Artist Statement

I search intensely in the urban environment for those compositions specific to my moral obligations. It's an instinctive process, yet it also requires the obviously removable augmentation of mechanization. I find the images in the urban environment that are somehow endemic to my forms of creative irony in light of urbanization, industrialization and mechanization. It's become a grassroots approach. I did not specifically decide to focus on local protests, rather the decision was made casually. I'll bring a camera, although I can't say if I definitely will find that element of which I seek. It has become so that I am uncomfortable missing what I consider to be a photo-worthy event. Through process I know to be excited when big photo-worthy events are on the horizon.

I saw an article in the San Jose Mercury News, and it was several paragraphs long, several pages into the A section of the paper. The article confirmed that the Berkeley California Memorial Oak Grove Treesit had been on for at least a month. This was the end of winter 2007. I spent most of the spring and summer of 2008 supporting the treesit via camera and presence. 

Urban Studies became a formulation of political science as I comprehended the evils of post-modernist, trans-national, neo-liberalism, and its subsidiaries, the capitalist, hegemonic, oligarchy. Viewing macro-cosm from micro-cosm. 

My group thesis at The San Francisco Art Institute was regarding urban farming. I was born in Berkeley, I went to school there for one year in high school, and I volunteered at The Gilman Street Project in Berkeley, California from 1988 to about 1995. Photographing at People’s Park in Berkeley became part of a natural accumulation of environment and familiarity. In a sense I feel that some of my work is giving back to a community that helped me grow.

My ethnographic research regarding The Gilman Street Project pertains to my MA thesis in urban studies at sfai. I revisited my life and the times of the 924 Gilman, as that time period is now widely regarded as a zeitgeist for the sub-culture in the region. I have since reintegrated into the Bay Area scene and I continue to make photography related to my interests in the urban periphery.

In 2010 I moved into the Emeryville, California Squat Hellarity adjusted for a couple of months, biding my time volunteering with East Bay Food Not Bombs, feeding the homeless and low-income, and then began photographing intensively with Occupy Oakland. I kept my volunteer position with EBFNBs, as it had become incorporated with #OO, and began an intensive listening experience, for which my conceptual perception of survival began to create new formulations that began to slowly supersede the rationale of urban logic and theory. Like the Berkeley Treesit @ the Oak Grove my photos were intended to perhaps be incorporated with organizations such as COPWATCH, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Lawyers Guild, and some of my photo essays that would appear in indybay.org would help lawyers develop their police brutality cases, as well as help give a community a visual sense of perspective, in a tumultuous time of comprehensive revolt.  

Now that Hellarity has met its demise, and tired of the instability of homelessness I have retired to the south bay where I have family and a roof over my head. I await the arival of my MA urban studies degree, and work on my Phd research in sub-cultural sociology. Mechanisms of the micro-cosm can be formulated to supersede the macro-cosm. Old ideas can seem new and profound when they gain speed as they become part of a 21st century zeitgeist designed to save the planet. Recycle. Plant a tree.

Part of my research has been photographing bands in the bay area. This is a therapeutic way for me to connect with my former volunteering ideology in the 1980s and 90s with the Berkeley punk club Gilman, [Home of punk bands such as "Greenday," perhaps you've heard of them...] and to help me further comprehend the future of grassroots creative mechanisms.

To view my Indybay.org articles type ‘darin bauer,’ in the search engine task bar. Private reviews of non-public Indybay articles are available upon request and are listed in my Curriculum Vitae.

 My photography is viewable via http://www.flickr.com/darinbaueroakgroveberkeley/ .

End the Capitalist Oligarchy.*
[*Recently Martin Gilens of Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University did a consensus and analytical study regarding American Politics proving that American citizens have very little voter sway and no absolute power compared to economic elites and special interest groups, empirically proving that the United States is an Oligarchy and if nothing else making a superb argument against economic inequality. See; Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.]

Future Twin @ The Knockout SF November 2013

Learning how to respond to disaster.

            This summer I took part in Anticipate, Plan & Deter Responder Resilience: With Listen, Protect & Connect Training, here in the East Bay, sponsored by Alameda County. The training took place in Fremont at the firehouse, which is very near the BART station. Keeping in mind Occupy Sandy, Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster, and events in the Middle East including Occupy Turkey, I felt that when the next big one hits the bay area, Occupy Oakland should be on the ready for a pro-active response. There are way way too many active fault-lines in California, Tsunamis are a very real threat, flooding, landslides, and forest fires are a consistent threat to us, and more tornados, a phenomena of the mid-west and south has begun to grace California with alarming regularity. For the record I have no professional interest in this kind of training outside of something definitively  Occupy, on the other hand, you never know when it’s going to go down.

            Merritt Schreiber[1] has a PhD in Disaster Medicine, works for various agencies including the Red Cross. Merritt has traveled the world over and has professionally approached many disasters. He studied in Irvine, and he is the kind of guy that sits by a phone late at night with the news on during a storm so to speak. He spoke an accelerated discourse to a mostly over qualified audience, and I think that sometimes when he does this class elsewhere he is likely more patient and not so much streamlining his efforts. Specifically in attendance were mostly EMTs and fire fighters, two ‘pro-active in the community,’ Berkeley ladies, and myself. Twice I told him to read Rebecca Solnit’s book Paradise, and naturally I mentioned Occupy Sandy and my concern for Occupy involvement in the round robin hello state your name and purpose introduction. I was likely the only socialist in attendance, although obviously not the only liberal. One EMT in particular was extremely brilliant, and Merritt called him on it, his profound sense of logic was so right on it was obviously a shame that his mindset wasn’t part of disaster training one hundred years ago, his ideas might have changed the world. Seriously. Nice to see gears turning in the minds of 30 somethings. Full biography: http://www.cdms.uci.edu/cdms-bios.asp .

            Apparently the US military would not allow him to put a team on the ground in New Orleans for an undue extended period of time during Hurricane Katrina. I did not interview him. During this session Haruki Murakami’s book about the Sarin Gas terrorist act aboard Tokyo subways came to mind, many books that I have read for college and outside of studies regarding transnationalism, all of that came to mind. A good example of what went on at the seminar is online at; http://www.integratedtrainingsummit.org/presentations/2011/main_training_summit/43_-disaster_mental_health_surge_tools_and_resources-ss.pdf

In 2011 he attended an ASAP conference in San Diego and spoke to transnationalism and disaster; The role of EM and psychosocial consequences of disasters in global health, Merritt Schreiber. https://cme.ucsd.edu/asap/program.html. What’s really amazing is the topics of this particular conference seem very similar to academics regarding what Naomi Klein refers to as Disaster Capitalism. Transnationalism, which is in my professional opinion is a systemic sociological disorder derived from capitalist oligarchy, is getting much more difficult to ignore in the professional world of international medicine and international disaster relief. Almost anyone can tell you so in the academic community. My interests at the Listen, Connect and Protect were very obvious to me anyway; I thought of the photographs of Richard Misrach, I remembered the Loma Prieta Earthquake here in California back in 1989, so much in mind during the seminar.

Essentially agencies bring a group of professionals to a staging area where they build an intake triage. This is the long and short of it all. If you study the integrated training summit website, and following websites, you can see exactly how this is played out. The point is to see what is needed for mental health issues during a disaster, and any other issues that may also overlap. Supplies need to be gathered in a place nearby, but conveniently enough away from the medical triage. If you have read Solnit’s Paradise, you would know that during 9/11 civilians secured a dock warehouse near the World Trade Center and were eventually permitted by the US Military to continue their grass roots efforts at quarter mastering the disaster. The US Military admittedly reported that they simply had to get out of the way of volunteer efforts there. In Solnit’s Paradise, she also explains how many anarchists converged on New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, likely within the efforts of the Common Ground Collective, which was founded by activist and Black Panther members. I have heard about volunteer responders that some were successfully able to sneak past US Military blockades and were further able to give aid in restricted areas. I am to imagine that information must have been from CCC. The point being that anarchists are adept urban specialists that can maneuver between the cracks, give supplies to people, direct medical aid, send messages across boundaries, and give relief when Nazi’s like Bush commit genocide. I guess what I’m saying is you don’t have to be well read; you don’t have to have your first aid training certified every year, although you should at least know what to really do in a real disaster. For teachers here is his teacher / student disaster guide; http://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/PFA_SchoolCrisis.pdf. There is another for children and parents; http://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/psychological_firstaid[1].pdf.

I was surprised when Dr. Merritt mentioned that NORAD was part of the disaster relief system, apparently NORAD or USNORTHCOM, the old dinosaur that scared me as a child about WW3 took on disaster relief after 9/11 as part of the Bush administration. It is about time that agency do something useful, although they failed miserably at Katrina, largely due to directed misinformation. I’ve heard some commentary about public or government agencies on public radio, and the level of unpreparedness is unprecedented. The military doesn’t do the same job as that of Dr. Merritt and his contemporaries either. FEMA in particular is evidently extremely odious and incompetent. I would remind readers that in a recent article by Keith McHenry in the Slingshot Newspaper. Keith admitted to the incompetence of FEMA during Occupy Sandy, and that indeed, Food Not Bombs fed FEMA workers. Also Keith remembered passing many FEMA related caravans on the highway on the way to New York during the Sandy disaster, the emphasis being that FEMA certainly took their time, and some of them likely ran out of gas, or somehow lost track of their supplies. The military and some government agencies such as FEMA are not state of the art, and the military also stopped debriefing for disaster relief citing that all facets are multi-action, or some such nonsense. [Cold war survivors might remember the; confirm then verify policy that was definitively US foreign policy regarding hostiles.] Finally due to PTSD and insurance scandal the military has phased out early stage crisis intervention during a disaster as such methods were deemed counter- productive. In a very real sense I’m asking all Slingshot readers to take these facts to heart and do what you can to learn disaster relief, and this is why.

The US military does debriefing in battlefield as part of something referred to as ‘complete soldier fitness.’ Supposedly this supersedes the need for disaster debriefing onsite. The idea of the ubër soldier came to mind, superman is already killing a million dollars of tax payer revenue, so create more complicity for onsite triage please! The problem here being that the line between survivor and victim is blurred, there are normal reactions and abnormal events that occur and this is PTSD, essentially. Of this abnormal/normal Dr. Merritt stated, “As a function of the event contents being driven they are not absolute as both embrace the full continuum of impact.” He might have been quoting the US military on the subjectivity of abnormal / normal actions and events. He said a lot of uncanny bullshit that someone in the top of their field might say; this was the most difficult wording I think he came up with, although who knows he sped along quite nicely. One stated fact was that 50-90% of transitory disaster response is insomnia and / or fear of recurrence, this is a discrete fact and not technically PTSD, and this is normal human function and resilience. People bounce back[2] eventually in a timely manner. If you Google the following: PsySTART Staff Self Triage System, you receive a fact sheet from EMSA [Emergency Medical Services Agency,] in Los Angeles. [Note: There are too many abbreviations in this field of study. You’ve seen four or five so far, there are too many to count.] There are seven similar PDFs on that Google search page, of about 3100 total indexes. The bottom of my personal copy from the seminar reads: Monitor Stress during the response and activate your coping plan early and revise accordingly to maximize your resilience. Review 30 days post-incident, if not sooner. Dr. Merritt says that any of the similar Los Angeles County pages are good, he wrote them. He builds a stress pyramid, the apex being survivors with long term symptoms, the next down is short and long term psychopathology, followed by acute stasis disorders, there-after non-specific psychological distress, and the base of which is concerning behavioral change. It’s based on a 9 million dollar federal study, which I should assume came from the Obama administration. The answers from your online PsySTART chart dictate the placement of the individual on the pyramid, and numbers are tallied in an impromptu consensus, this is a patented process actually. Disaster relief warrants a copy-write patent if you can believe it. The Department of Homeland Security [HSPP8,] selected mutual health tasks from the “universal task list,” which would be similar to this process. The PsySTART system is simply designed to help with onsite triage in the event of a disaster, there is a checklist of options. Danger to Self Or Others? Felt/Expressed Extreme Panic? Around twenty disaster related types of stress to a specific system. Tally that number, the high numbers are the top of the pyramid, the lows at the bottom, people with the most extreme problems have the least resistance to disaster stress. Once intake is completed, then you can group people together for the purpose of treatment I am to theorize. Speaking as a non-medical professional I honestly am not certain how that would work. Services, food, water, rest, bandages, suddenly the next step is very real and unclear. Food is included; sometimes a meal is an important first step in debriefing, get a full stomach and then relate your difficulties to the responder. He did mention that asymptotic panic was something that might test the fidelity of the responder system as a model, directly to say that the responder system might not help everyone. One thing about the pyramid is the base should be paraprofessionals: trained volunteers, listening to people, friends, family, neighbors, spiritual leaders, and connectedness, higher up would be Mental Health Professionals. Researching the pyramid system / PsySTART one might be able to deduct that care should be considered in a zone kind of system, different kinds of care should be conducted in different kinds of zones within the emergency relief triage area of activity. The fidelity of the model is a relevant concern regarding this system. Debriefing amounts to psychological education or first aid, it’s not what you see, its’ how you cope. Regardless to stress inoculation or mass casualty pre-event sociology corresponds to a psychological first aid model, including social support, triage, and any further necessary treatment thereafter. Apparently there is a golden hour, and a golden month in which to take effective care, effective care could be a disaster relief Federal Stafford Loan for example. Another PDF I’m referring to is online from the Red Cross; http://www.cdms.uci.edu/pdf/psystart-cdms02142012.pdf.

 Regarding PsySTART and the above PDF, please take the doctor’s word for it. I think anyone actually interested in disaster relief should study this particular PDF specifically and the PsySTART. At that point you aren’t an expert, although you would be somewhat better prepared to begin disaster stress triage. Stay calm, keep rubber-neckers, the media, and tourists out of the emergency response area, and see what you can do to help victims of disaster. Meanwhile there is real danger to this effort also. Among other kinds of related problems, there is a 9% PTSD rate by disaster relief responders and for military personnel that number is 20%. I want people to be cautious yet if you follow the online sites mentioned in this article you might be able to anticipate stress / scenarios that can help reduce calamity, and possibly help people. Most important to note is the fact that the mental health implications for victims usually outweigh other dangers of disaster. The previously noted online pdf has an interesting tid-bit from the Hospital Preparedness Program Coordinator from Los Angeles County:

“The damage to nuclear reactors in Japan has understandably lead to concerns about the safety of individuals throughout the world, including here in Los Angeles County. This concern can lead to many individuals seeking medical care and particularly requesting prophylactic pharmaceuticals such as Potassium Iodide.”

The letter from the coordinator to Los Angeles hospitals also requested participatory voluntary data to help create risk assessment strategies.

Realistically it is difficult to determine whether or not Occupy Oakland will be needed for any type of disaster beyond that of economic inequality, lack of government intervention, and the disabling effect of poverty on the community at large. We should assume we need to be prepared. The Bay Area is blessed with a fairly good disaster preparedness system which is on par with some of the best in the world. Other locales might not be so lucky however, and we can never know what we will be hit with next. People power is always a relevant structure to achieve great goals, so perhaps this article can help inspire individuals to achieve their own directed study. At the very least an Occupy medical triage is not a bad idea for activists concerned with disaster stress be that by way of police brutality, panic, or other presently indiscernible calamity. I was a boy scout, and I have been trained for first aid, and I can see that I clearly need to be recertified. On the other hand I have been in some of the hairiest fucking riots in the east bay in the last some odd years, and I feel that in certain situations that I am likely over qualified – and that’s probably a really good thing. Be safe out there people.

How to be supportive: Disinhibit reluctance to be supportive, not everyone is touched by crisis similarly. Keep in mind risk factors, although don’t panic. Take breaks and be effective, avoid repetition when it becomes inhibiting or tiring.

List of symptoms / steps: Listen, protect, connect, and use direct assistance. Listening is a metaphor for the totality of observation. Keep in mind a consensus model during first response activity [think on your feet as a group sometimes.] Hydrate often. Use the PsySTART.

The FEMA model: First aid, categorize via something similar to PsySTART, first aid data should lead to a referral to other agencies, like a hospital or official crisis center / county services. It’s a good model, despite the organizations best efforts otherwise.

            The next and final URL recommendations by way of Dr. Merritt; www.nyc.gov/citizencorps, and nyc.gov/311, apparently all cities have something like this. The department of education is limited, and there are many federal websites and numbers. Share your information, create mental health awareness!    Don’t Panic!

---

[1] http://iom.edu/Global/Directory/Detail.aspx?id=0020021141

[2] www.bouncebacknownyc.org, essentially a self-help website for disaster relief as designed by MUSC, the Medical University of South Carolina, you have to register.

STO Fiction Writing #53, Post #29

Literary Challenge #53: The Gateway

D'Tan plans to reactivate the Iconian Gateway that was found on New Romulus, and you've been invited to be a representative that will be present for the event. Write a Log entry sharing your preparation plans and your personal thoughts on the situation.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=13340771#post13340771

Post #29

Notes: Vice Admiral Daaral Zentron.

Preparation for the event was standard. Special regard was taken for tactical, astrophysics, and the quantum mechanics team. I had also reviewed stolen Romulan military programming information regarding their engineering procedures, most of which had to do with conversion techniques and ratios regarding foreign technology.

The tragedy on New Romulus regarding the tectonic breakdown and the miraculous discovery of the Iconian ship has already been well documented. My science team is still in review regarding tectonic plate retroversion gravitron pulsewaves; however the frequency dampeners may have been somehow compromised. Essentially you have two pulse forces making waves, the actual vibrations of the machine at work and that of the retroversion gravitron compensation activity, which is to be compensated by frequency dampeners. Our lack of understanding of Iconian technology is likely the failure. With two complex vibration frequencies at work…it is quite complicated. Nature being almost impossible to predict, cannot at times be compensated, this is our best data at the moment unfortunately. The retroversion gravitron pulsewaves should have acted like a shield to ‘float’ the gateway mechanism within the cavernous and active geothermal ductways, however the compensators were somehow too rigid and at some moment gave way, or perhaps even contributed to seismic activity. This is a shame, and again, there could have been sabotage. The Tal’Shiar is somewhat omnipresent in this sector, despite our best efforts at security. Now is the time to wait for further results.

The Iconian Gateway itself is a genius piece of machinery. Dimensional transgenesis migration is a very complicated technological feat, yet my engineers have evidence of trans-dimensional transgenesis migration, which is even more astounding. For one thing we now know where all of the Iconian gateways in the galaxy are, we are learning how to open them, and each one has specific coding. We had teams and teams of engineers, Starfleet, Klingon and the Old Romulan Republic members within an orbital periphery of Iconia, prepared to take scans, make readings, and essentially be there with a trans-dimensional ‘catchers mit,’ in case of emergency. That was not necessary, we had actually prepared for that, and until recently this was somewhat more classified data, at best it is known by members of the scientific community; however the general populace of the local stellar neighborhood will not be made aware of it for some time. It will eventually be known, there are decloaked Iconian gateways in almost every star system now, hard to keep such secrets. What we did not know is that many of these gateways are not visible from their planet’s surfaces. It is obvious that the Iconians had a prime directive of their own. Reports also indicate that the invisibility of the gateway is not possible beyond a certain altitude. There is some kind of temporal refraction emanating from these gateways, and even though we now know for certain where many of these gateways are, we can assume that not all are decloaking anytime soon. There are reports of this as well; it may prove to be some time before all of these gateways are completely controlled.

There is evidence that suggests that the Iconians planted DNA sequences and attempted to harbor life forms on worlds which were essentially primordial, this is well documented in the 24th century. We did not realize, although it had been a theory, that Iconians had been so prosperous in the exo-biological terraforming process to this regard. M class planets with the most abundant life have the most abundant examples of cross breeding. Many new discoveries about Iconian assimilation and colonization have led to equally new and exciting theories. One such discovery, which my scientists believe to be very late placement of Armadillidiidae on the Terran planet by the Iconians, had led to many other discoveries of late introduction of species onto the planet as superfluous exo-biological attainment. This is empirical study based on older data in order to find similar trends on planets that we are not as familiar with. The Earth is a prime example because of its documentation history, and it’s still relatively unadulterated eco-synthesis. Another discovery leads to the conclusion that Neanderthal simian humanoids were also introduced by the Iconians. This however could not be the case due to the chronology, the Icnonians were struggling to survive divisive political unrest at the time that the Neanderthal simian humanoids were introduced to the planet earth, and so another theory was devised, based on other existing data sources. It is possible that Borg placed Neanderthal simian humanoids on Earth in order to produce a more sturdy humanoid.

At that time in the galaxy the Iconians were likely on the defensive. However our data suggests that the Iconians devised the Borg in an earlier time of general political uncertainty in their then galaxy wide empire. As Iconian political power waned, and certain expanses could no longer be defended by outer galactic invasion or inner turmoil, the Borg took placement as a self-inducing regimented attempt at the preservation of what the Iconians regarded vainly as their own organic heritage. Sentient life itself would be cataloged and kept like a secret seed vault, also self-perpetuating, and able to construct further defensive mechanisms. It was a harsh and greedy political blunder for the Iconians, who prided themselves on integrity, intelligence, and technological advancement. Eventually the enemies of the Iconians made it impossible for the Iconians to defend themselves and control the Borg. There was apparently also a resources dilemma, this would explain why so many sectors of the Delta Quadrant as explored by Admiral Janeway are so sparse of star systems, as many have been consumed by either the Borg or the Iconians. The Iconian political structure had scrambled to create devices that would ensure the safety of sentience that would eventually grow to such a degree as to be able to confront the Borg. It was thought that these groups would unite to control the Icnonia that they once knew. In a sense the gerrymandering of sentient life in the galaxy by the Iconians lead to their somewhat ‘Freudian’ god-complex slip of creating the Borg in the first place. On the other hand, and we are able to ascertain in this local stellar neighborhood, and other remote pockets of life in the galaxy, there is a viable source of resistance to the Borg. Based on our own technological evaluations the galaxy should recover from Borg encompassment in less than five hundred years.

One reason for the length of the dissipation is likely due to recent figures captured from Borg transcriptions; at this time, the Borg control at least sixty percent of the galaxy. This new information suggests a new visitation to the diplomatic process surrounding the Borg Initiative policies will be necessary if life in this galaxy should remain non-Borg-assimilated.

One important configuration that was necessary for security reasons was to ascertain whether or not the new gateways could be detected by the Borg, they can, only if they come and discover the gateways themselves, and if they could, there is not real evidence to suggest that they could defeat us in order to utilize this gateway system. It is plausible that the Iconians thought to restrict certain technological signatures from interacting with the gateway system, the Iconians are quite intelligent, and we can only hope that they had created such a system for themselves. Risk assessment is still being evaluated. It would seem that the Iconians comprehending their faux pas de technologique had found a way to build an ‘underground railroad’ for the last of their planted genome successors. It would be difficult if the Borg should choose to utilize these gateways for their assimilation processes, however we do not yet know for certain that it would really be possible for them to do so. Keeping all of this in mind, my scientists and engineers are also developing new defensive strategies, and deborgification processes. Saving life will be the new struggle for the galaxy in this regard.

One theory that came from my team was that the gateways could be trans-dimensional. If this is the case we would need to know more about the ‘mirror-universe,’ as it were. From a gathered database of hundreds of interviews of refugees, and prisoners from the ‘mirror-universe,’ we have shocking information, and we must keep in mind that this is highly privileged information. For some reason, relative to the ‘mirror-universe,’ our local stellar neighborhood had been spared by a vast Iconian empire. Certain species are allowed to live in order that they gain strength and virility enough to help defend the Iconian Empire. In the ‘mirror-universe,’ militancy is the only order and orders are given by the Iconians, all factions are divided and must quell against one another. Strangely enough, in the ‘mirror-universe,’ the Borg do not exist, replaced by them are a successful and extremely militant Iconian Galactic force, which rages and controls everything in the galaxy. Borg have been known to travel from our dimension to the ‘mirror-universe,’ however the immediacy of their displacement often leaves the Borg with a tactical disadvantage in the opposite realm. Citizens of that universe have been known to deassimilate the Borg, however beyond that a common form of acclimation of the deborgified is seemingly not yet known to them. The Mirror Iconian Empire relishes Borg technology and considers Borg capsulation the ultimate prize, Captains under their wing are rewarded greatly for such finds.

Our hope is that we will soon discover how trans-dimensional and dimensional transgenesis migration is possible with the Iconian gateways, and we are developing special probes to help relay to us information to that regard. If there are Borg sleeper agents in our midst then we will find out soon enough how defendable our new prospect is.

STO Fiction Writing #52, Post #6

Literary Challenge #52, Hello again Q.

As you walk onto the bridge, you notice The Chair is occupied... by Q. "Hello, again, Q..."

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=12925681&posted=1#post12925681

Post #6

Q – ‘wa'DIch chavmoH,’ Temporal Invader

            I did not want to report for duty immediately after our immaculate victory. I had rest after the ‘deck party’ on bridge, so much reportage and communiques, kasqs of blood-wine had to be brought up to the bridge repeatedly, and the immediacy of the secondary crew was noted as they performed after the initial officer crew had won all battles, and they had been sworn the honor of this duty shift in sobriety while the officers before them had celebrated in their presence. In truth most of my senior officers were commanding on other house fleet vessels.  I so longed to communicate with family members, yet allies and friends must have had similar thoughts and we reveled as it was our honor to do so.

            This shift, first shift of the following day, no after party of course, which is humor from an earlier time in my career as a KDF officer. First shift would notoriously occur many weeks after certain victories as I recalled in my mind approaching the turbo-lift in my specialized Qu’Daj’Nej’Var battleship. This would be different, although I did spend an hour in communique with loved ones before my required rest period, an hour that was recorded and sent to family members, I only spoke in an ad hoc fashion to verify my survival and safety to my immediate family members and friends that I have closest ties with. Luckily my wife was who I had the directed recording with on a secure channel. I only could wish she was aboard, and yet, how could I, I had not slept for more than a few hours at a time in months. No this shift would be like yesterdays, with less fanfare, more pronounced diplomacy, more criticality, and too many actualized situation reports.

            I would be held accountable as a general for my deeds. First with the Chancellor for a debriefing, the actual most interesting and relieving communique, his office sent an encrypted message after our immaculate victory, however it was merely a hastily recorded proverbial protocol-nothing more. I was not planning to drag the Chancellor out of chambers, and as I was inundated with fleet communication at that time, in these situations I had found I was usually fifth or sixth to be contacted by J’mPoc at ‘First Shift.’ I imagined I would be no less than third on this occasion.

            Be that as it may, many dignitaries, generals, governors, house fleet admirals, chief trade representatives, and so on, you simply could not imagine, would inundate my day in my private quarters on this particular ‘First Shift.’

            “Qu’Qapla – ‘Quue…’” The turbolift door slammed behind me, I don’t know how I recognized the human, every officer in the detail bridge heard my greeting, not one officer so much as drew a blade… The Bridge of the ‘BaQ MonGDecH’ is usually quite vacuous. We Kling do our duty and have not much noise to make upon most occasion.

            “HeH Dech Mong Qu-Qapla.” How intriguing, this particular surprise had unique metaphysical properties that I could immediately attest to. Of course ‘Q’ is supposed to be much smarter than I. I wouldn’t choose to challenge this concept. I had recognized his face from the Federation file, however, we had met previously. “Oh yes, I have not yet returned to Khitomer, you?”

            “H’lija’Quuue…” I was beginning to prepare to use my diplomatic Terran language skills, my mind began reciting my consonant retinue.

            Suddenly I was on a bridge of a ship that must not have been much larger than that of the ‘Qul’DaQ,’ this time my second wife O’Wa’TaQ was on command duty of the House Fleet specialized Kamarag.

            “It’s called a ‘Krynn.’” Q murmered slowly, drawling the consonant thickly in Klingon. He was actually quite a handsome Klingon for a ‘Q.’ I recalled a fantastic novella series I had read as a young cadet, the planet the heroes had saved had the same name as this model of ship.

            “The Eureka moment, Quuue.” Ew isn’t much of a vowel or syllable in Klingon, more of an expression like “Er, um,” or sometimes referent to numbers, such as ‘an’ or one. You can use it to interject when making up unique compound verbs, or not to and explain plainly in painstaking formal or regal form, and sometimes slang. There was so much involved with the socio-dynamic metaphysics of this war that had not yet been addressed. Just in terms of revenge, the mind reeled at that in terms of Klingon philosophy, to say nothing of political science. This had been a very bloody civil war. Again we had made so many new advantageous advances on record making prisoner taking battles. The first few weeks of battle were relatively bloodless, to speak least of all. It was not the first distinction that the Occupation Fleet had made for itself in this regard during this particular war, during the prior against the same foe, it had.

            Suddenly Q and I held blood wine and we were surrounded by the VIP’s I was to contact, and they all held blood-wine, and still aboard this strange Krynn vessel.

            ‘QAPLA!’ All aboard the Krynn vessel had shouted while toasting before it was only an echo in an empty ship’s bridge with one Klingon General MonG-DecH, and one very overdressed Klingon Q.

            “You don’t like my ceremonial uniform? Doesn’t it strike you as opulent and indicative of my position in the Empire?”

            “HeH-Hmm-Qu-…EW….” I replied crudely, not wanting my distaste to outdistance my sensibilities yet not wanting to show any support to the means of this endeavor.

            “Hlja’vlegh Gaardox.” He was yet patient. I decided to sip my blood-wine in rebuttal, slowly. I was yet patient actually. “There is little else to do I suppose. I told you on Khittomer that you needed to consider curbing your imagination. That did not hold much bloodwine with you apparently.”

            “Dalegh.” I had finished the wine and dropped the cup. I walked to ‘Q’ and took his cup, and drank it. He nodded. I finished and dropped that cup and just stood in front of him, in a deaf fashion.

            He was gone in an instant and I was surrounded by Klingons. Klingons with very refined features. Klingons with more than typical physical strength, Klingons who were apparently much more accustomed to being at least slightly more strong than I, and were already quite well seasoned to be as such. There were even Klingon hybrids, Vulcan/Klingon, Romulan/Klingon, frighteningly enough, even Cardasian/Klingon, something I had only seen in images, and of course not a more refined future species. All of this was apparent to me, and like previously they encircled me with blood-wine in hand, aboard this Krynn bridge and I as well. I decided to sip for the entirety, as I could ascertain, judging by the sparse simplicity of their armor, that I was among Klingons of the future. Perhaps they had a better immunity to the effects of this drink.

             “He will torture us as long as there is a universe for him to do so in. We are at your service.” I had never heard a more common form of colloquial Klingon come out of any sentience’s vocal chords.

            “Daj. HA! ‘be “DaJ’Nej-Qot’VoM.”

            “Well indeed interesting, we may name the ship whatever you like for our service to you. For reasons that may seem obvious to you we are indeed at your service.” Again, too polite to sound like an android, yet such perfect guttural infliction, and the inference was correct, or maybe a guess, Gaardox seemed to, or indeed had, ‘caught Vom.’ The fact that they seemed to maintain servitude to him must have been indicative of this yet… Mongdech looked around at the bridge, sipping wine cautiously. He was in the same sector space, possibly the same location, or adjacent, yet no, he more than likely was no longer in the same century. He looked carefully at the group and walked in a circle, they were senior officers, most were of uniform age, near his or slightly younger, or older by no more than a few decades. It slowly dawned on him that that must have less meaning to them as their longevity would have more salience than his own. “We have had limited contact with Klingons from the 25^th century, Lord Mong-Dech.” Now this was disturbing.

            He had been called many things, mostly Mongdech, formal, polite or informal slang depending on your point of view. The beauty of most of the ‘MongDecH’ affectation was that he usually made a universality obvious and completely capable of being intelligible in doing so again, whether it was tactics, intellectual prowess, or esoteric mannerisms that would prove somehow relevant or viable… a crass methodological approach that was usually completely orthodox in its adherence to chaotic experimentation, and his namesake was completely urban in an unrespectable consideration. He was getting somewhat too aged and villainous to make light of such reality, but what these Klingons must know of him now, he could think of it and attempt to at least humor them all.

            “Always a good ice breaker Gaardox,” ‘Q’s’ voice omnipresent voice trailed off.   

            “I have never expected to command a field promotion as LORD.” Gaardox finally said. It was sadly true. He usually had his father’s sword at his side at all times now. He had maintained this war with co-command in House Fleet, Occupation Fleet, and elite alliance members of the Honor Guard who were linked politically to him via the High Council, as well as old friends from the earlier civil wars. Gaardox Mongdech conceded to the fact that at his age fewer had seen either so much civil war or war at all to be plainspoken.

            Laughter, rebellious, unscrupulous and unbridled. It was a trans-dimensional, trans-decadal coronation. MongDech mused with some glorification. These officers likely had wondered why Gaardox would have allowed himself the title, or how he had come to abide as such to such a reality. He had found a curious way to steal it for himself.

            “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Again ‘Q.’ spoke, however, Gaardox could conclude that only he could hear this now.

            “We had followed your history, we are all professors of this field of research, you must assume some generalizations.” An old and particularly seasoned handsome Klingon-who-had-aged-well remarked, his uniform markings indicated he was in command. “We cannot tell you our names. It is not allowed.” The temporal Klingon had remarked.

            “Pagh wejvam.” Now MongDech had named the commanding officer of the ‘Daj’Nej-QoT-Vom,’ things were making a sharp turn now. “We must inhibit Tholian surveillance of most circumstantial battles from this civil war now that it has finally finished. Can you put a holographic astro-metric and holographic chart tactical computer from the 24^th or 25^th century here?”

            All put their mugs or cups (if you will,) down in front of them, some taking sips, and all sprang into action. Monitor stations were Klingoned, discussion ensued on the most proper considerations on such actions. It was quite quixotic and terrifyingly dizzy’ing, indeed MongDech was very in glorified by all of this activity. Before he could find a state of embellishment, the computer console emerged and he began scanning charts, making notations and, as it so happened agreeing or disagreeing with a series of preset notations. He had to assume that some of it was the officers at work and others were already programmed into the computer.

            “In this case how do I tell of the origin of the notation presets…Pagh Wejvam?”

            “You will not be able to.” Gaardox found a way to supersede that theory by using assumptive reasoning and doing a comparative analysis predicating historical analysis design philosophy using current popular philosophical political science analogy from his time, and his analysis of that based on his initial conclusions as a younger officer in the 23^rd century to make his conclusions. Naturally Gaardox had not known that longevity would make such scientific conclusion in his time.

            Gaardox was aboard the USS Pathfinder, somehow this was obvious to him. A younger Captain Picard had spoken to an Admiral on the view screen. They were somewhere in the Romulan Neutral zone, Theta Eridani, he believed.

            Before Picard had spoken he bowed at the Admiral and put his hand on his chin before putting his hand to his side and looking up at the view screen again.

            “No, Admiral, I need to try reasoning with these factions in my own way-“ he went on apparently reasoning his own design philosophy in regards with a diplomacy in the Tau
Dewa between the Klingons and the Romulans, with Federation intent.

            “You see, you see what you are doing? You see what is being done?” ‘Q’ said.

            Now MongDech was again on the ‘Daj’Nej-Qot’Vom’ monitoring the console, his mind set, he formulated the telemetry also using his design philosophy to configure interface with the ship computer. He knew he was no longer in the presence of ‘Q,’ for now. The view screen now showed a tactical Tholian fleet in a monitoring formation, one that would circumvent detection as well as allow for the best sensor linkage monitoring amongst them.

            “Attack now.” As his sense of glory superseded any known expectation or familiarity he had ever known, he watched as what would be at the beginning of an even longer war than the previous civil war that he had just endured. He had barely been aware that the ship board computer’s link up with the older monitor console system had actually been automatically linked up with astro-navigational service. He had only assumed as much and then, his conclusions still catching up to his reality, torpedoes that looked like pulsar radio waves and what looked like a series of purple lightening emitted from the ‘Krynn’ Temporal starship and decimated the Tholians. Gaardox sipped quietly at his blood-wine and made the next serial computations regarding the battle maps and charts, projections, and determinations. Battle after battle had ensued. The Tholians were shrewd to monitor the minor conflicts of this Klingon civil war, but it would serve them no glory.

            Battle after battle, each Tholian fleet seemed more and more futile. The fifty hour mark had passed. Gaardox required rest. He was escorted by ‘Pagh Wejvam,’ to quarters, sparse, yet comfortable. He looked out his window and strangely as light flashed during battles, he would for some moments at a time see in ultra violet or even the gamma ray spectrum as the sentient physical reaction to the divinations of astral combat must somehow correspond. He went to sleep.

            Gaardox woke to the smell of fresh meat and bloodwine. He used the shower to refresh himself. His dreams…his wives showed him much less mercy than usual, it had been extremely gratifying, if not factual, yet…not all would seem to be at complete odds with reality today. He would inquire of his wives of such dream activity when the timing was right. An optimist Gaardox ate everything on the table. He performed his morning calisthenics, and walked to the turbo lift, or whatever movement device it was. MongDech liked the guillaumes he had seen in his quarters, the alloy was not known to him, and the design intricacies  had varied complexity. As he entered the turbo lift he had noticed that the noise of combat had ceased yet the armor plating had covered his quarters now, he was not to notice his whereabouts.

            Looking in the on bridge view-screen he could only assume that they were deep in the gamma quadrant. Then it dawned on Gaardox, telemetry had now rationalized surveillance by the Founders…

            “Section, quadrangle five six two mark nine hundred fifty three million, six hundred thousand….” This was indeed further than the computations of MongDech. Pagh Wejvam took off a wire frame head gear that had little volume or density. “Psychic interlink with the ship board computer…nothing more Lord Gaardox.” Damn, he had forgotten that he was a ‘Lord’ now. “This is the fifth interaction we have had with this faction, their temporal ships are a bit harder to deal with, however, certain temporal holding combat patterns of the Tholians revealed some bi-lateral connectivity with the Borg in this sector, we ARE in the Gamma Sector, we assumed an inner-link by the Founders. We are close to a solution.” Some kind of pulse wave hit the strange vessel that suddenly appeared at least twenty kilometers away, and the ship vanished. “An irregularity, the solution is match, at your station Lord Gaardox MonG-DecH.” Gaardox preceded to do a bilateral equation using a logic to design itself a paradox which would determine which Borg fleet members were now too close to witnessing the said paradox, or had inadvertently done so in relation to the Klingon civil war activity. Yet despite the fact that this was not his quadrant, Gaardox was more at home in his own century. This time the Captain made the command.

            “De-assimilate now, WE ARE KLINGON!” What seemed like centuries would now pass and very often Gaardox would go to his quarters, at sixty hour intervals, and he slept until he could no longer do so. He would often wake up to the most garish and horrific battle fields in space that he had ever witnessed. To break up the monotony the crew would often dine together, and speak of their glory. Gaardox was not certain how he could be alive for so much longer, however he believed that some new technological advancement had slowed his aging process considerably. His memory also was very much improved. He remember everything that had happened on board the ‘Daj’Nej-QoT’VoM,’ although he often found it within himself to entirely forget ‘Q.’ Idle time was usually used creating stasis fields and secret transmissions describing the dangers of Borg, undetectable to Borg, yet somehow universal to all in these sectors. They often moved from one decade to another, yet this enemy was always Borg. Their evaluations of the Tholians and Founders had to be thwarted. Once in a great while they encountered another Temporal vessel, their first was Federation, and they compared notes, they were both on similar missions. Finally they were in Tal Shiar territory discretely removing Borg notification technologies, Gaardox was very excited by this process as they had spent centuries doing so by way of other species’s use of Borg technology.

            The Krynn vessel ‘Daj’Nej-QoT’VoM’ was a mirror-universe temporal ship. In their own universe these Klingons were minions of the Iconian Empire, an Empire that had grown to such power in the galaxy that the Borg were not used to defend it, or assimilate it, this is what had been the undoing of the Iconians in Gaardox’s universe. The Borg were a technological mistake that had gone out of control, so much so that the fading Iconians in Gaardox Mongdech’s universe had to rapidly cover their tracks or no trace of non-Borgified sentience would exist in the Galaxy. Upon finishing the last of the Romulan technological modifications they were forced to submit to a council review of the mirror universe Klingons by the mirror universe Iconians. A humiliating experience, these Klingons were no longer warriors in the eyes of these Iconians, and judging by appearances and behavior these Iconians were nothing like the Iconians from his universe. Yet in a strange way, the complexities of their reasoning indicated an unusual facilitation towards redundancy, one that was integrated into a political rhetoric which was as difficult to follow as it seemed to be unrewarding for the mirror-universe temporal Klingons. This paradox was further sustained by a casual acceptance towards what imminently seemed to be any acclamation of Gaardox’s home dimension. While this was all fascinating, Gaardox MongDech could not configure any meaningful resemblance to this facilitation by the mirror-universe Iconians. Eventually it passed and they again headed into Gaardox’s ‘paradox of simplicity,’ as one mirror-universe Iconian had mentioned.

            Back in his side of things this Temporal crew forged ahead and they finalized towards secretly tweaking shipboard computers of any breach of dimensional astro-physics that may have inadvertently been created by the paradox by the completion of the end of Gaardox’s recent Klingon civil-war. This was going to only take a few decades to complete, yet Gaardox was the least familiar with this kind of enlistment, and the temporal compliance it required. Mongdech exercised, ate, and dreamed much more than he ever had on this part of the temporal mission. His wives were more familiar to him than they had ever been, and the son-of Drex more often present with this dream family and the daughter of Mongdech, which had only happened irregularly before. Although he knew he and his wives wished that La’Tal would take this relationship very seriously, La’Tal seemed to understand the flimsy circumstances of this dream relationship and had simply decided to take it one step at a time. This new integrated consideration of the dream reality made his temporal duties more bearable. Although he always blushed when he looked first at his daughter’s stomach and then her eyes, this was something that he had previously in this dream series had only held for his wives when his daughter was present, they had not been impregnated, he shouldn’t expect his grandchild at this time either. It was sometimes difficult to hold onto realistic consideration during such events. Time would pass.

            Now much later in the view screen was the battleship ‘BaQ-MonG-DecH,’Gaardox, sighed heavily, “Please patch me through to my command structure.” To great surprise to the Empire he took his meeting on bridge of the ‘Daj’Nej-QoT-VoM.’ He had to explain all circumstances, the appearance of a weird blood-wine ritual, a strange futuristic ship, his travels, and his mission, ‘Q,’ he had to tell of ‘Q,’ and his plans, which he had more than enough time to make considerations on. Factually also, although he kept it brief, he by now knew all too well the designations and designs of his command council, no decision was reached lightly. He would spend a year on Qo’Nos with his family and then together they would join Gaardox as he commanded the Krynn vessel, although Gaardox would never use it in a physical temporal sense again, and when it was time for that, as it was agreed by the council meeting, during the ‘First Shift’ a now quite paradoxical and quixotic multi-present, multi-vector meeting, Pagh Wejvam and his crew would leave this time and space and he would take another year with his family until it was time once again for regular space governance, by way of a regular House Fleet deployment, a Fleet of which he was now Lord.