Apparently, Captain Sam and his crew of 25 individuals, are native to a reality (this reality) in which the United Federation of Planets was never created, and Earth is the center of a small republic of Human colony worlds. There are peace treaties and alliances between neighboring species, but humanity’s influence in the stars does not extend nearly as far as it does in our Federation reality. Here, Earth’s sphere of influence is at peace, and very few contacts have been made with the distant Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian and Ferengi empires.
Captain Sam and his crew are operating an independent starship (owned by him and his wife) named, “Serenity”, after a ship in one of Captain Sam’s favorite Old Earth television shows. Sam, and his crew, are under contract with an Earth company known as Belladyne Inc., to explore unknown space, and seek out new sources of minerals, habitable planets, and friendly trade allies. Starfleet does exist, but it is a much smaller organization, and one often plagued with financial limitations.
The Serenity was dropping out of warp, in what is, to them, relatively unexplored space, to pursue claims of strange anomalies – almost mythic in nature. Most ships avoid this region of space because of legends surrounding the disappearance of deep space vessels. Belladyne wanted more data on this strange region, so the intrepid crew of Serenity was tapped for a mission. Apparently, some Earth technology, in this reality, has advanced further than in our reality, and Belladyne has just developed a new scanning device that may be useful out here. Captain Sam believes our presence, in their reality, may have some connection to the mysteries of this region.
Our Federation reality has no such legends or lore for this region, and, where we come from, this part of space is well explored, well settled, and relatively uninteresting.
So, while it may be odd, and somewhat disconcerting, for Ensign Cassie and myself be working with mirror versions of ourselves, their insight may be able to get the Enterprise-D back home, to our reality. We don’t know how long that will take, but we welcome the assistance. The Serenity does not have the capabilities to get our warp engines running again (it's too small of a ship), but we do have fully-functioning impulse engines, and if an anomaly that brought us here is still out there, it is likely to be within practical impulse range.
I’ve often wondered why our PAO communication system is still working, and still reaching ships and crews in our reality. An open anomaly, to our Federation reality, may provide that answer. Our signal may be reaching through the alleged anomaly – which means, somewhere nearby, the anomaly is still open, and waiting to be found.
With our own native Starfleet/Federation technology, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to locate our terminus of an anomaly (in our reality), but it is good to know that the door is still open.
-Lieutenant Sam Archer
-------------------------------------------------------------
May 3, 2366 -- (Original Devron Timeline, altered by temporal anomaly)