To both give the readers some insight into the long creative process for
Star Trek: Venture and "Chaos Theory" in particular, I've prepared the following series of annotations discussing characters and plot information. Hopefully, in addition to giving you an idea on how many twists and turns this series took before it was released it can also serve as a useful learning tool for those aspiring writers out there. Obviously, the following contains spoilers, so it's strongly advised that you read "Chaos Theory" first before taking a look at the annotations.
Acronym Key:TOS:
Star Trek: The Original SeriesTAS:
Star Trek: The Animated SeriesTNG:
Star Trek: The Next GenerationDS9:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; also refers to the titular space station
VOY:
Star Trek: VoyagerENT:
Star Trek: EnterpriseNF:
Star Trek: New Frontier, the novel and comics series from Pocket Books, Wildstorm Comics, and IDW Comics
TTN:
Star Trek: Titan, the novel series from Pocket Books
VAN:
Star Trek: Vanguard, the novel series from Pocket Books
AOTF:
Star Trek: Articles of the Federation, a Pocket Books novel by Keith R.A. DeCandido, which features the
VentureSFB:
Star Fleet Battles, a series of pen and paper starship strategy games from the Amarillo Design Bureau
SFC:
Star Trek: Starfleet Command, a series of starship strategy games from 14 Degrees East & Taldren, published by Interplay and Activision, based on SFB
BC:
Star Trek: Bridge Commander, a starship simulator from Totally Games, published by Activision
YORK:
Star Trek: Yorktown, my previous series
VEN:
Star Trek: Venture, my current series
CT: "Chaos Theory," the first VEN story
Cover:Obviously, this is meant to illustrate the
Venture's arrival at Kathos III and Strassman's betrayal of the Romulans from Chapter 8. The title of this story obviously refers to the field in mathematics discussing the behavior of dynamical systems (states that evolve over time) that may be sensitive to its initial conditions. "Chaos Theory," in this case, also refers to several plot elements including Strassmann's attempts to bring order to a chaotic galaxy and Henderson's evolution from first officer to captain. This is the first of a planned three-story arc; I felt it was important to give the crew of the
Venture a prolonged mission and not have everything wrapped up immediately at the end of the opening tale, similar in some respects to the third season of ENT.
Epigram:Page 3A rather famous line from Trek's Great Bird of the Galaxy that I've seen repeated a few times, but I've never heard exactly when he said it.
Dedication:Page 4Near the end of finishing up CT, my dog Sparky was put down due to health complications. He was my faithful companion for nearly sixteen years and the Brody family's dog was named in his honor. However, my Sparky was a Beagle and since Captain Archer's dog Porthos was also one, I made the fictional Sparky's breed a Lab.
Historian's Note:Page 5Those who read the preview circulated with the complete
Star Trek: Yorktown series should immediately notice yet another difference between that and the final copy, aside from titles. The setting has been moved back a year to 2380, mostly to avoid conflicting with the forthcoming
Destiny trilogy set in 2381. Naturally, the
Venture plays a role in
Articles of the Federation and those events will be touched on in future stories.
Prologue:Another difference from the preview is the absence of the frame story set thirty years in the future. This element was eventually dropped in the final draft since as I was plotting out future stories, I noticed that the frame stories were essentially telling the same series events over and over again. Captain Vasquez meets with someone, discusses the Trinity missions, then he leaves to go find someone else to get more information. Since this was so repetitve, was only told essentially in two small sections in each story, and boxed me in on what I had to tell over the course of this first story arc, I dropped it. And yes, to those of you who are curious, Sara was intended to be the daughter of who's now the character Mark Henderson.
Page 6Thirty years ago
: Back when there was a section set thirty years in the future, setting this part of the prologue thirty years in the past (2350) felt blanaced. Many of the details of where they are and what they are doing is deliberately left vague.
As he paced about nervously, Commander Warren Stanley fought the urge to check his holstered phaser one more time to make sure it was charged: Other than his name, Stanley's character has changed little over the development of this story. Here, he's depicted as a young officer on the cusp of his first command, meant to parrallel with his future XO, Mark Henderson.
Lieutenant Commander Savok, the chief of security: Another character who's been in almost every draft from one version to the next. Due to being a Vulcan, I hope to use him in future projects set in the past.
Doctor Hans Strassmann: This character was added around the fifth draft or so (the final product being around the eighth, but I've lost count), obviously meant to eventually become one of the antagonists. Named for Nobel Prize winning German chemist Fritz Strassmann, one of the co-discoverers of nuclear fission and the fictional character Dr. Hans Reinhardt from the Walt Disney film
The Black Hole, portrayed by actor Maximilian Schell.
Project Trinity: Named for Trinity, the test of the first atomic bomb in 1945.
Page 7“The final connections are complete,” Strassmann concluded: One of the things that continually changed from draft to draft was how Strassmann's machine worked. In order to indicate just how much his technology advanced in thirty years, a simple computer console was chosen.
“You two are just along for the proverbial ride. We will proceed at a pace that I deem necessary:” This was another detail that changed, in that whether it was Strassmann rushing or if he was pushed into rushing. Obviously, it made more sense for him to have this sort of reckless abandon about the whole thing.
“The containment field for that thing is unstable. If the reactor continues to power up, the field could fail and it’ll breach:” One of the things I had trouble with figuring out was just how Delta Corranis IV would be destroyed. Obviously it had to be for many reasons, but the how changed over several drafts until I figured out that the reactor core for the Xentarian station could have been damaged in the bombardment of the planet, thus when activated, it would fail.
Page 9The corridors were narrow and cramped; the Ticonderoga
was an old Excelsior-class starship commissioned towards the turn of the century: The name and class of the vessel at Delta Corranis IV changed several times over the course of writing CT, from an Ambassador-class ship to a Constellation-class ship, to finally this class, which of course debuted in
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, becoming one of the most frequent guest star vessels in the franchise's run. It was chosen to both illustrate just how powerful the reactor explosion would be while at the same time not being one of the most advanced starships of the time period.
Captain Eliza Thorne: Another character who's survived over almost every iteration of the series. Her involvement has ranged from the cameo you see here to being one of the principal characters. Her relationship to Juliet Logan was something established midway through the writing process.
Lieutenant Bippen Chawla, ship’s helmsman: His last name is an homage to space shuttle
Columbia astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who perished when the orbiter broke apart on reentry on February 1, 2003 due to damage sustained during launch on January 16. This occured a day after my 23rd birthday; both the Apollo 1 and
Challenger disasters happened within that same period so you'll understand if I don't readily accept a space flight for a birthday present.
Page 10“Captain, I am picking up a subspace shockwave coming up from astern,” the Vulcan announced: The concept of a subspace shockwave was introduced in
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country to explain how the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis could affect the USS
Excelsior light years away in Federation space.
Page 11Captain’s Log: Stardate 57027.3: Special thanks to the
Daystrom Institute Technical Library for their stardate calculator, which allows one to convert Gregorian calendar dates to the preferred measure of time in the 24th Century and back again. Might as well also thank a few other reference sites I used in the creation of this work, including
Wikipedia,
Memory Alpha,
Memory Beta,
Star Trek Expanded Universe, and
Ex Astris Scientia.
Captain Bippen Chawla of the starship Faraday
: Another change in the final draft was to make Chawla the commander of the ship to Kathos III, since it was logical to send a ship captained by someone who was previously involved with Project Trinity. The
Faraday went through a number of name changes, the final one in reference to Michael Faraday, an English physicist. The ship's class also changed repeatedly until finally being settled on an Intrepid-class ship, the same type as the USS
Voyager from, of course, VOY. The fact that the television series
Lost introduced a new character with the last name of Faraday is merely a coincidence.
Page 12“Sir, we’ve just lost our telemetry feed to Trinity Station,”
he stated with concern: Like VAN's Operation Vanguard, Project Trinity is based out of a space station, though since Trinity hasn't progressed as far or as rapidly as Vanguard, Trinity Station isn't a full-fledged starbase.
“Oh my God,” he breathed, momentarily freezing on what to do next: The ambush by the warbird and Chawla's reaction to it is an homage to a similar sequence from
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Page 13“I’ve lost helm control,” hissed Crewman Zorix, the Saurian pilot: Saurians were first referenced by name from their namesake brandy in "The Man Trap" (TOS). The actual species was not pointed out on camera, but later non-canon works identified one of the background aliens in
Star Trek: The Motion Picture as a Saurian. For more, see
this article from Memory Alpha.
“No power to the weapons, Captain!” warned Assad: Another line referencing a Trek feature film, this one from
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, albeit delivered here not as calmly as Spock.
As quickly as the “battle” had begun, it ended just as fast as the Federation ship exploded on the bridge view screen of the Romulan warbird Teramnus
: The
Teramnus is named for another Romulan vessel I used in one of my earlier stories set in the SFC universe.
Commander Alidar Nelveth relished such victories: Nelveth's last name, likewise, comes from another Romulan antagonist from my SFC works. His first name is an homage to Alidar Jarok, a Romulan character from "The Defector" (TNG).
In spite of the Teramnus
’ massive size, her command center was quite cramped, at least in the commander’s view: The size of the warbird's bridge is derived from both "Face of the Enemy" (TNG) and "The Die is Cast" (DS9). Though clearly both shows didn't have a budget to produce a large command center, the fact that their ships are among the largest in the franchise yet their bridges are so small seems odd, though I suppose the Romulans have a tradition of working in confined spaces, as evidenced by the control area in "The Balance of Terror" (TOS).
That massive size also made this engagement completely one-sided; the barrage of plasma torpedoes set to full yield ensured that few enemy vessels could survive, let alone a mere light cruiser like the one whose debris now drifted on the screen: It may seem striking to some that the sister ship of
Voyager could be so easily and quickly defeated in battle. Honestly, there were times I did as well, which resulted in using several different classes of ship in this situation. However, I decided to simulate this encounter in BC using the Kobayashi Maru modification. I, as the warbird, immediately cloaked and loaded my torpedo launchers with high-yield plasma torpedoes. Once I was in a position to strike without being fired on too much, I de-cloaked and fired off the torpedoes. The Intrepid-class vessel's shields were gone almost immediately and she sustained heavy hull damage. A few follow-up disruptor shots and she was gone just as quickly as the
Faraday was, so there's at least some evidence that can support how this battle played out.
Page 14He was one of the empire’s greatest strategists; able to anticipate every possible outcome of a battle and adjust those plans as the fight progressed: Nelveth's character has undergone many changes over the course of developing this story. In the very first drafts, he wasn't even Romulan; he was a Cardassian named Pirok during the Dominion War, forced to work (somewhat unwillingly) alongside the Vorta and Jem'Hadar. Later, he became Nelveth in the post-
Star Trek Nemesis era and instead of working alongside the Dominion, he was reluctantly allied with the Tal Shiar intelligence agency. In the final draft, his alliance with the Tal Shiar was dropped and he was made commander of a small task force. Also, instead of being firey and tempermental, he became cool and calculating, primarily inspired by the villain Grand Admiral Thrawn from the
Star Wars universe.
the Demetrius
: Named for the vessel used by Starbuck and several other pilots in the fourth season of Ronald D. Moore's
Battlestar Galactica in the quest for Earth.