OK, this work is written from the perspective of a 32nd century historian that lives concurrently with the current season of Starfleet Academy. He is not an omnipotent narrator, and (for the most part) I tried to limit his narration to things that would only be on the historical records (I made exceptions where character quotes were concerned. Those only had to sound cool or be relevant to the situation at hand.)
I mostly draw from canonical sources but draw from beta canon from time to time for incidental details, In the first chapter, the biggest bit of beta canon comes from The Star Trek Collectable Card Game that postulated that the Vulcan who shook hands with Zephram Cochrane in 2061 was Solkar, great-grandfather of Spock, which is something that will come up a couple of times down the line.
I did create a narrative device that would allow our historian access to temporally sensitive information (a lost TDI database that was lost in The Burn and recovered by an archaeologist), and I refer to this device whenever necessary.
The Eugenics Wars section in Chapter 1 draws from 11 sources, including the Khan podcast, which wrapped up today. I tried to work in every canonical source to build a narrative for a story that hasn't even actually been told. I don't include any major spoilers from Khan here, so you'll have to listen to it for that story, but I did include some incidental details about the EW era. You might have to squint a bit as not all of the EW material presented in canon lines up, but I went with the SNW version that made the EW and WW3 the same conflict, and that it is still in "our" future. I also contrived a reason why Khan was named after both "Project Khan" from PIC S2 and the "Noonian-Soong Institute" from SNW S1.
I intend this to be an open, breathing document that's open to correction, revision and expansion, so feel free to point out errors and challenge my assumptions.
I'll be posting a chapter a week. I hope you find it enjoyable.
The Temporal Cold War was an unconventional conflict fought between various factions, including the Federation, which had its flash point in the 29th century. However, the very nature of the Temporal Cold War means that the repercussions of that conflict rippled down through the timeline rather than forward as the various factions sought to alter or restore the timeline to their favor. Although Starfleet kept the specifics of this conflict highly classified, they kept a highly secure and heavily guarded database on these and other events on a remote database located on a secluded and isolated planetoid in the Tanoshka Asteroid Belt. After the events of The Burn, Starfleet lost all contact with the outpost and the crew that maintained it.
The outpost was recently located by noted archaeologist Philip Nigel LeBlanc. The files contained within revealed the true breadth, width and scope of the alterations made to the timeline during this conflict and other events of temporal interest. Even though these records are not complete, some of the files are fragmented due to data core memory loss of the due to damage inflicted on the outpost caused by the Burn. It is the most complete account of those events. Believing that the public had the right to this knowledge, LeBlanq released the contents of the database to the Galaxy at large, despite a Federation agent named Kovich attempting to suppress the data.
While the events of the Temporal Cold War will be covered in more depth when we reach the era in which the conflict started, this database will be referenced throughout this narrative when the events of that conflict and other events of temporal interest interact with it.
The difference between alternate timelines and altered timelines.
This is an issue that has caused much confusion, and justifiably so as quantum temporal mechanics is not an easy field of study to master, and there is still very much even today that we do not comprehend on the subject.
In short, an altered timeline is a timeline in which events have been changed through the intervention of time travelers. Our timeline, referred to in this account henceforth as the "Prime" timeline, is a clear example of a timeline that has been altered many times by time travelers, introducing changes and time loops into the timestream. Sometimes these alterations are reversed and the loops closed, sometimes they are not. In any event, even if a change in the timeline is reversed, the timeline will still not be exactly as it was prior to the change.
An alternate timeline is a timeline that branches out from another timeline due to circumstances that sometimes go undefined. In the case of the so-called "Kelvin universe", named as such because of the involvement of the USS Kelvin at the flashpoint of the creation of this new universe. The Kelvin Universe was created when a Romulan mining vessel from the Prime universe traveled through a black hole created by red matter, sending the vessel back in time and creating a new timeline unique unto itself. Perhaps it was the red matter that was the catalyst in this case, as that was certainly a unique element thrown into the mix, but even today, our scientists are unsure of exactly why that universe branched off rather than the changes being contained to the Prime timeline.
Other examples of alternate timelines include the so-called “Mirror Universe”, called such due to its extreme differences to our own. This universe appears to have split off from our own many centuries ago, and no one has ever been able to determine under exactly what circumstances this universe was formed. In 2373, the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard determined that there were no less than 285,000 distinct parallel universes like our own, with the actual number probably being much, much larger.
Chapter 1: Reaching for The Stars
The United Federation of Planets, founded on August 12, 2161 (Earth calendar), as a multi-species alliance dedicated to peaceful coexistence, non-invasive expansion, cultural exchange, and mutual trade, has traveled a long road in its near 1200 years of existence. At times, the largest, most powerful and respected alliance of worlds in the known galaxy, and at others, a struggling alliance barely hanging on to existence by a faithful few who kept the dream alive in the darkest of times. Through prosperity, adversity, war, invasion, temporal terrorism and ecological disaster on a galactic scale, the United Federation of Planets has always strived to adhere to the ideals of justice, equality, peace and progress to the best of its abilities.
It has not always been successful -- the mere existence of Section 31 since the early days of the Federation is testament to this. However, as comfortable as it may be to simply dismiss all of the failings of the Federation and Starfleet to a shadowy black ops organization, the uncomfortable truth is that at times -- sometimes with the best of intentions (and sometimes otherwise), sometimes through desperate circumstance and fear and other times through misguided ambition or patriotism -- the Federation has failed its ideals. This volume will attempt to chronicle both the good and the bad of the Federation’s journey.
But this remarkable coalition of worlds could never have come into being without the chance meeting of two very different species, Humanity and Vulcans.
Humanity
Looking at the history of Humanity, the natives of planet Earth, in years prior to first contact with the Vulcans, one would be forgiven for their disbelief that this chaotic and violent species, its planet still cooling from planet-wide nuclear war, would form the backbone of a great interstellar alliance. Yet, with the help of the Vulcans, Humanity would pick itself up from the brink of extinction and find its way to the stars.
The Eugenics Wars
The Eugenics Wars -- sometimes referred to as World War III -- was the darkest chapter in Earth’s history. Political upheaval, social divisions, and advances in genetic engineering ignited the largest global conflict the planet had ever known, leaving over 30 million dead, though some estimates are higher. Records are fragmentary and soaked in the events of the Temporal Cold War, making a precise account impossible. The following is as accurate as current understanding allows.
Augments and Khan Noonien Singh
"We offered the world order!" – Khan Noonien Singh
Attempts to create genetically engineered humans date to the mid–20th century, but the most successful program stemmed from the work of Dr. Adam Soong. Once regarded as brilliant but controversial, Soong lost his medical license and funding after conducting illegal experiments on homeless veterans.
In 1996*, Soong participated in Project Khan -- a morally questionable initiative to create physically and intellectually superior “supermen” that initially failed to gain funding. He revived it secretly in Canada with backing from the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement. Geneticist Dr Stavros Keniclius continued Soong’s work, modifying hundreds of human embryos. The first successful result, circa 2010, was named after both the project that inspired his creation and the institute that made it possible -- Khan Noonien Singh. Augments naturally possessed the strength of five men and an enhanced intellect.
As one might have expected, the Augments creators found themselves unable to contain the excess of their creations. As one scientist warned, “Superior ability breeds superior ambition,” and they broke away from their creators and waged war upon the world and each other for global dominion.
Augment women were designed infertile as a means of control, so Augment men fathered children with multiple baseline humans to preserve their legacy. Some Augments, such as the brutal Giri the Marked, experimented on baseline humans, creating quasi-Augments who joined her forces.
Khan emerged as the most powerful and charismatic warlord, ruling over a quarter of the globe, encompassing more than 40 nations. Though his forces were brutal against enemy combatants, civilian populations were spared mass massacres, despite strict control and limited freedoms. Khan believed that an Augment would one day emerge victoriously in the conflict and unite the globe and impose order upon the world. His empire expanded through a succession of brutal military conquests, encompassing regions from Kashmir to the Ryn Desert and Uzbekistan to Iraq and North Africa, and his followers obeyed his commands without question or hesitation.
The World’s Response
Free nations, already on the brink of war with each other, banded together and launched nuclear strikes against Augment-held territories. As humanity faced near extinction, some embraced Augment ideology, committing atrocities in its name; Colonel Phillip Green euthanized hundreds of thousands suffering from radiation to prevent “genetic impurities” from propagating.
Humanity Prevails
Eventually, the forces of humanity prevailed and all of the Augment warlords were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Khan and eighty of his followers secretly departed Earth in cryostasis aboard the DY-100 sleeper ship SS Botany Bay. Included on the ship were 30 Augment children rescued from a Montana facility that Khan refused to leave in the hands of a potentially vengeful humanity. Nearly 1,800 Augment embryos were recovered, preserved and eventually stored at Cold Station 12 in the Alpha Lyrae system.
Humanity had nearly destroyed itself through scientific hubris, and in doing so, learned a vital lesson about unity and restraint -- one that would shape its future among the stars. Humanity would have to learn to come together if they were to survive into the future. After the wars, genetic engineering was banned except for instances of severe birth defects. Descendants of Augments were monitored for enhanced ability, often prejudiced against, and often barred from serving in Starfleet and certain vocations.
*Professor LeBlanq’s research suggests the events of the Eugenics Wars were heavily targeted during the Temporal Cold Wars, originally occurring between 1992–1996. The rise of Khan is an event that appears to have been a temporal inevitability, with every temporal intervention accelerating the timeline (see Chapter 42: The Temporal Cold War.)
First Steps into Space
Despite the uncertainty of the times, or perhaps because of them, humanity took its first real steps into space beyond the limited missions of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. During the Eugenics War, a group of scientists sent a of group seed pods into space to preserve the plant life should nuclear war devastate the planet. The pods were successful and in fact grew so large that they were unable to be returned to Earth. Starfleet would build Starbase One around these pods.
On a manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, Dr. Renee Picard discovered a microorganism that she believed to be sentient that was instrumental reversing the damage that humanity had done to their atmosphere through rampant pollution of their world’s environment. Col. Shawn Geoffrey Christopher commanded Earth’s first manned mission to Saturn.
Earth began to establish permanent outposts and colonies in the solar system with nuclear-powered vessels such as the Enterprise XCV-330 and others like it. One group of humanity’s greatest minds considered Earth a lost cause and took their families beyond the solar system to find a new home, an endeavor that would end tragically.
Vulcan and Romulus
The history of the Nivar and the Vulcan / Romulan schism and the subsequent reunification of those factions is a history told in great detail elsewhere and need not be fully recounted here. In brief, the race once known as Vulcans experienced a phase of violent war and destruction that nearly brought the entire species to its knees. Peace was brought to the planet then known as Vulcan (henceforth referred to as "Vulcan" until after the events of the reunification) only after one faction of the species embraced logic over emotion, and the other faction voluntarily decided to seek out their fate amongst the stars. This faction would be led by a man named S’Task and settle on the planet Romulus, becoming the entity that would later become known to the Federation as the Romulan Star Empire.
The Romulan society would become based on the tenets of secrecy, aggression, deception and paranoia. Their Empire grew through aggressive military expansion and was ruled by a Praetor on Romulus and an Imperial Senate, whose will was enforced by the ruthless shadowy intelligence agency known as the Tal Shiar, which was feared even at the highest levels of the government and military. The Vulcan people spent nearly 1500 years rebuilding their world and society through the peaceful embrace of logic and science based on the teachings of Surak, considered the creator of Vulcan society through logic and the suppression of emotion, before returning their attention to the stars.
First Contact
The Vulcans had been monitoring Earth from a cautious distance for over a century but considered them a primitive species still in the early stages of development and of little interest. Still, it was sheer coincidence that the survey vessel T’Plana-Hath, under the command of Captain Solkar, was within sensor range of Sol system on April 5, 2063.
The Vulcans onboard the T’Plana-Hath were astounded when they detected a warp signature coming from a system that they believed to be primitive and war-torn. By their estimates, Earth was yet centuries away from achieving warp technology. Tracing the signal back to Bozeman, Montana, on Earth's North American continent, they discovered that the warp ship they had detected originated from the unorthodox genius of an eccentric human named Zephram Cochrane. Cochrane had developed the quantum physics formula necessary to create a primitive warp bubble and repurposed the shell and nuclear potential of one of his world’s weapons of mass destruction as the power source for a prototype warp vessel known as The Phoenix.
Fearful of a species achieving warp technology before they felt that they were ready for it, the Vulcans stewarded humanity over the next century, guiding them through recovery but holding back the essentials secrets of high-speed warp drive. Vulcan Ambassador Soval once explained this fear to Starfleet Admiral Maxwell Forrest as such:
"We don't know what to do about humans. Of all the species we've made contact with, yours is the one we can't define. You have the arrogance of Andorians, the stubborn pride of Tellarites. One moment you are as driven by your emotion as Klingons, and in the next you confound us by suddenly embracing logic. We had our wars, Admiral, just as humans did. Our planet was devastated, our civilization nearly destroyed. Logic saved us, but it took us nearly 1,500 years to rebuild our civilization and travel to the stars. You humans did the same in less than a century. There are those on the high council who wonder what humans could achieve in the century to come. And they don't like the answer."
Despite Soval’s early trepidations, he eventually became a strong proponent of humanity and their quest to reach the stars.
To The Stars…
But despite being held back by the Vulcans, humanity ventured forward, using the technology that was available to them. The United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA), the agency that would one day evolve into Earth’s Starfleet, launched the Friendship 1 probe in 2167 in humanity’s first attempt to seek out new life in galaxy, and the probe continued to transmit data until its disappearance in 2248. Utilizing warp engines that varied between the relatively slow speeds of warp 2 and warp 3, humanity soon ventured out to the stars and established colonies and trade ventures, utilizing generation ships that take years to travel between one destination and the next.
This generation of "Space Boomers" were the first humans to see what lay beyond their home system, expanding humanity’s reach and establishing colonies. These early days were fraught with tragedy and mishap as low speed ships would be vulnerable to pirate attack. Some of the established colonies thrived, such as the one at Alpha Centauri, while others failed, such as the one on Terra Nova. Unregulated first contacts caused untold cultural damage to many worlds, such as at Sigma Iotia.
By necessity, living the “Boomer” life meant spending years at a time alone in the cold void of space with one’s crew. This created a culture of family-run ships and businesses, many of which who lived the life considered to be more of a cultural heritage than a lifestyle or vocation.
Travis Mayweather
One “Space Boomer” of note was Travis Mayweather, who was born aboard the cargo ship ECS Horizon in 2126, halfway between Draylax and the Vega Colony. Having spent most of his in space on spaceships, life among the stars was the only life that he had ever known.
Mayweather realized that the creation and eventual proliferation of Warp 5 technology would herald the end of low warp speed cargo transit and the “Boomer” lifestyle it mandated. Seeing the opportunity to see more of the galaxy than life aboard a warp 2 cargo ship would allow, Mayweather joined Starfleet in 2149 and was assigned as Helm Officer of the Enterprise NX-01 in 2151. Despite his young age, Mayweather had already visited more alien worlds in his lifetime than any of his fellow Starfleet officers and was capable of piloting any ship’s system known to Starfleet.
Reconstruction
At home on Earth, humanity took to its recovery with great vigor. In less than a century's time, with the Vulcans assistance in rebuilding infrastructure, humanity had gone from a species on the brink of extinction to a species that had eliminated war, poverty and hunger. And whose technological advances continued to astound and concern their Vulcan stewards. United Earth military created the first phased energy weapons for use on Earth. Molecular transportation technology burst into the scene, created on Earth by Dr Emory Erickson. However, the most concerning thing to the Vulcans was the Warp 5 warp engine designed by Dr Henry Archer.
Warp 5 technology would allow humanity to go beyond the bubble of their home world and their relatively nearby colonies and join the galactic community at large. Despite the soundness of Dr Archer's designs, Vulcan declined in assisting in the completion of the engine, holding back vital information, and Dr Archer passed away before seeing his designs realized.
Despite that, Dr. Archer's team kept working on the project, eventually completing the warp five engine that was first used in the Earth Starfleet NX class Starship. Command of the first NX class ship, the NX-01 Enterprise, was given to Henry Archer's son, Captain Jonathan Archer, despite the objections of the Vulcan contingent.
Archer was set to command the first warp 4.5 test flight of Enterprise, a 6-minute flight between Earth, Neptune and back again, but Earth's Starfleet did not yet have any long-range missions planned -- exploration, diplomatic or otherwise at this point. All of that changed when a Klingon ship crash landed in a cornfield in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, on April 16th, 2151.
I mostly draw from canonical sources but draw from beta canon from time to time for incidental details, In the first chapter, the biggest bit of beta canon comes from The Star Trek Collectable Card Game that postulated that the Vulcan who shook hands with Zephram Cochrane in 2061 was Solkar, great-grandfather of Spock, which is something that will come up a couple of times down the line.
I did create a narrative device that would allow our historian access to temporally sensitive information (a lost TDI database that was lost in The Burn and recovered by an archaeologist), and I refer to this device whenever necessary.
The Eugenics Wars section in Chapter 1 draws from 11 sources, including the Khan podcast, which wrapped up today. I tried to work in every canonical source to build a narrative for a story that hasn't even actually been told. I don't include any major spoilers from Khan here, so you'll have to listen to it for that story, but I did include some incidental details about the EW era. You might have to squint a bit as not all of the EW material presented in canon lines up, but I went with the SNW version that made the EW and WW3 the same conflict, and that it is still in "our" future. I also contrived a reason why Khan was named after both "Project Khan" from PIC S2 and the "Noonian-Soong Institute" from SNW S1.
I intend this to be an open, breathing document that's open to correction, revision and expansion, so feel free to point out errors and challenge my assumptions.
I'll be posting a chapter a week. I hope you find it enjoyable.
A Brief History of the United Federation of Planets
Concerning the Temporal Cold War.
Concerning the Temporal Cold War.
The Temporal Cold War was an unconventional conflict fought between various factions, including the Federation, which had its flash point in the 29th century. However, the very nature of the Temporal Cold War means that the repercussions of that conflict rippled down through the timeline rather than forward as the various factions sought to alter or restore the timeline to their favor. Although Starfleet kept the specifics of this conflict highly classified, they kept a highly secure and heavily guarded database on these and other events on a remote database located on a secluded and isolated planetoid in the Tanoshka Asteroid Belt. After the events of The Burn, Starfleet lost all contact with the outpost and the crew that maintained it.
The outpost was recently located by noted archaeologist Philip Nigel LeBlanc. The files contained within revealed the true breadth, width and scope of the alterations made to the timeline during this conflict and other events of temporal interest. Even though these records are not complete, some of the files are fragmented due to data core memory loss of the due to damage inflicted on the outpost caused by the Burn. It is the most complete account of those events. Believing that the public had the right to this knowledge, LeBlanq released the contents of the database to the Galaxy at large, despite a Federation agent named Kovich attempting to suppress the data.
While the events of the Temporal Cold War will be covered in more depth when we reach the era in which the conflict started, this database will be referenced throughout this narrative when the events of that conflict and other events of temporal interest interact with it.
A Note on the Difference Between an Altered Timeline and an Alternate Timeline
The difference between alternate timelines and altered timelines.
This is an issue that has caused much confusion, and justifiably so as quantum temporal mechanics is not an easy field of study to master, and there is still very much even today that we do not comprehend on the subject.
In short, an altered timeline is a timeline in which events have been changed through the intervention of time travelers. Our timeline, referred to in this account henceforth as the "Prime" timeline, is a clear example of a timeline that has been altered many times by time travelers, introducing changes and time loops into the timestream. Sometimes these alterations are reversed and the loops closed, sometimes they are not. In any event, even if a change in the timeline is reversed, the timeline will still not be exactly as it was prior to the change.
An alternate timeline is a timeline that branches out from another timeline due to circumstances that sometimes go undefined. In the case of the so-called "Kelvin universe", named as such because of the involvement of the USS Kelvin at the flashpoint of the creation of this new universe. The Kelvin Universe was created when a Romulan mining vessel from the Prime universe traveled through a black hole created by red matter, sending the vessel back in time and creating a new timeline unique unto itself. Perhaps it was the red matter that was the catalyst in this case, as that was certainly a unique element thrown into the mix, but even today, our scientists are unsure of exactly why that universe branched off rather than the changes being contained to the Prime timeline.
Other examples of alternate timelines include the so-called “Mirror Universe”, called such due to its extreme differences to our own. This universe appears to have split off from our own many centuries ago, and no one has ever been able to determine under exactly what circumstances this universe was formed. In 2373, the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard determined that there were no less than 285,000 distinct parallel universes like our own, with the actual number probably being much, much larger.
Chapter 1: Reaching for The Stars
“Don’t try to be a great man. Just be a man and let history be the judge” -- Zephram Cochrane
The United Federation of Planets, founded on August 12, 2161 (Earth calendar), as a multi-species alliance dedicated to peaceful coexistence, non-invasive expansion, cultural exchange, and mutual trade, has traveled a long road in its near 1200 years of existence. At times, the largest, most powerful and respected alliance of worlds in the known galaxy, and at others, a struggling alliance barely hanging on to existence by a faithful few who kept the dream alive in the darkest of times. Through prosperity, adversity, war, invasion, temporal terrorism and ecological disaster on a galactic scale, the United Federation of Planets has always strived to adhere to the ideals of justice, equality, peace and progress to the best of its abilities.
It has not always been successful -- the mere existence of Section 31 since the early days of the Federation is testament to this. However, as comfortable as it may be to simply dismiss all of the failings of the Federation and Starfleet to a shadowy black ops organization, the uncomfortable truth is that at times -- sometimes with the best of intentions (and sometimes otherwise), sometimes through desperate circumstance and fear and other times through misguided ambition or patriotism -- the Federation has failed its ideals. This volume will attempt to chronicle both the good and the bad of the Federation’s journey.
But this remarkable coalition of worlds could never have come into being without the chance meeting of two very different species, Humanity and Vulcans.
Humanity
Looking at the history of Humanity, the natives of planet Earth, in years prior to first contact with the Vulcans, one would be forgiven for their disbelief that this chaotic and violent species, its planet still cooling from planet-wide nuclear war, would form the backbone of a great interstellar alliance. Yet, with the help of the Vulcans, Humanity would pick itself up from the brink of extinction and find its way to the stars.
The Eugenics Wars
The Eugenics Wars -- sometimes referred to as World War III -- was the darkest chapter in Earth’s history. Political upheaval, social divisions, and advances in genetic engineering ignited the largest global conflict the planet had ever known, leaving over 30 million dead, though some estimates are higher. Records are fragmentary and soaked in the events of the Temporal Cold War, making a precise account impossible. The following is as accurate as current understanding allows.
Augments and Khan Noonien Singh
"We offered the world order!" – Khan Noonien Singh
Attempts to create genetically engineered humans date to the mid–20th century, but the most successful program stemmed from the work of Dr. Adam Soong. Once regarded as brilliant but controversial, Soong lost his medical license and funding after conducting illegal experiments on homeless veterans.
In 1996*, Soong participated in Project Khan -- a morally questionable initiative to create physically and intellectually superior “supermen” that initially failed to gain funding. He revived it secretly in Canada with backing from the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement. Geneticist Dr Stavros Keniclius continued Soong’s work, modifying hundreds of human embryos. The first successful result, circa 2010, was named after both the project that inspired his creation and the institute that made it possible -- Khan Noonien Singh. Augments naturally possessed the strength of five men and an enhanced intellect.
As one might have expected, the Augments creators found themselves unable to contain the excess of their creations. As one scientist warned, “Superior ability breeds superior ambition,” and they broke away from their creators and waged war upon the world and each other for global dominion.
Augment women were designed infertile as a means of control, so Augment men fathered children with multiple baseline humans to preserve their legacy. Some Augments, such as the brutal Giri the Marked, experimented on baseline humans, creating quasi-Augments who joined her forces.
Khan emerged as the most powerful and charismatic warlord, ruling over a quarter of the globe, encompassing more than 40 nations. Though his forces were brutal against enemy combatants, civilian populations were spared mass massacres, despite strict control and limited freedoms. Khan believed that an Augment would one day emerge victoriously in the conflict and unite the globe and impose order upon the world. His empire expanded through a succession of brutal military conquests, encompassing regions from Kashmir to the Ryn Desert and Uzbekistan to Iraq and North Africa, and his followers obeyed his commands without question or hesitation.
The World’s Response
Free nations, already on the brink of war with each other, banded together and launched nuclear strikes against Augment-held territories. As humanity faced near extinction, some embraced Augment ideology, committing atrocities in its name; Colonel Phillip Green euthanized hundreds of thousands suffering from radiation to prevent “genetic impurities” from propagating.
Humanity Prevails
Eventually, the forces of humanity prevailed and all of the Augment warlords were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Khan and eighty of his followers secretly departed Earth in cryostasis aboard the DY-100 sleeper ship SS Botany Bay. Included on the ship were 30 Augment children rescued from a Montana facility that Khan refused to leave in the hands of a potentially vengeful humanity. Nearly 1,800 Augment embryos were recovered, preserved and eventually stored at Cold Station 12 in the Alpha Lyrae system.
Humanity had nearly destroyed itself through scientific hubris, and in doing so, learned a vital lesson about unity and restraint -- one that would shape its future among the stars. Humanity would have to learn to come together if they were to survive into the future. After the wars, genetic engineering was banned except for instances of severe birth defects. Descendants of Augments were monitored for enhanced ability, often prejudiced against, and often barred from serving in Starfleet and certain vocations.
*Professor LeBlanq’s research suggests the events of the Eugenics Wars were heavily targeted during the Temporal Cold Wars, originally occurring between 1992–1996. The rise of Khan is an event that appears to have been a temporal inevitability, with every temporal intervention accelerating the timeline (see Chapter 42: The Temporal Cold War.)
First Steps into Space
Despite the uncertainty of the times, or perhaps because of them, humanity took its first real steps into space beyond the limited missions of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. During the Eugenics War, a group of scientists sent a of group seed pods into space to preserve the plant life should nuclear war devastate the planet. The pods were successful and in fact grew so large that they were unable to be returned to Earth. Starfleet would build Starbase One around these pods.
On a manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, Dr. Renee Picard discovered a microorganism that she believed to be sentient that was instrumental reversing the damage that humanity had done to their atmosphere through rampant pollution of their world’s environment. Col. Shawn Geoffrey Christopher commanded Earth’s first manned mission to Saturn.
Earth began to establish permanent outposts and colonies in the solar system with nuclear-powered vessels such as the Enterprise XCV-330 and others like it. One group of humanity’s greatest minds considered Earth a lost cause and took their families beyond the solar system to find a new home, an endeavor that would end tragically.
Vulcan and Romulus
The history of the Nivar and the Vulcan / Romulan schism and the subsequent reunification of those factions is a history told in great detail elsewhere and need not be fully recounted here. In brief, the race once known as Vulcans experienced a phase of violent war and destruction that nearly brought the entire species to its knees. Peace was brought to the planet then known as Vulcan (henceforth referred to as "Vulcan" until after the events of the reunification) only after one faction of the species embraced logic over emotion, and the other faction voluntarily decided to seek out their fate amongst the stars. This faction would be led by a man named S’Task and settle on the planet Romulus, becoming the entity that would later become known to the Federation as the Romulan Star Empire.
The Romulan society would become based on the tenets of secrecy, aggression, deception and paranoia. Their Empire grew through aggressive military expansion and was ruled by a Praetor on Romulus and an Imperial Senate, whose will was enforced by the ruthless shadowy intelligence agency known as the Tal Shiar, which was feared even at the highest levels of the government and military. The Vulcan people spent nearly 1500 years rebuilding their world and society through the peaceful embrace of logic and science based on the teachings of Surak, considered the creator of Vulcan society through logic and the suppression of emotion, before returning their attention to the stars.
First Contact
The Vulcans had been monitoring Earth from a cautious distance for over a century but considered them a primitive species still in the early stages of development and of little interest. Still, it was sheer coincidence that the survey vessel T’Plana-Hath, under the command of Captain Solkar, was within sensor range of Sol system on April 5, 2063.
The Vulcans onboard the T’Plana-Hath were astounded when they detected a warp signature coming from a system that they believed to be primitive and war-torn. By their estimates, Earth was yet centuries away from achieving warp technology. Tracing the signal back to Bozeman, Montana, on Earth's North American continent, they discovered that the warp ship they had detected originated from the unorthodox genius of an eccentric human named Zephram Cochrane. Cochrane had developed the quantum physics formula necessary to create a primitive warp bubble and repurposed the shell and nuclear potential of one of his world’s weapons of mass destruction as the power source for a prototype warp vessel known as The Phoenix.
Fearful of a species achieving warp technology before they felt that they were ready for it, the Vulcans stewarded humanity over the next century, guiding them through recovery but holding back the essentials secrets of high-speed warp drive. Vulcan Ambassador Soval once explained this fear to Starfleet Admiral Maxwell Forrest as such:
"We don't know what to do about humans. Of all the species we've made contact with, yours is the one we can't define. You have the arrogance of Andorians, the stubborn pride of Tellarites. One moment you are as driven by your emotion as Klingons, and in the next you confound us by suddenly embracing logic. We had our wars, Admiral, just as humans did. Our planet was devastated, our civilization nearly destroyed. Logic saved us, but it took us nearly 1,500 years to rebuild our civilization and travel to the stars. You humans did the same in less than a century. There are those on the high council who wonder what humans could achieve in the century to come. And they don't like the answer."
Despite Soval’s early trepidations, he eventually became a strong proponent of humanity and their quest to reach the stars.
To The Stars…
But despite being held back by the Vulcans, humanity ventured forward, using the technology that was available to them. The United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA), the agency that would one day evolve into Earth’s Starfleet, launched the Friendship 1 probe in 2167 in humanity’s first attempt to seek out new life in galaxy, and the probe continued to transmit data until its disappearance in 2248. Utilizing warp engines that varied between the relatively slow speeds of warp 2 and warp 3, humanity soon ventured out to the stars and established colonies and trade ventures, utilizing generation ships that take years to travel between one destination and the next.
This generation of "Space Boomers" were the first humans to see what lay beyond their home system, expanding humanity’s reach and establishing colonies. These early days were fraught with tragedy and mishap as low speed ships would be vulnerable to pirate attack. Some of the established colonies thrived, such as the one at Alpha Centauri, while others failed, such as the one on Terra Nova. Unregulated first contacts caused untold cultural damage to many worlds, such as at Sigma Iotia.
By necessity, living the “Boomer” life meant spending years at a time alone in the cold void of space with one’s crew. This created a culture of family-run ships and businesses, many of which who lived the life considered to be more of a cultural heritage than a lifestyle or vocation.
Travis Mayweather
“I couldn’t call a place home unless it came with a pair of warp nacelles.” – Travis Mayweather
One “Space Boomer” of note was Travis Mayweather, who was born aboard the cargo ship ECS Horizon in 2126, halfway between Draylax and the Vega Colony. Having spent most of his in space on spaceships, life among the stars was the only life that he had ever known.
Mayweather realized that the creation and eventual proliferation of Warp 5 technology would herald the end of low warp speed cargo transit and the “Boomer” lifestyle it mandated. Seeing the opportunity to see more of the galaxy than life aboard a warp 2 cargo ship would allow, Mayweather joined Starfleet in 2149 and was assigned as Helm Officer of the Enterprise NX-01 in 2151. Despite his young age, Mayweather had already visited more alien worlds in his lifetime than any of his fellow Starfleet officers and was capable of piloting any ship’s system known to Starfleet.
Reconstruction
At home on Earth, humanity took to its recovery with great vigor. In less than a century's time, with the Vulcans assistance in rebuilding infrastructure, humanity had gone from a species on the brink of extinction to a species that had eliminated war, poverty and hunger. And whose technological advances continued to astound and concern their Vulcan stewards. United Earth military created the first phased energy weapons for use on Earth. Molecular transportation technology burst into the scene, created on Earth by Dr Emory Erickson. However, the most concerning thing to the Vulcans was the Warp 5 warp engine designed by Dr Henry Archer.
Warp 5 technology would allow humanity to go beyond the bubble of their home world and their relatively nearby colonies and join the galactic community at large. Despite the soundness of Dr Archer's designs, Vulcan declined in assisting in the completion of the engine, holding back vital information, and Dr Archer passed away before seeing his designs realized.
Despite that, Dr. Archer's team kept working on the project, eventually completing the warp five engine that was first used in the Earth Starfleet NX class Starship. Command of the first NX class ship, the NX-01 Enterprise, was given to Henry Archer's son, Captain Jonathan Archer, despite the objections of the Vulcan contingent.
Archer was set to command the first warp 4.5 test flight of Enterprise, a 6-minute flight between Earth, Neptune and back again, but Earth's Starfleet did not yet have any long-range missions planned -- exploration, diplomatic or otherwise at this point. All of that changed when a Klingon ship crash landed in a cornfield in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, on April 16th, 2151.
Last edited:
