Contractual Obligations

Star Traks: Boldly Gone
Episode name
Season	9
Episode number	6
Writer(s)	Alan Decker, Anthony Butler
Year	2503
Stardate	178547
Chronology
Previous in series	Welcome To The Hotel California [BG]
Next in series
Previous in timeline	Welcome To The Hotel California [BG]
Next in timeline

Captain Reginald Bain did exactly what a captain should do. He overcame those holding his ship and crew prisoner, and he got back home. So how come it's looking like he made a huge mistake? Find out as the Dillon Consortium tries to collect on some "Contractual Obligations."

Featuring

• Captain Reginald Bain
• Commander Prosak
• Commander Vioxx
• Lieutenant Commander Tovar
• Lieutenant Shelly Marsden
• Sub-Commander Remax
• Dr. Natalia Kasyov
• Centurion Nortal
• Sub-Lieutenant Zantak
• Cabral
• Rosalyn Bain

Author's Comments

So we have come to the end of another run, but, since I covered a lot of the elements of this storyline in the comments for the previous two stories, I don't know how much I really have to say here.

As you would expect after two stories of mess making, this one was about cleaning things up. More than that, though, it may be the first time that Bain has ever questioned himself or his methods. He took action without all of the facts and very nearly cost the Multeks their civilization. Then fixing that mistake nearly cost his adopted son the woman he loves. If this were a drama series, one of those things probably would have come to pass, forcing Bain into some deep soul searching that possibly would have changed him forever. Fortunately we're writing comedy here, so you get the tension with only a fraction of the angst.

I've noticed, though, that the idea of family not necessarily being about biology has been a recurring theme in the Traks that I've written. In Original Traks, Dillon's parents basically used him as a lab rat. In Waystation, Beck had her sister issues. And in Boldly, Tovar's relationship with the Bains has been one of the core elements of the series. If I were to attempt to psychoanalyze myself and figure out why I keep coming back this idea, I would have to say it's probably due to the fact that my own family is so spread out. I saw either set of grandparents maybe once a year for a couple of days due to distance, and my aunts and uncles are all over the US. Now my brother is literally on the opposite of the country from me. I think because of that, I've tended to have deeper emotional connections with my friends. They are in many ways my family.

Moving from there to more ridiculous matters, we come to the giant robot. Why did the casino turn into a giant robot? Because it made me laugh. With all that was going on between Tovar, his parents, Marsden, and the Bains, we needed some silly. A giant Bradley Dillon robot fit the bill. And now the Multeks have a giant robo-Bradley head floating around their space like that thing out of the old Transformers movie (the animated one. Not that stuff Michael Bay has been putting out. That's a whole other rant). In any case, I thought it would be fun for Bain to take on a giant robot. And then I decided it would be more fun for him to really want to take on the robot and not get the chance.

As I think I said in the comments to the first story of this three-parter, this storyline has been floating around for a while. I think I had the basics of it figured out back in series six or seven, which, when you take into account the five year gap between eight and nine, is a long time. Even then I knew exactly what the last line was. And then we changed it. Tovar and Marsden getting married was something I came up with shortly after I finished the original version of the story, so I wrote a second ending where that was included. After Anthony and I talked about it and what it would mean for the series, we decided to go ahead and get them hitched. It made for an upbeat ending to the run. In case anyone is curious, there was never a thought of ending this one with a cliffhanger.

Links

Contractual Obligations