Something They Ate
| Star Traks: Waystation | |
| Episode name | Something They Ate |
|---|---|
| Season | |
| Episode number | |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker |
| Year | 2375 |
| Stardate | Unknown |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Lip Lock |
| Next in series | The Way We Were |
| Previous in timeline | Sibling Rivalry - Part Two [VEX] |
| Next in timeline | Bent Into Shape [VEX] |
After an official dinner goes horrendously wrong for Commander Lisa Beck and Lieutenant Craig Porter, they receive help from an unexpected source.
Summary
On the way back to Waystation from an official dinner, Commander Lisa Beck and Lieutenant Craig Porter are overcome by gastrointestinal issues and lose consciousness. They awaken in Sickbay on the USS M*A*S*H, a medical vessel named after the mobile army surgical hospitals used by the US Military in the 20th Century. Porter offers to assist Captain Potter with a problem the ship is having with its warp engines warp engines while Beck is taken to lunch by her surgeon, Dr. Pierce. Porter discovers that the ship's warp nacelles have been entangled in some kind of subspace webbing. Viewing the readings, Beck realizes that the webbing is actually alive. Porter is able to cobble together a method of detangling the webbing, which Dr. Pierce and Beck are able to do during an EVA. After a celebratory dinner, the crew of the M*A*S*H show Beck and Porter a holodeck program of a real M*A*S*H unit. As the crew steps into the program and says goodbye, Beck and Porter are overcome with nausea and lose consciousness. They awaken to find that they are still on their runabout and that Lieutenant Commander Walter Morales, Dr. Amedon Nelson, and Lieutenant Sean Russell have come looking for them. Everyone at the official dinner came down with food poisoning. Beck says that she must have dreamed about the medical ship. Porter says he must have as well. Realizing that they had the same dream, they wonder what the hell just happened to them.
Featuring
- Commander Lisa Beck
- Lieutenant Commander Walter Morales
- Lieutenant Craig Porter
- Lieutenant Sean Russell
- Dr. Amedon Nelson
Also Featuring
Author's Comments
"What the hell?"
I think the last line of this story pretty much says it all. At the time it was written, I was watching a lot of M*A*S*H. I mean A LOT. Four or more episodes a day. I was watching it so much that I was starting to pick up continuity errors, like the fact that Klinger's blood type changes over the course of the series. Certainly M*A*S*H and Star Traks have some things in common (a comedic look at a military group), so it seemed somewhat natural to blend them together. Okay. No it didn't. Not really. I just wanted to play with the M*A*S*H characters, and they fit nicely into starship positions. Originally, I wasn't going to do the dream ending, but having a ship of M*A*S*H characters running around the Traks/Trek universe just seemed like a but much to accept, even for me. So there's no explanation for their appearance. If you really need one, the bad alien clams caused Beck and Porter to briefly become psychically linked in a shared food poisoning-induced hallucination. There. Happy now?