ONE
"A drop of green life travelled from the outermost boundaries and arrived on an empty plain.
It's fate was known to no one but they who had lived the lives of similar reincarnates. Those beings who had breathed and seen, and walked and dreamed.
For there is nothing new in a world of atoms that do not die.
Their fates come quickly, their designations disappear. Their eyes go dark and their breath returns to the wind.
Destinies are pre-made and prayers fall on ignorant ears. The hopes and life works of beings who have came before and will come soon more.
For nothing can be new in a world of old, but old can renew and what is lost is soon restored."
"...And you found that in some old, Klingon scroll?"
"Shut up, Tom"
Star date 47106.8.
The USS Voyager crew had experienced their fair share of scientific, archaeological, literary and palaeontological discoveries.
They had travelled space and time and planetary systems.
They had been replicated, blown up, frozen, kidnapped, and in pilot Tom Paris' case, even transmutated through accelerated evolution.
The incident had left him with a detached tongue and at this moment, his wife B'Elanna Torres wished the oral muscle might have stayed detached.
"I just find it incredible that anyone from our side of space knew what was going on. Unless of course they were in on the conspiracy?"
He scratched his shaven chin in fake curiosity. B'Elanna inhaled a deep, calming breath.
"Maybe they were working with the romulans to create a race of submissive super-polymorphs"
"There's nothing 'super-polymorph' about you, you're as sophisticated as leola root stew"
"... Bet I smell better though?"
B'Elanna's smiled sideways at him as her impatience dissipated.
Pausing in thought, the engineer continued, "... It's strange to think of you with another wife..."
The couple were sat dressed and ready in their quarters.
It was early and this alpha shift promised to be as full as outrageous surprises as the last dozen.
Captain Janeway had returned to her post after less than a week's rest.
The Voyager computer database had been dissected, stripped, scrutinised and otherwise pulled to bits by every member of the starship's crew in that time.
Continuing the investigation into the great mystery of 'human reincarnation' had become the Starfleet crews new and very urgent assignment, and crew members Seven of Nine and Harry Kim had placed themselves in charge of leading the efforts.
How to reconcile their unknown past with their present was the crew's most immediate task, however. The journey of discovery starting with learning who they were, and how and why they had lived.
B'Elanna's alter ego had been married to a man called Eric. The couple were parents to two daughters, one of which she had given birth to the same year her friend and colleague Ms Ryan had died.
Exploring the life of Roxann, her family, friends and associates had been disturbing enough without the fact Roxann had been an actress in a television series which had been the blueprint of her current life in the 24th century.
This was the Voyager crew's secondary investigation; how could their past have laid the path for their future in this way?
The half-Klingon found the whole mystery to be deeply troubling.
And yet, the Klingons themselves, at least the ancient Klingons, could have had some knowledge of this truth.
"....Nothing can be new in a world of old... Old can renew... What is lost is soon restored..."
Had the answers been present all along, but were now lost, long buried in history?
How many ancient cultures knew about this mystery heritage and when did the reincarnations start?
Travelling the galaxy and building the federation had exposed humanity, the Klingons and many other species to histories and phenomena which had built a rich and immensely complicated picture of this fraction of the universe.
The federation knew that the knowledge it possessed was still only a very small part of the knowledge that existed. But it had distressed B'Elanna, and many other crew members, all of whom were scientists, to be confronted with the reality that everything they had thought they had known about humanity and indeed, the whole of planet Earth's beginnings, were potentially a fallacy.
And if the history of Earth was potentially false, how many other homeworld's histories were also concocted, and who was responsible for all this uncertainty?
The engineers anxious mind became frustrated once more.
She wanted answers, and wished that the most intelligent human in the universe, Seven of Nine, would at least be able to come up with some.
----
"Commander, might I remind you that your self-pity is an indulgence. That your time is better spent in research, rather than in remorse, particularly for words you never said, nor actions you ever committed..."
In Lieutenant Commander Tuvok's small office, an ex-Maquis, spiritualist, 24th century feminist sat with his head lowered before the only man aboard he believed could judge him fairly and without lenience.
Commander Chakotay had been devastated first for the woman Kate Mulgrew. Whose consciousness had after centuries-away, resurfaced following Captain Janeway's brief assimilation into the Borg collective.
And secondly, more painfully, and more selfishly he believed, he had felt devastation for his role in the disgrace which was 20th and 21st century patriarchal oppression.
"But I was Robert -" he said quietly, painfully.
"You were nobody," answered Tuvok quickly, "Your cycle of consciousness had not yet begun."
The Commander had been unable to come to terms with the reported behaviour of 20th century actor Robert Beltran, a man who shared his exact DNA, and so had sought counsel in the ever logical-minded, older Lieutenant's company.
Following his colleague's death, Robert Beltran had continued to make light of the tragic situation by asserting his own particular brand of 'masculinity' in a way he believed the world would benefit.
Following a string of interviews in which he complained bitterly about how the 'sex-crazed' actresses had 'selfishly' compromised the 'moral integrity' of the Star Trek franchise before 'blowing it to pieces entirely', fans of Jeri and Kate and their legacy as revolutionary, queer actresses had responded with fury, and some with violence.
Loud protests headed by loud, angry women, and "Too many homosexuals", according to Beltran, had resulted in violent scuffles with religious protesters and newly emerging male rights counter protesters.
Beltran soon became a 'male rights' icon, with the small community of male activists deploring the lesbian actresses 'feminist destruction of male lead production companies'. A "crime" which had resulted in the subsequent unemployment of male actors such as Robert Beltran, "An innocent man just trying to make an honest living".
Beltran had revelled in the attention and had attended many numerous 'male rights' conferences where he spoke at length about his "ordeal" following Kate and Jeri's "illicit romance" and Jeri's "selfish" suicide.
On the 22nd of February 1999, on what would have been the deceased actresses 31st birthday, Kate Mulgrew made a public statement decrying Robert Beltran's claims of "male-persecution", and pleading with him to stop using Jeri's name to expound upon his theories of "female emotional instability" and how this relates to the sustainability of "strong, male-built institutions", "like Paramount Pictures", Beltran had alleged.
Beltran had responded by using Mulgrew's coldly emotive statement before reporters and television crews as an example of said 'female instability', ridiculing Mulgrew in his own statement to the press and recommending that she see a psychiatrist, "a male one".
Kate Mulgrew had not made any more public appearances following Beltran's statement.
Chakotay raised his head to expose his anguished face and he looked helplessly out onto the never-ending starfield before him.
He had suppressed his feelings of shame for almost a week, and he was frustrated with himself for feeling the urge to discuss them now, and with a man he would never consider a friend. He wished he could control these feelings by himself or through his meditations.
But Tuvok's calm, and unsympathetic presence anchored him in the way he suspected it would.
Before either was forced to say anything more however, the Commander received a hail.
"Commander Chakotay," announced the voice of the Doctor, "Bring Mr Tuvok to Holodeck one with you. Captain Janeway has given me permission to report details of an exciting new away mission for you.
Seven of Nine has identified what could be a planet of continuous incarnation.
They will meet you down there. You are to select and brief an away team."
"... What is the Captain doing?" Enquired Chakotay, anxiously standing to his feet and straightening his jacket.
"... Spending time with Seven, I imagine" replied the Doctor.