Star Trek

The door to his cabin whooshed open and in stepped Yeoman Rand as though it were her stateroom.

"Yeoman, I told you to knock!" Kirk protested.

"Oh please. What could you be doing that I haven't seen before?"

The ships Captain opened his mouth and raised an index finger to insist, but Rand who had not looked up yet from the report pad she had brought him spoke, "Coffee maker? You know I'd be happy to bring you real coffee... made with the replicator..."

Completely off the subject of violated privacy and who is the one actually in charge, Jim immediately thought how ironic it was that replicated coffee could be thought of as more real than the actual real stuff.

"What is it, Janice?" he said defeated. It was complicated, their relationship. She had gone from seductress when she first came aboard to fussy mother hen... and at least he was more comfortable with the fussy mother hen... so he gave in.

"Consumption reports... need your authorization."

"Ok. And remind everyone about the briefing at 0800."

"Will do, sir. Anything further?"

No. Heavens no. Just go. His expression was dismissing. She smiled to herself and left after the Captain signed the pad.

Janice Rand was a complicated individual. She was a Starfleet lieutenant serving onboard in an enlisted person's position for having dipped into the admiralty one time too many. She was brilliant, athletic, and beautiful... but she had a taste for powerful men... thought not in some traditional relationship form.

She was an achiever but her taste in romance often got her demoted at the insistence of a betrayed commander's wife. She was a few years older than Kirk, and would have been second or third officer aboard by the time she got shipped out to the Enterprise at the behest of Admiral Halsey's wife...

In her mind it was putting a horrible female on a laughingstock starship since the reputation of the Enterprise and her rookie senior officers and cadet commanding officer for him to have to deal with. She was right about him having to deal with it because Rand chased Kirk from day one until the transition to fussy mother hen compromise was reached.

Admiral Pike tried to fend off the ill reputation of the Enterprise in higher Federation circles. Repeatedly stating that the crew was extra brilliant and higher achievers than most and should not have been held back to rigid standard of time in rating or service. But the traditional views on seniority prevailed. And the Enterprise maintained its crew but was relieved of its flagship status and was assigned deep space patrol out in the outter rim territories.

This was fine by Kirk who grew board with the dreary day to day life on the beaten path of Federation space. It was police work. He wanted to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

There was no chance of that in Federation space. And the assignment to the territories would take five years most of the time being spent working their way out to them. Space is quite vast. Even with warp technology it took several months to reach the outer rim territories by direct transit. Enterprise was to patrol along the way... filing in vast regions of space passed over along the way.

It was akin to the old earth highway system which enabled travelers high speed access to great distances passing by unexplored towns and neighborhoods along the way. Enterprise would explore those towns and neighborhoods along the way.

It had been several months since Spock Prime was seen by any of the Enterprise crew. It was distressing to Uhura to have happened across a subspace comlink that indicated the older version of the man she adored had been whisked away to a think tank for poking and prodding. She was not supposed to be monitoring the channel she overheard it on, but was bored. Her brilliant mind and keen ear had to have stimulation on the long dreary bridge watches in transit between starsystems. She broke the security encryption code to pass the time and listened in. This was what she did a year earlier when she intercepted the communicae that the Klingon fleet had been destroyed. Kirk considered it one of her many assets and to his benefit having her on his main bridge shift.

In her stateroom, she shared informed her lover, "I broke the encryption code again."

"Not again."

"Yes. Again." She snapped.

"Your future self has been imprisoned," her face twisted with emotion of the thought and how it actually sounded to speak the words.

"Imprisoned? Are you certain?"

"Yes. He has been taken to Ursa Minor for observation."

"Observation for what?"

"I don't know exactly. But the gist of the comlink was that he is the only 'substance' from the other universe."

Spock straightened up. Few knew of the Vulcan science school's discovery that time travel is not a journey through time but a transfer from one universe to another. It was classified since it was also determined that such transfers would have ill effects on the universe by alterations. The presence of everyone and everything from Prime's universe already altered the contemporary universe.

Getting up he started for the door. "Where are you going?"

"I am going to request a briefing with the Captain. Please be there at 0800 tomorrow morning." The pocket door whooshed open and he stepped through and the door closed.

Warp theory was far more fascinating to Montgomery Scott than warp lab. In application warp drive was a matter of mechanics and some astrophysics with a sprinkling of cosmology. Scott often poured over warp engineering journals to amuse himself with the stupidity that passed as scholarship; with myth that passed as theory; to settle how his own work and journals were scoffed at... until Admiral Archer placed his hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye and said, "I believe in you, Mr. Scott. You remind me of a close friend, an engineer I worked closely with to get my father's engine design out into the fleet."

Archer was not too keen on risking his beloved beagle Lancelot in the trans-planetary beaming experiment, but he did believe in this young genius and the figures all added up. Had Scotty factored in the motion of space, the experiment would have gone off without a hitch. But alas, Lancelot was to become another passed on beagle in the Archer home besides Einstein and Porthos.

The biggest laugh he got was from the theory that warp speed was the fastest speed... how at some point (factor 10 in the theory journal) meant being everywhere at once... he nearly laughed himself into choke lock and almost pressed the intercom switch to cal to sick bay for help.

So... this speed... factor 10 or whatever... makes one omnipresent???

Foolishness in the minds of men. Ancient scholar Anthony Campollo once quipped, "It's amazing to me the detail and depth brilliant minds will go to in order to defend a stupid idea."

Captain Finnegan turned to his first officer Commander Gary Mitchell at the report planet 5 of system L375 had just erupted into rubble. In all their years in Starfleet they had not seen such a display of utter devastation and destruction with the star still intact.

"Alert all ships in the vicinity," he said.

"Subspace freqs all jammed." Mitchell said.

Starbase 111 was a spacestation capable of warp travel. However it would take over a day to prepare for deployment. L375 was too close for comfort as far as base commander Finnegan was concerned.

"Better fire up the furnace before this is a sticky wicket we can't get away from. Engineering staff to alert!"

The underside of the main mushroom top of Starfleet space bases was a large ringed warp field generator based on the old Vulcan warp technology. It was determined that technology would be preferable embedding the ring as a structural support deck for the stations largest superstructure rather than have bulky nacelles protrude from the station which would only be used in transit and would serve no other purpose.

Finnegan ordered the reactor lit off and prepped for warp transit. He had his communications corp work round the clock to inform Starfleet Command they were bugging out. It was a major thing to ¿move a Starbase. And it would insure traffic lanes were clear. But the jamming persisted and no external communications were possible.

"Warp capable in four hours," Navigator Wilson said. Gary Mitchell oversaw the operational preparations for transit from the main bridge... which was itself only operational for the transits. Once in place, the space base was run from command operations centers throughout depending on whose watch it was. It was more efficient for traffic of personnel and materials to have multiple control rooms that shifted with each alternate crew.

"Very well. Captain Finnegan, w minus four hours."

"Acknowledged."

The gist of the space base is that the very stardrive it was powering up to flee from trouble was what attracted the Doomsday machine to their position and destruction with only an hour to spare before their warp drive was fully online.

THE PLANET KILLER IS APPROXIMATELY 50 MILES LONG MADE OF CORE DEUTRONIUM... formed in the center of class J stars... probably weighs as much as the planets it chops into bits...




Wow! I wouldn't want that to fall on my toe!

TOS 2nd Pilot

Feeling my age today. I was 5 years old when this episode first aired, and ST was not a big event in our home... middle class America in the mid 1960's where the black and white TV was often tuned to other things opposite TOS until the show was canceled and later syndicated. Then it was on our TV all the time. On the independent channel mostly (UHF).

For love of Trek I spent many years in the future... in my mind anyway... drafting scripts that were bad but all there was during the non Trek years between TOS and movies and long before TNG... Now I am reflecting on the past... the era that second TOS pilot was filmed in.

It was a different world. Even in Hollywood. And the scenes of the pilot were all new. Nothing at all was familiar or old hat or standard procedure. It really was going boldly where no man had gone before that little television show on the shoe string budget back when variety shows filled the air waves, musicals were still at the box office, and the world around us had a common sense and common decency about it where work was abundant jobs were plentiful and a general "can do" spirit prevailed despite the turmoil of the 1960's.

Kennedy, our President was assassinated then in recent memory, as was his brother a US Senator, and a civil rights leader and the race clashes and military draft revolts and protests over the Vietnam war... these were still ever present but not all consuming as some historic revisionists would have you believe.

Generations and decades tend to overlap. The hippie movement prevailed in larger cities (and even then only percentage wise). Most of America was still culturally in the inertia of the 1950's by the time 1970 rolled around... two years into the moon landings... which all of the 1960's was in preparation for with the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo programs.

The cold war with the USSR was in full force, and Communist China flexed its muscle often. Most of America cringed at the sight of Haight Ashbury scenes and Jimi Hendrix psychedelic acid nightmare tales... Sunday dinner, after a day with the family in the park picnicking... schools sports... eating all meals at home at the table at "dinner time" extracurricular activities scheduled around such and not vice versa...

It was a different world.

Some would say it is a better world today. Less inhibited. Perhaps. But it is also a lot less secure. Psychologists say children need boundaries. They may react to them poorly at the time for their restrictiveness. But in them they find security (like the fence around the school grounds. Children will play right up to the edge of the property where there is a fence. Where there is no fence, children tend to huddle almost herd like well away from the edge of the property.

I am beginning to feel adults are that way too. This is what (if nothing else) the rule of law is all about. And morals. And faith, and not allowing cut throat greed to roll over everyone and everything in its path... as we have since 1980...

Now we have an America whose credit card economy has surpassed its credit limit... industry and textiles are gone. Farmed out to the slave labor nations and imported back here to sell to the American consumer... a thinning breed as the jobs are gone and unemployment is running out and insurance which was to help ease economic short falls actually became the biggest cause of financial short falls in the history of man kind.

We just haven't realized the reality of it yet because we are throwing play money at the problem until the perceived worth of that money meets with stark reality that since it is not backed with a tangible standard like gold (etc.) it is only play money.

People lose everything. And snap like that fellow in Texas yesterday who lost everything and snapped.

In Star Trek "history" earth enters a dark age around this time... prophecy? or just observation...

As I said, I am feeling my age and remembering the way things were when they were different... sparked by this ancient episode of Star Trek 44 years ago...

To younger generations that would be like the 1930s were to my generation growing up. I couldn't imagine 5 TV series and 11 movies based on the old Buck Rogers serial movies...

 

Quote (johnd777 @ Jan. 27 2010, 12:48 am)

Relay beaming via the subspace buoy net... could beam a person across the galaxy as long as there are buoys and relays along the net and the intergalactic beaming could be platform to platform or through the galactic singularity center to any place in the universe... GET DOWN! And get me a towel! And then a sandwich.

Montgomery Scott frowned over the readings on the board before him. Gentle clicks and buzzes assured him the system was up and running. He bite on his knuckle as the readings persisted. Not at all what he wanted to see.

It seemed he was doomed to be banished to some isolated part of the galaxy his whole life since he developed transwarp beaming. But now that isolation was in the distant galaxy GCN1-21 05 in the Subaru Quasar Cluster. The experiment Scott was undergoing would eliviate the need to use the galactic center of galaxies as a power source to power intergalactic beaming... like the transport that brought him to the Subaru cluster... named after the 21st century discovery of the largest quasar and largest black hole known to science.

He was trying to develop a containment for an eruption the size and power of a supernova in an area the size of a Starship carrier. His operation was on a planetoid near the galaxy center and in orbit at his disposal was a supertranswarp equipped starship the Lexington.

It was quite boring to both Scott and the crew of the Lexington. But Starfleet put it on its highest priority once the Romulans joined the extra stellar community and several skirmishes ensued at the galactic center... and the threat of the Borg laying traps there to assimilate travelers put a quick end to what would have otherwise been a golden age in Federation outreach to every corner of the universe.

Captain's log star date 1415.8

While transiting starsystem Cygnus 500 Commander Spock detected unusual sensory readings emanating from the starsystems lone planetary body, Kurogos. A lifeless gas giant so devoid of life or energy fluctuation that the consistency of its nocturon gas composition is absolutely the same over the entire planet.

We will investigate the readings. I anticipate no delay in our scheduled rendezvous with the Potemkin.

"Chasing after a hick up on your sensors?" McCoy said arms folded... standing behind the captain's chair with his back to Spock at the science station. The complaint was aimed at Spock.

"You would do no less if this were an actual hick up, Doctor."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Only that if this were a medical abnormality you would want to investigate to insure it is nothing of a serious nature."

"Oh... I 'spose you're right. But this was something you picked up doing a diagnostic on your sensors. Couldn't that be the hick up?"

"Recalibration." Spock corrected. "ordinarily a transit through this sector does not involve short range sensor sweeps. I only did so to calibrate the sensors using Kugos as a pivot point with the navigation sensors."

"Yeah yeah.."

"Patience, Bones. We'll get there on time." Kirk said not looking up from the pad report he was reading.

"Alright. But if you were in my shoes... hell, I'll be in sick bay."

"Kurogos dead ahead, sir" Sulu reported.

"Drop to sublight and hold our position once we are within 2 AUs of Kurogos.  

Sensors sweeps revealed an object in lower polar parking orbit in the scatter zone usually unseen by navigational sensors and almost invisible to short range sensors. Long range sensors would miss such a minuscule anomaly altogether.

Spock's sensors reported a subspace anomaly where no subspace activity should take place. Cygnus 500 was well off the beaten path. Starships only transit the sector to shorten transit time to the outer rim sectors. There are no inhabited worlds in the sector or any neighboring sectors.

Checkov speculated it could be a probe of some sort from a distant sector. But it was clear only a close in investigation would reveal what the anomaly was.

Kirk ordered the ship to intercept whatever was in orbit below the  lifeless world.

An old style guard buoy launched several nuclear warheads at the ship which were easily detonated at a safe distance. The buoy was disabled and it was brought into the hanger deck. Scotty found out the buoy was defective due to age. It was supposed to warn off interlopers and only as a last resort attack them.

This was not the source of the subspace anomaly. Nor was it what was detected in orbit at 2 AUs distance. That was still several hundred thousand kilometers ahead in orbit.

Drawing closer to the object it became clear it was a ship. A very large ship. Many times larger than Enterprise in fact although it had roughly the same configuration as the Enterprise. What they had found was one of the secret sleeper cucoons of an old style starship carrier used during the Romulan War.

Starships of that era were dismantled except for these monstracities. It was deemed logical to keep them in reserves cucooned (or mothballed) in secret locations if ever needed again. It took so much time and effort to build these vast ships it nearly cost Earth the war.

Restored to 23rd century transwarp standards

carrier USS Colossus NCV 10

Since Starfleet Command was reluctant to work out the bugs in my old account... I have created this new one.

I am the one who was formerly JohnD777.

And I tried to update the Kelvin / Constellation photo before the new boards were updated...

However I do not see a switch to insaert photos...

 

hmmm

 

 

Ok

Ok

this is beta and the bugs are being worked out...

 

Great New WebSite, GUYS!!!!