A meeting of minds

Posted on Mon Jan 15th, 2024 @ 11:00am by Lieutenant N'vok Holv & Lieutenant Commander Rin

Mission: Season 6: Episode 4: Memory Lane
Location: Science Office
Timeline: MD7?
1998 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

N'vok twisted and shifted his neck, making sure that the flexible piece of technology at the base of his skull remained firmly attached. He could see in his field of vision, and replicated in the display in his glasses, the command to initiate the system.

The tests, under laboratory conditions, indicated that it should work, but it would be only with the arrival of Lieutenant Rin that proof of concept could be proven.

"Evening, Lieutenant," Rin said as she arrived. "You said you had a prototype to test?"

N'vok slis over a tray that holds a disc of metal mesh. "That is the spare, I am wearing the other. If you are ready, I can try to establish a link."

Rin nodded.

N'vok focused on the initiate command, it flashed green as it reached out, looking for a system to synchronize with. "Beginning . . . now."

Rin detected the signal and gave it access. There was a momentary confusion as she got used to the new input. The device might be based on Borg tech, but it most certainly wasn't, and it had been constructed in a hurry. So the connected was...messy. After a moment, however, she got the hang of it.

For N'vok, Rin's mind was quiet. Rigid. Practiced. There was a vague sense, in the background, of... cheer? An acknowledgement of success.

Everything Rin connected to had it's own voice, for lack of a better term. The other xBs were similar to one another, but still distinct. The Elysium computer was quite different. And N'Vok too was unique to her.

N'vok watched the status of the connection in his feed but he could feel it too, it was . . . not entirely unfamiliar as it resolved. Like a fuzzy, muddy echo by comparison to the purity of the Vulcan mindmeld. But such a deep and complete connection was not sought or needed here. Still, he could not help but compare the two.

Rin's mind, at least the outer part that was touched seemed, well, what he expected of Rin. Distant and controlled. He was surprised and a bit worried about the amount of empathic bleed but for a hastily assembled device based on nearly entirely alien engineering structure, it was working remarkably well. He further suspected his mind did not seem so . . . structured to her.

N'vok thoughts are orderly, disciplined but there is also a sense of deep curiosity and, yes, enjoyment at experiencing a new sensation. She can tell that he is working to keep focused on the task at hand, pushing distractions away.

"Rin? Can/do you hear/perceive my thoughts/words?" came over the shared link.

"Yes, I can," she replied mentally. "Can you...." She visibly winced as the tech screeched, for lack of a better term, and she closed down the connection.

"Oooh, feedback," she audibly explained. "I've...never experienced feedback through the interface before. That's...unpleasant. I think we need to adjust the device a bit. Did you feel it?"

The wince on N'vok face was probably confirmation enough. "Indeed, Lieutenant. When we tested the device yesterday, it was purely technological. I think it must be tapping more into emotional states and concerns now that it is dealing with two living minds. I believe I can filter out some of that, now that I have more data to work with."

He called up a hologram that displayed a brain, presumably N'vok's, and showed a rainbow of colors. "See, these readings spike the moment contact is made. It is as though the technology wants us to share an emotional state. That is troubling."

Rin frowned as she leaned forward to better examine the hologram. "I wonder if it would be as troubling to anyone that isn't us. Neither Vulcans nor xB are particularly well known for the sharing of feelings." She gave a slight smirk and shrugged her shoulders.

"Or a more open emotional state might only make it worse," said N'vok. "Only testing will tell and I would prefer to have a better grasp on how the technology works before exposing anyone else to it."

He made some adjustments. "I think that will screen out much of the empathic bleed. It may make the communication more indistinct as well. The technology is, as you know, both advanced and complex." N'vok showed her what he was doing. "Does that look correct to you? If so, shall we try again?"

"I am not a technician. I understand the concepts, but putting it into practice is all you. If you are confident in your work, I am open to trying again."

Truth was from the moment she agreed to this, Rin had fully prepared to walk away from this evening's experiments with a massive headache. There was just no other way of testing the tech.

N'vok nodded. "Let us try a slower sync this time. Starting now." He watch the progress on his glasses' display. The feel was different this time more distant, definitely more fuzzy.

"Can you hear me?" Rin thought. She wasn't getting the emotional bleed this time, but the fuzziness was a bit disconcerting, the same way a person might get frustrated at any other bad connection.

"I hear you," came back as from a great distance with a bit of an echo. The voice was definitely N'vok's. "I think we need to try again. Shall we shut this down?"

Rin nodded and disconnected. "I definitely preferred the first attempt. The neural interface was never meant to simply work like a communicator. It's not something you talk into. It's faster and more sophisticated than that. We may be overly dumbing it down."

N'vok nodded and hit a sequence on his datapad. The holograms of the brain multiplied with various areas lit up and then they combined, each pair of holograms becoming one. "It does provide some useful data however. I think without a more advanced model to work with, we are going to have to cope with some empathic bleed for the moment." He tapped his fingers on the surface of the desk for a few seconds.

"How much . . . mind-aligning are you willing to undergo, Lieutenant?" said N'vok. "Because I think the answer may be to try a deeper link and then swim up to the shallows, as a very strained metaphor."

"I was alright with the bleed we had the first attempt. I could even go a little more, particularly with you. I suspect we can both hold back pretty well."

N'vok nods. "Well, let us see what happens this time. On my count, three, two, one, initiating."

The sync happened suddenly, as if this was what it wanted, for a moment N'vok suffered from near vertigo as an alien set of perceptions were overlaid on his, as he saw through Rin's eyes as well as his own. "Oh, my."

It was a much stronger connection than Rin was expecting, but, relatively familiar with the sensation, she could quickly sorted out the inputs. N'vok could sense an echo similar to laughter as Rin grabbed to support him and guide him to a chair.

"Alright, bit of a surprise there," she thought to him through the link. "Try pulling your perception back. Think of it like...looking through a window. Ignore what's outside the window and focus on just where you are."

She hoped that made sense. It was a poor analogy, but she's didn't have better to give. This sort of experience wasn't something she needed to describe often, and she had never needed to give a lesson on it.

N'vok closed his eyes and centered himself and slowly opened them, there was a ghostly overlay of Rin's perceptions but he was able to ignore them. "I was not expecting that. Shared perception of some sort but . . . not that, at least, not so quickly."

"Can the drones use each others' senses like that?" he asked. She could feel him mentally organizing and adjusting to the layered perceptions. N'vok entered notes on his datapad.

"If you mean xBs, yes," Rin replied. N'vok could feel a bit of annoyance from her. xBs are not drones. "Borg drones don't operate individually, so to say one unique drone can see out of the eyes of another unique drone is not accurate. All of that information informs the hive mind."

"No insult intended, Rin," said N'vok. She could feel him organizing information in his mind. "That does explain certain things."

"It seems I can access your viewpoint, can you do the same for me?" he asked. N'vok did his best to clear and relax his mind

"Yes. I'm choosing not to." She pulled up a chair for herself next to N'vok. "Is this how a mind meld feels to you?"

"No," said N'vok, "a mind meld is . . . more intimate, a willing joining of selves, if only for a brief period. This is . . . imposed, forced, it may sound strange but I can feel the technological nature of the link. It creates a link but not . . . not a comfortable one. It works but by force, a mind meld is persuasion."

"Feeling its technological nature is not strange at all. My brain would not do this if not for technology. I'm sorry it feels to you like it is by force, but I can understand why. Do you still want to do this?"

"Yes, this is fascinating," said N'vok, "and it has a high chance of being useful in our mission. A little discomfort is a small price to pay. I have endured much worse in my quest for knowledge, once I sad through an entire Klingon Opera Cycle, three days of Klingon opera. Compared to that, this is easily bearable."

A fascination with Borg technology was probably how Borg technology evolved in the first place, Rin thought. She tried locking it away, but a whisper of it made it through the link. She had many thoughts on that particular topic. Her very existence straddled the matter. For example, how much technological connection was healthy for her? She and Starfleet had some pretty strong opposing opinions on that point. There were very concrete reasons she insisted or being identified as xB and not as human. (And even more vehement opinions on being labeled a drone.)

She was a little saddened to hear N'Vok describe the connection as forced. To connect with other xBs felt perfectly natural to her, but assimilation was a very violent intrusion, so it made sense that creating even a much lesser link also felt forced and intrusive, even when entered voluntarily. That was the nature of the tech.

You can be philosophical another day, she told herself.

"If you feel comfortable - relatively speaking, of course - with your current control of things, try to communicate something non-verbal. A simple image, for example. Or a piece of music," Rin encouraged.

N'vok nodded. "This is still clear in my mind," he said. The climax of a Klingon Opera performance, complete with brandished weapons and kettle drums, washed down the link, along with a bit of N'vok's distaste for the overblown nature of the performance.

Rin winced both mentally and physically. "Well, now we can both suffer that memory."

"Well, we have established that the link works as expected," says N'vok, there is an underlying sense of amusement, almost a taste, infuses his reply. "Let us shut this down for now. Perhaps a few more short sessions before the mission and we will have this as a backup."

Rin mentally disconnected from the link. She definitely had a headache. "Yes, we should practice a bit more. Perhaps even during training, but not today."

N'vok closed the link from his side. "A nice mug of Andorian The is in order I think. Yes, more practice would be good."

He watched her turn to go. "Lieutenant Rin, one more thing." he said. "I know it must be difficult to access certain memories from the past, so thank you for trusting me with this."

 

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