Getting some ideas

Posted on Thu Feb 15th, 2024 @ 5:32am by Consul Andrinn Orin

Mission: Season 6: Episode 4: Memory Lane
Location: Deck Two-Chief Diplomat's Office
Timeline: MD6, 2230hrs
1054 words - 2.1 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

Orin just got done with his meeting with his fellow diplomats, discussing how he wanted to get their help in teaching the next generation of Starfleet Officers that the Elysium had onboard. When Commodore Lalor had her meeting with Orin, she had brought that up and Orin loved the idea, especially since they were in a new part of the universe.

Orin knew that diplomacy wasn't something people immediately thought about when they were studying at the academy. They might've had a few courses throughout their studies if they weren't studying diplomatics. But, it was sometimes a bit more of a don't piss your neighbors off and make a good first impression. There were so many ways to look at various diplomatic stuff, like first contact and how to truly not piss anyone off.

Once Orin got back to his office and sat down at his desk, he thought about the various things that he had learned over the years since he started within Starfleet and working with his family back on the Trill homeworld. Orin had been around when the Trill homeworld had joined the Federation and got to see how that relationship unfolded, which could be useful to the cadets as the entire ship stepped into this new universe.

Orin knew that, even if the Elysium was only here for a little bit, he knew that the ship would be here long enough for them to make first contact with any number of alien species that they hadn't contacted before because Starfleet hadn't come out this far yet. The ship had already made first contact with one new species, the Lonia. Teevs Dosivi, alongside his daughter, were the first to Lonians that the Elysium had the chance to meet and Orin was glad to have met them.

However, Orin knew that the friendship that the ship had with Teevs wasn't built in one day by one person either. So, Orin grabbed a PADD and began to jot down an outline of what he would want to pass down to the next generation of Starship Captains, First Officers, and crews.

The first thing that instantly came to mind was....be inquisitive! Even if they've got a phaser pointed at your head doesn't mean the person in front of you is instantly an enemy. In situations like the Elysium was currently in or Voyager was back in the 2370's, both ships were strangers in unknown space. That meant that the people living there didn't know Voyager or the Elysium as well. So, it was important to try and figure everything out before you took your own phaser out and started shooting all willy nilly.

The second thing that came to mind as Orin was writing stuff for his outline was that some species might not want to be friends....at least, not quite yet. Some of the examples that Orin came up with were the Trill people, especially when first contact was made between the Trill and the Vulcans. The Trill people didn't want anyone knowing that they could join with another, separate species that could pass on memories while simultaneously gathering new ones. The Trill were worried that either the hosts or the symbiants, or both, would be exploited for what they knew or what they could do. So, it was hard for them to open up to outsiders for quite some time.

But, eventually, the Trill came to accept outsiders as the outsiders had done with them. It took some work, but it was something that came through the works of diplomats and others that worked together, slowly making that needed progress towards understanding and acceptance.

That made Orin think back to his family that were back home in the Milky Way Galaxy. He knew that he would eventually see them again, but that didn't stop him from missing them while the Elysium was in this area of space.

However, during that momentary pit stop to think about his family, it gave Orin something else to chew on and think about, before he added it to the list. Under the part about being inquisitive, Orin put in there to never be afraid of asking questions. Orin knew that some questions might be harder to ask than others, but he knew that by asking questions, it fostered an understanding and growth between the various people within the room. Orin made a notation to remind the cadets that rude or inappropriate questions are never something to joke about or even nice to think about.

There was just so much that Orin knew that he could pass along, but he had to think about how to put it all into something bite sized so that the cadets could grasp everything and it wouldn't have been overwhelming for any of them. Not only that, but he knew that there would be multiple species that he would have to present this to and it would have to take into account each of their unique cultural heritages.

So, Orin called up the main computer, which was still a little bit sluggish from everything that it took to travel here. Once the screen came up for Orin to ask about his inquiry, he asked, "How many cadets do we have onboard and can you give me a breakdown of their species?"

Orin knew that he discussed it with the Commodore, but they didn't go into great detail about the cadets as a whole. Like, where they were from and where did they grow up or anything like that. But, Orin wanted to see about that a little bit, so he could maybe tailor the lesson to their individual species and make the diplomatic lesson a bit more representative for each cadet.

Within a few moments, the computer chirped to life and spit out the information that Orin was looking to. The computer relayed that there were 32 cadets still onboard and that there a mix of species among them. Some of the ones listed were what Orin was thinking about. Trill, Human, and Betazoid, all training in various disciplines. Orin made a note of it before he went back to work on his outline and smiled as he realized how excited he was to be teaching cadets at the academy.

[OFF:]

Consul Andrinn Orin
Chief Diplomatic Officer
USS Elysium