Award Winner – Tahna Meru, Gorkon (Cochrane Award)

[StarBase 118 Staff]

Join us for another in a series of interviews with winners of awards from our 2401 / 2024 Awards Ceremony last June. Our goal is to give you insight into how our fleet’s best simmers write, and imagine their characters as well as their out of character contributions and achievements.

This month we’re interviewing the writer behind Lieutenant Commander Tahna Meru playing a Bajoran Chief Science Officer assigned to the USS Gorkon.  She won the Cochrane Award: “Awarded to Science officers who have contributed greatly to the advance of science in the midst of their Starfleet career, by staying knowledgeable about their field, participating in the community of science, but most importantly, by placing their knowledge at the service of their ship and its mission. They have performed weird and wonderful feats of scientific innovation and ingenuity, enabling their commanding officer to make those informed decisions.”

Harford: Thanks for joining us, Meru. Would you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, the writer. What part of the world do you call home and what do you do outside of SB 118?

Tahna: Hello! I’m Eris, from the southern USA, where I’ve got a tiny old home filled with books and animals. I love stories and specifically figuring out what makes characters tick, so my hobbies outside of 118 predictably  include writing, reading, TTRPGS (tabletop RPGs), and hyper fixating on video games. Sometimes I fool around with medieval weaponry for fun. 

The award you won last June was for making a great contribution to Science. Tell us a bit about writing a Science Officer. What do you do to make your duty post come alive and your sims feel genuine? Do you have any tricks for coming up with good Science jargon?

I have a background in science, anthropology specifically, so I love when sims give me the opportunity to dive in and research a new discipline or emerging scientific topic. That’s part of the fun! I think the key to “good Science jargon” is grounding your writing in both reality and Trek, and having at least a surface level understanding of what you’re talking about. You certainly don’t have to be an expert on, say, stellar formation, but you need to at least know you’re using basic terms correctly. 

It’s important to remember that a character’s background informs everything they do — it’s baked into how they see the world. Even when your scientist isn’t running experiments or coming up with innovative new answers to scientific problems, they’re still going to think like a scientist. How they view an alien city, say, is going to be fundamentally different from how a security officer sees that same place. They don’t stop being a scientist the moment they step out of the lab or set down their tricorder. They don’t stop thinking like one the moment they’re away from their papers and bunsen burners. 

What do you most enjoy about writing Tahna? Are there any specific difficulties you face while writing? How do your characters’ strengths and weaknesses synergize?

I can be very distractible, so for me the hardest part is always starting a sim. I’ll sit down and open my document and suddenly I need a fresh cup of tea, a blanket, some chocolate, the cats want attention… But once I’ve jumped that hurdle, I actually find Tahna to be quite an easy character to write. Her voice didn’t always come so naturally to me, but I suppose that’s what spending four years with one character will do to you. She’s taken up residence inside my head. 

This might sound a bit basic, but her development and growth has been, by far, my favorite thing to write about about her. I said I like figuring out what makes characters tick, and I do; I love seeing how different experiences can forever change characters, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once.  Meru was a very nervous, reserved Ensign in the beginning who thought she’d make a terrible leader. But throughout her years in Starfleet she learned to fake confidence, and eventually did that with enough frequency that she created some real confidence of her own. She’ll probably always be fairly reserved, but recently she’s been very conscious to at least try to embrace the more social aspects of life on a starship rather than running from them. She’s Chief Science Officer now, and while generally she’d much rather be hiding in a lab by herself than overseeing personnel, she’s learned to think of the more administrative duties like a puzzle, and is enjoying it probably more than she’d admit. 

That kind of goes hand in hand with the question about strengths and weaknesses, as I tend to think of them as two sides of the same coin. Being clever and reserved is not a bad thing until it makes you a hermit. Being stubborn isn’t a bad thing until “refusing to give up on people” means you can’t make the hard choices. Any strength taken to the extreme is a weakness, so my characters are always trying to find that balance. 

You’re coming up on your four year anniversary with the fleet and it looks like all of that time has been spent on the Gorkon. Care to share your favorite IC story or anecdote with us from Tahna’s time in Starfleet?

I’m afraid this answer changes daily. Tahna’s introduction to the Gorkon was as an Orion pirate’s captive, drugged and covered in ketracel-white, and that has set the tone for the rest of our time in the Fleet—trauma and fun! But as much as I love daring adventures and quiet moments between characters, the most precious moments are those of joy, like sneaking Alieth’s dog Cheesecake into the captain’s chair for a photo during Gorkon bingo, or getting in trouble with the Vedek for making a new friend too loudly in a Bajoran temple, or even time traveling with tube grubs. 

You’ve won an impressive ten OOC awards to date. Which of them was most memorable or meant the most to you?

Well it’s gotta be this one, hasn’t it! But I’d also like to shout out the B-Plot Award, as it’s one of my favorites to nominate folks for. I love seeing what characters get up to when they have free time, how friendships, relationships, and rivalries develop off the clock. Joe Starfleet Man is a pretty boring character to read, so I love seeing peeks of characters’ lives outside their duty post. 

Finally, do you have any advice for your fellow writers? Anything you’d like to share about your writing process that we may find interesting or helpful?

Remember that it’s alright to try things! Whether you’re reading a book or a sim, if you think a certain writer does description, or dialogue, or rhythm really well, break it down! How do they do it? How can you learn from them to improve your own writing? Play around, have fun, and add new tools to your writer’s toolbox. You’ll need them, because when you write, it’s like you’re trying to spoon the ocean into a teacup. Even if you follow a character for years and years you will only ever record a small portion of their life. Your written story cannot possibly contain everything you know of it, so choose carefully the details that matter and capture them with honesty. 

Thanks for your time, Lt. Commander Tahna!

You can read more about Lieutenant Commander Tahna Meru on the wiki, here!

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