Jolan Tru from the Outmarches

Stardate: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

So here I am – a soldier stuck in the Neutral Zone between the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets, chugging along in my Warbird, trying to make sense of it all.

No, not really of course.

My Neutral Zone is nothing other than the lovely country of Germany and my Warbird a quite stationary USArmy garrison rather than an instrument of wholesale destruction floating in space – but that doesn’t make me less of an alien in these parts. A heavily armed alien with fully loaded disruptor banks as it were, yet patiently tolerated by the indigenous population.

Rather surprisingly, some of the locals even have a certain fondness for us odd Red-White-and-Blue aliens who stuck around after that big, horrendous war. First they stayed because of the mean guys behind that other Neutral Zone, and later … well, probably out of habit. Or maybe they like the beer so much? Right, there was that NATO thing. Anyways, want to buy a cuckoo-clock?

What is this all about?

Primarily it is an attempt at keeping a “ship’s log” – random thoughts interspresed with “Encountered Bird-of-Prey, sank same” and knowing me, tangents going off into subtangents and ending up dancing the Macarena with osculating circles.

Maybe it will end up a kind of interactive diary, a travel guide (do NOT order the green drink in Austria!), a running commentary on anything from Swedish cheese to nuclear proliferation treaties, any of the above, none of the above …

All secure for warp speed? Right, then. Let’s go boldly. And maybe stop at a bar or two along the way.