Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharah Fayth (Chief Science Officer) in Off shift, Soval’s quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Soval (Executive Officer) in Off shift, Soval’s quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharah Fayth (Chief Science Officer) in Off shift, Soval’s quarters
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

She hadn’t been asked directly to sit, but Sharah could tell he was willing to allow the encounter to develop naturally and so she sat taking the water with a “Thank you.” and then sipping it quietly a moment. “Hobbies…plants, botany was my hobby, and look where it got me.” It was said with humor and a bit ruefully. “Perhaps your hobby will lead to you becoming an artist.” It was meant thoughtfully and perhaps with a bit of humor. It maybe have been too familiar or lacking in respect for his position on the ship thought it wasn’t meant that way. Sharah was quirky and because of all the input had a hard time with social conventions because the spoken word mixed with the thoughts and feelings going on around her.
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO

“Perhaps” Soval conceded. “Vulcans tend to amass skills wile staying to one career path. For me that has been managing the operations of starships. But if that proves impossible, I could possibly be able to make a living creating for the tourist trade.” The amusement was there, a very subtle but dry sense of humor evident.
He simply excepted the Betazoid’s thoughts, it was a fact of life and tho both their futures had their taboos it was not something he chose to be insulted buy, and the fact that she was not bothered gave him a sense of pride. She was a remarkable woman.

Soval

“Tourist trade…I never really thought about Vulcan having a strong tourism business. It was all was very esoteric to me when I was there. But my experience was jaded and I spent most of my time in the monastery. I suppose it just looks different. Betazed has shuttles running from one place to another non-stop all day. Or transporters for those who don’t want to take in the scenery on the way. Artisans, museums, art galleries, lectures, natural preserves.” She shrugs self deprecatingly, “I’m sure Vulcan has all those things as well. Like I said, my view was jaded, at best.” She looks over at the totem, “Not to be insulting, but you enjoy it, you find great pleasure and satisfaction in the work.” She’d learned a long time ago to always apologize for the feelings she was able to sense from Vulcans. It was said more out of habit than that she thought she might insult him. She was just too weary to care if her cultural norms insulted his. “Have you ever tried a medium other than wood?”
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

“No apology needed, I except that I have emotions and that you have no choice but to feel them. This is our normal.” His tone, that annoyingly neutral Vulcan one.”You are correct I enjoy the act of creation, as well as the meditative quality of the work. This one is the last of the set, and is in a replicated native sandstone. The previous three are…” pointing to the statutes residing in the corners with their holo candles, in an off hand way.”…of wood, crystal and wrought iron.” Thoughts of how the hot iron moved much like clay under the blacksmiths hammer came unbidden to his mind. “As advanced as Vulcan technology may be, our culture tends to be very ritualistic. A way to mediate the strong emotional drives we seek to suppress.” The ritualistic way he had ‘harvested’ the stone from a cliff on the holodeck came to his mind.
Soval

The tone made her shutter internally it reminding her clearly of her time on Vulcan. “Your child is willfull. She makes things up. She simply has a deep desire for attention. It is logical to assume she has heard stories of ‘over-sensitives’ and has found it great fun to manipulate your,” and the neutral disgusted tone of a Vulcan, “emotions.” Sharah from two floors away and the other side of the massive building could hear it all. Could feel her mother’s sadness, another person condemning her to being a horrible mother. Unable to sense Sharah’s thoughts and feelings, unable to tell when she was in distress, she blamed her self. The Monk’s words only entrenched that feeling even more. Her father, an adept telepath and strong when measured by normal standards, was a physically intimidatingly man. What made him more so was the calm quiet of his voice. “Surely, you aren’t suggesting that our medical doctors are inept and that my 10 year old daughter can use her mind to manipulate a computer?” The Vulcan doctors had even tested her and confirmed her condition. The monk simply shrugged, “Once you have removed the possible, what is left, no matter how improbable, is the impossible.” The monk had looked at her mother, “Perhaps you should spend time with some of our women and learn from our Vulcan parenting techniques. You must have a firm hand to control such nonsense.” Sharah felt her mother’s resolve crumble under the accusation. The terror that no one could save ‘her baby.’ She felt her father’s extreme disappointment and disgust at the accusations of the monk against his wife and child. She felt Andrew’s anger and disbelief, and unable to control it all, it became hers. LEAVE MY MOTHER ALONE!!! The voice rocketed out, painfully across the monastery.

She saw glimpses of the working of the melted iron. It was a skill she would never try. To become distracted by working with something so dangerous, could be deadly. But she understood the peace the work brought him. Her plants did much the same for her.
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO

Soval sat up even straiter, and his eyebrows went up in surprise as he felt anger, fear and sadness wash over him, punctuated buyLEAVE MY MOTHER ALONE!!! then the realization they were not his emotions but hers. A deep breath and he spoke “ I am sorry to have brought back such memories unpleasant memories, Sharah.” His mind logical mind quickly recovering and reviewing the new memory.

Sharah actually smiled. “There is no way to know what will or will not trigger a memory. What sense will be so acute in the moment to recall the exact same input from days or years past. You are not at fault for recalling a memory, no more than you are responsible for the arrogance of the senior monk.” It was a very logical way of looking at it. “I try very hard, Lt Cmdr, to always recognize that each person is an individual and may be influenced by their society but are not the total representation of their culture. I do not blame you for their actions. I do not blame any Vulcan for the pain I feel upon sensing a Vulcan mind. It is a product of the mental training you are given. It is not bad or wrong, the fault, if any, is mine for not being having the discipline needed.”

“Thank you, I was aware that our reverence of priests led to some being quite arrogant, but to see them from the view of a ten year old Betazoid female’s point of view is most enlightening.” His own anger at her families treatment rose, was examined and allowed to flow away like flood waters. To touch the minds of the priest, her mother and father all at once, even in her memories was unsettling, but his logical mind observed as he felt her father’s grief, her mother’s anger and the priests fear. The mind of a mature Vulcan doing what a child’s mind was incapable of. Excepting things as they are, with out the pain when they differ from what should be.
Soval

She laughs and stops suddenly. “I’m sorry. I just…arrogance is an emotion, curiosity is an emotion, a lack of emotion, is emotion. I never…Honestly, from a medical stand point, I think this is why so many Vulcans, at the end of their life, loose control. Every part of the body weakens as we age, and after a certain point the mind can no longer control everything. And then those emotions overwhelm because they don’t understand or recognize them.” She’s probably speaking out of turn. She can feel him accepting what happened and moving past it. “As an adult I have worked through that many many times. Sifting out what doesn’t help. We stayed 6 months while I tried to learn what the monks were trying to teach me. It wasn’t until this past year I finally figured out what they were talking about. Until then I never had a point of reference for it.”
Lt.jg Fayth, CSO

“True, they are emotions. Many Vulcan’s may deny their existence but the truth is we have them, and combined with our telepathic abilities they can create volatile feedback loops. Buy learning to suppress them and our taboo against touching our culture leaned to mediate this problem. This feed back also is why most Vulcans are vegetarians, plants feel much less fear at being harvested than animals do at being slaughtered. Your own people were able to skip the necessity of aspiring to pure logic to reach a state of non violence and harmony.

Soval

There was a slight steeling of her spine, “Then most Vulcans don’t listen carefully enough. Or maybe because it’s emotion they don’t understand it.” Sharah doubted they really felt the emotions of plants, she’d never met another telepath that could do it, or realized they could do it. And of course that was a talent only two other people knew she had, and now…not meaning to, a third. There would be a curious feeling from her of a gigantic symphony and the image of an arboretum in her mind.

There was a thought in the back of her mind that her people learned to curb their violent tendencies by learning to feel how others felt, to be able to feel other points of view, rather than denying. A difference of how cultures developed, but both lead to peace. But her mind is more focused on the fact that she just told the XO she can communicate with plants and the implications of that, and she can’t put that back in the proverbial bag.
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

“Well isn’t that fascinating. I know that there has been some speculation but this is the first verification I am aware of. Again thank you for sharing that enlightening memory.”

Sharah felt like she was being questioned by a very adept interrogator. She kept telling or showing the XO things that she only ever told very specific people in her life. She kept that thought to herself though because as far as she could tell the XO hadn’t done anything to coerce her into sharing, she just wasn’t herself. And it would be wrong to blame him for her lack of discipline. But then she wasn’t sure why she had always kept it a secret. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with it and it never got her into trouble. It just made her more strange than she already was. “It’s strange that you can hear my memories. I’ve never met a Vulcan who can communicate with a non Vulcan telepathically without touch. So either you are very adept or I’m projecting my thoughts to your mind, and that means I’m in even worse shape than I realized.”

“Both I am afraid. Touch facilitates our abilities, but most can reach out some few feet with training. I myself have grown more powerful after my injury. Wether something has changed fundamentally in my brain or if a life time of learning to suppress my abilities has been stripped away, I am unsure. I suspect the latter.

“I think Mr. Faval and his son clearly illustrates how emotional Vulcans can be, and I am sure my mind provides you another example, tho I would be considered to be suffering from a severe mental illness on Vulcan.”

Soval

She sipped the water and shrugged. “According to Betazed I am mentally ill as well.”
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

“History is littered with examples of persons with mental illness doing great things, I see no reason you shouldn’t be one of them as well.

Taking a sip from the tea he had left unattended wile they talked. “Besides exercising our logical minds, much of our training revolves around learning to shield our minds from the influence of others. The average Vulcan will still sense strong emotions, but untrained we are flooded with others emotions, much as you are buy others thoughts. Combine that with our native strong emotional drives and you see the problem to witch the teaching of Sarak was the solution. It may not have been the only solution, as the Romulan people show us but it was the one the Vulcan Peaple chose.
The identity that was Soval seems to be separate from the emotions that well up from within or with out. His logical self seems much like a boat floating on a rough sea. Tho effected buy the waves, it is still it’s own self, floating above. Tho she could sense pride in being a Vulcan, it wasn’t the arrogant pride of feeling superior because of it.

Soval