11-21-2025, 10:42 PM
Talion's eyebrows raised a bit as he tried to find the best words, "Well, you didn't miss a great deal. I can say that the entire planet seems to be deeply paranoid and conducting themselves in secret felt very common. They were able to defeat some communication devices, but I detected lots of listening and monitoring devices in most places. I allowed them to use their own jamming techniques and kept mine in reserve, not wishing to tip our hand in the event that I needed to depend on it later."
He relaxed a little more and after letting out a small sigh, he continued, "Cindy assisted the surgical team and Jonas now has an artificial heart of my design. If she's discovered anything else through her conversations with him, she's not said so. I was a little surprised that the President decided to come to the ship, but that could be a good thing. It is a decisive sort of move that might keep momentum on her side in dealing with the other factions. It will attract allies who are looking for strength while it will anger those in favor of isolationism."
He made a point to locking eye contact with the FO, "You did very well down there. These people are quite the minefield, so I don't envy your position in this. Their atmosphere of secrecy and subterfuge is so prevalent that it is hard to trust anyone at any given moment, yet I didn't pick up on any overt efforts to lie or manipulate us. It seems that they are more the sort to do so through what is NOT said, thus not actually lying while remaining allowing presumptions through omission."
Alex paused and then added, "Something does bother me though. The ship that was shot down. It should have been on an approved approach vector that aligned with a landing area. It is common enough to have emergencies and malfunctions, even possible failures of flight control. Had the ship lost control, it would have still been on a trajectory that instead of allowing an emergency landing, it would have fallen where it did, into what was considered hostile territory. THAT doesn't feel like an accident. We can dismiss the communication failure, which may or may not have been natural causes. We can forgive an overly trigger-happy military for firing on a diplomatic ship. What remains is that they were heading in a known unsafe direction where these unfortunate events caused such a valuable ship to crash. Someone made a choice that they should be approaching on that course, heading and speed. That decision was either incompetent or on purpose. For them to be incompetent, in conjunction with the other factors...it just doesn't feel right. Given how paranoid they are about everything else, why wouldn't they have been just as paranoid about this? The problem is that there are so many players and so much distrust, we can't know who to point a finger at. If I were to begin speculating, I would ask, who benefited? The people with the technology are the first suspects. Beyond that, I don't know what breadcrumbs to follow. Why was Jonas as deep into association with crime families as he was? Why was the new Ambassador coming across as almost passionate about all of this, when Vulcans are rarely passionate about anything and especially a trained Ambassador?"
He shook his head slowly, "This is exactly why I went into science instead of getting into the political arena that my parents wanted me to follow them into. These people seem to view the Federation as one step shy of an empire, so I think we should be prepared to be the opposite. We should be prepared to walk away from this. The federation has little to gain by them joining, but they have much to gain from the Federation. Unfortunately, some will gain more than others, so those looking to lose their grip on power are most threatened by us."
Alex finally fell silent, hoping that some of his words had contained something of value for Beno. It was easier talking to her, now that she was back in uniform. The outfit she had been wearing had certainly been...distracting.
== Tag Beno ==
He relaxed a little more and after letting out a small sigh, he continued, "Cindy assisted the surgical team and Jonas now has an artificial heart of my design. If she's discovered anything else through her conversations with him, she's not said so. I was a little surprised that the President decided to come to the ship, but that could be a good thing. It is a decisive sort of move that might keep momentum on her side in dealing with the other factions. It will attract allies who are looking for strength while it will anger those in favor of isolationism."
He made a point to locking eye contact with the FO, "You did very well down there. These people are quite the minefield, so I don't envy your position in this. Their atmosphere of secrecy and subterfuge is so prevalent that it is hard to trust anyone at any given moment, yet I didn't pick up on any overt efforts to lie or manipulate us. It seems that they are more the sort to do so through what is NOT said, thus not actually lying while remaining allowing presumptions through omission."
Alex paused and then added, "Something does bother me though. The ship that was shot down. It should have been on an approved approach vector that aligned with a landing area. It is common enough to have emergencies and malfunctions, even possible failures of flight control. Had the ship lost control, it would have still been on a trajectory that instead of allowing an emergency landing, it would have fallen where it did, into what was considered hostile territory. THAT doesn't feel like an accident. We can dismiss the communication failure, which may or may not have been natural causes. We can forgive an overly trigger-happy military for firing on a diplomatic ship. What remains is that they were heading in a known unsafe direction where these unfortunate events caused such a valuable ship to crash. Someone made a choice that they should be approaching on that course, heading and speed. That decision was either incompetent or on purpose. For them to be incompetent, in conjunction with the other factors...it just doesn't feel right. Given how paranoid they are about everything else, why wouldn't they have been just as paranoid about this? The problem is that there are so many players and so much distrust, we can't know who to point a finger at. If I were to begin speculating, I would ask, who benefited? The people with the technology are the first suspects. Beyond that, I don't know what breadcrumbs to follow. Why was Jonas as deep into association with crime families as he was? Why was the new Ambassador coming across as almost passionate about all of this, when Vulcans are rarely passionate about anything and especially a trained Ambassador?"
He shook his head slowly, "This is exactly why I went into science instead of getting into the political arena that my parents wanted me to follow them into. These people seem to view the Federation as one step shy of an empire, so I think we should be prepared to be the opposite. We should be prepared to walk away from this. The federation has little to gain by them joining, but they have much to gain from the Federation. Unfortunately, some will gain more than others, so those looking to lose their grip on power are most threatened by us."
Alex finally fell silent, hoping that some of his words had contained something of value for Beno. It was easier talking to her, now that she was back in uniform. The outfit she had been wearing had certainly been...distracting.
== Tag Beno ==