USS Columbia To Make First Contact With Barrier Espers

SAFE HARBOR, THE SAGITTARIUS REACH — Starfleet Command today confirmed that the Federation starship Columbia (NCC-85279) is preparing to meet with beings transformed by the Galactic Barrier.
Acting on intelligence from the Federation’s Losarian allies, Captain Theo Whittaker and the crew of the Columbia are currently en route to Safe Harbor, a world at the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy believed to be home to a community of individuals who have been transformed during interactions with the mysterious Galactic Barrier. Rumours also suggest that this settlement may also be home to the descendants of the SS Valiant- an early Earth exploration vessel that disappeared in the late 2060s.
“Although Starfleet has previously encountered dangerous life forms who have been radically affected by exposure to the Galactic Barrier, we are still committed to peaceful coexistence with all life in this galaxy,” said Whittaker in a press release. “We choose to believe that espers such as Gary Mitchell and Geirrod Agnarsson are exceptions rather than the rule.”
One of the individuals mentioned by Whittaker, Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell of Starfleet, was a senior officer aboard the Federation starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain James Kirk. Contact with the Great Barrier imbued him with extraordinary abilities, and the crew was forced to kill him to secure both their own safety, and that of the galaxy at large.
It is this fact that has lead to a discontented response among certain members of standing within the Federation’s bureacracy. The mission has drawn fierce criticism from the Diplomatic Corps in particular, who point to the fact that Whittaker has had no diplomatic training and therefore is “unqualified” for what is a dangerous assignment. “We are putting lives at risk trusting the outcome of this mission to a former engineer without formal diplomatic training” said a source who spoke to FNS on the condition of anonymity.
 
Written by Theo Whittaker