A/N: This is inspired by a series of references made in my Musings on a Dead Stop series to a humor fic that I read long ago. Bear with me, this may take a while to explain.

The great mnemosyne23 wrote the original Shattering Stone Tablets in 2004, which was a satirical ficlet in which she endeavored to violate every single commandment in a list of guidelines for writing Reed/Sato fanfiction. It's really very hilarious, and a fantastic read. With her permission, I decided to riff off of the original, but with a twist. Instead of focusing on one particular pairing, I'd deal with the series as a whole. Without further ado, here is my own list of rules we should all follow:

The Ten Commandments of Enterprise Fanfiction

Thou shalt honor thy decon chamber and thy Captain's ready room, and keep them holy.

Thou shalt not have someone teach T'Pol to swim as a prelude to a poorly written sexual encounter.

Thou shalt not have Phlox ask to watch.

Thou shalt not create 'pervy Malcolm'.

Thou shalt remember the canon timeline of the Coalition and Starfleet.

Thou shalt not write Trip Tucker as a Mary Sue.

Thou shalt not use Daniels as an excuse every time you don't want to explain something fully.

Thou shalt not use the 'whiny and shallow Hoshi' trope.

Thou shalt not be gratuitous in any sense of the word.

Thou shalt not put minor characters where they do not belong.

Pretty brave assertions from a writer whose works are basically just repeated violations of the last two commandments, am I right?

No offense is meant towards any one author, as these are simply based on personal preference. There will be two parts of nearly equal length because honestly I'm not sure we can handle all ten in one go. It's that bad.

Warning: utter ridiculousness, farce, and vague season one references ahead. The latter is perhaps the most frightening part.

Shattering Stone Tablets Redux

Part One

Jonathan Archer was in the shower with his eyes screwed shut, his broad shoulders braced against the falling water. Then, because he knew that with his luck someone might be watching, he turned and allowed the water to race down his muscular back.

Enterprise was currently in a geostationary orbit around what seemed to be an uninhabited planet, and his two seniormost officers had been dispatched to gather scientific and ecological data. Honestly, Trip Tucker had had no reason to accompany the Sub-Commander on the away mission, but Jonathan was tiring of his persistent cheery mood and had wanted to get rid of him for a few hours.

In addition, why should the female contingent of the crew be more attracted to the engineer than they were to him? It wasn't like he was the star of the show.

He digressed. Enterprise was operating in top condition, they hadn't managed to come across any nominal enemies that could conveniently be overcome in forty-two minutes or less, and he had several unwatched water polo matches in his streaming queue. He was the Captain, and life was good.

Suddenly the deck plating lurched beneath his feet and he found himself suspended in thin air, his shapely arse in full view. Dodging variable water droplets, he reached over to initiate the comm.

"Lieutenant Reed, report."

"Just a malfunction with the gravitational plating, sir."

The glitch righted itself almost as soon as it had begun, and his feet were once again on solid ground.

There was a pause, and then he heard frantic sounds indicative of a scuffle on the other end of the line followed by the muted crashes of chairs being overturned.

"Ensign, calm down! Christ almighty! Ow—argh—don't touch—"

"We're all going to die!" His communications officer wailed directly into the microphone. "I knew I should have stayed in Brazil! Right about now, I'd be sprawled out on a beach somewhere being admired by attractive Latin men if I hadn't accepted a posting on this godforsaken death trap!"

Noting the telltale signs of any plot evolving, Jon stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and exited his quarters. No character development was going to take place this early in the season on his watch.

-0-

Striding confidently onto the bridge moments later, he ordered, "Get me Crewman Daniels."

Hoshi was confused as to why he'd want to communicate with the steward from gamma shift, but complied with his request. As they waited for him to pick up, she twirled a bit of her ponytail between her fingers and said, "You know, I have no idea why I wasn't chosen for this away mission."

"Ensign, the planet in uninhabited. Your presence wouldn't have made any sense in the context of the episode," Malcolm chastised, not taking his eyes off of the glorious expanse of Archer's chest.

"That's bullshit and you know it, Lieutenant. The writers are always looking for an opportunity to sneak in a bit of fanservice."

"Don't I know it," he mumbled, continuing to admire Jonathan's stellar physique.

Hoshi stood and approached the man in question, then fell to her knees and began to plead in the most undignified manner possible. "Can't I do something useful for once, Captain? You always have me doing all these random errands! Is this because we've failed to appoint a B-cast even after nearly a full season of aimlessly wandering the quadrant?"

At that moment, Crewman Daniels appeared on the big screen, dressed in printed footie pajamas and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Yawning, he offered a somnolent smile. "Good morning, Captain. What is it that I can do for you today?"

"Cut the crap, Daniels. I know this has something to do with the Temporal Cold War timey-wimey mumbo jumbo." Jonathan assumed an intimidating pose, allowing his towel to fall to the ground.

He sighed, trying his best to hold his gaze at his upper half. "You've jumped the gun once again. You're not supposed to know the particulars of my assignment here until next season."

"What?!" Archer cried, looking at the bridge crew for confirmation. Ensign Sato had returned to her seat and was touching up her makeup in one of the screens of her console. Reed had produced a pair of binoculars out of nowhere. Only Travis Mayweather seemed to be focused on the matter at hand.

Shaking his head, he handed over his copy of the script over his shoulder. "See for yourself. Come on, man, I'm the most bland and uninteresting character to have ever graced the franchise, and even I know that."

Flipping through endless pages of kitschy dialogue, he saw that he had been mistaken. But he was the Captain, after all, and being the Captain meant never having to admit that you're wrong. Throwing the packet to the side, he demanded, "Whatever the case, just run along back to the 31st century and fix the grav plating…and don't come back until you're done!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Travis murmured under his breath.

"What did you say, Ensign?" He towered over the helmsman, affording him a rather superfluous view of his nether regions.

"Why would he go forward in time to fix an issue that's going on right now?"

His inquiry was legitimate, but rational explanations were best saved for the final three minutes of the episode when the viewers' attentions had already waned. Wagging his finger at the young man, Jonathan said, "Time works in mysterious ways. He's not unable to help, he's just unwilling!"

Travis considered this for a moment, then responded, "Captain, are you aware that you have a weapons specialist attached to your chest?"

Sure enough, Malcolm Reed had come up behind his commanding officer, wrapped his arms around his middle, and laid his head on his shoulder. At Jonathan's look of consternation, he only whispered reverently, "You have beautiful eyes."

Already forgotten and frankly bored with what he was witnessing, Crewman Daniels muttered, "Whatever." Ending the communication, he dug under his pillow for his trans-dimensional, timeline-altering, motivation-changing, completely unexplained projection device. He'd give them something to write home about.

to be continued