Trek BBS July/August 2022 Challenge: Critter Design: Non-humanoid (or any other sort of monkey). Could be animal/plant/fungus/other. Make it big enough to see - at least the size of a murder hornet or a small tree-frog. No upper size limit. Either unintelligent or so alien that we cannot communicate either by language or any form of telepathy. The more original and creative, the better.
Trek BBS: July/August 2022 Challenge
"Trouble with Critters: Marauding Moosaval"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X rotated completely off-axis around Starbase 55 for no reason whatsoever. Commander Night Seifer waited impatiently in the Conference room for his meeting when Ensign Dan suddenly entered.
"Where's Kugo? She's supposed to bring me the handheld, wired black hole generator remote for this afternoon's Task Force Epsilon tech summit!"
The Starfleet officer held up a plastic model of a black hole. "Sorry, sir. The Chief Engineer decommissioned that after realizing it would destroy any ship and/or surrounding space it was thumb-pressed-activated on and in."
"Uggh. People and their precious space-times. Well, since the Phoenix-X was previously the head of said task force when we had an actual Captain, I need to convince the other ships we should still be lead now that I'm in charge," Seifer established.
Ensign Dan nodded, solemnly. "That's some good character arc set up, Commander."
"Stop observing my personal development from afar! You're relieved!" Seifer ordered before sighing. "Damn. I guess I'll have to settle for whatever Doctor Lox was working on this morning. So awkward when I run into crew at the breakfast nook."
---
Later, Seifer and the cranky old Doctor Lox completed setting up a large, confusing contraption in the starbase's own Conference room. The Captains from the other ships began filtering in with their own less convoluted devices.
"Soooo, you're okay to not be in Sickbay for an hour?" Seifer asked, scratching the back of his head.
With the finishing touches, Lox turned the power on his device. "I'm a human, not a hologram, Commander. Suggesting otherwise is an obvious tell for a Voyager hang-up. Also, I'm very excited to debut this Genesis Device, of which I have been working on for more than 26 years. Finally, it's Lox's time to shine!"
"Wait. Really?" Seifer was taken aback in pleasant surprise. "You did it. You remade the rapid terraforming machination that will solve galactic hunger, unite warring empires and create completely new planets and Vulcans in a blink of an eye. You're going to win this century's equivalent of the Nobel Prize?"
Lox cleared away a nearby folding table as the others started crowding around in curiosity. "I think it's the Dignified Person Award now. Anyway, no. This is named after that time the Enterprise-D crew's latent DNA introns were activated, causing everyone to de-evolve into earlier species from their homeworlds. My headcannon likes to title significant episodic events and, for me, that one episode was called Genesis."
"What? That was a terrible episode with abhorrent character treatment," countered Captain Menrow of the U.S.S. Crucial. "Picard and Riker turned into nitwits. Troi was basically a MacGuffin. And, after the traditional, syndicating reset button, they acted like nothing really happened!"
The Doctor held up a finger. "Ah, but we got proto-Klingon, Discovery-era, Worf. The best part of the whole thing. As such, my device will take DNA and Threshold it on its head!"
He pressed a PADD, revving the 1-meter-high machine to fire a diagonal transporter beam onto the table, materializing an amalgamation of Andorian redbat and Denebian slime devil. The 80-centimeter-tall aquatic-avian-merged creature showed wiry red limbs around its additional limb-crowned head and giant bat wings from its back.
"Ohh, lunch!" exclaimed the Andorian and Captain Iviok of the U.S.S. Jenova. He phasered the creature and enclosed it in a standard Federation issue padded suitcase. "I'm just really into redbat and I think this is going to be an interesting treat."
Seifer turned to his Chief Medical officer. "Lox, this doesn't make any sense. Genesis and Threshold played with the preposterous science-junk concept of de- and pre-evolution when it is clearly not how evolution works. How is that absurdity applied here?"
"I'm genetically accelerating synthetic T-cell programming to fancy-bow-tie the dormant DNA of several random animals I have suspended in this portable transporter buffer," the Doctor explained as he pressed his PADD and spat out a combo Kylerian goat and Altarian marsupial. The 45-centimeter-tall four-legged furry livestock stood on its hind legs, flickering its cute ears while purring adorably.
Captain Reynolds of the U.S.S. Hijinx immediately clasped a leash around its neck and directed it off the table to where she was standing. "Ohhh! This one's mine. Insomnia-curing goats milk and regenerative enzyme droppings? It's a magic elixir fur-baby!"
"Uh," interrupted Captain Samya of the U.S.S. Dropzone. "The Commander is right. If you're not following the rules of already previously established madness, then you are inviting a cornucopia of unpredictable mania only ten-fold of what was unasked for to begin with."
Lox laughed and slapped his machine in pure, unrelenting flippancy. "You mean this old thing? Bah. I made it with left over Thalaron generator, DMA controller and Xindi sphere parts. It's tenacious, but temperate."
The reverberation from the slap then activated its array and outputted a beastly randomization of mugato, sehlat and valebeast onto the table before breaking it. The 1.8-meter-tall upright white fur monster hung long fangs from its mouth and stood on powerful hoofs. "YYAERRGGHH!" it howled in unsummoned agitation, annoyed at being formed when not actually called upon by the PADD.
"Oh, no," observed Captain McCary of the U.S.S. Tsunami. "You've descended effortlessly into unmitigated and spontaneous expulsions. Who raised you, bruh??"
The beast hoofed its giant forearms into knocking the nearby refreshments table and its drinks all over the floor. Reynolds was already pouring water into a glass for her magic pet when she noticed the chaos.
"Agh! Dammit, Commander Seifer," cursed Captain Menrow. "Like the agonizing Arin'Sen, that thing obviously does not like being alive. Since Lox is under your command, you are to be responsible for this unadulterated Tora Ziyal mishmash."
The white furry beast then growled in agony at the existential crisis of just being. "AEERRHHH?!?" It continued going about the room, smashing various food tables, desert set-ups and elegant fruit bars.
"Hey!" approached Seifer. "Sure, being an accidental amassment of raging confusion is all fun and games and missing eyes, but what gets accomplished can only be measured in searing, malevolent levels of Armus goo. If you're not embracing or circumventing your stereotype, you're the problem."
The large thing then stopped to think about that. A hesitation enough for Commander Seifer to fire a force-palm into the Genesis Device, causing it to cough and sputter and rev up its last held transporter patterns.
The expected beam shot out and materialized one final amalgamation of targ, tribble and Warp-10 salamander upon the broken table. The 100-centimeter-tall, four-legged pig-like, purring furball with a wet tail trotted over to the white beast and rubbed itself upon the beast's leg, lovingly.
"WARRRHHHH," the large thing petted its new friend with fresh devotion.
Captain Samya couldn't help but smile. "Aw. I guess ten-fold peaks at adorableness. I will maintain caution, but be open to the possibility of embracing double-outlier canon breaks. As for these guys, does anyone want to take them in on their ship? Maybe give them a commission and hijack other crewmember's B-plots?" But, with a long, drawn-out awkward silence, the group then turned to Commander Seifer.
"Alright. Leadership time," the Commander elevated. "Sacrifices are general atonements, but they can also be the dawn of new paradigms," he announced. Then, unable to think of anything that would both satisfy everyone and himself, he realized, "I've got it. We all leave him here on Starbase 55 for the Admiral to take care of. Hurry! Before he gets here!"
Seemingly gratified with this management direction, everyone scrambled in a panic and began grabbing their stuff and the intact food and deserts off the floor before beaming back to their ships. When the last men had disappeared, Admiral Cloud finally entered the Conference room to find the complete mess of his set up and the two new creatures for his benefit.
"Sorry I'm late. We had several time travelling incidents, including another whale one if you can believe— WHAT THE HELL??" He picked up a nearby chip bowl in defense before realizing the beast was no longer agitated. "Oh. I shall call you, Moosaval. Come. Let's go chase various Romulans in some secret ops missions," he offered while ushering it and its friend out into the hallway. This was the going to be the start of a beeeeautiful friendship.