Chapter 68:

The net result for Starfleet of essentially installing a new government on Vulcan that was similar to the one in Star Trek Original Series, was no gain of technology and also agreeing to a more restrictive rules of engagement. We didn't have goals in changing Vulcan and didn't accomplish many either, except for two. Vulcan shared its stellar database. There was also a sense that Vulcan might consider a Federation in the future.

The Andorians wanted to see the Alliance in action. They requested a joint fleet with Starfleet and the Tellarites to investigate star systems in the direction of Klingon spaces, which was within their agreed upon direction of expansion. We all assumed that with our relatively high speed expansion efforts about 140 years before that of canon, that we might be able to get to some territory first. That direction would first reach Orion influenced areas, before reaching Klingon areas.

Starfleet sent two of the new Enterprise-B size starships, the Tellarites one, the Andorians two. The Andorians said that the fleet commander should be an Andorian since the operation would be taking place in space that was designated for Andorian expansion. From its direction it could also have been an areas reserved for Vulcan, but they were not participating in this expansion. They had already claimed certain systems and were no longer planning to claim additional ones.

We agreed to an Andorian commander, but said that our ships will only follow orders that they agree fall in with the spirit of Starfleet policy which also now include the rules of engagement. The Andorians said that was not acceptable and they needed to be able to count on all ships following their commander's orders.

Starfleet said that even within Starfleet, orders are not followed blindly. That, in the visions of the alternate future there were times when commanders went rogue, and there were times that command staff were under previously unknown types of alien mind control or were actually shape-shifters. We explained that all Starfleet personnel are also required to determine if orders make sense and not blindly follow them, and that there are procedures for removing from duty, higher ranked personnel. The Andorians reluctantly agreed to the limits on their command ability of this fleet.

All four of the ships had people who learned the Klingon language and culture. They also had crew members who could speak Orion, although the Orions we met could already speak English. All of the Alliance followed the Starfleet policy of shields up, not just when in combat.

This mission would not have mixed crews, but there were tentative plans for future missions with exchanges of crews. There were plans to have crews visit each other during their voyage, but not to be on duty on the other ships. However each ship was authorized to swap crews if they thought it was necessary.

We asked the Vulcans if they wanted to participate in this mission, but they did not. They did say that they would be most interested to know how it proceeded. Our intelligence said that the Vulcans knew that this mission would have many challenges in dealing with minor powers and how we handled that would determine the future of the alliance with the Vulcans.

The fleet would resupply and start out from Lorillia, also called Gamma Leporis, 29 light years from Earth, which had a small Andorian colony.

This was going to be a multi-year mission. It was assumed that further fleets would follow later, and bring any available upgrade materials with them. Also, the mission could change depending on what was found.

In other directions, Starfleet and the Tellarites sent fleets to far away star system in the directions of their own expansions. The plan was to establish a presence far away and then fill in closer star systems later, trying to get to certain locations before other civilizations get there. For the Starfleet mission, Starfleet sent three starships while Tellar and Andoria each sent one starship. For the Tellarite mission, Andoria and Starfleet each sent a starship. These were launched later than the mission in Andorian space.

Towards the end of 2021, Tellar and Starfleet decided to jointly settle Vega 9. The Tellarites would live in the colder climate zones. The planet and star system as a whole would have a joint government.

Near Tellarite space was Draylax, which was already trading with other civilizations, although not warp capable on their own. This was going to be the first example of how the Alliance would deal with minor civilizations that either had warp technology or were already in contact with other civilizations.

The Draylaxian were similar in appearance to humans, with small facial differences. However, they had more significant anatomical differences. We had a delegation of a Human, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, and also a Kaferia, since they had a similar status to what we were offering Draylax. The delegation all learned to speak Draylaxian. While there were magical ways to translate, nothing as effective as the universal translator had yet become available. There was research in progress, however for a universal translator.

After initial statements the Kaferian, a sentient insect with an overall shape similar to a human said, "The advantages of joining the Alliance is free trade with the rest of the Alliance, protection from pirates and empires, assistance from disasters, developmental assistance, transportation, and joining the Alliance communications network. Joining the Alliance has been very favorable to my home world."

After some negotiation, Draylax joined the alliance as an associate member, meaning that they didn't have to provide military aid. They refused to give an open ended promise of participation in wars. They wouldn't rule out serving on our ships, or eventually building their own, but didn't want to be obligated to do so. As an associate member they would get access to technology and transportation and free trade with the Alliance members, and would agree to limit access of non-Alliance members to their system.

The Alliance was trying to determine what additional benefits full membership could bring, so new members didn't only want to be associate members. One thought would be to later introduce the Federation concept and then find ways to encourage full membership in the Federation for all of the Alliance. The Alliance was an interim step, but the Federation would not happen until Vulcan agreed.

The earlier Starfleet method of giving large amounts of assistance to minor civilizations was no longer possible. We didn't have the resources for that anymore, and that method was only to convince a planet's civilization to allow Starfleet colonization in the rest of the system. We could still give some assistance, just on a lower scale. We concentrated on building a communications network on their planet, and giving them technology.

We had a fleet heading towards Orion influenced areas. We were trying to convince Vulcan to find a way to consolidate civilizations that were under the influence of Orions or Klingons and give them an option to be protectorates of members of the Alliance instead of tributaries of the Orion Syndicate or Klingon Empire. We again were trying to show the Vulcans that a Federation would give us the ability to rapidly gain the allegiance of minor powers and provide mutual defense against hostile powers.

The Vulcan's view was that we did not need to be those areas of space. We could defend against piracy but not need to sort out that region of space. The other members of the Alliance felt that our security in the long run would be better if we could have that region as an ally. The three powers had a consensus that we could take over that region with mutual defense agreements, but only after being able to defeat the Orions.

We believed that the planets in that region would prefer to have peaceful trade without piracy. We wouldn't try to impose a system of government within these civilizations. We weren't trying to, or had the resources to, conquer these planets. We wanted mutual defense and agreements on the relations between civilizations. Maybe they wouldn't be part of an eventual Federation, but would be part of perhaps Federation Affiliates.

While the Vulcans might have other ideas if they agreed to a Federation, Starfleet, Tellarites, and Andorians had a more practical view of a Federation as civilizations that could get along with each other, and have a greater combined strength than they would individually. In canon, the Federation required of its members common ideals of liberty, equality, peace, justice, and progress with the purpose of further the universal rights of all sentient life. Our view was much more limited. We weren't going to try to impose how each civilization should be run. It would have something to say about how other species on other planets might be treated, but not internal organization.

Meanwhile magical Earth was still waiting to find extra-terrestrials that could be trained to learn magic. Vulcan was still only a possibility, as were the Aenar on Andoria. We had a Starfleet meeting about that. Starfleet China said "There is a wizarding community in Tibet that might be ideal for trying to talk to the Aenar. They also believe in peace and culturally are similar to the Aenar."

I said, "There have been conscripted non-magical armies on Earth that have accepted pacifists by giving them tasks that do not involve fighting. If the Aenar can be trained magically, they could produce civilian goods, such as that used in the Basic Living Centers, as well as medical facilities. Their use of magic would free up other spell casters to do more military type work."

The Andorians brought the Tibetan delegation to the Aenar and pledged that they would not try to force Aenar to be part of the Andorian military. The Tibetans and the Aenar got along well, and they agreed to let the delegation test them for magical ability. The Tibetans picked the ones with the highest ratings of their tests and had them try a selection of wands that they brought with them. A limited number of the Aenar had an affinity to a wand. They were taught the Lumos spell to light up the wand and all who had an affinity to a wand could perform the spell eventually.

Two of the Tibetans agreed to stay with the Aenar to see how much magic they could be taught. They mainly looked for Aenar children to teach, since it was found on Earth that magic was easier to learn as a child than as an adult. A year later they reported that they had a group of 8 students who were able to perform some spells.

The three members of the alliance, without Vulcan, discussed how we can obtain greater technology. Besides research, the only other nearby source of technology was Orion. One possibility looked at was trying to seize an Orion ship, but they were set to self destruct if anything went wrong, so that didn't seem that likely even if we could take over one of their ships, but research would be started to see if could be possible. Trading for technology also didn't seem useful, since they would understand that any advanced technology we acquired would eventually be used against them. The Vulcan database noted that the Nausicaans only got low technology warp capable ships from the Orions.

In the rules of engagement it was accepted that Starfleet was in a state of hostilities with Orion. That meant that we could attack first when encountering them. It was not a full state of war which would require the rest of the Alliance to make it a priority to attack Orion, but they were authorized to attack Orion. Vulcan had a state of hostilities with Klingon, but asked for no assistance from the Alliance, but we each could fire upon Klingon ships or not depending on the fleet commander's decision.

Starfleet interviewed the Orion prisoners again, with magically enhanced memory recall, similar to how we got my memories of Star Trek canon in such great detail. We learned a few things about the Orion ship defenses and how its self destruct system is triggered. Based on that knowledge the fleet heading towards Orion space was prepared with magically enchanted weapons, and a plan which we were going to try out.

The Tellarites designed a new compact ship that had the same top warp speed as the starships, but only had one warp core. The found a way to duplicate the dilithium chamber and switch from one to the other when the dilithium crystals were swapped out to replace the magically duplicated ones that only work for a short time, instead of having multiple warp cores. The Starbase at Terra Nova started building these ships.

There was also a design to add a modular cargo section to the small ship. As long as spell casters were around we didn't need that, since we could shrink cargo. However, there were some materials that could not be shrunk, and there weren't always spell casters available where cargo originated from.