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Unofficial Literary Challenge 35 Discussion Thread
starswordc
Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
This is the discussion thread for Unofficial Literary Challenge #35: "Rhyme Directive".
As usual, be honest and polite.
As usual, be honest and polite.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
> Not sure what's been with the filtering software - interesting prompts!
Probably the number of links is tripping the spam filter. The entry list is getting a little unwieldy anyway, maybe I should just link to ULC 30 and up and instruct people to click that one for the earlier entries.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Cast:
* IRL 23 Librae has a couple of planets, but the one in the habitable zone is a hot Jupiter. I invented a Class M second planet for this story.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Technically it would just be a part two: I wrote it as one story but split it due to the character limit. But no, I didn't have one planned initially because I figured that just about everything in terms of pro-con arguments was covered here (though at the end of the day, I freely admit Eleya made mostly an emotional decision about what she felt she could live with). But you're the second person to suggest that (I crossposted this on AlternateHistory.com). The basic problem is, obviously there's going to be hell to pay, both on-planet and off, but I'm not sure what form it would take or how to write it while avoiding strawmen. On-planet, I'd probably want to just revisit the Sabek every so often, but for the offworld consequences...
Trouble is, I worry about taking a high concept like that and completely flubbing the execution. Still, I can see a bit of an opening scene in my head:
She shakes her head and puts it back on my desk. "Respectfully, Captain, I can't accept this. Look, the board'll rule in your favor--"
"I can't take that chance, my friend." I stroke the bulkhead, one last time. "And I'm not the captain anymore. You are."
Tess's lips tighten, but she picks the pip back up and affixes it to her collar, then affixes me with a piercing grey-eyed glare. "I'm taking this with a promise, Eleya. I'll be keeping center chair warm for you, so you had damn well better come back."
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
"Nope, just my away team" the trill replies before ordering a round for the bar.
> Ish... as there is no discussion thread that I can find for earlier prompts, I wish to say writing a good The Kobayashi Maru story is harder then I thought.
You could use the most recent redux thread if you want.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
-head shake- I think my idea is nuts; I put the cadet in command of the Maru. but like my temporal said to the instructor; I already did a no win for real.
"Nope, just my away team" the trill replies before ordering a round for the bar.
I think my feelings here are pretty well-known. I generally think of the Prime Directive in two cases that depend on whether the planetary population (a better term to use than "species" or "culture" given the application) in question is warp-capable. And the correct course of action requires critical thinking, not blind dogmatism (*cough* Janeway *cough* Archer *cough cough, reaches for Robitussin*).
For an example of a good way and place to break the Prime Directive, see the Klingon Civil War in TNG. Picard receives a request to intervene on Gowron's side, but there's a few problems: even if Picard intervened as Arbiter of Succession, he's still a Starfleet officer and would need authorization from up the chain of command, and given Klingon psychology, any intervention by the Federation could be taken to mean that Gowron obviously is too weak to win on his own, and therefore is too weak to rule the Empire. So even with the request, the stability of the Federation's biggest neighbor and closest ally means they probably shouldn't. But then we learn the Romulans did intervene because realpolitik, so Picard chooses to counteract them. The Federation gets to look good to outsiders for defending its allies, while looking good to its citizens for not getting directly involved in the Klingons' internal affairs, and meanwhile the odds are evened for Gowron. Everybody wins... except for Duras, he kinda gets it in the shorts since obviously if he needed Romulan help he's too weak to rule the Empire.
On the other hand, there's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", where Admiral Ross and Section 31 orchestrate the frame-up of a friendly Romulan senator for treason. Sure, improving the position of their intelligence mole helps Federation security but it's done based on something that might happen: Senator Cretak possibly changing her mind and trying to pull the Romulans out of the alliance, not something that is actually going to happen. This is one where you do follow the Prime Directive: the danger is there as a possibility (the Romulans leaving the alliance probably means the Alpha Quadrant is lost), but it is not an imminent probability (even if she wanted to, Cretak cannot get them out of the war all by her lonesome: the Romulan government is a representative democracy, after a fashion, and the revenge motive is quite a strong one for the Romulans).
The issue more than anything else in my story:
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The issue with Nibiru, to my mind, isn't so much that Kirk broke the Prime Directive to save the species. If it was just that, he probably would've just been chewed out and sent back to work. The real problem to me is that A, Kirk let his ship be seen due to incompetence (WTF are you doing parking your ship underwater? If the transporter can get into the volcano from directly overhead, then just beam the ice machine in from orbit and go home), and then B, lied about it in his report, poorly.
(Of course, this is entirely separate from the absurd notion that the volcanic eruption would kill off the entire species -- the volcano shown plain isn't big enough to cause that kind of damage, compared to the Yellowstone supervolcano that is believed to have nearly killed off humanity in its infancy -- but then nobody ever accused J.J. Abrams of having a good sense of scale. And if that village is the entire species, then the species probably is probably well on its way to extinction due to inbreeding anyway.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
EDIT: Make that tomorrow evening.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Whew! Gads I did not enjoy writing this one, but I did ... does that make sense? Anything with the PD is challenging even if it's reasonably straight forward to me.
The setting has been used before, but it helps keep the piece short. I hope you enjoy!
---
Cast For Crew:
Kathryn Beringer - Katheryn Winnick
Matthew Calgar - Conleth Hill
Grannon Trex - Orlando Jones
Tracy Maxwell Kent - Monica Belluci
I really enjoyed that, Scarlet, it was an interesting solution and not one my typical style of character would have thought of. It probably satisfies the Coon variation of the Prime Directive, too: they're pre-warp but not viable (given how they're about to wipe each other out), and Kathryn intervened covertly.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I don't think anyone would argue that as a covert intervention; I'm wondering about a what-if for a timeline where the Vulcans intervened in World War 3 on Earth and what might result with the humans (probably being junior partners to the Andorians, is my snap assumption)
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
@starswordc - Coon's version is how I have always interpreted the PD without further thought. My entry was heavily influenced by your discission above and it helped create the scenario.
Which leads to antonine's question, which I (hopefully expertly) dodged by suggesting Kathryn's failure to stop a catastrophe resulted in her beating feet from the system to avoid issues with the PD. Clearly, she is still affected by the aftermath of her decision. I think her choice was based on emotions the Vulcans would not have been prejudiced to. Still, the what-if would be interesting to explore by brighter minds than me ^_^
Oh, definitely affected, just as a well handled 'hidden' intervention would be the best in the Vulcan blend of logic and compassion, even if it doesn't work, but it inspired my thoughts on the other direction
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
"Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are … you are my son and the one true king." (Mufasa)
Go ahead, literary challenge threads are open forever.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/