Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Counselor’s Office - A New Kind of Interview (Tag SARAH)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Royal Sinclair (Counselor) in Counselor’s Office - A New Kind of Interview (Tag SARAH)

Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Counselor’s Office - A New Kind of Interview (Tag SARAH)

(snip)

“I have shared it with people before, but if I’m inclined to do some dancing, it’s likely to be on my own these days,” Dalton said simply. It wasn’t like she needed the exercise, so going out of her way for it seemed a bit silly unless there was a reason. What was she going to do, fire up the holodeck and join the corps in a stage production full of other holograms? The thought was depressing.

~Corinne Dalton

Counseling duties aside, Royal was certain that the person seated before him was, indeed, a person; holographic emitters be damned. Not ‘was a person’, as someone had said to him when he had learned about her. And he could tell that the Lieutenant was ‘in it’, as his granddad would say. And it was his job to get her out of it as best as he could. He may not be able to help her be like her previous self, but he wasn’t going to let a crew mate down.

Sinclair paused and tapped the pencil against the pad for a moment, then spoke. “What makes you happy, Corinne?” he asked, switching to her non ship-centric name.

Sinclair, CNS

Well, that was the question, now wasn’t it? Could the same things that had once brought you joy when you were a organically mortal being still be true when you were faced with impossible amounts of time for your life? At first she was inclined to say no, but then she thought about it a bit. She had solved a great mystery in her life already, had found and lost love more than once and still the Universe held its mysteries. For most people anyway. And perhaps her as well, though she doubted she was in a place right now to deal with them.

“Being useful,” she finally said softly. “I tried being a medic in Sickbay at first, after I died, but it felt hollow, as if I was still trying to be the contained and less powerful person I used to be. One of our former XO’s helped me see past that limitation and that’s when I understood just how connected to the ship and its systems I truly was. But, the reality is that even if I can be more useful than just a person to query about random things, or fix an item or two faster than the engineers can, the majority of the crew either don’t know I exist or are afraid of me. Pretty hard to do more than keep out of people’s way. The last time those in charge felt uncertain about me, they stated talking about taking preventative measures in case something went wrong. Like I was some sort of program that had infected the ship and they wanted to contain.” As she said the words, she could feel that intense pain in her gut. It was a hurt that spread through her and expressed itself in her brilliant blue eyes.

Looking away a bit, it wouldn’t have been unexpected had tears slipped from her face. She could cry holographic tears, but she had control over it in ways organic beings did not, and so she chose not too. “Their distrust fluctuates, and we’ve had quite the shakeup in command crew before and after I was stuck and imprisoned in the system by the Douwd, but I’m reminded quite often that more often than not I am an inconvenient feature on this ship.” It would not be the first time that she had wished Lilliane Leroux’s program had failed and the bullet had actually killed her. She had no desire to end her existence now, but it was hard to ignore how simpler it would have been for everyone had she ceased to exist then.

~Corinne Dalton

Sinclair looked at her and after a few moments… smiled. “That is exactly what I hoped to hear.” and he clapped his hands once and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Look, I know that reaction is probably not what you were expecting, and I do apologize. Very unprofessional, but… I mean what a relief. See, when I was told about you… well, not you… more your situation… I was immediately concerned that you wren’t actually you anymore. Perhaps you were just a very robust AI patterned on a deceased officer. But you aren’t. Oh, and I let me correct you on one subject that you are, in my opinion anyway, wholly wrong about. You didn’t die, Corrine. Your body might have, but you didn’t. You are very much alive. Now, I know exactly jack about neural interfacing technology and Artificial Intelligence network algorithms. But I do this. You have demonstrated a wide array of emotions, all perfectly in time and in line with the questioning and your demonstrated thought processes. Additionally, and I don’t know if you aware of this or not, you do exhibit body language and subconscious facial tells when you speak. Androids and AI’s, no matter how well designed, still don’t do that that well at all. They can’t. It’s one thing that gives them away in certain circumstances, but I digress.” and he stood up and went to his desk. Opening a drawer, he pulled out a PaDD and turned it on. “This is every psych eval and fitness report you ever had when you still had your original body. I went over every. Single. One. Multiple times. And everything you have shown me here, to the last detail, is a spot-on reflection of everything in here.” and he waved the PaDD and tossed it on the desk with a metallic smack. “You didn’t die, Corrine.” and he grinned at her. “And while you didn’t want it or ask for it, you actually just had the most expensive plastic surgery in the history of the human race.” and he walked around and sat back down and looked at her.

“Lieutenant, you are hurting. And you are lonely. And you probably feel isolated and maybe even depressed. And all of that is a perfectly normal human reaction. And while your biology may not be human, your consciousness most certainly is. You are experiencing a trauma. A severe one, no doubt. And everyday you are reminded of it. So… let’s see what you and I can do to get you into a better frame of mind. You don’t need to get ‘better’. I think you are just fine as you are, save for maybe a really odd body image issue. Ironic, huh? But there it is. And that you and I can work on, if you like. But for now, I just want to know what you are feeling. Right now. This instant. What are you feeling, Corrine?”

Sinclair, CNS