The Whole Crew, In The Hangar Bay.

We had only two hours left to go on our allotted time, but it had been time well spent. The ship's computer had analyzed the I.S.S. Justice info-dump and created a brief synopsis of Imperial History, which every man (me) and woman (everyone else) aboard the ship had read. Each, by random assignment, then delved further into some aspect of their history and culture, focusing where possible on current Imperial Navy Regulations. It ran something like this:

In the year 72 BC, noted in these records as Stardate 12625.610 a group of five unusual people with strange manners of dress and speaking appeared one night in the midst of the camp of the rebel **** army under general Spartacus. They consisted of a Nubian woman, a Roman Patrician with piercing green eyes, A Cathayan woman, (comparisons of her portraits in later years, before they were lost during the Fire of Alexandria in 12783, appear to indicate she was ethnically Ainu Japanese) A Brittonic Giantess, and a man of unknown origin with coppery skin and long lustrous black hair. (Comparisons of the copies of his one portrait which survived the Fire of Alexandria due to being on display in the old capitol of Rome at the time, which were conducted in 13010, appear to point to Dine' ancestry, though critics warn that as the original was stolen by agents unknown using a primitive transporter in 12802.819 this analysis is highly suspect. Of less dispute is that he was some sort of native american.)

These five people, whose exact origins and even names are lost to the written record, (deliberately so) changed the course of history forever. By the end of the month the rebels had been equipped with unaccountably advanced weapons and armor. Excavations of battlefields from the period show that Spartacus and his **** army were wearing suits of high carbon steel lamellar, while the Legions of the Roman Republic were still attired in bronze. Accounts from memoirs of the soldiers also state that they had saddles with stirrups and semaphore signaling. A few reports even appear to indicate that they created, and used, primitive cannons made from fire hardened tree trunks banded with bronze during the Siege of Rome the following year.

In our doppelgangers timeline, Spartacus WON. Rome was taken, Spartacus proclaimed the First Emperor of the new Roman Imperium, and this set the stage for the next 500 years. Among his many reforms Spartacus outlawed slavery, introduced double entry bookkeeping which sent corruption in the empire into a tailspin, standardized equipment across all the legions, introduced Arabic numerals to the Empire, and personally led the conquests of Iberia, Cisalpine Gaul, and Greece.

Over the next 400 years technology advanced rapidly, Steam power was in use by the end of Emperor Spartacus' reign. Gunpowder (arguably already known but kept a state secret for almost 80 years) came into general use during the reign of the third Emperor, Augustus. By the end of what we would know as the 2nd century AD Rome owned all of Europe and Africa, while "The Eastern Imperium", based around a vastly expanded China, controlled Asia, the south pacific, and Australia. It was not long thereafter that both groups were attacked by raiders out of the east and west; the fabled lands of 'The Americas' proved real at last. Both empires invaded the Americas but were, after horrendous casualties on all sides, repulsed by the armies of "The Pure Lands of the Father Sun and Mother Earth." For 100 years these three powers sat astride the world; occasionally coming into conflict, but for the most part existing in an uneasy detente.

Then Zephram Cochrain made his famous flight and the Vulcans contacted Earth. In an event known as "The Summit of the Three Emperors", held in the tiny independent nation of Hawaii, the leaders of the earth agreed to put aside their differences and form the United Terran Imperium. There was some disagreement over who would become the new Emperor. But a compromise was eventually reached: that the first Emperor would be chosen from among the three existing emperors by a vote of all Citizens of the new Imperium, which was further agreed to include all people over the age of 18. (Women were given the vote right from the get-go, at the insistence of the Americans.) When all the ballots were cast and the results tallied the winner was clear. Emperor Trajan of the Romans had won, largely due to the votes of the world's few remaining independent nations and swing blocks in the other empires. There were of course calls of fraud and so on, but Emperor Qui of The Eastern Imperium and Emperor Ten-Oaks-Strong of the Americans were as good as their words, and swore fealty to the new Imperium, while Trajan's successor, Varcelius, did as well.

Earth and it's colonial possessions on Mars and the asteroids shortly entered a military alliance with the Vulcans against Andoria, a war which they won with surprising ease thanks to their superior Esprit-de-corps and sheer ruthlessness. During the war one man stood out: Captain Jonathan Archer (later Emperor Archer) a man from the United States of America, a small independent nation occupying parts of the Caribbean. It proudly declared itself to utterly reject the entire concept of ethnicity, being composed of cross-breeds from every ethnic group in the world.

Archer's ship, the I.S.S. Enterprise, became the flagship of the Human fleet following the destruction of the I.S.S. Avenger by an Andorran Mirculite Missile at the Battle of Switz Climb. Pulling the fleet together and leading it to dozens of key victories in spite of ever mounting damage and attrition Archer became, in later years, known as the Conqueror of Andoria. He also proved to be a legendary orator and statesman. He convinced the Vulcan High Command to become one of the founding members of a new spacial polity: The United Galactic Imperium. Several other races were quickly convinced to join, or conquered when they violently refused. This began a policy of 'Join or Die' that has served the Imperium well, resulting in, among other things, the conquest of the Romulans in 13028.402. It also caused the decisive defeat of the Klingon invasion **** during the First Klingon/Imperial War. After that war the Imperium seized several Klingon colonies, leading to, among other things, the legendary Captain Worf. He was indirectly but correlatably responsible for the final surrender of the Klingon Empire and it's integration into the United Galactic Imperium.

The Imperium has suffered setbacks, of course: the Dominion War resulted in the capture of Vulcan by Dominion forces for a time, and the Cardassians still have not either provoked an attack by Imperial Forces or decided to sign on with the Imperium. There was, at the time our counterparts left, talk that it was high time to put the Cardassian Empire in it's place among the Imperial Senate...

There was buzz among the fifty-nine women and myself in the hangar bay, as Captain Lance took the podium.

"You all have read the synopsis of the History of this Imperium. It is NOT that of the alternate universe encountered by the USS Enterprise, or on several occasions by the crew of Deep Space Nine. In many ways they mirror our own values. Slavery is outlawed, planets are given the chance to join peacefully before they are threatened or conquered, and the very concept of assassinating a superior officer, when I explained it to my counterpart twenty minutes ago, filled her with such horror that she cut the com for five minutes to regain her mental equilibrium. I am not going to sugar coat this, ladies. We have a crisis on our hands: the I.S.S. Justice outguns us by four to one. It is a purpose built deep space exploration vessel constructed with an eye towards the possibility of having to conquer and/or colonize a planet by itself. Even if we were in a Galaxy class ourselves it would still outgun us by two to one and has superior shield and maneuvering technology into the bargain," Captain Lance gripped the podium as if she were trying to leave finger impressions in the plasma-steel. "None of that matters." she declared, and everyone began to mutter and look at her sideways. "The only thing that matters here is that we are STAR FLEET, and that means we believe in democracy. So, I put it to you, the surviving and loyal crew of the U.S.S. Ishtar: Do we join with these warmongering imperialists, or sell our lives and our ship dearly trying to give the rest of the galaxy a chance to fight them off?"