Because Starfleet cares 2: Not so sweet anymore

Posted on 30 Jan 2014 @ 3:33am by Federation Ambassador Ayren Kelan & Lieutenant Elas Vonti
Edited on on 30 Jan 2014 @ 10:58pm

2,083 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: M11: Feet to the fire
Location: Chief counselor's office
Timeline: Early mission: Earth orbit

Elas felt the civil fury of a truly enlightened person. Areyn was a special one, her nature beyond pure and he felt the same excitement from earlier. He also felt other similarities to Danal, such as the compromised feeling towards Starfleet. She was worried about him too, and also worried about her oath… Elas restrained himself again, it was all too easy to follow the path his senses laid out for him but privacy was valued in all species. Focusing on the matter at hand he listened as she explained in a plain logical manner the facts he had also come to learn over the last few days.


“Commander, and congratulations are in order for that as well, please be assured I had no intention of usurping anyone.” Elas was plaintive and leaned forward in his seat in earnest attempt to plead forgiveness. “I was informed there was a counselor on board but no department or Chief, between that and Terran alphabetical listing I came to be assigned to the Achilles. I would have handled matters more gracefully I assure you. I am however glad to see the rank you have earned has been awarded to you.”


Elas took a moment to slide a Padd to her across the table. He let her read it as he spoke, “As to the urgency in my assignment, this is a program created by the Starfleet Medical Wartime Recovery Department created By President Bacco. I am a senior member of the Executive committee and we have consulted with countless doctors, specialists, researchers across every database we could search. We compiled a diagnostic which reveals abberrations in crew behavior. By comparing and searching through trends, various datas and personal histories we have ruled out errors through personal review and have a list longer than my arm of people flagged as affirmative to performance altering deviation from a base norm.


He gestured as he spoke, excited at explaining his lifes work to this date. “Keystrokes are slower, or accuracy is diminished in drills, sometimes it is even slower reading or insomnia… it’s all different but it shows up under the search and can be reviewed under scrutiny.” He was smiling, the memories of the people he had helped prompting him to share his soulful desire to heal.


“Read it for yourself, I will gladly wait, the science is all in front of you. It is also important you know that due to his rank Admiral Da’nal has been priority tagged as a candidate for Critical incident stresses. I understand as a Klingon he holds himself above psychological malady and remedy but the program looks for just the facts. He has negative reactions to certain stimuli that cannot be accounted for by physical infirmity. I poked the bear a little bit, to get a reaction from him, it’s safe to say I played my part too well but I got the reaction I expected.”


He sat back, ready to let the program speak for itself. “There are several crew aboard who need to be interviewed and a satisfactory report filed. Otherwise Medical has standing orders to invoke for instant relief of duty pending psychological review. This is why I am here, other counselors were trained and assigned to other vessels so rest assured it is isn’t just the Achilles with suffering crewman. It is my desire that we work together on this.”

Instinctively she felt her body stiffen at the mention of Dan'al and the crew and the order for instant duty relief. His excited was clear to Ayren and he peeked her interest and she reviewed the data on the padd, accepting his invitation for her to take her time to read what was there. "This is most certainly interesting," she said as she was reading. She was aware that he would probably gather that she not ready to jump into the project, but was going to study this on her own first. "And I can see that a lot of work has gone into this..." she said as she put the Padd down. "However, I have a few comments and questions and will probably have more as time goes on..." she said.

"Firstly, I have no knowledge of this procedure you are talking about, which means that is not released as a standard measure to assess psychological health yet. In part it could work, but these measures are also used to measure acute or chronic stress for example. All the indicators of diminished behavior could a have a wide variety of causes, including acute or chronic stress, as well as a wide variety of pathogens can also cause many of the aberrations, in isolation or in combination. And all of them are physiological," she said and paused. "Secondly, I have questions concerning the baseline measure. How was it obtained, when, under which circumstances? For every individual? If so, when was the baseline data gathered from the Achilles crew?" Ayren asked. "If not on an individual basis, I want to know exactly the same, how, when, under which circumstances.....before the war?" The more Ayren thought of this, the more questions she had. "How was internal and external validity checked? I have a lot of questions...." She paused again. "I understand you want to do your job, but you will to think very carefully about how you will apply your orders on any crew, especially if you want to gain their trust and form relationship with them ...which psychological intervention is based on..."

"And there is something else I need to address right now.... there is a reason why Klingons don't have psychologists and a culture of mental health care.... they are different, they have a very different brain chemistry to most Alpha Quadrant races and their psychological and physiological mechanisms to process memories and behaviour. I have studied Klingons for most of my life and even lived on Q'onos, my cousin is a hybrid Klingon and a qualified psychiatrist, and my mate is a Klingon... and you could interpret my strong reaction concerning the instrument as being biased because of my involvement with a Klingon," she said and paused. "However, most of my learning of the Klingons occurred before I know Dan'al, so my passion for understanding them and help others to do so too, began when I lived on QonoS. I need far more information on this instrument.... " she said. She had no anger, but she was passionate. Then she remembered something she had said before, and she knew she was repeating herself, but she wanted to make sure he remembered too. "I am bothered by the fact that this is based on physiology and is a quantitative measure. Where is the space for the psychologist's own interpretation.. I don't say there is not... but... " she didn't want to sound aggressive. "Where is interviewing the person... it is an evaluation of a person's life... their career, more is involved than brain chemistry...." she said a bit more emphatically than she had meant to.


It was Elas' turn to stiffen at the questioning of his lifes work. A small amount of anger found itself flickering to life but he kept it suppressed he felt. Picking his words with meticulous care, Elas found himself on the border between convincing her to keep an open mind and condemning her for blindly attacking the program instead of trying to see why it flagged her mate. Deciding to continue enlisting her support as Danal would likely only listen to her if he wanted to complete his assignment anytime soon he pressed on with patience.

"Commander," He spoke the rank to remind himself of it, "I feel it would be best if you reviewed the data in full before questioning the accuracy of how it works. I assure you, there are volumes of work before this initiative was implemented regarding Post Traumatic stresses, Critical Incident stresses... as well as decades of peer reviewed case studies, therapies applied... Any officer flagged for performance altering stresses goes through a panel for personal approval to rule out diagnostic errors, the peer review and adjustments for species was done by member of the same species... Klingons included. Certain indicators in the anterior hypothalamus, physiological responses to cortisol levels, suppression of glutamate transmission affecting learning and reasoning skills..."

"Who were the Klingons who reviewed the data?" she asked. She knew many Klingons in the medical and scientific field that had anything to do with Starfleet, there were not many and she had been involved with projects with them. There were only a handful of full Klingons who had interest in the psychological field. Even if she didn't know them, she wanted to see the reviews for herself.

Elas indicated the work done in Molos Farjo, a Klingon exonerated by High Command. "Do you know this warrior? He fought against Starfleet shortly before the Dominion war, got into a blood frenzy during a fray with Jem'Hadar a few years later and ended up gutting two security officers. Starfleet did a full debrief, turned him over to High Command who exonerated him. You see, Blood Frenzy is a legitimate excuse in Klingon courts, so this Klingon was excused. We have his psychohisotrical imprint on file on Ullia, along with a dozen other Klingons we have treated or had the chance to observe." He also indicated the works of Jadzia and Ezri Dax, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and Bashir who had all studied Klingon biochemistry firsthand. The interspecies Medical exchange had been tracking even longer, the sources of credible data poured in from all corners of the Federation. Starfleet Medical had been compiling baseline data on Klingons ever since their first skirmish in Archers day, and during the Dominion war treatment of Klingon warriors became standard.

He pulled up this data on the padd to show as he spoke,

"The results can be found in the prefrontal cortex each and every time, along with Cortisol, Glucocorticoids, hormonal indicators... Even trivial data is kept aboard a starship keystrokes per minute, hesitation on command sequences, verbal modulations on interface techniques, and literally millions of other vectors. Look at the data, and you may notice it is an adapted version of the EMH subroutines, those are also worth looking into as I am working with Lt Lawson to upgrade psychological routines into the EMH, Jupiter Station tested and approved let me assure you."

"Yes I know of him..." she said. Ayren pursed her lips. She was not buying it. This was only chemistry, focussing on neuropsychology only. Her mouth started to open to challenge him with another question, but she closed it again, waiting for him to finish.

Another page on the Padd popped up by retinal command, he indicated a specific set of data relating the stringent protocol for usable information, it was beyond critical and only accepted direct medical evidence for its analysis.

"The baselines were obtained from the regular physical evaluations all crew go through, or from records obtained from sources like Pluto's interplanetary Archive, Vulcan Science Academy and so forth... the specific methods of treatment are not telepathic, as other counselors on other ships have the same assignment and are not telepathic. My personal method is faster and 100% therapeutic, a visualization of a persons mental landscape allowing them to take control and see things they didn't know were even at work. I have applied it to the hardly willing and the graciously accepting, Klingon, Deltan, Human, and each person thanked me afterwards for freeing them from an unseen burden they had been carrying without even realizing it."

The annoyance in Ayren rose steadily. She knew he was going to focus on her being mated to Dan'al, but that was not her point. She bit her tongue and let him speak, breathing slowly and deeply to bring her anger under control. He went on a lot, made a lot of statements, perhaps thinking she would get lost in everything he said.

Elas recalled her instant defence of Da'nal, she was biased heavily in his favor but she was probably the only path to a satisfactory review for Da'nal. The wheels were in motion and this was his best path to get out unscathed. Her comment on Klingons being different and thus excused to act out showed her professionalism had been compromised. He had momentum and pressed onwards, hoping to say in one breath everything he needed while he had a chance to get it all out.

TBC

 

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