“It is no longer an endeavour we can put our wills to,†said Admiral Paris today at Starfleet Headquarters, San Fransisco. “The Shoal…space in general is dangerous. It is an environment that sentient beings were never designed to inhabit. But it is what we bring into that abyss, our courage and determination, that allows us to stride across the breadth of our great Federation with confidence. The crew of the USS Pegasus knew the risks, and willingly placed their lives on the line to save a ship in distress. The fact their mission was in vain only highlights their courage as an example to us all. But there must come a time when the risks of further searching in a area of space hazardous to shipping must be taken into account: we have lost two ships to the Shoal, and we nearly a third in the search attempt. To that end the crews of the SS Belgrade, and the USS Pegasus are declared Missing In Action. Starfleet will not, and cannot, afford a proactive search for lost causes.â€
This announcement has caused uproar among the families that have survived both ships companies, calling on Starfleet to continue the search.
The SS Belgrade was a Tellar class Ultra Large Cargo vessel, with a displacement of nearly 500’000 tons fully ladened. Its course took it through a small piece of The Shoal, and given the nature of the area of space it is assumed the cargo vessel ran afoul of one of the many spatial anomalies. The USS Pegasus, a Ares class heavy cruiser attached to the 6th Fleet out of Andoria, answered the distress call. It has not been proven yet if the Pegasus’s captain contacted Starfleet for authorisation to exceed safe Warp speed limits within The Shoal before attempting rescue manoeuvres. This lack of proof has been the corner stone of the campaign to reopen the search for the Pegasus, with accusations of a coverup over allowing the Pegasus to exceed warp factor 3 within The Shoal.
All that is known is that shortly after entering The Shoal all telemetry and signals from the Belgrade and the Pegasus were lost. A two month long search was conducted by the 6th Fleet, and resulted in the near loss of the USS Zealous following an encounter with a dark matter tether. At this time there are no plans to reopen the search, and Starfleet still advises all shipping to void The Shoal where ever possible. But given the sketchy reports about Starfleet reactivating one of its Warden Starbase’s within The Shoal, it cannot be said they are not proactively attempting to stabilise an already troubled area of space.
We will report more on this issue as information arises.
+++
Denab Free Press,
Written by Samantha Waller
United Federation of Planets Free Data Net
Statistics: Posted by Sjet — Mon Aug 17, 2015 6:53 am
]]>
And to answer a question asked the Tim Allen did bring two large anti matter storage pods to the station, but their just pods: containers. The M/AM reactor the station uses for power has been cold steel for years, and it was turned off in a hurry and poorly moth balled: would you want to turn that thing back on without a healthy supply of spare parts?
And look on the bright side: The Bazaar sounds a little like Vulcan, Sai'tan should feel right at home there.
Statistics: Posted by Sjet — Sat Apr 25, 2015 10:22 am
]]>
]]>
There have been places like this through out time: places were trade between disparate and waring Empires could be achieved without interfering with the status quo. The deserts of Saharan Africa were a prime example of this, or the planet of Eden set up by the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd Century. Since then other such sights have tried to attain this level of infamy and fame, but few have been able to attain the grandeur of The Bazaar.
Before the Dominion War the planet of LV-779, a rocky world in the inner edge Goldilocks Zone of its parent star, was a none entity. A number of interstellar empires had glanced towards this world for colonisation purposes over the centuries, but its arid climate and near hostile atmosphere made it labour intensive to terraform. Sand dunes, rocky expanses, and a banded glass desert make up the local topography. The creation of the glass desert at the planets equator produced a crude but breathable atmosphere, nudging this desolate and lifeless rock into the lower range of the M Classification.
With the advent of war how ever, it became a smugglers paradise. Gun runners, bootleggers and refugees from the war zone fled to LV-779: choosing the harsh climates of the desert to the whimsy of fate. Here the foundations for The Bazaar were laid down: agreements were struct, concords were finalised, and a loose trade alliance of smugglers and independent operators began to call this world their home. Warehouses, show rooms, supply depots and ship yards were set up on the surface in the shadows of the glassy cliffs of the Band Desert.
Then came the Shoal. With high warp speeds now dangerously impossible, and the threat of local navigation hazards, The Bazaar turned from a port in storm to a home away from home for many of its regular visitors. What had once been a area of space that could be crossed in two days at warp seven, became a two month wide crawl: and half way through lay The Bazaar, a place to rest, trade news on the local spacial anomalies, and trade goods that no tax inspector would ever see.
Anything can be found in in The Bazaar, from spare intermix chambers for Federation starships, to prohibited substances like ketracel white and Substance D, even the trafficking of live sentients. There is no law on The Bazaar, no Federation oversight or Cardassian Union picket ship. Law and order is maintained by the Grand Master and his Guards, and their rule is absolute and final, with the tacit approval of both Orion Syndicate and the Ferengi Grey Market. No one knows the identity of the Grand Master, but it a well documented fact that his Guards are led by a Jem’Hadar by the name of Eighth.
The United Federation of Planets rates The Bazaar as a hazard to shipping, and is on the list of band planets for the Starfleet Merchant Marine.
The Cardassian Union, to this day, refuses to acknowledge the existence of this world so close to their vested interests, though it would be noted they have increased spending on rebuilding their navy to combat ‘a piracy problem’.
This guide book, on the other hand, would point that most tourists to the Bazaar have often reported they’ve never seen anything quite like it, and upon leaving they have a new appreciation for their lives.
As is to be expected tours to the The Bazaar are booked a year in advance, so book your safari into the Shoal today at your nearest TacNet kiosk today!
“Out And About For 10 Credits a Day: The Perseus Arm & Its Hidden Wondersâ€
Europan Tourist Press
2378
Statistics: Posted by Sjet — Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:48 pm
]]>
Its hard to believe that not five years ago there was no such area of space known as such. But today, for the sectors abutting it and those caught within it, it is a fact of life. Born of a Dominion scorch earth campaign to deny Starfleet vessels from its Bajor side flanks following the closing the Bajoran Wormhole, The Shoal is at best the finest example of the reason Second Khitomer Accords are so forcibly up held by its member states. On June 8th 2375, during the short lived Second Fleet Offensive, seventy five subspace weapons were detonated across two dozen star systems and the space between.
The immediate effect of this wide spread detonation was a disruption of local gravity fields. In essence the massive subspace explosions caused ripples in the fabric of space time, enough that a stable warp field is nearly impossibly to create. The first ship to attempt such a crossing, the USS Pegasus whilst answering the distress call of a stranded merchantman, ran into such a gravity eddies and was effectually stretched into a atom wide strand of uranium alloys and carbon molecules that was nearly four light years long. Since then it has been Starfleet policy to never exceed Warp 3 whilst traversing The Shoal, to better allow a ships sensor array time to map out the local gravitational environment.
And if that was all The Shoal offered up as hazards, then it would at least obey the majority of the natural laws. Alas, it does not.
Most of what is known as fact about The Shoal reads as a list of naturally occurring disasters waiting for a planet to stumble across. Ion storms tend towards one end of the spectrum as the most common manifestation of The Shoal’s seeming belligerence. Whilst Class 7 neutron waves prowl with seeming predatory intent between star systems. The gravimetric signatures of not one, but two monopole blackholes have been detected in this sector, but neither Scilla nor Charybdis have ever been sighted by a manned star ship.
But like all areas of the world where rules seem to begin to fade away into unpredictable chaos, there are rumours of stranger things roving the silent nights between the stars of The Shoal. Interdimesnional rifts, temporal pockets in time where lost fleets of Federation and Dominion forces fight in endless mobs style combat. The tales of strange ships sighted skirting the edge of populated star systems, or even of laying waste to entire fringe colony worlds are the stuff of bar room boasts. And tales of strange beings, creatures for whom this forms of reality is as alien to them as colour is to a dog, abound.
To Starfleet and the surrounding powers of the region view the The Shoal as a dirty reminder of a war many would wish forgotten. But it is this reporter's opinion that The Shoal is as wilful a thing as any being of flesh and blood. It has found a name for itself in the hearts of spacers, and it would be quite arrogant to believe that it would not want to embellish its name more so in the future.
Why else would Starfleet reactivate one of its warden Starbases in the area, if it did not think The Shoal deserved its attention?
+++
From Here, To Back Again: Deneb Free Press
Written by Chilix The Inquisitive
United Federation of Planets Free Data Net
Statistics: Posted by Sjet — Mon Feb 23, 2015 6:05 pm
]]>
]]>