One world is unique in Star Trek in that it has all the feel of a frontier world,
but minus all that wonder because, well, it’s not on the frontier. It’s actually
rather easy to access for not one, but three of the galaxy’s biggest powers. I am talking about
Nimbus 3, the third planet of the nimbus system and one that has a very unfortunate past.
While it has only had one outing in the canon, that of the film, the Final Frontier,
it has enjoyed, no wrong word… weathered numerous other events across apocryphal media.
Hi. Ric here again, this time looking into the world of Nimbus III, “famous for its wildlife
and the fishing is terrific”, as the slogan goes. Statistics first. The world is a margin L class,
meaning that it can support humanoid life, it’s just not optimal,
nor recommended. It has two moons and one ocean that apparently does not have a tidal effect,
despite the proximity of these satellites. Maybe their gravitational pull is far too weak?
It has a single landmass that is predominantly desert and arid rock and a single ocean called
the Mossy Sea. The temperature on a cold day is around 25 degrees Celsius, and this gets even
hotter the more in land you go. The centre of this landmass is known as the Badlands, which
is comparable to Vulcan’s Forge, except bigger and bracketed by weathered mountains, eroded by
the sand-blasting winds. Whatever tectonic activity raised them has long since faded.
Breaking up the expansive desert are further ranges, valleys but mostly vast,
undulating dunes of nothing but sand. Rainfall from the oceans very rarely makes it far inland.
So why settle this world at all? Well, there are two reasons, but only one that stuck.
It’s location, which has fluctuated with various retellings,
places it in the Federation-Romulan Neutral Zone, but more than this, near the Klingon border,
making it a world with a breathable atmosphere, right at the linchpin between the Alpha and
Beta quadrant’s biggest political players. However, it was not seized as a prize of war,
nor as an asset in a battle, but settled out of an optimistic, if naïve quest for peace.
After the Federation Klingon War of 2256-57, where the Empire sought to stabilise itself through
conflict with the Federation, tensions remained high between the two powers. Not long after this,
the Romulans began to make new forays into both Klingon and Federation space, making
relations between the three powers more unstable and tense. This reached boiling point between the
UFP and the fledgling KDF, when in 2267, war was declared near Organia. This was ultimately ended
by an enforced treaty from the Organians, but highlighted the powder keg that was the political
landscape of the time and a clear signal to the powers that be, that something needed to change.
So it was, that Ambassador Robert Fox brought on board diplomats from the UFP,
Jetanien, the Klingon’s Lugok, and the Star Empire’s D’tran to reach an accord between
the powers and attempt something new. The founding of a colony world, where each of the three powers
would have an equal say in its governing and be made from settlers from each of their territories,
a Planet of Galactic Peace. The idea was a noble one, and Nimbus selected to be the location.
Soon plans were made to prepare the world for terraforming, and a site was set up to be the
capital city, known simply as Paradise. The world was advertised throughout the Federation
to bolster moral and it’s from this campaign to attract volunteers, we get the slogan, which was
premature at best. However, in 2268, Ambassador D’tran was killed on its surface during a riot.
So great start. This despite the fact that weapons were banned on the surface, as inhabitants
basically forged their own. On top of this, while the Federation began to settle the colony in
earnest, the Romulans and Klingons used the site to exile their undesirable elements, so two thirds
of the population were basically already annoyed at being here and it only took 20 years overall
for the whole plan to fall apart. Needless to say, the terraforming plans never reached fruition.
One good thing may have come from the discussion at least however, as it was during this year
that the Romulans were seen with Klingon style D7s, suggesting a trade of technology
may have occurred in the wake of dialogue between the Federation’s mutual aggressors.
Paradise City, remains the capital, but neither name really fits. It is not a paradise,
just a dusty, walled encampment of forlorn souls, at its barely big enough to be called a village,
let alone a city. There are other settlements across the surface,
mostly centred along the eastern shore, much closer to the ocean and these include Lonely Town,
Happy Meadows and Road’s End. Two others, Deadend and Faraway lie across the Badlands.
Additionally, plans to construct an orbital facility never materialised either, so the planet
was left without a spaceport. This, plus its location, on the border of three differing powers,
meant that no traffic ever passed through the system, because the Neutral Zone prevented it.
The only vessels that arrived at Nimbus, were those who set out for Nimbus,
the occasional supply ship, and rapidly decreasing colonist transports.
Management of the planet fell to a representative of each government, however with few settlers,
no political sway and almost no traffic, the position held precious little responsibility.
This is probably why all the representatives got along, mutual boredom and resignation
to the hand they had been dealt. In 2287, the Federation and two Empires
still retained their symbolic presence there, with St’ John Tabot representing the United Federation,
General Korrd of the Klingon Empire, and a new arrival, the Romulan diplomat, Caithlin Dar.
Paradise had a single tavern, the “Watering Hole” and its back offices functioned as the
headquarters for the diplomats. This was likely originally supposed to be the temporary offices
for Nimbus 3’s government, to be replaced as the ahem… “city” grew, but of course, it never did. It
does however house the only communications device that can reach off world. By this time, people
had been bartering their way off world, and the already diminishing population decreased further.
In 2287, Sybok led his brainwashing cult to the city of Paradise in order to continue his quest
for Sha Ka Ree, and since Nimbus’ founding, that was the most significant event that it had ever
played host to. A pit stop for the Enterprise. The planet’s decline continued, and eventually the
Federation was forced to publicly concede that the notions of a joint settlement was too optimistic
(and a few centuries too early). They began to recall their staff and by 2318, the UFP had no
personnel left on its surface, although they never released their partial claim on the world,
so rather than being the haven it was supposed to be, it was more or less stuck in this arid limbo.
It is probably around this time that the Romulan presence began to increase, now that the
Federation had abandoned the planet in all but name. It’s not known exactly when it happened,
but the Tal Shiar eventually began to set up shop there, keeping to themselves as much as possible.
Starfleet would apparently have no knowledge of the Tal Shiar’s presence here until 2384,
but we’ll get to that in a minute. During the late 2360s however,
it seems that the UFP decided to make a second effort with Nimbus 3. Having never released their
claim to the world, they were well within their rights to attempt to settle it again,
and the Federation began to do just that. But what poor timing! Because only a few years later,
as progress was beginning to be made in restoring some semblance of the 24th century to the world,
the Dominion War erupted, and Starfleet was forced to cut back on its extensive colonisation efforts
for the war. This lasted until 2375, and by that time, a familiar tale had unfolded on Nimbus.
People had bartered their way back off world, given up, or just plain disappeared.
Then, in 2382 the Federation learned of the upcoming Romulan supernova,
and Admiral Picard began his audacious plans to aid the Romulan people. As estimate of the
supernova were revised on revisited by Starfleet observers, who themselves were not allowed into
Romulan space to verify them, it became clear that Nimbus would be one of the systems within
range of the subspace stellar explosion. In 2384, the USS Verity (the only ship allowed to pass
into or near Romulan space, was sent to evacuate Nimbus 3. By the time it got there, it discovered
that the planet had seen a significant increase in Romulan civilians, but they were prevented from
evacuating them for some undisclosed reason. Shortly after this, the Romulan Star Empire
warned the Verity that they would take over the evacuation of Nimbus, something that seemed to
oppose the earlier agreements Picard had been working by, but he was bound to acquiesce.
The whole thing reeked of a Tal Shiar cover up. The theory was that the Star Empire did
not know that there was a base on Nimbus 3, and gave the Verity the go-ahead, but then the Tal
Shair swooped in for the coverup. The cruellest thing however, was that the Tal Shair extracted
some civilians and killed the rest because they would have been a security risk if relocated to
UFP territory. This is something that the Star Empire denied ever happened, and the
Verity had not been there in person to check. However, the planet was eventually spared
destruction it seems by the actions of Ambassador Spock and his collapsing of the supernova
with Red Matter. So nimbus and its dejected history gets to continue on. The following
tales are now from Star Trek Online’s continuity, so keep in mind this is liable to be overwritten.
By the 25th century, a third effort had been made to colonise the planet, but this time, the offer
of settling was thrown wide to all comers, not just the Federation, Klingons and Romulans. To its
credit, this worked and the world saw an influx of new inhabitants. And the Orion Syndicate. With
Starfleet still adopting an off-hands approach to the planet, as it was distracted with other
matters, the inhabitants attempted to form their own policing force, called the peacekeepers.
However, this fell to corruption as one of the few Starfleet officers now posted there, Lt. Haverson,
eventually betrayed the peacekeepers to the Orion syndicate, and they were “forcibly disbanded”.
By 2409, the leader of the Syndicate, Melani D’ian ruled over Nimbus through her proxy,
Hasaan the Undying who is holed up in the mountain range outside of Paradise,
in a converted cavern system called “Shangdu”. One good thing came out of Orion Syndicate taking
over though. Trade was now passing through the system, considering the Neutral Zone
had been abolished. I mean, it’s mostly a black market trade, but they did establish a spaceport
in orbit at last, so that’s something. The Tal Shiar have also set up back in Installation 18
using it as a research post for their Borg technology and other experimentation, bringing in
people from other territories with their allies, the Elachi. Long story, I won’t get into here.
So that sums up the history of Nimbus 3. It certainly has character and a real backwater
feel to it. It’s desolate and every attempt to build it into something noble has failed due to
happenstance or poor planning. It’s almost as if the world itself simply resists being elevated
to the lofty ideal held by the Federation and it routinely falls into the corrupting elements
of the Trek universe, the Tal Shiar, the Orion Syndicate. I kind of like that it hasn’t improved
however, don’t get me wrong, if it were real, of course I’d want to see it remade and succeed,
but it’s not so it makes for an amazing location for storytelling. Thanks for watching this rundown
on the rundown planet that is Nimbus 3. Where the wildlife are imported Romulan sand-worms,
and the fishing is non-existent. Thanks again, I’ve been Ric, and goodbye!