Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 9: Long Distance Runaround
Scene 3: Written in the Stars
9.3
Written in the Stars
“Our recent experience with the holy landers must place them clearly in a high risk category.” Major Janet Carter was speaking as a military analyst.
Captain Skip Howard had been less than thrilled to be called out of his anniversary celebration to the U.S.S. Beagle’s conference room for this meeting. But he could not put it off without drawing attention to the meaningfulness of this week to him. Better to stretch out the celebrations than to invite too much scrutiny into his private life. He was more concerned about the potential impact on the crew than on his own privacy.
“Would your characterization be influenced by the religious language that our universal translators inferred from the context of a very alien language?” Howard asked.
“It has to be,” Major Carter replied. “Thanks to our interception of subspace radio broadcasts, our universal translator matrix has been updated with languages of many species indigenous to this region of the galaxy, including races that have, currently, or in the past, direct contact with the holy landers. Whether these aliens intend to be perceived as religious icons or devout in any way, this is the way they are perceived. Just as the founders were perceived as gods, these holy landers are perceived as prophets by the species whose worlds they inhabit.”
“There are many, many examples of one species worshipping another, most significantly worship of the orions,” said China Lane, the cultural systems team leader from the UFP diplomatic corps.
“Which remains a threat to the Federation,” Major Carter responded. “Orion worshippers are the primary strength of the Orion Syndicate and an ongoing genesis of terrorist attacks, particularly on military and law enforcement. They were responsible for the destruction of at least 3 starships during the Dominion War…”
“What are you learning from communications and media intercepts?” Commodore Yui Song interrupted.
“It is difficult to estimate just how far the Holy Lands extend, but it includes, in the nearby area, 5 solar systems that were initially settled by the descendants of the purple and the blue - the survivors of the Avi al Selan system we just visited. There are further flung colonies of that civilization that have not been colonized by the holy landers. I think the operative word is, “yet.” The holy landings started about 40 years ago and these 5 planets are all recently colonized. We do not yet have a clear idea where their home system is, but it appears to be close to the galactic rim.”
“How far are we now from the galactic rim?” asked Commodore Yui.
“Just under 25 hundred light years,” replied premiere T’Eln. “There is another interesting facet that may help us predict where the home system might be found. Over the past 100 years, the stars in this region entered their moment of greatest concentration, creating an unusually dense region of stars for this region of space. A star cluster that will gradually dissipate over the next million years due to normal movement of the stars in their individual orbits of the galactic center.”
“Do you suspect a correlation?” asked Captain Skip Howard.
“It was serendipitous for the purple and the blue, giving them a number of systems within reach of their relatively low technology to which they could emigrate following the collapse of most of their native environment,” T’Eln remarked. “The holy landers may be taking advantage of this cluster either deliberately or coincidentally. The rapid, recent growth of the Holy Lands appears to be written in the stars.”
9.3