10 ways to bring back Tasha Yar
by Matthew Gertz, copyright 1991
Permission to use and archive for non-profit purposes
granted, so long as entirity of story is included with
author and copyright information. Partial use prohibited.
Well, I went home and did some serious (8^) research into exactly how
Tasha might be brought back to life.
Can you name my sources?
(Note: these are all parodies of well-known stories, taken almost
word-for-word from their sources. I'll post my sources at some future date
just so that the writers of the stories get the credit they deserve.)
[These are posted at the end of this file -- Matt]
1. WHAT YOU DIDN'T SEE IN EPISODE 3 (the one with the fight between Yar and
the chieftain's wife).
Tasha felt the blow as the poison coated weapon nicked her slightly.
None of the people watching the fight had noticed. The poison was fast in
acting.
"I'm dying," she thought wildly. "Please somebody, anybody help me!"
She noticed that time had appeared to slow down.
A bright figure approached her. "Don't be afraid. I mean you no
harm."
"Who -- *what* -- are you?" the dying Yar asked.
"I am fire. A force of life."
"What do you want from me?"
"*You* called, child of man. And I, mother of stars answered. Take
my hands, and you will get your heart's desire. For a price."
Tasha did this. The figure assumed Tasha's form. Tasha's body was
put in a cocoon to regenerate itself, and dropped in Jamaica Bay. The pseudo-
Tasha, rising from the ashes, lives out Tasha's life, but is killed by an
evil Hefty bag in "Skin of Evil."
The cocoon finished healing Tasha...
2. WESLEY'S NEW SCIENCE PROJECT (I)
"It can't be!"
"Tasha! But you're DEAD!"
Sudden flashback: Wesley's latest science project: cloning. He raids
the ship's morgue. Alas, Tasha's body has been cremated, except her tongue
which, unnoticed, fell on the floor during the autopsy.
Wesley set about his project secretly. Of course, there were a few
failures at first (pictures flash of Tasha with two heads, Tasha with foot
coming out of left ear, etc.) Finally, he succeeds in cloning Tasha Yar.
Back to the present:
"But how is it you're alive, Tasha! Tell us!"
Tasha opens her mouth to speak. Her tongue flops out, and her eyes
bug out. "Aack! Aack! Phlllsp! Aack!"
3. A WOMAN WITH SOUL
"Back point-three-five," Data said.
"Sickbay log, stardate 40xxx.x."
Data watched the tape of Dr. Crusher unsuccessfully trying to revive
Tasha. He noticed a peculiarity.
"Freeze. Enlarge, increase audio, continue."
He watched as Tasha's hand briefly reached up to touch Crusher's
temple. "Remember," she croaked, and died.
Later in the briefing room, Data pointed out how they could return
Tasha's soul to her body. "We must go to Mt. Seleya."
"But Tasha's body is dead, Data," pointed out Picard.
Data nodded. "Theoretically, we could build a genesis wave creator to
regenerate it."
"A what?"
Data passed the record to him. Picard read it.
"Hmmm... an officer under the command of James T. Kirk used it once."
Almost at once, the bridge crew asked, "Who the hell is James T.
Kirk?"
4. CHAOTIC SITUATION.
It was Tasha.
"I'll be damned," I said. "A funny thing happened to me on the way
to your funeral."
"Yes. I heard about it." She laughed. "You ever kill yourself,
Commander Riker?"
"Not recently. How'd you manage it?"
"Wesley created a portal to another universe which I entered. I
waylaid the version of my self there, hypnotized her into thinking she was
in the right universe, and inserted a poison that would lie dormant until
the next time a burst of energy hit her. She provided the corpse. I wanted
to get to the root of the trouble we were having with plots in the first
season, and destroy it. I thought it might be better if I went undercover."
5. A NIGHTMARE ON ENTERPRISE STREET
Data smiled when Tasha walked out of the shower.
"I had this terrible dream that you were dead..."
6. NAMELESS I WALKED
[Data, Geordi, and Riker chasing after Q, who they think has kidnapped
Troi and Wesley. Data thinks he sees Q ahead in the trees, and points this
out.]
`I see, I see now!' hissed Geordi. `Look, Riker! Did I not warn you?
There is the person. All in dirty yellow-and-black rags.'
They could not see the face, hidden in a hood. At last the figure
broke the silence. `Well met indeed, my friends. I wish to speak with you.'
`Q!' cried Geordi. `Speak! Tell us where you have hidden our
friends! Speak, or I will surely make a dint in your head with my phaser!'
The figure was too quick for Geordi, and put an aikido hold on him.
Its hood and rags were flung away. Underneath, red-and-black garments
clothed the figure. At the gesture of a hand, Geordi's phaser leaped from
his hand. The phaser of Riker blazed with sudden fire, while Data's blast
went high in the air.
`Tasha Yar!' he cried. `Tasha Yar!'
`Well met, I say to you again, Data!" said Tasha.
`Come, Tasha, tell us how you fared with the evil Hefty bag!' said
Geordi.
`Name him not!' said Tasha, a look of pain coming over her face...
7. WESLEY'S NEW SCIENCE PROJECT (II)
Wesley carefully injected the glowing liquid into Tasha's body. It
would work, he was sure. At least, it had worked on Data's damned cat, though
the thing had gone crazy and attacked three officers. At least its eyes
hadn't exploded like the first corpse he'd tried it on.
He'd show his teacher who was crazy. Oh, yes, he'd show them all, all
of them who had laughed at his ideas and scorned him. Death as the ultimate
end, what nonsense!
Tasha's body stirred, screamed...
8. PARDON ME, BUT COULD I BORROW A LIGHT?
"Damn!" said Picard. "I should have listened to Worf and raised the
shields. Now this creature is attached to my ship, draining power. Should
I remove it by force, or try to reason with it?"
Tasha appeared, St. Elmo's fire crackling around her body. "Use the
force, Jean-Luc..."
9. MY BLOODY VALENTINE
"Geordi... let me in."
"Go away, Tasha," he said tonelessly, mentally exhausted by the
discovery of what Tasha had become. If only Stoker hadn't paid a "visit" to
Tasha the night before she was killed... he looked out his office window into
the main engineering room, where Tasha floated.
"It's not so bad, Geordi," and her eyes were flat and obsidian.
She smiled, showing her teeth, which shown in sharp relief below her pale
gums. "It's ever so nice. Let me in, I'll show you. I'll kiss you,
Geordi. I'll kiss you all over like Leah never did. One of us will get you
sooner or later, Geordi. Let it be me, Geordi. I'm... I'm hungry." She
tried to smile, but it turned into a nightshade grimace that made his bones
cold. Her tongue flicked over her fangs...
10. THEY FIX EVERYTHING
Worf was in the phaser firing range, working on his shooting accuracy,
when they brought IT in. It looked like a Borg, almost.
Worf watched as the figure took out its phaser rifle, normally secured
in its right leg, and proceeded to destroy every target in the range. This
done, it spun its weapon on one finger and reholstered it.
There was something familiar about the way it reholstered its weapon.
Worf followed to investigate as it left. He overheard Crusher saying, "Three
years, and we've built the perfect soldier! It can even live on baby food..."
[And now, the answers:]
In message <1991Mar20.152845.11978@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> I asked:
> Well, I went home and did some serious (8^) research into exactly how
>Tasha might be brought back to life.
> Can you name my sources?
> (Note: these are all parodies of well-known stories, taken almost
>word-for-word from their sources. I'll post my sources at some future date
>just so that the writers of the stories get the credit they deserve.)
I was glad so many people enjoyed this post; I had been nervous about posting
it (maybe I can work up the courage to post my Black Adder/ST:TOS crossover
parody). There are so many characters rising from the dead in fiction that it
makes me nervous walking by graveyards (can't dead people just stay dead?) As
promised, here are the answers to my post.
Okay, since I realize that there are some potential spoilers in these
sources, here's what I'm going to do. First I'll give a list of just the
source and the author(s), followed by a control-L. If you decide that you
don't want to read any further, just type 'n'. After the Control-L, I'll
include more detailed information about the resurrections in question.
(The problem is, what if you want the detailed info for #2, but not #1, for
example? I don't have a good solution, other than downloading this message
and having a friend edit out the parts you don't want to see).
Okay, the answers are:
1. _The Fantastic Four_ (crossover with _The Uncanny X-Men_ and _X-Factor)_,
John Byrne, Chris Claremont, et al. (multiple authors, actually) -- also
related in _Classic X-Men_.
2. The comic strip _Bloom County_, by Berke Breathed.
3. _The Search For Spock_
4. One of the nine books in _The Chronicles of Amber_, by Roger Zelazny (I'm
being deliberately vague here -- if you want to know which one and spoil
everything, read on below. I feel this is sufficiently vague since half of
the characters presumed dead in the _Amber_ books always seem to end up alive
anyway 8^)
5. The TV show _Dallas_, produced by Lorimar.
6. _The Two Towers_, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
7. The movie _Re-Animator_, loosely based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
8. The movie _Star Wars_ (loosely, anyway) by George Lucas et al.
9. The book _Salem's Lot_, by Stephen King.
10. The movie _Robocop_. Unfortunately, I forget the screenplay writer's
name.
Okay, if you don't want to spoil anything (especially the Zelazny book), type
'n' now:
1. WHAT YOU DIDN'T SEE IN EPISODE 3 (the one with the fight between Yar and
the chieftain's wife).
One of the most popular characters in Marvel Comics, Jean Grey,
aka Marvel Girl of The Uncanny X-Men, suddenly gained a lot of power while
trying to land a shuttle in a radiation storm. This power slowly
corrupted her. The writers intended for her to become 'good' again in a
climactic double-sized issue, but got a little carried away: they had her
destroy a planet while she was 'evil.' The powers-that-be (the editors)
felt that it would be wrong for her to get away with just a slap on the wrist
after this, so they had the character commit suicide while she still had
some scruples left. (At this point, the character was called 'Phoenix'.)
Eight years later, they finally came up with a way that Jean Grey
could live again. You see, Jean Grey wasn't Phoenix at all. A powerful
being had taken on her form while Jean was dying in the radiation storm, and
put Jean's body in a cocoon to heal it (the shuttle crashed in Jamaica Bay,
which is where the coccon sat for eight years). This was probably the biggest
and most complex "return-to-life" of any character since good ol' Captain
America was found frozen in a block of ice.
However, at roughly the same timeas all of this, a Jean Grey
look-alike turned up, who eventually turned out to be a clone of Jean Grey,
or some such nonsense, plus there was a daughter of Jean Grey
from an alternate future... I stopped reading comic books shortly after this.
2. WESLEY'S NEW SCIENCE PROJECT (I)
The _Bloom County_ character "Bill The Cat" had died of terminal
acne. The only part remaining of him was his tongue, found by the
science-geek character Oliver. He cloned a new "Bill the Cat" from this
tongue. (For those who aren't familiar with this series, all "Bill the Cat"
would ever say was "Aack! Phsspt!" while his eyes bugged out, which is where
that came from.)
Of all the ways to resurrect Tasha, this is my favorite. I'd love
to see Denise Crosby playing "Bill the Cat." It's also worth noting that
the character of Oliver (Wendell Jones, I'm thinking?) is a dead ringer for
Wesley. Both of their science projects always run amok. (Recall when
Oliver sythesized hair-growth lotion for his dad from Bill's sweat? Now
imagine Wesley doing this for Picard... recall the side effects? Aack
aack aack aack phsspt...)
3. A WOMAN WITH SOUL
If you didn't get this one, you are definitely reading the wrong
bboard.
The bit about Kirk was added as a friendly jibe at those who continue
to argue about Kirk's being remembered.
4. CHAOTIC SITUATION.
In the _Amber_ books, multiple alternate realities exist (they
are called "shadows." One of the characters, Caine, appeared to be killed
in _The Sign of the Unicorn_, but in _The Courts of Chaos_, it was revealed
that Caine ambushed an alternate version of himself to provide the corpse.
Since everyone thought he was dead, he could investigate the cause of Amber's
troubles.
As I recall, only two Star Trek books are told from the first person
view ("Dreadnought!")("Battlestations!"), and only one ST:TNG episode (sort
of: _Data's Day_). ST:TOS had all kinds of monologues to reveal the
character's thought (esp. Kirk and his extended logs), which I kind of miss.
An alternate-reality Tasha is probably what would happen.
5. A NIGHTMARE ON ENTERPRISE STREET
> Data smiled when Tasha walked out of the shower.
> "I had this terrible dream that you were dead..."
This is the only one which is "hear-say" for me, since I've never
watched "Dallas." There are certain parts of the first and fourth seasons
of ST:TNG which I would like to consider "bad dreams," however...
6. NAMELESS I WALKED
Geordi=Gimli, who "has not the eyes of elves," Data=the long-lived
elf Legolas, who understands men and their battles very little, and Riker=
Aragorn, since both led the away-teams 8^). Q=Saruman, Tasha=Gandalf,
and Wesley and Troi=Merry and Pippin (the Wesley/Pippin connection is
stronger, considering Pippin's "experiment" with the Palantir). The
appropriate chapter is "The White Rider," where Gandalf returns from the
dead after fighting the Balrog. My title refers to the fact that Gandalf
walked about for a time "nameless" -- he had to be reminded that he used
to be called Gandalf. Note that Gandalf gets promoted from Grey to White,
while Yar goes from ship's service yellows to command reds.
Recall the _Moonlighting_ where everything was in iambic pentameter?
I'd crack up over a ST episode in courtly language...
7. WESLEY'S NEW SCIENCE PROJECT (II)
The protagonist (?) in _Re-Animator_ tried to bring back people to
life by injecting a liquid into them. Too much liquid and their bodily
organs exploded, rather graphically. He tried it out on a friend's cat first
after killing it, hence the reference to Data's cat. Unfortunately,
revived people went crazy and were practically mindless. The movie ends
with one of the characters injecting his dead girlfriend with the liquid
(this time, it'll work). Fade to black, a SCREAM! (they always screamed
during revival), end of movie.
Judging from how many people feel about Wesley on this bboard, I felt
his attitude as expressed in this parody would be appropriate...
8. PARDON ME, BUT COULD I BORROW A LIGHT?
This one is rather obvious. Note this is rather similar to the
suggestion by one poster that Worf would create an "advisory" Yar on the
holodeck.
9. MY BLOODY VALENTINE
Nobody in the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot ever dies the final
death... this brings up the point the Tasha could come back as a
villain. This bit was taken from the part of _'Salem's Lot_ where Ben's
girlfriend tries to bite Mark.
10. THEY FIX EVERYTHING
Robocop is rather like a Borg, isn't he? Couldn't you just see it
-- Roboyar! Worf takes the position of Officer Lewis in this bit;
appropriate, since Murphy, Lewis, Tasha, and Worf are all cops of one kind
or another.