TEST DRIVE MEME #4 - The Arboretum/Ten Forward

[ten_fwd_mods]

Option 01: Aboard the Enterprise, The Arboretum: In exploring the Enterprise, you end up on Deck 17, section 21 alpha: the arboretum. Instantly upon entering you can tell this room is different from all the others. For one thing, you're now standing on grass. It's no illusion, no simulation; it's real grass, leading up to a small pond in the center of the room. All around you grows a variety of plant life, trees and bushes and hanging plants, flowers and herbs and even what one might consider weeds. The arboretum is, for all intents and purposes, a botanic garden, used both recreationally for passengers to relax and enjoy, and scientifically for research and study. After all, the scope of alien plant life is impressive, from the Cyprion cacti down to the Earth variety roses.

The room is well lit and large, with benches to rest on and small walking paths. Children are grouped off in one corner working on botany projects, while some passengers are seen kneeling in the dirt carefully tending to their garden patches. There are even windows along one wall, allowing for a view of space while the room itself gives the illusion of daylight. It's the perfect spot to relax, read a book, or grab a spare spade and dig in the dirt. Or perhaps you've been looking for the right moment to say hello to the passenger standing off by the venus flytraps.





Option 02: Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: Or maybe not. You've just arrived, and you have no idea what just happened. One minute you were somewhere else, and now you're in what looks like a spacious, well-appointed bar. The hum of the crowd is inviting, and the drinks look invigorating. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

Try to find out why you're here, or catch a drink at the bar; there's always something happening here.

Comments

[asklepian]

It makes him sad, okay?

"Why would I do that, I've been in an alternate reality before," he says, without even a hint of jest in his voice, because he had, and it was awful. But this isn't it.

"I'm from this time, and this reality, however. Well. Granted, I'm about eight years in the past from my perspective, but that doesn't make too much difference, all things considered."

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

"You have." Abby stares at him for a bit. This version of Philip seems a lot, well, nicer.

"And you have no desire to kill Rex?" That was the last straw. She'd forgive a lot of things. Second chances and all that. But no one tried to harm the creatures under her care.

So was she really stuck here? At least this time she didn't have to sleep in any trees. "And you were saying you didn't come via an anomaly. You came by a Q." Was that a different name for an anomaly?

[asklepian]

"It was a terrible time all around, but yes." Because he is very nice, thank you, and also not Philip.

At the insinuation that she thought he might kill the little creature she'd been so protective of, Julian looks, well, shocked and appalled. "What? No, of course I don't!" He's a doctor. Granted, he's no great lover of animals, but he's generally in the habit of not taking any sort of life unless it's someone trying to take his, and that little thing doesn't look like it would come anywhere near to hurting him.

"A Q, Q singular, whichever you prefer. He's...complicated to explain, but more or less he's a being that transcends our understanding of time and space--you could say he's omnipotent, he certainly does."

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

"At least we have that in common. I wasn't found of it either." It might have been the sterile earth, the Predators and the toxic fog that did it. And the complete lack of people and animals and insects.

Really, this Julian Bashir seemed like a completely different person than Philip Burton, but just in case, Abby felt she needed to go on. "Let me be clear. Rex is under my protection. He's not familiar with this environment and you will not hurt him. Under any circumstances." Because she was still the one holding the EMD and he wasn't protesting.

But then Bashir mentioned Q. And now she was looking at him like he was completely out of his mind.

[asklepian]

"I'm a doctor, not a dinosaur hunter." But he realizes this situation doesn't necessarily call for sarcasm, and his expression softens. "You have my word, I'm not going to do anything to him."

The only thing he shares with this Burton fellow is a last initial. And apparently a face.

"I know, it sounds utterly mad. He's quite a well-known person to Starfleet officers, however. You may even see him around yourself, he's likely still around here somewhere, watching the chaos."

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

"Well where I'm coming from you were kind of a dinosaur hunter. Or rather, a bureaucrat who thankfully left the dinosaur problems to people who could actually handle them." Clearly she had a high opinion of him. Philip had been brilliant. It was the ego that came along with the brilliance that she had a problem with. And his attitude toward other life forms that weren't his own.

"Thank you.I guess I have to trust you. Even if you don't have any ID." Really, what place didn't have ID? Or pockets?

"Starfleet." Abby repeated. "You have a fleet of space ships and by some gift of the imagination, all you can come up with for a name is 'Starfleet'. Original."

[asklepian]

And yet she's still insisting on 'you'. Julian lets it go for now, it's not important so long as she's not about to shoot him.

"I could ask the computer to identify my current location, as it does track my life-sign and combadge, but I'm not sure that would pass your test. Otherwise, as I said, we use other forms of identification that are harder to forge. Fingerprints, retinal scans, and voice imprints are sufficient for most purposes."

Honestly, it's probably a reaction to the fact that everyone had needed to carry papers from the Eugenics Wars on--bad associations. He'd never really thought about it.

"I wasn't around to be consulted on the name."

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

Well, from her perspective, Julian was Philip, just...different. The same way Claudia Brown was Jenny Miller. The same but not. Abby really wished she could talk to Cutter just one more time, and tell him that she realized he wasn't absolutely nuts. Or having some kind of mental breakdown brought on by stress.

"Voiceprints, retinal scans and fingerprints are easy to forge." The amount of times she'd seen Connor or Jess hack into a place as easy as pie, well, she trusted DNA.

"DNA didn't lie. People do." Abby replied.

Rex made more chittering sounds from the tree, and suddenly took off, having a grand old time dive bombing them and retreating to the tree.

[asklepian]

"In some cases, I agree." Julian had been replaced by a Changeling impostor for five weeks, after all, with none the wiser. None of the usual security measures had even given it pause. "But DNA is considered too invasive of privacy--then there's the fact that not all of the species within the Federation are carbon-based."

Julian leans back against the tree, looking up into it's branches as Rex swoops down, buzzing his head. He simply laughs, not at all annoyed, it seems, with his antics.

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

"Alright, fine. Until otherwise decided, you are Doctor Julian Bashir." Abby just didn't like Philip Burton, and this Bashir looked too much like him for comfort.Philip was the type of man who had decided to kill all the creatures the ARC had been caring for, having been left behind and out of their time. What would that say about them? About the ARC and humans in general? That we kill anything that doesn't directly help us? Anything even remotely inconvenient? It just wasn't right. That day, Philip had earned Abby's wrath.

Abby really didn't believe him...up until he laughed as Rex skimmed the top of his head. Philip Burton would have never laughed. At least not at that.

"You really are....nice." Abby glanced up at Rex, flying up and down, climbing trees before swooping again. "Look at you, enjoying yourself. You have more room here than my apartment and it's much better furnished than your space at the ARC isn't it?" She laughed at the little creature.

[asklepian]

"Glad we've settled that account," Julian says good-naturedly. It's much better to be mistaken for another person than a Dominion spy, and as long as Abby isn't about to attack him, he's content to let it lie.

Julian wouldn't harm anyone or anything, unless provoked. If he had to, he was very capable of being a soldier as well as a doctor--undeniably he preferred the latter, but sometimes there was no choice. Right now, though, that was the farthest thing from his mind.

"We could recreate his natural environment in the holodeck, for a while at least. Let him really stretch his...well, I suppose they aren't technically wings, are they? More of a glide..."

[kidnaps_dinosaurs]

"Holodeck?" Abby looked at him blankly, as if something didn't quite translate.

She reached up to scratch at Rex's chin, wiggling her fingers a little when he was within reach. "No, not wings, not precisely. He doesn't flap like a bird. Like you said, it's a gliding motion."

Abby put the EMD down by her feet, taking a quick and careful look at her new 'friend' before turning her attention to Rex once more.

[asklepian]

Julian makes no indication that he's going to go for it--though he did note that she put it down, which is a relief.

"Right, it's...well, what we use for entertainment, quite a lot. It's a room that uses holographic technology--hard light and force fields, matter replicators and such working in concert to recreate settings and characters. We could recreate a Cretaceous-era forest easily enough. It's an illusion, albeit rather a convincing one."