I do not own Star Trek 2009 or Supernatural.
Warning 1: it's Dean. Therefore, there is perhaps more language in this than the usual.
Warning 2: It would not be wise to ingest liquids or foods while reading this account of life on the Impala. Do so at your own risk.
Adventures with Alpha Shift
A Scientific Study of Geeks in their Natural Habitat (With Commentary by Captain Dean Winchester)
An Introduction to Alpha Shift
I let Sam build the shifts in the science department and kept my nose out of it back when we were first given the Impala. I had absolutely no idea that he threw alpha shift together as "an experiment in intra-departmental relations" until it was far, far too late to do anything about it.
Translation: Sam thought it'd be fun as hell to put all the pyromaniac geniuses in one shift.
That's all you really need to know.
On Explosives
No matter what alpha shift says, they do not need more explosives. What they have is always enough. I learned that the hard way when they requested a little bit of this and a little bit of that before blowing a power station planet-side sky high as an experiment in a new type of timer. When asked why the hell they didn't just set the timer to flip a mouse trap or something, they all stared at me like I was an alien and said they needed to field-test it in a real-life, practical situation.
I was just glad the little buggers didn't 'field-test' on the Impala.
After that, I told Sammy I didn't give a shit how much stuff they exploded as long as they didn't blow any holes in the Impala's hull.
On Sam
Sam is alpha shift's god.
They worship the ground he walks on for a whole whack of weirdo reasons but mostly because he rarely joins them in the shenanigans but when he does, the Impala had better be two months out in deep space so no Admirals can interrupt the insanity or wonder why we're all dyed purple.
Again, I said I didn't give a damn what they did to themselves, but if they dyed Ellen colours again, I wouldn't stand in the way of her revenge.
Apparently Ellen is very creative with her application of hallucinogens.
Sam thought this great inspirational fun. He and alpha shift moved from dyeing people colours to trying to pipe laughing gas into the ventilation system.
Like I said, Sam is alpha shift's god.
On Ellen
Ellen is quite possibly the only person on the Impala apart from me and Sam who can strike the fear of God (Sammy or otherwise) into alpha shift.
The hallucinogens were only the tip of the ice berg.
Apparently that round of physicals were very…invasive.
On Acids
Alpha shift loves their acids. They can introduce acids into just about everything, including the transporter.
Apparently they took exception to the last Klingon ship interrupting their deep space halogen gas experiment.
I sat back to laugh hysterically as the Klingons ran around like mindless cockroaches trying to keep the acid from rapidly eating holes in the deck of their warbird.
Hey, it saved us phaser fire and photon torpedoes. As reward, I beamed the Klingons into the brig and told the mad minions they could blow up whatever they wanted on the Klingon ship.
Guess who was everyone's favourite Winchester for a week?
On Enemy Boarders
Alpha shift is not what you would call physically intimidating. They have funky hair, weird jewellery and they're always walking the line between regulation and reprimand when it comes to dress. They're all string beans, most of them barely meeting Starfleet fitness levels. None of them know hand-to-hand worth shit and they all whine like pansies when I put them through mandatory self-defence.
But they're at least as scary as Jo's first line security team if only because you'd never catch the buggers once they're pissed and they've very…creative with their application of the most mundane materials.
Who knew a liberal application of dish soap and foam packing peanuts could reduce battle-hardened Romulans to tears?
On Fire
The only thing alpha shift won't mess with while onboard the Impala is fire.
Thank God.
Despite what you may think fire is still deadly on star ships. It eats oxygen at an alarming rate and there is a surprisingly large amount of flammable material on the ship, despite the fire suppressant systems and overabundance of metal.
Alpha shift might be crazy, but they're not idiots and they love the Impala as much as any other crew member.
Off ship, however…
They are no longer allowed to introduce themselves as Gods of Fire. Their stint as gods was cut disturbingly short after they revealed they could to a man (or woman) breathe fire using the age-old carnival trick, which made them not gods but monsters. Monsters must be executed before they decided to eat the children.
Jo had to go in and extract them. She was unimpressed until they started leaving enormous chocolate bars everywhere for her to find.
On Replicators
Alpha shift can be bribed to produce just about anything from the replicators, including things that are not in the admittedly vast replicator repertoire. For example: useless life-sized Elvis dummies, thirty foot birch-bark canoes and really bad Tim Horton's coffee (admittedly, the Canadian coffee chain has survived to this day and that's a feat, but once you drink the stuff, you have to break the inexplicable addiction and it's a bitch).
I told them I didn't care what they make as long as none of it comes to life.
I'm still waiting for alpha shift to take me up on that challenge.
On Castiel
They thought he'd make a good minion-in-training and began hazing him.
Castiel proved that if they pissed him off, he could out-prank even alpha shift.
Castiel is no longer a target of alpha shift. Ever.
On Ash
Ash and alpha shift have this weird love-hate relationship going on. Ash is usually too laid-back and lazy to do anything other than bitch about alpha shift's shenanigans and nothing winds him up or pisses him off, which in turn pisses off the attention hogs (aka alpha shift).
But when he's correctly motivated, he comes up with the most bat-shit genius plans I have ever seen.
And that's saying something considering the company I keep.
The stuffy, annoying, bigoted diplomats from the Theta 24-C mission still have a severe phobia of cute yellow rubber duckies.
Ash and alpha shift regard that particular experience as one of their greatest successes.
On Bobby
Alpha shift doesn't fuck with Bobby.
Ever.
They've never tried.
They're crazy, not suicidal.
On Captain Kirk
Alpha shift regards Jim Kirk as a secondary god.
He borrowed them for three days and they came back totally out of control, burbling ecstatically about blowing up evil solar systems and turning black holes into weapons of mass destruction.
It took Sammy and I two weeks to yank them back into line.
I was not impressed.
On Spock
Spock terrifies alpha shift.
I approve.
When Sam was over on the Potemkin, alpha shift screwed up Sam's sub-space experiment in their usual haphazard (although admittedly well-meaning) way.
An unimpressed Spock put the fear of an exacting Vulcan scientist into them and for two glorious days, alpha shift toed the line so hard it squeaked. They also put the sub-space experiment back on track in record time.
Then Sam came back, Spock stopped contacting alpha shift directly and I now keep the Vulcan in my back pocket as a last result threat.
On Planet-side Scientists
Alpha shift disdains most scientists who spend their time planet-side, especially after the stuffed shirts back on Earth claimed alpha shift wasn't capable of putting together a comprehensible paper with positive contributions to humanity.
Despite Starfleet regulations, I couldn't keep Sam from laughing his ass off in front of the Academy Science dean. Even though we were on the bridge, Sam was gasping for breath in seconds.
Then the dean insulted Sam.
Word trickled back to alpha shift (I suspect Castiel, personally) and that intrepid group decided take it personally.
It took all twelve of them a week to develop an algorithm capable of adapting to the notoriously unpredictable, virulent and annoying common cold, which despite massive leaps in science and technology, no scientist or doctor had managed to crack. Then they wrote up a nice neat paper, had Sam vet it and published it.
Sam and alpha shift got a Nobel Peace Prize.
They were insufferable for a month until Bones from Enterprise quietly published a paper proving he'd developed both a cure and treatment for AIDS.
On Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Alpha shift regards Bones as their rival after the AIDS fiasco. A very confused Bones did not understand why the entire alpha shift showed up in the Impala's infirmary to issue challenge when he arrived to discuss dermal regenerator techniques with Ellen.
When he did finally understand, he snorted and ignored them completely.
Alpha shift thinks this cool attitude is very…cool.
On Captain Dean Winchester
We, the alpha shift, have hijacked Captain Winchester's PADD for this entry, seeing as he was going to leave this interesting little (and highly accurate, we must admit, kudos to the captain for a fair representation) paper incomplete.
Which would be a shame.
You see, we are aware that we are possibly (probably) clinically insane.
The captain doesn't really love science like we do (engineering is another story) and yes, we put the captain through the wringer.
But the captain can take it because he's tough, badass and because he's Dean Winchester.
We might be Commander Winchester's alpha-minions and we'd do anything for him, but we're Captain Winchester's crew and our bottom line is this: fuck with Dean Winchester and you fuck with us.
Do so at your peril: we're scary and we know it.
Peace out.
P.S. Sir, if anyone asks, we had absolutely nothing to do with the African elephant running around in the hold. Honestly.
P.P.S. The replicators really can produce stuff that's alive. You just have to introduce a cloning component! Interesting, isn't it? :)