Deus Ex Navis

Posted on Mon Feb 3rd, 2025 @ 6:12am by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Ensign Mercy Mourne

Mission: Remnant
Location: Medbay
1681 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

It was quiet in sickbay as Mercy worked on the data that Avira had given her. Having come from the lbs which were crowded due to everyone moving into the primary one so they could reduce power usage in the secondary lab, it was a relief but also a little strange. Occasionally she would shoot glances at the Andorian doctor, considering how to get to know the woman better. She liked Avira, but it always felt as though the woman had her walls up, and after looking through the data in detail, Mercy was beginning to suspect one of the reasons why.

“Hey doc!” Mercy called over to the Andorian. “You ever hear about Carl down here in sickbay?” She wondered if the sicknay computers beeped randomly like other consoles or not. Might be hard to pick out Carl’s calling card in amoungst the other beeps and whistles of the biorhythm alerts.

"I'm afraid I cannot discuss medical records with a non-medical professional." Avira responded, but as she thought on it a bit more, she didn't know of any Carl on their vessel. Perhaps it was a nickname Mercy used for a colleague. There was a Charles, perhaps that's who she meant. Mercy seemed like the type to give nicknames to people.

Mercy snorted at Avira’s professionalism. That was part of it, and while it was an admirable quality, it also helped keep the world at arms length. “Even with your excellent skills Doc, it’s a bit late for Carl. He’s the ships ghost.” Mercy wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts. As a scientist she needed evidence and data to support beliefs. But Carl was something she chose to believe in because it amused her. Because sometimes when you had no other explanation, the most magical and romantic one would do.

"There's no such thing as a ghost, Ensign, is this not something they cover in your Starfleet Academy curriculum?" Avira took a moment to set aside the what she was working on to fully focus on this conversation, getting the sense that Mercy wasn't one to easily let go of a subject.

“Okay so first of all, careful Doc, that almost sounded like a joke. But funnily enough it isn’t covered on the curriculum. Probably because the professors didn’t want to get into a silly debate where neither side had any evidence when there was actual science to be learned.” Mercy gave the doctor a grin when she saw her setting her work aside for the moment. “And B, I don’t think any of us can say for certain what happens after we are dead. Is t it more fun to believe in ghosts? Haven’t you ever heard the late night clunks from the Jefferies tubes? Or the random beeping from the consoles?”

"In cases where there is no evidence it is up to the asserting party to provide ample evidence in order to establish the initial hypothesis. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Therefore, Ghosts do not exist." Avira didn't quite understand what fun had to do with it, that wasn't necessarily an Andorian thing. There were plenty of ghost and paranormal stories in the history of Andor, she had just never really found them credible enough to warrent more than a passing interest. "As far as sounds from unexplained sources, we're in a spaceship going about sixteen times the speed of light. There's bound to be stresses on the superstructure that cause unforeseen acoustics."

Mercy sent the doctor a wicked grin. “Correction, there is no evidence that ghost exist yet. Neither can you say with any great certainty what happens to us when we die. You can’t tell me Andorians don’t make leaps of faith. All science requires it. And even Vulcans believe in a spirit.” She remembered as much from the cultural research she had been doing. “Matter cannot be created or destroyed, so what about that essential sentient energy. That intangible quality that connects all of us and yet defines us as individuals? Who is to say there isn’t another form of existence beyond what we understand to be ‘living’?” Mercy didn’t really even believe in ghosts, but she did like a good debate.

“Plus isn’t it sometimes, just more fun in the absence of information or understanding to choose what you would like to be true? Of course the hull is under constant stress, well sort of, but what about the beeps? You know those unexplained blips which even engineering can’t rid us of entirely but they have no purpose? Could be malfunctions and yet all the systems seem to be in working order.” Mercy spun in her chair and leaned in conspiratorially. “What if Carl is trying to communicate with us from wherever he is now?”

"Don't you think that if there was something to be found in regards to this that over the span of Earth's, Andor's, and Vulcan's combined centuries of investigations into these sort of phenomenon we'd have gotten more than distant knocks and computer blips?" Avira wasn't sure why she was getting worked up over this but her antennae were getting tense and she could feel her heartbeat at the base if them. "Energy is consumed and expended to fuel the neurological processes required to create consciousness. Sure we don't know exactly how everything slots together, but we're a lot closer now than two hundred or even a hundred years ago. And very little of that progress was won by people indulging in their fantasies of see through relatives in their pyjamas." She got up and reached into one of the crash carts to pull an item from the emergency devices, putting it in the table in front of Mercy. "Do you know what these are?" She pointed at the pair of small circular devices used to stabilise brain activity in case of a disruption in circulation, they prevented brain damage as you worked to resuscitate a patient, or at least staved off its progression.

Mercy quirked an eyebrow at Avira, surprised by the woman's strength of reaction. "I think it would be hubris of the highest order to assume that there isn't more to learn about the nature of existence. And actually I think stories, and feeling are essential to the progress of civilisations. To think that only the rational mathematics of our societies is the only valuable progress that is made is reductive. Creative thinking is just as important to the scientific process. So is hope, and faith and all those other intangible beliefs and values. Just because you can't measure it, doesn't mean it's not essential. if that was the case art and faith would not persist alongside scientific endeavour and yet they do. They are simply alternative lenses into understanding and discovery."

Mercy then frowns as she looks at the neural conductors. "Unfortunately I do." Her grandmother had suffered a stroke only a year before she had been assigned to the Atlantis and it was thanks to those devices that she had made a full recovery.

"This is proof that your consciousness is electrical pulses, on a quantum level perhaps, but still. Neurons firing. If blood stops pumping to your brain, consciousness stops." Avira didn't even want to get into the wide array of degenerative diseases, including her own, that would also disrupt those neurons. That consciousness. "People have been dead and gone for a long time before we were able to bring them back. Do you know what they report?" She didn't wait for an answer to her rethorical question. "Nausea and nothingness. This is the one life you get, I do not intend to waste it on Carl."

Mercy huffed slightly then shrugged. “Each to their own Doc.” She wasn’t about to argue with someone when clearly it meant more to the woman than it did to her. Ghost stories for Mercy were about bonding and laughter, and maybe a little bit of hope. She wasn’t about to let it drive a wedge into what would otherwise be a perfectly good working relationship. Well maybe not good but fine. “I guess, even if I know it’s not logical I find comfort in the idea that maybe, somehow we persist. That even if I die out here there might be some way the Atlantis can still carry me home. But you’re right, that’s probably just silly. No more talk about Carl, promise.”she turned back to the data she was crunching for Avira happy to let the matter drop.

Avira grabbed the neural conductors and replaced them into their small container. She felt her hands being slightly clammy with cold sweat. Her antennae curled tight on her head. As she replaced the container into the tray she felt a jitter through her hand and missed the open spot, which meant rather than subtly replacing the device there was a loud clatter of metal container against metal tray. The contents of the tray also clattering onto itself. She let out an exasperated sigh and cussed in Andorian under her breath, trying to put it in its proper place but finding it difficult to keep her hand steady enough to do so without making more of a ruckus.

Mercy caught the start of the difficulty Avira was having, but simply turned her head, pretending to be absorbed in the data once more. She did however, file the observation away, unable to switch off the part of her mind that connected data to its source. Symptoms - loss of fine motor control resulting in tremors. Possible impact on homeostatic functions, leading to sweating and antenna spasms, could be as a result of stress or discomfort (continue to observe). Possible mood fluctuations? Biochemically generated or as a result of a feeling of hopelessness? (Further data required). All of it filed away in the corner of her mind where she was trying to figure out the Doctor and how she could be helped.