Brains in a Jar - Story Challenge Announcement

Brains in a Jar: An Old Cliché Made New

(Text duplicates the first post at brains_in_a_jar - Sign Up There!)

Many classic romances hinge on the glory of the inaccessible woman who eventually allows her beloved into her heart if not also her arms. Some science fiction, however, takes the inaccessibility and elevates it to tragedy by giving one partner phenomenal cosmic powers and an itty bitty living space. Those phenomenal cosmic powers are a neural hookup to fly a spaceship and the inability to disengage it.

Being stuck in a spaceship and feeling things as a spaceship does sounds like a pretty good deal, but it would require one to have a partner who could do things like interact face-to-face with passengers. That's where the danger and romance comes in, because if one person is confined forever to a ship and the other is not, and then they fall in love, great drama will indubitably ensue.

But romance and faster-than-light travel aren't the only things here. What makes a person, beyond the physical? How do we relate with each other? When is different too different, and when isn't it?

Now, gentle reader, if you are a member of a fanfiction writing circle, you may well be mapping your favorite characters onto this matrix.

Rodney McKay, for example, would be a fine and cranky spaceship, and we already know that John Sheppard is the finest pilot in any given galaxy.

Perhaps Benton Fraser's first human pilot has to work another mission and is replaced by another, who takes his name and yet has an entirely different attitude.

Or, there's the tale of Elizabeth Bennet, whose rapier-sharp wit sends pilot candidates scurrying from her deck until she interviews Ensign Darcy.

There are as many possibilities as there are characters or pairings. If this has tickled your fancy, please sign up to write your favorite character. The stories should be at least 500 words long.

Current Timeline:
Claim a Pairing: Begins January 16; Writers may sign up throughout the challenge
Write a Story: January 22 - March 3
Post Stories: March 4

To claim a character or pairing, please comment on this post with the character/pairing you want.

If you would like to write an original story along these lines, please feel free to do so.

This will be first come, first serve, so if you decide later you no longer want to do your claimed story, please let us know so that we can make it available again.

When you claim a story, please let us know which character you are writing as the spaceship. The story where James T. Kirk is the Enterprise is a very different one from the one where Spock is a part of his ship and Kirk works with him.

Please tell anyone you know who might be interested in this challenge about the community!

N. B. Please avoid references to protected intellectual property. There are many sources which we may elaborate upon under fair use and accepted practice, but some IP owners are more stringent than others, and we do not wish to step on anyone's toes who would be discomfited.

This challenge is designed to avoid infringing on any given copyrights apart from those cited by the participants. All stories submitted for this challenge should be submitted in the understanding that the authors make no money in the writing or submission process. The maintainers claim no affiliation with any of the copyright owners.

( Short version of the blurb for linking other people to this challenge )