Episode Two: 'Talons in the Prey'

(Teaser act)

T'Pol is calling to the Captain as the Romulan ships are approaching; she walks over to him and says 'Captain Archer' then slaps him across the face. 'Captain you need to snap out of it!' at that moment Archer looks at her and says in a sullen voice 'yes, of course your right'. Trip then breaks in over the intercom and say's 'Partial warp drive is restored'. T'Pol (not Archer) orders the ship to go to warp. The Enterprise flies right past the Warbirds as it goes to warp. The pursuing Warbirds turn and go to warp chasing the Enterprise...

Opening Sequence
(The 4 remaining acts)

So basically the episode has two Warbirds chasing the damaged Enterprise. The Romulans have cloaked so the Enterprise cannot see them. Malcolm comes up with the idea to see if they can adjust the Suliban cloak detector (see Shockwave) to see the Romulans. They are successful and can now see the two Warbirds. Archer decided to use this to his advantage he knows that the Romulans do not yet know the Enterprise can see them, so the Enterprise drops out of warp and as the Romulans draw closer he aims what is left of his weapons at one of them, the Warbird is destroyed but the other one de-cloaks and the Enterprise has no more weapons left.

The Enterprise once again goes to warp, and the Warbird pursues. Archer, dwelling on Erika remembers her last words 'We will always have Solaria'. Archer then has an idea he asks Malcolm if there is any Nebula's around (since Solaria is too far away now), Malcolm says the Kerada Nebula is 3 light years away. So the Enterprise heads for the nebula with the Warbird hot on its tail.




Upon entering the nebula Archer has a special mission for Mayweather but he will need Trip to go with him. Mayweather and Trip are to take a shuttlepod and attach a bomb (attached to the shuttlepod's side) on the Warbird that is trying to find the Enterprise in the Nebula. Since the sensors are mostly useless in the nebula, the idea is that the Warbird will not detect the small shuttlepod. T’Pol urges Archer not to send Trip, Archer and Trip are both puzzled as to why T’Pol is insisting on this.



Trip does go, however, and they are successful in planting the bomb. The bomb does not destroy the Warbird though, but does damage it a bit, as the Enterprise and the wounded Warbird exit the nebula the Warbird goes to warp and escapes. Archer orders the Enterprise to head back to what's left of Salem-One to pick up survivors then to head straight to Earth so he can debrief Starfleet.

At the very end of this episode Archer is in his quarters at his desk, he picks up Zen Xi Tou's book of poetry that Captain Hernandez gave him, he flips through the pages for a few seconds the gets up, pats Porthos (who is on the bed) and goes to window, as you see the stars flying by you see the reflection of Archers face in the window as the camera zooms in you will see a tear running down Archers face.

The end

Episode One: 'For I Have Chosen the Path Unseen'

Episodes
By Thomas Moore

There will be 20 episodes in season 5, with a small mid season break to space things apart. Basically the tone I am looking for in season 5 is to have a similar feel to season 4 but have the urgency and heavier emotional expression as season 3. By the end of the season a lot of the crew may need counseling. I am going to lay out the episodes and the tentative plots and titles I would like them to have. Of course a lot of things may be tweaked before the finally product is out. Some episodes (especially the first one) have more of a summary than others since there are specific directions I would like them to go in.

Teaser act

We open with the Enterprise and Columbia sitting in space docks near each other over Earth. Archer is having dinner with Captain Erika Hernandez in her quarters on the Columbia. They laugh and talk about some of the experiences they have been through over the past 3 years and the beauty of the Solaria Nebula that they jointly explored over a year ago. Archer comments on how nice it has been to be able to see Erika on and off and that it has brought some happiness to his life. Archer sees a book of poetry on the table and asks Erika about it. She says it is a book of poetry written my Zen Xi Tou, a famous poet from the 2040s. She states that she has just finished reading it and offers the book to Archer. Archer replies that he does not read poetry, Erika replies by saying it will enlighten you, here let me read you something'. Archer says sure ok, Erika opens the book up and says here we go, Captain's Legacy, and starts to read:

Heart of fire, mind of ice
Oh brave Captain, the sacrifice
And while my plight, others may not know
Thus my, spirit to boldly go
In hindsight, I have challenged my dream
For I have chosen the path unseen

Very nice says Archer (with a devilish smirk on his face) and takes the book from Erika and puts it down on the table. Archer walks to the controls on the nearby desk and soft jazz music starts playing, he grabs Erika's hand and they start to slow dance, Archer and Erika draw closer as they dance and they eventually kiss...Scene fades.

At that point we cut to the scene of T’Pol standing in an open white space, there we see Trip enter in (he looks very sad and his face seems drawn). T’Pol asks Trip what he is doing here; he says he does not know, things are a blur to him. T’Pol is a bit confused as this type of interaction had not happened for quite a while. T’Pol asks Trip if he remembers anything, Trip says all he can remember is a little girl who is Andorian but not Andorian. At this point T’Pol is very confused. Trip also states that he feels cold and very lonely; Trip puts his hand out to touch T'pol's hand, right before his hand touches her she wakes up as the communicator built in the headboard is beeping.

She answers the hail, it is Malcolm on the bridge, Malcolm says sorry to wake you but we are receiving a priority distress call from Starfleet. T’Pol asks were the captain is, Malcolm say's he is on the Columbia, this late? She implies as she raises one eyebrow, she then says I will be right there. T’Pol gets to the bridge and Archer and Hernandez are already on the view screen from Columbia's bridge, 'Good evening' Archer says to T’Pol, T’Pol replies 'good morning' to you as well (with a hint of cynicism in her voice) The screen does a spilt as they have a three way conversation with Admiral Gardner. Admiral Gardner states that Starbase Salem-One (still under construction) is being attacked and he needs both ships to respond immediately. As soon as the transmission with Gardner is over, Archer looks at Hernandez and says with a whimsical tone in his voice 'heart of fire' Erika smiles as Archer exits the bridge.



The next 3 acts

In act 1 will open with a nice scene of Enterprise clearing the space dock with Columbia and together they go to warp heading to Salem-One. The next two acts will have to do with things happening en route. I will let fans flesh out the middle part here but basically I need T’Pol to query Trip about any weird dreams he may have had. Of course he has had none. Afterward I want T’Pol to have another dream, this time Trip reveals that he is dead but only remembers that he died on duty, he implores T’Pol to not let him die, at that point T’Pol reaches out to touch Trip's hand and is again woken up.

After this point we will see T’Pol start being a bit protective over Trip. There needs to be a scene that introduces Nurse Angela Vanson. My thought is the first time we see her she is having an argument with Phlox over where he is keeping his animals in sickbay. Also, I want to have a scene in the mess hall were we get a brief introduction to Leroy. We see Leroy attempting to make small talk with Malcolm and Malcolm finding a way to avoid him.

The last act

In the last act we see the ships getting to Salem-One and seeing a mangled super structure. As the ships draw closer we see a single Romulan Warbird emerging from behind the mangled structure. The two NX ships go to Tactical alert. The Enterprise is hailed by the Romulan ship, it is audio only. The Romulans state that the Humans have spread like plague and are now attempting to establish their presence in Romulan space. This will no longer be tolerated says the Romulans. We declare that all humans will be eradicated and stop your plague once and for all. Of course, Archer tries to tell them that that we not told it was Romulan space, but his claims fall on deaf ears. Archer also asks he may see who he is addressing, the Romulans reply by saying that Humans are too insignificant to be honored by our image.



The Romulan ships fires on both the Columbia and Enterprise while retreating past the mangled Salem-One. Archer talks to Hernandez on the view screen and says we should be able to handle this one together, Hernandez says what's the worst that can happen? At that point our fair captain finds out how worse it can be. The Romulan ship turns around, all of a sudden two more Romulan ships de-cloak near the first one and two more de-cloak behind the NX ships. Captain Hernandez comes on the Enterprise's view screen 'Jonathan should we retreat?' 'We might not be able to' says Archer, Hernandez replies 'heart of fire'? Archer responds 'No, hearts of fire!' Hernandez states back 'You got it! Let's get to work' (with a smile on her face).

So the two NX ships engage in battle against 5 Warbirds, together the NX’s are able to take out the first Warbird but the two ships are receiving a pounding. During the battle there are some explosions in engineering and Chief Engineer (TBD) gets killed, luckily trip is there to keep things running. The Enterprise manages to blow the nacelle off the second Warbird but in doing so the flying nacelle hits the Enterprise and knocks out weapons and warp drive (for the moment). The three remaining Warbirds reposition together and head for the NX ships. The Columbia is in far worse condition she has impulse, but her weapons are gone, there is a fire on the bridge and worse the warp core is going critical.

Hernandez orders everyone to the escape pods, Hernandez's first officer Cmdr Stiles, implores the Captain to come along since the core will breach in less than a minute but Erika insists 'I'm not done yet, now get the hell out of here!’. Back on the Enterprise we see the Columbia flying ahead of the Enterprise on the view screen, aware of their warp breach situation Archer says out loud ‘what the hell is she doing?’. Archer barks at Hoshi to hail the Columbia, as the screen comes up the bloodied face of Hernandez appears on screen, Archer yells at her 'get out of there is nothing you can do' Erika relies back 'that's not true and you know it'. Erika further replies 'Goodbye Jonathan, we will always have Solaria'. Archer yells 'Erika!' then the view screen cuts to the shot of the Columbia flying next to the 3 Romulan ships.

Two of the flanking ships start to veer off, just then there is a huge flash of light. Archer, shocked, stumbles backward and falls into his chair. As Archer stares blankly ahead, he says in low key 'In hindsight, I have challenged my dream, For I have chosen the path unseen' the bridge crew looks at him funny yet sympathetic, then on screen it appears that the two flanking Warbirds have survived and are headed towards the Enterprise. Malcolm say's 'Captain what should we do' Archer does not reply then T’Pol says 'Captain, Captain, Jonathan' Archer, unfazed, is still staring directly ahead..............




Next episode

Romulan War

In the first episodes of season five we will see the beginnings of the Romulan War. We will be able to see (as we did in United) the Romulans making their plans and their interactions among themselves, but they will remain unseen to the humans and Vulcans.

There will an episode on Vulcan dealing with the Romulans covertly trying to infiltrate the Vulcan government. T’Pol, and the Vulcans in general, will not know that the infiltrators are actually Romulans, but will think they are a part of a radical Vulcan group, and that T'pol's father may have been part of this group years ago when he died, or did he actually die? (Or is he living elsewhere?).

The Romulans are also angry at humans for attempting to create a coalition (federation). Their anger will finally boil over when the Romulans learn that humans have begun building Starbases, one of which is in what Romulan’s consider to be their space.

At one point, the Enterprise will lead a fleet of aging Starfleet ships (since the new ships are not ready yet), to confront the more advanced Romulans ships, and must find clever ways to defeat them (some atomic weapons may be used as surprise to the Romulans). Starfleet will learn that the Romulans like to play dirty and may make suicide runs, and also will set off antimatter explosions to destroy their own damaged ships in hopes of taking the enemy with them. So can Archer and Starfleet find a way to alleviate this threat?

Cloaking Device

The Romulan cloaking device seen in 'Minefield' will effectively be neutralized. The 22nd century cloaking device is nothing more than a bending holo-image as seen in 'United', it is not the complete cloaking device as seen in TOS and beyond. Archer in the second episode figures out a way to use what they learned about holo-image in 'United' to see through Romulans cloaks. I guess the Romulans will have to re-think there cloak and maybe in 100 years they will have one that will work (see Balance of Terror, TOS season 1).

Recurring Characters

Nurse Angela Vanson:
Nurse Vanson will be the first registered nurse and a non-commissioned officer of Starfleet to have a permanent post on the Enterprise, after someone at Starfleet thought it might be a good idea to have more medical staff.

Angela is young (27 or so) and very beautiful, and when she comes aboard she will quickly come to the attention of the men on Enterprise, who will always be talking about her and feigning illness just so they can go to sickbay. Despite all this, Angela is a very smart and headstrong (and somewhat of an overly emotional person too).

When she first sees Trip she knows she wants him but can see that his attentions lay elsewhere (T'pol). Angela will try some subtle things to gets Trip's attention, which does get noticed buy T'pol, and will cause some awkward situations.

We will also see Angela arguing with Phlox over matters in sickbay, and she will try to confide in Hoshi. The two women will be seen talking in the mess hall discussing relationships, Angela about Trip and Hoshi about Fenton Mudd, but they will also discuss men in general.

Fenton Mudd:
As you might have guessed from the name, Fenton (or 'Fen' as Hoshi calls him) Mudd is the grandfather of Harcourt Fenton Mudd (See TOS). Fenton is a bold, handsome, young (about 35 or so) and brash freelance trader and sometimes con man. He has a weakness for the ladies; he has been married twice and already has three children (that he knows about anyway). Fenton has been infatuated with Hoshi since they met on Risa year and half or so ago.

The two went out for a brief time, but Hoshi was a bit put of be some of Fentons amoral ways and broke it off. Needless to say Hoshi is still very attracted to him (and talks to Angela about how passionate he is), even though there ethics do not quite match. Fenton will be in two scheduled episodes this season and may meet a tragic fate (or will he?) at the end of one of them.


Leroy:
Leroy is a new steward who joins the crew this season. He will work for chef (who will remain unseen), and is very charismatic, friendly and talkative. Leroy will be somewhat of a nuisance to Malcolm, as he is always coming up to Malcolm and is quite a bit 'friendly' with him throughout this season. Malcolm will finds ways to brush Leroy off, but finds that he cannot be mad at Leroy and may even learn to actually get along with him.

Leroy is an 'implied' gay character, which means we will really never know if he is even though his mannerisms may 'imply' that he is. So this will be a mystery that surrounds him and you will have to draw your own conclusions.

Admiral Gardner:
Admiral Gardner is a rough no nonsense type of guy that will not have as good of a relationship with Archer as Admiral Forrest did. Gardner will during the season eventually sympathize with Archer’s plight. Gardner has an ulcer that he will always complain about and will constantly tell Archer that he does not want to make it any bigger. Gardner’s character is very similar to Admiral Hanson from TNG's 'best of both world's'.

Ensign Travis Mayweather

Travis Mayweather has not had a good year at all. 18 months ago his family's ship the Horizon was attacked by unknown aliens. The ship was pillaged and then destroyed killing all 23 crewmembers including Travis's mother and brother! Travis took 2 months off on Earth after that event and on the outside appears to be ok now. The war this season and the death of many Starfleet personal has added to Travis's inner frustration coupled with his family's death.

Indeed Phlox is a bit worried because Travis seems to be too friendly, given the circumstances this is good indication that he is burying a lot of his real feelings. When Phlox tries to approach him on this Travis's becomes rather agitated with him. Near the end of this season Fenton comes on board and it is discovered that there may be a link between Fenton and the Horizons destruction. Mayweather finally reaches a point where he does something that will have tragic consequences and damage his relationship with another crewmember.

Ensign Hoshi Sato

Hoshi had a relationship with Fenton Mudd last year. When the crew meets up with him Hoshi will need to deal with Fenton trying to woo her back. She is quite attracted to him but is turned off by some of his amoral ethics. Later in the season something bad happens to Fenton that will affect her more than she thought it would and will have a big impact on her working relationship with Travis.

Hoshi will also be forced to deal with some bottled up emotions from when she was a prisoner of the Xindi Reptilians from Zero Hour.

Dr Phlox

Phlox will be Phlox mostly this year; however it is not just him in sick bay, he now has to contend with Nurse Vanson, Enterprises first fulltime nurse. Phlox will sometimes feel that he is living with his wives again when he argues with Vanson. If that were not enough, he will have to deal with his own squabbling 'family' members later in the season that will drive him nuts. There will also be quite a few situations that will keep Phlox busy this season.

Lt Malcolm Reed

Malcolm will have much more of an edge to him this season and some frustrations we may not understand at first. He will once again be called upon from his old 'section' that may stir memories of an incident that occurred during a mission he went on a year ago. The other members of this mission may learn something that will never be reported to Starfleet.

Malcolm will also be trying to avoid Leroy, a very charismatic new steward (yes, he works for the unseen chef!). Leroy tends to be a bit over 'friendly' with Malcolm and by the end of the season they will come to an understanding...

Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III

Since Terra Prime:

It took Trip a little while to get over the death of his sister and baby Elizabeth, he has even learned to deal with some of his feeling for T'pol.

He agreed to take the engineering assignment for the 3 new NX ships because he knew that he would still be able to see T'pol since Enterprise had been back and forth to Earth so much recently. Of course, things don't always go as planned when Starfleet sends the Enterprise on deep exploration and what he thought would only be months turned into a whole year.

Season Five:

When Starfleet decides to upgrade the engines on the Enterprise and Columbia to the same warp capacity the new ships were getting, Trip emphatically asks Admiral Gardner to oversee it. This way he will get to spend some much desired time with T’Pol as he will be working on the Enterprise. In the first two episodes the Enterprise has to deal with a Romulan attack and during this attack the Enterprise will be hit hard resulting in the death of the Chief Engineer who replaced Trip.

At the end of the second episode, Trip knows that the 3 new ships will need to be completed soon and feels obligated to help get this done. T'Pol however (prompted by her dreams and feelings) practically begs Trip to stay since they now need a new chief engineer, and most importantly - T'pol says she needs him. Archer also believes that Trip should remain on the Enterprise so Trip agrees to stay. When they return to Earth Archer is able to convince Admiral Gardner to let Trip to remain on Enterprise.

Also during season five the new nurse Angela Vanson, will become somewhat infatuated with Commander Tucker. She can't understand why such a 'hot' guy would go for someone like T'Pol. This will be explored though season five as Nurse Vanson tries to find ways to impress the Commander. T'Pol will notice her efforts, and although lacking in emotion, we can see that she is a little concerned.

Commander Tucker will have a lot to do in this season that will seem him in jeopardy quite a bit.

TnT Notes
The focus on Tnt will be roughly the same as season 4, we are not turning this into a soap opera but at the same time the TnT story is a part of Enterprise.

TnT will intentionally keep their relationship low key not just because most of the main crew know about their relationship, but for professional and political reasons as well.

(So maybe the holodeck in TNG is not accurate on every historical fact especially relationships! Do you document your relationships?)

Commander T'Pol

T'pol has worked hard on trying to control her emotions since Elisabeth's death in Terra Prime. Her relationship with Trip has been rather stable as the events of season 4 have brought them closer together. But their relationship will be put on hold when Trip is asked by Starfleet to oversee the engineering on the 3 new NX ships under construction.

Trip and T'pol come to the understanding that T'pol will visit Trip when she can. This arrangement had worked out for almost a year. Then Starfleet decided to send Enterprise out on deep exploration again, and weeks turned to months. Finally almost a year had passed were T'pol had not seen Trip, almost making her wish that he did not except this assignment.

Luckily both the Enterprise and Columbia were recalled back to Earth so that their engines could be upgraded to warp 5.5, and even luckier for T'pol Trip is asked to oversee this operation (for Trip this is also good, because his hidden agenda is to spend more time with T'pol). This is where our first episode begins.

T'pol will also learn that her father may not have died they way everyone thought he did all those years ago, and we may find out T'pol's Vulcan bloodline may not be as pure as it was assumed to be.

In the first episodes we will see T'pol having interactive dreams with Trip (or so she believes), but T’Pol cannot figure out why. She confronts Trip about her dreams, but he does not know what she is talking about since he has had none. In her dreams Trip tells her he is no longer alive, and the only thing he can remember is dying on duty. These dreams make T'pol more protective of Trip as she does not know when Trip will meet the unknown fate.

So will T'pol find out in time what happened to Trip to cause his death, and hopefully save him (we know it's in TATV of course)? This point will be rather ambiguous (no resolution) for a while as the dreams will stop during some of the season, but may pick up again later on.

We will have to wait and see...

Next Entry:
Commander Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker the Third...

Captain Jonathan Archer

Over the coming week I will be posting Tom's character and relationship developments for the regular and recurring cast.

At the beginning of Series Five we will find Captain Archer basically unchanged. He is still trying to be the model captain, however he will also be fighting personal demons with events from his past and present.

Archer has also had an on again/off again relationship with Captain Hernandez of The Columbia. Something tragic will happen to our lovely Captain Hernandez that will affect Captain Archer more than he is willing to admit...


Also, the morally questionable act that the Captain had to make in season 3 will come back to haunt him to further complicate his already fragile phyche. He will also relive a bad childhood memory when events at the new Warp 7 complex draws close parallels to a similar 'accident' during the Warp 5 project.

The Teaser

As I said in my previous post, this outline was written by Thomas Moore from TrekUnited. It is his vision of how Season 5 of Enterprise can unfold.

The idea is to post a little bit of the outline at time to get your imaginations running.

My grateful thanks to Tom a.k.a. Fleetlord for allowing me to use his outline, and to the members of TrekUnited for their continued support.

Okay, here we go...

Season 5 general plot:
By, Thomas Moore
The story so far...

April 7th 2157.

It’s been over two years since the events of Terra Prime, and our intrepid crew of the Enterprise have had their fair share of adventures, some of which will influence the events to come.

Enterprise and Columbia are still the only warp 5 ships but have been upgraded to warp 5.5, however there are 3 more NX warp 5 ships that are 3 months away from launching.

The Vulcan’s have decided to fully share their warp technology with Earth. So the new warp 7 project, known as the Daedalus Project, has begun on Earth and is expected to be completed by 2163, but there are factions out there who want to put a stop to this...

The Salem Project

In 2155 Starfleet began the Salem Project, it is an ambitious plan to build 5 'Starbases', now almost two years later most of them are almost finished. One of these bases will come under attack which will have dire consequences for the crew of Columbia, and will drive the humans in trying to get assistance from the stonewalling pre-federation species.

The Coalition

Earth is still working on their relationships with other races, and are trying to work through problems both on and off Earth, to build a coalition that would benefit the whole quadrant.

The events of Terra Prime dented that effort in the short run, but within a year Earth was back on top of negotiations.

However, there was a recent event that splintered the races to the point where militarily they wouldn’t help each other (Maybe the Romulans disrupted the coalition as they tried to in ‘United’ – dun, dun, dun daah).

When the Romulans declared war on the humans no other races would be directly involved as these governments had their own problems, and they were also curious to see how well the humans would hold up to this threat. Archer tries to seek help (he even asks the Xindi), but for one reason or another they do not want to be directly involved. However, some members will help Archer even if their governments don’t want to be involved (enter Shran and Sovol).

By the end of season 5 other races will be finally convinced to help the humans and learn how powerful they are when they unite. By the end of the war, the other races will find a new found appreciation for the humans, and trust them as a founding member for the proposed coalition. The process is therefore accelerated and by 2161 the new Federation is born.

As Earth has shown its strength and leadership Starfleet will be based on Earth for the federation military in general, the Academy and the political office.

Around this time the Romulans will have a trade agreement with the Klingons supplying them with some weapons and ships, but the Klingons will not get directly involved in the war. This trade alliance will be broken by Archer with the help of Shran and Kolos, but it seems that 100 years later the Klingons once again traded with the Romulans, and once more it was broken up for unknown reasons.



Next Entry:
Characters and Relationships

How Life Changes

WOW - My First Blog!!!

Why am I blogging?

Well, I want to get the word out about a project that I have been a part of over the last couple of months called Enterprise S5. This was born out of a desire to bring Star Trek Enterprise back to our screens.

Why is this so important to me? Well, first let me give you a bit of background about me.

My life has never been easy, raised in an abusive family that followed me into my adulthood, so I’ve had my struggles in life and accept the fact that I will probably continue to struggle with the events of the past, but I live in hope that bit by bit my life will one day run smoothly. I was actually starting to believe that just over a year ago when for a whole year and a half my life was looking up. I was in a job that I adored, a Teacher Aide in a primary school. The money wasn’t good, but job satisfaction was all I wanted, plus finding a bit of balance in life.

My role as TA was in the TA room and my main duty was first aide for the students. Man I had so much fun, especially with the young ones and their little oopsees. Then in around June/July last year I picked up a virus – which will happen when you have kids chucking up in the very room one works in... I couldn’t shake this virus... Hung around forever... It was really starting to bring me down.
Then I started to feel healthy again after about a month. Then my finances started to look a bit grim (as I said TA work doesn’t pay very well), so I started looking for a second job, which is fine, I was doing two jobs at the beginning of the year. I wasn’t having any luck, so I started thinking about leaving the job that I adored and finding full time work in an occupation I despise, that being in the office...

Then near the end of August last year I was putting some dishes away whilst I was making lunch, and ‘bang’, my back went. This is something else you should know as well, I have a bulging lower disc that causes issues for me, and about 3 years ago I had a ‘Dumb Aunty’ moment which totally ruined my lower back support system (that story is for another day). Anyways, you know when things are bad for me when I pick up the phone and call for help. This is something that I don’t do very often...

So, due to the nature of my job I had to take the week off work. This is bad, because as a TA if you don’t work you don’t get paid, although I had made up flexi time that covered the week, this left me short on money further down the track...

Anyways, 3 days after I finally returned to work I was told that my contract wasn’t being renewed for the next term because the person I replaced wanted her job back, then 2 days after that my car died and I couldn’t afford to get it fixed. So I was walking everywhere, which is fine I love to walk (well I did), but my back still hadn’t recovered and I struggled to walk to work each day because it took about an hour.

So two weeks later I was out of work, no car and running out of money...

Then I tried to claim the Governments Newstart Allowance, but due to the nature of my contract, which stated I was still employed by the Education Department until the 19th September, I didn’t qualify for the payment – even though I finished my employment with them 2 weeks earlier... who wouldn’t release my final pay or my separation certificate that Centrelink required... But I’d have to say ‘kudos’ to Centrelink for trying their best to help me...

So, finally I had my appointment with Centrelink and on my way their (walking cos I couldn’t afford bus fare), a magpie was kind enough to swoop me and hit me fair and square on the top of my head, then it was kind enough to do it again. Well this was the end of me, by the time I got to Centrelink my life unravelled... The woman who was processing my application took one look at me and was ‘Yep – go to your doctor and get some help’...

At this point I didn’t think my life could get any worse. I was sooo wrong... It was the starting point... I couldn’t find a job (the worst time to be out of work with the economy bombing out), I ran out of money, I ran out of food, I couldn’t afford to pay my rent, I couldn’t afford to pay my bills, and my back still wasn’t healing properly.

My emotions were getting the better of me to the point that one Friday night I was ready to end it all.

What stopped me?

I had everything ready to go and was just about to head off and carry through my dark plan when I saw that SG:Atlantis was on Foxtel (this is the reason why I never cancelled FT), and on the screen was Connor Trinneer. Now I had seen this episode before, but that was before I started watching Star Trek Enterprise, and I wondered how he would go in a role outside of Enterprise. This one point in time that Saved My Life...

I spent the next 8 months trying to survive. I don’t think I’ve cried so much in my life or felt so much despair. I was starting to look at homelessness as my landlord, although tried to understand, was talking about evicting me... I was looking at my electricity and phone being cut off for non payment, and I still had no food... Friends helped where they could and would bring food – but I would be soooo hungry that it would all be gone in days, and so left me without again... And as I said before, it is really hard for me to ask for help. One friend would get sooooo angry at me for not telling her I ran out of food – but then she would be at my doorstep hours later with bags of food. I suppose on the bright side, it was a way of losing weight.... Not that I was very big to begin with... I dropped under 40 kilos – even I knew that was too light... (you know when your too light when the brother-in-law shoves food in your face and tells you to eat or when the niece says ‘Aunty – It’s now official, you are skinnier than I am –and she has a gorgeous figure)

Why did these seemingly trivial issues affect my life so much?

Because I wasn’t prepared... As I said before, my life was running smoothly then all this happens, and I’m like ‘You Have Got To Be Shitting Me!!!!’ (putting it cleanly)

Then in April this year I was able to access my superannuation based on financial hardships (understatement of the year). Getting this money was the first positive that changed my life. I was able to get my rent up to date and ahead by one month, I was able to get my car back on the road (by this time I was sooooo sick of walking – actually long over it...), I was able to get ‘food’ in my home( but I couldn’t eat)....

Then once all these important things were taken care of, the next thing I did was buy a second hand laptop, got the internet connected and started searching for Star Trek Enterprise sites. I can’t remember how I came across TrekUnited – but I’m sooooo glad I did, finding TU was the second positive that changed my life...

You see, since watching Connor in Atlantis I couldn’t get enough of him... Thank God I have FTIQ. I was able to record ST:Enterprise and watched it over and over again. The more I watched the more I fell in love with the show... Then I found TU and the wonderful ‘How Cute is Connor Trinneer/Trip Tucker’ thread. WooHoo – Yeah Baby.... I didn’t join TU straight away, I back read every post in this thread (took about 3 weeks), but even when I finished I still didn’t join straight off – Nerves.... But then I bit the bullet and joined and posted my first post ever.... I thought that that would be all I would do at TU, but then I started reading other forums and topics and found the Save Enterprise Forum and was happy to see that there were still others out there that wanted to bring Enterprise back. So I started posting in that thread, and through that I made the suggestion of creating our own series.

See, through my wonderings around TU I found another topic that had an outline for a season 5 of Enterprise. I fell in love with this outline – I could see the whole story playing in my mind and made me more determined to have Enterprise return to our screens... This is the story I suggested we use...

My god, how things can change...

In the last 4 months since joining TU I’ve had a lot of firsts... I created my first video ever, I created my first Youtube account, I have a Photobucket account, I registered at IMBD, and now I’ve started a blog account...

Being involved in this project has been the third positive change in my life. It’s allowed me to relate to people all over the world, to collaborate on creating a ‘Series,’ even though we haven’t met and probably will never meet (I hate flying) and probably will never actually speak to.

It’s been refreshing to have others who have the same interests that I have be supportive of something I’ve suggested, that none of my ideas have been dismissed off hand, and are actually run with. I’ve said it on the boards at TU and I will say it here, I will do what I can to promote TrekUnited because their members have changed my life.

Being a part of TU and this project has built confidence in me that I never thought was possible – my friends have noticed a huge change in me. And now I’m starting my own business called Enterprise Champions...

So from next week (or maybe earlier) I will start to blog this outline because there is only so much a youtube video can convey. Who knows, maybe one day someone in a position to get Enterprise back on the air will notice... That is my eternal hope...

Well, this was longer than I planned... sorry it was sooooo long winded – but you get that...

Anyways all, have a great day/night and I’ll catch ya all later...