The Death of Beauty

I must apologize for my lack of posts these past few days. I haven’t known quite how to recap the end of this mission. What began as a mission of exploration to a new, unexplored planet, quickly turned into a rescue and recovery mission. We reclaimed those who were lost, but the things we’ve learned about this planet, since then, have ended in sadness.

We came here to explore a beautiful planet, but the only way we were able to do so, was through accidental time travel. And during those time-travel events, we discovered that this planet was once populated. Those natives are gone now, the result of a civilization that died out over centuries, but their legacy remains. Tomorrow, under orders from Captain Picard, we are going to destroy that legacy, in order to preserve it.

Tomorrow, we are going to destroy this beautiful planet, in order to save its past. We are going to destroy the means by which we traveled through time, so that no one else can accidentally (or intentionally) do the same, thereby further contaminating the civilization that lived here (the civilization some of our crew met while they were missing). However, by destroying that means of time travel, we will also be destroying the wild beauty of the current planet below us. We will be plunging this planet into environmental chaos in order to protect its unique history.

I know this must be done – the Prime Directive demands it -- but I don’t like it. I hate that we have to do the right thing, and I hate that the right thing requires fire and destruction in the present.

Tomorrow, we will destroy a beautiful planet, in order to save it’s past -- and the people who lived here. You can imagine how heavily that weighs upon the hearts and minds aboard the Enterprise.

-Lieutenant Sam Archer

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March 24, 2365 -- (Original Devron Timeline)