Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Cara Meow (Ship’s Anthropologist) in Main Sim - Habitat - Away Team Tour
[snip]

Joe mentally chided himself though and reminded himself that he had taken more blows to the stomach than he had needed to in his life and learned to tolerate those. He could very well breath through this one as well. He stood his fists clenched as if to return a punch, took a long deep breath and finally releasing the breath he turned to Sal and asked her, ” Sal , how is your culture structured? Is it structured by different tiers? “

”..Education for our children begins when they are of 3 years of age and lasts until they are in the 20th year of life. The first 2 years of education revolves around the basics of simply developing speech patterns, simple physical activity, and social cues for interacting with others. After that their next 5 years of education focuses on mathematical theories, common language practices of reading and writing, a continuation of social and physical education as well. The following 5 years of education then involves more advance math, reading and writing, further social and physical education, cultural lessons on not only our own society but those few we have met and have firm knowledge of, as well as an in-depth study of history since we broke away from our enslavers generations ago.” Sal went on, “..at the end of those 15 years of education the students take a hands on and written test to find what skills and interests they have that can apply to everyday jobs and services here on the habitat. Based on the results of this 5 days test their final 5 years of education is learning the skills and such to perform those jobs and services that they pick from the test results which show the top three likely choices..” she said.

Even during the pregnancy the female doctor felt no maternal instinct ,only in the last few weeks did she feel some protection to her unborn child, knowing the baby would be taken away by those that had captured her and only for a brief second did Cross see that the baby was male.

Continuing on, Sal continued as they passed by a school yard park with children playing. “..Of course for those children who are orphaned by the loss of their parents. They are given the choice to either be adopted by another family on the habitat in which case they go through the normal education process I just described. Or they can be educated to understand the choice of entering the Seed Pod program. For those who choose this path they have the same education as everyone else, but instead of getting breaks every 4 months continue learning year round. They also have a slightly higher standard of physical and educational expectations. They also have higher education much sooner about the study of other cultures and technology that normally wouldn’t be given to our students till much later. Once they reach their 8 year of age they are given a test, if they pass then they graduate from the Seed Pod program and are then put into cryo stasis to await an alien family to adopt them, every three years they are awoken to refresh their skills and have 4 months to live socially with a local habitat family before going back into stasis. For those who do not pass their Seed Pod final test they are then adopted by a family here locally and returned to the normal student population usually on an accelerated education track due to their higher standards, they then proceed as normally described as everyone else..” she said.

This was too much for Cross ,she had been standing there waiting and getting anxious . What she was feeling inside her brain was all too familiar ,The doctor started to fidget, she looked around trying to divert her attention to something ,anything to stop what was about to happen .

The same little voice in her head told her to calm down, told her she could do it and reminded her that the consequences of her actions would not be tolerated not this time.

Joe saw Cross fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. He decided to save the CSO another chewing out at this time as he Cross had already taken a sizable bite from the lad earlier. ” So, Miri,” Joe began in an offhand tone. “Have you read in the medical journals about the newly discovered mental illness among starship crews? It was quite interesting.”

Cross wiped the perspiration which was running down her face ‘’Of course I know Cmdr for I was the one who brought up the subject of the importance of a counselor on every star-ship and gave a lecture down at the academy, needless to say that it takes time, so maybe in the future one would be present among the crew ‘’ the doctor kept looking straight ahead ‘’For now my dear its the CMO who acts as a counselor…any questions?’‘ .

If they kept this up ,it seems there will came a day when one off them would be locked up on the bridge while the other face up on a biobed.

Joe turned to Cross . His eyes were twinkling like those of a little boy puling a prank and a crooked smile on his face as he spoke saying ,”Really? There is such a thing? I was referring to your present condition of nervous foot. But let’s keep those feet where they are shall we?”

She gave him a fleeting glance and pulled of an inpatient huff ‘’Don’ worry about me Cmdr I ain’t going no where ‘’ Cross replied while swaying from one foot to the other, then went on staring at nothing for what seemed like eternity.

The doctor wondered how the Captain was faring with Dor and if any progress had been made .

As the XO and Cross conversed Sal led them over to one of the larger buildings, “..This is our primary schooling facility,” she then pointed further down the habitat lane to another slightly larger building, “..and down there is our seed pod educational facility. Would you like to view either one?” she asked.

Cross pushed her way to the front, right were the woman was standing ‘’Excuse me Miss Sal but are those children not adopted at a much lesser advantage then the rest?’‘ she spoke in a neutral tone and doing her best not to show the emotions cascading inside her .

Sal turned to regard Cross at her demanding tone, “..What do you mean?” She inquired.

‘’Has it ever occurred to you that the child may be picked up by a species hostile, unfriendly and aggressive in nature ,who have no desire for the child to be adopted and worse find their way right at your door step since on the pod you put down the constellation where to find your habitat! ‘’ Cross tilted her head slightly waiting for an answer.

”..We do not force any child in the Seed Program to be adopted nor do we force any alien races who visit us to adopt someone. We take all measures that we can to ensure that the adopted child is to a willing family we can currently see and vet for suitability for the candidate in question. Often we will awaken the child in question to meet the perspective new families but not all species wish to do so. The Alsatirans for example who most recently had been here some years ago and taken one of our Pods with them had wished to not awaken the candidate they had adopted due to wanting to return safely to their home world and first performing careful study of their environment before awakening the child. We assured them that if their environment was like ours it would not be an issue, but they said it was simply their way..” she explained.

She remembered when Franz woke up the first thing he asked * if they were his new parents*…was that the reason some of the children accepted to go inside the pods? .

Cara Meow, who had been silently observing, whispered to Miriam quietly from behind her, “Other species will have customs and ideas that seem abominable or abhorrent to us. We just have to accept those sometimes! We have no jurisdiction here, and we certainly have no high moral ground to stand upon given the history of our own worlds. We would say that young children do not legally have the capacity to agree to valid consent in a situation like this, but clearly they don’t believe that. I will have a long report to write about this visit, but we don’t wish to create a diplomatic scene here. Anyhow, I think a better question is what causes them to have so many orphaned children?”.

Cross whispered back ‘’I’m not enforcing my own thoughts but I do feel a duty to bring to their attention the danger and seriousness they could very well come across. Dear Cara maybe you as an Anthropologist find their customs and ideas intriguing but both you and I know who or what could make its way here and for what ?To improve their technology?’‘.

She found it strange that they live in a habitat instead of the planet and even stranger that they had been slaves and yet are sending pods into space not knowing who might find them.

Cross CMO.

Continuing then Sal continued, “..As for putting coordinates to our home world? Yes we do that often once a child is adopted, it is for their own use later in their life so they know how to return here. Obviously this carries a risk of more hostile groups finding a Pod and following it back here, but in the few times it has come up over the hundreds of years of us being here, we have not yet had a problem, but in our experience more often then not it is worth the perceived risks to us and the habitat to learn and grow through the Pod program..” she stated

William perked up at this, this could have good insight into the way this species defined their morality, he did disagree with the way the question was asked but purely from an anthropological point of view.

Hearing this Cross could surmise that the reason now that Franz had asked this question when he awoke in Sickbay was because he had not met his future family, and had not been informed by request what they looked like. This seemed more a choice by the Alstarian family that was to take him in then anything malicious on the part of Sal and the habitat locals.

”..Now if there is no other questions do you wish to see our normal schooling facilities or the Pod academy?” She inquired.

Apparently these species were ready to take the risk and for what? Cross thought. As Sal did not seem to mind, calculating the odds of having unwelcome visitors was like playing Russian roulette .

Cross gave her a curt nod and stepped backwards, leaving someone else to pick which place they wanted to visit.

Joe had kept silent during Sal’s talk. The whole thing smelled about like Grandma’s cabbage from two years ago stored in a damp basement complete with mold. What sort of people would confine themselves to what amounted to a floating metal tube eating whatever that was they ate and ignore the universe around them except to put children at danger in hopes of exploring it a bit? To each his own he thought although the idea made his skin crawl . “Yes Joe said with an easy smile let’s do see that schooling facility and Pod academy.”

“I’ll second that,” added Cara. “The schooling facility and Pod academy please.” Cara was thinking now that her report on mission might be her big academic breakthrough. She couldn’t wait to gather all the information available.

Cara Meow, Ship’s Anthropologist