Master Builders

Star Trek TNG Fanfiction
Title:	Master Builders
Author(s):	Adam Cadre
Date(s):	1996
Length:	25,473 words
Genre:	Dark Parody
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Next Generation
External Links:	Trekiverse Archive
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Master Builders is a Star Trek: TNG gen story by Adam Cadre.

It was the winner of the 1996 ASC Award for Best TNG Humor.

The story was written as a Dark Parody of another of Stephen Ratliff's The Marrissa Stories and done without permission. Fortunately, the original author appeared to be a good sport.

The story is certainly part of a grudge fest among several fans; the ladies wisely stayed out of it, at least until the end.

The comments regarding this story devolved into a flame war, touching upon what constitutes good writing, bad manners, legal vs moral rights to comments on the internet, public humiliation, Godwin's Law, trolling -- the comments often take a thick skin to read.

Author's Comments

Writing Marrissa was tricky, in that in order to figure out what she'd do I had to get inside her head, and that wasn't an easy place to be. I found myself thinking, okay, =why= is Marrissa so power-hungry? Why is she always rattling off her titles, bragging about her accomplishments?

What's wrong with her? And it occurred to me that here we have someone who's trying to =aggrandize= herself -- implying that she feels= very, very small, insignificant, a non-entity. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she lost both her parents at probably the worst of all possible ages, only to be adopted by an aloof, loveless man, who is furthermore =way= up in the hierarchy and thus still more inaccessible. So Marrissa is simultaneously trying to fill the void she feels in herself ("If I'm a captain, I'm not nothing! If I'm a princess, I'm not nothing! If I'm a Picard, I'm not nothing!") and perhaps also trying to climb up the hierarchy to get closer to her adopted dad and no longer be beneath his notice.

Why is she cruel? Because anyone who gets in her way is stopping her from attaining still more power, which for her equates to love and identity. Anyone who would deny her love and identity is =hurting= her, like someone snatching a piece of bread from a starving child. So she hurts back. I then posited that since she virtually never shows remorse, she must be burying all that guilt somewhere, and as a defense against feeling it, she'd end up developing the gleefully evil persona I depicted in the story.

Reactions and Reviews

Some comments from various posts on alt.startrek.creative -- these are the tamer ones.

[comments from a fan who apparently has a bone to pick with Stephen Ratliff's writing]: Adam... I really enjoyed your MSTing of "A Royal Wedding". A few days ago, I also read your biting description of Stephen Ratliff's inspiration for his Marrissa stories, and I thought that short story was cute and on target. As for your latest effort, "Dark Marrissa"... well, I'm not sure that mere words can express how impressed and entertained I was with this story. But I'm going to try.

It was a beautiful satire of everything that a Stephen Ratliff story is, but more importantly it was a beautiful expression of everything that a Ratliff story *isn't*. [much personal stuff snipped] ...I hope my rambling and raving isn't getting to be too much for you. I really did enjoy this story. I also enjoyed the little bits of humor that got slipped in for comic relief. I'm still kicking myself for not seeing the "Bridges of Madison Colony" pun coming a mile away. That and "Clarrissa/Marrissa explains it all", and the bit about "I've got nineteen pips on my collar, and I've got no desire to go into botany", or something to that effect. And hopefully Ratliff will learn something from your depiction of the romance between Clara and Antonio. Which reminds me... I saw Ratliff's post on ratmm and asc about your story. Apparently he read "Dark Marrissa", and it sounds like your parody helped Ratliff to see the light about Marrissa. It also sounds like he now knows the pain that we feel when we read an un-MSTed version of one of his stories. I've been exposed to some of that pain myself, because I'm part of the MSTing group that will be "annotating" "Premier Maquis", and I'm editing a group MSTing of "Falling Into Command". It looks to me like Ratliff has been toning down Marrissa's domination of the plot and of all the sentient beings around her even before you posted "Dark Marrissa". It's a little sad to see the passing of an era, actually... I guess I should consider myself lucky to be able to join in on the MSTing fun before Marrissa has finished transforming into someone that we don't love to hate quite as much as before. But it looks like I'm at the tail end of the dominatrix phase of Marrissa's career. There's been a fundamental shift in the Ratliff universe thanks to Ratliff's attention to the criticism from ratmm, and it looks like "Dark Marrissa" has basically given him a big shove in the direction that his writing was already heading. Whether Ratliff's writing will still be ridiculous in other ways, only time will tell, but it looks to me like his stories just won't be the same anymore. Ratliff mentioned that the "Dark Marrissa" story reminded him of the "Where No Man Has Gone Before" man-turning-into-god Old Trek story. I can see where he would get that idea, but I was reminded much more of the "Dark Phoenix" story from the X-Men comics long ago... and maybe a little bit of the Beyonder from another Marvel series, Secret Wars 1 & 2. Did you draw any of your inspiration from these stories? As I read "Dark Marrissa", I had a feeling that part of your inspiration may have come from those comic books.

Adam Cadre... if ever we meet, I simply must shake your hand and buy you a drink. Thank you for for making us laugh at Marrissa's ego... again.

[comments by Stephen Ratliff]: Adam, Adam, Adam ... they accuse me of having no life. Well since you borrowed my characters, I guess I have a right to review your work.

Plot: The plot was well done. Tightly plotted, with no annoying tangents.

Character Portrayals: Marrissa ... well your characterization of Marrissa was extreme, but I can see where the idea came from. However you did go a little too far, but without doing so, you wouldn't have good story. We'll chalk it up to artistic license. Clara ... I haven't done much with Clara, so you characterization is valid. I liked how you used her. Alexander ... Loyal Supporting husband, you followed his base well.

General: Much as I hate what you've done with Marrissa, I have to admire your guts. I also like your writing in general, you definitely started out higher on the curve than I did. This reminds me of a Wesley story ... I think it fits under Character becomes God and the rest try to stop him. 30 year-old plot (Where No Man Has Gone Before, TOS premiere) but well done.

Pain Relief: Well you know that this isn't going to revieve my pain.

What does Stephen Intend to do about it? Well Time Speeder is under revision with the advice of another member of ratmm. A Royal Wedding's revision is almost done, posting begins in November. New stories Premier Maquis (Now Posting) and Falling Into Command, will show a softer side to Marrissa and tone done some excesses. In particular, Premier Maquis is attempting to tone down the "All knowing all powerful" image Marrissa seems to have acquired, and

Falling Into Command will be showing more of Marrissa's family life as opposed to big battles (OK chapters 3-5 is a battle, but something has to cause the family conflicts)

You know, I haven't read more than bits and pieces (very *small* bits and pieces) of the original stories, the MSTings, or this new abomination (I mean that in the best way), but I wanted to say that Stephen Ratliff has shown a lot of coolness in this and other threads. I'm not saying he doesn't scare me, mind you (most people that write fanfic like this do), but he's shown a lot more maturity (for the most part - we all have lapses) than most anyone I've seen in a similar position. Everyone, take note - this is a way to turn potential flame wars and ugliness into general fun.

Well, I read this story last night... and then I read it again. It made a *lot* more sense the second time around.

Overall, a well-written story: fast-paced, funny in some spots, deeply disturbing in others. (Certain chapters stick out in my mind as more disturbing... like chapters 2, 24, and the one where we find out what happened to Jay.) When Adam originally told me about this story, he said it would have overtones of 1938 Germany. I think Adam missed Germany and landed squarely between Stephen King and HP Lovecraft. (Adam, have you considered a career as a horror novelist?)

A few notes: This story jumps around in its timeline a whole lot, and it is sometimes hard to follow. There are many instances where the narrative changes scenes suddenly without any notice or breaks in the text. A few blank lines between scene/time changes would have helped a lot, I think.

Nifty character work with Clara on the hippie planet. It's amazing: she's been a Ratliff character for ~10 stories, but it isn't until Adam's story that she becomes someone we could relate to (or care about, even).

For those of you who missed it, Adam wrote himself into the story! Look back to where he describes the four gods on Quayqad (sp?). Every god has its counterpart in real life or in the story: Stephen Ratliff = Lat, creator of the universe Adam Cadre = Iblis, the usurper, the trickster, who infects Lat's universe with his own creations Marrissa = Manat Clara = Uzza, who Iblis has chosen to spread his creations.

There may be a parallel between Nahlakh/Quayqad and our respective newsgroups (ratmm and alt.startrek.creative) as well... but I'm not sure. All I know is that "Nahlakh" was a shareware computer RPG from a few years back. :)

Speaking of which, the Orz at the end are a reference to Starflight 2, a computer game I had a loooong time ago and never finished. It took me a while to get that ref.

I got all of the Ratliff-related references, including the line about "going into botany." Should I be scared, or ashamed, or both?

The end of the story leaves it wide open for a sequel. Did Marrissa reach Radford? What's with the appearance of the Orz? Will Clara ever be able to stop Marrissa now? I think there needs to be a DARK MARRISSA #2. If anything, it'll clear up that muddy ending... :)

That's all for now. Good job, Adam... and let me just say that you are a very strange, twisted person. :)

I really enjoyed this story a lot. I was expecting some fun, gratuitous Ratliff/Marrissa-bashing, but got a genuinely affecting story!

The only quibbles/questions I have are: 1) How did Marrissa wind up going "off the rails?" Obviously, at some point, Marrissa starts doing things that Ratliff would never approve of. It's hard to imagine Ratliff writing the baby scenes, even under duress. Did Ratliff's constant aggrandizement of Marrissa's power give her free will and independence?

2) I think Marrissa would have wanted to get a bit more "up close and personal" with the old Enterprise crew, and that could have made for some interesting scenes. Confrontation with the father figure, and all that....

3) When's the sequel coming out?

I would love to take a survey of all who've MSTked Ratliff's storys, and see how many of them have actually written a *real* story, not just attempting to lamely make fun of someone else's.. Let's see the MSTkers write something original, so Stephen can MSTked it:)

I have met some folks who are very fine editors but are not writers (or not very good writers) and know it. Nevertheless, there is a significant difference between constructive criticism--which is often useful--and the MSTing tradition--which near as I can tell, isn't useful at all except occasionally for amusement...and that, rarely. Of the few MSTings I've read, I've found them far less funny than they think they are being. IMO, if one can't tell a good joke, spare us the lame attempts. I don't write parodies because I'm not good at the genre, and at least I have enough common sense to realize it. I grew up in a tradition that has raised humor to an art form, but is quick to let one know when one's 'funny' isn't. Many of the MSTing funnies aren't funny, just stupid, and occasionally outright incomprehensible.

I'm rather insulted. No one's ever MSTed my stuff, and I suck just as bad as anyone else. <VBG>