ST/KM: Two Thousand Years of Heroism by miacis83

Recommended BGM: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELpVA…
(The song is "Nightingale" by Yanni Chrysomallis, from the "Tribute" concert at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.)

Like the previous drawing of my "Star Trek" fan character, Captain (later Fleet Captain) M. Tobias Sun of the starship U.S.S. Farrington (NX-2010), this is not my work. It was done by , who has been kind enough to draw a number of commissions for me over the last half year, including finally creating my character's actual physical design for the very first time ( fav.me/d5nm9t4 ). This time, however, I asked her to do something a little more special.

This picture is actually a crossover between "Star Trek" (or, more specifically, my "Star Trek" fan metaverse) and "Koihime Musou." "Koihime Musou" is a franchise created by the company Baseson with a manga, three anime series and at least three visual novel games, the first of which has been translated into English by Manga Gamer, that takes the historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and transforms nearly all of the male historical figures into girls (something that's actually been done before in other anime) and, unfortunately, turns one poor soul (Diaochan) into a (very strange) guy. I got the first game at Otakon 2012, and then acquired and watched the anime adaptations. And although the anime doesn't come close to the original game's awesome story, I love the whole franchise all the same.

I should explain why I asked for this crossover, though. Captain M. Tobias Sun is portrayed as a distant, direct descendant of the ruler of one of China's three 3rd century warring kingdoms, Sun Quan, styled Zhongmou, formally known as Emperor Da of Eastern Wu. The Japanese refer to this great man as Sonken Chuubou, and in "Koihime Musou," the female version of him has a private name, Renfa. So the idea behind this drawing is that it's both a crossover and a portrait of my character with an anime version of his greatest ancestor, sort of like a picture of a mother and her son.

The title comes from the fact that since the real-life Sun Quan/Sonken Chuubou died in 252 AD and the character of Captain Sun isn't born until 2253 AD, ancestor and descendant are a little over 2,000 years apart. In my "Star Trek" fan ideas, Captain Sun is well aware of Sonken's legendary reputation. Growing up as a child on 23rd century Earth, he has long been internally tormented with doubt that he, one of Sonken's last living relatives, could ever measure up to the great things his family had done in the distant past, feelings that continue to haunt him throughout his military career as a Star Fleet officer and captain of the Farrington.

Renfa, the Sonken of "Koihime Musou," is portrayed with a Chinese palace in the background and Captain "Toby" Sun with a sketch of his Excelsior-class Starfleet battlecruiser, the Farrington. Both characters are drawn with their swords, a symbol of their status as leaders. We were trying to go for something that would look like an official memorial portrait that would be hung up in a museum or maybe Starfleet Headquarters, so the background picked to tie the whole thing together was a starfield against a moonlit night and the two characters are arranged to try and give the whole work a sense of timelessness. I know I asked a lot of her this time around, but I also gave her as much leeway as I could to interpret the scenario her way and she did an amazing job.

Sonken Chuubou (Renfa) has a character song, "Kyoka Suigetsu," that can be heard here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps4ZwV…

Disclaimer: U.S.S. Farrington (NX-2010) and her basic backstory are the intellectual property of model builder April Welles and her work is being used with permission. "Star Trek" itself was created by Gene Roddenberry and is owned by Paramount Studios and CBS Consumer Products while "Koihime Musou" is the intellectual property of Baseson and the original "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was written by Luo Guanzhong. The drawing itself was done by .