It has been a challenging two weeks (since my last update) for the crew of the USS Enterprise-D. We’ve been struggling to keep the ship operating, especially since everyone aboard (except Captain Picard and myself) have lost all memory of the last five years (since 2358). Many of our crew no longer remember obtaining the skills that qualified them for their current positions. Others are struggling to adapt to having no memory of being assigned here. Some of our younger officers believe that they are, once again, Starfleet Academy cadets. And all of us are slowly adapting to being (physically) five years younger. We’re a ship with a broken crew.
Even I, myself, am uniquely “broken”, and in a way I cannot yet fully define.
Ever since that “many Enterprises” quantum anomaly disappeared, I’ve been having strange dreams – “temporal dreams”, as I like to call them. Somehow, these vivid dreams have caused me to witness historical Human events, apparently through the eyes of people present during those events. In one dream, I was aboard the old ocean-going steamship, the RMS Titanic, during her successful maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1912. In another dream, I witnessed the unchallenged launch of Zefram Cochrane’s warp ship, the Phoenix in 2063. In still another dream, I saw through the eyes of a 1930s New York City social worker named Edith Keeler, before she fell to her death down a flight of stairs. And, in a fourth dream, I may have witnessed one potential near-future of our own USS Enterprise-D. I have since confirmed that the events of my three past-era dreams did happen in real life, and they happened exactly as historical records depict.
I have no idea why I was able to witness those events, or why I witnessed them while I was sleeping. Either I have been blessed with a new “temporal ability” of some kind, or I really am broken, just like the rest of this crew.
Unfortunately, the crew, and myself, are not the only things that are broken. The Enterprise, herself, has de-aged as well, so to speak. This ship has re-developed minor quirks and system errors that were, originally, ironed out in her pre-launch shakedown phase. The Enterprise is operational, but struggling to adapt to her present status. We are, as a crew, working out these quirks and errors – fixing them on the fly. We will likely need an engineering assessment, in port somewhere, before we are (once again) able to be of value to the fleet. The Enterprise, originally launched as a state-of-the-art flagship of Starfleet, has lost her ability to serve in that capacity.
In fact, as we have since learned, there is now another USS Enterprise in service – the Nebula-class USS Enterprise-E – and she currently operates as the flagship of Starfleet. The new Enterprise-E was scheduled for commissioning in 2365, under a different name, two years after we disappeared in the Devron Anomaly. When our Enterprise-D was declared lost in the Anomaly, that Nebula-class ship was given the name, Enterprise, in our honor, and launched as the new flagship. As of today’s date, the USS Enterprise-E has been in active service for four years, under the command of Captain William T. Riker – the man originally chosen to be our Enterprise-D first officer in 2363.
Our USS Enterprise-D is now just another ship in the fleet, or, at least, we will be, once we are fully repaired, cleared for service, and recommissioned (either with our current name, or given another, so that the fleet does not have two active ships bearing the same name).
As far as our current status, we are presently at warp, heading to the Federation colony world of Lya III. Lya is the Starfleet command hub for this region of space (near this part of the “border” with Cardassian space). We have been ordered there for repairs, crew assessments, crew reassignment, and substantial briefings with Starfleet Command. We will arrive at Lya III sometime tomorrow.
Since I last posted an update from the Enterprise Public Affairs Office, we’ve been reclassified as alive, and multiple messages have been sent, via commship, to Earth and other planets. On May 16, Captain Picard ordered us to depart our “anomaly-relocated” coordinates, and head to the Federation colony on Iadara (5 light years from those coordinates). We arrived at Iadara on May 17, spent three days in orbit, and were then ordered to depart for the more sizable colony (and Starfleet Command facility) on Lya III. The travel distance was about 30 light years, with a brief stop at Minos Korva, this past Tuesday. We then resumed travel to Lya on Wednesday, and will finally arrive tomorrow. I anticipate our stay at Lya III to last for a few weeks.
I may know one potential future for our USS Enterprise-D, however, I don’t know if that future will come to pass. Unfortunately, if – or until -- that future becomes reality, I cannot comment on the nature of what I witnessed. But I can say, regardless of any possible future insight, this ship, and this crew, have a number of tough days ahead. We need to rediscover who we are; we need to determine where our future service interests reside; and we need to find our place in a timeline that developed, without a USS Enterprise-D, for the past six years.
We were “dead”, and now we are alive again. Welcome to 2369.
-Lieutenant Sam Archer
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May 27, 2369 – (Devron Timeline 3.0)
Enterprise Station :: Public Affairs Office :: 2370