Story Archive: Difference between revisions

From Star Trek: Theurgy Wiki

No edit summary
m (Text replacement - "Evoras" to "T'Less")
Line 67: Line 67:
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="background: #252525; color: white;"  
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="background: #252525; color: white;"  
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| After the Isthar Entity left the [[USS Theurgy|''Theurgy'']], Deputy [[ThanIda zh'Wann|zh'Wann]] visited [[Evoras]] to seek clarity. They were both subject to the entity's trickery, ending up being intimate with individuals on the ship. [[ThanIda zh'Wann|Ida]] was manipulated by circumstance to have intercourse with [[David Grayson]], her very much loathed Chief of [[Security]], while [[Evoras]] gave in to repressed feelings for the Chief Counselor [[Garen Nelis]] that had lingered since the end of the [[Niga|Niga Incident]]. Together,  [[ThanIda zh'Wann|zh'Wann]] and [[Evoras]] fell back on feelings they knew were their own, for each other, soothing their distress of having been manipulated by another.
| After the Isthar Entity left the [[USS Theurgy|''Theurgy'']], Deputy [[ThanIda zh'Wann|zh'Wann]] visited [[T'Less]] to seek clarity. They were both subject to the entity's trickery, ending up being intimate with individuals on the ship. [[ThanIda zh'Wann|Ida]] was manipulated by circumstance to have intercourse with [[David Grayson]], her very much loathed Chief of [[Security]], while [[T'Less]] gave in to repressed feelings for the Chief Counselor [[Garen Nelis]] that had lingered since the end of the [[Niga|Niga Incident]]. Together,  [[ThanIda zh'Wann|zh'Wann]] and [[T'Less]] fell back on feelings they knew were their own, for each other, soothing their distress of having been manipulated by another.


Before the [[Ishtar]] Entity visited the [[USS Theurgy|''Theurgy'']], [[Captain Jien Ives]] and [[Nicole Howard]] had gotten into a heated argument and whatever had happened between them had fallen apart in short order. Yet after facing a life led in slavery together at the whim of the entity, the Captain of the [[USS Theurgy|Theurgy]] and its Chief Engineer overcame their differences of opinion, and made up for lost time.
Before the [[Ishtar]] Entity visited the [[USS Theurgy|''Theurgy'']], [[Captain Jien Ives]] and [[Nicole Howard]] had gotten into a heated argument and whatever had happened between them had fallen apart in short order. Yet after facing a life led in slavery together at the whim of the entity, the Captain of the [[USS Theurgy|Theurgy]] and its Chief Engineer overcame their differences of opinion, and made up for lost time.

Revision as of 13:26, 18 September 2020

Image: The USS Theurgy's voyage since the crew was declared traitors.

The year was 2381, January.

In a failed plot to destroy the Federation, Romulan Praetor Shinzon was defeated at the Battle of the Bassen Rift, leaving Senator Tal’aura to take the reigns as the new Praetor, with the support of Fleet Commander Tomalak. Commander Donatra of the Warbird Valdore had openly opposed the new Praetor, and began a rebellion backed by the strength of the Romulan 3rd and 5th Fleets. Additionally, the Reman people openly demanded a continent on Romulus and reparations for hundreds of years of slavery. A Romulan blockade of Remus was the Praetor’s reply, as well as cutting food and medical supplies to the sister planet. Affairs within the Romulan Empire deteriorated quickly for the Federation; with the continued Reman upheaval and skirmishes with Donatra’s opposition fleet. Open Civil War began in 2380 when Donatra was able to capture and hold a number of key agricultural worlds, establishing the Imperial Romulan State.

When returning to base in San Francisco after a long diplomatic mission to Romulus during the aforementioned events, the USS Theurgy enjoyed some shore-leave. By the time, it's Commanding Officer - Captain Jien Ives - was supposed to get a new commissioning, but coincidence had it otherwise. Because after the Senior Staff of Captain Ives gathered for what was supposed to be the last time, they happened to uncover something. Live transmissions, voices of Starfleet Command, that while not recorded, were plain to all the staff that heard them. There were talks about the future of the Federation, its downfall at their hands, and how their 'kin' would overturn the Federation Council. Yet most chilling of all, was that they spoke about each other in third person, belittling each other as if they spoke of strangers, referring to themselves as skin-puppets even if the Theurgy's crew recognized their voices - knew them to be the Commander in Chief, the Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Starfleet Operations. It was not just them either, other admirals were mentioned too. Influential people down the ranks. It was clear that these usurpers had been operating for months... perhaps even years.

Captain Jien Ives and his closest officers opted to try and investigate, collect proof, build a case, and expose how many they were. Yet after mere hours, their efforts were compromised. With their arrest or assassination imminent, they had to run, meaning to take the truth to someone that would hear them out. They had to flee Earth, and they were persecuted across Federation space. Hounded by their own fleet. They were protecting the truth against all odds, forced to fight their brothers and sisters in Starfleet, whom were all ignorant of the usurpers that were giving them orders. As best as they might, they tried to disable their pursuers, beseeching them to hear them out, but the enemy was too influential, and they were many, all peddling the lies that Captain Ives and his crew defected to the Romulan Star Empire when they failed to negotiate peace at Romulus.

The Theurgy escaped Starfleet after an enduring two months' gruesome chase through the Alpha Quadrant. Yet truth be their witness, they would restore Starfleet to the Federation Council, and enlighten their fleet about the immediate danger they unknowingly were in by carrying out the orders of Starfleet Command. So, the Theurgy, damaged and hunted to an utterly desolate part of the Alpha Quadrant, had finally managed to outrun and hide from Starfleet and the Federation. The ship was under heavy repairs, the situation nigh hopeless, yet morale was gradually returning to the crew following the Captain's new mission statement.

SEASON 01

EPISODE 01: Outbreak

In order to restore food storage and scavenge for other means of supplies, the USS Theurgy located a verdant and uninhabited M-Class Planet by the name Niga in the Mahéwa System. The energy crisis forced Captain Ives to order replicator usage to be rationed in order to conserve power for other key systems. These replicator rations became a type of currency amongst the crew, given how they were cut off from the Federation. Science and Security personnel were beamed the planet surface to collect whatever could be found to aid in their cause.

The female Andorian Deputy ThanIda zh'Wann was raped by a tentacled plant whilst on the planet. She passed out afterwards, and due to the special pollination from the plant, she did not remember this at first. She beamed up to the Theurgy in ignorance of how she had been infected by the assault. The female Vulcan Ensign by the name Cir'Cie was also raped by the same kind of plant and, after she regained consciousness, she soon infected her senior human Science Officer; Lt. Gladstone. Having brought seed samples from the plant, they also beamed up to the USS Theurgy.

The infected had become vectors for a parasitic virus with the intent of interplanetary pollination – the spreading of the infectious flora. A plant that used its parasitic pollen to propagate itself within the vector's body - spreading itself through the vector's bodily fluids to new vectors. The main symptoms of the intoxication were suppression of all sexual inhibitions and a rising urge to copulate with as many others possible. Primary and secondary sexual traits were also greatly enhanced. Men found themselves growing more lean and muscular, and their sexual organs increased in size – their testicles producing a constant supply of semen. Women noticed their hips widening and their breasts swelling in size. They were lactating milk which was also full of contaminating bacteria. Genitalia become hyper-sensitive, and there was no shortage of lubricating fluids.

During the night, the infected spread their proverbial pollen over the ship. They managed to do so since the Ship AI’s surveillance sensors had a programming flaw of non-disclosure - making her unable to report sexual activities of the crew. In the end, the timeship USS Relativity showed up and stopped the outbreak with an antidote that the CMO and his Medical Assistant had managed to develop. It had taken the Relativity months to scavenge the chaotic aftermath in the Galaxy in order to secure the antidote and the notes needed to prevent the outbreak from happening. As it turned out, an unknown enemy, from present time or from the Temporal Cold War in the 29th century, had planted the virus on the planet Niga many millennia ago, only to be – with future technology – triggered just before the USS Theurgy arrived to it. It was unknown by whom and when the incursion was made. The infected, with their minds affected by the virus, only hazily remembered the time when they were infected and – scarce fragments of recollections - which served to help many of the crew to come to terms with the events. After supplies and material were taken from the planet with extreme caution, Captain Ives ordered the uninhabited planet Niga destroyed.

After the incident, the course was set for the Nimbus system, where they hoped to trade for spare parts and supplies that their replicators could not provide. They crawled slowly along an asteroid field to avoid detection by Starfleet and whilst doing so, Captain Ives ordered an away team to head for Nimbus III and Paradise City, where the team might begin to trade ahead of their arrival. The crew was coming to terms with what happened at Niga, repeatedly telling themselves that what they did was not their own acts, but the depraved influences of an alien virus.

PDF-Outbreak-Cover.png

INTERREGNUM: Between Episodes 01 & 02

For two weeks, the USS Theurgy had been crawling its way along an asteroid field in the Klingon-Federation Neutral Zone to avoid detection by Starfleet. During this time, Captain Ives ordered an away team to head for Nimbus III and Paradise City, where the team located a missing industrial replicator. While broken, Engineer Lin Kae could repair it, and in payment for this service to the local civilian engineer who was in possession of the replicator, they were allowed to replicate spare parts and supplies that were crucial to the repair of the USS Theurgy. The civilian engineer, a Risian woman by the name Rihen Neyah, made sure to show her gratitude to Lin Kae in a way that wasn't solely material.

Chief Medical Officer Nicander and Ensign Carver also located a Starfleet Medical Officer in Paradise City. Lieutenant Eve Jenkins, who was working in a local clinic, had fled to the city after suspecting that her father – Admiral Jenkins – was not the same man that he used to be. The officers from the Theurgy could confirm her fears, and because of a bond from Academy-days at Starfleet Medical, Eve Jenkins agreed to Dr. Nicander’s offer of taking the vacant role as his Head Nurse.

Aboard the Theurgy, the effects upon morale were still troubling the crew after the epidemic they suffered in the Mahéwa System. Yet gradually, Counsellor Garen Nelis made progress with keeping the repercussions to a minimum. Some of the crew found alternative ways to deal with the memories - soothing the pain and horror by seeking the comfort of others. Among them, Captain Ives and newly promoted Chief Engineer Nicole Howard, yet things rapidly turned sour when an argument made them part ways in anger.

Since Squadron Commander Taylor Lucas was put in stasis due to the grave injuries he suffered during the Niga Incident, pilot Miles Renard was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and given the position as leader of the Lone-Wolves. With the agreement from his CO and First Officer, he reorganised the remains of the squadron from four flight wings to three because of the heavy losses the wolves had suffered during the escape from the Alpha Quadrant.

In the Science Department, the Ash’reem man by the name Sarresh Morali struggled with his role on the USS Theurgy after having been transferred from the timeship USS Relativity to serve aboard the Theurgy as their Temporal Affairs Officer. His memories were wiped because of the temporal directive and he was only allowed crude equipment to detect another incursion like the one in the Mahéwa System. Bitterly, he regretted Captain Ducane abandoning him in the late 24th century. Blaming Captain Ives for demanding his transfer, the only comfort he found in his situation was the fact that there was other Ash’reem aboard – among them the attractive Cadet Amikris Neotin. Then again, she turned out to be the daughter of his closest superior officer – Chief Science Officer Amatras Neotin.

Before the away-mission took off, a stowaway was located in the cargo area. After having spent a week in the Brig in wait for Dr. Nicander to return from Nimbus III - because of the unknown threat of the enemy and the likelihood of them trying to infiltrate the ship - the young man by the name Scosche Bellde’side awaited being cleared by Sickbay for undertaking duties aboard the Theurgy. Learning Starfleet regulations the hard way, he was sent to Security with a first-year Cadet ranking.

Little did the crew know that the Niga Incident had drawn attention from a being unlike any of them met before – drawn there because of its ancient nature.

PDF-Interregnum-0102---Cover.png

EPISODE 02: Whatever Gods May Be

The USS Theurgy was visited by an omnipotent alien entity, and it was only through divine intervention – literally – that the crew could continue their mission.

During the time, this entity visited the ship and cast things into chaos, it became evident that it might have been a figure that shaped mankind's early history, not to mention all other planets in the galaxy. To various extents, the entity was once the figurehead of all religious beliefs pertaining to love, sexuality, and war. It was known by many names, yet on Earth, she was most popularly known as Ishtar, Inanna, Aphroditie, Venus, or Freya.

The alien life-form was attracted to the elevated sexual pheromone-levels that the collective crew emanated during the Niga Incident. It had made its way aboard the ship, expecting the same levels to await her. However, with the outbreak over and the crew cured from the Niga virus, Ishtar was disappointed and tried to coerce the crew to once again enjoy themselves in carnal ways.

Ishtar started to subject the crew to more lustful feelings towards others, and also forced the Starfleet personnel to interact in ways and in places that would lead to further sexual activities on board. She did this to keep her new home hospitable, and to gain the energy she needed in order to break free of the prison in her own dimension. When the Ishtar Entity was forced to reveal herself, the present crew on the Main Bridge was taken to the entity's true universe. Trying to force her visitors to empower her through sexual displays, her endeavours were noticed by her captors. These aliens released the crew of the Theurgy after sending the Ishtar Entity into a deeper and more remote realm of existence. Having been returned to their own time and place, the effects of the Ishtar Entity’s actions on the ship was nullified, since they were all returned to a point of time before she affected the crew. Still, the crew was allowed to remember what transpired while they had suffered the attentions of the visitor.

After being returned to their ship in this fashion, Captain Ives called for a Senior Staff meeting for the evening the next day. Before this meeting, the crew was given time to reflect upon what happened to them, and to come to terms with certain revelations about themselves and their religious views.

While some had a crisis of faith, others found solace in the fact that the entities they encountered once started out as themselves were – travelling space in search for the meaning of life.

PDF-Whatever-Gods-May-Be-Cover.png

INTERREGNUM: Between Episodes 02 & 03

After the Isthar Entity left the Theurgy, Deputy zh'Wann visited T'Less to seek clarity. They were both subject to the entity's trickery, ending up being intimate with individuals on the ship. Ida was manipulated by circumstance to have intercourse with David Grayson, her very much loathed Chief of Security, while T'Less gave in to repressed feelings for the Chief Counselor Garen Nelis that had lingered since the end of the Niga Incident. Together, zh'Wann and T'Less fell back on feelings they knew were their own, for each other, soothing their distress of having been manipulated by another.

Before the Ishtar Entity visited the Theurgy, Captain Jien Ives and Nicole Howard had gotten into a heated argument and whatever had happened between them had fallen apart in short order. Yet after facing a life led in slavery together at the whim of the entity, the Captain of the Theurgy and its Chief Engineer overcame their differences of opinion, and made up for lost time.

Meanwhile, Miles Renard came to visit Edena Rez to speak of the theological implications the omnipotent beings they'd encountered, and how they might have been mortal once too.

After what Dr. Lucan cin Nicander experienced with Natalie Stark at the hands of the Ishtar Entity, the Câroon sought out the Chief of Operations. Mutual experiences had created a mutual desire, and while Nicander might have been the one to woo Stark, she was easily persuaded to undertake mutual treatment against their common condition.

In the Holographic Laboratory, Lin Kae showed Thea what he had been working on since he had visited Nimbus III. With the help of the industrial replicator, he had the parts to finish a project he had been theorizing and working on for years. The schematic he showed her was of a mobile emitter, which he would tailor to fit Thea's hardware and software, giving it a subspace synchronization link to keep it in perfect alignment with the ship's systems. Moreover, the emitter would not only rely on isolinear storage capacity, but a photonic storage library that could not only accommodate Thea's orginal projection, but also expand upon it with upgraded sensors. If he could digitize human senses into photonic subroutines, the emitter would be able to store the massive amount of data such a sensory mapping would generate.

With Thea's approval towards this end, Ensign Skye Carver was asked to be the template for the sensory mapping, wearing a cortical stimulator while she was made to feel the full range of tactile sensations a human could feel... or at least to the greatest extent imagined by Lin Kae and Ensign Skye Carver.

PDF-Interregnum-0203---Cover.png

EPISODE 03: Unconquerable Soul | Part 1

The Theurgy encountered the USS Harbinger in the Hromi Cluster. Captain Vasser of the Harbinger showed no hostile intent, and it was revealed that the Harbinger shared the Theurgy's fate.

After being sent to hunt the Theurgy down, Captain Vasser and his crew discovered a certain Ensign Sonja Acreth sending subspace messages back to Earth, and while not knowing as much as the Theurgy, Vasser had cause to doubt the legitimacy of his orders to destroy the Theurgy. Doing so, however, provoked an immediate response from Starfleet Command, and the Harbinger was also branded traitors and hunted across the Alpha Quadrant. Being an Akira-class warship that served as a carrier for a wing of forty Federation Warp Fighters, they survived much in thanks to their Tactical CONN pilots.

As the two starships were in brittle communications with little trust between them, they were attacked by a single starship. Together with the Harbinger , the Theurgy battled this hunter sent by their common unknown enemy - a starship from the future. A Calamity-class ship named the USS Calamity with an completely holographic crew compliment.

Half of the Senior Staff on the Theurgy was shot down on the Main Bridge by the Calamity's Ship A.I, who infiltrated the Theurgy with a portable emitter. An emitter which was beamed to a civilian shuttle that was caught in the crossfire and taken aboard the Theurgy mid-battle. In the end, the Calamity was forced to make a tactical retreat after a rigged shuttle detonated its warp core next it. The Theurgy and the Harbinger send their surviving Valkyrie pilots to leave a false warp trail so that the two starships could fly to Theta Eridani IV in the Acamar System on impulse. Once they set down and begun damage assessments, and the Valkyrie-pilots returned, a memorial ceremony was held on the plain between the two ships. Many people were recovering in the Triage Centre, others in the hot springs area, and a full week of repairs on the damaged starships began...

During the week on Theta Eridani IV, the two crews worked together and there was a chance to meet new people for both sides, and combined with the fact that they were still alive after the battle and that they had found a second crew that had been through the same gruesome voyage as themselves, it resulted in a lot of fraternization and a rich social exchange whenever there was opportunity between the repair shifts. Furthermore, with the Theurgy being the superior starship, Captain Vasser urged to transfer the majority of his crew to the Theurgy-class cruiser. The Harbinger was to function as tactical distraction, and its systems were refitted to be run by a skeleton crew. The new crew compliment served to patch up the holes in the Theurgy’s ranks after all the fighting it had gone through after leaving Earth nearly three months earlier.

During the week, an attempt to interrogate Ensign Sonja Acreth in the Harbinger’s brig was made, but it nearly resulted in the death of both starship's Captains and their present Executive Officers. Acreth revealed herself to be one of the enemies, and they proved themselves to me far more than power-hungry instigators. Acreth nearly escaped and almost killed the Theurgy’s Chief Medical Officer before she was returned to her holding cell. She had already managed to kill the Harbinger’s Chief of Security at that point, showing inhuman strength and speed combined with a second personality. It was in that way the theory that Starfleet Command - together with any other unknown factions that had been overtaken at that point - were joined with parasitical aliens that existed in some kind of flux, making them undetectable inside their host bodies.

On the eight day on Theta Eridani IV, the Calamity found them once more. She attacked the valley that they had set down in with orbital strikes, and sent down her own swarms of warp fighters, the futuristic AC-507 Mk 1 Reavers. As if orbital strikes and the Reavers were not enough, the Calamity triggered a planet-wide tectonic event - making all the sleeping volcanoes in the area erupt and the earth to heave in unrest. The two crews lived in modular shelters since the two starships were powered down, and while a pre-arranged defense-plan was set in action, there were many casualties before they could take off.

PDF--US1-Cover.png

EPISODE 03: Unconquerable Soul | Part 2

Having left the atmosphere of Theta Eridani IV, the Calamity had already taken off at maximum warp for an unknown reason, leaving her Reavers behind to finish to job. But why leave when she had the higher ground and was just about to destroy them all? Because of the Gamma-radiation from the restless planet, sensors did not show the reason why she left until they finished their ascent. Only then was it revealed that a whole fleet of Federation starships had entered the sector, and wrer bearing down on the Theurgy and the Harbinger .

Had it not been for two allies aboard the USS Archeron - the leading Odyssey-class ship of the Starfleet task force that arrived to Theta Eridani IV's orbit - both the Theurgy and the Harbinger would have been destroyed.

Intelligence Officer Carrigan Trent deployed a virus through the fleet, which hitch-hiked on the shared sensor data network and powered all the ships down besides life-support. It also vented all shuttle bays, leaving all the crews without communications or ability to leave their drifting starships. Lieutenant Commander Trent defected to the side of the "outlaws", taking a shuttle he had secured ahead of time. With him also came Lieutenant Commander Wenn Cinn, who was presumed dead before waking up in the morgue. His body had been picked up during another battle that the Archeron had fought with the Theurgy. Mr. Wenn - both Bajoran and former Chief of Security on the Theurgy - had been restored to life by the Prophets.

During the repairs on Theta Eridani IV, engineers on the Theurgy and the Harbinger developed two cloaking devices, and they served to save the lives of both crews before the virus took effect throughout the fleet, even if it may have broken the Treaty of Algeron. Yet as the chance presented itself, after de-cloaking and taking aboard the shuttle with the two defectors, the Theurgy and the Harbinger fled separate ways towards an agreed-upon rendezvous point in a Class-9 nebulae deep into Klingon Neutral Zone space.

Two days after leaving Theta Eridani IV, the Harbinger and the Theurgy met up again and remained hidden in the nebulae in order to regroup where the Calamity may not find them. Taking the opportunity to do so, one of the civilians aboard - Rihen Neyah - arranged a Festival of the Moon upon one of the Theurgy's holodecks in order to let the two harried crews have one last "shore-leave" before they set a course towards the Sol System and the Alpha Quadrant.

PDF--US2-Cover.png

EPISODE 03: Unconquerable Soul | Part 3

Unbeknownst to the crews of the both the Theurgy and the Harbinger, the Harbinger’s first officer, Commander T'Rena had convinced Captain Vasser that resisting the evil that had taken over Starfleet was futile. Deciding to hijack the Theurgy and take the crews of both ships into unknown space, T'Rena used her Vulcan telepathy to brainwash key members of both crews to come around to her way of thinking. At noon the day after the festival, Captain Vasser sprang a mutiny against Captain Ives, overtaking the Theurgy, deactivating Thea, throwing Ives and First Officer Edena Rez into the Brig, and killing people who opposed him.

The hijackers managed to hold the Theurgy for almost two hours, despite the heavy resistance of those serving aboard both the Theurgy and the Harbinger. Aboard the Theurgy, newcomer Lieutenant Commander Carrigan Trent and acting Chief Engineer William Robert "Billy Bob" O'Connell managed to escape the coup on the bridge and get to one of the battle bridges to contest Vasser's command. Lieutenant Commander Wenn Cinn, newly restored to the space time continuum by the entities known to his people as the Prophets, led a number of Valkyrie pilots and enlisted Deck Operations personnel in the rescue of Captain Ives and Commander Rez. In main sickbay, the medical personnel managed to fight off the brainwashed mutineers. And aboard the Harbinger, Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann teamed up with the ship's chief medical officer Doctor Amelya Duv and Dor'GhItlh Squadron’s Ensign Christopher Slayton to escape the brig and take the bridge.

Those loyal to Captain Ives had nearly managed to secure the Theurgy when the Calamity intercepted them. A great battle was fought both aboard the Theurgy as well as against the Calamity, but in the end, Captain Ives prevailed thanks to the people still loyal to him, and the Calamity was destroyed when zh'Wann, Duv, and Slayton piloted the Harbinger on a collision course to destroy both ships. During the fighting, both Captain Vasser and Commander T'Rena were killed as well as many Starfleet officers and crew, both brainwashed and loyal.

The Theurgy now found itself manned with the remnants of the crews from both ships whose spirit and loyalties had been tested. The question now was, had those spirits been broken? And would these disparate dregs of Starfleet be able to coalesce and function as a unit?

PDF--US3-Cover.png

INTERREGNUM: Between Episodes 03-04

During the week between the battle against the Calamity there was a Search-and-Rescue operation launched to find the crew that had abandoned the Harbinger in escape pods before it was destroyed. Natalie Stark was given command of the Theurgy’s yacht, the Manta-class advanced scout USS Allegiant to find those who had fled the doomed starship and to bring them back alive despite any residual brainwashing from the late Commander T'Rena.

A memorial service was also held in the Theurgy’s flight hangar for those lost in the battle and the mutiny. Repairs and preparations for a mission to Starbase 84 were made, boarding drills held on the active holodecks. Since one of her former hosts betrayed Captain Ives, Edena Rez stepped down as First Officer, and Carrigan Trent was promoted to her position and to his former rank of Commander.

Furthermore, a mission to the Black Opal weapon storage facility was launched, with the aim to restock the torpedo magazines on the Theurgy and get fresh supplies. The mission was meant to be executed without casualties on either side, but poor luck and the intervention of a Romulan warbird intervened and the station had to be scuttled. Black Opal station's commanding officer Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt and her people were invited to join the Theurgy’s crew and they accepted, joining a unit whose personal were quickly becoming as disparate as they were desperate.

At the onset of the mission to the Black Opal, Lone Wolves pilot Nathaniel Isley suffered some form of blackout and ended up firing his tetryon pulse phase cannon against his former lover Skye Carver, disabling the shields and systems of her Valkyrie. With the shields gone, the phaser fire from the Black Opal cut into Carver's cockpit and killed her instantly. After the mission, an investigation was launched, and it proved that there was no system malfunction in Isley's Valkyrie, so it seemed the cause of Carver's was friendly fire on Isley's part. Yet at the end of the investigation, Dr. Lucan cin Nicander discovered that Isley was not the Vulcan and Human hybrid he had always thought he'd been, but half Romulan. In light of this, Isley's actions were put into a new light, and just in order to move on with his life, Isley pleaded guilty of daydreaming in the cockpit, accepting a demotion to Chief Petty Officer and having his Valkyrie taken away from him. He was transferred to Security, where he vowed to find whoever had framed him for the death of Skye Carver.

Another incident during the Black Opal mission was Lin Kae betraying Ives and the crew by disabling Thea's transporter systems by the time the Romulan ship appeared, accusing Ives of considering everyone aboard as expendable as long as the mission parameters were met. Kae was confined to the Brig, and afterwards, Kae couldn't explain his lapse on the Bridge, apologising to Thea for what he had done. Commander Carrigan Trent conducted a hearing with Kae, and aside from demoting him to Ensign, Kae was to undergo a full physical and mental evaluation before returning to his duties. Doctor Maya conducted a mind-meld with Kae, and was able to treat an advanced state of schizophrenia. Counselor Hayden O'Connor eventually cleared him for duty.

On the sixth day, all aboard the Theurgy were allowed to record personal logs for their friends and family in case they wouldn't survive the upcoming mission to Starbase 84. They took the opportunity to settle unfinished business among themselves, and to say their goodbyes.

PDF-Interregnum-0304---Cover.png

EPISODE 04: Simulcast

With Episode 03 over, the crew of the Theurgy prepared to undertake a daring mission to Starbase 84. Situated at the edge of Romulan space, the station was fitted with a ‘whistleblower’ system – a wartime device capable of broadcasting an unstoppable signal alerting the Federation to an imminent Romulan invasion. Ives planned to use the system to send a message detailing the truth of Starfleet Command. The only issue? It was impossible to hide the source of the transmission, meaning every ship and station would know where Theurgy was.

Meanwhile, after being lost in Romulan space for three years, the Luna class vessel – USS Resolve returned to Federation space and received a hero’s welcome at Starbase 84. Soon joy turned to dismay as an Tal-Shiar operative was murdered and one of the crew was wrongly arrested as the prime suspect. While ascertaining as to why his officer was imprisoned, Captain Kendrick – Commanding Officer of the Resolve, enacted a jail break when the situation turned sour. Alongside his operations officer, Kendrick also liberated the Romulan, Drauc T'Laus, who revealed that the murder was related to a traitor who was on the station and was a Starfleet officer.

Investigating the murder, Ensign Six, along with Assistant Chief Science Officer Hi'Jak, hit a dead end when Captain Hawthorne - Commanding Officer of Starbase 84, would not authorize the decryption of the only known recording of the murderer right away, instead dismissing them both after they have handed over their findings. Shortly afterwards, they are both warranted for arrest, forcing them both to escape Starbase security, while Hi'Jak sought to leave the base with a civilian shuttle, Six attempts to gain aid from the Captain and crew of the Resolve, both to confirm that they were not the traitors but also to verify her suspicion: that it was Ian Hawthorne who was the voice on the recording, and that he was the true traitor.

Kendrick allowed the decryption and the team found that the traitor was indeed none other than Hawthorne himself. Finally understanding why his crew was wrongly accused, Kendrick led a mission to detach his ship from the station and attempt to escape. This, just as Theurgy arrived at Starbase 84.

The the battle that followed, Ian Hawthorne set the whole Air Group of the base on the Resolve, but before its warp core detonated, the Theurgy used its top saucer's unique docking feature to evacuate the surviving Resolve crew. When the warp core did detonate, Captain Ives ordered the Theurgy to use the detonation against the USS Orcus, which had arrived ahead of Task Force Archeron. The Orcus was as good as destroyed by the tactic of using the evacuated Resolve as a weapon - which would later be called the Ives Manoeuvre.

Before this happened, the dying Captain Kendrick had made it onto the Resolve´s aerowing shuttle, and in determination of ending the threat that Ian Hawthorne presented to the Federation, he flew inside Starbase 84 and attacked the Executive Office Complex's top floor, which held the Command Center. His shuttle was attacked, loosing altitude, but in order to contain the M/ARA detonation, he crashed the shuttle into the Command Center, and killed Ian Hawthorne.

Outside the starbase, Task Force Archeron arrived in full force, and Ives gave the order to call for aid from the Asurian fleet, which had been cloaked yet present during the battle - a hidden ally made with the help from Dyan Cardamone. The Asurians gave the Theurgy time to sent the Simulcast, and to have all fighters dock with the Theurgy. Unfortunately, the sacrifice of the Asurians was in vain, since Edena Rez' former host - Jona Rez - had tampered with the message, sending out a false recording of Ives threatening the Federation rather than warning them of the parasitic threat in Starfleet's ranks.

The mission failed, and with the help of Vivian Martin and F'Rell, the Theurgy could escape the sector.

PDF-Simulcast-Cover.png

Interregnum 04-05

After the Battle of Starbase 84, the Theurgy escaped into the Azure Nebula. The mission to send the Simulcast was a complete failure. The Devoted of Morali grew more aggressive, and Ives' authority could be in question by both hir original crew, as well as the crew from the USS Resolve. Forsaken as they were, would the crews aboard the Theurgy unite or scatter, and would the Asurians - who suffered grievous losses at Starbase 84 - vow vengeance upon them all?

On the first day - the same day as the battle - Captain Ives gathered all the new personnel aboard to brief them about the true threat to the Federation, perhaps even the Galaxy as a whole. With a new crew aboard, the chain-of-command had to be sorted out, and through the late evening and morning the day after, interviews were made and reports were sorted out so that the high-ranking officers from the Resolve could get important positions aboard the Theurgy. The integration of the Resolve crew was not without friction, but in the end, the command structure aboard was preserved.

On the second day, it became evident that the Devoted would not give up on their faith. They tried to usurp command of the ship and hand it to Sarresh Morali, even though he denounced them. In the coup attempt, several officers died, not counting the ones that the Devoted attacked individually the night before and through the second and third day the Theurgy conducted repairs in the Azure Nebula. As of the situation aboard was not tense enough, a viral outbreak that sprung from the Resolve forced Main Sickbay to issue a quarantine protocol. The Virus was known as Virus 117, and while no one died directly from the outbreak, some members of the crew were incapacitated for a long time.

On the third day spent in the Azure Nebula, a strange puzzle box found on Starbase 84 activated the Omega Directive, forcing Captain Ives to contain the knowledge of the molecule aboard hir ship, and to take measures to have it destroyed. Only Vivian Martin and Hi'Jak of the Science department were aware of the directive, but the latter had to leave on an away-mission to a derelict Klingon outpost named SuD Lang. It was a site inside a coreless moon that Sera vers Aldnoah claimed had the dilithium crystals the crew needed to repair the Theurgy's warp drive.

Led by ThanIda zh'Wann, the away-team was not just sent to collect the crystals, but to send a personal message from Captain Jien Ives to High Chancellor Martok - a message made in hope to set the record straight and to gain aid from the Klingon Empire in undermining the conspiracies of Starfleet Command. Scientist Hi'Jak, however, betrayed Ives and the crew in the belief that he knew better - being an agent of the Imperial Intelligence agency. Instead of Martok, the message ended up in his son's hands, along with orders to destroy SuD Lang. In the battle that ensued, along with the loss of one Lone-Wolf pilot, ThanIda zh'Wann was killed in action.

That was not all, however. For beneath SuD Lang, Heather McMillan found an ancient city of her ancestors named Tyn'Akir, and in its archive, she could have found the key to thwart the parasites. The question was if they would make it back safely to the Theurgy with both the archive and the dilithium crystals, since their shuttle had been damaged in the battle with the Klingons. Also, would the Imperial Intelligence officer betray them again, or would he be killed by the rest of the away-team because of what he'd done?

PDF-Interregnum-0405-Cover.png

EPISODE 05: Courage is Fear | Part 1

While the Theurgy conducted repairs in the Azure Nebula, she was intercepted by the Asurians that sought vengeance for the defeat at Starbase 84. Yet they weren't alone, since they brought reinforcements in the form of a dreadnought never seen before in the Alpha Quadrant - an advanced ship that belonged to the mysterious Savi. Yet no more had the engagement began when Task Force Archeron entered the Azure Nebula, and the crew of the Theurgy faced impossible odds of survival. Was the truth finally going to die with them? By March 2381, various actors and conflicts had begun to concentrate on the Azure Nebula. Most crucial, however, was the initiation of a third invasion of the Alpha Quadrant by the Borg Collective.

Following the failures of their first two invasions of the Federation, and significant losses during conflicts with Species 8472 and the USS Voyager, the Borg were forced to resort to unconventional means to reach the Alpha Quadrant. Thus, in early 2381, two Borg cubes discovered a subspace aperture within Borg space that led to the Azure Nebula. The cubes promptly used the 50,000 lightyear shortcut and emerged in the Alpha Quadrant, swiftly moving to reconnoiter the sector, while the Collective amassed a large armada on the other end of the subspace tunnel. The invasion had begun, and the Borg Queen entered the Azure Nebula on a Tacitcal Cube ahead of the invading force - joining the two scouting cubes in Federation Space.

It didn’t take long before the Borg vanguard encountered resistance. One cube engaged and destroyed a Federation starship, the USS Endeavour. The other cube found and engaged the USS Cayuga, inflicting heavy damage and forcing the crippled Federation vessel to flee into the Azure Nebula. Still, Borg jamming prevented either the Endeavour or the Cayuga from warning the Federation of the threat. However, good fortune ensured that the Cayuga’s distress call was answered by a vector of the renegade USS Theurgy, which rendered assistance and spread the word of the Borg threat.

Meanwhile the Tactical Cube that carried the Borg Queen was discovered by a fleet of eleven Starfleet ships from Task Force Archeron, which had been hunting the Theurgy. The ensuing battle would prove to be savage. All eleven starships were lost, with all their crews either killed or assimilated, but against all odds, the Starfleet force did succeed in destroying the Borg cube. Their sacrifice, at the cost of nearly four thousand lives, would prove crucial. Shortly after the battle, the other two Borg cubes reached the debris field of the battle, and initiated the Royal Protocol - using a female drone to create the new Borg Queen.

At the same time, the USS Theurgy was locked in a battle for survival after it was forced to separate into three vectors to enact the Continuance Protocol.

PDF-Courage-is-Fear-Cover.png

EPISODE 05: Courage is Fear | Part 2

After numerous engagements with the Asurians, Klingons and the rest of Task Force Archeron, the three Theurgy vectors finally reunited. However, thanks to the USS Cayuga - as well as survivors of the USS Endeavour - the crew of the Theurgy now knew of the Borg threat and, faced with the prospect of an all-out Borg invasion, the Theurgy raced to the heart of the Azure Nebula and the apertures. It was there that the USS Cayuga, in conjunction with a Klingon fleet under the personal command of Chancellor Martok, engaged the Borg cube that guarded the subspace aperture. In the following hour, the Klingons sustained heavy losses. Out of the twelve ships which started the battle, several were destroyed while yet more were assimilated. The Klingon flagship, the battleship IKC Negh’var, sustained serious damage, but nevertheless, the Klingons successfully defended the Cayuga. During the hour, however, more of High Chancellor Martok's forces arrived to the field of battle. Unfortunately for the Klingons, however, they were compromised from within. N’Garen, a weapon’s officer onboard the Negh’var, was secretly infected by one of the parasites that had taken clandestine control of Starfleet Command. Seeking a Borg victory, N’Garen drained energy from the Negh’var´s shields, allowing Borg drones to board the battleship, with drones even beaming into the Bridge so that N’Garen herself could be assimilated. With that, the parasites would be able to infect the Borg Collective itself, a key step to the final victory of plunging the entire galaxy into darkness and chaos. Nevertheless, the Martok and his bridge crew swiftly demonstrated their skill at close-range combat. The Klingons countered the boarding action with their signature bladed weapons, their bat´leths and d´k taghs, with Chancellor Martok himself fighting the Borg in personal combat. N’Garen saw an opportunity to assassinate the Chancellor, but after exposing herself for what she was, she was swiftly overwhelmed and killed by the Klingons.

Finally, after an hour of battle and bloodshed, the USS Theurgy decelerated out of warp to join the battle. Under the command of acting captain Wenn Cinn, the once formidable multivector dreadnought had suffered considerable damage in the previous week. Many of its crew, including Captain Jien Ives and the ship’s artificial intelligence, Thea, had been taken captive by the Savi. All three vectors had sustained heavy damage, preventing the use of the Theurgy’s potent Multi Vector Assault Mode, while the vessel’s squadron of warp fighters were similarly diminished. The Lones Wolves squadron, along with the Allegiant and the surviving Klingon ships, used the debris field around the Borg Cube to maneuver in cover, fighting desperately.

Eventually, a new vessel arrived: the Versant, a five kilometer long Precept-class ship of the Savi Flotilla. Following the liberation of the ship’s prisoners, a mix of captives from the USS Endeavour and the USS Theurgy, they had proceeded to gain control of the goliath ship and bring it to the battlefield. Thus, under the command of Captain Ives and with the aid of the AI Thea, the Versant opened fire on the Borg Cube with its graviton beam lances, inflicting catastrophic damage on the Borg Cube. Three large holes had been punched clean through the Cube’s hull. Seizing the opportunity, the surviving Lone Wolves regrouped to launch a daring attack. At the orders of Lieutenant Commander Thomas Ravon, the fighters flew directly through the holes in the Cube, firing their weapons on the unshielded interior of the vessel as they went before emerging on the other side. The density of the metal mass reflected the shockwaves of the blasts, and the effect was a lot more emphasised than any exterior impact could possibly be. The damage proved catastrophic, crippled the Cube’s ability to fight. The Versant and the Theurgy later finished off the Borg ship with a final barrage, permanently destroying it.

The sudden appearance of Doctor Nicander on the bridge of the Theurgy offered a solution - one which Captain Ives saw merit in. The officers on the Versant held a device powered by what the Borg termed “Particle 010”, but what the Federation knew as the “Omega Molecule”. If detonated, the particles were capable of unfathomable destruction that would undoubtedly destroy the subspace tunnels as well as affecting the local subspace strata for lightyears around the Azure Nebula. Warp travel in the region would be rendered impossible for millennia. Since it could not be done remotely, the plan - desperate as it was - involved someone staying behind the detonate Omega device while the Theurgy, Cayuga and the Klingons fled at maximum warp. Two volunteers stood out: Doctor Lucan Nicander, who's credibilty was low because of him being infected by a parasite, and Captain Wenn Cinn, whom the Bajoran Prophets had manipulated events to make the sacrifice.

The decision was made, and Captain Ives gave hir orders. The Versant prisoners were beamed back home to the Theurgy, while the Omega device was taken by Wenn Cinn onto a shuttlecraft. Too heavily damaged to escape the Omega detonation, the Theurgy moved to access a different aperture, although they didn’t know where it would lead. The Omega detonation, as feared, was enormous. The subspace tunnels were instantly destroyed, as were the hundreds of Borg cubes that were already flying through them as the tunnels collapsed. The Azure Nebula was ignited in an explosion even brighter than a supernova, with the light due to be visible across the entire galaxy for decades to come. Warp travel would become impossible in the vicinity of the Azure Nebula after the detonation, stranding millions of people and five inhabited planets without warp drive. The farthest the shockwave reached was the Nimbus System, but Starbase 84 was spared.

While the Negh´var had been disabled, more Klingon ships had arrived before the detonation, so Martok could escape on the IKS Vor'nak. The Cayuga survived, successfully outrunning the blast at high warp, as did Task Force Archeron, having been warned by the Cayuga of the threat as they approached the battlefield. The third Borg invasion had been thwarted. While the Federation and the Klingon Empire each lost dozens of ships in the effort, the victory saved hundreds of billions of lives throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and permanently closed off the Borg beachhead.

For the Savi, the battle was the start of an enormous upheaval. The presence of the parasites was exposed, as was their corruption of Savi culture and society, while the Savi themselves were exposed to both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. For the USS Theurgy, the battle was extremely costly. Many lives were lost, including Lieutenant Commander Wenn Cinn, dozens of crewmen and a full third of the Lone Wolves. The Theurgy itself came close to destruction during the battle, and even after emerging from an aperture several hundred lightyears away, the ship was barely spaceworthy.

Nevertheless, it had been a victory. The plans of the Infested had been foiled, while the Borg threat had been neutralised. As a result of the battle, the crew of the Theurgy gained an alliance with the Klingon Empire after Chancellor Martok personally witnessed the truth of their claims about the parasitic threat. As such the Theurgy set a course for the world of Aldea, a vassal world of the Klingons, where the Theurgy could make repairs, find safe harbour... and rest.

PDF-Courage-is-Fear-P2-Cover.png

Changes to the story may have occurred, and if so, they can be found listed on the Butterfly Effect Changes page.