Hey all,
I've been reading through some of the stories on here for a while, and thought I would put up something of my own that I have been working on. Growing up, I was a huge Trek fan as a result of my parents. During high school and college, I didn't have any time through work, school, sports, a social life, etc. Recently graduated with my amazingly useless degree in philosophy, I find myself with some spare time before I begin my real job in the fall.
I have always enjoyed Star Trek fiction, and I have discovered some very high quality fan-written stuff over the years. I've always wanted to write some stuff down myself, but have never done it, though I have been throwing around an idea in my head for a new ship and a new crew for a couple of years.
Basically, I wanted to avoid the whole Dominion War scenario, and didn't feel comfortable with going beyond that timeframe. On the other hand, the time frame between the first six movies and TNG has a lot of room for some rich stories.
Anyway, I want to explore some real social issues of the day through some Trek stories--basically, I want my writing to mean something to me. So some of the background/inspirations for what I hope to be an ongoing series. The setting is in the early 2340s, during a time of both prosperity and corruption in the Federation.
One of my favorite episodes in all of Trek is "Lower Decks" from TNG. I have never understood why the senior officers are the only ones to really get the limelight. There is a lot of rich interpersonal relations to be had between the junior and senior officers as well as between senior and senior officers. To that end, I hope for half of the main characters to be junior officers.
What first drew me to Trek is the way it portrayed the future of humanity: tolerance, intellectualism, peace, prosperity, altruism, etc. It is also one of the things I found most frustrating about Star Trek. People do not always behave in those ways. I am convinced that ideas shape societies. So I hope to examine some competing ideas in the Star Trek universe. Humanity hasn't evolved beyond aggression and intolerance, the ideas of humanity have. In the same way, there will always be those who harken back to 'bad' ideas like intolerance and hatred. I want to demonstrate the conflict between those ideas still existing in the Federation.
Enough rambling. Here is the first installment. It is still a rough draft. Another note: while I enjoy writing, typically I have written academic papers and things for work (press releases, articles, correspondence, etc.); I have never really written fiction before. So it's my first stab at it. Constructive criticism and suggestions are very welcome!
Star Trek: The Gilded Age
Episode One: To Avoid War, Part One
Prologue
Survey Mission Alpha 97228, Day 18
Pushing herself up from a fetal position on the trembling deck below her, Ensign Benazir Najibah forced herself to forget the piercing pain in her head. Wiping the blood from her brow, she slowly climbed back into the seat at her computer station in the small communications center in the middle of the starship Anaximander.
[FONT="] Ignoring the distraction of what was an almost overwhelming pain, she examined the computer screen in front of her. The distress call was no longer being sent from the Anaximander. Tapping the inter-ship communicator button on her computer, she spoke with an unusually raspy voice, “Communications to Bridge.” She waited, only to receive no response. Again she tapped the button, “Communications to Engineering.” Another few seconds that seemed to take an eternity. Nothing.
[FONT="] Ensign Najibah felt her eyes becoming heavier and heavier as the blood continued to trickle down over her forehead. She glanced at the storage locker on the other side of the small room and considered taking a few moments to address her bleeding skull. However, before she could move, the deck below her again shook violently. Whether it was an explosion somewhere in the small science vessel or another barrage of weapons fire, she could not tell.
Najibah spoke aloud, “Okay, Benazir. You can do this. No one is answering on the bridge, no one is answering in engineering. Distress call is not working.” Another, more piercing pain flooded her head. “Fix the distress call. Fix it!”
Returning her gaze to the computer in front of her, she ran a simple diagnostic on the distress call system. It appeared that it had been disengaged from the bridge. Perhaps someone had already arrived. Perhaps the captain had a reason for turning it off. Maybe they had hidden somewhere. A moment of panic set in as she realized the decision she must make: she could turn the distress call back on and hope that someone out there would come to their aid, or she could assume that the bridge officers had turned it off for a reason—and reversing that decision could have dire consequences. They had been attacked, she was certain of it. The kind of explosions which had just rocked the Anaximander must have been weapons fire.
Again she tapped the communicator, “Communications to Bridge.” More silence.
Quickly she decided the most reasonable course of action was to find out what was going on up on the bridge. The deck still shaking below her, she gathered all of her mental strength and stood from her chair. As she approached the door, another violent explosion rocked the deck and forced her to clutch to the bulkhead in order to remain standing.
When she exited the small communications room, she found pure chaos in the corridor. Another young ensign was laying on the floor, half covered by a bulkhead that had fallen on him. She recognized him, knew they were friends, but she could not seem to be able to bring his name to mind. Knowing that her first priority was to get to the bridge, she did not spare a second glance for her fallen, nameless friend.
The corridor was dark, only a few of the red alert lights were flashing; most of them were blown out. Piles of rubble and fallen bulkheads littered the corridor. As she continued toward the turbolift, she found that her nameless friend was not the only member of the crew to lay motionless on the ground. From time to time, the ground beneath her shook violently and she would lose balance. Each time, she summoned all of her strength of will to continue on. One image filled her mind: the operations console on the bridge where the primary distress call would have been deactivated. [/FONT]
[FONT="] After what seemed like hours she reached the turbolift. She whispered a “thank you” to no one in particular to find that power to the turbolift was still active. Half walking, half falling into the lift, she managed to speak the word, “Bridge.” As if nothing was wrong with the Anaximander, the lift obediently moved upward. Seconds later, the doors opened again to show a macabre scene on the bridge.
The bridge, the virtual brain of the entire ship, was as bad, or worse, than the corridors she had travelled through to get there. The room was filled with a thick smoke that made her throat feel as if it would close and made her eyes burn. Squinting to see through the smoke, she surveyed the room only to find the bridge crew all strewn about unconscious. Or perhaps worse—she quickly chose not to dwell on that possibility. The captain lay on the ground near his chair. Some members of the crew were at their stations, slumped over the computers in front of them. Others lay on the ground much like the captain.
Her eyes locked on the operations console. Its former resident lay motionless on the ground. She climbed over a pile of rubble and stepped over several bodies in order to take a seat at the station. Najibah chastised herself, The crew is all unconscious or dead! You should have re-activated the distress call from your station! Precious moments had been wasted.
Once she fell into the seat, she hit the automated distress call. Wiping still more blood from her brow, she noticed that the helm control had been transferred to the operations computer. She glanced at the helm to see someone she knew to be her friend, face burned and matted with blood, laying across the computer screen. Shaking the image out of her mind, she studied the screen in front of her. It appeared that the woman laying on the ground next to her had plotted a course but had not had the time to engage.
Unsure if she was making the right decision, Najibah shot the small vessel into impulse in the direction that had already been plotted into the computer. As the ship lurched to impulse, it began shaking more violently than she had experienced yet.
As she leaned forward on the computer screen, she felt her eyes begin to close as her mind begged for sleep. Seconds before she granted herself that wonderful luxury, a beeping noise caught her slippery attention. She tapped the button and a face appeared on the screen, a human male wearing a Starfleet uniform. She did not recognize him, she was sure of it. “This is Captain Michael Kennedy of the Starship Ambassador.”
“Captain,” she gave a huge, toothy smile. “I am so glad to see you.”
“What is your status, Anaximander?”
The pain in her head seemed too much to bear. She tried thinking through the question he had just asked but found herself incredibly frustrated at her inability to concentrate, “I… don’t know… heavy damage. Please assist.”
“We will arrive in approximately one hour. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Najibah said with a hint of anger, “I can’t remember.”
She saw the captain’s lips moving, and she knew she should be paying attention to what he was saying, but she could not seem to focus. The trembling beneath her and the flashing of the red alert lights seemed to fade, as did the sound of the captain’s voice. Soon she found herself seduced by the joy of the sleep that was about to envelope her.
I've been reading through some of the stories on here for a while, and thought I would put up something of my own that I have been working on. Growing up, I was a huge Trek fan as a result of my parents. During high school and college, I didn't have any time through work, school, sports, a social life, etc. Recently graduated with my amazingly useless degree in philosophy, I find myself with some spare time before I begin my real job in the fall.
I have always enjoyed Star Trek fiction, and I have discovered some very high quality fan-written stuff over the years. I've always wanted to write some stuff down myself, but have never done it, though I have been throwing around an idea in my head for a new ship and a new crew for a couple of years.
Basically, I wanted to avoid the whole Dominion War scenario, and didn't feel comfortable with going beyond that timeframe. On the other hand, the time frame between the first six movies and TNG has a lot of room for some rich stories.
Anyway, I want to explore some real social issues of the day through some Trek stories--basically, I want my writing to mean something to me. So some of the background/inspirations for what I hope to be an ongoing series. The setting is in the early 2340s, during a time of both prosperity and corruption in the Federation.
One of my favorite episodes in all of Trek is "Lower Decks" from TNG. I have never understood why the senior officers are the only ones to really get the limelight. There is a lot of rich interpersonal relations to be had between the junior and senior officers as well as between senior and senior officers. To that end, I hope for half of the main characters to be junior officers.
What first drew me to Trek is the way it portrayed the future of humanity: tolerance, intellectualism, peace, prosperity, altruism, etc. It is also one of the things I found most frustrating about Star Trek. People do not always behave in those ways. I am convinced that ideas shape societies. So I hope to examine some competing ideas in the Star Trek universe. Humanity hasn't evolved beyond aggression and intolerance, the ideas of humanity have. In the same way, there will always be those who harken back to 'bad' ideas like intolerance and hatred. I want to demonstrate the conflict between those ideas still existing in the Federation.
Enough rambling. Here is the first installment. It is still a rough draft. Another note: while I enjoy writing, typically I have written academic papers and things for work (press releases, articles, correspondence, etc.); I have never really written fiction before. So it's my first stab at it. Constructive criticism and suggestions are very welcome!
Star Trek: The Gilded Age
Episode One: To Avoid War, Part One
Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. ~Charles Sumner~
Prologue
Survey Mission Alpha 97228, Day 18
Pushing herself up from a fetal position on the trembling deck below her, Ensign Benazir Najibah forced herself to forget the piercing pain in her head. Wiping the blood from her brow, she slowly climbed back into the seat at her computer station in the small communications center in the middle of the starship Anaximander.
[FONT="] Ignoring the distraction of what was an almost overwhelming pain, she examined the computer screen in front of her. The distress call was no longer being sent from the Anaximander. Tapping the inter-ship communicator button on her computer, she spoke with an unusually raspy voice, “Communications to Bridge.” She waited, only to receive no response. Again she tapped the button, “Communications to Engineering.” Another few seconds that seemed to take an eternity. Nothing.
[FONT="] Ensign Najibah felt her eyes becoming heavier and heavier as the blood continued to trickle down over her forehead. She glanced at the storage locker on the other side of the small room and considered taking a few moments to address her bleeding skull. However, before she could move, the deck below her again shook violently. Whether it was an explosion somewhere in the small science vessel or another barrage of weapons fire, she could not tell.
Najibah spoke aloud, “Okay, Benazir. You can do this. No one is answering on the bridge, no one is answering in engineering. Distress call is not working.” Another, more piercing pain flooded her head. “Fix the distress call. Fix it!”
Returning her gaze to the computer in front of her, she ran a simple diagnostic on the distress call system. It appeared that it had been disengaged from the bridge. Perhaps someone had already arrived. Perhaps the captain had a reason for turning it off. Maybe they had hidden somewhere. A moment of panic set in as she realized the decision she must make: she could turn the distress call back on and hope that someone out there would come to their aid, or she could assume that the bridge officers had turned it off for a reason—and reversing that decision could have dire consequences. They had been attacked, she was certain of it. The kind of explosions which had just rocked the Anaximander must have been weapons fire.
Again she tapped the communicator, “Communications to Bridge.” More silence.
Quickly she decided the most reasonable course of action was to find out what was going on up on the bridge. The deck still shaking below her, she gathered all of her mental strength and stood from her chair. As she approached the door, another violent explosion rocked the deck and forced her to clutch to the bulkhead in order to remain standing.
When she exited the small communications room, she found pure chaos in the corridor. Another young ensign was laying on the floor, half covered by a bulkhead that had fallen on him. She recognized him, knew they were friends, but she could not seem to be able to bring his name to mind. Knowing that her first priority was to get to the bridge, she did not spare a second glance for her fallen, nameless friend.
The corridor was dark, only a few of the red alert lights were flashing; most of them were blown out. Piles of rubble and fallen bulkheads littered the corridor. As she continued toward the turbolift, she found that her nameless friend was not the only member of the crew to lay motionless on the ground. From time to time, the ground beneath her shook violently and she would lose balance. Each time, she summoned all of her strength of will to continue on. One image filled her mind: the operations console on the bridge where the primary distress call would have been deactivated. [/FONT]
[FONT="] After what seemed like hours she reached the turbolift. She whispered a “thank you” to no one in particular to find that power to the turbolift was still active. Half walking, half falling into the lift, she managed to speak the word, “Bridge.” As if nothing was wrong with the Anaximander, the lift obediently moved upward. Seconds later, the doors opened again to show a macabre scene on the bridge.
The bridge, the virtual brain of the entire ship, was as bad, or worse, than the corridors she had travelled through to get there. The room was filled with a thick smoke that made her throat feel as if it would close and made her eyes burn. Squinting to see through the smoke, she surveyed the room only to find the bridge crew all strewn about unconscious. Or perhaps worse—she quickly chose not to dwell on that possibility. The captain lay on the ground near his chair. Some members of the crew were at their stations, slumped over the computers in front of them. Others lay on the ground much like the captain.
Her eyes locked on the operations console. Its former resident lay motionless on the ground. She climbed over a pile of rubble and stepped over several bodies in order to take a seat at the station. Najibah chastised herself, The crew is all unconscious or dead! You should have re-activated the distress call from your station! Precious moments had been wasted.
Once she fell into the seat, she hit the automated distress call. Wiping still more blood from her brow, she noticed that the helm control had been transferred to the operations computer. She glanced at the helm to see someone she knew to be her friend, face burned and matted with blood, laying across the computer screen. Shaking the image out of her mind, she studied the screen in front of her. It appeared that the woman laying on the ground next to her had plotted a course but had not had the time to engage.
Unsure if she was making the right decision, Najibah shot the small vessel into impulse in the direction that had already been plotted into the computer. As the ship lurched to impulse, it began shaking more violently than she had experienced yet.
As she leaned forward on the computer screen, she felt her eyes begin to close as her mind begged for sleep. Seconds before she granted herself that wonderful luxury, a beeping noise caught her slippery attention. She tapped the button and a face appeared on the screen, a human male wearing a Starfleet uniform. She did not recognize him, she was sure of it. “This is Captain Michael Kennedy of the Starship Ambassador.”
“Captain,” she gave a huge, toothy smile. “I am so glad to see you.”
“What is your status, Anaximander?”
The pain in her head seemed too much to bear. She tried thinking through the question he had just asked but found herself incredibly frustrated at her inability to concentrate, “I… don’t know… heavy damage. Please assist.”
“We will arrive in approximately one hour. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Najibah said with a hint of anger, “I can’t remember.”
She saw the captain’s lips moving, and she knew she should be paying attention to what he was saying, but she could not seem to focus. The trembling beneath her and the flashing of the red alert lights seemed to fade, as did the sound of the captain’s voice. Soon she found herself seduced by the joy of the sleep that was about to envelope her.
