Themis Rock Outpost 319: A Brave New World
In 2376 the 3 remaining power bases in the Alpha quadrant (Federation, Klingon and Romulan) embark on a joint mission to the Talar System in the Shybal Expanse – the area of space between the Talarian Republic and the Cardassian Union - in search trilithium and other rare minerals, these were finally discovered in large enough quantities on asteroid 07114. Soon teams of workers were working round the clock excavating the precious ore and remodelling the asteroid interior into a working outpost with a base of operations, living area, processing plants and all the other facilities needed for such a large mining operation.
However things went wrong, badly wrong. After only 7 years of intensive mining the supposedly endless supply of trilithium began to dry out. The first to pull out of the venture were the Romulans leaving the Federation and Klingon empire joint custodians of a rock in the middle of nowhere with nothing to show for it, eventually even the Klingons left citing political instability on Qo’nos, but everyone knew the real reason was they didn’t trust the Romulans and having so many personnel tied up in a white elephant so far from Klingon space was far from ideal so ownership of asteroid 07114 was handed over wholly to the Federation, a mere 6 months later the once promising rock on the edges of known space within the Shybal Expanse was silent as the last Federation ship ferried the remaining skeleton crew home.
The Rock Reborn
In 2387 Themis Rock was re-designated as Outpost 319 but is still colloquially known as Themis Rock. The Outpost was retrofitted and is large enough to provide a strategic base of operations for Starfleet and Federation concerns within the sector but small enough to be considered a frontier station.
The outpost’s re-launch coincides with Starfleet’s return to galactic exploration. Starfleet wishes to press the expanse’s Federation controlled interests in each direction thus setting up a power base at the outer limits of its operations.
Its operation fell under the joint command of Commander Ro Lorne and Commander Hal Cirrix. Shortly after they assumed command they were joined by Lt. Commander Doctor Isabelle Royce who assumed the mantle of Chief Medical Officer and Lieutenant Elly Doral as Chief of Security.
Their first act aboard the outpost was to give sanctuary to a group of time lost 21st century military veterans who arrived aboard an alien shuttle. From their ranks Lieutenant Jg. Tom Ford joined the team as Chief of Operations.
