Breaking the Ice

Posted on 29 Jul 2014 @ 6:43pm by Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia Ph.D. & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D.

2,310 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 5, Intelligence office
Timeline: MD06 - 1300hrs

[ON]

Ever since he was a child, Oren had been an early riser. Even when under stress from exams and deadlines at University it wasn't unusual to see the young El Aurian up and about before 0600, as chipper as always (to the never ending dread of his classmates). So it came as no surprise to him that his first official day on the Galileo was started at 0500 and, after his usual morning ritual of vanity and pampering, Oren turned all of his attention to planning his workday - who he needed to contact, what needed to be done and what could be put off for tomorrow.

Needless to say, by 1000, he was bored out of his skull and seriously considered going into work early. After all, ambition was a virtue right? But what if they thought he was a workaholic? Was that bad or good? He wondered this for several minutes, weighing his options before deciding his time was better spent doing something more productive, possibly in the joint kitchen unit nearby.

Three batches of cookies later, Oren had made up his mind. After some research, he'd discovered the ship had a small diplomacy unit and, being an anthropologist, Oren figured it would only be a matter of time before they needed to cooperate on something so it would be best to go over and break the ice. Finding one of the diplomatic officers was easy enough (they apparently didn't have a 'chief' per se) so, grabbing a dozen cookies and putting them in a replicated, brightly colored box, Oren set out on his little mission.

Paul had just finished the third paragraph of a report and considered for a moment the ramifications of what a 225 word summary would do to his career. It had been requested that Paul provide a cultural dossier on the tribbles for the command staff.

The indignity of the assignment was compounded by his belief that it was likely just a prank - writing a cultural report on tribbles was like writing a album review of whalesongs - it somewhat misses the point. That was the problem with pranks that moved down the chain of command instead of across, Paul thought to himself - you don't really get to participate in the laugh at the end and in the meantime you actually have to do whatever bullshit work was concocted for you.

For an ostensible pencil pusher Paul found himself spending shockingly little time in his office, so when the chime rang he jumped up from his chair a bit and furrowed his brow. Paul had never had an office as such before. He felt this greeting would be an important harbinger of things to come. He straightened his posture and assumed a supercilious demeanor. "Come on in." Paul intoned.

The doors opened to reveal Oren, bright smile on his face and even brighter box under his left arm. "Lieutenant Alasia?" he asked, making sure he had the right place and person.

"And you even have the right office!" Paul exclaimed in surprise. "I would have bet latinum you were looking for a storage closet. Come in, please! What can I do for you, sir?"

"Actually," Oren said playfully, stepping into the office. "I'm here for a social call," he added as the office doors closed behind him. "My name's Oren Idris and I'm the new Anthropologist on board. I thought that, considering the closeness of our two fields, it's only a matter of time before we need to work together. So, I figured it best our first meeting be more informal."

"An anthropologist? You look too young to be our expert in anything. Please sit." Paul gestured to the chair across his desk. "I got to say, I like this ship's style. You think you're going to be looking at neutron stars how weeks on end and they bring aboard a diplomat and an anthropologist." Paul smiled. "How is it that you came to be aboard the Galileo?"

Oren thought of being a smartass and saying 'through the door' but fought against it. "Well, I'd served on a Nova Class before after getting a bit bored just digging around, so then, after a break to do some research, I figured it would be interesting to help out Starfleet again," he said, opening the colourful box and holding it out to Paul. "I brought cookies."

"I... wow, thank you." Paul chuckled in spite of himself. He grabbed a cookie. "So where did you go to school?"

"Betazed," Oren replied, taking a cookie for himself and breaking it in half before biting into it.

"I did my schooling on earth. So, you've worked with Starfleet before? Did you feel like you were... I don't know, useful? I'm not totally sure I do, yet."

"Depends on your definition of useful," Oren admitted. "Generally, you will feel appreciated, but I'm afraid you'll need to make yourself useful rather than wait for someone to give you an opportunity for it."

"Yes, I'm sure." Paul smirked slightly to himself. "You've got the Starfleet patter down nicely. Any reason in particular you never joined up?"

"I did join. I enlisted during the war to help out. But I resigned when the war ended. Uniformed life isn't for me," Oren admitted. "As you can probably tell." He motioning to his pierced eyebrow and colourful outfit.

"Yeah, you probably have the right idea. I'm still not totally sure how they convinced me to end up in this uniform." Paul looked down at this shirt. "Also, these things are exactly as itchy as they look. You figure they would have figured that one out by now." Paul shook of his digression.

"I don't think they want to. Maybe it's a way to keep you on your toes, making sure you're never completely comfortable. Personally, I couldn't do it," Oren admitted. He'd love to be able to say he admired the Fleeties, but he didn't admire than any more than he did the Romulan Galae or the Imperial Klingon Defense Force.

"That sounds like exactly the kind of logic someone in charge of Starfleet might use. Phasers, black holes and omniscient, Godlike aliens aren't enough to keep them sharp. Better use the unrefined wool, too. Itchiness is the next best thing to readiness."

The other man laughed. "Probably," he said with a nod. "So, tell me about yourself?"

"Tell you about me... Well, I'm from earth originally, a little place on the ocean called Maine. I've been married for a couple years and this whole Starfleet adventure isn't going over with her spectacularly. Uhh... what else? I don't know, I really like to game - I love strategy games. I got my doctorate in economics but I'm really more of an org theorist and sociologist at heart. I did my dissertation on black market activity between the Ferengi and Dominion before and during the war. That one actually got me a censure from the Commerce Authority on Ferenginar and... that's pretty much everything about me that's even remotely interesting. How about you?"

Oren nodded as he listened to everything Paul said. He had to admit he was impressed with the fact that he got a censure from Ferenginar. He'd always admired people who knew which rules to not follow and when to go against the grain. When the question was tossed back at him he took pause, wondering which parts of his life to share.

"Well...." he began, thinking. "I was born on Bajor, but left when I was sixteen and went to live on a small colony called X34 - B, but I think they've renamed it officially now to Ponos Three. I lived there until I was twenty, then went to Betazed to study Anthropology. Got my master's in Socio-Cultural. After that I worked for a long time until the war. That's when I enlisted," Oren explained. "I was a nurse during the war. When it ended I resigned and went back to anthro work. Eventually I got bored and signed a contract with Starfleet to work as a civlian specialist."

"Working in academia never interested you?" Paul asked.

"You mean teaching?" Oren shrugged. "I don't know. I never really thought much about it. I was asked once or twice, but I could never really compress knowledge to one lecture or two. I could just go on and on and I don't think anyone wants that."

"Do you specialize in a particular area or is your expertise with a specific race?"

"Romulans," Oren said with a smile that one didn't usually see in someone discussing Romulans. "As for a particular area, I'm currently researching gender roles. I was recently on J'naii because I figured they'd be an interesting place to begin my research. They're quite fascinating."

"Oh, wow. Yeah I can't even wrap my brain around the J'naii. If we ever had to engage in negotiations with them... there's so many things about gendered culture that are, like, impossible to convey to them - at least from what I've read. With the possible exception of the Sheliak and maybe the Tamarians, I can't imagine a bigger challenge. Any interesting findings?

"Well, I'm not a 100% comfortable saying until I've finished analyzing all of the acquired data. I was there for a whole year so there's quite a bit of it. But, when I do go through all of it, you'll be one of the first to be sent the report," Oren promised with a smile. "As for the Tamarians, I swear, I would die if I got a chance to observe them, but I think I'd need another fifty years of education to even know what I'd be looking at if I did."

"Apparently, you can sort of fumble through a conversation with them based on a couple of rote metaphors, but yeah. From what I hear you need to really have a deep, critical understanding of their history, cinema and literature to try to have a real conversation."

"I'm actually going to use my findings on J'naii as a kind of control group for my further research, seeing as they're the only androgynous culture I've observed. No matter the social, legal or economic equality achieved in many species today, I have observed an underlying inequality in behavior in most species. My time on J'naii was a bit eye-opening in regards to myself and the way I approach others," Oren explained.

"That's a really creative research design." Paul shook his head. "But, doesn't the lack of gender in their society present other confounding cultural variables that prevent them from being a good control?"

"It does, but they don't need to be a good group. In fact, given the complexities of every culture and the importance of context, even thinking of them as one is a little silly. Personally, I think they make a very interesting group for comparison with others and I've always loved a challenge," Oren admitted. "The project itself is really in its infancy at the moment so there's plenty of work ahead."

"Is there anything I can do to assist with it? I haven't been actively engaged in research for a couple years.... but if you need assistance from a mediocre researcher in an only slightly related field, I'm your man.

Oren smiled. "That's very kind of you. I'll be sure to contact you if I need some advice. I'm honestly terrible at economics, so any help I can get in understanding it would be greatly appreciated."

Paul's stomach rumbled low and loudly. He blushed slightly and move around in his seat to mask the noise. "Well, I could literally always eat. Any interest in continuing over lunch?"

Oren grinned at the noise of Paul's obviously interested stomach, but decided not to comment due to the man's obvious embarrassment. "Definitely. Actually," he said, standing up and sliding the chair back into place. "We can drop by my quarters and I can get a PADD about the economy on J'naii for you to look at."

"That sounds great, I'd love to take a look at that." Paul stood and gestured "after you" to the newly appointed anthropologist.

Smiling, Oren turned to exit the office. Three steps out, as he half turned to continue speaking with Paul, he tripped over something soft and nearly fell face first onto the deck. Managing to steady himself with his hands, Oren looked down to notice the small collection of Tribbles just outside Paul's office.

Pushing himself up into a standing position, Oren knelt and held up the three bundles of fur, inspecting them for damage. Luckily, he hadn't hurt them. "What do we do with these now?" he asked Paul.

"Jeez, those things are everywhere. To be honest, I kinda thought security was handling it but I don't know. Should we be helping?"

"Doing what? Disposing of them? Thanks, but I'd like my soul to be intact," Oren said, looking down at the Tribbles, at a loss about what to do with them. "Maybe we should drop by Security and hand them over. Perhaps they're herding them somewhere." He didn't want to think about the possibility that they might be throwing them out the airlock or using them for target practice.

Paul let slip a wry smile. "I mean, does it do your soul that much better to hand it to another guy who then disposes of it?"

"Well, Security is going to dispose of them unless they have no other solution, and they haven't even tried anything yet, so I think the Tribbles are safe," Oren said surely, petting the small creature's soft fur.

"Yes." Paul said in a mock flat tone. "I'm convinced."

[OFF]

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia, PhD
Diplomatic Officer
USS Galileo

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