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Tia

Control

The first decision was whether to change into workout clothing. Doing so admitted the possibility of failure. It weakened the importance of was truly important. Still, the orders were rather explicit. In addition, it had been some time since she had attempted unarmed conflict. It was possible that her shielding ability had improved. She might just possibly be able to do this, not that she wanted to do this.

 

Tia entered the security gym and hesitated. Her nose and her mind told her much the same thing. The smelled of sweat and aura of competitive conflict made this place home to those who seemed to enjoy pain, to causing defeat, to hurting others. Tia reconsidered. Did she want to be wearing clothing that identified herself as one of them?

 

There were no classes in session, but several officers were taking full advantage of the benefits of exercise. Victria stood slightly apart from them all, her expression neutral as she studied technique and form. These were not her trainees and none of them had asked for her critique, so she was perfectly happy to stand motionless and say nothing, even when she saw several foolish moves. Her nostrils flared slightly as the door opened and let in a brief burst of fresh air. Eyes shifted to Tia, though she said nothing and remained where she stood. She was waiting to see if the young officer would bolt.

 

Tia didn't bolt. She did recognize Victria as senior present, and approached, attempting some semblance of the emotionless mask her Vulcan instructors had so prized. She paused in front of the Gamma native and waited

 

"Lieutenant," Victria acknowledged. "I had my doubts about your willingness to attend." Shifting from her stance, she paced around the waiting officer to appraise her physical condition. "As I understand it, you are not the fighting type. I was surprised when I was given orders for a special training session to introduce you to the basics of self defense. This idea did not come from you, I assume?"

 

"This is correct," said Tia. "I am not sure where it originated. On Earth, I was given exemption from close combat training, and I believe this whole idea is a mistake. I am an empath and touch telepath. My mental control is... far short of perfect. In Starfleet, one is generally exempt from activities which result in involuntary breech of mental privacy. The mental training should be completed first."

 

"Perhaps some feel that it is time you have a better grasp of those mental facilities. Better that you experience it in a controlled environment than to happen upon it in the field or on an away mission where you might be a danger to others," she replied calmly. "What do you experience when you come into contact with others?"

 

"This depends on my control, and the intensity of the emotions both are feeling. There is a leakage of emotion, primary my reading of the other, that does not require touch. If the other has any telepathic abilities, touch brings thoughts as well as emotions into play. If you judge this lack disqualifies me from field or away mission, you should note this to my department head. I will accept this duty limitation."

 

"Do you think it disqualifies you from field work or off-ship missions? Do you consider your special abilities a liability?"

 

"An untrained special ability can be very much a liability. At the very least, it breaks concentration and focus. I do not believe it a serious liability save in highly emotional and highly crowded environments, or when contact with other telepaths, hostile telepaths, is likely. Others reviewing my circumstances upon my entering Starfleet agreed, and approved my membership in Starfleet, and my close combat waiver. Someone, seemingly, believe they can overturn this judgement."

 

"And yet, the ultimate issue is that we never know when a highly emotional or highly crowded environment or situation might erupt, or when an investigative team might encounter any number of telepaths, hostile or otherwise. Which means you should be prepared to have your abilities and control tested at any possible opportunity."

 

"That is your opinion. Yes, I understand no away team is without risk. This does not imply that Guaranteed rights to privacy may be ignored by Starfleet officers such as yourself."

 

"No one is denying or ignoring your right to privacy, but someone obviously thinks that you should know at least the rudimentary basics of protecting yourself so that officers like myself are not always encumbered with your safety. If you are sent on an away mission, it is your duty to be self-sufficient when at all possible for there might not be anyone to spare for your defense. Would it not be prudent to grow accustomed to the strain on your mental abilities rather than attempting to escape at every possible opportunity?" Victria asked pointedly.

 

"I have been attempting to control exposure to stressful conditions, and to slowly increase my control. Just being on the bridge with the highly aggressive and emotional senior officers of Excalibur provides a wonderful training environment. If there is any qualified telepathic instructor on board, I would be pleased to participate in a more formal and traditional approach to mental training." She paused. "But it is the culture of aggression and dominance that concerns me. This ship does not represent what I understood what Starfleet and the Federation was supposed to be. That I am standing firm attempting to get my way is against my core culture and values. That someone else is attempting to force their own aggressive and competitive culture on one who doesn't want to embrace it is part of the problem. This ship is top loaded with alpha predators. I have no desire to become an alpha predator. I resent attempts at forcing me to become such."

 

"You seem to find affront at every possible opportunity," Victria said with a snort. "Learning self defense tactics is not an aggressive practice. It is strictly for defense and should be used as such. I have no desire to teach you to combat techniques. You could never be a predator and it would be ridiculous to force you into imitating such behavior."

 

"With every protest, I understand slightly more about your nature," she paused, regarding Tia curiously. "It seems to me that you are content to make excuses. You do not enjoy being forced out of your comfortable, familiar ways. Is it that you are not confident in your abilities or do you honestly fear the experiences that others might put you through?"

 

"My parent's peoples seek to avoid causing others pain, in great part because they feel other's pain themselves. I also trained on Vulcan, where it is held as deep truth that one must master emotion before giving way to violence. These are deeply held values in their respective cultures, and should not be confused with the personal failings of an individual. That said, I have not mastered my mental abilities, and have a deep conviction that walking the path of violence before such mastery is achieved is error. High error. It would be a taboo similar to one of your race betraying her people and fighting against them. One does not do such things."

 

"And you are still of the mind that protecting yourself is violence? You would let another cause harm you, perhaps even slay you, to prove that you are and will never be an aggressor? If I were to attack you, you would let me? If your people did not have the instinct for self-preservation, you would have become extinct long ago."

 

"I did not say I will never be an aggressor. I only said that mixing uncontrolled emotion with violence is a bad idea. I said my control is not yet at the point where I may tread your path. My parents people, and the Vulcans, are doing quite well, thank you, as is the Federation, with their concepts of Guaranteed rights and rule of law. And, yes, you may strike me. You may cause pain. You may shed blood, if this is your way, if this is how you and yours settle disagreements. I shall do nothing to stop you. You shall then learn something, perhaps, about Guaranteed rights and rule of law. That would be your choice. I would not particularly recommend it."

 

"I have read your rights and rules, but have also discovered that the Federation sets them aside when it suits their own purposes," Victria replied. "Careful that those laws to which you so tightly cling do not slip away and leave you unsupported."

 

"As you were assigned to me and are now under my supervision," Victria continued without pause, "I am firmly within my rights to do as I see fit to fulfill my orders. And those orders are to make certain that you can and will protect yourself as needed so that you may discharge your duties as a member of this ship, of Starfleet, and of the Federation. Your failure could mean the loss of countless lives. Your unwillingness to attempt training could very well bring pain to untold numbers of innocents." Her face remained passive, but the blue of her eyes intensified.

 

"And no, I will not strike you… but you were put in my charge, so I will test you." Faster than most could react, she reached out and took hold of Tia's bare arm. Her grip was firm enough to hold the woman captive, but not constricting enough to cause any physical pain.

 

The vampire had been correct in one thing. Once upon a time, her parent's people did have to live with predators, had been victims, had to deal with those who dealt in blood. They had learned to cope, and their defense had been to share their pain, to induce the predator to seek other prey.

 

Victria was causing no physical pain, not that pain would have mattered to one who had walked Vulcan's Forge. What she was evoking was emotion. Fear was a small part of it, but also contempt and hatred, not so much of this one predator who held her, but at all the vampires, scorpions, cyborgs, soldiers, cats, dogs and blood cultists attempting to spread their cultures by force, who cared for their own ways of violence, and did not respect other paths. Tia fought to remain herself. That meant control. That meant not attempting to flood the attacker with deterrent emotion, which would have been the more effective defense than the physical, or rather a slightly less ineffective defense given the vampire's lack of concern for the values and feelings of others.

 

And so she fought for control, to not unleash her emotion, to keep her emotions inside herself. And she knew she was not succeeding. She knew that despite her best efforts, her feelings were leaking into the other.

 

And so she raised her voice slightly, minimizing emotion content in her best pseudo Vulcan manner, but speaking loudly enough that the walls might hear. "Computer. I received a waiver from participation in close combat training as part of the process of my entering Starfleet. Victria has been informed of this, and is disregarding this, and is laying hands on me without my consent. I hereby protest her action, and request that she cease and desist, and I request that her action shall be reviewed."

 

Then she met the other's eyes. "There is more than one form of defense."

 

"Spouting Federation law will not help you repel actual attacks," Victria replied without sympathy as she released her hold. "That which you lock inside just might if you ever have the courage to embrace that part of your nature."

 

"Yours was an actual attack. Is an actual attack. As you say, the Federation sometimes disregards its own rules. We are absorbing too many violent races, too quickly. We are losing touch with the ideas which put us in a position to absorb such races. On this ship at least, and in Section 31, Starfleet Intelligence, and assorted other covert operations branches, we are making a classic mistake. We are bringing in barbarians to defend civilization. In the long run, that does not work. Kirk's logs aside, I remain very dubious about your notion that my inability to win a fist fight is apt to seriously change anything. As for courage, the best part of that is knowing what to defend. At the moment, ideas need defending more than my poor body. Certain ground should not be given without battle."

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"...As you say, the Federation sometimes disregards its own rules. We are absorbing too many violent races, too quickly. We are losing touch with the ideas which put us in a position to absorb such races...We are bringing in barbarians to defend civilization."

 

A thought-provoking perspective - exactly the thing I like about Star Trek.

 

In all, this log makes one wonder: does Starfleet have room for conscientious objectors? Clearly there are "fighting Quakers" - we've seen Spock and Tuvok in many martial situations - but would absolutely pacifist races be a combination excluded from this Infinitie Diversity? What about doctors who interpret their oath to "do no harm" includes remaining a non-combatant?

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"I have been attempting to control exposure to stressful conditions, and to slowly increase my control. Just being on the bridge with the highly aggressive and emotional senior officers of Excalibur provides a wonderful training environment. If there is any qualified telepathic instructor on board, I would be pleased to participate in a more formal and traditional approach to mental training." She paused. "But it is the culture of aggression and dominance that concerns me. This ship does not represent what I understood what Starfleet and the Federation was supposed to be. That I am standing firm attempting to get my way is against my core culture and values. That someone else is attempting to force their own aggressive and competitive culture on one who doesn't want to embrace it is part of the problem. This ship is top loaded with alpha predators. I have no desire to become an alpha predator. I resent attempts at forcing me to become such."

 

A thought-provoking perspective - exactly the thing I like about Star Trek.

 

In all, this log makes one wonder: does Starfleet have room for conscientious objectors? Clearly there are "fighting Quakers" - we've seen Spock and Tuvok in many martial situations - but would absolutely pacifist races be a combination excluded from this Infinitie Diversity? What about doctors who interpret their oath to "do no harm" includes remaining a non-combatant?

 

I really don't have an answer for the open ended fighting Quakers/ full on pacifistic race aspects of the question, but if y'all don't mind a comment on the Medical from the Highly Aggressive-Emotional Alpha Predator Senior Officer Kitteh (I really want to use this in my signature :-P), I'll take a shot at the "do no harm" area.

 

This is off topic, but I think it makes a good parallel:

 

- The 1980's GI Joe cartoon featured a medical EMT by the code name of Life Line. He was a pacifist, yet at odds with his preacher/minister father for joining a military organization. His fathers view was that it wasnt enough for Life Line to renounce weapons, he still joined a military organization, and because of its defensive and offensive mandates, he would still be put into situations that were violent. So, the pacifism that Life Line supposedly preached, in the Preacher's eyes, held no ground against his job.

 

- I *think* Life Line also caught some flack from his buddies within GI Joe for the pacifism hard line that he walked. In a later episode (which I remember clearly) Life Line was picked (along with two other candidates) to be promoted to "Generals" within the Joe group. Of course, it is a evil Cobra plot, and the least likely Joes to be able to lead were picked. Life Line did not make a good General because, well, he didn't want to issue any orders that would cause casualties and harm.

 

- Like any Doctor character - GI Joe cartoon or Star Trek Sim - there is a line to be walked between the do no harm and being a non combatant. I know I have seen Doctor McCoy defend himself numerous times in the Original Series, but he was never as aggressive as say Captain Kirk, and when he traded blows, McCoy was always defending himself. The only time he struck another person in anger was Sandoval on that planet with the mind altering plants.

 

The same can be applied to any character (Doctor, Lawyer or Indian Chief) that takes on the pacifistic slant: It's a fine line to be walked between your character pacifism, defending yourself/the character, and defending other characters if needed. And, any choices you make for your character, "they" need to live with them.

 

Just don't paint yourself into a corner with any sort of character; room to grow is always good, yes?

 

One of my favorite quotes, and a dead on commentary for the pacifist/non-pacifist in general, or any character:

 

"You're born, you live and you die. There are no do-overs, no second chances to make things right if you frak 'em up the first time. Not in this life anyway. like I said, you make your choices and you live with them. And in the end you are those choices."

- Shaw, Battlestar Galactica "Razor"

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Starfleet is, at it's core, a military organization for the most part, but does have strong mission component of diplomacy and scientific research. I would think that "conscientious objectors," those of a truly pacifist nature, would not be put in situations where combat was going have a high probability of occurring (IE: Patrolling areas where there could be piracy, etc) but instead placed in positions aboard those vessels whose roles are strictly non-combatant, like Medical ships, planetary research bases, science research bases (like Jupiter Station), and strict science vessel like an Oberth or a Nova.

 

The idea that only those races who "reject conflict" could join the Federation is, frankly, very narrow-minded and the anti-thesis of what the Federation is supposed to be. Quite the opposite in fact. In my opinion the only qualifier for conflict should be that force is used as a last option, and only in defense. The Federation has never, in any version, been toothless or unable to defend itself. The reality is that while the peoples of the Federation can come to agreements over stark differences without using force, not every race in the galaxy is going to play nice in the sandbox. Some people are simply going to want to kill you, no matter how good a Picard-esque overture you deliver to them. In those cases, you must aspire to remain true to the ideals that diplomacy will never be off the table; that the Federation stands for individual liberty, freedom and justice, and will fight to protect those values when attacked. As the Excalibur motto says: We bring peace by the sword, but peace only under liberty. Or, if you want to look even further back, Aristotle said that "we make war, so that we may live in peace."

 

One of the things Star Trek did not do well, and it's really a nature of the beast, is seemed to portray that large gaps in philosophical approaches between different cultures could be abridged in only a mater of an hour with a few well delivered speeches or the actions of a valiant crew. The reality is very different. Foreign policy is dictated, among other things, by the perceptions a group has formed about another group. Take for example the Scorpiads. During their conflict with the Dominion and their collateral conflict with the Alpha Quadrant powers, they had perceived the Federation as a non-factor. Almost like an infection that simply needed taken care of. Because they didn't hold the same perception, or values that Federation holds, they were unlikely to seek diplomatic contact with the Federation, despite our best efforts. (I don't think they even responded to a single hail.) Overtime, and through conflict, they have started to see the wisdom of diplomatic relations with the Federation. The same basic principals have been around for a long time. If you want to look at TOS, the Klingons and Federation couldn't even be on the same station without nearly killing each other because they had such fundamentally opposed views of how things should be done. It was only due to the intervention of a third party (the Orgonians) that averted war between them.

 

Kennedy said famously that the unfortunate fact is that to make peace we must prepare for war. Starfleet's mission is two fold, it must simultaneously protect the Federation, and also help advance the Federation. Its a fine balance between the two, and as the Federation is operated by imperfect people, they might not always succeed in finding the right balance. The hope is that, in the end, the better angels of our nature will prevail.

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Starfleet at it's core is an exploratory organization. After 100 years of peace on Earth to the time of Enterprise the military trappings left in Earth Starfleet were simple holdovers on an organizational basis. It would be like saying we follow a pagan religion because we use so many pagan deity names in our calender. Earth's Starfleet thus started out purely as an organization for exploration. It's early experience taught it to defend itself and I'm sure it developed a solid military branch after the Earth-Romulan War but it's beginnings and core were not military. Even the more militaristic TOS made it clear they were out there exploring first, defending second, and there really was no third option.

 

Otherwise I agree with Corizon...kinda. There were a number of other points actually but that led into a longer post which I just backspaced over cause it got rather off subject which I seem to be doing again as well as creating a run on sentence of nominal length and minimal usefulness to the subject at hand.

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Well, first I’ll note that Tia isn’t a conscientious objector in the classic sense, here. She is reasonably well trained with a phaser, and would be willing to put extra time there if others think this would balance a lack of hand to hand skills. She has applied to act as fighter crew, and would have no problems with either training or flying fighting missions.

 

The problem is telepathic ethics and training. From Tia’s perspective, one should not do anything even vaguely like a mind merge without full control and mutual consent. In character and out, Tia and I have strong feelings on telepathic ethics and discipline. We know where Tia is supposed to go. She isn’t going to divert from her values lightly.

 

One thing Tia will propose is holodeck hand to hand training. She’d have no problem with hand to hand training itself, if the opponents don’t have live minds. She just ranks her mentalist training as more delicate and more important than the ability to win a fist fight. She perceives of herself as a mentalist much more than as a warrior.

 

As to larger issues, the problem might be theme. If the season climax and many episode climaxes are going to be fist fights, space battles or covert ops jobs, then the theme of the movie, TV show or role playing game is that violence ultimately resolves conflicts. If the hosts portray the lead characters as expert warriors, and the bulk of the players follow suit, the bottom line theme is one of the triumph of violence. This being Trek, we are supposed to be giving ‘violence is the last resort’ more than just a tad bit of lip service. Are we, though, really?

 

Tia was concerned last sim that Corizon hailed the opposition after doing all he could using maneuver and showing off the ship’s ability. He seemed to be thinking as a warrior first, diplomat as a last resort, and indeed his values reflect the situation the ship was in. Tia has been bothered that much of the command staff and crew are from predator and warrior cultures. She definitely feels out of place on Excalibur. I too have created a warrior / predator species, and am considering pulling in one of Tay’s distant kin in, except on steroids, darker, more violent, as this seems to be what Excalibur calls for.

 

I’d like to try a bit longer to see if I can make a character based on traditional Star Trek values work. Tia is going to be a misfit, but can she be a constructive and contributing misfit? If the hosts are going to be pushing conflict driven plots and everyone is going to show how well they can role play warrior culture and values, is there room for a Betan/Deltan/Vulcan to question this? Will the questioning be futile because given the violence based themes the violence centered characters will always have their values and culture justified? Do we want to create a fictional environment slanted to glorifying violence? Will the players get into a habit of not role playing with NPCs because they know they are just straw men to be shot at? Will the attitude be shut up, already, and let’s move on to the combat scene?

 

In character, Joy addressed this much more articulately than Tia should be able to at this point in her career. I’ll post again one of her more defining speeches from The Federation Council sim.

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Mythic Warrior Not

 

If I remained silent for a time in the last meeting of Council, it was not due to lack of interest or thoughts, but because the problem was rather complex. I still do not have a complete proposal to present. I have broad principles that might be applied. Unfortunately, most of the broad principles are in conflict with one another.

 

I shall address one point at length. This is an obscure and subtle point. It is likely not even the most important point. However, it may be the central point, the theme from which other questions might be addressed.

 

Ambassador Stuart proposed that if we do provide assistance, it should be provided by some organization other than Starfleet. I shall let Tasha make her own arguments for why this should be so. I do not question that she is sincere and well meaning in her arguments. However, I disagree.

 

One of her points was that Starfleet's role is to defend the Federation. It should not be deflected or dispersed away from this mission. Other organizations should take up other roles.

 

Once upon a time, when this unit served on USS Aurora, there was a myth that Starfleet was not a military organization. We were explorers. We were diplomats. We were scientists. We were humanitarians. We were anything and everything we had to be, with one exception. We were not warriors. We were not soldiers. Starfleet was not a military organization.

 

True or not, this fiction, myth or doctrine had a basis in establishing the Starfleet tradition and mind set. When confronted with a problem, the problem was to be solved if at all possible using the tools, methods and approach of diplomats, scientists, explorers and humanitarians. Officers could not and must not think of themselves as soldiers first. If officers think of themselves as soldiers, they will think in terms of military doctrines and solutions. This leads to violence. When this unit went through Starfleet Academy, in every class, in every way, violence was the last resort, the approach to be avoided, the wrong way to solve any problem. Awards and honors would not be given for performing violent actions well. If one had to resort to violence, one had failed, failed, in one's training, doctrine, and the basic mission of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets.

 

We have lost this habit, this subtle distinction, this pattern of approaching any given problem from any perspective but violence and force. The Dominion and Borg have done this to us. They have brought us full circle. Once it was proposed, no matter that Starfleet was our sword and our shield, that this knight in shining armor was not a warrior. Now it is proposed that Starfleet is a warrior only. That the role of warrior is so dominant, so strong, so necessary, that our warriors can not be spared to perform any other function.

 

Warriors cannot be diplomats, cannot be explorers, cannot be scientists, cannot be humanitarians. It is too important that they be ready at an instant's notice to smite our foes and lay them low. Violence, rather than being Starfleet's last resort and confession of failure, has become the primary function, the reason Starfleet exists.

 

And we should expect, if we allow this pattern to continue, that our captains, when confronted with any given problem, will be familiar with and ready to use the correct tactics, weapons, formations and strategies to defeat our enemies. In any given situation, they will know automatically, immediately and instinctively how best to use force to achieve victory.

 

And it is not just Starfleet, nor primarily Starfleet. The purpose of the Federation is not to win interstellar wars, but to prevent interstellar wars. We are not the Federation's General Staff or Admiralty, deciding strategy, seeking victory. We are, or ought to be, the Federation Council, seeking peace.

 

Neither the Klingon Empire, the Grigari, nor the Romulans are our enemy. The objective should not be to manipulate the war to our advantage, but to prevent the war, or to reduce the damage. This is the second biological war of genocide in but a few years. I would as soon not see a third. I would like to identify whoever decided biological war of genocide was the correct way to solve their problems. I would prefer to resolve the current situation in a way to discourage future warriors and soldiers from deciding that bio warfare is the obvious and correct strategy, tactic, weapon and tool to resolve interstellar difficulties.

 

The Grigari should have every reason to agree. I believe the Klingon Empire might concur as well. This is a cowardly attack, an attack with hidden face. The group initiating violence did not identify clan and empire, did not take open responsibility for the attack. Whoever did this denied responsibility, and thus denied the possibility of vengeance. By Klingon standards, whoever did this denied also any shred of honor. While the Federation, Klingon and Grigari cultures have real differences, it is possible that all three cultures might and ought to repudiate biological wars of genocide.

 

If so, the Federation might have a role to play. The role would not be the role of a warrior. Our role would be as diplomats, scientists, explorers and humanitarians. Our function would not be to win a war, would not be to turn this use of force to our advantage, but to end this use of force, and to take what steps we might to prevent such from occurring again.

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Using the Boganary as example, talking to those people wasn't going to work. They don't value peace, plain and simple and anyone who'd looked over their cultural file we were given from the Satarimi would have seen that. If the duty of starship Captain is the welfare of his crew, then he must act in a manner to protect his crew. Did Corizon act completely in the right? No. The idea is that we're imperfect beings and that we make the wrong choices from time to time.

 

To address the larger issue, I don't think violence has largely shown to resolve our conflicts, in fact it's only shown to complicate the situation. Again there's a level of reality here, is every situation going to be resolved by talking something out? No. Is every conflict going to resolve by shooting someone, hell no.

 

And for the record saying that a warrior shouldn't be a warrior is just as ethnocentric as saying a pacifist shouldn't be a pacifist and strictly against what the Federation is supposed to be. The Federation is, to use a modern term, a big-tent. It has both conservatives and liberals, pacifists and warriors. The idea is not that the entire Federation is in lock-step with one another, but that they can come together to resolve these issues through peace and democracy. The Federation stands for the free flow of information and the harmonious existence of multiple values. Forcing the value of "pacifism" upon a culture, or excluding that culture from the Federation is no more noble, no more free than a culture that simply conquers everything in its path with ships and guns. It's tyranny in a velvet glove, but tyranny all the same.

 

A point I've tried to make is that Federation is largely different from what it was during the height of TNG. The Borg, the Dominion, as Joy noted, have changed it. It's had to be more martial to survive, the officers who lived through that are going to have a different approach to how they do things than say, Picard did. Does that mean there isn't room for someone who feels differently? IMO, No. In fact, I've always felt there wasn't enough of that to balance, for example, Corizon's tendency to be more martial.

 

Personally I feel assumptions are being made about how plots are going to be resolved. As far as I am concerned, the only thing set in stone right now is that we're going to see what we can find about the Crownstone, now how we're going to go about retrieving it, if we decide to... is an open book. The problem often is that those with alternatives aren't willing to speak up in a manner that's frankly apropos. Remember, I am not Corizon and I have different sets of values and ideas, and how I would react to a situation is very different. I think he's a security-minded, trigger-happy ass, but if no one gives him alternatives, in manner that is realistic (e.g. yelling at him on the bridge in the middle of a conflict is not going to make him want to do anything differently, but speaking to him in private might), he's not going to change how he does business.

 

A good example of this was a few plot lines ago when Corizon was prepared to deploy a sub-space weapon to prevent the Scorpiads from entering the Alpha Quadrant. While he was morally, ethically, and legally within his rights to do so, when he was offered a sensible alternative by Sorehl to accomplish his goal of protecting the Alpha Quadrant without using such drastic measures, he took them.

 

Out of character, that was a case of where I went with something I didn't plan. From that perspective, I will tell you I am pretty much open to changing where we go with a plot if you can set it up so that the characters can realize there's a better course of action.

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Tia has been bothered that much of the command staff and crew are from predator and warrior cultures. She definitely feels out of place on Excalibur. I too have created a warrior / predator species, and am considering pulling in one of Tay’s distant kin in, except on steroids, darker, more violent, as this seems to be what Excalibur calls for.

 

Caitians are a predator species, as established in TAS and various novels/comics/FASA and Decipher role playing books. Any tribal culture/warrior culture ideals are from my own little brain.

 

I have never played Left Ear JoNs as dark, violent, or on steroids, and I do resent the warp factor shot between the eyes commentary. I participated in a joint log with Maria Zier's player where Lefty held the womans little baby - the baby had not one claw mark on her. I have played her as a straight and narrow (possibly to a fault) by the book Caitian officer.

 

The whole point of these sims is to have a diverse group of officers.

 

Thank you, but do not presume to tell me about how I play my characters or project my ideas. Big time assumption.

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Caitians are a predator species, as established in TAS and various novels/comics/FASA and Decipher role playing books. Any tribal culture/warrior culture ideals are from my own little brain.

 

I have never played Left Ear JoNs as dark, violent, or on steroids, and I do resent the warp factor shot between the eyes commentary. I participated in a joint log with Maria Zier's player where Lefty held the womans little baby - the baby had not one claw mark on her. I have played her as a straight and narrow (possibly to a fault) by the book Caitian officer.

 

The whole point of these sims is to have a diverse group of officers.

 

Thank you, but do not presume to tell me about how I play my characters or project my ideas. Big time assumption.

 

 

I will agree with that. Corizon, for all of his surly, abrasiveness has never actually raised claw one to one of his crewmembers. Ethically, he's willing to dip a little more into gray matters, and he is a well trained combatant whose spent the better part of the last ten years doing undercover work, but that's also ignoring the fact that he's spent years training his mind through meditation. Yes he's a warrior, but he's also a poet, musician and artist. He's also a very well educated academic, who's spent more time in the classroom than the war room. And in reality, Tia might find that he and she don't have that many uncommon features. She did the Vulcan Kha'wahn (sp) where she ventured through the Forge to train her mental abilities and purge herself of emotions. Corizon, when he was even younger (14-15) spent nearly a year doing what Dameon's call the "Nagghj-ka" or simply, the Trial. During the Trial, he spent months in the wilderness in the high mountain peaks learning to survive on his own, living in harmony with nature and to find the mental peace and stability that would allow him to become a strong warrior. Is he a diplomat? No, but he'll tell you straight to his face he's not. Is he a warmongering renegade who shots at everything that moves? No. Traditionally do I think Starfleet would have sent someone more like Picard on the mission we're on? Likely. But, given the mission profile (it's classified), not many people know the area, and he's already made contacts within the Dominion, are there many other choices? Not really.

 

And to a great extent, I think Corizon's been rather... measured in his responses and actions during this current mission. Upon contacting the HaVorante, we sent science teams down to learn more about them and how they connected to the history of the Dominion. Heck, when they held our people, instead of storming the castle we sent Lexin with some security to talk them into releasing the prisoners. Instead of going off on some holy crusade of revenge against the Blood Cult, he's content to let that go and attempt to make contact with them at a better time. We spent nearly four whole days doing cultural exchanges with the Satarimi, instead of saying "he give us this" and moving on. When the Boganary issue came up, he made it clear he didn't like what they were doing, but there aren't many choices and he has his orders. Which is a worse officer, the officer who will not follow orders at all, or the one who will respectfully degree and carry out his mission while hoping to minimize the damage done and open the best chances of exploration. It's not as if we can simply hold up a big sign to these people and say "Hey which one of you has the Crownstone and how much will you pay for it?" We know very little about these people, and we've acted in a manner that will provide us a) a chance at exploring b ) possibly offer us a peaceful solution and c ) will hopefully minimize the damage we can do if we are forced to take more forceful measures.

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