Posted Jan. 6, 2019, 2:31 p.m. by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) (Lindsay B)
Posted by Lieutenant Commander Royal Sinclair (Counselor) in Counselor’s Office - A New Kind of Interview (Tag SARAH)
Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Counselor’s Office - A New Kind of Interview (Tag SARAH)
(snip)
“I have shared it with people before, but if I’m inclined to do some dancing, it’s likely to be on my own these days,” Dalton said simply. It wasn’t like she needed the exercise, so going out of her way for it seemed a bit silly unless there was a reason. What was she going to do, fire up the holodeck and join the corps in a stage production full of other holograms? The thought was depressing.
~Corinne Dalton
Counseling duties aside, Royal was certain that the person seated before him was, indeed, a person; holographic emitters be damned. Not ‘was a person’, as someone had said to him when he had learned about her. And he could tell that the Lieutenant was ‘in it’, as his granddad would say. And it was his job to get her out of it as best as he could. He may not be able to help her be like her previous self, but he wasn’t going to let a crew mate down.
Sinclair paused and tapped the pencil against the pad for a moment, then spoke. “What makes you happy, Corinne?” he asked, switching to her non ship-centric name.
Sinclair, CNS
Well, that was the question, now wasn’t it? Could the same things that had once brought you joy when you were a organically mortal being still be true when you were faced with impossible amounts of time for your life? At first she was inclined to say no, but then she thought about it a bit. She had solved a great mystery in her life already, had found and lost love more than once and still the Universe held its mysteries. For most people anyway. And perhaps her as well, though she doubted she was in a place right now to deal with them.
“Being useful,” she finally said softly. “I tried being a medic in Sickbay at first, after I died, but it felt hollow, as if I was still trying to be the contained and less powerful person I used to be. One of our former XO’s helped me see past that limitation and that’s when I understood just how connected to the ship and its systems I truly was. But, the reality is that even if I can be more useful than just a person to query about random things, or fix an item or two faster than the engineers can, the majority of the crew either don’t know I exist or are afraid of me. Pretty hard to do more than keep out of people’s way. The last time those in charge felt uncertain about me, they stated talking about taking preventative measures in case something went wrong. Like I was some sort of program that had infected the ship and they wanted to contain.” As she said the words, she could feel that intense pain in her gut. It was a hurt that spread through her and expressed itself in her brilliant blue eyes.
Looking away a bit, it wouldn’t have been unexpected had tears slipped from her face. She could cry holographic tears, but she had control over it in ways organic beings did not, and so she chose not too. “Their distrust fluctuates, and we’ve had quite the shakeup in command crew before and after I was stuck and imprisoned in the system by the Douwd, but I’m reminded quite often that more often than not I am an inconvenient feature on this ship.” It would not be the first time that she had wished Lilliane Leroux’s program had failed and the bullet had actually killed her. She had no desire to end her existence now, but it was hard to ignore how simpler it would have been for everyone had she ceased to exist then.
~Corinne Dalton
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