Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

(snip)

Cochrane smiled and said “Oh, regularly. But I find that the perspective I come away with is that, even if this isn’t the life I hoped for at the beginning, I would not trade it for anything. I don’t see it as having lost and opportunity, but instead being gifted with an amazing and extraordinary life.” he took a drink and looked at her over the rim of his glass. Setting it down he said “I wonder if your mother could benefit from that in some way.”

Cochrane

Sair reached for her own wine but her fingertips rested on the base of the glass. “Perhaps,” she said, deeply thoughtful again. “But see, the thing is that for a Kobliad her life is extraordinary.” Sair leaned forward, gazing intently at Alex. “She was born to a family who was well enough off to have more choices than most, and even though her mother died in childbirth along with her second child, she was loved and she had a great education. She didn’t have to worry about basic needs the way others o our world sometimes have to. She became a nurse, and health practitioners are revered on Kobliad, for obvious reasons. In her mind she has a privileged life and it was made more so by having a partner and then a child. She did everything right according to our society and she is honoured for it. She saw my life as extraordinary before I even joined the exchange program the first time. What none of us, including myself, saw coming was that seeing other places, meeting other people made me want more. And that is all but an unwritten crime back home. We’re still trying to get past the idea that one person wanting more means someone else goes with less. We’re used to our world, our resources, the experiences of our lives being limited, finite. Our years are finite, just like any mortal being, but for me, I no longer was satisfied with ‘just enough’. I wanted more. And that is the crux of the matter, the thing she has to accept in order to fully see me as I am now.”

~Sair Songz, CNS

Cochrane nodded. “And I hope this does not come across as flippant or dismissive; but your people are not the first to have to deal with the realization that a people who decide for themselves that their situation is not what they want and who strive to change it are destined to have many such realizations.” He leaned back and looked out the window, the streaks of the warp field distortions reflecting in his eyes.

“Cultural shifts are very very hard. Especially when those shifts fly in the face of tradition and deeply held beliefs.” He looked back at her and said “Did you know that when my species, Humans, first encountered another species… the Vulcans… it took years to convince people on Earth that other species were actually real? People on my planet actually tried to disbelieve that Humans weren’t alone in the galaxy. The presence of sentient life on other worlds… it scared them. They suddenly felt the vastness of the Universe… and it was daunting and made them feel very small. Perhaps that is where some of your people are still at. Like your mother. They have been presented with evidence that what they knew… at the very core of their being… was the truth, is actually not true. That can shake an entire civilization… let alone a single person.”

Cochrane

Sair sipped on her wine, watching the lights move through his rather stunning eyes, momentarily transfixed. “Yes, it can. It’s truly terrifying, Alex. I know because I counselled many people through different situations back home and much of it revolves around this existential crisis that my entire planet is facing. Who are we? How did we get here? Now that we aren’t entirely consigned to extinction , what does that mean for the future? It would be easy if someone had the answers, but the hard part is that they are individual answers and our society is dominated by a group mindset. It’s been necessary, kept us alive and functional, and the only examples previously of people doing otherwise are those acting against our society’s best interests, for their own personal gain. People like Kal Darvaana, who risked imprisonment in order to bring the truth about our occupation of the Amrayans to light and basically risked treason in order to find us a medical cure… our society doesn’t know how to handle that… yet. But as a whole we are learning. I wish I could be a part of that change more directly, but I have Koro to think about and he is going to live longer than any Kobliad before him. I want him to know the magnificence that is out here, see what is possible rather than be confined to what life has been.”

~Sair Songz, CNS