Newsletter of the 210th Marine Expeditionary Unit, STARFLEET Marine Corps

By
J.D. Clancy

SUMMER 2009 ISSUE

CONTENTS
In Starfleet, summertime is summit and international conference trip time.
Waffle House We have one firm tradition in the 210th: while traveling we eat at least once at
Region 12 Picnic Waffle House.
The phenomenon of Waffle House will be something of mystery to people
What Have They Done to My Trek who aren’t from or haven’t visit the Southern United States. Most restaurants are
By MAJ Mark Webb located in this area.
Summer Movie Preview Waffle House restaurants can be found along interstate highways and in-
G.I.Joe—The Rise of Cobra dustrial areas. They cater to a ‘value for money’ customer base– people who need a
Inglorious Basterds hearty meal for not many dollars. Since Waffle House is open 24 hours a day, there
is a definite late-night crowd who prefer a cooked meal to generic ‘fast food.’
When Things Go Very Wrong Waffle House has an old time lunch counter or diner feel. The kitchen is in
Rogues’ Gazette the public area, surrounded by a counter and seating. You can see your eggs and
Calendar hamburgers being prepared. The quality of service is sometimes hit-and-miss, but
usually the staff is friendly enough.
Not Entirely Successful –Part II A Southern breakfast staple to try is grits! Another signature dish for this
By MAJ Mark Webb restaurant is hash browns– shredded and fried potatoes available with a variety of
Adios, Green Machine! toppings. The toppings come
with their own terminology:
STAFF ‘Scattered’ (with onions) and
‘Covered’ (with cheese) are two
Editor: ways to order hash browns.
J.D. Clancy Personally, I like having
jdclancy@multinatl.org my coffee served in a ceramic
mug while I watch my food being
Contributor: prepared and partake in some
Mark Webb, MAJ conversation with traveling com-
webbmaw@cox.net panions.
If you’re in North Caro-
210th MEU WEB SITE lina for International Conference
this year and you haven’t been,
try the local Waffle House! A typical Waffle House restaurant
http://fedchaplain.tripod.com/210meu.htm

Region 12 Picnic
Through various unfortunate circumstances, a full-on Region 12 Summit was not convened this year. But, due to the
efforts of the Hellfire & Brimstone crew, a Region get together was held on May 23, 2009 in Topeka, Kansas. The venue was an
outdoor picnic in a local park. Besides Region business, the park offered a lot of leisure and entertainment options including the
local zoo, playgrounds, carousel, and mini-train ride.
Official business for the year was conducted by VADM Jeffery Higdon. CO’s/XO’s present convened in the morning
for their meeting. A State of the Region address was given after lunch. A new chapter, USS FireFox, was introduced. Promo-
tions and the Region Annual Awards were presented. As you can expect from such events, a large part of the day was given over
to socializing with old acquaintances.
Some Marines recognized with promotions were: Jenn Hoover (226 MSG), Mysteri David (226 MSG), and Mark Webb
(210 MEU).

DISCLAIMERS: Paramount Pictures and its licensees have the sole authority to generate profit from Star Trek trademarks, and this publication in no
way intends to infringe upon copyrights held by Paramount Pictures, Viacom, or any other Star Trek copyholders. The opinions expressed in this
publication are not necessarily those of STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc. or the STARFLEET Marine Corps.
What Have They Done to My Trek
By Major Mark Webb

By now, most of you dear readers have had the opportunity to see the film Star Trek, the eleventh offering from
Paramount and its partners. This film is, to say the least, a considerable departure from the long-established vision of Star
Trek, and it is up to each and every one of you to decide how you feel about that. You may expect future columns from
this reporter on this subject. It represents too great a shift in the future laid out in the Trek reality to be dealt with in just
one small offering.
The picture opens with a battle between a great and terrible ship and a Federation starship that was the state-of-
the-art at the time of James T Kirk’s birth. Of course, Kirk’s father was the last man on the starship, and he gave up his
life in the line of duty, just as his son, James, came into the universe.
When next we see the young Kirk, he is a boy of 10 or so, with obviously too much time on his hands. He be-
gins his illustrious exploits by getting pulled over for speeding and reckless driving among other things. Meanwhile, we
meet the young Spock, who gets his butt kicked as he learns a lesson about how Vulcans can still be capable of bigotry,
despite their logic and lack of emotions. We see his feet set on the path toward Star Fleet even then.
Then, we see Kirk being sought out by Captain Christopher Pike as someone who has potential, to join Star Fleet
and make his mark there. He does so, out of defiance as much as anything, and then we see him defeat the Kobayashi
Maru test, by shamelessly cheating, and getting on Spock’s bad side before they have not even officially met.
Then, the terrible ship that fought Kirk’s father’s starship, (which turns out to be a Romulan mining ship on a
mission of revenge) attacks the planet Vulcan. There is a brand new starship to meet the emergency, but of course, even
though the ship has been under construction for some time and is ready for its shakedown, Star Fleet is so disorganized
and unprepared, that they have no crew to man her. So they have to send cadets from the academy to do the job.
This writer won’t tell you the entire story, but the plot goes farther and farther from the timeline we all know as
it goes on. The Batman and Spiderman movies of the past 2 decades have a certain comic book quality to them, both in
their plots, and in their effects. Star Trek, in the opinion of this writer, exhibited these same characteristics. It is clearly
an effort by Paramount, to make Star Trek appealing to people who are not traditional Trek fans.
The question is, how will Paramount proceed from here? Is this the last of the Trek movies? Do they intend to
follow this new timeline from now on? It would certainly provide them with material for whole new rafts of series’ and
movies, as well as new novels and other peripheral aspects of the franchise. Look for more articles from this writer on
how this story effects the timeline, both for specific characters, and for the future of Trek in general. There are many
questions that need answered and many aspects of this that need to be explored and this writer will do his best to do that.

Summer Movie Previews

INGLORIOUS
BASTERDS
G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra is a live action film based on Quentin Tarantino’s latest effort is a homage to 1960’s
the 1980’s comic book/cartoon/action figure line. Most of war movies. Inglorious Basterds is not a remake of the
the popular characters are represented. 1978 B-movie starring Fred Williamson.
Operating in secret, the Joe Team fights the shadowy Like most Tarantino efforts, various story lines come
terrorist organization COBRA. together at the film’s climax. The Americans are on a
mission to eliminate Nazis. A Jewish girl tries to evade
Release Date: August 7, 2009 the Nazis. And the Nazis are out to get everyone.
Director: Stephen Sommers
Writers: Stuart Beattie, David Elliot Release Date: August 21, 2009
Run Time: 107 minutes Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Dennis Quaid—General Hawk Starring:
Sienna Miller– The Baroness Brad Pitt– Lt. Aldo Raine
Marlon Wayans—Ripcord Diane Kruger—Bridget von Hammersmark
Joseph Gordon-Levitt—Cobra Commander Eli Roth—Sgt. Donny Donowitz
Ray Park—Snake Eyes Christoph Waltz—Col. Hans Landa
Christopher Eccleston—Destro Melanie Laurent—Shosanna Dreyfus

The Black List—Summer 2009—Page 2

 When Things Go Very Wrong
By J.D. Clancy
You may be in a situation where there’s no electricity. I’m not speaking of being out in the wilderness, where one
would expect to have no electricity. We’re going to discuss what happens when you’re comfortable at home and suddenly
there’s no power. NOTE– there are more than the usual amount of safety notices to this article. Making and using your own
electricity can be dangerous!
One thing to consider is the serious nature of an event that causes long term (1+ day) disruption of the electrical pro-
duction/distribution system. Several routine situations may occur that cause minor power outages– breakdowns of equipment,
accidents, and poor energy management (brownouts, blackouts). Consider whether you’re going to stay in your home and try
to survive until conditions improve, or evacuate.
If you’re going to stay at home, you may want electricity. Nearly everything in the modern home runs on electricity.
One strategy is to minimize your need for electricity. Keep a manual can opener, have a solar or hand-cranked radio, make
sure you know how to manually operate an automatic garage door.
Be practical about your power needs. Even a large solar panel
will not power your refrigerator, air conditioner, and television all at
once. Remember that unless you have a way to store power (some kind
of battery) after dark your solar panel will be quite useless.
People who are somewhat mechanically oriented may attempt
to build a human-powered electricity generating system. A bicycle can
be turned into a stationary cycle and used to generate power. Even a
device that turns a wheel by hand-crank could potentially be used to
build a power generating system.
With the recent emphasis on homeland security concerns, many
stores are selling gadgets for emergency power. Various emergency cell
phone chargers are available. Gasoline powered generators can be pur-
chased in discount stores and home improvement stores.
Gasoline powered generators are a topic all their own. From a
small portable generator to a large automatic standby unit that can
power an entire house, the variety and capabilities of generators will be A solar panel and battery power can provide elec-
covered in a separate article. SAFETY NOTICES: 1) Operating a tricity in an emergency.
generator inside your house or garage can cause death by carbon
monoxide poisoning. 2) Improper wiring of a generator into a building’s electrical system can cause a fire or electrocu-
tion of occupants and utility workers.
Another possible source of electricity is batteries. Many small items run off batteries. Do you keep a few extra batter-
ies and rotate your supply regularly? Amateur radio operators may keep a Marine battery for emergency power. The advan-
tage of this type of battery is that it is ‘deep cycle’; meaning you can drain all the power out and after the emergency charge it
back up and store it again. (most car batteries, lawn mower batteries, etc. are dead permanently after draining all the power out
once)
While we’re talking about batteries, car batteries provide a different type of power than what comes out of the outlet
in your house. Some people have a bank of batteries in their basement, and intend to use an ‘inverter’ to turn their battery
power into usable electricity. A person could plug an inverter into their car, but should be aware of several issues: 1) If you
don’t run your car, the battery may go dead quickly; 2) You may run your car of gas; and, 3) SAFETY NOTICE: If you run
your car in a garage, you risk carbon monoxide poisoning.
One thing to remember: don’t panic and cause a larger problem for the sake of a short term solution. For example,
you try to run several appliances off an inverter attached to your car battery. The

Rogues’ Gazette electricity is back on by the afternoon, but you now have to find a ride to the store so
you can purchase a new (expensive) car battery. As always– evaluate your situation.
(Promotions, Awards, Recognition) Will electricity be off for some time, or just temporarily? How serious is my need
for electricity?
If you have purchased any equipment to provide emergency power, be sure
Promotions: to follow all the manufacturer’s safety warnings. It is best not to ‘jury rig’ or modify
equipment for use outside of its intended application. Injuries and fires can make
To Major your emergency situation much worse.
DISCLAIMER: The author is not responsible for misuse of this information. Over
Mark Webb time, techniques change. Be familiar with safe use of all equipment and the latest
technical information.

Calendar
2010 STARFLEET International Conference; July 29-August 1, 2010; Wagoner, Oklahoma; website: www.ic2010.org

The Black List—Summer 2009—Page 3


Not Entirely Successful - Part III
By Major Mark Webb
This is a work of fiction, based upon the Star Trek depiction
of the future. It is intended in no way, to infringe upon, or
exploit an any way, any copyrights, patents, or other rights or
property rights, either real or intellectual, that are owned by
any entities who have legitimate ownership of any part of the
Star Trek franchise.
6.
The battle group hung together in formation in deep
space. Sixty of the proudest and finest ships of the Cardas-
sian and Dominion fleets were massed in the flight path of
the weapon they knew to be heading toward them. Their
strategy was simple. They would stay in formation and use
interlocking fields of fire to overwhelm the weapon’s de-
fenses and destroy it. They tracked the weapon’s approach
from several light years away and if it turned away from
them, they were determined to pursue it if need be.
M-4 was equally aware of them. Even if it did not
have its own active sensors, its passive sensors would have
registered the dozens of scanning beams that played over it
from so many ships. M-4 was not concerned, however. It
had a specific objective in mind and the Dominion played
directly into that plan. It had formulated its course of action
3.6 seconds after first registering their presence on its sen-
sors. It had no intension of engaging all those ships or even
giving them a clear shot at it. Yet, there were so many of
them. In the days when it was originally created, none of the
space-faring races that were known to the Federation had
such a large space fleet to control their entire space, let alone
being able to throw so many against one small target. M-4
was finding that forming a strategy against such a large num-
ber of opponents was turning out to be a considerable chal-
lenge.
It was determined, however, to get to the automated
observatory which the Dominion and the Cardassians were
both so fond of building. It needed the extremely long-range
sensors on the observatory to devise a plan for its long-term
survival. These observatory systems could only be accessed
from a short range, without the necessary codes and clear-
ances, so M-4 had no choice but to penetrate Cardassian
space to find out what it needed to know.
M-4 slowed only a little as it approached the enemy
fleet. It was not unusual for an enemy to come to a stop, or
at least, to slow to a small fraction of sub-light velocity as it
confronted them. This is what they expected. They counted
on being able to scan it thoroughly and choose the specific
systems they would target, so as to destroy it most effi-
ciently. They did not get that chance, however. M-4
streaked in at full impulse with its shields up and its weapons
pumping out massive barrages of energy and torpedoes.
They hastily began to return fire as it charged into range.
Their shots either missed it entirely, or bounced off its
shields. It continued to approach at high speed and some of
the commanders of its enemies believed it was preparing to
ram one of them. They began to make preparations to move
out of its way but this turned out not to be its plan.
The Black List—Summer 2009—Page 4
FICTION
SECTION
It raced swiftly closer and closer and soon it was in
point blank range with them. Yet, it still moved about with
light bursts of its maneuvering thrusters as it came. It jinked
from side to side and up and down. It rolled onto one side
and then the other. It was in a constant state of constant 3-
dimentional motion. Even though it was close enough for
them to see every feature of its modified hull with their na-
ked eyes, they still could not score a direct hit. Meanwhile,
as it approached, its stream of weapons fire grew steadily
more concentrated and this began to have its effect. One by
one, the rows of ships that faced it began to take damage.
Their shields were overwhelmed and critical systems were
hit. The precise array of their formation began to sag and
slight gaps and openings began to appear in their solid ranks.
Things were happening so quickly that the dominion officers
on the scene had difficulty trying to figure out what its strat-
egy was. Surely, it could not lope to damage enough of their
ships to win a decisive victory. They knew they should be
taking additional action to forestall whatever plan the ma-
chine had, but since they could not figure out what that plan
was, they chose to do nothing other than what they were al-
ready doing.
Suddenly, one of the ships in the front ranks of the
formation exploded, causing major damage to those arranged
so closely around it. A large hole opened in the front edge of
the attacking formation. M-4 quickly took advantage of this
and concentrated its fire on the ships behind that one in the
formation. One of these quickly suffered the fate of its sister
ship and exploded, causing more damage to the ships around
it. In this way, M-4 bored its way deeper and deeper into the
Dominion formation. It was using up torpedoes and weapons
power at a prodigious rate but it maintained its murderous
rate of fire. The front ranks of ships in the formation sud-
denly had nothing to shoot at as it actually passed into their
midst and now, only a few ships could directly act against it.
Finally, M-4 had driven deep enough into the for-
mation, that the object of its attack came into range. It was a
Dominion dreadnaught, the largest and most powerful of the
ships in the fleet that had been arrayed against it. M-4 sus-
pected that there might be a Founder aboard. It know that if
this was true, the Dominion troops would do anything to pro-
tect the Founder’s life, including not firing on the enemy
weapon ship. It quickly closed with this ship, and, before the
huge Dominion warship could bring its massive weapons
array to bare, M-4 brought its own shields into contact with
the Dominion ship’s shields and a tremendous amount of
energy was unleashed. It showered the two ships with sparks
and bolts of fire and forced the nearby ships to back away.
Then, M-4 locked all its tractor beams on the Dominion
monster and it began to probe the other ship’s computer
banks.
There was frantic activity aboard the Dominion
warship as the crew realized what M-4 was doing. They
scrambled to stop the enemy from invading their ship in this
way, but they were far too slow. M-4 found what it needed
and just as quickly, it tore itself away and surged through the
(Continued on page 5)
(Continued from page 4)
rest of the formation. It’s objective now, was to break free
and proceed to the Dominion observatory with all speed.
The other Dominion ships were maneuvering now. They
had broken formation and were trying to get into positions
that would allow them to resume firing on the enemy
weapon.
M-4 didn’t make it easy for them to do this, and
within another few seconds, it had cleared the last of the
attackers and had sprung into high warp speed. The Do-
minion ships surged away in a disorganized mass to give
chase. M-4 was now able to divert most of its power to its
engines now, and since all its immediate threats were fal-
ling behind it, it was confident that it would reach the ob-
servatory without further opposition.
7 Cardassian. “why did the other ships pull back and why
Weyoun sighed and rubbed his temples. “That is
not good,” he growled as he glowered at the tactical dis-
play. “The founder will not be pleased.”
“Still,” Damar said as he starred intensely at the
readouts of the monitors in front of him. “You can’t fault
its tactics. A most impressive display.”
“Impressive,” Weyoun rounded on him sharply.
“You call that disgraceful performance impressive?”
“Weyoun, Weyoun,” Damar said. “Calm down.
I was merely pointing out the cleverness of the way that
machine took one of the few disadvantages of such a large
formation and used it to achieve its ends. It’s really fortu-
nate that a living opponent couldn’t think fast enough to
come up with it.”
“We lost several ships in this action and failed to
inflict even minor damage on the weapon,” Weyoun cried.
“The enemy weapon stole information from one of our
capital ships and went through a blockade of some of the
finest of our forces almost without a scratch. I shudder to
think what the founder will say.”
“What the Founder will say about what, Wey-
oun,” the changeling said as she moved into the situation
room.
“Founder,” Weyoun gasped and sprang to his
feet, preparing to make some obeisance to one of his gods.
Impatient with this, she asked brusquely, “What
This issue, the 210th MEU says good-
bye to our trusty trip car: a 1999
Adios, Green Machine!
By J.D. Clancy
Chevy Lumina known as The Green
Machine. The maintenance sergeant
reports it can no longer be repaired.
Like a cavalryman has his horse, the
210th had The Green Machine. In
addition to local unit meetings, it took
us to several Region Summits and
made it to the International Confer-
ence in Denver, Colorado a few years
back.
If there is a car heaven, we know
you’re up there with a glove compart-
ment full of cigars and a trunk full of
whiskey, Green Machine!
The Black List—Summer 2009—Page 5
has happened?”
Weyoun took half a step back. “Ah, well, Foun-
der,” he said apprehensively. “I must report that our en-
gagement against the Federation weapon ship has failed. It
is heading deeper into our territory and will reach its ob-
jective in approximately 5 hours.”
“What can we do to protect the observatory,” she
demanded.
“at this time, it will be difficult if not impossible
to get ships between the weapon and the observatory,
Founder,” Weyoun started to explain. “You see...”
“The Federation has taken advantage of this dis-
traction to move against us in 4 sectors,” Damar said.
“We dare not remove any ships from those areas or we will
be at risk of losing a few ships and an observatory.”
The changeling glowered at the Vorta and the
didn’t the crew of the dreadnaught respond to such an im-
minent threat?”
“I believe they feared that one of You might be
onboard, Founder,” Weyoun replied, trying to defend the
actions of the people in the recent battle.
Her expression did not change. She commanded
the Vorta, “Send a message to the to the task force com-
manders that I am not pleased.”
Weyoun knew what that would mean but did not
try to talk his god out of her decision. “It shall be as you
command, Founder,” he declared. The founder turned and
left the room in the same abrupt way she had entered it.
“That went well,” muttered Damar as he reached
for his bottle of Kanar.
“It went better for us than it will for the fleet com-
mander and his staff,” Weyoun rebutted. His hands flashed
across the communications console as he relayed the Foun-
der’s message. “At least we will live to rue this day.”
“A pity.” Damar said as the blip on their tactical
display that represented the Dominion dreadnaught moved
away from the swarm of other ships and exploded. “It was
a powerful ship. We could have used it when we retake
the wormhole.”
“When the time comes,” Weyoun said grimly,
“We will have to achieve that objective without the assis-
tance of that particular warship.”