Future History

Posted on Sep 23, 2015 @ 2:46pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane & Captain Peter Aspinall
Edited on on Sep 23, 2015 @ 2:47pm

Mission: Civil War

"FUTURE HISTORY"

(Continued from "Making Friends With The Shadows on My Wall")

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Location: USS Pendragon, in orbit of Elandipole IV
Stardate: [2.15]0923.1845
Scene: Transporter room


A flash of white light. A feeling of coldness, right down to the soul.

As awareness rushed back in, Michael Turlogh Kane found himself standing on an unfamiliar transporter pad. He instinctively looked left and right to see if Aerdan and Selyara had arrived safely, and saw that they had. Going through a transporter always weirded him out a little - being energised into your constituent sub-atomic particles and beamed through a vaccuum might be the statistically safest way to travel in the twenty-fifth century, but it was still all a bit wrong. Looking at it another way, the transporter actually disintegrated and killed whoever was standing on the pad, then converted their biologic makeup into computer information, then beamed that information through the void, where the receiving station re-constructed a copy of whatever data it had received from the originator point. The first time you went through a transporter you died - whatever fleshy thing appeared wearing your face at the other end was just a copy. By now, the original Michael Turlogh Kane had gone to his death decades ago, and the creature whose thoughts he now heard inside his head was just the latest simulacrum of skin in a long, long line.

He took a moment to centre his thoughts, and was himself again. He had materialised in one of the Pendragon's transporter rooms, but a quick look around was enough to tell him that the technology was more advanced than that aboard the Phoenix. He was standing on a diamond-shaped pad, not a circular one, and the control panel that the Pendragon's transporter chief was working was mounted directly onto the wall instead of being standalone.

Peter Aspinall was there too. It had been over ten years since he had seen Peter, and he looked almost as Kane remembered him - tall and sallow, but he was now middle-aged, somewhere in his mid-to-late fifties. Grey flecks invaded his messy dark brown hair, and the hand that he ran through it to keep it out of his eyes was pale and veined. Both he and the Pendragon's transporter chief were wearing strangely-designed uniforms - the torso and legs were black, but the arms and collar were fused together in a streak of colour that indicated the department they were assigned to. The transporter chief wore a kind of woodland brown; Peter was wearing a dull blue colour. Their rank pips were not on their collars - instead, a series of hoops and slashes along the uniform forearms indicated the authority of the wearer. The whole thing was still recognisably 'fleet, however - both of them were wearing little gold communicator pins on their left breast in the distinctive shape of the Starfleet delta.

To Kane, it looked like he had just beamed into something out of an old science fiction story. He fixed his gaze on Peter. "Permission to come aboard, Captain."

"Permission granted." Peter held out his hand, and Kane shook it as he stepped down from the transporter pad. "It's been a long time, Mike. For you, thirteen years. For me, over thirty, and you're supposed to be dead."

"Believe me, I'm happy to be alive." Kane gestured to Aerdan and Selyara. "Commander Aerdan Jos and Selyara." He frowned. "Do you remember them too?"

Peter smiled indulgently. "I know it's confusing when timelines get mixed up. Yes, of course I remember them." He nodded to both Aerdan and Selyara. "It's been a couple of decades since I've seen you both. Of course, that was in our old timeline."

"Not this one?" asked Selyara.

"Not quite," said Peter. "It all happened in my past, which is sort of your future."

"I'm very confused," said Aerdan, his antennae shrinking down into his head.

"I hope I can give you some answers," said Peter, gesturing towards the door. "We've been in orbit of Elandipole for over a year now, trying to solve our own temporal puzzle. I think that, finally, we may have some answers."

He led them into the outside corridor and turned them left. Kane looked around, impressed at the state of the ship. Although the frame of the Pendragon was of a design nearly three decades old, she had obviously been refitted and kept up to date as technology had progressed, and was by no means obsolete. Indeed, she was probably a treasure-trove of technology that was probably superior to anything aboard the Phoenix. He found himself taking extra-long glances at the wall panels, trying to see what differences there were, perhaps even looking for a little snippet of future technology, but the angel on his shoulder that admonished him for trying to tamper with the timeline eventually won out, and he focused on the matter at hand.

"The turbolift is at the end of this corridor," said Peter, gesturing ahead. Kane fell into step beside him, Aerdan and Selyara behind.

"This isn't the Pendragon I remember, is it?" asked the Andorian.

"Yes and no," said Peter. "I'll explain everything soon, but first I'd like to talk about Drake."

A sinking feeling opened in Kane's stomach. "Alright."

"You probably already know that Drake is a clone?" said Peter, glancing at Kane. "To be specific, he is the sixth clone of Drake to be created. He was assigned to make contact with you on Earth, to extend an invitation for you to come to Elandipole to meet me. However, by the time he reached Earth, the Discovery had already left for its mission in system K-60. He had to wait until you arrived back on the Century to reveal himself to you."

Kane nodded. "Commander Jos and I were in Paris at the time, but hadn't met up yet. We were going through a board of inquiry following the loss of the Discovery. Admiral Martine activated Project Phoenix and we got the hell off-world before Admiral Edgerton decide to have us done away with. We haven't been back since. Drake came with us to Limbo, a space station in the Triangle, where we located and picked up Selyara. She has vital intelligence regarding the names and positions of high-ranking Neo-Essentialists in Starfleet."

They reached the turbolift. The doors hissed smoothly open, and Peter stood back to let everyone else enter. "I notice that the Drake is not with you, and neither is Thomas Varn."

Kane set his jaw and delivered the bad news straight up. "Drake died on Limbo during a fight with a criminal named Rawyvin Seth. Thomas Varn died en route to Elandipole."

Peter stepped into the turbolift, the doors sliding shut behind him. "I see. Engineering." The turbolift began to move, only a slight background hum indicating that it was even travelling through the decks. Peter was silent for a moment. He looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back. Eventually he spoke. "I'm sure you did everything you could."

Kane recalled the moment when he seized Drake by the shoulders and thrust him bodily into the barrel of Rawyvin Seth's disruptor. In his mind's eye he saw the flash of light, the stench of charred meat, feathers fluttering down like rain. Drake's last words from Thomas Varn's face. "You're no better than Rawyvin Seth, Captain." He remembered all that and said nothing.

Kane looked up and saw that Peter was staring at him. The feelings of guilt subsided like a rolling wave, and he narrowed his eyes defensively. "What?"

"Nothing," said Peter, and looked away.

The turbolift slowed and they arrived at Engineering.

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To: Richard Edgerton, Rear Admiral, Chief of Staff, Starfleet, Military Governor of Earth
From: Heydrich, Cmdr. Ronald


Admiral,

Am pleased to report that the Century's rendevous with Subject Red is imminent. Our voyage here has served as a working shakedown cruise for the Century, and the new systems have performed admirably. Not only is the Century a formidable weapons platform in her own right, her tactical upgrades now make her an effective command-and-control vessel for a fleet. Her design may be becoming obsolete, but this ship will serve us well in the weeks ahead.

The bulk of her thousand-strong crew are not true patriots like you and I, but enough of the officer corps aboard are committed to our idealogy to ensure that the ship is run most efficiently.

I look forward to presenting you with further positive reports in the coming days. Federation First!

RH

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Location: USS Pendragon, as before
Scene: Main Engineering


Kane wasn't sure what to expect when the turbolift deposited them down into the Pendragon's Engineering section. Part of him had imagined some sort of futuristic laboratory complete with advanced peripheral systems that showcased twenty years of technological development in starship propulsion, but it wasn't like that. In truth, the Engineering deck of the Phoenix was broadly comparable to what he could see here - the steady, heavy sky-blue heartbeat of the warp reactor and numerous power network monitoring stations. The only difference was that the Pendragon was equipped with a crowd of engineers who swarmed around the section like ants on a morsel of food.

The Pendragon's engineers were all wearing a similarly-designed uniform to Peter, but their collars and sleeves were all coloured green. The control stations they were working on looked three-dimensional and holographic, but the controls themselves were still LCARS-based, and similar to what Kane remembered from his infrequent visits to the Phoenix's Engineering decks. Behind him, Aerdan and Selyara looked around politely while the nearby engineers, having seen their arrival, started finding ways to look busy.

"You were expecting something more dramatic?" asked Peter, like he could read Kane's mind. "We're running off a twenty-year-old system down here. Not enough time to get it upgraded, you see."

Kane frowned. The Pendragon was a mishmash of technologies, he could see that now. Wall-mounted control panels and three-dimensional workstations notwithstanding, the software of the ship still seemed the same. He'd be prepared to bet that Jake Crichton would be able to adapt this work environment easily, once he realised that someone had given the Pendragon lick of paint instead of replastering the walls. "Can you explain how you all ended up back here, in this time?" he asked, looking around at the activity. "I haven't heard of you since we parted on the Century thirteen years ago. When Drake delivered your message, it was a real blast from the past."

Peter nodded. "I suppose now's as good a time as any." He turned to look at Kane. "You see, Mike, right now there are two Pendragons. There's the Pendragon that belongs in this year, and then there's us."

"Where's the other one?" asked Selyara.

"It's not in the Milky Way galaxy any longer," said Peter. "You see, nineteen years ago, this ship was in orbit of Nimbus Three, when an incident occurred. The Pendragon and everyone aboard her were thrown millions of light years away from Nimbus, farther than any starship has ever travelled before. Aerdan has probably explained some of this. We ended up in the Andromeda galaxy, in what we could only describe as a starship graveyard.”

Aerdan nodded, his antennae twitching as he momentarily took up the story. "That's right. There was a sentient alien shipyard at the centre of the graveyard, that was bent on taking control of our crew to use as part of its computer network. It used organic bio-energy to sustain its circuitry somehow. We eventually managed to escape to a nearby planet."

For a horrible moment, Kane thought of the Thal.

"From my perspective, those events happened almost two decades ago," said Peter. "That nearby planet to which we escaped held the descendants of people who also had been ensnared by that shipyard but escaped, like we did. Aerdan, Thomas and a number of other crew, including Captain Williams, were teleported elsewhere, leaving me in command."

"How?" asked Selyara. "What teleported you?"

"I'll get to that shortly," said Peter.

"We ended up on Nimbus Three, and were picked up by the USS Armstrong, which had been dispatched to the Nimbus system," explained Aerdan to Kane and Selyara. "There were pirates in the system and the whole situation turned hostile. Captain Harcourt was killed. I took command of the ship and brought us back to Earth. You know the rest."

Peter took up the story. "We, on the other hand, spent twenty years getting back home. As I'll explain, the way the others used was closed to us. When we arrived back in the Federation, it was stardate two-four-point-four-eight, and it wasn’t until then that I knew Aerdan and the others had made it back home aboard the Armstrong, nineteen years previously."

"I had no idea," said Aerdan, his face aghast. "If we had known - "

"It's history," said Peter flatly. "When we arrived back home, Richard Edgerton was already in control of the Federation. The Neo-Essentialists had been working in the shadows for decades, placing their people at the top of Starfleet and the Federation government. When they were ready, they simply had their people emerge like a fifth column takeover."

"It's not been like that here," said Selyara. "Our Edgerton has been much more direct. He's squeezed twenty years of politicking into one sudden and violent power grab."

"We were being debriefed and the Pendragon was being refitted," continued Peter. "It was scheduled to take over a year in Spacedock. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to us, but we started to assimilate into the times. The uniforms, for example, and the three-D controls, which were an interesting development of the holographic controls we had used before. But despite all of it, it was plain that the Federation we knew was gone. Starfleet was being heavily militarised, and the Marine Corps was tripled in size. Belligerent speeches against the Klingons, the Romulans - anyone was fair game, it seemed - appeared daily on Fed News."

"What did you do?" asked Aerdan.

"What you did. We took the Pendragon, half-refitted, and fled Earth. We managed to make contact with those who were still committed to the Federation as an alliance of peace. Civil war was not long in coming."

"Two timelines. Two different, but similar, stories," mused Kane. "Which is worse? The violence of Edgerton's rise to power today, or the corruption of his rise in the future?"

Peter shrugged. “That's yet to be seen. Suffice it to say that in our timeline the civil war was heavily one-sided. All the most powerful starships were under direct Neo-Essentialist control with committed crews. We were fighting a losing battle as soon as we began."

"Desperate times, desperate solutions," said Selyara.

"We had the idea of changing history to solve the problem," continued Peter. "Eliminating our own timeline and erasing ourselves from existence seemed a small price to pay for that. You have to understand, life under the Neo-Essentialists was akin to living in the worst form of fascist dictatorship, backed up by all the technology of the twenty-fifth century. You watched what you said to everyone, even people you thought were your friends. When you got together with people for a meeting, you never knew who went home to bed, and who went home to file a secret police report."

"So you jumped back to a year where Edgerton was still unknown?" asked Selyara.

"Yes," said Peter. "We targeted this stardate because, at this point in history, there are not enough Neo-Essentialists to permanently hold onto power in the face of stubborn resistance. True, they can control individual worlds and many starships. But Edgerton's power is still built on a loose foundation. The peoples of the Federation are chafing under his domination. There is still hope. In the future we left behind, there was none."

"The timeline you know has been shattered, that's for sure," said Kane. "But why is the Pendragon still here? Drake's version of the events that were supposed to play out on Earth were different. I was supposed to die on Limbo but I didn't, and Project Phoenix was not supposed to be launched, but it was. He couldn't explain why the briefing he had received from your Drake was unravelling with no consequences."

"The vagaries of time travel," muttered Peter. "Let's go to the bridge. I can explain better there."

The turbolift doors opened at their approach. Kane took one last look around at Engineering and stepped inside.

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To: Richard Edgerton, Rear Admiral, Chief of Staff, Starfleet, Military Governor of Earth
From: Heydrich, Cmdr. Ronald


Admiral,

Phase One is accomplished. Subject Red is aboard the Century and has assumed command. He was, as you said, a little reticent to come out of retirement, but was eventually persuaded. Words like 'duty'and 'honour' have always had a powerful effect on the emotions of military men.

The crew, both Starfleet and Neo-Essentialist, seem in awe of him. His technological aptitude is about a decade out of date, but one can tell that he still retains his old poise, his old instinct for command, and especially his tactical awareness. If you are correct that we will eventually be forced to engage the Phoenix in battle, then Subject Red will make a perfect commander.

We are now en route to Sirius, to join our fleet massing there. Federation First!


RH

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Location: USS Pendragon, as before
Scene: Bridge


After seeing Engineering, the lustre seemed to have a faded a little from the Pendragon. Knowing that she was the survivor of a twenty-year voyage, a mishmash of modern and obsolete technology, as well as fleeing her own desperate situation, were all causing Kane to think twice about how useful she could actually be. It struck him that Peter and his crew were just as much refugees as the crew of the Phoenix were. Under a cold light, the whole scheme - changing future history - seemed to smack of madness. In the here and now, Edgerton wasn't going to be overthrown without a fight, so actually altering the future was going to be a hell of a lot more difficult than it seemed. Much as it would be preferable to simply wave some sort of history-changing time-wand that restored the balance, it wasn't going to be that simple. Blood might have to be shed, the blood of their fellow Starfleet volunteers.

Civil conflicts were not unknown on the myriad member worlds of the Federation, although one had never occurred in the Federation's two-hundred-and-sixty-nine-year history. Generally, they were high-intensity conflicts, usually resulting in large numbers of casualties on both sides, and left a legacy of bitterness that lingered for decades afterward. Sometimes, they led to the total disintegration of the societies they engulfed.

But civil war some distance away yet. When the turbolift doors opened and the party stepped onto the bridge, there were still some unanswered questions.

A slender female Alterian stood up from the centre seat, her tail swishing as it unfurled. Her skin was blue, almost matching the colour of her uniform, and as she stepped forward to see the arrivals, her face lit up. "Aerdan!" she smiled at the Andorian.

Aerdan grasped her forearms in greeting. "Wonderful to see you again, Izzy," he beamed, his antennae shooting straight upward. "You look as young as you did when we last met."

"Almost twenty years," reminded Peter. "I had forgotten how young Izzy must look compared to the rest of us." He turned to Kane for an introduction. "This is Izshlana Vort, my first officer. Izzy, this is Captain Kane of the Phoenix."

Kane shook the proferred hand. "Lieutenant," he said with a nod.

"And I believe you know Katlina Gorman?" Peter gestured to a second bridge officer.

The name rang a bell, and Kane turned to regard the woman. Age was showing on Kat's face but had done little to temper the vital energy she had always contained, nor the fire within her eyes. She was wearing a plain black uniform, devoid of rank insignia. He shook her hand. "Of course. Commander Potter was my first officer for a brief period on Gateway station. Good to meet you again, Commander."

"Captain Kane," said Kat neutrally. "But I don't have a Starfleet rank any longer. I retired some years ago."

"I see," said Kane. Peter motioned the group forward, leading them around the bridge, showing them the various operations and introducing a few more bridge officers, but Kane was only half-interested. "I still have several questions, Peter. How did the Pendragon actually come backwards in time? Time travel has been documented before, but it's not like we can do it on a whim. And when you arrived, why not just assassinate Edgerton? What are the Stonehenge and Acreman doing here?" He paused. "And the most important question - why, given the changes in the timeline, are you all still here? History has changed now. The Neo-Essentialist takeover of the Federation has occurred in the present day, not nineteen years in the future. None of you should be here. Pardon the expression, but you should all have simply been erased from existence."

"Those are all complicated questions with complicated answers," said Peter. "Forgive me if I don't answer in order.The Acreman is here because she's also fleeing Edgerton and the Neo-Essentialists. Bret Maverick is in command - you know him, yes?"

"I know him."

"And the Stonehenge - well, she uses the Elandipole system as a base of operations. It's part of the reason why we chose this location."

"A base all the way out here?" Kane clicked his fingers. "You said they had deployed some of the structures on the surface. Has that something to do with it?"

"It does. The Stonehenge's mission focus is classified beyond belief. She doesn't use a standard Starbase unless absolutely necessary. As for the idea of assassinating Edgerton - that may have worked, but we are dealing with the minds of committed Neo-Essentialists here.We decided that it may also have just turned him in to a martyr and made their movement even stronger."

Kane nodded. "I understand, and that's all very interesting, Peter, but you and your ship are still here. Happy as I am to see you, you still haven't explained how you got here, or why the moment our present deviated from your history you didn't just vanish like you'd never existed. The fact that you're standing in front of me is anathema to everything we know about how time travel works. If my past is erased, then I cannot exist in the present. How come you can?"

Peter sighed. "It's the last piece of the puzzle. I'll show you. Come with me." He gestured to the turbolift again. "This will be the final stop on your tour of future history, with something so incredible you need to see to believe."

"Now you've really got me interested," said Kane, stepping into the turbolift.

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To: Richard Edgerton, Rear Admiral, Chief of Staff, Starfleet, Military Governor of Earth
From: Heydrich, Cmdr. Ronald


Admiral,

Am pleased to report that the we have rendevoused with our fleet at Sirius. As per your orders, I arranged a meeting with the commanding officers of all forty-eight starships aboard the Century. At that meeting, I introduced Subject Red as the fleet commander and promoted him to Admiral, with your authority. There was applause and an excellent sense of purpose, but given that most of those forty-eight commanding officers are Neo-Essentialists, I would have expected nothing less.

Subject Red made a speech which I am compelled to make note of. He praised the assembled group for upholding their duty, and he praised you, by name, as leader of the legitimate government of the Federation. He reminded everyone of our Starfleet oaths, specifically the clause that calls for us to defend the Federation against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. He denounced the rebel fleet as domestic terrorists, non-patriots, and assured us all of victory in any upcoming fleet battle.

I mention it because Subject Red's words were right out of one of our propaganda broadcasts on Fed News. I watched him sidelong as he strode around the room, pounding fist into palm to accentuate his points, and I wondered how genuine it all was. He is not, and has never been, a Neo-Essentialist, and the cynical side of me finds it hard to believe that someone of his supposed intelligence would be taken in so completely by simple propaganda for the masses.

I suggest, Admiral, that once the rebel fleet is defeated and the Phoenix is burning in space, that Subject Red's usefulness to our cause will have come to an end. Nobody will miss an old man, and if a hero 'dies' in our service, so much the better.

I will sign off now. The fleet is about to depart for Elandipole, sky-blue Federation flags fluttering in the breeze. We should arrive only a few days after the rebel fleet. Subject Blue's information on the destination of the rebels has been quite helpful.

Federation First!


RH.

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Location: USS Pendragon, as before
Scene: Turbolift -> Cargo Bay


As they entered the turbolift, Peter called out a deck number and began to explain. "Remember how I said that an incident had occurred to us while we were orbiting Nimbus Three?"

"Yes," said Selyara. "You said you were flung into another galaxy."

"Right. When the Pendragon was flung to the Andromeda galaxy, we were trying to remove an artifact from the surface of Nimbus. This artifact was an alien technological device that was completely unknown to us. We recovered it from a desert ruin. It seemed to be damaged, and despite out best efforts there was an explosion of some kind. The resultant burst of energy catapulted us across the universe to the Andromeda galaxy."

Kane looked at Aerdan, and the Andorian nodded to confirm what Peter was saying. Kane remembered that although this was a twenty-year-old history for Peter, it had only happened last year for Aerdan.

Eventually the turbolift stopped and Peter led them down the corridor. "That shipyard I mentioned before? It had technology that was akin to the Nimbus artifact's level of sophistication. They might even have been related in some way. We were structurally damaged from being hurled so far across the universe, needless to say, but we made our way to a nearby alien planet and made some initial repairs. On that alien planet, Aerdan and company found a second artifact, which is what teleported them back to Nimbus, our original starting point."

"The Armstrong picked us up, and you know the rest," said Aerdan to Kane.

Peter stopped outside a door. Kane saw that it was marked 'Cargo Bay 2'. "We had two artifacts. The first, the one we recovered from the sands of Nimbus, was badly damaged. Its malfunction caused our journey across the universe. We never got it to work again, and we abandoned it. But the second artifact - the one that teleported Aerdan and Thomas back to Nimbus - we recovered it in working condition, and twenty years later, we still have it."

The doors slid open, but what lay beyond was not a cargo bay. It had been entirely converted into a laboratory of some kind. Portable sensor units had been set up in a rough circle, feeding their information to a bank of diagnostic computers positioned at regular intervals around the deck. In the centre of it all was a sky-blue forcefield, shimmering as it held in place the artifact that Peter was talking about. Several engineers were milling around the consoles, monitoring the artifact and correlating the constant sensor data.

Kane, Aerdan and Selyara stood there dumbfounded. Even from here, the artifact seemed to radiate some sort of power. It looked like a stone obelisk standing upright on another stone plinth. The whole thing was made of a dull black marble-like material that had an odd reflective quality, seemingly pushing back against the forcefield that was holding it in place.

Peter stepped forward and led them into the bay. "We've been running our scanning operations from out of this dedicated command centre. The memory banks that these computers are networked with are totally self-contained. They hold all the information of the future - all the knowledge we have accumulated over the course of twenty years." He stopped and gestured around. "All our data from our voyage home, all our Neo-Essentialist intelligence, all our data on the artifact, it's in here. Information about a history that never was, and now never will be."

Kane felt uncomfortable. The air in the room had a stuffy, oppressive quality that the environment controls didn't seem to be clearing. He shivered at Peter's statement - this room was the final link to the last twenty years of the Pendragon's history. Stored away in these memory banks were the crew's lives lives for the past two decades, their collective vanished past, now rendered defunct by changes in the timeline. If the data in this room was ever lost, then all that would remain were memories.

The four of them approached a control panel, and the green-clad engineers moved back to let them inspect it. Up close, the artifact could be seen in better detail. Although it looked inert and dead from a distance, the black marbelised facade was criss-crossed with thousands of tiny rainbow-coloured mineral veins. They moved and flowed over the surface of the artifact like water, changing patterns and shifting their colours with seemingly no pattern.

The sense of discomfort that Kane felt at the bay door was heightened now. He thought he could hear a vague-high-pitched note coming from behind the forcefield, and a slight pressure was building in his head, like the onset of a migraine. He glanced at Aerdan and Selyara - both were equally transfixed.

Peter put his hand out to the forcefield. Incredibly, the floating veins on the black marble surface seemed to react to his touch, moving together in rivulets towards his fingers. Quickly, Peter took his hand away. "When Aerdan and the others were teleported back to Nimbus, we collected the artifact from the planet's surface. It seemed to have shut down. It was as dead as stone, and we still don't know why. Perhaps its programmed that way, or perhaps it needed to recharge. In any case, we set the artifact up in here, and over the course of our voyage home, we studied it."

"I remember this thing," whispered Aerdan. "It has a kind of power to it. You feel drawn to it somehow."

"I obviously don't have the time to even begin to describe our journey home or what happened to us along the way," continued Peter. "The early years were very frustrating. We made first contact with several new races and civilisations on the way home, and some of them had information regarding the artifact. We began to realise that it was more than just a teleporter - we heard legends from diverse peoples and places that said that these obelisks were connected to the disappearances of entire civilisations. There were stories of them cropping up to help a weak civilisation fight off a stronger one, or being on worlds where races of people were mysteriously saved from natural disasters that should have wiped them out. We heard stories of ancient people, who had lived through more time than they should have, and connected them to the presence of these artifacts on their worlds."

Kane glanced at Selyara. She was still staring at the artifact, and he followed her gaze back to the black stone with trepidation.

"Was it all to do with time travel?" asked Aerdan.

"We think so. A few years into our voyage, the artifact awoke. These coloured veins that you see here appeared on its surface over a period of several months. It took another full year of study before we could even hypothesise how to trigger another teleport. Indeed, the artifact eventually woke, though it took several months from start to finish, and another year for us to understand enough to trigger a teleport."

Kane nudged Selyara. "Are you alright?" he said.

"I think so," she murmured. "There's a lot of psionic energy bound up in that thing."

"You can feel the telepathic field, can't you Selyara?" said Peter. "There seems to be some interaction with the users, a sort of telepathic link which develops over a long period of time. This link enables the artifact to take you to places you want or need to go, or have been to before, through this psionic link. In our case, it has attuned itself to me."

"Is that how you managed to reach home again so quickly?" asked Aerdan. "Twenty years is a long time, but the colossal distances between the Milky Way and Andromeda are almost unimaginable. Intergalactic travel between the two would take hundreds of thousands of years and require technological advances to propulsion that are far beyond our level of technology."

Peter chuckled. "Tell me about it. But what could we do except keep going? Eventually, the artifact attuned itself to me. Twenty years after we set out for home, there was a sudden flash of light, and we were back at Nimbus. The artifact had teleported us back home."

"An incredible story," murmured Kane.

"Maybe one day I'll write it all down," smiled Peter. "When we fled Edgerton's future-Federation, we took the artifact with us. As the civil war was nearing its end, and the Neo-Essentialists were close to victory, we started to think about altering the past, using the artifact. We knew it would be breaking all the laws of temporal mechanics, and we knew that we would be erased from the timeline if we succeeded. But desperation breeds courage. The last of the future-rebels were holed up here, in the Elandipole system. When Edgerton's Starfleet came to finish us, we triggered the artifact again by interacting with its telepathic field and concentrating on the year and place we wanted to go to. The future-Stonehenge defended us against impossible odds to give us the time we needed to complete the activation of the artifact. Like before, there was another flash of light, and we were here."

"Your husband, Matthew?" asked Aerdan. "What of him?"

"He was on the future-Stonehenge when she was destroyed," said Peter, not betraying any of the hurt he must have been feeling.

"I am sorry," said the Andorian. "He was a good man."

"Their sacrifice was not in vain," said Peter. "We appeared in the exact same physical location we had left. The artifact had recalled the last time it had been used - the time it had sent you and Thomas and the others back to Nimbus. So, when we triggered the artifact, we arrived back in this timeline at the exact same moment that Aerdan and company did. Since then, we've been hiding out here at Elandipole, protected somehow from the changes in our future by the strange power of the artifact."

Finally, the story had come full circle. Kane thought about all that had happened since then. The Armstrong had returned to Earth. The Discovery had gone out to K-60, been destroyed, and the Century had come back with knowledge that the Neo-Essentialists were alive and well. Drake had approached them with news from the future. They had stolen the Phoenix and escaped Earth while the Federation Council voted in martial law, elevating Edgerton to the highest power in the government. They had made their way to Limbo, found Selyara, and escaped the station with thousands of refugees. They had traversed the Hyperion Expanse and survived to tell the tale. The great wheel of history never stopped turning.

He cast his eyes around the room again, at the obelisk artifact, at the reams of sensor data, at all the memory banks. "If Edgerton and the Neo-Essentialists ever got their hands on this data, or the artifact, or anything inside this room, it would be a terrible weapon in their hands," he said.

"That's exactly why we haven't left the system," said Peter. "Imagine if the Neo-Essentialists found this artifact and put it to the same use we did, if they figured out a way to use to jump anywhere in time they wanted. There are many flashpoints in our history that could change the Federation into an entity more in line with their ideals, or could prevent it from even being formed. Imagine why they could do if they could take a present-day starship back to the days before the Federation was even founded, or the era of the first Warp Five starships? It doesn't bear thinking about."

Kane nodded. The Pendragon was the most dangerous ship in the quadrant right now. At all costs, he knew, she could not be allowed to fall to the Neo-Essentialists. Better she be destroyed than let them get their hands on this artifact, this data.

He turned to Peter. "Thank you for the tour, and the history lesson. It makes for sobering thinking. We're going to need some time to digest everything you've said and try to figure out what to do next. In the meantime, will you allow my senior officers access to your data on the artifact?"

"Everything we have is at your disposal, although I would ask that no copies be made," said Peter. "I'll assign one of my officers to assist you while you examine what we have. Good enough?"

Kane nodded. "Good enough." He turned to Aerdan and Selyara. "You two, return to the Phoenix. You're both on shore leave as of this minute."

"You're not coming?" asked Selyara.

"Not right now," said Kane. "I'll beam back to the Phoenix shortly. See you later." He nodded to them both, standing back to watch Aerdan contact the Phoenix to arrange transport. A moment later, two pillars of blue light appeared out of the air, and they were gone.

Kane turned to Peter. "I'm ready when you are."

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NRPG: This post hopefully ties together the major plotlines in the big meta-thing that we started back in March 2014. When we step forward together now, it will be to write a new history for both the Federation, but also the FRPG itself.

The main theme of "Civil War" is conviction and/or belief, and how it causes people to act. What a person believes in is what drives them onward. It affects Kane, Aerdan, Selyara, Jake, Barton, Eve, Kass and all the NPCs we have created on the Phoenix, who are rejecting Neo-Essentialism and are prepared to die fighting it. It affects Peter, Izzy, Kat, and everyone aboard the Pendragon who have given up their future to heal the past. But don't forget that it also affects Edgerton and all his people, including Ronald Heydrich, Subjects Red and Blue, and all the names locked inside Selyara's head. They too are following their convictions, their beliefs in how society should be.

Perhaps your characters can reflect on that, now that they are (for the moment) safe. And also, enjoy the beach!


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX

Peter Aspinall the voice of...
Captain Peter Aspinall
CO
USS PENDRAGON

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