The Acolyte of curiosity.

Posted on Thu Sep 19th, 2024 @ 7:46am by Lieutenant Commander S'hib & Lieutenant Commander Rin

Mission: Season 6: Episode 5: A church beyond heaven
Location: Chapel Library
Timeline: MD:1 -1300
2571 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"If I may, you said earlier that you used to be religious of sorts..." Sister Abanot asked as she led Rin down the narrow corridors of the church, the claustrophobic interior barely wide enough for two to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Could I ask why you drifted away from your previous faith?" She said, turning somewhat to her side as another of her order squeezed by, heading in the other direction.

"The short version is aliens forcibly stuffed a bunch of tech in my head and wiped my memories," Rin replied matter-of-factly. "I used to take it quite seriously. We have a concept known as godparents, where a non-blood relative pledges to help care for a new child. I've reconnected with my godchildren. It is incredibly meaningful to me. But the faith itself just... doesn't line up with my experiences. Maybe I just haven't found the right perspective, which is why I'm curious about yours."

Rin didn't really want to go into more detail until she had heard about at least the basics of the Ajanie faith, so as not to accidentally offend.

"I see, I'm sorry you had to go through that... having one's memory removed is, abhorrent... blasphemous even, it goes against everything we strive to achieve here."

She turned as they walked, offering Rin a warm and affectionate smile. "Our faith is all about discovery and understanding, and learning about ourselves is just as important as learning about the universe."

"It's like there's three versions of me," Rin continued. "My early life, my captivity, and my life now. Memory is a big part of what defines a person, in my view, and I simply don't have those memories."

She walked for a bit in silence. "So, how does your church seek discovery and understanding? And what drives you to do so?"

"My people believe that the universe is a living thing, vast and unknowable even unto itself..." Abanot said softly as they turned a corner.

"And this is why it created you and me, created us to do what it could not, to look upon itself with a different perspective."

Rin considered that for a long moment. "You say it is a living thing. Is it a thinking thing?"

"It's possible, but then again what counts as thinking?" Abanot asked as she came to a stop and turned.

"do animals think? some can certainly problem-solve, even birds can beat puzzles when food is the objective... but do they think about why they can fly? and we can't?"

She paused for a moment, letting the questions sink in.

"Because if that's the case you're not asking if the universe can think, you're asking if it can ask questions." She said with a smile, waving a hand between herself and Rin to emphasise what she had said was what Rin was doing.

"I meant did it consciously choose to create us to help it ponder itself," Rin clarified. "But can it ask questions? Or is that our job? To ask questions on its behalf?"

Sister Abanot chuckled softly, glad to have found someone with a ravenous appetite for curiosity. "If it knew what to ask, we wouldn't exist," she said, turning to start walking again.

"Come, the Chapel Library is just ahead."

Rin shrugged. "In my job, I often know what questions to ask, but I still need other people to seek out the information." It didn't escape her that the Sister had not answered several of her questions, instead responding with more questions. It was irksome on a practical level. Rin was most comfortable in a world of concrete facts which could be observed, tested, and recorded. But she also understood that when one starts getting philosophical, answers can start becoming nebulous. So she understood why the conversation was going the way it was, even if she wished it otherwise.

Indeed, she had plenty of other questions as she tried rapping her head around what the sister was explaining, but she suspected they too would be overly practical for the topic at hand. She was quite aware of the importance of asking the right questions to get useful answers, and at the moment she wasn't sure what those might be, so she followed the sister in silence, waiting for more information before further inquiry.

As they walked, however, a thrum of other voices could be heard echoing down the corridor towards them, unintelligible and overlapping sentences that gave Rin little idea of what was being said.

However, as they entered what Rin could only assume was the Chapel Library, it became somewhat clear that several scholars and those involved in the faith were discussing all manner of topics from astronomy to alien anatomy.

It was an odd sight as they stepped out into the ground level, flanked on either side by towering bookcases that seemed to support the upper levels themselves.

Scrolls, books, and even modern data slates not too dissimilar from PADDs sat crammed into the archives, like some strange amalgamation of ancient and new knowledge all bundled together.

"These halls are but a fraction of everything we have accumulated over the years, all our knowledge, all those millions of questions asked and answered..."

Rin took long moments taking in the sight before her. "Do you find value in keeping knowledge in handwritten form?" she asked, examining the scrolls without touching them. "Or do you also keep such data in digital form? If that's not an impertinent question."

"Everything we know is archived on our central database, but what you see here are the original documents..." She stopped and turned, looking back at Rin. "It just doesn't feel right to get rid of them."

Rin just nodded. "So, beyond your archives, what is the...point? of this station? Points the wrong word. I apologize. I'm not sure how to better ask. The stonework, the stained glass, the candles. Can you tell me their relevance to the faith? Do you have services?"

“That…” Sister Abanot started, glancing down the narrow library halls before looking back at Rin. “Is a question that has a very long answer, one we best sit down for… come, let's go find some seats.”

She smiled reassuringly to Rin before turning and walking between the narrow rows of bookcases.

Stepping out the other side Rin found herself standing in a room far larger than she had first assumed, its towering bookcases and vast stone columns supporting two other floors that appeared to wrap around the vast opening she now stood inside; It truly was a Chapel surrounded by a vast Library, a strange blend of science and orthodox.

“Our people have always been religious, to some degree…” Abanot said, her voice hushed but still very clear. “With numerous faiths, gods, beliefs…” She continued as she sat down along one of the many rows of seats that faced the far end of the Chapel, it was a comfortable seat, padded but well used, old like the church itself.

“And not all of them got along,” She said as she watched Rin sit down.

“You see we had a world before, A’janu… It uh, It had its problems… like I’m sure most world did and still do.” She sighed, settling back into the seat, “Wars, intolerance, our people were divided but we still made progress.”

Abanot paused at this, turning to face the front, looking up at the Alter, the paintings and tapestries that lined the walls.

“But then something happened, a great cataclysm befell us…” She looked back at Rin, a deep sadness in her eyes. “We aren’t sure what exactly happened, but what we do know is that something flew through our solar system, a rogue planet, maybe a black hole… we don’t know, but it wreaked havoc on our orbit and every other planet in the system.”

She frowned, clearly troubled by recalling this painful past that her ancestors had gone through.

“The days got longer, and colder… billions of people abandoned by their gods, sentenced to death.” She shrugged and sighed. “Society collapsed practically overnight, mass suicides soon followed.”

"I'm very sorry your people suffered that," Rin said quietly. No planet died quietly. There were a thousand different endings to that scenario, but none of them were quiet.

She looked at the tapestries, trying to make out their images.

"I would guess your gathering of information first came from a wish to not have knowledge of your people lost," Rin continued. "But I'm not understanding how all that turned into..." she waved at everything surrounded them, "this."

Abanot nodded, taking a moment to smile towards someone dressed very much like Father Orolius as he strode by.

“During all the despair that had consumed my people, a voice of reason quietly began to spread, a voice that gave us a purpose again.”

She paused, reaching up to clutch something that hung about her neck. “He was a simple man, a priest of one of our many religions at the time… but he didn’t see it as a punishment like the rest, but a test.”

She reached out, pointing at a statue at the far end of the Chapel, it was simple, nowhere near as ornate or intricate as the others, almost as if it had been carved by inexperienced hands.

“Father Sather Ja’mond, he was the first of us to realise we had all been praying to the wrong gods, that our true creator, the universe had seen us and found us wanting.”

"If the universe can judge, then surely the universe can think," Rin suggested, returning to an earlier question. "But you think the universe destroyed your world to see how you would behave in the wake of disaster?"

“We believe it helped guide us, like a nesting mother pushing its young out of the nest in hopes that they will fly on instinct.”

She looked about, smiling. “And we did… we built ships, churches if you will, much smaller than this, but enough to carry us beyond heaven.”

Rin mulled that over for a few minutes, trying to wrap her head around trying to see something positive in something so traumatic.

She had never been able to believe in a simple power that ruled the universe. She accepted there were very powerful beings, but that wasn't nearly the same. The Bajoran practices concerning the Prophets made some sense to her because their existence was tangible, and they seemed to generally be interested in the Bajorans.

Seeing the universe itself as that divine power made a little more sense to her, but she was having trouble trying to see from the sister's perspective concerning the benevolence of destroying a planet.

Been there, done that. Not worthy of worship.

She set her thoughts about that for the moment.

"What happened to those who did not follow Father Ja'mond?

Abanot looked over at Rin, almost taken aback by her question. "The same fate that befell so many who did follow him," She said matter of factly.

She turned away, looking about at the halls. "Even if we had ships like this, we were barely warp-capable then, so we did what we could with what little we had."

"And we survived," She said, looking back with a slight nod.

Rin continued to examine their surroundings. "Are there practices of the faith besides the collecting of knowledge? And, if I may ask, what do you do with it all, besides collect it?"

“So there are two halves to our faith, one you have already seen,” Abanot said as she gestured to the tables with others gathered in debate.

“We are a people of science, scholars and poets, philosophers and free thinkers.”

She looked back at Rin, a warm and proud look radiating from her as she did.

“Much like your own, but where we differ is our reason, and thats where our faith comes in.”

“You see we pray to the universe, pray to our god. We talk to it, tell it all we have learned, all we have seen, and try to help it learn as we learn.”

She paused letting her words sink in for a moment.

“Another practice of our faith would be the candles you see around us. Those candles represent you, me and everyone else, they represent our lives… fleeting but important like our world was, because without each and every one of them, we’d be left in the dark.”

“They also represent a commitment, a commitment that says you will learn something new before the flame extinguishes. And we apply this to ourselves too, that we learn as much as we can before our flame goes out.”

"How do you know what sort of people we are? You've only just met us," Rin asked.

“Because we’ve met others from your tree before, many years ago, I was a child back then… they wore different uniforms than you but I remember that.” She said, reaching out and pointing towards Rin’s comm badge.

A moment of sentimental thought as her hand touched the badge, remembering how her own earlier badge had helped lead her home. "You've met us before? Can you find me the ship's name?"

“Yes, I can certainly find out for you once we head back as we don't keep that kind of information in our Chapel Libraries, but rest assured, we have every visit logged on our system, including the ship names.”

"That would be much appreciated," Rin said. "I'm sorry, I have so many more questions, I'm trying to get them all straight. Personal questions, professional questions. Trying to keep the two separated. You brought me here as a personal favor. I do ask questions, professionally. Only I have to lock half of it away, or hand it out only to those appropriate. I have so, so many thoughts running through my head all the time, and... so few of them help me be at ease. You appear to have found peace here. I am glad of that for you."

The sister listened, her eyes intently fixed as Rin spoke, studying how the words left her lips.

"Questions are meant to be asked my child," She said, placing a hand gently on Rins knee, a gentle pressure to assure her she wasn't alone. "Even if you know the answers could hurt, you still have to ask them."

Rin just nodded. "I thank you very much for showing me this. It gives me... things to dwell on."

At that moment, almost as if it was deliberately sabotaging her attempt at contemplation, her badge chirped.

"Lieutenant Reece to Lieutenant Commander Rin, what is your current location, Ma'am?"

"Currently touring the station," Rin replied, moving a few steps away from the sister. "Is there an issue?"

"No, Ma'am," Nicholas replied. "Just some...oddities that I thought you should know."

"On my way. Where can we meet?" Rin asked.

"I am currently on the main promenade, making my way back to the airlock that Elysium is docked to. I'll be at the gangway in about five minutes, Ma'am."

"Acknowledged. On my way."

Rin returned to the sister. "My apologies. Duties unfortunately take me away. But perhaps we could talk later if you have time."

"Certainly," Sister Abanot said with a deep nod. "I will escort you to the outer ring and leave you to your duties."