Beverly Crusher comes up with a solution to the problem, sending the planet Delta Sigma IV into chaos. While it will result in them living their normal life span, it will mean effectively drugging the population again, so she is against implementing it. However, Picard orders its use since the alternative is that the population will kill themselves off, and at least the population will then know what is happening and can change things if they desire to. During this time, Kyle Riker has destroyed Will Riker’s communicator so he can’t contact the Enterprise, and they have located Bison. Kyle has also talked Riker into assisting him in trying to defuse as much of the rioting and disturbance they can, with Bison accompanying them. On their last effort to interfere with the population, before the solution devised by Dr. Crusher took effect, Kyle Riker gets killed. Once back aboard the Enterprise, Will Riker proposes to Deanna Troi (or vice versa), and the couple gets engaged.
David Mack
The planet Tezwa has been making claims to regions claimed by the Klingons and the Enterprise is sent to try to assist in negotiations between the Tezwan and the Klingons. The Enterprise arrives at the planet, along with a fleet of Klingon vessels, and Captain Picard and Troi are among a group invited down to start the negotiations. However, the leader of the Tezwan, Prime Minister Kinchawn, orders the arrest of Picard and the other members of the negotiating team, and orders the use of weapons (guns that Picard and the Klingons had been previously unaware of) to destroy the ships in orbit. The Enterprise is damaged but manages to enter the atmosphere and beam out Picard and the rest of the negotiating team. The Klingon fleet is destroyed, killing 6,000 Klingons, but not before they inflict major damage on the planet. The guns had actually been secretly installed on the planet by the leadership of the Federation of Planets as a potential trap that could have been used during the Dominion War. Being so close to the Klingon border, their deployment was in breach of the Khitomer Accords, so the existence of the weapons was highly classified. The leader of the political opposition on Tezwa, Bilok, had been in contact with Azernal (Federation President Min Zife’s advisor) about Kinchawn’s dictatorial policies and his activation of the weapons. The Klingons send a large fleet of ships to attack Tezwa, and Azernal predicts that if the Klingons discover that the weapons are of Federation origin it will start a disastrous Federation-Klingon war. So, the Enterprise is tasked with destroying the guns in the four hours before the Klingon fleet arrives. They mount commando raids against the power sources for the weapons and cause the weapons to be destroyed, but some of the team members are killed and Riker is taken captive. Picard has also contacted Ambassador Worf to obtain the codes to disable the Klingon fleet. Before the guns were destroyed, Kinchawn had ordered the capture and execution of the political opposition leaders, but Bilok escapes the assassination attempt and leads an attack on Kinchawn. When Kinchawn learns of the destruction of the guns, he and the other leaders escape into temporary exile and Bilok takes charge and surrenders the planet to the Enterprise. The Klingons are somewhat pacified by the outcome and have little choice but to leave.
David Mack
President Zife and his advisor, Azernal, assisted by Quafina (secretary of military intelligence), plan to have their involvement in the establishment of the nadion-pulse cannons on Tezwa covered up by smuggling more weapons to the planet that are doctored to look as though they are of Tholian origin. Meanwhile the situation continues to deteriorate on Tezwa. Kinchawn initiates guerrilla strikes, and the Enterprise team becomes increasingly suspicious of Bilok’s involvement with the weapons. Riker is helped in escaping from Kinchawn’s captivity. The Enterprise gets tipped off about the additional weapons being smuggled onto the planet and is able to intercept enough of it to establish what has been going on. When they confront Bilok with the information, they are ordered off the planet but by this time Kinchawn has been defeated. The Starfleet admiralty is now aware of what President Zife, Azernal and Quafina have been doing, and they force them to resign. While the resignation is allowed to be presented as something Zife, Azernal and Quafina had been planning for some time, Azernal recognizes that their escort is being provided by Section 31, and he has serious doubts about how long they will live after the resignation. Riker decides to accept the offer of becoming captain of the Trident.
A Time for War, A Time for Peace
Keith R.A. DeCandido
The run-up to the election for the position of Federation president is underway, when the Federation embassy on Qo’noS gets taken over by a group of Klingons who claim that Emperor Kahless has been replaced by a holographic image, and claim that the Federation is holding the real Kahless captive. Ambassador Worf escapes capture and regains control of the embassy using anesthezine gas, and is helped to some extent by his son, Alexander, who is a captive and manages to unsettle some of the people leading the invasion. It turns out that the claim that Kahless is a holographic image is true, which even Gowron hadn’t realized up to that point, and the image utilized a mobile holoemitter, which indicated Federation involvement. The Enterprise, which has just started undergoing an inspection led by Captain Go and with Scotty on the inspection team, is given the job of finding the real Kahless. Data suggests that Kahless might have gone to a planet mentioned in a legend about him, and he is indeed located there, painting a landscape. He returns to Qo’noS with the Enterprise and admits that he had set up the holographic replacement of himself because he wanted to do other things. He states that the Klingon Empire no longer needs him and returns to Cygnet IV to continue his painting. Nan Bacco wins the election for Federation president. She intends to reappoint Worf as ambassador to the Klingon Empire, but Worf declines and suggests his son, Alexander, as a replacement. Worf gets appointed as Riker’s first officer for when he takes command of the Titan. First there is to be the wedding of Will Riker and Deanna Troi, but on their way to Betazed the Enterprise gets caught up in coup d’état among the Romulans and Data is killed while saving Picard’s life (Data’s memories get transferred to a young android called B-4). After that, Picard asks to have Worf back on the Enterprise, and Riker offers Vale the position of first officer on the Titan. Dr. Crusher leaves the Enterprise to head up Starfleet Medical again.
Gene DeWeese
After his rescue from the Jenolen and the Dyson sphere, Scotty is still troubled by thoughts of the loss of Captain Kirk, and after coming into possession of an old Klingon warbird (after rescuing a couple of Narisians) he decides to make a slingshot back in time to try to save Kirk (he names the warbird, Bounty 2). He makes use of a visit to Picard’s Enterprise to study up on Spock’s old equations for the slingshot but, when Picard finds that Scotty has left the Enterprise, he gets suspicious. Guinan (who had been partially responsible for Scotty being on the Jenolen) urges Picard to try to stop him, and failing that, to follow him back in time. Scotty arrives back at precisely the right time and place to rescue Kirk, but then finds the Alpha Quadrant dominated by the Borg. Picard and the Enterprise arrive at the right time, but displaced in space, and again find that the Borg dominate the region, and Earth has been totally taken over and is hidden by a sensor-opaque shield. Both Scotty and Picard meet up with members of the Alliance who are trying to find a way of defeating the Borg, with Sarek of Vulcan as the Alliance’s Supreme Arbiter. At first, both Scotty and Kirk and the Enterprise team suspect that the other group has traveled back in time a second time, and caused the change that has brought the Borg, so they are both surprised when they find that they are both still in the same time period. When they meet up, the Guinan from that timeline is aboard the ship that transports Scotty and Kirk, and she and the Enterprise’s Guinan confer. Kirk suggests they track down the Guardian of Forever to try to find out what has affected the timeline (he has come to the conclusion that it must have something to do with his rescue). That timeline’s Guinan encourages the captain of the ship she is traveling on, Commander Tal of the Alliance vessel D’Zidran, to head for the planet of the Guardian, which turns out to be good because the Enterprise gets attacked by the Borg, and never quite makes it to the planet. Through a link between these two Guinans and one or more Guinans in universes where she had not been ‘rescued’ from the Lakul, they learn that Kirk needs to be sent into the Nexus (known as the Vortex in that timeline) to restore the timeline. The way the Guardian expresses it gives Kirk an indication that he won’t die from the experience (although he is willing to do it anyway). Scotty is able to come up with a way to utilize holodeck technology to make the Enterprise appear like a Borg cube to Borg sensors, enabling them to get back to the Nexus and transport Kirk into it. When the timeline is restored, all memory of the disrupted timeline is lost, and Scotty ends up thinking about trying to rescue Kirk but deciding it would be too dangerous to tamper with the timeline. In the alternative timeline, Guinan’s homeworld, El Auria, had not been taken over by the Borg, but never-the-less she is eager to right the timeline, even though she was one of those instrumental in disrupting it.
Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
The Titan and its multi-species crew is getting prepared to start its mission of exploration under Captain Riker, who has finally talked Christine Vale into being his First Officer. The mission gets changed to one of leading a convoy to Romulus to take supplies and to try to help head off further political instability in the aftermath of the events surrounding Shinzon and the massacre of the Romulan Senate. The other ships in the convoy are three other Federation vessels carrying relief supplies and three Klingon attack cruisers under General Khegh. Admiral Akaar accompanies the Titan for the duration of the mission. The convoy is met at the border of Romulan space by ships under the command of Commander Donatra. On their way to Romulus they observe the special anomaly that is the remains of the thalaron weapon that Shinzon had planned to use to destroy Earth. The Romulans refer to it as the Great Bloom, and Donatra has hidden the bulk of the Romulan fleet inside the boundary of the bloom, ready to be called upon if the power struggle on Romulus requires it. One of the reasons Admiral Akaar had come along was to coordinate the rescue of Commander Tuvok, who had gone to Romulus as an undercover agent to try to talk Spock into returning to Earth for a meeting. The rescue succeeds in recovering Tuvok from the prison (where he was in the middle of staging an escape with the help of a Reman, Mekrikuk) and they also bring Spock back aboard Titan (Spock had been mounting his own rescue of Tuvok). Then a Reman fleet arrives and threatens to destroy Ki Baratan unless they are granted permission to occupy Ehrie’fvil (a small uninhabited continent on Romulus), and the Titan gets badly damaged when it tries to intervene in the conflict. The Reman attack is called off when Riker talks the Remans into becoming a temporary protectorate of the Klingons. Donatra was unable to call on her fleet hidden in the Great Bloom because they had vanished without trace. A measure of stability is restored to Romulus, and the Romulan leadership reluctantly agrees to the Remans having the use of Ehrie’fvil. Then Donatra calls on the Titan to assist in trying to establish what has happened to her lost fleet, but, when they arrive at the Great Bloom, Titan gets pulled beyond the event horizon, and finds itself in the Small Magellanic Cloud, in the territory of the Neyel (which Admiral Akaar and Tuvok recognize from their experience aboard the Excelsior 80 years previous). [Timeline: year 2379, Stardate 56941.1, shortly after events of Star Trek Nemesis and Death in Winter]
Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin
Commander Donatra, aboard the Valdore, finds her ship has somehow been transferred through the anomaly known as the ‘Great Bloom’ and is now in the satellite galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud. While still within the area representing the other end of the anomaly, they locate and rescue a number of aliens in escape pods whose ships had apparently been destroyed by her ‘lost fleet’. They also locate a damaged Klingon vessel, the Dugh, which had apparently followed them, while cloaked, when they went to investigate the ‘Great Bloom’. When they tow the Dugh out of the area of the anomaly, they are located by the Titan, which had also been drawn through the anomaly. Riker recognizes some of the rescued aliens as being members of the Neyel (a lost branch of humankind, who had used genetic engineering to change their bodies in order to survive). One of the rescued Neyel, named Frane, has adopted local indigenous beliefs and refers to the anomaly as ‘The Sleeper’ and claims that when it awakes it will destroy this area of space (it has already destroyed the system that contained Newaerth). Vale remembers a similar fable from Lewis Carol involving the chess piece, the red king. Studies of the anomaly suggest that a proto-universe is actually breaking through from deSitter space, and there are indications of sentient life within it. Then a fleet of ships, believed to be the Romulan ‘lost fleet’ is seen emerging from a star system. It is realized that they have just destroyed the system, and there are clues to suggest that the fleet is under the influence of the intelligence in the emerging universe. When Titan and the Valdore catch up with the fleet (the Klingon vessel stays watching the anomaly because the ship is too damaged to travel far) they find that the Romulan crew have been rendered unconscious. They resuscitate them and drive the alien intelligence from the fleet, but that then causes the area of space to become unstable, threatening the planet Oghen (the main world of the Neyel). Between them, Titan and Valdore rescue thousands of Neyel and members of the indigenous races, utilizing the Vanguard colony vessel that had brought the Neyel to this region originally, before Oghen is totally destroyed. A plan is worked out to return through the anomaly and to close it (and hopefully drive the emerging universe back into de Sitter space) by exploding the warp cores from a number of the Romulan vessels. The plan works, but Donatra has the Klingon vessel destroyed to avoid the possibility of the weakened condition of the Romulan fleet becoming known, and she also kills her supposed ally, Suran, when he opposes her plans and threatens her. Some of the rescued Neyel die in an accident during transit, but most are returned to the vicinity of Earth, and the Federation starts looking for a new home for them. [Timeline: January 2380, Stardate 57024.0]
Titan, Book 3 – Orion’s Hounds
Christopher L Bennett
The Titan crew are on a mapping mission past the Gum Nebula when they encounter a group of ‘star jellies’ (like the Enterprise encountered at Farpoint) but which are under attack by another group of ‘jellies’. It becomes apparent that the attacking groups are actual dead ‘jellies’ being used by avian-type humanoids (known as Pa’haquel) as star ships. Riker is reluctant to take sides but tries to stop the one-sided battle (the live jellies are not fighting back) and comes between them long enough to allow the live jellies to go to warp and escape. Following an idea that such cosmozoans would likely find suitable habitats in a region of star-formation, the Titan heads towards Vela OB2 Association, where they do indeed find other cosmozoans, including the living star system called The Proplydian, and they manage to contact the jellies. However, they again get involved in attacks by the Pa’haquel on the jellies (that the Pa’haquel call skymounts), and the jellies manage to influence Tuvok in order to gain information on how to thwart Pa’haquel attacks. Riker then discovers that the Pa’haquel use the skymount starships to work alongside other space-faring races in the area to battle other far more deadly cosmozoans (such as the harvesters that destroy planets to feed on the material, and starpeelers that destroy stars). Riker initially tries to get the Pa’haquel and the jellies working together (without the Pa’haquel killing the jellies), but the jellies (now called livemounts by the Pa’haquel) prove to be ineffective in battle. Then the jellies learn how to herd and control the crystalline entities (known as ‘branchers’ by the Pa’haquel), making it possible for the Pa’haquel to utilize them as weapons against the more dangerous harvesters and the like. Cadet Orilly Malar volunteers to stay and work with the Pa’haquel, with the goal of getting more of the local entities to work together harmoniously. [Timeline: late February to late March 2380, Stardate 57137.8]
Titan, Book 4 - Sword of Damocles
Geoffrey Thorne
Titan receives a distress call from its sister ship, Charon, and heads to the Elysia Incendae system (which has one star and five planets, one in the normal habitable zone), but as soon as it reaches the region it gets suddenly knocked out of warp, and is damaged in the process. Sensors indicate that the inhabitants of the planet Orisha are using a form of warp technology for power, but are not using it for spaceflight, and it seems that this is somehow affecting space in the region. A shuttlecraft, crewed by Jaza Najem (a Bajoran), Troi, Vale, Ra-Havreii, Keru and Y’lira Modan, is sent to try to contact the insectoid Orishans, but as they approach a mysterious spherical energy mass and send a probe into it, a large ship apparently decloaks and attacks the shuttle. Jaza and Y’lira find themselves crashed on Orisha, but in a past era (about a thousand years back) when wars are raging on the planet. They also find the wreckage of what they take to be the Titan (although it is later identified as the Charon), and Jaza plans to use parts of the ship to try to get the shuttle flyable again. Then he comes to recognize the setting as one that the Prophets had shown him and realizes he will end his days there. He does get the shuttle working and gives Y’lira enough information so she can get back to her normal era, while he stays and helps the Orishans to become a united peaceful society (although they live under the threatening Eye of Erykon, that they see as a god who destroys their civilization at intervals throughout their history). Troi, Vale, and the other shuttle crew members also find themselves crashed on Orisha, but in their present era, and they make contact with (or are taken captive by) the Orishans. They escape when massive earthquakes start to hit the planet. Ra-Havreii determines that the ‘Eye of Erykon’ is actually a tesseract that manipulates time, and the quakes and planetary destruction are caused when the same planet from different eras tries to occupy the same location in space-time. The Orishans had been trying to use their form of warp technology to build a shield or veil to protect or hide themselves from the Eye. Meanwhile, Titan has overpowered the mysterious ship that they believe destroyed the shuttle and its crew, and find that the ship is crewed by a single Orishan, named A’churak’zen, who had been effectively built into the ship, probably centuries ago, and sent to keep a close watch on the Eye. Before she kills herself, A’churak’zen passes on her database to Titan and they are able to work out how they might close off what is now an expanding field affecting space-time. However, their efforts work against the efforts of the shuttle crew, who have now been reunited with Y’lira and have gained the respect of the Orishans’ leader, A’yujae’Tak, after they rescue many Orishans from the devastation affecting their planet. Y’lira is able to use the knowledge passed on by Jaza to help ease the shuttle through a fracture in the tesseract (although Troi has to intervene at the end as Y’lira weakens) and Titan spots them and helps them back into normal space. Combining their knowledge, and with Ra-Havreii still back on Orisha trying to safely shut down the veil, they return Orisha to normal space, where it is no longer threatened by the Eye. The planet is still devastated, of course, but the Orishans insist that they will rebuild the planet themselves, although they are grateful for the assistance that they had received from Titan. Before these events, a rift had been developing between Riker and the now pregnant Troi, because he was becoming overly protective and she resented it, but the effect of both of them believing for a time that the other was dead, brings them back together again. [Timeline: about three months after the events in Orion’s Hounds, starting around Stardate 58358.1]
Titan, Book 5 - Over A Torrent Sea
Christopher L. Bennett
With the Borg invasion over, the Titan crew is pleased to be getting back to exploration and discovers a water planet, that gets called Droplet, with no landmasses, only floating ‘islands’ of coral-like material. Then they discover that the squid-whales, or squales as they become known and that appear to be the main animal form, are sentient and use some form of bioengineering to create animal tool/helpers. So, a Prime Directive problem seems to have arisen. Then it is discovered that one of the numerous asteroids in the system is heading for a collision with the planet and an attempt to push it off course fails because of exotic heavy elements that it contains. While they manage to break it up (with Titan suffering serious damage during the attempt), the asteroid still crashes into the planet, capsizing the boat Riker and Aila Lavena (an aquatic Selkie) are in and the two of them apparently become prisoners of a group of squales. Actually, the squales are trying to look after them, believing they have been abandoned by Titan. The residue energies that the asteroid carried from Titan’s efforts to divert it then destroy it, disrupting the eco-system of the planet, and the squales are rightly blaming the Titan crew. When Titan comes up with a solution to correct the eco-system, the squales prevent them implementing it. They are attacking the Titan crew until Aila (who has built up trust with some of them) uses the deep sound channel to address the squales and help them get past their distrust of the Titan crew and their inanimate technology. The squales assist the Titan crew in implementing the solution. While that has been going on, Dr. Rees effectively kidnaps the pregnant and near-term Deanna Troi in a misguided attempt to protect her unborn child, having been affected by the fears and anger of Deanna Troi and Tuvok. Tuvok leads the mission to rescue Deanna and between them they are able convince Rees of the error of his ways. At the end of it, Riker and Troi are able to introduce the squales to their new daughter, Natasha, and squales resume their attempts at space exploration, which they had previously attempted and abandoned centuries before. [Timeline: July 1 to Aug 4, 2381, Stardate 58497.1]
James Swallow
Titan goes to investigate a system, known only as System 223, that has energy readings that indicates a civilization and also shows spatial stressing or subspace irregularities in the region. One of the first discoveries is a destroyed starship, and the away team investigating it recovers what they think is the core computer, but which turns out to be the AI (artificial intelligence) that had controlled the ship and is known as White-Blue. When another AI-controlled ship turns up and starts attacking Titan for interfering with the wreck, White-Blue passes through Titan’s computer to transmit a message to the other ship and gets it to call off the attack, but inadvertently awakens the latent intelligence in Titan’s computer. That intelligence manifests itself, via the ship’s holopresence system, in the form of the holodeck character, Minuet, but the crew tends to refer to her as ‘the avatar’ or sometimes as Titan. It is discovered, over time, that the AI community (who refer to themselves as the Sentries) had been created by a long gone humanoid race that had inadvertently damaged the border between normal space and subspace, allowing a creature known as the Null to break through intermittently. The Null is simply bent on destroying and absorbing anything around, and the Sentries had been created to keep it at bay, but the strength of the Null’s attacks had been growing recently. During one attack, a team led by Tuvok gets rescued during a Null attack by an original (FirstGen), but damaged, Sentry (known as Zero-Three) who had previously tried to break through into the Null’s universe and had been exiled by the other Sentries. Then the Null launches a major attack, and it looks as though it will finally defeat the Sentries and the Titan crew, but the avatar discovers (from a study of the information supplied by Zero-Three) that only a non-corporeal being (i.e. her) would be capable of entering the Null’s realm and sealing it off. Riker had not initially been happy about the activation of Titan’s intelligence, but now he was reluctant to allow the avatar to sacrifice herself but was finally convinced that he had to allow her the freedom to choose. Consequently, the breach between the universes was sealed, confining the Null to its own realm, Titan’s computer was back as it had been, and the surviving Sentries were left to find a new role, although one of them (White-Blue) gets himself accepted as a crew member on Titan.
Michael A. Martin
Titan goes to investigate the Vela Pulsar, which has one planet orbiting it that becomes known as Ta’ith. The increasing radiation from the pulsar means they cannot take Titan much closer than 32,000 AUs, but they come to realize that the magnetosphere of the planet must be artificially created. Actually, the planet is protected by ancient self-repairing machinery created by the now disappeared Whetu’irawaru, who had also created the terraforming technology that Titan had recently encountered. One group of the Whetu’irawaru’s lobster or millipede-like descendants (the Preservationists) tries to preserve the technology while another (the Deconstructors) believes they should destroy it. An AI known as Undercity Maintenance Module One One Six gets woken up and finds it needs help to recover from the damage the Deconstructors are inflicting. It reaches out and senses the Makers’ knowledge stored in Tuvok and White-Blue’s minds, and it tries to get their assistance. Using a shuttle, they go to the planet, but it looks like the damage is too extensive to be repaired until the essence of White-Blue offers to stay and assist One One Six. Meanwhile, the Capitaline (a Vesta-class starship) is heading out to remove Titan’s Andorian crew, although none of them want to leave Titan. Before Capitaline arrives, an Andorian ship, the Therin (with Captain Zhrar) arrives, insisting that the Andorian crew members return to Andor. Riker allows Zhrar to interview them one at a time but doesn’t realize that Zhrar has been working with the Tholians to adapt the transporters so they can make copies of people. So, although none of Titan’s Andorian crew voluntarily agrees to return to Andor, when Zhrar leaves he has copies of each of them held captive. While Riker is puzzled by Zhrar’s attitude when he leaves, he thinks his Andorian crew members are okay but some of the events that occurred to the Andorian crew while on Therin gets them suspecting what might have actually happened. Riker counters Starfleet’s instruction to hand over his Andorian crew members to the Capitaline by having them renounce their Federation memberships. This takes them outside of Starfleet’s jurisdiction while allowing them to continue working as civilian scientists on Titan. [Timeline: starts Nov 1, 2382, Stardate 59833.8]
James Swallow
The U.S.S. Whitetree had been assisting the first interstellar ship (referred to as the pinnace) of the Dinac (a canine-like race from the planet Casroc). When contact is lost with both ships, Titan is called in to investigate and finds the pinnace as a wreck and no sign of the Whitetree or either crew. They are able to recover some records which, along with Titan nearly being swallowed by an anomaly and some of the crew experiencing strange dreams, ultimately lead the Titan crew to believe that the Solonae had returned from their subspace realm. When Titan erects shields in order to prevent the abductions that are being recalled as dreams, some recovered orbs that had been believed to be part of the Dinac ship turn into spider-like creatures that start vandalizing the ship. They are stopped before they finish the signaling device they were working on. White-Blue works out how to scan for the Solonae and they locate a ship that is constructed in a comet and contains tens of thousands of Solonae lifeforms. There are a lot of misunderstandings initially, especially when 37 of Titan’s crew disappear, apparently abducted by the Solonae. Those include Deanna Troi, her daughter Tasha, and the new First Officer of Titan, Commander Dalit Sarai. However, the Solonae aboard the comet are refugees (calling themselves the Ciari) from the subspace zone who disagree with the plan of the Solonae to violently take over our universe once they learn how to live here (the subspace domain they were from was going through accelerated entropic decay). They help Titan work out how to enter the tertiary subspace manifold to recover their people, plus the surviving crews of the Whitetree and the Dinac pinnace. Captain Vale offers the Solonae a treaty, but is scorned, and the Cardassian, Zurin Dakal, gives his life destroying the Whitetree, which the Solonae had been using to try and open a portal into our universe. SecondGen White-Blue, who had transferred its conscio