Trek BBS July/August 2023 Challenge: Contest. Any Star Trek series, era, canon, non-canon, ships, crews or characters welcome.
Trek BBS: July/August 2023 Challenge
"Contest"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X contested itself out in the boundless confines of the galactic unit. Commander Seifer gathered his senior staff onto the Bridge after having fitted it with a holo-emitter.
"Thank you all for joining me here, today, despite it being your shift hours and that time of the month all our reports are due," he began to the group at their stations.
Armond raised his hand. "I just want to clarify, these standard emitters were previously removed after the Moriarty Wars. The holographic Brits promised vengeance if we ever put them back."
"It's alright. We acquired one of those regulation Barclay holograms, that every ship has, to be on standby just in case," Seifer dismissed.
Everyone looked to see the holographic Reginald Barclay, standing in the corner. "Is— Is this Voyager? I'm really into Voyager."
"We mothballed that Kobali-violating ship, and not a moment too soon, considering how annoyingly Delta Quadrant-y it became," Lieutenant Briggs added.
Seifer sighed. "The point is: We do things. And one of those things is come up with contests to keep us sharp. In order to facilitate creative and innovative ideas, I'd like to get one from this Control-inspired AI— or, as they used to call it, Artificial Intelligence."
"We still call it that," Armond raised.
The Commander turned to face the nothingness of mid-air. "Computer! Now that I've subscribed to the app for a small monthly fee and input my prompts, you may begin rendering."
"Processing!" the computer shouted, urgently, before several copies of the Bridge crew appeared in an epic novelistic visual style.
Novelistic Seifer took in his surroundings and acknowledged the original crew. "Alright, guys. My dramatic motivation is driving me to who can come up with the best contest. Therefore, I implore the AI to render a version of us in Anime style to devise such a challenge."
"Actioning!" the computer roared in excitement, before enabling copies of the Novelistic crew to appear as Anime versions of that.
Anime Ensign Dan took out a mirror. "Ahh! My eyes are huge."
"Big enough to realize you're relieved and our contest idea will win this contest?" bargained Anime Seifer. "Pure, hot enthusiasm drives us to immediate doings. So, AI, make Steampunk versions of us to work this out! STAT!"
The computer elated, "Making!" Then, the Steampunk crew, based on the Anime and Novelistic crew, appeared, way off model, cluttering the Bridge to a near-maximum capacity.
"Our gears fit satisfyingly into other gears, which enables our realization that the contest idea should be who can come up with the best contest," Steampunk Seifer pointed out with a clicky finger. "I submit to you, conjuring contests as the idea for a contest!"
Suddenly, Armond took out his phaser and vapourized the ceiling holoemitter, causing Barclay and all duplicate versions of everyone to disintegrate out of existence.
"Yeah, you did the right thing," Original Seifer admitted. "I should have known better than to use imitation AI based on a pre-Kirk-era hyper-aggressive Section 31 app."
Armond nodded. "They had the worst writers— I mean, app developers. The lesson being, not to give up on our own brains as catalysts to shoot at things or come up with stuff."
"Agreed," Seifer lamented. "Oh! Let's get Ktarian game headsets and challenge the whole crew to a contest of psychotropic addiction. The escaping part being the contest."
To that, the Phoenix-X enthusiastically rotated in space and jumped to warp.