Kalianna Nicholotti

Welcome back, whoever you may be. =P

Hey, even rocks need love.

Welcome to the Fleet!

Welcome to 118!

Welcome to the Fleet!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Fleet!

Welcome to the Fleet!

They just didn't know what it was like. To be turned on and shut off like a faucet; forced into reality only in the most dire circumstances, yet forgotten when things were going well, the holographic doctor mused about its very existence. Sure, he did not have feelings, per se, but even in his currently set, standby mode, thoughts fluttered around his electrical synapses. Residing within the memory banks of the sickbay computers, he felt as if he were trapped into a tiny little box. It gave new meaning to claustrophobia. There again, there were no feelings and no fears. Perhaps that was part of what made him so incredibly important to the crew, at least when he was needed. The lack of feelings and emotions - which he figured made other creatures weak in times of crisis - was just what they needed when everything went down the tubes. As his consciousness drifted about within the memory module in which he was stored, the Emergency Medical Hologram, Mark 4, let his mind wander quite literally. And this was how he would spend most of his days, trapped within the confines of bio-chips and electrical signals. Today, however, was a bit different, and just after the impulses traveling through his section of the memory module had finished their most recent round of feeling sorry for themselves, the sucking feeling of being pulled into the very reality he both loved and hated appeared. Suddenly, the particles of light came together to form a humanoid figure and his programming kicked in. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." He rolled his eyes at himself as he often did when the pre-programmed phrase came from vocal chords that weren't really his own. Looking around, he saw none of the mayhem he might have expected of an emergency, but noticed another doctor in a Starfleet uniform standing a short distance away. Turning towards him, she handed over a flat of vials. "Take those into the lab. They'll need tested," she said just before turning and walking to the other side of the room. Sighing to himself, the EMH turned and complied. And it wasn't because he had chosen to do so, it was because some things he couldn't do. Sadly, going against his programming was one of them. Having become the personal ferry for objects between sickbay and the lab in the rear of sickbay, the EMH simply frowned to himself as he passed no one. An empty sickbay meant that his purpose today would simply be to move things back and forth. Didn't anyone realize the potential he had? Wasn't there something more in store for his pathetic life? Then he laughed at himself. Life was such a strange word. It was a word he ascribed to himself, perhaps, based on his consciousness, but one that he did not deserve. At least that was what the Federation people said. He was simply a tool to be used in times of need. When there were lives to be saved, he would come forth and become as real as he could, at least for a short period of time. But what did that mean for the future? Nothing. He would spend years and years trapped in the memory module, drifting along the electrical currents that denoted ones and zeros because in the end, that was what he was. And yet, there was an enigma. Without feelings, he did not care, but with his own form of consciousness, he did. Stopping along the path from the lab back out to sickbay, he tried to wrap his light-particle mind around it only to find the whole process too much for that moment. With another sigh, he shelved the thought for later, when he was stashed away until the next emergency. Returning to sickbay, he approached the woman in the doctor's uniform. She glanced at him just before sending him away. "That's it," she said. "Computer, deactivate EMH." And instantly, the vision of sickbay faded and was replaced by that of something different. Without 'eyes', the EMH saw nothing. Once again a bunch of current that drifted around in the module, he resumed his musing. Only this time with something other than feeling sorry for himself to really consider; life itself. -- Captain Kalianna Nicholotti Commanding Officer Starbase 118/USS Victory

This story also took second place in the Ongoing World's First Person Fortnight competition. Read more here: http://ongoingworlds.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/competition-winner-announced/ Good work!

Welcome to the Fleet!

I really do think that the date is dependent on when the sim is submitted to the contest, not when it arrives in your email box (or group list).

Serendipity is actually round 14, as it was submitted after the 22nd.

Welcome!!!

Welcome to you as well!

Welcome back! =)

The word count guideline for this particular competition comes from Ongoing Worlds rather than being our own creation. And to those who are considering entering, you don't have to write 5000 words, that's just the upper limit cap. (But I agree, that's quite a number of words/pages) =)

((SB118, Sickbay)) Walker: No! You don't understand! ::MacLaren managed to grab him before he fell to the floor. She managed to push him toward the biobed. Wrapping one of his arms around her neck, she struggled to deal with the nearly dead weight of a strong man, she kept repeating the same words:: MacLaren: Commander, can ye hear me? Commander, you are not alone. You are not alone with it. Don't look at it; rest your mind. ::She administered the same sedative that had worked well on Dubeau.:: MacLaren: Sleep now, Commander. :: He understood the order. There seemed to be something he remembered about not wanting to do it, but couldn't attach any significance. His voice came out clear but untainted by emotion. :: Walker: As you wish doctor. :: He moved to the biobed and immediately fell asleep. :: ((Holodeck)) :: As the scene ended, the yellow and black of the holodeck appeared around him, and the man lying on the floor disappeared. For a moment, the dark haired human stared at the yellow and black, counting the squares formed. Sometime later, he stopped as abruptly as he'd started. And with the same lack of connection as he'd had to the man in the holo. Turning, he walked out of the holodeck. It had been awhile since he stepped on the Ronin. The thrum of the engine, the sense of home. His hands, sputtered briefly. As if a flame that was trying to burn back from the embers, but quickly faded. Without a further glance at his surroundings, he continued walking. :: ((Quarters)) ::Moments or hours later, he realized he was in his quarters. He was moving, and therefore had to pack. Picking up a photo, he looked down to see the crew of the Ronin. His face shifted to a smile as flames like St. Elmo's fire began running up and down his arms. He remembered the Counselor on the Ronin whose empathic abilities had likened his emotions to flames. There was something... something he had to.... the flames flickered and died, and woodenly he placed the picture into a box. Methodically he began packing the items he found into boxes. Initially he paused, the flame flickering around him with nearly every item. And each time his face shifted to that of a man desperately fighting against the odds. But...as each item was placed, the flames flickered less frequently, his face remained a stoic mask. Each box was slowly filled, taped and moved to a corner of the room. The pace was economical, neither too urgent nor too relaxed. Finally, each item was stored, the rome was emptied. He moved one last large box near the rest before stepping into it. He filled the box with packing, before closing the flaps and sealing it from the inside. He closed his eyes and exhaled softly before speaking :: Walker: I'm done. ((SB118 Sickbay)) :: The First officer lay on the bio bed, his body almost immobile. His words came out in a whisper...:: Walker: I'm done. :: The alarm split the air, as the bio bed noted the sudden drop in vitals as the man quietly passed :: Lt. Cmdr Ben Walker FO SB118/USS Victory

((Somewhere...)) ::In the darkness of where ever he was, Eliaan felt at least relieved to be alive. The pain, the overwhelming pain, that he had felt in the corridor was gone but the memory of it stayed with him as if he had been granted a temporary reprieve instead of a full pardon. As the darkness cleared a little, it was clear that he was no longer on the Starbase. It was familiar though, very familiar indeed.:: ::The large room in which he found himself was empty of furniture but filled with memories; he was in the drawing room of his grandparent's home on Betazed. The pleasure and wonder of being in this place quickly melted into a deep sadness as the real reason that he was now seeing this house, empty as it had been after the death of his grandparents, struck him. This wasn't how he had imagined the afterlife but it wasn't something he had allowed himself to think about much.:: ::Death, he knew, walked one pace behind everyone else but walked side by side with a surgeon. On any given day he knew that he could witness, or even be responsible, for the death of a patient. If he were to really think about how close death always was, he knew it would have stopped him being a good surgeon and so he tried his best to ignore it.:: ::And so, he felt utterly unprepared to be standing here with the knowledge that he was either dead or very close to it. What had happened to him? He remembered the pain and being knocked down but he couldn't remember an assailant or why he had been there. He fought hard with his memories, trying to work out what had led him here and then suddenly it clicked.:: ::Ensign Freo.:: ::As he remembered the young Bajoran woman and the darkness that seemed to surround her, the image of a small Bajoran girl appeared in front of him. It wasn't Freo Liandra. It was another Bajoran, one who he had know what felt like a long time ago.:: ::Ollera Kon looked up at him. In a flash, he was shown a quick successions of vignettes of the events that had lead to her death: he was transported back to Starbase 173 where he was convincing her parent's to agree to the procedure; to the arguments with Kaedyn over the correct course of action; to the OR where she died on his table; to his disciplinary hearing on Starfleet Medical. Overwhelmed by the images, he called out for them to stop and he was immediately back in his parent's house looking down at her.:: ::She was dressed in the little surgical gown that she had worn when he had killed her but her eyes carried a wisdom which far exceeded her young age. He carried her with him at all times. She was the embodiment of his regret and sadness, her broken little body on the operating table was the image that stuck in his mind before he fell asleep.:: Ollera: Hello, Eliaan. Deron: ::kneeling down in front of her:: What are you doing here? ::A wide grin spread across her face but she made no response to his question. Instead, she reached up and grabbed his ear with her thumb and forefinger. He was surprised that she was solid rather than just a mental image.:: Ollera: Your pagh is strong, Eliaan. But I don't think it is strong enough... Deron: Kon. Ollera: I'm not her; she's dead. Deron: Am I dead? Ollera: What do you think? Deorn: I think that you didn't answer the question ::She peered up at him, and as she did she was suddenly the three-year old girl who had died in front of him again. With a giggle, she responded in a sing-song voice that sounded like the refrain from a nursery rhyme.:: Ollera: Neither I did Deron: Why do you look like her if you aren't her? ::There was a presence beside him and as he turned to face it, the girl vanished. At his left hand side, his old friend Guy Hunt walked towards him with the wide-beam grin that was his trademark.:: Hunt: Would you rather I looked like this, Doc? ::As he spoke, they were no longer on Betazed. Instead, they stood in a darkened sickbay on the USS Braveheart watching the real Hunt struggle to take his last breaths and die. Often frustrating cavalier about his own safety, Guy had sacrificed himself to save the life of Andrus Jaxx after the Bajoran attacks on the station. They had been through a lot together, not to mention the crush that Eliaan knew Guy had on him, and his death had affected the Betazoid more than he could have imagined.:: Deron: Guy... Hunt: You just don't get it, do you? He's dead. Deron: Then who are you? Why do you take the forms of people who have died? Why these people? Hunt: I am you failure, Eliaan Deron. I speak for the people you were incapable of saving, the reason that your miserable life is worthless. I am your failure. Deron: What are you talking about? ::Hunt continued to smile warmly, despite the vitriolic response that came from him. Under normal circumstances, Eliaan would be able to dismiss this since the thing speaking to him was so different from his friend but he found it hard not to see it as Guy.:: Hunt: You let me die. You acted like my friend and you let me die. You are pathetic. Deron: I couldn't save you, Guy. I would have done anything I could to help you but you were so badly injured. Jilenna: And what about me? You barely tried to help me ::As quickly as he had appeared, Guy was gone. A voice called from behind him and he spun around to see Marine Captain Jilenna Zehn. As his eyes met hers, he was thrown back to the runabout Thames. They were laughing in the [...]pit, the console exploded, he removed the symbiont from her dying body, he placed the symbiont in Kaedyn's abdomen. The images stopped and the blonde woman stood in front of him.:: Deron: The runabout had been damaged, we didn't have the power or the facilities to perform the surgery you needed. We were able to save your symbiont. Jilenna: So you could give it to your boyfriend Deron: It wasn't like that.... Jillenn: You wanted my symbiont so you let me die and now you want my son as well. Deron: I tried to help you. Jilenna: You only wanted to help yourself Deron: That's not true. Aren: You should admit the truth, Eliaan. ::Jilenna melted into the ether and beside him, at his right hand, the image of a tall, handsome Napean man appeared. Dr Dyami Aren, his first love. In his dark eyes, their relationship played out from start to tragic finish. He saw himself, a young medical student arriving on Vilar 2 and meeting the handsome doctor, he saw them working side-by side and the day Dyami awkwardly asked him to dinner, their hike in the hills, the day Dyami developed hemorrhagic fever and Dr Murdoch informing him of his death.:: Deron: ::sobbing:: Please. Not him. Aren: I was your Imzadi but you forgot me as soon as you met your Trill Deron: I didn't. I have never stopped thinking of you, I have never stopped missing you Aren: Stop lying, Eliaan. Deron: I'm not! ::Suddenly, the four of them were standing around him. The room felt dark, their presence threatening.:: Aren: You said you would always love me Hunt: You said you were my friend Jilenna: You said not to worry Kon: You said I'd live ::Tears streamed down the Betazoid's face. They jeered at him, these people he had let down the most, these people he felt the most guilty about, these faces that haunted him.:: Deron: I tried to help you all. I really did. You have to believe me that I tried to help you. I would have done anything to have been able to help any of you ::Ignoring him, they shouted at him in turn.:: Jilenna: You let me die Hunt: You let me die Aren: You let me die Kon: You let me die ::More faces, more voices, appeared and each yelled the same at him. They grew to a large rabble and began to shout over each other at him. The noise grew to a crescendo until it threatened to overwhelm him, he slammed his hands over his ears and screamed over the din.:: ::And as soon as they had appeared, they all disappeared. Where there had been such noise, it was instantly quiet. He found himself again in the dark silence of the drawing room of his grandparent's house looking down at the small frame of Ollera Kon.:: Kon: And now, Eliaan, it is time that you die too... TBC Lieutenant Eliaan Deron, MD Medical Officer SB118 / USS Victory

Welcome aboard, both of you!

Is round 11 meant to be locked? We cannot vote on it until it's unlocked. =)

Congrats to you both, and welcome to 118!

((Starfleet Academy, San Francisco California, Earth)) The seats in the auditorium style classroom filled slowly as the clock on his desk ticked the seconds away. He watched it, almost preoccupied with the forward movement of the hands as those seconds disappeared into the void of nothingness. The occasional student approached the desk and placed a padd there, stopping for some kind of acknowledgement. Ultimately, they continued on to a seat when they got none. Soon, the seats were nearly full, yet his eyes did not stray from the clock. An uneasy silence settled on the room, where his students anticipated the beginning of the lecture. Each one of them looked down towards the small platform near the front of the room at the somewhat eccentric professor whom none had met before. This was a class that was one that was shrouded in some secrecy; a condition he himself had placed on his very presence. And so, as the clock tick-tocked - a sound that soon filled the emptiness where noise and movement once existed - the professor finally looked up at the class. "Good morning class." A wave of seemingly obligatory 'good morning's' drifted down from all corners of the room. The entire mass seemed quite unsure of what was going to happen next. Undoubtedly, the rumors that often spread about the class had at least some of the students concerned as to what might be coming. That was when he smiled. "My name is Commander Stewart, and I am from the future." Having done this very speech many times before, he paused as the whispers moved through the room. When the wave of sound had dissipated, and the ticking of the clock returned, he continued. "I am also from the past." Another wave of whispers, albeit a much shorter run, moved through the room as he walked up to a chalkboard at the front of the class. It was an antiquated tool, but one that he had insisted on having for his lectures. Many of his colleagues whispered about how strange it was, but to his face no one ever questioned it. It was simply a part of his odd nature; at least that was what the rumors said. Picking up a piece of the quite antiquated and specially ordered chalk, the grey haired man with the slightly elongated face that made him look just alien enough to not be human wrote two words; 'Time is'. Beneath the words he drew a line. "What is time?" he said as he turned to face the class. The echoing ticking of the clock filled the silence that extended beyond his own words when not a single student stepped up to the answer. Smiling slightly, he walked a few steps towards the center of the platform before continuing. It appeared that this class would be one of the less interactive ones. "Come on," he said as he waved one hand towards himself as if to draw in a response. "Time is?" It took him pointing at one young female officer in the front row to get things started. He stared at her until she finally spoke, saying only one word. "Relative?" Nodding, the man smiled slightly as he spoke, "That's a good start. Time is relative. Time is also self-evident. We see it pass, we witness its effects on the body and the world around us, but what about the fundamental nature of time?" The question created a whole new realm of silence in the room. It was something he was used to, so he simply continued. "Time is two things; both finite and infinite," he said as he spoke with his voice, but also with his hands. "We have all the time in the world, but time is always running out. Have you ever witnessed the moment when time stood still? Perhaps you have, but if you have not, you surely have been involved in a moment when there simply wasn't enough time because it was too busy flying." He stopped pacing along the platform to look at the students, some of which seemed to be following along well enough, before moving on both in speech and in movement. "To you, right now, time may seem like an irreversible succession of events, but in reality it is a dimension of its own. To change the past means to change the future, yet the past has already been changed." Turning slightly, he pointed to the line on the board. "Is time a line?" He asked the question and gave it a moment before shaking his head and continuing, "No. Time exists and fills up every point in every area of space in every dimension." A few nods could be seen throughout the room, but he looked into the sea of students and was met with questioning eyes. While some instances of the class seemed to take quickly to the ideas of time, others, such as this one, took some real invocation of critical though. As such, he asked, "Can you change the past, the present, or the future?" Whirling around, he pointed at a young man in the front of the class who fumbled around with a stylus in his fingers for an extraordinarily long second before dropping it to the floor and staring blankly back at the professor. The clock on the desk tick-tocked. One might have assumed, in the silence in which it resonated, that more seconds were lost into the oblivion of transition where the present became the past, but no one was able to see its unmoving hands. A full minute of real time silence went by before the student finally came up with an answer. "No." At this, the professor smiled and looked at the clock on his way to the board to make his point. It was as if he could see the hands moving even though they were most definitely not. "Why?" The professor paused only a moment before jumping into a whole new speech, "Why is it that the past is not really something you can adjust or change or divert to a new direction? What is the one thing about time that makes it so impossible to change? It is not the forward marching of time, or the slow forward crawling of it when you are waiting for something exciting, is it? Can it be the visible slowdown of time as you approach faster than light speeds?" Silence once again settled on the room and the ticking clock echoed in the ears of all who were present. This time, however, it was different. This time, the ticking sounded as if the hands were caught between A and B; between one second and the next. But, as no one could see the clock other than the professor, not a single student questioned the progress of time. It took some descent into the silent nullity once again before anyone seemed to gather up enough nerve to speak up. Even when one of the older students did so, the answer came in the form of a question rather than a statement. "But it is possible to change." There was a short pause as the student collected the rest of her thoughts, "Hasn't it been done before by using the gravity of a star to speed up to where a ship could travel back through time?" A wry grin appeared on the face of the professor. Now, perhaps, they were getting somewhere. He pointed at the woman and shook his head before speaking. "That would assume that time falls in a line," he said as he walked back and forth on the platform ignoring the seemingly difficult struggle of the clock on his desk. "If it were a line, it would be easily traversed. However, is it not right to assume that everything that could happen, already has? In effect, does time itself not fill every inch of space in every dimension in existence allowing for infinite possibilities?" Time, he was trying to explain, was far from the line these students were used to seeing it as. There were so many people focused on maintaining and preserving the timeline. What these people didn't realize was that the choices had already been made for them in this timeline, or the next. One of the students picked up on that fact and spoke in an almost argumentative tone. "But that means we have no choices," she stated flatly. "It means what we might chose has already been chosen and we can only ride the flow of it all. I can't believe that." The professor with the elongated face raised his eyebrows. It wasn't often in his walks through the timelines that he invoked such a response. This one, a young Asian woman with long, raven hair, would one day lead; it was something he could feel resonate within his core. "Why not?" he asked simply without taking his eyes from hers. She wasted no time in speaking her response. "Because the universe does not control my destiny. We are shaped by the events of our lives, not by some predetermined ending." Silence once again fell around them as the professor held her gaze. There was a fire that burned in her eyes that he did not have the pleasure of seeing often. In other instances of the class, he'd found her decidedly less intense or even non-existent. But this timeline would gain quite the leader, it would seem. Yet none of this could be spoken. His job was to only to be the catalyst for critical thinking on a subject often muddled through and misunderstood. "You seem sure of your control. How can you know you're in control of anything?" he asked already knowing the answer yet seeking to prod the woman into a level of furious debate that he rarely got the chance to see. Once again, there was little hesitation in her response. "Because when I act, I face a definitive reaction." It was the first of many quick, yet educated responses. Over the course of the next hour, he sparred with the woman over time and destiny. She didn't believe in fate, yet he tried to point out the fact that all eventualities did, in fact, exist. The woman seemed intent on the idea that she could bend the rules that governed time, yet she did not walk outside of it like he did; a fact that no one would come to know except for the few that allowed him to teach. But her thought patterns and passion were a breath of fresh air, and by the time they had run the course of the class, he felt as if he had run a marathon. Leaving her with a final cryptic statement regarding the nature of time, the professor turned his attention to the clock on his desk. The hands were positioned in such a way that made him want to hurry despite not having moved at all. All the same, he knew that this timeline would soon be moving forward without him. "Time is evolution of the mind, the body, and the universe around us," he said matter-of-factly. "It is seen and felt, yet invisible and intangible. Paradox and simplified problem. Remember this always as you step out into the normal world." The final bit got the attention of a few, but nothing more was said as the students began reaching for their things and prepared to leave the class. The tick-tocking of the clock on his desk, which hands had not moved since his last check, got lost in the shuffle of people and bags and desks around the room. No one approached the desk this time, as they would not ever return to the room where the strange professor taught. This was a one shot deal for those who chose to take the class. Watching the students as they watched their own chronometers, biding their time until the moment came, the professor mentally dismissed this instance of these students. The moment came as he finished looking over them all and soon they filed out of the room. While a few looked back and bid him farewell, most were already caught up in the present without much thought for the past which had just occurred. To him, however, it was all the same; every class he taught reacted in nearly the same way. This time was different though. This time he had been able to invoke a response from one of the students. It was something that made him smile as he sat in the silence and began filing the report to the appropriate people regarding the students he had just seen. In the silence, the clock could be heard echoing slower and slower into the empty room. The professor pushed the send button just as the second hand got lost in between the moments and suddenly the clock simply stopped. It felt like he was holding his breath, caught between now and then, before and after, as the environment around him shifted ever so slightly. He was used to it by now, but the feeling of not being able to breathe always caught him slightly unaware. As things settled, and the ticking of the clock rang out once more into the slightly different empty room, he prepared himself to teach the class again. Different, yet it was the same; a grand experiment in portraying the same event in various locations in time. The same students, in different timelines, all reacting according to their own logical chain of events. So far, none of the students had broken the code, but there were still an infinite number of classes to go. Perhaps somewhere along the lines he would run into another fiery personality or overwhelming intelligence that the time-walker would find more than just intriguing. The seats in the auditorium style classroom filled slowly as the seemingly broken clock on his desk ticked the seconds away. He watched it, almost preoccupied with the forward movement of the hands as those seconds disappeared into the void of this timeline's nothingness. The occasional student approached the desk and placed a padd there, stopping for some kind of acknowledgement. Ultimately, they continued on to a seat when they got none. Soon, the seats were nearly full, yet his eyes did not stray from the clock. An uneasy silence settled on the room, with his students anticipating the beginning of the lecture. Each one of them looked down towards the small platform near the front of the room at the somewhat eccentric professor whom none had met before. This was a class that was one that was also shrouded in some secrecy; a condition he himself had placed on his very presence. And so, as the clock tick-tocked in a somewhat endless march - a sound that soon filled the emptiness where noise and movement once existed - the professor finally looked up at the class and began it all again. "Good morning class." -- Commander Kalianna Nicholotti Commanding Officer Starbase 118/USS Victory

Congrats and welcome!

After some of my own digging, which led me to the same information you already have, I can only share what I know. To my knowledge, (and those who have been around longer please correct me if I'm wrong) there is nothing against posting sims with open tags, however, it seems to me that there are a couple of reasons why you don't see this done often. First, a sim with a chunk of open tags/dialogue simply is not as powerful or emotionally invoking as a sim that is complete from start to finish. Secondly, sims just look better and are more complete when there are no open tags in them. They are easier to read and just seem like higher level sims. That's not to say that sims with open tags don't get submitted; I think that some people take the time to fill in those open tags with the responses from other sims before a sim is submitted to the contest, which is why you hardly ever see open tags.