The student, teacher / advanced, primitive / ally or member / consultant or crew enigma. I love this scenario. And Professor Newellewell is a character I can get behind.
-Will
-Will
YES - Close to the Edge: Star Beagle Adventures episodes 12 - 19
- Thread starter Robert Bruce Scott
- Start date
Glad you're enjoying the soup of characters... and thanks for the kind words! rbs
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 16: And You And I Part I - Cord of Life
Scene 6: Sight of Soun
Changed only for a sight of sound the space agreed…
16.6
Sight of Sound
Sight of Sound
“The holy landers have slowed their approach.”
This time Captain Ronald Howard, XIV was in Commodore Yui Song’s executive conference room instead of being a holographic presence on the U.S.S. Mako's holodeck. The U.S.S. Beagle had just arrived and deployed all of its support craft to assist with the disassembly and dissemination of the U.S.S. Escort to build a defensive installation in orbit of ASA 4.
The command group meeting was no longer a table full of experts, but an exclusive group of the key leaders of the task force: Commodore Yui, Captain Howard, Commander Rhonda Carter, ASA 4 Colonial Governor T’Eln, and three key consultants: General Krank, Pel, and the genetically modified purple, Shadow.
To their physical presence, another key leader was present on the viewscreen: the elder and leader among the children of Ensign John Sevork, John Jr. The slowing of the approaching holy lander fleet was his observation. “At their current rate of speed, they will not arrive for another 36 of your days.”
For the first time in a very long time, Yui Song let out a long, heavy sigh of relief and smiled. She dropped her fist to the table three times. “Yes!”
“I had wondered how long they could run their engines so far above the tolerances we estimated based on that wrecked ship we examined back on Mount Torlochtor,” said Skip Howard.
“They might simply have run out of throat lozenges,” Rhonda Carter quipped.
“The revised time schedule seems quite significant to you, Commodore Yui,” John Jr. observed. “You anticipate reinforcement.”
“Rhonda keeps telling me you’re a smart one,” Yui responded. “Yes, I can now report that Captain Phillip Phlox should join us in about 40 days, commanding the U.S.S. Citadel.”
Rhonda Carter reacted with surprise. “Citadel? That’s Vice Admiral Ho’s flagship. Where is the vice admiral?”
“Undisclosed,” said Yui.
“Phil Phlox?” Howard asked. “I thought he retired from Star Fleet more than 100 years ago."
“He’s back,” Yui replied.
“Why?”
“Undisclosed.”
Captain Howard made an amused noise. “You’re enjoying this a bit too much.”
“Allow an old woman her pleasures,” Yui retorted.
John Jr. had watched this discussion with mild bemusement. “We will still have two days from the time the holy landers arrive until the ship you are referring to arrives.”
“A day of preparation and a day of celebration,” Howard responded. “I have every hope that we can talk the holy landers into at least those rituals before they take action. It will be much easier to fill two days with ritual than two weeks.”
“Are you not concerned that the arrival of your fellow Federations might cause these holy landers to think themselves betrayed?” John Jr. seemed more curious than concerned.
“Just more layers of ritual,” Howard replied. “I don’t even have to invent those rituals. Star Fleet policy and procedure for first contact situations can take over at that point.” He gestured to Commodore Yui Song, who seemed content to allow her subordinate to talk out and think out this process.
“And what of the gorians?” John Jr. asked.
“Well, you’ve made first contact, so by Federation law, the prohibitions against making first contact under the Prime Directive no longer apply.” Skip Howard smiled. “So I guess I’m just going to have to go down and talk to one Professor Newellewell…”
16.6
I assume it will become clear, later on, why the good Professor's relaxation and retirement are being disturbed instead of a more... political figure from the local population. Professor Newellewell seems like the kind of person that values his peace and quiet. Surely the prime directive directs more than first contact. What does it say about disrupting the lives of individuals just minding their own business, humbly fishing for dinner?
-Will
-Will
-Will
"Take me to your leader..."
First contact was made by John Jr., who, as Pel noted, is not beholden to the prime directive or any federation law.
When Helen Benson was tasked to take Klaatu to mankind's leader, she brought him to the wisest, smartest person she could think of - a physics professor and Nobel laureate. Similarly, John Jr. didn't seek out a political leader. He sought out the wisest, smartest gorian he could find - a retired professor of gorianthropology.
Thanks!! rbs
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 16: And You And I Part I - Cord of Life
Scene 7: The Face of Need
Between the picture of time behind the face of need…
16.7
The Face of Need
The Face of Need
“Washington…”
Captain Ronald Howard, XIV and his honor guard were the first humans to meet a gorian face-to-face. The colonists had dubbed these people “lizard-riding gorilla-people.” The very large creatures these people rode looked very much like a cross between an iguana and a Clydesdale. But the people themselves, to Howard’s eye, looked far less like gorillas and more like a blend of a fully bipedal American Pit Bulldog with some sort of cartoon devil, complete with short, stubby horns and a long, whip-like tail.
They came in several colors. The specimen charging at full tilt toward Howard was bright red with black-in-red-in-black eyes. His head was up, his body oddly erect, and he was rapidly beating his chest. He wore only a pair of banana-yellow swim-trunks.
Only a moment before this odd creature hurled itself into the air at the captain of the U.S.S. Beagle, Private First Class Elven Washington interposed himself between Howard and the charging gorian. The gorian was only slightly larger than a pit bull - about 4’ tall and about 130 pounds.
Elven Washington was the largest of the U.S. Marine contingent assigned to the U.S.S. Beagle - 6’8” and 340 pounds of lean muscle.
The charging gorian bounced off the enormous African American and bounced twice on the sand before performing a reverse summersault and ending up on his feet, tail whipping.
The strange alien straightened and brushed sand off the short fur on his chest, then off his swim trunks. He shook his head a few times.
“They certainly made you folk big and tough! Welcome to Newellewell island! My little corner of nowhere. Thank you for honoring our traditional greeting ritual.”
Captain Howard stepped out from behind the massive marine, reached up to pat his massive shoulder. “Thank you, Private. You are unharmed?”
In response, Elven Washington patted his massive hands around his chest and stomach, from which their host had ricocheted, “Everything is in good order, sir,”
Howard chuckled, then quickly closed his mouth as he noticed the gorian shrinking back.
“My apologies, Professor. I understand that baring of the teeth has a very different meaning for your people than it does for ours. For us, most of the time when we bare our teeth we are smiling, which is an expression that signals amusement, merriment and pleasure. I understand for your people it would be interpreted as aggression and can be considered threatening.”
“From what John Jr. told me, we will have many, many cultural dissimilarities,” Professor Newellewell responded. “So much so that it might be unfortunate that we are physically so similar. Similarities neither of us, apparently, share with the aliens who are coming?”
“The holy landers,” Howard replied. He looked about on the beach. It took a few moments for him to find what he was looking for.
Newellewell watched with interest as Captain Skip Howard walked toward the surf, then followed as Howard signaled him. An animal about the size of his hand was skittering just ahead of the cascading waters, searching the sands just as the water washed back across it.
“I wouldn’t touch that,” Newellewell advised. “They aren’t interested in anything larger than your thumb, but they have a really nasty bite.”
“What do you call these?” Howard asked.
“Ulants,” the retired gorian professor replied.
“Okay, imagine one of these, but about this tall…” Skip Howard held his hand as high up as he could reach. “With three eyes, three antennae, three hands and sometimes it walks on two legs, sometimes on four and sometimes on six. Covered with natural body armor, kind of like the ulant, but also has a stinger.”
“So these holy landers don’t look much like an ulant at all,” Newellewell observed.
Howard made an amused noise without smiling. “Yeah, but they look a lot more like one of those than they look like either of us.”
“John Jr. told me that your people are here to protect us from these holy landers.”
Skip Howard nodded. “They sing. And they tune their singing to find out which series of vibrations can override the independent thought of intelligent species so that they can broadly control them. They have done it to our people. And to many other people in this general region of space. We’re here to prevent them from enslaving your people.”
“Why?” Newellewell’s red eyes gleamed with strong emotion.
Skip Howard gave a resigned sigh. “We needed a place to protect John Jr. and his siblings from them and this was the only system available to us. So we’re responsible for leading those holy landers to your doorstep.”
“You misunderstand my question, Captain Ronald Howard the fourteenth. What makes you think we wouldn’t prefer to be enslaved by these holy landers?”
16.7
An interesting question, considering the Trill. How can an outside sentience know what any other mind wants? Then, how can they know those desires are the natural product of the other mind?
Once you go zombie, you'll forever let freedom be.
-Will
Once you go zombie, you'll forever let freedom be.
-Will
In SBA, there is a joined trill, Akri Dexx. The Dexx symbiont seeks out the most beautiful acolytes (and Akri is no exception), who are provided century after century by Dexx's worshippers among the Trill priesthood who manage the symbiont program. Dexx uses sex to dominate and keeps a vast stable of worshippers (including a significant portion of the Beagle Task Force.) There is no doubt that Dexx dominates its hosts.
On the other hand, Akri is an expert exo-oceanographer, a field Dexx had no previous interest in. And her expertise is vital to the task force.
Thanks!! rbs
On the other hand, Akri is an expert exo-oceanographer, a field Dexx had no previous interest in. And her expertise is vital to the task force.
Thanks!! rbs
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 16: And You And I Part I - Cord of Life
Scene 8: Coming Quickly to Terms
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid…
16.8
Coming Quickly to Terms
Coming Quickly to Terms
“My entire reason for moving out here was to retire…”
Professor Newellewell raked his claws through the short, crimson fur on his chest, then combed his face and rubbed the base of his short, stubby horns. He stamped his feet briefly, then resumed pacing, his long, thin tail whipping restlessly. He had never given a seminar to such a large, not to mention diverse group.
It was nothing short of bizarre… The enormous John Jr., or, more accurately, the enormous head of John Jr., was represented on the large communication device that he had dropped onto Newellewell’s beach. The device, a black cube about a meter per side, now sat on top of one end of a long, low, stone table, about which a large number of chairs were arranged. The chairs were borrowed from the U.S.S. Mako’s conference room. The table and the communication block were gifts. Useful enough gifts to make up for the time and trouble needed for the retired professor to provide an orientation to this vast collection of aliens about the various intelligent species inhabiting the three habitable planets orbiting the ASA star.
Newellewell’s students included Captain Ronald Howard, XIV, Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland, Commander Rhonda Carter, Governor T’Eln, U.S. Marine Captain Osollaa sh’Zhiathis, the ferengi trader and now consultant Pel, the escaped purple secret agent Shadow, the enormous tellarite biologist Drisk javWalirsh, the trill oceanographer Akri Dexx, the denobulan planetologist Cetris Rye and the vrish diplomat Erok Gruex.
And, on screen, oddest of all, the son of the deceased Ensign John Sevork, John Jr., whose ancestry straddled three galaxies and included vulcan, human, some sort of giant space shrimp and some sort of transdimensional, spacebound mushroom.
Newellewell took his place at the opposite end of the table, which was next to his simple cooker, opened a bag and plopped a breathing, wheezing sea mole onto the end of the table. To the dismay of some at the table and intense interest of others, the gorian professor took out a large knife and slaughtered the creature and started butchering it. He held up the head, which consisted of a loose mouth surrounded by four eyes and twelve tentacles.
“Something on the order of a million years ago, a sea creature, fairy closely related to this sea mole, living in this very ocean, became intelligent and started to develop technology. They were able to use their own excretions to create protective armor for themselves and eventually, using this same technology, fashioned communications devices, the core elements for industrial technology and eventually space ships out of their own excrement. My people call them the old gods. I call them the tinkers.”
The small, horned professor began roasting the slaughtered pieces of the sea mole.
“The tinkers became very interested in genetic manipulation. They had taken my ancestors, forest dwelling creatures even smaller than this sea mole, and adopted them as pets. And they experimented, increasing the intelligence of their pets. These primitive gorians were far from their only pets. On these three worlds, there are at least 19 different species that could have an intelligent conversation with you. And my people are far from the smartest among them.”
“Not all of them could sit around this table with you. Some of them are plants. Aquatic plants.” The professor took his seat at the head of the table and started to eat the sea mole. “Some of them would rather eat you than talk to you,” he said around a mouthful of roasted sea mole.
“The braptors of Brail, the planet you refer to as ASA 2, are among those. Their ancestors used to fly. The tinkers made them larger and much, much smarter. There was a population of them in the southern reaches on this planet. We eventually wiped them out. Not before they had eaten several thousand of us. They were a lot smarter than us. We only survived because we vastly outnumbered them and could survive in a much wider range of environments.”
“And some of them, the moment they encounter you, would probably flatten themselves to the ground and worship you. My people are like that. Not me, mind you. But my people see gods everywhere. A few thousand of them willingly sacrificed themselves to be eaten alive by the braptors under the assumption that they were gods. And nearly all of my people think that our intelligence, rudimentary as it is, is a gift from the old gods.” Newellewell sneered.
The ruddy professor finished his meal, sat back in his chair, stared up into the evening sky and fell silent. His eclectic collection of students were treated to the sounds of the waves lapping on the beach nearby. Then to a long, loud, and rather heady belch. Professor Newellewell leaned his head back and gurgled, almost as if he were juggling his dinner in his throat, then sighed heavily. His eyes closed sleepily.
“So the intelligence of your people was not a gift?” prodded Captain Skip Howard.
“Hmmmm?” Newellewell seemed more than mildly confused. He sat up, shook his head slowly and grunted unhappily.
“No. No, the tinkers weren’t handing out intelligence to all these species out of kindness. Nor was it some sort of ennui or general curiosity. They weren’t being deliberately cruel, nor were they acting out of whimsey. They had a PURPOSE!” Newellewell shouted this last word and it became obvious that his opinion was part of some long-running argument he had been pursuing for many long years.
“They experimented on us for thousands of years, and then used what they learned on themselves. They are gods because they fashioned themselves into gods.” He pointed a short, stubby, red-furred, clawed finger at the ancient vulcan who had become the colonial governor. “So you want to colonize this planet. Fine with me! But you need to understand the risk.”
He got up, then stood in his chair, then clambered onto the table and walked over to look down on the emotionless vulcan, his claw almost touching her forehead. His voice dropped and became very quiet. “The old gods are still here. And by establishing your colony here, you have volunteered yourselves and your descendants to be their next experimental subjects.”
16.8
Oh, you are Spike Jonesing this story.
as
Stay tuned for more adventures, next week.
Classic.
-Will
as
Stay tuned for more adventures, next week.
Classic.
-Will
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 16: And You And I Part I - Cord of Life
Scene 9: The Ocean Maid
Emotions revealed as the ocean maid…
16.9
The Ocean Maid
The Ocean Maid
“You will have to create a permission structure…"
Private First Class Raanda Habib had developed a huge crush on Gan Baatar. She had lived on the U.S.S. Beagle for nearly a year and never known the young engineer for Nakamura Enterprises existed, much less that his study carol, where he spent nearly all of his time, was located 1 deck below the briefing room where she and her squad spent a lot of theirs. They had travelled in entirely different circles, completely unaware of each other, often only separated by a few feet of deck plating.
“What kind of structure?”
Raanda had never seduced a man before. Like so many beautiful, but exceptionally shy young women, she had never needed to. She had been swept off her feet by charming men. But that had been some time ago. Her first love was a soldier returned from the front lines, who, she had found out later, had a pregnant girlfriend waiting for him. And her rebound lover had been a charming and capable older man, who turned out to be married.
Now she found herself desperately wanting to charm a young man who was far more painfully shy than she was. In desperation, she had turned to someone she knew who had a lot of experience with men - her squad-mate, PFC Guz Maxwell.
“Snuggle up against him, put his hand on your breast and let nature take its course,” Guz had said with some humor. When this seemed to cause some internal panic within Raanda, Guz followed it up. “You know, that trill siren, Akri Dexx, has had her eye on him. She would have seduced him by now, but I told her in no uncertain terms to back off.”
Raanda had laughed at that. “Like she would be afraid of you.”
“She damn well better be,” Guz had replied with a small amount of heat. “She knows quite well I could make a lot of trouble for her. Piss off a twink at your own risk. But she’s only going to hold off so long, so you have got to make your move.”
Raanda had been overcome with a powerful sigh. “I just don’t know how to do that.”
Guz had rolled his eyes at this. “He likes you. He knows you like him. Just march into his little hut, let him play a song for you, only one, then tell him to case his instrument and lay down. Snuggle up, and give him permission to take the lead. I know you’re painfully shy, but you’re by far the stronger of the two of you. Get up, go in there and do it right now, before you have time to talk yourself out of it.”
And Raanda, gamely enough, had gotten up to do exactly that.
“Raanda…”
She had stopped for only a moment.
“When he’s on top of you, you’re going to have to use your hands to guide him in. He’s never going to find his way in on his own.”
Raanda had been glad she had not turned to look at Guz when he said that. His words had her blushing violently.
Just as she was blushing wildly now, recalling this conversation. Guz Maxwell had, of course, been right. Raanda had found herself calming Gan again and again. He had been so nervous, so desperate to please, alternately too hesitant and too eager. But in the end, she had to admit, she was far more satisfied than she had ever been by her first two lovers. There was certainly no pregnant girlfriend or hidden wife waiting for Gan. Raanda had asked. And by asking, had made him feel so much more relaxed.
He didn’t even snore or drool in his sleep. His lean, muscular body was sprawled partly across her. His face, lower arms and lower legs were darkly tanned. The rest of his body was nearly milk white, having rarely seen sunlight. She found herself wondering how he had managed to stay so fit when he, reportedly, spent most of his time studying and developing his mind-bending theories about warp field theory and advanced applications that the U.S.S. Beagle’s vulcan-made warp drive architecture could make possible.
It only gradually dawned on Raanda how badly she had been hurt by the only other two men in her life. She had been largely thinking about her own wants and needs in this encounter. And now she had taken the virginity of someone even more painfully shy than she had been when she had lost hers. Some of the elation and satisfaction started to give way to a sense of tremendous responsibility. As badly hurt as she had been, Gan was so much more vulnerable than she had been.
It wasn’t cold in this hut and Gan’s body was warm next to hers. But Raanda felt a cold chill and began to shiver just a little as she began to understand that she was in way over her head. And she had no idea what to do next.
Outside Gan Baatar’s hut the stars wheeled overhead. The brightest star in the sky was ASC, A bright dime of light that provided some illumination to the beach and the receding tide. Bright enough to shine on a very large, dark body silently slithering back down off the beach and slipping back under the waves.
16.9
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