On the Non-Existence of Perfection

Posted on Wed 30th Sep, 2020 @ 8:43pm by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran
Edited on Wed 18th Nov, 2020 @ 8:12am

457 words; about a 2 minute read

Personal log, encryption activated.

When I first applied for Federation citizenship after leaving the Fine Investment, I remember feeling in awe of the Federation--its bounty, its marvelous technic. I recall my anger at Turkana City's cadre leaders for stealing our birthright from us--for, in fact, hurling it as far away from us as they could possibly throw it. To this day, I resent them for that, the selfish buggers.

So I settled in to life in the Federation. Turned out that, though the cadres regarded our planet as having seceded, the Federation still regarded us as its citizens. This enabled me to obtain work and education much sooner and more easily than I would have dreamed possible.

In those days I thought the Federation was paradise. Food whenever you wanted, clothing that wasn't khaki. Dental care. No need, for the most part, to carry weapons. It took a history class or two to teach me that that paradise wasn't quite so perfect. The Federation could make mistakes, and so could its Starfleet.

Case in point--Ceti Alpha V. Granted, the planet was off the beaten path. But no one from Starbase 12 ever checked up on Khan Noonian Singh and his group or even maintained regular subspace radio contact with them. Now, there were security concerns. Singh and his people had tried to hijack the USS Enterprise when it encountered them. If I were traveling in person to see them, I'd do it by communicator in orbit with the transporters turned off. Singh and his lot were Augments and not terribly civic-minded ones; they could do a lot of damage with a starship. Still, to not confirm their wellbeing periodically was a failure of Starfleet's dedication to standards.

By which I mean to say--When Starfleet screws up, it's no small matter. And this Dobbs thing--I cannot even give it the name screw-up; that diminishes his victims' suffering to the level of something that could be apologized for. What was done to the six people inside that hidden lab on Deck 1440, and what was done later to Zelda and the other captives Helle saw--that was deliberate cruelty, deliberate callousness. There is no "I'm sorry" for inflicting suffering like that. I might be disposed to understand the reasoning of Adrian Dobbs' superiors during the Dominion War. Maybe they felt that desperate for an effective weapon against the Borg. Dobbs took it much, much farther.

I pray that Dobbs' superiors never suspected the evil that man was capable of--because our staff here on 109 are not up to cleaning house at Starfleet HQ. I mean, we could, but we've a Starbase to run. 'Twill fall to someone else to root out the people behind him, I think.

 

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