Spock on Vulcan, and recalls meeting him as a girl of fifteen at a Senate hearing weeks after the disastrous first contact with the Dominion. The story ends up being something of a Government Procedural IN SPACE!, as seen through a teenage Morgan's eyes.
Tropes:
- Arc Welding/Call-Back/Call-Forward: Spock's appearance on Romulus in the TNG two-parter "Unification" is referred to: he has since become the official ambassador to Romulus, foreshadowing his relationship with the Romulans in Star Trek (2009), and spearheads the effort by the Federation to get the cloaking device for the USS Defiant following the clusterfuck with the USS Odyssey in "The Jem'Hadar".
- Blue Blood: The Romulan government is a Hereditary Republic formatted as a series of aristocratic councils, so almost everyone in the story counts, Morgan included. She and her mother are specified as being members of a cadet branch of a Romulan noble house that runs one of the offworld colonies, which is where Morgan gets her "ir'Sheratan" locative (Sheratan VII is the name of her home planet).
- The Cameo:
- Several Romulan political figures from the shows appear, namely Vreenak, Neral, and Koval.
- The series' deuteragonist Jaleh Khoroushi appears in the closing scene, but has no lines and isn't even identified.
- Several Romulan political figures from the shows appear, namely Vreenak
- Continuity Nod: Iliana's formal robes are made of tivish, a silk-like plant-based fabric that the Ship-Clans used to finance their rebellion in the Rihannsu novels.
- Enemy Mine: Spock casts the Romulans giving the Federation permission to cloak the Defiant as this. The Enemy Mine had collapsed by the time the Dominion War broke out.
- Epigraph: Verses 27-19 of the Epic Poem "Horatius" by Lord Thomas Macaulay, which was also used in the Rihannsu novels.
- Fictional Political Party: The Jol Tan and Suketh Coalitions within the Imperial Senate are borrowed from the RPG supplement The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire.
- Foreign Language Title: In Rihan.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: A fair amount of untranslated Rihan, as usual for fics involving Morgan.
- Happy Ending Override: There's a throwaway mention that Empress Ael t'Rllaillieu of Rihannsu fame was assassinated at some point, which probably explains why her friendliness to Kirk didn't result in long-term Romulan friendliness to the Federation.
- Heroic Bastard: Morgan was born out of wedlock. Iliana t'Thavrau mentions in an Internal Monologue that she and her aunt, a senator, hadn't been on the best of terms since then. The father isn't named, but the fact that she's mentioned a couple of times to have been working for Senator tr'Vreenak at the time, not to mention the long look tr'Vreenak gives Morgan when they meet face to face, probably aren't coincidental.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: A mogai in the room, as opposed to an elephant.
- In-Series Nickname: Morgaiah's nickname "Morgan" is finally explained. It was given to her by a human she befriended as a girl, the daughter of a Federation embassy officer.
- Rousing Speech: Spock gives a fairly brief one to the Senate in hopes of getting them to vote for him. It works.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When the very anti-Federation Vreenak says that the Federation cannot be trusted not to use the Defiant's cloaking device against the Star Empire, Morgan points out that the Federation has historically gone out of its way to keep the peace and that most of the violations of the Treaties of Alpha Trianguli and Algeron were the Romulans' doing.
