A Vulcan's way ...

[T'aral 0]

T'Aral sat in her quarters, struggling with relaxation. It was most illogical for her to consider the matter of the staff meeting further, yet taking a wider view perhaps it did need analysis. There were matters about the meeting which did not present themselves with any reason - the chief of which being the nature of the meeting itself.

 

As T'Aral sat through it, she noted no suprises, no hidden information, no analysis, and very little consideration put to suggestions. The Captain had already decided on a course of action - as was her right. T'Aral had no concerns regarding the direction of their actions, and what few reservations she maintained were irrelevant. The Captain had decided, and that was all there would be to the matter. However: as this was the case ... why was a meeting called? At the very least, why was she included?

 

It wasn't that she had a particular desire to be excluded from ship's functions, but T'Aral had always felt a need for a purpose - as illogical as that was. In any situation she sought to be useful and effective, and was always disturbed when she was neither. At the officer's meeting she was at best redundant, and at worst irrelevant. Her protests to the idea of arming the hill people had gone largely unnoticed. All other considerations she had brought were mirrored in the views of others, which meant her input was unnecessary.

 

Remembering that they were, at that moment, bringing more arms and weapons down to Neural shook T'Aral's concentration, which she tried to balance through new observations. It was curious how little humans learned from their own history - arms races never ended well, for neither side would ever respect the concept of balance. Each would begin to seek to out-perform the other, creating either arms in greater numbers, or with greater accuracy ... improved firing rates ... or some other feature. The opposition would react in kind, and the situation would continue to spiral. The rationale of the situation was that there would be little else they could do: the contamination that existed could not be undone without abandoning the Prime Directive - which brought the directive itself under scrutiny. What good was the Directive if all it did was to prevent other races from benefitting from humanity's mistakes? While it is true that Vulcans disapproved of any mandating their way upon others, there was not a Vulcan in Starfleet who did not at one point or another encourage their peers to a greater calm. Some lessons were meant to be shared.

 

Yet instead of guiding the Neural inhabitants towards a safer development, it seemed that Starfleet supported the idea that they needed to make the same mistakes that humans did, at the same cost. Admittedly T'Aral was not able to formulate an alternative without applying unacceptable levels of influence, which would in turn make the Federation responsible for the outcome. That, however, was an acceptable formula for T'Aral - though one which would never come to pass. For better or for worse the Federation tended to follow the lead of the humans, and humans as a race tend to do all that they can to avoid responsibility. Reaping the benefits of a situation always, but always careful to avoid any suggestion that they should be held responsible for negative outcomes which their actions created or contributed to.

 

T'Aral decided to end her musings, and activated a series of Sudoku games on her monitor. While she wasn't the fastest analyst, the simple exercise of logical analysis was soothing.