Chapter 87:

The ending of the war felt like a letdown for those with a traditional warrior ethos, on both sides of the war. It was more like a chess match with the losing side conceding. It was also mostly a battle of drones and technological advantage, except for the early Gorn attack.

Those who had seen canon expected a battle to be focused on the bridge of a starship. "Enemy ship approaching!" 3 seconds later, "Red alert! Raise shields! Battle Stations!" 1 second later "Helm evasive pattern delta! Fire phasers!" 2 seconds later the ship shakes and the some of the displays and controls on the bridge spark and cause shocks "Forward shields down to 65% "Photon torpedo spread!" It is all very dramatic, but the computers can react much faster than people. Also, clouds of drones can fight in a way that large ships cannot.

It was time for one of the grand planning meetings of the Federation Alliance. There were many more voices now including the Romulans, Remans, Xindi, many worlds once under the control of the various empires, and all sorts of other worlds joining the Federation.

Most worlds agreed with a long term goal of mutual defense. The Federation would not tolerate empires as it will grow in the future. The Federation will advance military technology so as to keep ahead of any rivals. The Federation, by largely agreeing with the these goals, would prevent any of its own worlds from wanting to attack others within the Federation, since it would be unlikely that a large percentage of the Federation would ever agree to attack the rest. This would give the Federation a dynamic security even though some of its members were once empires.

Another agreement was that magic would provide economic prosperity along with technological development. There was little concept of patents in the Federation, technology was freely available for all to use. Incentives were given for invention, but restrictions on other's use of technology was not part of that incentive.

Another agreement was the Vulcan concept of IDIC, infinite diversity in infinite combinations. The huge numbers of cultures within the Federation were respected. The members of those cultures could individually decide to preserve those cultures or to join in a pan-Federation culture, or in various other combinations. Noone was required to remain in their culture of origin, nor was anyone prevented from trying to imitate other cultures if they wanted to. It was often popular to pick and choose different aspects of different cultures.

Starfleet research now focused much more on drones and magic. Starships now had more of a role of delivering and manufacturing drones than directly fighting, although they still needed to be able to do that.

Those who had seen canon noted that in our timeline we almost never saw a lone starship exploring the galaxy, making contact, solving problems, dealing with situations. What almost defined the canon Starfleet was not part of our timeline. We also were on a very accelerated timeline compared to canon in technology and in the expansion of the Federation. In some ways we were more warlike than even the mirror universe Terran Empire, but we had the advantage of being a true Federation adding the resources and abilities of many planets, not just the Terrans trying to rule everyone else.

Over the next 4 years the mobilized fleet remained. It wasn't a large impact on the economy. The number of crew per ship was small. The ships themselves provided a very good living environment for the crews.

In 2047 a new social movement started and our seers did not see it in advance. The huge wave of new magicals, the oldest turning 20 made a huge impact throughout the Federation. We expected that. However there was a larger cohort of non-magicals of the same age. Many of them felt resentful, ignored, less important than the magicals.

The Federation moved to relieve some of the pressure caused by that movement. With the absence of any enemies around the Federation, many new planets became available for colonization. Young adults founded colonies with all sorts of charters.

Many of the young non-magicals were resentful of the choices of their parents and vowed that they would choose to have magical children themselves. For that matter some of the magicals resented that they were expected to devote their lives to casting spells and were the hope of the older generations to save the economy.

For many other younger people, magical and non-magical, there was a general resentment of the prosperity of Federation society. They felt that traditional beliefs and ways were abandoned in place of a homogenization of cultures. Some with an intellectual propensity said that material needs and even warfare drove the past development of their species. For those, there were many colonies to choose from that preferred hardship.

Many idealized some past era or other. They felt that things were more real then, and something spiritual was missing in the present with the free Basic Living Centers, and no war, no piracy. Some went even further back. Apollo had a growing number of people, mostly human, who moved to his planet. He guided them to build a fairly accurate reconstruction of ancient Greek life there.

There were other groups of non-magical humans that wanted to recreate life in pre-agricultural days. They settled on planets suitable for hunting and gathering of food, and also convinced some magicals to join them who would learn the ancient role of shaman and medicine men and women. This subculture believed that the ancient human ideal culture had a few magicals among a larger group of non-magicals.

None of these, and many other movements were serious threats to the security of the Federation. They did however represent the end of an era of almost complete agreement about Federation culture and material trajectories.

There was a subculture that tried to act like Klingons. They felt it was a great tragedy that the Klingons were tamed and had noone to fight. Oddly enough Luna and I had been a subculture of two, 55 years ago, trying to act like Klingons. Now it was popular among humans and many other species.

There were also many who sought out Vulcan learning and who wanted to join Vulcan orders. The few that accepted off-worlders needed to modify certain rituals for other species that could not handle what Vulcans can. There were also some that wanted to follow Romulan culture.

The Vulcans and Romulans had an exchange program for those who wanted to learn the other's culture. There were a few teachers on both planets that tried to start a unifying movement, but found little interest. Some looked at what was known about Vulcan society before the split between Vulcans and Romulans, but it was a warlike time that almost destroyed itself with atomic warfare.

Jean-Laurent and Victoire's younger son Patrick was part of this movement. While his older brother, Jean-Philippe was learning how to eventually take over Picard enterprises, Patrick, born in 2032 was studying to be an archaeologist. He wants to follow the clues from canon and learn about the Progenitors, who genetically engineered many species, resulting in many planets having humanoids with only minor differences. Patrick wanted to discover ancient artifacts and ruins to learn more about that ancient era. He, like many around his age, believed that there was a purer, more meaningful civilization in the past.

He often mentioned that his cousin Pythia and aunt Cora had uncle Q show them other civilizations and he would like to see the Progenitors. He never expressed resentment, but you could see that there was some jealousy he had towards them.

Luna corrected an earlier vision she had and said that Jean-Philippe would be the ancestor of Jean-Luc Picard from canon, not Patrick. Patrick would be very similar to the future Jean-Luc, but not his actual ancestor. Luna told Patrick that if he annoyed uncle Q enough he might just let him see what he wanted, but it would probably be a terrifying challenge rather than whatever he was expecting. Q popped in and said, "Do the research and I'll consider bridging that step. There is far more for you to research than what was seen in the episode, the Chase."

Patrick took to these studies with great enthusiasm. He took classes wherever they might be helpful to his goal. He asked his great grandfather, Xenophilius if he could intern to learn how to research ancient legends. Xenophilius along with his uncle Ekdotis agreed. He would not only intern, but eventually would take over being editor of that part of the Quibbler. His cousin Eravna, who would eventually inherit all of Lovegood enterprises, was more interested in the News of the Federation part of the publication. The plan was that Patrick would first gain an education in all aspects of ancient civilizations and also in publishing the Quibbler. Then he would do field work and write articles for the Quibbler. Finally when he would stop doing field work, he would become the editor of the Quibbler.

The planet that was in the Enterprise episode "North Star" was found. A group of humans were abducted by aliens in the 1860's in the American West and brought to that planet. Sometime later the humans overthrew the Skagarians who had abducted them, and reversed the roles.

Starfleet sent an all human group of Marines to visit the planet. They offered to relocate the Skagarians to any planet that would accept them, and for the 6000 or so humans to return to Earth, or any other Federation location, or to help them with technology on the planet they were living on.

All of the Skagarians accepted the strongly encouraged offer, and another planet with the same species was found to relocate them to. A few people with both human and Skagarian background were encouraged to relocate elsewhere in the Federation. Some of the humans wanted to go to Earth, and some to stay. Of those who stayed, some accepted technology while some preferred not to. Other humans wanted to join this planet, and the humans agreed to let them, but only after they passed an interview and the town meeting voted to accept them.

The year 2048 saw a new social phenomena. Groups of young magicals refused to perform magic to help the economy and military. Many joined groups living in self contained communities, living off of free Basic Living, but using magic for artistic creations. Even with their art, music, and entertainment extravaganzas, they didn't ask for credits or anything in exchange. Some expounded on the idea of a free gift economy.

Planets had their budgetary allocations to the Federation Alliance, so they needed economic participation, yet they also offered free Basic Living. There were some fairly extreme protests when planets tried to tax imputed income, meaning income one could easily obtain, even if deciding not to work for credits. As long as this movement stayed small, it could be tolerated, but if it grew too large Starfleet wouldn't be able to meet its budget. It wasn't as much a threat to free Basic Living, since these same groups would use magic to provide for anyone who showed up at their communities. Essentially they were providing free Basic Living for free to anyone.

An offshoot of this movement didn't even stay on planets. They acquired a hodgepodge collection of small spaceships, tethered together, or flying in formation, and would drift around the Federation. They would stay on different planets and Starbases for a while and then move on. Some would stay behind, and inevitably some would join them. An ancestor of a certain Starfleet Engineer named Scott said, "They are a menace to navigation"

Many older people were nostalgic for the trouble makers of the previous decade, who at least weren't trying to sabotage the economy.