Lt. Jg Kimberly Stapledon - A Transitional Vibe

[Jalana]

((Apex Hot Springs - Arentis))

 

Kim sat quietly, feeling the odd juxtaposition of the warm water around her body against the cold air above her, and thought.

 

She'd texted her parents about her promotion and awards. They'd been ecstatic for her and soon several messages had come in from subspace from friends and relatives. Cypria, the local social media and messaging service, had several messages congratulating her. Neocypriate Serving members of Starfleet were often given pages -- and sometimes shrines -- on the service.

 

She thought of the sort of impact she might make on the ship. Her home, New Cyprus, had been a place of contradiction. Its past was dark and gritty, many of its buildings living on as husks of their former selves, surrounded by a bright and happy jungle of new constructions, the skyline promising a bright future in spite of where the world had been.

 

Kim had contributed to that future, adding holographic elements to civic landmarks and town squares. She'd had a budding architect phase during her youth. At 16 she'd been obsessed with Theodore Frudagar's landmark textbook on holoarchitecture. The field had been mocked over the years for its transient creations and compared to laser graphiti, in which artists would tag buildings not with paint but rather temporary light displays. Such things had begun in the early 21st century in protest against political leaders on Earth.

 

The holoarchitect's task is not merely to clutter a space but rather to embellish it. A building is not merely a husk but rather a trellis for the vines of thought and creativity borne out of the holoarchitect's interaction with her larger community.

 

There had been something of a back-handed self congratulatory tone in that passage. Not merely a husk. While many criticized holoarchitects for doing nothing but defacing and twisting the intentions of the original architects who'd planned the spaces in which they worked, the holoarchitects who chafed under such criticism were quick to point out that buildings were just dead husks. A few called them canvases. The truth was that holoarchitecture and architecture itself were merely two sides of the same coin.

 

Frudagar's premise rested on the idea of storytelling through both static and moving structures. New Cyprus's story was one of rebirth and transformation. Kim wondered. What was she transforming into? What parts of her were static? Which ones could she change?

 

The water around her bubbled and frothed as the mountains beyond sat in stoic silence.

--

Lt. Jg Kimberly Stapledon

Engineer

USS Constitution-B

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