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Sam_SemaJ

The Teaching Fellowship - backlog from Sam Sema'J

[note: this log takes place immediately before Arcadia's departure for the "nebulans" plot.]

 

 

Dr. Samuel Sema'J gazed out the window at the starfield. It rushed past in streaks of brilliant white with the occasional sparkle of color.

 

"That sight never gets dull does it?"

 

Sam blinked as he was called back into his surroundings. He looked across the small table in the cramped mess compartment. His daughter, Rose, smiled back at him expectantly. She was eating and engrossed in reading something on a padd, he must have been gazing for some time for her to notice his inattention. He glanced briefly back out the window. He had to admit it was a sight, though he had always preferred the ground rushing by, inertia, g-force; the more visceral effects of travel in gravity. He turned back to her and returned the smile.

 

"It's just been a while since I've travelled at warp."

 

A long time indeed. Two years? Something like that. The recommendation had come through a colleague of his mother's.

 

Dorai was a planet that had quite recently achieved warp and joined the Federation. One of the planet's sentient species, the Dorai-So, were sympathic (the ability to know what someone is feeling, while not feeling it oneself). Given their sympathic abilities and history, much of the Dorai-So's academia were drawn to the studies of psychology, therapy, and psychoanalysis, some more specifically to it's application in the military, and Starfleet found itself with a massive influx of very smart, very sympathic people interested in their mental health and counseling division. While the question of whether empaths and sympaths make the best counselors might have previously been asked in passing, it seemed a worthwhile topic for hands-on study at this point.

 

It was from this series of events that Dr. Sema'J received a recommendation for a new teaching fellowship at Starbase 541, near Dorai, to not only help set up a special academy for new counseling division recruits (while they would receive the rest of their Fleet training from military personnel on the base), but begin a research program on the effectiveness and strategies of counselors with sympathic abilities. The irony of simultaneously studying students while teaching them to study others was not lost on Sam, but given the strong recommendation and the other accomplished scholars with whom he'd be setting up this new research/training area, he had accepted.

 

While the shift into the gear of full-blown teaching and research had somewhat jarred Sam after many years in the structured world of the military, he found he settled quite nicely into the environment, and, with his colleagues, set up a dynamic new research and education facility. A facility which turned the influx of gifted students into a significant contribution to the discipline at large, both in and out of Starfleet.

 

Rose's eyes darted out the window at the stars, then drifted back down to her padd, "Well I haven't had nearly enough of it yet."

 

Her father chuckled. "What's got you so entrapped there?"

 

She mocked an authoritative voice, "An Inverted Polaric Approach to Warp Field Dynamics; Changing The Game of FTL Efficiency."

 

That sounded familiar to Sam…it really shouldn't...but then it came to him, he had read it in the Academy a decade ago…where it had been standard reading for decades. "That's quite old, you know."

 

She returned her gaze to him with that particular look that can only result from a teenager regarding their parent. "Well ship's engineers need to know this kind of stuff like that!"

Her fingers snapped next to her temple.

 

Sam leaned back in his seat and smiled broadly. "I don't know where you could have possibly gotten the bug for engines…I can't abide them myself…" He held his two hands in the air in front of him and made loose fists, "…was always much more comfortable with control handles and the like." This of course hadn't stopped him from getting shuffled into Arcadia's Chief Engineer position 3 or 4 years ago…but he had quickly handed this off, promoting someone who was quietly pointing out errors in his own work.

 

Rose pushed the pad aside and returned to her meal, talking between bites, "Well mom was an engineer, right? She helped build ground cars."

 

Rose, as someone who barely knew her mother, was quite comfortable talking about her, even about her passing at times. It had taken Sam years and an immensely unhealthy amount of sleeplessness to achieve this, and still he gave a slight pause and averting of the eyes before answering. But when he did, he did so with the kindly and assured tone which he so loved to use with his only child.

 

"Your mother…was an artist…she was a designer by trade…but in her heart she was an artist. Whatever drove you to what you are and want to become, one thing is for sure. You, Rosie, are special."

 

Her face flushed as she fought the grin with every bit of teenaged self-consciousness she could muster…quite unsuccessfully. "Dad, you don't have to call me that…"

 

"Well you have no say in the matter," came his short reply.

 

Rosie was two years into secondary school, a few classes ahead of the curriculum. This was not especially rare, it was designed as sort of a low median, flexible enough for the wide range of talents and opportunities. One of those opportunities, available once you reached your third year, was to do part-time work study in a military speciality while finishing your schooling at a qualified program joined with that military outfit. Arcadia was of more than adequate size to have such a school, and the squeal of delight which accompanied the announcement that Rose could join Sam in his return to duty aboard the ship was quite piercing. Sam was actually quite excited about this too, though he was not the squealing type. Six years ago, then Ensign Sema'J had shuttled his daughter back to earth to live with his sister, feeling that a ship in the tumult of deep space missions was no place for a 9 year old. Now the timing of his return coincided with the option of this engineering internship. Not only was he glad timing worked out, he was extremely glad to be back with her full time.

 

At the time of his departure, Arcadia's counselor had only had a brief opportunity to look over the CV of his replacement, a graduate student named Terban Cor. At this point in his career, however, Sam only needed a brief look. Research and papers focused on treatment efficiency. A level more psychopharmacology and neural therapy courses than are needed. Extra clinical work to replace the requirement of some of the diplomatic and sociology courses that go with counselor certification. To Sam, this all distilled to one conclusion: Mr. Cor wanted to cycle patients and officers through his office as quickly as possible, and wanted to be known for it.

 

Not only did Sam quite enjoy sitting and listening to those entrusted to his care, he was fully convinced that his doing so, and doing it well, had a profound impact on the well-being of the crew and passengers of a starship - a social environment quite unique unto itself. Nevertheless, Sam had an amazing teaching opportunity, and the Academy had determined his now-open post to be the right place for Terban Cor to do his field work. Sam bade farewell to his closest shipmates and embarked on something wholly new and different.

 

Cor must have been significantly worse in person than even his (in Sam's opinion) egocentric research record would suggest. A message from none other than Captain Arphazad Lo'Ami had come to Sam which, in significantly more measured and professional tones, had in its subtext stated: please get rid of him and come back to us.

 

For all his skill and his comfort with the crew, Counselor Sema'J and Captain Lo'Ami were not all that well acquainted. And about all they shared in common was the apostrophes in their names. The two had spoken on a number of occasions, from private evaluations to staff meetings to bridge banter…and that was it. All of these interactions seemed to have served their purpose at the time and not required much else. Sam had reflected on their somewhat closed relationship often, but had never felt a need to call attention to it. It was thought among many that joined Trill tended to be much more emotionally self-reliant than most, having a number of (usually) self-actualized personalities to intimately draw upon for emotional stability. This was often negated during times of new host/symbiont bonding, but the Captain had long been Arphazad Lo'Ami by the time Sam knew him.

 

Given this relationship between the counselor and his commander, it struck Sam all the more how rocky the situation must have been to warrant a personal request for the return to his post. He had all but been absorbed into the life of an academic, shaggy hair, beard and all; and yet…he felt static. The ever-divergent life of a Starfleet officer must have changed him in some fundamental way, so that the moment he read Lo'Ami's message, he was thoroughly convinced that for all the love he had for his courses, his students and advisees, and his research, he was no longer bound to them. He was quite bound to the beard though…that would stay. The program up and running solidly enough for someone else to jump in, Sam renewed his commission, met up with his daughter, and boarded a cramped transport for rendezvous with Arcadia.

 

Reflecting on all of this, his beloved daughter engrossed in her reading again, Leiutentant Senior Grade Sema'J's eyes were drawn back to the streaking starfield. One could get used to it…but certainly never sick of it.

Edited by Sam_SemaJ

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