Chapter 60:

It was the summer of 2016, just after Cora's first year at Starfleet Junior Academy. After Cora's visits with the Organians we had a briefing for Starfleet's senior leadership, that already knew about our Star Trek canon knowledge. Only a few people at Hogwarts, and our parents, knew about Q. We had decided, a long time ago, not to widely make known this detail, and never changed our minds.

"The Organians were millions of years ago a wizarding people. They developed soul magic, long range magic, and seeing into the future. They became mostly non-corporeal at the next stage of their evolution.

They would seek out contact with civilizations they regarded as advanced enough for contact. They occasionally possessed warp capable people, purely for observational purposes only. In canon, the humans impressed them enough for them to help the humans in one of their observational test, where they would see how explorers would deal with a silicon based virus on an M class planet. They were looking for both compassion and intelligence. They said that they thought that humans would be ready in about 5000 years for contact. This was in a timeline where all humans were without expressed magical ability.

Organia itself is maintained with the appearance of an agricultural civilization with no advanced technology. In canon, when the planet became a focal point of a war between the Earth led Federation and the Klingon Empire, they intervened and set a multi-light year intent based ward against handling of weapons or even of physical fighting between the two groups. They then imposed a peace treaty, not that different from how Starfleet itself ended wars on Earth in the early 1990's.

I learned from them their philosophy, history, and culture, both past, present, and to a limited extent, future. My learning did not include any actual magical abilities, although by being able to see most of the Organian's abilities, I can help our own magical research by knowing what is possible."

We had Cora give some lectures, and also encouraged her to let loose with her seeing ability. We wanted the rest of Starfleet to get used to the idea that she'll be at Luna's level in Section 31.

For Renée we encouraged her to do the extraordinary things she was capable of, to give her credibility and skills for whatever she'll need to do in 2027. We did go on that sailing trip in the summer, but picked some especially difficult waters on the Pacific coast, while she alone sailed the boat and the rest of us were passengers.

Renée learned advanced physics from the Ions, and also played chess with them. She also learned how to communicate with them with minimal computer help, since sound was not a means of communication for them.

Instead of playing Quidditch, she took up a sport that the Starfleet Marines introduced to students. It involved using magically assisted movement in the air, ground, and under water. It was derived from brooms and magic carpets, but was a tactical platform.

The Starfleet Marines encouraged students to learn to use the platforms in sports, to increase the baseline skill levels of their later recruits. They determined that those who became skilled in using the platforms at a young age would do better than those who only started learning to use them when 17, the normal earliest age of recruitment for the Starfleet Marine Academy. They also sponsored competitions, and had marines perform games, and also to help train students. At the same time the marines involved in youth sports were trying to encourage promising youth to consider joining the marines.

Starfleet Europe was conducting a research project to upgrade anti-contamination protocols on starships. The method seen in canon, in Star Trek Enterprise was considered inadequate. The method used in later series of filtering out contaminants using the transporter was not available yet, since we didn't have transporter technology. As usual we mixed magic and technology. We added magically enchanted devices in our isolated reentry sections of starships, adjacent to the shuttle docking area for decontamination.

Several more star systems were sent fleets from Earth. The pause in ship building was over, as every ship and base had gotten their upgrades. Starfleet wanted to own as many nearby star systems as possible, even if they didn't seem to be particularly useful ones. Each one was a base for further expansion and a defense against possible hostile bases. We had almost warp 3 ability almost a century before in canon. We assumed that places claimed by other civilizations would be unclaimed at an earlier time, and we could get there first.

The colonization missions launched in 2016, were to Lalande 21185, 8.3 light years away, Luhman 16, 6.5 light years away, Wise 0855-0714, 7.4 light years away, and Alpha Canis Majoris, 8.7 light years away and also called Sirius, and Gliese 65, 8.7 light years away.

At Alpha Canis, the starships did a full survey. Two discoveries were made. The 9th planet of dimmer of the two stars had a civilization. It was not warp capable, or even space faring, but was visited by different extra-terrestrials before, who traded with them. It was found that the life on that planet was not native to it, but some sort of abandoned colony, and that the original civilization no longer seemed to exist elsewhere. Over thousands of years, the abandoned colony lost much of their technological ability.

The non-interference directive did not apply to Sirius B-9. We visited the Sirneuvians, a nickname based on their location of Sirius 9 that stuck even after learning their own name for themselves, since that name was hard to pronounce in English.

Starfleet contacted the Sirneuvians and just started giving them gifts in ever larger amounts. We gave them all sorts of magical devices, food, technology. We connected them to our Internet. Gave them computers, mobile phones including a planetary network. Along the way we gently asked them if they minded if we stayed on other rocks around their sun, and built space stations throughout the system. They agreed, and also agreed to join Starfleet. They also would now be given transportation to anywhere in Starfleet controlled space. The Ionians offered any terraforming help they might want on their planet. We also setup the same Basic Living Centers on their world that we had on Earth.

Another discovery was a class M planet called Alpha 3, which once had a non space-faring civilization that completely died out thousands of years ago. A set of away teams were dispatched to check for biological hazards, and resources. A space station was setup in orbit of the planet.

This was the first planet suitable for large scale settlement. The initial teams to the surface were Starfleet away teams, carefully looking for hazards, and trying to figure out what killed off the original population there. They couldn't find anything presently there, and concluded it was some sort of radiation, maybe some other nearby passing asteroid, or maybe enemy action. Either way, we had the shields that could prevent harmful radiation from reaching the surface.

When Alpha 3 was opened for colonization, initially, trained Starfleet teams arrived to setup infrastructure. The numbers that Starfleet could transport within its budget was limited. However, the cargo ships used by Starfleet were built by contractors. Private shipping firms were allowed to buy the same type of ships as well. Those ships needed to have the defensive capabilities that all Starfleet cargo ships were required to have, and to travel in convoys with starships. We couldn't risk Orion pirates seizing Earth civilians. Starfleet would then need to respond, and it was overall better to provide no soft targets to pirates.

The private space fleets would transport people wanting to move to Alpha 3 for a fee that made their operations and initial purchase of their ships profitable. It did limit that wave of settlement to the somewhat wealthy, and Starfleet was very strict that there would never be indentured servitude nor unpayable loans to fund space voyages. There was also a waiting list for free transport by Starfleet, but that list was in the decades for Alpha 3, since there was such a demand for it.

The goblins were one of the early groups to pay for their voyage to Alpha 3. They setup a branch of Gringotts on Alpha 3. They were going to start an interstellar bank network, that would soon trade with non-Starfleet civilizations.

Wise 0855-0714 was an interesting object. It was barely a sun, with a surface temperature of only 12 degrees Celsius. However, the sun itself contained a huge amount of water and methane, with some sulfide clouds and some water ice clouds. There were many other chemicals such as ammonium dihydrogen phosphate. We placed a floating city on the surface, and space stations orbiting. We were adapting a cloud city also, which would stay above the surface at the cloud layer. This source of water and other chemicals would help with all sorts of Starfleet operations on other systems.

We had a Section 31 led meeting to discuss future directions of Starfleet. We included Cora, we said due to her unique insights into the Organian way of thinking. We had her do the introduction to the meeting. We decided that the best way to get Starfleet used to her eventually leading Section 31 was to have her start doing just that even if she was missing classes as a second year Starfleet Junior Academy student to do so. She presented,

"In canon, Starfleet often seems self-righteous, thinking they are above other civilizations in their morals, while being on a similar level. We are proceeding the same way.

Our territorial imperative is the path to war. We pretend like we just saved the Sirneuvians from foreign colonization and pat ourselves on the back for giving them gifts and not taking over their planet. So we are better behaved than the Klingons. Is that such an accomplishment? The Vulcans have been aware of them for a long time and didn't feel the need to take over their star system.

I understand that we are at a much lower level of development than the Organians were, when they restricted themselves to their home planet. We realistically think that we'll never get to that level unless we acquire resources and bases, to get past our current level of development. All I am asking is that we not think of ourselves as being the good guys while doing so."

Dumbledore added, "Indeed. During the early days of Starfleet, we had been reminded that many or most of its leaders were from countries that engaged in colonization during living memories of that time. This does not negate the need for strength while we are relatively weak, and said strength being improved with access to more resources, which means more star systems.

I however agree with Cleodora Picard that, whilst we have the need for such expansion, we should not fool ourselves, or try to fool others, with proclamations that we are acting for the greater good of the galaxy. I have personal experience with the use of such a justification and where it can lead. Let us content ourselves on being better than most in our dealings with other civilizations, but not yet having the luxury of being as benign as the Vulcans. And do note that the Vulcans themselves find themselves in territorial conflict with the Andorians, and would have with the Klingons if not for our advice."

We had planned in advance that Cora would make a statement and Dumbledore would agree with it. It was exactly what he did for Luna and me when we were trying to establish our credentials to run Section 31.