Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vora Zorell (Scientist) in Ready Room- Debrief

Posted by Captain Johann Dvorak (CO) in Ready Room- Debrief

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vora Zorell (Scientist) in Ready Room- Debrief

(snip)

Vora exhaled audibly, feeling some of the frustration she had been holding on to filter out. “It’s the tiny glances, sometimes pitying, like people know I screwed up or wasn’t the best or something equally ridiculous. But maybe I’m just seeing things because I expect it. But until I have a good experience where I feel like I’m once again trusted as an experienced member of the crew, I think I’ll be… looking for it. Which is ridiculous, because it’s confirmation bias at best, and destructive at worst.” She leaned back, almost slumping, and shook her head slightly before glancing at him and giving a slight smirk. “Always my own worst enemy.”

Lt. (j.g) Zorell, Sciences

“Of course you are. That’s why I think you’re probably selling yourself short here.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she said softly with a lopsided grin.

He looked away for a moment, as if to make doubly sure he knew how he was going to approach this topic further, before he looked at her again.

“It’s worth taking a moment to perhaps reflect upon what the situation you were in was before things started going wrong on the last mission. You seem to be very focused on people pitying you or whatever because you’re temporarily off of the Away Team list, yet I don’t think you’ve fully internalized that being left in command of the ship would also change people’s perception of you. More importantly, it’s the sort of thing that changes the way people act towards you. It’s because you’re in a situation where there are mutual expectations. Everyone knows that the commander expects things from the crew, because most of those expectations are explicitly stated in the form of orders. It is less obvious but no less true that the crew expects things from their commander, and when those expectations are met they begin to act differently than normal. So let’s focus on that sort of thing for a second.”

“You gave orders while I was gone, right? I assume people followed them because you haven’t complained about them not doing it.”

– Johann Dvorak, CO

Vora nodded. “When my orders were able to be kept up with, yes, they did. But unless I was giving crazy orders, this crew is too well disciplined to disobey them on a whim.” She was trying to frame it as a counter-reason to his point but in that moment her face shifted in tiny ways as she processed that maybe she had just made his point rather nicely.

“You’re right,” he said, noticing that he probably already made the point, but decided to drive it home anyway. “But even a disciplined crew has ways of expressing doubt. Usually in the form of someone trying to be the backseat driver. ‘Recommend we raise shields.’ Either that, or waffling by implicitly comparing everything you ask them to do to what they imagine I would ask them to do, maybe even suggesting you double check every order with me before you give it. But, nothing like that happened either, did it?”

Of course, they already both knew the answer to that one.

Leaning back on the sofa, she looked up and closed her eyes, letting her mind and body be still for a moment, if that was possible. “I wish is wasn’t so hard to let all the stuff from before dictate how I view everything now.” She opened her eyes and returned her head to a forward facing position to gaze at Johann. “And it’s not just about the missions that went badly. I had sixteen years of my life where all I ever heard about myself were terrible things that were untrue, or I wished with everything I was that they weren’t. But I’ve only had ten years of hearing anything remotely positive. The scale is still a little bit unbalanced and wanting it to balance sooner isn’t going to help. Even if I wish it were different.”

Lt. (j.g) Zorell, Sciences

“That assumes those two things should even be on the same scale,” Johann said. “That really is what your problem has always been. If you don’t mind me saying that so bluntly.”

– Johann Dvorak, CO