Star Trek: Special Operations

Star Trek: Special Operations is a fan-fiction series written by CaptCalhoun, also known as Sundance. The series debuted in 2005 and consists of a 12-part ‘main’ series and spin-off stories, which number 24 to date.

The main series of Special Ops follows the career of Scott Freeman from a security officer on the Enterprise-D to captain of a prototype ‘stealth starship’. The spin-offs largely deal with the exploits of other Special Ops officers in other time periods.

Special Ops is intended to be an action-adventure series, with the author expressing little interest in ‘navel-gazing, soul-searching’ and a more TOS-style focus on adventure.

Special Ops – also known as SO or Spec Ops – is largely set between 2376 and 2380. Part 1 deals with Freeman’s early career between 2360 and 2374. Part 2 is set entirely with the Dominion War period. The series is intended to be set in ‘unseen corners’ of the Trek universe. The Special Operations division of Starfleet is described as being the smallest, although it expanded during the War years.

Stories

Part 1: In the Beginning. Scott Freeman, an 18-year old British man enrols in Starfleet Academy in 2360. He is somewhat socially awkward, but tactically gifted, successfully passing the Kobayashi Maru test in his third year as a security cadet. Upon graduation he joins the crew of the Enterprise-D as a night-shift security officer. In 2367 he is reassigned to Deep Space 9, being promoted to junior Lieutenant. In 2375, he is part of the crew of the Defiant fighting the Borg before joining the Enterprise-E for a trip back in time.

Part 2: The Dominion War. Freeman is promoted to Lieutenant Commander and command of a Starfleet Special Ops commando unit. Over the next two years, he leads his unit in several daring missions against the Dominion. At the end of the war, he is promoted to Commander and his unit is transferred to the USS Wraith, a prototype ‘stealth starship’.

Part 3: Gateways: Hard Contact. Tying into the Gateways mini-series of novels, Hard Contact sees the Wraith deployed on it’s first mission to destroy an Iconian gateway on a pre-warp planet.

Part 4: Nick of Time. The Wraith travels back to the 2260s to stop a Romulan assassin intent on finishing his last assignment.

Part 5: Reflections. The Wraith is transported into an alternate universe where the Borg are running rampant.

Part 6: Xenos. After three years in a coma, Freeman’s girlfriend, the Vulcan T’lana, wakes up in 2379. Just in time for a mission to a planet inhabited by acid-spitting creatures…

Part 7: Pirates of Omega Ronas. Freeman’s team go undercover to an anarchic world to investigate a group of Xindi who are hatching a deadly plan…

Part 8: The Good, the Q and the Ugly. Whilst facing Nausicaan raiders, Freeman’s team must contend with an appearance by Q.

Part 9: Home of the Hero. Freeman returns to Earth for his grandfather’s retirement.

Part 10: Captain’s Table: Betrayal. Freeman visits the mysterious bar and relates a tale from the Dominion War.

Part 11: Section 31: Super-Human. The Wraith crew confront a 31 cell who have genetically engineered super-soldiers.

Part 12: Mysteries of Deep Space. The Wraith intercepts a strange alien vessel.

The spin-off stories include two set in the early 2160s, one in the 2250s, one in the 2260s and three in the 2270s, one in the 2280s, two in the 2290s, and several in the 24th century. Freeman co-stars in three of these, two of which feature characters from the Pocket novel line.

Special Operations has also spawned several spin-off series, set in the same continuity. The first of these was Star Trek: The Romulan War, which features Freeman’s ancestor Will, as well as characters from the Spec Ops spin-off ‘In the Company of Heroes’ and the cast of Enterprise. The second was Star Trek: Red Shirts, a series focussing on Security guards on a frontier colony. This series has led to spin-offs of its own, Red Shirts: Tellus Prime, Red Shirts: B’raken VII (featuring undercover officers) and Red Shirts: U.S.S. Taurus. The third spin-off was Star Trek: Intelligence Strike Team, described as Mission: Impossible meets Star Trek. Star Trek: Parallel Lives features one-off stories set in alternate timelines focussing on Freeman’s counterparts. Tales of the Mirror Universe is a series of one-off stories set entirely in the Mirror Universe, each featuring counterparts of the regular universe characters. The latest series, created especially for the TrekBBS’s fan-fiction challenges is entitled ‘Sniper’ and stars Bobbi March, a Special Ops sniper who carries out dangerous missions.

The Special Ops universe takes all five live-action series and ten movies as canon. The author is reluctant to use the term, preferring to explain things as being part of the continuity. Besides the live-action works, the various series have incorporated characters, places and events from several Pocket novels, including the New Frontier series, the SCE series, the A Time To miniseries, Articles of the Federation, Titan and some pieces from the DS9 post-finale novels. The author’s notes pointedly explain that he doesn’t recognise the four-gender paradigm from those works. The only TV episode that is routinely and blatantly ignored is the Enterprise show finale. A vignette entitled ‘Those Were NOT the Voyages’ explains that a mystery computer hacker had sabotaged the historical database on the Enterprise-D, corrupting Riker’s programme.

Principal characters, Special Ops only.

Scott Freeman. Special Ops team leader in the 2370s.

T’lana. Freeman’s Vulcan lover.

Annabel Frost. British woman, team leader in the 2360s and 2370s.

Tom Gates. American, team leader in the 2260s and 2270s.

Yevgeniy Shostakov. Ukrainian, team leader in the 2270s, ‘80s and ‘90s.

Elena Chavez. Hispanic woman, team leader in the 2160s.

Craig Robinson. Australian, team leader during the Dominion War who leads a ‘Dirty Dozen’ style group.

Alana Damon. Half-Bajoran Starfleet Intelligence officer who became the star of the IST series.

Trivia: The Special Ops site includes an in-universe encyclopaedia which includes photo-manipulated images for several starring characters and an in-universe timeline. A separate timeline for the TMU series is also on the site.

The site also includes an article detailing the history of the Eugenics Wars and World War III. It attempts to reconcile the movie First Contact and the episode ‘Space Seed’. A separate article, written for the TrekBBS fan-fiction challenge, details the fates of the NX-class starships from The Romulan War series.

Several stories include allusions, homages and references to many other SF and action movies, as well as some references to video games, these include Doctor Who, Aliens, Predator, Robocop, Space: Above and Beyond, Doom, Unreal Tournament 2004, Star Wars, Timecop, Alias, Mission: Impossible, The Hunt for Red October, Pirates of the Caribbean and Red Dwarf.

Several characters, principally appearing in Special Ops, are named after film directors. Many of these references are explained in the author’s annotations for each story.

Canon characters that have appeared in the various stories include: the Enterprise cast, Shran, Tholos and Keval the Andorians from Enterprise, the Original Series cast (in a Special Ops story and a Red Shirts story), the Next Generation cast, the cast of Deep Space 9, including Leeta, Rom, M’Pella, and Martok. Janeway, Chakotay, Kes and Neelix appear in ‘Hard Choices’ a Parallel Lives story. A partially-written story featuring the TNG cast working with characters from the Intelligence Strike Team series was scrapped when the author admitted it ‘didn’t work’.

The name of the third Wraith class starship was first revealed in a post on the TrekBBS fan-fiction forum during a discussion of the vessels in posters’ stories. Previously the name had been described as hard to pronounce. It’s U.S.S. Hjh’jk.

The author is the only poster to have entered every fan-fiction challenge to date on the TrekBBS. His was the sole entry in March 2007, making him default winner.

Crossovers linking the characters of various series include ‘Operation: Longbow’ featuring Freeman’s team working with Annabel Frost, ‘Death Stalks These Halls’ featuring Yevgeniy Shostakov and Tom Gates’ teams, IST story ‘Infil-traitors’ features Frost’s team, while Gates’ unit appear in the Red Shirts story ‘Special Operations’. The author has revealed plans for a story uniting the Red Shirts casts.