Space Station Shows and the thoughts they inspire

One of my enduring DS9 issues, faithful reader of these ramblings, is the way the show deals, or doesn't, with what it chose to inflict on Benjamin Sisko's biological mother Sarah. Unfortunately, I never did more than rant about it and to write two drabbles. So you can imagine how savagely thrilled I was upon discovering a fantastic and lengthy Sarah pov has been written:

The Price of Prophecy

That, as the kids don't say these days, because "this" annoys me for some reason. All of it. Also, I'm impressed that the author pulls off an interesting more dimensional Prophet as well while she's at it, which, given that this is Sarah's pov and given what said Prophet does to Sarah, is no mean feat. (I have no problems with screwed up superbeings. I only have a problem when the narrative demands we're to take them unquestioningly for good while ignoring the incredibly skeevy things it lets said superbeings do.)


Because I rarely can think of one of my beloved space stations without thinking of the other: one of the most intriguing prompts at queer-fest is the question what it life as a transsexual in Centauri society would be like. I am baffled and intrigued. Given that the Centauri have many centuries of space travel behind them by the time we meet them, one would assume the purely medical side won't be a problem. On the one hand, the Romans in space Centauri are evidently a patriarchy: polygamy works only in the one man, several women direction, not the other way around, Londo (provided the Emperor, i.e. a man higher in the hierarchy, gives his permission) can divorce his wives, but they can't divorce him, and so forth. Which would point to a society where to transition from female to male is impossible (not medically, but law-wise, because it radically changes your legal status), and from male to female a social taboo because again, you change social status radically, only higher to lower. Given how status obsessed most of Centauri society comes across, this makes it likely that such operations would happen, but illegaly and probably off planet.

( More spoilerly for B5 musings on this ensue )