Star Trek: The Ship of Fools 'The Enterprise Incidence'

'The Enterprise Incidence'

by Aaron Agassi from an idea by James DiBenedetto
'The Enterprise Incidence' is an open unfinished collaborative fanfic brainstorm story challenge for 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools'
for YOU to help revise and improve...


We follow a woman, face shadowed and obscured by the hood of her cloak, through the dark and squalid back alleyways until she descends into a crowded and cramped basement chamber.
INT COMMON ROOM We find ourselves in a sparsely furnished common room, where a group of Romulan children are seated on the floor looking up at a tall, hooded man standing over them with his back to the camera. The man is clearly lecturing them as he activates an ancient cloaking device on a work bench in a make shift classroom Science lab.

The woman stealthily creeps into invisibility field of the old cloaking device just as is is activated.

We have entered in in mid-lesson, and the teacher's voice is quite familiar to us...
TEACHER
...Tasrayl could not accept that, and he told Surak so. And from there, their argument began. They debated back and forth for three days without stopping, scarcely eating and never sleeping. And as they argued, their followers came to hark upon the words of their masters, and by the third day, almost the entire city population was in attendance...
The teacher pauses for a moment and one of the children pipes up
ROMULAN CHILD
But what was the point, sir? In the end, all questions of photons and space-time curvature are conclusively settled Empirically.
TEACHER
But for Tasrayl the prospects of cloaking and decloaking where only a metaphor for his greater Epistemological conundrums which offer insight into his life long quest for values of honor and integrity as he expounds in his famous debate with Surak. And all only beginning from Scientific exploration of the here and now passing into "elsewhen," of the boundaries between the seen and the unseen.

We see the hooded figure as he turns. It is SPOCK!
SPOCK
(continues)
Scrutiny of that which is revealed to the mind by Logic, and acknowledgement of our inherent fallibility, and of unknown truth or even the obvious which eludes even the best of us. Indeed, fundamental value systems, even ancient Romantic notions of intuition and what the heart knows even in the uncompromising light of Surak's ground breaking observations of the mental complexes by which emotion deceives and misguides the unwary. You see, all more far ranging by any means, than those Pragmatic simple minded predigested historical capsule summaries foisted upon bright, eager and duty bound functionary technicians and soldiers in training, invariably and slyly discouraged from pondering too deeply.
'The Enterprise Incidence' follows from the teaser, herein reworked, for 'Star Trek: Dauntless' since revised as 'Star Trek: Shadow Wars' by James DiBenedetto, initially promising, with a tantalizing opening, and then greatly disappointing, a cheat, bait and switch, because no sooner does she open her mouth than it's another generic big threat to the Galaxy, with no deeper motivation. Characterization is as cardboard as violence is mindless, gratuitous, pointless and thudding dull as a concussion grenade, and all no less subtle.
And so, it played upon my dissatisfaction, then where is the heart of the real story to be ferreted out? The temptation was to tie it in as a prequel to my own great epic concept, 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools'. However I dreaded committing the same offence to fiction all over again, by likewise killing the entire story with irrelevant overblown formula.

But then I realized what direction to take. Understand and follow the motivation of the character. Why is she really here? And what will she do? And so the story came to me:

With Spock on Romulus, the Romulan Commander's long ago disgrace, Spock's theft of the cloaking device, as detailed in 'The Enterprise Incident', has come back to haunt them both with a vengeance.

With Ambassador Spock at large among the Romulan dissidents, that's the last straw, the Romulan Commander's irredeemable disgrace is no longer endurable to her superiors, and she must commit suicide. And honor prevents her from hiding or running away, as she knows full well that her family would be penalized harshly.

But there is one thing that she knows that she can do to appease her superiors. She has surfaced from obscurity to turn the tables on Spock by gaining his trust and stealing a secret from him, this time. But the secret Spock caries isn't actually considered all that important, except by Spock himself. And so, she knows full well that she will not long forestall the pressure upon her to finally take responsibility by committing suicide, but, indeed, only earn the contempt of her superiors as a desperate old whore.

But actually, espionage is but a pretext by which to rationalize logistical support from the handful of steadfast friends she retains within the Romulan military, and only an excuse to relive old times with Spock, at long last, her strategy to see him again one last time while withholding the truth of her situation, that it's shadow need not not bitter whatever joy and nostalgia to be found in their reunion and whatever peace she can make with herself before the end.

So what is Spock's secret, the central MacGuffin of the story? Why, of course, the revelations of the Kelvan Question, as detailed in the six part mini series of 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools'. And so, the disgraced Romulan Commander ends up actually pushing Spock to go and confront a matter of honor that has come back to haunt him, there by motivating Spock to depart the Romulan Empire thus abandoning his work with the Vulcan sympathizer underground, which he would never do merely for his own safety. After all, with the Romulan Commander marked for death, an all out manhunt for Spock cannot be far behind.

And there can be also the subplot of however morally ambiguous Darius Darius and how he becomes the reluctant whistle blower...: It is the clash of dramatic conflict on every level, internal or external, often Peripeteia in social connection as in the estrangement of the bullied idealistic whistle blower.; Put t he whistle blowers in charge!


Establishing Ambassador Spock's situation and motivation, 'The Enterprise Incidence' is prequil to the six part mini series of 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools'.

On Romulus in the time following the Dominion War, peace after the long strife has brought a renewed surge in popular sentiment for rapprochement with Vulcan and normalized relations with the Federation, concomitant with the demand for improved liberties; all soon enough to be followed by a break down in government, a rash of palace intrigue and perhaps somewhat improbable coup d'état, the long prepared rise of Praetor Shinzon and the Remans, all as sets the stage for 'Star Trek: Nemesis'

'The Enterprise Incidence' is an unfinished collaborative fanfic brainstorm story challenge to JOIN IN for 'Star Trek: The Ship of Fools'