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strawwritesfic · 4 days

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Kelvin!Spock x Female!Human!Reader: Mr. Right

Summary: When one door closes, another opens—perhaps the door you were meant to enter all along.

Warnings/Tags: Starship Enterprise; post-Star Trek Beyond; friends to lovers; breakup; almost kiss; counselor!reader; Star Trek: The Original Series references; Star Trek: The Next Generation references

Relationships: Spock/Reader; Spock & Nyota Uhura; past!Spock/Nyota Uhura; past!Keein Riley/Reader

Challenge: “160 Collective Drabbles” challenge by BobaPop on Lunaescence Archives.

Requester: @lovemesomeescapism

Tag List: @imaginesfire

Notes: For once, this is not a repost for this challenge…technically. I did write a response to the prompt "Mr. Right" ages ago, but when I was reposting, I decided that the Now You See Me one shot I wrote really wasn't worth keeping. Someone on Tumblr asked me for a Spock one shot, so I slipped him in as a replacement.

It's been a really long time since I finished something new. I realize that I am rusty. This is actually several drafts into attempts to write this one shot. For the first time ever, I actually cannibalized previous drafts while trying to get the meandering dialogue and point back on track. It still doesn't feel quite "right" to me, but it's probably going to take some time before I get back in the swing of things, and I'm ready to let this one go.

Mr. Right

Throughout Terra's history, human beings had sought the comfort of white noise. Quiet droning sounds proved beneficial for many aspects of mental health in the species. As a counselor on board the U.S.S. Enterprise, you'd recommended listening to white noise to dozens of fellow crewmates and patients alike. The best way to do this in the deep space you'd all been exploring for nearly five years was to turn everything in one's quarters down until the low hum of the ship's warp drive became audible. Many of those crewmates and patients reported back to you with decreased stress levels, improved mood, and a distinct uptick in ability to concentrate. Almost all of them said they got better sleep.

Now you learned that every single one of them had lied to you.

You'd spent the better part of the evening-adjacent hours lying face-down on your sofa, trying and failing to take a nap. The scratchy, standard-issue pillow beneath your face was soaked with tears. Your chest ached. Worst of all, any attempt on your part to get your mind off what upset you just ended with you crying harder. All the while, that awful rumble went on and on and on and on relentlessly, allowing you no respite long enough to drift off and forget your current predicament.

A chime cut through your misery. You paused without so much as lifting your head. As of three hours prior, you were officially off duty for the day. Nothing required you to answer the door unless an order came down from a superior officer, and they would call first. Probably it was only Uhura coming by to check on you. Having been through her own breakup during this voyage, surely she would understand when you didn't let her inside.

The chime sounded again, and with it came a surge of possibilities flooding your mind. What if your visitor was dealing with a crisis? Cases of PTSD had been on the rise since the events on Altamid. You could hardly ignore that in favor of your own small, personal crisis. Off duty or not, your role as a ship's counselor would not allow you to wallow in self-pity when someone might need your help.

As your boots hit the floor, you pressed one sleeve of your rumpled blue uniform to the corner of each eye. The gesture wouldn't do much to disguise what you'd been doing over the course of your time off, but you felt a little steadier afterward. Breathing deeply in and out helped too—until you hiccuped. But you could prepare yourself no more. Squaring your shoulders, you stood, walked over to the door leading to the corridor, and opened it.

Just outside stood the familiar, lanky figure of the ship's science officer. The second you spotted him, you wiped your sleeve across your face with greater urgency.

"You're not one of my patients," you said, "or Uhura."

"A very astute observation, Lieutenant [L Name]," Spock replied.

A long moment elapsed during which the two of you stared at one another. Several fellow crewmates in various uniform colors threw curious looks at his back as they passed by on their ways to wherever they were headed. Your friend, meanwhile, allowed a single dark eyebrow to drift toward his hairline. He clearly had no intention of moving on.

"What are you doing here?" you sighed at last.

The wayward eyebrow rejoined its brother. "Lieutenant Commander Uhura informed me that you left your office this afternoon in distress. I note that her assessment was an accurate one. If anything, you appear to be in more distress now than she described to me then."

You couldn't lie to Spock, not when you looked the way you looked after a crying jag like the one you'd just had. So you didn't bother to try. "Fine. I'm in distress. But really, Spock, it's not the kind of distress you can help with. I'm sure Captain Kirk will need you on a landing party any minute now, so if you'll excuse me—"

"Lieutenant Commander Uhura also informed me of the cause of your distress."

"Of course she did." Sometimes you wished your two friends were a little lighter on the "amicable" part of "amicable exes." "Let me guess: You came by to tell me that you told me so."

"As a Vulcan, I have no reason to rub my correct prediction in your face, if you will forgive the Terra colloquial."

You let out a wet laugh despite yourself. "You're pardoned."

"What I have done is stopped by the mess hall. If I am not much mistaken, ice cream is a traditional consolation food in these types of situations."

He produced from behind his back a number of different colored tapes. So startled were you that you found yourself unable to say anything. Never in a million years would you have imagined Spock of all people standing in front of you and offering you junk food of all things. Your silence went on for so long that he had to prompt you to speak:

"Was I incorrect in my understanding of how to handle Terran breakups?"

"No," you said, then, "I just didn't want you to find out about the breakup until I could pull myself together."

"I surmised as much, given that Lieutenant Commander Uhura found out about your circumstances before I did, although you and I are closer friends. It would have been more logical for you to contact me for assistance than her."

Vulcans as a whole were difficult to read. Even factoring in your education and training, as well as your friendship with Spock that had gone on for several years now, you could only guess his feelings the majority of the time. Not so then. Something about his tone made him sound hurt. Maybe you could chalk that up to projecting your own feelings onto him, but you couldn't risk that assumption.

"It's just that you warned me against dating Kevin," you explained. "As ship's counselor, I should have seen the end coming a kiloparsec away."

"Perhaps. But one might also say that your extensive proximity to the crew's emotions might cause some loss in objectivity on your part."

"So you're not here to make me feel worse?"

"I came for consolation purposes. That is all."

"Well, all right, then."

You stepped away from the doorway. Spock followed you in. He paused only long enough to press the button to close the door before he came to join you in your sitting room. A crate sat on the floor along his path, and he looked at you questioningly as he walked by it.

"Those are Kevin's things," you said.

"Expedient," he observed.

Normally, you might have tried to go for a little more decorum around him, but that day you didn't have the energy to do more than flop back onto your couch. At least you were upright. Spock, on the other hand, claimed a dignified perch at the end of your chair. The two of you certainly made an odd pair.

"He had so many hair products!" you burst out when the awkward silence turned unbearable. "I should have known we wouldn't work out. Who brings that much hair spray into deep space?"

"Humanity can hardly be expected to iron out all its flaws when you all cling so hard to your baser emotions."

"Do you mean Kevin's desire to look nice, or my need to be in a relationship?"

Spock blinked, then smoothly said, "In this case, I refer to your former beau's preoccupation with personal grooming."

"Right. Either way, I'm about ready to get rid of all my own baser emotions. Not feeling them would be a blessing." You got back to your feet and thrust one hand in Spock's direction. "Ice cream tape, please."

He offered one to you.

"Spock," you said warningly.

"I do not believe that heartbreak is an excuse to overeat. I only brought so many because I was unsure which flavor you would select."

The glare you leveled at him seemed to make him think better of lecturing you on the dangers of gluttony—as well it should have. This was the same glare that you gave Dr. McCoy when you were tired of listening to him. Unlike with Dr. McCoy, you smiled once Spock dropped the rest of the tapes into your outstretched hand.

"Thank you." You headed for your in-quarters food producer, then turned your head to ask over your shoulder, "What flavor do you want?"

"I do not require ice cream."

"Come on, Spock. If you're going to spend the evening commiserating with me, you have to have some ice cream, too. That's a critical part of the Terran breakup process."

One corner of his mouth twitched. "I'll have pistachio, then."

You fed the yellow-green tape into the slot. A quiet beeping noise covered the hum of the warp drive as the computer worked. While you waited, you flipped through the remainder of the flavors until you found the one you wanted.

"I don't think it would be a good idea for you to give up emotions," Spock said.

"Huh?" Frowning at him, you replaced his tape with yours. "Aren't you the guy that's been talking about doing the Kolinahr when we get back to Earth?"

"That's different. I am a Vulcan."

"Half Vulcan."

"Vulcan enough."

A shriller beep put an end to this potentially sticky subject. The ice creams were ready. You dumped the rest of the tapes in a basket next to the food producer, picked up the bowls, and brought them back to the living room. Spock took his with a grateful nod, though he waited until you sat down again before taking a bite.

"Maybe I'd be a better counselor if I didn't have emotions," you mused. "If I wasn't blinded by my own feelings, I could help the crew more with theirs. I shouldn't have the same problems as they do after all the studying I've done."

"While that may indeed make sense, it is hardly realistic. Besides, if you did not have your human emotions, you would no longer be the [Name] that I know, and I believe that I would miss her."

You couldn't help but smile around the spoon in your mouth. Popping that out, you said, "I bet you say that to all the Terrans you like."

"Hardly. In fact, that captain may benefit from an hour or two without his usual emotions."

"I appreciate you saying that, Spock."

"I am only speaking the truth. I have no intention of bolstering your ego artificially, even if doing so is a part of the Terran breakup process."

"I know." You slowly lowered your spoon back to the bowl, staring off into space. Something was dawning on you—something that might have dawned on you sooner had you not been so enthralled with your own feelings. "You know what else I appreciate? You coming here to help me today. Not every first officer would go out of their way for a ship's counselor like that."

Spock fixed you with an unblinking gaze as he said, "You mean a great deal more to me than most ship's counselors mean to their first officers."

"I don't care what Captain Kirk says. You sure know how to make a woman blush."

"I have had some practice with the activity."

"Remind me to thank Uhura later."

"Thank her for what?" Spock asked.

Maybe you were reading the signs wrong. Maybe you were just desperate. If he had to ask, you had to be wrong. But you took a deep breath anyway, and said, "Helping me realize that maybe the guy I've been looking for this whole time has been my best friend all along."

How could it have taken you this long to work it out? No one else spent as much time with you as Spock did, not outside of your office hours. It didn't matter if you were in the mess hall asking for a round of Fizzbin after dinner or you wanted a quiet night in your quarters. He always seemed to be there. You felt comfortable around him. Maybe you didn't always understand Spock; maybe Spock didn't always understand. But you didn't enjoy anyone's company the way you did his. And you had to wonder when your eyes met just then if he felt the same way, and if this coming-to-see-you-with-ice-cream thing was his way of showing you that.

"Well," he moistened his lips before going on, "I certainly feel that our relationship is founded more steadily upon mutual interests and desires than it is upon a passion for hair products."

You leaned forward. "You know, that sort of relationship sounds really appealing right about now."

"It does?" Spock shifted closer to you.

"I think it's about time that I dated someone whose first thought in the morning isn't beating me to the sonic shower, don't you?"

By that time, you both had come so close that it wouldn't have taken much more movement on either of your parts to touch lips. Your heart gave a painful leap inside your chest. Was this too much too fast? Even if you had just realized you'd had a thing for Spock for a while now, you had only just broken up with your last boyfriend that morning. Treating Spock as a rebound was the last thing you wanted to do. He didn't seem to mind, though. His mouth drew closer and closer to yours until you could feel his breath on your face.

The communicator in your room chirped. You jumped. Spock paused before sitting back up in his chair. Then you rose wordlessly, stepped over to the panel, cleared your throat, and pushed the button.

"[L Name]," you said.

"[Name]?" Uhura did not remark on how breathless you sounded, thankfully. "I need to talk to Spock."

"It's for you," you said unnecessarily. Spock had already reset his face into its typical blank mask and made his way to the communicator himself.

"Spock here. What is it, Lieutenant Commander?"

"Captain Kirk needs you on the bridge. We have a situation up here."

"What kind of a situation?"

"There's a former United States President floating outside the ship. He says he needs our help."

"I will be there right away."

A second chirp signaled that communications between your room and the bridge had ceased. Spock turned back to you.

"My presence is needed on the bridge," he said.

"So I heard."

"I apologize. I believe we were in the middle of something."

"It's all right."

He didn't move.

"Spock, go. Don't you want to know why a deceased historical figure has asked for the Enterprise's help?"

"I'd prefer to stay here," Spock said. "But you are correct. I must leave. Will you still be here later tonight?"

"Yeah." You surprised yourself with the eagerness of your answer. "Yeah, I will. I promise I won't run off with any other lieutenants while you're away. I'll save the rest of the ice cream. We can share it when you get back."

There it was: The slight curl to Spock's mouth that told you that you weren't making up the mutual attraction between you both after all. "To use another Terran phrase, it's a date."

He hesitated another moment longer before he quickly exited your quarter. You grinned as the door slid shut behind him and the white noise returned full force. As you sunk into your couch and pillow this time, you found you didn't mind the hum as much. In fact, the sound did exactly what it was supposed to do: Relax you. Kevin and his excuses from that morning felt farther away than your own home planet. Maybe you owed him a thank you, too, because if you were still with him, you wouldn't have slept as well as you did that night knowing that Spock would be back soon.

#fan fic #straw writes #reader insert #second person pov #star trek #star trek beyond #challenge response #request #spock #spock x reader #spock x you #spock x y/n #star trek x reader #star trek x y/n #star trek you #kelvin universe

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xchronicles · 6 months

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#SaveStarTrekProdigy

Got the complete season one on Blu-Ray and decided to be creative since there's a bonus feature about Prodigy's version of the U.S.S. Dauntless. The one in the pic is the Voyager version.

#SaveStarTrekProdigy #star trek voyager #st: voy #dauntless #star trek prodigy #save star trek prodigy #also I might be a little bit inlove with the Dauntless cause she's a badass ship and perfect for hunting little Protostars #even tho it's the wrong Dauntless in the pic cause there's no Dauntless Prodigy replica

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chaosintheavenue · 8 months

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Fallout Favourites Survey: Initial Results

There were 81 responses to this survey (thank you all!).

As always, this initial results posts is to give a general overview of the responses received, but now that I'm using Google Sheets, for the first time I can also include a link to the original dataset! Feel absolutely free to conduct further analysis of your own, or even just check my counting skills lol (I did go over everything twice, but the process is a lot more hands-on in Sheets than what I was accustomed to in Excel).

Without further ado, let's get into the results:

Which of these Fallout games have you played?

Original Fallout- 34 (42%) Fallout 2- 28 (34.6%) Fallout 3- 69 (85.2%) Fallout New Vegas- 78 (96.3%) Fallout 4- 77 (95.1%) Fallout 76- 47 (68%) Other pre-Bethesda games- 12 (14.8%) Any other games- 67 (82.7%)

Which game did you play first?

Original Fallout- 2 Fallout 3- 33 Fallout New Vegas- 17 Fallout 4- 26 Any other games- 3

Which game do you currently play the most frequently?

(this chart has different colours than all of the rest, it bugs me too, I'm sorry ;_;)

Fallout 3- 1 Fallout New Vegas- 28 Fallout 4- 25 Fallout 76- 12 Two or more equally often- 14 Doesn't currently play any- 1

Favourite game in terms of gameplay only:

Original Fallout- 1 Fallout 3- 4 Fallout New Vegas- 22 Fallout 4- 45 Fallout 76- 8 Other- 1

Favourite game in terms of storyline only:

Original Fallout- 6 Fallout 2- 2 Fallout 3- 6 Fallout New Vegas- 60 Fallout 4- 4 Fallout 76- 2 Other- 1

Favourite DLC:

1: Dead Money (New Vegas)- 20 2: Far Harbor (Fallout 4)- 16 3: Old World Blues (New Vegas)- 11 4: Nuka World (Fallout 4) and Lonesome Road (New Vegas)- 7 5: Point Lookout (Fallout 3)- 5

Favourite location:

1: New Vegas Strip- 7 2: Freeside and Far Harbor- 5 3: Nuka World and Goodneighbor- 4 4: Megaton and Zion Canyon- 3

Favourite quest:

1: The Silver Shroud and Beyond the Beef- 5 2: The Last Voyage of the U.S.S Constitution, Come Fly With Me and Wang Dang Atomic Tango- 4 3: Unlikely Valentine- 3

Favourite perk:

1: Confirmed Bachelor- 13 2: Cherchez la Femme and Wild Wasteland- 8 3: Black Widow- 7 4: Mysterious Stranger- 5 5: Animal Friend- 4

Favourite companion:

1: Arcade Gannon- 14 (*) 2: Nick Valentine- 11 ** 3: ED-E, Veronica and MacCready- 6 4: Dogmeat (all iterations)- 5 5: Deacon and Porter Gage- 4

(*) I did not, in fact, count my own response as a vote for Arcade in the end

** Includes a stray vote he received in the non-companion character question. It's possible that this answer may have been intended to mean human Nick specifically

Favourite character (excluding companions):

1: Yes Man- 6 2: Gob and Ulysses- 5 3: Benny and Vulpes Inculta- 4

Favourite faction:

1: Followers of the Apocalypse- 19 2: Railroad- 9 3: Minutemen- 7 4: Kings, Brotherhood of Steel and Responders- 4 5: Caesar's Legion and Institute- 3

Favourite animal:

1: Deathclaw- 13 2: Nightstalker- 11 3: Radstag- 9 4: Gecko- 7 5: Mole rat and Brahmin- 4

A few people also answered this question with specific animal NPCs, with the most common answer being Dogmeat.

#fallout #survey #I haven't specifically organised the responses for the weapon and song questions yet #I do have a plan for the songs!#and reading the responses for weapons made me realise just how little I know about them so I don't feel Qualified to analyse them yet #don't judge my little ramblings to myself in my response gfdghjk. I talk to myself like that 24/7 and didn't expect the world to see it XD

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mylittleredgirl · 1 year

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okay i am finally back on the road to catching up with star trek picard after so many weeks behind!! i have just watched episode two and no spoilers beyond that please but i need to dump my stream of consciousness thoughts somewhere AND:

the crusher ship is a mariposan ship? mariposans like the clone people??? 🧬👀 got my EYES on that dna strand from the closing credits

saavik shuttle we hardly knew ye 😭

sneed is a PERFECT ferengi name

it's just michelle hurd and her great hair and an empty starship set against the world :(

i literally just had to look up the name of rios's ship I'M SO SORRY BABY I FORGOT ABOUT YOU confessing my star trek sins on main 😭😭

earlier this week somebody at work made a star trek reference and i DIDN'T GET IT i need to have my trek blog license suspended until i sort my shit out

vadic!!!! holy shit!!! i am OBSESSED with her

i had to stop and rewind to catch this but did that guy just say the starfleet rules of engagement for outside of federation space are CLEAR?

"safety and preservation of the ship and crew above all else"???

is this... a new regulation??? asking for a friend [the u.s.s. voyager crew, getting self-destruct countdowns three times a season].

"have you done the math?" respectfully captain riker sir i HAVE done the math and this young man looks too old for the timeline we have been given

so again with the 🧬👀

oh or a hard life of petty space crime i guess might age you a few years ok

captain shaw’s messy hair is making me uncomfortable. i know we are establishing that you are not properly hinged but where is your space hair gel sir!!!!

sneed lives up to his excellent ferengi name for real

WORF!!!!!!!!!!!! working for starfleet intelligence!!?? who cares i don't need details WORF AND MEK'LETH SOUND EFFECT MY BELOVED 😭

captain shaw's "for the love of FUCK okay i guess we're getting into this" response to the family drama silently unfolding on his bridge is genuinely hilarious

i mean they are going to speak to each other out loud eventually though right

vadic giggling in her evil flying throne room lair i am SCREAMING!!!!!!! i am ALIVEEEEE!!! this is the PINNACLE of what i want from trek villainy!!!!!

i am so PUMPED!!

other things i'm thinking about that i didn't write down in real time:

trill sighting in the infirmary!

love meeting raffi's exhausted ex and it HURT that she could not choose her kid over the latest space 9/11 conspiracy that starfleet explicitly told her not to investigate :(

i suppose ending up being right in season one is not going to help with her inability to let something like this go

as tumblr user writergeekrhw explained, miles o'brien must suffer because colm meaney was great at playing suffering and i think now raffi must suffer because michelle hurd is so great at playing a strung out conspiracy theorist that no one will listen to :/

and finally:

i hope seven of nine loses and regains her rank 17 more times before the season is out

#star trek picard #star trek thoughts

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chernobog13 · 2 years

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Size comparison of various Starfleet vessels, mid 23rd to late 24th Century.

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the-last-dillpickle · 1 year

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DS9 trivia from IMDB - Part 5

- The number 47 pops up an inordinate amount of times on computer screens, serial numbers, dates and so on. This tradition was started by Writer and co-Producer Joe Menosky and was soon picked up by the rest of the production team. Menosky said that he chose that particular number because when he was a college student at Pomona College, Professor of Mathematics Donald Bentley proved as a joke that all numbers are equal to 47. Interestingly, Alias (2001) also featured the number 47 many times, and incorporated it into its on-going storyline.

- References are frequently made to Starfleet "ground troops", and some Starfleet characters have different uniforms (a black uniform with a small colored stripe across the middle). Fans generally accept that these characters are part of a Starfleet Marine Corps; this was an idea which Gene Roddenberry conceived for Star Trek (1966), but never found an opportunity to use until the movie Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) where the men accompanying Kirk and crew down to Nimbus III were later confirmed to be marines. There was a Starfleet Colonel West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), who was most likely a Starfleet Marine since the rank of Colonel doesn't exist in naval organizations. Colonel West was played by Rene Auberjonois, who played Constable Odo on this show. The existence of Starfleet Marines was finally explicitly shown and stated on-screen in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), indicating that they have been around in the Star Trek universe since at least 2153.

- The Jem'Hadar were described in the script as tough warriors who were almost impervious to phaser shots. Make-up Supervisor Michael Westmore immediately thought of the thick skin of rhinos and reptiles when he read that description, so he designed the Jem'Hadar to look like dinosaurs, specifically triceratops, complete with horns.

- The role of Jadzia Dax was initially offered to Famke Janssen, whose character make-up from Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) season five, episode twenty-one, "The Perfect Mate" inspired the change in Trill character make-up from a forehead prosthesis. She turned down the role in order to remain available to appear in theatrical movies.

- The U.S.S. Defiant was first envisioned to look like a beefed-up version of a runabout. When that didn't work out, they used an existing design for an alien cargo ship as basis, and developed it as a battleship. It was first called the U.S.S. Valiant, but Producer Rick Berman vetoed any name beginning with letter V, since he didn't want to create confusion with Star Trek: Voyager (1995), which they were setting up at the time. Defiant was chosen because like Enterprise, it was a name that had been used for a ship in Star Trek (1966) as well.

- There was a level of friction between fans of Babylon 5 (1993) and this show. Babylon 5 (1993) fans felt that writers for this show had stolen many aspects of Babylon 5's premise (occurring recently after a war or occupation, episodes taking place on a space station not located in Earth territory, the cast discovering an ancient malevolent race that would become a major threat, the overall story of the show being less reliant on story-of-the-week episodes, and more of an overarching story arc, et cetera), asserting that Paramount Pictures had rejected J. Michael Straczynski's proposal of Babylon 5 to them in the late 1980s, but used certain details of the pitch by inserting them into the story and premise of this show. There was a concerted effort to bury the hatchet, especially by having Majel Barrett (widow of Gene Roddenberry) appear on Babylon 5 as an alien prophetess who spoke on behalf of her recently deceased husband (a nod to Roddenberry, who had passed away a few years before her appearance).

- Regarding season seven: after Terry Farrell's departure from the show, a replacement had to be found to play the new host for the Dax symbiont. The showrunners were adamant not to cast a man in the role, as they wanted to maintain the running joke where Sisko refers to a young female Dax as 'Old Man'. It was decided that 'Ezri Dax' would be a young person, fresh from the Academy, who would display some adjustment problems because she had become stuck with an old Trill soul without going through the standard Trill training first. Numerous fans were initially reluctant to accept Nicole de Boer as the new host for the Dax symbiont, rather derisively referring to de Boer as "Ally McTrill", due to her slightly neurotic personality resembling Calista Flockhart's Ally McBeal (1997).

- It is frequently stated that there are 285 official Ferengi 'Rules of Acquisition', although only 44 were ever mentioned in Deep Space Nine and subsequent Star Trek series. Because of fans continuously asking for a complete list, and knowing that someone would otherwise make one sooner or later, Ira Steven Behr finally took it upon him to write 'The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition' (ISBN 0-671-52936-6), credited as "By Quark as told to Ira Steven Behr."

- Executive Producer and co-Creator Michael Piller said that when coming up for an idea for the series concept of this show, there were initially three ideas considered: another starship adventure, a space station concept, and a remote frontier colony. The frontier colony idea was briefly considered, with the idea that since Star Trek (1966) was compared to Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) in outer space, the new series would be compared to Gunsmoke (1955), but on a remote planet. The frontier colony idea was eventually dropped since it would've required a lot of on-location shooting, and the space station idea was ultimately developed instead.

- On occasion, sets from Star Trek: Voyager (1995) are used as other Starfleet locales. (For example: a holosuite grid in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inquisition (1998), the entire U.S.S. Bellerophon (which was an Intrepid-class starship, same as Voyager) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (1999).

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my-timing-is-digital · 9 months

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❝ i’m a fan of your work, actually. ❞ ~galacticforces, the EMH

Needless to say, the android had assessed all the information relative to the EMH Mark I that was available to him; the second the Enterprise-E was commissioned to Captain Picard, Data had analysed the specifications of the new vessel with vehement rigour. The discovery that the Sovereign-class starship had access to an artificial intelligence that was similar to himself in multitudinous ways rendered him fascinated. Unfortunately, a collision of unfortunate events, setbacks, and high expectations not being met entailed the deactivation and subsequent removal of the Mark I series, ultimately preventing him from interacting with the hologram.

Therefore, the fact that his services were currently administered to assist Lieutenant Reginald Barclay in collaboration with Voyager’s EMH was beyond extraordinary, a true delight — to utilise a more eloquent and colloquial description. It genuinely was a phenomenal partnership. A former holodeck addict, an obsolete EMH, and an emotionless android... An enumeration that sounded like the primary ingredients of a disastrous bar joke.

His slender, pearlescent fingers fleeted nimbly across the console display, engaging the LCARS interface with considerable ease and finesse. Chartreuse optical components were solely trained on the information popping up in front of him, determined to ascertain the deficiency in Barclay’s concept to transport the U.S.S. Voyager and her crew safely back to the Alpha Quadrant — without anyone suffering unnecessary detriment or reptilian metamorphoses.. Data scanned all the particulars, accumulated and processed every detail, every component, every feature of the Lieutenant’s equation at frighteningly high computational speeds. That was until his concentration was disrupted by the distinctive voice of the EMH.

A meagre frown rumpled his smooth bioplast sheeting, a precipitation of the Doctor’s ambiguous, albeit generous, statement. Tentatively, he hands discontinued their tasks and rested on the outer frame of the console as his gaze, his countenance imbued with cogitation, was diverted from the luminescent display up to the EMH. The android did not quite fathom what the other AI was implying.

‘Thank you, but I am afraid I do not understand... My work?’ he asked quizzically, his light eyebrows ascended marginally, expectantly, patiently waiting for an elucidation. ‘Did you mean: Doctor Noonian Soong’s work? The cyberneticist who created me.’

As far as the android was concerned, he had not achieved anything worthy of praise; he was simply the legacy of one man’s dreams, the offshoot of resilient aspirations and an unprecedented ambition, the end product of years, decades, of laborious experiments, groundwork and extensive research in the discipline of robotics.

@galacticforces

#galacticforces // emh #verse // to thine own self be true; and it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man #ooc: my favourite doctor asdfghjkl! these two interacting is gold!#I only watched voyager episodes that seemed fun to me so if my replies get nonsensical you now know why :3

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stra-tek · 1 year

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Imagine watching Voyager in the 90's and someone from the future pops up to tell you Seven of Nine ends up captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-G and also that she's gay and gets to dress like a regular person.

Oh and she once went on a revenge killing spree after her son Ichab is harvested for Borg components, left for dead and she had to put him out of his misery. And the woman who had him harvested was Seven's ex.

Oh oh and they use her human name as a deadnaming allegory. But then you probably have to explain deadnaming cos it's 1998 or whatever.

Canon Star Trek in 2023 is wilder than the maddest of fanfics.

#star trek #picard spoilers #seven of nine #star trek picard #star trek voyager #voyager #enterprise g #ncc 1701 g

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prue84 · 1 year

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Star Trek/Merlin: the crew manifest

Fandom: BBC’s Merlin AU / Star Trek (reboot) AU: Merlin Trek Series: Fandoms in Trek AUs [masterpost] Related: ship’s patches (seal, enamel coin)

SF:\Starfleet\Starships\USS Excalibur>NCC_1664>_

“Once and Future” Ship’s Name: U.S.S. Excalibur Ship’s Registry: NCC-1664 Command History: Captain Arthur Pendragon (2258-PRESENT) Ship’s Class: Constitution Class Ship’s Type: Heavy Cruiser Ship's Assignment Patch: << click to open file >> Ship’s Overview: One of the so-called "Big Sisters", the twelve Constitution-class ships currently designed as the premier frontline Starfleet vessels, in an in-joke with the surname of the current captain, it has been unofficially nicknamed by its crew "The Den of the Dragon". It has made the reputation of the one ship with the most anarchic management and most eccentric leadership, for its captain promotes and sponsors those he considers fit for a specific position, uncaring for the division the officer comes from. Ship’s Service History, abridged: _ Constructed at the Great Dragon Shipyard, and planned to launch in late 2258, its maiden voyage was hastened to replace the starships lost to the Narada attack. << access complete service history >> Status: Active (2261.18) Crew complement: 1,098 (1,100) Crew manifest: _ <read more for the extensive list>

Liaison officer: Admiral Uther Pendragon Captain for 25 years of the Albion-class USS Camelot and head of the powerful Pendragon clan, a surname that had been Earth's elite dating back to centuries before the foundation of the Federation, Uther Pendragon is Startfleet nobility at its purest. He embodies the most severe side of the institution, the commanding officer who accepts that lives under his command will be lost, that a captain will always have to choose what is right for the benefit of the ship, Starfleet and the Federation over the lives of their officers. Ambitious and self-driven, he's widely known within Starfleet for his sternness that borders on tyranny - infamous is the so called "Purge", the implementation on the Camelot of a strict non-fraternization protocol between all the crewmembers under his command, an harsh policy that led to demotions and forced transfers to other ships. On top of his own personal career, Uther's focus has always been on his son, from whom he expected to always excel. He made use of his family's power on top of his ever-growing personal connections to have a say on his son's career, starting from cadet Pendragon's first assignment to space duty on a warship, but moved heaven and earth until he managed to get his son on the Camelot. Any concern about a potential conflict of interest between his role of Ensign Pendragon's direct superior and his role as the officer's father was soon proven to be unfunded. Arthur Pendragon's harshest judge, his choice to ask a court martial for his son for the "Troll Tax Crisis" raised few eyebrows within Starfleet HQ, as did the confinement to the brig for the unauthorized Mortaeus mission (despite Lieutenant Pendragon's risky gamble saved the lives of many crew members) and the threat to have him demoted over the "Queen of Hearts Incident". Worried about his son's inability to keep a yeoman, he is the one who - as captain - choose Crewman Emrys for the position and forced him to Arthur, at the time security chief; while Emrys proved more than once his sense of duty and loyalty toward Arthur, Uther might've regretted his decision more than once, for he has the feeling it has been Emrys who ruined an officer who was reliable and dutiful before. When it was the time to assign command of a new batch of Constitution-class, Uther spent his personal leverage to get his son included in the list of potential captains; displeased by Starfleet's initial choice to assign the Excalibur liaison officer position to someone else but him, his status allowed for the role to be assigned to him. He's a member of the prestigious British gentlemen's club Five Kingdoms, alongside Albion-class former captains Olaf and Alined.

Commanding officer: Captain Arthur Pendragon Born into a wealthy family, as the only son of Starfleet nobility Admiral Pendragon, and orphaned of the mother (the late Commander Ygraine de Bois of the USS Camelot who died immediately after childbirth), Arthur's childhood was marked by the oppressive shadow of his absent father, who clipped his wings and imposed him an heavy study course. Talented in many sports, with a promising career in the British fencing team, plenty of gold medals already in his pocket and an invitation to be part of the team for the next Olympic Games, he had to give up his dream of ever fencing at the Interplanetary Games to enlist at a young age at his father's wishes, although he indulged a little rebellious strike by applying for operations track instead of command. The pressing need to best Morgana, his father's ward and unofficial adoptive sister, gave him the necessary will to go through the Academy, from which he graduated as a security officer, trained in combat arts and the use of weapons. Moving from ship to ship, always his father's behind any assignment, he raised through ranks until gaining the stripes of lieutenant commander. Reassigned to the Camelot as the new chief security officer under the captainship of his own father, here he met his long-time friend and platonic half, then Crewman Emrys. After a brief stint as acting captain, to replace an ill Uther, his father orders him to return to the Academy and finally get his Command School post-graduation, unless he plans to forever be someone's second. Dragging Emrys with him, Arthur obeys and when he's back to ship's duty, Uther managed to have him assigned as the commanding officer of the Knights fighter units until it's time for Uther to accept his promotion to admiral; with Arthur ready for the three stripes, Uther makes good use of his connections to have Arthur picked as his successor on the chair of the Camelot for the last leg of the ship's journey. Initially planned to be a quiet year in space before seeing the ship off to a deserved decommission, his first captainship turned out to be turbulent as the Camelot is dragged in a series of skirmishes, including the destruction in Camlann system; the victory warranted him the title of "High King", bestowed on him by the system's inhabitants he saved from the brutal Saxons who attempted to invade and destroy their planet. Uther's plan to buy Arthur's time and prepare him for a more high-profile captainship pay off. With Arthur's recent achievements, it's easy for Uther to get him included in the list of captains to be considered for a Constitution-class and Arthur's own clout gets him the Excalibur. The day Arthur is officially assigned the ship in a ceremony is Uther's happiest day. Called by his crew "Chief Dragon", he's a captain who spends more time off the chair than on it, preferably leading an away team to check a new planet. He will stop at nothing to protect his ship and the people living on it (friendly named respectively "the den" and "the hoard" by his half-sister). In an in-joke with the ship's name, the captain's inner circle is called "The Round Table", with the security branch of them taking the name "Knights of the Round Table". Long-time rival of the USS Essetir captain Cendred, who never forgot him for the promotion to a Constitution-class, he has an enemy in Captain Lot of the USS Dumnonia since the time of the Camelot - Lot's son died in an incident on the Camelot, where he had been assigned as a cadet for a quarter, and he blames Arthur as his son's direct superior. Selected to be team leader for the secret mission labeled "The Eye of the Phoenix" to retrieve an ancient alien artifact, was assigned the code name of "Courage" by the mission supervisor, Lieutenant Grettir. He's member of the Hot Shots, the group made by the younger generations of captains and lead by James Kirk of the Enterprise.

First officer and Weapons specialist: Commander Guinevere Smith Daughter of an engineer, to follow her father's footsteps has never been Guinevere's ambition, an earthbound life was what she wanted. But with a best friend as boisterous and ambitious such as Morgana Gorlois, she was doomed. To give up one own's path to follow a friend to university is not unheard, as it isn't two friends that apply for Starfleet Academy willing to stay together. What's unusual is that not only both pass the entrance test and are admitted but that the friendship lasts despite the choosing of different tracks and the heavy study course that leads to graduation. Thanks to the connections of Morgana's guardian, Uther Pendragon, they always serve together, moved from ship to ship as if they were married. The only time they are forced to split is when Guinevere has the true chance to shine on her own. Her reliability and honesty helped her raise through ranks until earning the stripes of lieutenant commander. Chief communications officer on the Camelot for the last months of the ship's glorious service, she earned the respect of Captain Pendragon by proving to be a good mate to have at the side on a planetside mission. Seeing in her the seeds of a future captain, it's Pendragon who fights with Starfleet HQ to have her as his first officer for the Excalibur, despite Guinevere not having any command school training. (Arthur chose to fight for her promotion because he was tired of being told that only command school could be first officers and that USS Enterprise's Spock was the exception to the rule; it's his way to rebel to a rule he thinks stupid, a rule that forced him to return to the Academy if he wanted to ever hold a commanding position). The unofficial captain of the Excalibur, she spends most of the time sitting on the command chair in stead of Captain Pendragon, who takes part to every single planetside mission. She's undoubtedly the most level-headed of the whole senior crew. With a passion for craftsmanship, she learned how to bend gold and metals from her father, and she made jewellery-making her hobby, her favorite shapes are keys and small swords replicas to be worn as pendants. She's the only female member of the "Round Table" club. Everyone but the captain calls her by the nickname Gwen. Chief engineer Elyan Smith is her brother.

Chief science officer and Third officer: Lieutenant Commander Merlin Emrys Curious and hyperactive and with an uncanny natural affinity for every science branch, as much as unconcerned by rules and with no care for any form of hierarchy, Merlin is the kind of chief science officer a captain would never want to have on the ship. Despite his inability to be tidy and the tendency to improvise, he's still a genius in a blue shirt and he hides his intelligence behind a facade of goofy, always happy simpleton. He also doesn't know what "chain of command" means. Inexplicably, Captain Pendragon always refused to kick him out of the ship and went out of his way to save his scrawny ass too many times to count, and he's also the only officer on board who have the galls to refer to the captain as "a dollop head" and other kinds of epithets in his face. Having grown together in the field and having stricken an (almost unhealthy) close friendship bond, he has the captain's ear and his complete trust - so much that the crew affectionately refers to him as the éminence grise of the Excalibur. There are mornings in which he wakes up and can't still believe he's been put in charge of a whole department like his father, the Camelot's late chief science officer Balinor, had been. He actually can't believe that in a couple of years he raised through the ranks until becoming part of the senior crew. And that he managed so despite starting his career as a non-commissioned officer. The captain might be a prat, but Merlin won't thank him enough, since it was Arthur that half talked/half ordered him to apply for the Academy in the science division, promising he'd wait for him to graduate before set out to space again - Merlin paid back by speeding up his academic course and making it in two years and half instead of the standard three for enlisted officers. He hides a powerful strike of authority under his friendly demeanor and the science department almost reveres him like a god; since that one mission in which he was mistaken by the locals for a warlock, when his knowledge of science impressed the primitives, the crew started to call his department "the Magic People". At the start of his career, when he served as then-Commander Pendragon's assistant for his first assignment (posted there by Admiral Uther Pendragon in person), he was tutored by Lieutenant Blaze, whom he considers some kind of adoptive father figure. He's a member of the "Round Table" club. His father is officially MIA since he vanished not much after "the Great Purge" of the USS Camelot; Merlin hopes that, one day, he'll be able to figure out what happened to him. He took part to the "The Eye of the Phoenix" mission with the assigned code name "Magic".

Chief armory and tactical systems officer and Second officer: Lieutenant Commander Leon Cameliard Son of a wealthy family, he received the best education and attended the most prestigious schools of Europe, Earth. His preparation had him admitted to Starfleet Academy with high scores. Unfazed by the reputation of the red shirts, he chose operations track, interested in a career in security. Reliable and trustworthy, perhaps a bit overzealous, his bravery earned him his officer's commission during the third year. The meeting with Arthur Pendragon is what will shape his life. Leon is a ensign fresh of graduation, the Pendragon is a second-year cadet serving a semester on the ship. Sharing interests about ancient weapons and medieval melee, they strike a friendship that lasts even when Pendragon ends his assignment and returns to the academy. They manage to serve again, and Leon doesn't mind that the younger offices gets promoted over him; facing side by side dangers in planetside missions, Leon develops a strong sense of loyalty toward a friend that he recognizes as command material. Never afraid to speak up if he feels his superiors make questionable choices, it's such honesty that wins him Pendragon's respect. Then-Lieutenant Pendragon eventually raised to the position of chief security officer on the Camelot, supported by assistant security officer Geraint Sir. Leon is happy to take orders from the two. The sadness for the loss of Geraint is mixed with the honor he feels when Pendragon chooses him as his new second. Together they make a good couple. He's promoted security chief when Pendragon suddenly leaves to return to the academy, and he's still serving in such position when Pendragon comes back to the Camelot as the new captain to see the ship off to a well-deserved retirement. Picked to resume the position on the Excalibur, few months later he's gravely injured during a mission. To heal he was forced to take a leave of absence but when he returned his position was taken by his former assistant, Lieutenant Du Lac, and the captain seemed reluctant to demote Du Lac. Knowing about Leon's expertise on weapons, Captain Pendragon bought himself some time by offering Leon to temporarily take over the vacant chief armory officer position; Leon faces the new assignment with his deep sense of duty. The change proves to be welcome: after years of stressing about assuring the safety of others and to maintain order above the ship, it feels refreshing to be in charge of virtually every weapon aboard the Excalibur and he's not eager to return to his stressful previous position. When the captain is reassured that his friend and loyal subordinate is happy with the current assignment, he promotes Leon to chief tactical systems officer as well so he might be responsible for the efficiency and improvement of the starship weapons on top of the status of the small arms and weapons stored in the armory. He's known to give dissertations to every crew member who happens to ask him a weapon. If you are in need of a weapon for a specific mission, he shall find the perfect one! While considered the most serious of the "Knights of the Round Table" club, he always joins his peers in their jokes and teasing.

Head nurse: Lieutenant Gaius Blaze Gaius enlisted as a young boy and most of his service record is related to Admiral Pendragon. Despite his almost decennial experience built on the field that brought him to the position of head nurse and the rank of chief petty officer, it never occurred to him to take a leave to obtain a medical degree that he could easily get. Thus his career stagnated, until then-Commander Uther Pendragon forced a leave on him with the order to enroll in the Academy and get if not the medical degree (that would grant him a chance to run for the position of CMO) at least the commission. After graduating, Gaius returned to service with Commander Pendragon and followed him at every transfer until they both settled on the USS Camelot. After Uther was promoted and the ship reassigned to Arthur Pendragon as his first captaincy after the brief stint as commanding officer of the Knights fighter units, he considered his obligation to continue to serve on active duty by following Uther's son and, by doing so, he met the boy-now-man he considers the child he never had: Lieutenant Commander Emrys. His Eyebrow is made of legend and its renowned in the whole 'Fleet, second only to Enterprise Spock’s: he will make you do what he wants just by silently staring and pointing his Eyebrow at you. Alongside CMO Cara, he's the only active crew member who served under both the Pendragon father and the Pendragon son in a senior capacity. He recently rekindled his romance with Chief Petty Officer Manticore after twenty years of separation.

Chief communications officer: Lieutenant Gwaine Lotson Son of a red shirt died under late Captain Caerleon's command when he was little, Gwaine grew resentful of high-ranking officers, as he blamed Caerleon for his father's pointless death. Reckless and carefree, he embarked as security on freighters traveling in dangerous space areas, learning the job on the field. He stumbled upon then-security chief Pendragon and his loyal shadow, then-Ensign Emrys, under disguise in a shady place, and was dragged in a brawl, where soon weapons popped up and Gwaine ended up having a close encounter with a knife. Gwaine woke up in a Federation starship's sickbay, where he discovered whose life he tried to protect but, definitely enchanted by Emrys contagious smile, he grudgingly accepted to help the duo in their mission, proving he and Pendragon made for an awesome team. Gwaine parted ways from his new friends with the promise of giving the Academy a try (according to Pendragon, he was wasting his talent with freighters and Gwaine was getting bored anyway). He failed the exams on his first entry but, out of stubbornness, he decided to try another time: thanks to his high scores, he was allowed to reapply the following year, when he was accepted. To his surprise, he soon met the Dynamic Duo again in San Francisco, where they had transferred back to the Academy. Pendragon complained for the whole duration of the course that Gwaine was ruining Emrys, but Gwaine was just dragging his favorite science cadet to a place or two to show him how to live la vida loca: it's not his fault if Pendragons are stuckup bores. He speaks much, and most of the time his blabbering makes the captain develop a headache, but he's the most reliable communication officer one would wish to have at one's side when dealing with hostile aliens: he specialized in languages while training as security officer after serving for years on freighters traveling the worst backward routes of the quadrant, after all. He's the one who came up with the term "Knights of the Round Table" to call the red shirts of the "Round Table" circle like himself. Personally picked by supervisor Grettir as the third officer for the small team that would sneak into hostile lands to retrieve an ancient artifact under the secret mission labeled "The Eye of the Phoenix", he was assigned the code name "Strength".

Assistant computer systems officer: Lieutenant Commander Morgana Gorlois Daughter of Lieutenant Commander Gorlois, late security chief of the Camelot, Morgana was orphaned at ten when her father died during a tragic mission planetside. Feeling guilty for the failure of saving the man he had been friends with since the Academy, then-Captain Uther Pendragon applied for her custody and provided the best schooling his money could buy. Despite not asking for an official adoption, he treated her as a daughter and she and young Arthur grew to consider each other as some kind of reluctant siblings. Always competing for any scrap of attention the absent Uther was willing to offer, they took their never-stopping rivalry to the Academy, where they applied the same year. Despite her penchant to give orders and dominant attitude, Morgana declined the appeal of command track and picked science instead. Gifted in hand-to-hand combat and a fierce épée fencer, a sport she practiced since she was in primary school, she was part of the Academy fencing team where she excelled as one of the most talented of the recent years. She and Arthur both won golden medals to the Academy in any tournament; although she claims she could beat him, they never publicly faced each other on the Academy piste. Her best friend is Commander Smith. Close since Morgana came to live in the Pendragon house, they enlisted together and managed to be roommates for all four years. Morgana had no qualms in asking Uther Pendragon to intercede so they could serve together in every assignment they got. Her presence on the Excalibur is a mix of stubbornness, entitlement and nepotism. When news of Pendragon's captainship was official she decided she wanted to be assigned to a Constitution-class as well to not be undone by "her stupid little brother". But when Arthur managed to convince Starfleet to let him pick Lieutenant Commander Smith as his first officer, Morgana knew her place was on Excalibur as well, to help her friend manage the unruly captain. Arthur, initially adverse, relented to her request out of exhaustion and Uther interceded, buying a dispensation to the rule that requires siblings to serve on different ships. Always eager to learn more about computers and their language, Morgana is the only one on board, with Lieutenant Emrys, who can backtalk to the captain and not end up in the brig for insubordination. She might abuse of her ability to manipulate Captain Pendragon, but always for the good. Usually. Eager to "get her hands dirty", she tries to impose herself to the away parties. Every time. And she usually gets it her own way. He has won the nickname of "high priestess of the computers" because of how magical her skills happen to be. Her late mother Vivienne cheated on Gorlois with Uther, an affair during which Morgana was conceived, thus making her the blood older half-sister of Captain Pendragon. Vivienne didn't reveal the truth to her husband and Morgana was thus never told her true parentage. For his own reasons, Uther Pendragon is resolved to take this secret to the grave.

Security chief: Lieutenant Lancelot Du Lac Grown up on a small planet outside the Federation borders, he witnessed the destruction of his village at the hands of interstellar bandits. Vowing to never be helpless again in the face of tyranny, he dedicated his life to study with the dream of enlisting to Starfleet, the formidable force of peace that provides security in the quadrant. His dream got cracked when, in front of the recruitment booth, he discovered that non-Federation citizens candidates cannot attend the Academy if not sponsored by a command-level officer. Lancelot had no connections but he managed to qualify for the limited list of non-Federation applicants allowed to apply as non-commissioned personnel and thus Lancelot signed up as yeoman for the services department His training brought Lancelot to the Camelot, where he had the chance to met then-Lieutenant Pendragon, who managed to get him transferred to security. A planetside mission gone wrong, in which Lancelot defied orders to save a life, drew on him the rage of Captain Uther Pendragon, who filled in an immediate transfer with a black mark on his file. Despite Arthur's reassuring words, Lancelot left the Camelot knowing his career is ruined and retires, returning to a civilian life. Two years later Lancelot, who was working as security for a ruthless businessman called Hengist on a small planet in the middle of nowhere, is reached by a letter of reference written on his behalf by just promoted Captain Arthur Pendragon. Stunned, Lancelot took the first ship leaving the planet and got admission to the Academy Preparatory Exam and the high score opened him the doors of the Academy, where he applied for Security. Here he met cadet Grail, with whom he'll share quarters for all the academic years. His hopes to return to the Camelot are crushed when news of the ship decommission arrive and Lancelot is still a cadet. But, once again, Arthur Pendragon looks over him because, as soon as he graduates, Lancelot is assigned to the new Excalibur, where raises thorough the ranks and soon is assistant chief security to Lieutenant Commander Cameliard, who then replaces as chief security officer. Despite Admiral Pendragon not approving of his promotion (and being vocal about it), Lancelot proved he earned the position in countless times and has the complete trust of his captain. He's the most reliable and serious of the so-called "Knights of the Round Table", the operations branch of the Round Table circle.

USS Excalibur mainframe conduit: Ensign Freya Bastet Affected by a mood disorder that started after an assault she was victim to when she was seventeen, Freya's life is a precarious balance between extreme happiness and extreme depression. Despite early diagnosis and medication that prevents relapses, she developed a sense of shame that lead Freya to a solitary life, scared about letting people get close to her to then see them leave as soon as they discovered about her "curse". After years serving at a research station that had started to feel like a prison and worsened her mental health, Freya longed for a change and applied for a transfer on a starship. With her medical history she could've never thought her application would be not only accepted, but that she would be ordered to report to one of the Big Sisters. Freya was very nervous at the prospect of serving on a starship the size of the Excalibur, too many people, a high risk of stressful episodes. Skittish and defensive, she actively made sure to not draw attentions on herself. Her service record granted Freya a quiet post in one of the many small control rooms of the big ship and she was fine. This until chief science officer Emrys was made aware of her apparent aloofness and, as head of the science department, approached her to see if everything was fine. Freya even today can't explain how and why, but she grew to trust Emrys and eventually opened up until, for the first time, she revealed her "curse". Unlike all the previous people in her life, Emrys doesn't judge her and put himself instead into slowly introducing her into the crew. She's long since embraced the potential of living on what is a moving big village made of people who consider themselves an adoptive family. Freya now has many people she can call friends, she smiles whenever she goes on duty and feels welcome as person as much as valued as officer - with positive effects on her mood disorder. She still gets her regular stabilizers injections and she's been assigned a psychotherapists to follow and assist her. She loves lakes, as they remind her of her happy childhood, the quieter the place the better is her mood. First officer Smith discretely includes Freya's name in the landing party when a lake presence is confirmed in the place the team will visit and the planet is deemed safe.

Deputy security chief: Lieutenant Percival Grail Easygoing and funny despite his ruff appearance, he has become the running joke of the starship because the tunic fabric doesn't stand the power of his biceps (and he's the only competitor that could beat Enterprise's Kirk outrageous record numbers for the Award of Most Shredded Shirts). His has been the only request to have sleeveless tunics added to the standard array to ever reach Starfleet HQ. Despite his size and intimidating looks that - in conjunction to his strength and skills - make him a formidable security officer, he's softhearted and possibly the most gentle of the so-called "Knights of the Round Table". He's the right hand of security chief Du Lac with whom he's struck a friendship when they both were cadets; when Lancelot was ordered to report to the Excalibur, he followed suit without even blinking and applied for the same ship. His best friend and partner-in-crime is chief Communications Lotson.

Chief computer systems officer: Lieutenant Commander Morgause King-Gormause After a course of studies at the most exclusive schools of the planet and a Master of Science in computer systems, she enrolled at the academy where she picked operations track to become a security officer, her goal to climb Starfleet Security. An expert in hand-to-hand combat, she practiced several combat sports since a young age. She served on different ships, including a brief assignment on the Essetir as chief security officer but, unimpressed by the captain and tired of risking her life to protect unworthy men, she decided for a drastic change: return to the Academy to resume her studies in science. Promoted to the chair of Advanced Computer Programming, he was the teacher of cadet Gorlois, for whom she found a natural affection; under her tutoring, cadet Gorlois had the highest overall score in the class and finished her thesis two weeks earlier than her classmates. Despite the disdain for male captains grown through the years, she cannot resist the lure of the chief computer position on a Constitution-class, although she accepts the offer with mild pleasure after discovering that her former pupil, now-Lieutenant Gorlois, will be on the crew as well. It's easy for her to get Gorlois assigned to her as her second in the computer systems department. A firm believer that women are superior to men, she finds it hard to serve under them, and her hopeful ambition is to see Morgana Gorlois eventually replace her adoptive brother Arthur as captain of the Excalibur and, with herself as first officer, finally restore discipline on the ship. The poor girl still has to understand that the USS Enterprise has established a glorious tradition of insubordination that leaked through the rest of the Constitution-class fleet, a tradition to which there is no cure. She has an on-and-off sexual relationship going with her former commanding officer, Essetir Captain Cenred, through virtual means such as private communications channels. Obsessed by her since her stay on the Essetir, Cenred worships her and would do anything to win her over, including offering her the position of first officer. She welcomes such groveling but she hasn't the slightest intention of trading the Excalibur for a promotion on a lesser retrofitted ship. In truth she isn't much interested in a relationship on equal terms with a man, gender she believes should exist only to serve women in any capacity they might be able to. She learned to work with men, she doesn't want to live with one. And she definitely wouldn't take orders from the man she has sex with. Entrusted to an extremist cult based on ancient beliefs and made only of women when she was an infant, any record of her parentage has been lost; she isn't unbothered by this fact, though, for she considers the Nine Sisters - the heads of the cults - her own family.

Chief engineer: Lieutenant Elyan Smith Brother of first officer Guinevere, he happened on the Excalibur by fate, when the Constitution-class stopped at Star Base Fyrien where he was staying as part of the USS Essetir crew. He bumps into his sister and it's a shock for both, as they hadn't seen or heard from each other in four years, but they have the chance to sit down and smooth any disagreement. Captain Pendragon, hearing about them from Lieutenant Emrys, decided to ask Starfleet to give him Elyan, with the hope that the siblings could catch up the time lost - he does it for his first officer, but stealing a crew member to Cenred is a bonus point and a chance he doesn't want to miss. Besides, Cenred was under-employing Elyan, and the Chief Dragon doesn't like it when talent is wasted. He has inherited the passion for engineering from his father, who served many years before as maintenance engineer under Uther Pendragon's captaincy of the Camelot. In the four years of service previous to the transfer, he served on four different ships under dozens of capacities, picking up many skills, thus making him a well-rounded and capable engineer worthy to be entrusted the very pulsing heart of the ship. He's one of the so-called "Knights of the Round Table". He's been recently possessed by the spirit of a boy, and the experience left him shaken.

Chief medical officer: Lieutenant Commander Nimueh Cara The medical officer who followed Commander Ygraine de Bois's pregnancy, she was in charge of the medical team that oversaw the delivery and the one who certified the commander's following death. Her role in the tragedy and her inability to save his wive drew on her the brunt rage of then-close friend Captain Uther Pendragon, who had her kicked away from the Camelot with her career in shambles. A ship assignment suddenly forbidden, Nimueh returned to Starfleet Medical and then accepted a position on deep space starbase Isle of the Blessed. At first the newest and youngest doctor out of nine, with time she climbed the ladder until she was left in charge of the medical facilities: as the senior medical officer on the small outpost, she learned to run a sickbay with despotic manners, expecting anyone under her charge to bow the head and obey. Years later, the announcement of a future launch of the Excalibur under the command of Uther Pendragon's son forced Nimueh out of her semi-retirement on the Isle of the Blessed. Eager to keep an eye on the son of the late Ygraine, that small boy she was the first person to hold after the birth, she asks to return to ship duty and applies for the position of chief medical officer for a Constitution-class: her track record makes her qualified for the job while her own connections pay off and do the rest, getting her the assignment on the Excalibur before Admiral Pendragon can have a say and put a veto on her name. The nightmare of every patient, she acts as if she were the ruler of the sickbay. She disdains most of the crew, and resents the rest of them, but she's learning that the Excalibur isn't a place too bad to settle in.

Security officer and Security area chief: Lieutenant Junior Grade Mordred Bane Grown up in a small colony made of a simple life, a barely teen Mordred just arrived on San Francisco with his guardian Cerdan when an incident that killed Cerdan left him alone and lost in one of the biggest cities of the Federation founding-planet. He roamed for few days before he picked the attention of Morgana Gorlois, who offered him a place to stay and some help while her adoptive brother Arthur found a way to get in touch with Mordred's family and volunteered to escort him during the necessary shuttle trip. Grateful, he promised himself that he would eventually repay the siblings kindness. Years later he enlisted in Starfleet. Initially set on a non-commissioned officer career, he briefly served on a ship with then-Lieutenant Gorlois. Once again planetside, he met once again Arthur Pendragon, at the time back on Earth to graduate from command school, who convinced him to apply for the Academy and helped him prepare for the entrance test. His assignment to the Excalibur was sponsored by Lieutenant Commander Gorlois, who had felt a bond with him since that time years before. He is the youngest member of the crew and one of the youngest commissioned officers in the whole Starfleet (sharing the record with USS Enterprise's Chekov). Eager to learn and improve himself, he looks up to the captain who accepted him in the Hoard and wants nothing more than make both of his siblings sponsors proud of him. After a very secret and very embarrassing initiation carried out by the "veterans", he's been recently admitted to the exclusive and completely unofficial club of the "Knights of the Round Table".

Counselor: Lieutenant Commander Alator Catha Gifted with a superior intelligence and high esper ratings, Alator graduated in many science branches before enlisting to Starfleet with the mission to further deepen his knowledge. Ten years after rotating through assignments on science vessels, he makes the decision to return to Earth to study psychology, of which he soon becomes a renowned specialist. Researcher of cognitive psychology and everything related to the mind, he wrote many dissertations and signed important science papers. His work brought innovations and inspired other scientists, including the revolutionary doctor Adams of the Tantalus Penal Colony, but his dedication was then diverted on helping people who suffered amnesia to recover the information still archived in their brains: with his team he developed the prototype of a device that gave promising results. When his research was confiscated by Section 31, and his device used to extract information from unwilling prisoners in what could only be labelled mental torture, saddled with remorse, he put aside all his studies and returned to ship duty, where he served as science officer. Picked to serve on the Excalibur, after getting to know his superior officer, he considered it an honor to serve under Lieutenant Emrys as his second. When Starfleet, after a successful trial on the Eagle, decided to roll out the figure of the counselor on all the Constitution-class starships, his was the name selected for the position. Initially reluctant, it was Emrys to convince him to accept. A man of few words, controlled and reserved, he instills respect and awe in others. In front of him, even the most reluctant crew members eventually open up.

Records officer and Historian: Lieutenant Geoffrey of Monmouth Professor of Monmouth, renowned for his publications about Earth medieval period (including the famous chronicle "The History of the Kings of Britain"), was asked to take part to an expedition as cultural observer on a planet where society and development resembled that of the Late Middle Age in Earth's Europe. He easily settled in, recording events and crossing them with what is known about Earth's history, for ten years before a war erupted and, in the state of anarchy that followed, an extraction mission lead by then security chief Uther Pendragon of the Camelot successfully saved him from falling victim of a deadly disease. A forced prolonged stay on the starship taught him that an historian figure should be required on every starship assigned to exploration in uncharted space, so when he was finally able to return to Earth, he took the decision to enlist. Captain Pendragon welcomed him back on the Camelot, where Geoffrey served as records officer for nearly twenty years, before retiring from active service to teach Earth history at Starfleet Academy instead. Captain Pendragon's son Arthur and ward Morgana studied at his course. The promise of new civilizations to discover in a five-years deep space exploration into uncharted space lured him out of his retirement and Admiral Pendragon convinced him to resume his position as records officer on the Excalibur, under Arthur's command. On top of compiling and managing information regarding the ship's missions, he is working on the last draft of his recollection of the stay on the medieval planet. He's passionate about paper books. Every wall in his home on Earth has been turned into a shelf to collect all the ancient tomes he acquired through the years.

Senior helmsman: Lieutenant Tristan Lyonesse One of the few, in the whole crew, who dared to openly disagree with the assignment of a brand-new Constitution-class to a green captain like Admiral Pendragon's son and point out the giant elephant in the room (nepotism within Starfleet), Tristan's pastime is still to grumble about the captain's oddities (first of all his protectiveness and propensity to always not be where he should - namely, with his ass on the chair), although he long since changed his mind on Arthur Pendragon's worthiness of sitting on the chair. His hatred for Starfleet's so-called nobility, and the power these admirals wield within the service, makes him distrustful of any officer with the wrong surname, and each of them have to prove themselves before earning his trust, but when he opens up he's the most loyal officer one could hope to find. He's in a serious relationship with his duty partner, Lieutenant Blanchmains, although they often claim that they won't marry, as they're already "partner for life" and "don't need any paper trail to prove it".

Pet FSN-345-58-0047: Crewman, 3rd class Kilgharrah Emrys The not-so-cute reptile pet of Lieutenant Commander Emrys. He hates cuddling but, at least, he is quite calm and isn't a nuisance. He belongs to an alien species that resemble Earth's mythical dragons, although they're more like cats, both in size and temperament; very intelligent and possibly able to understand the human language, at least at its basic, their favorite place to laze off is a human's shoulders as they like the warmth humans radiate. Emrys inherited Kilgharrah from his father Balinor, who had discovered him during a planet exploration and brought with himself during his tenure on the USS Camelot. For this reason, Kilgharrah is used to living on a starship and what it entails.

Chief navigator and Tactical officer: Lieutenant Isolde Blanchmains Brave and loyal, she usually balances the more aggressive side of her other half, Lieutenant Tristan, and she's the only reason why the Excalibur wasn't about to leave spacedock for her maiden voyage without her senior helmsman (Tristan really didn't want to serve under the "halfwit Pendragonling captain"). She and Tristan spend their on-duty time gossiping and commenting about the rest of the crew (and especially the commanding crew). Although her main duty is sit at the helm station, she always volunteers herself (and Tristan) whenever there's an undercover mission on the workings: inexplicably, their disguise of smugglers always works. She bonded with Commander Smith over the mutual curse of having to temper an impulsive male counterpart they cannot outrank.

Transporter chief: Chief Petty Officer Mary Collins In her previous assignment, Yeoman Collins was part of a away team visiting a science colony when a strange radiation affected her and her peers, causing rapid aging. The medical team of the small vessel was unfortunately unable to find a cure. The destruction of the radiation source stopped the accelerated cells degrading her and her mates suffered, but Mary was left with a body she didn't recognize and a heavy psychological trauma. Judged unfit for duty in her aged state (and out of a perhaps vain but understandable wish to see her beauty and age return), Mary took an extended medical leave to buy herself and her career some time. Some years later, by now resigned to her fate, and with her psychological status degrading as her body did before, she was considering taking her own life, when a communication from Starfleet Medical offered her some hope: the USS Enterprise encountered as similar effect and their advanced, state of the art medical department found a cure to save their senior crew. It's uncertain if the cure will work on her, as too much time has passed by, but it's Mary's last chance: the procedure to counteract the decaying effects is long and painful but her body slowly but steadily de-ages. When she's finished, and psychological support clears her, she's returned to active duty and her physical and psychological pain is partially recompensed with an assignment to the Excalibur as its new transporter chief. The renowned soprano soloist and performer of the acclaimed musical piece "The Witch's Aria", Helen Mora, is her twin sister.

Senior medical officer: Lieutenant Aglain Serket Gentle and kind-hearted, Aglain embraced a pacifist way of life since a young age. Passionate about meditations practices, he spent years researching the many techniques of Earth, mastering them. Eager for knowledge, his personal journey to achieve higher peace brought him to Vulcan, where he studied the teachings of Surak and was given access to the meditations techniques of the Vulcans. He's one of the few outworlders afforded the honor to spend time in a Vulcan temple and given access to the most secret traditional rituals that bring the fusion of spirit and intellect. Driven by the wish to help those in need, he attended medical school and then brought such a mission with him when he enlisted. Through mastering the meditation techniques, he achieved an emotionally calm and stable state that helps him manage the stress that come with working on dangerous conditions such as a starship assigned to deep-space service. Quiet but assertive at the same time, he can keep his mind cool and not loose control even during a crisis such as a red alarm condition or under fire. Completely different in both attitude and nature, he's the stark contrast to his superior officer, CMO Kara. During his time on Vulcan he volunteered at an animal sanctuary, working with a small colony of serkets, the big scorpions native to desert planet, from which he took his surname. He's teaching Lieutenant Commander Gorlois meditation to help her manage the bouts of stress that make her sleeping path erratic.

Assistant Chief Engineer: Chief Petty Officer William Ealdorsprince Native from the same small colony, William and Merlin have been buddies since when they were toddlers. Their friendship came to a screeching halt when Merlin expressed his wish to enlist, a choice Will didn't understand as both had grown up fatherless because of Starfleet. They parted without even a goodbye, Will too stubborn to go see his friend one last time. Merlin returned into Will's life out of the blue, during a shore leave, dragging along his new best friend as well as superior, then-Lieutenant Commander Pendragon, a pompous Starfleet Brat with a powerful surname and likely richer than most of the colony in its whole. Will immediately confronted Merlin on his very dubious tastes in friendships (a Starfleet Nobility, seriously Merls?) and did nothing to get along with the oh-so-important-dragon-something, but Merlin is nothing but stubborn and pushy that somehow Will found himself agreeing into enlisting instead of wasting further time on a small farming planet. In front of his bulging eyes, Merlin had wrung out of Mr. Starfleet Prince the promise that there would always be a position open for William whenever the Pendragon got his captaincy. Will might still not like the 'fleet Brats, but never to say that Arthur Pendragon doesn't keep his word because, as soon as the name of the Excalibur's captain became official, he got the offer to transfer there. He might've changed his mind on Mr. Prince of Starfleet, but this doesn't stop William from joking about it now and then. His superior, chief engineer Smith, finds his jabs hilarious anyway.

Navigator and Tactical officer: Lieutenant Commander Mithian de Nemeth The only daughter of admiral and member of the Starfleet Aristocracy Rodor de Nemeth, graduated with the highest scores and set on the path to get her own starship in the future, Mithian's arrival on the Excalibur happened out of a betrothal that almost lead to a rushed marriage. She and Arthur Pendragon met when, both cadets of Command College at the Academy, were invited to Advanced Tactical Training and made captain of respective team Beta and Alpha. While rivals in the course, they found out they shared plenty of interests and started to hang out in their free time. Their growing attraction didn't hinder their performances in ATT: Mithian, with her Beta team, beat captain Pendragon's Alpha team in the first contact (the Lands of Gedref scenario) and science finals (the Hunter's Heart scenario), Pendragon won the security mission (the Sorrow scenario). The engagement came out of nowhere, a surprise to both their fathers and they were one step away from the marriage when they came to their senses and realized they were perhaps too much invested with their respective careers for an healthy relationship to work: marriage would mean they would always get assignments on the same ship, limiting their chances. They parted ways as friends. When Pendragon was assigned the captainship of the Excalibur and was invested with the task of putting together a crew, Mithian was one of the first names that came to his mind: facing such a challenge such as a Constitution-class, she was one of the officers he wanted at his side. The invitation to serve on the Excalibur wasn't what Mithian expected, but she jumped on the honor to work on one of the Big Sisters - although Pendragon couldn't offer her the position of chief navigator he initially promised her. Mithian and the captain's relationship is one of mutual respect and their past together doesn't come in the way: she actually is proud to be considered one of the captain's most trusted friend. An Arthur Pendragon in skirt, as Merlin would grudgingly say, she has drawn the attentions of Lieutenant Gorlois, who still has to decide if she hates or loves Mithian more (she has with Mithian the same conflicting relationship she has with Arthur Pendragon).

Pet FSN-682-43-1054: Crewman, 3rd class Aithusa Gorlois Cute and loved by virtually everyone aboard - with the only exception of the captain who hates both the overgrown lizards - she makes many happy sounds and steals everyone's attention. She loves cuddles and scratches. Officially she is registered as belonging to Lieutenant Commander Morgana but she might be drawn to Merlin. She is very confused about which two-legs is her favorite. She's of the same kind of Lieutenant Commander Merlin's Kilgharrah, but much more younger, as she hatched from an egg Merlin acquired recently.

Helmsman: Lieutenant Commander Elena Gawant Daughter of Admiral Gawant and last heir to a wealthy family that can trace its origins back to a noble lineage from Britain, for as much as his father tried to shelter her, she has grown up breathing Starfleet and it felt natural for her to follow her father's steps, especially when it became clear that she wasn't suited to mingle into high society. She's highly efficient and skilled at the helm as much as goofy as soon as she leaves her station. Receptions and gala are her worst nightmare, she always embarrasses her peers when she's forced to sit at a table amidst flag officers and she doesn't hold her tongue in presence of politicians. She hates the dress uniform, skirts and gowns - one of the reasons why she opted for the trousers female duty uniform. She loves horse riding and her favorite pastime, whenever she's allowed leave, is to set a horse off, brace herself, and let the animal ride wherever it wants. She loves frogs and has a themed collections that keeps growing every time the Excalibur stops at a planet or starbase: every officer that stumbles upon an object that resembles a frog at an alien market eventually buys it as a gift for her.

Captain's yeoman: Chief Petty Officer George Brass George is the perfect yeoman, a role he is proud to cover. Often he's asked which position he'd like to be promoted or move to, but he genuinely likes what he does, and he feels honored to do it so for the captain of one of the Sisters. His best quality? Efficient to perfection. Which might also be quite irritating, if you ask the captain who, nonetheless, never fails to point out to Merlin how much of a better yeoman George is. Unfortunately, his humor is made only of cracks about clean and shining surfaces.

Medical officer: Lieutenant Edwin Muirden Only son of two doctors, Edwin breathed medical science since he was born. With his parents he traveled the quadrant, on a mission to cure those in need, but his life changed when they stopped by a small planet home to a primitive race. Accused of witchcraft because of their extensive medical knowledge, an helpless young Edwin witnessed the death of both his mother and his father on the pyre - his attempt to either follow them or save them left him permanently scarred. The trauma cast a shadow that followed him through the years. Saved by the Camelot that arrived too late to prevent the tragedy, the orphaned Edwin was entrusted to some relatives. Edwin put all of himself in his studies. Curious and passionate despite his dark past, his superior intelligence allowed him for a quick course of study and opened him the doors to the most renowned medical schools. Moved by a secret vengeance, he enlisted in Starfleet to have the chance to get at then-Captain Uther Pendragon whom he blamed for the death of his parents, by the time he had earned the stripes and could apply for an assignment to the Camelot, the warship was retired and Uther Pendragon promoted admiral. Serve on the Excalibur, captained by Uther Pendragon's son, felt a natural choice: the plan was to exact revenge on the admiral by striking at Uther's beloved son. But he's long since decided that the young Pendragon doesn't deserve to pay for the crimes of his father.

Yeoman: Petty Officer Sefa Ruadan Shy and always uncertain about herself, young Sefa only wished to lead a quiet life, but her father Ruadan had different aspirations for her. His application to Starfleet Academy rejected, Ruadan wanted for his only daughter the Starfleet career denied to him. Enlisted on her father's pressure, Sefa never felt the call for stars and discovery that drives all the young cadets, and she faced the training with mild interest with no inclination for a specific subject. The Excalibur is her first assignment in space. Fit in such a big crew is an hurdle for her. Surrounded by hundreds of people who chose this path and strove to arrive on the Excalibur, she fears that her peers will eventually discover that she never had such a big starship in her sights and she will be singled out. Despite everyone reaching out to help her feel home, she feels out of place and undeserving. First officer Smith, who keeps a close eye on every new crewmember, notices Sefa difficulties to mingle and takes the yeoman under her wing. Serving on rotation, Sefa is thus assigned to communications, as one of the yeomen working under Commander Smith.

Nurse: Lieutenant Iseldir Chieftain Born in a self-sustaining small ecocolony in the which there was no concept of private property and everything was shared, Iseldir grew up as one of the community children, his father all the men, his mother all the women. His formative years were spent in the woods, learning to become one with nature. The call of the stars eventually reached him, driving him away from the simple life afforded by the colony, and he left his home with only the clothes he owned and a dream to become a doctor and visit far away worlds. It turns out that the bare education received in the community isn't enough to enter medicine school, too much to study to catch up, too many years to spend earthbound. Iseldir, longing for space, thus chose to become a nurse instead, a shorter course in a similar field. He loves his job and every night, before he retires to sleep, he prays his gods and thanks them for giving him the chance to be of help to those he assisted in the day about to finish. No amount of ambition can be find in him: happy for his current position, he's uninterested in a promotion.

Tactical systems officer: Lieutenant Helios Southron Born in a small independent system where the survival of the fittest was the rule, Helios trained and became a soldier in the army of his tribe. Growing cold and harsh in a world where the winner takes the spoil and the weak becomes slave of the strong, he raised through the ranks until becoming a respected warlord. Always hired to fight someone else's war, the war eventually arrived on his planet when the Klingons came to conquer it. The system was aided by the Federation, and the Klingons were driven back, and its leader chose to became part of the Federation. With mercenary activity forbidden by the new law, Helios is left with the choice of enlisting. He's taken a fancy into Commander Smith, but he's loyal to Lieutenant Gorlois, for whom he would be willing to single-handedly conquer the captainship, if she only asked.

Assistant science officer: Lieutenant Finna Bendrui Enrolled to an exclusive science academy that trains the most renowned scientists of the Federation, she failed to meet the exceptionally high standards of the institution that claims to compete with the Vulcan Science Academy and resorted instead to enlist to Starfleet. Kind, sensitive and polite but with an iron will, she's provided with a strong sense of duty: if she's given a mission, she will put her everything to carry it out. When Lieutenant Commander Alator is appointed counselor as the first for this new position, Finna is the natural choice to succeed him as assistant science officer. With Emrys permanently sitting at the science station on the bridge, the coordination of the science division is in her competent hands.

Security officer: Ensign Kara Freedom Stubborn and set into her beliefs to the point of being blinded, Kara stands her ground whenever she feels she's right, and this lead to a couple of insubordination reports that mark her otherwise spotless service record. Completely unable to hide her personal disdain toward the captain - and not willing to even give it a try - her attitude is a reason of many headaches for her boyfriend, security officer Bane, who just wishes to live a quiet life on the Excalibur and not to be put in front of the though decision of choosing between his new family and his love. Kara's stay on the ship is secured as long as the captain turns a blind eye to her behavior just for Bane's sake, but Mordred knows it's just a matter of time. Kara genuinely loves him, but her hatred for the Pendragon family blinds her, for she blames now Admiral Pendragon and his arrogance for the death of a relative she was close to, and she just sees Uther Pendragon in his son Arthur. She and security officer Bane have already shared a romantic relationship back at the Academy, before his graduation took him at the other side of the quadrant.

Physician: Chief Petty Officer Alice Manticore Skilled doctor, after practicing in her small town, Alice felt the call of the stars and enlisted as medical officer, not expecting that on a starship she would find love. With Captain Uther discouraging personal relationships between his enlisted and non-enlisted crew members, she and Lieutenant Blaze were forced to hide their relationship and kept their engagement a secret. Thus, when "the Purge" happened and the axe fell on Alice's head, Gaius couldn't request HQ to transfer them on the same ship; desperate, Alice appealed to the captain, hoping that by revealing him about the engagement, Uther Pendragon would make an exception for his friend's sake. He didn't - actually, this drew Uther's petty and vengeful hatred on her. Uther's power reached everywhere and knowing that her chance to ever enroll in the Academy was gone forever and that Uther would make sure to ruin her career wherever she went, Alice was forced to take a long absence of leave and practice as civilian doctor on the outer frontier. She took a chance to return to Starfleet and active duty on ships only when the news of Uther's promotion to admiralty reached where she was living: she hoped now he'd be too busy to pay attention to her return. Thanks to what she'll always claim was a favorable astral conjunction, her application for an assignment on the Excalibur slipped under the powerful admiral's radar and her transfer was countersigned. She and Gaius have long since resumed their romance. This time they're not willing to waste more time and bother with secrets, and they've already planned for a private marriage ceremony: captain Pendragon already agreed to officiate. From the outer frontier she brought with herself a curious (and quite ugly) alien pet animal that looks like coming out of Earth's myths, some kind of cat-sized lion with a scorpion tail and the head resembling the one of a human; despite its looks and the threatening stinger, it's harmless and spends most of his time in a box, napping.

Engineer: Petty Officer Tyr Seward A humble and simple boy with a love for his job, Tyr takes much pride in serving in the engineering of such a fine ship like the Excalibur under Captain Pendragon's command. He doesn't care that he's just one of the hundred of operations that swarms about the room, or that he'll never see a stripe around his wrist: he wears his red shirt and his petty officer pin with upmost pride. He likes to compare himself to just one busy bee who does his share: for how much little it might be, it works toward the goal of keeping a huge hive like the Excalibur thriving.

Yeoman: Ensign Gilli Ring Gilli was raised by his single father, a war veteran turned strict pacifist. Remaining true to the vow to never use violence again, the man refused to resort to weapons or his training to defend himself when he was attacked by three thugs for refusing to pay them protection bribes. His resulting death left a mark on Gilli, who grew ashamed of his father and his attempts to hide who he was. The admission to a good school was the compensation he was looking for, but he was singled out by a couple of bullies during the whole course. Quiet and mild mannered, he tried to be respectful and polite, but such experience hardened further his hearth: firmly believing that he was owed respect, he swore that he would now get it at all costs, he would learn how to fight and to never hold his fists. Putting aside his science inclination, he enlisted in Starfleet Security. His life changed when, a couple of years later, he met then-Ensign Emrys on a starbase. Mistaking Emrys for a civilian who could use some help from two drunk obnoxious Starfleet members, he stepped in. Sitting at a small table at the cafeteria, Gilli shared with Emrys his harsh view of society and what he was set on achieving, that he was set on rising through the ranks at all cost. Emrys attempted to talk him into a different approach but failed. Two days later the same arrogant crewmembers singled out Gilli again. Ready for a fight, this time it was Emrys to step in, revealing his rank and suffusing the situation before it could escalate. Emrys sat down with the frustrated Gilli explaining he took the liberty to take a look at his records and eventually convinced him to attempt the entrance test to the Academy and get an officer's commission, with the promise that Emrys would do his best to find him a place wherever Emrys would be assigned next. Emrys kept his promise. Fresh from graduation, Gilli is assigned to the Excalibur and Emrys, now a senior officer, immediately took him under his wing. After a rough planetside mission in which he was forced to kill to protect himself, Gilli finally made peace with his father's views, for years a source of shame. Now he understands why his father clung to his believes so much as to give his own life. Polite and eager to learn, he hung at the science labs too much; Emrys had him quickly transferred to the science department to tutor him. His most precious possession is the special forces class ring that belonged to his father; the object is always on his middle finger.

Communications section chief: Lieutenant Commander Vivian King Daughter of awarded Admiral Olaf King, she grew up sheltered and spoiled, surrounded by richness. Entitled and haughty, she walked through the academy course as if high rates and commendations were her birthright; such an attitude didn't win her any friend. Her father's protectiveness is legendary, scuttlebutt say that then-captain threatened any cadet that tried to woo or get too intimate with Vivian. To escape her father's oppressive clutches, she asked an assignment to deep space, hoping to get as far from Earth as she could. Her reputation precedes her wherever she goes, and when she arrives on the Excalibur, any crewmember expects to work with a conceited officer. She makes no effort to change any expectation. Firm believer that only those who graduated in command track should be promoted to senior positions, she's quick to develop resentment toward Commander Smith, a red shirt not only promoted first officer but also her own superior officer in the communications department. Captain Pendragon just grins and bears it, to not make an enemy of Admiral King her father. All in all, she shows competence and high efficiency in her duties so, for as much as he wishes to, he can't find any reason to force a transfer. An incident with some alien chemical that acted like a love potion on her and Captain Pendragon and almost got them to elope and get intimate, left Vivian with lingering one-sided feelings for the captain. In the hopes to win his love, she decided to change. It's a slow mission, but she's putting all of herself in it. Luckily for the captain, Admiral King hasn't discovered about the incident, or he would be running to the Excalibur to challenge Arthur Pendragon to a duel.

Orderly: Crewman, 1st class Daegal Druidson Orphaned since a young age, Daegal learned from very early to tend to himself and not expect much from others. His decision to enlist came for a lack of choices, an occupation like any other that would take him away from the poor colony where he grew up, for a person worth nothing like he thinks he is. With no specific skills to distinguish him, he was set on becoming one of the nameless redshirts that come and go unnoticed; it was with surprise that at orientation he was suggested to pick science division, after his attitude tests showed a caring and nurturing disposition. The one on the Excalibur is his first assignment in space. As orderly his duty is to aid medical officers with non-invasive and menial tasks, but his extreme kindness toward patients have quickly caught the attentive eye of senior doctor Serket, who monitors each member of the medical family. Eager to improve, willing to serve double duties and humble enough to accept and welcome any reprimand whenever he makes a mistake, Daegal is liked by most of the medical personnel, and to many comes natural to tutor him on how to do things pertaining to his job, or explain him instruments and procedures. His quiet presence in sickbay is acknowledged when he assists Lieutenant Commander Emrys during his recovery from a poisoning. Emrys, impressed by the efforts and caring Daegal showed toward him, complimented the orderly and then suggested CMO Cara to nurture an officer who, quoting, "had the gift". Daegal was then ordered to shadow head nurse Blaze, from whom the young crewman may learn more about the medical field. Daegal's wish is now to earn a promotion to medical assistant and then, one day, perhaps have the chance to study to become a nurse, so to better cure patients and people in need of a medical help.

Archive vault officer: Petty Officer Julius Borden Pupil of Lieutenant Blaze, he served as an orderly in the Camelot sickbay for his first years in space. When the big crew reshuffle known as "the Purge" happened, Julius left his mentor and the ship without any word, to then soon retire from Starfleet to purse his own interests. After dedicating almost twenty years of his life to the search of the triskelion, an alien artifact said to be the key to access an ancient tomb that hides an immense treasure, he found himself with just a piece of the ancient item acquired, the other two parts missing and no idea where to find them. Broke and disillusioned, he decided to return to Starfleet in the hopes of using the service's unmatched resources to complete his quest. Switching to operations, so to broaden his chance to be assigned to different positions that could get him in away parties and get privy to any information pertaining his search, and after working hard to earn the trust of any superior he served under, he finally managed to get himself transferred to one of the Sisters as the new archive vaults officer. He didn't foresee to meet his former mentor there, of all places (he thought Gaius retired from active duty when the Camelot was decommissioned and Uther Pendragon promoted to admiralty), but he immediately took preventative measures to protect himself in case Lieutenant Blaze suspected his reason to return to Starfleet after all the years spent as a civilian doing shady businesses: always quick to find out who really matters in an environment, he went straight to befriend the powerful éminence grise of the Excalibur, Lieutenant Commander Emrys, by showing interest in that odd (and annoying) pet of his, thus securing his stay on the ship. Ironically, he's unaware that he's never been closer to his goal, as both the triskelion missing parts he seeks belong to the families of two officer he serves with: one has been in possession of nurse Iseldir's family, and the third part was acquired by then-Captain Uther Pendragon and now is on display as part of his alien artifacts private collection at the Pendragon mansion.

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Updated version of version of an edit posted in April 2017. If you really, really want to see it, you find the original version here.

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Notes The USS Excalibur is TOS canon: is one of the four ship involved in the test of the M-5 ("The Ultimate Computer"), and its registry was confirmed only in 2008 as NCC-1664.

Reflections about how can Uther be Arthur's boss, and a reason for all the characters that were left out at the addendum post.

I deliberately didn't specify any pair (unless Tristan and Isolde, which is a given, and a Morgause/Cenred), so everyone can enjoy this "AU". Personally, I'm torn between an Arthur-Gwen with a side of Merthur, or a Merthur with a Gwen-Lancelot but you're free to not agree with me. Or also a gen, because they can work well even without romance complicating things.

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About the “made up” roles Liaison Officer, Computer Officer, Armory Officer and Security Chief don’t exist in either canon or non-canon Star Trek and were made up by me. See more at this post.

About assignments, ranks, surnames and other changes and reflections: to not disrupt the post into turning it into a textwall, these have been collected at the addendum post.

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Crossposted: Livejournal: prue84.livejournal.com/62323.html Dreamwidth: prue84.dreamwidth.org/57454.html Deviantart: edit (deviantart.com/prue84/art/Star-Trek-BBC-s-Merlin-crew-676312191) and text (deviantart.com/prue84/art/Star-Trek-BBC-s-Merlin-crew-the-manifest-940818683) AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/43584367 SquidgeWorld: squidgeworld.org/works/46637

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lady-wildflower · 1 year

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We’re Not Gonna Live With Fear - Star Trek: Picard season 3 episode 10 The Last Generation

So I wasn’t entirely satisfied with some of the ending of Star Trek: Picard, season 3 episode 10, just because it didn’t feel like it got quite enough time (which is weird, ‘cos it’s almost half of an hour long episode, but hey), and I felt like writing a supplementary fic to do with the deassimilation of Jack - it’s a similar complaint to what I had with Voyager and the ending of Unimatrix Zero, being assimilated isn’t something that you get away from scot-free. I mean, in First Contact there were full-fledged fully implanted drones within an hour, whatever mechanism handled Jack’s assimilation would have had plenty of time to get all fiddly with Võx. So here’s a fanfiction, crossposted from AO3.

Jack Crusher deals with his initial recovery from the Borg Queen after being assimilated in 2402. Word count: 6,255.

Note: I also changed the initial bit a little so he didn’t remove the thing on his face with… what, his hands??? On the way from the transporter room? I think it may have been a production decision to make him look more human but I don’t have to worry about that and I have different priorities so I ain’t doing that. And I don’t imagine the shit on his hands would have just been gloves mate.

“Welcome to the Enterprise,” his father said warmly, smiling at him as he waved a hand at the brightly lit yesteryear not-quite-retro-but-nearly-there, classic really, Bridge of the Galaxy class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Jack still didn’t know quite how his parents had dug a blown-up crashed ship out of the mothballs of what he had been sure had been the complete totalling of the Enterprise D, but there they were, standing on her bridge. Worf, the very model of a modern major Klingon, was snoring like a puppy in the counselor’s chair beside Sydney and Alandra’s Dad, and his weirdly elderly robot chum Data. Riker and Troi were embracing in the relief that death had not done them part, and the viewscreen showed a prolonged hail from the U.S.S. Titan A, depicting Seven of Nine, Sydney, Alandra, and Raffi. And there, up in the raised aft of the bridge behind the broad tactical station, Jack’s Mum and father stood on either side of him, holding him as he held his armored arms around them right back, with pride. Of course, it wasn’t that idyllic. Because Jack was still reeling from the disconnection of his consciousness from the Borg Collective. And that had been a comparatively tiny Collective. His body? Implants perforated his form, he was covered from toe to neck in armor with tubule sockets and piping all over him, the skin of his visible face was almost entirely mottled with black circuited veins and gray, some of his hair had fallen out - much to his consternation, as a vain young man dreading the imposition of early-onset baldness thanks to his father’s genetics - and the right side of his face was dominated by the black cranial implant that clawed up toward his nose under his eye and its red laser, and that also happened to be why his vision was green-tinged and filled with grids and analyses in Borg codes he could inexplicably understand, telling him all about how the systems of the Bridge worked and connected to the rest of the ship.

“So. This is where I was cooked up,” Jack said amusedly, glancing over at Riker. “She’s in good shape for getting blown up and wrapped around a planet,” he noted, and his father chuckled slightly under his breath.

“Oh, that is thanks to Mister LaForge. Sneaky fellow spirited away the saucer section off Veridian III twenty years ago and has been refurbishing the old lady in secret ever since,” Picard told him, and Geordi smiled smugly back at them. “And a good thing he did too. Who knows what would still be happening if he hadn’t,” he said, his tone getting a little morose as he turned back to Jack and his eyebrows did that weird scrunchy thing they did when he was emotional. His Mum’s hand patted his shoulderblade plating gently.

“You have no idea how glad I am that you’re back,” Beverly told him. “And you are so very thoroughly grounded, Jack Edward Crusher! Running off like that, getting yourself assimilated! Gave me the worst heart attack any mother’s ever had!” she exclaimed, a touch of sarcasm in her voice as she slapped his arm, but probably hurt her own hand more than his arm. Jack scoffed self-consciously. Yeah, he had done that hadn’t he?

“In my defense, I did sort of have the Borg yelling at me my whole life. It was bound to happen eventually,” he quipped. His mother’s expression immediately softened and she pursed her lips, raising her hand to his cheek.

“Ohh… well, it’s a good thing you’re a doctor’s son. Let’s see how bad the damage is,” Beverly said softly, fetching the sleek tricorder she’d discarded and flipping it open. “As soon as we can rendezvous with the Titan I’ll ask their chief medical officer to stock us up and we’ll get started getting all of this crap off of you then. For now, a good scan and a screwdriver will have to do,” she said, and Jack frowned with his one good eyebrow.

“Here? Why not head over to the Titan?” Jack asked. His Mum raised her eyebrow.

“No no. I de-assimilated your father in this ship’s sickbay, and so help me like father like son I will do the same for you young man,” Beverly replied, and Jack couldn’t help but smile a little at that. He was beginning to accept Picard as his father, not quite his Dad yet, but his father, and he supposed the connection was sweet. The tricorder started twittering methodically as his mother began scanning him, and almost immediately her eyebrows were knitted together in concern. He knew why - as soon as he’d even thought about it, his ocular overlay had spewed up a green whole-body diagram of his implants into his peripheral vision, and boy were there a lot of them splayed through him. It almost made him vomit; it was bad enough just keeping away from looking at the black exo-plating that covered his body, arms, and hands, but to imagine - no, remember - all the bits and servos and mechanisms inside of him? It was with a shiver of revulsion that Jack tried to will the image away, and to his relief it did go away.

It had been a traumatic day. And now that the smothering influence of the Borg Queen was gone, his mind was free to gape in horror at what had been done to him - it just hadn’t had much time to take it all in yet. The mutilated, half-cannibalized faces of the drones who’d been tasked with the first phase of his secondary assimilation would haunt his nightmares for a long time.

“Well, Beverly?” Picard asked concernedly, looking to her. As he moved, Jack’s ocular overlay saw fit to give him a complete rundown of the alloys that made up his fanciful Admiral’s combadge.

“Well, it’s not good, I’ll say that. It never is, with the Borg,” Beverly said wryly, making a face. “But I suppose it’s better than it could have been. There’s a lot that’s typical of Borg that they don’t seem to have gotten around to, I don’t even want to speculate what was meant to go there,” she told them, pointing to the socket on Jack’s right pectoral. Some pulmonary junction meant to facilitate another future implant that would have allowed him to function in a vacuum, Jack believed. “The cortical array is going to be a nightmare to remove, I’m afraid,” his Mum told them, this time pointing to the mass of tubules and wires implanted into the base attached to the right of his skull. “It makes sense that the Borg would have designed your complement for the purpose of amplifying your transmissions before all else, everything else is either standard or missing. Which, don’t worry son, I’m already thinking of ways to get that particular segment out of your DNA, and out of the DNA of everyone in Starfleet who was affected,” she assured him, and he nodded gratefully. Picard beamed at her affectionately.

“Trust me Jack, your mother knows all about unplugging all of this,” Picard agreed. “She’ll have it out of you in no time.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say no time. Locutus pre-dated some things, the spinal clamps for one. Those aren’t coming out any time soon, not if you want to be walking in the next few months,” his mother disagreed. “It’ll be a little while until you’re a hundred percent de-Borg’d, son,” she said apologetically.

“I can live with that,” Jack surmised, before he sniffed amusedly. “Hey, Mum, can I keep this?” he asked jauntily, pointing a gauntleted finger at his eye. His Mum frowned at him bewilderedly and lowered the tricorder as Picard’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know, on somethings the Borg had some good ideas. It’s good this, it’s like I’ve got the Memory Alpha article for everything I look at and I don’t even need to find a padd for it,” he said with a shrug, trying to ignore the way servos in his biradial clamp whirred with the motion. Picard scoffed.

“You want to keep it?” Picard asked incredulously.

“I can see all sorts of things with it, it’ll come in right handy. Like LaForge’s eyes,” Jack replied, glancing over to Commodore LaForge to verify with his own eyepiece that he was remembering right; indeed, LaForge was the blind one with synthetic eyes that could see all manner of spectra - and the ocular implants Jack had been fitted with were even better. “Wonder if I could run that old Doom game on it. But if you could just fit an off-switch into the thing? It’s gonna be bloody distracting when I try to go to sleep,” he asked wryly, and it was his Mum’s turn to scoff.

“Speaking of, Data, would you mind scanning the wreckage for a preferably intact regeneration alcove? Even if Jack comes to his senses and has us get rid of the damn eye implant it’s going to be a while before it’s all gone, so we’ll be needing one and they’re not exactly in good supply,” Beverly asked, leaning over the tactical console as Data turned about to her with his funny yellow eyes. A partial analysis of Data’s complex positronic android-synthetic hybrid frame flashed up in Jack’s eye. Jack wondered if Data still technically held the Starfleet rank of Lieutenant Commander if he’d been legally dead for twenty-five years, even as he snickered at his Mum’s description of his lunacy at thinking the eye implant at least practical. It was going to be a long recovery, he knew, so Jack thought he might as well make the most of it and get something cool out of it. Namely, the most unobtrusive yet helpful implant of the lot. In a way he was deflecting from the pain, but that little bit of joviality was serious-ish.

“Of course Doctor,” Data replied politely, getting up from the first officer’s chair to go back to his forward station. The LCARS panel chirped and beeped as he tapped buttons in quick succession. “Scanning for one now… I have one. It doesn’t look like it’s got a dead drone in it,” he said wryly, before he tapped another few buttons. “It’s in Cargo Bay One, but I’ve put it in a containment field just in case. I may be twenty years short on news, but I do know that Borg technology isn’t known for its safety,” he told them.

“Thank you Mister Data,” Picard said gratefully. “Will, if you would take the con while Geordi, Beverly, and I head down to Sickbay and get started? Plot a rendezvous with the Titan,” he asked politely, pointing at each of them in turn as he began to step toward the turbolift.

“Sure thing, Jean-Luc. Good luck kid, I know it’s not easy,” Riker replied, parting briefly from Troi. “We’re all glad to have you back with us,” he said with a smile, and Jack nodded back to him. He wasn’t quite sure how to react to it; all his life he’d kept people out, but now that he’d bared so much… he didn’t quite know how to be open without their minds swimming in his own, he had to admit.

“We are. As we said to your father before we came here, you’re as much our family as Kes or Alandra or Sidney. And if you need anyone to talk to about this, my door’s always open to you Jack,” Deanna agreed, smiling warmly at him.

“Thanks. I’ll um, I’ll think about it,” Jack replied, giving them a black-armored thumbs up. Well, he supposed he’d learn how to be open in time. Nevertheless, he slowly and uncomfortably stepped after his father, followed by his Mum and LaForge who’d come up and around from the lower portion of the Bridge.

“Sickbay,” his Mum said as the doors closed behind the four of them, before she reeled back slightly as Jack accidentally got her in the eye with the laser on the side of his head. Could he turn that off? Well, the red dot on the turbolift wall didn’t go away, so he supposed not. “How do you feel?” Beverly asked him softly, reaching up to his cheek. Jack paused.

“Honestly, it fucking hurts,” Jack replied, so quietly he almost hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t wanted to appear weak, but now he was realizing how enormously stupid that was. “Everywhere. The Borg don’t exactly believe in painkillers,” he winced, noting how his father nodded commiseratingly. Every implant was burning agony in his skin and under it, the edge of the armor around his neck was like a vise rooted into him, burrowing in. Nanoprobes still scraped through his veins, filling him with a terrible ache, and so much of him felt rigid, constrained like every joint in his body needed to be cracked. And his head was pounding like a drum, as the turbolift doors whooshed open to reveal a softly lit corridor in the same classic style as the Bridge.

“It’s all right, we’ll put you under while we take as much as we can out son,” Beverly assured him softly as she took the lead in slowly making their way from the turbolift, stepping backwards. Jack nodded thankfully; he’d already been semi-awake to fully experience the implants being put in, he didn’t want to be awake when they were taken out. Jack glanced to the side, at the shiny black panels on the walls that his ocular overlay informed him were old general-purpose monitors for things like directions, only to freeze in horror at his reflection. He blinked, and Võx blinked back at him, the stoic image of the Borg terror. An image not unlike the historical images he’d seen of Locutus of Borg. A zombified, twisted, dissonant reflection that did not, could not, belong to him. Nausea grew in his gut before his father touched his back plates.

“I know,” Picard said simply, and Jack heard thirty years of trauma in his father’s soft-spoken voice. Was it their shared destiny to be forever scarred, violated, by the Borg? There were tears in Jack’s eyes as Picard offered him a hug, and the only reason he didn’t fall into it like a pile of bricks was because he wasn’t entirely sure how much he weighed just then and he didn’t want to hurt his father. But he did lean into the embrace, squeezing his eyes shut over Picard’s shoulder so he could not see the monster the Borg had made of him. Spacedock, and everyone else who had died at the hands of those Võx had controlled, their blood was on Jack’s hands. Because he’d been weak, and submitted to the voice in his head. Become the instrument of the Borg’s vengeance. Jack was weeping, sobbing his guilt into his father’s arms as his mother gently caressed the back of his neck and his hair affectionately, before a tiny pricking feeling barely caught his notice; a hypospray. Mercifully, darkness took him as his mother sedated him.

Jack had never been so glad not to dream. To him, he had succumbed to darkness and only moments later consciousness had seeped back into him like gluggy soup, and his eyes slowly blurred open before he started at an electronic hissing that whirred up seemingly right behind him before something clunked and there was a tiny lurch in his back.

“Wh-er-” Jack groaned, trying to get up and see what it had been only to instantly be dizzy as he tried to sit up too quickly. “Ow…” he winced, squeezing his eyes back shut as that infernal headache bolted back through his brain and his whole body ached.

“Jack. Jack, take it easy,” a familiar voice said right beside him and he jumped, opening his eyes again to blearily see - without any green overlay, notably - the wavy blonde hair and silvery ocular implant of one Commander Seven of Nine, still wearing her red-shouldered Starfleet command uniform. Jack blinked a bit and his eyes finally focused, and he took in where he was. He was, curiously, not aboard the Enterprise D anymore, obviously his Mum had been convinced to at least eventually set her sentimentality aside and transfer him to the Titan’s better equipped sickbay, where he seemed to have a ward to himself. Seven’s hand, laced with the metallic tendons of her remaining Borg implants, took his shoulder gently as Jack sat up, looking around at his bed - well, he knew what they’d done with the regeneration alcove. Some of its components, most obviously the green flickering plasma conductor at its head, had been incorporated into the biobed, no doubt so he’d be more comfortable and yet also regenerate what remaining Borg components he had - and he did still have quite a few. Looking at himself, the exoplating had all been removed, which he was more than glad for. Reticular nodes, the little spidery implants on the skin, still marked a lot of his visible arms and legs, including twin ones on his feet, and probably were there under his hospital gown too. Some of his skin was still gray and mottled around them, but most of it looked like it had returned to a rosier complexion. His right arm almost seemed to match Seven’s - assimilation mechanisms were standard on Borg, though obviously the design had changed a little since Seven of Nine - with dark metallic augmentations embedded over his tendons, wrist, and fingers, which too were capped like Seven’s. “Does it hurt?” Seven asked him.

“Mhmm,” Jack grunted, trying not to nod too much because his head was killing him. It wasn’t the only thing though; for whatever reason, he was actually cognizant of the implants itching now, irritating the skin around them. Seven of Nine took up a hypospray from the bench and held it up, and he squeezed his eyes shut with a smiling grimace in lieu of nodding. With a hiss, Seven administered the analgesic within it, and Jack exhaled slowly as it began to work, dulling his headache. As she did, Jack frowned at her. “When’d you get promoted?” Jack asked, pointing at the four, not three, pips on her neck.

“Yesterday. Captain Shaw’s posthumous recommendation,” Captain Seven replied with a small smile. Catching Jack’s lopsided frown at that, she inhaled. “You’ve been out for three days. Your mother’s taking some well needed rest, she’s been up for the last three days working on you. While they’re gone, I’ve been assigned the job of being your ex-Borg nanny,” Seven told him, with a sardonic lilt to her voice. Jack snorted.

“Borg babysitting? It’ll never catch on,” Jack chuckled, and Seven shook her head amusedly. Jack frowned and raised his plated hand to his face, specifically around his right eye; surprisingly, he found that he still had the base of the ocular implant around his eye, a little like Seven’s but surrounding a bit more of the circumference of his eye and heading up his nose, so why did he not have the overlay? Thankfully, there was no annoying laser rangefinder on his head anymore, there wasn’t a red dot on his hand.

“The uh, robot installed the off-switch you asked for,” Seven told him helpfully. “Just on your temple, there,” she added, demonstrating on her own face. Jack pressed that point on the implant, finding a tiny button that hadn’t been there before, and the green overlay booted back up with a slight twinge of pain in his eye. Nodding, he turned it back off again, and again his eye twinged as it vanished.

“Brilliant, thanks Data,” Jack muttered. “I allowed to get up?” he asked Seven, though he of course had no intention of following a rule not to. Seven nodded.

“Yeah. Here, let me help you,” she replied, holding his arm and hauling him to his feet. Despite his silly desire to do it independently, it was probably a good thing Seven of Nine was helping; his legs were shaky and weak, and he realized just then that it was probably because he hadn’t eaten anything in three, nearly four, days, and the Borg implants responsible for taking over his metabolism had probably been taken out. The cold floor of the Titan’s sickbay chilled his toes, but he welcomed that touch as he shook and steadied himself on the ex-Borg Captain. “Good?” she asked.

“Yeah, better,” Jack replied hoarsely, looking around the sickbay ward. On a far bench were what appeared to be a number of the implants that had been removed from him as well as the exoplating unceremoniously dumped into a container, and on the bedside table was a little square mirror, so he shakily stepped over to it and picked it up. He’d have to get used to his altered reflection, he knew; reflective surfaces weren’t exactly rare, he couldn’t hide from it. Thankfully, as he raised the mirror, he did not see Võx, no. It was still disturbing, but at least it was a reflection that could belong to him. The gray skin had retreated to only be around the very edges of the base metallic ocular implant that partially circumnavigated his eye, and much of the assembly on the side of his head was gone. His hair was a little bit ruined, having been cut away in places, but the face in the mirror was Jack Crusher again. Just… a little wounded. Though, not all of the cranial implants were gone - there was still a lot of black metal behind his right ear. He frowned and touched it.

“We couldn’t remove the entire cranial assembly,” Seven explained. “Firstly, you asked to keep the eyepiece which means keeping the cortical array and the spinal clamps, because those are what the regeneration alcove we built into your bed links to, and secondly… your father explained to us the Borg’s purpose for you. Your cranial array was specially designed, it’s almost more akin to what a Borg Queen has,” she told him, and he listened dutifully. “We could take away most of it, but not all of it. In a way, you’re like a micro-Collective all to yourself. I’d say it saved your life,” Seven said, and Jack turned to her curiously. “Most Borg don’t just get to decide to leave,” she pointed out.

“Right,” Jack muttered, nodding. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for others, who had had to be excised from the Collective by force. And those Võx had assimilated, Jack had sort of just shoved them out a little unceremoniously. To be fair, he’d been in a hurry. “If I’d’a stayed in there much longer… might have lost myself,” he breathed, trying not to think about it too much. Seven didn’t reply, she just silently nodded understandingly. Jack took a deep breath, then looked a bit more at his reflection. He grimaced, touching the ocular implant again. “Am I never gonna get that eyebrow back?” he asked petulantly. Seven laughed.

“Welcome to the club, kid,” Seven chuckled. “I was able to neutralize your nanoprobes, so you know. Some of them are locked into a limited maintenance mode, we can’t get rid of all of them, and the rest… well, let’s just say I don’t envy you your next visit to the head,” she said wryly.

“What?” Jack asked worriedly, before he groaned.

“Easiest way to get rid of them all,” Seven shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I’m a Captain not a doctor; Raffi’s in command for the moment. Hungry?” she asked him and he nodded eagerly.

“Starving. Don’t think that regeneration bed does much for that,” Jack replied, and Seven shook her head.

“No, it doesn’t. I remember being pretty pissed off about that when I first started having to eat,” Seven of Nine said amusedly. “Here, put that on and we’ll go get you something to eat. I’m sure your father’s chomping at the bit to see you, and your Mom will be too once she wakes up,” she said, handing Jack his clothes off the bench.

One Year Later

“Jack! Jack Edward Crusher-Picard if you aren’t ready to go I swear to God!” the voice of his Mum called impatiently down the hall. Jack snorted to himself. Well, this was going to go well. Beverly Crusher, dressed in her best formalwear, appeared at his door, eyes blazing. “You are not even dressed. Come on, chop chop! Or do you want to be late to your own graduation?!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together to startle him into retracting his arm tubules from the padd in his hand, and he hurriedly turned off his eyepiece like a scolded child.

“We’ve got plenty of time!” Jack protested.

“Get. Dressed,” his mother insisted, shaking her head. “And would you stop doing that? Sticking those damn tubules in every padd in the house, you’re starting to wear holes in them! Don’t even know why you want to,” she huffed, pointing at the padd in the his hand.

“‘Cos I can have like fifty tabs open at once!” Jack laughed, even as he got up off the regeneration alcove-fitted bed and tossed the padd onto his desk. “Counselor Troi says it’s good that I can recontextualize and embrace what remains of a highly traumatic event in my life,” he added smugly, quoting the good counselor, and his Mum just scoffed at that.

“Is that what you call surfing the extranet all night when you were supposed to be studying for your exams?” Beverly asked him sardonically.

“Well-”

“Get ready to go, for crying out loud,” his Mum told him, before she went back down the hall muttering. Jack snickered to himself and closed his door to get dressed, though he briefly reconnected to the padd to apologize to Sidney for cutting their conversation short and tell her he’d see her later, and then closed the other tabs he’d had open, pausing only to watch the batting team of the cricket game he’d been watching bat a six before he turned his eyepiece off again - the Titan was in dock, so he and Sidney, whom he’d been tentatively seeing since the whole incident, had gone on a couple dates, much to the disapproval of Commodore LaForge, had some drinks together, and then she had promised to attend his graduation from Starfleet Academy. He’d been placed in an accelerated program due to his extensive prior experience - and thankfully pardoned for the pile of petty crimes he’d committed in the name of his and his mother’s medical work - but he’d spent the last year attending the school, and it was part of why he now lived not aboard the S.S. Eleos XII or any replacement for her, but in a very nice penthouse apartment afforded to his mother as an Admiral in Starfleet in San Francisco. His father didn’t live with them, the romance that had once blossomed between Jean-Luc and Beverly was one they both agreed was best left in the realms of bittersweet memory so as to not sour it further, but they were still fond of each other and Picard visited often. Jack thought his father’s Romulan partner Laris was quite a cool woman. Maybe one day, he supposed, he’d get a second half-brother, this one half-Romulan, one he’d actually be able to get to know for once.

Starfleet Academy hadn’t been half bad either; it had been a little awkward at first, since he was the person who’d remotely assimilated half his classmates a year ago, and boy had the guilt kicked him for months, but with time and work and a lot of counseling they’d moved past that and he’d made some quite good friends. But that day he supposed it was time for him to focus on graduation, so he reluctantly set aside his distractions and got dressed in his formal uniform, brushed his teeth and shaved, and applied a generous glob of dermal cream about his implants, particularly the assimilation manifold that ran along his whole right arm. The edges of the things itched a lot and tended to scab when he scratched them, and there were a few stubborn spots that had eventually scarred. Finally, he combed his hair tidily over what remained of the cranial implant that had thankfully been mostly excised since the initial round of surgeries, and smiled at his reflection. The implants weren’t quite so obtrusive anymore, and he’d come to appreciate the one around his eye which he’d actually painted with hypoallergenic silver plating to make it look a bit less ugly and more like Seven’s. The mottling of his skin was gone, his hair had grown back and the bright young man that looked back at him was exactly that; a young man, and human. Satisfied, he nodded at himself. By day’s end, there’d be a pip on his collar.

“There. Better?” Jack asked his Mum as he stepped into the living room.

“Much better,” Beverly said warmly, beaming at him. “All right then, let’s be off,” she said, before they walked arm in arm down to the transporter arch and beamed to the Academy, where Jack winced as the sun struck his eyes. Shame the implant didn’t come with a sunglasses function, the Borg really needed to learn a thing or two about beach holidays. But they both smiled gladly at the sight of who was waiting for them quietly under a tree, leaning on the wall trying not to attract too much attention despite wearing a suit; Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, who got up with a wide smile and walked across the concourse to them. “Jean-Luc,” Beverly said, offering him a hug.

“Beverly,” Jean-Luc replied, embracing her and kissing her cheeks politely. “Good to see you, and of course.. big day son,” he told them both, as he moved to Jack and hugged him too with a proud wrinkly old man smile.

“Yeah,” Jack said, smiling back at him. “But I reckon you’re feeling pretty foolish now for giving that whole the last Picard speech last year,” he snickered, having been sent the video by Sidney a few weeks before. Picard scoffed ruefully, closing his eyes and hanging his head. All that pontification about the decorated Picard line ending with Jean-Luc, and a year later the whole thing was ruined.

“In my defense, I was not aware that you existed at the time,” Picard grumbled softly, not without a glance at Beverly, who made an apologetic face. “But I have never been prouder to be wrong, Jack. The legacy you write will no doubt prove you far more than worthy of all those Picards who came before you,” he said softly, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “And part of the reason I am quite definitely not giving a speech this year is because I doubt I could live last year down if I spoke at the graduation of my own mysteriously apparated son,” he chuckled, and Jack smirked as he patted his father’s shoulder with his partially-encased hand. “Shall we?” the old man said, and with that the three of them joined the throngs of students and their families gathering in the great auditorium for the graduation of the class of 2402.

Jack was just glad that he wasn’t the first young ex-Borg cadet to graduate from the Academy, so that the speaker couldn’t have called him up as the first, as if it were some honor - though he suspected that even if he hadn’t been second to the late Icheb, they wouldn’t have wanted to point him out only a year after such a pivotal Borg threat, using Jack himself as its tool, had taken so many lives, destroyed so much. It weighed on him even then a year later, made him wonder if he even deserved the place he took at Starfleet Academy. The angry tirade of the fallen Captain Shaw, whose very life Jack - no, Jack urged himself to remember, Võx, not him - had taken, against his father, against what the Borg had made of Jean-Luc Picard, the only Borg so deadly they gave him a goddamn name! rambled through his mind as he only half listened to some Admiral whose name he hadn’t caught talk about the values of Starfleet. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of how he was certain that Captain Shaw wouldn’t have forgiven him.

A glint of light caught his eye, and he looked up at the gallery from which it had come - and he recognized its source; it had reflected off of the eyepiece of Seven of Nine, who sat not looking at the speaker, but at him. She wasn’t the only one. Sidney sat there, newly a Lieutenant and beaming down at him, Picard and his Mum were with them, along with Musiker and the Romulan Elnor, Troi, and Riker, and their daughter Kestra, a few years from graduating herself, had come along too. And Seven of Nine was smiling just as proudly as his parents were at him. Jack smiled back up at them. If the old Enterprise senior staff were a big family, then Seven was like a cousin to that family, a big cousin who’d been there for Jack whenever she could be all year. Jack smiled back up at them, remembering what they themselves had told him in their own ways; that he deserved to be here. That he had been manipulated and used, and that what the Borg had engineered him to be did not define him.

The instant he had stepped up and received his commission as Ensign Jack Crusher-Picard and the silver pip had been pinned to his neckline had been decidedly more tense than that of his classmates, but it had been those friends whom he had made that had begun the applause that had rung out through the auditorium just as it had for everyone before him, applause echoed loudest by the gallery of his family and Sidney and Seven. Perhaps there were those who would see him as dangerous always, but he was not alone.

Of course, the better bit of the day was the dozens and dozens of parties that sprang up all over San Francisco afterward, and Jack found himself partying in a cocktail bar ringing with pop music alongside Sidney, a little tipsy as he and his friends laughed away the evening as new ensigns of Starfleet.

“Ayyyyyy!” Jack cried as his Andorian buddy Tr’ven won the beer pong game. “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” he chanted along with his friends as the loser, a Bajoran by the name of Jarian Dai groaned and reluctantly picked up the red cup. Bzz bzz. In Jack’s pocket, his miniature padd buzzed with a text notification. Huffing, Jack got out the little glass device, expecting it to be another text from his Mum asking when he’d be home, but he was curiously surprised to see the text hadn’t come from his Mum. No, it had come from Seven of Nine, simply abbreviated to 7/9 for her display name.

7/9: Check your Cadet account emails.

Jack frowned. That was a bit out of the blue, but he supposed not without plausible cause; some of the cadets, like Dai, had received their assignments - he was going to the U.S.S. Vanguard - so maybe that was what she meant. Putting the padd in his left hand, Jack turned on his eyepiece and then focused on his arm to shoot the two evil little tendrils that were the interfacing assimilation tubules into it.

“Oooh he’s getting the tubules out!” Leannia, an unjoined Trill, cajoled excitedly. She was drunker than he was, and Jack scoffed.

“Oh shut up Leannia,” Sidney chuckled, shaking her head as she smiled at him.

“I’m just checking my emails, it’s not that cool. Screen on this thing’s tiny,” Jack replied, shaking his head. Leannia laughed gleefully and took another long sip of whatever colorful cocktail she had, some disgusting thing with Denevian Mead in it, while Jack flipped out his emails into his peripheral vision with a thought. And indeed, among the unreads, was one from Starfleet Command, with the subject line Starship Assignment - Jack Crusher-Picard. “It’s my assignment,” he said softly, but clearly not softly enough, as half his friends heard and gasped.

“Oh! Tell us tell us!” Dai called, downing the red cup of booze he’d had to drink from the pong. “Let’s hear it Crusher!”

“Gimme a bloody second,” Jack laughed, opening the email in another tab to read it. Most of it was the usual official stuff, before his eyes widened incredulously as he read his assignment.

Starship: U.S.S. Enterprise - NCC-1701-G

Commanding Officer: Captain Seven of Nine

“Holy cow,” Jack muttered.

“Whizzit?” Dai asked, his voice so slurred it came out in one word.

“Enterprise G,” Jack replied, retracting his tubules and turning off his eyepiece as he blinked. Instantly, cheers erupted around him from his classmates. Sidney erupted, yelling with gladness that they were both to be serving together and kissing him.

“AYYYY! Bartender! Another round for the Enterprising xB!” Tr’ven yelled eagerly as his antennae shot up, clapping Jack’s shoulder triumphantly. “Hahahaa!” Jack couldn’t help but laugh and celebrate with them, beaming as the group congratulated him. Despite all the pain, despite the violations he had been through, Jack was not alone. It was not such a bad thing at all, to suffer the mortifying ordeal of being known.

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