Chapter 74:

On January 15th 2027, the first starship at Starbase Lorillia was ready. Admiral Johan Martinez, a non-magical Human, commanded the fleet. The first ship was the command ship and he took it on a shake-down cruise, while waiting for the other 11 starships to be ready. He brought some of the senior staff from the fleet with him.

Admiral Martinez invited them to the Admiral's Table, an informal dinner. "Welcome all. Not everything from canon is foolish. I like the idea of Captain Pike's Captain's Table. Now, you've all seen the Enterprise episode Fortunate Son, I want to hear your opinions of it."

Chief Engineer Zachary Gallacher said, "Upon hearing that the cargo ship in the episodes had a Nausicaan prisoner, Captain Archer asked, "What gives your the right to take prisoners?" and also said in response to the cargo ship planning to destroy the Nausicaan pirate ship said, "Just because someone isn't born on Earth, doesn't make him less human."

That last statement makes no sense. We'd fight piracy even if they were from our own planets. In fact not stopping them from committing piracy makes them less human in our eyes, as if they were animals that cannot control their behavior.

The first statement also makes no sense. The cargo ships were on their own, with almost no protection from Starfleet, and they weren't allowed to fight back against piracy?

However, We have to see that in the context that defined Starfleet at that time in that timeline, Earth was much weaker than it is now. It had gone through very destructive wars. It had completely destroyed their population of magicals, or augments as they called them.

They had been closely supervised by the Vulcans for 87 years. They had exactly one starship, and appeared to be building no more than one per year.

So, while the starship could outfight the Nausicaans it couldn't be everywhere at once. Furthermore, they didn't want to call on the help of the Vulcans, who kept recommending that Earth wait another 20 years before sending out any starships. Appeasement wasn't as irrational as it sounds, in their context."

Andorian Captain Synaos replied, "Even if they had reason to act like they did, what I find annoying is the moral superiority they pretended to have. Captain Archer should have just explained to the cargo ship, that while it is a battle they can win, it is a war they cannot afford to fight nor expect to win."

Starbase Lorilla, like all Starbases, was divided into sections. The commerce section was kept far away from the Starfleet ship building and maintenance section. The Starfleet ship section was separately shielded. It was determined that there was no assured way to stop visiting ships from being used as bombs, although every possible method was still being used to prevent that. The visiting ships were kept in their own shielded area. We weren't like the Borg who only guarded against an attack after it was once used against them. Starfleet had teams inventing ways to attack Starfleet, and then designing countermeasures to those possible attacks.

The training of ship crews throughout the Federation Alliance was now starting to centralize at Starfleet Academy on Earth. Its campus was now greatly expanded, and included English language immersion before starting other classes. Since all Starfleet ships had the same designs, the lessons on how to operate them was therefore the same, and the same classes could apply to all of the Federation Alliance.

Different preferred learning styles existed, sometimes even within the same species. Starfleet accommodated these differences, as well as different paces of learning. The Vulcans were satisfied by that, in not having to slow their learning down, or reduce the depth of learning to match the pace of others. Magical learning was added for those with magical abilities.

Mission specialists also had the same learning base. Since the entire Federation Alliance shared their technologies, the various researchers who would visit planets, each had the same scientific base, and therefore could have the same classes.

While new members of Starfleet were expected to learn at the Starfleet Academy, continuing education could occur anywhere. It could be from remote classes on starships, to smaller classes on Starbases, to schools on different planets. Generally it was the student's preferred learning style that drove the choice. Remote learning had many possible methods: computer instruction; lecture format; individual tutoring; group real-time classes. Careful statistics were kept of how quickly students learned with the different methods, and how those correlated with their background, and the detailed assessments they were given before their classes.

Another fleet was assembling at Starbase Centauri. It was going to visit systems in the region of New Berlin and ones that in the future were contested with the Romulans. Renée was on this fleet, and knew that this was a critical year for her, although none of us could see or figure out what that might mean.

There were other fleets of three starships, in some cases carrying colonists and the materials to assemble space stations and ground stations. They were sent to areas considered to be low risk.

A small fleet arrived at Deneva and established a colony there. It was a mixed group of various members of the United Federation and a few others. Any from other planets of origin would need to become citizens of Deneva which would be in the United Federation even if their planet of origin was not.

Its next stop was Beta Rigel, no longer under the control of the Orions. Rigel, with its main civilization on Rigel 4 and a smaller one on Rigel 10, wanted to join the United Federation. There was nothing on Rigel 7, so it looked like the planet from the Strange New Worlds episode "Among the Lotus Eaters" took place on a different Rigel system.

Its next stop was Burala.

Starfleet said to them, "The Federation is establishing itself in this region of space. Our primary goal is to provide collective defense so the that the civilizations here and throughout the Federation can thrive with peace, trade, and prevention of piracy. In addition we offer an exchange of technology, so each world has access to the combined research and knowledge of the entire Federation. We also offer a combined economic combination, where we each develop our societies cooperatively."

The differences between being a member of the Federation Aliance, and also being a member of the United Federation were explain.

They quickly agreed to join the United Federation. The Federation would benefit from some very advanced medical techniques they had.

The main fleet of 12 starships arrived at Nausicaa. They very visibly approached, arrived at the main planet and asked for planetary representatives to be sent to them. The Nausicaan ships and planetary defense system did not open fire. They sent up a delegation.

"You are here at Nausicaa. We are listening. Talk!"

"The Federation is here in this area of space to stay. We have already come to an agreement with the Orions. We are going to tell you about new rules that will be enforced. Piracy will not be allowed. You have 10 Nausicaan days to get the word out to all Nausicaans to end piracy. After that pirate ships will be destroyed. Any deliberate failure to prevent piracy would cause a state of war. There will be other rules.

On the positive side, Nausicaa can join the Federation Alliance and also the United Federation, which we will explain.

While the Federation tries to impose peace without fighting, sometimes wars will occur. If you become our allies you will be allowed to fight when those wars occur. At other times we offer combat sports and mutually agreed upon dueling with others in the Federation that appreciate fighting."

The Nausicaans don't fight irrationally. They could see that they were outclassed. They decided that their best prospects would be to join the Federation Alliance, and gain the new technologies. After that they could decide what to do, without being outclassed. They privately thought that the offer to them of an alliance with technology transfer was foolish on the part of the Federation.

When they saw the Federation Alliance requirements to contribute to Starfleet, the Nausicaans determined that they could meet the requirements by sending elite infantry and commandos in large numbers.

In March 2027, the Picard family assembled at Picard Napa Winery and Vineyards for the wedding of Cora and Theo. Renée appeared by subspace holocall. She was on her mission, in transit to its first destination.

Cora and Theo were going on their honeymoon to Vulcan. Afterwards they were going to try to recruit Vulcans to Section 31.

Since their grandparents did most of the organizing of their wedding, Luna and I had a lot of time to see the guests. Our friends from Hogwarts were in their late 40's.

Harry Potter, Director of Starfleet Marines, was involved in adding the Nausicaans to the marines. He had three main challenges: How to make use of their unique physical abilities. How to make sure that they followed orders. How to make sure that they don't hire on to an enemy of the Federation and turn traitor.

Hermione Granger-Potter was in charge of the Federation computing interchange department. It found ways to rapidly give access to the Federation internet to any new planets, which mostly had very different computing systems and networks. After learning from the first systems to join the network, it was too disruptive to replace native computing with Federation computing. Instead the procedure was to provide gateways to Federation computing, some of which would be on their planet.

If a planet found the Federation system to be superior to theirs, they could gradually change their industrial systems over to it. Any unique advantages that the planet's computing technology had would be incorporated into Federation technology if feasible. While the installed computing, was usually fairly embedded in the infrastructure of a planet, the Federation supplied portable devices on its own network. This gradually led to Federation technology being used, and spread to increasing uses, eventually replacing other computing.

Fred and George Weasley with their wives still lived in Kazakhstan. Their kids mostly were at Starfleet Academy, with two back in Kazakhstan to work. The research center there was considered a center of excellence for magical devices used for security and warfare. They had several apprentices. They recruited apprentices by looking for gifted trouble-makers at magic schools.

Ginny and Ron Weasley had long since retired from Quidditch. Ginny's husband was now a trainer of aurors in Britain. Ron's wife was the Quidditch teacher at Hogwarts.

Neville Longbottom was a researcher specializing in combining Xyrillian space botany with that of other Federation species. Hannah was researching Xyrillian medical techniques that could be applied to other species.

Bill and Fleur Weasley were back to inventing new wards for starships. Jean-Laurent and Victoire had the Picard Winery in France back in full operation and didn't need anymore help from them. They also had some land in several different climate zones on Earth and were trying to adapt fruits from different planets, carefully, so that they could not become invasive plants on Earth. They also both did part time work warding either on Earth or in Earth orbit.