Title: Back to the Uncharted Territories
Author: Paradox761
Email: Paradox761@mail.com
Website: members.tripod.com/~Paradox761
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy; SFC, Jim Henson Productions, and Rockne S. O’Bannon own Farscape; and Universal Pictures owns Back to the Future. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don’t sue. I don’t have any money anyway.
Summary: Sequel to “A Sympathetic Ear”, John Crichton finally makes it home only to discover that the life he left behind is no longer there. His father, DK, and Xander Harris are all dead. Then he meets an extraordinary man in a bar, a time traveler, with an extraordinary proposition. Will John risk it all to go back in time to save his father’s life? And what happens when the consequences are much worse than he ever could have imagined?
Author’s note: Takes place directly after the third season of Farscape, after that it’s an AU. Also, for the sake of this story, Farscape takes place in the near future (2017), and some of the modifications made to the DeLorean in the second movie, namely Mr. Fusion, came from further into the future then when the movie took place (2015). Also, some dialogue has been lifted directly from the Buffy episode “Grave”, no plagiarism intended.
Dedication: To Jordan and Jessica, my angels. May they rest in peace.
Special thanks to A. Grandt, greywizard, Wayne, Rob Clark, Danielle, Goblin, Calen, DaBear, Obi, Gareth, Troy, David, and Lafe for the feedback and support.
(Farscape/BtVS/BttF, Xander/Chiana, John/Aeryn)
Rated R for language and violence
Guest Cast:
Guy Pearce as Dr. Julian Martin Brown, PhD.
James Remar as Lakas

(3/6)

From the outside, the Magic Box looked to be abandoned. The windows were boarded up, complete with graffiti. And the sign above the storefront was tattered and faded. Xander slipped his key in the lock and turned it. As he opened the door, the bell that hung above it rang. Designed to alert the shopkeeper to a new customer, like a million other bells in a million other shops around the world. Once upon a time, the sound almost always heralded the arrival of one of his friends to the shop. But the only function it served now was as a reminder to Xander of happier times. But he could never bring himself to take it down.

Xander flicked the light on, giving John and Jules their first look at the shop as they followed him inside. For the most part, it looked like a normal shop. A cash register sat on top of the counter, next to a display case with no glass in it. There were a few items sitting on a few shelves, but mostly books. There were at least three bookcases within view of the front door, all filled with dusty old tomes. And a ladder that led to a small loft in the back, also piled with books. Behind the counter sat several more shelves with canisters, each one labeled with some magical ingredient. Xander led them further into the store, to a large round table that sat closer to the back beside one of the larger bookshelves. The table was covered with books, and a few weapons. A couple wooden stakes, a small axe.

“Sorry about the mess,” Xander commented, picking up a few articles of clothing strewn on the chairs that surrounded the table. “I’m a slob, and I don’t have visitors…ever.”

“Don’t worry about it,” John said. “Place looks good, considering…”

“Yeah, I had a hell of a time cleaning up the mess after what happened. The broken glass wasn’t so much a problem as sorting through the shop’s inventory. Figuring out what I had, how to store it safely.”

“Safely?” Jules asked.

“Certain magiks don’t mix well,” Xander answered. “There’s actually a funny story about this blessed dagger I had, for killing Drelka demons. I set it down too close to this book of chaos magik, and it actually unblessed the dagger.” Xander laughed. “I mean, can you believe it? I didn’t even realize what had happened until I plunged the thing in the demon’s neck, and nothing. Boy was my face red. We actually had a good laugh about it, until I whipped out Hero and eviscerated him.” Xander looked over at the stunned face of Jules. “But I suppose that’s a story for another time. It’s your turn now, Doc. So what’s all this about?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story actually. I’m not sure where to begin.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,” Xander commented. John smiled as he took his jacket off and laid it over one of the chairs. When the chair moved, a black cat ran out from behind it, bolting across the room. Right across the paths of John and Jules. The two looked at each other nervously. “Don’t tell me you two are superstitious,” Xander said around a chuckle. “I thought you were scientists.”

“Yes, well, all things considered, it’s best to be cautious,” Jules said.

Xander just smiled as he squatted down and called the cat over to him. “Miss Kitty Fantastico is harmless,” he said as the cat trotted over to him. He picked her up and stroked her head. The cat nuzzled against his hand and purred. “She’s not a familiar or anything, just a normal cat. All be it a hungry one.”

“Your cat’s name is Miss Kitty Fantastico?” John asked. He couldn’t help it. After everything that had happened that night, after seeing the gruff demon hunter that Xander had become, and now seeing him fondly petting a cat that he just called Miss Kitty Fantastico, he laughed.

“Yeah, well, it was either that or Nummy Muffin Cocoa Butter,” Xander said with a smirk. John started laughing even harder. “Have a seat, let me just feed the cat and put some tea on. Would either of you like a cup?”

“Yes, please,” Jules said.

“Do you have any coffee?” John asked.

“Instant.”

“I’ll take it.”

Xander nodded and disappeared into the back where John could see a small kitchenette. The two men sat down at the table.

“He’s a little more rough around the edges than I had imagined him,” Jules said.

“Yeah, well, I suppose that happens when you spend your life beating back the forces of evil.”

Jules just nodded. A few minutes later, Xander returned with two cups of tea and one cup of coffee. “So, have you decided where to begin yet?” Xander asked, stirring a spoonful of sugar into his tea.

Jules took a sip from his cup. “I suppose my story begins in 2017, a short time after John here left me. I was teaching history at UCLA a scant six months before I began feeling restless again. I was teaching to a crop of students not much younger than myself, who thought that history was just about memorizing dates, musty old books and scratchy old newsreels. I knew that I would never be able to get them to see history the way I did, rich and textured with colors and sounds and smells. It all became rather…unfulfilling. And I began thinking more and more about my quest to find a home, a single place where I felt I belonged, where I could settle down. And I realized how ridiculous it was to try and force it. They say that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Where there I was, my life on hold, because I was too busy doing just that, making plans. So I decided that what I needed to do, was what I wanted to do. Whatever made me happy, and just let life happen.

“But that was easier said than done, considering that I had decided to take away what I considered a crutch, the DeLorean. I was for all intents and purposes, stranded in time. That’s when I began thinking about demons, about how they seemed to be attracted to the energies involved in time travel.”

“Really?” Xander asked curiously.

“Yes, and after considerable research and experimentation in the college labs, I discovered that it was a form of radiation. What I later found out would come to be called, Chroniton particles. After traveling through time, remnants of these particles can be found in any organic material in ever decaying amounts.”

“I wonder,” Xander mused, interrupting Jules. “Could something similar be responsible for the attraction demons feel towards the Hellmouth?”

“Most definitely,” Jules said. “What you call the Hellmouth is what we call a closed dimensional tear. A rupture in the dimensional fabric that’s been temporarily sealed, leaking all kinds of trans-dimensional radiation.”

“As fascinating as this all is…” John said, trailing off.

“Right, of course, I’m getting off track. As I was saying, I managed to jerry-rig a Geiger counter to detect only Chroniton particles, and I set out with it, intent on finding some other time traveler. Specifically, my father or brother. But after weeks of searching, I hadn’t found anything. And then one day, it hit on a very large concentration of the radiation. I tracked it to a crowd of people coming out of a convention center, where a political debate was being held. I eventually narrowed it down to a group of five individuals who seemed to be traveling together. I followed them into a restaurant, and I approached them.

“I tentatively spoke to them about time travel, about what I had detected. They denied any knowledge of what I was talking about. But when I said my name, this look passed between them. A look of recognition and astonishment. One of them told me to meet them someplace the next day. I agreed, and the next day I was transported aboard their starship, the USS Paradox. I met with and spoke to the Captain of the ship, and that’s when I learned who they were. 29th Century time travelers, explorers. Their ship was one of a great fleet of ships, in service to the United Federation of Planets, of which Earth is a member. The landing party I had discovered was a group of political historians, there to witness what would become a very significant debate. I was familiar with the Federation, from my travels to the 24th Century. That’s where most of the technology I used to refit the DeLorean came from. But at the time they had no significant time travel technology. I just assumed that it had been deemed to dangerous to develop, that none of my father’s work had survived through the centuries. But I was wrong.

“The Captain told me that I was an historical figure myself, one of the pioneers of time travel. He showed me a picture of a statue that had been erected on Earth of my father, my brother and myself. Sometime in the late 28th Century, my father’s work had been rediscovered by a scientist who was working on something revolutionary. Something that changed everything. Temporal sensors. Sensors that could actually scan and map the space-time continuum. With this advance, time travelers were no longer flying blind. They could actually see the consequences of their actions before they ever did anything. They could detect changes in the timeline, and pinpoint where they had occurred. Once the technology spread, the Federation decided that for the sake of science, not to mention defense, starships with temporal shifting capabilities needed to be built.”

“What do you mean, defense?” Xander asked.

“The ability to travel through time could be an awesome weapon. Political targets could be assassinated as children. Foreknowledge of economic fluctuations could be used to an unfair advantage. Not to mention the danger of paradox. It is an awesome amount of power to be wielded by the undisciplined. The Federation and many of their allies banded together to make sure that none of these things happened. Together, they formed the Temporal Code. A system of laws in place to protect time itself, with infinite jurisdiction.”

“What does that mean, infinite jurisdiction?” John asked.

“It means that any time ship, in any place or time, has jurisdiction over anyone or anything breaking the Temporal Code. Most if not all of the major powers at the time set aside portions of their fleets for temporal exploration and policing. And a Temporal Council was set up, with representatives from each of the major powers who had agreed to the Temporal Code.”

“Kind of like a temporal U.N.” Xander supplied.

“Exactly,” Jules said. “And they made all the decisions regarding what was allowed and what wasn’t, as well as punishing those who broke the laws. In a way, even though the Temporal Council represents all of the powers, they became a power unto themselves.”

“Not that all of this isn’t fascinating, because it is,” Xander said. “But what has any of it got to do with me?”

Jules smiled sheepishly. “I’ll try and pick up the pace. The Captain of the Paradox offered me a position aboard his ship, and an honorary commission in Starfleet. I accepted, and I’ve served aboard her for going on nine years now. The last three as Sensor Chief.”

“Wait a minute, not quite that fast,” John said. “They just let you stay aboard? Isn’t that against the Temporal Code, taking someone out of time? I mean, what if you were supposed to do something significant in the original timeline?”

“You’re forgetting what I told you about the temporal sensors. They can scan the timeline. But more importantly, they can scan *possible* changes to the timeline, and determine their consequences. It was determined that I had already made all the contribution that I was going to make to history. Since I was already a time traveler, I was sort of a temporal wild card.”

“Meaning what?” Xander asked.

“Meaning that my destiny was flexible.”

“So what are you doing here and now?” John asked.

“Ah, now that’s where my story gets interesting,” Jules said.

“Oh good, because up until now it’s been a real snore fest,” Xander quipped sarcastically.

Jules just smiled. “About three weeks ago, one of the Federation’s automated temporal sensor platforms detected what we call a tangent. An alternate timeline, a parallel universe, an unrealized reality, whatever you want to call it. If you think of time as a river, with an infinite number of tributaries, our timeline is simply a path along that river, no different than any other path. With the temporal sensors, we can detect the paths that run close to our own. Tangents, with a divergence point in the fairly recent past. Say, anytime within the last thousand years.”

“What’s a divergence point?” Xander asked.

“The point at which our path, and the path of the tangent first diverge. It’s an event, something that happens differently in the two universes, setting them each on different paths. When the temporal sensors scan laterally as we call it, or across the alternate timelines, what they’re scanning for is an anchor point. Essentially, the sensor array is picking up itself in the parallel universe. From there it can access all sorts of data, most times a library computer of some kind, to determine the nature of the timeline, how it differs from our own, where the point of divergence is, that sort of thing.

“But this in and of itself is not unusual. Just one of these sensor arrays can scan and process trillions of these tangents a day. Most aren’t very different from our own. The interesting ones are red tagged and later studied by everyone from sociologists, to temporal scientists, to computer programmers who use the data to create better programs for predicting changes in the timeline. But the tangent that was detected three weeks ago is unlike any other ever found. Out of the trillions upon trillions upon trillions that have been scanned since temporal sensors were invented, this is the single most important one that has ever been discovered. It’s the Holy Grail of unrealized realities.

“John, do you remember when we met? And you told me about your travels in the Uncharted Territories, about all the different alien species you had encountered.” John nodded. “At the time I was puzzled, because I had never heard of any of them. At that time in my life, all total I had spent nearly two years in the 24th Century, and I had never heard of Sebeacans, or Delvians, or Nebari, or Hynerians, or Luxans, or Scarrens. I found that very odd, but I put it out of my mind until years later. Until three weeks ago when we started going over the data from this A.U. You see, none of those species are present in the 29th Century either. But almost every one of them is in the A.U.

“In our current timeline there was, is, will be a war. A very long and costly war, between the Peace Keepers and the Scarrens. Many species, including the Luxans and the Nebari will form allegiances with the Peace Keepers, seeing them as the lesser of two evils. Other species, like the Delvians, who try to remain neutral, will be destroyed by the Scarrens. The war begins when the Scarrens attack the Hynerian Empire, killing the Hynerians themselves, enslaving their subjects, and using their territories to bring them within striking distance of the Peace Keepers. The Scarrens will win the war, leaving no area of known space untouched by their brutality.”

“What about Earth?” John asked.

“The Scarrens don’t know anything about Earth. They don’t begin expanding into new areas of space until after the war is over. That’s when they run into a warrior race much more powerful and more advanced than themselves. A race known as the Klingons. Between the Klingons natural superiority, and the Scarrens weakened state from the recent war with the Peace Keepers, the Scarrens are decimated. No record of any of the species from the pocket exist after that. It wasn’t until the tangent was discovered and the two universes compared that the Federation went back and discovered the conflict between the Klingons and the Scarrens. Things were pieced together from there.”

“What do you mean by pocket?” John asked.

“That entire area of space, the Peace Keeper territories, the Scarren territories, the Uncharted Territories, and Tortured Space all exist, or existed, in what exosociologists call a microcosm pocket. Basically, it’s an area of space, comprised of many species that evolve technologically together. Typically they’re all pre-warp, and at some point for political or economic reasons, technological advancement slows to a crawl. No outside, warp-capable species bothers to make contact, and soon you have this completely independent social ecosystem existing in the middle of a galaxy teaming with warp-capable species. It’s like, a pond of sea life, sitting three feet from the ocean, thinking that they are the end all be all of life.”

“I don’t understand, the Peace Keepers have faster than light travel,” John said.

“Yes, but comparatively their Hetch drive is very limited. By the mid 22nd Century, humans are traveling at warp 5, whereas the Hetch drive’s equivalent maximum speed is around warp 1.5.”

“That’s amazing,” Xander commented.

“So what does all of this have to do with the tangent?” John asked.

“Simple. In the tangent, the war between the Peace Keepers and the Scarrens never took place. We’re still not exactly sure how or why, but it seems like the Scarrens just disappeared. One moment the threat was there, and the next it wasn’t. Shortly after that, the Peace Keepers wartime allegiances disappeared as well, and a movement among the splintered Sebecean colonies began to gain strength. A movement to reclaim their home world from the Peace Keepers. They gained support among many other species who were not particularly fond of the Peace Keepers, mainly the Luxans. And soon the Peace Keeper regime fell, and a civilian government took its place. What followed was an unprecedented era of peace, prosperity, and technological advancement for all of the species in that area of space. The pocket faded away, and they slowly took their place as members of the galactic community.

“The Luxans, Delvians, and Sebeceans all became members of the Federation. The Hynerian Empire flourished and grew. And then that faithful day came when a stable wormhole was discovered in the Bajoran system.”

“A stable wormhole? That’s impossible,” John insisted.

“I’m afraid it’s quite possible. It was created by a race of non-linear beings, whom the Bajorans worshiped as Prophets. The Federation simply called then Wormhole Aliens. It lead to a distant part of the galaxy, called the Gamma Quadrant. What no one knew at the time was that practically that entire area of space was ruled by an organization called the Dominion. It wasn’t long before their forces began streaming through the wormhole, set to divide and conquer the species of the Alpha Quadrant. In the original history, it was another long and bloody war, costing billions of lives. But in the tangent, it happened differently.

“Instead of seeking out the Federation, the Dominion decided that the Hynerian Empire was it’s biggest threat. So they concentrated their forces on the Hynerians, seeking to use their space as a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. It was much the same as the Scarrens plan in the original history. Up until that point, the Federation had had little luck trying to negotiate some kind of peace treaty with the Hynerians. They simply weren’t interested. But with this latest threat, the Federation had no trouble making allies of the Empire, and soon their combined forces were pushing the Dominion back. The Federation mined the wormhole, cutting off the Dominion’s forces from their home base, as well as their supply lines. Seeing which way the tide was turning, it didn’t take long for the other powers in the Alpha Quadrant to begin attacking the Dominion as well. New treaties were being signed every day. Species that had been bitter enemies became allies, in an unprecedented show of solidarity. And after the Dominion had been driven back through the wormhole, the alliances remained. Centuries of peace followed, and a few more minor skirmishes that had been part of the original history had been avoided. All total, it’s been estimated that 110 billion lives will be saved by avoiding the Scarren/Peace Keeper war.

“This information was brought to the attention of the Temporal Council, and in a decision that has only been made three previous times in the Council’s history, they decided to actualize the tangent. To purposefully go back and change history so that this tangent comes to be.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, I ask again. What does any of this have to do with me?” Xander asked.

“It’s simple. We tracked the divergence point. It took place about 30 minutes ago outside of Willy’s bar.”

“What?” Xander asked, confused.

“That was the first event that differs between the two realities. In the original history, you and John went your separate ways, never to see each other again. But in the tangent, you went with him, to the Uncharted Territories. Somehow, your presence there will set in motion a series of events that will prevent the Scarren/Peace Keeper war, and save 110 billion lives.”

Xander just sat there staring at Jules for what seemed like forever. And in true Xander fashion, upon finding out that he was destined to travel across the galaxy, prevent two major wars, and save 110 billion people, he said the first thing that came to his mind.

“You have got to fucking be kidding me!”




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