Diplomatic Officer's Log - 3

Posted on 02 Oct 2014 @ 3:26pm by Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia Ph.D.

461 words; about a 2 minute read

"Computer, begin recording."

"Diplomatic Officer's Personal Log, Supplemental."

"I..." Paul somewhat choked on his inarticulation. "I admit to absolute neophyte status in all things on this ship. But my God, from the periphery, this seems like a very strange mission."

"I'm not sure the term 'super-natural' has much meaning in the age we live in since - in exploring this galaxy - we've seen the wide breadth of phenomena the natural world apparently covers. That the beings in the cave below - from my reading - seem to be super-natural I guess is sort of immaterial. The natural world is a weird place."

"I've never been much of a natural scientist anyway. I've always been much more interested in social systems. It's how the people on this ship have been acting that I found far more troubling."

"The debate on how to take care of the tribble problem-" Paul reached down and picked up a smaller one cooing by his feet. "-And it's a pretty big problem - speaks volumes about where we are as a society. This ship is nothing if not a small and strange society."

"We are explorers in a somewhat unforgiving universe. There will be existential threats and we will have to make choices that sacrifice our values. I understand that and I'm trying not to be the egghead moralist around here. The problem is, the tribbles don't represent an existential threat to us - just the ship. We'll be fine. We're not that far from Earth and - I haven't look into it - but there have to be at least a dozen ships within a couples days of here. The tribbles don't represent much real threat to our person, collectively but we jumped to some pretty horrifying solutions pretty fast. And that's just from the official accounts. Had I been in the room, I'd be scared to learn what else was floated."

"At some point, we need to have a good notion as to why we're exploring in the first place. Naive as I am, I believe that the reason we have a right to zig-zag across this great space and talk to all of these various societies is that our ideas are better."

"If the utility of a socity's value is what the universe would look like if everyone adopted their way of life, I believe the sort-of ongoing cultural imperialism (to borrow a Romulan term) of the Federation is a worthwhile endeavor. If everyone acted according yo our values, the universe would be a wonderful place. But if we can't even be bothered to live by our own values. I don't know what the f*** we're doing here."

"Computer... end recording."

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