Those of you eager for Reyf to tell us everything will be disappointed that this isn't it, but those who have been waiting for the "human factor" in this film to show itself will be thrilled. Let me know what you think!
When you started about 'i cannot save everybody in the federation' i expected a reference to the movie 'the core' where the bomb expert made a similar statement, about not saving the entire eath, just 3 people, or a bit further where the statement is made 'not everybody, just 3 people'. [on a personal note: the core is a damn good movie though ]
The rest is ok, i have not seen anything of note.
However, this one scene just not fulfill the 'human factor' quota. You have spend most of your film missing out on the 'human factors (humor, personal interests, personal relationships other than intimate or profesional, character quircks, etc)', always being serious. This scene is a nice change of pace, but can also be interpreted as a 'time fill/waste', because right now the interest in the story is with Reyf and Prentice. Personally, i am neutral in this matter. Changing up the 'human factors' too much for this movie, at this point in the story, might not be the best of ideas. However, should you start another, that is a good point for improvement.
@Thy King: this scene alone isn't meant to carry the "human factor" quotient for the whole movie. But it does have arc significance:
Our heroes have mostly been focusing on the tactical aspects of how to defeat Garr, but there hasn't been much focus on the emotional aspects. Then when he popped in on Prentice, suddenly our captain (and we) realized he was dealing with a human psyche after all--however damaged it might be.
First was Garr's own declarations, which bemoan his lost life and his rage at being abandoned by everything he ever loved. Then there's the discussion shortly after that about how the Federation would help anyone they could if it was within their power. And now we have a discussion about how love really and truly is something worth fighting for.
After the events of Specter, it sounds to me like we have the ingredients of a "how to stop the mad doctor" plan in hand.
Alright guys, I'm looking ahead to the climax of the story, and I've got a few ideas that I need help refining.
Drakus receives word that his fleet is ready ahead of schedule, and decides to move out accordingly--and heads straight for Sector 585, where the Federation fleet is still making preparations. Naturally, when they arrive, battle commences, but the Fitzgerald is interested in only one thing: Drakus' command ship. Reyf takes an away team consisting of himself, Prentice, Mitchell, and Hargrove in a cloaked shuttle, manage to get close enough to the ship to sneak on board, leading to the Inevitable Confrontation between Drakus and Reyf on the ship's bridge. (To save effort in the effects department, we're going to have this ship be fully automated, so as the crew make their way through it, all they find are deserted corridors. It promises to be quite eerie.) They try to talk him down, but instead of telling his fleet to cease fire, he gives them the Romulan order for "No surrender, no retreat." Prentice shoots him, but it's too late. They set off the shuttle's self-destruct sequence in an act of heroism, disabling the ship and causing it to get pulled down into the black hole.
That's where things get murky. I know we need to work in the ISS Voyager somehow, and what makes the most sense is for it to be docked with the command cruiser somehow. An alternate plan I'd come up with was for the away team to infiltrate the command ship, broadcast Reyf's recording of Garr's confession from Prentice's quarters from there on the Romulan command frequency, and have the Romulan fleet turn on him and start attacking the command ship. The ship is disabled and falls into the black hole.
Whatever we do, somehow the ISS Voyager has to fall into the black hole--I've decided that this, not something involving the Beta Reticuli rift, will be what resets the timeline. The black hole's gravity well combined with the uncontrolled release of temporal energy and antimatter (from the warp core and the time-travel device) combines to somehow reset things to the way they're supposed to be (maybe in that temporal-incursion kind of way).
I could use some help with this one...lots of possibilities and lots of elements, but I just don't know how we're going to work them all together.
*For those that seem to have difficulty with this concept, spoiler tags are required for any responses to this.
first, im disappointed with the lack of a junction-pan shot, starting from the doors to engineering, and moving through the room and into the jeffries tube proper
black hole? huh? and why isnt the ISS Voyager Garr's command ship? or perhaps add a holographic/sensor overlay so that from the outside it appears to be a romulan ship, but once inside, they realize that its ISS Voyager.
As for sneaking aboard: Reyf and his away team realize that they cannot open the shuttlebay door, so using some engineering wizardry once inside the shield; they connect the shuttles transporter to the Voyagers transporter room and beam aboard.
at the end, at the last moment, Reyf lowers the voyagers shield as its falling towards the black hole, allowing the rest of the away team to beam aboard the fitzy, but he stays on to ensure everyone else gets off, and goes down with the ship. a little cliche and probably predictable, but somehow fitting, i think
Remember that Janeway's fleet is assembling in Sector 585, the same place Reyf and Garr squared off in Specter while hovering over a black hole. I thought about doing the whole false-image thing, but I didn't really buy that as a believable concept when they did it in "Enterprise." As for Voyager being Garr's flagship, we all know by now that it's the ship in the recording, and a key plot point is going to be the fact that the "anomalies" in the recorded engine signature aren't because of how close the ship was to the star, but rather because Garr had modified the engines (which we saw in Specter). The last thing he'd want would be for someone to detect the warp signature and start to think.
My intention is for Reyf and company, at some point, to broadcast Garr's recorded confession, along with sensor records from the Fitzgerald of the ISS Voyager's warp signature (from the end of Specter). Scanning for and detecting it at the coordinates of Garr's flagship leads the Romulans to conclude Garr was indeed responsible for what happened, and thus leads them to attack the command ship.
I think I've more or less settled on the "Romulan betrayal" route, but even that creates its own share of problems. My assumption is that once Garr's flagship is destroyed, they all cease fire and we can go to the Fitzgerald bridge for the "what now?" scene.
I envision that as something a little like this: we get his by a shock wave, and the bridge reverts to what we expect to be a canon design and color scheme for this time period, but with a twist: suddenly we have a "good" Dr. Braiyon Garr among us, but Reyf is nowhere to be found. By this point the characters all know that the timeline was changed, and now seeing Garr in a standard uniform and with real rank, they know things are back to normal.
Somewhere along the way we're going to tell why: we already know that in this alternate timeline, the "good" Garr was killed during the Dominion War, somehow saving Reyf's life in the process. In this "restored" timeline, Garr wasn't there, and so without him Reyf was killed instead.
At the end, we'll have the requisite funeral scene for Reyf, and then on to the "what happens now?" piece. Kristie--the real one--visits Good Garr, and the two of them have a tentative discussion about the events of "the alternate timeline" (because of what's happened, not only is the original timeline restored, but Good Garr never experienced the events we witnessed in Specter). By this point, Prentice has told Good Garr about everything that originally happened, and Garr and Kristie decide to give things a shot even knowing what happened originally. Something like this:
GOOD GARR: "Knowing what happened then, allows us to change things now. So that some things never happen."
KRISTIE: "I know one thing for sure about that other you, the one that never existed--despite everything, he never lost the one thing that made him human: he followed his heart."
Its a good idea, but will be a bit of a headache to smooth out the details, but i think it might work but..
With everything we have seen in Trek movie and tv, when the timeline 'resets' nobody seems to remember what was changed ' Yesterdays Enterprise etc'
- If you decide to have a big ' Time wave' like in VOY ' year of hell ' that would be a cool visual
- I think that maybe you should have sort of temporal build-up that protects the crew, which means that they retain the memories of their timeline, which is how they are able to notice everything has changed. The bridge colours, garr being there etc
- With the crew retaining their knowledge of the alt timeline, Pretience would inform Starfleet and garr about everything that has happened to them and how to prevent it
The intent was definitely for the crew to retain their memories of the post-Specter timeline and everything about it, I was simply at odds about how to make it work (or whether to even explain it). I said it in Specter and I'll say it now--I will never do a total "reset button" adventure. There's always so much character development and it never seems right to simply erase it at the end of the story!
but even so, you are doing a reset button. no, i like the idea of having to deal with the mess that the late and unlamented Dr. Braiyon Garr left behind. Having to deal with a frustrated and angry Romulan remnant, and a federation interested in peaceful restoration of the romulans rather than the destruction of a mighty fleet. (I also would consider it the height of delicious irony to have Admiral Janeway and the real Voyager destroyed during the battle prior to Garr's destruction). And I find it far better to have Rayf die in action to ensure the safety of the Federation, than any of your other outcomes.
But that's the beauty of this, it's not a "reset button" because they will still have to deal with the consequences of this. I've already written the epilogue, it even makes mention of Project Phoenix, a shout-out to another fan work that deals with the very issue of the Federation helping the Romulans. And when the crew all wonder how this could be--how they could remember everything that happened, even though the timeline has been restored, all except for Good Garr of course, who is actually confused in his first moments--Good Garr himself is simply going to say something like, "Time can behave in strange ways if you're not careful." Then, with a meaningful glance at Prentice, add, "That's why it's best to look forward--never backward."
Besides, in a very real way, Reyf will have died in battle, no matter what the outcome. In the original timeline, he would've been killed at Witch Head without Garr there to save him; in the alternate timeline, he goes down with Drakus' command ship, knowing that if they restored the original timeline it meant his own death. You can call that part of the reason he didn't want anyone else risking their lives to stop Garr--failure meant his death thanks to the Romulan fleet, and he wasn't prepared to let anyone else risk their lives to stop Garr since he considered his own life expendable anyway. From his perspective, every day since Witch Head in this timeline was borrowed time anyway, and we already know he felt responsible for what he did in Specter that caused Garr to become a complete psychopath, so it seems like the ultimate heroic gesture to not want anyone else to risk their lives when it was truly his mess to clean up.
Off the chance that stopping Garr would restore the original timeline, I could see him definitely wanting to make sure his death in this alternate timeline counts for something, just like Tasha Yar in "Yesterday's Enterprise."
By the way, I just saw homer's comment about the "missing" junction shot:
That was actually planned, along with several shots of the camera pedestal-ing down through the vertical tubes, but I couldn't find a music cue that would work well enough to back it, so I wound up cutting it. Believe it or not I'm still going through the Ron Jones collection, but if anyone knows of something that would work as an intro for this scene with a little lead time for the montage, I'll render up the shots I made and see how it looks.
it becomes too confusing. its still a reset button because at the end of the day, only the crew of the fitzy really know what [strike]happened[/strike] didnt happen. And then having all this intrigue about whether or not he really died, etc. its hard for me to follow. What they did in Trek XI was the timeline remained changed, with only spock prime remembering what happened because to him, it happened already. you cant restore whats lost; the timeline was changed, and it shouldn't "revert" in a hand-waved accident involving a temporal explosion and a black hole.
Ok, let me give this a try: (Warning: long post under the button!)
Let met start with my 'fears and problems' i have noticed in the conversation above:
- I hope you are not planning on all of a sudden having an answer now that Reyf spills everything, and rush into the final attack. At this point the Fitz crew still has no idea about anything. I will try to avoid this in my suggestion (see possible story line below).
- You have not had any point in your story, up to this point, where it is shown that G-Garr saves Reyf. If you are going with the 'Reyf will die when the timeline restores' plot, you will have to change your startingpoint. Just like in the first episode of DS9, you should show the battle of Witch-head, where G-Garr somehow saves Reyfs life, at the expense of his own. This you can then later use again (at the end) to perhaps 'fade-out' G-Garr in the same battle, resulting in Reyfs death.
- this 'restoring the timeline' routine would have several problems, first: G-Garr will not be nudged into a starship career by his future self, since E-Garr is gone. So the timeline is set to rerun the events of Spectre followed by Retribution. You have an infinite time-loop problem here.
- I think when you start messing with alternate timelines, no-one should know what happened when the timeline is restored (essentially a 'reset'), except for those shielded from the changes in the time line. All of star trek timeline and alternative realities episodes have shown this abundantly clear: when the change is undone, whatever happened before is no longer remembered. (TNG, VOY, even ENT). To tie your 'they have to remember' part into the story, you are not only breaking with every star trek time-episode ever created, you also make it very hard for yourself. I tried to tie the 'they have to remember' into my story below once, but it is shaky at best.
To give my story suggestion:
To change the start, including your 'Reyf is saved' story suggestion:
- Have your 'what happened before' part
- Two posibilities at this point:
1) Have your opening credits, showing ships slowly passing by (different ships, of the battle of witchhead), and then when the credits are done, speed up time to normal, showing the Fitz with Captain Reyf and G-Garr in the battle of witchhead, giving them the scene where G-Garr saves Reyfs life at the cost of his own. Then switch to 2388.
2) Have the scene of the battle of Witchhead and then have the credits, at which point you switch to 2388.
The rest of the story goes on as normal.
The end part after Reyf spills everything:
- Let the crew figure out about the hidden message in the Proconsul's transmission. This should lead them to the station.
- When they arrive, they find an empty station. Uppon investigation, they find the detailed invasion plans, and scematics of E-Garr's new ship. They also find out where the E-Voyager (Garr's Voyager) is.
- The fact that the ships are gone, should lead them to the conclusion that the invasion is early, and they speed back to Janeway's group, where the two fleets are engaged by the time they arrive.
- Up to their arrival, they have argued about what to do, now that **** has hit the fan. They decide to let the romulans know that E-Garr blew up their sun, and transmit every information they had to the fleet once they arrive.
- However, they could not come up with a plan to enter E-Garr's horizon ship. They have figured out what to do once they are on that ship. This is where Reyf is going to use his 'last trick', which consists of that Kristie android.
- During the battle, they transmit their proof, including something that the proconsul had included in his message, helping to strengthen the proof, and the faith of the Romulans in that proof being presented.
- As the Fitz transmits, the battle stops as abruptly as it started. The battle remains at a standstill, as both sides figure out what to do. At this point E-Garr, who has also seen the transmission, will try to convince his side that it is all a ruse.
- The Romulan fleet then suddenly decides to attack the Horizon flagship, however since Borg technology has been introduced, their weapons have very little to almost no effect. (Borg shields adapt to weaponsfire, making then virtually invinsible). The Romulan weapons do have an effect, but even the entire fleet is needed to dent the shields.
- The federation starts to help the Romulans, at the request of Reyf or Prentice.
- E-Garr lets the Horizon emit certain waves of desruption, (gravity or something technobabble), omnidirectional, which momentarily desrupts the shields sufficiently enough for a quick beam trough.
- This is figured out by the Fitz, while the entire fleet (Feds + Romulans + Fitz) is being hit by the desruption waves. They estimate that the fleet will be destroyed before the Horizon ship's shields are breached. The Fitz crew (Prentice/Reyf) decides to go and disable the shields from within.
- They beam aboard (Reyf, Prentice/Kendra (captain stays on the bridge?), Kristie android, +1 or 2 imporant main characters, and a few 'red shirts' which are supposed to die. ), and split up to achieve their goals. Kristie takes a junction, and tries to access the systems to help the teams by overriding/blocking E-Garr's inputs (Reyf's last trick). She is the only one who can, since she is partly infused with the intellect of Garr (or something similary technobabble).
- Kendra + team go to shut down the shields, and then back up Reyf, if there is time.
- Reyf + red-shirts (:)) go after E-Garr.
- Kendra desides to shut down the pulses before she shuts down the shields. (just to buy the fleet and the story some time).
- Reyf fights his way to E-Garr, but finds the ship mostly deserted and automated. The ship contains a doomsday device, which E-Garr wants to use on Earth. He finds E-Garr beyond reasoning. Reyf, who now only has a few red-shirts left, and distracts E-Garr as long as possible.
- The pulses are disabled, and the shields are going down. The ship is being hit by lots of weapons. E-Garr decides to leave, and engages an emergency transport to his hidden E-Voyager, cloaked nearby. Kristie managed to intercept this programming and added the entire awayteam to the command, ending up having everybody at the E-Voyager.
- The Horizon flagship explodes, and the fleet is having a 'what now'-moment. Prentice decides to hail one of the romulan ships, and carry forth a message from the Proconsul, pleading for peace, as war will destroy both sides. That trough cooperation everybody can grow, while remaining individuals. That both sides only lose from war, and that is why he helped the Federation side.
Up to this point, i had most things fit nicely. At this point i am not sure what to do; several endings can be created. I came up with 2, both shaky to say the least. If i come up with better ideas, i will post them. Maybe you can use them for inspiration:
Ending 1):
- The battle continues onboard the E-Voyager, only this time, Reyf manages to get the upper hand. He kills E-Garr, and then beams everybody off the ship, exept Kristie and himself.
- He then cloaks the ship, and warps out. Prentice has no idea what is happening, and is left with questions only.
- Reyf and Kristie then engage the time-drive and go back to the graduation day, where Reyf and N-Garr (Neutral Garr, at this point) decide their futures (end of Spectre).
- Using a holographic disguise, he nudges N-Garr to go after Reyf. This restores the timeline, and G-Garr (because of his choice) either dies at Witchhead, or survives. At this point you can do anything, but it might be a good tease for a new movie.
Ending 2):
- THe battle continues onboard the E-Voyager. Reyf gets injured and is forced to retreat.
- Kristie sends temperal shielding settings to the Fitz, while E-Garr is trying to run away from the outside battle.
- E-Garr decides to run for an anomaly.
- Kristie manages beam everybody off the E-Voyager, except for Reyf and herself. (and decloak the ship?)
- Reyf places charges all troughout the ship, with Kristie giving backup.
- With the ship save under way, E-Garr decides to kill Reyf, and manages to do so in the engine room, right after Reyf places his last charge.
- Kristie then walks in, and surprises E-Garr. She manages to distract him long enough for the charges to go off.
- They end up in a spiraling course into an anomaly (black hole).
- The subsequent explosion creates a time shockwaves, which 'deletes' both fleets to their original assignments and locations. Romulans sun is back.
- The Fitz is the only ship still at the battle coordinates, due to the temperal shielding. Prentice is in shock about the admirals fate. When he walks into his Readyroom, he has an encrypted message from Reyf, explaining some last remaining facts which he did not say at is reveal and his respect/confidence in Prentice. In the message are instructions to make sure it will not happen again (this includes time travel?).
- When the Fitz is back at a starbase, they are greated by G-Garr (and the real Kristie?). At this point, you can do whatever you want, perhaps show that witchhead scene again, without G-Garr, or something else happens (due to Prentices efforts to prevent it from happening again). Perhaps a tease to a new movie?
There are a lot of ideas here, but this is not a proper end yet. It still requires work. (a lot of work )
I would advice the following at least:
- Let the crew seach a bit longer, and then figure out they are to late.
- Let E-Garr be beyond saving. Another 'please dont do this'-end like in spectre will not be believable.
- Let the Fitz crew forget everything, for the sake of continuity
- Figure out a way for that 'future Garr' to nudge Neutral/Young Garr to follow Reyf, just like the end of Spectre, to make it go full-circle. Or perhaps find another suggestion. Perhaps let him meet Kristie-android, who tells him what happens?
- And if you use the 'Reyf will die' plot, show the scene where he lives at the start, so you can refer to it at the end.
This really is a hard ending to plot out and still preserve the events that took place.
Here is a slightly different angle (Just to get thoughts going nothing more)
1) During the battle Reyf beams over to E-Garr Voyager which is cloaked, he has some information that allows him to beam aboard, or someone helps him. "You have your job and I have mine" -Reyf
2) Prentice and the crew lead the fleet against Garr's Romulans.
3) Reyf confonts Garr in engineering much the same fashion as Specter. "Here we are again, my friend" -Garr
4) The Romulans have the upper hand in the battle but Reyf manages to disable the cloak of the Voyager. "What do you think you can do to me now?"-Garr
5) The Voyager uncloaks and Prentice transmits the info about the Romulan sun going nova. "Right on time Capitan" -Prentice
6) Romulans, turn on Garr and the ISS Voyager comes under fire.
7) Garr is forced to power up the time drive to survive. As the Voyager comes under fire. Reyf is knocked towards the "Time Core" and falls over a rail. Garr instincually grabs him and keeps him from falling. "You saved your friend at Witchhead (grunt), who are you saving now?" -Reyf
8) Garr and Reyf have some dialog. Reyf falls into the "time core".
This is where you can split....
1) The Voyager explodes the time effect ripples thru, changing the timeline about Reyf but maintaining the knowledge of the events.
2) The Voyager explodes the time effect ripples thru, changing the timeline about Reyf.
Prentice is sitting on the bridge monitoring the reminants of the shockwave. "Captain to the bridge, a Massive temporal flux, just passed over us, Sir". The Captain (unseen of coarse) sits down next to Prentice. "Not sure what it was, sir, looks like it is fading away."
Reveal Garr (as the captain). "I guess it was things that could have been Commander, set coarse for Starbase ##"
Alright guys, reading the suggestions above, I'm starting to waver on something:
...could I use the ISS Voyager as Drakus' command ship after all? Originally I thought that doing that would make it too easy for the Romulans to get a look at the warp signature, but then I remembered: the recording just shows an indistinct blob, so they wouldn't know it was an Intrepid-type starship, and since all Starfleet warp signatures are created equal, the warp signature of the ISS Voyager wouldn't necessarily raise any flags.
Thoughts?
The reason I'm teetering on the brink of this is because there's a requirement to show the ISS Voyager already, but the trick is how to get it worked in. The methods suggested above seem too contrived, and while there are some excellent ideas above, I'm starting to think it would be easier if we just have him there already.
Alternatively, there's already a scene where Reyf and company confront Garr face to face in a Romulan control room of some sort. Maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to do something like this:
The proconsul's transmission contained the coordinates of the Rimward Station, and upon learning its whereabouts, Reyf and company rush to it, only to find it deserted. They board it as suggested, with the intent to try and find anything they can about the invasion--but are surprised when Drakus appears (the real him, via the same subspace transporter that got him onto the Fitzgerald to talk to Prentice), taunting them by their failure. Reyf attempts to talk him down, but just when they think he's about to yield, he punches the long-range comm and gives the order--in Romulan no less--to begin the attack. Prentice shoots him and wounds him, but he beams away. Reyf and company download the coordinates of the Romulan fleet from the station's computer and then rush back to their own ship. Once there, as suggested, they arrive on scene in Sector 585 to find the Romulans already doing battle with the Federation.
The twist here is that the ISS Voyager is there somewhere, presumably cloaked, observing the battle and directing as needed. Objective #1 is to make it visible to everyone else (I know exactly how to do that), then broadcast the proof--the sensor recording along with Reyf's recording of Evil Garr's confession--and then let the Romulans do their worst against it. In the process, naturally Evil Garr fights back, but he's overwhelmed and the ISS Voyager is disabled, falling into the gravitational pull of the black hole. It falls down into the hole, cue big temporal explosion, and suddenly things are...the same, but different.
It's not perfect--I want Reyf to go down with Evil Garr somehow, relentless determination to save him or "atoning for his sins" (the end of Specter), take your pick--but either way, when he disappears with the restoration of the timeline, I want the crew to remember his death as an honorable one.
Why not have the Voyager disguised as a romulan ship, and have the reveal later on? Drakus command ship is unusually strong compared to most ships when it goes toe-to-toe with the fitzy, something happens and the holo-cloak drops, revealing that the fitzy has been fighting the neutronium armoured voyager the whole time. And that Drakus was in league with garr.
Romulans used holocloaks in the 22nd century, no reason Garr couldnt use his romulan allies to equip Vger with em in the 24th.
Alright guys, reading the suggestions above, I'm starting to waver on something:
...could I use the ISS Voyager as Drakus' command ship after all? Originally I thought that doing that would make it too easy for the Romulans to get a look at the warp signature, but then I remembered: the recording just shows an indistinct blob, so they wouldn't know it was an Intrepid-type starship, and since all Starfleet warp signatures are created equal, the warp signature of the ISS Voyager wouldn't necessarily raise any flags.
Thoughts?
The reason I'm teetering on the brink of this is because there's a requirement to show the ISS Voyager already, but the trick is how to get it worked in. The methods suggested above seem too contrived, and while there are some excellent ideas above, I'm starting to think it would be easier if we just have him there already.
Alternatively, there's already a scene where Reyf and company confront Garr face to face in a Romulan control room of some sort. Maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to do something like this:
The proconsul's transmission contained the coordinates of the Rimward Station, and upon learning its whereabouts, Reyf and company rush to it, only to find it deserted. They board it as suggested, with the intent to try and find anything they can about the invasion--but are surprised when Drakus appears (the real him, via the same subspace transporter that got him onto the Fitzgerald to talk to Prentice), taunting them by their failure. Reyf attempts to talk him down, but just when they think he's about to yield, he punches the long-range comm and gives the order--in Romulan no less--to begin the attack. Prentice shoots him and wounds him, but he beams away. Reyf and company download the coordinates of the Romulan fleet from the station's computer and then rush back to their own ship. Once there, as suggested, they arrive on scene in Sector 585 to find the Romulans already doing battle with the Federation.
The twist here is that the ISS Voyager is there somewhere, presumably cloaked, observing the battle and directing as needed. Objective #1 is to make it visible to everyone else (I know exactly how to do that), then broadcast the proof--the sensor recording along with Reyf's recording of Evil Garr's confession--and then let the Romulans do their worst against it. In the process, naturally Evil Garr fights back, but he's overwhelmed and the ISS Voyager is disabled, falling into the gravitational pull of the black hole. It falls down into the hole, cue big temporal explosion, and suddenly things are...the same, but different.
It's not perfect--I want Reyf to go down with Evil Garr somehow, relentless determination to save him or "atoning for his sins" (the end of Specter), take your pick--but either way, when he disappears with the restoration of the timeline, I want the crew to remember his death as an honorable one.
The romulans are not crazy. They probably have the capability to figure out that it was an Intrepid class ship. Even the viewers could see that right away. Artificially making the romulans dumber just to let your story go along is not something i would support.
I think it would be a better idea to have the E-Voyager as a backup plan for escaping. Having it cloaked nearby. If you let E-Garr show the way to it, that would be the way to get in.
I am also not sold on the 'Reyf has to die' part. First of all, it is totally not logical. That whole 'guilt'-trip is quite over done, and just does not seem to be in Reyfs (old) character. He might feel responsible for some things, but he would not let his own guilt get before what he has to do.
I have been thinking about a way to reverse the fatal attack, without screwing up the timeline, and with Reyf still knowing a few things.
Have you ever watched the movie 'the Butterfly Effect'? It is not only a good movie, it has a very interesting concept, where by changing one small thing, the outcome would be radically different.
A couple of key events can be identified: the death of Reyfs father, the nudging of young Garr to the starship service, and the death of G-Garr (maybe you can find some other ones). By changing one of these events, it would change everthing comming after.
You stated that E-Garr would not interfere, and let Starfleet continue, as long as G-Garr had a good life, and stayed alive. What if Reyf realized this in the conversations he had/has with E-Garr, and to save everybody, he decides to save G-Garr. In my last suggestion i suggested the showing of the battle of 'witchhead'. In the episode (i think it was-) Relativity, they could integrate a future person into a past person (unifying their timelines), at which point they remembered all their future memories. Combining these two: In the last battle, let Reyf make a timejump to the battle of Witchhead, where he changes his strategy, which keeps G-Garr alive, stopping E-Garr in his tracks, before he even started. Reyf survives in this instant. Reyf is also the only one who still have memories of the original event with E-Garr and the invasion, due to the rest not being shielded from the changes in the timeline.
Then, when (-if-) E-Garr is ordered to blow up the sun, the then Admiral Reyf would make sure he dies in the attempt, making sure the timeline has its original course (Romulan sun blowing up, but no war towards the Federation).
The reason to choose this specific event would be to make sure G-Garr would take the right path to avoid the events of Spectre. But the events of Spectre need to happen at least once, to make sure E-Garr nudges his past self to the starstip service (key moment). Then to continue the timeline as is, E-Garr fills the role of is original self (like was the plan), but is stopped after his 'usefullness' has come to an end. You could let Reyf die in this attempt, but after G-Garr lives, and E-Garr is dead, the timeline will suffer no ill effects.
On a sidenote: you could make finding and stopping E-Garr after G-Garr is alive another movie, but it might turn into a never ending story.
Edit:
Dont make the start of the attack too cliche. I think E-Garr would be bussy managing his attack plan.
please explain your reasons for "restoring the timeline" (while keeping the memories of the fitzy crew intact). It feels too contrived, no matter which way you do it, and it is a bit cliche. at least bullet out the key plot points leading up to the 'restoration'. Personally i think that it breaks the suspension of disbelief, but maybe you can at least plot out 2 versions: timeline restored, memories intact; and timeline unrestored just to see how it flows.
next, how about Reyf figures out a way to follow Garr using his subspace transporter while Prentice and Co follow in the fitzy? This is when its revealed that Drakus is actually in the holo-cloaked voyager (i bet if you take the intrepid bridge, paint it green and use romulan LCARS, it will look remarkably like a canon romulan bridge. Easy enough for Garr/Drakus to do if he wants).
I think he should die with Garr, but i think its easy enough to come up with a few ways:
1. Rayf is wounded by Garr during his attempts to kill him, and the ISS Voyager comes too close to the black hole in the course of the fight, and therefore makes it impossible for the Fitzy to get a transporter lock on him
2. Reyf allows Garr to kill him, buying enough time for the Fitzgerald to send the Voyager into the black hole
3. Reyf sacrifices himself to fatally sabotage the voyager
4. Reyf's body cant handle the subspace transporter beam, and barely has time to kill Garr before dying
5. Reyf drinks poisoned earl grey tea after killing drakus; the replicators have been sabotaged by an annoyed romulan engineer
6. Reyf dies of a paper cut because he cant get to sickbay on time
7. The turbolift doesn't work, sending Reyf to his death
8. The transporter operator on the Fitzgerald has an epileptic seizure while attempting to beam Reyf to safety
9. He suffers a Spontaneous Existence Failure
**note: some of the fatal death suggestions are a little silly.**
Let's table the resolution and climax for the time being, something a little more pressing to deal with...
Looking ahead towards something a little closer, I've been working on Scene 37, where Reyf tells all. The problem is, no matter what I do, it either seems to come out too long or else seems like something important is being omitted.
While I'm working on Scene 36, do me a favor and look over the writeup of Scene 37 and help me figure out ways to trim it. Five pages and change just seems like too much!
I will read it a bit later on today, but can you give us the bulletlist with what you absolutely want to add?
I also think that we have reached a point in the story where the climax should be known, since this is where you start working towards it. I am interested in your view of the the ideas proposed here, and if you yourself had any brainwaves.
It is for a large part a copy-paste of an older script. For those pieces, i had some comments, and they still stand:
- The crew, including prentice, should not know anything about section 31. Especially not rumors, since those would be investigated by other intelligence agencies. Not even those are aware of Section 31, and that is it's strength. Judging from DS9, where also nobody knew about section 31 until they made themselves known (including Sisko).
- That section about Prentice being the 'joker' in all of this, makes no sense. IN your entire movie so far he only made a difference once. That is not the atribute of a joker. Also, they still lost at this point. In your entire movie you have not let Prentice be original once. Even the escape run at New Romulus was a rerun of an old Reyf tactic! Prentice is not a joker in this. Just scrap this piece completely.
For the original parts of the script:
- Remove the constant corrections of 'Drakus' vs 'Garr'. It is not needed, and he is still Garr, even though he has given himself a new name. All you need to mention at one point is that he has become known as Drakus by the time Section 31 learned of him, and that the dots have been connected since.
- THe rest walks out of the room, except for Prentice and Reyf. However, one line after they stand in a turbo lift. I think it is better to let Reyf and Prentice leave, and then let the rest work on the plan in that room.
Ideas for future scenes (as a reaction on this one):
- If you want Prentice to be your 'joker', he needs to earn it. Let him come up with the final plan, while the rest just has individual ideas, but not a well worked out strategy. This would then help in 2 parts: 1: Earn Prentice his captains chair, 2: Make him more of a 'joker' in this story, now that Reyfs plan has failed.
On a wild note:
Perhaps you would consider anoter idea for this scene. Instead of making it a static gathering scene, you turn this into a narrated 'animated slide show'. When Reyf tells of how Garr became the man he is today, you show images to the viewers of the damaged E-Voyager comming out of timewarp in the past (using some minor fancy screen effects to give the idea this is memory/storytelling), followed by images of E-Garr on a biobed screaming in agony while his body is reparing him (lots of tubes comming out of him?), followed by a drifing E-Voyager (a-la startrek 11) to bridge the time, untill 'today'. All of this narrated by Reyfs story about E-Garr. If you want, you can let someone ask the question of what happened to the Garr of this timeline (G-Garr). You could then fill it in as far as Reyf knows the fact by showing again a short narrated overview. Of how he took the place of his original one, while G-Garr had another life. The suicide in the asteroid fields, the emergence of the E-Voyager, and Reyfs choice to fire (which E-Garr did not expect).
Depending on what climax you use, you could start asking a critical question here: why did E-Garr decide to attack? What changed between him taking the bad road vs the 'quiet background'? What was his tipping point? You could let Prentice ask that question in the turbolift.
Speaking of the death of G-Garr, does that happen on Reyfs ship (the Fitz), because if so: the rest of the crew should know about it. Prentice was there at Witchhead, so he should know.
Quick mashup of the possible Re-do of the scene: I have copy pasted as much as i could, making only small changes to the text itself. The scenario is set up as my notes from above. [note: because of the copy-pase nature, there may be context problems, which needs to be ajusted to match. I tried to filter as much of them as i could.]
REYF: “This is the face of our enemy, Braiyon Garr, as it was when we last saw him a decade ago,” [SHOW FLASHBACK OF GARR 10 YEARS AGO ~1 SEC] “he was about to attempt time travel." “We thought he’d been destroyed,” [SHOW THE TORPEDO IMPACT THE TIME BUBBLE ~1-2 SEC] “But in fact, he’d been sent back in time.”. [SHOW THE ARRIVAL OF THE VOYAGER IN THE PAST, DAMAGED (SEVERAL SECS)] But because of our actions, the anti-time reaction became highly unstable. he was sent Ninety-six years. the radiation surge almost killed him. [SHOW E-GARR LIMPING TROUGH E-VOYAGER IN PAIN TOWARDS MEDICAL] “By the time we caught up with him in [ADD YEAR], he’d already had to augment his organic tissues with cybernetic implants…” when the accident occurred ten years ago, the radiation surge destroyed almost two-thirds of his remaining anatomy—including his bone marrow.” [SHOW GARR ON BIOBED SCREAMING IN THE BACKGROUND] “Borg nanoprobes reconstructed him over time. Nine months, to be exact.” And he was conscious the entire time.” [SHOW THE FIRST TAUNT SESSION WITH REYF] “Nine months of unspeakable agony pushed him completely over the edge." That wouldn’t have happened if we—” [SHOW REYF ORDERING TO FIRE THAT TORPEDO] “—if I had not made the decision to fire, [SHOW THE AFTERMATH AFTER THE ORDER OF REYF, HIS EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE] “His plan was perfect, and it would have succeeded, except he didn’t believe I’d give the order to fire.”[BACK TO REYF IN THE BRIEFINGROOM]
REYF: “Three weeks ago, I was told of a new threat from the Romulans. At that point, they only knew his new assumed name: Drakus.”[SHOW PICTURE OF DRACUS ON VIEWSCREEN]
RONSTON: “Admiral,” Ronston said, nodding towards the image on the monitor, “he doesn’t appear to have aged a day, except for his skin tone
PRENTICE: Somewhere along the way you must’ve suspected his true identity,” he said.
REYF: “I was told he was human,” he said. “And we learned his identity the same way I suspect you did—by researching the history of his code name.”
Mitchell: . “So,” she began slowly, “if Garr is Drakus…then he’s the one who’s manipulated the Romulans into attacking us. But why? What’s there to gain?”
REYF: “For him, this is about revenge.”
HARGROVE: “So he used the destruction of the Romulan sun to manipulate them into wiping out the Federation for him.”
REYF: “He didn’t just use the destruction of the sun to his advantage. He caused it.”
MITCHELL: “That’s impossible,”
REYF: “I believe that if you do a deconstructive analysis on the recording we obtained,” he said, “and then match it against the Starfleet database, you’ll find a near perfect match with his Intrepid class.”
PRENTICE: “The ISS Voyager,” [NOTE: emphasis needs to be on ISS, since there is also a USS voyager!]
PRENTICE: “The question is, how did he do it? Starfleet doesn’t have the technology to cause an artificial supernova.” Then he saw the look on Reyf’s face. “Does it?”
Reyf exhaled. “Tell me captain,” he said slowly, “how well do you know the Starfleet charter?”
Of all the questions Reyf might’ve asked, this was one of the last that Prentice might have expected. “Fairly well,” he said hesitantly. “Why?”
“What do you recall about article fourteen, section thirty-one?” Reyf asked.
Prentice struggled to recall the text from the last time he’d read it, but it had been nearly sixteen years ago—just before his own graduation from the Academy. “It’s been a long time since I read it,” he admitted. “I don’t remember much of anything.”
But Hargrove did. “It’s a special provision,” she said, her voice oddly neutral, “that allows for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of threat."
REYF: "'Section 31, as they are called, are as old as Starfleet itself. They consider themselves the silent guardians of our existence. They operate without oversight, and without accountability. To them, saving lives is justification for any action they choose to take. However deplorable it might seem to anyone else.”
Prentice was listening to Reyf, but his mind was suddenly flashing back to everything he’d heard and said about Braiyon Garr ten years before. What Reyf was saying…
“Are you telling me that Garr was one of them?” he asked in shock.
Reyf nodded. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “He was recruited shortly after his graduation from the Academy. He was one of their operatives, until his apparent suicide in 2373.”
Prentice looked up at Reyf, his voice barely above a whisper as he asked his next question. “And you?”
But Reyf shook his head. “They never tried to recruit me,” he said. With a slight chuckle, he added, “And I’m not sure whether to be insulted or relieved.”
PRENTICE: “So why didn’t you go after him then?”
Reyf shook his head. “You remember what happened the last time we saw him,” he said. “He knows me too well, and he’s had enough time to refine his insights that he’d have known I was coming before I did.”
PRENTICE: “And that’s when you came to me,” Prentice reasoned.
Reyf nodded. “The crew of the Fitzgerrald already had faced Garr -Drakus- 10 years ago. We hoped that you, captain, were an element that he couldn’t predict. However it made little difference.”
Prentice looked to Reyf. “Admiral, what was the plan going in?”
Reyf looked at her. “Certain events were a given right from the start,” he said. “The coup we witnessed, for example. Our diplomatic mission was a ruse—our true purpose in going behind enemy lines was to locate Drakus…and neutralize him, by whatever means necessary.”
Prentice: “So what went wrong?”
Reyf shook his head. “Once inside Romulan space,” he said, “an informant working with Section 31 was supposed to tell us where to find his base of operations. Our best chance to stop him was while he was there, but unfortunately we don’t know where it is—only its name: Rimward Station. He’s been coordinating everything from there, including the search for us.”
“I take it you never got that information?” Mitchell guessed.
Reyf looked at her. “I’m afraid not,” he said.
“Actually,” Falwell chimed in, “we did.”
All eyes in the room turned towards her. “Doctor?” Reyf prompted.
Falwell tapped the keypad in front of her, and the monitor image changed to show a freeze frame from the proconsul’s abortive transmission. Another key tap, and the image centered on a monitor behind him. A second after that, and a string of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen, offering a translation of what was frozen on the captured image on the Romulan’s monitor:
Star coordinates.
“It was right in front of us the whole time,” Ronston said. “This is where this…Rimward Station is.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hargrove said.
“So what do we do about it?” Prentice asked. “Go there and destroy the station?”
Reyf shook his head. “That’s not an option any longer,” he said. “The Romulans have fortified their borders. We’d never get past the Neutral Zone, much less within striking range of a secret starbase.”
Ronston said: “Then we need a plan.”
Reyf nodded. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “We have thirty four hours left. I suggest we use them—”
“Hold on a minute,” Hargrove interrupted. “There’s something I want an answer to: what the hell is in Cargo Bay Six?”
Reyf looked at her for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Prentice. He swiveled to face his crew. “The admiral and I have agreed that I should see that for myself, alone,” he said. “And then, if I feel like it’s appropriate, to pass that knowledge on to the rest of you.”
Seeing the looks on their faces, he added, with an apologetic glance in Reyf’s direction, “I know how it sounds, but I have to ask you to trust me here.”
Ronston looked around the room, and then spoke what Prentice felt would be on everyone’s minds. “We do,” she said.
“Then it’s settled,” Reyf declared flatly. “As soon as we’re finished here, the captain and I will go down to the cargo bay together.” He looked around. “In the meantime, start working on a plan. We don’t have much time.”
“It would help,” Kal spoke up, “if we had access to everything there is to know about this.”
Reyf nodded. “I’ll make everything available to you,” he said. “Your best suggestion in one hour. That’ll be all.”
Reyf and prentice left the briefing room.
In the turbolift on the way down to deck fourteen, Prentice dared voice what he’d been feeling since the briefing. “You didn’t tell them the whole truth,” he said. Reyf looked at him, but said nothing. “About Garr,” Prentice clarified.
Reyf looked down. “What I said was true enough.”
Prentice shook his head. “He went back in time,” he said. “He changed history. And yet everything that happened still happened.”
Reyf looked at him, then turned to face him. “Computer, halt turbolift,” he ordered. The lift immediately came to a stop.
The admiral exhaled. “In order to preserve history as he knew it, thus avoiding a temporal paradox,” he said, “the Garr we sent back, took the place of his younger self. The agony of reliving all those painful memories…and not being able to change them…”
Prentice nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “Do you know what finally made Drakus initiate his plan to destroy the Federation?”
Reyf gazed at him for a long moment, then turned back to face the door. “Computer,” he said evenly, “resume.”
Prentice tried to gauge what Reyf was feeling from his expression, but found the admiral’s features strangely unreadable.
For what it's worth I have to say I dig Thy King's version:
As far as the character structure, Prentice doesn't seem to loose the edge that he has gained so far. He is still the Captain essentually and viewed so by the crew. I know this is a little bit of a long scene but I wish Hardgrove would voice the question about Garr that has been on my mind and would work to setup Thy Kings "Butterfly Effect":
Hardgrove: "Why didn't he just destroy us from the start if he replaced himself and knew you would fire on him?"
Prentice: "Maybe some variables Garr didn't account for. Slight changes everytime that lead to the same causality. The Admiral destroys his ship, he re-lives the past, with everytime something changing slightly from the first which leads to the original causality. When we fired on the Garr's ship."
Anyway ignore my bad dialog but you get the point.
lose the first two pages talking about Drakus/Garr. lose the whole bit about Drakus no longer being Garr. it takes up too much time and is irrelevant.
start off with Rayf ordering the computer to seal the room, BRIEFLY discuss Garr being Drakus and his regeneration, leave out the bit about not interfering with the timeline, it feels like a cheap plot explanation. Then, Rayf says what hes about to reveal does not leave the room, then goes into talk about section 31, and Rimward Station, with Falwell pointing out the coordinates.
End with Reyf and Prentice leaving the room and going to the turbolift.
@Thy King: you keep referring to Prentice as "the joker," but try as I might that reference makes no sense to me (and accordingly I'm not sure I like one of my characters being referred to in that manner). Either explain the reference or stop using it.
Posts
Those of you eager for Reyf to tell us everything will be disappointed that this isn't it, but those who have been waiting for the "human factor" in this film to show itself will be thrilled. Let me know what you think!
When you started about 'i cannot save everybody in the federation' i expected a reference to the movie 'the core' where the bomb expert made a similar statement, about not saving the entire eath, just 3 people, or a bit further where the statement is made 'not everybody, just 3 people'. [on a personal note: the core is a damn good movie though
The rest is ok, i have not seen anything of note.
However, this one scene just not fulfill the 'human factor' quota. You have spend most of your film missing out on the 'human factors (humor, personal interests, personal relationships other than intimate or profesional, character quircks, etc)', always being serious. This scene is a nice change of pace, but can also be interpreted as a 'time fill/waste', because right now the interest in the story is with Reyf and Prentice. Personally, i am neutral in this matter. Changing up the 'human factors' too much for this movie, at this point in the story, might not be the best of ideas. However, should you start another, that is a good point for improvement.
First was Garr's own declarations, which bemoan his lost life and his rage at being abandoned by everything he ever loved. Then there's the discussion shortly after that about how the Federation would help anyone they could if it was within their power. And now we have a discussion about how love really and truly is something worth fighting for.
After the events of Specter, it sounds to me like we have the ingredients of a "how to stop the mad doctor" plan in hand.
That's where things get murky. I know we need to work in the ISS Voyager somehow, and what makes the most sense is for it to be docked with the command cruiser somehow. An alternate plan I'd come up with was for the away team to infiltrate the command ship, broadcast Reyf's recording of Garr's confession from Prentice's quarters from there on the Romulan command frequency, and have the Romulan fleet turn on him and start attacking the command ship. The ship is disabled and falls into the black hole.
Whatever we do, somehow the ISS Voyager has to fall into the black hole--I've decided that this, not something involving the Beta Reticuli rift, will be what resets the timeline. The black hole's gravity well combined with the uncontrolled release of temporal energy and antimatter (from the warp core and the time-travel device) combines to somehow reset things to the way they're supposed to be (maybe in that temporal-incursion kind of way).
I could use some help with this one...lots of possibilities and lots of elements, but I just don't know how we're going to work them all together.
*For those that seem to have difficulty with this concept, spoiler tags are required for any responses to this.
As for sneaking aboard: Reyf and his away team realize that they cannot open the shuttlebay door, so using some engineering wizardry once inside the shield; they connect the shuttles transporter to the Voyagers transporter room and beam aboard.
at the end, at the last moment, Reyf lowers the voyagers shield as its falling towards the black hole, allowing the rest of the away team to beam aboard the fitzy, but he stays on to ensure everyone else gets off, and goes down with the ship. a little cliche and probably predictable, but somehow fitting, i think
My intention is for Reyf and company, at some point, to broadcast Garr's recorded confession, along with sensor records from the Fitzgerald of the ISS Voyager's warp signature (from the end of Specter). Scanning for and detecting it at the coordinates of Garr's flagship leads the Romulans to conclude Garr was indeed responsible for what happened, and thus leads them to attack the command ship.
I think I've more or less settled on the "Romulan betrayal" route, but even that creates its own share of problems. My assumption is that once Garr's flagship is destroyed, they all cease fire and we can go to the Fitzgerald bridge for the "what now?" scene.
I envision that as something a little like this: we get his by a shock wave, and the bridge reverts to what we expect to be a canon design and color scheme for this time period, but with a twist: suddenly we have a "good" Dr. Braiyon Garr among us, but Reyf is nowhere to be found. By this point the characters all know that the timeline was changed, and now seeing Garr in a standard uniform and with real rank, they know things are back to normal.
Somewhere along the way we're going to tell why: we already know that in this alternate timeline, the "good" Garr was killed during the Dominion War, somehow saving Reyf's life in the process. In this "restored" timeline, Garr wasn't there, and so without him Reyf was killed instead.
At the end, we'll have the requisite funeral scene for Reyf, and then on to the "what happens now?" piece. Kristie--the real one--visits Good Garr, and the two of them have a tentative discussion about the events of "the alternate timeline" (because of what's happened, not only is the original timeline restored, but Good Garr never experienced the events we witnessed in Specter). By this point, Prentice has told Good Garr about everything that originally happened, and Garr and Kristie decide to give things a shot even knowing what happened originally. Something like this:
GOOD GARR: "Knowing what happened then, allows us to change things now. So that some things never happen."
KRISTIE: "I know one thing for sure about that other you, the one that never existed--despite everything, he never lost the one thing that made him human: he followed his heart."
- If you decide to have a big ' Time wave' like in VOY ' year of hell ' that would be a cool visual
- I think that maybe you should have sort of temporal build-up that protects the crew, which means that they retain the memories of their timeline, which is how they are able to notice everything has changed. The bridge colours, garr being there etc
- With the crew retaining their knowledge of the alt timeline, Pretience would inform Starfleet and garr about everything that has happened to them and how to prevent it
Besides, in a very real way, Reyf will have died in battle, no matter what the outcome. In the original timeline, he would've been killed at Witch Head without Garr there to save him; in the alternate timeline, he goes down with Drakus' command ship, knowing that if they restored the original timeline it meant his own death. You can call that part of the reason he didn't want anyone else risking their lives to stop Garr--failure meant his death thanks to the Romulan fleet, and he wasn't prepared to let anyone else risk their lives to stop Garr since he considered his own life expendable anyway. From his perspective, every day since Witch Head in this timeline was borrowed time anyway, and we already know he felt responsible for what he did in Specter that caused Garr to become a complete psychopath, so it seems like the ultimate heroic gesture to not want anyone else to risk their lives when it was truly his mess to clean up.
Off the chance that stopping Garr would restore the original timeline, I could see him definitely wanting to make sure his death in this alternate timeline counts for something, just like Tasha Yar in "Yesterday's Enterprise."
That was actually planned, along with several shots of the camera pedestal-ing down through the vertical tubes, but I couldn't find a music cue that would work well enough to back it, so I wound up cutting it. Believe it or not I'm still going through the Ron Jones collection, but if anyone knows of something that would work as an intro for this scene with a little lead time for the montage, I'll render up the shots I made and see how it looks.
Its giving me a headache trying to think of a way to end it all.
Hell why not go all out, and instead of just ending in the future, lets follow Reyf into the past and see what he plans to do to change it.
Workedfor the Voyager Finale, why not Reyf too lol
- I hope you are not planning on all of a sudden having an answer now that Reyf spills everything, and rush into the final attack. At this point the Fitz crew still has no idea about anything. I will try to avoid this in my suggestion (see possible story line below).
- You have not had any point in your story, up to this point, where it is shown that G-Garr saves Reyf. If you are going with the 'Reyf will die when the timeline restores' plot, you will have to change your startingpoint. Just like in the first episode of DS9, you should show the battle of Witch-head, where G-Garr somehow saves Reyfs life, at the expense of his own. This you can then later use again (at the end) to perhaps 'fade-out' G-Garr in the same battle, resulting in Reyfs death.
- this 'restoring the timeline' routine would have several problems, first: G-Garr will not be nudged into a starship career by his future self, since E-Garr is gone. So the timeline is set to rerun the events of Spectre followed by Retribution. You have an infinite time-loop problem here.
- I think when you start messing with alternate timelines, no-one should know what happened when the timeline is restored (essentially a 'reset'), except for those shielded from the changes in the time line. All of star trek timeline and alternative realities episodes have shown this abundantly clear: when the change is undone, whatever happened before is no longer remembered. (TNG, VOY, even ENT). To tie your 'they have to remember' part into the story, you are not only breaking with every star trek time-episode ever created, you also make it very hard for yourself. I tried to tie the 'they have to remember' into my story below once, but it is shaky at best.
To give my story suggestion:
To change the start, including your 'Reyf is saved' story suggestion:
- Have your 'what happened before' part
- Two posibilities at this point:
1) Have your opening credits, showing ships slowly passing by (different ships, of the battle of witchhead), and then when the credits are done, speed up time to normal, showing the Fitz with Captain Reyf and G-Garr in the battle of witchhead, giving them the scene where G-Garr saves Reyfs life at the cost of his own. Then switch to 2388.
2) Have the scene of the battle of Witchhead and then have the credits, at which point you switch to 2388.
The rest of the story goes on as normal.
The end part after Reyf spills everything:
- Let the crew figure out about the hidden message in the Proconsul's transmission. This should lead them to the station.
- When they arrive, they find an empty station. Uppon investigation, they find the detailed invasion plans, and scematics of E-Garr's new ship. They also find out where the E-Voyager (Garr's Voyager) is.
- The fact that the ships are gone, should lead them to the conclusion that the invasion is early, and they speed back to Janeway's group, where the two fleets are engaged by the time they arrive.
- Up to their arrival, they have argued about what to do, now that **** has hit the fan. They decide to let the romulans know that E-Garr blew up their sun, and transmit every information they had to the fleet once they arrive.
- However, they could not come up with a plan to enter E-Garr's horizon ship. They have figured out what to do once they are on that ship. This is where Reyf is going to use his 'last trick', which consists of that Kristie android.
- During the battle, they transmit their proof, including something that the proconsul had included in his message, helping to strengthen the proof, and the faith of the Romulans in that proof being presented.
- As the Fitz transmits, the battle stops as abruptly as it started. The battle remains at a standstill, as both sides figure out what to do. At this point E-Garr, who has also seen the transmission, will try to convince his side that it is all a ruse.
- The Romulan fleet then suddenly decides to attack the Horizon flagship, however since Borg technology has been introduced, their weapons have very little to almost no effect. (Borg shields adapt to weaponsfire, making then virtually invinsible). The Romulan weapons do have an effect, but even the entire fleet is needed to dent the shields.
- The federation starts to help the Romulans, at the request of Reyf or Prentice.
- E-Garr lets the Horizon emit certain waves of desruption, (gravity or something technobabble), omnidirectional, which momentarily desrupts the shields sufficiently enough for a quick beam trough.
- This is figured out by the Fitz, while the entire fleet (Feds + Romulans + Fitz) is being hit by the desruption waves. They estimate that the fleet will be destroyed before the Horizon ship's shields are breached. The Fitz crew (Prentice/Reyf) decides to go and disable the shields from within.
- They beam aboard (Reyf, Prentice/Kendra (captain stays on the bridge?), Kristie android, +1 or 2 imporant main characters, and a few 'red shirts' which are supposed to die.
- Kendra + team go to shut down the shields, and then back up Reyf, if there is time.
- Reyf + red-shirts (:)) go after E-Garr.
- Kendra desides to shut down the pulses before she shuts down the shields. (just to buy the fleet and the story some time).
- Reyf fights his way to E-Garr, but finds the ship mostly deserted and automated. The ship contains a doomsday device, which E-Garr wants to use on Earth. He finds E-Garr beyond reasoning. Reyf, who now only has a few red-shirts left, and distracts E-Garr as long as possible.
- The pulses are disabled, and the shields are going down. The ship is being hit by lots of weapons. E-Garr decides to leave, and engages an emergency transport to his hidden E-Voyager, cloaked nearby. Kristie managed to intercept this programming and added the entire awayteam to the command, ending up having everybody at the E-Voyager.
- The Horizon flagship explodes, and the fleet is having a 'what now'-moment. Prentice decides to hail one of the romulan ships, and carry forth a message from the Proconsul, pleading for peace, as war will destroy both sides. That trough cooperation everybody can grow, while remaining individuals. That both sides only lose from war, and that is why he helped the Federation side.
Up to this point, i had most things fit nicely. At this point i am not sure what to do; several endings can be created. I came up with 2, both shaky to say the least. If i come up with better ideas, i will post them. Maybe you can use them for inspiration:
Ending 1):
- The battle continues onboard the E-Voyager, only this time, Reyf manages to get the upper hand. He kills E-Garr, and then beams everybody off the ship, exept Kristie and himself.
- He then cloaks the ship, and warps out. Prentice has no idea what is happening, and is left with questions only.
- Reyf and Kristie then engage the time-drive and go back to the graduation day, where Reyf and N-Garr (Neutral Garr, at this point) decide their futures (end of Spectre).
- Using a holographic disguise, he nudges N-Garr to go after Reyf. This restores the timeline, and G-Garr (because of his choice) either dies at Witchhead, or survives. At this point you can do anything, but it might be a good tease for a new movie.
Ending 2):
- THe battle continues onboard the E-Voyager. Reyf gets injured and is forced to retreat.
- Kristie sends temperal shielding settings to the Fitz, while E-Garr is trying to run away from the outside battle.
- E-Garr decides to run for an anomaly.
- Kristie manages beam everybody off the E-Voyager, except for Reyf and herself. (and decloak the ship?)
- Reyf places charges all troughout the ship, with Kristie giving backup.
- With the ship save under way, E-Garr decides to kill Reyf, and manages to do so in the engine room, right after Reyf places his last charge.
- Kristie then walks in, and surprises E-Garr. She manages to distract him long enough for the charges to go off.
- They end up in a spiraling course into an anomaly (black hole).
- The subsequent explosion creates a time shockwaves, which 'deletes' both fleets to their original assignments and locations. Romulans sun is back.
- The Fitz is the only ship still at the battle coordinates, due to the temperal shielding. Prentice is in shock about the admirals fate. When he walks into his Readyroom, he has an encrypted message from Reyf, explaining some last remaining facts which he did not say at is reveal and his respect/confidence in Prentice. In the message are instructions to make sure it will not happen again (this includes time travel?).
- When the Fitz is back at a starbase, they are greated by G-Garr (and the real Kristie?). At this point, you can do whatever you want, perhaps show that witchhead scene again, without G-Garr, or something else happens (due to Prentices efforts to prevent it from happening again). Perhaps a tease to a new movie?
There are a lot of ideas here, but this is not a proper end yet. It still requires work. (a lot of work
I would advice the following at least:
- Let the crew seach a bit longer, and then figure out they are to late.
- Let E-Garr be beyond saving. Another 'please dont do this'-end like in spectre will not be believable.
- Let the Fitz crew forget everything, for the sake of continuity
- Figure out a way for that 'future Garr' to nudge Neutral/Young Garr to follow Reyf, just like the end of Spectre, to make it go full-circle. Or perhaps find another suggestion. Perhaps let him meet Kristie-android, who tells him what happens?
- And if you use the 'Reyf will die' plot, show the scene where he lives at the start, so you can refer to it at the end.
Here is a slightly different angle (Just to get thoughts going nothing more)
1) During the battle Reyf beams over to E-Garr Voyager which is cloaked, he has some information that allows him to beam aboard, or someone helps him. "You have your job and I have mine" -Reyf
2) Prentice and the crew lead the fleet against Garr's Romulans.
3) Reyf confonts Garr in engineering much the same fashion as Specter. "Here we are again, my friend" -Garr
4) The Romulans have the upper hand in the battle but Reyf manages to disable the cloak of the Voyager. "What do you think you can do to me now?"-Garr
5) The Voyager uncloaks and Prentice transmits the info about the Romulan sun going nova. "Right on time Capitan" -Prentice
6) Romulans, turn on Garr and the ISS Voyager comes under fire.
7) Garr is forced to power up the time drive to survive. As the Voyager comes under fire. Reyf is knocked towards the "Time Core" and falls over a rail. Garr instincually grabs him and keeps him from falling. "You saved your friend at Witchhead (grunt), who are you saving now?" -Reyf
8) Garr and Reyf have some dialog. Reyf falls into the "time core".
This is where you can split....
1) The Voyager explodes the time effect ripples thru, changing the timeline about Reyf but maintaining the knowledge of the events.
2) The Voyager explodes the time effect ripples thru, changing the timeline about Reyf.
Prentice is sitting on the bridge monitoring the reminants of the shockwave. "Captain to the bridge, a Massive temporal flux, just passed over us, Sir". The Captain (unseen of coarse) sits down next to Prentice. "Not sure what it was, sir, looks like it is fading away."
Reveal Garr (as the captain). "I guess it was things that could have been Commander, set coarse for Starbase ##"
A little corny....
Thoughts?
The reason I'm teetering on the brink of this is because there's a requirement to show the ISS Voyager already, but the trick is how to get it worked in. The methods suggested above seem too contrived, and while there are some excellent ideas above, I'm starting to think it would be easier if we just have him there already.
Alternatively, there's already a scene where Reyf and company confront Garr face to face in a Romulan control room of some sort. Maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to do something like this:
The proconsul's transmission contained the coordinates of the Rimward Station, and upon learning its whereabouts, Reyf and company rush to it, only to find it deserted. They board it as suggested, with the intent to try and find anything they can about the invasion--but are surprised when Drakus appears (the real him, via the same subspace transporter that got him onto the Fitzgerald to talk to Prentice), taunting them by their failure. Reyf attempts to talk him down, but just when they think he's about to yield, he punches the long-range comm and gives the order--in Romulan no less--to begin the attack. Prentice shoots him and wounds him, but he beams away. Reyf and company download the coordinates of the Romulan fleet from the station's computer and then rush back to their own ship. Once there, as suggested, they arrive on scene in Sector 585 to find the Romulans already doing battle with the Federation.
The twist here is that the ISS Voyager is there somewhere, presumably cloaked, observing the battle and directing as needed. Objective #1 is to make it visible to everyone else (I know exactly how to do that), then broadcast the proof--the sensor recording along with Reyf's recording of Evil Garr's confession--and then let the Romulans do their worst against it. In the process, naturally Evil Garr fights back, but he's overwhelmed and the ISS Voyager is disabled, falling into the gravitational pull of the black hole. It falls down into the hole, cue big temporal explosion, and suddenly things are...the same, but different.
It's not perfect--I want Reyf to go down with Evil Garr somehow, relentless determination to save him or "atoning for his sins" (the end of Specter), take your pick--but either way, when he disappears with the restoration of the timeline, I want the crew to remember his death as an honorable one.
Romulans used holocloaks in the 22nd century, no reason Garr couldnt use his romulan allies to equip Vger with em in the 24th.
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I think it would be a better idea to have the E-Voyager as a backup plan for escaping. Having it cloaked nearby. If you let E-Garr show the way to it, that would be the way to get in.
I am also not sold on the 'Reyf has to die' part. First of all, it is totally not logical. That whole 'guilt'-trip is quite over done, and just does not seem to be in Reyfs (old) character. He might feel responsible for some things, but he would not let his own guilt get before what he has to do.
I have been thinking about a way to reverse the fatal attack, without screwing up the timeline, and with Reyf still knowing a few things.
Have you ever watched the movie 'the Butterfly Effect'? It is not only a good movie, it has a very interesting concept, where by changing one small thing, the outcome would be radically different.
A couple of key events can be identified: the death of Reyfs father, the nudging of young Garr to the starship service, and the death of G-Garr (maybe you can find some other ones). By changing one of these events, it would change everthing comming after.
You stated that E-Garr would not interfere, and let Starfleet continue, as long as G-Garr had a good life, and stayed alive. What if Reyf realized this in the conversations he had/has with E-Garr, and to save everybody, he decides to save G-Garr. In my last suggestion i suggested the showing of the battle of 'witchhead'. In the episode (i think it was-) Relativity, they could integrate a future person into a past person (unifying their timelines), at which point they remembered all their future memories. Combining these two: In the last battle, let Reyf make a timejump to the battle of Witchhead, where he changes his strategy, which keeps G-Garr alive, stopping E-Garr in his tracks, before he even started. Reyf survives in this instant. Reyf is also the only one who still have memories of the original event with E-Garr and the invasion, due to the rest not being shielded from the changes in the timeline.
Then, when (-if-) E-Garr is ordered to blow up the sun, the then Admiral Reyf would make sure he dies in the attempt, making sure the timeline has its original course (Romulan sun blowing up, but no war towards the Federation).
The reason to choose this specific event would be to make sure G-Garr would take the right path to avoid the events of Spectre. But the events of Spectre need to happen at least once, to make sure E-Garr nudges his past self to the starstip service (key moment). Then to continue the timeline as is, E-Garr fills the role of is original self (like was the plan), but is stopped after his 'usefullness' has come to an end. You could let Reyf die in this attempt, but after G-Garr lives, and E-Garr is dead, the timeline will suffer no ill effects.
On a sidenote: you could make finding and stopping E-Garr after G-Garr is alive another movie, but it might turn into a never ending story.
Edit:
next, how about Reyf figures out a way to follow Garr using his subspace transporter while Prentice and Co follow in the fitzy? This is when its revealed that Drakus is actually in the holo-cloaked voyager (i bet if you take the intrepid bridge, paint it green and use romulan LCARS, it will look remarkably like a canon romulan bridge. Easy enough for Garr/Drakus to do if he wants).
I think he should die with Garr, but i think its easy enough to come up with a few ways:
1. Rayf is wounded by Garr during his attempts to kill him, and the ISS Voyager comes too close to the black hole in the course of the fight, and therefore makes it impossible for the Fitzy to get a transporter lock on him
2. Reyf allows Garr to kill him, buying enough time for the Fitzgerald to send the Voyager into the black hole
3. Reyf sacrifices himself to fatally sabotage the voyager
4. Reyf's body cant handle the subspace transporter beam, and barely has time to kill Garr before dying
5. Reyf drinks poisoned earl grey tea after killing drakus; the replicators have been sabotaged by an annoyed romulan engineer
6. Reyf dies of a paper cut because he cant get to sickbay on time
7. The turbolift doesn't work, sending Reyf to his death
8. The transporter operator on the Fitzgerald has an epileptic seizure while attempting to beam Reyf to safety
9. He suffers a Spontaneous Existence Failure
**note: some of the fatal death suggestions are a little silly.**
( I suppose you could count Star Trek XI as one big butterfly effect )
Looking ahead towards something a little closer, I've been working on Scene 37, where Reyf tells all. The problem is, no matter what I do, it either seems to come out too long or else seems like something important is being omitted.
While I'm working on Scene 36, do me a favor and look over the writeup of Scene 37 and help me figure out ways to trim it. Five pages and change just seems like too much!
I also think that we have reached a point in the story where the climax should be known, since this is where you start working towards it. I am interested in your view of the the ideas proposed here, and if you yourself had any brainwaves.
- The crew, including prentice, should not know anything about section 31. Especially not rumors, since those would be investigated by other intelligence agencies. Not even those are aware of Section 31, and that is it's strength. Judging from DS9, where also nobody knew about section 31 until they made themselves known (including Sisko).
- That section about Prentice being the 'joker' in all of this, makes no sense. IN your entire movie so far he only made a difference once. That is not the atribute of a joker. Also, they still lost at this point. In your entire movie you have not let Prentice be original once. Even the escape run at New Romulus was a rerun of an old Reyf tactic! Prentice is not a joker in this. Just scrap this piece completely.
For the original parts of the script:
- Remove the constant corrections of 'Drakus' vs 'Garr'. It is not needed, and he is still Garr, even though he has given himself a new name. All you need to mention at one point is that he has become known as Drakus by the time Section 31 learned of him, and that the dots have been connected since.
- THe rest walks out of the room, except for Prentice and Reyf. However, one line after they stand in a turbo lift. I think it is better to let Reyf and Prentice leave, and then let the rest work on the plan in that room.
Ideas for future scenes (as a reaction on this one):
- If you want Prentice to be your 'joker', he needs to earn it. Let him come up with the final plan, while the rest just has individual ideas, but not a well worked out strategy. This would then help in 2 parts: 1: Earn Prentice his captains chair, 2: Make him more of a 'joker' in this story, now that Reyfs plan has failed.
On a wild note:
Perhaps you would consider anoter idea for this scene. Instead of making it a static gathering scene, you turn this into a narrated 'animated slide show'. When Reyf tells of how Garr became the man he is today, you show images to the viewers of the damaged E-Voyager comming out of timewarp in the past (using some minor fancy screen effects to give the idea this is memory/storytelling), followed by images of E-Garr on a biobed screaming in agony while his body is reparing him (lots of tubes comming out of him?), followed by a drifing E-Voyager (a-la startrek 11) to bridge the time, untill 'today'. All of this narrated by Reyfs story about E-Garr. If you want, you can let someone ask the question of what happened to the Garr of this timeline (G-Garr). You could then fill it in as far as Reyf knows the fact by showing again a short narrated overview. Of how he took the place of his original one, while G-Garr had another life. The suicide in the asteroid fields, the emergence of the E-Voyager, and Reyfs choice to fire (which E-Garr did not expect).
Depending on what climax you use, you could start asking a critical question here: why did E-Garr decide to attack? What changed between him taking the bad road vs the 'quiet background'? What was his tipping point? You could let Prentice ask that question in the turbolift.
Speaking of the death of G-Garr, does that happen on Reyfs ship (the Fitz), because if so: the rest of the crew should know about it. Prentice was there at Witchhead, so he should know.
Quick mashup of the possible Re-do of the scene: I have copy pasted as much as i could, making only small changes to the text itself. The scenario is set up as my notes from above. [note: because of the copy-pase nature, there may be context problems, which needs to be ajusted to match. I tried to filter as much of them as i could.]
REYF: “Three weeks ago, I was told of a new threat from the Romulans. At that point, they only knew his new assumed name: Drakus.”[SHOW PICTURE OF DRACUS ON VIEWSCREEN]
RONSTON: “Admiral,” Ronston said, nodding towards the image on the monitor, “he doesn’t appear to have aged a day, except for his skin tone
PRENTICE: Somewhere along the way you must’ve suspected his true identity,” he said.
REYF: “I was told he was human,” he said. “And we learned his identity the same way I suspect you did—by researching the history of his code name.”
Mitchell: . “So,” she began slowly, “if Garr is Drakus…then he’s the one who’s manipulated the Romulans into attacking us. But why? What’s there to gain?”
REYF: “For him, this is about revenge.”
HARGROVE: “So he used the destruction of the Romulan sun to manipulate them into wiping out the Federation for him.”
REYF: “He didn’t just use the destruction of the sun to his advantage. He caused it.”
MITCHELL: “That’s impossible,”
REYF: “I believe that if you do a deconstructive analysis on the recording we obtained,” he said, “and then match it against the Starfleet database, you’ll find a near perfect match with his Intrepid class.”
PRENTICE: “The ISS Voyager,” [NOTE: emphasis needs to be on ISS, since there is also a USS voyager!]
PRENTICE: “The question is, how did he do it? Starfleet doesn’t have the technology to cause an artificial supernova.” Then he saw the look on Reyf’s face. “Does it?”
Reyf exhaled. “Tell me captain,” he said slowly, “how well do you know the Starfleet charter?”
Of all the questions Reyf might’ve asked, this was one of the last that Prentice might have expected. “Fairly well,” he said hesitantly. “Why?”
“What do you recall about article fourteen, section thirty-one?” Reyf asked.
Prentice struggled to recall the text from the last time he’d read it, but it had been nearly sixteen years ago—just before his own graduation from the Academy. “It’s been a long time since I read it,” he admitted. “I don’t remember much of anything.”
But Hargrove did. “It’s a special provision,” she said, her voice oddly neutral, “that allows for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of threat."
REYF: "'Section 31, as they are called, are as old as Starfleet itself. They consider themselves the silent guardians of our existence. They operate without oversight, and without accountability. To them, saving lives is justification for any action they choose to take. However deplorable it might seem to anyone else.”
Prentice was listening to Reyf, but his mind was suddenly flashing back to everything he’d heard and said about Braiyon Garr ten years before. What Reyf was saying…
“Are you telling me that Garr was one of them?” he asked in shock.
Reyf nodded. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “He was recruited shortly after his graduation from the Academy. He was one of their operatives, until his apparent suicide in 2373.”
Prentice looked up at Reyf, his voice barely above a whisper as he asked his next question. “And you?”
But Reyf shook his head. “They never tried to recruit me,” he said. With a slight chuckle, he added, “And I’m not sure whether to be insulted or relieved.”
PRENTICE: “So why didn’t you go after him then?”
Reyf shook his head. “You remember what happened the last time we saw him,” he said. “He knows me too well, and he’s had enough time to refine his insights that he’d have known I was coming before I did.”
PRENTICE: “And that’s when you came to me,” Prentice reasoned.
Reyf nodded. “The crew of the Fitzgerrald already had faced Garr -Drakus- 10 years ago. We hoped that you, captain, were an element that he couldn’t predict. However it made little difference.”
Prentice looked to Reyf. “Admiral, what was the plan going in?”
Reyf looked at her. “Certain events were a given right from the start,” he said. “The coup we witnessed, for example. Our diplomatic mission was a ruse—our true purpose in going behind enemy lines was to locate Drakus…and neutralize him, by whatever means necessary.”
Prentice: “So what went wrong?”
Reyf shook his head. “Once inside Romulan space,” he said, “an informant working with Section 31 was supposed to tell us where to find his base of operations. Our best chance to stop him was while he was there, but unfortunately we don’t know where it is—only its name: Rimward Station. He’s been coordinating everything from there, including the search for us.”
“I take it you never got that information?” Mitchell guessed.
Reyf looked at her. “I’m afraid not,” he said.
“Actually,” Falwell chimed in, “we did.”
All eyes in the room turned towards her. “Doctor?” Reyf prompted.
Falwell tapped the keypad in front of her, and the monitor image changed to show a freeze frame from the proconsul’s abortive transmission. Another key tap, and the image centered on a monitor behind him. A second after that, and a string of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen, offering a translation of what was frozen on the captured image on the Romulan’s monitor:
Star coordinates.
“It was right in front of us the whole time,” Ronston said. “This is where this…Rimward Station is.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hargrove said.
“So what do we do about it?” Prentice asked. “Go there and destroy the station?”
Reyf shook his head. “That’s not an option any longer,” he said. “The Romulans have fortified their borders. We’d never get past the Neutral Zone, much less within striking range of a secret starbase.”
Ronston said: “Then we need a plan.”
Reyf nodded. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “We have thirty four hours left. I suggest we use them—”
“Hold on a minute,” Hargrove interrupted. “There’s something I want an answer to: what the hell is in Cargo Bay Six?”
Reyf looked at her for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Prentice. He swiveled to face his crew. “The admiral and I have agreed that I should see that for myself, alone,” he said. “And then, if I feel like it’s appropriate, to pass that knowledge on to the rest of you.”
Seeing the looks on their faces, he added, with an apologetic glance in Reyf’s direction, “I know how it sounds, but I have to ask you to trust me here.”
Ronston looked around the room, and then spoke what Prentice felt would be on everyone’s minds. “We do,” she said.
“Then it’s settled,” Reyf declared flatly. “As soon as we’re finished here, the captain and I will go down to the cargo bay together.” He looked around. “In the meantime, start working on a plan. We don’t have much time.”
“It would help,” Kal spoke up, “if we had access to everything there is to know about this.”
Reyf nodded. “I’ll make everything available to you,” he said. “Your best suggestion in one hour. That’ll be all.”
Reyf and prentice left the briefing room.
In the turbolift on the way down to deck fourteen, Prentice dared voice what he’d been feeling since the briefing. “You didn’t tell them the whole truth,” he said. Reyf looked at him, but said nothing. “About Garr,” Prentice clarified.
Reyf looked down. “What I said was true enough.”
Prentice shook his head. “He went back in time,” he said. “He changed history. And yet everything that happened still happened.”
Reyf looked at him, then turned to face him. “Computer, halt turbolift,” he ordered. The lift immediately came to a stop.
The admiral exhaled. “In order to preserve history as he knew it, thus avoiding a temporal paradox,” he said, “the Garr we sent back, took the place of his younger self. The agony of reliving all those painful memories…and not being able to change them…”
Prentice nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “Do you know what finally made Drakus initiate his plan to destroy the Federation?”
Reyf gazed at him for a long moment, then turned back to face the door. “Computer,” he said evenly, “resume.”
Prentice tried to gauge what Reyf was feeling from his expression, but found the admiral’s features strangely unreadable.
Hardgrove: "Why didn't he just destroy us from the start if he replaced himself and knew you would fire on him?"
Prentice: "Maybe some variables Garr didn't account for. Slight changes everytime that lead to the same causality. The Admiral destroys his ship, he re-lives the past, with everytime something changing slightly from the first which leads to the original causality. When we fired on the Garr's ship."
Anyway ignore my bad dialog but you get the point.
start off with Rayf ordering the computer to seal the room, BRIEFLY discuss Garr being Drakus and his regeneration, leave out the bit about not interfering with the timeline, it feels like a cheap plot explanation. Then, Rayf says what hes about to reveal does not leave the room, then goes into talk about section 31, and Rimward Station, with Falwell pointing out the coordinates.
End with Reyf and Prentice leaving the room and going to the turbolift.