Is this reality real?

Posted on Thu Jul 25th, 2024 @ 6:55am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Lieutenant N'vok Holv

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Science Office
Timeline: After Senior Staff Briefing - A lot to discuss
2118 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

N'vok welcomed Miraj into his office. "May I get you something to drink?"

"Chocolate milkshake?" Miraj said hopefully, and beamed when the Vulcan handed her one, complete with cream and chocolate curls.

N'vok had the replicator produce a glass of iced mint tea for himself. He took a seat on the edge of the desk. "A simulation you say? What evidence would you say supports that thesis??

"The sheer number of coincidences that have occurred in the last few weeks. My dad says that something happening once is an accident, two is a coincidence, and three is enemy action. And we're way beyond three on the number of insanely implausible things that could happen."

"Such as?" asked N'vok taking a sip of his tea.

"Space is insanely big." Miraj began, her father's expectation management mantra coming easily. "The chances of you being found if you break down off the main shipping routes just in the alpha quadrant are ludicrously low, even with an emergency beacon. We're 13 million light years from home, but ever since we picked up that thing in the junkyard the number of coincidences has started piling up and piling up. We're in another galaxy, with no way of contacting home, but then we get a pre recorded briefing on the area of space we've randomly ended up in, and for some reason the world-changing, paradigm shifting reality that we've been getting extragalactic visitors for a century or more isn't already known. Secrets like that don't stay secret. Not in the Federation. And then, not only have we managed to end up in the right part of space, we miraculously have a survivor of these raids on board. That's already, what? A one fifty in two and a half million chance?"

"How well known are the Q outside of Starfleet?" asked N'vok. "There are infinite amounts of information, it is difficult for even the dedicated to sift through. And 'abduction' by extraworldly visitors is a common theme of reference, even with little confirmation. on many planets. If it unlikely, yes, but so is everything about space exploration."

"Had we ended up in different distant sectors of space we could have encountered the Borg or the race that built the planet killer," added N'vok. "In both cases we would have known something about that area of space, unlikely as it may have seemed."

He sipped at his tea. "If you were running a simulation, why would you want to stretch credulity by introducing such apparent unlikely situations? Why not keep things simple?"

Miraj thought about it. "Well," she drew the word out as she tried to figure out the words. "I think the situation is adapting. I think we did, or didn't, do something and now they're trying to course correct from the original plan. Like when we went down to the planet. I think they were trying to get at least one if not all of us off the Saucy Minx. You all left, and it was just me and teeves and Colonel Azhul. So some but not all, right?"

"But to what end?" asked N'vok. "If they wanted you off the ship all they, whoever they might be in this theory, needed to do was to have a radiation leak or other hazard requiring a brief evacuation of the ship. If it is a simulation and they are willing to rewrite perceived reality it would be easy enough to manipulate you off the ship."

"And maybe they wanted us all off for something, but we didn't go, so a human just happens to turn up at our ship, despite there being a hundred to choose from down there, and asks for help with freeing people who just happen to also be from our galaxy, and when we're reticent to help, they just happen to be children, and then she just happens to have an untraceable way in and out, so the mighty spacefarers who have solved transwarp just happen to conveniently not have ground penetrating radar or basic geophysics? Everytime we say no, she has a counter."

"But, again, to what end? If it is a simulation, what would they be trying to learn? The situation may be improbable but so are many things in the universe," said N'vok before taking another sip of tea.

"I don't know. But I also know its also beyond improbable. What are the odds of all of this, sir? If you sit down and calculate them?"

"Literally incalculable," replied N'vok. "But any calculation involving people quickly becomes so. The universe does not neatly run in precise tracks especially once an intelligent mind intervenes."

"The Thiah'ea in my estimation are technical and scientific illiterates," said N'vok. "Their technology a gift from an advanced Precursor civilization who almost certainly did not intend for it to be used to promote slavery."

"How did you figure that out?" Miraj train of thought derailed itself, fascinated by this new thread of possibility.

"Well, by study of their technologies, which from the information provided by Mister Dosivi, has not significantly changed since his people, and those they have cooperated with, have first encountered the slavers," said N'vok. "While their is a common theme in Federation ship design, our ship is radically different from say the Constitution class in almost all ways. Not so with the Thiah'eans, their core ship design, static."

"More recently, in the study of the media we recovered from our mission to the planet," continued N'vok. "I am still working my way through that trove of data but I have encounter several stories about how the gods revealed themselves and gave gifts to them. Unfortunately for us all, it was at a very early stage of cultural development, when raiding for slaves and goods was the warrior ideal. It turns out giving advanced starships and weapons to such a culture does not encourage it to advance socially or culturally."

"I guess not." Miraj allowed. "Then again, our ship design hasn't really changed. blob on two sticks covers most of them." She put her hand on the nearest bulkhead. "I don't mean it, you're very pretty," she told the ship.

"Similar, to a standardized pattern, but not identical to within ten percent of design," said N'vok. "And the Elysium is indeed a lovely ship."

"It is a pattern that has been seen before when less culturally advanced societies gain access to high technology," said N'vok. "It rarely ends well."

"Humans turned out all right." Miraj clawed at a vague memory of a history lesson. "And we were still killing each other when the Vulcans showed up."

"But also trying to follow rules of war and minimizing civilian casualties," said N'vok. "It is not as if Vulcans have entirely avoided war either. If the early Vulcans had access to such technology . . . it would have been unpleasant."

"So there's a ridiculously smart alien civilisation wandering about who've got enough advancement to develop transwarp, but not the wisdom to not give toddlers laser guns?" Miraj gave a little shiver. "I think that's possibly worse. And it makes sense with my simulation theory too. We're being messed with for shits and giggles. Er I mean for their amusement, sir."

N'vok raised an eyebrow. "From my understanding of events, the Precursors had not intended to give weapons to a primitive culture. The details are . . . highly mythologized, but I believe it was a comet strike, one powerful enough to trigger a potential extinction event that the Precursor system, also damaged by the impact, decided to intervene. In the process of saving them, it also has to reveal its capabilities. Like any group with sudden access to god-like technology, they promptly used it to do what they were already good at . . . raiding."

"How do you know that?" Miraj was circling back to her original idea. "Like I said, I think that whole trip was a set up. Anything down there is immediately dubious. Like strangers buying sailors drinks in a dock side bar. Have you been able to verify anything from sources found before we sailed these particular waters"

"How would we verify anything except with information gathered here?" asked N'vok. "There is no other source of information about the beings, technologies and cultures we have encountered. If everything is manufactured, there would be no way to tell. It seems like a quick route to madness to me."

Miraj didn't disagree with that point. "Maybe that's the point. Like a defense mechanism, get us doubting everything, chasing our own tails, and going mad, so we're not a threat anymore. Everything's just ridiculous, we don't know if we can trust our own eyes, and then we all go round and round until we're all paranoid and destroy ourselves."

N'vok shook his head. "If they have such control over us, why waste time? They could just destroy us like that," he clicked his fingers. "What would be gained by such a game?"

"I don't know. But you don't find it remotely beyond belief that we're 13 million light years from home,  in another galaxy, with no way of contacting home, but then we get a pre recorded  briefing on the area of space we've randomly ended up in, and the world-changing, paradigm shifting reality that we've  been getting extragalactic  visitors for a century is still actually a secret and not only are we in the same space as these visitors, they just happen to be flaunting prisoners from our home?  And then Consul Imik just happens to finds her people on that planet, that she hasn't had contact with for tens of thousands of years without significant diverging evolution.

"And then a human just happens to turn up at our ship, and asks for help with freeing people who just happen to also be from our galaxy, and when we're reticent to help, they just happen to be children, and then she just happens to have an untraceable way in and out, so the mighty spacefarers who have solved transwarp just happen to conveniently not have ground penetrating radar or basic geophysics?  And then one of the people we end up  rescuing just happens to be someone who has a very personal link to the colonel. Not a minor connection, but someone who provokes a deep, traumatic and possibly murderous response.  And its not just the colonel.  Another marine knows someone as well.  A face from his past. Only its not 25 years in the past, it's three hundred. And one of the children that miraculously happened to be here turns out to be the long lost child of another member of the crew?"

Miraj looked at the Science officer. "My maths is pretty shit, but I'm sure that those odds are longer than the distance from here to home."

"Odds are irrelevant," said N'vok, taking a deck of cards out a drawer in his desk. He shuffled and flipped the top card. "Seven of diamonds. One in fifty-two chance as the two jokers have been removed. How many times would the seven of diamonds reappear in a row to prove a simulation?" He shuffled and cut the deck. "Six of spades."

"The problem with your hypothesis, however attractive you may find it," he said, shuffling the deck again. "It that it is unfalsifiable. You can simply point to any occurrence and claim it is part of the mysterious game that is being played with us." He cut the deck again, three of clubs. "And in such a circumstance, it is up to you to prove it is fact rather than for me to disprove." He bridge shuffled the deck. "I have no reason to believe it is a simulation and even if it was, I would not act any differently. If a simulation of reality is so perfect to be indistinguishable from reality . . . would not that just make it . . . reality?"

Miraj held up a finger and opened her mouth to refute him. And then shut her mouth again, orbital flares flexing slightly as she tried to see a flaw. "So you're saying..." she trailed off again. "What you're saying is everything is real, whatever you see?"

"I am saying we must treat it as reality until we have proof otherwise," N'vok said, setting the deck down and reaching over to take Miral's hand. "We must work with what we have and what we can understand. After all, reality is what you make it."

"Reality tried to kill me." She replied with a bit of a sulk. "Reality sucks."

"But you have survived," said N'vok. "And, in the long run, reality tries to kill us all."