2011-04-09

Biography of KATRA

It was an extremely hot day on the planet Vulcan. A young Vulcan child protégé, KATRA, stood at the base of the transporter going over his career path options once again. His family was disappointed in him for enrolling in the Starfleet academy as a science officer cadet with aspirations of commanding a federation science vessel. His family had hoped that he would stay loyal to the Vulcan High Command as he was offered a superior studies position with the Vulcan Science Academy.

The name KATRA comes from a Vulcan word for "cheat death" and some Vulcans appear able to do so by implanting their katra, essentially their living essence or spirit, into an object or another person via a form of mind-meld just prior to death. As a young child KATRA had undertaken the initiation ordeal known as the Kahs-wan, where he was left to fend for himself in the hot desert for over a year. His survival abilities and his powerfully developed mind brought him back to his people with over 3000 hours of research on Tritanium.

He was able to take this very hard, yet bendable metal (which is one of the building blocks in space structures and spacecraft) and break it down into its purified essence. With crude, self made tools he was able to isolate the positive and negative atoms and reconstruct them into a more stable configuration. He was able to decrease its instability at atmospheric temperatures and helped to make this common element alloy into a more stable and useful product that was now able to be used for human habitats.

The Vulcan Science Academy was dismissive of these findings until the Vulcan High Command stepped in and ordered them to dedicate a team of scientist to it as well as doing an in-depth study of KATRA and his potential.

KATRA was assessed with the highest IQ ever recorded by a Vulcan. An average IQ for a Vulcan would be around 160, a nimber that KATRA has more than doubled. A lot of time was spent at the Science Academy, both studying as well as being studied. There was little time for socializing with his peers and when he did have free time he would rather spend it with his research.

He stepped onto the transporter with purpose in his step with his mind focused on his goals and convictions. He was sure that he was making the right choice and had already spent days meditating and assessed his future. If he stayed with the Vulcan Science Academy he would be able to climb up to academic top quite quickly however, with the federation and the possibility of becoming a commander of his own research vessel he would be able to reach out into new undiscovered words.

 The Enterprise had been assigned to ferry Lieutenant Mira Romaine to Memory Alpha to help work in the central library. KATRA had worked with Ensign Romaine in the Vulcan Science Academy during the last Vulcan winter. She was one of the people that peaked his interest in the Starfleet Academy. The Enterprise would then deliver KATA and three others to Starbase 39 where they would continue on to Starfleet Academy.  
After giving his 3rd and final series of talks, KATRA retired to the Memory Alpha library in order to read up on some of his Academy course in which he was enrolled.
As he reached for his computer key he was distracted by the yellow alert light and the audio alarms warning sounds. KATRA went through Starfleet measures in his head. He was aware that the planetoid was now in a raised state of alertness, which was either set by an officer or automatically by the station's onboard computer. Malfunction or by orders, the planetoid would have already raised the shields yet this station had no such defences. The computers would now be scanning for any possible signs of danger. An announcement form Memory Alphas' security section informed everyone that there was a strange energy storm on a course to the planetoid.
They also received subspace communication from the USS Enterprise that was on route to Memory Alpha.
The Enterprise had analyzed the storm but could not get any readings. They were not able to make a determination of its composition or origin. However, they could determine that, given the storm's superluminal speed, it could not be a natural phenomenon. Moments later the red alert was sounded and the same voice came on the comm. The energy storm had breached the shields,


Standing in front of him was a Human and a Vulcan in uniforms that he could not recognize. The Human officer introduced himself as Admiral James Bailey and welcomed KATRA to the USS Klondike. He gave orders to immediately report to sick bay before debriefing. Admiral Bailey assured Katra that he was safe and among friends.

The sickbay was located on Deck 5 and looked like that of a regular Constitution-class starships infirmary however, there was something different. There seemed to be equipment that KATRA had never seen before. The

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO), gave him the all clear and then he overheard her give the log entry "there were no abnormalities with the nervous systems and no signs of brain haemorrhaging."

The CMO and the two posted security officers then escorted KATRA down the hallway to Briefing Room 2. There was a conference table - with a tri-screen viewer, an inset computer and a wall viewer. Around the table sat Admiral Bailey, several other high ranking officers, all with peculiar looking uniforms all with a sort of Starfleet look to them. There was also an eccentric looking man gleaming at the end of the table with a science issued technical coveralls and loosely fitting, wrinkled lab coat.


Then came the explanation. KATRA was told that the so called space storm whipped out everyone on the planetoid including much of the library computers data. He was beamed up just before this happened. Precisely before this happened. That is to say we had past knowledge of the timing of this event and we were obliged to act in nana-seconds before so as to not alter any time continuum.

An eccentric looking man at the end of the table stood up and explained the light-speed breakaway factor through the use of an artificially-created time warp. He enthusiastically spouted off some of his equations and how it related to the speed of light base of 300 thousand metres per second. KATRA interjected “299,792,458 metres per second to be precise”. The man agreed and then reiterated that they had to be precise or they would not have gotten him.




A Starfleet Committee was formed and sent back to the present time to recruit just such qualified command personnel. The only biggest obstacle was the problem of not interacting with the timeline. We had to pre screen captains that show us great potential and more importantly find the ones that have absolutely no future. That way there is minimal disturbance in the time continuum as long as we are not detected.

Just then the ship communications officer came on the tri-screen viewer “sorry for the interruption Admiral but you told me to contact you when we have reached Starbase Mariner 10. We will be commencing docking procedures shortly but we are now in transporter range.”

KATRA was aware of every ship, satellite and starbase in the Federation and there was no Mariner 10 in existence. He was also grappling with the assumption that the members of the Federation would have no proclivity for such a secret society, however it is obvious that it does indeed exist.


They Beamed down to the mid size starbase and were greeted by the two security officers and four lieutenants. “Spevak, Tipeen, Thirin and Thylon will be your bridge officers and they will brief you on your orders. I hope you are ready to pilot a Constitution-class. We have just reconstructed the warp core engine and fitted it with odds and ends we have collected. You can upgrade it once you take get it to the future. We also christened her The USS Raal after your home City.”

and everyone was told to take full precautions.
KATRA ran to the computer to see what he could come up with. He downloaded the data from the Enterprises communications and was beginning to analyse when the computer screen went blank. He heard yelling, panic, footsteps and then running down the corridors. The next thing he knew he was materializing in the transporter room of what appeared to be a Consolation Class Federation Cruiser.

biofunction monitors were working exponentially quicker than he had observed on Vulcan and a large, sophisticated sensor cluster, directly above the bed was registering at great speeds. It was like everything was in an accelerated motion.
As he entered the room all of the officers stood up and saluted KATRA and then relaxed into a human emotional state of delight. The CMO announced that he was all good to go and then Admiral Bailey gestured for everyone to be seated.
He was told of the future war with the Klingons and their Gorn allies and the attacking of Cestus III. A Starfleet committee has determined that due to retirements, deaths and the increasing demands of the Klingon war, Starfleet was facing a severe shortage of qualified command personnel.
They determined that they must revise the rules to encourage more officers to seek command positions, increase enrolment at Starfleet Academy and revise the command structure to allow for the best use of experienced personnel. This was helping the situation however; it was flooding the system with sub-standard captains and increasing the loss of Starfleet lives and the destruction of our ships.


The Vulcan stood there realizing that he has not only cheated death but has the ability to jump into the future full of new scientific advancements and also has been given the opportunity to captain his own ship to stretch his pursuit for new discoveries.
Admiral Bailey replied that they would beam down and leave the ship docking to Number One. He then looked at KATRA and asked if he had any questions, please feel free to ask. As they were walking down the corridors toward the Engineering room and the transporter room he was suddenly very aware that there was something missing… The crew. Admiral Bailey looked at him as if he had read his mind and said “we have a ghost crew of 25 officers. Just enough to do what we need to do. No need to take a chance of letting too many people in on this.”

To be continued...