Posted by Jeremy DeSpain in Ready Room CO meets with CMO on USS Manhattan Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : Posted by Captain Balian Ibn Barazan (CO) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : Posted by Captain Balian Ibn Barazan (CO) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : : Posted by Captain Balian Ibn Barazan (CO) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : : : Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : : : : Posted by Captain Balian Ibn Barazan (CO) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : : : : : Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Ready Room CO meets with CMO : : : : : : SNIP : : : : : : : : : So far during the conversation Balian seemed interested. Now he was listening closely, and paying attention to this cultural information. Arranged marriages, Bureau of Harmony, 853 points of compatibility. His face went from interested, to shocked, dismayed, back to shocked, and then the Captain face returned. Though he decided it was better than his first marriage, so maybe these people had a good idea. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Jasmine, no offense, but that sounds like horse hockey, meddlesome malarkey and shenanigans. How on earth could they figure out compatibility with a test? What are the questions like?” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Captain Balian Ibn Barazan, CO : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Jasmine let out a long laugh and her face lit up with a smile. “In a nutshell the questions are designed to figure out what makes you tick and what ticks you off. The main purpose of the survey is to find what little things would drive a marriage to collapse. Things like What time do you normally go to bed on a working day? How often do you brush your teeth? Do you immediately re-replicate your clothes when you are done with them or let them pile in a corner? Now each of these questions then breaks to sub-points. So with the clothing question, you would choose at the end of the night, only when I need a shirt, never because I immediately replicate them. At times it breaks down farther to within one hour, immediately after changing and so forth,” Jasmine explained. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “As you can guess the questions run from the mundane of what exactly do you like on your sandwiches to how do you like your dessert,” she felt a slight blush rise to her cheeks. She hoped the Captian understood her dessert metaphor. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Now like many your next question is typically doesn’t this take the fun out of dating and I can assure you it does not nor does it make life boring. I dont care how thorough you are answering your questions, learning what someone likes and living with it are two different stories. There is still the settling in process but at least we don’t spend weeks or months casting our line into the proverbial sea. We weed out all the things we hate and pretty much are left with all the things we love. Frankly, I have never understood why men have more issues wrapping their heads around it. I mean if your type of girl was petite and feisty who cleaned your home like maid but still held a full-time job the test will tell you that.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : ‘Lt. Jasmine Wynter CMO. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Balian laughed it was a deep throaty velvety sound, of Baritone. It made his blue eyes seem even more intense for a moment, like the calm sea just before the storm came. The Captain seemed to be a man that did little in small ways, he laughed with gusto, and he lived with every breath. Like a bottled intensity that meant that everything was to the hilt, so one could imagine the anger or implacability of his determination. Balian had gotten the implied meaning of her statement about desert, it had been in use for a very long time. “Maybe I should take your test, I have no idea what type of woman I am looking for. As for why men cannot wrap their heads around it, we are by nature and design hunters, so something that delivers the result with no hunt feels cheap, and incorrect, at least to me. Half the fun is catching them, then clubbing them, and dragging them off by their hair. Me Thok, me rule all!” Balian said with another throaty laugh. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Captain Balian Ibn Barazan, CO : : : : : : : : : : : : “Oh there are still cave fights,” Jasmine mumbled. “In the three weeks I have lived with Max I have myself submitted fifty possible questions from future couples and found myself contemplating the ease it would be to murder him in his sleep being the medical chief. I mean not only do I sign the death certificate but also do the autopsy,” she let out a laugh with a dazzling smile. : : : : : : : : : : : : “It hasn’t been bad for me at least,” Jasmine said shrugging it off, “except for the counselor. Now he has been a pain in the butt. I swear I am going to kill my mother and Max’s when I get back to Mintaka. Why they think we need to participate in every single Mintakan wedding ritual is beyond me,” she rolled her eyes. “Do you know how annoying it is to have Bob pop in on your wedding night? That made it very memorable,” she started to laugh. “I keep telling Max to be nice and it will be over soon but then again who knows with Bob.” : : : : : : : : : : : : Lt Jasmine Wynter, CMO : : : : : : : : : Balian quirked a honey wheat colored eyebrow, and leaned back in his chair. He did not know Bob, or if Bob was a thing he did not know what it was. Whatever, whomever, it made the night memorable it seemed. Balian wondered just how many rituals there were. Well they were asking questions and getting to know each other, so he might as well ask. “Just how man rituals are there, and whom or what about Bob?” Balian asked as he reclined in his chair, he seemed genuinely intrigued and interested in the answers. Balian also made a mental note to look up the Mintakan culture when he had the time later. : : : : : : : : : : Captain Balian Ibn Barazan : : : : : : : : “Bob,” Jasmine’s face took on a frustrated expression. “Bob is a pain in the…Gluteus Maximus,” she said. Jasmine was not quite her friend Celina, who would blurt out the less polite word regardless of company. When she was more familiar with Balian she might use the more crass form but not on the first meeting. “He is the EMH or Emergency Marriage Hologram. It is another Mintakan thing. See since we don’t traditionally meet the groom until the day of the wedding they are given the option of an EMH to work through the kinks. He pops up and mediates. In our past, like with most cultures, arranged marriages were not successful. We had our issues with spousal abuse, people forced to marry because the parents wanted it, etcetera etcetera. That is mainly why the Ministry was created. It was a separate entity for couples to go to for help. As technology increased so did the formula for matching as I explained before and the introduction of the EMH. My mother,” Jasmine said with a bit of disdain to her voice, “thought we should have one because we are so far from home and had to forgo many of the typical wedding customs. Now we are stuck with Bob for about a month or longer. The EMH’s have this decision matrix implanted in their processor. If they think things are good they disappear. If they do not,” Jasmine let her voice trail off a bit. The idea of trying ot make Max place nice for a month and not pull his chief engineering skills out was a bit distressing. “Well, they can stay for an indeterminate amount of time.” : : : : : : : : Lt Jasmine Wynter, CMO : : : : : : Balian nodded, and took a drink from his cup. Considered for a second, “And I assume that Captain Amundsen approved this drain on ships resources, as well as the additional requirements of installing the Holo Emitters in your quarters for such a thing to be useful?” Balian was not upset by Bob unless it started bothering him, and then he would just have it removed from his ship, that was the great thing about being Master and Commander, things that displeased him could just go out an airlock if he so chose. It might not look good in the Executive Officers, or Counselor’s reports, but second to the all mighty Balian was the last stop on the Manhattan. Balian glanced at the chronomitor on the wall, and sighed, “Its five o’clock somewhere” reaching for the bottom drawer and its bottle and glasses. Setting them on the desk, he poured himself one, and nodded towards the other to ask if she wanted one. : : : : : : Captain Balian Ibn Barazan, CO : : : : “God yes,” she nodded to the drink, “and no we are not that lucky to have Bob be linked to the ship. See not all homes are built with the superstructure to handle the drain on resources as you are well aware that can come with having and EMH. The EMH is also built to be 100% mobile so you can access him when you need him. The Ministry, therefore, created this,” she held up her wrist. On it was a small metal band that vaguely looked like a bracelet. “For an initial meeting, the program does need to be uploaded but it only has enough power for about a ten-minute conversation. Luck for us because he was installed on our wedding night. God aren’t mothers great,” the sarcasm dripped from Jasmine’s voice. : : : : “Once he is activated the marital party has to wear these transmitters. They have a small power supply and will allow Bob to help us,” she gritted her teeth trying to appear happy about the situation on the surface, “from the beach on shore leave to the bathroom fighting over sink space. He comes on line when the wearer’s blood pressure increases so it pays to have no issues with anger management. The thought was that couples should be able to have discussions but not fight.” : : : : Lt. Jasmine Wynter, CMO : : Balian laughed, poured for Jasmine, and passed her the glass. putting the cork back in the bottle, “Antarian Whiskey, smooth, smokey, and a favorite of mine, unfortunately it is synth, I did not keep a large enough supply to survive four years. As for Bob, preposterous, couples should fight, it is in the DNA, it is in the hormones, and well the making up is the best part. If you do not fight how can you truly know who each other are.” Balian responded as he lifted his own glass and took a sip. He really did find the idea of couples not fighting to be absurd, that is like not disciplining your children, were they supposed to learn on their own? : : Captain Balian Ibn Barazan : “Well Bob seems to be more about causing the fights than solving them,” she let out a half laugh. “He showed up on our wedding night.” Jasmine picked up the glass and took a sip. She squinted her eyes and pucker her lips. Letting out a throaty cough, she pounded her chest and looked at Balian with one eye like a pirate. “Okay call me a heathen but do you have any sour mix. I tend to be the fruity drink kinda girl with the little umbrellas in a hurricane glass. This is more Celina’s speed.” : While Jasmine was not a tea tottler she was in no way shape or form a drinker. The prior drink coupled with missing lunch was giving her that warm fuzzy feeling. The one where an individual was not yet drunk but in that happy state where tongues began wagging and the truth began to flow like water from a damn. Leaning in as if to get personal, Jasmine spoke. “I think Bob is meant to cause strife. I mean do you know how hard it is to get rid of your mother on your wedding night along with a holographic counselor that can pop up anywhere,” she started to laugh. Some might have been outraged at this but Jasmine was used to the unexpected being a doctor. Most of the time she just ran with the punches. “But what are you without your family. You can love to hate them but they are the ones that are always there so you put up with them. For me it is 27 more days and counting,” she laughed. : “What was the worst thing your mother ever did that you love to hate her for?” : Lt. Jasmine Wynter, CMO

Balian smiled, and shrugged, “My mother is but a shadow of a glimmer of gleam of memory, I do not recall anything that I ever hated her for, but mostly I remember her smile.” Balian said simply, it was the truth, he really did not recall his mother. It had been a very long distant time since he had last seen her. Balian did not know if he could recall more before the injury to his mind that had jumbled his memories so much, but it was what it was. “Sometimes I can see her face but it is as if I am watching on a screen somewhere.”

Captain Balian Ibn Barazan

USS Manhattan

“Would you like to try,” Jasmine asked not sure whether to push or back off. You could go through life not remembering you childhood friends or when you got your first kiss but your mother was something no one should ever forget. Balian seemed to have at least a pleasant recollection of her so Jasmine tried again. “I am not saying it would work but I also suscribe to the belief of why not try. Every once in a while miracles do happen.”

Lt. Jasmine Wynter, CMO