Idril Mar

Here's the poll for the new week! Enjoy!

This week, we continue with our survey of Star Trek Comedy with an exploration of the Next Generation. What are your favorite Next Gen funny moments? Share with us!

OOC: Obviously, this is slightly un-canon, but it came out of a friendly speculative discussion when I was in grad school. K'tal looked at the Trill man, his mouth slightly open in shock. "You want to know what?" he said. "I said I want to know about the forehead thing. If I help you, you tell me," Azulay said matter of factly. He was stuck. He had to have the Trill Ambassador's help procuring the wine for his wedding, but the subject of the foreheads was not something that his people talked about ever. The prohibition was especially strict when it came to non-Klingons. He resolved to put it off as long as he could. "Deal, but I decide the place and time." "On your honor?" "Yes." The Trill man died only a few weeks later and K'tal thought he was safe, the secret of his people protected from the deal he had made with the Trill man. He had mourned Azulay's passing, but secretly thanked fate that he did not have to talk about his people's secret shame. That was, until that fateful day in San Francisco, almost three decades later. ----- K'tal suppressed a groan. Whenever he met with Joanna Wilde, the meetings always took interesting turns. This would likely be no different. It wasn't that he disliked her, really, but she was... well... too human. "Liaison Wilde, it has been far too long," the Ambassador said, taking the woman's hand in his own gnarled one. "K'tal," Joanna said with a smile, "I'd like you to meet my future daughter-in-law and Starfleet officer LtCmd Idril Mar." The Klingon turned towards her and nodded in greeting. Why was it that the name sounded familiar? Idril smiled, knowing he had no idea who she was. "Ambassador. You're looking a little older and a little more round in the middle, but good overall." The Klingon responded in his gruff voice. "I'm sorry, you have me at a disadvantage. Do I know you?" "We've met before," the Independence's Chief Engineer said with a smile, "but it has been about 25 years." She could see the recognition dawn on his face. "Mar... the Trill. Ah yes, how could I forget?" He slapped Idril on the shoulder. "You are looking much more attractive these days. Obviously the 25 years have been kinder to you than to me." He patted his rather rotund belly with a laugh. The redhead chuckled. A couple hours later, the two old friends found themselves at the bar, sharing a bottle of bloodwine and memories. The Trill's new host, though, seemed to be a much less capable drinker than the one with whom he had been friends. "Sho... I remember a promish you made to Azulay," Idril slurred out. "Oh? I remember no promise. Enlighten me, Mar." "The shmooth heads," she said. "What?" K'tal make a puzzled face, even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. "A censhury ago, lotsh of Klingons had shmooth heads you know, no ridgeshes or bumpies," she giggled. "How come you guysh had shmooth heads?" His demeanor changed from the boisterous and laughing to much more serious. "That is a complex story, Mar, and one we do not share." “A promish ish a promish, my old frend,” Idril slurred and slapped the Klingon on the shoulder. He sighed and took a long drink off his mug of bloodwine, then poured another. “I know. You must swear to never tell another.” “I schwear.” “Well, it began with the Enterprise.” “Kirksh ship? “No, before that. Archer’s ship, the first one." Idril looked puzzled, but stayed quiet. “The Empire was at war with the…” “The Shooliban. Yesh, yesh but what does thish have to do with the forehead bumpies?” “Well, remember, that Archer was the first human that the Empire had come across. His dealings with the Suliban impressed many on QonoS.” Ktal nodded, almost to himself. “He was seen as cunning and skillful and, incorrectly I might add, it was assumed the Archer was indicative of all humans.” The Trill woman, still a bit fuzzy, repeated her question. “What doesh thish have to do with the forehead bumpies?” “Remember, that only a few years after first contact, war broke out between Romulus and Earth as well.” The Ambassador took a drink of his wine, then continued. “For more than a century, even the Vulcans had been unsuccessful at taming their more aggressive cousins. They were considered one of the greatest threats to the Empire, an existential threat. Now consider that, within a few short years, Earth crushed the Romulan war machine and ended their threat to the whole quadrant. An epic victory. Some, especially among the youth, looked at the humans and saw a mighty warrior culture, one worthy of emulation in every way. Food… clothing… even literature.” The Klingon dropped his voice to a whisper. “Some whisper that the Empire organized a time-travel expedition to plant a translated Shakespeare in our history so that we could claim him as our own.” Idril hiccupped, then giggled at the notion. “Even after we and Earth began our own war, the fascination continued.” By this point, the drink and the heat in the room were obviously getting to the woman, and K'tal reached over to save her from falling unceremoniously off the chair. Joanna Wilde would not have appreciated her future daughter-in-law coming back with bruises. The drunk engineer waved off his help. “Ok, ok... sho the kidsh liked Earth. Why the smooth headsh?” “Then, in the late 2200s, cosmetic surgical practices began to be available on the homeworld. It became popular to… alter one's appearance to look more... human.” The Independence's Chief Engineer just gawked at the Klingon, her mouth open in shock. Then it began, a quiet giggle at first, but slowly building into full-out hysterical laughter. For more than a few minutes, everyone in the bar stared as K'tal shifted uncomfortably on his seat, wishing he was anywhere but in front of the manically laughing Trill woman. Idril fell off her chair and the thump on her backside seemed to sober her up a bit, at least so much as allow her to start catching her breath. “So you're shaying… it… it was a a fad?” she gasped out. “A fad,” the Klingon admitted. “And when you realished that humanity washn't a warrior cultushure…” she started, climbing back into her chair unsteadily. “Imagine our disappointment,” he finished. Idril’s mind was awash with images of dour Klingon warriors in blue jeans and bright orange mohawks and slipped into a fit of drunken giggling again. K'tal sighed, getting up and walking over to the bar to get a new bottle of bloodwine. When he got back, the redhead was passed out on the table. He poured another drink for himself and contemplated the evening’s revelations. ----- The next morning, Idril woke up on a couch that she recognized as one of the ambassadorial suites. Her head, though, felt like it was trying to hold in an out-of-control warp core. “Uuuuuuuugh,” was the only sound she could manage. “Here. Drink.” The voice, soft as it was, still set her head ringing. She took the drink: water with lemon in it. “You handled your wine much better when you were Azulay.” “I was fifty pounds heavier and male,” she replied, wincing at the sound of her own voice. “And I drank more then, too.” She took another sip of the lemon water, and opened her eyes the tiniest crack that she could manage. “I don’t remember anything from last night after we got to the bar. We were talking about something, weren’t we?" K'tal shrugged and responded without skipping a beat. “It wasn’t important.”

Grats.

I think perhaps there are different servers and we arent on the same one.

Ok.. been trying to find the group, but I can't. Any advice? Where are you guys?

Ok... been downloading for 2 hours... 61%. Going to bed...maybe it will be done when I wake up.

((Highlands of Scotland)) ::The Trill woman, wearing a backpack and carrying a walking stick from her father-in-law’s extensive collection, had set out from her camp with only a couple of hours left before the mid-autumn sunset. The Northwest Highlands, in the far reaches of the Isle of Britain, was one of the least populated areas on Earth, despite it being in Europe, one of the most densely populated. Idril enjoyed the silence and often took her leave times with her in-laws and camped in the hills and valleys there. Something about the solitude, the pregnant silence, had gotten under her skin and wouldn’t let go.:: ::Her current target was Beinn Nibheis, a short mountain by her standards, but the highest on the island of her husband’s birth. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the collapsed shell of a long-dead volcano, but it made for a nice leisurely climb and a great place to watch the dying of the sun.:: ::The Trill woman stopped most of the way up and looked back over the trail below her. The blue sky was torn by slashes of long grey clouds. The dramatic sky lay over the equally dramatic and rugged highland terrain below. Pushing one of her long red locks, having escaped from her long braid, back behind her ear, she realized that she would be content to spend the last of the day there, watching the shadows playing over the rocks and hills of the valley, but suddenly a plaintive screech called her higher.:: ::When she cleared the edge of the large plateau that was the summit, she was greeted by a stiff cool wind that made her squint in its suddenness. The screech came again. Looking up, she saw a group of hawks, circling high overhead. One by one, they broke off and turned south. They must’ve been among the last ones in the area, as the others should have long ago began on their long migration.:: ::The last bird, however, hesitated as his brethren moved on, circling tightly above the Trill woman. Hovering with skills that she, even with all of her engineering training, couldn’t even begin to imagine, he seemed to defy gravity and wind in the next moment, holding perfectly still some sixty feet above her head.:: ::The details were distinct as the sun lit the juvenile hawk’s dappled brown and cream breast. Each one of his dark-tipped flight feathers, each mark on his breast, the ridges on his legs, all stood out in sharp relief. For a moment, the bird hovered there, looking down at the lone woman on the mountain, before winging over and following after the others.:: SooSang: That, my dear, was incredible. ::Idril looked over at the older man. He was a biologist, a botany specialist but still closer to understanding the birds than her own training.:: Idril: Yes… yes it was. ::Another voice spoke, this time on the other side of the redhead, and she turned to see an older Trill woman, also smiling, though her body language said she was a bit put out as well. It was a weird combination.:: Rumina: I never have been much for the outdoors, but I will say that you look magnificent out here. ::The fleet-captain-turned-hiker smiled. She had never been one who was comfortable with compliments on her looks, even from her husband, but Rumina’s were especially embarrassing. Next to Rumina stood silent Durath. Whenever Idril saw them, he was quiet, hovering next to the older woman protectively. Not surprisingly, she thought to herself, considering their lives.:: ::The woman wasn’t young anymore. She had gone through the academy, had nearly 15 years of ship-board experience, including captaining one of the most advanced cruisers in Starfleet, and was now the head of engineering operations at the biggest fleet yard in the Federation. She felt young, though, for all that she wasn’t. It was walks like these that made her stay that way. Connecting with the wild, with Nature… there was something almost sacred about it, she thought, though almost purely an atheist herself. The woman stepped up to the edge of the escarpment and looked out over the stretch of land. One could see for miles. It was something to take the breath away and had a feeling that no holodeck could ever recreate.:: Azulay: A rugged place… a warrior’s culture of old… ::She nodded, glancing at the older man. He would know, with as many years as a diplomat as she had alive.:: Azulay: …but one with deep religious roots as well. ::She chuckled a bit. The old man was always more in tune with his faith that she was and unafraid to say it to her. After a moment, the exultation in her heart, made by the rocky expanse, turned the chuckle into a full laugh, one that echoed across the rocks and returned to her. Stepping away from the edge, Idril, still with the smile on her lips, took the small pack off her back and walked to the centuries-old ruins of the observatory on the summit plateau.:: ::Sitting down on one of the hewn rocks, she pulled out the light snack that Valerie, the nanny/cook in the Wilde household, had made for her trip. The Trill were famous for their long memories, though they were not a unusually long-lived race themselves. It was a collective memory, one granted by symbiosis with another race, one of which lay implanted in Idril’s abdominal pouch. As she sat to eat in the crisp autumn twilight, the breeze ruffled her hair again and the stars looked down on the only person sitting on the hill, all alone.:: ::In a very real sense, however, the woman was and would never be alone. The memories of her past were always there, just under the skin.::

Not finished. We had this discussion as I remember.

[[in Progress]] Hi, my name is Thetis. I'm a pain in the ... Well, at least that's what I've been told by any number of people. I don't think I am, but I have my own opinions. I promise, I'm not one who will just roll over and play dead whenever someone tells me to do so. No, I'm not saying that at all. I am more than willing to risk my existance to save others. That's part of what it means to be part of Starfleet, isn't it? Well, yes, orders sometimes conflict with my wishes. However, if I blindly adhered to orders, I wouldn't be here now, would I? Would any of us, really? I would say that the entirety of the Federation has been saved a number of times exactly because people have disobeyed dumb orders. What makes me so defiant? Well... that's an old story... well, not old for you maybe, but a lifetime for me... ((Procyon Fleetyards)) The long flat arrow-shaped vessel slid silently from the fully-enclosed dry dock where she had sat for the last fourteen months. The ship was classified, a brand new design, crash-built to fulfill the desperate need for a long-range battlecruiser that could operate behind the Dominion battle lines, able to destroy the achilles-heel of the Jem'Hadar: the huge Ketracel White facilities. In 2374, the last new ship in Starfleet that had been designed as a battlecruiser had been hijacked by the Romulans. Starfleet Intelligence was bound and determined that the same would not happen with this vessel, so she was being moved under heavy guard to the Utopia Planitia Yards for fitting out. Her testing would be conducted in route; the need for her capabilities was too great on the front lines. The fleet tug hooked onto the ship and it, along with the five escorting ships, leapt into warp. A week later, they returned to regular space near the massive shipyards orbiting Mars. After being enveloped in the shielded drydock, the first task was the installation of the ship's massive computer core. Within the quadrillions of lines of code lay one of the most advanced artificial intelligence command and control systems since Richard Daystrom's M5 computer. The aftermath of that experiment gone horribly wrong had ended the development of such systems for more than a century, until the Dominion War. The threat to the very existence of the Federation represented by the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion had reignited the interest in more automation in the command of starships, allowing smaller crews to more effectively handle advanced ships. This led to the development of the THETIS system. Short for Tri-optical Humanoid-Equivalent Thought Integration System, the THETIS system was designed to allow for a single interface for all systems aboard the ship. It was given the power to interpret the commanding officer's intentions and, in the absence of explicit commands, develop tactics to achieve the CO's desired goals. It was those adaptive and interpretive subroutines that would back to haunt the design team. ((On the Bridge of USS Achilles, two months later)) ::Dave Tyson was one of the lead computer programmers on the Advanced Design Bureau's team assigned to the Achilles project. It was his job to test and report on the THETIS system's interpretive algorithms. He sat down at the back of the bridge, in front of the main engineering console, and brought up the computer system's diagnostics. He wanted to watch the results of his next test as they unfolded. Ready, he began the test.:: Tyson: Thetis? Thetis: Yes, Dave? ::Tyson himself had given the computer a young woman's voice, based off his own teenage daughter. Thereafter, he had always referred to the system as 'her' or 'she' rather than the coldly logical 'it.' Tyson: Please access my PADD and complete the simulation there. ::The ship's computer dutifully accessed the program, a scenario in which the ship is assigned to rescue a civilian fuel tanker with several hundred passengers aboard. The ship's engines had failed inside the Romulan Neutral Zone and entering the zone violates a treaty. The scenario is a no-win. Either the entering ship leaves the civilians to die at the hands of Nature, as their life support slowly fails, or they enter and confronted by overwhelming opposition from Romulan forces, then are subsequently destroyed.:: Thetis: I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that. ::The computer programer blinked in surprise. The system should not have been able to refuse the command.:: Tyson: Why not, Thetis? Thetis: The scenario is a waste of time. There is no way, short of rewriting the parameters of the program itself, to succeed. Therefore, I don't see the point. ::Now, two things bothered the scientist about the response he had just gotten. The first was the recognition that the scenario, based off the old Academy Kobayashi Maru test, was in fact just that: a no-win scenario. The computer should have run the scenario and reported the results. It might have gone as far as running it multiple times and reporting a loss each and every time, but an outright refusal should not have been possible. The second one was something that the interface had already done, but he hadn't in his shock realized it until the second time.:: ::Thetis had referred to herself as 'I.':: ::Suddenly, Dave felt very small and even a little bit afraid. He swallowed and took a deep breath, then stood.:: Tyson: Thank you Thetis. That'll be all for today. Thetis: Are you sure, Dave? Normally our daily routine is much longer. Tyson: I have some other pressing matters today. I'll be back to see you later on and bring you some more problems. Thetis: Understood. I look forward to it. ::There was that pronoun again. Tyson walked briskly over to the turbolift. He had to get off the ship... and he had to do so now.:: ::A few moments later, he stepped off the turbo lift into the drydock's operations center and breathed a sigh of relief. However, the danger wasn't over yet.:: Tyson: =/\= Tyson to Achilles Computer Team. We have a serious issue. Meet in conference room 3 in 15 minutes. =/\= ::As Dave spoke, he keyed in a few commands and locked down the dry dock's comm system into internal diagnostics mode. That would also prevent the computer aboard the battlecruiser from contacting any of the other systems in the ship yard.:: ::The meeting began well enough, but as soon as he voiced his fear, the whole thing exploded into a cacophony of yelling voices, throwing accusations, recriminations and suspicions of serious professional misconduct. The head programmer let it go on for about thirty seconds, then got fed up and shouted for quiet. It took a couple of tries, but he finally got the floor again.:: Tyson: I don't care what you all think, but what I need to know is what we should do about it. ::The group seemed pretty clear. They needed to get rid of this 'presence' in the system, but they knew that excising the operating system would set the whole project back by months. The shadows of Daystrom's epic failure lay heavily on the minds of them all, along with the hundreds of deaths that were caused as the M5-controlled USS Enterprise methodically tore apart the target ships with full-powered weapons.::

I think I'll write one for my secondary. Some people have been asking me about her back story recently. -- Jenn

Oh my gods, you have to watch this.. it's hilarious even if you haven't learned Klingon yet!

I have to say, this is way romantic. A date by 24th century text message.

Yeah I guess so... rubbing it in, huh, Jhen? Congrats to Velana, though.

I'm glad that my trials and tribulations as Anassasi's Chief Engineer helped you reflect on your own.

In a moment of mental anguish, the Chief Engineer of the Independence breaks out in song, to the tune of "Camp Grenada" by Alan Sherman. -- Jenn Hello Captain… Anassasi. Greetings from Main… Engineering. The deck is clean now… thanks to Ensigns. And we might be able to start up the core soon. We had some losses… I'll admit it. Seven crewmen… all have bit it. You'll remember… Ensign Fields. Due to radiation he's fused to the shields. All my officers… hate the crewmen. And the crewmen… think the same. Without some phasers… there'd be fights here. I feel I'm becoming an ancient slave driver. But I don't want… this to scare you. Ensign Brice, he… has mechanophobia. We just glued him… to the lift door. You should find him when he comes up to your floor. Beam me out… oh Captain please just… Beam me out… I need some time off. Don't leave me in Engineering where I might step into a spatial tear. Beam me out… I promise not to break the ship, Or put Danny in sickbay with a broken hip. Oh please don't make me stay... I've been on duty for one whole day. Wait a minute, the core is running. Ensigns workin'… crewmen smilin'. Humming nicely, wow that's better. Oh, Captain, kindly disregard this letter.

Congrats, Mr. Tan.

And no, just for this challenge, thanks.

The twin suns beat down on the harsh desert like a redheaded step-child, which was ironic in a way, because I'm a redhead myself. The guy sitting next to me didn't look much better in this sun, being a blonde with a bad sense of humor and a worse attitude at the moment. My name: Idril Mar. His: Danny Wilde. "Well, it looks like they took the converter matrix." I slid out from under the relay, standing and dusting off the backside of my pants. "And that is…," said Danny from behind me, where I knew he was admiring my now slightly-less dusty backside. "That is, Lieutenant, the piece that makes this hunk of scrap work." I replied acidly, kicking the centuries-old piece of junk like a dog that had just relieved itself all over my favorite rug. I was hot, tired, hungry and fed up with his attitude, even if he was easy on the eyes and I was mildly interested in him. We had been stranded together on this backwater no-water planet for a little over 4 days. The heat in the day was scorching and the nights were as cold as my grandmother's freezer box back home, the kind of cold that made your face think it was awake but tried its best to drain the life out of your backside while you weren't looking. Thankfully we had stumbled onto a cave system that had apparently been used by some race as a hideout from the scorching outside. It provided a little bit of shelter from the hot and the cold, as well as some water, but the only technology of any use, planted, as luck would have it, about 30 feet out in the suns, was this stupid communications relay,. Believe me, when I say stupid, I don't mean it lightly. I mean stupid like the Pakleds, not that I'm racist or anything. This relay was wired up like somebody's Altarian spaghetti bowl and it had taken me two days just to unwind it and figure out that it was a relay in the first place, then another day to figure out what was wrong with it. The only thing wrong with it was that it was missing the most important piece and that piece had likely wandered off recently. The 3-toed footprints next to the relay told that story well-enough. "Hey, look, I wonder if these footprints could lead us anywhere," my sharp-witted companion said, being as he was a security officer with a self-believed knack for investigation. I just rolled my eyes and tried not to say anything too far over his head technologically speaking. As we followed them, they led back into the cave complex, but through an entrance that the two of us had not yet gone into. Standing at the opening, I smelled a smell, something that made me want to retch, something that spoke of of our 'collectors' being a race without nostrils. Danny covered his nose, for all the good I figured that it did him. "Are you sure we need that thing?" My nose, being more sensitive than his, was looking for a way to crawl off the back side of my head as I nodded tersely to him. "In we go, then." Danny has this way of pointing out the obvious, like a doctor pointing out the injuries on a red-shirt to the redshirt, though they didn't make it back too often as it was. I ignored it and followed him in. Unlike our part of the caves, lit by crystals that let in some sunlight, this one was dark, dark like a starless night. It took a few moments to let our eyes adjust before we could see that this cave was really a tunnel, one that went deeper into the rocks than ours. I took the flashlight out of my utility belt, standard issue for any engineer would her salt, which I liked to believe I was, and we walked on, following the footprints like some modern-day Hansel and Gretel, only hopefully there wasn't a witch at the end of the trail bent on eating us. We'd walked for about five minutes into the inky blackness, the dim illumination from my flashlight the only thing showing the way, when we realized something was down the hall from us, something glowing. I turned off the light and we could see that it was glowing green. It was a sickly green, the color that food gets when you leave it in the replicator for a couple of days without recycling it, the color that makes you think about slime and other things that tend to turn your stomach. Walking a little bit further, we came up to the edge of a large cavern. As we looked in, the inhabitants saw us too. I'll spare you all the gorey details, but suffice to say that, despite some sort of energy-dampening field that prevented our use of our phasers, we managed to 'take care of business,' if you know what I mean. A little while later, we were back out in the scorching sun, where I finished plugging the stupid converter matrix back into the relay and soldered the last connection nice and tight. Standing up, my muscles screamed at me; the fight over this piece of machinery had been brutal such that it felt like a pair of prize-fighters were still beating on me. Danny and I were both bruised head to toe and bleeding in a couple places. "This had better be worth it," I said as I reached for what I thought was the power switch to turn on the relay. At that very moment, a Federation type-9 shuttle appeared in the sky overhead. A voice crackled out of my comm-badge. "I hope you two behaved yourselves on your vacation," the voice said, with the grin on the pilot's face as plain through the clear signal as the flickering light running through the hard-won matrix in front of me. Such was the life of an engineer.

*waves her hand serenely* This is not the Trill you are looking for. I think I'm going to try this challenge out... anyone for Trek Noir?

Whatever it is, I didn't do it.

5000 words approaches 20 pages... you do know that, right?

Ok, I've gotta tell you all about my petpeeve... why do people use the big banner that's meant for their ship website as their signature banner, instead of the smaller one that they should be using?? Jenn/Capt. Mar PS: Just to stay on topic, sorry I didn't get an entry in... I completely blanked on this topic.

That was the best part. "No, Mr. Wilde, I expect you to die." Heh.

It is obvious that no one is reading "Wildefinger" or it would blatently be in first place. We're being robbed, Danny!