It's been a long road, getting from there to here...

A Star Trek / X-Com Crossover

It's been a long road, getting from there to here.
It's been a long time, but my time is finally near.
And I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.
And they're not gonna hold me down no more, no they're not gonna change my mind.

Commander [Redacted] Log

Combat Date 2019.0418

We've survived. Somehow.

No incursions for over a year now since the Temple ship went down, amazing really, I truly feared throughout that whole mission that we'd...I'd ...failed them, all of them when that final desperate assault took place in the skies and in the end it was only Zhang's sacrifice that ultimately saved us, saved the world. And even after the destruction of the Temple ship I feared for the next blow, the next counterattack, while the others celebrated when Bradford announced its destruction that more would come, that some new terror lurked in the darkness to snatch this victory from us again as they had before, mocking my attempts to hold back the tide at each turn, how many victories had turned bitter in my mouth even as they arrived?

This was a war for our very survival as a civilization, as a species, and it's hard to forget how close we came to that horror of defeat, all those nightmares that will not stop haunting my sleepless nights, that at so many points along the road a stumble could have cost us everything and price we've paid for that victory. Dear Lord the price we've paid...that I've made my boys and girls pay... in the spilled blood, in the twisted and mutated bodies for this repreieve, for this stay of execution. I won't let it be in vain but I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for making them pay it.

The Council are pushing for greater research into the alien technologies, more breakthroughs, but I've told them there are been unrealistic in immediate success, and Doctor Vahlen agrees with me in her reports, that while we've very successfully created hybrid weapons and jury-rigged craft such as the Firestorm through our war against the Aliens a true understanding of their creation, such as the vital Elerium and Meld will take years, maybe decades.

And funding; the always hard to get funding to do so. The Council nations, well those left at least, and the remnants of the US government are discussing ... rather insisting if I'm been honest, on the full disclosure of the events of the war to the public and our role in it, that it will help push through the reform of the Council and the Unite Nations into this proposed new United Earth Government. I understand their reasons, we have won...but...the world is a mess, my failing, my doing in the end, America, China, Nigeria, Australia all in ruins having left the Council at the darkest point of the war, even here in Europe where the beating heart of our operations the damage and terror was, and still is, felt. We have limited choice left but to unite now in name and not just in hidden deeds they say now that the pressures of the assaults have eased and a rebuilding must take place, that my warnings of further threats lurking in the stars are well founded and only united can we face them.

I can agree with many of their reasons, and the my operatives should receive the accolades they deserve, those alive and those who paid the toll for our species survival in the most noble of sacrifices but I fear for the MEC Troopers and the Augments, time needs to given to make the public accepting of them, I have already made them pay such a heavy price and I will not have them pay more after all they have done for us. I will have not have these sacrifices abused for petty politics so that some fool can play King of the Sandcastle on the deeds and blood of others,

I know Humanity only too well to believe the surviving nations motives as purely altruistic, too often has tyranny been allowed to fester in the wounds after a war and not all of Exalts operatives have been accounted for too my liking and I WILL NOT allow this organisation to be taken from its mandate of protecting humanity to allowing the use of our hard won spoils as tools of oppression and enslavement as some would so desire.

And...and...I...I do not want to remembered not after all I have done... they wish to call me a Hero and trumpet my "success" to the heavens, as if I have done some noble task, some heroic feat. One that is built on the corpses of those who trusted me, had faith in me even as I ordered them to their deaths.

No that will not be, I will not allow it, if I have strength my name shall be forgotten to history.

I can only hope that I have done my duty and that the walls will hold if the storm ever comes again.

Vigilo Confido

Combat Date 2022.0722

Project Report Dr. Moira Vahlen

Code Name: Dreadnaught

The success of Operation Gangplank in late 2017 had presented ourselves with both great potential and great challenge with our gaining possession of an undamaged Alien Battleship (UES Enterprise), great potential in our capacity to observe and study fully functional alien technology and as today capacity to use the battleship in a, albeit reduced form comparative to its full capabilities, combat role should the Alien threat re-emerge in the coming years. The great challenge lies in the half a decade since its capture we have only an inclining of the mechanism behind the operation of this vessel and have found that with the need to conserve our stores of Elerium and Meld due to the lack of capacity to produce or acquire more, our researchers abilities to test out the full extent of the vessels systems.

Testing on the engines dimensional travel system has been forbidden on fear of the battleship transiting and being unrecoverable by X-Com or United Earth forces or becoming sufficiently damaged to retain operable. Due to these restrictions and the concerns we have in consultation with the Engineers under Dr. Shen conducted research under the Commanders direction into the development of equivalent vessel to be largely built using conventional means, or from alien systems that can be duplicated in some manner from our current infrastructural and industrial base, so as to preserve our stockpiles of needed materials for existing platforms and for retaining the Enterprise in a combat capable capacity.

While the Commander and the Council have been made aware that these vessels will be significantly underpowered compared to the larger vessels currently encountered among the Aliens it is felt that a capacity to produce a significant number of these human built vessels will in combination with our enhanced satellite network deny orbital control to any invaders and as such prevent the abductions and terror attacks that so haunt our soldiers minds even in this time of supposed peace, thus allowing future construction of orbital shipbuilding infrastructure.

The results of this research and analysis is reflected in the proposed space capable battleship design currently codenamed Dreadnaught which while using research drawn the various alien technologies is constructable entirely from our current technological and industrial base, though with the proviso that use of several vessels such as the Enterprise to help ferry several portions of the construction from earth to orbit will likely be necessary owing to expected weight of the proposed vessels (projected at just over 150,000 tons) and their large size owing to both the bulkier nature of the technologies present on the vessels and the need to use reflective and absorptive armour layers rather the alien alloys in their construction.

These layers of armour belts plus a polarization system on the outer hull armour is felt will allow the projected design a degree of survivability against the larger alien vessels, though power levels encountered on the Temple Ship will reduce this survivability dramatically, and we have been forced to reduce crew numbers (to 2400 per vessel) and increase automation significantly to account for this increased size.

In terms of weaponry the vessels are to be equipped a series of systems based upon captured alien technologies such as the Fusion Lance, though these are significantly less powerful than those currently possessed by our Firestorm aircraft (projected 1/3 of level) owing to requirement to use less powerful fusion reactors (8 to be installed on the vessel) built within Europe and North America comparative to captured alien systems and as such a "battery" system is expected to be the most effective usage of the fusion lance in combination with the vessels complement of nuclear missiles, conventional missiles and EMP system.

Owing to restrictions on the usage of Elerium we have proposed the addition of multiple Rail gun batteries in lieu of Plasma weaponry for defence against smaller alien craft such as the small and large Scouts that may prove to mobile and maneuverable for the larger and slower firing main batteries. Due to our the lack of adequate capability to produce an effective space hanger system for the Firestorms or other space going fighters a Drone system has been designed into the vessel for both increasing sensor range and providing a limited offensive weapon system.

Owing to the intensive material and labour inputs these vessels will need to be constructed in modular format while at the same time creating a final assemble area(s) within either Russia, North America or Europe and will due to need for precession sealing process for space combat will result in a construction cost almost four times that of a Nimitz Class Aircraft carrier and will require between 16 and 24 months for the earth based components to be completed, another 6 to 11 months for the final assembly. The difficulty lies in transporting the four final assembled modules to orbit and their final assembly due our current lack of effective anti-gravity technology build-able within our current industry and our lack of current orbital assembly infrastructure and as such the usage of the "Enterprise" to help transport the various components into orbit safely and aid in the final assembly process necessary and this final assembly and testing process is expected to take a year based upon current projections.

Extract from: X-Com: The Blood of Martyrs by Nathan Fitzwilliam (2048)(Oxford University Press)

...and while some information about the X-Com organisation and its role in the defeat of the invasion of our world in 2016 had been within the public domain through footage recorded by civilians often caught in the midst of the alien destruction and terror and through records disclosed as several governments, most notably the United States of America in 2017, entered a period of collapse and many Top Secret files were revealed in the chaos the true extent of the role played by X-com organisation in this victory only became apparent on the Disclosure of 2020 by the nascent United Earth Government which had been established from the remains of the also secretive Council of Nations.

In truth in spite of the Disclosure it is very evident there is much we do not know about X-com unlike the United Earth Defence Forces (UEDF) and United Earth Space Command (UESC) , and it is most likely we may never know about the organisation truly as it remains very secretive to this day and it was very evident during the disclosure period in 2020 that the organisation was very much opposed to revealing any more information than required; to this day we do not know the name of the Commander of X-Com, nor the members of its Oversight Council or Mission Control, with even the exact location of its Headquarters facility been unknown, though it is currently suspected to be of the European bases of the organisation established post war.

What is apparent though is the necessity of the organisation at critical points in the invasion, cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai, Manchester, Seattle, Mexico City and Paris would have all been destroyed without the actions of X-Com forces and revelations of the final battle in the Atlantic and the heroic sacrifice of Shaojie Zhang has done much to win the organisation and the new Augments that helped win the fight (whether MEC, Gene or Psionic) the respect they deserve from the global populace.

Indeed without X-Com's success in researching the captured Alien substance known as Meld and into genetic research without the subsequent abuses seen from the defunct Exalt organisation and its splinter group within the short lived Caliphate we would not have achieved the successful usage of gene and cybernetic augmentation as we seen today, which has saved millions of lives from the ravages of post invasion diseases and hunger while enabling millions more a better standard of living in spite of previously fatal injuries.

While criticism was directed at the United Earth Government and X-Com's Research departments throughout the 2020's and 2030's post Disclosure for failure to release the full Meld substance to the general public it has generally been accepted by the late 2030's that this was the correct option owing to dangers associated with lack of understanding of Meld and the requirements to retain the stockpiles in the event of the return of the invaders; it is less than a decade ago that the ability to replicate Meld was discovered and this produces only a limited amount even with the large energy expenditure required in the process.

The option to develop a safe, mass producible version instead while seen with impatience and desire for an immediate solution at the time has proven largely successful with first basic gene mods been released to wealthier citizens in 2028 by Pharmaceutical companies operating under the supervision of X-Com and the first stable and controllable nano-machine swarm being achieved in 2035; since then the cost of the development and treatment of these mods has fallen much like processing power for computers increased yet price dropped in the later quarter of the Twentieth Century and the...

Commanders [Redacted] Log
Combat Date 2022.0923

Disturbing reports are emerging from the Caliphate border regions from refugees that sound suspiciously like usage of alien technology and the possibility of an Exalt presence within the region, one of our Operatives during a recent covert mission has found a degree of indirect evidence such as presence of Laser weaponry among the local soldiers which possess a different design to that provided to the UEDF taskforce on the borders, and our contacts among the Israeli and Iranian militaries have passed along supporting reports of indigenous manufacture of these weapons. Of course we have to treat these reports with grain of salt though as pressure is coming from the Council to involve X-Com personnel in what looks to be the coming clash with the increasingly aggressive Caliphate...[audible sigh]...and the presence of Aliens, their technology, or Exalt remnants would require us to intervene as while the usage of laser weapons and improved body armour within the UEDF's component national armies has increased the fact remains opposite the Aliens or what was Exalt conventional forces are still at a severe disadvantage.

Which the Council knows of course and I'd be more trusting of these reports if they hadn't used exactly the same rumours to attempt to get X-Com involved in that fiasco in America between the Mexicans, the Americans and that "provisional Texas government" last year, we need to keep the populace's trust now after Disclosure and keep our eyes firmly fixed on the real threat, the Alien Threat, not on petty politics and national interests. Current I've settled for sending a further covert operation into eastern Syria along with increased satellite surveillance where the most worrying rumours are coming from and I've placed both Alpha and Beta squads on rotating readiness alert with the Skyranger continuously prepped – just like the bad days again it seems, though the lot of them seem only too happy at the prospect of combat again. I don't know whether to be proud or disappointed.

In better news Project Dreadnaught has been approved by the United Earth formally today so the first components should be entering production later, probably towards Christmas time, once a few of these vessels are completed we should hopefully be able to fully secure our orbital's from any intrusions and to start pushing outwards to the asteroid fields and outer planets moons – if we can just establish a space borne mining and shipbuilding capacity in the next decade we'll give those bastards such a surprise if, when, they come back. I'm disappointed that it'll be the end of the decade though before these are ready of course, but beggars cannot be choosers of course, so in the interim we'll just have to settle for deployment of the modified space-shuttle designs of Project Workhorse for initial defence and the production of conventional satellites for long range coverage – I know the Firestorm pilots don't like it but we've got to be careful with Elerium and ration it out for quite possibly decades and their patrols are consuming too much to be viable without the ability to restore our stockpile, so we'll just have to settle for expanding the detection system through the solar system by more old fashioned and sustainable means, Bradford has even added the Moon to the new Holo-globe so the greater warning we receive the better our interceptions will be.

Indeed our efforts to press forward may be aided from the civilian sector as a European-Japanese consortium has approached the UEG in regards the acquisition of technologies to aid them in a possible round trip to Mars, and later establishment of a colony on the Red planet, while I am very reluctant to grant our hard won technologies to a civilian sector Dr. Vahlen has indicated transfer of several basic developments from the Alien Nav Computers and Fusion reactors would help in the long term development of systems for the Dreadnaughts and provide indirect funding for an advanced space transport vessel which the Council has so far resisted providing funding for; due to these reasons I'm going to propose a phased sale of the most basic developments which will increase funds available for future projects and also provide us a backdoor to develop future projects.

Vigilo Confido

Note:

* First things first; I don't own Star Trek nor X-com (as if anyone believed otherwise) so usual fanfiction disclaimer here.

* This fanfic timeline is built on a victory in X-Com Enemy Within and on a canon Star Trek universe till humanity arrives on the scene.

* Feedback is welcome, but I would ask not to start a technical battle over the universes, I've done my best to balance the two universes and make guesses based on technology that's not full explained in game/shows.