If you look at it the right way, the Trek Lit universe is already a comedy
The Fall of President Zife
(based on the historical reference work "A Time to Heal")
President Zife sat in his chair, despondent. He fiddled with a set of worry beads, while Koll Azernal read over his retirement speech, correcting errors and rewriting sentences.
“'Apologeticise' is not a word, Min”.
“I just don’t understand it, Koll. Why have the loyal drones of the Federation turned against me?”
Azernal sighed. “Your leadership since the war hasn’t been the best”.
“I thought it was. I looked very nice behind my desk, I listened sympathetically when the Romulans were mad with the Watraii and the Bajorans were mad with the Trill and the Andorians were mad with the Andorians and the Watraii were mad with the Romulans, and then I furrowed my brow and said “yes, yes, I do understand”, and then I sent them all away again. What more do people want?”
“There were also several unfortunate lapses, security-wise”.
“You mean those Pincer Parasites? I dispatched half the
Palais extermination team to Bajor as soon as I could, just to be on the safe side. The rat population has exploded. We’re fighting a war on two fronts, Koll”.
“Then there was the Genesis Wave...”
Zife sank into his chair, glumly fiddling with his beads. The Genesis Wave had been a disaster, in more ways than one. Yes, okay, maybe he should have taken more care to keep the Genesis technology under wraps, maybe he should have applied extra security to the relevant records, filed them away neatly somewhere rather than leaving them lying around, but really, who could have predicted that evil moss would seize them and try to take over the galaxy? No-one had ever briefed him on the threat posed by moss. His response to the crisis had also been swift and determined. After shredding his personal files and fleeing the Federation at high warp disguised as a washerwoman, he’d received word that Earth wasn’t going to be destroyed after all (and wasn’t
that always a relief!), and had returned in time to make a moving speech about sacrifice and loss.
Personally, Zife thought his response to the aftermath had been inspired. Along with sending a private gift basket to the devastated sector, he had personally ordered all fruit and vegetables in Federation territory destroyed, as a precaution. Not pineapples, though, because he liked them. Although maybe he was being irresponsible on that count. They were so delicious, though....
He’d keep an eye on them.
“Okay, so I failed to prevent an evil alien force from using a superweapon to wipe out everything we hold dear, threatening all life as we know it. We’ve all been there, Koll! Name one
other terrifying threat that I failed to prevent”.
“There was, of course, the Selelvians...”
Zife winced, and pulled at his worry beads. He’d hoped to forget about that.
“Look, the Genesis Wave and the Ancient Pincer Parasites, those might have been forgivable. But this? You had lunch with their foreign minister the day before!”
“How was I to know he was evil?! He brought me a bacon sandwich and a cappuccino, Koll – out of his own wages!”
Everyone had thought the Selelvians were nice, friendly people with wide smiles, but it turned out that, actually, they were manipulative and evil, and they were smirking. No-one had realized this because the Selelvians had mind-control powers (d’oh!) and had been using them to influence other Federation peoples. Eventually, the crew of
Excalibur, the most aggressive and dysfunctional ship in the fleet, had uncovered the secret, a scenario involving random murders, as most reports from
Excalibur did. Somehow, Captain Calhoun had managed to reveal the Selelvian secret without excessive violence. He hadn’t even hit anyone.
“I thought my response was firm and decisive. I told the Selelvian Regent not to do it again and fined his planet two barrels of dilithium”.
“That’s because they were mind-controlling you, remember? We had to use those drugs that block telepathy and watch each other closely prior to the vote to kick them out”.
Zife sulked. After the vote was held, Selelvia had been allowed to remain in the Federation, was praised for its contributions to galactic society, and had just been elected the new capital when someone remembered that they’d forgotten to hand out the drugs. After the revote, Zife had personally affixed his signature to the official ‘Chucked Out’ papers and ceremonially applied the Presidential Boot to the Selelvian Councillor’s backside. It hadn’t seemed to help, though.
“But that just goes to show that when someone is a threat to the Federation, I remove them from the Federation! It’s what the people want!”
“Ah, not quite, Min. It’s more complicated than that. Remember last year when
Voyager came back? And you signed off on putting some of them in jail without trial?”
“That Borg woman wasn’t even trying! She was still using her Borg name, for Bird's sake! I’d already been fooled by the Selelvians!” Zife whined.
“...and it turned out that not only did people not like that violation of Federation law and principle, but the people imprisoned were the very people who could help most?”
Zife sighed dejectedly. It was so hard to win sometimes. When you trusted people, they turned out to be evil or aligned with moss, and when you threw people in jail on the slightest whim to be on the safe side, that was wrong too.
“And now this! The Klingons don’t like me, the Starfleet people don’t like me, the man who lives in my finger hasn’t been talking to me since Saturday, even though I said sorry, and I have to announce my retirement”.
"...'Service' ends in ce, not ss".
