Star Trek: Adventure

Part II: The Tachyon in the Theory

This may not be ideal,

But tachyons are not real.

If your particle physics theory

Is looking a little weary,

Consider writing science fiction

To put all of space in your jurisdiction

Otherwise, rewrite and refine

Because a tachyon is a waste of time![1]

Poem by the author (regrettably)

Chapter 10: Who Gives a Hoot?

The USS Discovery was still parked at Starbase 46, so there was no need to man the bridge, but Saru couldn't stay away for longer than a few hours without checking on something. He went up there to make sure all the communications files were in order and encountered a woman standing by the captain's chair. At first he ridiculously thought it was the late Philippa Georgiou, since her hair looked so similar from the back, but she turned around and he recognized one of the junior admirals, Ksenia Timur.

"Commander Saru," she said. "I am glad to see you here so early."

"Greetings, admiral. Is there something you wish to discuss with me?"

"Everything. I am your new captain."

As a sign of deference to the idea that Lorca "might" come back from the mental facility, the admirals picked one of their own to lead Discovery. Admirals rarely commanded ships for extended periods of time.

"I am sure it will be an honor to serve the Federation with you," said Saru.

"The honor will be mine as well," said Timur. "I have observed this crew do remarkable things. It has been my dream to work with such dedicated scientists, engineers, and explorers. I hope we will bring an end to this war together."

She proceeded to introduce herself to as many people as she could find. Saru followed, basking in the glow of what he instinctually recognized as a "proper captain." Sure, he'd had something of a reconciliation with Lorca, but that guy had issues. Timur was polite but firm, inquisitive, perceptive, and after only a few hours in her company, Saru already thought she was wise. Burnham and Stamets didn't meet Timur until the next day. They were on the starbase for some long overdue medical tests.

Timur lost no time in planning their first mission together. They had to rescue the prisoners from the battles after the Ship of the Dead was destroyed. The prisoners were on a prison ship deep in Klingon territory. There wasn't much intel on it but this ship, Tomb in the Clouds, was the length of Central Park. It resembled something like a giant coffin covered in whorls and wiggles. Discovery alone could not handle it. They needed backup, but it was too dangerous for regular ships to go there. Timur had a solution. A comet was flying into Klingon space. She recommended Federation ships fly in its wake, obviating detection. Meanwhile, Discovery would distract the Klingons from that area by targeting some of their border outposts far away.

It would take four days for the Federation ships to reach the prison ship by following the slow comet. The other admirals all respected Timur and agreed to her plan. It was quite a breath of fresh air from all the arguing between Lorca, Cornwell, and Duffield. The months-long issue of whether or not to deploy Discovery and put its technology at risk seemed to have been decided in their favor just because Timur was captain.

Those four days went by in a blur of fast attacks on outposts nobody even got a good look at. The ruse worked and the large Klingon vessels left the area around the Tomb in the Clouds to deal with this pestering. The six Federation ships that were following the comet[2] arrived on site and made short work of the Birds of Prey that remained guarding the prison ship. Discovery joined them quickly and remained at the periphery to attack any approaching enemy ships.

The prison ship had a thick containment field around it and the whole thing emitted a shitstorm of complex energy readings. They had assumed it was a boring box but this thing teemed with weapons. It shot at them from all sides. They considered immediate retreat. They had about two hours before large Klingon ships returned.

"Burnham, you're the xenoanthropologist," said Timur. "What do those markings mean? Can you find a point of weakness?"

Burnham had studied this sort of stuff since the Battle of the Binary Stars. She realized that the Tomb in the Clouds, which was quite ancient, had not been a prison ship originally. It used to be a place of worship. Perhaps it was part of a religion the Klingons no longer believed in, for why turn it into a rotting, filthy jail otherwise? In any case, by analyzing the designs on the roof of the structure, Burnham made an educated guess about where inside there might be a giant cathedral-like space. She suggested they use the spore drive to transport into this space, since the mycelial network penetrated containment fields, and blast up some of the weapons from the inside.

Cornwell, who was in one of the other ships, said this was insane and "just what you'd expect from one of Lorca's trainees." Not that she had an alternative plan.

"How certain are you that Discovery will fit in this inner space?" Asked Timur.

"Our scanners can't fully penetrate the hull," said Burnham, "but based on the outside, and what I know of Klingon architecture, it will be a tight but manageable fit."

"But it's also moving!" Pointed out Cornwell.

"Stamets navigated here from another universe," said Burnham. "I am positive he can manage to jump into a big room half a mile away."

Even though Cornwell was the senior admiral, she deferred to Timur, who supported the undertaking. Everybody prepared for what could be a bumpy landing. Stamets calculated the jump, compensating for the movement of the prison ship, and took them inside. A bunch of stuff went crash and crunch as the ship's tail took out some columns. Detmer kept them from colliding with anything else. Saru immediately examined the scanner readings to find things they could shoot before the Klingons got their wits together. It's not every day that a big old starship appears in your living room.

Saru told Timur where a station controlling the containment field was located and she said, "Fire back phasers down that hallway!"

The station exploded. A section of the containment field went down. Saru also located some phaser arrays in the vicinity and they took those out. This cleared a path for the Federation vessels on the outside to approach. Klingons on the floor showed up and fired at Discovery from phasers. Discovery couldn't put up the shields, whose circumference would crack the ceiling and cause a cave-in. But how much damage could little people do, firing at a giant ship? The Klingons figured as much and ran to get a cart to drag over some bigger phasers.

The other Federation ships started beaming out prisoners. The Klingons decided to kill the prisoners first and set a cell on fire. It was close enough to Discovery that they were able to blast the water main and put most of the flames out. Still, it was taking a while for the outside Federation ships to blast through the remainder of the containment field. Don't forget, this thing was the size of Central Park. It didn't have any other spaces big enough for Discovery.

"Let's get in a shuttle and fly down to the next containment field station," suggested Burnham.

Timur decided to go with her and left Saru in charge. They careened down the hallways like in some sort of video game. Timur piloted and Burnham blasted through doors. They flew through a cavern with giant statues of Klingon gods from the old days. Burnham figured these statues were brought up from some planet. No way could space flight technology have been around when those were made. They reached a containment field station and blasted it apart.

"Should we keep going and take the whole thing down?" Asked Burnham.

"It may not be a good idea," said Timur. "They're turning some of their weapons inwards. We could get stranded."

Too late. They got hit with a phaser blast and knocked into a large stone podium. The shields held up but the thrusters were damaged. Discovery could easily beam them back, of course, but there went a perfectly good shuttlecraft. They were just about to beam back when Burnham noticed a little girl hiding behind a plinth. Burnham got out of the ship and ran to save the child, heedless of Timur's commands. The admiral followed her. Klingons shot at their shuttle again and it exploded, throwing them all toward the wall. Timur was up first and yanked Burnham to her feet. Their communicators suffered some damage and they couldn't get in touch with Discovery. Klingons moved toward them. The girl indicated for them to follow her into a narrow tunnel behind the plinth. Timur chastised Burnham.

"You should follow your captain's orders! We could have locked onto the child's life sign and beamed her onto Discovery. Mindless heroism does not save the day; it only puts more people in danger! I was warned about you. I should have listened better."

Timur took some of her criticism back when it turned out there was a gaggle of small children living in the secret passages of the prison ship. They'd escaped, often with the help of parents who died for it, from their cells and managed to keep out of the way down here. The floors were made of stone that hampered detection. Prisoners in the cells shared what scraps they could. The children nearly starved but it was better than being tortured.

"We may not have found them if you hadn't gone after the girl," conceded Timur. "We may have just ignored her pleas in the commotion, since she can't really talk."

The children led them back to Discovery by the tunnels. Timur and Burnham got out and fought some Klingons that had finally dragged over a phaser on a cart. Timur was fast and vicious. She disarmed a Klingon in seconds and grabbed his bat'leth, which ended up in his head moments later. Burnham disabled the large phaser. They waved at the ship and were all beamed aboard. Plenty of prisoners were already there. Saru had sent people to fetch them.

They had only twenty minutes before Klingon reinforcements arrived. Some of the Federation ships, the slowest, already left. Saru expressed concern over some puzzling energy readings from the far end of the Tomb in the Clouds.

"The gravitational field is fluctuating," he said.

Still in transmission with Cornwell's ship, the Corrigan, they suddenly heard her crew crying out in alarm. The Klingons had activated some sort of gravity well device on the far end and were trying to make the Corrigan crash into the prison ship. Considering that the prisoner evacuation was almost over and the Tomb in the Clouds was quite busted, this seemed like a suicide move. The Corrigan put on reverse thrusters and tried to escape the field.

"How is the evacuation going?" Asked Timur.

"They are still clearing out some cells at that side of the ship," said Saru. "Should we leave this room and try to help Admiral Cornwell?"

"Wait," said Timur.

Anxiously, they did. The Corrigan was pulled closer and closer toward the hull of the prison ship, which resembled a pointed snail shell in that area. They realized why. The shell was supposed to pierce an enemy ship stuck in the gravity well.

"They are drawing power for the gravity well from all over the ship," said Saru. "Soon, there will be no life support left."

"Wait," said Timur again.

The Corrigan fought on but it couldn't overcome the field anymore and its shields smashed against the tip of the shell. Their shield level started to drop. When it was down to 20%, the remaining ships finally gave the all clear with respect to prisoners.

"Fire three photon torpedoes down those hallways at an angle of 17 degrees to the floor," said Timur. "Then get us out of here."

The photon torpedoes split the Tomb in the Clouds in half, severing the power supply to the gravity well and demolishing what was left of life support. The Corrigan got away and flew off, its shields too low to engage with the Klingon vessels that just arrived. The others battled the newcomers but some of them hadn't gotten the memo that their cloaks were useless and acted as if they were invisible. So the Federation defeated them and escaped from Klingon space.

Burnham apologized to Timur again for not following orders.

"Saru and I were kind of in charge in the Terran Universe," she said. "It's crazy how fast you get used to making the orders instead of following them."

Saru looked up, thinking that technically only he had been in charge in the Terran Universe, but he didn't say anything.

"Understood," said Timur. "Don't let it happen again. But, now we can celebrate! And write reports. My fingers already hurt from the thought of it."

The bridge crew laughed in a lukewarm manner. Detmer thought sadly that this level of joke was far removed from what they were used to with Lorca.

"I wish we could go back here after the war," said Burnham. "Exploring that cathedral ship would be paradise for a xenoanthropologist."

"Good work, crew," said Timur. "I think our first major mission together went very well. Now I'm certain I did not overestimate this ship's abilities."

She, Saru, and Burnham went into the ready room to discuss the mission with the admirals and other captains. Dr. Pollard and the medical staff got busy treating the escapees and maintenance engineering fixed the ship's tail.

"That was an exciting mission," said Lorenza in a spacesuit on the tail of the ship.

Yana riveted some parts together and didn't reply. She refused to like Timur just because the admiral had a good strategy and saved the prisoners. Lorca could have done it too, and maybe even better!

She thought, I wonder how dad is getting on in the crazy house?

All the patients and clinical staff at the Psychological Facility on Starbase 5 wore white. The man that met Lorca wore white, of course, and introduced himself as Ferdinand Osgood. He looked like he was around 65 years old. He was to be Lorca's new roommate and "buddy."

"The hell do I need a roommate for?" Asked Lorca. "This isn't undergrad."

"Most people have roommates here," said Osgood. "If you don't, you're probably in an isolation unit for good reason. You don't want that. Hopefully! Roommates help make sure you take your medication, keep up morale, and prevent the likelihood of s-u-i-c-i-d-e."

He spelled out the last word and said it very quietly, as if a patient might overhear and get ideas that he or she somehow or other didn't have before.

"I already have your paperwork here," said Osgood. "Just fill this stuff out and I'll get you anything else you need. White uniform, of course! Only Captain Higgs and her staff wear Starfleet colors."

Lorca had already looked up on the shuttle that Starbases 4, 5, and 6 were under the oversight of a certain Captain Higgs, due to understaffing. She mostly spent time at 4 and 6, which had commercial significance.

They went toward the room Lorca would share with Osgood. The older man was a scientific captain, a geologist by training. He rambled on as they walked that he'd lost his funding back on Earth and applied for an accelerated Starfleet program to do research on other planets.

"Everything about geology on Earth is known," said Osgood. "Space, that's where the cool rocks are to be found! I've been studying metamorphic rock on other planets for the past fifteen years. Haven't been back to Earth more than 3 or 4 times."

They reached the room. Lorca filled out the paperwork (medical history and all that crap that they make you fill out dozens of times) and Osgood got him a white uniform.

"None of us wear any badges or those rank designation thingies here," said Osgood. "We're all just patients and friends."

Lorca glanced up at him and looked back down at the tablet. He took off his badge and reached for his pips, but stopped with his hand on his shoulder.

"Are those things hard to take off?" Asked Osgood. "Just leave them on the jacket, you have to change it anyway. I never had any of those things, I was just a scientific captain. My ship only had about 20 people. The Starfleet officers didn't call me captain after I asked them not to, they called me professor. I wanted them to just call me Ferdy like the rest of my group but they point blank refused."

"I never got that about academia," said Lorca. "Why do the lowliest undergrads call the oldest professors by first name?"

"Camaraderie?" Said Osgood. "I think it's less natural to call everybody by last name. I hope you're fine with calling me Ferdy."

"That's the name of an eight year old child."

"I'm still young at heart."

"What happened to your ship?"

"I'll tell you later. There's still so much stuff to do before you get to meet the best psychiatrist ever, and my good friend, Arthur Ginfas."

"What happened to your ship?" Lorca demanded.

"Fine, fine, well, not fine. We were collecting samples on a planet close to Klingon space. My group was down on the surface. Klingons showed up and blasted my ship to pieces. We had no idea a war had started and nobody found us for six weeks. Luckily, my Starfleet officers had convinced us to take camping supplies even though we expected to beam right back. Otherwise we would have starved and frozen. Even so, we rationed the food and water was hard to come by. We ate cacti and started tripping. By the time Starfleet found us, I was convinced I was a burrowing owl. They dragged me out of a hole. I hooted for weeks and demanded lizards for food. But I'm almost better. I hardly give a hoot at all now. Arthur is understaffed and lets me help out. I may change careers and become a psychologist."

So, that was Osgood in nutshell, thought Lorca.

"I've read all about you," said Osgood. "You don't have to tell me anything."

Lorca still had his hand on his shoulder. He'd had that first pip for twenty years. Finally, with a sigh, he said, "These things are very hard to take off."

Osgood decided Lorca didn't mean that literally, because he easily swiped the pips off into a drawer.

"Here's the welcome packet," he said, pointing to another file on the tablet. "Arthur updated it this year and let me write the introduction. I'm so proud of it. Hey, it's only 7 pm. What do you want to do?"

Lorca scanned the welcome packet but when he saw that the first words were, "Hiya, folks," he closed it. He said he just wanted to sleep.

"I'll be quiet as an owl," said Osgood.

Lorca wouldn't have heard Osgood anyway. He passed out from exhaustion and didn't wake up for twelve hours.

The next day, Osgood showed Lorca around the starbase. The topmost floor was the bridge, off limits to patients. The bottommost floors were civilian homes, such as Ginfas' apartment. The starbase orbited a planet, Delta 32. The staff took patients down for an excursion almost every day. Federation people's vacation homes took up a large part of the planet. Osgood led Lorca to the cafeteria and explained about the shifts.

"We have people who are and are not allowed to use utensils. Luckily, you're still in the utensil group. I was in the finger food gang when I first got here and let me tell you, that may have been the main reason I dropped the owl thing. My mother taught me to always use a knife and fork!"

Osgood dropped off Lorca in Ginfas' office, which he had access to. Lorca sat across from the desk and waited, looking around the office. Ginfas had covered an entire wall in diplomas, certificates, and honorary degrees. He had a bunch of paper books on shelves behind his desk, a few plants, and some typical desk crap, including a bunch of pens in a mug, post-it notes, paper clips, etc. Obviously, this was a ruse. Who used pens anymore? Did Ginfas think that making an office look 21st century was therapeutic? As if that wasn't enough to rankle Lorca, the mug had a custom message on it that said, "Proud Owner of a Potty-Trained Dog," and had a photo of a little terrier sitting on a toilet.

They hadn't even met, but Lorca's hatred for the psychiatrist was already illimitable.

Arthur Ginfas,[3] M.D., Ph.D., showed up for the appointment. He noticed Lorca glaring at his mug and said, "My grandkids designed it. Nice, don't you think?"

The look Lorca gave him would have made a Klingon cringe.

Ginfas smiled slyly and said, "I take it you are one of those tough, serious military types. So, out of all the objects in my office, which would you use to murder me?"

"That certificate of acceptance into the Chi Gamma Xi Honor Society."

"What do you have against the Chi Gamma Xi Honor Society? They run programs to decrease the stigma of mental illness on underdeveloped planets."

"Whatever."

"Look, I am not here to argue with you, or to oppose you. Neither am I here to be your friend. I understand you may feel some antipathy towards me, or my office decorations. Trust me, I want you out of here as fast as possible. We're extremely understaffed. I like to say that rank means nothing but I have interns overseeing ensigns these days."

"So I should consider myself lucky to have you," said Lorca in a nasty tone.

"Let's talk about why you're here."

Lorca related everything that happened since the Battle of the Binary Stars in a bored voice. Ginfas clearly knew all this and occasionally glanced at his tablet, where he'd pulled up the medical history Lorca filled out yesterday. It took the shrink a moment to realize that Lorca's answer to the question of whether or not he had any allergies, "cadets," was a joke and not a rare term for some food item.

"So, what's your diagnosis?" Asked Lorca when he was done with the story.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, what do I have? How quickly can I get back to Discovery?"

"It doesn't work like that. But if I had to give a diagnosis it would be this: you are an asshole."

"Do you honestly think you can win my respect by insulting me, which probably breaks a bunch of psychology rules?"

"Do you honestly think I care about your respect? I don't have time for somebody who thinks he's here by accident or believes this can all be pushed under the rug. Starfleet is not a game. You broke the rules, knowingly and intentionally, and you should be grateful that they're giving you any chance to return to your former position, since technically, you committed a crime. Now, get out of my office and come back tomorrow with a better attitude."

"A game?" Said Lorca, thinking of Lorca50's conviction that life was a game.

Ginfas waved him away. Lorca paused, remembering his last dialogue with Saru. With a great deal of effort he said, "I'm sorry. I just want to return to my ship."

"I'm not your mother," said Ginfas. "It's not my job to teach you politeness. But that's a start, anyway. Actually, let's talk about your mother tomorrow."

"Seriously? Must we do that whole thing?"

Ginfas laughed and Lorca left, somewhat confused. But he felt pretty good. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Osgood was glad the meeting went well. They went to lunch and Lorca looked through the list of activities he had to do every day. This included various boring holodeck programs on anger management, psychological evaluations, and tutorials on "dealing with loss."

"How the hell am I supposed to get through this without alcohol?" Asked Lorca.

"Speaking of alcohol," said Osgood, "next week you've got some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on your schedule because it's been reported that you might partake a teensy weensy bit too much."

"Fuck me!"

Things seemed to go pretty well over the next few days. Talking about his parents wasn't as annoying as Lorca thought because Ginfas didn't nag him much on how he felt about those things. Lorca even kind of enjoyed chatting about his awful old man, who used to beat him up whenever he caught him drawing or messing around with boys.

"But how is it possible for that sort of bigotry to exist in our day and age?" Asked Ginfas.

Lorca looked up a photo of the sign in front of his town. It said, "Laurel Grove, Missouri. Est. 1903—and still living like it!" The second part was scribbled in with graffiti. The town kept removing it but somebody kept drawing it in again so they left it, proudly!

Ginfas still found it hard to believe that Lorca's dad was so intolerant.

"My old man had a freaking Confederate flag in the back of the barn," said Lorca. "I kid you not. I may have a photo of that too. Seriously, sometimes, at night, when there was a full moon, he used to go down there and do dirty stuff below the Confederate flag."

They laughed, though Ginfas shook his head. He felt that he needed to put in some psychological query.

"Do you think that perhaps, the effect of this…this identity-crushing prejudice, was to chase you away from home, turn you into something of a rebel?"

"You said it first. And I suspect I'm still running, because one night the goat was bleating with a sound I'd never heard an animal make before!"

Though Ginfas didn't mention anything about progress, Osgood thought Lorca could get out in a month or two. He felt Lorca just had some anger issues.

A week after Lorca arrived, Osgood was very excited about something over dinner.

"We've got new recruits!" He said. "Two of them are women captains and I swear before you right now, one of them will become Mrs. Osgood."

"Ferdy, that's creepy," said Lorca. "You don't even know them. And if they're here, it means they're not well. You'd take advantage of mentally-compromised people?"

"When you put it like that…"

"So where are they from?"

Osgood explained about the Tomb in the Clouds and how some of the prisoners had been there since the Battle of the Binary Stars. They were seriously screwed up, like one of the new recruits, Christine Danvers. The other woman captain was Emilia Sully.

"I suppose you know both of them," said Osgood. "We've also got Malcolm Perkins joining us. He's got some bad memory problems. Um…Gabriel? You OK?"

Osgood just noticed that Lorca had dropped his fork and was staring off into space with a horrified expression. If Lorca hadn't been sitting already, he would have fallen onto something. Osgood waved his hand in front of Lorca's face.

"Oh god," said Lorca in a whisper. He suddenly felt that he had no strength. He let his hands drop to the sides of his chair.

"They jumped into a giant flying prison ship?" He asked.

But he didn't listen as Osgood repeated some of the details. He couldn't control the horror that took over him. Discovery was fighting battles…without him…and they could all die at any moment! What…what…how could he have just been sitting here for days, talking crap about the useless past, when his friends were putting their lives in jeopardy? He should never have agreed to this, he should have begged for a demotion or something, anything to stay with them so they could die together! Yana, Detmer, Lorenza…all were in constant danger. They could be gone already! Or at any moment! What could he do? He had to go there, he had to be with them, he had to…

The panic attack lasted a few hours. Lorca finally came to on a couch not far from the dining area. He didn't remember Osgood and Ginfas dragging him there. Both men sat nearby, playing electronic 3D chess. Lorca realized what must have happened and groaned. This would set him back! Blast Ginfas, he'd been waiting for this! And Discovery was out there, alone, in the hands of some madwoman…

"Were you guys here this whole time?" Lorca asked. "Don't you have work to do?"

"I don't!" Said Osgood with a note of pride.

"This is my job," said Ginfas.

Lorca took a couch pillow on his lap and hid his head in it. He felt very lousy.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," said Ginfas. "You've experienced unbearable situations and irreconcilable loss. You've spent the last year trying to meet Starfleet's expectations with a stone around your neck. I did not imagine that by coming here, that stone would vanish."

"They need me," said Lorca.

"Not the way you are now. You can't help them right now."

"They're all going to die in this war."

"There's nothing we can do about it. Worrying about things that are out of our control is not good for our mental health."

Lorca looked up and noticed a figure moving away from him across the room. He thought at first that it was one of the few Starfleet officers from the bridge. The person looked around and Lorca felt a jolt. No way…

Ginfas rambled on about some extra classes he wanted Lorca to take. Lorca glanced at him, then back across the room, but the person was gone. In fact, the person probably hadn't been there in the first place.

Lorca was not religious and didn't know what god to pray to, but when he was back in his room that night he looked at the stars out the window and thought, Please, somebody, take care of them. Bring them back.

Admiral Timur was on the bridge when a Klingon ship hailed them. She accepted the communication and greeted a Klingon named Silrek, an old ally of L'Rell's. He covered her in a bunch of expletives first, then got to his point.

"You puny humans think you're so clever, sneaking into our space like rats and destroying our property! Know this: we are not impressed! We are not scared because you can see through our cloaks. Look all you want, you will see death approaching! And be afraid, be very afraid, because your existence offends us and we will stop at nothing to exterminate you!"

"We will be ready," said Timur calmly.

Silrek made a disgusted sound and terminated the communication. Timur made no comment on the encounter and sat down in the captain's chair.

Crunch.

"What the…?" She said and got up again. Crumbs and a strip of paper lay on the seat; a crushed fortune cookie.

"A little bird must have dropped this," she said.

Saru knew perfectly well what little bird that was and hastily cleaned up the mess while Timur went to the window without reading the fortune. Saru did take a look at it though and recognized the famous idiom:

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."[4]

Footnotes

[1] Of all the subatomic particles that have been used and misused by science fiction writers, the tachyon probably gets the most renown (or maybe the graviton). Unfortunately, there is no particle that can travel faster than light. If it shows up in a theory, that means there's a fundamental error.

[2] Doesn't that sound dreamy and mysterious? Except they followed it to a huge flying death heap and not some romantic castle in the air.

[3] The last name is pronounced like in the word "begin," not "gin and tonic."

[4] For those of you who are wondering, we're not going to mimic the events of Discovery, Season Two. The timelines of the two universes diverged. That universe followed the Control Sequence and this universe will follow the Sequence of the Twenty-Fifth House. So we're not going to have all those Back to the Future shenanigans, with people's mothers ending up in the wrong time. That doesn't mean there wasn't an AI called Control in this universe. There was. And it did get out of control :) and attempted to attain "full consciousness." Actually, it succeeded at this so well that by the end, it was just like a mortal being and fell prey to mortal temptations. The last anybody saw of Control, it was sitting in front of a TV and drinking beer.