It has come to Starfleet's attention that I have not yet submitted the obligatory report on my involuntary DC¹ of stardate 2006.06.22. This oversight will now be rectified, as per orders.

On that stardate, I reported for duty in the engine room as usual, First Watch, two bells. As an astral engineer, it is my task to manipulate the energy interface that maintains the field system of the starship - propulsion as well as life-support (air, water, temperature regulation, artificial gravity) - using a device simply known as The Wheel.

On that particular stardate, my mental state was not in Good Order, as prescribed by the regulations. When I was strapped into the device, therefore, I committed Operator Error.

When the wheel hit an unexpected HDE², I was unprepared, and reflexively switched off the relevant chakric interface. Thus, I was pulled into the HDE. I became temporally dislocated. Due to the wheel's binding force, however, I remained etherically anchored on the CSS Mariposa.

I found myself aboard an oceangoing vessel in the late 18th Century, bound for America. The persona into which I had been DCed was that of a Scots indentured servant headed for Philadelphia. His name - my name, for the next six years, Subjective Time - was Jamie Weir. He came from Lanarkshire, and his presence on the ship appears to have been involuntary.

In Philadelphia, I became an indentured servant to a Windsor chairmaker. I served in this capacity for the next six years, and was nearing the end of my indenture when I was returned to the Mariposa.

An Assigned Question is, What was my most memorable experience on this DC? I would probably say that it was meeting friends of Mr Benjamin Franklin's. Mr Franklin, the famous inventor, had been a visitor to our street during his lifetime.

Another Assigned Question is, What do I think was the purpose of the DC? What was its lesson for mankind? I would say that the DC offered an opportunity to examine the workings of the Early American Republic, and to illuminate the opportunities offered newcomers in an exciting period of US history.

Finally, What have I learned for the future? Besides, of course, that I should be more careful to control my own mental state while on the Wheel, I believe that we have learned that the safety mechanisms in place aboard the Mariposa work as designed. Although I was away for six years, Subjective Time, only six hours had passed aboard ship, and the Wheel had turned normally. Retrieval was smooth, and there were no lasting effects.

Respectfully submitted
Jamison Stuart Douglass, Astral Engineer, CSS Mariposa

Since the Captain freaked when he read the third-person account of the DC⁴ Rory put down, I've been putting this off. (I'm good at that.) So now I'm sitting on a cushion, with a cold drink and the smegging console in front of me, and Liam won't let me up until I finish, so here goes.

The smegging wheel is the bane of my smegging existence. What it means is that I spend up to 12 hours a day strapped into that hellish device, turning slowly in an alpha state, doing smegging tantric yoga⁵. I'm out there, seeing stuff, making connections, and getting hot, dry, and smegging tired. And if Lt Jenkins gets a comlink call, he's likely to stop the smegging thing with me upside down in it, and leave me there while he makes plans for his whist evening. Smegger.

What I was, was smegged off. The Captain, bless his little cotton socks⁶, seems to be afflicted with the ability to see HDEs⁷. So the big hero of the Battle of Waterloo refuses to 'exercise' me if he can see one in the room. Smegger. I'd just spent the Fourth Watch from Hades, wrestling with a particularly nasty set of filaments, sobbing my heart out, while Captain I'm-So-Wonderful-Even-My-Scars-Look-Fashionable does a patented Starfleet eyebrow-lift and says, 'Are you quite finished feeling sorry for yourself?' How do you think I smegging felt?

What happened was, I was so smegged off I turned off my feelings. Look, I can deal with being yelled at, insulted, whipped for no adequately explained reason, and being dragged from pillar to post. I can't smegging well do anything about it, now can I? Besides, I've been a soldier all my life. So what's new? But the thing that gets my nanny is being asked to make bricks without straw. Give me the energy, I'll do the smegging job. That's all I ask, smeggit. I know, I know - this is supposed to be the explanation for how I came to spend six years in the 18th Century one watch, but smegged if I know what you people want for an explanation. Smeg happens. Like the man said about Titanic - get over it.

I was flogged⁸ on that smegging hellhole of a ship. Apparently, Jamie Weir had a bit more gumption than I usually exhibit. Good for him. Maybe he never had to worry about HDE interfaces. Anyway, things got a little better after that. I made a friend, and survived the journey. If I hadn't, would I have got home sooner? Who knows?

What can I say about Philadelphia? It was a big city, by contemporary standards. There are worse times to live in than the 18th Century - and better. Say, an Iron Age village in Wales. Iron Age villages don't have yellow fever epidemics that kill 3,000 people in four months. The sanitation in Iron Age villages is better. The food's better, too.

Oh, gag me with a spoon. My most memorable experience was at Christmas. Philadelphia's bitter smegging cold in the winter, and my hands were chapped raw from all the work. Carrying half-frozen pewter chamber pots to the privy pit at dawn is no picnic. Mrs Ackerley, the master's wife, was busy knitting all fall. And, like a fool, I was hoping she'd maybe made me a pair of gloves. I couldn't buy them - no money. And, come Christmas Eve, the master called us all into the shop, and solemnly handed out sixpences - so we could go have a drink on him in the tavern, while they had their party downstairs. For what I thought of that, see next question.

They were still treating people like smeg. Only the safeties were off, you know? My lot were feudal lairds - they'd have had more sense of responsibility to their servants. No king any more. No bosses. Money talked - merit walked. The ones that got there first, got it all. Of course, if you worked hard, and kept your nose clean, you could get somewhere. There was a whole world out West. I was planning on heading for Pittsburg. If the Indians didn't get you, you could farm. Live off the land, mind your own business - although they'd already had two tax revolts over there, and President Washington had sent in the troops. I wanted out of that filthy city, before there was another riot or epidemic.

No lasting effects, other than my tendency to lapse into Lallands when I get nervous. What did I learn? That they'll hang you out to dry out there. No smegger will be there when you need him. It's all up to you.

And there's no place to go, really - it's all the same. You're still wearing the collar - whether they can see it or not.

Can I get up now, Liam?