YES - Close to the Edge: Star Beagle Adventures episodes 12 - 19
- Thread starter Robert Bruce Scott
- Start date
Glad you liked that little trope and thanks for the kind words!
While a lot of fans immediately admired the cold logic of Spock, I always felt that both Nemoy and the writers were always offering a critique of the cold, dispassionate thinker. Nemoy created an apparently dispassionate character who was always quietly laughing up his sleeve. John Sevork is very similar
That was a frustration particularly about Voyager. Stuck out in unfriendly territory, but somehow always having a full complement of photon torpedoes and enough shuttlecraft to crash a dozen of them...
Turns out that was as much a frustration for the writers as for the fans. The writers desperately wanted to show a grungy, deteriorating Voyager just barely making it from one challenge to the next, but the producers were concerned that would be too much for the fans.
Thanks!! rbs
Eventually I will repost Hunter to the updated Ad Astra. Glad you're going back through it - I'm rather proud of that series. Thanks!! rbs
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 7: The Lift
Down at the end, close by a river…
13.7
The Lift
The Lift
There was something hypnotic about the Pattiseema Lift, linking the Godavari and Krishna rivers, just a few kilometers west of where each emptied into the Bay of Bengal. Flight specialist Maya Davi had rowed up and down this canal many times with her mother when she was a girl, checking for erosion along the banks, charting the flow of the muddy brown waters.
The boat was one that the Davi family had built and rebuilt using the same tools and techniques that their ancestors had used for thousands of years. It was a point of pride that this knowledge had been passed down for so many generations. The art of boat making, the materials used, everything had changed over and over. Not just updates of old techniques… technological revolutions.
But old ways or new, old boat or new didn’t make much difference to the work that the Davi family had been doing for generations: The Davi family minded the Lift. The water needed to be sampled, the banks needed constant attention, the wildlife needed to be catalogued, the irrigation canals that sprang off the Lift required regular measurement.
Slowly rowing up and down the Lift was the best way to catalogue all of these items and more. For Maya it had been a long, wonderful dream, at least in retrospect. As the youngest child, her job was to transcribe her mother’s notes. Her older brother and two older sisters rowed. Her father steered the boat. Her mother used a variety of sensors to measure the banks.
Those long, straight banks made it clear that this was no naturally occurring river. Most of the Lift was so straight that it was like a road, stretching from horizon to horizon without a single bend.
A road of brown, muddy water. Carrying natural nutrients, making vast stretches of what was once barren lands into fertile farmland.
“Labeo fimriatus… Maya! Write it down!” Maya’s mother often had to rouse Maya from her daydreams. The Lift was so hypnotic to look upon.
Maya scribbled the Linnaean taxonomy into the wildlife notebook, followed by: “Fringed-lipped carp.” And prepared for the inevitable lecture:
“It’s a big one, 122 centimeters! So good to see such a big specimen. You know that these fish, along with a few endangered varieties of turtles moved into the Lift shortly after it was dredged. The Lift was only meant to be a temporary solution before other canals were made. But the endangered species made it their home and did so well here, with some management, that they were taken off the endangered list. And so was the Lift. They quite literally saved each other.” Maya’s mother loved telling this story.
“Honey, I know you don’t want to be a river biologist. Or canal engineer. Just try to focus on the here and now.”
Maya looked up in surprise. This was something her mother had never said. Eventually her two eldest brothers had both married scientists and the legacy of the Davi family was secured. But not before she had enlisted in Star Fleet, at age 17, just to get as far away from the Lift as possible. And now she was back here.
“This is the lesson the Lift has to teach you, Maya,” her mother shrimp said. Maya had no idea how such a huge creature could possibly fit into the Davi family boat. It would have looked far more harmonious simply enjoying the water of the Lift. She also had no idea how this creature could possibly be her mother.
“This canal, linking two vital rivers, has new tributaries added all the time. New irrigation lines. It takes constant upkeep. And the people taking care of the Lift are not the same people who built it.”
Maya’s mother shrimp reached out with a whisker and gently stroked Maya’s hair. Maya had always loved it when her mother stroked her hair. “You ran away and joined Star Fleet to leave the Lift behind. And here, billions of light years from your home, you have come back to the Lift. You have to learn to appreciate your life and appreciate your destiny. The Lift must be cared for. And if cared for properly, it will provide new homes and new opportunities for endangered species…”
“Including yours.”
13.7
I had similar frustrations.
Funnily enough, not a million miles away from the Krank/Carter plot here, one of my favourite Voyager moments (which was a sadly small list) was Tuvok/Seven’s storyline in the Year of Hell episodes. Seven ends up having to blind Tuvok to save the ship. Then, racked with guilt, she sort of becomes his seeing eye dog on top of all of her other responsibilities. Alas, that showed dangerous amounts of character development, so the whole thing was reset button-ed away and the two characters went back to barely saying two words to each other every week. 
It has been pointed out to me that a surprising variety of intelligent mushrooms show up as antagonists/protagonists in my stories... Thanks!! rbs
I know. Ever since ST:Hunter, I've never been able to look at a king oyster in quite the same way.
Or a king bolete. They are cute as a button. No horse shiitake.
-Will
-Will
Glad you're enjoying the bits of humor sprinkled in with the horror...Still loving Krank
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 8: Life On The Edge
Close to the edge, round by the corner…
13.8
Life On The Edge
Life On The Edge
“Of course the most invasive species that we are intimately familiar with is… anybody?”
The biology class was one of many pre-med track classes at Upper South Trantor Preparatory, a school located near the top of one of the tallest, most massive skyscrapers in the City of Trantor on Cun Ling, the artificial planet that was only now beginning to realize a significant portion of its population potential. The school was far from exclusive; it was a tributary for the University of Upper South Trantor, itself not an “Ivy League” (whatever that meant) school. Like all universities that included the words “of” and “Trantor,” UUST was a public university, open to everyone.
One of the many andorian students said, brightly, “Homo sapiens!”
“Correct!” Professor Joza inhaled deeply, savoring the steam that exuded from the cup attached to her chest. Few people realized that the Benzites did not require this steam to survive in standard atmospheres. The steam recycled directly from their lungs helped these extraordinarily intelligent blue people maintain a stable internal temperature and humidity, which, in turn, excited neurotransmitters that enhanced their already considerable native intelligence.
Kara Garrity was, predictably, annoyed. As one of only 27 human students in this school largely populated with andorian teachers and students, she felt oddly out of place within a city that sported the highest concentration of humans anywhere in the galaxy. She was at this school because her grades did not qualify her for any other school anywhere near her home. Most of those had large populations of andorians as well. Upper South Trantor had a very large andorian population. Minuscule compared to their human neighbors, but still the largest concentration of andorians anywhere outside of their home moon.
“What about the Borg?” Kara asked.
“Would anyone like to answer?” Professor Joza asked.
“They’re not a species,” one of the more annoying andorian students answered.
“Correct,” Joza replied. “The Borg are not a species. Like the Federation, the Borg are a culture composed of several subject species. Even more subject species than are in the Federation.”
“Member species in the Federation are not subjugated!” Kara exclaimed.
“This is a biology class, not a civics class,” Joza responded, “But, for the sake of clarity, every student in this room, and me as well, we are all part of the population of Cun Ling, a full member planet in the Federation. Are we not all, famously, equally subject to Federation law? Full membership requires that planetary law be subject and subsumed under the Federation Tribunal.”
Kara Garrity had no response to this. She sat in her seat and stewed. Indeed it was the next day after this conversation that she had left home, taken a tram to the local Star Fleet base in Central Trantor and enlisted.
“So you see,” Professor Shrimp continued, “You, too, have been subjugated. Just because you were born into subjugation and raised to admire the system to which you are subject, even to believe that, because it was founded in large part by your ancestors, that it is your birthright, you have, nonetheless, been subjugated.”
Kara continued to stew, hoping against hope that her gigantic crustacean professor would not continue to elaborate.
“There have been many master species such as the humans," Professor Shrimp elaborated. "But humanity is very interesting. Your dominance is carefully disguised. You consider yourselves as first among equals. It is both amusing and quite clever. And, quite possibly, supremely successful. The various subjects of your human empire can look at what subjugation to other empires would look like and find their current yoke far more acceptable.”
“I am equal…” Kara started, then her voice trailed off in confusion and some embarrassment.
“Equal to a vulcan?” Professor Shrimp asked. “They are stronger and smarter than you and live nearly twice as long. An andorian? They’re much faster than you and far more sensitive to light, sound, and, especially, balance. And yet, largely thanks to your much, much larger populations, you humans dominate your Federation.”
The giant professor reached out with an antenna and tapped Chief Medical Technician Kara Garrity’s arm. “If you are too comfortable in your illusions, you will miss the dangers around you. Such as the fungus growing in Eva Mendez’s jaw…
Kara’s eyes opened wide. “What?”
“It is the same species that invaded this ship a few weeks ago,” the giant shrimp explained. “The spores exist partly in subspace. They have gotten into a lot of things, but by far the most dangerous is their colonization of Eva’s weakened jaw. They are a very invasive species…”
13.8
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