Crux Trek - A Taste of Crucifixion
Jollyrei's highly entertaining sci-fi adventure, 'Crux Trek - A Taste of Crucifixion' entered the forum archive as a PDF on 24 January 2018, although the launch of the story thread predated this by two months. Alice appears on Jolly's cover, which is a manipulated collage illustrating some highlights from the story. Thus the starship 'Enterprise' is renamed as the 'CFS Cunnilingus', a yellow Ford Mustang represents the ship's shuttle craft, piloted by the unqualified Ensign Barbara Moore (with a little help from Siss) and the three crucified girls represent Lieutenant Commander Eulalia, Yeoman Messaline and a native Cruxian named Melia.
The triple crucifixion shows Arkady's Raimonda flanked by Makar models Alice and Inga. Raimonda is well known as Messa's photo manipulated alter ego, and Alice has appeared as Eulalia in at least two previous stories, so I interpret Inga as the representation of Melia. In fact, Jollyrei links Eulalia and Alice, albeit as separate individuals, in a direct reference in Chapter 1 -
“Have I ever told you about Alice?” Bobinder asked Eulalia. “She was very physically expressive and…” Eulalia let out a loud groan and her whole body twitched and stiffened.
The crux element of Jolly's cover design is conceptual, since the crucifixions actually take place on the surface of the planet in the background. The scene of the three crosses is compressed, so that they almost form a single structure. The figures are subtly blended into the background, with slight transparency, allowing the constellations to shine through the bodies. Relative scale is unimportant. Only Inga presents any compromise in this respect, but a commendable degree of consistency has been achieved in the colour and tone balance between figures from diverse sources.
Since 'Crux Trek' predates Wragg's 'For the Love of Alicia', I have congratulated Jolly on achieving a first in referencing Alice in a Cruxforums story
and including her in the cover illustration.
However, this is not a story about Alice, and her appearance is incidental to the plot. The solitary reference and the cover illustration mark the full extent of her involvement in the PDF version of the story. This contains twelve chapters, although the story thread runs to 26 pages, most of which constitute comments by members, many of whom are featured in the action.
Consequently the thread contains numerous illustrations above and beyond those directly illustrating the story.
As a Star Trek parody, it seemed appropriate for the ship's Doctor Bobinder to be represented by the late DeForest Kelley, and so my own comments and illustrations made the most of this opportunity. A significant sub plot describes the effects of a holodeck malfunction, which sees hologram characters leaking out and reappearing in various parts of the ship. In an early thread contribution, the first such intrusions into Dr. Bobinder's cabin are Cupid and Psyche from the 1891 painting by Annie Swynnerton, in response to Jolly's line -
"Dr Bobinder please stand by for preliminary psyche evaluation."
Hence my comment -
'Aye aye, Commander - Cupid and Psyche are getting it on in my cabin right now - any chance of fixing that leak on the Holodeck?'
Not satisfied with this initial intrusion, my subsequent comment has Captain Wragg trying to placate Dr. Bobinder regarding the problems of accommodating the hologram figures which are gradually filling his cabin -
'Sorry Bob, we just don't have any spare cabins.
Besides, they're holograms - they don't take up any space.
Just try to ignore them - don't get distracted...'
The hologram of Alice, studying the computer screen with the ship's officers, appears courtesy of Femjoy, from Valery Anzilov's Crimean series, 'Sea Breeze.' The Eulalia connection lingers in this scene, since the same pose was previously used to illustrate Eul in her own story, 'Lassie-Hunting in the Northern Forest.' I could not resist the character interaction in which Alice mimicks the doctor's pose and expression.
Messaline contributed even further delightful confusion to the scene by inserting the character of Commander Rodent (her favourite squirrel) perched on Alice's shoulder and announcing his arrival with the words, 'Hum - Hello!'
Another plot device by Jollyrei concerns the use of a crux elixir, to which Dr. Bobinder hopes to find an antidote. Quoting from the story -
“Look,” said Bobinder, “if we’re all done here for the moment, I managed to get some of that Cruxian tonic they give the crucifixion victims to make them feel pleasure and orgasm to death. I want to analyse it and see what I can find out about it. Maybe make an antidote.”
Naturally, I could not resist expanding Jolly's text in order to introduce a further encounter between the ship's doctor and the hologram of Alice, still occupying his cabin -
“Look,” said Bobinder, "You understand this analysis may take some time - I will have to make some tests... in my cabin... you know, the one where all the holograms hang out... okay."
Again the portrait of Alice is taken from Valery Anzilov's 'Sea Breeze' shoot for Femjoy. Quite how she reacts to the doctor's attentions here is left open to speculation. As for the story itself, no more spoilers - it is well worth reading in its entirety in either the PDF or the thread -
http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/crux-trek-a-taste-of-crucifixion-by-jollyrei.616/
http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/crux-trek-a-taste-of-crucifixion.6460/
