Need help with "Star Chronicles" (my eight-way sci-fi fanfiction)

[Yukaphile]

The name is The Star Chronicles. I was inspired by The Rift Saga.

As the title implies it's an eight-way crossover between Star Trek (prior to 2001), Star Wars (Legends), Halo, StarCraft, Babylon 5, Stargate, Warhammer 40,000, and ReBoot. I know I have yet to check out Stargate yet, and I will, but what little I've seen has really impressed me. I already have a few facts sorted out. Namely, where the fic begins, and where a lot of it is set, and for the places it is not set, I have potential candidates.

For Star Trek, which is where this all begins, it's set shortly before the events of "In the Pale Moonlight." Betazed has been conquered, actually, tbh. And Starfleet Command has recalled the Enterprise-E to Earth in order for Captain Picard to examine some ancient relics, which turn out to actually be the remnants of Thor's Hammer (buried somewhere in the Norwegian countries), and a Stargate. Picard wonders why they've brought him back home when he could be out there busy with Dominion War operations, but they feed him a line about how they need a renowned archaeologist with the command-level experience to handle this if it becomes a crisis, to know if this is a threat to the Federation. But Picard is able to deduce that really, they just want the Enterprise-E close to Earth because with the fall of Betazed, there are rumors of a Dominion war fleet in the area, and they want to "show the flag" to try and discourage an attack on Earth itself.

Well, one thing leads to another, and Picard gets the Stargate working. He falls through to, here's the world. It's Babylon 5, set after the events of "War Without End." And President Clark had already known about the Stargates, they'd captured this one, and perhaps more than one, and hadn't figured out what to do with it yet. However, Picard is then seized by Clark's security forces and interrogated, perhaps by the same interrogator from "Intersections in Real Time," but also the Psi Cops, who quickly pierce the secret of where Picard is from, and how to operate the Stargates.

That's all I have so far. I do have a few ideas past that. I know that this is going to be set, for Legends, in either the Imperial era (shortly before Endor, actually) or the New Jedi Order era (Yuuzhan Vong invasion). Other candidates for this crossover are Warhammer 40,000 and Animorphs, but I've ruled those out for now. An idea I'd had is the return of the bluegills, who are basically how the Goa'uld evolved in the Star Trek universe for different reasons. I also want Zerg creep to do something it's never done thanks to Protoss scouring of worlds; completely cover the globe, seep down its core, and become a new sentient planetary superorganism, that can travel through space. A planet-sized Zerg, yes. I think they would need to bust out the superweapons like the Death Star and Galaxy Gun and so on. And I wanna link the Ancients (all I know is they built the Stargates) to an ancient (ha!) interdimensional empire that ruled the six realitystreams, as I'm going to call them. Would the Q be First Ones, do you think? Perhaps First Ones that transcended it all. I am curious about how interactions between the Vulcans, Protoss, and Minbari would go? And of course, this is a big one. If this is set during the Imperial era, then the Shadows offer Vader power, and assist him in killing the Emperor.

Another idea I have is Starfleet desperately searching for allies as, when Picard has returned, the deception by Sisko is exposed to the quadrant, and thus, the Romulans side with the Dominion against the Federation Alliance. The Stargates would be used to that effect. President Clark just wants to take over new worlds.

Thoughts so far?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

That's a lot of creep colonies.

[Yukaphile]

Indeed.

[Elderdog]

I think that you could cut the Legends content from the story and possibly replace it with something like Firefly or Mass Effect. My reasoning for this is to have a more controllable "Atlas" on which to build the multiverse/ timelines that you intend to add to the story because, if you add Legends style super weapons into the story then you risk having your protagonists gain a potential game breaking advantage against the antagonists.
However, if you try to go more low tech with the super weapons then you could potentially combine two or three terrifying technologies. For example, what if the Wraith used their teleporter jamming technology in conjunction with the Zerg to effectively cripple the Federation in a massive surprise attack or you combine the rail technology from Mass effect with the WMD level weapons found on most Star Trek ships.
In short, I believe that it would be better to make it harder to kill planets and essentially have a scientific battle of wits pushing each factions technology and abilities to the limits of their usefulness.

[Yukaphile]

These are the verses I want. Regardless, I hear late-stage Stargate could rival Star Wars Legends, so there is that. And most of those superweapons will be spent in service of taking out the sentient Zerg planetoids that swarm space. Though... I could set it in the New Republic era if you want, during the Yuuzhan Vong War, because than that means no superweapons. It really depends on if it's the Imperial era or the New Jedi Order era. That's the big deciding factor for me.

[Yukaphile]

I'd love to restart this. I've had many new ideas since then, and even wrote up most of the first portion to Part 1 of the story's summary.

[Yukaphile]

No takers? All you guys have said is that it sounds "too complicated." But really, this is why I'm writing down a summary onto a Word doc, and then will go through revisions, first draft, second draft, third draft, and so on. Come on, we're all fans of sci-fi, right?

[technobabbler]

I'm guessing that the Venn diagram of people who are very familiar with all 6 universes is very small. So not many people can provide feedback one way or the other.

[Yukaphile]

But we all know at least one of the six. Can I at least post my ideas so far nevertheless?

[Yukaphile]

Here's my ideas, updated. At least what I have posted on my Word docs. This is from my info doc.

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The Star Chronicles

CANON FACTS

-Zerg are attracted to psionic energy.
-Zerg Cerebrates can only by killed by Dark Templar energy.
-The Centerpoint Station, built by the Celestials, can move planets with its tractor beams.
-The Vorlons can create specific race memories for themselves.
-Vorlon vessels are living ships that can adapt to Shadow energy weapons so that only the physical attacks affect them.
-Soul Hunters live thousands of years.

POSSIBLE DETAILS

-The Undine constructed Fluidic Space.
-The wormhole for the Star Wars realitystream is near the Maw.
-The Q waited to stop the Warp at the moment they do so that they could show their history and how many races possess the potential to become like the Q over the passage of time. But none quite like the humans.

STORY ADDITIONS (FLESHED OUT)

The Q were the very first civilization in the first universe in all of existence and once they expanded across space they encountered other life, but no sapience, except those they created; they were all alone among creation. As eons passed them their technology grew to an astonishingly quick pace, evolving into star farmers, then galaxy gardeners into black-hole miners which then became supercluster black-hole miners and then to gravity miners with the collective-conscious conflux they called the Continuum and finally ending through the lossless neutrino substrate form which helped them transcend the heat death of the progenitor universe in the first Ascension process. Reaching back through time, the Q Continuum influenced the Manifold to alter reality so that many other life would spawn and they could observe them, and guide them, if needs be.

The Q developed the life-energy known as the Force, making it very distinct from telepathy or telekinesis in that it was both generated by all living beings and yet sustained off them. It was constructed as a means to test various humanoid species, and thus any Force user might vaguely think of themselves as a miniscule avatar for the Q. It was directed through the use of how many midi-chlorians a Force user had within their cellular composition, as a recessive gene that can be thought of as the "Atavism of the Force," and in how Force abilities manifest, seemingly responds to information only known as to however the Q programmed it thousands of years ago, and thus why the midi-chlorians can look to have a life of their own, why certain acts inside the Force could seem so random, and difficult to comprehend.

Lorien and Amon knew one another in ancient times. Each universe has a cycle of birth, death, then rebirth; however, for Lorien, he was literally the first sentient being to spawn in his universe to its latest cycle of rebirth, while the Xel'naga's Infinite Cycle has repeated throughout the lifespan of many universal rebirths.

One of the first sentient species to develop were the C'tan or Star Gods before the first planets even cooled as their thoughts emerged within the lines of force generated from the supercharged plasma and electromagnetic flares to main-sequence stars. The early C'tan were energy parasites suckling on solar energy and shortening the sun's lifespan by millions of standard years. Through time, these solar vampires learned to leave their nests on the wings of the universe's electromagnetic flux and as they passed through space, even filtered between space-time to end up in other realitystreams seeking out a source to satiate this ravenous hunger. Within the Kinrath Galaxy, during the time of the rise of the Empire on Tatooine younglings sometimes told fairy tales of the C'tan as "sun-dragons" as well as their cousins which burned in everything from fusion furnaces to Podracers.

The Council of the First Ones is the name given to the ruling body of the Belkan Empire, comprised of both Ancient First Ones as well as Younger First Ones in a vast interdimensional empire.

The C'tan exist in many realities, still in their primordial state.

The Old Ones were one of the Ancient First Ones while subsequent races like the Vorlons and the Shadows of after-generations were the Younger First Ones. During the time period of the War in Heaven when the Necrontyr had desperately petitioned the Old Ones for the means of immortality to end their short, hellish existence, such a decision required a Council of the First Ones, who came upon a majority decision that a Younger Race simply wasn't ready, despite the Old Ones being their strongest advocates, and who were left in the rather unenviable and reluctant task of informing the Necrontyr what the First Ones had finally ruled on. The Necrontyr blamed the Old Ones for the unfair ruling and why their suffering went on.

There was a race of Ancient First Ones known to the Younger Races and even the Younger First Ones as the Star-Dancers given how their species name was unintelligible to all but the other First Ones who held the ways to travel through other realitystreams, and were among the greatest and wisest of the First Ones that weren't Lorien's race or Lorien himself. They allowed for travel between other realitystreams simply on the basis of which among the First Ones they felt were ready for it. And more often than not the Younger First Ones felt excluded. This was how the First Ones visited other realitystreams.

The Void from StarCraft and the Warp from Warhammer 40,000 are the term used for the same thing. This would make the Xel'naga Warp beings; though not necessarily aligned to Chaos or the Chaos Gods, since they predate even Chaos.

When the Eldar, with assistance from the Old Ones, focused their psychic powers into the Warp during the War in Heaven, the Xel'naga first made contact with them and thus allowed the two to use the Warp in order to create Warp-derived entities to be used as weapons in the war — deciding not to get involved directly for they would not assist the Necrons or their C'tan masters, but they wouldn't help the Old Ones and the Eldar either. They did, however, counsel the Eldar and the Old Ones that in trying to manipulate the Void, they might end up making things worse because if not harnessed properly the Warp could often take on a life of itself, which could prove to be uncontrollable to those less learned in the ways of the Void like the Xel'naga, but the Old Ones felt it was the only way to win the war.

When the Warp exploded out of control during the War in Heaven a Council of the First Ones was convened, where a unanimous decision was reached to seal off this universe, forbid travel to and from that realm, while it was also decided on that any further attempts to "uplift" sapient species with telepathic power would be carried out underneath the auspices of the Council of the First Ones — to make certain that it did not flood out of control and shatter all of reality.

Over time, the influence of the Belkan Empire eroded as more and more of the First Ones either Ascended like the Alterans, died out to sickness and infirmity, were lost in pointless conflicts such as the War in Heaven, or decided to withdraw from the Empire and head out on the wings of imagination past the rim or into the unknown wilds of uncharted universes, and much knowledge was lost with them.

The name of the Star Wars galaxy constantly changes over time to each new rise and fall of all civilizations and while under the Galactic Empire Palpatine has it renamed the Kinrath Galaxy to pay homage to what he felt was a natural dark-side predator. By the time which the New Republic came in contact with extradimensional groups, they commission the New Republic Historical Council to restandardize their Galactic Calendar and the Battle of Yavin is chosen as the turning point which marks this current year 23 ABY; so the galaxy is retitled as the "Hope Galaxy" or the "Free Galaxy" to correspond to the new era of hopeful changes they seem to be in.

The "Celestials" was a word to how the inhabitants within the Kinrath Galaxy viewed the interdimensional empire that was sometimes active in their domain. However, by the time the Rakata client race revolted against the other client races, the "Celestials" left inside the Kinrath Galaxy, such as it is, were simply hold-outs from banished races and civilizations who were excommunicated for various reasons, and fell before Rakatan expansion like the others.

After the Vorlons' failed attempts to ascend into Thirdspace as gods, they assembled a Council of the First Ones which Lorien presided over to determine the fate of how the Star-Dancers' knowledge was to be used. In the end, the council declared a "fair-use-and-open-door" policy, which Lorien himself would enforce was the smart choice; and thus, their unique ability of interdimensional travel was available to all — the Ancient First Ones and Younger First Ones. The Younger Races still found themselves being excluded, though. When the First Ones began heading out beyond the rim of their galaxy, a few chose to depart into other realitystreams, thus only the Star-Dancers and the Vorlons and Shadows as well as Lorien remained behind until even the Star-Dancers themselves left too. The Star-Dancers may be another race from another franchise.

The Vorlons and the Shadows visited the Star Trek realitystream where the Shadows genetically modified creatures like the Ceti eels and the Vorlons uplifted several species with telepathic abilities; such as Vulcans. The Shadows also gifted the first Borg with their cybernetic implants which led to the forming of the Borg hive in a failed effort to introduce something similar to the Techno-mages to this world.

The Undine (or Species 8472) are the Vorlons, who experimented outside the boundaries of Vorlon laws and were exiled like The Hand were into a manifested adjunct space-time tertiary domain, known as Fluidic Space; a formless, infinite mass of organic soup that extends over many realitystreams. During their banishment, the Undine engineered bio-technology which let them escape the void, plotting revenge on their Vorlon cousins, and to this end, mixed Shadow DNA into their genetic makeup; to heighten their aggression. When they emerged from Fluidic Space, they started the Vorlon-Undine War. Other First Ones then got involved, on both sides, and that war threatened to undo them given that both sides had legitimate motivations and grievances in this schism until Lorien himself got involved and negotiated a truce; that the Undine would stay in their realitystream and the Vorlons would stay in theirs, but in their hearts the Undine held a blazing hatred toward their Vorlon cousins, while the Vorlons considered the Undine half-breeds for mixing Shadow DNA to their cellular composition.

The bluegill parasites are a mutated offshoot of the Goa'uld brought to the Star Trek realitystream by an ancient race long forgotten to time.

Throughout human history contact with the Stargates led to cultural cross-references, hence why they have the name of Thor in one world even though he is not native to this realitystream but the realitystream that spawned the SGC. Daniel Jackson would be fascinated by all this.

After uniting the Klingon people and defeating his enemies and laying down the code of honor his people would follow, Kahless left through a hidden Stargate he'd discovered on the surface of Qo'noS and wound up passing through time to the era of Valen, where the two met and became acquainted, as Valen traveled through the Stargate to his world in return.

Starfleet Command retrieved a Stargate buried below Mt. Kilimanjaro just decades prior to the events of the story and through that Stargate came Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, who unearthed one in her home reality and then began building up her forces in the Alpha Quadrant, subtly influencing the upper echelons of the Starfleet Command. Kerrigan makes regular travel through the Stargates.

Section 31 is really the intelligence service of a secret Federation organization not even the upper echelons of Starfleet whom know about Section 31 are aware of, known as Shadowfleet Command, which operates a secret fleet to act as the Federation's avenging angels manned by hundreds of duotronic base Soong-type androids. The Shadowfleet has adapted quantum slipstream and Borg transwarp technology to be able to compete with the likes of the other factions and races they encounter when contact with other realitystreams makes news across the whole quadrant.

After contact with other realitystreams is established, Shadowfleet Command starts secretly accumulating more and more technologies, knowing a far worse conflict than the Dominion War is coming, as they know about Kerrigan's pulling of strings behind the scenes. Although any attempts to take her out always backfires, but in such a way it does not lead her back to Shadowfleet Command itself, but if it eventually did, would point to Section 31 to take the blame.

A type of composite technology born from splicing together many technological gems pilfered from other races is techno-shapeshifting overseen by Shadowfleet. It works on a principle of (EXPLAIN IT.)

Kerrigan's original mission through the Stargates is actually experimenting with a new breed of Zerg Cerebrate that is a living planetoid. While not a Cerebrate it performs a similar function in her Zerg Swarm that she dubs as a Brood-Mother, though common slang by those which they steamroll is that of "Overworlds." Kerrigan sees the threat of Amon's return, and wants the Overworlds around to resist it. To this end, she requires Zerg creep to completely cover a planet and seep down into the core, which requires time and so all of her efforts in other realitystreams are just a delaying tactic to buy time to seize enough planets she feels has the perfect psionic feel in order to spawn new Overworlds. She sees this not just as a good defense, but the natural evolution with the Zerg and indeed, life in general. Similarly to the preceding generation of the Cerebrates the Zerg Overworlds can't be taken out by anything less than dark energy so even blowing up the Swarms of the Zerg Overworlds can't stop them through conventional technological or military operations. Naturally, while breeding the Overworlds Kerrigan did so on relatively primitive worlds which would not immediately register a response once they went missing on the charts of major galactic civilizations, at least initially, but given how she simply would not infest any other planet except those which she had deemed worthy with the "proper" psionic imprint to it this made pinpointing the right target planet practically impossible, hence why it needed so much time.

The Federation and the SGC exchange technology and information, same with the New Republic after they sign the Compact Treaty.

As more and more Stargates are recovered in other universes, it soon becomes evident that's how humans ended up on other planets, like Eminiar VII, in the Star Trek realitystream.

The Bajoran Wormhole becomes of even greater importance following the discovery of the other realitystreams once they begin interacting with them there. And perhaps SGC even shares some of its science regarding wormhole physics with the Federation that even surpasses much of what they know.

When contact between other realitystreams is established with the Stargates, one is eventually recovered beneath Coruscant, long built over by the upper city levels, and thus sheds light on how humans settled the Star Wars realitystream.

When contact from other realitstreams is established and during the brief period of stability before all hell breaks loose, the religious caste among the Minbari Federation, being really spiritual and taking their lead from Delenn, follow through on a series of petitions by people experiencing what is termed "racial dysphoria" to let them change species into what they feel best fits their identity, via the Chrysalis Device that becomes more widely used.

Once the New Republic begins making alliances with all the various races and organizations out there, like the Federation, the SGC, and more, the remnants of Homeguard band together and make one final push through the Stargate based on knowledge obtained by Clark and Psi Corps when they first started recording other universes to ask for help from the Imperium of Man, which is when Warhammer 40,000 enters the story.

By experimenting with transporter technology, the SGC is able to come up with a way to digitize or download an organic being into a computer network, where they find a world of sentient programs, Sprites and Binomes and Game Cubes and computer viruses.

Picard would be fascinated by life inside computer networks.

Jacen and Jaina Solo both find something appealing with the concept of thriving civilizations within computer hierarchy. With Jacen, because it's a form of life, and Jaina since she understands all the mechanical details in how machines function, and like Picard, they both want to explore it, and would maybe even volunteer to be Picard's Jedi bodyguards in negotiations.

Either Jacen, Jaina, Lowie, or Tenel Ka note how the Web Riders and their society is astonishingly similar to the Beast-Riders of Onderon from thousands of years ago.

Within the reality of the Net, Force perceptions are twisted and distorted past all they experience while in the physical world, feeling abstract and intangible, as it takes a sustained period of time for even a learned Jedi Master to adapt fully so that their Force senses return to what they are supposed to be, and even when calling on their abilities, there is sometimes a bit of a "processing" delay, as it can feel like reaching across a distance as vast as a whole universe. Within a computer network it has a certain "cold" feel always present in the back of their minds, more sterile than anything found in the physical world; like being inside of a black hole almost, they will speculate.

Armed with their new understanding of how computer networks function on the inside the alliance of the good guys soon begins to weaponize it and to hack and disable foreign computer systems.

The Dominion would be very interested in the Kaminoans.

The Dominion, the Covenant, and the Diversity Alliance team up together. And the Breen might even join as well much earlier.

The Covenant have the superior technology in the alliance alongside the Diversity Alliance. Thus the Founders are covertly infiltrating their society to gain an advantage, while the Vorta are given express orders to NOT antagonize them. Don't bend down to them but treat them as though they're allies and consider all options carefully. The same orders Weyoun was given in regards to the Cardassians.

The Vanir kidnap Dr. Bashir to do genetic experimentation on them under threat of punishment, while the Asgard learn of and search out the Kamino cloners to reverse their genetic errors. (This is possibly when the Asgard came into contact with the Dominion.)

This story is a case of serial escalation, with a rampaging Swarm of Overworlds upping the scale, and then the Warp spreading out of control unchecked across the realitystreams only adds to that.

Using Force powers Luke yanks down a Vorlon planet killer in orbit to smash it into the dirt as the Vorlons come to blow it up, on an obscure rim world being overrun by Zerg creep in the process of becoming an Overworld. He could not let his disciples and all the other innocent people on that planet die. Given that the planet killer was largely organic, however, and the shared link the Vorlons had aboard to the vessel, this was no easy feat, but Luke was able to overcome the wills of the Vorlons, sending it crash-landing, as he strategically guided it down over a huge mass of creep upon the surface so that it would cause an effect similar to that of a mass driver. It would not save the world, but it sure bought them time to step up their evacuation efforts even if it meant another Zerg Overworld was spawned, and joined its swarm sisters.

Imperial Center serves as a world that becomes an Overworld, and when Kerrigan begins moving out into the open, she uses Supergates to make travel between realitystreams possible for the Overworlds and leaves already formed Brood-Mothers to guard areas where the creep is spreading over a planet, which takes months to do so, to ward off any counterattacks and reprisals from the Galactic Allies.

When the Zerg Overworlds start flooding realitystreams the Vorlon planet killers, Shadow Death Clouds, Imperial superweapons like the Death Star, Galaxy Gun, and Sun Crusher as well as Undine bio-ships all prove useful in putting them down. Zonama Sekot might help out too. The Sun Crusher was used only for battles if you required a failsafe in the hole in the event you lost, while if you wanted a solar system to be blown up quickly and effectively the Federation supplied the means to carry it out, by use of protomatter/trilithium charges.

The Galactic Allies form to fight the Zerg, bringing practically every former enemy power together into a new cohesive whole to fight.

With the Swarms of the Overworlds steamrolling over space many planets are destroyed by the Galactic Allies, like Corellia and Minbar, or become Overworlds themselves, such as Coruscant and Vulcan.

The Keystone at Ulnar ends up destroyed, which is the catalyst for the Void to spread out of control, and take root in this world, though it is only the second, and far from the last reality to fall to the Warp.

The "first" time the Prophets met Sisko was when he explained to them what linear time was and they reached back across time doing things for him, like making prophecies to the Bajorans about him, and all that he would do; they eventually do cross what he feels is a line, however, in messing with his conception by having a Prophet seize control over Sarah Sisko, who would have married Joseph Sisko originally, to ensure that Sisko is born with Prophet potential. This is because Sisko will need it for "what is to come in the game." When he learns, however, Sisko is seething, feeling that you can't sacrifice an innocent woman, his mother, this way, not even for the sake of so many billions of lives, which is confusing to the Prophets given what he's said before primarily with regards to the Dominion fleet. Because of this, given how the Warp is spreading out of control across time and space, Sisko falls prey to the Chaos God of Khorne, and Chaos infects the Bajoran Wormhole.

With the Warp spreading out of control the good guys have to turn to Q for help, to conclude the lessons the Q sought to teach humanity.

PARTS TO THE STORY

Part 1: Initial Introductions
Part 2: Brief Period of Stability
Part ?: Time Shenanigans

CHAPTER NAMES
Touched by the Prophets
We Have Returned, (Picard's Promise)

MISCELLANEOUS

"By itself, the Cardassian Union constitutes an Index 21 culture on the Weibrand Logarithmic developmental scale of 1 to 100, where 1 equals any pre-warp civilization and 100 equals the base level of the Unaffected Races (UR), such as the Cytherians, the T'Kon, and ultimately the Q. It should be noted that the wormhole entities, the Prophets and the Pah Wraiths, are ranked as Index 90 and as such are not included in the UR category. By comparison to the Cardassians, the Federation is rated as Index 23. With the new alliance with the Dominion, the Cardassian Union is now rated at Index 24. While the difference of a single rating point does not automatically signal the overthrow of a lower-index culture, it does require increased readiness for conflict."

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And yes, there's gonna be numerous shout-outs to other worlds here. Like Baxter's sci-fi novels, or MGLN's Ancient Belka, and so much else.

Here's part two. The summary, so far.

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WHEN THIS IS SET
STAR TREK — During "In the Pale Moonlight"
BABYLON 5 — Right after "War Without End"
HALO — During Halo: Combat Evolved
STARCRAFT — Right before "Wings of Liberty"
STAR WARS LEGENDS — During Young Jedi Knights/Episode VI
-- (UNKNOWN ORDER) --
WARHAMMER 40,000 — During the Great Crusade
STARGATE —
REBOOT — During "Daemon Rising"

PLOT POINTS

SMALL SCENES TO ADD

-Show Sheridan receiving information about Picard.
-Show Clark's agents and Psi Corps charting new universes.
-Show Luke sensing the arrivals of extradimensionals to the galaxy.
-Show Kerrigan talking to Palpatine offering a galaxy to conquer.
-Show Picard happy to attend to something past war duties.
-Picard recognizes Babylon 5 as an O'Neil Cylinder.

POSSIBLE

-Perhaps Picard ends up on Mars.
-Perhaps Sheridan recognized the ship designs of the New Republic vessels and the Federation ships with his brief trip into the future.
-Somebody had touched the Quantum Mirror discovered by Starfleet's teams prior, and was lost to another reality, but joins them up later.
-Perhaps Data was jury-rigged to the allied fleet during geodesic transit to ensure that it would go smoothly.

EXPLANATIONS

The Dominion War after the Romulans joined had forced the Federation Alliance's hand to such an extent they had to practically rush through Operation New Ally, another reason they made sure that no one would see them, because it was a last shot and likely to be a one-way trip as far as those in charge saw it, but they literally had nothing to lose. This is why they have to resort to improvisation.

The Jedi could sense the darkness from the Shadows, which is why they felt confident with leaping into an unknown battle, and Admiral Ackbar just shrugged and let the Jedi take charge in Force matters.

SHORTER SUMMARY

With help from the New Republic, and Luke's Jedi, the Conspiracy of Light manages to drive away the Shadows, or so they are led to think — in truth the Shadows know this means contact with other realities has been made again, and want to act on that.

Vader has managed to steal the information he needs from the Federation on how to form wormholes, and is steamrolling across the Alpha Quadrant, trying to conquer it all until Picard's fleet and the New Republic emerge, and beat the Imperials back, who are forced to flee home. However, to his dismay, Vader arrives home to discover the Borg have invaded it, wanting to assimilate their technology.

This would be when the Shadows appear before Vader and offer him an alliance of power, to further instruct him in the ways of chaos if not necessarily the Force, and to beat back the Borg which he agrees to. First step is Vader assassinates the Emperor and installs a puppet Emperor, allowing Vader full control over the Imperial forces.

Once the Borg have been beaten back Vader has the new puppet Emperor loosen his reins on the local moffs, governors, and admirals through Imperial space as per the directions of the Shadows in a great war of cleansing that shall strengthen the Empire, by conflict; for the inevitable confrontation with other powers in other worlds.

SUMMARY

During the Dominion War, not long after Operation Return, the Enterprise-E is reassigned to Earth by Starfleet Command to have Captain Picard examine an old relic which turns out to actually be a Quantum Mirror next to a Stargate, the first of its kind that was ever discovered. Picard wonders why, and they feed him a line about being a renowned archaeologist and having the command level experience to go with that being a valuable asset, but in truth, it's because there are rumors of a Dominion battle fleet in the area, ever since Betazed was conquered, as they effectively want Picard's Enterprise-E to "show the flag." Picard speculates it could be a device from the Tkon Empire, or the ancient humanoids who seeded the galaxy with DNA fragments, though he eventually grows closer to realizing it seems to function similarly to the Iconian Gateways.

After figuring out the way that the mechanism works, Picard reports back to Starfleet, who confer, then agree to let him head through, but with a set time limit, remembering the Dominion, and just Picard given how he is a talented mediator experienced with first contact situations. After that Starfleet will blow it up. Once he heads through the Stargate he ends up on a world in a time the Earth Alliance is a police state and is soon rounded up and seized by Clark's security agents for asking the wrong stuff. He is questioned by William, one of Clark's interrogators, alongside Bester, and the Psi Cosp, who quickly pierce together where he comes from, which is ground-breaking news. Clark's administration had found a Stargate, but didn't know how to activate it, thinking it to be similar to a jumpgate, which is the wrong approach. Picard, though, is able to escape from them, then gets caught up with those who now resist Clark's rule. Picard wants them to get him back to the Stargate, which is a lot harder than it sounds, and they ask for assistance from his universe with dealing with Clark, military aid, from fellow humans. Picard eventually manages to negotiate the deal and agrees to try and persuade Starfleet Command as much as he can, that even the limited resources Starfleet can spare from the Dominion War might be enough and that with Clark ousted, it might mean they'd be able to return the favor with the Dominion. So the Resistance gets him to the Stargate, perhaps even dying to do so, and Picard, having been absent from his home for a while is dismayed to return to find how the Romulans are now allies of the Dominion, and the war is going VERY badly.

It turns out news of Captain Sisko's deception to lure the Romulans into the Dominion War had been leaked to the quadrant, by who, the admiralty doesn't actually know, but it prompted the Romulans to side with the Dominion against the Federation and Klingons. Sisko himself was busted in rank from a captain back to a commander and given a formal reprimand on his record, though to do anything harsher would run the risk of losing Bajor forever in a war they can't lose given how important the wormhole is to the war effort. In any case, as soon as Picard gives his report, the Federation President, Starfleet Command, and the Federation Council all debate, and come to a conclusion; they need new allies, which had been Captain Sisko's original plan, and why Starfleet Command gave it their blessing, and after a big speech from Picard on sticking to their ideals to win this war, they grant the green light on Captain Picard's recommendation to send a task force into this universe and help them out with President Clark, but it is going to be a small task force, to win their favor and make allies, and keep it covert, enough so Starfleet won't take the blame like the last time if things go south. They then work on applying the way this wormhole within the Stargate had functioned to modulate it to the Bajoran Wormhole so they could travel through with a task force.

Once they feel they can apply what they read on the Stargate to the Bajoran Wormhole, Picard is granted a dozen ships to head through to this alternate universe. While they travel through, DS9 blanks outs its scanners so no sensor records could be kept and restricts all incoming traffic. After they head through Kerrigan, who was initially responsible for leaking the information to the quadrant, returns after attending to her mission cultivating her Overworld Brood-Mothers elsewhere to find to her great anger how the Federation had learned about the Stargates while she was away, and blames herself for being careless. She knows what to do, though, and decides to accelerate her plans, heading into the Stargate again. Meanwhile, Picard's ships make it through but end up completely off course, in the Halo universe, and need to make the adjustments in order to get to their proper destination. However, they have arrived during the fall of Reach, and Covenant ships are drawn to them. Of course, the Pillar of Autumn still heads to the first ring, but a Covenant task force is sent to intercept these new signals and Picard's fleet ends up in a heated battle he can't win as the wormhole vanishes behind them and they are unable to reform it as their calculations had predicted they could.

Having to improvise madly, Picard conjures up a desperate scheme. The Enterprise-E and the few Intrepid scouts they have in the armada will try and perform a geodesic fold to escape, attempting to apply the Stargate technology here to cross through time and not merely space. Data and Geordi both point out how that's extremely dangerous, since geodesic principles were never tested in trial runs as to whether or not they can bridge a temporal plane too. But they have no choice, and so Data uses his positronic brain to begin the calculations for metaphasic shielding. Along the way, they draw even more Covenant ships as the Fleet of Particular Justice and even some of those few remaining from the Fleet of Valiant Prudence break from the glassing of Reach in order to join the attack upon the Federation fleet. The Federation breaks for the Epsilon Eridani star, losing many of their ships and a quick decision is reached among the ranks that a lot of them will have to stay behind in order to make sure the rest have time to escape since the only ships able to perform a geodesic fold are the ones with sufficient technology. Those staying behind break off from the Epsilon Eridani star, and away into the void of space, preparing for warp speed while the two Defiants and the four Intrepids as well as the Enterprise-E plunge deep into the star as the Covenant also split their forces and head off in hot pursuit after the fleeing ships. With the data relayed to the ships in the fleet, they make their journey in.

Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee is confused as to why the enemy fleet is acting as though they plan to head into the sun. And soon then he realizes they are! He keeps going, the Covenant fully ready to die in battle and to serve the Prophets. But as the geodesic fold opens up the Covenant ship lord realizes they are trying to escape and the Covenant stay on their tail, following them into the fold. The trip through the fold is harrying, especially as one of the Federation fleet ships can't sustain the rigors of the metaphasic shielding, probably an Intrepid because of a malfunction caused by some of its bio-neural gel packs, and the ship is melted out of existence. The Covenant ships fare, if anything, worse than Captain Picard's fleet, trying to fire in the geodesic fold which just disrupts it further, almost undoing the whole space-time matrix, but in the end, the passage opens up and the retreating Federation fleet with their pursuing enemy spills out into a new universe. They have arrived in the Kinrath Galaxy, though quickly have no time to even check their star charts as the Covenant press the attack, driving Picard's fleet to attempt rocketing out of system.

The New Republic, led under Admiral Ackbar and expecting trouble from the self-styled Second Imperium, is drawn to the energy of their weapons fire, and order them to stand down. Picard's task force under the Enterprise-E gets through to try and explain, so the New Republic vessels just disable them with their ion canons. Seeing that they need to earn their trust, Captain Picard sends help with the New Republican boarders to try and seize the Covenant ships. It is a long, brutal battle, but they succeed as Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee is captured. Admiral Ackbar is brought over via shuttle, where Picard explains the situation, and soon learns he is not in the right destination now either. Geordi and Data here or later would probably confirm given how badly the fold was disrupted, and how such was an experimental procedure, it's a miracle they made it through at all. In the here and now, though, Ackbar, for his part, is very skeptical with this tale of otherworldly and extragalactic travelers, but thinks it's a matter best suited to the New Republic's government leaders. However, it's soon made clear that in this dimension, the New Republican vessels not only possess superior firepower, but also propulsion capabilities, leaving Picard feeling more than a little awkward and flat-footed, so Admiral Ackbar offers to tow Captain Picard's task force to Coruscant using their tractor beams, and he agrees to that. The rest of Ackbar's fleet remains behind to watch over the captured ships.

When Picard presents his report before the New Republic Senate, explaining who they are and how they ended up here, Grand Master Luke is there, having sensed a disruption in the Force. He pledges the assistance of the New Jedi Order to helping out these other universes. Thus, the New Republic leases a very small New Republican task force that is specifically under the command of the Jedi in a similar capacity to how Jedi Masters were generals in the Grand Army of the Republic to Captain Picard's fleet, spreading unrest in the New Republic Senate including the Bothan delegation, especially Borsk Fey'lya. While Luke is nominally in charge, Admiral Ackbar is put in charge of fleet operations much to his chagrin given his suspicions with Picard's tale. Data works alongside some of the technical droids in the allied fleet in explaining the principles of geodesic folding, and they think they can improvise a way to traverse a geodesic rift safely, since most of Picard's fleet had been heavily banged up. They head into a nearby star and manage to traverse it better than before, traveling to the proper destination as all of them finally arrive in the proper destination but unfortunately, they end up smack dab in the middle of a conflict between the Shadows and the Conspiracy of Light. Calling on the vast psychic abilities of the Jedi they have with them, they manage to drive them all away, winning the battle Sheridan's for forces, who calls over to request they follow them back to Babylon 5. A brief flurry of conversation among the fleet takes place, as Master Luke defers to Admiral Ackbar, who finally believes what Captain Picard had said, and follows their lead as soon as Sheridan elaborates his intention.

(CUT TO HALO)

With an entire interdimensional fleet now orbiting the station, Captain Sheridan takes Captain Picard, Admiral Ackbar, and Luke into his office to discuss their situation. He informs them that Dr. Franklin picked up news of them from his contacts in the Resistance against Clark, those he had in the underground railroad for fleeing telepaths. Sheridan feels their arrival coincides with an experience he'd had recently, when they sent Babylon 4 back in time to help in the First Shadow War, where he had seen the future, and that it was bad, but won't say what exactly it was. He has the suspicion it has to do with their arrival. They talk it all over, Garibaldi playing naturally well off Admiral Ackbar. Sheridan tells them about how Babylon 5 had seceded from the Earth Alliance when President Clark seized power, how he has connections to the Shadows through Psi Corps, the enemies they just fought. As a result, a plan is drawn up. It is agreed to divide their two forces with the remainder of Picard's task force rallying isolated pockets of resistance together over key worlds into a cohesive whole to strike back against President Clark while the New Republican fleet helps the Conspiracy of Light defeat the Shadows. Admiral Ackbar has severe misgivings about this, given how it is not their war and his enemy is the Second Imperium, who haven't been thwarted yet, but in the end, it is his great trust in Grand Master Luke which convinces him to agree. Luke sends some of his disciples with the Federation fleet in case Jedi assistance is further needed.

Meanwhile, back in the Star Trek realitystream, an Imperial fleet arrives deep in Borg territory and are assaulted by hundreds of cubes, witnessed by Voyager, but they quickly wipe out all the Borg out under the command of Vader's Executor and Death Squadron. However, they soon learn it's not so easy to reform the wormhole as thought. Vader realizes that the Emperor's new "ally" had betrayed them, for Kerrigan was the one who had gone to the Star Wars galaxy in the past where the Empire still ruled and had offered Palpatine a power to breach the hyperspace barrier at the edge of the galaxy and conquer other ones. Cursing the Emperor Vader has his men send out probe droids to chart local space, so that they will have a clear escape route as it becomes clear the Borg will just keep adapting to them. As Kerrigan had plotted once they recover information taken from the neural processor of dead Borg drones brought on board for examination, Vader decides once the hyperspace route has been charted to head deeper into this galaxy to seek out this "United Federation of Planets" since it becomes clear they will have the necessary knowledge to help them return home. Though Vader is quite aware this is probably what Kerrigan wants, he decides to spring the trap.