Here is an approdximate break down of our existing zones:
10LY2 = 38,888 Pixels
1LY2 = 3888.8 Pixels
Home Sectors
Sol - 252,873px = 65.03LY2
Rethelia - 218,599px = 56.21LY2
Andor - 204,769px = 52.66LY2
Apinae - 188,343px = 48.43LY2
Amarkia - 160,148px = 41.18LY2
Tellar - 158,944px = 40.87LY2
Rigel - 155,894px = 40.09LY2
Vulcan - 141,307px = 36.34LY2
Alukk - 130,499px = 33.56LY2
Ferasa - 125,308px = 32.22LY2
Border Zones
HBZ - 519,013px = 133.46LY2
GBZ - 176,998px = 45.51LY2
KBZ - 135,660px = 34.88LY2
LBZ - 89,522px = 23.02LY2
RBZ - 80,084px = 20.59LY2
CBZ - 71,113px = 18.29LY2
SBZ - 67,272px = 17.30LY2
Themis BZ - 54,164px = 13.93LY2
Total Federation Territory: 2,930,473px = 753.57LY2
The first thing that jumps out is that not only is the HBZ grossly oversized for a Border Zone it's oversized for a Home Sector. Seriously it's over twice the size of Sol and Sol is our largest Home Sector (two standard deviations from the mean). If we want to keep things vaguely realistic once the Honiani become Members the HBZ should probably be split into three groups: the HBZ which will be a thin ring around the current HBZ, the Okatha Sector around Honiani space, and the Laian Sector around the other half of the HBZ.
The Ked Paddah should probably be their own sector which would eventually include the OSA. Combined they'd come to around 50LY2 which is about normal for a Home Sector, especially one with two species inside it.
If anyone is interested I could mock up some potential future Sectors, map included, that fit with the current median.
"Admiral, you asked to be alerted when we begin the approach to Athos V," said the young ensign.
They get younger every year. Or rather, I get older, thought Rear Admiral Nash ka'Sharren. She hadn't really needed the warning; had felt their arrival from a subtle change in the thrumming of the Zh'Mai's warp engines and already had her case packed up and ready to go.
"Thank you ensign," said ka'Sharren, before walking to the transporter room. As tempting as it was to watch from the bridge, she had some things to sort out before they beamed down.
The expected contingent awaited her; Lt. Commander White from Starfleet Intelligence and around a half-dozen academic-looking sorts she hadn't been properly introduced to. After looking them over, ka'Sharren turned to the woman stationed at the transporter room controls. "Could we have some privacy, Chief?"
The transporter chief hurried out with a nod. After the door hissed closed, ka'Sharren crossed her arms and gave White a Look. He didn't flinch, but he did start talking.
"Admiral. I suppose you're wondering why the sudden call out to Athos V. As you've been told, the official reason is that you're to brief the Romulans on the possibility of establishing their own version Explorer Corps."
Ka'Sharren responded, "Which I know for about a dozen reasons is a load of yellow snow. Starting with the fact that there's no way something like that gets pulled together at the last minute, but here I am leaving San Francisco with barely an hour's warning and hustled across two sectors to meet the Zh'Mai. I would have kicked up more of a fuss, but the Old Man personally signed off on the orders and added a note to trust him and go with it. Somehow I had a feeling this would be Starfleet Intelligence business."
"But it's not! Or... not exactly. I apologize for not meeting with you, but these fellows-" White waved at the academics, who were watching in silence, "-needed all my attention to get them prepared for an operation like this. I know you can handle it, Rear Admiral."
"Handle what? Who are these people?"
"They're some of the Federation's best experts in constitutional law. You've seen the reports, Admiral ka'Sharren. You know that the Romulan Empire is restructuring their government under Empress Velim."
The words conjured a flash of memory of sparring with a Romulan captain, their hands touching briefly as they both breathed hard. It was hard to believe the Velim she had known back then could be styling herself Empress now. Ka'Sharren didn't let any of it show on her face. "I am aware."
White continued, "The person she's put in charge of writing the new Romulan constitution, Admiral Wenlai, recently passed us a signal through backchannels that he's willing to let us take a look at his work before the final version goes to the Senate."
One of the experts, an excitable-looking Tellarite woman, broke in. "It's an unparalleled opportunity! The Romulans don't have a lot of experience with constitutional government. We do; we know what works and what doesn't. They're bound to have cocked something up. If we can help guide them away from traps in their new government, we might save the galaxy a lot of grief. In fact, I'm here because I wrote a position paper saying we should do exactly this. Never thought it would happen, though, what with their famous xenophobia and all."
A light went on in ka'Sharren's head. She looked back at White. "This is top secret, isn't it? The xenophobes in Romulan government would collectively faint if they knew aliens were being invited to comment on the guts of their new government. That's why I'm here."
White nodded. "Exactly. Apparently Wenlai is something of an admirer of yours and your name still has some currency from the days of the Biophage. Meeting you gives him an excuse to come out in person. He brings his notes with him, lets our brain trust look over them, and then gets the feedback directly and verbally. Even if the xenophobic elements suspect what happened, they'll never be able to prove it, and that's apparently good enough."
"Not a bad plan," approved ka'Sharren grudgingly. "Except for the part where I stand around for days doing nothing."
For the first time, White smiled. "That's intelligence work for you, Admiral."
***
Athos V didn't match up very well to Nash's memories of when the Enterprise... her Enterprise, Enterprise-B, had explored it nearly two decades ago. This was mainly due to the huge administrative complex that completely covered entrances to the caverns below where the flying parasites and natural dilithium matrix were now kept under tight containment. The complex was much more than a research colony like this should ordinarily require, but as the only existing joint Federation/Romulan research colony, Athos V had taken on an extra importance. It was a place where Romulans and Federation personnel could meet and talk without special preconditions or arrangements.
As she went to her meeting, ka'Sharren considered what the briefing packet had to say about Admiral Wenlai. It was pretty thin gruel. He was supposed to be some sort of liberal reformist, at least by Romulan standards. The Klingons considered him to be the most dangerous Romulan commander in a fleet battle, and he was famous for unorthodox and clever strategies. He was much beloved by a large portion of the Star Empire navy, who called him something that translated as "the Magician". On a personal level, though, the file had been uninformative. So far as anyone could tell, Wenlai had never so much as spoken with a Federation citizen before this visit.
Stepping into the meeting room, ka'Sharren found an unremarkable-looking Romulan man leaning back in a chair, his boots propped up on the table in front of him and his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. "Admiral Wenlai, I presume."
"Admiral ka'Sharren." He sprang to his feet and made a gesture of greeting. "Sorry to have pulled you out here for all this; I'm sure it was a pain."
"A little, yes." If he wanted to play it casual, ka'Sharren could do casual. She took a seat across from Wenlai.
Wenlai pulled a bottle and a couple of glasses from a nearby side table. "Can I offer you a drink?"
She nodded in response, and he poured them both glasses of Romulan ale. They raised glasses and each took a drink.
Wenlai nodded at her. "It honestly is an honor to meet you, Admiral. I've followed reports on your exploits for many years now. You made first contact with the Amarki, the Risans, the Gaeni, the Indorians, and the Apiata, correct? All of them went on to eventually join your Federation. You also were the first to meet the Cardassian Union... well, I suppose that one went less well than you had hoped. Not to mention discovered the research colony we're sitting in. That's an incredible record."
Ka'Sharren smiled in spite of herself. Praise of her accomplishments as an explorer; not one mention of her military exploits. She knew herself well enough to know that was exactly what she wanted to hear, which meant... what? That the Tal Shiar had a frighteningly good understanding of her psychology? Or maybe Wenlai just understood what a Starfleet officer would want to hear. That was the trouble with Romulans; you could never be sure what was an angle.
"You certainly know a lot about my time in the Explorer Corps, Admiral. Is there some reality to our cover story here? Are you really going to be pushing for an Explorer Corps for the Romulan Empire?"
Wenlai leaned back. "Not in any immediate timeframe. Maybe someday. Right now we don't have a lot of Khellians to spare, and we have to see if the peace will last-"
"Will it?" asked ka'Sharren.
Wenlai shrugged. "There has never been 'permanent peace' in recorded history. But, there have been plenty of ages with decades of peace. In short, my hope is, haughtily enough, for a few decades of peace in the future."
"Well then, to peace," said ka'Sharren, raising her glass. Wenlai did the same and they both drank. She wiped her mouth and asked casually, "How is Empress Velim doing?"
"Not driven to paranoid excess yet, so that's nice. Of course, it's still early days," replied Wenlai, in a light tone.
"You don't sound very confident. Didn't you help put her on her throne?"
Wenlai rubbed the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable. "For most of my life if you had asked me, I would have said a military coup was the last thing I wanted. Well, that obviously turned out not be true, but it was still pretty close to the last thing I wanted. A military is a tool. And a bad tool at that. I always thought we should try to be as harmless a tool as possible."
Ka'Sharren was fascinated. She hadn't expected candor like this. Did he feel like it was 'safe' because she was an alien? Or was he like this all the time, and if so how in the world had he managed to stay alive in a society like the Romulan Empire?
"So then...?" she asked.
"Romulus was on fire under Director ch'Ren. No, before her and she was just the symptom. The nation that neglects social inequality, mischievously increases military budgets, and then uses its power internally to suppress the citizens on the pretext of invasion by an external enemy is on the road to extinction. Something had to be done, and Velim did it. But..."
He paused, and ka'Sharren wasn't sure if he was going to continue. Finally he did. "I wanted to be a historian, not an admiral. I suppose I'm still a history enthusiast. I think a lot about governments and how they are formed and who they serve. Military coups, no matter how well intentioned, rarely end well in the long term. Once you establish your legitimacy at the point of a sword, by a literal act of murder, well... why shouldn't anyone looking to replace you do the same? You've shown them the path, haven't you? And knowing that to fall from power means death, the people on top become merciless and lash out out the smallest sign of dissent, because where does their legitimacy come from other than force?"
I'm glad I live in a democracy, thought ka'Sharren, but it would have been cruel to say it out loud. Instead she said, "I didn't know Velim for very long, but she seemed to me to be someone who genuinely cares about your people. Who was willing to die to protect them."
Wenlai looked down at his empty glass. "Oh, she is. I would never have supported her otherwise. That's why my number one priority is to keep her from becoming someone who has kill anyone who crosses her to hang onto power."
"Then maybe you would have been better off with a Republic. My briefing called you a reformer," challenged ka'Sharren.
"I thought about it, but you can't impose a democracy by force. Maybe someday, if we can build the institutions that would allow for it. Dictatorship itself isn't absolutely evil, it's just another form of government. The point is how you can run it for the benefit of society," said Wenlai, refilling his glass.
"This is all very candid of you," said ka'Sharren.
"Perhaps I just needed to say it to someone. Oh, before I forget-" He reached into his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper of all things. "A letter from Empress Velim to you. I really think she wanted to come in person, but of course even if she could afford to be away from Romulus she can't be seen consorting with aliens."
Ka'Sharren took the letter and opened it just enough to see it was handwritten. No electronics trail, no records, no evidence. Still, it meant something that Velim had trusted this Wenlai enough to have him deliver it. She tucked it away to read in private later.
Wenlai exhaled. "Well, all this talk of politics is depressing. While your people are looking over my notes, why don't you tell me some stories about how you run the Explorer Corps? I'll take notes and maybe I'll learn something."
"For use in the future?"
"Of course."
***
"In some ways the lack of ambition is disappointing," said the Tellarite academic ka'Sharren had met on the Zh'Mai, subsequently introduced as Gahl Lular.
"The constitution's most radical guarantee, and I concede it is a radical one for the Romulans, is an insistence on free speech and public debate. Your Wenlai seems very insistent on avoiding censorship and repression of dissent."
My Wenlai? "That does seem contrary to the Romulan ethos," answered ka'Sharren.
"Yes, and he seems well aware of it. There's a series of questions, apparently to himself, scattered all over the draft. 'Who enforces this? How do I make sure it's not ignored?' That sort of thing. Other than that, it's a very gentle reworking of the existing system. There is no attempt to abolish the Romulan Senate or so transform it that it's unrecognizable. His main concern seems to be stripping away the lack of accountability that the Continuing Committee has typically had by turning it into formal ministerial posts that are selected by the Empress, confirmed by the Senate, with high visibility and well-defined areas of responsibility."
Remembering something Wenlai had said during their conversation, ka'Sharren said, "He wants government officials to have to take responsibility for outcomes."
Lular nodded. "Public responsibility, yes. I do believe he's being sloppy in outlining the line between the Senate's ability to write legislation and the Empress's executive authority. We'll have some suggestions on that front."
One of the other academics, a Vulcan named Sulkar, broke into the conversation. "You are perhaps understating the changes and codifications to the Senate's membership selection rules. They seem designed to provide a path for the ambitious and create more 'churn' in the institution."
"So will you be able to give the suggestions he's looking for?" asked ka'Sharren.
"Definitely," said Lular. "His understanding of the role of an independent judiciary is basic at best. We can advise him on common judicial pitfalls and mechanisms to defuse conflicts with executive power that will allow them to remain intact if the Empress uses her executive authority. We also might have something for him on intelligence agency oversight, but that's tricky..."
"I plan to propose blanket disarmament of intelligence agencies," commented Sulkar serenely.
"You keep dreaming that dream," shot back Lular. "But there's something about the constitution as a whole that I feel like I'm not getting. Like he has some sort of purpose for a number of these provisions, and I don't quite understand what it is. Look, there's a note here in the Senate section that says, 'This is a trap.' What does that mean?"
"I don't know... maybe I'll ask him when we meet tomorrow," replied ka'Sharren.
***
Eaton was going to laugh and tell her she should have come armed. Ka'Sharren just knew it.
The power shutting off had been the first clue something was wrong. The sound of disrupter fire was the second. It looked like Wenlai had managed to escape with his life, at least for now, but in dodging his pursuers had been forced to flee into the caverns beneath the administrative center.
Ka'Sharren hit her communicator badge again. Still nothing. Of course communications were down. And now she was pursuing an unknown number of armed pursuers, herself unarmed, into caverns full of parasitic energy-draining monsters.
Just like old times.
She had to get ahead of them if she was going to get to Wenlai before they did. (What she would do at that point was a problem for future-Nash.) Luckily, ka'Sharren had one advantage- she had been here before. It had been a long time, but these memories were still very sharp indeed. Scanning with her tricorder, ka'Sharren found the chute she was looking for. If her recollections were correct, this would bypass several hundred meters of gently sloped cave meandering back and forth and drop her a quick 25 meters close to where the cave system dead-ended at the dilithium chamber.
Entering the chute and bracing herself against both sides, ka'Sharren began a rapid descent. She hissed in pain as the rock scraped her hands and back, but didn't let it slow her down. Finally with a painful thud she dropped the last two meters, feeling every centimeter of the distance as her knees absorbed the fall.
Gazing into a darkness dimly illuminated by emergency lights, she saw a figure looking down the corridor. "Wenlai!" she called.
He turned, and she could see a wound across one side where he had caught the edge of a blast. He hissed in pain as he hurried over to her. "Admiral ka'Sharren? What are you doing here?"
"Saving you. Who are we up against?"
He shook his head. "Romulans. My enemies, taking the chance for a shot at me, I assume. They didn't introduce themselves. And... you don't seem to be armed."
"I'll figure something out."
Wenlai shook his head. "Please, don't get killed on my account. They're probably thirty seconds out. If you hide in the chute they won't bother searching the room after they finish me off. Just tell Frad that I-"
Whatever he was going to say was cut off as an insectoid buzz came from the tunnel. Ka'Sharren recognized it from long ago. "The parasites-"
"Won't do us any good. They've been conditioned not to attack researchers. Buzzed me on the way in but held off from attacking."
"Unless they were driven berserk," said ka'Sharren, thinking quickly.
"Huh?"
"I figured something out." Ka'Sharren made a few quick adjustments on her tricorder, then told Wenlai apologetically, "This is probably going to hurt a lot."
A resonance hit the crystalline walls and awakened hundreds of insectoid parasites. They swarmed everyone in the room, including Wenlai's pursuers as they appeared. Disruptor blasts glanced harmlessly off their carapaces.
For about twenty seconds they bit and clawed at everyone in the room, until ka'Sharren's tricorder beeped as its timer hit the mark and began transmitting a different signal to the crystalline walls, mimicking the signal that Lieutenant zh'Harasaan invented so many years ago. As one the parasites rose and fled, leaving all the humanoids comatose on the ground.
***
Waking up in a hospital was all part of the plan. As ka'Sharren had gambled, it didn't take long for the colony's security forces to regain control of the situation and find them. The wounds from the parasite attack were nasty, but not untreatable, and of course the procedure for breaking the parasite energy drain connection was long established.
"Tal Shiar partisans," Wenlai later explained. "Against the advice of my friends I traveled here with minimal guard, and they took their chance."
"I see." Ka'Sharren settled into a chair next to him, but waved off the alcohol he offered.
"Thank you for saving my life," Wenlai added.
"Think nothing of it. Though... could you answer a question for me? What did you mean by 'this is a trap'? In your constitutional notes, I mean."
"What? Oh. I told you in our first conversation how military coups tend to go. It turns into a cycle of successive coups or attempted coups and repression. The solution to that is a government that encourages participation. Those seeking power need to believe that they can find that power by working through the system. That needs to look like a better alternative than seeking power by assassinations and revolts."
"So the idea is to 'trap' them into participation."
"Exactly. I can write whatever fine ideals and guarantees of rights I want into the system, and do you know what it means? Nothing. Governments ignore restrictions when they become inconvenient. Velim would ignore them too. You have to make people want to play the game. You have to make them believe in the system and play by the system's rules because it gets them the things they want, addresses their concerns, and allow them to effect change. The aristocracy will buy into it because it seems like a safer method of competing for power. Velim will buy into it because it's a game where even a loss doesn't mean her throne and her head. People not part of the aristocracy will buy into it because it makes their approval or disapproval worth something. Or... so I'm hoping, anyway."
It mostly made sense to ka'Sharren, except for one thing. "Well if you're asking for our advice, why didn't you just say so clearly? Why the vagueness?"
Wenlai looked puzzled. "Well honestly.... I thought what I was doing was rather obvious."
***
As the warp drive hummed and the ship departed from Athos V, ka'Sharren took out the note from Velim and looked at it again, a glass of gifted Romulan Ale set next to her.
It was not the token that one would expect from an Empress. No fancy seal declaring this letter to be "From the desk of her Imperial Romulanness, the Imperator of all Rihan, and protector to all the Domains of the Rihannsu people; Empress Velim I."
It was handwritten Rihannsu on a white, plain, sheet of paper; the hand spartan and elegant like the woman herself.
It began simply:
Nash,
There are many things that I want to say, more yet that I do not think I should say, and a great many more things that I do not know how to say.
So I will start simply with the crisis when we first met.
In those long crisis months, where each day tottered on a precipice, I learned everything that I ever needed to know about the Federation from your example. And not just the parts about that legendary Federation diplomacy and xenophilia. I learned to respect and trust you and your people.
Especially after the Battles around Kadesh and everything that happened afterwards. Those were beautiful and terrible days.
The memory of those days of heroism and unity brought me through the darkest days of the war. And when the time came, I remembered our heroism and I acted for my people as I imagine that you would have.
Maybe not in the exact same manner as you would have, as we are different people, but with your purity of intentions.
This job is
I am now a person that belongs to her people. And when I serve I draw on what I learned from our brief time standing side by side against the Inflictor; that thing that was an implacable and endless void of desire.
I work now with many fine people. Excellent men and women like the Admiral that gave you this letter, Wenlai. Though I work with many such excellent people, I miss the days when I worked with you and yours.
This letter is, I suppose, my way of thanking you for the bond we shared as Captains, brief though it may have been. And for all that I learned while working with you.
Thank you Nash, for everything.
Bed Aoi,
Verelan
Nash smiled wistfully as she finished the body of the letter, then came to the end, a post script. Eleven hastily written words. Words written before they could be thought better of. Heavy, incendiary words.
Nash blinked heavily and reached for the glass of Romulan Ale.
"Well," she muttered to herself quietly, "I'm glad this is a letter shared just between the two of us."
Thanks to @AKuz and @anon_user for reading the draft and providing some relevant feedback. In addition, @AKuz wrote Velim's letter to Nash.
For you LoGH fans, this would be approximately parallel where Yang Wen-li was assassinated in LoGH. Lucky for him, this is Star Trek and Nash is a Big Damn Hero who eats tragic fates for breakfast.
It is impossible to scrap the T'Mir. You would never find her. Alas, she will probably have to live our her life as the starship equivalent of a museum ship in Brigadoon. A great attraction to walk through, if you can find it.
Honestly, I think the best thing we may be able to do with the Patroller is give them out to new members, especially those with minimal or no starfaring ships. They're good "coast guard"-tier vessels and small enough not to be too difficult to support.
I think we should just leave all the Patrollers in Sol sector (where after all they are now) and let them ensure that Sol basically always has a responder.
Much as light does not fail to escape the black hole by dint of some awesome force being applied, but rather by every possible future leading inward, so too does Andorian traditional marriage occur via the providence of curved space-time.
Captain's Log, Stardate 28051.3, USS Enterprise, Captain Jennifer Zhang (Ambassador, EC-Felis Space)
Captain Swiftpad has informed me that with recent tensions rising at an alarming rate it seems that the Felis Parliament of Corporations have cut their donations to the League Senate, leaving the Felis Explorer Corps without funding.
While Sam is doing her best to keep a lid on things, I've realised that there is an opportunity here to have the League Senate and their independant Explorer corps to win a major diplomatic and economic victory.
I've used my contacts with the Star-Kin to request that they send the SKS Chapel of Faith along with an ambassador to Felis space to propose a formal joint exploration treaty for the space between their borders that would coincidentally involve the Honiani and the Federation providing long term to the Felis explorer corps for the use of their ships.
Essentially I plan to hire the Felis explorers to do what they already want to do.
Another cry from among the stars. This one far less foreboding, but more urgent. The Bolian cargo ship Distant Lights fell under attack, and limped away from her assailants bleeding atmosphere and warp plasma. Emergency power will last little longer; we must hurry.
-
Captain's Log, Stardate 28053.5, USS Enterprise, Captain Jennifer Zhang (Ambassador, EC-Felis Space)
Someone. Told. The. Harmony. Again. I've checked my own ship's communication logs, and it wasn't anyone on my ship. Swiftpad swears that it wasn't any of her crew, and Captain Bertorus Galorus of Chapel of Faith is just as certain that it wasn't one of his people. It's almost certain that someone in the League Senate's Committee of Exploration Expenditures leaked to their corporate masters who then tipped off the Harmony.
No matter. If Intendant nas Azhlee wants to try to convince the League Senate not to take the deal, I will simply have to put together a better sales pitch than her.
The USS Agile happened on her blood trail, and helped us triangulate the spot where she fell amid the blinding clouds of the Foron Nebula. Our arrival could have been no sooner; only hours of life support remained for the Distant Lights.
The bolians are being treated for radiation sickness, and other injuries sustained in the attack. They caught no sight of their assailants; only long-ranged torpedoes raining from the void. Our own science officers have done better, once the ship was stabilized and they were given a chance to inspect her wounds. Plasma torpedoes of this blast pattern were pioneered by the Romulans a century past, but in our own times are used by few besides the Breen. Why they might have struck this vessel, so far from their jealously-haunted space, I am at a loss to explain. Perhaps this was the work of renegades or pirates, though one wonders why pirates would have failed to pursue a cargo ship after crippling her.
Our mission is successful, but its closure...disconcerting.
[Gain +10 to Isolationist Government tag with Bolians (now at 12/100)]
-
Except from an Address Given to the League of Independant Felis Colonies Senate Exploration Expenditures Committee by Starfleet Captain Jennifer Zhang.
"This is not a simple hand out or welfare as some have termed it. The offer on the table before you is an offer made by equals.
As a woman of Exploration myself, with decades of deep space experience, I recognize the fundamental value of your Explorer Corps. Your people have made discoveries that rival any of those made by the Federation and her members.
Your Explorer Corps demonstrated bravery and intelligence that match that of Starfleet's own elite explorers.
When we seek to hire your people to explore the deadly unknown expanse of space along with our Star Kin brethren we are paying for the quality of your service, and the expertise of your captains.
That we and the Honiani government are prepared to offer resources, supplies, information, even yard space is not the Federation bribing you for good behavior, but a simple recognition that to get the best on your team, you have to pay for that quality."
-
Captain's Log, Stardate 28056.7, USS Courageous, Captain Zara ka'Athnon (Excelsior-A, EC- Trailing)
After brief detour to avoid Breen space we've popped into the Neath Nebula that lies between the Breen and Romulan borders. There's a lot to explore here and I can't wait to get started!
We're going to start by using polaron bursts to sound out the edges of th-
What's that? New warp signatures inbound? Time to meet some new friends!
-
Captain's Log, Stardate 28057.6, USS Enterprise, Captain Jennifer Zhang (Ambassador, EC-Felis Space)
The joint exploration treaty has been signed.
While I'd wondered if I was laying it on a bit think, it seems that Swiftpad's advice was entirely correct: the egos of the Senate's politicians enjoy a good stroking. That and the opportunity to show up the Parliament of Corporations is what made the Harmony leaning Senate Committee finally decide to accept our offer in the end.
[+15 on Felis [Harmony Influence] tag, now 62/100]
-
Captain's Log, Stardate 28059.3, USS S'harien, Captain Demora Sulu (Excelsior-A, EC-Spinward)
S'harien has diverted course to the Nevala Zulu system.
Our long range sensors have detected a naturally occuring quantum singularity and the science department is eager to begin a thorough investigation of the area.
We've stumbled into something really fascinating! Eclipse was conducting a routine survey of RUR-300 when we found unexpected concentrations of metal - which turned out to be a crashed ship. We identified the wreck as the Moligow, a shuttle reported lost about sixty years back. Unfortunately, the shuttle's two crew both apparently perished in the crash ... but their unreported third crewmember is still alive. Well, technically, intact?
See, what we found is a robot! It strongly resembles a Qloathi child, on the outside. On the inside, though, from our scans, it's got a computer for a brain and a duranium chassis. When we activated it, it seemed confused to find itself on a ship of aliens and its companions missing, but was quite pleasant to talk with.
We are taking the robot back to the Qloathi Technical Institute for further study.
Ambassador is responding to a distress call from the Shanpurr Pathfinder.
The Shanpurr exploration ship is engaged in a survey of the Ascendancy's coreward frontier and is reporting contact with a dangerous spaceborn organism.
Ambassador will arrive to assist in point six stardates.
-
Personal Log, Stardate 28061.8, USS Eclipse, Commander Skye Tallisker (Miranda-A, Rethelia)
What a cute little robot!
I thought robots were supposed to be emotionless, concerned only about their missions; this one doesn't seem to have a mission, other than to learn. And it wants to learn about everything! It still hasn't come up with a name of its own, not that it hasn't heard all manner of suggestions from the crew.
At dinner tonight, it was asking us about what we ate, how it tasted, why we ate what we ate, why certain people were eating together... and that led to it asking what love is, which is simply adorable. The robot wants to learn to love!
I almost feel bad that we're going to have to let it go.
Ambassador has arrived at Pathfinder's position in response to their distress call.
Captain Ishiliuanatha informs me that they managed to escape their pursuer without damage, and are warning us off from further investigation as she fears for our safety if we were to encounter the beast.
After taking a look at Pathfinder's data I can't say that I agree with her hypothesis. I'm taking Ambassador to locate and study the creature.
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Personal Log, Stardate 28062.7, USS Eclipse, Ensign Assash (Miranda-A, Rethelia)
That little robot we picked up was a monster.
All this time, while we thought it was just curious, it was gathering intelligence about the crew. This evening, the robot struck. It was fast, precise, and exceedingly efficient; within five minutes of starting its rampage through the mess, it had injured or killed almost everyone in the room, then proceeded to stalk the ship, prioritizing leadership targets. Captain Haran only lost an eye, but Commander Tallisker is among the many dead.
We managed to destroy it ... in sickbay. Utterly vaporized the vile little beast. Nurse Sstoon has had to take charge there, as our CMO is among the casualties.
Despite her fears Captain Ishiliuanatha insisted that Pathfinder accompany Ambassador to provide what assistance she is capable of.
With the Shanpurr's aid, Ambassador has encountered Pathfinder's cosmozoan. While not entirely harmless, the beast is fairly benign and not naturally aggressive.
However it appears that one of the alloys used in Shanpurr hulls attracts the attention of the beast. It seems that the cosmozoan was simply trying to determine whether or not Pathfinder was a delicious asteroid.
With this knowledge in mind it has been a simple matter to adjust Pathfinder's shields to make her appear poisonous to the beast.
Captain Ishiliuanatha, for her part, has showered praise on us for both our bravery and our even handed dealing with an innocent creature. The Shanpurr are thankful for our assistance and now plan to spend a few months studying this creature up close.
I wish Captain Ishiliuanatha all the best.
[+5 Rp, +10 Shanpurr Relations, now 75/100]
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28064.4, USS Zh'Mai (Renaissance, Romulan Neutral Zone)
We've been diverted from our patrol to respond to scattered distress calls from Athos V indicating that some sort of attack is underway.
Zh'mai and Reason have been given priority entrance clearance to transit the Athos V Neutral Zone corridore to provide assistance along with Romulan Navy patrol vessels from their side of the Zone.
I can't help but wonder if this involved in some way with Admiral ka'Sharren's visit to the colony.
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28064.5, USS Fluffy-Puffy (Centaur-B, Apinae)
Distress call coming in. The forager Ziriatrid stopped reporting in three days into its survey of the Brazzen Pocket, a supercharged micro-nebula believed by some to be a small piece of the Badlands that somehow drifted away. We suspect that the apiata may have fallen afoul of an unexpected spike in plasma storm or anomalous G-force activity, but we cannot rule out foul play; the site is just a little too close to the Gabriel Border Zone for comfort.
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28064.6, USS Zh'Mai (Renaissance, Romulan Neutral Zone)
We have been able to reestablish limited communications with Athos V. It appears that some Romulan attackers are attempting to disrupt Admiral ka'Sharren's meeting with a high ranking Romulan official.
Myself and Reason's captain have been in close contact and are preparing our security teams for a joint operation.
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28066.2, USS Fluffy-Puffy (Centaur-B, Apinae)
We are assisting the queenship Melziprim and her escorts. In combing the Pocket. They're glad to have Starfleet sensors and scientists helping out, but with the way those plasma storms are burning it'll be a challenge even for us to find the ship.
We are detected a very faint, very garbled subspace signal coming from inside. Illegible, but definitely Apiata. They're still transmitting.
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28066.4, USS Zh'Mai (Renaissance, Romulan Neutral Zone)
It seems that the situation has been dealt with before we could arrive on the scene. Admirals ka'Sharren and Wenlai apparently were able to make do on their own.
Reason is being turned back to our side of the border, but we have received clearance to conduct a thorough survey of the area with our Romulan counterparts on IRW Rhea's Helm.
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28069.6, USS Fluffy-Puffy (Centaur-B, Apinae)
I regret to report that our sensor modifications came too late, and our proposed deflector remodulation did not allow either us or the Apiata ships to penetrate far enough until the spike in plasma storms ended naturally, just 2.5 hours ago. The Ziriatrid lost shields a day ago. Only half of the crew managed to survive the radiation bombardment, and most are in critical condition.
Perhaps if the storms had abated just a day faster, or our engineers just slightly more...well, perhaps there is nothing that could have been done. We will do our bests to help with treatment of the survivors as we and the Apiata fleet tow the ship back to Alrizzine for repairs.
[Apiata forager crippled, -10 pp]
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Captain's Log, Stardate 28070.1, USS Zh'Mai (Renaissance, Romulan Neutral Zone)
Working together Zh'mai and Rhea's Helm were able to detect a cloaked shuttle trying to leave the Athos system on low power.
While Rhea's Helm made the final intercept, it was our sensor suit that detected the trail left by the shuttle as they passed through a loose dust cloud.
Commander T'lek informs us that the shuttle was crewed by the remnant of the Tal Shiar hardliner strike team that attempted to assassinate Admirals ka'Sharren and Wenlai.
With Rhea's Helm bringing the renegades home to Romulus to face trial and sentencing, Zh'mai has been ordered to return to our own patrols on our side of the Zone.
Starfleet has lost contact with a VSA anthropology team studying the prewarp natives of the planet Bannicka.
With the scientists well past their check in date Whale has been dispatched to investigate.
Personally, I am especially worried as the Bannicka observation post was seeing the first field uses of that experimental Gaeni holo-illusion technology.
Renewal was first on the scene but her Captain informs me that he'll need the power available to Pathfinder in order safely recover the prospecting team.
While he could attempt a rescue now, the risks are so much greater without us.
I agree with his assessment and Pathfinder will be on the scene shortly.
Whale's hails to the Bannicka surface outpost have gone unanswered.
I am extremely worried. The orbal support satellite shows no surface access in the last two months, our scans of the surface show no non-Bannickan life signs, and while our orbital observations show the Holomasking remaining in place the desert area where the base is located is surrounded in a native Bannickan population that wasn't in the information from the scientist's last check up.
And that's that. Renewal was able to use her shield bubble to keep debris and radiation clear of Pathfinder as she poured all of our power into both our tractor beam and phaser banks in order to cut and clear rapidly before the planetoid could completely collapse in on the miners.
Not only were we able to transport the prospectors free with time to spare, our work churned up a large amount of materials that we and Renewal are gathering up for Starfleet's use.
I've dispatched a team to the surface and they've confirmed the worst: the scientists are dead. They apparently died when a Holomasker malfunction overloaded the fusion reactor. The resulting power surges then killed the entire team.
The Holomasker, while still technically online, is malfunctioning and from several angles the interior facade of the base is intermittently visible from the outside along with the power surges from the generator.
Long range observation of the Bannickan camp show that they now call this area the "Flickering Mesa" and are reading divine origins into the impossible sights before them, and the death that awaits anyone foolish enough to approach too closely. With over fifty thousand natives having made the trek, and pulling some of the debris away from the base, there is little hope of the story disappearing easily into myth.
Josephine VI was most recently studied in 2305, when the Andorians discovered a sulfur-based biosphere sheltered beneath the gas giant's turbulent outer hydrogen-ammonia upper mesosphere clouds. During the following twenty-six months of monitoring, eighty-seven instances of anomalous disturbances in the lower semi-metallic hydrogen/sulfur trioxide layer were reported, but high intensity plasma storms along the tropopause border prevented closer observation.
With the newest generation of stellar filtering shields and short ranged sensor technologies available, Starfleet has been invited to conduct the first follow-up survey of Josephine VI in fifteen standard years. Our findings may catalyze the Andorian government to place a permanent research facility in orbit, contingent on our success at penetrating the tropopausic storms after all.
These middle-atmospheric plasma storms approach the lower bounds of stellar intensity. This gas giant's magnetic properties are extremely peculiar in their ability to keep them contained within this mere 120 km thick layer, and the survival of the planktonic biosphere above it is contingent on this. Sensors have already identified current fluctuations below the storm layer that do not correlate with magnetic spikes or the aforementioned thermal patterns; there is clearly another high energy process taking place deeper within the gas giant, independently of these previously documented phenomena.
We will attempt a possibly expensive procedure. While this vessel's sensors cannot track the storms' fluctuation patterns with sufficient realtime accuracy to allow a probe to be beamed through the cold spots, they may be able to do so with the assistance of closer platform. Two of the new generation atmospheric probes are being prepared for operation in these conditions. We will send the first as close as possible to the storm layer, and attempt to use its sensors to find a spot where we can beam the second one further down before the storms cover it again. According to the computer's estimations, we will have between seventy-five and one hundred and thirty seconds to do this before the first probe is rendered inoperable. In the event of a failure, we will be forced to abort our mission for lack of the necessary equipment.
We have detected a powerful storm forming in the atmosphere due to the particles given off by the malfunctioning equipment. The atmosphere is being agitated in such a manner as to cause a massive thunderstorm to grow directly above the site, hopefully the threat of flash flooding in the area will cause the locals to leave the area. And we may even be able to hasten that process with certain "signs".
At the very least the storm will cover up our people as we disable the base, recover the scientist's bodies and data, and then vapourize whatever is left.
The procedure was successful, and the results...I am having difficulty containing my excitement.
The entire lower atmosphere of Josephine VI is made up of a tangle of continent-sized organisms! These bioforms are capable of manipulating subspace in order to change their relative mass to a greater degree than any Federation starship, and appear to feed by converting the gas giant's gravimetric pressure into usable energy. The entire outer biosphere evolved by feeding on their particulate waste products that rose through the storm layer.
The Andorians are preparing to bring a full flotilla of science and construction vessels to this planet. I will be following their findings with great interest over the coming years.
Disaster. Many of the locals did not leave the area until far too late; seemingly drawn in by our warnings more than repulsed
Many were nearly killed in the flash flooding, and our transporters would not have been able to keep up with the required evacuation rate.
With the possible loss of life in mind I personally led the shuttle recovery shuttle teams to pull as many as possible away from the flooding and onto nearby mesas where we provided them with survival supplies modified to look as native made as possible.
While the observation base, and the mesa it was built into, are now permanently gone; I fear we may have made the problem worse.
The natives now speak, not only of the Flickering Mesa being destroyed by a divine storm and flood from the heavens, but also of "Angels cloaked in red and wreathed in light" pulling all the faithful from deadly floods and feeding and clothing them in their hour of need. And I fear that I personally, as an authority figure, now seem be designated a god by iron age natives despite my best efforts to dissuade them.
I may lose my command, and my career may crater now, and I desperately hope that Whale's reputation isn't tainted by this incident. But, by the empty void, I'll see the idiots that approved the holomasker for field use go down harder than me.
Captain's Log, Stardate 28056.7, USS Courageous, Captain Zara ka'Athnon (Excelsior-A, EC- Trailing)
After brief detour to avoid Breen space we've popped into the Neath Nebula that lies between the Breen and Romulan borders. There's a lot to explore here and I can't wait to get started!
We're going to start by using polaron bursts to sound out the edges of th-
What's that? New warp signatures inbound? Time to meet some new friends!
I'm not going to accept blame for any genocidal-ity-ness, since even if you create a myth about ancient astronauts there is no a priori reason to expect this to make their culture worse rather than better.
Also...
Leslie, grimly reading accounts from the Eclipse:
"And this is why we have the RSPS handbook, kids. Rule number three hundred and eighty-six, kids: carefully scan ALL the robots, even the cute ones. ESPECIALLY THE CUTE ONES!"
My first thought when that robot started asking for all of that information was that it was the latest robot from that Robot Hell place. Any clue on how correct that is?
