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It’s during the madhouse of GalaxyCon ’02, right before the panel that will culminate in the first-ever showing of episode 1.01 of the New Adventures, that Mathesar reappears in their lives.
“Good morning. I am very sorry, hmmm, to interrupt your Sacred Event, but we’ve become concerned about the impending addition of new Historical Documents into our legal canon. We would like to humbly request your help.” Mathesar, as always, is polite and deferential. He’s here, he explains, to float the idea that the crew conduct an annual review of something he calls the Code, apparently the Thermian distillation of the wisdom of the Historical Documents. Jason, Alexander, and Gwen stop eating breakfast (a breakfast burrito for Jason, a veggie omelet for Gwen, and a chai latte with wheat toast for Alex), too startled to respond right away. Tommy, who hasn't ordered yet, manages a “Huh?”
Mathesar shows them an electronic tablet displaying three statements:
The Thermian Code
- Protect and defend your friends.
- Seek adventure.
- Face adversity bravely.
“This is the Thermian Code, devised from a careful review of all of the Historical Documents available to us. As you know, we have used the Historical Documents as a model for our society. Over the years, we have assembled a group of Elders who discuss corrective measures when someone fails to live by the tenets of the Code. It is a process that has worked well for us.” Mathesar is looking at them expectantly, so they all nod as if they understand what the hell he’s talking about. What sort of penalty, after all, can there really be for failing to seek adventure?
“Now,” Mathesar continues, “Our Elders believe that you, as the original sages, should review the Code each year at your Sacred Event, to make certain that you still believe that the Code is accurate and to discuss any potential additions or amendments. Will you be able to honor that request?”
Gwen is the first to find her composure. “So . . . all we’d have to do is to review what’s on this tablet every year? And say that we still agree with it?”
Mathesar nods, bowing slightly. At least none of that sounds hard. Jason, in fact, is particularly intrigued by the idea. Never one to shy away from a little (well-earned, he’s secretly confident) hero worship, Jason genuinely basks in the idea of being more or less the president or king or Dalai Lama (Thermian political details are always a little fuzzy) of this good-hearted, earnest alien culture. He’s more than ready to become a de facto Supreme Court Justice. The others, though less enthusiastic, can’t think of a good reason not to comply with Mathesar’s request. In the end, it’s just one more GalaxyCon task to add to the busy weekend.
So every year, the crew on hand solemnly approve the Code by placing their right hands on a cube that turns a bright fuchsia and warms to each of their touches. (Alexander has always grumbled privately about the rubber-stamping of it all, wanting the Code to sound a little more sophisticated—“Protect and defend your friends” is particularly bland. But in the end, he always curbs his editorial instincts and lets it go.)
At GalaxyCon ’10, the first con after the series finale of New Adventures, they discuss and ultimately approve the possibility of adding “Nurture families”—families (even found families in some cases) of the New Adventures crew were permitted on the Protector, and “Let other cultures exist without interference”—the Fundamental Proposition of Non-Interference featured prominently in many of the new episodes. Still, no big deal. Things get a little more heated after the splashy L. L. Isaacs reboots that were featured at GalaxyCon ’12 and ’15, with the new cast and all of those special effects, but no additional laws are ultimately added to the Code as a result of them. (Explaining the concept of the reboot cast to the puzzled Thermians, however, is tricky, especially because both Alexander and Jason instinctively hate their younger versions’ guts and don’t hide it very well.)
The dark, serialized streaming introduction of Never Surrender to the franchise almost breaks all of them—how can they, in good conscience, add things like “Sometimes lie and cheat to get what you need” to a legal code? They settle on a technicality: Never Surrender is actually set in a different timeline from the original shows that make up the Historical Documents, so those episodes don’t officially have to count as Historical Documents at all. It’s a copout, sure, but it’s for the best. If possible, all of them dislike Never Surrender even more than they dislike the reboots—there’s no emotion there, Alexander thinks often to himself, nothing to inspire, nothing to love. It’s even more removed from his Shakespearean roots, if possible, than the original campy show had been. Keeping this dark and twisty monstrosity as far away as possible from Thermian law definitely seems in everyone’s best interest.
They’re all having an early lunch at GalaxyCon ’22 when Mathesar shows up again. This year, he seems even more earnest than usual. “Some of our younger people have, hmmm, discovered the existence of Documents that are an imitation of the broadcasted Historical Documents,” Mathesar explains. “These new Documents appear to be stories in written form. We, hmmm, do not know what to do about them. More than one hundred have been discovered in a repository we are calling The Archive, and more arrive there regularly.”
Jason looks puzzled. “What do you mean, imitation Documents? Where is this ‘Archive.’? I can tell you that I’ve never heard of it, and we’re the first to know about any new additions to the, um, Documents.”
Mathesar taps the tablet, and they all can see a web address typed on the screen:
https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Galaxy%20Quest%20(1999)/works
Alexander breaks the silence as they all study the URL. “Ah. Fan fiction. Yes. That link leads to AO3.”
Jason glances at him. “Fan fiction? AO3?”
Alexander nods. “Archive of Our Own. It’s . . . well, suffice to say, we have some fans out there who think some . . . surprising things about us.” (He doesn’t meet Jason’s eyes, willing himself not to think about the night that he read those Jason/Alexander fics. In point of fact, he’s never exactly been able to look at Jason the same way again.)
Jason looks at Alexander curiously, then turns to Mathesar. “I think that we’re going to need to see this Archive for ourselves.” Mathesar nods, taps the tablet, and hands it to Jason. The three of them gather around it, studying the web site.
“This is wild,” says Jason, squinting over it. “It looks like Alex and Gwen are tied for the most popular characters.” He tries not to be jealous of that. After all, who are these people on this site, anyway?
Alexander shakes his head. “It’s not a popularity contest, Jason. These are just the numbers of stories about the characters. There are slightly more stories about Gwen and me than there are about you. It doesn’t mean anything.” Inwardly, however, he’s smirking, and Jason knows it. Alexander has always been a scene stealer and always will be one.
Mathesar interrupts them. “I see that you might, hmmm, find this Archive complicated. We will give you some time to peruse it. Ultimately, we need to know if we should add any Laws to the Code based on anything that you discover here. I will return at the conclusion of the Sacred Event to record your decision.” He glides away, leaving Jason, Alexander, and Gwen to look at each other with some confusion.
§§§
Jason proposes that they get together in one of their hotel rooms for an old-fashioned all-nighter, complete with beer, pizza, and chips. Gwen agrees, as long as some chocolate will also be involved. Tommy shrugs an assent. Fred is skipping GalaxyCon this year. Alexander, however, needs to be wooed a little.
“All night? Are you kidding me? I haven’t stayed up all night working on anything since college.” Alexander thinks longingly of the king-sized bed and high-thread count sheets of the Doubletree where they’re all staying for GalaxyCon. Giving up a quiet night in his room is no small sacrifice.
Gwen puts her hand on his arm. “Come on, Alex. You’re the only one who knows anything about this AO3 site. We need you. The show still must go on!” As always, that magic line—even completely out of context—does the trick. Grumbling, he agrees to meet the others in Jason’s room that night, as long as Jason pays for the pizza and beer. Jason agrees entirely too cheerfully for Alexander’s tastes.
Jason can never seem to help taking up his accustomed role of Commander. “So, I think what we need to do is just look at these things by ourselves for awhile, pick ones that we like, and then read them to each other. Sound good?” Gwen and Tommy nod and Alexander grunts. It’s as functional a plan as any, he supposes.
“So, great. Let’s plan to read by ourselves and then meet at 6:00 for dinner. We can talk about what we think then, and maybe read some of them out loud to each other. Alex, you can even read them with a Shakespearean accent. We won’t mind.” He grins at Gwen, who shakes her head and rolls her eyes a little before smiling back.
§§§
The pizza has already been delivered when Alexander arrives. He’d spent the past three hours reading through AO3 fics, enjoying himself more than he would have thought possible. He’s seen the site before, sure, but he hadn’t been there for awhile, and he had never ventured much beyond the Alexander/Jason slash that both horrified and intrigued him. Privately, he hopes that Jason didn’t manage to make his way there, and he doubts that he would—there’s more than enough Jason/Gwen on that site to have kept the Commander busy for the few hours they all had to read.
Jason waits for Gwen and Alexander to put pizza on their plates and grab their bottles of beer before speaking. “OK, how do you want to do this?”
Gwen looks at him. “Why don’t we just read a couple of passages from stories that we like, just so we all get a flavor of as much as possible?”
“Like a table read,” Jason nods. “Ok, go for it. You’re up.”
Gwen clears her throat. “Well, here’s one where Tawny actually got to DO something a little more heroic and interesting than repeating what the computer says to her. Here’s how it ends:
They all go to Jason's again for the season return and this time they're a little more relaxed when the episode airs. (Nobody talks or breathes while it's on, of course, but during the ad breaks a little conversation and oxygen is mostly tolerated.)
After everyone else has gone home, Jason finds her still sitting on the sofa. He smiles.
"You want to watch it again," he says teasingly, "don't you?"
Tawny and Taggart save the day together in this episode, a true partnership at work (and equal screen time). Of course she wants to watch it again.
Giving him her best, what and you don't? expression, she snaps her fingers for the remote.
Laughing, he hands it over and reclaims his seat beside her, his arm settling around her shoulders and tugging her closer.
Forty-four minutes later the NSEA Protector heads into deep space, a spiral galaxy twirling lazily off to her right, and Tawny's voice, for once, offering the soliloquy at the end of the episode:
Never give up, never surrender.
Gwen smiles.
They all look at each other, and then Alexander nods. “Yes, quite. That’s a good one. It’s certainly a fine thing to see Tawny getting something to do beyond standing around looking hot. Quite a few of these stories seem to correct that original problem with the character.”
Jason resumes his self-appointed role as fic facilitator. “What do you have for us, Alex? Anything racy?” He waggles his eyebrows at Alexander, who ignores him and clears his throat.
“Not particularly racy, but I rather like this passage.” He likes this whole fic, truth be told. This writer seems to get him in a way that most people aren’t able to.
Some things changed, after the incident, as Alex describes it. When he describes it, which he doesn’t, often, but does, sometimes. Gwen would say, and she would be right, he became more closed off than ever. He became, strangely, more alien. His work as Dr. Lazarus improved. He was, strangely, or not, who knows with Hollywood, even more popular than before. He was older, but as a man, and British to boot, it leant him gravitas. Or no, he'd always had gravitas. It made him sexy.
He could have anyone, again. And did, again. But anyone wasn’t who he wanted. Anyone was who he used to avoid wanting. After the incident some things changed. Gwen and Jason were suddenly, strangely, Gwen and Jason. Alex wanted to be happy for them, and he was, sometimes, often, sometimes. But Alex also wanted.
When Matthew was born something changed again. Gwen belonged to Jason and Jason belonged to Gwen and Matthew belonged to them both and Alex… Alex vowed to never have a son. Before Matthew it was a preference. After Matthew it was a promise.
When Matthew was three, Jason left.
When Matthew was nine, Alex’s phone rang.
He shakes himself a little after reading it and finds both Gwen and Jason staring at him. “We have a son?” Jason asks. “Named Matthew?” He and Gwen have been on again, off again for years, and they’re off right now.
Gwen raises an eyebrow. “Easy there, Commander. You haven’t managed to procreate—at least, you haven’t with me. It’s just a story.”
Jason looks both relieved and (is it possible?) a tiny bit disappointed. “I wouldn't have left him, you can bet on that. Wonder where we got that name. Do you think he’s named after Mathesar?”
Gwen raises an eyebrow. “Maybe. I mean, it’s the sort of thing that we might do.”
Jason shrugs. It is the sort of thing that they’d be likely to do, he thinks. He shakes off the sudden flash of feeling that comes with the thought and focuses on the business at hand. “Tommy? Did you find anything you like?”
“I actually did.” Tommy seems a little embarrassed as he reads the words about himself from the fic out loud:
“Listen, the network doesn’t want to waste this. You don’t want to waste this, Tommy.”
It rankled, hearing his name. He’d long since given up trying to convince the world to call him Tom or Thomas, something grown-up (now he even thought of himself only as Tommy, and how pathetic was that, truly), but right now, after everything he’d just seen and done, well. It rankled, that’s all there was to it.
And maybe that’s why he snapped back. “Waste? Waste? My entire life has been this show, Jed! I’ve given up everything. Don’t I deserve something better, something different?”
Jed murmured comforting platitudes about contracts and negotiations, things Tommy had heard so many times. Jed finally ended the call, to keep Tommy from hanging up on him, maybe, with a declaration that if Tommy could find his way to agreeing to do this, he, Jed, would get him a film lead. “A blockbuster, Tommy!”
Tommy rubbed his face and sat down hard on the bed. Somewhere in the hotel, the others were likely having conversations like the one he’d just had. Well. And recovering. He had to assume Alexander was nursing his third or maybe twentieth brandy by now.
They’re all silent for a beat, and then Gwen breaks it. “That’s about the day we found out that they wanted us back for the New Adventures, isn’t it? That really was . . . something. I’m not surprised someone wanted to write more about it.” They all fall silent again.
Alexander clears his throat. “Ok, Commander. Your turn now. What do you have for us?” He’s more curious than he’d care to admit.
Jason flashes exactly half of his usual grin. “I think this one captures Taggart’s dignity.”
People didn't realize how lonely it was, being the Commander. Not -- being the guy who played the Commander. As soon as they'd started shooting, it was like a Him and Them kind of situation. You couldn't blame Tommy, okay, Tommy was six. But the other grown-ups -- what was their problem? Jason had auditioned for his role just like everyone else had auditioned for theirs. Except Alex, who he'd suggested they approach about the role of Lazarus as soon as they'd offered him the role of Taggart. And except Gwen, possibly, depending who you talked to. Okay, so that left Fred as the only adult besides himself that he knew for sure had auditioned for his part. And come to think of it, Fred was the least hostile. Of course, Fred was stoned a lot of the time, which might have had a lot to do with it.
Alexander casts his eyes to the heavens. “The angst of our fearless leader.”
“Was Fred really stoned all that time? That explains a lot.” Gwen tilts her head as if trying to remember. It also, she thinks, explains why Fred rarely actually makes it to these annual Approve-the-Code meetings.
“I liked it,” Tommy breaks in, surprising them. “It’s damn good writing.” And however much Alex and Gwen would enjoy teasing Jason about his choice, they have to agree that the writing is several cuts above what they might have been led to expect from fan fiction.
They spend another couple of hours reading bits to each other, growing more and more attached to some of the stories. Some are very funny, and just about all of them are touching in one way or another. It’s yet more proof of just how much the fans love them: they’re willing to spend such a significant chunk of their time creating more, telling each other stories just because they can’t bear to have Galaxy Quest ever end.
Tommy shakes his head. “I mean, I still think some of the writing is really good, but that makes it even weirder. I just don’t get it. If these people want to be writers, why don’t they create their own stories, with their own characters? Why pick on us? They’re just stealing other people’s work, in the end. A real writer wouldn’t do that. Real writers create original work; they don’t mess around in the worlds of other writers. We all have our own stories to tell.”
Alexander interrupts him, rolling his eyes a little. “Do you consider Shakespeare a ‘real writer’?”
Jason groans. “If this is another excuse to ram in your story about five curtain calls in Richard III, I don’t think it’s the time or the place.”
“Do you think Shakespeare invented the character of Richard III? Why was that play any less ‘real,’ any less legitimate, than the Galaxy Quest fic here?” Alexander glares at Jason, who looks away, knowing that any argument about Shakespeare with Alex is bound to end in defeat.
Gwen looks pensive. “They’re doing it because they love us, but I think they also want to fix things that they thought were broken or wrong with the show.”
Jason looks at her. “What do you mean, broken or wrong?”
“You know, like Tawny looking like a bimbo and never having anything substantive to do or say. These people love the show, they love the characters, and they want . . . well, more for them.”
Alexander nods. “Yes. They’re . . . the best ones, anyway, are taking the spirit of what we are, and deepening it. I have to say, I like it. These fics have more emotion than Never Surrender could ever have.”
Jason looks puzzled. “It’s not all ‘deepening.’ Some of it is outright porn. Some of it is ridiculous. And some of it—well, some of it just blows my mind.” He has seen those Jason/Alexander fics, and now he’ll never be able to unsee them.
“Even those,” Gwen says, “Even those are . . . I don’t know . . . important, somehow. We have a lot of viewers with a lot of different backgrounds. Is it so terrible that they want to see themselves in something that they love this much?” She looks at the other two, as if willing them to understand the importance of what she’s trying to communicate. Jason meets her gaze, finally seeing a glimmer of it.
Tommy seems to get it, too. “I think Gwen is right; I see that now. There’s something real and true in these stories. But the question is, should we use anything we’ve found here and recommend additions to the Thermian Code? It was a big deal when we added the two new statements after New Adventures.”
They discuss, argue, eat some more pizza, drink a LOT more beer, and then ultimately agree. When Mathesar returns at the end of GalaxyCon, Jason hands him the following:
The Thermian Code
- Protect and defend your friends.
- Seek adventure.
- Face adversity bravely.
- Nurture families
- Let other cultures exist without interference
- Love Is Love
- Create something new every day
Alexander protests that it’s all a bit corny, but the others ignore him. This code, they know, unorthodox as it sounds, will serve the Thermians well, and for many years to come.