Diane Carey
The Enterprise encounters a gaseous entity that appears to be inhabited by the ghosts of some Russian seamen who had been lost when a Russian aircraft carrier was mysteriously destroyed in the mid-1990s. Deanna Troi believes the seamen are in some way captives who want to die, but Picard is reluctant to attack the entity, even after it is attracted to the Enterprise. The entity attacks and Picard has the saucer section separate in an attempt to allow the civilians to escape, but the entity turns its attention to the saucer until the battle-bridge section intervenes. Picard creates an antimatter explosion to keep the trans-dimensional entity occupied as the two halves of the Enterprise reconnect. While Deanna seems to be the center of attention for the life forces trapped by the entity, Data seems to be the center of attention for the entity itself. They come to realize that the entity is partially alive, although a constructed object, and that it is trying to preserve life even though it destroys the objects and bodies that serve the lifeforms. While the Enterprise is lying dormant in space (to avoid detection by the entity) Data steals a shuttle and heads out, hoping to make contact with the entity, and Riker sets out after him. The entity attacks Data’s shuttle and, while Data’s body is recovered via the transporter, there is no life in it. After undergoing a period of sensory deprivation (to get a feel for what the lost seamen are going through) Picard agrees to attempt to destroy the entity, and finally succeeds in doing so (by utilizing one of Wesley’s experiments to increase phaser power). Data is restored to life, and the life essences of the lost seamen appear on the bridge and salute the Enterprise crew, before vanishing. [Timeline: soon after the events in Encounter at Farpoint.]
Gene DeWeese
The Enterprise discovers an abandoned space station and, while investigating it, Geordi and Data are transported somewhere. The Enterprise begins a search for them. Meanwhile, Geordi and Data find themselves on another space station and being mistaken for the Builders (the name given to the aliens who had abandoned the station 10,000 year ago). Apparently, that alien race had set up a series of ‘guard posts’ around various planets with the aim of stopping the inhabitants from developing to the point where they moved into space. Shar-Lon discovered the abandoned station around his planet (which was threatened by nuclear war) and used the station to remove all nuclear warheads and impose peace. His well-meaning efforts effectively turned his world into a prison planet, guarded by the Peacekeepers who lived in an orbital habitat. Even some of the Peacekeepers have their doubts about what Shar-Lon is doing, including his brother, Shar-Tel. Geordi and Data talk Shar-Lon into taking them back to the alien station, known as the Repository, but they are kidnapped by Shar-Tel before they get there. Riker and Yar get themselves transported to the Repository in an effort to find Geordi and Data but find themselves cut off as the subspace-transporter burnt out their subspace transceivers. The Enterprise foursome try to bring the two brothers together, but Shar-Lon escapes back to the Peacekeepers’ habitat, only to be shot by his deputy, Kel-Nar. Before dying, Shar-Lon had initiated the transportation of the group from the Enterprise (along with Shar-Tel) into space, but Geordi, who had managed to get some control over the Repository, gets himself transported back. He is unable to rescue the others because he gets disabled in a fight with Kel-Nar. The Enterprise turns up in time to rescue the others, the Repository self-destructs, and (using a bit of subterfuge) the Enterprise crew manage to bring peace between the planet’s inhabitants and the so-called Peacekeepers.
Carmen Carter
The Enterprise comes to the rescue of the starship Ferrel, which is battling an alien starship shaped like a collection of bubbles. The alien ship is driven away, but not before inflicting damage on the Enterprise and almost destroying the Ferrel. Among those rescued is Ambassador/Agent Deelor and translator Ruthe. They had been trying to contact the bubble shaped Choraii ships to negotiate the release of the children of Hamlin, who had been abducted about 50 years previous when the Choraii destroyed the settlement on Hamlin. The Enterprise contacts the Choraii again and an exchange is arranged – some lead for a second-generation child, born on the Choraii ships. Data notices that an adult human is apparently also aboard the Choraii ship, and after a skirmish he (Jason) is rescued. Unfortunately, it turns out that adults are unable to make the transition back to normal human society after the musical Choraii environment, and Jason dies. Meanwhile the Enterprise heads on to New Oregon, which is to be the new home of a group of farmers who are onboard the ship. On arrival, it is discovered that the terra-forming base on the planet has been destroyed by a Choraii ship, and that another child has possibly been abducted. The Choraii ship is tracked down, and Ruthe apparently talks the Choraii into returning the child, and she transports over to seal the deal. The child is returned, but Ruthe does not transport back. It turns out that she was ‘rescued’ from this very ship and considers herself to be back home. She says that she will teach the Choraii about human music and show them that we are not the savages (or ‘wild-ones’) that they see us as. [Timeline: some time after the Angel One incident, and two weeks after Beverly Crusher had nearly died on the planet Minos.]
Jean Lorrah
Data and Tasha Yar are sent off in a shuttlecraft to investigate the situation on Treva, after Treva’s president, Nalavia, asks for help in putting down a revolution. En route, they become suspicious of the situation while monitoring broadcasts from the planet, but they are enthusiastically welcomed on arrival. When Tasha returns to her room that evening, she is kidnapped and taken to the headquarters of the rebel warlord, Rikan, and discovers that Darryl Adin (a.k.a. Dare, Adrian Dareau or the Silver Paladin) is working for the warlord. Dare had been the Starfleet officer who had discovered her on New Paris, but who had later been convicted of treason and murder, although he had escaped before being incarcerated. The warlord starts to explain to Tasha how President Nalavia has been taking away people’s civil rights, although the city dwellers don’t seem to be objecting (the country people do oppose her). When Data finds that Tasha is missing, he accesses the palace computer system, believing that Nalavia is behind her disappearance. However, he discovers that that is not so, although Nalavia apparently does view the two Starfleet officers as hostages. He also finds that she has been drugging the city water supplies to make the population docile. Realizing that Tasha must have been abducted by the warlord, Data escapes from the city and sets out to free Tasha but gets himself captured. When they compare notes of what they have discovered, Data and Yar help Rikan and his team to stop the drugging of the water supply but, before the population recovers from the effects, Nalavia launches an all-out attack on Rikan’s castle. There are casualties, but the attack is being driven off when the Enterprise enters orbit, responding to an earlier transmission from Tasha. Data searches the palace computer and finds that Nalavia is really an Orion. Nalavia and Dare are taken into custody, but Data is also able to search the computer on Starbase 36 and determine that Dare was framed. Dare is allowed to leave, and there is some possibility that Tasha will join him after this tour of duty is complete, but she is killed shortly afterwards by Armus on the planet Vagra II. [Timeline: soon after the events on Minos.]
Peter David
A group of Kreel discover a cache of sophisticated weaponry on an uninhabited planet, and begin to harass their old enemy, the Klingons. The Enterprise is sent to try to reconcile the warring parties and takes onboard a delegation from both races and heads towards the planet DQN 1196. The short-statured leader of the Klingon delegation, Kobry, is largely instrumental in keeping relative peace between the parties, but he is then poisoned (and believed killed) at a party to celebrate the arrival at the planet. Fighting breaks out onboard the Enterprise, leaving a landing party, headed by Riker and Geordi, stranded on the planet. While exploring the tunnels where the weapons were found, Geordi is taken beyond a mysterious door that had failed to open to anyone else (in fact Geordi is somehow taken beyond it, not through it), and finds himself in some infinite space. Wesley had been trying to find a cure for his friend, Jaan, but Jaan gets killed by the Kreel after trying to help them. Finally, the warring Klingons and Kreel (or those that are left) are brought under control (and Kobry is found to be alive in sickbay). Then the infinite being(s), the Cognoscente, that had attracted the Enterprise there using the weapons cache and the warring Kreel and Klingons, shows itself, forming a face out of the stars and asteroids. When he learns that this was all a test, Picard tells the Cognoscente what he thinks of them, which was apparently the correct response as far as the Cognoscente were concerned. They and planet DQN 1196 disappear, giving a quick glimpse of a wonderful future. [Timeline: just after Riker grew his beard and just after Dr. Polaski joined the crew.]
Howard Weinstein
The Enterprise is escorting emergency supplies requested by the planet Thiopa and is also transporting Ambassador Undrun. Arriving at the planet (after one run-in with the Nuarans who had previously been associated with Thiopa) they discover a seriously polluted planet with a divided population. Riker gets kidnapped by the Sojourners who believe they should be working with the planet, rather than trying to tame it. Ambassador Undrun beams down to the Sojourners to try to negotiate Riker’s release, but Riker has already been abducted by Mori, who has her own agenda. Mori’s father, who founded the modern Sojourners, is believed to be possibly still alive in captivity. Data discovers that the ecology is heading for total collapse if nothing is done, and also discovers that the chief scientist already knows this but is doing nothing about it. Picard tries to bring both sides to their senses but ends up sharing the emergency supplies between the government and the Sojourners, and leaving them to sort their own problems out, if they can. [Timeline: Stardate 42422.5.]
John Vornholt
Lorca was a colony planet settled about 200 years previous, mostly by a wandering theater company and some anti-tech people from Earth but they had lost contact with Earth. Soon after arriving at the planet, severe volcanic activity had destroyed their ship and rendered any technology they had inoperable. Consequently, the survivors had established a feudal society but had adopted the use of masks for everyone, these defining their job and position in society. Some of the Lorcan masks had started to appear in Ferengi markets, and Federation Ambassador Fenton Lewis had, under dubious circumstances, obtained the Ambassador’s Mask. The Enterprise was taking him to Lorca where he said he was going to try to locate the planets king, Almighty Slayer who had the Wisdom Mask, in order to establish relations between the planet and the Federation. He, Picard, Deanna Troi, and Worf beam down outside of populated areas, all wearing masks (mostly Halloween masks). Magnetic dust from a volcanic eruption that occurred almost immediately after they beamed down renders their communicators inoperable, cutting them off from the ship. They proceed towards where they think they might find some native Lorcans, and Riker leads a second team including Data, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, and two security guards (but without masks) to try and find the first group. Riker’s group meets a peddler named Day Timer who makes masks for them as his vassals, but they later earn better masks after helping defeat an attack by raiders on a village. Picard’s group meets up with a group led by a female warrior, Piercing Blade (who Picard falls for). Both groups were heading for a large fair, where Piercing Blade was planning to declare herself planetary ruler, fighting Almighty Slayer for the position if he showed himself after many years’ absence. Lewis disappears one night from Picard’s team and later meets up with Riker’s group and says the captain and the others are dead (although Riker doesn’t fully believe his story). A Ferengi ship arrives in orbit and Riker’s group encounters a band of raiders led by two Ferengi. Riker asks Wesley, aboard the Enterprise, to create a diversion, which is a bit too successful, but accidently leaves the planet a bit more geologically stable. It also causes Day Timer’s wagon to crash, exposing the Wisdom Mask that Day Timer (actually the aging Almighty Slayer) had hidden in it. When Lewis sees the mask, after a failed attempt at stealing the mask, he goes back to find Piercing Blade and tells her where Almighty Slayer and the Wisdom Mask are. Piercing Blade goes to confront Almighty Slayer, mentioning that he is her father. Almighty Slayer is not initially willing to acknowledge her as his daughter or as his successor, but he loses the dual although Data stops Piercing Blade from killing him. Piercing Blade wins the Wisdom Mask. However, Lewis grabs the mask, killing Greenblatt (one of the security officers) in the process and absconds into the forest with it. Picard, Worf, and Riker chase after him. Lewis finds a raiders’ camp and tries to use the authority of the Wisdom Mask to obtain their help, but the two Ferengi are there and they are only interested in the monetary value of the mask. They also have an antiphaser field, so Lewis gets killed, and Picard and his group go back to tell Piercing Blade where the mask is. Almighty Slayer paints three masks red so they look like raiders’ masks, and Riker, Almighty Slayer, and one of Piercing Blade’s supporters (Cold Angel) wear them to try to gain access to the raiders’ camp. However, they find that the raiders had killed the two Ferengi and then killed each other trying to gain possession of the Wisdom Mask. The Lorcans continue on to the fair, where Piercing Blade does a good job in winning the support of the vast majority of the population. It seems that Lorca will become a protectorate of the Federation, and the Lorcans have come up with a specially designed mask for Federation visitors.
David and Daniel Dvorkin
The USS Centurion (formerly the Farragut) is crewed by Magna Romans and captained by Lucius Sejanus, and they are assigned to protect the planet Tenara, inhabited by pacifist inhabitants who are descendants of humans. The planet has been suffering attacks by ships from the cat-like M’Dok Empire, and the Enterprise gets called in to assist when the Centurion comes under attack from a M’Dok battleship. The Enterprise arrives to find that the Centurion had won that battle. Picard wants to reach a diplomatic solution, especially when he finds that the M’Dok attacks are spurred by famine, but Sejanus insists that only a military solution will work. Behind the scenes, Sejanus and his cousin, Marcus Julius Volcinius, are working to restore his position on Magna Roma, even if it means destroying the Enterprise to do so. The plot is uncovered, but Sejanus and the Centurion escape, although Ensign Jenny de Luz (originally from Meramar) requests the opportunity to track him down. The M’Dok finally respond to diplomatic advances. [Timeline: circa Stardate 41800.9]
Michael Jan Friedman
The Enterprise finds a missing research vessel (the Mendel) just inside a strange energy mantle surrounding a planet. Picard, Pulaski, Geordi, and Worf are part of an away team that beams across to the ship and then vanish. Riker is left in charge of the Enterprise which then starts to fall victim to a disease that a crew member had contracted from another planet. Riker discovers that the planet (that the away team are presumably on) is inhabited by the Klah’kimmbri (whose empire had been devastated by the Cantiliac as they headed out of the galaxy), but they are unwilling to help and warn the Enterprise away. The Enterprise pulls back until the planet drops its barrier, and they begin scanning to try to locate the missing crew members. Meanwhile, Picard and rest of the away team have had their memories suppressed and have been forced to take part in war games that constitute the main entertainment on the planet. There are also people planning a rebellion against the authorities, one of whom (Ralak’kai) has also been forced into the war games and his co-conspirators set out to rescue him. Data is sent down to the planet to try to locate the away team and successfully gathers together the survivors of the Mendel, and Riker beams them up. Pulaski gets her memory back after being nearly blinded by the flash from an explosion and she finds Worf. The two are then found by the conspirators who are on their way to save Ralak’kai, Picard and Geordi from execution. They all, including Data, come together and get beamed up just before the Enterprise is forced to leave the area due to the worsening plague onboard. Pulaski has already come up with the solution to the plague and Geordi comes up with a solution to the planet’s problems. His solution is to cause a massive meteorite swarm, the flashes from which restore the combatants’ memories and bring the war games (known as the Conflicts) to an end. [Timeline: Stardate 42908.6]
Peter David
Riker gets volunteered to lead a team to provide assistance to a group of terraformers (who don’t think they need assistance) on the planet wishfully called Paradise. One of their problems turns out to be that they had genetically engineered a creature that could survive on the planet, but the animals had turned wild and were now commonly known as Wild Things. When Riker arrives at Paradise, he is surprised to find that the leader of the terraformers is an old friend of his from Alaska, named Jackson Carter, who is married to a lady (Eleanor) who was someone else he knew from Alaska, and they have a 15 year-old daughter (Stephy). Then those three go missing after going to investigate a malfunctioning probe and Riker goes to try and rescue them. He finds that Jackson has been killed by one of the Wild Things and finds the two ladies being tracked, and about to be attacked, by other Wild Things. Eleanor is lost after falling down an ice face (but she is ultimately rescued), and Riker and Stephy are trying to escape from the creatures through the mountains. Meanwhile, Picard has been given a temporary first officer, Commander Stone, who had been an excellent Starfleet officer but has recently been behaving in a very independent fashion (insubordinate to the view of many), which gets results but is at least questionable in regard to legality. When Riker goes to rescue his friends, one of the scientists among the terraformers sends a message to the Enterprise, which heads immediately to the planet and Stone leads the team that rescues Riker and the two ladies in the nick of time. Stone takes leave from Starfleet to join the terraformers.
Jean Lorrah
The Enterprise investigates gravitational fluxes emanating from the planet Elysia, and then investigates what was causing them. The planet had a number of inhabited areas, separated by an inhospitable and toxic swamp with some form of force field between the habitable and uninhabitable zones. There is also a mountain where the natives claim their gods live and, while investigating the mountain, Data sees a lady approaching across the swamp in a boat. She turns out to be Thelia from the habitat Atridia and is on a Quest to the gods to get them to combine her habitat with a neighboring one. Data joins her on her Quest, mentioning along the way about his wish to be human. Both get their wish, which leaves Data (now human) having to get recertified, and he is unable to be on the away team at the three-planet system in the Samdian Sector. The Enterprise had been sent to help because the Samdians claimed that aliens, called Konor, had taken over the planet Jokarn, were now invading Dacket, and the third planet, Gellesen, is expected to be next. But the Enterprise crew discovers that the Konor are actually Samdians who have discovered some form of telepathy, so it was a civil war that the Federation could not get involved in because of the Prime Directive. Konor means ‘those with a soul’ and they see the non-telepathic as Ikonor, or ‘those without souls’. Then Data finds he is in love with Thelia and the Enterprise takes him back to Elysia where he finds that Thelia is about to get married to Prince Sharn of Tosus (the neighboring habitat) and, while she is fond of Data, she doesn’t love him. Data petitions their gods for help, and is told that his love for Thelia comes from her giving him a kiss (the Kiss of Bonding) while on their Quest, and that the situation in Samdia will spiral out of control, affecting vast areas of the galaxy, and all because Data got his wish. The only solution turns out to be to go back to the original timeline with Data remaining as an android and losing his memory of his time as a human. This time when they try to intervene in the Samdian Sector, he and Thralen (the sociologist) discover that it is not true telepathy that the Konor use, and he and Geordi develop a way for him to transmit to them. They gladly accept Data as being Konor, but then he shows them that, not only is he not a humanoid, but he was built by what they would call Ikonor. This gets the Konor questioning their belief that they are the only ones with souls, and they agree to have the Enterprise (and specifically Data) act as mediators between them and the other Samdians. Dr. Pulaski loses her bet with Geordi that Data could be accepted as having a soul. [Timeline: Stardate 42528.6, immediately after the episode ‘The Measure of a Man’]
Keith Sharee
An experience that Deanna Troi has with some strange creatures that appear to be figments of her imagination, but which she feels are real, results first in the discovery of a recorder marker from the missing starship U.S.S. Huxley, and then to a lost human colony, Rampart, in the rho Ophiuchi nebula. The rulers on Rampart have banned all fiction (referred to as Allpox), making it a crime worthy of death, although the punishment is normally executed as the clearing of the ‘infected’ person’s mind, and substituting a new set of ‘clean’ memories and a new persona. When the Rampartians discover that the Enterprise crew are infected by the Allpox (i.e. fiction – which by their definition includes any idea of lifeforms other than those originating on Earth) the Enterprise comes under attack, and Picard is captured. Riker, Troi, and Data beam down to Rampart to try to locate and rescue Picard, but Riker and Data are quickly arrested. Troi escapes and meets up with the Dissenters, who not only enjoy fiction and storytelling, but tend to model themselves after fictional characters. The Dissenters live underground in caves to try to escape the attention of the CS (Cephalic Security) and have discovered some native lifeforms, including large bat-like creatures, haguya, that are large enough to ride on. The Dissenters had been planning their own attack on the CS headquarters, and they offer to assist Troi in locating Picard and the others. The attack is thwarted, and a number of the Dissenters are killed (including their leader, Odysseus) but the haguya (which Data determines are sentient) rescue the surviving Dissenters and the Enterprise crew manages to beam back. The Director of the CS, Crichton, had been starting to get strange hallucinations since the arrival of the Enterprise. The appearance of the haguya (which had not been seen by the regular Rampartians before) finally makes him realize he was actually recovering his memories, and he was really Captain Bowles of the Huxley, and he is able to escape to the Enterprise as well. The dispute between the other Rampartians and the Dissenters is not settled, but the appearance of the haguya starts making people understand that other lifeforms do exist, and a large group, including many ex-CS officers go to join the Dissenters.
Carmen Carter, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, and Robert Greenberger
The Enterprise goes to the artificial planet known as Kirlos to assist with an archaeological dig being carried out by one of Geordi’s previous professors, Prof. Nassa Coleridge. Kirlos had been built by the warlike Ariantu, whose empire disappeared millennia ago, and the underground world is now jointly managed by the K’Vin and the Federation, with the Sullurh (a species who apparently had moved to the planet after the Ariantu left) providing administrative assistance. The K’Vin ambassador is Gregach and his Sullurh assistant is named Gezor, and the Federation ambassador is Stephaleh n’Ehliarch (an Andorian) whose Sullurh assistant is Zamorh. Coleridge is also assisted by a Sullurh, whose name is Thul. Having negotiated the K’Vin’s paperwork, the team of Geordi, Data, and Worf join Prof. Coleridge on the planet, but then word comes through about an attack on a new farming colony on Tehuan, and the Enterprise and the rest of the crew head off there to assist. On Kirlos, a bomb goes off in the largely unused Commercial Trading Hall and soon afterwards there is another bombing in the K’Vin embassy. Other mysterious attacks include one that takes the life of Prof. Coleridge, and mistrust builds up on both sides. However, the two ambassadors had had a friendly relationship before these troubles began, so the more extreme suggestions of their advisors are not implemented. The Sullurh were actually the descendants of the original Ariantu, left behind to look after the place when Kirlos was abandoned. Their body-shape had changed, sometimes deliberately, over the millennia. Then one family of Ariantu (led by Arikka, the Paac Mother) on their homeworld had got control of an ancient heartship and eleven fighters and set out to recapture Kirlos. Knowing they couldn’t face the Federation and the K’Vin together, a few Ariantu had gone ahead and contacted the Sullurh. Their contact was Thul who brought in Zamorh and Gezor and then others, and the bombings, etc., had been carried out by the Sullurh and Ariantu in an attempt to get the K’Vin to drive the Federation off the planet, so the Ariantu ships will only have to face their ancient enemy, the K’Vin. Data, Geordi, and Worf, supposedly assisted by Thul, had been investigating the disturbances but all four get taken into custody in the K’Vin embassy. Data, Geordi and Thul break out of their cell and discover a deep underground level with weapons, and Thul believes it contains the legendary super-weapon known as the Howling God. By that time, the Ariantu fleet (at least those that hadn’t been lost to inter-family rivalry) had arrived at Kirlos. The attack on the Tehuan colony had been a practice exercise for the Ariantu fleet. When Thul tries to tell his Ariantu contacts about the Howling God weapon, he is laughed at for believing old fables and he comes to realize that the Sullurh had been used and would never be accepted as true Ariantu. He goes to use the Howling God against the Ariantu, but after powering it up he finds that he can target it on the K’Vin homeworld and decides to attack that first. What he didn’t know was that the weapon was designed as a weapon of last resort and would hurl the whole planet at the target through a wormhole. As it powers up, the planet shakes like a violent earthquake and the opening wormhole nearly sucks the Enterprise (which had returned from Tehuan) and a K’Vin warship (that Gregach had called in) into it. A few of the Ariantu fighters do get sucked in, and the Ariantu heartship deliberately dives into it to attack the K’Vin homeworld. Data and Geordi fail to shut the weapon down, so Worf is given permission to shoot it up, which does the trick and collapses the wormhole while the heartship is still in transit. Thul gets Zamorh and Gezor to join him in admitting their complicity in events, but that culminates in the Federation acknowledging the Sullurh as the true owners of the planet. Gregach also says that Kirlos is no longer of use to the K’Vin, and Thul is appointed as governor with Zamorh as minister of internal affairs and Gezor as minister of external affairs. The K’Vin Hegemony and the Federation will oversee the transition for five years. The surviving Ariantu are told to go home, sort out their own differences, and contact the Sullurh in the future if they feel up to it. [Timeline: circa Stardate 43197.5]
A.C. Crispin
The Enterprise is sent to investigate the Sector 3SR-5-42 region where a number of ships have gone missing, including most recently a Klingon cruiser (the PaKathen) and a Federation trading vessel (the Marco Polo). It is not long after the Enterprise arrives in the area where those last two ships were last known that the Enterprise finds itself in the pull of some kind of tractor beam. Picard decides not to try breaking away, but let it lead them to the PaKathen and Marco Polo which they have instructions to rescue if possible. They were indeed pulled to where these and many more ships were, surrounding a basically massive rectangular vessel with odd protrusions all over it. The object was so alien in its design and colors that Picard and most of the crew found it disorienting at best. Only Geordi could stand to look at it, and with his VISOR he found it to be beautiful. The only lifesigns on any of the captured craft was a few survivors from the Marco Polo, others seemed to have murdered one another, committed suicide, or died of fright. T