Reviewing Projections
Posted on Wed May 1st, 2024 @ 1:56pm by Commander Martin Sorenson
Mission:
Shakedown Shake-Up
Location: Esquimalt Station
Timeline: After the Nelson's return
1917 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure
"Commander Sorenson, reporting as requested."
Wainwright looked up at the officer clad in medical blue and did a quick glance at the file on his PaDD. Ah, right. The XO for shakedown had also been the CMO. Who'd thought that was a good idea? Covering with a quick smile, he gestured for the man to enter. "Commander, please, have a seat. I've received summaries of the reports on both shakedown issues and the unexpected incursion you encountered. As they are not entirely unrelated, particularly in your case, I will be acting as an agent for both Intelligence and the Certification Commission to cover both. Do you have any questions before we begin?"
"Thank you," Martin replied, taking the indicated seat. "I was also wearing two hats for this, so I quite understand. Please proceed."
"Yes." Craig nodded, rechecking his notes. "CMO and XO - and first time serving as XO?"
"I've been Vesta's 2XO, so I'm not unfamiliar with the position. But, yes, this was my first experience as XO." If the last words came out as carrying an unspoken 'and will be the last', it was only the honest truth. He'd been intrigued after meeting Captain Mahone, who had transitioned from CMO to command, but this experience had been valuable primarily in confirming that his calling, first and foremost, was medicine.
Craig's brow lifted in a wry look. "Bit of a trial by fire?"
The doctor's head tipped side to side a little. "I wouldn't say trial by fire - I've been through a few of those. But it certainly wasn't the easy 'just get your feet wet' trial I'd expected. I'm told, however, that the issue with every possible permission being floated up to CO and XO was far from typical. Thankfully, our Ops officer was able to resolve that before Captain Darrow and I had to take shifts just to sign off on allowing access to various panels in engineering."
"There were a number of issues with multiple shipyards not communicating on who was performing updates prior to delivery," Craig remarked tersely. "Those and the extensive lists of aberrations in form, function, and fit up provided by the CO, CEO and CFO have already been noted. As you were also serving as CMO, let me ask you about deficiencies in medbay."
"In medbay at least, the facilities themselves appeared to be in good order," the doctor replied. "Believe me, you would have gotten a blistering report from me if they were not. The only deficiencies related to medical holograms."
The investigator perked up at that. He was not particularly fond of this move toward majority holographic 'crew', particularly since it struck him as only slightly less risky (and bone headed) as the 'Fleet Formation' override that was being pushed out. "There were notes on that in the summary. Could you elaborate?"
"Certainly." Martin nodded, settling back to organize his thoughts, after catching something in the other man's reaction. "Firstly, there was an issue with the primary EMH, or whatever you call one that appears whenever anyone enters medbay. It was verbally abusive and bullying toward a crewmember who presented herself for a medical check in. I happened to enter medbay in time to witness part of that interaction and shut it down. Once the crewperson was reassured and properly examined, I called on Ops to give it an attitude adjustment. I know some people think the Starfleet doctor 'type' is ...hard-edged... but completely devoid of personality would have been better than what it had."
Craig couldn't help but chuckle. He'd met enough Starfleet doctors to know the 'type' wasn't that far off, and based on the ire he could sense behind an otherwise polite manner, he imagined this doctor had a hard-edge or two when push came to shove. "That one appears to have been an installation error. Though the fact that a baseline model could be replaced at a senior officer's whim is a design flaw which does need to be addressed."
Ya think? Martin swallowed the sarcastic reaction. "Yes, please. But mention of the baseline model brings up another deficiency: no one, especially anyone wounded or ill, wants to be cared for by automatons. And that is made all the worse by realistically humanoid appearances - robots would be preferable to the uncanny valley of those holographic 'nurses'. Therefore, I requested installation of baseline personalities, emphasizing compassion and commitment to patient care." Catching a brief frown, he frowned back. "I'm not a great fan of artificial personalities, but if we're going to staff medbay with holograms, they should be comforting, not creepy."
"Agreed." While not sanguine about giving holograms personalities, he sensed the doctor might be on the same page and simply making the best of the hand he'd been dealt. He jotted a note, keeping his expression professionally neutral. "On that point, what would be your recommendation on the balance of sentient to holographic staff? In medbay, but also on the ship in general."
"In medbay, my recommendation would be for a near normal compliment of Starfleet medical staff, with non-emergency holograms limited to non-patient facing functions. We would still need EMHs - they can be extremely useful, even vital, in mass casualty situations, but outside of emergency surgery, good medical care requires empathy, insight, a ...personal touch... that I doubt a quasi-AI can achieve. At least not without verging on sentience." He shook his head. The Voyager EMH might have crossed that line without causing harm, but there'd been too many lost on Mars to think it was worth the risk. "Beyond that, perhaps there are enough redundancies now, but my experience with EMHs is that they aren't sustainable if power takes a serious hit. We need to have medical officers who won't ...flicker."
"Good points," Craig agreed, marking down notes.
"That said, I am not wholly against greater use of holograms in other departments. Those with minimal personality are fine as waitpersons, clean-up crew, or for performing routine tasks. Having security that can appear instantly anywhere and who are immune to coercion and physical harm could be quite useful, though holoemitters are a weak point so one would want sufficient real security as well. And while I have an excellent working relationship with my yeoman and have no desire to replace her, in her absence, a holographic personal assistant was invaluable." Honestly he was probably going to keep Max as a personal secretary for extra-departmental work he wouldn't ask of Marix, but given what he could read of Wainwright, he decided it was best not to say that. Or that Njalia had designed it for him. "That was particularly true when I couldn't leave medbay but still trying to handle duties as XO. I could probably have handled a lot of that via holopresence, but this let me give more time and attention to monitoring my patient."
That was not met with the same level of agreement, but a substitute holopresence messenger seemed like a unreasonable use for a hologram and it brought up another point. "Speaking of that patient, I understand it revealed another unexpected issue with holographic crew."
"Yes." The doctor frowned. "It was not at all intended, but I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if the First Republic decided to lodge a complaint over psychological abuse of a prisoner. Worse, I'm not sure I could entirely blame them if they did. We haven't seen this issue with species in the Federation, but we should have considered the possibility. We know holograms can be ...unpleasant... for many non-humanoids. Distortions due to avian pectan oculi are also a known issue, but generally just make holograms appear somewhat 'flat' and unrealistic. In this case, the distortions seem to create something horrific, an effect exacerbated by the presence of particularly UV sensitive opsins and magnetic field sensitive cryptochromes." His mouth twisted in a sour expression. "A confused and badly injured patient regained consciousness to find himself surrounded by what must have seemed like eldritch horrors. To say that severely violated standards of care would be massive understatement."
And there's that hard edge I figured you must have... Craig thought, hearing the undercurrent of indignation in the doctor's response. "He did illegally enter Federation space, but I can understand how inadvertently inflicting horror would feel like a forced violation of your medical oath. I assume that explains why you took on sole responsibility for medbay?"
Martin nodded firmly. He hadn't necessarily thought of it those terms, but it had resulted in harm to a patient under his care. "There's too much we don't know about Ziapteryx, so even in an induced coma he had to be monitored and I couldn't risk leaving that to a hologram in case he needed to be brought out of it. Since I was the only organic medical officer, that meant moving into medbay until we could rendezvous with the Aria and transfer him to a normal medbay." That the Nelson's fell well outside the parameters of normal was left unsaid, but Martin hoped he never saw a day when that was an accepted norm. "Hence my recommendation that most medical staff be organic beings."
"Noted." Wainwright assured, tapping his PaDD. "One last question, pertaining more to your XO role. You were involved in discussions on the evaluation of the Republic shuttle and in approving the solution to erase as much as possible what they could have learned from our derelict systems. I also understand that you've had prior experience with this First Republic. What is your assessment of this incident and the potential future ramifications?"
"I'm not an engineer, but my impression of what was presented is that they're well behind us at present, but they've been actively working on acquiring and incorporating tech from us and various other sources. That rapid push for advancement may have been the reason they wound up here - a miscalculation or malfunction in what should have been a short test flight. But the fact that they could modify and incorporate a fairly high percentage of our tech suggests that they've learned a lot. Our virus may delay their development and hinder advances, but ultimately you can't scrub knowledge gained from practical application. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle."
"As to what that means for the future..." Martin sat back, expelling a slow breath. "My prior experience with them showed that they were a republic with respect to Ziapteryx only, with other species subjugated under the avian ruling classes, who see them as inferior. In some cases, disposable." The doctor's jaw tightened. The Director's casual dismissal of the loss of life as unimportant was never going to not anger him. "However, it's unclear how united that ruling class may be in such attitudes. There seemed to be rivalry among them, though whether that was along political or subspecies lines I couldn't say. The question of how our response impacts that - whether it unites them or gives one faction an excuse to blame and disavow whichever one oversaw this project..." He shrugged, turning his hands up in a gesture of 'who knows?'. "I'm a doctor, not a diplomatic analyst."
"I understand, Doctor," Wainwright replied. "Is there anything else you'd like to add?" Getting a head shake in reply, he nodded and made a last note in his PaDD. "Then I'll let you go. Thank you for your time."
