Marissa Picard

caption-width-right:256:Art by Tim McLees, text by Alex Fauth.

Oh brother, where do we begin?

Maybe with a disclaimer: it's important to note that this character is NOT a parody or satire on Mary Sue characters. If it were, it would be pure and absolute genius... but sadly, the author is actually serious.

With that being said, our story begins.

In late 1993, one Stephen Ratliff wrote a Star Trek the Next Generation Fix Fic to rescue the alternate-timeline Tasha Yar and redeem her half-Romulan daughter Sela, and posted it to the UseNet group alt.startrek.creative. As a B-plot, Ratliff took several of the minor preteen characters who appeared in single episodes of the series (including Worf's son Alexander) and gave them the keys to the saucer while the grown-ups were away. See, they've been playing at being Starfleet officers in the holodeck, and it turns out they all had fantastic survival times in the Kobayashi Maru simulation -- better even than Data's -- so no less than Spock himself gives the plan the A-OK.

They managed to singlehandedly defeat Cardassian Gul Dukat trying to invade Earth (with exactly one ship), humiliating him by burning "I was beaten by a bunch of kids" on the hull of his disabled invasion fleet. Picard & company bring Tasha and Sela back after swinging by The Original Series, and that's the end.

Except that Ratliff took a shine to his "Kid's Crew", and brought them back to headline his other fanfic. His favorite was the captain of the crew, Marissa Flores. He renamed her (probably not intentionally) 'Marrissa Floras', cured her canonical timid diffidence really quick, had Captain Picard adopt her after her real parents met the fate of all redshirts, and sent her rising swiftly through the ranks until she became a fully commissioned starship captain while still a preteen. Shortly before which she had been discovered to be the long-lost princess and heir of a small planet (itself apparently a colony of the United Kingdom).

And she was placed in charge of Starfleet by the time she was twenty-one. And won the Kentucky Derby Triple Crown. And was instrumental in finally bringing Picard and Doctor Crusher together. And... well, Marrissa doesn't like overly long titles.

Just read the stories. Most of them can be found MSTed here and here. The Fan Fiction Critic has reviewed Field Trip and Enterprized.

Absolutely no relation to Marrissa Roberts.

Tropes:

 * Adults Are Useless: Although, technically, anybody not named Marrissa is useless. People over the age of twenty-one might as well be marooned on ice-floes. Or simply euthanized, like in the novel version of Logan's Run.
 * Babies Ever After: After a hefty dose of Pair the Spares, everyone (including Marissa and Dr. Crusher) gets busy cranking out as many offspring as they can.
 * Captain Obvious: In chapter four of "Enterprized", it's stated repeatedly that two members of the landing party with the same last name as Marrissa (spelled wrong, but hey) have been killed and Picard even tells Riker he'll be the one to tell Marrissa the news. Apparently, Ratliff thought the subtext wasn't obvious enough, so he ends the chapter with an author's note helpfully explaining that "Lt. and Ensign Floras" were Marrissa's parents. And no, it's not explained which was her father and which was her mother.
 * Celebrity Paradox: Averted. In "Time Speeder", we find out that all records of the Star Trek franchise were classified as Top Secret once "reality" started following "fiction".
 * Chewbacca Defense: In "Premier Maquis" (the one with the Ratliff Gas), Marrissa gets assigned to defend Ro Laren in her court martial for defecting to the Maquis ; Marrissa's main argument is that Ro resigned from Starfleet before defecting, and should therefore be tried as a civilian. She wins the case.
 * Completely Missing the Point: As You Know, the Kobayashi Maru exam was a Secret Test of Character to force cadets to learn how to deal with failure. How long they survive is thus completely, utterly meaningless. In these stories, Marrissa and other Kids' Crew members trade their survival times in the exam with each other like it's their Power Level.
 * Crossover: One short involves Marrissa and friends playing Sailor Scouts in a Holodeck simulation. Wesley is Tuxedo Mask. Remember, in these stories he's her stepbrother.
 * Also, the Big Lipped Alligator Moment mentioned on the YMMV page.
 * The Danza: the name "Flores" was simply the last name of the actress originally portraying the character in the Star Trek:The Next Generation episode "Disaster," presumably since it was a one-time appearance and so there was no need to invent a fully-fictitious name. (Little did they know....)
 * The actress, Erika Flores, later played Colleen Cooper for the first two-and-a-half seasons of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and appeared in an episode of House and of Love Boat: The Next Wave. Coincidentally, her sister is named Melissa Flores.
 * Does This Remind You Of Anything/Significant Anagram: The Naklab system, with M-class planets Nevolsia, Troac, Sobnia, and Bresa. Troac and Bresa are fighting over Sobnia. Marrissa, aged fourteen, negotiates a system-wide 'tready' by locking the ambassadors into the conference room and refusing to let them out until they behave.
 * There's also a rather pathetic enemy race called the Trakce, who seem to exist solely so that Ratliff can take thinly-veiled potshots at somebody named Eckart.
 * Everything's Better With Princesses: At the same time it's discovered that Marissa is the Princess and Heir to the Throne of the planet Essex, her best friend Clara is also revealed as a Princess of the same planet. Note that until then, these two have absolutely no connection beyond both their families just happening to serve aboard the same starship.
 * Fairytale Wedding Dress: In "A Royal Wedding", the train on Marissa's wedding dress is 45 feet long. (And she doesn't have time to take the dress off before she has to get back in her starship's command chair and blast some Romulans.)
 * Feudal Future: In case you missed it the first time, Marissa Amber Flores Picard Gordon is Princess and Heir to the Throne of Planet Essex.
 * Takes a massive level in hilarity when you realise (as Ratliff evidently didn't) that the actual county of Essex is otherwise considered basically the UK version of New Jersey. Especially in terms of blonde teen girls.
 * And from there, the joke comes full circle.
 * Ratliff seems to have a heavy obsession with noble titles, focusing heavily on them in the stories where they come up.
 * Fix Fic: The fanfic that started it all, "Enterprized", mainly revolved around rescuing the alternate-universe Tasha Yar who was Sela's mother; Marrissa and the Kids' Crew were the B plot.
 * Forgotten Phlebotinum: In "A Gul's Revenge", and again in "A Battle for Bajor", a Cardassian ship fires torpedoes at Marrissa's ship. She grabs the torpedoes with her ship's tractor beams and hurls them back at the Cardassian ship, disabling it. Needless to say, the Cardassians never adapt to this game-changing tactic, and no other Starfleet captains ever use it.
 * Hate Fic/Dark Fic: Ratliff's stories have inspired a few full-fledged Hate Fics, including one written by Adam Cadre where Marrissa embraces the role of the Eldritch Abomination "Manat". (See also: Offing the Offspring, I'm a Humanitarian.)
 * A great number of Ratliff parodies, Hate Fic and otherwise, can be found here. The Manat hate-fic is "Dark Marrissa #1: The Master Builders." An even more disturbing hate-fic titled Marrissa Pays Off Karma used to be linked from that site, too, but has since been removed at the author's request.
 * Humiliation Conga: Carving graffiti into a Cardassian ship with the Enterprise's phasers. Also, routinely the fate of any adult who dares question why the hell a bunch of kids are allowed access to the most sophisticated equipment Mankind has ever devised, in the most dangerous mileu possible.
 * Improbable Age
 * In the Past Everyone Will Be Famous: Yes, Marrissa gets to meet Bill Clinton and Prince William...
 * Mandatory Motherhood: At least half of the saga is devoted to domestic Soap Opera, in which Ratliff, with all the dedicated enthusiasm of a 50's women's magazine writer, sets about pairing up his characters and starts them popping out kids just as soon as they finish puberty themselves.
 * Meaningful Name: Guess what happens to Ensign Throwaway?
 * Though certainly a coincidence, the name "Marissa" sounds remarkably like "Mary Sue."
 * MS Ting: The format most new readers find them in. Ratliff himself has MSTed some of these fics...
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted in "Time Speeder," in which Wesley Crusher courts Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea then becomes the first captain of NASA's first manned interstellar mission, falls through a wormhole and arrives in the 24th century, where she and Wes marry. After she purchases a suitable wardrobe, of course. She shows up later as a Starfleet captain, new daughter in arms, joking that "Wes" doesn't like her spending so much time on the bridge now that she's a mom. Not making any of this up, folks.
 * OC Stand In, Possession Sue: The original "Marissa Flores" character and several of her compatriots were in only one episode ("Disaster") and didn't get that much development there. Clara, her sycophant toady loyal best buddy, was featured in the episode "Imaginary Friend".
 * Old Shame: Ratliff has since admitted he regrets writing "Time Speeder". Unfortunately, he chose to try to revise it rather than totally erasing it from existence.
 * Only Fatal to Adults: The trope frequently invoked to let the Kids' Crew into action. Most infamously, a sleep gas the Maquis used which didn't affect anyone under the age of fifteen, a.k.a. "Ratliff Gas".
 * Out of Character: Oh boy howdy yes. Does Picard of the source material look like the kind of fella who would adopt? Also, does Riker strike you as the type who would constantly let himself be pwned by a twelve-year-old? Would Worf really be that concerned about ensuring 'Alex' gets his 'Uncle Kurn' a birthday present?
 * Last but not least, did the original shy, timid Marissa Flores herself, seem anything like Ratliff's Mary Sue bastardized homunculus of her? Are we supposed to believe that one incident of coping with a difficult and dangerous situation would turn her into a teenage superhero, rather than simply landing her in trauma-therapy?
 * Overranked Soldier: Guess who?
 * Pair the Spares: Picard marries Dr. Crusher. Marissa marries Jay Gordon. Alex Rozhenko (Worf's son) marries Clara Sutter. Wesley marries Chelsea Clinton.
 * The Pope: In "A Royal Mess, Part 2", The Pontiff shows up in his own starship and blasts some Romulans. He later makes a few other appearances along the same lines.
 * Red Eyes Take Warning: In the Marissa parody fic Borged to Death!, Marissa's eyes glow red whenever she gets very, very angry.
 * Red Shirt: Ensign Throwaway, in both Ratliff's original draft of Enterprized! and his later rewrite.
 * Rouge Angles of Satin: Abandon hope, all ye grammar nerds who venture in here. Ratliff's defensive disclaimer -- 'All spelling errors are to be ingored' -- has reached near-Memetic Mutation status in certain circles.
 * His first story, "Enterprized" (yes, he even misspelled the name of the ship), actually declares in the header that "Spell checker is down," as if a spell checker were an independent piece of hardware and Ratliff's was on the fritz.
 * Ratliff did eventually get a spelling checker, but there's a big difference between a spelling checker and a grammar checker. More than once, a character answered yes by saying "of coarse."
 * Sdrawkcab Name: The Naklab system. And the Trakce race.
 * Spinoff Babies: Eventually, the Enterprise and the rest of Starfleet get entire "back-up" crews of preteens.
 * Time Travel: In "Time Speeder".
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Marissa loves anything strawberry-flavored, particularly strawberry juice.
 * You Meddling Kids: According to one of Ratliff's stories, the minimum age to join the Kids Crew is five years old. (This is the same Kids Crew that frequently has to take command of the starship and engage in firefights with Romulans.)