The Nexus
From FEInfobase
The Nexus is an extradimensional realm in which one's thoughts and desires shape reality. Inside the Nexus, time has no meaning, allowing one to visit any time and any place that one can imagine. The entrance to the Nexus is a violent temporal energy ribbon which crossed through the galaxy every 39.1 years.
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The Nexus Effect on Lifeforms
Describing the Nexus to Captain Picard, Guinan described it as like "being inside joy." Inside the Nexus, all of a person's desires become reality, and one can reshape that reality to visit any time and any place one chooses.
Picard's version of the Nexus was of a family he never had. He had two sons – Matthew and Thomas – and three daughters – Olivia, Mimi, and Madison. They lived, with his wife, in a beautiful house, and his nephew René, who had recently died in a fire in the real world, was still alive.
Kirk's version was initially being at his log cabin in the mountains, which he had previously sold. While there, he reunited with his dog Butler, and had the chance to propose marriage to Antonia, a woman whom he had regretted leaving to return to Starfleet. Later, he experienced his uncle's farm in Idaho, where he went horseback riding with Captain Picard
Incident with the Enterprise-B
Starfleet first encountered this phenomenon in 2293, when the newly-christened USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B responded to a distress call from two vessels transporting El-Aurian refugees to Earth. Arriving at the vessels' location, the Enterprise found them trapped in a powerful gravimetric field emanating from the trailing edge of the energy ribbon. Arriving too late to save the first ship, the SS Robert Fox, the Enterprise moved into transporter range in an attempt to beam aboard the crew and passengers from the other, the SS Lakul. The crew experienced difficulty in mainaining a transporter lock on them, however, as their lifesigns were experiencing a state of temporal flux, phasing in and out of the spacetime continuum. As the Lakul began to lose structural integrity, the transporter was initiated, but the crew was only able to save 47 people, out of 150, including El-Aurians Guinan and Tolian Soran.
Afterward, the Enterprise itself became caught in the gravimetric field, and was unable to escape. Scotty, who was attending the maiden voyage of the vessel along with Captain Kirk and Commander Pavel Chekov, realized that a resonance burst fired from the main deflector might disrupt the field long enough for the ship to break free. Kirk went down to modify the Enterprise's deflector relays to make this possible. Although this was successful, Captain Kirk himself was pulled into the Nexus when an energy discharge from the ribbon impacted the section of the ship where Kirk was modifying systems. For the next seventy-eight years it was believed that Kirk had died a hero.
Incident with the Enterprise-D
Before being rescued by the Enterprise, the El-Aurians experienced brief moments inside the Nexus, where all of their desires became reality. Soran became obsessed with returning, and dedicated himself to discovering a way to re-enter the Nexus. By 2371, he had developed a plan to destroy two stars, altering the gravitational forces influencing the ribbon and bringing it to the planet Veridian III, where Soran would be waiting for it. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D discovered the nature of Soran's plot, and realized that, by destroying the Veridian star, he would also destroy all of the planets in the Veridian system, including Veridian IV, a planet with a population of 230 million. Picard confronted Soran on Veridian III in an attempt to stop him, but was unsuccessful in preventing Soran from destroying the star. As all planets in the Veridian system were destroyed, both Picard and Soran were pulled into the Nexus.
While inside, Picard encountered Guinan, who described herself as an "echo" of the version of Guinan who once visited the Nexus. With her help, Picard located Captain Kirk, who, from his point of view, had only just entered the Nexus. Picard initially had difficulty in persuading Kirk to leave the Nexus, as Kirk saw it as his opportunity to correct the mistakes of his past. Kirk soon realized, however, that the events which transpired in the Nexus were not real, but rather a complicated illusion, and agreed to join Picard, recognizing that the fundamental unreality of the Nexus meant that the one thing it could never offer him was the one thing he had always wanted; the chance to make a difference. Due to the timeless nature of the Nexus, the two captains were able to leave and arrive on Veridian III at a point in time before Soran destroyed the star. Teaming up to fight him, they were successful in changing history and stopping Soran, but unfortunately Captain Kirk was killed in the process.
The Nexus in 2410
The Nexus is scheduled to pass through the Alpha Quadrant and in the vicinity of current Federation space in 2410. There have been rumors of groups of people tired of the state of the Universe that seek to enter it. For many, it represents a way to get back what they have lost in the war. Some may be unstoppable in their quest to find and enter it, and they may not care who they have to go through to get to it....