InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "who’s your pb?"

To Boldly Go | RPG Community (boldlygomod) wrote in toboldlyrpg,
@ 2017-09-09 13:53:00

Entry tags:

Welcome to the Holodeck!

Each Saturday, join the Enterprise crew and your fellow travelers to meet new arrivals, catch up with those you haven't seen in a few days, or try a new drink. This week, the traveler liaison program, along with the help of the Deck 5 Lounge staff, have decided to theme the evening on the holodeck. Welcome to a forest getaway. It's late afternoon into evening, an outdoor bar is set up alongside a campfire, picnic tables, and a lake with canoes. Enjoy stargazing as the sun goes down.

OOC Information

These weekly posts are IC third-person threading opportunities. Threads that extend to 10 total good-sized comments can be counted as a log for activity check. If you have any questions, please let me know. The hope is that you will use this opportunity for random character interactions and development.

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seven + open (to multiple threads!)

borg
2017-09-10 08:31 pm UTC (link)

Seven hasn't stepped foot in a holodeck since there was a neural interface implanted in her neocortex that forced her to believe she was a French Resistance lounge singer when the Hirogen forced the crew to reenact violent simulation, most notably WWII. She recalled nothing of her time as Mademoiselle de Neuf, only what she experienced after her Borg implants jammed the signal the interface was feeding into her brain. It left her lost and scrambling to fall in line with a scenario of which she had no knowledge of. (Earth wars prior to First Contact were of little importance to the Collective.) She had no desire to play the role of another again or to find a way to fit herself into a world she didn't belong to — she was doing enough of that already while aboard this vessel.

Even more so, now that she's visibly withdrawn socially, falling back on routine and necessity. She's given a task, she performs it efficiently, returns to her quarters to regenerate, rinse and repeat. It's the mindless obedience of a drone without any of the warmth of the individual she had become in the wake of her liberation. A false comfort, an unhealthy way of coping with the dissonance and the constant disappearances that are affecting her more than she would like to admit.

For better or worse, the Borg were social creatures. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but she was accustomed to the presence of others, and there was a time when losing a member of her unit would have been like losing a limb until it was grafted back into place with the reassignment of another. Being the lone, remaining crewman from her vessel feels much the same. Locutus ws gone, and Tony Stark vanished only to be replaced with an incarnation that does not recall his previous time here.

She missed Voyager. She missed the Cargo Bay and her Astrometrics Lab. She missed Ensign Kim asking her ridiculous questions, Lieutenant Tuvok's logical outlook, and even the Doctor's impromptu examinations. She hated it here, and there was no small part of herself that would rather rejoin the Collective than exist in a time and on a ship that was not her own.

And yet, here she was, lingering on the fringes of the campfire, looking up at the stars. The company was an illusion, both holographic and not, but it made her feel better. If only for a little while.

"The alignment of the stars has been altered in my time, both by the destruction of worlds and shifting orbits," she said to the nearest person, a poor attempt at a conversation starter. "The Borg were responsible for some, but not all."

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	starfleetnavy 2017-09-11 01:43 pm UTC (link)
	It took Malcolm a whole two seconds before he understood what she was saying. "Well, that would be impossible," he said. No one gets a hundred percent record, he didn't add because he really wasn't sure of his footing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

borg
2017-09-12 03:11 am UTC (link)

Seven turned her calm, blue-eyed gaze on him. "The Collective has been responsible for the annihilation of thousands of worlds. An... unfortunate resolution to perhaps unnecessary conflict."

Feeling remorse for the things the Borg did — things she, during her time as a mindless worker bee, so to speak, often had not had a hand in — was new. She had a tendency to regard their actions in an almost positive light, recalling events and invasions, quoting acquired knowledge and demonstrating assimilated skills as if they weren't inherently horrific in nature. But she was getting better at taking the perspectives of others into consideration, in understanding that the way she saw things was perhaps corrupted, that she ought to take the viewpoints of others into consideration when speaking.

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	starfleetnavy 2017-09-16 02:11 pm UTC (link)
	"Well, generally, conflict does tend to happen when you're trying to annihilate worlds, because people tend not, as a rule, appreciate being annihilated," he replied, his eyebrow raised, trying to get a bead on this woman's sense of humour. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

borg
2017-09-18 03:46 pm UTC (link)

"Annihilation is not our—" A pause. "Not their ultimate goal. Perfection is, and they will use whatever means necessary to obtain the information and technology that will bring them closer to that goal. Sometimes worlds are collateral damage while in pursuit of perfection. Worlds resist regardless of how futile the attempt may be."

And yet, she readily conceded to his point. "No, they do not. I understand that better now than I did when I was part of the Collective. Granted, I did not possess the ability to understand, let alone think for myself."

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	starfleetnavy 2017-09-18 04:00 pm UTC (link)
	"Let that be a lesson to the perfectionists amongst us," he said, an ache settling in his chest at the realisation of what she was saying. Joking aside: "I can't imagine what you've been through. We forget, sometimes, how easily we can lose the ability to think for ourselves. Take it for granted." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

borg
2017-09-20 03:14 pm UTC (link)

"It was not quite the horrific experience everyone makes it out to be," she found herself saying. "I was a child when I was assimilated. I suppose my point of view is colored by that unfortunate truth, but the fact remains that I was too young to properly judge what was about to happen to me. Too young to remember what my life was like before I was Borg."

Which was both a lie and not. She recalled her assimilation in great, vivid detail — hiding under the console from the drones that beamed aboard the Raven, convinced they wouldn't find her because she was a small. But they did. She remembered her parents bringing dormant, regenerating drones aboard the ship on more than one occasion, and there was some latent, bitter part of herself that resented them for essentially desensitizing her to something she ought to have perceived as a greater threat than she had.

"Individuality is a precious asset. One does not need to be assimilated in order to lose their sense of self."

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starfleetnavy
2017-09-20 04:44 pm UTC (link)

He let out a gasp of emotional pain. "I think you've misunderstood what makes things horrific to us," he pointed out. "The fact that you were a child makes it more horrific, not less.

"Children aren't just the continuation of our gene pool, they're innocent, they rely on us to protect them, to help them grow. That such a thing happened to what should have been the purest part of ourselves, goes to a place that we can scarcely contemplate, let alone speak of.

"In times past, children were hurt by adults - making them experience adulthood before they were ready. Just because they didn't understand any better than you did, didn't mean those children weren't hurt."

He calmed himself before he could get excited. "You tried to casually pass off the destruction of entire worlds. I think you're hurt more than you know."

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borg
2017-09-23 09:21 pm UTC (link)

Few individuals would dare to point out such a thing, especially back on Voyager where half the crew still feared and loathed her, but it was true. She had just calmly stated something horrific that she had attempted to pass off as some sort of norm. The destruction of worlds shouldn't be anyone's version of normal, and yet it was part of hers during the time she was a drone. And in this new life she was forging for herself, she'd developed the habit of falling back on Borg familiarities, including all nightmarish travesties that came with them, instead of braving the unfamiliar waters of her burgeoning humanity.

"I am not sure I know what hurt is," she allowed herself to admit after a moment.

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starfleetnavy
2017-09-24 12:49 pm UTC (link)

The destruction of Earth and humanity would have been an abstraction to the Voyager crew where for Malcolm it came perilously close to coming to pass.

"You'd be surprised the number of people who don't," he replied. He was talking about himself, the NX-01 crew and most particularly Trip. "I suppose it's... just easier to cope, that way. But it can't be ignored forever."

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borg
2017-09-24 11:36 pm UTC (link)

But unlike the rest of her crew, Seven was well aware of the thwarted events of First Contact, of how dangerously close humanity came to ceasing to exist in those poignant moments. Thankfully ~~Locutus~~ Captain Picard had been able to intervene. The Alpha Quadrant without humans, without Starfleet? It was difficult to imagine — even for her.

"Is that what I am doing? Coping?"

Believe it or not, nobody had put it that way before.

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	starfleetnavy 2017-09-26 08:59 pm UTC (link)
	"Well, I'm no psychologist, but..." he shrugged and nodded. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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