It's Always Sunny in the Delta Quadrant (Amity)

It's Always Sunny in the Delta Quadrant

  • Episode: S2E5 (2400)
  • Stardate 240009- 240011

Teaser

What was expected to be a routine day on Amity Outpost resulted in a meeting between Starfleet attaché and Commander Wil Ukinix and Chief of Mission Niarivi Vataix when long range scans detected a radio pulsar in an unconfirmed star system labelled Fana 2977-B. When a classified alert was sent through referencing ‘Protocol Parallax’ the Commander didn’t waste a second and set out with Chief Science Officer Robin Hopper to check it out aboard the Daintree.


What the two officers unfortunately do not know yet is that this strange pulsar is in fact a warp signature and the pair are in for one not-so happy landing. Read on as they end up accidentally insulting a whole planet and their leader!

Act 1

It didn’t take long for word of the exploits of Commander Ukinix and Lt. Commander Hopper to return to Amity Outpost. However this was delivered on behalf of a transmission from the USS Kitty Hawk, informing the senior staff that the Daintree had crash-landed on a populated world and both commanders had made the news - and not for the best reasons!

Insert from the Paak News Network:


Paak News Report: ...the aliens were quickly arrested following their insults and threats to the Paak and Paak people. The Paak officially announced that she was unperturbed by the threat posed and has mobilized the Paak military to prepare all defenses against this "United Federation of Planets" should they seek to follow through on the male alien's words.

Paak (Leader): I declare to this United Federation that you will not succeed in your Paak. We have captured your Paak and will obtain the Paak we need to survive.

Paak News Report: We here at Paak have obtained exclusive footage by a local Paak who was at Paak during the initial encounter.


The video changed to grainy footage of a gathering of officials, although the familiar face of Wil and Robin could be seen in the middle of the alien congregation.


Ukinix: It is an honour, Paak, to be welcomed to Paak, and to meet the leading representative of the Paak people. Paak “Paak” of the Paak people, my commanding officer is an Ambassador, and I’m sure-

Paak #3: You *dare* insult our Paak with such *words*?

Ukinix: ::To Robin:: What’d I say?

Hopper: ::To Wil::  You said “Pa–”  ::cutting herself off::  You said the word. Their word.

Ukinix: “Paak”.  I said “Paak”, right?

Paak #6: Make him stop… make him stop!


There was the sound of more yelling before the video stopped.


Ambassador Vataix assembled her team of senior staff for a meeting [1] to discuss and weigh in on the possible options to resolve the seemingly volatile First Contact situation.


The crew was divided into three teams;

The Ambassador, alongside Chief Counsellor John Carter, Deputy Chief of Mission Vaje Kizat, Chief of Staff Keehani Ukinix and Civilian Analyst Nadeshiko were assigned to decide on the correct approach to deal with this new alien civilisation once an appropriate form of communication could be reached and the best diplomatic avenue to take.

Chief Medical Officer Ikaia Wong assumed position as Chief Science Officer and took command of the second team consisting of himself, Ensign Cara Veers and Ensign Harrison Blackwood to decipher the nuances of this new alien language, analyse all incoming transmissions from the planet and try to adapt the Universal Translator before the diplomats need to make contact.

And lastly but not least, Amity's Chief of Security Lt. Commander Cassian Iovianus assumed command of the remaining operations staff including Lieutenants Nathan Richards and Rebecca Iko, Lieutenant JG Scotty Reade and Ensign Kaito Moore to analyse the technological status of the so called "Paak" people. To explore potential alternatives should diplomacy not prevail and to get all crew out safe and sound.

Meanwhile on the Paak Homeworld both Commander Ukinix and Lt. Commander Hopper were experiencing life on an unknown alien planet without a fully functioning UT.

Following their arrest both commanders found themselves locked in a non-descript plain-white room isolated from all else somewhere inside a fortified Paak military installation. Unfortunately for the pair, their day was about to get a whole lot worse when a representative of the Paak Legal System arrived to offer legal representation as the planetary government levy a multitude of charges against them; from violating Paak airspace to unlawfully entering a military facilities and causing several million Paak in damages to the environment!

Despite protests from both Starfleet officers and countless attempts to convince the Paak people that everything was a misunderstanding due to miscommunication all their words fell on deaf ears. To make it worse their hearing was in no less than three hours time!

In an act of defiance for their unfair and potentially unlawful lack of preparation time or defence the officers showed up to their tribunal [2] without their communication instruments, resulting in an uproar from the court and the Magistrate charging Commander Ukinix with contempt of court and interning him for the remainder of the tribunal hearings, leaving Lt. Commander Hopper alone to weather the storm where she learned an alarming fact about the Paak's Warp Tests they had investigated - they never happened.

Act 2

Enroute to the Paak System progress was made by the officers aboard the Independence-B in their respective tasks. The science team headed by the acting Chief Ikaia Wong made some interesting but unfounded theories regarding the Paak language, theorising that the universal translator is taking far longer time than allowed for the translations resulting in severe miscommunication and that it might be due to a tonal differences in their language. So the science team continues to try and fine tune the UT to respond to these differences.

The operations officers identified the alien weaponry to be a far more primitive technology than Federation standard - likely sound-based than projectile and focused on magnetics. Their next task was to put together a deterrent and means to disable any threats.

Lastly, the diplomatic team agreed to take action with their readily-available escort vessel, to investigate the planet's surface and monitor communications while meeting the leaders of this newfound civilisation.

With all three teams ready, the crew and a duo of independent journalists (Arthur Summerside and Kit Ivanovic) boarded the USS Independence-B and began the journey to the "Paak" System to recover their lost comrades and with any luck make some new friends in the Delta Quadrant.


On the planet's surface Commander Ukinix was becoming ingratiated with, or rather being idolized by another member of the Paak people, a zealot named Pa'ko who believes the officer to be a Blessed Angel. It turned out that Pa'ko was attempting to warn the Commander about his own allies come to assess his condition and return him to the Independence-B only for the commander to refuse and wish to carry on with the tribunal hearing.

Lt. Commander Hopper, on the other hand, was met by Delegate Pai'Lak of the Paak Diplomatic Delegation in whom she could find an ally in and exchange information with for a better understanding, eventually admitting to the presence of her fellow Starfleet Officers and their arrival prompting the science officer to share some information on the ins and outs of Starfleet. This was unfortunately short-lived as moments later Richards, Veers and Kiani were imprisoned alongside Robin for 'cultural misunderstandings.' [3]

These misunderstandings bled into the Ambassador's negotiations, resulting in all officers on planet being detained and to be brought forth together for a joint tribunal.


Meanwhile in orbit Lt. Commander John Carter had the conn aboard the USS Independence-B and was leading an investigation of a mysterious pulsar in orbit. It was eventually decided to launch a probe at the pulsar which revealed the anomaly to be something far more concerning than spatial phenomenon, it was infarct an alien ship of unknown origins! The unknown vessel began to flee, prompting the Federation ship to give chase and eventually 'tag' the fleeing craft with a live round to allow for smoother tracking.

The vessel returned to Paak airspace before the crew of the Independence-B opened communications following a disagreement [4] between Lt. Commander John Carter and Chief of Staff Keehani Ukinix. The negotiations were short and caused a great deal of suspicion on the unknown vessel which was claiming to belong to the native species on the planet below. The crew were onto something as once the verbal pushing began the crew onboard the bridge were transported to another planet of existence!

Act 3

The bridge crew aboard the Independence-B awoke to a Fantastical Recreation of the Reconciliation Forums of Betazed [5] where they were greeted by interpretations of Naminae Vataix and Sky Blake, who referred to each other as 'Watchers'. Held against their will the bridge crew were subjected to the examination of these Watchers who deemed them contradictory to their statements. Questioned individually one by one it was later deemed the crew's contradictions unsolved but not to be judged and they were returned to their ship.

Meanwhile on the planet's surface the tribunal [6] had gone ahead with both the prosecution and defence arguing fiercely over what was to be done with the Starfleet Officers and their Ambassador. All officers were cleared of charges with the exception of Ambassador Vataix who was sentenced to a standard one cycle course for non-military Paak, meanwhile both Commander Ukinix and Lieutenant Iko were sentenced to twenty cycles of entry level training for any citizens that join the Paak Military.

With all legal matters resolved the other crew members returned to the Independence-B and returned to Amity Outpost to wait out the return of their comrades.

References


(Edit Listing)

Season 1 (2398-2399)

"Amicitia Vera Illuminat" · "Providence" · "1x03" · "An Eye for an Eye" · "Means to an End" · "House of Mirrors" · "Pieces" · "Protocols" · "1x09" · "Nostalgia" · "1x11"

Season 2 (2400)

"Worthy Prey" · "2x02" · "Dark Roses" · "2x04" · "It's Always Sunny in the Delta Quadrant" · "2x06" · "Toxicity"

Season 3 (2401)

"3x01" · "Bless This Home" · "3x03" · "Frontier Day"

Amity Mission Archive