round 10 Ensign Choi Ji-hu - Theory

[+ catscatscats]

(( Constitution - Arboretum ))

::The Ohmallera Memorial was tucked away in the Betazed section of the Constitution’s arboretum. Lush plant life from the Betazoid home world practically enveloped the dark, eight-foot statue, a minimalist design depicting three towers standing above a dark pool of water, all of traditional Betazoid design, with an enormous disc rising behind them, perhaps a black sun, a dark moon or, Ji-hu thought, the saucer section of a Federation starship. The latter was likely the intent—Ji-hu remembered the terrible images from Ohmallera after the attack.

When he’d first found the memorial Ji-hu had been a little disturbed to realize he was serving on the same ship that had destroyed the city—he’d never made the connection, even though he remembered the news coverage—but he supposed there’d been all sorts of tragedies and triumphs, big and small, aboard the Constitution, that he’d have no way of realizing. Pushing aside some of the foliage he’d discovered an inscription that read, in Federation Standard: 

RESPONSIBILITY OF POWER

2388 will be remembered as a tremendous loss for the United Federation of Planets when the USS Constitution was hijacked and used to destroy the city of Ohmallera, Betazed, costing more than a million innocent lives.

The Constitution continues to fly in vigilance against the forces of chaos in the universe while acknowledging that we are not immune to them.

This was followed by a Betazoid prayer for spirits to love and protect the deceased. Really put things in perspective for his own stupid problems.

After the business on the Starbase Ji-hu had got a little rest and decided to spend some of his downtime meditating… a suggestion of his Academy counsellor he’d been sorely neglecting in his final months at the Academy. After everything that’d happened he decided to make a bit more of an effort. Either because it was hidden away or because of the section was in the shadow of the statue the memorial’s section of the arboretum was quiet. He laid out a blanket beneath the memorial, closed his eyes and started some breathing exercises. In eight seconds, hold for eight seconds, out for ten seconds, repeat. He focused on the sounds around him, picking them out to ground himself; the distant, lulling chatter of a botanist with a group of school children visiting the arboretum for a biology course… the sound of water trickling through a nearby stream… the gentle breeze simulating a warm summer wind in a temperate climate…

Ji-hu was standing beneath the stars in a golden robe with two other men flanking him. The stars blinked curiously overhead like a million animal eyes in the shadows. An owl-headed god perched above all, two enormous mirror eyes watching the scene. A little girl was running toward Ji-hu, until she transformed into a dog, or wolf, in the blink of an eye, then back again, and kept repeating the transformation to the point where the two forms were one in the same. She was chased away by a humungous bear, which transformed into an old man in the same manner, back to bear, back to a man. Ji-hu could feel a burning sun blazing behind him, but was afraid to turn around.

He awoke with a small start as his head had started to droop down towards his chest. He was sitting in the grass in the arboretum, underneath the memorial behind him. He must have drifted off, his mind grasped at the dream… he remembered Ursun, and Iel’ue had been there? Something about quantum robes…::

oO That’s an interesting thought… there’s clearly no physiological transformation. That would destroy complex humanoid lifeforms. Didn’t you do a course that touched on the allasomorphs? What if the Hinji “shapeshifting” isn’t changing their shape at all, but something else entirely? Oo

Choi: ::whispering:: Turing… remind me when I’m finish meditating to read up on T’saarri’s work on macroscopic quantum superpositions.

Turing: Copy that, meatsack.

::Ji-hu closed his eyes again and tried to pick out the sounds, the steady gurgling of the memorial’s pool behind him, the underlying, gentle hum of the Constitution’s systems everywhere… but his mind kept going back to what he’d seen on Starbase 104. The Hinji weren’t like other “shapeshifters” at all. There was something else going on there. Something the Federation had never seen before. That’s why xenobiologists were so stumped. They were looking at it all wrong. The problem wasn’t a physical one, it was a quantum problem.::

Choi: ::whispering:: Turing, was it Professor Akimoto who wrote that paper on bio-chemical superconduction… something about an interference field?

Turing: Do you want me to tell you now, or after you finish meditating? Assuming you are still meditating.

::Ji-hu pulled a PADD out of his bag and logged in to LCARS. Turing sighed.::

oO Social conditioning response. I think I built that in during Academy so Turing would guilt me when I had homework to do but tried to access my gaming accounts. Oo

Choi: I promise I’ll go back to meditating in a bit, I just want to find that Akimoto essay. Was that on my topology syllabus?

::Ji-hu would have time for meditation later. He had a theory. It may not save the Hinji or decide anything in the negotiations for Leron II, but a theory was just the beginning to something bigger. Discovery.::

 

*****

Ensign Choi Ji-hu
Engineering Officer
USS Constitution-B
C239402CJ0