Store Trek/ideas/Court Partial

[voiceover]: Profit - the finance frontier. These are the ventures of the storeship Private Enterprise. Its five-year tax write-off: to seek out new wealth, and new monetization... to boldly sell what no-one has wanted before!

EPISODE ONE: Court Partial

FADE IN: EXTERIOR - THE _PRIVATE ENTERPRISE_ docking at A LARGE AND IMPORTANT-LOOKING OFFICE BUILDING. It is STOREBASE 37, but you don't know that yet unless you happen to notice the gigantic sign out front saying "STOREBASE 37 - WHAT YOU WANT, WHEN YOU WANT IT!"

CAPTAIN CLERK (voiceover): Industry Captain's log, storedate 2014Q2.7. New orders from Storefleet Command have interrupted our previous assignment of surveying the corporate wasteland of Sigma Wisconsin Three for undiscovered tax-loopholes, directing us instead to return immediately to Regional HQ at Storebase 37 for an emergency overhaul of the ship's mission statement.

CUT TO INTERIOR STOREBASE 37: CAPTAIN CLERK, MR. STOCK, and A STOREFLEET ADMIRAL speaking with each other as they stroll down a corridor of STOREBASE 37.

ADMIRAL: Jim I know you don't like this, but you have to see it from our point of view. It's a key part of Storefleet's mission to...

CLERK (trying to remain calm): ...prevent interference with the accumulation of wealth, yes, I know -- you don't have to quote the Prime Directive at me. But don't you think this is taking things a little too far?

ADMIRAL: Well, Jim, our board doesn't think so -- and they should know; they've done more accumulating than the rest of us put together, after all. They see a direct link between the need to follow the Prime Directive and the need for successful individuals to be able to express themselves -- to help convey their success, as it were -- through various means: speech, advertising, and of course physical expressions using energy weapons.

CLERK: Well that's all very well, but I still don't understand what that has to do with the refits you've ordered.

ADMIRAL: Must I be blunt, Jim?

CLERK (sardonically): The question, Admiral, is can you?

ADMIRAL: The Board has issued a new policy regarding responses to attacks by energy weapons, and we are revising your ship's legal code to reflect the necessary tactical changes mandated by that policy, which mandates a negative defensive posture in all cases. I don't know how to be more clear than that.

CLERK looks over at MR. STOCK: Did you get any of that?

STOCK: I believe what the admiral is attempting to convey is that the store mainframe will now lower shields whenever we are attacked.

ADMIRAL: Well, I suppose you could put it that way, yes. There are exceptions, of course, and if you believe yourself to be in an exceptional situation requiring a temporary override of this mandate, of course, our legal office has been advised to offer immediate turnaround on legal advisory opinion requests.

CLERK': Immediate?

ADMIRAL: Oh yes. We've got it pared all the way down to 48 hours maximum. On business days, that is, of course.

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