Star Trek: This Side of Darkness, part 1 by John Erik Ege - HTML preview

Author’s notes.

If you were to take me and the entirety of this series as one thing, you would find an uncut diamond. Yes, this is a metaphor. This thing as I relate to it is multifaceted. I hope you can tolerate the complexity of this, even if you never fully grasp what I will try to communicate. I share this partly to explain the delay in offering you this book. I am extremely touched by the number of people who have written me because of the Pathfinder thing we share. It amazes me. I own my failures and imperfection, especially in grammar, and still the overwhelming response has been positive. I am grateful. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this work was good, but rather, and more likely, is attributed to our love and desire for more Trek. No, it’s more than that. We desire the message that TOS brought us, the hope it gave us that we aren’t going to blow ourselves up. TOS was the only message that suggested mankind grows up and becomes a positive influence in the Universe; if the powers that be don’t get this and continue to squabble over intellectual and merchandising rights, if they continue to push us into a dystopia version of Trek, this thing we love, it could go away. Probably not. There are too many people devoted to that original message. In his academic book, “Star Trek: Visions of Law and Justice,” Doctor Bradley Chilton clearly reveals there is only two ways we can go, we can go Star Trek, or we can go Mad Max. I prefer Star Trek.

My son was born 2014. I only imagined I didn’t have free time prior to this! In addition to being with first child, I went through a career change, and for a while was working two full time jobs. I committed to my new career. I make less money, but I am genuinely happy serving people. I work in mental health. Yes, I am not only certifiable, but I am a credentialed counselor in the State of Texas, with a masters in community counseling. Go figure. Believe it or not, despite my grammatical errors, I am reasonably educated. I am baffled by that myself. Dysgraphia doesn’t explain my failures. I suspect most people who write actually have a team. I have myself.

When I first wrote ‘A Touch of Greatness’ it wasn’t meant for sharing. I shared it because a friend asked me to. ‘ATOG’ was a celebration, a tribute to everything I knew about Trek at that time. It was also therapy. It was not intentional therapy. I wasn’t trying to journal my way to health. It became that. It became much more than that. The thing about journaling in this fashion as a pathway towards improved mental health and general disposition is, if it’s particularly good or useful, you actually get better. I got better. By the time I arrived at 2014, I was not the same individual who started this thing. I have grown. The healthier I became, the more difficult it was to re-access the Pathfinder the way I had because that window had narrowed. Not improving would be a hamster stuck on a wheel, no forward movement, with lots of energy spent going nowhere. It’s more difficult to write this because I am not where I was, and time got by me with so many other activities going on. Nothing happens in a vacuum. This was a multi-level evolutional thing. This series, this ‘enterprise,’ took me somewhere. It set me ashore on new ground. I am forging new ground.

I attempted to re-access it multiple times just to resolve some story arcs. You know how many story arcs are imbedded in this Pathfinder series? Hell, the first two books themselves is simply a list of tangents; the fact that they coincide in a loose way is just happenstance. Book three has less tangents, but still lots going on. Book three was the divergent point, the breakthrough of this thing I experienced. I really wanted that to be the next Trek spinoff. I was that hopeful, that in love with it. I think it has that which Discovery wanted to reach but overshot in that first moments when Burnham breeched command. That to me feels unrecoverable.

Part of writing this is to say goodbye Garcia, to close off as many arcs as I can. It was my intent to write about each Captain, but the story was so unwieldy I couldn’t hold it. I decided to go with short stories of all the captains… Here I am with two captains at nearly 300 pages… I am choosing to divide it into two books. What do you want bet it becomes three? Quatloos anyone? I have received so many emails, “Is there another book” “Where is the next book,” “Can I have the rough draft” that I feel it right to release this version into the wild and let it go where it goes. I know, it still needs help, grammatically, but if I sit on it another year, it would probably not be much better because of the way I see ‘visually,’ not with my eyes but my brain, and it could get lost. It’s time to let go. I have momentum. I think the other part will turn out pretty quick. If the muse I am working with doesn’t carry me elsewhere. I go where she directs.

There is something else about this, something I am not sure I fully understand. There is this thing about journaling for improved health that is not talked about, or most people don’t know about it. If you were to read Jung’s book, ‘the Redbook’ I bet you would side with me, there is something more than what people in the know even know. Lots of professional people recommend journaling as a pathway, but if I told them what I experiences was realer than real, they would question my sanity. If you read the correspondence around the ‘red book’ Jung was beginning to question his own sanity, and his Estate so feared the release of the ‘Red Book’ that it only recently became available. I don’t think the experts have a clue how far a person can take the inner healing response. My experience of this was that I went ‘there’ in a very real and profound way. I was not these characters, but I can find me in all of it. Maybe there is no way to sort oneself out completely. Maybe Stephen King is actually in all his books. If his books are therapy, I bet he is the sanest man on the planet. Or maybe, because this is not true fiction writing but is instead therapeutic writing, it is something else. Maybe I am not a real writer and I have shared with you too much of my inner space. I don’t know. This is where imagination takes you when you truly let yourself go into it. This is the far side of daydreaming, where your subconscious interacts with you in very direct ways and the two of you wrestle and come out with a better understanding of self and life and start to work together.

Inside of this story, there is an interesting thing. An artifact. Duana and Ilona, Garcia’s extra personalities which were the results of a mass mind-meld, perhaps DID related to trauma, or both, is an echo of something I have discovered in real life. It’s called tulpamancy. Duana and Ilona is like soul bound 101, tulpamancy 101. The Pathfinder story is a ‘wonderland’ and the places and characters are real, in terms of subconscious real place holders for something paradoxically tangible and intangible. Tulpamancy is a real thing. I personally interpret it and my experiences with it through primarily a metaphysical lens. I can see it all through a psychological lens. I can use both language sets to describe my experiences in a limited way. I cannot fully explain this. I have experiences that are so ineffable that I am wanting to invent language to explain… What’s good about Trek is it offered pathways, language sets that I could utilize, that helped me contextually contain and cope with some of these profound experiences.

I have moved to a new ‘Enterprise.’ This is not the Enterprise we grew up with. This is not the Enterprise JJ gave us, spinning us into darkness. I think I am headed in the general direction Roddenberry hoped, but I really don’t know. It is bigger than I. If you are interested, there is clearly sufficient Trek lore to make it reasonably accessible in terms of a fan fiction paradigm. If you want trek, and you want different, well, I doubt you could go much different. It is metaphysical. That may be off-putting to some. I am not recommending the books per say, just letting you know if you liked Pathfinder and Garcia, you might like this other thing. I don’t think a lot of people can access it the way it is. Three people have written me about, each of them have PhDs, and one is a retired psychiatrist… They got it. They understood it. All I can say is, well, I am glad someone does. My writing is about my personal evolution… If you’re interested, you will find almost all of my new stuff under the pseudonym ‘Ion Light.’ I wrote under a pseudonym because my work was so insane that I wanted plausible deniability. I am at the point now where I am less concern about that point. “Risk is our business.” This stuff is metaphysical, but it also super sexual. I have yet to separate the sexuality from my mind, my spirituality, and my writing. “Not Here” was the first book that is completely my own work, it’s about magic and tech, and it has a ‘50 shades of grey’ gone Technicolor feel to it. The variation of Trek will be found in the two books: “I/Tulpa: And the Worlds of Crossover” and “I/Tulpa: Learning Curve.” I/Tulpa, or the Crossover Worlds, is the series. These two are Trek; they are not Trek. This is my personal Enterprise. Feel free to come on board, be crew or a guest, write your own version practicing my recommended journaling technique. Make sure you check out the new Ten Forwards, ‘Xanadu.’ Have a drink on me.

Between work and family, my time is limited. Every morning between 5 and 7, I write. I write from a state of a trance. I have a tulpa helping in this endeavor. Her name is Loxy Isadora Bliss. Whether you call her a tulpa, a soulbound, or I am channeling an incarnate spirit, or an imaginary friend, we really don’t care what people call it, we just know it works. I have accessed something that is bringing me joy. She wrote her own book, “Underneath It All.” The psychiatrist I mentioned says her book is better written than mine. I may put her in charge of all future writing. We write daily, and we have been exploring the psychological realms known as wonderlands. Everything in me that wanted resolution, like movies that left me unsatisfied, or televisions series I miss, I have visited them and called them fan fictions. If you’re interest, look these up, as I think they are actually well written

SG1: Point Five

Doctor Who: the Continuity of One

I/Tulpa: Sex Stars and Singularities (which is, in essence, a Space 1999 reboot, only much more believable in execution. I have never been happy with the idea of fission pushing the moon into another solar system in the time scales utilized by the inhabitants of Alpha and still have hope for an away mission before the moon is gone from there. Seriously, until that piece is worked out by Hollywood or BBC, they can’t revive it because nerds are too smart!)

I kind of want to use this moment to discuss Discovery, the direction of Trek, but I find I am unable of being properly critical without being disparaging. I get the sense that most of the difficulties they are having are related to intellectual and merchandising rights. I find that sad. There has always been a rather slant towards dystopian paradigms that society and individual easily go into. This, too, is sad, but more so when you hear how much Trek influenced the writers and actors… Which means, what, either they weren’t positively influenced to build the legacy Rodenberry wanted, ‘the future is better,’ or someone somewhere has an agenda to make things deliberately bad? Seriously, there is some solid good fan fiction. Prelude to Axanar is just one example. Instead of suing, more gain would have been in offering to support and green lighting that project. The good will of that act would have done more towards positive PR and bringing new people than the court thing, which only makes it more ironic that they find themselves being sued for intellectual infringements. Maybe we should take some advice from

Roddenberry, go beyond the paradigm at hand and make it more inclusive. If you see fan work that stands out, bring it into the fold and support it! That is not just a sale pitch to take my stuff on. Ignore my stuff. I am just one voice. But the fifteen minutes of Axanar was better written than the second and third reboot together. It was better written than Discovery.

I watched every episode of Discovery. I like the actors and actresses. I am hopeful the second season can bring it around, but bringing in the names of Pike and Spock to try and save it, that puts me on edge. I am worried. You can only stray so far from cannon before it’s no longer that thing you love. Trek is that thing we love. It has touched more people in more countries and more times than any other show in history. That’s meaningful. The recipe for that seems clear to me: the future is better, humanity is better. We grow up and we learn to love ourselves and others. Without that message, there is no future.

My humble opinion. Be at peace, and always, Travel Light.

John Erik Ege

Specific items influencing this book:

TNG episodes

Second Chances

Transfiguration

Firstborn

TAS

The Slaver Weapon

A Slaver Stasis box was basically a time capsule, perfectly preserving the contents by completely halting time within the confines of the box. Regardless of what it was inside, a freshly plucked apple, or even a hamster, as long as the box remained seal, the contents would last indefinitely. Once sealed, the power supply for the box came from the Universe itself, relying on Zero Point Energy which literally drew power from space/time itself, and so theoretically, the boxes would last the life Universe. Zero point energy had been known about since the late 1950’s on Earth, but the fortuitous discovery of a Stasis box on Earth revealed the first practical application of that energy source, and though a dozen Stasis boxes had been discovered since, no one had yet been able to duplicate them. The contents of that Stasis box discovered on Earth had been an antigravity belt and that was how humans acquired antigravity technology. Since then, almost every xeno-archaeologist worth his salt has been searching for the next stasis box. The last known discovery of a Stasis Box was Stardate 4187.3, by Spock, Uhura, and Sulu. The contents of that box had been a super weapon of some sort. Though the Spock’s report claimed the super weapon self destructed when the operator failed to supply the correct password, Garcia suspected the weapon was sitting in a storage container in some top secret warehouse.

Beyond the Farthest Star

TOS

Cats Paw

Mudd’s planet

Miri, episode 8.

I cringe at the duplicate Earth, but there are some good things about this episode. The adulterated language. “Grups,” and “the Onlies.” The fact that the antagonists are children is really interesting. A good plot contrivance of an explanation for finding another race of humanoids that looks human. “Oh, they are human!” We know Kirk has requested Star Fleet send some teachers to help the Onlies, and we can assume that Star Fleet will establish a base and or a colony, as here is a world, perfectly compatible to our evolutionary history. The “Onlies” are afraid of adults, because they age, get scabs, and attack anything that moves. Sounds and looks like a Zombie to me. Of course, not zombies, but probably just your typical teenager after puberty, raging on emotions, while simultaneously aging so fast that he is dead within seven days.

“The Omega Glory,” TOS season 2, episode 23

I found the description of the Exeter’s Captain killing hundreds of thousands of people disturbing as a kid, in a huge way. Lots of folks have expounded on this episode, which has many discussion points, but this small thing, like the story about the Indianapolis which was in the Jaws story. Clearly Captain Ronald Tracey is mad. I would like to think he was evil, but this story is discussing evil, and how insidiously deceptive it can be. There is an absolute right and wrong, even in Star Trek, so don’t ever let the discussion of the prime directive fool you into thinking that the Federation is permissive and anything goes, because that’s just not true.

Star Trek Books

“The Cry of the Onlies,” by Judy Klass.

Including events after the episode of ‘Miri,’ the book deals with the Miri’s world as being a copy of Earth by having that specific knowledge erased from texts and references, which I find bizarre in and of itself, as suppression of knowledge, especially science knowledge and having an exact duplicate of Earth should be scientific curiosity to say the least, by Fleet seems unlikely. How would you contain that sort of information. Any traveler from earth would be like, “hey, wait, did I leave?” And since Kirk wasn’t about to leave a planet of children to themselves, especially human children with a parallel Earth history and culture,

“Forgotten History” by Christopher Bernnett.

This author proposes it isn’t a copy of earth, it is actually Earth from a parallel timeline. Supposedly, Miri’s planet drifted into the ‘main timeline.’ My only contention would be this: hypothetically, if there are parallel time lines, (clearly established in several episodes of Trek in all its incarnations and therefore safe to use for plot contrivances,) there would be no “main” time line. A universe, or a ‘multiverse,’ with divergent timelines wouldn’t necessarily have to one main that splits endlessly, excepting that makes it easier to think of it, like a tree or river that branches off from the main trunk. I guess what I’m saying that there is no way to determine the ‘main’ one from inside a time line, because all individual timelines would feel like the main one from the reference point of the person in the timeline.

Star Trek: Books

Assignment: Eternity, 1998 Greg Cox

Gary Seven and Isis return, and there is brief illusion to Pyris VII when Kirk remembers being chased by a giant cat. Gary also hints of impending, devastating changes to Kirk’s timelines, and ends up hijacking the Enterprise and taking them deep into the heart of the Romulan Empire. I didn’t remember reading it, but I wonder, in the deep reaches of my mind all my story arcs were originally influenced by this.

Kudos to anyone who remembers this short story, title, and book.

It’s in one of the Star Trek 1 through 10 books.

Kirk and Spock on beaming down to earth switch places with Leonrard Nimoy and

William Shatner, and so the actors find themselves on the real Enterprise and the and Kirk and Spock find themselves in the role of fiction… I reference that in this book, and agent 347 hails from that world. I don’t just make this stuff up. ☺ I could, but, how much fun would that be?

I am sure there are other prominent allusions which I failed to reference. That is my failure. If you see something that you believe should be referenced here, feel free to tell me. My warmest regards to everyone who ever wrote or participated in Trek.

Peace and love john