Hello, friends. Some of you have seen my crossover ideas in another thread, and have read that I write my own series in my spare time. I don't know if I'd ever try to get it published, but I wanted to see what people's reactions would be to the premise and the characters. It's called Star Trek: Mysterion. It begins in 2382, about three years after the events of Nemesis. The Enterprise-E has been decommissioned (more to come on that in a later story), and the next Starship Enterprise is about to be launched. This Enterprise-F is the largest, fastest, most advanced and most powerful ship Starfleet has ever conceived. Born out of the events of the Dominion War and the Borg incursions, she's somewhat more militaristic than past ships named Enterprise, but is still a ship of peaceful exploration. Her mission is to spend eight years exploring a good two-thirds of our galaxy, and most of the Andromeda galaxy. Given her transwarp drive, she can accomplish all of that within a few short years as opposed to many lifetimes. She greatly outclasses any other ship the alpha and beta quadrants have ever produced, and she meets her challenges head-on. Until things begin falling apart in the Alpha quadrant and she is called back home. The existence of not only the Federation, but life as we know it depends on her and her Captain. Through her voyages, we will see humanity at its best and at its worst. The crew-- Captain Joshua Zenestra--a relatively young Betazoid warrior with unique powers and a special wisdom. First Officer--Commander Christine Gallagher. A Starfleet veteran and career command officer. Ship's counselor--Dr. Joanna Cole. A civilian psychiatrist with a unique insight not dissimilar from those of her Captain. Tactical Officer--Lieutenant Commander Michael Reed. An Englishman and descendant of Malcolm Reed from the NX-01. Science Officer--Ensign Mondan. A young and brilliant Benzite fresh out of the Academy. Extremely inexperienced and fairly bookish. Operations officer--Lieutenant Rekall. Survivor of the Dominion and first Cardassian in Starfleet. Conn officer--Lieutenant (j.g.) Samuel Gabriel. Fairly young and extremely instinctive pilot. Earned rank through field commission. Chief Engineer--Lieutenant Commander Phillipp Schmidt. German-born engineer who essentially believes that his engines just happen to be on this ship. Chief Engineer--Lieutenant Commander "Fred". Part of a dying race known as Glazievers--which are crystalline lifeforms. Speaks through a universal translator. Takes over as Chief Engineer for Schmidt. Chief Medical Officer--Dr. Silva Masters. A brilliant exobiologist, surgeon and a compassionate but sad woman. Hails from Kenya. Colonel David Johnson--commander of the ship's military operations. A veteran of many conflicts as well as the Dominion War. Tough as nails soldier, respects Captain Zenestra, but is constantly competing with Commander Gallagher over who has seniority when Zenestra is not on board the ship. Lieutenant Commander Richard Owens--Fighter Wing Commander. Very cocky and has some trouble following orders, but carries it well because he's usually right. Benjamin Zenestra--Captain Zenestra's 13 year-old nephew and only living relative. Very wide-eyed with the prospect of living on a starship with his uncle, but is also a typical teenager. For a Betazoid, that is. MAX-17000--the ship's sentient computer system.
The names are purely coincidental. I can always change it. Or perhaps it could be a Final Countdown tie-in of some sort? Haha!
Her mission is to spend eight years exploring a good two-thirds of our galaxy, and most of the Andromeda galaxy. Given her transwarp drive, she can accomplish all of that within a few short years as opposed to many lifetimes. She might be able reach all that with transwarp drive, but she'll be utterly unable to explore it. There are approximately 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. Now imagine visiting each of those stars spending one day there. Okay, most star are part of binary systems so cut that number in half. How long will it take for this ship to spend one day at 200 billion stars? Just about five hundred million years. Okay, but we're only talking about two thirds of the galaxy, so more like 300 million years. Kinda/sorta. But if you presume the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, Ferengi, Borg, Dominion, Breen, Cardassians, Shelliak and Gorn each control one million systems--then you've reduced that to 290 millions years.
Your numbers do make sense, however for storytelling purposes, it will only take about three years for the Andromeda galaxy. For one thing, this is a charting mission. Secondly, she'll have two other ships with her.
Gotta agree with the person who mentioned the name. "Mysterion" happens to be the name of a very popular "South park" character, so for any fan of that show it will be impossible not to think of that when reading about the U.S.S. Mysterion. Your crew sounds interesting though. I love that your captain is part Betazoid (I assume he's part human, being named Joshua?) and the crystalline shipmate sounds really cool!
Sorry for the delay in response, but Mysterion is merely the name of the series...the ship is the Enterprise-F. Besides, I learned of the meaning of the word Mysterion long before I saw any South Park episode or character by that name. Mysterion (I'm told) means "Divine (or ultimate) secret", which is what this mission is all about--finding ultimate knowledge. And the Captain is full Betazoid. His first name is Joshua simply because his mother had a fondness for human names.
Interesting coincidence. However, what I have in mind is a tad different than the Fred on the Grissom.