#kts Very Different Vibes from turn A

[whilomm]

finished Turn A and really loved it, after a couple of days decided to start reconguista in G, and like an hour in this bitch comes back in all dolled up

YOU WILL NEVER BE HIM

[fakeosirian]

these are the voyages...of the uss anubis!

aka my very self-indulgent ds9-era (but heavily inundated with aos plotline inspo?? somehow??) house of anubis star trek au

started out as mashing together two things i enjoy like barbie dolls, but eventually it turned into half a plotline (for just season 1, roughly), so here you go!

Captain/CO: Joy!...until The Incident Acting Captain/CO: Nina!...after The Other Incident First Officer/XO/Science Officer: Fabian Chief Medical Officer: Mara Chief Engineer: Patricia Pilot: Jerome Operations: Alfie Communications: Amber Security/Tactical: Mick

[for later bits: Joy becomes Captain again with Nina as her XO, Eddie replaces Mick on Security/Tactical, Fabian becomes XO again after Nina leaves, Willow's the ship counselor, and KT would be a special consultant type diplomat/scientist brought on the ship long term (idk haven't thought this far ahead tbh)]

(VERY LOOSE) PLOT SUMMARY FOR S1-ISH:

Fabian, Joy, and Patricia are friends from the Academy. One brutal introductory Astrophysics class later, they were inseparable, even though Patricia was on the Operations track, Fabian had his eye on the Sciences, and Joy wanted Command. (They were vaguely aware of/classmates with the others – Mick, Amber, and Mara were a comparable trio, and Alfie and Jerome were (in)famous around campus. Nina, notably, was studying to be a Federation ambassador, but things went a bit…sideways for her. More on that later.)

Fast-forward a few placements later, and they’re full-fledged officers awaiting their next assignments. Fabian worked his way through the ranks on a few different science vessels and hopes for a department head placement on an exploratory ship. Joy’s put in her dues as a tactical officer on border patrol ships, getting promoted to XO on her previous posting and hoping her intelligence work for a certain Admiral Rodenmaar will get her a favorable consideration for a command position. Patricia was forced to make a track shift from Security to Engineering after…an incident…at the Academy, but she surprised herself with how good she ended up being at it. Despite her hot temper, she impressed her chiefs at each of her assignments; she’s not asking for a promotion, but she’s been told it’s a firm possibility, depending on who her captain is.

While catching up on Spacedock One, Joy is…excited, but tight-lipped about why. They don’t have to wait long for an explanation; their assignments come down. Lieutenant Commander Fabian Rutter, USS Anubis, Science Officer. Lieutenant Commander Patricia Williamson, USS Anubis, Chief Engineer. Captain Joy Mercer, USS Anubis, Commanding Officer. She’d handpicked them for her senior staff, their first opportunity to all serve on a ship together, and an exploratory vessel, at that. (Fabian and Patricia never get a good explanation for how she shot up in the ranks so quickly, and despite the Anubis’s slightly dubious reputation as “cursed,” a lucrative placement. The last time they’d spoken (after some periods of total communication blackout while she was on assignment for Admiral Rodenmaar), she’d just been promoted to Commander. That had been quick, but not entirely unexpected – she’d sailed right over Lieutenant senior grade to Lt. Cmdr. in years past, and it was clear she had a special (classified) assignment lined up that called for the pips. But Captain? She’d be among the youngest in the fleet.)

What’s more: Joy wants Fabian to be her first officer. He’s hesitant – he took some command classes back in the day, but he doesn’t have the certification. Problem easily solved, Joy says: she has a sitting of the Bridge Officer’s Test scheduled for him before they leave drydock. Apparently, this can’t be argued. (Ultimately this test would end up looking a lot vibes-wise like the Senet game from season 2, but instead of peaking and resolving mounting tension between them, it’s sort of the reverse. He passes, just barely, but they argue during the test over his decisions (or lack thereof), and in light of her odd career moves, Fabian starts to get a bad gut feeling about all of this.)

At the same time, Nina is hitting a quarter-life crisis. Turns out she’s not cut out for diplomacy – she didn’t assume that lying was part of the job description, but apparently it comes up – and while she had training comparable to that of Starfleet Academy back on Trill (she’s an unjoined Trill btw), actually getting into Starfleet as an officer would be a huge hassle. She knew she wanted to do something big with her life, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the path towards it (whatever it was) would not be straightforward, if passable at all.

And then the ship she’s on crashes. On the ship was another Trill, a joined, elderly woman named Sarah Neris, who is fatally injured in the crash. It’s not ideal to do delicate procedures in a literal crash site, but Nina is the only unjoined Trill on board and aid is too far away to reach them in time for the symbiont to survive. Feeling the pull of fate, Nina volunteers to take the symbiont. The procedure is a success, the Neris symbiont accepts her, and Sarah offers her some ominous parting words: beware the black bird.

(One snag: the Neris symbiont also sustained injuries in the crash. The doctor was certain it won’t reject her in future, but her ability to communicate and properly join with it is limited while it heals. She’s warned she may experience some “psychological disturbances,” but they’ll clear up in time. It’s not comforting.)

The Anubis is given its shakedown mission. It’s very top-secret, hush-hush, all under orders of a mysterious board (it’s just the Society, basically). Patricia catches Joy on a call with a panel made up of Admiral Rodenmaar and Commodores Sweet and Andrews, and she confronts her over the secrecy. She admits she wishes she could tell her more, but the Admiralty have been burned in the past regarding the subject of their mission. The intelligence risk is too high. Patricia doesn’t like this, but she doesn’t want to argue with Joy.

Intros to the rest of the senior staff. Mission goes well until suddenly it isn’t. They do damage control, but Joy is summoned back to Headquarters in San Francisco.

Something something equivalent scene to Joy “being kidnapped” while Nina petitions her place in Starfleet in front of a panel. Lies by omission about how long she’s been joined – her lying is still really bad, FWIW, but the Society is in need of a stooge, and the Neris symbiont apparently has a Starfleet history that Nina’s able to access well enough to come off competent/help her along credentials-wise. (Have Nina hold some sort of equivalent rank from her work on Trill to make this less ridiculous. I’m going for ST09core set post-Bermantrek, but this is still a bit much.) Without asking for it, she’s promoted to Acting Captain Nina Neris, USS Anubis, effective immediately, and is sent to meet her senior staff.

Patricia’s…not pleased, and accuses Nina of being involved in Joy’s absence. Fabian protests, in this AU less because he disagrees with Patricia (because at this junction he doesn’t), but more because hey, maybe antagonizing the new captain is a bad idea? Nina takes his defense of her as more personal than it was intended, though, and despite his own sinking dread, Fabian decides to try and work with her until he’s able to get a better read on the situation.

Given a diplomatic mission to get everyone settled/take advantage of Nina’s existing skills – it’s feels like “busywork,” but after the disaster that was the Anubis’s first mission, none of the crew (besides Patricia) are complaining. During this mission, Nina gets disturbing dreams passed to her via the (still healing) symbiont, and after a bonding moment during the mission proper, she confides in Fabian about it. (Bonus: something about the mission itself is triggering the dreams, which are actually warped memories of Sarah’s time in Starfleet.)

One of the details strikes Fabian as uncomfortably like something odd he noticed during the mission preceding Joy’s disappearance. He elects to look through the Federation database, but when he tries, he gets an information security lockout that can’t be overridden by his rank or his status as XO. At the same time, Patricia’s been trying to get in contact with Admiral Rodenmaar without much luck. She does get in contact with a new desk jockey back at Headquarters, Jason Winkler; he’s receptive to her inquiries at first, sensing something “out of order,” but he ceases communication rather abruptly.

And that’s when they’re assigned a mission that looks even more dangerous than the last.

After that, it’d proceed similarly to S1 in that the missions are triggers for further memories (especially as the symbiont heals) while at the same time being unwitting contributors to the Society’s greater aims (I’m thinking something similar to the DS9 plot surrounding genetically modified humans and Section 31? That’s as close to ‘immortality’ and sussy secret society stuff as you get with standard Star Trek lore). To get around the information block, Nina and Fabian need to get Amber in on it (and hope she doesn’t spill the beans). Patricia becomes increasingly hostile to Nina (and as a result Fabian, who she perceives as a “traitor” who was “got by them too”), especially once she comes in contact with a “Section 31 agent” (Rufus, lying) who encourages her to pass on classified details of the Anubis’s mission plans, past and future.

Comes to a head when Rufus is captured by Starfleet Security en route to a meeting Patricia arranged with Nina accompanying her. More cagey, but ultimately they end up exchanging information and joining the same side (against the Admiralty). This is straight up mutiny, though, so they have to be careful about how much they give away. They continue completing missions that seem increasingly interrelated with the addition of the Neris symbiont’s new memories and Rufus’s information.

Finally, it comes to a head when they’re sent to retrieve a “lost, damaged shuttle” with strict orders not to engage with it (past tractoring it into their shuttle bay) or allow anyone in or out. As far as they’re told, there isn’t anyone on it. They do not believe this. Cue Fabian doing some sensor shenanigans, and he detects one faint life sign; against orders, they open the shuttle, and inside is Rufus. He escaped successfully (maybe Sibuna fed him some info to help out earlier?), but not undamaged, and now they’re really flirting with a court martial.

Rufus directs them to a planet that would “answer all of their questions” – this is where it goes a bit Into Darkness (sorry, it’s fitting, unfortunately) and Victor shows up with a Big Boy Ship at their destination to try and get them to leave. Joy’s on the ship, too, begging them to stop interfering, lest horrible consequences befall them. Turns out Rufus wants to revive a cell of frozen survivors from the Eugenics Wars, not for his own personal army, but to extend his own life. (He doesn’t really trust people to follow his directions, but he does trust their blood to keep him alive longer.)

Nina is forced to follow Victor’s orders (it’s clear he knows about their meddling, but he’s giving them a not-so-subtle “chance” to avoid serious consequences by going with his lead at this final stand against an obvious mutual enemy); once all is said and done, Rufus’s ship exploded and him assumed dead, Nina is demoted to XO, Fabian retains his rank and department head title but loses XO, and Joy is reinstated as Captain.

None of them quite know what to believe – Joy is extremely tight-lipped for her part, entirely unwilling to talk about the Admiralty and her time away. Patricia mostly buys that Rufus was a bad guy, and she’s happy to have achieved her goal (get Joy back), but things still don’t smell right. Fabian, Nina, and Amber feel similarly, but they’re more relieved they didn’t lose their careers (or lives). That doesn’t keep the tension between Joy and Nina from immediately boiling over into something that will be…a problem.

Potential backfill plot points: getting Alfie involved (being in charge of Ops, it’d be natural to want him helping out on sensor problems/transporter stuff/excavating info from computer systems), revealing more of Sarah’s past with Victor and Rufus (since she does have one, and on the Anubis, too! But I kind of like having that as a long-term thing instead of a “resolved in s1 equivalent” thing due to the lore complications), plotline for Mara/Jerome/Mick to get involved in (could go with a romance plotline, but tbh I like the idea of them either having mundane ship operations issues (since the rest of the senior staff is…busy…) or even being suspicious of their coworkers/commanding officers and doing an investigation of their own on the side).

i'll come back and do a s2-esque (and s3) plotline at some point and link it at the bottom of this post