The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003)/devilsdoorknobbbscapture1996-2003.iso/Dloads/TEXTFILE/STDUNE.ZIP/DUNE4.TXT

Text File | 1992-02-07 | 16KB | 518 lines

Item    3645282                 92/02/06        23:12

From:   J.HYCHE                         Jeff Hyche

To:     M.ALLEGRETTO                    M Allegretto

Sub: Dune/Star Trek 4 of 5

Picard:  Do you have anything to offer Commander Data towards that end,
Counselor?

Troi:  I believe I could be of help.  If I could be brought up to speed on the
external physical characteristics, I may be able to match features with what
I experienced in the mental realm.

Picard:  Well then Data, make it so.

[Ten Forward.  Riker and Troi at a table]

Troi:  I wanted to speak to you alone.

Riker:  Why?

Troi:  It's about Wesley, and before I said anything to the Captain, I wanted
to run it by you.  I know the Captain feels a great responsibility towards
Wesley...

Riker:  Anything that concerns this ship concerns the Captain.

Troi:  Well, I'm not sure it concerns the ship.  I will let you be the judge.
Wesley appears very different to me now.

Riker:  How so?

Troi:  He has become guarded.  So guarded, even why I try I cannot 'read' the
slightest hint of an emotion.  He has become like T'Selar.

Riker:  Like a Vulcan?

Troi:  Almost exactly.  And there has been a marked increase in his composure.
By several orders of magnitude.  He carries himself with the confidence of a
very experienced man, and not the young man that he is.

Riker:  I sense a return to talk of demons...

Troi:  I just think you should observe him.  Just casually.  And see what you
think.

Riker:  I think he's probably just under stress.  We all are.

Troi:  That's just it!  Everyone shows signs of stress.  It hangs in the air.
I can almost feel it.  You.  Worf.  The Captain.  All experienced fighting
men.

Riker:  But not Wesley?

Troi:  Not Wesley.  No fear.  No apprehension.  Not even helplessness!  Like a
Vulcan.  Nothing!

Riker:  I see.  I'll definitely look into it.

Troi:  Thank you, Commander.





[Enterprise science lab.  Wesley is alone.  Casual attire.  Data enters.]

Data:  Hello, Wesley.  It is very late.  I am surprised to find someone here.

Wesley:  I'm surprised to find someone else here.

Data:  I did not mean to intrude.

Wesley:  No problem, Data.  I've been here awhile.  I'm going on a hunch.

Data:  A hunch?  A human state I find difficult to understand.  What are you
looking at?  The surface of the planet?

Wesley:  Yes.

Data:  You think there may be clues to the nature of the Behemoth?

Wesley:  There is more to this planet than sand.

Data:  That is true.  The inhabitants of Cey-4 do not like to be spied on.
And they have the technology to detect our scans.

Wesley:  I am scanning well beyond any population centers.

Data:  What are you looking for?

Wesley:  That.

Data:  Sand?  Correct me if I am wrong, but did you not say...

Wesley:  What's under the sand, Data.  That's what I'm looking at.

Data:  You are using visual scan only.  The scanners are not set to penetrate
the surface.  You therefore cannot be looking at what is beneath the sand.

Wesley:  The surface shows signs of what is beneath.  You just have to look.

Data:  I see only sand.

Wesley:  Look harder.

Data:  I do detect some shifting patterns.  Winds, perhaps?  No, the shape is
wrong.  Something large is moving just beneath the surface.  I am surprised
you are able to detect them with only your unaided eye.

Wesley:  My eye is not unaided.

Data:  I do not understand.

Wesley:  Any moment now...

Data:  Any moment now... something will happen?  What will happen?

Wesley:  Watch.

Data:  I am watching.

Wesley:  Keep watching.  There!

Data:  I see.  Some manner of giant worm...

Wesley:  Over two-hundred meters long.

Data:  Fascinating.  And was it your 'hunch' that you would find worms over
two hundred meters long on the planet's surface?

Wesley:  No, Data.  It was my 'hunch' that I would find something.  As to
what, I had no idea.

Data:  To proceed with observation when you have no expected goal is a most
unscientific undertaking.

Wesley:  So sue me.

Data:  Why?

Wesley:  Why not?

Data:  I do not understand.

Wesley:  Why not?

Data:  Because I am not human.

Wesley:  Why not?

Data:  That is a very strange question, Wesley.

Wesley:  The finding the answer be your goal.


[Ten Forward.  Data and Riker at a table]

Data:  Commander, Wesley has disturbed me.

Riker:  You too?

Data:  I take it others have come across his unusual mannerisms as well?

Riker:  Troi mentioned something.  What happened?

Data:  I came across him very late at night in the science lab.  He was out of
uniform.  I thought that unusual in itself.  More unusual, he was scanning the
planet's surface, as if he knew what he was looking for.

Riker:  What!?  Doesn't he understand the sensitivity...

Data:  Apparently so.  He was scanning well away from any occupied regions.

Riker:  Even so...

Data:  Even so, there is some risk of provocation.  However, he did 'discover'
a new form of life.

Riker:  What!?

Data:  Yes.  A species indiginous to this world, so far as my memory is aware.
A giant worm, several hundred meters long...

Riker:  Now that's a life form.

Data:  Yes.  And he seemed to expect it to be there.  This creature spends a
great deal of time beneath the surface of the sand.  It burrows.  As it nears
the surface, signs of it's passage become visible.  They are very minute.  And
yet, he detected them easily.  He was even able to predict relative sizes as
we watched.

Riker:  You think these perceptions super-human?

Data:  That is a strange term to me, Commander.  I would think it not possible
for him to have extrapolated so much information from such simple signs with
only his eyes.  I have always known Wesley to be bright, however...

Riker:  However this seems excessive?

Data:  Yes.  But that is not what disturbed me.

Riker:  Oh?  What then?

Data:  He asked me why I was not human.

Riker:  He what?

Data:  I did not interpret it as a hostile question.

Riker:  Then how did you interpret it?

Data:  As a problem to be solved.

Riker:  How?  You're not human because you're not.  What is there to solve?
It's pretty clear something's up.

Data:  Up is a relative term in space, Commander.

Riker:  Something is wrong, Data.

Data:  You were not wrong, Commander.  It is possible to be 'up' in space...

Riker:  Data...   Something's wrong with Wesley.

Data:  You think he is sick?

Riker:  I'll look into it.  Thank you for your input, Data.

Data:  I am designed to be of help.


>From cpsc.ucalgary.ca!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.
com!decwrl!public!btr.btr.com!mcmelmon Mon Au
 05 15:05:44 MDT 1991



Well, it's late and I'm feeling somewhat stream-of-conciousesque. I've noticed
from the r.a.s. postings (having had enough spare time to sift through them)
that there are, indeed, others out there who consider Wesley worth more than
the celluloid on which he's printed (yes, four of us now).  I shall always
feel it a great pity a character with such potential had to fall into the
hands of yuppie Hollywood types more interested in craming their own ideal
child down our throats than exposing the real strengths and weaknesses of
youth.  These same people, no doubt, have had their own children enrolled in
piano class for prescholers and have piped taped readings from Tolstoy into
their cribs late at night.  And no doubt, these precious young minds shall
turn into anything but the yuppie ideal of boyhood aboard the Enterprise.  But
I wander.  And it's late.  Having recently been promoted to Chief Tactical
Officer of the U.S.S. Alliance, I will have to divide my duties, but I'm
definitely looking forward to the tribulations of our imaginary craft, which
appears to truly have gone where no man has gone before...

[T'Selar's quarters.  Wesley enters]

Wesley:  May I speak with you?

T'Selar:  Of course.

Wesley:  I have acquired knowledge of tremendous use.  To myself.  To this
ship.  To the Federation itself.

T'Selar:  How have you come to possess this knowledge?

Wesley:  It is not possible for me to possess it.

T'Selar:  Such an impossibility is, itself, impossible.  Either you do or you
do not.  If indeed you possess knowledge, plainly, it is not impossible for
you to possess such knowledge.

Wesley:  Yet it is.

T'Selar:  From where did this knowledge come?

Wesley:  From the vessel we call Behemoth.  I know many things about this ship
we could not hope to discover in countless lifetimes.  Down to the very name
of the man who designed and oversaw it's construction fifty-thousand miles
above the world Ix.

T'Selar:  I do not know this world, Ix.

Wesley:  It lies within the Andromeda galaxy.  But not in our universe.

T'Selar:  The Behemoth is from an existence which parallel's our own?

Wesley:  Yes.

T'Selar:  And you came to know this through some manner of communication with
the Behemoth?

Wesley:  Yes.

T'Selar:  I have felt many minds aboard that ship.  Perhaps millions.  I would
not have thought it possible for you to have felt them as well, in that you
are human.  You are, therefore, correct.  I would not have thought it possible
that you could possess this knowledge.

Wesley:  You have felt the million beings within the single being that is
Mother Superior.

T'Selar:  Explain.

Wesley:  Aboard that vessel is a woman who, in her own universe, would be
known - and feared - as Mother Superior.  First among a body of women known as
Reverend Mothers, themselves part of a greater whole known as Bene Gesserit.

T'Selar:  What is the relevance of this?

Wesley:  Within the mind of a Reverend Mother dwell the images - ghosts - of
her ancestors.  She may call upon these ghosts as if they lived.  She may gain
knowledge and insight from them.  Their memories are her own.  These are the
Other Memories of the Bene Gesserit.

T'Selar:  Fascinating.  Each individual would possess the wisdom of untold age.
That would convey tremendous power.

Wesley:  Indeed.  Beyond this age, the Reverend Mother was an unequaled master
of body and mind.  Given the existence of Other Memories, such mastery was
required.

T'Selar:  Explain.

Wesley:  Like any ghost, these Other Memories want to be alive.

T'Selar:  Possession was a risk?

Wesley:  Only a slight one to a fully trained Reverend Mother.  To anyone else
who acquired them, Other Memories were a potent threat.  Those who became
possessed were known as Abomination.

T'Selar:  What is the relevance of this?

Wesley:  Troi is Abomination.

T'Selar:  And you?

Wesley:  I am Bene Gesserit.


[Enterprise bridge]

Data:  Captain.  I have been monitoring strange gravitation anomolies in our
vicinity for several days now.  They have been very faint.  I wished to be
certain, and I now am.

Picard:  Certain of?

Data:  We are surrounded by cloaked vessels.

Riker:  What!?  Full alert....

Picard:  Cancel.

Riker:  Captain?

Picard:  Not yet, Number One.  Any patterns?

Data:  Negative, Captain.  They have moved very little.

Riker:  Romulans?

Picard:  I doubt it, Number One.

Lexis:  Al-Mossad.

Riker:  Oh, really?

Lexis:  We are impressed, Captain.  We were not aware Starfleet sensor
technology had advanced to such a point.  I shall reprimand our intelligence
services.

Riker:  Cey-4 possesses cloaking technology?

Lexis:  That would seem obvious, Commander.  A modification of the Romulan
design.

Riker:  Might I ask where you came by this technology?

Lexis:  You might as well not.

Data:  A modification?

Lexis:  We compensate for compaction of gravitational waves perpendicular to
our high-velocity approach towards target craft.  Speed is everything to Al-
Mossad.  Manueverability our greatest weapon.

Data:  And by remaining stationary or moving about slowly, these ships not only
eliminate the advantages of your modifications, but actually become more
vulnerable to detection.

Lexis:  Correct.

Riker:  When were you planning on mentioning these ships?

Lexis:  I was not aware of their presence.

Riker:  And we should believe that?

Troi:  I detect no traces of deception, Commander.

Lexis:  I have no reason to lie.  Had I known, my response would have been: I
would not have mentioned them.

Picard:  And how many are there?

Lexis:  Again, Captain, I do not know.  However many it was felt would be
required.

Riker:  Required by?

Lexis:  By the Enterprise and Nadia.

Worf:  As friend or foe?

Lexis:  As either.



>From cpsc.ucalgary.ca!alberta!herald.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!bonnie.
concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!att!pacb
ll.com!decwrl!public!btr.btr.com!mcmelmon Mon Aug 05 15:06:17 MDT 1991


[T'Selar's quarters]

T'Selar:  Our minds shall become as one.  What I know, you shall know.  What
you know, I shall know.

Wesley:  We shall be together one mind, one body.

T'Selar:  United.

[Picard's Ready Room]

Picard:  Commander Data, your report.

Data:  As you know, I have been working with Counselor Troi.  Her experience
has led to some interesting developments.

Riker:  Such as?

Data:  The relief covering the interior of the hangar seems to be a history of
the civilization responsible for constructing the Behemoth.  It encompasses
both a geographic - in an astronomical sense - and socio-political development
of an empire spanning at least three galaxies.

Riker:  Galaxies?  You can't be serious.

Troi:  We are serious, Commander.  Three galaxies.

Worf:  Such an Empire would possess formidable resources.

Picard:  'Formidable' is not the word.

Data:  Indeed.  'Astronomical.'  There is more, Captain.  One of those galaxies
is the Milky Way.

Worf:  Then why have we not encountered this Empire before?  Surely...

Troi:  It's existence has not crossed our own until the Behemoth embarked upon
it's journey.

Picard:  Explain.

Data:  The Behemoth appears to be from a universe parallel to our own. Parallel
with several notable exceptions.  Most significantly, there is no record of any
form of life other than human.  Terra experienced uncontested expansion, to
the extent Earth became an insignificant and perhaps even forgotten part of
history.  No special notice is paid it...

Picard:  Such expansion would take millenia.

Data:  By Troi's and my own calculations, approximately thirty-five thousand
years of history are represented.

Riker:  Thirty-five hundred.

Data:  Why do you say that, Commander Riker?

Riker:  You said thirty-five thousand.

Data:  That is because I meant to say thirty-five thousand.  I am incapable of
making a 'slip of the tongue.'

Picard:  That's a lot of history.

Data:  And it is one replete with war and catastrophe.

Troi:  And should this sleeping dragon awaken, we would all know a taste of
that catastrophe.

Picard:  Do you still feel you have a way inside?

Data:  I feel more certain that I have found a door.  The disk which I brought
to your attention earlier corresponds to a planet.  In size, it far exceeds
the scale of any other object in the relief.  It appears to represent a desert
world.  A detailed image...

Riker:  It looks like it's being eaten by some kind of giant worm...  Wesley!

Picard:  What?

Riker:  Uh, nothing, Captain...

Picard:  'Nothing?' Number One?  You said 'Wesley.'  What about Wesley?

Riker:  Data...

Picard:  What about Wesley?




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