Captain's StarLog: November 11, 2145. Captain Jonathan Archer, commanding USS Enterprise.Science Officer T'Pol has finished salvaging the ancient artifact that was found floating through space in the Expanse. Actually, it was Trip who identified it as an Earth device, circa early 21st century - what they used to call a Palm Pilot, or a PDA. Nice, compact design for information storage and retrieval - I'll have to speak to Starfleet about updating the design. It's unknown at this time how it came to be way out here, but they're working on some theories.
Anyway, the memory module - while badly damaged - was still barely intact and barely readable, still an amazing fact after all this time. Ensign Sato has been able to recover most of it. The contents of the memory seem to be a collection of personal logs, of various description and styles. Hoshi says she thinks they used to be called "webpages" or even something called...what was it, "flogs"? Regardless, these journals apparently were stored where others could read them across Earth's primitive global information network. The variety of opinions and viewpoints is astonishingly diverse - it's no wonder they nearly destroyed each other in the Eugenics Wars and World War III.
Following is a report on the contents of the memory module - only fragments remain, and are disjointed, but each of the people who wrote these journals seem to have been part of some kind of Alliance known as the "Rocky Top Brigade". We're running this term through our historical records, but as everyone knows details from that time are sketchy.
Entry #1 is short but seems to be regarding a matter of great import to the author, Deb of Sugarfused: "Quitting". She seems to have decided to kick a bad habit.
Entry #2 is entitled, "Dear Governor Dean" from someone who calls himself Stoney at Rebel Yell. 21st century politics and morality seem to be a popular topic for discussion, and Mr. Stoney has decided to refer to a politician as a "gutless moron". 21st century slang is difficult to understand, but Hoshi is working on a primer for me.
Entry #3 comes from a flogger who calls himself SayUncle - Hoshi says that's an archaic Earth expression for "surrender". Hm. His post is called, "Second Amendment stuff" which I believe refers to the United States Constitution. It has to do with controversies surrounding individuals' rights to possess firearms at that point in history.
Hoshi informs me that the correct term is not "flogger", but "clogger". I apologize for the mistake.
Entry #4 is an entry from clogger Chris at Quiet Life entitled, "Currency Speculation 101". Financial science was apparently of very great interest in the 21st Century, judging by this record. It also seems people used finances to further political causes. Barbaric....
Speaking of barbaric, Entry #5 from Bjorn (this global net reached all the way to Switzerland at that point in history) called "Is acknowledging a higher power really that bad of an idea?" discusses mass graves and the effects religion has and has had on the formation of human governments. I would ask Ensign Mayweather what he thinks about this subject, but I can never find him.
Dr. Phlox informs me it's time for my physical. End of entry
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Captain's StarLog: November 12, 2145. Captain Jonathan Archer, commanding USS Enterprise.
Continuing the report on the contents of the ancient human "Palm Pilot" found adrift deep in the Expanse...
Entry #6 seems to have been written by a ruling monarch of one of Earth's nations, Queen Medb. T'Pol has been as of yet unable to find this queen in the political database, nor venture a guess at which nation she rules. Her entry is entitled, "The Machine That Went Ping, Blah and Tick". It is the general concensus of the research team that the poor Queen may have been insane because it seems to detail a treatment for a brain disorder that went terribly wrong.
Entry #7 was submitted by one known only as Bugly. His/her post is called, "Good food thats good for you..." and details a snack food that seems to have popular at that time - something called a "Doonut" that was available in rest rooms. I don't understand this one, but Lt. Reed seems to find it very interesting...
Entry #8 is entitled, "Poisonous Politics" from Mason at The Southern Reporter. Again, politics was very important to people of the era and it's been postulated that some people even worshiped their elected leaders. There are even some radical historians who suggest they even broke up into political "parties" that were worshipped by the leaders themselves and proved to wield more power than the people they purported to serve. This concept has generally been considered preposterous and fanciful by most historians. Still, this post may lend evidence to the idea that not all of Earth's leaders were good, just and moral.
Entry #9 is a heartwarming post that demonstrates they allowed even people with low intelligence to make their views known. The poor fellow they designated Big Stupid Tommy submits his story of the time he heard something called a "zinger": "The Best Thing I've Heard Anybody Ever Said to Anybody Else". Archives suggest a "zinger" was also a snack food at that time in history, so perhaps it has something to do with the "Doonut" mentioned earlier.
We're a bit confused as to the meaning of Entry #10 from Guy Montag entitled, "My Dollars for Sharpton Effort". Could humans running for government office actually have accepted currency for political favors? This would on the face to be as absurd a concept as "political parties". But then again, nothing's that far-fetched.
Entry #11 is from Peggy of A Moveable Beast, and is called, "25 DEGREES OF PROCRASTINATION". This Peggy seems to have a fascination with horses, as there are several images that were salvageable. She seems to have trouble beginning a project...
Goodness, Hoshi informs me again that they were in fact not called "floggers" or "cloggers". The true designation of these people was, "Fred". I have congratulated Ensign Sato and will recommend her for promotion.
Entry #12 comes from an interesting Fredder called Hatamaran who seems to be a great philospher or expert on human mental health. She has posted an analysis entitled, "it's only natural... " that discusses something called "dissociative identity disorder". The terminology seems even to be beyond that used now in the 22nd century. Could this Hatamaran be a time traveler? That's next on T'Pol's things to discuss with the Vulcan Science Academy.
Hmm. I think Porthos wants to be fed. Where'd I put those space biscuits? Pause recording...
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Captain's StarLog: Supplemental. Captain Jonathan Archer, commanding USS Enterprise.
Bad Porthos! Bad, bad Porthos - I just had my carpet sub-molecularly cleaned!
Entry #13 is actually two entries from the same person, CJ of Up For Anything. The first is called, "See What Stealing Gets You?" and has to do with one of the popular sporting events of the day, football. I've never understood the appeal of football - it's nothing like a good water polo match. The second post is again about politics, "Liberals Hate Conservative Minorities" - could there be an unknown virus at work that causes political obsessions among 21st Century Earth's technical elite? Perhaps Hatamaran brought it back from the future in order to destroy humanity in the past. Worth checking into.
Entry #14 seems to have been almost hopelessly garbled - even Hoshi is unable to fully clear up the recording. The best she can make is it's from someone called Buddy Don of Wandering Hillbilly and the post is entitled "'Dinner with ole friens of buddy don: a evenin full of coincidents". All the text in the entry is garbled as well. That's a shame, because he was probably a good old boy.
Entry #15 is entitled, "Those wacky Republicans" from Manish at Damn Foreigner. I believe judging from this article one leader of the late 20th century was not important enough to have a motion picture created about him. We do have one of this leader's movies in our archives on board ship, and we all love the funny monkey.
Entry #16 comes from a former member of the armed forces, Democratic Veteran. His entry is entitled, "OMG - Hearts and Minds redux" having something to do with a minor military squirmish that happened in 2003.
Entry #17 was the last entry we were able to salvage. Barry from Inn of the Last Home discusses a recent trip with Tennesee Theatre Association 2003 Conference - Part 1 and A Great Opportunity.
That's all we got. It seems obvious that humans of that time period were passionate about certain ideals and went to great lengths to express their viewpoints - sometimes with satire, sarcasm and the occasional "zinger". It's a good thing that here in the future humans have evolved past that. But there may have been hope for these people, as well.
Archer Out. End Recording.
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Captain's StarLog: Supplemental. Captain Jonathan Archer, commanding USS Enterprise.
Trip has discovered what seems to be a temporal rift forming just off our port bow. Sensors picked up another memory module floating out of the rift - it appears to be identical to the one we salvaged earlier, and T'Pol and Hoshi have been able to download its contents as well. More entries may be recoverable:
Entry #18 is from Fredd-- stand by...
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Hoshi has revised her terminology once again - the proper designation for these online authors is not, in fact, "Fred" but seems to be "Roto-rooter". I am extremely sceptical about this latest interpretation, so I've decided to just call them a random name...oh, I don't know...maybe "bloggers". Yeah, that sounds good. Continuing..
Entry #18 is from a blogger name Les Jones - his entry is entitled Longmire and chronicles Mr. Jones' hero-worshipping another blogger. I suspect both Mr. Jones and Mr. Longmire have been affected by the insanity virus brought back in time by Hatamaran. Apparently it also causes a strange romantic longing for firearms in Mr. Jones as well, which I also noticed in SayUncle's writings. Strange.
The Human Adventure is Just Beginning
