The Show Place

I had a dream the other night about doing a research paper. Usually those dreams are about being completely unprepared. For example, just the night before I dreamed that I had a 20 page research paper to write and that it was due the next day. I was freaked and decided I just had to stay up all night and go straight from reference material into my word processor, bypassing the usual research process (outlines and notes and such). No big mystery there. Things that are looming at work are starting to seem insurmountable. A feeling of lack of control or preparedness often leads to such dreams (and the ones about forgetting where your classroom is or your locker combination).

But this dream was different. It was more about the process of the research and what I uncovered. I was looking into the "latest" strain of hepatitis for a paper. In the dream that was Hepatitis D (even though I know it's much higher than that now, they're probably up to G or something). I learned that Hep-D was the most dangerous and virulent hepatitis virus so far. Very contagious and (up to that point) very rare. There were only two patients diagnosed with it, but experts expected it to become epidemic or even pandemic.

Anyway, at some point in the literature I noticed that mention of the two patients ceased. There was lots of research going on, then suddenly nothing. I started digging and found that the two patients had both died as passengers on the 9/11 airplanes. I found evidence that their names were attempted to be stricken from the passenger manifests, and started piecing together that the government had learned that they would both be flying that morning, and engineered the "attacks" solely as a way of exterminating two people to contain the disease. Even though hepatitis is very virulent (truth: a drop of blood on a sun-baked sidewalk will still have live virus in it after a week -- just add water), the heat of jet fuel fires would have eradicated the virus.

So the government had two problems. A war they wanted to start waging in the Middle East, and two people with a deadly disease, which they couldn't let get out and couldn't suffer the bad press if they euthanized them. So an opportunity presented itself to kill two birds with one stone; to contain the virus and justify a blank check war.

I woke up when I realized that all of this research had been done online and the government undoubtedly knew I conducted it. With the thought "they're going to kill me", I woke up.

I told some friends about this dream, and they thought it would make a great book or movie. Writing about real-life politics and intrigue is not my thing, though. Plus, there's that whole thing about the government trying to kill me, lol. Best not push my luck.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I thought this could be worked into a DS9 story for the Strange New Worlds books. Julian could be the researcher and Section 31 could be the government agency involved.

But I just learned that they're discontinuing the series:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Tr ... New_Worlds

I was just thinking while reading that you should write a book. And scrolled down to see that you have already dismissed the idea.

Maybe you and a friend could put together a short story based on that outline. A Twilight Zone kind of story and leave it hanging at the end.

Actually you could start at the end and tell it in flashback just as you revealed the dream here to us. You could end it with the main character hearing a knock on his door.

Actually, I mapped out a chronology last night.

Here's what I had so far. I've made the "facts" from the Star Trek universe bold. (These are the things that happened on-screen at some time.) My story would fill in the other pieces.

CHARACTERS:

Dr. Julian Bashir
Scientist/Patient 1
Scientist/Patient 2
Section 31 Agent (Watcher)
Section 31 Agent: Luther Sloan
Section 31 Boss
Augment(s): (Probably Jack, but maybe Lauren, Patrick, or Sarina -- whoever's best at finding patterns in complex systems)

TIMELINE:

(mid-2370)
Section 31 clandestinely conducts morphogenics research using shape-shifter samples stolen from the Klingons (samples collected from the prisoner at Rura Penthe played by Iman, seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, 80 years earlier).

(late-2371)
The research team engineers a virus which inadvertently infects the two scientists working on it. The virus interferes with cellular mitosis. The scientists are hospitalized at Starfleet Medical for weeks.

(mid-2372)
Odo makes a trip to Earth to aid in Starfleet's Changeling research. He is secretly infected by Section 31 with a morphogenic virus, which Section 31 hopes to spread to the Great Link. (Trip shown in 4x11 "Homefront" and 4x12 "Paradise Lost", between stardates 49263.5 and 49556.2, clandestine infection revealed much later in 7x23 "Extreme Measures" stardate 52645.7.)

(late-2372)
Second Federation-Klingon War begins. (4x26 "Broken Link")

(mid-2373)
Second Federation-Klingon War ends. (5x15 "By Inferno’s Light")

(mid-2373)
Julian Bashir is revealed to be genetically enhanced (an "augment"). (5x16 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", after stardate 50564.2)

(late-2373)
Dominion War begins.

(early-2374)
Julian meets four other augments. (6x09 "Statistical Probabilities", between stardates 51247.5 and 51413.6)

(mid-2374)
Crewmembers are shrunken by a space anomaly and eventually restored to full size. (6x14 "One Little Ship", stardate 51474.2)

- Julian performs research about morphogenics, after the shrinking incident, to better understand some interesting but harmless anomalies in the participants’ cellular processes.

- Julian discovers that two Federation scientists had acquired an unusual morphogenic virus three years earlier.

- Studying the literature, Julian discovers that beyond some date (?), references to the two patients cease.

- Julian enlists aid of augments to figure out why. (Or simply does it himself?)

- Records have been tampered with. Names attempted to be stricken from passenger manifests. Unexplained damage at Memory Alpha destroyed crucial data files. There is a cover-up!

- Julian discovers that the two patients both died on the day of a heinous attack on the Federation (a la 9/11), an attack that pushed public sentiment toward (Second Federation-Klingon OR Dominion?) War.

- How could that be? Two people, the only known carriers of a mysterious virus, killed separately by a coordinated terrorist attack? How and why would terrorists/the enemy do this? Or did someone else do it?

- Someone else had to do it. It doesn’t compute though, because the reasons are completely independent. Reason one: Destroy the virus. Reason two: Sway public opinion toward war. WHO? Not Federation Security. Not Starfleet. Some other agency, a SECRET agency.

- Julian wakes in a sweat, "They’re going to kill me!"

- The augments tell Julian that they’ve traced a "watcher" on the FedNet who has been monitoring his research. The watcher is heading for DS9.

- Julian sets a trap, using his enhanced visual and auditory acuity, to capture the watcher.

- The Watcher admits to Julian that he orchestrated the attack and explains why: The Federation is too liberal and weak-willed to do what needs to be done. Starfleet is a chained tiger that needs an impetus to solve the Alpha Quadrant’s problems once and for all. He claims that he is an augment who saw the big picture and acted alone, to do what must be done. Eradicating a potentially disastrous virus was just icing on the cake. He had been tracking the patients' movements and looking for the right time to exterminate them, because the Federation didn’t have the fortitude to "do the right thing". A timely convergence of his two goals led to his orchestrating the attack.

- The watcher bits a suicide capsule. Julian thinks the ordeal is over.

Epilogue. Two figures talk, a boss and a subordinate. BOSS: The loss of an operative was tragic, but a necessary move in the delicate game that is afoot. "War is tricky business." The death serves a greater good. SUBORDINATE: The watcher is a Patriot. BOSS: This Julian Bashir, the augment who nearly discovered us. He could be a valuable asset if he could be turned to our agenda. SUBORDINATE: Yes, he could. BOSS: Let’s keep an eye on the good doctor, Mr. Sloan. SUBORDINATE(SLOAN): Yes, Sir.

(late-2374)
Sloan kidnaps Julian, tries to recruit him. Julian first learns of Section 31. (6x18 "Inquisition", before stardate 51721.3)

(late-2375)
Dominion War ends.

I was thinking the first line of the story would be the sweaty midnight awakening with "they're going to kill me" in his mind, then the rest would be told in non-chronological order, flashing back to how he got to the troubling thought, then carrying forward to the resolution and epilogue.

Now all you need is a redo of DS-9. Any chance this could work for BSG?

Jeepers........I wake up and the 'dream' is gone....you wake up and the 'dream' becomes a story.

I dream I'm naked and wake up the same way....oh wait...wrong forum

LHawke wrote:I dream I'm naked and wake up the same way....oh wait...wrong forum

You forgot to include the web site address.

Xjmt wrote:

LHawke wrote:I dream I'm naked and wake up the same way....oh wait...wrong forum

You forgot to include the web site address.

Don't hold your breath!

I FOUND IT!!!

Uh Oh..........