Security Chief Tendo blinked as she took in her new surroundings. Hoping to occupy herself until she had acclimated, she turned to her station and called up the survey records from the Enterprise's original visit.
She frowned as she noted a discrepency between the file and the readings on her tactical dispay. Opening a line, she began, "Captain Terell, Lieutenant Tendo here. The readings on the planet do not match those recorded by the Enterprise on her initial mission."
"Are you certain Tendo? Have you confirmed both the file and the readings."
"Yes, Captain," she replied as she called up some more files. "While the orbital period and location match, planetary size, composition, and density do not."
"Ah," she continued, "according to the Enterprise's records, the planet you are currently on is actually Ceti Alpha V. Something must have dramatically affected its orbit."
"What!" interrupted Commander Chekov, as he opened his own communicator. "Chekov to Reliant, emergency beam-out!"
Akane blinked as her connection was broken, and turned back to her station. A few moments later, Terell and Chekov arrived at the bridge, concluding an on-going conversation.
"Very well," concluded Terell, "prepare a buoy to be placed in orbit to warn off anyone who might stumble across them."
¤¤¤
Celeste blinked as she looked at the new reading.
"Something happen?" asked Mambo Jack as he entered.
"Inadvertent major timeline shift," she replied.
"How so?" he queried, pulling up a seat.
"Originally, Akane would have ended up trying to fight off Khan and his people, only to get ambushed and subjugated to one of those Ceti Eels. She would then end up joining Kirk's crew when they returned to the Genesis planet, recouped on Vulcan, and travelled into the past."
"What happened?"
"She managed to bypass the entire situation, so Khan never hijacks the Reliant and steal the Genesis device. That invalidated several consequences. First of all, the Genesis Project is revealed to be a complete success, and the Federation begins to use it to Minshara-form several planets in Quadrant 0, within 90 parsecs of Earth. This provides a significant expansion to the Federation's economy and thus to Starfleet's budget."
"What about the Klingon reaction?"
"Well, the military threat was never a real concern. It's just too expensive. Besides, if the Federation was creating new planets, it wasn't expanding its territory and encroaching on potential Imperial territory."
"So Khan never escapes from Ceti Alpha V?"
"Nope. Actually, Commander Kruge ends up retrieving him and his crew while acquiring the data on the Genesis device and bringing them back to the Empire. Later, Khan assists the Klingons with their attempt to expose the core of Praxis, turning it into a major power source and allowing the Klingon fleet to match Starfleet."
"Hmm."
"So the cold war between the Federation and the Klingons continues unabated. The Federation sticks to the smaller, more powerful starships which could travel to the galactic core or the galactic rim in hours, rather than the bloated sluggards of the Next Generation era which take a full year to travel across the settled worlds of the Federation. The Klingons begin to expand away and around the Federation, keeping pace, relatively speaking, with its economy. Starfleet also never abandons the practice of installing cloaking devices on its starships, and continues research."
"Starfleet cloaking devices?"
"They've been installing them for nearly twenty years now. They just don't bother using them all the time, so most opponents don't realize that they have the option. In another seventy years, they will perfect the same Phase technology unique to the Prometheans of Phase World in the Three Galaxies milieu. Of course, by that time the Romulans have finally perfected the process of creating and mastering artificial quantum singularities, bringing them to par with Starfleet and the Klingon Empire."
"What then? Certainly, neither the Borg nor the Dominion will pose as much of a threat."
"Not completely sure. Klingon contact with the civilization or civilizations on the opposite side of the galaxy in some eighty years is certain, but their identity doesn't seem to be quite established yet."
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(Posted Tue, 28 Jan 2003 05:28)
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