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Rode the 300 is the sixth episode of Star Trek: The Stoneship Files.

Summary[]

Act 1[]

While the Stoneship is still undergoing refits, Mijanou explains Brianna Reiss' next mission, which is to raid Du'Qot, a lightly defended border planet of the Klingon Empire, by turning as much of its population into zombies. To perform the raid, the Sable Order is to use the IKS Pterodactyl-of-Prey, a Khin'Vagh-class dreadnought, outfitted with 16 Ku'Rist-class attack fighters. As the zombification micro-torpedoes are outfitted with U'lanna bioweapons, the Pterodactyl-of-Prey approaches the planet, only encountering a B'rel-class bird-of-prey, quickly dispatched.

Act 2[]

Later, after encountering a communications relay and sending an away team to capture it, the Pterodactyl-of-Prey launches its fighters, each of which going for two attack runs, each with six microtorpedoes, putting itself into orbit for that purpose. The away team returned to the ship with one measly crate, containing a PADD as well as a four-century-old copy of the Gros Photon, captured by the House of Korgath and later auctioned off to the owners of the newly-completed Grand Mall of Qo'noS. Atenza later activates the holographic program contained in the PADD, Tuition Crisis, with everyone onboard jumping in.

Act 3[]

With the entire bridge crew inside the sole holodeck of that ship, Atenza activated an holodeck program that put the holodeck occupants into the Planck, the student café of the University of Montreal physics department, as operated in 2012 by the PHYSUM, with Bouteina Majd requesting the aid of Yvan Ung to picket an illegal lecture being given at Nickel's, a restaurant, with Joanie Martineau staying behind and later taking a walk towards the mathematics/computer science student café, where Urie finds that the holographic Joanie resembles her down to her nails.

Act 4[]

Tuition-protest

The holographic protest after the changes enacted by Brianna in the holodeck

Mrazek enters the holodeck rather late, after everyone else realizing that the tuition is to rise $325 yearly for five years, from a baseline amount of $2,168, hurting accessibility to higher education and, with it, social mobility. With the pilots involved in the raid later entering the holodeck, the debate continued and it was later revealed that the holodeck program was Klingon-made, more specifically by an Osric University doctoral history student, Alaa, on Ter'jas Mor. They catch wind of a plot that require 300 brave physicists to hold the picket line on March 22nd while they wait for reinforcements. Brianna Reiss finally realizes that military service was a form of public service as well, changing the number of holographic protesters for historical accuracy.

Quotes[]

"Succès garanti, seulement 14 379$!"
Urie, reading the schematics of a diploma vending machine
"1 625$, ça ne passe pas!"
— The holographic picketers, protesting a tuition hike
"But this Klingon holodeck program made me realize that, even in times of war, the purpose of the military is to serve its country, and that includes its people. If we must do something to help ensure free access to public utilities, then so be it."
— Brianna Reiss, after holding the picket line against strike-breakers

Background[]

This episode was written with the Quebec tuition crisis of 2012 as an inspiration source and as a way to keep a record of a debate about tuition hikes, hence the infamous picketing quote "1 625$, ça ne passe pas!" ($1,625 does not pass!). Also, the real-world crisis that was the basis of this episode also involved Edouard Montpetit College, Laval University, Concordia University and a large number of Quebec tertiary institutions, with more than 312,000 students involved at the height of the 2012 Quebec student strike.

And "the 300" in the title actually referred to the entire student body of the physics department of the University of Montreal at the height of the tuition crisis; the final scene of the episode was set in a massive protest staged in downtown Montreal on March 22nd, 2012, with 200,000 protesters in the real-world protest.

External link[]

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