Chapter 41:

After the Potters left Luna and I were typing up some notes of our meeting, when Q showed up, in the uniform of a temporal agent. "Hello youngsters."

I said, "Hi Q." Luna said, "Hi Uncle Q!"

He said, "My timeline is a line, not a set of eddy currents. Primitives are not going to be changing it."

Cora snuck into the room and said, "Uncle Q! Borgies coming?" Then she said "You will be assimilated" in a monotone voice.

Q answered, "No the Borg are primitives also. Humanity will meet them when they meet them, not before then.

I'll have more to say to you Cleodora when you are older. Luna, the next generation." Then Q disappeared.

I said, "Well that simplifies our planning. No supertech Suliban or Borg anytime soon."

Luna said, "The Ferengi in 1947 happened in our timeline, but maybe he means that no additional time travel that effects the timeline?"

I answered, "The advanced entities, such as the Bajoran Prophets, don't try to change the past, the way warp technologies civilizations tend to. The Borg are frankly overpowered if they can use time travel. I can see Q's point that it makes a less interesting timeline. They still are fairly overpowered even without it."

Luna added, "Overpowered and expansionistic. Most of the really advanced ones out there tend to stay where they are."

I asked, "Do you think he is going to stop time travel or only major effects?"

Luna answered, "Could be like 1947, the time travel happened, but events just happened to work out to minimize the effects. Maybe that is what temporal agents do."

I said, "In canon, Q himself did quite a lot of changing of timelines. He didn't say he wouldn't, only that primitives, which we know means at least anyone not more advanced than the Borg, will not be changing the timeline."

We sent out an email to those who were authorized to know about what was called our seeing of timelines ability. "We have determined that incursions in time will be prevented from changing the timeline by powerful entities. This does not eliminate the possibility of powerful entities doing the changing of the timeline but should prevent meeting the Borg for possibly three centuries."

For New Years 2007, we scheduled extra time to visit Kazakhstan to continue our Star Trek viewing with Harry Potter, the Weasley twins and Director Morozov.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the Weasley's badges, "Starfleet Kazakstan, Co-chief Officer of Department of Frightful Devices"

Just to get it out of the way we showed Space Seed first. Director Morozov said mostly to Harry Potter and the Weasley's, "It is true, that is me. Is only dramatization, details changed. Spaceship Botany Bay is actually ready, but never will be needed! I made much larger than shown after watching this. Can carry families not just magic persons."

I added, "We are doing everything possible to change the canon timeline for the better. This video is why we have been so focused on preventing all wars. Wars are what led to the timeline of the augments being wiped out or escaping. Augments probably are a misunderstanding of what those with magic are."

Harry Potter said, "The remainder of the Enterprise episodes is not as useful for us to watch now. Most of them involve a type of time traveling interference that we are told will not be likely to occur now. The rest involve clues for relations with our galactic neighbors which, while helpful later, is beyond the focus of this meeting to find tools and tactics based upon future experience.

We will look through the Original Series.

Man Trap shows how easily a shape shifter can pick off Starfleet personnel one at a time while isolated. This appears to be a species ability, not necessarily detectable magic. This will become a research project, which we don't necessarily have the answer for now. There are other episodes where the danger is instead illusions and others where it is androids that resemble known people.

Charlie X has a young adult wizard who has mastered wandless magic apparently learned on a planet with magical entities, while the Starfleet crew seems unaware of magic. There is no real lesson here, except that any Starfleet crews that are all non-magical should at least know enough about magic to take some precautions if needed.

Where No Man Has Gone Before shows non-magical Starfleet officers suddenly acquiring extremely powerful wandless magic, along with a desire to mistreat their former peers.

There are a few more episodes where crew members essentially go insane due to extra-terrestrial infectious agents. So, verifying the identity of crew members, and even checking that they are not under magical influence does not prevent them from essentially becoming hostiles.

One episode, Mudd's Women, has an important clue. The planet that they call Rigel Twelve, mines dilithium crystals. It also shows that dilithium crystals can be expended when the ship uses too much power compared to its normal capacity. Note that they refer to lithium crystals, in this episode which contradicts other references to dilithium crystals.

Galileo Seven shows that a landing party can be overwhelmed by even the equivalent of stone age humans in sufficient number. It is another example of where locals would assume Starfleet as having hostile intent. Better methods of non-destructive protection of personnel are needed.

Arena shows an enemy of Starfleet making effective use of indirect fire. The enemy, the Gorn, also causes a tricorder to explode by sending a particularly strong feedback signal to it. The battle takes place on a planet with a Starfleet base, and has its own indirect fire equipment, which is used effectively, but the landing team itself did not arrive with any such weapons. The Gorn also used spoofed messages from the Starfleet base to ambush a Starfleet vessel. The war is prevented by the Metrons, an extremely advanced people who decide to prevent a war among what they might consider primitives. Another episodes has another advanced people called the Organians also preventing a war, in that case between Starfleet and the Klingons.

Tomorrow is Yesterday shows accidental time travel. The Starfleet crew try to minimize the impact they make on the timeline. That happens with other time travel episodes. In each case, they have a difficult time deciding on what to do that would have the least effect on the timeline.

I. Mudd shows how absurdly easy it to take over a Starfleet Starship. One android ,who appears to be a new crew member takes over the ship. The procedure for verifying a newly assigned crew member is clearly lacking. The fact that a low ranked crew member can reprogram the computers to give him complete control over the ship is a huge failure.

Journey to Babel, has the starship host different extra-terrestrials, some of whom are somewhat hostile to others, for a conference. One kills another. Even though it was a yet more hostile extra-terrestrial impersonating another in order to derail the conference, it still seems that there should have been no opportunity for violence to occur on the ship. While vetting diplomatic personnel might be limited due to diplomatic protocol, a defense network aboard the ship to prevent actual violence should have been present.

Obsession has a security personnel in red shirts, who in this series often are considered expendable. Red shirts and the command crew visit an uninhabited planet with apparently breathable air. They have no environmental suits and all the red shirts are killed or injured by an airborne attack vector. Before that a red shirt sees his tricorder showing an unusual element briefly. He tells the others then investigates further. The three red shirts are properly facing outwards in a triangle formation. The one with the tricorder concludes that something knows it is being scanned and keeps changing itself. So far, seems reasonable competent. It is the lack of equipment that is the failure.

Another equipment failure in that episode was the same unknown hostile entity going right through the ship's shields and hull. It is not clear how to defend against this without knowing its details, but every anomaly should result in extreme vigilance.

Wolf in the Fold shows the danger of an intelligent computer system running critical ship's functions being possessed by a spirit entity. This series shows intelligent computers, and apparently at a certain level they can become subject to being possessed."

Morozov asked, "Frightful Twins, ideas?"

George replied, "Atmospheres believed to be safe, that are then not. We could have tiny devices monitoring the air, and charm activated breathing devices engage for all personnel in the vicinity when any device's alarm goes off."

Fred added, "Constant health monitoring, and again, all go to their own air supply when anyone suddenly deteriorates. Also, an invisible dry suit, to prevent skin-based harmful agents."

George added, "Could be triggered too late though."

Luna said, "Eventually we want to be at home on other worlds, not always feel we are visiting a hostile environment. Constantly using the dry suit and breathing device would always have us visiting, not living there."

Morozov said, "Initial survey crew must assume hostile environment. Later people can feel at home with more knowledge."

Fred said, "As to mental influence and control, we have thought about this after being asked about it years ago. There are baselines for each of even in a variety of emotions and situations. We can flag being out of baseline. It doesn't mean being influenced, but could be needing an investigation."

George added, "To say it less nicely, everyone gets thrown into the emotion tank. They get startled, frightened, lots of other experiences. This helps build the baseline for each person. This get compared to realtime technical and magical mental monitoring."

Fred said, "Another topic is imposters. I think the same mental monitoring will flag almost any sort of imposter, as would expected monitors being missing, or the monitors playing back previous data streams."

Harry said, "I notice that a common combat technique in the Original Series is highly skilled unarmed fighting. This actually makes sense when the mission is both diplomatic and self defense. It tends to not cause injuries that require revenge, and for many humans or presumably humanoids, causes respect to be given to the one who beat them at unarmed combat. This should be part of training for all personnel who might be on away missions."

I said, "You'd need to find the right martial arts that would be usable at different gravity levels, including zero-g."

Morozov said, "Exercise and martial arts should be encouraged for everyone at Starfleet."

Luna said, "For those of us with magic, we have some additional possibilities. I can channel wandless magic to physical strikes, to punch above my weight, so to speak. I can also absorb damage better and move faster, using wandless magic. Otherwise, looking at me, do you think I could take on a Vulcan or a Klingon in unarmed combat, or in bladed ritual combat which the Klingons are partial to?"