"Solaere ssiun Hnaifv’daenn"
is a Star Trek Online fanfic by StarSword, written for Literary Challenge #69: "Winter Wonderland Celebrations" on the STO forum.
As Lieutenant Commander Jaleh Khoroushi, the ch'M'R Aen'rhien's Token Human, undertakes her Ramadan fast, the warbird travels to the Glintara system to render aid to a planet in the grip of a bloodfire epidemic.
Tropes:
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Attack pattern D'Trel Five, in a Shout-Out to StarSword's fellow author and sometime collaborator worffan101. In this case it's pretty fully explained what the order refers to: A singularity jump, followed by launch of torpedoes from the rear launcher, followed by cloaking and pulling a Crazy Ivan, and finally decloaking and knocking the enemy's shields down just as the torpedoes arrive.
- Book Ends: Tovan tr'Khev walking in on Jaleh Khoroushi doing her daily prayers.
- Call-Back: The planet Glintara is said to have declared independence from the Romulan Star Empire after the revelation that the Tal'Shiar were responsible for Hobus (Fed mission "Taris", Romulan mission "Revelation").
- The Cameo: The USS Enterprise-F is among the ships that respond to reinforce the Aen'rhien.
- Christmas Episode: That was what the prompt was for. StarSword decided to switch things up and make it about the Muslim holy month of Ramadan instead.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Jaleh Khoroushi and Tovan tr'Khev, each of whom have a subplot devoted to them. Morgan only appears in two scenes.
- Double-Meaning Title/Foreign Language Title: In Romulan the title literally means "Aid to the Needy". This obviously refers primarily to the Aen'rhien's humanitarian mission to Glintara, but it could also refer to Jaleh needing companionship as the Token Human on a Romulan ship (filled by Tovan tr'Khev).
- Epigraph: From The Qur'an, appropriately enough, specifically Al-Isra 53-54.“And tell my servants that they should speak in a most kindly manner [unto those who do not share their beliefs]. Verily, Satan is always ready to stir up discord between men; for verily, Satan is man’s foe. Hence, We have not sent you [unto men O Prophet] with power to determine their Faith.”
- Fantastic Religious Weirdness: Jaleh, a Muslim, prays facing towards the Sol system, and, following various Real Life fatwas, requests an injected vaccination rather than an oral one to avoid breaking her Ramadan fast. The author's notes also theorize that, food replicators being a relatively recent invention (they weren't around in TOS), there still might be debate over whether replicated food is halalnote , although Jaleh's already been established as willing to ignore Islamic dietary rules on deployment out of practicality.
Word of God also says that Jaleh times her daily prayers and Ramadan fast by ship time. - Flash Step: Morgan uses a singularity jump (explained as creating a momentary wormhole to teleport the ship) to jump the Aen'rhien behind a Nausicaan fleet.
- Homage: One entire scene with Tovan tr'Khev quelling an incipient riot is pretty much lifted straight from the Babylon 5 episode "A Day in the Strife".
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Hlai dung" as a stand-in for "bullshit".
- Inspired by…: The author's notes admitted to getting inspiration for the bloodfire epidemic on Glintara from the 2014 West African Ebola pandemic.
- It Works Better with Bullets: Before handing his gun to a local tough, Tovan discreetly palms the power cell, so even if tr'Venku did have the guts to shoot him it wouldn't have worked.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Tovan asks Jaleh to dinner after she finishes her evening prayer, and Jaleh replicates some dates to break her fast with and offers them to him.Tovan: That what this is? A date?
Jaleh: Very funny. It's a kind of fruit. - Mundane Utility: A mighty D'deridex-class warbird, repurposed as an armed freighter delivering medical supplies. Justified in that the region is a little chaotic right now: Glintara is no longer a member of the Romulan Star Empire, but they're independent from the Federation and Romulan Republic as well, and there's been sightings of Space Pirates in the area.
- Named After Somebody Famous: The USS Moser, an Olympic-class starship, is named after two of the three winners of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine, May-Britt and Edvard Moser.
- No Biochemical Barriers: In its initial appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Relaunch novel Death in Winter, bloodfire managed to jump species from Kevratans to Romulans, so Emira t'Vraehn vaccinates Jaleh to make sure it doesn't suddenly develop a taste for humans, too.
- Orbital Bombardment: Tovan mentions having the USS Moser paint the area of the riot for a stun-level orbital phaser blast in case he can't talk the rioters down. It isn't needed.
- Pardon My Klingon: "Imirrhlhhsen mogai!" directly translates as "Go fuck a mogai!", while "faelirh ih'wort nnea mogain" is "bastard son of a mogai". (A mogai is a large predatory bird that was native to Romulus.)
- Santa Clausmas: Discussed. While the plot of Jaleh Khoroushi fasting for Ramadan focuses fully on her religion (and the quirks it forces on her duties), she at one point derisively refers to Christmas as a "Christian holiday that got bastardized by big business centuries ago."
- Ship Tease: There's some banter between Jaleh and Tovan about whether or not them having dinner together in his quarters counts as a date. After he suggests trying out a new holodrama, Jaleh decides that would be a date.
- Shown Their Work: The author's notes mention doing a lot of research to get the details of Shi'a Islamic practices right, and even link to a Shiite-specific handbook for the daily prayers.
- Take That!: One aimed at another LC author, for writing his captain stealing a Hazari vessel that responded to her distress signal. Tovan tells Jaleh in passing that the Eireth nnea Ortaimainote just issued an arrest warrant on charges of piracy and war crimes, and Jaleh derisively wonders aloud who the hell made that guy an admiral.
- We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: Apparently a video popped up on Glintara's local Alternet purporting to show the ch'M'R Aen'rhien as a Tal'Shiar vessel attacking a refugee convoy. The police chief calls it an obvious fake, but Tovan informs him that it's genuine, albeit taken out of context: The Aen'rhien previously was a Tal'Shiar ship and did hit the convoy, but under a different captain and crew, two years previously.
