"The Flag At the Edge of Space" is a story set in the beginning of the Federation. The Romulan War has ended, and the United Federation of Planets has formed with their five founding members. The war has seen an explosion of starship technology, including such things as phasers and defensive shields, and starships have the capability of reaching warp seven. Other technology, such as transporters, has yet to appear on the scene. As the Federation seeks to explore and push ever further out from the core, they need particular resources, resourches which are hard to find. One of those resources was dilithium, an absolutely vital aspect of warp engineering and only found in small quantities where the Federation was located. Future exploration and future expansion rests on finding more of this vital resource. With the Federation established, starship designers and construction engineers turned to building a new kind of ship, a deep-space exploration vessel capable of long-term, sustained exploration. The first of these Atlas-class ships was the Atlas itself. Under command of Darren Hall, a veteran and experienced commander from the Romulan War years, the Atlas was given the assignment to go further than any Earth-built and Earth-manned ship had ever gone, the almost seven hundred and seventy light years to the bright star Rigel. This is the story of that mission.
"The Flag At the Edge of Space" is a fairly long story, almost a novel. This story contains ideas that I have used in other stories to represent the earliest years of the Federation and the starships and exploration that occurred at that time. The idea for setting a story in this time period, within a couple of years after the founding of the Federation, has been around for a long time, and I had worked on the plot for a number of years before actually sitting down and writing the story. As a result, this story does contradict in several ways the fifth television series, "Enterprise." This is, in my mind, unavoidable since in reality, "Enterprise" is not really a prequel series to the original Star Trek series, but is a prequel to "Star Trek: The Next Generation." In that respect, "The Flag At the Edge of Space" represents a prequel to the main "Athena" stories. All of this fits in with my own interpretation of the "Star Trek" universe, and this is not necessarily the same universe as shown in the television shows, the novels or the other fan fiction sites.
The story consists of fourteen parts, and each part has a set of links to go to any other section. The whole story is also available in a downloadable format. In addition, some information on the ship is given, along with some illustrations of this class of vessels. As of now, "The Flag At the Edge of Space" is a one-shot story, and no further stories involving this crew and this ship are planned, but of course, that is always subject to future changes.
"The Flag At the Edge of Space" story page,
"An Introduction to Atlas-class starships.
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