From This Day Forward

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Star Traks: Waystation
Episode name From This Day Forward
Season Stardate 56---
Episode number 10
Writer(s) Alan Decker
Year 2379
Stardate Unknown
Chronology
Previous in series Dress Rehearsal
Next in series Lost The Way
Previous in timeline Dress Rehearsal [WAY]
Next in timeline Life In The Past [VEX]


It's the big day in the Multek Enclave. There will be a wedding, the Grand Opening, and maybe even an invasion! Err...who scheduled that last part?


Summary

On Multos, Captain Lisa Beck performs the wedding ceremony marrying Dr. Amedon Nelson and Frequoq Wuddle. After the ceremony, Beck and Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter briefly lament their own singledom before meeting Wuddle's parents, who are still having trouble adjusting to the fact that alien life exists. Admiral Leelan Fonn is on hand as well, since he will be giving a speech at the Grand Opening celebration to be held that afternoon. Fonn isn't pleased about it and tells Beck that running Waystation has involved a lot more commanding officer business than he had in mind when he asked to take over the place. Beck can't exactly sympathize with him.


Hours before the ceremony, the Multeks detect a group of ships entering the Multek Enclave from the direction of the Beta Quadrant. Beck, Porter, Dr. Nelson and Wuddle take the Runabout USS Cumberland and meet up with the Multek fleet before intercepting the unknown vessels. The newcomers consist of 30 decidedly ragtag ships, only one of which appears to be armed. Beck opens communications with the armed ship, the Skirmishmaster Cosmogula (Which couldn't possibly be a parody of anything.), and its captain, Commander Odamya, who explains how the battered fleet has been chased across space by an unrelenting foe. To emphasize the point, five robotic ships complete a faster-than-light jump into the area and heads toward the fleet. Beck convinces Odamya to ask for help, and the Cumberland streaks toward the drone ships, which attack the Cumberland with projectiles. After Porter snickers that the projectiles wouldn't even get through the Cumberland's navigational deflector shields, Dr. Nelson and Beck use the runabout's phasers to obliterate the robotic ships.


Upon beaming aboard the Cosmogula, Beck, Dr. Nelson, and Wuddle hear the full story of the fleet's plight. They are the last survivors of a civilization that was wiped out by a robotic aggressor, which has continued pursuing them across the galaxy. Wuddle is touched by how gloomy the survivors are and determines that the Multeks must help them. Beck agrees to support Wuddle, and they quickly form a plan to deal with the robotic threat.


A short time later, the robotic fleet arrives accompanied by a massive mothership. The Cosmogula and its charges FTL jump away as The Cumberland and the Multek ships engage the robotic vessels. The mothership hails the Cumberland, and Beck is able to speak to the robotic force, known as the Encyclons. The Encyclon on the comm offers Beck the gift of knowledge by way of the Bot and Fractal's Encyclopedia. When Beck refuses, the Encyclons go for the hard sell, attacking the Cumberland, which destroys the mothership with a series of tri-cobalt devices and torpedoes.


With the Encyclon threat destroyed, Wuddle invites the Cosmogula and its fleet to Multos for the Grand Opening ceremony. The ceremony goes forward, and once it is over, Admiral Fonn learns that the Federation wants to have a high-ranking Starfleet liaison on Multos to work with the Multeks. Having decided that commanding Waystation is too much actual work and seeing what a paradise Multos is, Admiral Fonn jumps at the job, returning command of Waystation to Captain Beck.


Pleased with how everything has turned out, Captain Beck and Lieutenant Commander Porter head back home to Waystation...


...which isn't there.

Featuring

Also Featuring

Author's Comments

Usually the end of a run of stories is a bit like a season finale. There's usually a wrapping up of plots, lots of action, and some big events. This story, on the other hand, is pretty much fluff. Yes, there's the culmination of a lot of the Multek storyline. The Multek Enclave opens to the galaxy, Wuddle and Dr. Nelson get married, and Captain Beck gets her station back. None of that really has much to do with the plot, which goes about as far into parody as I ever do in Traks. The new Battlestar Galactica is just so...grim and takes itself so seriously that it was just too easy of a target to pass up. That group of people also made a great counterpoint to the Multeks' generally sunny attitude.


To be perfectly honest, I was really dreading writing the wedding. There are times when you look at something and wonder how you're going to make it different and interesting. Weddings have been done before...a lot. Even if you've never participated in one, I'd bet that everybody has been to a few. And from a dramatic perspective I had the problem that this was supposed to be a wedding without complications. So to balance my desire to have a satisfying happy occasion with the need to propel the story along, I decided to get the wedding out of the way right at the beginning. I also went with an old screenwriting adage. Come into a scene at the latest possible moment. So there's no pre-wedding banter. No walk down the aisle. I just skip to the important stuff.


If you want to look at this story thematically, it's about the Multeks coming into their own and joining the galactic community. There's the literally joining of Nelson and Wuddle, but then there's the more figurative idea that the Multeks can stand on their own when the crisis (small as it is) hits. Yes, Wuddle asks Beck to come help them, but the Multek pilots prove they can handle things on their own now.


As for the ending with the missing station, in all honesty it wasn't really planned. It just jumped out at me as the perfect thing to have happen after Beck is so relieved to have her command back and be going home. After I wrote it, though, I really went back and forth about whether I was going to use it or not. I had no idea where the station had gone or what was going to happen. However, if the stories are true, there's a tradition of this in Star Trek. Supposedly the writers for Star Trek: The Next Generation would write a cliffhanger and have no clue how they were going to resolve it until after their summer hiatus. With that in mind, I decided to go for it. I'd figure the resolution out later.

Links

From This Day Forward