Star Trek Ideas and Recommendations Thread

[WhiteDragon25]

Well... first real post here at QQ... this place has a... reputation... but since I haven't found any Star Trek threads here, I thought I might as well contribute this.

Post whatever Star Trek fanfics you find here. NSFW ones should go to this thread's counterpart in the NSFW Index.

 

[Death by Chains]

Wow. I know QQ Is For Lewds, but you'd think Star Trek would have at least a little discussion here....

In any case, I might as well throw this plot-bunny out on as many places as I can think of:


Readers of Paint and Powder (over on SB) might remember that I have a minor fixation on the TNG episode Ensign Ro, which introduced us to the Bajoran plight. It also established that the Bajoran Exiles have built small, self-governing (if definitely hardscrabble) communities on several worlds, including those of the Valo system. There are distinct diplomatic possibilities in that situation, which could make for good stories. Now imagine that VADM. Kennelly looks at this situation and is not, as written in the episode, one of the most staggeringly credulous morons to ever wear pips on his collar, and indeed instead of being eager to cuddle up to the Cardassians over a 'shared problem', realises the Cardies are patently untrustworthy and wants to do something to curb their tendency towards shenanigans.

Now, prior to the Occupation the Bajorans were a warp-capable society, but utterly disinterested in expansion or empire; sadly, the Cardassians had different ideas. Any decision or ruling coming from Bajor about the status of their off-world settlements issued during the Occupation must be considered inherently dubious and Cardassian-approved, if not outright co-written by the occupying forces. The Valo system seems to have no native sapient life, despite its fairly welcoming conditions, and the episode never mentions any kind of government or overseeing authority other than what the Bajorans have created since their arrival; indeed, the system is explicitly said to fall (just) outside the Cardassian border. Which means it is apparently unclaimed territory.

So, instead of being used as patsies for babby's first false-flag attack as we see on-screen, what if the 'diplomatic crisis' in the system in 2368 is something else, something a little more robust? In a move that horrifies certain factions in Paris, Keeve Falor and his people in the Valo system declare themselves Bajor's first interstellar colony; other Bajoran-inhabited systems in similar states follow suit, and they quickly aglomerate into an ad hoc protostate, the Associated Bajoran Colonies. Further, with Bajor itself under occupation, the ABC declare that they are not only the de facto Bajoran government-in-exile, they are in a de facto state of war with the Cardassian Union. As such, they formally request military aid from any nation willing to assist them in their fight. (Many Klingons: "You had me at 'fight'!")

Kennelly knows that the Cardassians are already in the process of withdrawing from Bajor, and that this is going to make them very, very upset, but as far as he's concerned that's a feature, not a bug. Starfleet's overriding priority right now might be obssessing over the possibility of another Borg incursion, but if nothing else, the ABC can be a chicken-bone that the Cardies will have to deal with if they get fresh ideas about pushing the Federation border back towards Earth, and hopefully that'll cost them enough time and resources that Starfleet will be able to pry loose enough force to smash the latest round of Cardassian stupidity before returning to their actual main problem. Naturally, the Resistance cells based in what is now the ABC form the core of its coalescing Militia, and Kennelly lets it be known that Starfleet can't do much to stop Federation member-worlds, businesses, and private citizens if they choose to sell or donate ships and weapons to the Bajoran Colonial Militia (and its germinating space-force, the Free Bajoran Navy), or serve with it for a time to offer their expertise as instructors. Enterprise finds itself assigned to overseeing one of these training missions in this version of events, much to the abject horror of CAPT. Jean-Luc 'Violence is the last resort!' Picard, but other officers (including CAPT. Jellico of USS Cairo) find it a refreshing attack of common sense.

This process ends up snowballing a little, in a way that Kennelly semi-predicted but finds himself a little bemused by. The formerly Federation-administered colonies in the DMZ that were ceded (abandoned!) under the peace-treaty with the Cardassian Union, the worlds and people who would have become the Maquis, take a look at what the ABC is doing and they decide they want in; they've already been functionally stripped of their Federation membership and citizenship, they want to stay in their homes and fight to keep them, and they seem to have a shared cause with the ABC, so many of those worlds petition the ABC provisional government for annexation and protection, and are duly absorbed into what now becomes the Bajoran Frontier Protectorate. (If Bajor joins the Federation at some later point, they'll regain their status as Federation citizens living on Federation worlds; if it remains independent, at least they'll have open, whole-hearted Bajoran backing in their fight to hold onto their homes.)

Now, all of this is kind of an exercise in realpolitik, which ST: TNG was a little too idealistic to sully itself with. It might have been a better fit on ST: DS9, if it had been in the right timeframe, and certainly most of the world-building that this hangs upon came from DS9 episodes. But certainly, if the Cardassians withdraw from Bajor on-schedule in 2369, CDR. Benjamin Sisko is going to arrive on the former Terok Nor to find the Bajoran Provisional Government dealing with the headaches of having suddenly and accidentally acquired a far-flung tract of colony-worlds, many of them inhabited and defended by Federation 'immigrants', as well as the core of a modest but rapidly-professionalising interstellar navy, albeit one on the lighter end of the tonnage scale both individually and in aggregate. And as commander of Deep Space Nine, Sisko is up to his neck in all the problems and headaches attendant to that.
And then the wormhole is discovered, and things really get complicated. (The Sisko: "FML!")

Sadly, my muse is insufficiently focused (and my supply of spoons so short) that I doubt I can ever do this concept any kind of justice. But if anyone else wants to take the premise and run with it, write pieces in a timeline where VADM. Kennelly was not a drooling idiot in his handling of the Bajoran issue and ended up semi-accidentally creating an interstellar Bajoran state before the start of DS9, and the butterfly-effect it would have on the plots of the rest of ST: TNG and basically the whole of ST: DS9, I would be very interested to see where it goes.