Bad mark: "deux sur vingt !"

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"Major events are nothing more than the sum of minor occasions and lost or gained opportunities." To illustrate this sentence, you will present the few days preceding the historic speech of Jonathan Archer on the day of the Federation charter signature. You will illustrate how minor details have impacted or could have changed one of the greatest moment of our history. Tim PeTty Braga was looking at the essay subject, aghast. - Damned, all this focussing during the courses on the first contact and Zefram Cochrane, to finally give the exam on Archer! Shit, and I did not even finish to read its biography to make sure that I had time to read the three ones of Cochrane that Mrs Bouiller had placed on the "To read" list this quarter. - You have three hours. Make sure that your spelling is correct enough if you want to avoid loosing points on that. Remember that this is not just an exercice of memory, and that I am awaiting from you more than just paraphrasing the book of Prof. Sato on the subject. - (muttering) well at least paraphrasing is not a risk for me. Ok, let's think and quickly because based on my current grades, I really would have need to score high on this one, and it does not appear I'll do more than possibly avoid disaster. Hum, no basic rewording of Jonathan Archer most recognised biography, okay, I need to work on the way I will present this few days. One hour later, Tim was smiling again, having found what he considered as an original approach for his essay. - So I will adopt an external point of view, letting the reader appear as somebody who is the confidant of the crew, that would come to see him and talk to him about all those small details Mrs Bouiller want us to speak. This will be a bit like the holonovel format, but adapted to observation rather than action as done currently. So, let's take an observator. Somebody that is not a major character, that would be outside of the picture and still always around. Like a bartender in a sense. Yes, I have my character: the Chef! I do not know if he had really such a pleasant and warm nature, I do not even remember having ever seen his face. Hum, anyway a chef is generally expected to be round and merry. I need also to consider actual events that would be good examples of how things can go bad or good, but also how a Starfleet crew at this time was behaving. The easiest there, is to simply consider that almost nothing happened since year 2154 where I stopped reading this book from Sato. For sure, it is unlikely that no changes appeared in the crew, after all there were deaths here and there, and people do evolve in several year but it is not sure that Mrs Bouiller will notice that. People simply do not remark all small details! Alright, then I keep Sub-commander euh no this is Commander T'Pol, Commander Tucker (eventhough I wonder if I should not put him rather in the Columbia or in another vessel. I cannot remember if after the genetic creation death he did or not return to Enterprise). Hum, those two are anyway a problem. They had a child, but were not parents, and yet I remember there had been some rumors on Earth at the time the child existence was exposed, but clearly Starfleet regulations would have made impossible such a pairing, so I am just gonna have T'Pol say that any other than professional link to Tucker was severed at the moment of the child death. What's more, this will be very Vulcan :-) I need also to keep Hoshi Sato, what was she at that time already? Ensign I think. Obviously she was there as she was well informed enough to write the book. A communication operator on Alpha shift after years of experience could be lieutenant though. Ahh this is so painful not to know. Anyway this is not like such a minor detail will actually change the worth of the essay. Let keep her an ensign. I'll put also some people from the bridge: the alpha pilot Mayweather. Wasn't he the first bummer to go as Starfleet Academy, at an early age furthermore? Hum, he may not have been pilot there at that time of Enterprise decommissionning, but at the other hand which name should I put, I have strictly no idea of that. Wasn't he a good friend of Sato by the way? Or was it the security officer, Malcom Reed? I cannot remember if something on that subject was written in the back cover of her book. Hoshi Sato-Reed, Hoshi Sato-Mayweather eh, what about Hoshi Sato-Archer!! Hum better not mention anything there; I'll have the Lieutenant Reed make an apparition though. British, cold and classy, this should be an easy part to write, and cannot easily be out of character. I cannot remember if at that time Andorians were really enthusiastic by the Federation concept or if they were just following to avoid having their traditional enemies gain more alliances than them. Probably they were still very much painful to deal with. Hum, may be I could use that, have the Andorians pull some trick just before the treaty signature, some temper tantrum about a trivial event. That would illustrate the subject sentence nicely. Okay, keep that. Well, the only Andorian I am sure Archer knew, and also was sort of indebt of was this Commander Shran from the Imperial Guard. I'll have to imagine something with him. Perhaps requesting some service from Archer. Pff, this is not so likely. But at the same time, is Mrs Bouiller really going to mind? All she probably want is to have us show how this treaty could not have taken place. Let's go for creative history writing then. It is not as if I would be able to stick to real canon I know nothing about anyway! Musing a bit, Tim was trying to figure what Shran could be asking and how it could turn into a disaster when ... - of course. I should insert there a major act from Commander Trip Disaster Tucker. I remind how Sato kept writing about the disastrous away mission score of Tucker. All right, all right: we have Shran coming in, asking for help, then Archer takes an away team including Tucker and this turns into a real disaster. Friendship between Human and Andorian is in danger and ... hum hum yes and Tucker is there, the hero sacrificing himself so that Archer, whose role is preponderant, can achieve its mission. This goes well with the poster boy Tucker. I do not remember anyway that he did anything famous on Earth after that Entreprise time. He possibly died there? I just hope he did not emigrate to another planet and became a great leader there, or Mrs I love South poster boys Bouiller is likely to know about it and deem my idea as "historically absurd" and "psychologically stupid". Perhaps I should choose a mere crewman? Nah, there is more rythm if this is a senior member, and it is unlikely that a mere crewmember would feel so close to Archer that he would sacrifice his life that way. Or Lieutenant Reed? Nah he would probably sacrifice himself without blinking to put his body in front of a bullet, but to ensure that a treaty is signed, only some idealistic guy like Tucker would do. - One hour remaining, children. - All right, all right, everything is there, I just need to write quickly now. I need to remember that this is not the historical or psychological correctness that will save me here, but the rythm and the original format I chose. Creative licence is not a vain word, isn't it? All right, all right, this is almost finished. Damned! Weren't they bonded by the way? How could I forget such a thing???!! I am dead there!! - Five minutes left, children. - Ok, too bad, I just hope she won't notice. ** A few years later ** Commander Riker, better known as Captain Picard's Number One was rummaging inside a chest full of old pads and other knick-knacks in attic of his newly acquired San Francisco home. - It is incredible how people tend to accumulate garbage, pretending they are precious tresors and momentos they cannot part from, before finally forgetting them and letting a mere stranger do the sorting they never could do! So what do we have here ... Most of the pads, old models from the beginning of 23th century according to their labelling, were anyway unlikely to still have battery enough to come up. One pad attracted his eye, this one seemed more used than the others, as if it had lead a more difficult life. "Carbon creek college" label was an indication of its last function, student pad to be used at school, not the best way to avoid shocks and bumpy ride in schoolbags! Alas, it clearly would not turn on. Ricker put it apart to charge it (if his old charger work with such an ancient model was still to be investigate) and did continue the sorting out of the chest. He had to hurry before his ride back up on the ship this evening. Later this evening, back in his quarters on the Enterprise-E, Commander Ricker found again the pad and decided to try charging it. After all, the battery may not have been too low for that, and indeed, soon enough the pad was responsive. What was there inside, some notes of courses, from a student names Tim PeTty Braga and, an holonovel! - Didn't know they were so popular at that time that a college boy would have one on his own school pad. Were did he play it, I wonder ... Having a look at the file, he read : "Lost and gained opportunities: the events that led Jonathan Archer to the ...", an holonovel by Tim Braga. - Ah ah I understand better. He wrote it. I wonder if ... yes, I could play it here and see what how it turns out. I'm sure our holodeck should be able to interpret this 1.0 format if I am careful when charging it. I like the title, opportunities and choices is exactly what I should think about right now concerning ..... Perhaps this will help me, relax at least ! And Riker went to the holodeck, missing completely the red label at the bottom of the novel: "Mark: F. One of the worse "creation" I ever read. Or perhaps an artwork in a sense, if one takes into account the number of counter-truths and historical mistakes you were able to insert in so few lines!".

Cat, March, 4th, 2008.