Reassembly

Zine
Title:	Reassembly
Publisher:	Orion Press
Editor:
Author(s):	Denise Tanaka
Cover Artist(s):	Joey Rodrigues
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	1997
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: TNG
Language:	English
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Reassembly is a gen Star Trek: TNG 87-page novel by Denise Tanaka, edited by Greg Lash. Cover art work by Joey Rodrigues.

front cover by Joey Rodrigues

Summary

Romulan Commander Sela seeks revenge on the crew of the Enterprise by using the reactivated android, Lore.

Author's Note

This story was extremely difficult because, for the longest time, I didn't have a plot. I had an idea: reassemble Lore. Hmm. Then came the second idea: Romulans. Thus, I had a naturally exciting pair-up of TNG's two "evil twins," and a way to play against the fan-beloved relationship of Data and Tasha. Great. Now what?

My first ream of paper went toward what I call "Lore's Trial." Sela and Lore worked as a team to do nasty thing in Federation space. Things which, in my amateurism of bygone days, all happened off-camera. When they were caught, Starfleet put Lore on trial for his present and past crimes. Data had a chance to confront his evil brother, and so did everyone else from Juliana to Dr. Crusher. It was a parade of angry people who each got five pages of fame. So what?

I next toyed with irony. Ah, irony! The Romulans reassembled Lore but they screwed up while do it; they deleted his emotions. The android twins were still opposites, now Data was the one with feelings. This disintegrated into schmaltz fairly quickly.

Going off on a tangent, I attempted a Data-Troi romance. Don't laugh! He's undoubtedly been in heavy counseling ever since installing that accursed chip. About 100 pages into this soap opera, I realized I needed some action. So, I had Lore kidnap her and mess her up and Data had to rescue her in a fit of jealousy. Not much is useable in that box of paper, except for a few scenes. You'll know when you see them here.

With a deep breath, I tossed out everything but what I'm now calling Part One. The rest of it poured off my fingertips in a frenzy of inspiration, fueled by the mantra, "More action, less schmaltz." Finally, I think I got it right. You be the judge.

For the trivia buffs, most of my Romulan characters are old friends from the television episodes. Tebok was portrayed by Mark Alaimo, who later went to DS9 as a Cardassian, which is why I describe him as I do. For Doctor Tezhar's name, I corrupted the spelling of a well-known Japanese animator, Tezuka Osamu, whose most popular character is the good little android Astro Boy. The mineral thanatite I named for the Greek go of death Thanatos, who escorts the recently deceased into the underworld. Lastly, I chose Lore's undercover code name (again) by corrupting the spelling of a Japanese word. You won't find it in any E-J dictionaries because it means something like "nasty doggoned son-of-a-gun." I really hesitated on that one, but I told myself that if Rick Sternbach could decorate the gymnasium of the Enterprise with names from Japanese comics ("The Icarus Factor"), what I've done didn't seem so bad. And what else can you call Lore, now really?