Prologue

Posted on Sat Jul 9th, 2016 @ 6:32am by Second Mate Quinton Beck
Edited on on Fri Aug 19th, 2016 @ 2:03am

852 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Tenuous Grasp on Destiny
Location: Interstellar space, on board the "Second Star"
Timeline: 2393- May 7th
Tags: Prologue

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Volume 1: “Second Star”

Heave Ho! My Lads! Heave Ho!
VERSE
Give us the oil, give us the gas
Give us the shells, give us the guns.
We'll be the ones to see them thru.
Give us the tanks, give us the planes.
Give us the parts, give us a ship.
Give us a hip hoo-ray!
And we'll be on our way.

CHORUS
Heave Ho! My Lads, Heave Ho!
It's a long, long way to go.
It's a long, long pull with our hatches full,
Braving the wind, braving the sea,
Fighting the treacherous foe;
Heave Ho! My lads, Heave Ho!
Let the sea roll high or low,
We can cross any ocean, sail any river.
Give us the goods and we'll deliver,
Damn the submarine!
We're the men of the Merchant Marine!



Prologue

A sailor should know the length of their line;
Braving to the unfathomable deep.
If the choice is, “return, or add more line”;
For the brave, there's no pause, they toss the heap.


THERE WAS PEACE...

Only for a moment, just a beautiful, fragile moment bought with the pain and suffering of billions across a galaxy. Life had found new meaning and value, and those who remained rebuilt. Peace was the ever present goal, the driving point for the Federation, strife was its reality. War had brought death, pain, and abject misery to the Federation, peace restored its virtues, and made its ambitions keen with an eye towards diplomacy and cooperation once more. Peace had seen the end of the death tolls, but mercy’s cruel opposite, war, had left deep scars in need of healing. The Dominion war touched nearly every world in the Federation, shattering any illusions of superiority that might still be held. Earth, Deneb, Talar, Deneva, Angosia... Bajor... they all experienced a surge in individualistic zeal once free from the war, and found other paths than Starfleet.

Peace had only been earned by further violence, a stay of execution issued by necessity from cruel genocidal tactics justified in the wake such loss of life. In the final moments of the war every Jem’Hadar garrisoned had been given orders to sunder and kill with abandon. In the final days of the war, and even after retreats were ordered, attacks from desperate people pressed the fighting onwards. In the end none had taken such a beating as Cardassia.

Humanitarian aid to these affected zones has become a staple career for many in the sector. Between the contested zones of control, contraband and smuggling, thefts, and grafts, it took a savvy crew to ensure their payload was delivered to the right hands, and the disillusioned peoples of a thousand lost ships slowly returned to the battle grounds they staked their innocence on, to rebuild what was lost. The breadth of the Federation allows for much trafficking of vitally needed supplies, smaller vessels can fly faster without tearing space-time with their engines, a natural trade market which has always existed suddenly increases a thousandfold.

Starfleet has jurisdiction in any Federation or Allied territories to act as police and military need be. They keep the lanes clean of malcontents, ne'er do-wells riffraff, scoundrels, raiders, follow up on reports of phenomenae, generally patrol as needed. They will respond to signals and threats outside of the scope when in range or able to assist, as Starfleet is a humanitarian organization as well. However there are just as many worlds who are unaligned with Federation interests but peacefully cohabitate the cosmos. Some worlds such as Chalna for instance, feature structures in their society that directly bar them from Federation membership, or even having an interest in joining them. They dot the spacescape, hundreds of worlds inside a bubble which could crush them but lets them live as they wish.

Skirmishes are common, borders are in question, new worlds are found, new threats encountered. After the war, many more secessionists or isolationist systems set up their own zones of control after the tolls and losses to their patron state. A need has become known for a strong hand like Starfleet in many of these systems, but without a home nation state, any seemingly peaceful battleship or flotilla becomes inevitably used for personal gain. Lawlessness and legal quandaries are common in these neutral systems.

Where there is a need...

Within the depths of Federation space, a small Rigelian freighter, home to a few and a place of business for so many others, the “NXS Second Star” flies to her fatal end. She will be reborn into a home for hundreds, and a beacon of a new age for the Federation. They are merchants and profiteers, occasionally bounty hunters or prison transport officials. More times than they could ever admit, an intelligence officer books passage posing as some innocuous citizen, or a ship that can carry the right people across contested warzones. They scour the cosmos looking for opportunities, responding to distress calls, serving people and building a new life. Walking the occasional fine line they nonetheless adhere to Federation law by principle rather than enforcement.

These are the voyages...

 

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