Heh. Nobody likes the poor battle droids (well, Chuck seems to maybe have a bit of a soft spot for them, based on some of the Clone Wars reviews
).
Some more crossover ideas, though you could also categorize these as pure Star Trek fics:
Now, as much as people criticize the holodeck episodes at times, they do provide a convenient mechanism for having Star Trek cross over with any number of franchises, without having to worry about merging/connecting different universes.
The problem is, how do you make the stakes feel real if we know that the characters on one side of the crossover are just a really fancy computer game? Preferably without resorting to yet another holodeck malfunction, because at some point you wonder how the damn death traps are still legal to operate.
I had a couple of ideas in this vein, though (of course, you could use any Star Trek series crossed with almost any other setting, with some variations resulting, but these are just the two that seemed most compelling to me):
1. Star Trek Voyager/Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One of the characters tries out/creates a Buffy holodeck program. Could be Tom Paris, with his fetish for 20th. Century pop-culture.
Or maybe Samantha or Naomi Wildman, since we know that little Naomi enjoys playing magical fantasy holodeck programs, and "teen girl superheroes" might appeal to her once she's a bit older- I can particularly see someone with a scientific bent like she seems to have identifying/bonding with Willow or Fred.
The thing is, for (insert reasons), we get a situation like the Irish stereotype town or Moriarty, where the holograms become self-aware people. And here's where I'd pull a twist on the usual holodeck story. Rather than it being from the point of view of the Star Trek characters, at least initially, it would be from the POV of the Buffy characters.
If its Tom's program, it would start out with Buffy and company meeting Tom, the new bartender at the Bronze or something. If Naomi, then she's a fellow student at Sunnydale. Or, if still younger, a friend/classmate's of Dawn's. Something would seem off about Naomi, let's say, eventually he'd get caught up in some of their adventures. Maybe she even gets "killed" and is back right as rain the next evening. Buffy investigates and follows her into an ally. Cue Buffy watching as Naomi says "computer, show me the door", or whatever, and steps out of the ally into another world.
If it was written properly, most of the audience (unless they're enough of a Voyager fan to know who Naomi Wildman is) won't have figured it out yet. Even better if I never use Naomi's last name.
I'm not sure where things would go from their. But you can explore all sorts of interesting implications of finding out that one's whole reality is just a game for more powerful beings, that your memories don't exist, etc. Like when Buffy found out that Dawn was really made by monks out of magic energy, and all of her memories of Dawn before a few months back were fake. Only more so.
I can imagine the anger, as well, at finding out that every horrible thing you remember happening to you is a game for someone (albeit someone who had no idea that you were or would ever become an actual person). I could see Buffy, especially early Buffy, trying to quit, because she doesn't really want to be a Slayer, and it doesn't actually matter now, does it? Later Buffy would probably just have a flat-out existential crisis, I expect.
And then ethical questions like "Do we try to reprogram the program so that, say, vampires don't exist(especially once Willow inevitably figures out how to hack the holodeck, probably with the help of magic)? Or is it wrong to make changes that will erase/effect other peoples' reality, without discussing it with them? Do we try to leave the holodeck via mobile emitters, or stay in our familiar world, which at least seems real to us?
Matrix references probably inevitable, since this is a show about a pop culture-savvy late '90s/early '00s American teen.
I can also see some interesting interactions between Seven and Angel/Spike, given the parallels between being assimilated into the Borg Collective and vampirism.
For the other one...
Star Trek: TNG meets Game of Thrones.
Mostly because I want to see the clash between Picard's/the Federation's idealism and Worf's honour, and some of the more... unpleasant aspects of GoT. I've said it before and I'll say it again: contrast is at the heart of both drama and comedy, and you can get a lot of mileage out of crossing over a light, fluffy series with a dark one, as long as you don't let one style dominate the other too much.
In particular, I want to see Littlefinger get the Picard Speech, full spread, maximum firepower.
He wouldn't listen, of course, but it would still be nice to hear Picard tear him a rhetorical new one (I usually dislike character-bashing in fics, but I make no apologies for my deep loathing of Littledick).
Hmm, question: would the Prime Directive apply to pre-warp sentient holograms? Presumably not, given the Irish town situation?
I wonder how compatible Ned and Worf's concepts of honour would be as well, or if they'd clash in that way that very religious people of widely differing sects tend to.
To my mind, that's how to do a good holodeck story: don't make it about "Oh no, the holodeck is broken again." Make it about the character interactions and ethical implications.
Edit: Of course, using holodecks for the basis of a crossover is nothing terribly new. I've seen it done before (with Harry Potter, for one). Though I don't recall personally seeing either of these crossovers done previously.
Also, I think I'd do the Voyager one post-series, maybe. Lets me have an older Naomi, and explore what happened post-series in the background, as well.
