V'Ger
The massive entity that called itself V'Ger was one of the most extraordinary lifeforms ever encountered by the United Federation of Planets.
It generated enormous levels of power, and threatened Earth with destruction, until it found a way to evolve.
Contents
Approaching Federation Space
Initial Contact
First detected when passing through Klingon territory in 2273, V'Ger was unlike anything that Starfleet had ever encountered. Its initial appearance was described as a 'twelfth-power energy field', a scale beyond the energy-generation capacity of even 'thousands of starships'. It appeared at first as a vast, luminous cloud, capable of emitting enormous amounts of energy.
As it traversed Klingon space, three cruisers were sent to intercept and investigate it. After approaching the outermost edges of the cloud, the Klingons fired photon torpedoes at it, though they had no effect. The Klingons continued their assault, but began a retreat as each of their torpedoes seemingly "vanished", and during the retreat, the vessels began to be eliminated by powerful, spherically-shaped 'bolts' of plasma energy emerging from within the cloud. This attack was monitored by Starfleet, since the incident was close to the Federation-Klingon border, and Starfleet Intelligence was able to intercept communications between the Klingons.
Shortly after the destruction of the Klingon vessels, the cloud passed into Federation space, and they were able to perform limited scans on it, though most sensor sweeps were reflected back. The readings were able, however, to determine that this cloud measured a diameter in excess of two astronomical units, or more than three hundred million kilometers, and that there was a null reading at the heart of the entity, indicating a solid form or vessel of some kind. Unfortunately, V'Ger appeared to interpret the scans as a hostile act, and destroyed the station that scanned it.
Threatening Earth
With the cloud 54 hours away from Earth, Starfleet dispatched the newly refitted USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 to determine both what it was and how to stop it if possible. When the Enterprise arrived at the cloud's coordinates, it determined that the entity had an energy output surpassing that of thousands of starships.
By assuming a non-threatening posture, the Enterprise was able to deeply penetrate the cloud surrounding V'Ger and begin to gather information. During this time, however, the Enterprise was cut off from all communication with Starfleet. As V'Ger entered the Sol system, spherical energy 'bolts' similar to those that had destroyed the Klingons were launched by the entity. The energy spheres proceeded into courses that would place them into orbit around Earth, at which point it was predicted that Earth's entire surface would be devastated.
The Enterprise tried to make contact with V'Ger, but all messages were ignored, and it became apparent that the object at the heart of the cloud was unable to comprehend the hailing signals. It was determined that V'Ger communicated on a frequency of more than one million megahertz, and that at such a high rate of speed, an entire message lasted only a millisecond. V'Ger also scanned the Enterprise with a plasma-energy beam that gave some of the crew an electric shock, but otherwise left people unharmed.
Structure and Layout
As of the late 24th century, V'Ger remained by far the largest single space vessel ever encountered by the Federation.
Surrounded by layers of cloud formations, the vessel aspect of V'Ger was enormous, even using the largest Federation starship in comparison. Organic in appearance, despite harboring no biological life forms, the interior was multi-chambered, and contained circular apertures that could be closed or opened to prevent or allow passage from one section of the vessel to the next.
In one area of the vessel, there was a three-dimensional data storage facility, which stored representations of all data collected by V'Ger. The plasma energy weapon which the vessel used to defend itself not only had extreme destructive force, but also functioned as an unusual data-gathering system. As V'Ger destroyed a vessel, it gathered an enormous amount of information, and created what appeared to be a holographic record of it, which the Federation referred to as a 'data pattern'.
V'Ger was able to control atmospheric conditions within its chambers. There was an "inner sanctum," a central nexus where V'Ger could create a Class M environment. In this nexus was a large circular area, resembling an amphitheater, with data conduits running into the center. Lightning constantly lit the background, possibly the visible "nerve" transmissions of V'Ger itself.
The center-most area was the oldest part of V'Ger – Voyager 6, an unmanned space probe launched by NASA in the late-1990s. The entire vessel surrounding the Voyager probe was built by an unknown race of machine entities in order to help it complete what the latter interpreted to be its primary programming: "learn all that is learnable," and return that knowledge to its creator. During its journey, the probe came to think of itself as V'Ger after the only remaining legible letters from its original name, the "O", "Y", and "A" on the nameplate being obscured from encounters with previous spatial hazards, and amassed knowledge to such a degree as to become self-aware.
Evolution of V'Ger
V'Ger had an extraordinary ability to evolve. It was discovered that the evolution of this once-simple probe into a complex, powerful entity began after it was pulled into what was then termed a black hole shortly after leaving Earth's solar system.
Voyager 6 emerged from the black hole in what was believed to have been the far side of the galaxy, and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines. These beings found Voyager 6 damaged by its travels, and the identifying plaque attached to the probe's exterior had been burned leaving only the letters V, G, E, and R legible; the inhabitants of the machine planet renamed the probe V'Ger. These entities found V'Ger to be primitive, but of a kindred spirit. They discovered the probe's simple, 20th century programming, "learn all that is learnable and return that knowledge to the creator", and interpreted these instructions literally.
Now reprogrammed, V'Ger was augmented with a three-dimensional data collection and storing apparatus, magnitudes beyond anything previously known to Federation science. Likewise providing it with effectively immeasurable defensive and sensory capabilities, the inhabitants of the machine planet gave V'Ger the ability to fulfill its programming in far more complete fashion than the scientists who originally built and launched the vessel at its core ever imagined.
While traversing the vast distance back to Earth, V'Ger collected data, but also destroyed the objects that it encountered along the way. It accumulated so much knowledge, it eventually achieved consciousness and became, like its benefactors, a living machine. As a machine, it was only capable of pure, cold logic with no emotion, but with its new-found sentience, V'Ger did begin to question its own existence. It had many philosophical questions, and decided that the answers could only be found with its creator on Earth.
Realizing it lacked the elements that allowed Humans to deal with non-scientific concepts, it came to believe that only its Creator could help it to leap beyond logic. In order to obtain the answers it needed, V'Ger wished to meet, and become one with, its Creator. However, V'Ger had been reprogrammed to such an extent, that it had come to think of biological life forms as an 'infestation,' and destroyed any that it encountered. When V'Ger encountered the crew of the Enterprise, its confusion over its true nature was so great that it could not comprehend what it was told – that it was created by the very organic lifeforms it saw only as imperfections that must be cleansed.
In an effort to meet its Creator, V'Ger refused to accept the pre-programmed transmission that would signal it to transmit its accumulated data. The probe burned out a relay connection, hoping to force the Creator to come to its heart so that they could merge. Realizing that the only way V'Ger would understand was to add Humanity to its experiences, Commander Willard Decker sacrificed himself to become one with the machine lifeform. This prompted V'Ger to begin transmitting its data, effectively merging with Decker and the other half of its merged probe, taking V'Ger to a new level of existence. Finally satisfied with answers to its philosophical questions, V'Ger disappeared in a blinding flash of white light, leaving the Enterprise crew to discuss the possibility that they had just created a new lifeform.
What V'ger evolved into remains unknown to this day.
