This Star Trek "fanfic" is just for MiSTies, and specifically, readers of MiSTs. If it gets MSTed in turn, well, life is tough on the internet. As someone's momma always used to say, "Satire is as satire does." Where No Fanfic Has Gone Before ------------------------------- (Six months after _Generations_.) Picard strode into the starbase research lab where his former second officer and his former chief engineer had been working for the past five months. They left their work stations and greeted him. "Captain!" said Geordi, "We're glad you decided to visit." "How could I not, after I got your message?" said Picard. "You claim to have found a way to recover the _Enterprise-D_, intact?" "Yes sir," said Geordi. "I know it sounds incredible...." "'Ludicrous' is more the word I was thinking of," Picard replied. "An understandable reaction," responded Data. "Nevertheless, we believe it is possible." "And how do you propose to accomplish this miracle?" Data and Geordi glanced at each other nervously. Finally, Geordi answered, "We think we've found a way to generate a stable plot hole." "A _stable_ plot hole?" Picard had the greatest respect for these two officers, but he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't try to find them field assignments as soon as possible. The Federation needed more mad scientists the way well-fed tribbles needed aphrodisiacs. "Yes sir," Data continued. "Just as a stable wormhole connects two distant points in space and time, so a stable plot hole would connect two separate realities, allowing people and objects to pass through at will." Geordi pointed towards the lab's main equipment. "We started by connecting two devices which have each caused more than their share of unstable plot holes: a transporter, and a warp field generator." Geordi turned to face Picard. "Remember, on the _Enterprise_, how we once hooked just these two devices together and generated a temporary plot hole to enable you to transport over several life years and save the life of your kidnapped son, who turned out not to be your son after all?" Picard nodded, and smiled to himself just a bit. During his Star Fleet career, he'd seen more than his share of plot holes, and he had learned how to utilize them to accomplish his missions. That particular plot hole was one of his personal favorites. Geordi walked to a control panel on the far wall. "We've gone beyond that, by connecting the transporter and warp field generator to the greatest single source of plot holes and contrivances since its invention." He punched the controls and a door slid open, revealing the interior of a holodeck. "That's just stupid enough to work!" Picard briefly thought in alarm. Then a more rational part of his mind took over, and he asked, "You don't think that, by itself, will generate a plot hole, do you? In my experience, plot holes exist only to cause, or to resolve, some specific crisis." "Yes, sir," said Data. "Ordinarily, that would be true. However, we believe we have found an abundant artificial source for such 'crises.'" Picard arched his eyebrows. "Where?" Again, Geordi and Data looked embarrassed. Finally, Data answered. "As you know, sir, our missions on board the flagship of Star Fleet always generated a great deal of media attention. Our activities, when not classified, were extensively reported upon. As a result, we now have rather a large following of ... 'fans.'" Picard nodded grimly. He personally had restraining orders against over 50 Federation civilians who were a little too eager to, shall we say, invade his privacy. Most of the Enterprise's senior officers were in a similar situation. "Several thousand of these fans are also amateur writers," Data continued. "They have written numerous fictional accounts with us as the main characters, stories known colloquially as 'fanfics.'" Picard closed his eyes and slowly leaned his head back against the cold metal wall. If he had known, if he had only known, he might never have accepted the commission to captain the _Enterprise_. Most junior Star Fleet officers had enough common sense, plus personal respect and fear for Picard, never to mention those "fanfics" in his presence. But word gets around. There was always the clueless admiral, every now and then, who couldn't resist needling Picard over some particularly banal script. Picard's closest friends assured him that some fanfics were well-written, and some of the parodies were well-deserved send-ups of their media personae. He couldn't deny that some of the fanfics he'd seen --- how could he avoid reading a few? --- actually made more sense than some of the Enterprise's REAL adventures. But many of those fanfics, particularly the ones that focussed on the officers' personal lives, revealed far more about the authors' psyches than Picard wanted to know. Sometimes, Picard told himself that fanfics were a passing fad, a harmless training ground for young writers; most of the time he tried to actively deny their very existence. While Picard was musing, Data had walked over to another work station and called up several files. "One college student in particular has been quite prolific recently, writing nearly a dozen fanfics with astonishingly consistent plot holes, holes big enough to drive a starship through," Data added with a slight smile and a glance out of the corners of his eyes. "Moreover, all of these improbable scripts revolve around a fascinatingly consistent theme." Picard glanced towards the open door on the far side of the lab. "And you intend to run these fanfics on the holodeck?" Picard asked with an ill-defined emotion closer to horror than anything else. "We already have, Captain," piped up Geordi. A small part of Picard's mind wondered whether he could find a way to make this a court-martial offense. "Unfortunately," said Geordi, "every time the holodeck program reached a point in the script where a massive plot contrivance was needed, it blew the computer's main logic sequencers. But we think we've found a way around that." "Whenever the holoscript calls for the characters to perform a massively improbable technical feat in a short amount of time, it hands off the problem to this computer which we recently obtained from the Cochrane Institute." Geordi indicated one of two large mainframes connected to the holodeck computer. "It has been programmed with the design and specifications of every powerful alien artifact and technology discovered by Star Fleet, but never utilized or mentioned again." "And the other computer?" Picard asked with a growing sense of dread. "That one," said Data, "is designed to rationalize the blatantly illogical and non-sensical decisions which fanfic characters frequently make in order to advance the author's agenda. We estimate that there is no premise so absurd that cannot be rationalized by this computer. It has been programmed, by the Judge Advocate General's office, with every excuse ever logged by a Star Fleet captain for violating the Prime Directive." "Very ... impressive," said Picard. In fact, his skin was beginning to crawl. Starship captains develop an intuition about danger, particularly the powerful and malevolent dangers which can disguise themselves as something innocuous. Yet Data and Geordi did not seem to share Picard's misgivings; or if they did, they hid them well. Finally, Picard turned his thoughts back to the reason for this meeting. "But how will all of this help to recover the _Enterprise_?" Data walked to the main holodeck controls and began entering commands. "We have asked that particular college student to write an alternate version of our encounter with Dr. Soran and the destruction of the _Enterprise_. His script was to be consistent with his usual style of writing, but with the stipulation that the _Enterprise-D_ was to survive the battle and be recovered, intact but with no crew aboard, a few months after its apparent destruction. We left it to his imagination as to how he achieved this." "You mean you actually commissioned the writing of a fanfic?" Picard interjected. "Yes sir," Data answered matter-of-factly, apparently oblivious to Picard's incredulity. Geordi quickly continued, "We plan to run it on this holodeck. When the script reaches the point where the intact _Enterprise_ re-emerges, we'll feed the output into the transporter pattern buffers, then send the signal out through the warp field generators. If all goes as planned, this will bring the fictional _Enterprise_ into our reality." Picard glanced back and forth between the two officers. Again, it was only his great personal respect for them which kept him from ordering the immediate cessation of the project and dismantling of the equipment. Instead, he asked the obvious question: "But how can that work? These pieces of equipment operate upon entirely different principles. You can't just hook them together with wires and conduits and hope they'll interact the way you say." Data and Geordi once again glanced at each other nervously. Picard braced himself. "Well sir," Geordi began, "that is a bit of a plot hole. However, if our theory is right, it won't matter. In fact, it may be critical for success. Only by generating plot holes in the alternate reality and in our reality _simultaneously_ could we hope for stable bridge." Picard felt himself standing at the edge of a precipice; the vertigo made him dizzy. Madness or perhaps worse lay beyond. All of his instincts screamed against it. He gazed out the laboratory's windows into space and imagined seeing the _Enterprise-D_ emerging from the darkness, majestic, ready for him to take command again. He compared it to the kind of pencil-pushing job he was likely to be assigned for the next several years, or, worse yet, shepherding hundreds of annoying young cadets through Star Fleet Academy. "Make it so." Picard stood on the holodeck, holding a cup of Earl Gray tea, watching the events of the alternate-reality fanfic unfold. As far as the holodeck program was concerned, he was "transparent;" he could interact with objects, but the characters were programmed to ignore his presence and actions. So far, the script was paralleling historical events quite closely. By this time in the script, he had already beamed down to the planet to confront Dr. Soran, while Geordi had returned to the _Enterprise_ from Lursa and B'etor's bird-of-prey. The only difference Picard could tell from the actual events was the crewperson at the helm. She was a young girl, certainly no more than 14 years old, yet with lieutenant's pips on her uniform. She looked vaguely familiar, but Picard couldn't place it. He took a sip of tea and was about to use the aft stations on the holodeck bridge to call up the service record on this girl, when Doctor Crusher's voice came over the intercom. "Crusher to bridge. We've got a problem, Commander. Dr. Soran must have injected Commander LaForge with a deadly virus before releasing him. The whole ship is infected. I've got the computers searching for a cure, but it's going to take several hours. If we don't get every affected person into medical stasis, they'll die in the next 30 minutes. All adults are affected, but children under 15 seem immune." "Understood," said Riker. "Begin preparations for stasis on cargo decks one, five, and eight immediately." Riker closed communications and turned to the girl at helm. "Lieutenant Picard, activate Kids Crew and take command." It was a classic spit-take; the holographic ensign standing next to Picard wound up with a mouthful of Earl Gray all over his uniform. To prepare its officers for a lifetime of facing the great unknowns of the final frontier, Star Fleet Academy teaches both introductory and advanced courses in Stretching Credulity. Yet nothing in all of Picard's training, or the decades of active duty which followed, had prepared him for what he just witnessed, or what he was about to witness. Picard watched with a sort of horrid fascination as the events of the fanfic unfolded. When Lursa and B'etor attacked the _Enterprise_, only their first torpedo did any damage. The Klingon ship was easily defeated by the young acting captain. Almost immediately, five more Klingon ships loyal to Lursa and B'etor arrived. While the _Enterprise_ held its own in a five-on-one firefight, the acting captain beamed one member of her "Kids Crew" onto each Klingon ship. The children quickly defeated shipfulls of trained warriors, and soon all the Klingon ships were captured. The Klingon crews were beamed down to the planet, and newly-recovered Enterprise personnel were sent over to crew the Klingon ships, though the Kids Crew officers remained in command of each captured ship. Suddenly, an unknown alien ship of incredible power flew through the sector on its way to Earth. The acting captain and her kid-captained fleet gave chase, but their weapons did little damage to the alien craft. Just as the alien craft was closing in on Earth, she transported the crew and herself off the _Enterprise_ and programmed the ship to execute a series of attacks which provoked the alien ship into following it on a high-warp dive towards the sun, whereupon the klingon ships used their tractor beams to cause a massive solar flare which destroyed the alien ship. Of the _Enterprise_, there was no trace. The fanfic then jumped forward in time several months. Picard was already feeling numb from what he had witnessed, but the script was relentless. At an official celebration for the young girl who had saved the Earth, she turned down the offer to be vice-president of the United Federation of Planets and governor of a dozen colonies, insisting that she should remain in Star Fleet, since, after all, she was Star Fleet's greatest battle tactician, third-greatest pilot, sixth-greatest marksman, third-greatest intelligence operative, second-greatest treaty negotiator ... and besides, she already knew which ship she wanted to command when she was promoted to full captain (which was expected in a year or so). At this point, she directed everyone's attention to the viewports facing the sun. She explained that when she sent the _Enterprise_ into the sun, she calculated its trajectory to enter time-travel just as the solar flare hit, and it should be emerging right about.... At that moment, the _Enterprise-D_ flared into existence, flying out of the sun, dropping out of warp, and coasting to a stop. Sunlight gleamed off its saucer and nacelles. Its image filled the holodeck. "Now!" said Data, as he shunted the holographic patterns into the transporter. As Geordi increased the power to the warp field generator, then deliberately imbalanced the field to create the beginnings of a wormhole, Data entered the final commands to transfer the patterns. Both officers turned to a large viewport and watched in amazement as, one kilometer from the starbase, a wormhole began to form. Complex and iridescent patterns danced into view. "It's actually working," whispered Geordi. Their reverie was broken as alarms went off all over their lab. Picard watched as the holographic _Enterprise_ began to flicker in and out of existence. The atmosphere rushed past him, as if towards a hull breach. "Computer! Arch!" he yelled. The arch appeared and he struggled against gale-force winds towards the door. He tried to order the door to open, but the wind whipped his words away and he couldn't be heard over the screeching of tortured metal. Space itself seemed to warp around the holographic ship. As he felt his consciousness slipping away, Picard thought he heard voices in the wind, or perhaps only in his mind. "... I'm immortal again, omnipotent again!" "... Mankind just isn't ready for this kind of power, Will." "... If all this makes a man a god --- or does it make him something else? MITCHELL!!" At the last moment, the holodeck doors partially opened. Data grabbed Picard and pulled him out of the holodeck. Geordi and Data steadied the captain, and helped him to the viewport. All three watched as the _Enterprise-D_ slowly emerged from the wormhole outside the starbase. Several seconds passed in silence. The wormhole closed; the transporter inactivated; the warp field generators returned to standby, but the starship remained. They knew its lines and markings well. They remembered the years spent aboard her, and contemplated what wonders the future might hold. The implications of what they were seeing, of what they had just done, were too vast for words. Their thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected sound. The holodeck doors were opening again. They turned and saw a 13-year-old girl in a Star Fleet uniform emerge. Picard's eyes widened in shock as she ran towards him, hugged him, and yelled, "Dad!" "Aaaaauuuugggghhhh!" screamed Tom Servo. Cambot, who had been monitoring Tom carefully for the last several minutes, pulled away from his extreme close-up. Tom righted himself, then took off at top speed towards the main bridge of the SOL (with Cambot trailing close behind), yelling, "Mike! Mike! Mike!" "What is it, Tom? What's the matter?" said Mike as he tried to calm the near-hysterical robot. "Mike, remember how I asked you to install a new board in me and program it so that I could experiment with dreaming?" "Yes." "Well, TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT!" =+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+ +=+==+=+==+=+==+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+==+=+= The usual fanfic disclaimers apply: Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its characters are copyright of Best Brains. Star Trek: TNG and its characters are the copyrighted cash cow of Paramount. No infringement of their or anyone else's copyright is intended. All references are for purposes of satire, and are intended in good fun. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There's a fine line between | participation and mockery." | Loren Haarsma --Wally the Engineer (_Dilbert_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu