An old and a new
Or: two more drabbles for where_no_woman, one from last December, one from today.
December 1
prompt:: "I could've been a contender."
characters: T'Pring, Amanda
rating/warnings: none/G
summary: Some people are required to make sacrifices.
When she was seven years old, T'Pring was performing her learning tasks in computations and physics more than adequately, and she intended, since she recognized this fact, to become a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Science. Her father-to-be remarked on her intelligence: with her composure, this quality made her a highly acceptable mate for his son. She had never engaged in the squabbling and illogical quarrels of other children; she had demonstrated calm-of-mind when she had not yet achieved the age of logic or been taught even the rudiments of self-mastery.
She was therefore unperturbed, or at least showed unperturbedness, when, the marriage witnessed, her parents and her father-to-be told her that her learning track must change. It was logical for there to be a division of labor within a household and tasks rationally apportioned to each member. A balanced family was necessary for the raising of children, and two parents whose special study was the sciences would be an illogical disposition of mental resources. T'Pring daughter of T'Verek performed more than adequately in Computational learning tasks, but the proficiency of Spock son of Sarek at the same tasks was rated higher by a consistent and statistically significant fraction. T'Pring was perceptive and could reason for her self, and she was proficient in other areas as well; she did not complain.
Later, she remembered that the mother of Spock had not spoken at that meeting, but that her look had been reproving and unhappy. That humans were ruled by passion T'Pring knew, but she would have expected illogical joy rather than doubly-illogical disapproval. She had not understood: the proof was being given of the lady's child's superior proficiency in an honorable field.
Since her husband-to-be had a human mother, it was only logical for T'Pring to become familiar with human customs and human history. Her knowledge of the customs of Spock's family would complement his genetic heritage, as her study of literature and culture would complement his scientific specialization. She found that humans had notions that were irrational: they founded their principles on emotional needs: the desire to avoid the mental disturbance of guilt and the pleasure and complacency in "feeling" that justice had been done. Human emotion was social and looked to the emotional satisfaction of the many. It pleased T'Pring to realize that her mother-to-be's race did not live by a selfish system of self-gratification, but when the Lady Amanda met her and inquired after her studies (at which she continued to perform to greater-than-adequate satisfaction), the lady looked at her with a sorrowful glance, and T'Pring did not understand why. She performed well, and in a field that was near to her mother-to-be's own specialization. Furthermore, she had acquired the virtues of a Vulcan wife and, as far as she could discover them, the skills of a human one as well. She and Spock had a respectful friendship; their meetings were made of polite and mutually-instructive conversation that would found their bond well. There was no cause for complaint.
And then Spock left. There were ten thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight young Vulcans with high proficiency in the sciences who applied for admission to the Academy of Science in Shi-Kahr; he turned down his admission. T'Pring did not fault the logic behind her husband-to-be's decision. It was, as his life and hers had been, well-reasoned from correct assessments of reality. Involvement with gossip about an individual's genetics, moreover, showed low mastery of emotion and lower discernment. But she considered that she would have accepted the place, and she indulged, for only a moment, in the recollection of her childhood intentions.
She bade him long life and prosperity (she and the Lady Amanda were the only ones who saw him to the shuttle-launch), and she did not admit to herself that her studies of human culture had taught her to name the emotion that she suppressed. For resentment did not belong to her, whose life was composed and logical.
June 1
prompt: "Your Heroine must go undercover on a mission posting as Domestic Partners with her best friend/worst enemy/commanding officer/junior officer/love interest/random person"
characters: Uhura, Hannity
rating/warning: none/G
summary: in a "team of rivals" do the "rivals" or the "team" overweigh?
admit impediments
Somewhere, there was a memo from the Fleet High Command in which some admiral or some committee thereof had handed down that undercover ops were best undertaken by communications specialists, whose knowledge of languages was more likely to be paired with a knowledge of cultures, and whose continual experience with incoming transmissions and intraship communiqués was likely to give them wider insights into the nature of people and their motivations.
Someday, Nyota Uhura was going to find the authors of that memo, and explain a few things to them.
"Okay," said the captain. "So you're going to be posing as tourists from Earth. You beam down to Starbase 15 with Hawkins for the conference. They put you on a civilian ship to Tepel Var. You do the museums, the national parks, the shopping palisades, whatever. You're observing the level of Cardassian control over the population, potential for subversion -- it's all in the packet. If you can manage, sit in as observers in parliament: we really need to know is whether there's any indication that the populace-at-large knows about the Cardassian prison camp and our people in it."
"Right, Captain. Tourists who just happen to be competent in 57 languages between them." Next to her, Hannity looked bored, or maybe annoyed that she was missing the linguistics conference. Or maybe annoyed that she had to go off undercover with her chief rival and superior officer. Yeah, well, Nyota wasn't too thrilled to be paired with someone who resented her jump up the chain of command, either -- particularly when that someone was always showing her up in cryptography and correcting her Klingon.
Captain Kirk waved the objection away. "Fake it."
"With all due respect sir," put in Hannity. "It's a lot harder to convincingly fake not comprehending a language than Command seems to realize."
Uhura nodded. "Particularly when we've been cramming Svenelessi for the past three weeks."
"Every woman on this ship seems pretty good at faking not understanding my language." Kirk seemed unable to decide whether he wanted to pretend to leer or to pout.
"Not funny, Kirk," said Nyota, at the same time as Hannity said, "Not appropriate, sir." Nyota saw the other woman's face tighten with annoyance that Nyota was in the habit of treating their commanding officer more familiarly than she could. Oh, this was going to be a great mission.
"Just think of it as a vacation," Kirk said. "You can look at architecture, record Svenelessi folk songs, buy your family Christmas presents -- on Fleet dime, by the way."
Hannity was scrolling through the briefing packet. "We're booked in a single room?"
"Single bed, too," said Kirk, grinning. "Look," he remonstrated, as two glares settled on him, "I had nothing to do with that. Absolutely nothing."
"Because friends don't ever take vacations together? Only lovebirds go on sight-seeing trips?" Nyota was going to hack into the high-security communications and find exactly which soppy romantic at Command had thought this up and...
"They've even hyphenated the names -- that's so old school! Are you going to be the Mizes Fielding-Mbutu, or the Missuses, I wonder..."
Uhura and Hannity locked exasperated looks and could tell that they were in complete accord in one thing, at least: someone was going to pay, when this was all over.
December 1
prompt:: "I could've been a contender."
characters: T'Pring, Amanda
rating/warnings: none/G
summary: Some people are required to make sacrifices.
When she was seven years old, T'Pring was performing her learning tasks in computations and physics more than adequately, and she intended, since she recognized this fact, to become a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Science. Her father-to-be remarked on her intelligence: with her composure, this quality made her a highly acceptable mate for his son. She had never engaged in the squabbling and illogical quarrels of other children; she had demonstrated calm-of-mind when she had not yet achieved the age of logic or been taught even the rudiments of self-mastery.
She was therefore unperturbed, or at least showed unperturbedness, when, the marriage witnessed, her parents and her father-to-be told her that her learning track must change. It was logical for there to be a division of labor within a household and tasks rationally apportioned to each member. A balanced family was necessary for the raising of children, and two parents whose special study was the sciences would be an illogical disposition of mental resources. T'Pring daughter of T'Verek performed more than adequately in Computational learning tasks, but the proficiency of Spock son of Sarek at the same tasks was rated higher by a consistent and statistically significant fraction. T'Pring was perceptive and could reason for her self, and she was proficient in other areas as well; she did not complain.
Later, she remembered that the mother of Spock had not spoken at that meeting, but that her look had been reproving and unhappy. That humans were ruled by passion T'Pring knew, but she would have expected illogical joy rather than doubly-illogical disapproval. She had not understood: the proof was being given of the lady's child's superior proficiency in an honorable field.
Since her husband-to-be had a human mother, it was only logical for T'Pring to become familiar with human customs and human history. Her knowledge of the customs of Spock's family would complement his genetic heritage, as her study of literature and culture would complement his scientific specialization. She found that humans had notions that were irrational: they founded their principles on emotional needs: the desire to avoid the mental disturbance of guilt and the pleasure and complacency in "feeling" that justice had been done. Human emotion was social and looked to the emotional satisfaction of the many. It pleased T'Pring to realize that her mother-to-be's race did not live by a selfish system of self-gratification, but when the Lady Amanda met her and inquired after her studies (at which she continued to perform to greater-than-adequate satisfaction), the lady looked at her with a sorrowful glance, and T'Pring did not understand why. She performed well, and in a field that was near to her mother-to-be's own specialization. Furthermore, she had acquired the virtues of a Vulcan wife and, as far as she could discover them, the skills of a human one as well. She and Spock had a respectful friendship; their meetings were made of polite and mutually-instructive conversation that would found their bond well. There was no cause for complaint.
And then Spock left. There were ten thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight young Vulcans with high proficiency in the sciences who applied for admission to the Academy of Science in Shi-Kahr; he turned down his admission. T'Pring did not fault the logic behind her husband-to-be's decision. It was, as his life and hers had been, well-reasoned from correct assessments of reality. Involvement with gossip about an individual's genetics, moreover, showed low mastery of emotion and lower discernment. But she considered that she would have accepted the place, and she indulged, for only a moment, in the recollection of her childhood intentions.
She bade him long life and prosperity (she and the Lady Amanda were the only ones who saw him to the shuttle-launch), and she did not admit to herself that her studies of human culture had taught her to name the emotion that she suppressed. For resentment did not belong to her, whose life was composed and logical.
June 1
prompt: "Your Heroine must go undercover on a mission posting as Domestic Partners with her best friend/worst enemy/commanding officer/junior officer/love interest/random person"
characters: Uhura, Hannity
rating/warning: none/G
summary: in a "team of rivals" do the "rivals" or the "team" overweigh?
admit impediments
Somewhere, there was a memo from the Fleet High Command in which some admiral or some committee thereof had handed down that undercover ops were best undertaken by communications specialists, whose knowledge of languages was more likely to be paired with a knowledge of cultures, and whose continual experience with incoming transmissions and intraship communiqués was likely to give them wider insights into the nature of people and their motivations.
Someday, Nyota Uhura was going to find the authors of that memo, and explain a few things to them.
"Okay," said the captain. "So you're going to be posing as tourists from Earth. You beam down to Starbase 15 with Hawkins for the conference. They put you on a civilian ship to Tepel Var. You do the museums, the national parks, the shopping palisades, whatever. You're observing the level of Cardassian control over the population, potential for subversion -- it's all in the packet. If you can manage, sit in as observers in parliament: we really need to know is whether there's any indication that the populace-at-large knows about the Cardassian prison camp and our people in it."
"Right, Captain. Tourists who just happen to be competent in 57 languages between them." Next to her, Hannity looked bored, or maybe annoyed that she was missing the linguistics conference. Or maybe annoyed that she had to go off undercover with her chief rival and superior officer. Yeah, well, Nyota wasn't too thrilled to be paired with someone who resented her jump up the chain of command, either -- particularly when that someone was always showing her up in cryptography and correcting her Klingon.
Captain Kirk waved the objection away. "Fake it."
"With all due respect sir," put in Hannity. "It's a lot harder to convincingly fake not comprehending a language than Command seems to realize."
Uhura nodded. "Particularly when we've been cramming Svenelessi for the past three weeks."
"Every woman on this ship seems pretty good at faking not understanding my language." Kirk seemed unable to decide whether he wanted to pretend to leer or to pout.
"Not funny, Kirk," said Nyota, at the same time as Hannity said, "Not appropriate, sir." Nyota saw the other woman's face tighten with annoyance that Nyota was in the habit of treating their commanding officer more familiarly than she could. Oh, this was going to be a great mission.
"Just think of it as a vacation," Kirk said. "You can look at architecture, record Svenelessi folk songs, buy your family Christmas presents -- on Fleet dime, by the way."
Hannity was scrolling through the briefing packet. "We're booked in a single room?"
"Single bed, too," said Kirk, grinning. "Look," he remonstrated, as two glares settled on him, "I had nothing to do with that. Absolutely nothing."
"Because friends don't ever take vacations together? Only lovebirds go on sight-seeing trips?" Nyota was going to hack into the high-security communications and find exactly which soppy romantic at Command had thought this up and...
"They've even hyphenated the names -- that's so old school! Are you going to be the Mizes Fielding-Mbutu, or the Missuses, I wonder..."
Uhura and Hannity locked exasperated looks and could tell that they were in complete accord in one thing, at least: someone was going to pay, when this was all over.