driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Beverly Crusher, Ezri Dax, James Kirk, Leonard McCoy, and Pavel Chekov - and you, should you like to stop by!
Broadcast: video
Action: Málum
When: April 5

[So Beverly may or may not have taken a few tequila shots. And she may or may not be quite drunk and affectionately effusive about... everything. Thus she has something Very Important to tell the Fleet, which she does from inside Málum with some of her Starfleet companions around. Thankfully, one of them is holding the camera or this feed would be a lot more intolerably shaky.

It's also one of the rare times you'll find her in her Starfleet Uniform.]

Today! [Beverly claps her hands together.] Today is an important holiday back home - First Contact Day! It marks the time when humans finally launched the first spaceship powered by warp drive and that was also the same day we met the Vulcans. [She frowns, her thoughts coming more slowly than is usual.] I don't think we've had any Vulcans here in the fleet, unless it was a long time ago before I came. Which is really weird when you stop to think about it, that there's been Humans and Cardassians and Trill but no Vulcans. Or anybody else really. Vulcans kind of look like elves so I've often wondered if maybe they are but just so many universes removed that it's not quite the same.

[Clearly someone is giving her A Look from behind the camera and she points an admonishing finger at them.]

I'm getting there! [She straightens up and pats her hair, getting back into "lecture" mode.] What probably many of you don't know, is that I saw all of this, first hand, the last time I went home. You see there were the Borg - only we're not going to go into them because this is supposed to be a celebration - and they were trying to go back in time to ruin the warp ship so the Vulcans wouldn't come down to see us so of course we had to go stop them even though we're not supposed to time travel - and for good reason too, it's a pain in the ass. One time Mark Twain followed us onto the Enterprise and it was this whole thing though I guess it worked out all right in the end because then he wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court so that's good. And he really was very nice and understanding of why he couldn't tell anyone what he saw.

[Another pause as she tries to figure out why she started talking about Mark Twain. Ah! Right!]

So anyway we had to go back in time to stop the Borg and so we met Zefram Cochrane who invented the warp drive and he was completely not like any of us expected and you know, sometimes they say you shouldn't meet your heroes? We'd all been taught about what a great genius he was, and that's true, but I guess they didn't really want to mention in the history books that he really liked to party and building the ship wasn't some noble, selfless endeavor to advance science - it was a difficult time in human history, and he needed the money. But that's the beautiful thing isn't it? People are complicated and may not always be what you expect but they still can do great things. And that's really what First Contact Day is about, celebrating the amazing things we've already done and the things we'll do in the future too. Together.

[This nerd, y'all. You should come party with her.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, of course. What else would it be? I mean, I think it would be necessary for any space-faring organization, especially if you've gone far enough to contact other races.

I have no idea, but I would rather not assume that other universes have sensible abbreviations. [He's not entirely sober, please forgive him.] Of course we have that capability, and we only make contact with other races that also have the means to travel faster than light.

[Thankfully he's very forgiving]

Really? What if they need help?

Aha, then it becomes difficult. The commanding officer must decide if they are willing to break the Prime Directive and risk the repercussions of doing so.

And what are the repercussions, usually, for breaking the prime directive?

Edited 2017-04-15 19:24 (UTC)

Usually? A court-martial, I think.

[A slight wince]

And, have you ever had to break the prime directive yourself?

[Experience with a court-martial, friend?]

Personally, no. I am not a captain. A decision to do so wouldn't fall to me.

No, but there might be fall-out from following those kinds of orders. I've uh...I've been there myself.

I haven't experienced that, no.

[You have his attention!] What do you mean?

[Kaidan lets out a somewhat awkward laugh because he figured they'd be talking about the finer points of warp drive and not his almost-court-martial, but on the other hand he has absolutely zero regrets about how it went down.]

That's...kind of a long story? The part that matters here I guess is that I'd been part of a crew that was chasing down this guy - Saren - that was connected to an attack on one of our colonies and we were sure that he'd found some kind of ancient alien weapon. His trail led straight into the Terminus. But when we told the Council, they didn't want to risk deploying their fleet outside of their jurisdiction and maybe start a war, so they grounded us. Admiral Anderson, at least, agreed that Saren was too dangerous to ignore, so he...helped us steal back our ship. We weren't under any official orders, technically, but we chose to follow our Commander out there and commit mass mutiny.

It turned out we weren't exactly right, but since it ended in stopping an attack on the Citadel and the Council they were more than happy to look the other way. But at least a little while my feet were pretty close to that fire. So to speak...

[There are a lot of things about that summary that would make better sense with more background, but Chekov gets the gist.]

This sounds very like something that would happen with Captain Kirk. [Well. It kind of did, but that doesn't count since the admiral giving them orders was corrupt.] Of course we--his entire crew--would follow him if his choice was more in keeping with the Federation's ethical principles than our orders.

I'm glad that you were at least right enough to avoid punishment for that.

[There's the shadow of a smirk] I can't say it was bad for my career in the long run, no. But it was still a hell of a chance to take.

How, uh, how long have you served with Kirk?

Would you take such a chance again?

Five years. [Said with a hint of pride even if some of that time hasn't been the best.] Five very eventful years. He excels at finding trouble.

[Kaidan smiles, and there isn't even a hint of hesitation] Yeah...yeah I would.

[He chuckles then, softly] Reminds me of Commander Shepard, but it's only been a couple years of excitement for me.

I would have guessed as much. [He doesn't seem like the sort to regret a risk that was worth taking. Kaidan would fit right in on a Starfleet vessel.]

Hopefully you will have the good luck to serve for as long as I have without a court martial.