The Redneck Starship Crew

By

Kim Davis

Author's Note

            My friends and I came up with an interesting skit to perform at a Science Fiction

Convention, which was based off a web page, found back in 1998. This web page happened to be a cross between Star Trek and Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck if…” and was titled “Signs that your Starship Captain may be a Redneck.” This gave us all a great chuckle as we came up with the ship, characters and costumes. Though we were never able to perform our skit, I decided to use what my friends and I had come up with, as a basis for this story. Some words may be misspelled in the dialogue; this is because I had tried to simulate the southern speech to give more of the humor. The following is the contents of the web page this story is based from.

“Signs that your Starship Captain may be a Redneck”

Your Starship Captain just might be a redneck if….

            Your shuttlecraft has been up on blocks for over a month

         He paints flames and a NRA sticker on the warp nacelles

            You have a shuttle called “Billy Joe Bob”

            He refers to Klingons as “Critters”

            He refers to Photon Torpedoes as “Popguns”

            He has the sensor array repaired with a bent coathanger and aluminum foil

            He installs a set of bullhorns on the front of the saucer section

            He says “Got your ears on, good buddy” instead of “open hailing frequencies”

            He hangs fuzzy dice over the viewscreen

            He rewires his communicator into his belt buckle

            He keeps a six-pack under his command chair and a gun rack above it

            He says “Yee-Ha!” instead of “Engage”

            He has a hand tooled holster for his phaser

            He insists on calling his executive officer “Bubba”

            He the food replicator for beer, ribs, and turnip greens

            He paints the starship John Deere Green

            He refers to a Pulsar as a “Blue Light Special”

            He refers to the Mutara Nebula as a “swamp”

            His sets the fore viewscreen to reruns of “Bassmaster”

            He programs moonshine is stronger than Romulan Ale

            He sings “Lucille” instead of “Kathleen”

            His idea of dress uniform in CLEAN bib overalls

            He wears mirrored shades on the Bridge

            His idea of a “gas giant” is that big ol' XO Bubba after a meal of beans and weenies
            He sets phaser to “Cajun”

He fastens his tricorder to his belt with a chain

Space the final frontier; these are the continuing voyages of the starship Robert E. Lee. Her ongoing mission…to seek out new life and blast ‘em, to explore strange new worlds…and blast ‘em…to boldly go…where no redneck has gone before.

Crew and Ship Evaluation of the

USS Robert E. Lee NCC 1863

Presented by

Commander Abraham Lincoln Hale Jr.

Stardate 11687.29

Background information of the Robert E. Lee: The ship originally had the designation of NCC 15932 and was named the Concorde. Somehow the ship’s name and designation was changed in Starfleet’s computer systems. Part of my mission was to find out how this was accomplished and why. The rest was to evaluate Captain Billy Joe Bob Picket Burnside III and his crew, make any recommendations needed, and down load the Captain’s logs, since there have been no regular reports submitted to Starfleet. The ship has been informed of my visit.

I happen to be sitting on the promenade of DS4, when the starship Robert E. Lee established orbit and was in plain sight of the promenade windows. I was surprised to see the newest galaxy class starship painted in an unusual color of green with orange and yellow along the warp nacelles, a large sign with the letters NRA and a large object on the saucer section. I found out later this color of green is known as “John Deere” green, the yellow and orange are flames, the NRA stands for National Rifle Association (a famous organization back in the 20^th century) and the object on the saucer section are bullhorns. My first impression of this ship was how odd it looked.

Once I had beemed over, I was greeted by Captain Burnside in the transporter room. I introduced myself, Captain Burnside insisted I call him Billy Joe Bob and since my namesake was a Yankee, he would call me Junior, stating the crew might not respond to me otherwise.

Then I noticed the Captains uniform, and at this point I must comment about the uniforms worn by the Captain and the crew, or should I say lack of. The Captain wore a pair of bib overalls with a unique red plaid flannel shirt and his communicator attached to his belt (couldn’t figure out why he would wear a belt on a pair of pants that had straps holding them up). The design of the shirt was similar to the traditional 24^th Century Starfleet uniform with the upright collar, but the color area was in a red plaid flannel material and buttoned down the front. The rest of the crew wore the same general theme of clothing, denim pants with the communicator on the belt and the flannel uniform shirt, the colors in plaid flannel and matching the department the person was in. Not regulations, but nothing new for this crew.

            Inside the turbo lift, there was an unusual song by the name of “Lucille” playing. I happened to ask the Captain why he had music playing in the turbo lift. My answer was, he felt the crew needed something to enjoy on their ride in the turbo lift, so he had the computer pipe in music. The only problem with this concept is, the same two songs keep playing over and over. This one happens to be the Captain’s favorite song; the other song being played was called “Dueling Banjos.”

The first stop on my tour of the ship was the shuttlecraft bays. Captain Burnside

insisted on showing off his shuttle, which he had named Billy Joe Bob; the other shuttle was upon four concrete blocks and missing the warp nacelles. When I asked why, the Captain replied, “It’s in fer standerd main’nance.”

Our second stop was the engine room, were I was promptly offered a jug of shine.

This jug of shine is better known as moonshine, which is distilled in engineering, because the copper coils for the still were running through the warp engine. It was being manufactured by Lula Mae Burnside, the Chief of Vice, and the Captain’s first and current wife. Captain Billy Joe Bob said, in that unusual southern twang of his, “That’s wha’ gives it, it’s keick and makes it stronger than Romulan Ale.” While I was in engineering, I happened to notice the weapons control panel; the phasers were set to maximum and was marked with the word Cajun. By this point I began to realize I better keep most of the comments and questions to myself.

            Our next stop was at 10 Forward, or what most ships would call 10 Forward. The Captain insisted we stop here for lunch. The décor of this room was in a shabby wood paneling, with a large cage for musicians to play in and presently with the instruments locked inside was sitting along side the veiwport. There were cigarette butts, peanut shells and beer bottles everywhere and the place looked terrible, just like there had been a fight. The bartender asked the Captain, “What’s yer pleasure?” He ordered his usual meal for the both of us. I watched the bartender remove from the replicator a tall glass of a gold color liquid with white foam on top (known as beer) and a plate of ribs and turnip greens. I ate the food, which was really spicy, but stayed away from the alcohol. I felt I would need all my faculties intact.

            We finally reached the bridge, where the Communication Office Anna Mae Burn-

side-Davis (yes, the Captain’s second and forth wife, she also switched her last names) immediately informs the Captain, “Oh Cap’m, my Cap’m, there ain’t no traffic.” The navigator Tommie Sue Watson turned around, with her arm out, hand raised and palm facing out toward Anna Mae said, “Don’t you go there, now don’t you go there.” Tommie Sue is the only crewman aboard who is black and doesn’t talk with a southern accent. I can only wonder whom she pissed off to get stuck with this crew. I then noticed Anna Mae was wearing an earpiece around her ear with an attachment inside her ear. A thin bar extended down from this piece to her mouth allowing her to speak into the end and a cable attached from the earpiece to the communicator on her belt. Somehow this contraption allowed Anna Mae to be connected to the ship’s entire communication system. I was also introduced to the executive officer Commander John Brodsky otherwise known by the Captain as Bubba. I also met the Chief of Security Daisy Mae Brodsky, who is currently married to Bubba and happen to have been the Captain’s third wife. He divorced her after three days of marriage, because when he sobered up, he realized she would continuously walk around with a very large supped up phaser rifle, which looks like two regular phaser rifles put together and this scared him. I think I’d be scared too. Shortly after the divorce, she married Bubba.

            I had to do a double take when I saw the rest of the bridge. The veiwscreen had two fuzzy dice dangling down in front, and it was running reruns of an old Earth television show know as “Bassmaster.” The command chair had been repositioned to accommodate what looked like a gun rack above it, a glass case on the arm for the Captain’s mirrored shades (otherwise know as sunglasses) and a six-pack of some canned alcohol (known as beer) underneath. I then made a suggestion of taking the ship out to see how well the ship runs. The Captain then tells Anna Mae “Got yer ears on, good buddy?” Obviously this is his command to open hailing frequencies.  Anna Mae replied, “10-4 good buddy.” This must have meant the hailing frequencies were now open, because the Captain began speaking.  “Howdy y’all, weez all goin' fer a liddle ride. Thank we’ll mosey on over to the swamp and look fer critters, we’ll bring yer friend back later, thank ye.” The Captain turned to Bubba and said, “Bubba, fire up the popguns and set a chorus around that blue light special.” My best interpretation of this entire conversation would be, we would pass by the Mutara Nebula (the swamp) and look for Klingons (critters), the popguns are the photon torpedoes and the blue light special is a pulsar.  He then reached down to the case on the arm of the command chair, took the pair of mirrored shades (sunglasses) from inside, slowly put them on, and suddenly yelled “Yee-Ha!” The ship jumped out of orbit before anyone could sit down. Our “liddle ride,” as the Captain so eloquently called it, was short and uneventful.

I was unable to find out how or why the ship’s designation and name was changed. I was also unable to download most of the Captain’s, or the senior staff’s logs, but I was able to download the ship’s black box log. There was nothing of any significance on the ship’s logs, but I did find out the Captain’s two ex-wives, current wife and crewman Tommie Sue Watson are all sisters. Actually half-sisters, they each share the same father, who happened to suffer from “Kirk-itis” which is also known as “the urge to seed the galaxy.”

My recommendation for the USS Robert E. Lee and her crew is to assign the Robert E. Lee to the Delta quadrant and do a recon mission on the Borg. Maybe they will be assimilated and cause the Borg collective to disintegrate into a bunch of collective idiots.