“I found an island in your arms
A country in your eyes,
Arms that chain us,
Eyes that lied.
Break on through to the other side.”
Jim Morrison, John Paul Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek. (1967)
It took a long way, getting from there to here, but the journey that conveyed the USS Vigilant and its crew back to the 22nd century was one that was accomplished in mere moments.
Cosseted in its gossamer layers of protective metaphasic – shielding and propelled by the colossal forces exerted by the powerful Quantum Field Generators aboard Starbase 80, the Duderstadt – class fast cruiser amped is warp nacelles up to their maximum output of Warp 9.99 and was catapulted through the shimmering mystery of the Quantum Fissure, there to slip lithely through the tear between realities and voyage the untrodden paths between dimension and time that lurked just behind the curtain of our own reality.
For Captain Samantha Hyland, who herself had only just been returned from her own tribulations in the Mirror Universe, this ‘undiscovered country’ was at least familiar territory and she was passingly glad that, at least this time, that the crew was able to make the temporal – transit between universes without lapsing into unconsciousness.
After all it was a hell of a light show and it would have been a shame to miss it.
The ship emerged from the terminus aperture of the Space/Time portal like a proton being accelerated from a Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator and engaged every ounce of EPS power that could be fed into the inertial dampeners (to stop the bridge crew becoming a red smear across the main viewscreen) and hauled the nacelles into full reverse, the warp field clawing at the skein of spacetime – digging into the complex energies of the hyperspatial – grid with grim determination and decelerating the Starfleet vessel down to relativistic speeds.
Yet the 22nd century into which they emerged was far removed from their own in terms beyond just Space & Time.
To fully understand the intrinsic differences between the Prime Universe that the craft from the United Federation of Planets had departed from and the target universe into which it emerged, you had to go back.
Even further back than the 22nd century into which Captain Hyland and her crew had found themselves.
Back to where it all began and very nearly ended before it had even began.
Back to the Third World War.
In both universes, the course of Humanity had been decided (and almost reduced to an irradiated footnote of radioactive dust) by the events that brought about the long – feared Nuclear Apocalypse that had predominated the 20th century.
More commonly known as the “Eugenics War”, a series of conflicts consumed the inhabitants of the cradle of humanity on a planet that had almost completed the societal backslide driven by a failing ecosphere, degradation of the food – chain, unchecked migration, the rise of extreme right – wing quasi – religious zealotry and drove the primal desire to climb back on top of the heap using selective breeding and genetic engineering.
The opposing factions were predictably in the ‘for’ and ‘’against’ factions, but by the time the first bombs began to fall in 1992, that hardly seemed to matter anymore.
In both realities over tends of millions died and Planet Earth was plunged into a new Dark Age.
But the point of departure, that separated the Prime Universe from this one, the singular event that determined the point of divergence that informed how mankind emerged from this new Dark Age, was a single action that took place at the behest of one man.
It was an action so terrible and awful in its intent and magnitude, that in the Prime Universe to led to the cascade of events that saw Mankind and the United Earth Assembly first push to join with other involved species to form the Coalition of Planets and then evolve that assembly into the United Federation of Planets, so that no one person would ever have the agency to enact such an atrocity ever again.
Colonel Phillip Green.
During the Eugenics War, Phillip Green led a faction of violent – eco terrorists whose actions led to the deaths of some thirty – seven million people. His motto being ”Overwhelm and Devastate!”
From the ravaged remains of the Earth, apart from the ever – resilient cockroaches (who alone saw an upturn in accessible real-estate) the next most loathsome survivor of the nuclear apocalypse was that of bigotry and hatred. Those that survived the near – annihilation of their homeworld were in desperate need to medical attention and disaster relief, exactly the sort of mission that Starfleet in the 25th Century Prime Universe was dedicated to providing.
Yet Colonel Green, with the fire of Eugenic – superiority still burning in his heart, saw weakness where Starfleet would see people in need of their help.
In both universes, Colonel Phillip Green ordered the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of radiation – afflicted human beings, spurred by the twisted rationale that, if they had been allowed to live, then the genetic mutations and weaknesses they introduced into the human gene – pool would taint and curse mankind for eternity.
And in both universes, Green’s callous act of willful Genocide was met with mixed responses.
In the Prime Universe, Green’s actions were almost universally met with repulsion and condemnation, such as you would expect from civilized and compassionate people.
Yet there was a small segment of society (mostly those who had inhabited the pro- eugenics faction before the war) who lauded and supported the actions that Colonel Green took in 2056 and were attracted to the man and his ethos – taking to heart the Colonel’s manifesto of “We must reject the impure and cast them out.”
This insidious seed would nurture in the poisoned breast of such people, grown in private away from those who would expose it and root it out and, over time, this group would become known as “Terra Prime” and would become most deeply rooted in the man called John Fredrick Paxton that would come to lead them.
But that was in the Prime Universe that these familiar events took place.
Here in what we shall call, for want of a better term, the ‘Terra Prime Universe’, Colonel Greens act of Genocide did not meet with such universal commendation. Here the survivors of the human race chose not to vilify Green for his atrocities, rather they venerated the man and his methodology and his maxims became a credo that turned the tiller of time and steered humanity down a less altruistic and more xenophobic course of evolution.
So, the 22nd century into which the USS Vigilant had emerged, was one where Terra Prime had evolved into a furtive terrorist organization, loosely distributed as a series if isolate cells. Here in the “Terra Prime Universe”, the organization was a powerful political faction that held considerable sway with public opinion and its charismatic figurehead, John Fredrick Paxton, had his feet squarely under the table as an influential leader of a significant minority party that formed part of the United Earth Assembly (UEA).
That is not to say that the manifesto inspired by Green went completely unopposed or unchecked. At its very core, humanity was still morally decent and there existed considerable opposition to the policies and ethos of Terra Prime, both in the UEA and within the ranks of the United Earth Starfleet.
But where in the Prime Universe, the forces of decency and reason had preserved to lift man out of the new Dark Age and elevate its people to those who embraced First Contact with the Vulcans with open arms, in the Terra – Prime Universe, Paxton and his followers had done their level best to subvert the value of mankind’s potential enfoldment into a wider galactic diaspora and their ‘Humanity First’ propaganda resonated deep in the hearts of those who feared what they did not understand and desired a return to familiar values and to see the Earth made great again.
Little did Sam Hyland and her people know (for they had no idea of when they were), but their arrival in the year 2153 foreshadowed a political climate where the founding of the all-important Coalition of Planets was in far more jeopardy and at risk of being vetoed and voted down by Terra Prime in the Assembly.
Such was the terrible Legacy of Colonel Phillip Green.
All it would take was one momentous event, for John Fredrick Paxton and his party to argue against humanities further collaboration with the peoples of the Alpha & Beta Quadrants and bring about a new age of isolationism that would effectively destroy the fragile path that would lead to the charter for the Coalition to be ratified two years later.
Without such an undertaking, the United Federation of Planets would never come into being and the benevolent future so familiar to Captain Samantha Hyland would cease to exist in this space and time.
One momentous event.
Like discovering a former member of the Borg Collective hundreds of years before their contemporaries in the Prime.
A conflagration was set that threatened to eviscerate decency, peace and exploration in the Terra – Prime Universe and all it would take was one such spark to set fire to Humanity’s hopes for a brighter future, such as Sam had known.
However, the Nature of Fate is determined by Probability which, in turn , is influenced by the complex interplay of chance and necessity.
Human beings continually mischaracterizes ‘Fate’ as a pre-determined sequence of events driven by an overarching plan or divine will, but the truth is that in a causal universe, nothing is so neatly packaged or predictable as all that. Chance infers that events will occur with no discernable cause or purpose and refutes any semblance of order or design.
Human agency and moral responsibility are the ‘Wild Card’s’ in this vast cosmological poker – game. They introduced a third confounding principle to ‘Fate’ and its antipode ‘Chance.’
Luck.
And say what you like about Captain Samantha Hyland (and so many do), but you have to say that she is one hell of a lucky individual.
We tend to consider ‘good’ luck and ‘bad’ luck as intangible forces, rolling in the back – alley crap – game that is our lives, when they are just integers and outcomes of probability. If you take the storied career of Sam Hyland from birth to date, then you could argue that her luck has been mostly bad due to the series of varied misfortunes that had befallen the mercurial Starfleet captain.
But then again, she’s still here isn’t she? Mostly alive (give or take an insidious mutagen or mysterious crystalline – virus or two) and kicking. More importantly, a person with a habit of influencing events in the most chaotic of ways is now present in this corner of Space/Time, just when events are at their most pivotal.
Who are we to say this was ‘Bad’ luck?
Every coin toss, every shuffle of cards, every roll of dice is governed by probabilities that can be calculated and predicted. A fair coin has a 50% chance of landing heads and a 50% chance of tails. The shuffle of a standard deck of 52 cards produces more possible arrangements than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
Maybe Hyland’s apparent – luck was a ‘gamblers fallacy’?
People who consider themselves lucky tend to be more open, optimistic, and resilient. They notice opportunities, act on hunches, and interpret setbacks as temporary rather than permanent. In this way, their belief in luck shapes behaviors that increase their chances of encountering positive outcomes.
Maybe we believe that, because Sam keeps on coming up trumps, that belief that past random events influence future ones – maybe we prefer to see balance and fairness where none really exist?
Certainly, in the Terra – Prime Universe, balance and fairness are in diminishing small supply.
But few things capture the human imagination like coincidences and the entry of the USS Vigilant into this version of Space/Time, in this space and at exactly this time might feel like a moment charged with significance, as though some hidden force is guiding events?
At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what you believe in.
On this day, Captain Samantha Hyland believed in herself, probably more than she believed in Starfleet.
For her entire lift since birth, Starfleet had been the unassailable, immovable North on the moral – compass of her life. Her mother had died defending it. Her father had left it to bury his grief in his studies. Samantha herself had risked her very life on more than one occasion to protect its people and defend its ideals and all she had got in return was incarceration in The White Room, facing a future of being locked away like an embarrassing, dirty secret.
As Sam sat confidently in her captain’s chair and looked out over the strange history of someone else’s past, putting aside her own issues with Starfleet and focused her mind of the challenge of locating Captain Hansen and Six of Eleven, both of which had done Starfleet no wrong nor been done wrong by Starfleet and deserved ever effort Sam and the crew of the Vigilant could bring to bear in their search and recovery.
But where to look for two needles in a haystack the size of the Milky Way??
“Ship is secured from Warp and stable, Captain.” Ensign Lewis reported smoothly from her seat at the helm controls. “Confirming our current position at MGC 224, the leeward side of the Andromeda Galaxy, roughly equidistantly between the Triangulum Galaxy and the trailing arm of the Milky Way.”
By the way the young woman spoke, you’d think she’d just completed a routine point-to-point impulse transit around a spacedock, rather than been propelled through the veil between universes and time by precariously experimental technology, at high warp.
Knowing little about Macey, as with all of the new crew she had been foisted – upon, Samantha had to say that she was impressed with the pilots resolve and ability to remain poised under pressure. Something told her that this was a quality that would be in demand before this mission was out.
“Quantum Fissure is returning to its normally state and closing behind us.” Lieutenant Commander T’Shon confirmed as she tracked the event horizon of the anomaly they had just emerged from.
Despite herself, Sam’s heart skipped a beat at the prospect of being so far from home, linked only to the Prime Universe by virtue of the Quantum Beacon that the unorthodox Dr Erasmus had so recently installed aboard ship.
“Engineering?” Sam swiveled to the duty Engineering Officer who was currently manning the Engineering Systems monitoring console towards the rear of the bridge. “Status of the Quantum Beacon?”
It was perhaps an unspoken fear of abandonment that was subconsciously shared by more than one-person aboard ship. As the young Ensign made is report, Samantha fancied she could see more than one member of the bridge crew pause in their assigned task and turn a portion of their attention to his answer.
“Quantum Beacon is green across the board. EPS feed stable. Quantum Entanglement hysteresis loop is optimal. The carrier link to Starbase 80 is well within tolerable norms, Captain.” Ensign Rutherford confirmed, much to the relief of everybody.
Sam nodded, at least their way home seemed assured.
“Very good.” Hyland thanked the Engineer and turned, in turn, to address Lieutenant Jarthell.
“TAC? Any potential contacts on the long – range targeting sensors? Sam pressed the Tellarite officer. The imperative to reduce contact with any sentient species in the Universe, lest they unwittingly attract attention of the Multidimensional creature of The Loom, pressed heavily on her mind.
Thath Jarthell wrinkled his piglike features in wry amusement as his beady eyes scanned the data coming in and shrugged easily.
“Contacts? Sure. The Galaxies full of them.” Lieutenant Jarthell grinned wolfishly as he swung his stubby legs on his seat. “Contacts with any equivalent tech that the Neanderthals driving them could use to pick us up on their sensors at this range? Not a chance Captain. Our sensor range and acuity give us the stand – off edge by a comfortable margin.”
The Executive Officer, Commander Rozu frowned and mildly admonished the Tactical Officer.
“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed, Lieutenant.” The Orion prompted in caution, from his seat at Samantha’s right hand. She was interested to observe the dynamic with which her unorthodox XO chose to interact with the members of the crew.
Thath snorted dismissively as he went about his work with studied ease.
“Then that’s a ‘no’ then, isn’t it?” the Tellarite muttered with habitual ill – temper, being careful to ensure that his retort wasn’t made fully under his breath.
Rozu suppressed a smile and then turned to Samantha, his smooth (not unattractive) green features radiating bonhomie as he enquired.
“Well, Captain. We appear to have arrived in one piece. Something which is always a cause for celebration. Do you have any ideas on how we might go about where we should actually start looking for our ‘lost – sheep?’”
Samantha had indeed thought long and hard on this very subject but, until she had actually been able to get a fix on where the USS Vigilant would emerge into the target universe (let alone when, but one thing at a time) she hadn’t really been able to make an informed decision.
“Well.” She pondered aloud. “If we really are in the 22nd century, then our Displaced crewmembers are likely not here. The best that vessels could manage in this era is Warp 5. That means that we should probably begin our search in the Milky Way, its more likely that there would a density of ship traffic within Earth’s home galaxy.”
“If they are indeed on a ship and not a planet, or a station or just had the poor fortune to Displace directly into the vacuum of space.” Thath interrupted with a characteristically dour assessment.
Sam shook her head.
“If it’s the latter, then our mission is over before it began. But it’s logical that we commence our search in a more populated volume of space. There is more chance that someone, somewhere may have encountered the Captain and the Chief Engineer in some way or another, as long as we keep beyond the effective limits of their scan range and are carefully not to reveal too much about ourselves, we stand a better chance at finding some clue as to our missing people.”
“That’s still an incredibly involved way to search an unimaginable volume of galactic space, with very little likelihood of success.” Commander Rozu countered. “Surely there’s some better way to even the odds in our favour?”
Sam had to hand it to the XO; he had a good point.
It was T’Shon that delivered the solution, rooted as it often was in hard science.
“Whilst your rationale is indeed logical, Captain. Commander Rozu makes a rational point.” The Vulcan pronounced leadenly from her position on her left. “However, a solution does occur to me that might conceivable provide a greater percentage of success, rather than just flagging down the nearest spaceship and asking them if they have seen Captain Hansen and Lieutenant Commander Petrovna.”
Sam was about say that she was ‘all – ears’, but thought better of it. Instead, she enquired diplomatically.
“Any edge is welcome, Commander. Please enlighten us?”
The somber Vulcan woman nodded her severe black – bangs and intoned like a clergyman delivering a particularly dusty eulogy.
“The Quantum Beacon that was recently installed retains one part of a particle – pair that is interconnected with its twin aboard Starbase 80 in the Prime Universe.” The Scientist reasoned. “The state of one particle influences the state of the other, regardless of the distance separating them, which is impressively considerable in this instance.”
Samantha nodded, prompting the scientist along.
“Which is how we are able to maintain contact with our own universe and dial our ride home. But how does that apply to our particular predicament here?”
T’Shon explained patiently.
“The field of Quantum Mechanics is a complex one, both in terms of hypotheticals and practicalities, Captain, but I am drawn to consider ‘Bell’s Theorem’, as it applies to the current set of circumstances and believe it may hold the key to how we may be able to triangulate the position of the Displaced.”
Sam sighed. Whilst all Starfleet cadets were required to undertake a science minor at the Academy, hers had not been in Quantum Mechanics (although her experience was more ‘first-hand’) and she winced and sought to move the Vulcan closer to the payoff.
“Pretend, just for a moment, that I am not overly – familiar with ’Bell’s Theorem’ Commander. Could you please frame your explanation for those of us in the ‘cheap – seats’?” Sam smiled.
T’Shon regarded the Captain for a moment, before she muttered “Ah! Humor” like it was something she had just trodden in and then she nodded and continued.
“Bell’s theorem is a fundamental principle in quantum mechanics that demonstrates the incompatibility of local hidden-variable theories with the predictions of quantum mechanics, highlighting the non-local nature of quantum entanglement.”
“Meaning?” Sam squinted poignantly.
“Meaning.” T’Shon continued. “That as much as the twinned particles of the Quantum Beacon and Starbase 80 are able to maintain a link between realities at the speed of light due to their entanglement, any other particles that are native to our own ‘Prime’ Universe are not so entangled and would be determined by local factors and that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light.”
Sam still looked blank.
“Bell’s theorem shows that if quantum mechanics is correct, then local hidden-variable theories cannot fully explain the observed correlations in entangled particles. Particles like, for example, tachyons.” The Vulcan raised an eyebrow.
Sam’s eyes widened as the implications finally found a home in her brain.
“They’re not from this place and time!” The Captain smiled. “They should be charged with anti – protons and tachyon radiation, just like our own hull, a byproduct of their displacement from one universe to the other!”
Lieutenant – Commander T’Shon allowed herself a rare smile.
“Indeed Captain. The charged particle in our Quantum Beacon contains variables that would determine the outcomes of measurements in a way that is consistent with classical physics. It can be used as a ‘Yard-Stick’, if you will, to measure any fluctuation of CHSH inequality that our long – range scanners detect and we can use that data to extrapolate violations of those equalities.”
“Violations that could well be one of our Displaced persons.” Commander Rozu smiled, as he too took up the promethean flame of realization.
“There will, of course, be some margin for error.” The CSO admitted. “The galaxy has a proliferation of such particles occurring naturally in space. The computational factors will take up a considerable amount of processing space in the mainframe, but measured against the baseline CHSH factor of our harnessed – particle, we should be able to arrive at a match that delivers a result in the higher percentile of certitude.”
Samantha Hyland sat back in her seat and clapped her hands together decisively.
“That sounds as good a plan as any we have got. Make it so, Lieutenant Commander.” The CO nodded.
“OPS. Liase with the CSO and ensure that she has access to as much computing power as she needs to run the analysis. De-priorities what secondary systems you can do for the duration, but leave the deflector and sensory systems optimized. We’re about to go hunting for a needle in a haystack!”
“Aye Captain.” Lieutenant Rani Osha responded and began to run an analysis of where she could pull the requisite processing power from and still leave the Vigilant able to operate, without compromising its overall performance.
“Captain. If I may also suggest that we endeavor not to exceed the Warp 5 barrier, whenever we can best avoid doing so?” T’Shon warned.
“You’ve got to be kidding?!” Commander Rozu winced.
The Vulcan stared impassively at the Orion. They both knew that she was not.
“The Loom are drawn to anomalous activity. Extremes like the Displacement will surely attract their attention. Whilst it is impossible to predict what impact the arrival of a Duderstadt – class vessel might have, the use of the technological advances like our 25th century warp drive to its fullest extent might conceivable break that threshold for attention and interaction. It is logical to assume that, if we limit our speeds to the relativistic norms of what is typical to this time, then we stand a better chance at remaining undetected.”
This was not welcome news. In most scenarios the USS Vigilant could and would be able to run rings around and out – fight any contemporary ship of this era. If what the Chief Science Officer was suggesting was true, then Sam was being asked to enter this fight with both hands tied behind her back.
She sighed heavily and nodded, despite her great misgivings.
“Helm. Plot a course for the Milky Way.” Captain Hyland ordered Ensign Lewis wryly.
“Keep it in Second – gear and don’t break the speed – limit. Engage!”
