[5] In the prologue, several senior officers of the Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union ("Dub-U"), lament the unusually high number of casualties of low-ranking crew members during recent away missions and conclude that they will need more crewmen to replace them.

After several close calls, Dahl makes contact with a mentally unstable crew member, Adam Jenkins, who offers a different theory: their reality and timeline are under periodic influence of a badly written television show, Chronicles of the Intrepid, from the past.

Jenkins explains that Dahl and the other ensigns' routine duties and colorful histories will inevitably make them targets of the Narrative when the writers need "glorified extras" to kill for emotional impact.

Because the producer's son appeared on the show as an extra, one of the crew members is effectively his identical twin and will revert to the young man's personality by staying in the past.

Conversely, Dahl reasons that bringing the comatose son into the future will allow them to use the Narrative to their advantage, letting the advanced technology and reality-altering properties of the writing save his life.

Dahl and the ensigns return to the future and live out the new revised plot created by the head writer, which includes saving the "injured crewman" they had on board.

Awakening later, Dahl learns that he has been promoted to Lieutenant and receives a message from the writers and producers explaining that they chose to save him, and that the remaining episodes of the show will feature the ensigns in meaningful scenarios rather than cheap deaths.