A Reflection on Recent Events

Posted on Wed Jan 7th, 2026 @ 8:06pm by Commander Donald ‘Don’ Key

762 words; about a 4 minute read

Personal Log — Don, Stardate: Erm, today.

Personal log. Don speaking. Still Don. Confirmed not a transporter duplicate, not a mirror universe evil goatee version, and not temporarily merged with a Vulcan, Talaxian, or anyone named Neelix. So frankly, a good day by Starfleet standards.

We beamed down to Cumulonimbus 5 today, which already sounds like a theme park that gets shut down after the third mysterious disappearance. The transporter did that familiar hum that always makes me think, Ah yes, the sound of my atoms being politely disagreed with. Chief says “Away team ready,” and I’m standing next to Dick Sprague—Captain Dick Sprague—who looks like this is all just another Tuesday, which it absolutely should not be.

I offered, once again, to stay behind and let literally anyone else do the dangerous thing. As is tradition. Dick declined, as is his tradition, because apparently becoming a “very relaxed captain with no friends” is his personal nightmare. Wild priorities, but I respect them.

Planet-side, things got strange fast. Snow fountains. Singing clouds. Weather with opinions. Honestly felt like we’d wandered into a rejected Voyager episode where Janeway punches a storm for withholding coffee. Julius confirmed the ionosphere was tuned. Because of course it was. Nothing says “you’re in trouble” like weather with a playlist.

Then we found the device. Not just a weather machine—because that would’ve been manageable—but a temporal anchor. Freezing the planet in time. Not stopping time, mind you. Locking it. Like someone took causality, slapped a Post-it on it, and wrote “DO NOT ERASE.”

And that’s when it got uncomfortable. Not red-alert uncomfortable. Not phasers-out uncomfortable. Moral-debate-with-footnotes uncomfortable.

Turns out the separatists weren’t cackling villains. No moustache twirling. Just people who were tired of Starfleet doing what Starfleet does best: fixing timelines by quietly deleting the inconvenient parts. Kirk broke time with charm. Picard broke it with speeches. Sisko punched it. Janeway ran it over with a shuttlecraft and reversed. And somehow, miraculously, we all call that Tuesday.

This planet remembered.

The storm remembered.

And it was mad.

Dick, to his eternal credit, did not try to blow anything up, quote the Prime Directive like it’s a force field, or make a dramatic speech that ends with “Starfleet will never—” followed by Starfleet absolutely doing that later. Instead, he stalled. Which is, historically, Starfleet’s most effective move. We put causality on hold. Literally. The universe hates hold music, by the way. Julius confirmed that.

Then the Temporal Oversight Committee showed up. A Vulcan, a Human, and a Bolian who looked like this was already the worst day of his life. The Human Admiral saw Dick and immediately sighed in a way that suggested a file. Or possibly an entire filing cabinet.

Somehow—somehow—the storm started projecting Starfleet’s greatest temporal hits. Yesterday’s Enterprise. Redacted colonies. Erased “necessary sacrifices.” It was like the Guardian of Forever decided to become a documentary filmmaker with a grudge.

And Dick? Dick stood there, calm as Picard in a ready room, and explained—politely—that what they were looking at wasn’t a weapon. It was a witness. Time itself, finally filing a complaint.

I made a joke about receipts. The storm approved. I will never emotionally recover from weather validating me.

In the end, Dick didn’t win. He never does. He just convinces the universe to stop yelling long enough to talk. Transparency. Review. No erasing the planet. No quiet fixes. Just… listening. Which might be the most radical thing Starfleet has ever done.

When it was over, the sky cleared. The device quieted. The separatist leader looked like someone who’d finally exhaled after holding their breath for a century.

Dick put a hand on my shoulder and said we should go home before causality changed its mind.

Now, here’s the thing about Dick Sprague. I give him grief. Constantly. Professionally. It’s my job. But standing there, watching him stare down Starfleet, time, and a singing storm without blinking… yeah. He’s the kind of captain history pretends it’s always had.

He’s not just my captain. He’s—well. He’s like a brother.

I will never tell him that. Absolutely not. He’d hate it. I respect him too much for that.

Anyway. Personal growth aside, we’re back aboard ship, and I just walked past the mess hall and someone left out a tray of leftover jumja sticks and—

Oh wow, are those replicated ribs?

Personal log, end—oooh, they’re still warm!

RSS Feed