Timelines a UOC-TWS-AIB AU

Chapter 01

Prophetable Meetings

VSS Baltimore, 2359, Second History timeline

Space distorted and then out of it flew a starship. Its saucer shape would be familiar to many timelines where a Starfleet existed. The fact it had a ring and not nacelles would be the obvious difference.

Its saucer was not the only thing similar to Federation Starfleet designs of other timelines, it had a catamaran split hulls like the Akira class, and its secondary hull extended from the dorsal side of the saucer like the Kelvin type of one alternate reality. Yet there is where the similarities ended.

This Cardiff class had a more direct mount of its secondary hull to the saucer and at the end of its wing like supports were two massive sensor pods occupy the space normally taken by a Federation starship's warp nacelles. Running between the two catamaran hulls was a Vulcan-style annular warp drive.

For its Starfleet hails from Vulcan instead of Earth. Its Captain is one of the rare human ones. Tradition had Vulcans as the Captains of their ships and since the days of Spock and Dr. Richard Daystrom, their ships were sentient, with an AI running them.

Captain Donald Varley was one of the few humans to Captain a starship since the days of Christopher Pike who was the first to do so of the VSS T'Ruda back in the mid-23rd century.

"Almost home," Sevar said seated to Varley's right. The son of Spock and Nyota Uhura kept his eyes on the view screen as he commented, not as reserved as the Ship's Counselor T'Pel with letting his anticipation show. His mother didn't encourage him to display emotion as he grew, but she didn't discourage them either.

"Or at least DS9," Counselor T'Pel commented. Being Vulcan she would not say she missed her husband Tuvok, and looked forward to their reunion at the Shr'Ki class space station in the Bajor system.

On the viewscreen the bridge crew saw familiar stars of the the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant. Donald smiled as he asked, "Mr. Lore, how are we doing?"

If it had been another ship one might have expected the ship's AI system, an M5, to answer that question, but the multitronics unit mark five named Cecil tended to let the crew answer when they were addressed.

'Courtesy instead of efficiency' Varley recalled the phrase the one time he asked Cecil in private about that habit of his. Donald both knew and had served on plenty of other ships who followed the reverse.

This was a question easily asked Cecil, yet the Soong-type android liked the inclusion. He was not quite like his 'younger brother' Data. Definitely not as literal, and he most certainly had an odd sense of humor.

Lore looked over the operations console stood where most did forward of the command area and to its left.

"All systems are in the green, Captain," he replied in tone tinged with amusement. While Data was far more accepted in Starfleet, Lore still had a successful career. His younger brother was gaining on him however. Rumors abounded that Picard was going to ask Data to serve with him on the new flagship the ShiKahr-D.

XXX

Down in sickbay Selar did not see the flashes of light, nor the two Qs who appeared in the Baltimore's sickbay with her. They did not let her see them.

"We arrived in time," the Female Q said to the other Q, "I couldn't have done it without you."

Said other Q raised her eyebrow, a habit she retained in her new state as a Q.

"Well I couldn't have," the first reiterated, "And don't tell Q I was modest, it would give him or our son more to tease me about." Which she didn't find all that unpleasant. She felt a special warmth when father and son were teasing her as a family...and she teased back giving as good as she got.

"You needed me to find...me?" the Q who looked like Selar said, although in fact, she also looked like the other Q here, save not with Vulcan features.

"Exactly," the other Q said, "After all this timeline isn't long for the overspace, and Sisko wanted this ship and crew for our plan to work. Hopefully my husband and son will keep the others distracted."

Selar-the-Q considered the series of events that lead to her becoming a Q to teach the Q how to heal other Qs during their civil war that lead up to the Q procreating.

It also lead to this other Q specifically becoming a mother with Selar-Q delivering her son.

Yet before they returned her to her corporeal existence as 'just' Doctor Selar, they had one other mission for her as a Q. Which is what lead to her finding herself...literally.

Both turned as they sensed something new and looked beyond the bulkhead out into space. "It looks like we were just in time," the female Q mused, "But we can't be obvious about this."

Selar-Q gave the other Q a look that made her defensive, "We -can- be subtle!"

XXX

"Interesting," the word would have caught Donald's attention even if it hadn't been uttered by the woman Jean-Luc introduced him to and now they were considering marriage in their future.

Chief Science Officer Judi Ballard sat where in other timelines without a M5, the forward right station would have been Conn, and in M5 timelines it was typically Science I.

In another time and place, Judi Ballard would be teaching science instead of actively involved with it. She would be on a Galaxy class in years to come and even have Data's daughter Lal in one of her classes.

But that was not in this time or place.

"What is it, Altern?" Sevar asked as he realized the Captain wanted to but didn't want to appear to give undue attention to a woman he was in love with. Illogical, but as Sevar's mother would say, love often is.

Since Judi wasn't sure, and Cecil was, for once he spoke up for efficiency instead of courtesy, "Massive space-time distortion. From matching readings on record, I would say an incursion from De Sitter space."

This prompted Meshav to ask, "What is this De Sitter space?"

Looming behind Command, the Sulamid Security Chief didn't mind his unofficial role as the one to ask questions for the non-Vulcans among the crew. At least, most of him didn't mind. Since a Sulamid had octocameral brains, with eight separate personalities, it was more literal most of him in this case.

Standing at three meters tall and resembling a bundle of red and purple tentacles topped by a bundle of eight stalked eyes with triangular pupils, few expected him to be the 'straight man' if one kept thinking humanoid. Still the Subaltern didn't mind its role at all, particularly since the Vulcan crew often didn't get it.

"The last time a starship had any dealings with such a phenomena it was nearly a century ago with the ill-fated Inversion drive," Cecil shared first, then dove into what he would have called a simplistic explanation, "De Sitter space, Subaltern, is a kind of 'overspace' that contains our universe as well as countless others."

"My father had the first recorded experience with both parallel universes and de Sitter space," Sevar volunteered, "He had crossed over to a 'Mirror' universe as his counterpart crossed over into ours."

"Yes," Cecil confirmed, "De Sitter space is what the transporter had beamed through under the right conditions. Three years later the scientist K't'lk came up with the Inversion drive to traveled through De Sitter space as a way to cut through our space as an Intergalactic drive. However the drive had catastrophic side-effects and the project was abandoned."

"Nearly ending the universe was quite a side-effect," T'Pel commented leaving Meshav to wonder if the Counselor perfectly knew what he was up to or perhaps she was actually developing a sense of dry-wit.

"Emergence is a...megastructure," Cecil announced as he displayed what clearly did fit the definition of megastructure, anything at least one megameter, or one thousand kilometers in length.

"That is a lot of megameters long," Meshav said as a deliberate understatement.

Magog World ship

Found them. He almost had not amid all the myriad timelines. Yet here they are. Tiny, insignificant, and yet their importance to the enemy meant they were to be eliminated no matter how small their threat.

The One, Gorgan, (*), and Iblis were in agreement. The five of them had their own objectives, plans and plots, yet it would all be for naught if this plan of their enemies was completed.

In the midst of the trillions of Magog, stood their god, the Spirit of the Abyss. He contemplated what his enemies might use of the speck of a ship that measured nearly a kilometer long. It was so small in scale to the twenty linked planets around a star that together made up his world ship.

He had only vaguely been aware his opponents making this move and out of the five of them he was the only one who was free enough to act without any of the enemy directly countering him.

They would not notice at first, but they would become aware if he did not act quickly enough to destroy this small, minute and nearly imperceivable pawn of theirs. It was a seemingly inconsequential target for his conglomeration of planets and star to chase.

Yet the Spirit of the Abyss had given chase and now caught up with it, this 'VSS Baltimore' that existed in a timeline that would not last long in existence. Comparing this timeline to overtime, it would cease to be soon, for even 'now' Kirk and Spock were correcting history. Now was the time to act to eliminate this ship.

Bursting through De Sitter space the Abyss had found his enemies first move in their pitiful play for a failsafe against the inevitable victory of the five of them. None of them, including Iblis, would have thought to look in a timeline with so brief an existence. It was clever, but futile.

"Prepare to attack," Abyss commanded of his followers. He could send out a horde of swarm ships, but instead he decided the Point Singularity Projectors would be enough.

Baltimore

It might not seem like a lot to most of the crew, but .001 second is enough time for Cecil to act. He had just enough time to analyze the gravitational radiation proceeding the attack at lightspeed.

He did not have time to warn the crew before he acted. Analysis, conclusion, evasion all in the fractions of a second from detecting the singularity's approach, hallmarks of any multitronics unit since the first ones.

"Incoming fire, point singularity weapon," he informed everyone as restraining fields went up so crew didn't go flying during the evasive action as he rolled the nine hundred thirty eight meters length of starship like some might a fighter. Singularities ended up clearing the shields at a distance measured in centimeters.

"Return fire!" Donald ordered even though he didn't actually think the six phaser arrays would do much against that...ship. Looking to his right, he could see that his first officer agreed with him.

Sevar did believe that logic demanded a reaction to the unprovoked attack. Sevar's parents would probably say he's taking after Uncle Jim after all. Subcommander James T. Kirk would never go down without a fight.

"Cecil ," Varley simply asked, knowing the experienced AI likely knew what he wanted.

"All hailing frequencies and languages, no response yet Captain," Cecil reported.

While it might seem illogical to try and establish a dialogue while this current opponent was firing on them, Cecil could fire, fly, duck and talk all at the same time.

"Can we make it to the wormhole?" Donald asked, knowing Sevar already was performing the calculations in his head regarding the mass of the worldship and how much the Bajorian wormhole could handle.

Their M5 knew what to do already and they were rewarded with a view of heading towards a familiar region of space. They were nearly at the terminus end of the Bajorian wormhole when this attack started anyway.

"That would be a yes," Lore commented.

Sevar knew the conclusions, they could fly though the Bajorian wormhole, their huge pursuer could not, the wormhole simply could not handle its mass. It would collapse if their enemy tried to follow.

Cecil continued to fire aft as they flew towards that aperture in the fabric of space time.

XXX

"I hope the Prophets are ready," the female Q said as she tensed while Selar-Q just looked on feeling the subtle power build up for what she knew was about to happen, "And Starfleet is set to save themselves."

Q looked ahead and took Selar-Q's hand, raising her own theatrically, "This is going to hurt."

"Us?" Selar-Q had taken that hand and mimicked the open arm and hands raised gesture.

"Of course not, but space time is about to take a beating..."

The Baltimore flew into the open wormhole, with singularity shots following it.

That's when the wormhole flared up and everyone aboard as well as any entity nearby saw only white.

XXX

Donald heard a heartbeat, a steady heartbeat that seemed all around him in this white light where time felt suspended. At first everywhere he looked was white light, then suddenly his friend Ben Sisko was there.

Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, another of the rare human commanders in the Vulcan Starfleet. CO of the Shr-Ki class space station, Deep Space 9 on the other side of the wormhole the Baltimore just entered.

"I'm sorry Don," came the regret ladden words from the man Don serving with when they were both Alterns.

"Sorry? Sorry about what Ben?" he'd ask questions like what are you doing here and not on DS9, later.

"It has to be you."

"Me?"

"Look at it as another chance."

"At what?"

"I can't tell you that yet."

"Cryptic doesn't suit you Ben. Leave that for High Command."

"Fair enough. I will say that your Big Chair is about to get bigger."

XXX

When the enemy had fired singularities into the wormhole the ride became very rough. The Baltimore's exit from the wormhole less than graceful.

In fact the ship was spinning.

"Report!" Donald yelled as he could held on as inertia dampers worked overtime to compensate for the Baltimore's spinning. Both Sevar and T'Pel also held on silently, like most Vulcans on the bridge. Meshav was likely the only one who had no difficulties with the spin having spare tentacles to work his console.

If anyone doubted the feeling of rotation ready to throw them out of their seats at any time, all they had to do was look up at any of the viewscreen to confirm visually that the Baltimore was spinning.

Their spin was as they exited the Bajorian wormhole with additional concerns as if the twirling wasn't enough.

"Cecil off line, assuming manual control," Lore cheerfully announced as he worked the console in front of him. Ops was often just a monitoring station, but it could assume helm control as needed.

With a finesse that looked as if he were playing the piano, Lore brought the Baltimore out of its spin and to relative stop. "For my next trick..." he let his voice trail off as he began a ship system's check.

"We're not in the Bajor system," Meshav thought he would cover the obvious first with his report. Most of his eyestalks were looking at his console and their readings.

Sevar now knew what his mother meant regarding the 'feeling' of other shoes and dropping.

"We are..." Judi hesitated and checked with the rest of her bridge team, who confirmed her findings.

"We're in the year 2258."

It was just then that she noticed an interesting fact about the starlight from the quantum resonance scans. Judi had yet more news the bridge and Donald would not want to hear, but had to.

XXX

"That could have gone better," Q said to Selar-Q.

"I take it the expansion and transformation of the wormhole was not part of the plan?" Selar-Q surmised as she watched her corporeal self work with her staff to attend to what casualties the Baltimore took in its spin.

"Well not so dramatically no," Q snorted and decided to shift blame, "Starfleet could have done a better job."

Selar-Q did not take the amused bait in Q's voice. She had her own observation to share, "From what I saw of the wormhole, this plan of yours involves more than one starship."

Q gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, "Blame my husband, everyone else does. He of course is only playing with a few ships, leaving the real work with this lot of forty-one to me. Men."

Selar-Q could only agree with the last sentiment.

Q look up through the decks to the bridge and found a reason to change the subject of their conversation.

"I see they've discovered they're in another universe...rather quick for beings so limited," Q noted and gave a mock sigh, "As those wonderful humans my husband likes are prone to say, we've done enough damage here, time to leave for now." The last two words stuck out in Selar-Q's mind.

"We're coming back?" Selar-Q asked.

"Of course, this is just the beginning. I know the others, especially Abyss and Iblis, won't take this laying down. Besides, the longer we stay this early in the plan, the easier the others will find this universe."

With a flash Q was gone, and after one last look at the Selar of the Baltimore, Selar-Q also vanished.

They would leave the starships deposited in this universe to talk to each other.

XXX

"Contact. multiple vessels, forty starships," was the first indication Sevar had that Cecil was back online, "They are Starfleet, but from different timelines."

That shocked everyone on the bridge, although the Vulcans (of course) didn't show it.

"How did you determine that so quickly?" came the expected question from Meshav.

"Total Systems Data Sharing," Cecil replied, "It is what our kind of AIs do to network with each other. It appears fast to you due to the different speeds we think at. For you it has been a few seconds..."

"For others it was a few seconds," Lore clarified, "For AIs it can be liken to hours or days depending on the processing speeds involved." He was rather smug with the superiority of faster thinking over organics.

It made for quick updates of the current situation to minimize time bringing Captains and crews up to speed.

"This is with a security buffer all of us are employing, or should," Cecil thought one of them was too trusting in not putting up any buffer at all to filter and examine signals before accepting.

Lore chuckled at that, he knew what Cecil was talking about, although he didn't know which of the forty contacts out there essentially said 'hello, you may override me at your convince.'

"What we have is a fleet of starships, albeit from different timelines," Sevar's statement sounded to Meshav as an encroach on his territory of stating the obvious. Still sometimes Vulcans can be like that.

"In all sorts of shapes and sizes," T'Pel observed as she looked at her armchair mounted console, "The smallest is 190 meters with the largest as 11.6 kilometers."

"Classifications of types are interesting, from science ships to warships, including a few clearly support ships," Sevar was consulting his armchair monitor.

"Which suggest that this isn't an accident," Don followed his First Officer's thinking.

"Agreed, this is more than merely random chance operating in our favor," Sevar stated.

"Ah, what about the axiom 'While the laws of probability not only permit coincidences, they absolutely insist upon them'?" Lore asked.

Sevar inclined his head at the android, "The combinations of just the right type of ships at the same time and place stretches the coincidence too far to say this was one. We were put here, all forty-one of us."

"Sixty-one actually," Cecil interrupted, "Sensor logs from our time in the wormhole show forty-one contacts that I have now matched forty-one with here, but some starships are carrying starships."

"Carrying other starships?" Don never considered the possibility, and yet looking at the size of the smallest starship here, the Coyote class vessel named Ophan, he could see it fitting into the bay on his ship.

"Presumably to extend the range and options a mothership, for lack of a better term, would have in an area. Much like our shuttles or runabouts would do," Cecil elaborated with the comparison.

"Most of these starships have a 'USS' prefix instead of our 'VSS,' the next majority has 'UFS,'" Sevar observed, as they went back to looking over the information Cecil presented to them, "With two ISS."

"As in Terran Empire?" Lore asked, intrigued as he recalled ISS belonged to ships of the mirror universe.

"Yes, one is the Empire of the 'Immortal Khan Noonien Singh,'" and they could hear the quote marks in Cecil's confirmation, "The other is from a Socialist Terran Empire and finally one with the prefix of NXT instead of ISS yet belonging to an Imperial Federation of United Worlds."

"Permission to share the history of our timeline? This in turn will have the other ships share theris," Cecil asked with Donald nodding as he added, "Protocol beta-nine." Logical, nothing strategic or technological.

It really only took a moment once the COs of the gathered starships agreed, which most did. All the M5s finished reading the histories of the other timelines six point two seconds after permission granted.

"We are taken care of if all the Starfleet ships are the sharing kind," Lore pointed out.

"They are," Cecil contributed to address those concerns, "Histories shared bears that conclusion out."

"Presuming they aren't falsified histories," Lore countered more interested in the debate than the truth.

"They maintain a self-consistency that belies this kind of elaborate deception and from forty separate sources. Sources that match the sensor signature of what we saw in the wormhole."

"But it -is- possible," Lore didn't let up for the fun of it.

"Yes, there is a 0.63 % possibility of it," Cecil conceded.

"That's practically a whole percent right there," Lore mused sounding very amused, and let the matter drop.

That was when Varley received what could be called by some as disturbing news from his ship, "Captain, for the duration of stay and due to seniority, command of these forty Starfleet vessels falls to you."

Donald realized that the M5s must have talked with their Captains after coming to their own conclusions. All the commanders would have to do at that point was agree or disagree.

There lingered a slight smirk touched his lips as Donald entertained the notion that their ships were managing their COs well. Sevar noticed it and raised an eyebrow. Both men had shared the same thought.

Donald knew those other Captains must trust their M5's judgment to agree so quickly to his commanding this force of ships, or at least during the duration of this emergency. And stranded in another universe can be said to be an emergency. Well time to get on with this, it won't get any easier and if they were going to go home, an organized effort was the best approach.

"Cecil , put me in touch with the other Captains, its time for us to talk."

XXX

They had gone their separate ways for the most part. They were forty-one different timelines with all the evidence their sensors could discern confirmed this universe wasn't their home one. So with the Bajorian wormhole not even opening up despite approaches or triggers, it appeared the starships are trapped here.

So for now they went to survey what was similar about this universe than their own. Astrometrics had already revealed that they were in the year 2258, everyone's past apparently. Yet no confirmation of there even being a Starfleet here. For now they were determining astrographical similarities and differences.

Ships were sharing discoveries and so far none of their governments were in existence here. Varley was curious as to why the majority of timelines were organized under a United Federation of Planets.

Although it did feel right somehow.

Judi had tried to explain it to him. Histories tend to flow along familiar routes. Comparing the unique histories without a Federation of Planets with the Baltimore's own Interstellar Alliance of Planets and the Terran Empire or Imperial Federation of United Worlds, and a pattern of events was easy to follow. All of them had similar major events in their histories.

For instance, every one of them had a Jonathan Archer that helped formed their various polities.

Now that it has been established that their governments do not exist in this timeline in some form, starships are currently surveying homeworlds. Unsurprisingly, the Baltimore went to Vulcan.

XXX

"It's the same for most of us, dead worlds," Judi said to a very quiet briefing room. Its quiet was not normally unusual, with mostly Vulcans as section chief, comments were usually made by either herself, Lore or Meshav with the occasional input from Sevar or T'Pel, but this was different, it seemed oppressive.

Or rather, Judi noted, perhaps depressive is the right descriptive, "Five ships out of forty-one found their counterpart homeworlds." She gave a wane smile, "Twenty-seven homeworlds does sound like a lot."

No-one said anything, Meshav's eyestalks looked around at all of them, yet he knew this wasn't a time for one of his obvious statements. Twenty-seven wasn't a lot considering the hundreds of different species represented on the forty-one starships. Lore felt no restraints, "A whopping five percent."

XXX

One artificial source of subspace signals was found. It was a riddle. A thousand year old space station that had a mix of the different Starfleet's technologies, yet was clearly the product of the Earth of this timeline. It was based on an O'Neill space station design and it was originally suppose to be a diplomatic space station.

"...to further this mystery," Meshav led the briefing this time, "We found messages to various people throughout the forty-one ships apparently made by themselves for themselves. They're from the future."

Vulcans didn't groan, except in extreme pain, Judi and Donald were too use to being around Vulcans to groan save inwardly. A paradox, likely a predestination paradox. "Have the messages sent around," he ordered, "Let's hear what our future selves have to say."

XXX

"My name is Valen... " Varley listened to what seemed to be the last of the messages this Minbari who wasn't born a Minbari had recorded from a thousand years ago. It didn't explain the technology that had to come from the various ships of the Fleet. Nor did it explain the messages he saw flagged for him.

By name.

"...could avert the Earth-Minbari conflict. A warning to Delenn or Duhkat... But without the war, there would be no Babylon 4 and no Babylon 5. There would be no rallying point against the Darkness... and the Shadows would win, now and a thousand years from now. I cannot deviate from the circle of which I am a part. I am the beginning of the story, as Zathras said... and a prisoner of it. I dare not change the end..."

Donald Varley, his name flagged with messages that have been waiting one thousand years for him. Predestination paradox at its worse.

"Well Don," the image of himself began in a uniform like the one he wore now, "There isn't an easy way around this and the headaches of recalling talking to myself ad infinitum run quick to ad nauseam."

That Varley gave a tug on his tunic in a habit this Varley knew he had, "Predestination paradox, not my favorite subject to talk about, but it seems that is what we have here. First, unless you're about to break the circle, or cycle, you aren't recording this from a thousand years ago."

Which was a relief a part of Don's mind said as he continued to listen to himself, "You've had an encounter with the wormhole aliens and more importantly Ben. You're going to have another one. Be ready in July to come to the following coordinates..." which Donald saw was in the vicinity of Epsilon Eridani.

"Once you're in the anomaly you'll encounter that day, the wormhole aliens will make contact with you and explain why they put us, put you, here in this universe. You're not going to like it. I didn't and I'm you."

XXX

Indeed that July the Baltimore, along with other starships did enter the rift in time and space around B4. It was interesting to note that the development of multitronics affected how the various Starfleets ended up with cloaking technology. There was a sense that without one, the other wouldn't have happened. Meshav had a theory after reading so many alternate timelines, Donald will have to sit down with his Security Chief and talk about it one day.

Today it was a mere afterthought as the cloaked starships dove into the rift.

This time Donald was ready for this experienced. It helped that 'he' told himself that it would happen. In fact after this, it is precisely what he would do, record a message to himself.

"What is this place?" he asked as the white light didn't fade. It still permeated everything, it just allowed him to see objects, shapes, scenes instead of just light.

He was on a bridge, like his own or many of the ones in this throw-together-fleet, and seated in the Captain's chair. Like his own, a seat for the first officer and counselor was left and right of him.

"A Galaxy class starship,"' a familiar voice said from behind Donald and to the left. Turning he looked up the ramp at the rear, where in front of what had to be a turbolift door stood Benjamin Sisko.

Wait, that uniform, the pips, the combadge, "Not Subcommander Sisko?"

"Yes and no, Don. I was Subcommander Sisko until the timeline was corrected," Ben said as he walked down the ramp and over to his friend. His hand held out, Don stood and shook it.

"Corrected?" that left the handshake as an afterthought.

"Yes, corrected. Don there are time wars going on. More than one temporal cold war turned hot and there are consequences and casualties in that war. You, as you are now, are a casualty."

"Me?" Donald knew now he really would have a headache after this.

"The Romulans came up with a plan, they called Project Second History. They go back in time and make sure their enemies, primarily the Federation of Planets didn't exist..." Ben knew Don would put it together.

"So my timeline came about. I take it from reading the other starship's histories that Earth is the center of this union of races instead of Vulcan?" It would explain the histories of so many other starship crews.

"Yes, although you do see variants, like Minbar in one history, or Qo'noS in another among the gathered Starfleets, even the Borg in one...the bottom line is Don, the Romulans were helped by the Na'kuhl. They are one of the time traveling races who wanted the temporal wars hot. This was one of their ploys."

Don consider that, "It worked. There is no Federation in my history. Earth is in ruins as is Qo'noS and many other worlds, the Breen are practically extinct. In most histories of the other ships they're fine, we're fine."

"That's because the timeline was corrected, however what we did was pull you out before that happened."

"Here comes part I am not going to like," Donald ventured.

"More or less. While the cliché we don't have a lot of time isn't true here, we should get started."

"With what?"

"Going over why we put you here. You see this universe was selected as a...failsafe, a haven in case things really go south with the temporal wars. If universes start collapsing, we wanted a refuge for histories."

Something occurred to Don, "That's why all the different starships? We're keepers of those universe's histories. The ones already lost, or will be. We're like a Memory... Omega."

Soberly Ben nodded, "Yes Don. Each one of the starships represented a universes that is gone, but that is not the only reason you're here. You need to start something that will eventually make this place, this universe safe from the worse case scenario and it starts with a space station called Babylon Five."