This particular challenge is a little ironic to me since i was already working on a similar story, though the original plot was galactic wayfarers showing up in the Betreka Nebula and ensnaring one of my starships. It sounded a bit too much like a TNG episode, so I scrapped it in favor of one of my ships being lost and winding up outside the galaxy. Like in the past, though, I wanted to tell a story from a bridge officers' perspective, so instead of a starship it's Kim's Chief Engineer and First Officer getting lost.

I broke from the guidelines, though, since they're supposed to get stuck in just a random void, but being lost in the expanse between the galaxies counts as a void right? I also have no intention in having Kala or Soral come back. In future stories, they are not on the Stellar Drift, and I kind of like the idea of them tromping around the universe with these intergalactic explorers.

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So, I resurrected the intergalactic wayfarer story and consolidated it down, though in the chapters I wrote to flesh the story out, I didn't say specifically where they were from. It's hard to get a single episode down to one or two personal logs, so some stuff got lost. There was a lot to this story, though it was fun to write. I thought it was a fun take on some of the evolutionary stories we've seen in Star Trek.

Also, Ziri for the first time as a department head. She's fast becoming a favorite character to write. Her pregnancy will lead into a few future stories, and explain the origin of a character I had on Tribble for a while.

So what was it about this challenge that keep people from doin it? Was it the specifics? Was it because of it beig voyager associated? Or was it too specific with the suggestions? Either way I'm looking forward to the next one.

I have posted my slightly rushed effort in two parts. (Part 1 and Part 2). Again I was just slightly over the character count (by 707 this time) and so had to split it up.

My original story was much larger and had two or three intwined storylines but I took a hacksaw to it to try and keep it down and therefore, I hope, make a better read. I hope it has come out ok, but I am still new to this, so if anyone has any suggestions or notices any mistakes please PM me and I may give it a few tweaks.

As for future challenges, I am looking forward to the next ones. I am beginning to think that others have a point about having a slightly looser task that allows people to expand on it in their own unique way. It also means I don't have to borrow a set of Voyager DVDs. :p

I don't want to comment too much on other people's stories as I am still very new to this and don't really know what I am talking about. However, I must confess I really did enjoy Corbantez's story, just because it included a lot of personality and a little bit of humour. I also liked how Kalic89 focused on encountering another Starfleet Vessel that had turned pirate. A chilling reminder that had our ships not escaped the void they may well have turned out the same way, very Trek.

The Voyager aspect certainly killed a lot of motivation. If the story hook was that our ship and crew got pulled through a wormhole/blackhole/anomaly then I could have had some fun but after seeing the "no stars" part it reminded me too much of Pandorum and didn't leave a lot of room to make the return to the Alpha Quadrant believable.

For me, the trouble is as I said above, it sounded too much like a TNG episode. Voyager and Enterprise (if you count The Expanse episodes), have done similar stories as well.

There was a lot of story that was asked to be covered, and condensing it into one or two log entries is a bit much. Either some story gets lost, or I need to make multiple posts, and if that's the case I might as well write a novella. If I am writing a novella, it won't be as log entries.

I also like having a bit more freedom when it comes to being able to throw a little bit more individualism into the plot, which I did since I already scrapped this idea once before, and also chose to post it as is out of stubbornness. Deviation from the rules is the Starfleet way isn't it? xD

for me it was two things, one it is ground that has been gone over quiet a few times in Trek. any approach tried to come up with just sounded like a rehash of some other episode. Second was the fact that it was rather veg, you and your ship are in the middle of nowhere, now do something. well with what? One thing about good story telling is having dynamic elements that play off one another. You have your ship and crew but nothing beyond that to interact with or have it act towards us.

now i myself have a good chunk of my crew bio written and the reason i did not participate in this challenge is because reason number one.

so lets see what the next challange holds.

Thanks again to everyone who provided feedback on this challenge, and to everyone who participated! Y'all told some great stories, and I hope everyone enjoyed reading the.

I am going to unsticky this now as I prepare to post #14 (of which will be a little different -- we'll test out some of the feedback provided ). Feel free to keep discussing, though!

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=