A Matter of Priority

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	A Matter of Priority
Author(s):	Doris Beetem
Date(s):	1973
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:	A Matter of Priority
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A Matter of Priority is a 1973 Star Trek: TOS Kraith story by Anna Mary Hall.

It includes an embedded poem by Shirley Maiewski that is not credited.

It was published in Kraith Collected #1 and is now online.

Summary

An alien virus which infects bacteria dissolves the polymers that comprise a majority of the equipment, uniforms, and the Enterprise itself. The entire ship is literally unraveling, and because the problem is extremely contagious, Starfleet orders the Enterprise scrapped.

1974: A Fan's Comparisons

The best and most Star Trek of all the entries [in Kraith Collected #1] is A Matter of Priority. It reads well, smoothly, no jarring character inconsistencies (Strekfen will likely be disgruntled at the unbelievable insensitivity, ignorance, and superficiality of all the human characters as handled by Lichtenberg and also Doris Beteem) a quirk not shared by Ann Mary Hall, the author of A Matter of Priority). It exemplifies what Star Trek could have and should have been on all levels, not just the treatment of the Vulcan Culture. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the crew interact as they should; a fine, tense, articulate, if not particularly heavy story.

A Matter of Priority ties with The Disaffirmed, by Ruth Berman. It is also STAR TREK — she was closely associated with the show — and it shares with A Matter of Priority the characteristic of making the human beings human beings, not just foils to the Vulcans. In fact, you might end up disliking the Kraith Spock a trace from this episode, which was written by Berman as a fictional refutation of some of the ideas in Kraith (as a result, Lichtenberg made some amendments, apparently; that's how I know she's open-minded).

There is a marked difference between the way Berman and Hall write and Lichtenberg's approach, even though all three use the same basic narrative form — third person omniscient, subjective, Berman writes sympathetically, as does Hall, with a sharp understanding of how her characters think. Her portrayal of Lieutenant Uhura is of a woman who is firm, intelligent, responsible, responsive, and human. Lichtenberg's Christine Chapel, in contrast, is horribly shallow and unmotivated in her behavior, almost, like Kirk and McCoy, right out of the Star Trek format. In Spock's Affirmation she scoops to the I-Love-Lucy level of being jealous of Spock's attentions to T'Rruel and even goes so far as to try to squelch the Vulcan woman by telling her Spock is half human. It's true that the aired Star Trek itself shared this deficiency, but kindly remember that in 1966 when it was first put on the air the producers were fighting for even THAT much from NBC executives who thought television programs should he written on the level of lobotomized Rhesus monkeys and that Star Trek novelists, as Jacqueline herself pointed out, shouldn't have to put up with this attitude in fens and can write intelligently. It's great to make Spock capable of doing the innumerable things he did in Kraith, especially if it's supported, as it was. But why only expand Spock's capabilities? Lichtenberg writes about humans as though she were observing them with no knowledge of what they were like, not only when she writes from the viewpoint of a Vulcan, but always.

Contrast A Matter of Priority with Doris Beteem's Death of a Flame (Amanda's Mission), which was undeveloped and unsatisfying, made Sarek out to be an echo of the caricature Spock was in "THAT WHICH SURVIVES," one of the awful offerings of the 3rd season, and left Amanda with even less of a personality than she appeared to have in "JOURNEY TO BABEL; and you'll see what I mean. There was also, for one of the few times in the whole Lichtenberg collocation, an intensely lyrical and even moving scene where, preparatory to going to help Kirk and McCoy deal with a transporter-room full of half-wild Vulcan children, Spock and T'Aniyeh (Tanya) join minds and form a link to give them both inner peace, so as to give peace to the frantic children. It's one of the few places where Lichtenberg lets her hair down and shows what she can do to stir your soul, as a writer and as a person. Reading what she can do, and how seldom she'll do it, is frustrating.