skymurdock asked: Star Wars/Star Trek? pls imagine Han and Jim having the weirdest friendly rivalry ever bc Han maintains the Millennium Falcon is the Best Ship and Jim maintains the Enterprise should have that honor.
I just got out of Beyond last night and I am DRUNK on the Star Trek thing right now. LET’S GO. I did a little more with the crews than the ships but like. Yeah.
- The thing about exploring space is that it’s big, but not infinite. So sooner or later the final frontier pushes right up to the raggedy edge of a galaxy far far away. Specifically, a ramshackle ship at the outermost edge of Republic space. (They’re on a sort of ‘remember the good old days when the three of us plus Chewie and a couple droids were on the fucking run’ sort of trip. Han doesn’t know why he’s doing this but sure, Leia, for old time’s sake, something like that, and Luke just looked at him and blinked and somehow the farmboy eyes still work on him after all this time.) The Enterprise sees it on its radar and…well, to be completely honest, Spock takes one look at the readings and announces that there appears to be a ship in distress. They go investigate—the Enterprise makes the Falcon look like a slightly haphazard guppy beside a sleek and shining whale, a sheer wall of matte white kissed with space dust. (Inside the Falcon, everyone has a completely independent moment of holyfuckingkriff we’re going to war again before the polite text hail comes through and the ship translates the message.)
- Okay so…it turns out that Republic Standard and Federation Basic have basically nothing to do with each other, and the universal translators aren’t in the mood to translate an entirely foreign language. The crew of the Falcon and the Enterprise away team spend a good long while cycling through every language they know (and with Uhura with them, that number is prodigious) before they figure out that there seems to be at least a degree of commonality between Bocce and Ferengi, and between an archaic Vulcan dialect that even Spock barely knows and an equally dated Naboo dialect that Leia knows a few scraps of and C-3PO knows a few more scraps of (Padmé believed in knowing her planet’s history). They cobble together a pidgin that at least lets them introduce themselves while half the engineering team scrambles to clap together a translator. (It takes two hours and Scotty is bursting with pride over the thing, which turns Basic into Standard and back again with no trouble at all.)
- First contact with a foreign Republic: pretty much par for the course for the Enterprise, and hey, they have a Senator of said Republic right there, so for Kirk and his crew this is going great. They have a war hero, a general in the military, and a political figure on hand, in addition to a droid loaded with a massive amount of history and a soldier. The Falcon’s crew is pretty much exactly the diplomatic cadre most planets send out to meet the Federation, so it doesn’t even occur to them that they’ve pretty much caught the Falcon with their pants down. The Falcon isn’t a diplomatic vessel on the best of days, and even if it was, the Republic hasn’t made a business of making first contact with anyone in quite a long time. So when a clutch of various aliens—including humans, who aren’t so alien after all, and ain’t that a kick in the head, as Han says—in brightly colored uniforms introduces themselves as members of Star Fleet, representatives of something called the United Federation of Planets…that’s new. Leia pushes Han out of the way with an elbow, and shuts Luke up with a glance, and does her best to look Senatorly and In Control.
- By the end of a few hours’ meeting, there’s a tentative alliance drawn up and a friendship in place between Leia and Jim, who, Bones and Han agree, have bonded over being reckless idealists too stubbornly brave for their own health. Spock interrogates Luke at length about the Force—fascinating, he pronounces at once—and is disappointed to find out that the Jedi have largely been wiped out will all their information. (Luke, on the other hand, is a little dazed from the rapid-fire queries and thinks that, if all Vulcans are so emotionless, it’s probably for the best that the Jedi never met them, because can you imagine if that was the Jedi standard for emotional control. Also, Luke is smarter than your average bantha, thanks, and knows a telepath when he sees one, so he makes a mental note to look into testing the Vulcans for Force-sensitivity, if he can figure out how the hell to do it.) Uhura corners 3PO and commands him to start teaching her Republic Standard. She makes terrifying progress, and also learns enough Shyriiwook to understand Chewbacca’s careful and kind farewell (C-3PO is in love, he’s never met someone so brilliant in his entire existence, he almost follows her home like a lost puppy).
- Regarding the ships: Jim is very polite about the Falcon because there’s just no point in being rude about other people’s ships when yours is so evidently the best in the universe—honestly, if Han tried to insult his ship, Jim’s response would be a blank expression and “Are you blind? We can have Bones look at that.” Han grumbles a bit, but he’s not an idiot, and the Falcon is a damn good ship, he mutters, even if she’s not flashy. (It should be noted that, here, ‘not flashy’ means ‘occasionally unwilling to hit hyperspeed without some serious antics,’ which is kind of the equivalent of saying, about a car, that ‘not flashy’ means ‘hope you don’t want a second gear that works all the time.’) So the two captains get along pretty well, because if there’s anyone that Han Don’t-Tell-Me-The-Odds Solo is going to click with, it’s Jim Rules-What-Rules Kirk. Scotty, on the other hand, is apoplectic the first time he hears Han compare the Falcon to the Enterprise. That bucket of bolts! Falling apart at the seams! Compared to his lady! The Falcon is unworthy to pass through her ion wake! Chekov sees the Chief of Engineering puff up and Jim shoots him a look, and Chekov claps a hand over Scotty’s mouth, towing him out of the room with Sulu. Han’s back is turned and the nod Luke gives, to say nothing of the hidden smirk, suggests that he won’t be telling, so Jim has avoided, once more, starting a diplomatic incident because of Scotty’s determination to defend the Enterprise’s honor. This is a fairly regular occurrence, and a large part of the reason that Scotty is on probation from diplomatic missions.
- Bonus sixth headcanon: Jim is the most fucking Force-sensitive. They find this out because Luke, still half-trained and a bit prone to error, brushes a brief mental probe across his mind and gets thrown out with all the violence of hitting warp three from a dead halt. Luke asks where his mental shields came from and Jim gives him a blank look and Luke has a moment of horrible revelation: he’s not only going to have to scrounge up some teaching ability, he’s going to have to comb an entire Federation for Force-sensitives. When the nav officer—Chekov—sees the look of appalled shock on his face and politely offers brandy, with the additional remark that the Captain can have that effect, Luke takes him up on it.
Luke does not know how he’s going to get around to DOING that - searching through a whole Federation and then teaching the people he finds to use the Force. Luke kind of wants to cry a little. (the Vulcans are - a whole ‘nother bag of Loth-cats that Luke is going to poke when he is SOBER, okay, but right now the brandy is calling his name.)
(years later, Jim has his very own lightsaber, not that he uses it very much outside of “glorified laser cutter”. he runs into Luke at a Federation-Republic thing and one thing led to another and they’re going to check out an ancient Jedi temple now - with a full expedition team by the Federation’s insistence bc they’re all about exploring new things and this is a New Thing and Luke does not actually mind - he is SO EXCITED, the nerd.)
Bones takes one look at the Millennium Falcon - held together by spit, duct tape, prayers and the Force - and immediately starts screaming internally. he can list about fifteen things off the top of his head that could happen to the inhabitants of this ship should this thing finally give out, and also ten viral diseases that this could possibly be carrying from its history of smuggling, how have any of you SURVIVED in this hunk of junk.
(“HEY,” yells Han, Offended.
“true,” says Leia, affectionately patting the walls.)
Artoo is having the time of his life onboard the Enterprise, by the way. Sulu walks in on him beeping away on the bridge, plugged into the console. is he having a conversation with the Enterprise? (he most definitely is.)
