The scout crew also reported the existence of a few dozen manned sub-light vessels operating throughout the star system; no warp signatures were detected. Radio signals indicate that the population believes it to be the year 2023, and there is historical evidence that a genetics-driven war engulfed the entire planet within the last two decades. Analysis suggests that this duplicate Earth likely has a global culture very similar to the real Earth of the real 21st Century. Our Earth, however, did not have sub-light, extra-orbital, manned spacecraft until later in the century, and we did not experience a devastating global genetics war in our 1990s.
The scout vessel was unable to get too close to this alternate Earth, for fear of being detected. The lack of any warp signals indicate this Earth to be pre-warp, and, therefore, it is protected by the Prime Directive. The crew did gather sufficient early data, though, as well as a number of photographs, all of which will be heavily analyzed, here, aboard Enterprise Station. Future non-interference missions are all but assured.
Now, the question of WHY there is a copy of Earth’s solar system is an enticing one. Some of our station crew claim to have past memories of USS Enterprise-D missions to two alternate versions of an “Earth 2” – one where the planet’s population had been wiped out by a disease, and the other where the planet was never populated by Humans, but saw visitors from other times and places. Those Enterprise missions never happened in our present timeline, and no one remembers the coordinates of those alternate Earths (to allow follow-up visits in this reality). It is possible, however, that if our alternate selves allegedly visited two other solar system copies, this one, in the distant Gamma Quadrant, may have a related origin.
Obviously, we will need further intel missions to the Gamma Quadrant Earth before we can speculate too deeply. Still, this discovery adds a new wrinkle to our deployment at the Bajoran wormhole. The Federation may have just made another discovery of a lifetime, and that will, undoubtedly, bring even more attention our way. The Gamma Quadrant just became a deeper curiosity, and now, apparently, we have a mysterious Human home world to protect as well.
-Lieutenant Commander Sam Archer
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January 11, 2370 – (Devron Timeline 3.0)