The Captains Oath

I started this story on Wednesday July 17, 2019 an completed on Monday September 30, 2019. It is by Christopher L. Bennett. It has 385 pp. It was written in May 2019. "I, (name), having been appointed an officer in the United Federation of Planets in the grade of captain, do solemnly swear to uphold the regulations of the United Federation Starfleet as well as well as the laws of the United Federation of Planets to represent the highest ideals for which they stand, to become an ambassador of peace and goodwill, to protect the security of the Federation and all its member worlds, and to offer aid to any and all beings that request it." --Starfleet Oath of Service "Where others saw nothing but functional straight lines and circles, Kirk saw Pegasus in flight, the skin gleaming white, the dorsal connection evoking the neck of a horse with head held high, the nacelles struts angled like wings poised for a forceful downstrokes." Captains Oath p. 3 Kirk's first ship was the Sacajawea. He was the youngest captain to command. Kirk requested McCoy to be chief physician aboard the Enterprise. McCoy was on a planet and would think about it. "The only greater mystery than why the ancient Vegans destroyed themselves in a war so mighty that it shattered entire dwarf plants is why they decided in the first place to terraform worlds around a star as young and hot and inhospitable as Alpha Lyrae. But perhaps both are manifestations of the same great power and stubborn ambition, a determination to bend the worlds to their wills instead of learning to compromise with reality. Let this be an object lesson to humanity as we contend with new worlds and new cosmic neighbors." Zhi Nu Palmer Captains Oath p. 13 "You should never underestimate the body's power to heal itself." Captains Oath p. 15 "Often the best healing techniques are still time, rest, and patience." Captains Oath p. 15 Kirk and the Sacajawea found Orion refugees on a Xarinitine freighter "A comfortable cage is still a cage." Captains Oath p. 31 "Dr. Theodore Wallace has discovered a special anomaly connecting with a four dimensional subspace domain, and he thinks he's found evidence of organic molecules within it. We've been collaborating on a simulation of how protein folding and translation occurs in higher dimensional space." Captains Oath p. 33 A Klingon battle cruiser just exploded after Kirk and Wesley's ship fought it but they both had escaped "Being a Starfleet captain is the most coveted rank in Starfleet, but it's also the loneliest." Captains Oath p. 42 "Space exploration is simply more central to humanity's historical role in the Federation, to its sense of identity and heritage, than it is to most other races. But Rigelians have a long history with exploration as well, with contact and cooperation with sister worlds in our system. It was my people the Jenna, who made first contact with the Zami and Chelon peoples and built interplanetary accords and trading networks that would one day make us an interstellar power." Captains Oath p. 43 "Those who are born to privilege often fail to recognize the imbalances it creates. There are certainly enough of those history of my own nation on Earth. It takes a conscious effort to recognize those imbalances, and not meaning to be part of the problem doesn't entitle us to deny that it exist. We become better people by remaining aware of our potential to make mistakes, since that's the only way to better our future." Captains Oath p. 44 "A sharp knife is nothing without a sharp eye." Captains Oath p. 46 "Just because you reached the center seat, doesn't mean the learning process is over." Captains Oath p. 49 "Fundamentally, biologically, we're still the same as we ever were, no matter what social veneer we put on. We're still killers by nature, even if we choose not to kill today." Captains Oath p. 52 "The greatest lie is that vengeance balances the scales." Captains Oath p. 55 "We still escalate. We still perpetuate the mindless reflexes of our ancestors, knowing the material cost, because we of the intangible cost of losing pride, of appearing disloyal to our clans and traditions. We place our hate for our rivals above our love for our own, and we feel any damage we bring down upon ourselves and our clansmate is worth it so long that we can convince ourselves that we hurt our enemies more." Captains Oath p. 56-57 "It's our division that makes us vulnerable. We pit our strengths against one another, and thus any outsider who co-opts other factions can use it to weaken all others. It is only by recognizing that our common bond as Acamarians outweighs our differences that we can survive in this contentious galaxy." Captains Oath p. 58 Kirk is blaming the Klingons for saying he used the Starfleet rifle "It's about whether you remain bound by your ancient traditions of blood fueds...or find a new path, a better path of your own choosing." Captains Oath p. 61 "We have found that truth comes from many teachers." Captains Oath p. 63 "A true soldier uses every available means to protect the peace, and force is not always the appropriate tool." Captains Oath p. 63 "A starship runs on loyalty to one man." Spock Captains Oath p. 67 Kirk was frustrated with Spock so he invited him to play chess "Adventure is what happens when things go wrong." Captains Oath p. 72 "I don't believe in a no win scenario." James T. Kirk Captains Oath p. 79 "Was peace always doomed to fail eventually? Or could the failure be prevented if it's causes could be anticipated?" Captains Oath p. 81 One of the away team has forty minutes of air remaining "In life there's always a way. Just give us a minute." Captains Oath p. 85 They lost one of the away team members "Try as you might, you can't save everyone. That's a lesson all doctors have to learn. Sometimes....sometimes you just have to accept the losses when they happen, and let them motivate you to keep on fighting and to save those you can." Captains Oath pp. 88-89 "Dealing with loss is part of command." Captains Oath pp. 90-91 "To take our failures as a learning experience, use them as a moving, keep striving." Captains Oath p. 93 "First contact missions had always given Jim Kirk a special thrill. The opportunity for new discoveries and the chance to learn about a species and culture previously unknown to the Federation, fulfilled the dreams of the explorer in him--prospect of hostility fired the caution of the soldier in him. Of all the missions Starfleet undertook, none was fraught with more possibity and peril, so potentially important to the future of entire civilizations." Captains Oath p. 99 They encountered ships with micro-blackholes. These vessels had defenses that were very advanced, when they fired their shields would protect the ship, no intruders could damage it. They were being hit with weapons that had the force of meteorites. The Fleet took a lot of casualties. "It doesn't make you a bad person, or a bad captain. We all grow attached to our ships. They aren't just meaningless hunks of metal and composite. They keep us alive. They take us places we never dreamed possible. We value the ships because of what they do for the crew, not in spite of the crew. So don't feel guilty that you care for the body of the ship as much as the people inside it. Just transfer that care, that love, and devotion to whatever ship you serve on next. And the one after that and the one after that." Captains Oath p. 119-120 When the Sacajawea was in dry-dock, Kirk applied as an archaeologist on Vega. "A great terraformer needs the green thumb of a gardener, the eye of a painter, and a soul of a poet. And of course it doesn't hurt to be a raging egomaniac." Captains Oath p. 115 Kirk took a small away team to Aulacri. These beings looked like feline and salamander combination. But they welcomed their visitors in spite of their appearance. During their dinner, they were entertained by dancers to which the officers found that they held on to their agility from their ancestors, more so than we have. "Terraforming is slow work, the work of generations. Those who begin it know we will not to see the completion of our work. But that doesn't mean we are free from time pressures. Our worlds teem with people, people who need new places to live and start families. The sooner we can make new worlds livable the better." Captains Oath p. 117 "Just because they said to the universe that they existed, that doesn't mean the universe has any obligation to let them be heard." Captains Oath p. 123 "When interacting with the populace of a precontect planet, any officer of Starfleet shall make no identification of self or mission; no attempt at interference with the social development of said planet; no reference to space, to other worlds, or to advanced civilizations...." Starfleet General Order One Captains Oath p. 131 "It's remarkable how many civilizations there are in the galaxy that are within a few centuries of each other technologically. Think about it. Human civilization some eight to ten thousand years old. We've been an industrialized society for about five hundred years, space going for barely two hundred. But the galaxy is thirteen billion years old. Even assuming it took billions of years for the galactic radiation to subside enough to be habitable, we're still talking at least five or six billion years for life to evolve in. So statistically what are the odds, that your civilization and mine, let alone, so many others, the Vulcans, the Andorians, the Rigelions--all began their space race within one or two millennia of each other? And that we keep running across worlds like Nacmor that are just a few hundred years behind?" Captains Oath p. 137 "Some past galactic cataclysm hundreds of millennia ago that either wiped out life or served as a stressor to drive new evolution to multiple planets, so they all reset to similar starting points at the same time. Some ancient race that manipulated different species biological or technological evolution around the same time. Some universal telepathic field that causes different different species to resonate with each other and innovate the same ideas around the same times. None of them holds up that well, but the paradox keeps us looking." Captains Oath p. 138 Kirk took a team down to Nacmar to find out what was attacking the city. They had cars, which were reserved for the military, the public got around on horse and buggy and green feathered ostriches and camels. The away team was stopped and asked for their papers The away team was kept as hostages "The government has learned that the enemy from outer space has the ability to alter minds of the Nacmorian beings, explaining the rash insurrectionist activity among formally respectable professors at Nilostig University. If you see hints of subversive thoughts or behaviors expressed by your neighbors, co-workers or family, than they may have been infected by alien signals and should be promptly reported to authorities for their own safety." Nacamorian government broadcast Captains Oath p. 148 "Jim wouldn't be captain at his age if he weren't something special. And sooner or later, all of us need to admit that it's time for a fresher more flexible minds to take the lead." Captains Oath p. 150 Kirk lied to the Premier saying that they lived on the outskirts of the town and suffered from skin abnormalities "During the wars, you see, our people came to recognize the value of a firm hand. Of obedience to higher authority, with no selfish bleating about individual freedom undermining the security needed to be like a family, with a loving but strict parent ensuring that his children obeyed the rules, and disciplining them firmly when they strayed." Captains Oath p. 153 "But now we have peace. Our enemies have been crushed, or have recognized the futility of defiance and consented to join the world order. This is undeniably good. Yet as peace continued, it has made the people....complacent. Lazy. Self-absorbed. They began to lose sight of the urgency of obedience to the state. Groups among them have begun agitating for a relaxation of the laws that keep us safe. For a tolerance towards the.... aberrations of belief and behavior that led to conflict and hatred in the past." Captains Oath p. 153 "But there are those who see weaknesses or laziness makes them unable to prosper, and many of them are inclined to blame the system for their failure. And in those communities who cling to their old ways, who refuse to assimilate fully into modern culture, well, many fail to understand the reason why things must be the way they are." Captains Oath p. 156 The aliens wanted the Federation to pretend to be at war to scare the people Kirk declined the offer "The powerful have always found it easy to use outsiders as scapegoats for their own abusers of the less powerful." Captains Oath p. 158 They were rescued by a faction of the Nacmorian "Remember kids! The state depends on all of you--not just your daddies and mommies, but also you young people--to do your part to fight off invaders from space. Every meal you go without--your parents take out of your allowance-kills a spaceman. Every piece of gold or metal scrap your parents turn into the state--kills a spaceman. And the Ultimate Premier Ribaul thanks you all for your sacrifice and courage as we stand together against from the enemy from the stars."--Nacmorian propaganda broadcast Captains Oath p. 163 The away team is being asked to help the faction that just found them by providing blueprints "They need to achieve their change from within or it will never last." Captains Oath p. 166 Mitchell, the first officer, stayed behind to help the rebels against the captains orders "Being captain means it's your call, not the damn books. Your the man on the scene, so for God's sake stop second guessing yourself? Just make your own choice, and deal with what comes. That's what I did down there." Captains Oath pp. 176-177 "Among the Agni's other advantages, their singularity technology gave them superior long-range sensor capability through the use of subspace gravity lensing. This enabled them to scan star systems throughout Federation space and identify the worlds that best suited there objectives. With no inkling of the Agni's real nature and priorities, Starfleet could never have anticipated where they would make their next move." Dr. Monali Bhasin Ministers of Sacrifice, 2289 Captains Oath p. 179 "Bigotry is quite common, but it can also be reciprocal." Captains Oath p. 194 "You want us to show you real power? Then let me take my captain to the hospital and watch me heal his injuries. Putting things back together again is much harder than breaking them." Captains Oath p. 197-198 "You are a fighter, but in the name of compassion. This is what the Federation claims to be, but I did not understand what it meant until now. Perhaps what your captain said to us before was true--that your peoples real power lies not in what you conquer, but what you build. Both your technologies and your alliances." Captains Oath p. 198 "The people...may be changed by the knowledge, but it's better than exterminating them." James T. Kirk Captains Oath p. 201 "I believe in the Prime Directive. It's not just an arbitrary rule, but a check on human arrogance. It reminds us to trust that other civilizations are intelligent and capable enough to solve their own problems...better qualified to understand their own needs than outsiders are. It's about recognizing that the Federations superior technology does not equal superior wisdom or intellectual capacity." Captains Oath p. 205 The Chenari face devastation by radiation and the Federation can help but it would disrupt the natural order of things and go against the Prime Directive Kirk is going to try to help the Chenari, against orders The Chenari look like plush mini Triceratops with wings The away team found a food sack The away team was asked to stay on the planet to begin to earn their trust, but couldn't because of the pollution Phelarsen was was the spokesperson of the Chenari Bones was trying to help an injured Chenari but a stalagmite fell and buried the patient "Our obligation under the Prime Directive is to protect the natural development of alien civilizations from outside interference or disruption. As I see it a cosmic disaster that destroys a civilization is the most extreme form of external disruption imaginable. By rescuing the Chenari, by finding another uninhibited world to settle on, we can allow their culture to survive and resume it's natural development." Captains Oath p. 217 "Their and Kinikor looked back from their tiny raft and wept as the beast burnt down all that was left of their island, their home, their kin. They wept until their tears raised the ocean and let them sail past the reef. "We do not know what we will face out there in the endless sea." Kinkor said clutching her pregnant belly. "We know it will be better than what we have left," Thorwar told her. For their will be no more Beasts to betray us, and we never teach our children the ways of war." Captains Oath p. 223 "Some knowledge does more harm than good. And some truths are better forgotten." Captains Oath p. 232 "Regulas had no native civilization but it was heavily colonized by a multiple species; it had been a Vulcan protectorate before the Federation was founded, and had accumulated a large human population in the century since." Captains Oath p. 245 The Regulan defense force is older than Starfleet "Things became easy when you make them that way. We just have to show them that they can have a home on Regelous. That's just how the Regelons are. Look how welcome you made us feel when you asked us to settle on our moon." Captains Oath p. 250 "Look for the values in today. It's what we do today that let's us decide our tomorrow's." Captains Oath p. 251-252 "When the dying component of Regulus A binary cast off its atmosphere, leaving a white dwarf corpse behind, it's companion swallowed much of its expelled hydrogen and swelled into a much hotter blue giant, vaporizing the systems innermost planets yet warming several of the outer worlds to habitable temperatures. The resultant rapid ecological shifts created pressures that accelerated the pace of evolution on these worlds allowing complex, diverse forms of life to emerge unusually early in the systems history. Regulans take this as a reminder that life thrives on unexpected challenges." Vaacith sh'Lesinas, The Federation and Back Captains Oath p. 253 "Thirty millennia ago, an advanced civilization known as the Veliki had used Regulus as a living laboratory for their genetic engineering of ultraviolet resistant lifeforms from the pale slug like blood worms that ecked out a subterranean existence on the dry scolding second planet to the iridescent, mirror-feathered birds of the lush fifth planet." Captains Oath p. 254 Kirk was holding Verrick up against his will. Verrick said "Logiccaly, the needs of the many," Kirk cut him off "Every situation faced was simply to overcome." Captains Oath p. 269 "Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you are also trained to be a diplomat." Leonard McCoy Captains Oath p. 271 "No casualties is few enough." Captains Oath p. 272 "Conflict have arisen from misunderstandings before." Captains Oath p. 276 "No conflict can be resolved until communication exists. We must attempt to negotiate." Captains Oath p. 277 Kirk had to ask Diaz, the person who just lost her best friend to the Agni to help make a peaceful dialogue with them and she graciously accepted. "The Agni don't seem to rely on vision as a primary sense, seeing as how their atmosphere is opaque over a distance to nearly everything but radio, microwave and inferred. We think their main long-range senses are thermal and acoustics. That's part of why it was so hard to crack their language--the lack of direct sensory analogies." Captains Oath p. 280-281 Kirk wondered if they were ignored because they could not be sense The Agni are refugees who just wanted to build a home, but were tired of all the resistance they faced "This far and no further. We assumed that pushing forward past our imaginary walls in empty space meant they had hostile intent. Instead they assumed we were the hostile ones, attacking them in the middle of nowhere over nothing." Captains Oath p. 287 "That was what drove the refugees all over the galaxy--that hope of finding a welcoming community, a place to belong. And yet so often they were seen as a threat and a burden by those who took their own belongings for granted. So often they were hounded and ostracized. And yet they kept looking, kept hoping." Captains Oath p. 289 "Abandon our cities? These creatures squat in our system, attack a planetary capital, kill over a dozen Regulans, and now demand that we retreat and accept there conquest? Never!" Captains Oath p. 290 "And we're welcoming--to those who did no harm. That doesn't mean we have to bend over for those who come with hostile intent. Who claim need and desperation as a diversion from their true aggressive intentions." Captains Oath p. 295 "They chose to take that risk for the sake of knowledge." Captains Oath p. 299 Kelso just abandoned his station because he didn't believe in the mission, Sulu resumed it "Logic is a method for solving problems, not the thing that sets the problems up in the first place." Captains Oath p. 306 "All such choices require an understanding of who we are, what our origins and contexts are. They cannot be made well in the absence of true knowledge of our identity and our history." Captains Oath p. 307 "Computer translation creates the illusion of pure objectivity, but the software can all too easily reflect and even amplify the unconscious biases of its programmers. It's a delicate balance--we want to interpret other languages into terms we understand, yet not let our preconceptions distort their real meaning. It helps if translator programming are multicultural and multi species, but the programmers still have a responsibility to remove themselves from the equation as much as possible. --Hoshi Sato Captains Oath p. 315 "We wish to establish trust but that has to go both ways if we can be allowed to inspect your shipyards, to verify its intentions, it will help us build trust." Captains Oath p. 318 "Observing our ships would give you an advantage over us. We will no longer allow cold beings to dictate what we could do. We will control our own realm, and we will defend against cold beings who intrude on it--just as you have against us. It is all you understand." Captains Oath p. 318 "The fear of the unknown is a universal trait. It helps keep us alive. And your experience has taught you that there is often good reason for that fear." Captains Oath p. 319-320 "But equally important for our survival is in fascination with the unknown--the willingness to see its possibilities and embrace them. My species, humanity, has always had an inborn drive to explore the unknown, to find ways to live in realms that were alien, even hostile to us--from deserts and mountains on our world to the emptiness of space." Captains Oath p. 320 "As soon as I learned that other stars had people living around them, looking back towards me, I felt an irresistible desire to meet them. To visit every single star I could see." James T. Kirk Captains Oath p. 322 "There are those who only see fear in the unknown. They have their role in new places. But....Those of us who see opportunity in the unknown are the ones who take are people to those places. We cannot let fear deafen us to opportunity." Captains Oath p. 325 "We've been trained to think in other terms than war. We've been trained to fight its causes if necessary." James T. Kirk Captains Oath p. 326 "The truth is that the Agni are refugees, homeless survivors who came to Regulas in search of a safe haven. Our difficulty in understanding each other often kept us from seeing that they were exactly the kind of people we have always welcomed in our community and take pride in assisting. Yes they killed my friend. Yes that made me angry and afraid. But that anger, that fear, kept me from understanding what H'Raal's death really meant. She wasn't a helpless victim of aggression. She didn't have to die that day. She could've lived if she just thought of her own survival, her own fears. And ignored the fears of others. But that wasn't H'Raal's way, because she believes in what Regulas stands for. What the Federation stands for. She chose to take a risk, to look beyond her fear for her own safety and selflessly help others in need. She saved my life. In her final moments, she chose to save me instead of herself. Because she knew that we, as a people are not driven by fear and selfishness. We don't sacrifice the lives of others because we fear our own." Captains Oath p. 332 "When all you have are your memories, let no one take them from you--least of all yourself." Aulacri proverb Captains Oath p. 341 "The survivors who made the way back to Auclac-they must have been ashamed of the savagery that led them to destroy their homeworld. They must have been resolved to become better, to get it right the second time and leave that dark side of themselves behind." Captains Oath p. 344 "Many of us have similar atrocities in our ancestry. My own ancestral culture on Earth, in a land called America, was founded on one of the greatest genocides in my planet's history, the theft of an entire continent from its native people....and on the brutal enslavement of humans from another continent. Yet at the same time America pioneered representative democracy, social justice, diplomacy and innovation laying the foundation for the guiding principles of the Federation. Both extremes coexisted in the same culture, as they do in so many. It's a paradox of history, we struggle with to this day." Captains Oath p. 344 "Having faith in the human ability to learn from mistakes. It's only by our wrongs and our failures, by confronting them honestly that we can ever transcend them. The greatest evils are committed by those who assume they can do no wrong. It's our acceptance of our capacity to do evil that drives us to do better." Captains Oath p. 344-345 "For the past quarter-century, the Agni have remained on peaceful but distant terms with the Federation and have resisted a closer relationship, needing nothing from it besides its parallel existence within its space. Since neither order of life can exist in other's worlds, since they can barely even perceive one another and can communicate only indirectly and imperfectly, the Agni are in many ways more remote from the Federation than the most distant M-class civilization yet discovered. Yet their co-existence within the Federation system is proof that even the most extreme divides can be bridged." Dr. Monali Bhasm Ministry of Sacrifice Captains Oath p. 351 "Imagine how it must be for them. Coming out in the galaxy and finding worlds you can live on are few and far between and that most of the life out there is inconceivably alien. We got incredibly lucky to find a universe whose worlds and peoples are so close a match to our own." Captains Oath p. 351-352 "According to Captain Kirk and his science crew, the singularity are an impressive technological achievement, but hard to contain and repair, and inefficient to create in the first place. You could power both our ships for a year with the energy it takes to create one micro singularity. We're better off with the power systems we have. And without the singularity there's no plasma beam." Captains Oath p. 352 "Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny." Spock Captains Oath p. 359 "It's by confronting and learning from our mistakes that we better ourselves." Captains Oath p. 360 McCoy was just placed as MCO of the Enterprise "Take a chance on peace." Captains Oath p. 375 "Judgement only works if you believe in it." Captains Oath p. 376