How hot the blood runs in human veins beneath these moons, though the kiss of the cool oceans breath may work to soothe. Perhaps it is fitting? The women and men of Earth have long viewed their own dear Luna as the wind that gives flight to their madness. To what alien Lunacy might they fall beneath stranger moons and constellations than they have yet known?
And yet they deny themselves even amid this celebration of deference to the moon's sway. In leisure they speak of duty yet undone. In freedom they bind themselves to the codes they leave behind.
The human mind is a puzzle I have sought to unravel for some time, and yet with every new piece I find, the picture so obscured seems to shift. My suppositions falter, and what shapes I felt so certain of fall beneath a fresh veil that refuses to abate, but merely evolves to an unfamiliar shade of mystery. It is as if I am forced to look at their world through a window of stained glass erected by their own hand.
But humanity is far from alone in their obfuscating endeavors. Perhaps it is merely the nature of donning the uniform? Expectation leading to the suppression of those proclivities seen or perceived as abbberant, regardless or in spite of whatever truth can be called empirical? A self molding to a form more in keeping with their place in the machination they have built themselves a place within?
Or is the uniform merely an inevitability to those who crave uniformity? Could it be that through this bolstering of personal identity their selves are not diminished or suppressed, but only then fully realized?
I have stared into the eyes of many codified officers who have bound themselves to codified dress and codified behavior. They have stared back with the same codified eyed I've come to know so well. In each I can see the glimmer of something unique, something beyond the creatures of duty that surrender their names to answer to Captain. But perhaps those embers of their truest selves are not being stifled by the lattice of code and regulation, but kindled by it?
I fear the rum has taken hold of my pen as it is so wont to do on these breezy Risian evenings, yet the thought is not so easily shaken.
I suppose then it is my duty to slake my curiosities until I've laid bare the truth.
I fear that, perhaps, I am not presenting myself in public as well as I could. But my damnable sense of propriety prevents me from using a Universal Translator in my business dealings, and so I find myself stumbling through the intricacies of the human tongues like a child lost in a field of tall grains. If I were more prone to conspiracy I might suspect the humans crafted their speech simply to confound their starbound neighbors, but in my experience most children of Earth are quite accommodating of my phonetic faculties.
The exception is perhaps the captain that spurned my advances on Risa. Far be it for me to prove so petty as to let a simple rejection sew the seeds of malice, but that the man is so intent on letting his own efforts go to waste on some so utterly unreceptive. Why, when I've made my intentions known, would he spurn me simply to waste his breath on a woman disinterested to the point of discomfort? I hesitate to ascribe such an act to something as disdainful as speceism...
Although, he did call me a cat...
Bah. Perish the thought. It pales before my experience with the other Romulan woman. I knew them to be temperamental; indeed, that is usually half the fun. And yet she stormed off without me having done more than offering my company. Her Vulcan companion attempted to explain it to me, but I fear I still find the situation baffling. Perhaps my understanding of Federation cultures is not so complete as I had let myself believe.
Or perhaps insinuating that Eridanus Transport consumed children was in poor taste.
Would I but trade all the seas for a friendly port? Forsake seafoam and sodden plank for a life ashore? Should I stare out at the ships as they pass and imagine myself upon them once more, astride the deck like a reckless God freed to find mine own creation?
It's a shame the Klingons insist on drinking their bloodwine by the litre. In small doses it makes such a marvelous muse. But it isn't helping me to solve my conundrum, merely restate it in a more artistic mode.
Perhaps prose is more proper. Should the rumor mill be correct The Starlight Cantina, premier social venue of Deep Space Thirteen, will be up for lease within the next few Earth-weeks. The Cantina has been a source of endless amusement for me, not to mention the site of a fair few of my more recent conquests, but what would be the cost of such a purchase?
A fair bit of latinum I imagine, but the cantina seems to have no shortage of customers. Much steeper would be the more esoteric costs, I believe. The loss of the freedom the Bastet affords me, the surrender of the rough and tumble life of running freight. And for what, a quiet life aboard a Federation Starbase, catering to Federation officers? I do enjoy my time amongst the Federation's finest, but would I tire of them I wonder? Would the silence of a quiet life indeed become deafening?
Or am I imbuing life among the stars with a romance beyond its measure? My time amongst the cosmos is punctuated by moments of the purest adventure and great feats of daring, but far more often I sit in my chair reviewing manifests as Bastet putters from Drozana to Deep Space Nine. Perhaps I would find a more constant fulfillment catering to the enterprising officers of the Galactic Federation of Planets.
...Then again, I could just buy the bar and keep my ship too.
Oh how long it has been! I have forsaken you, my best and dearest counsel, for sunsets and seasons! Forgive me, dear diary, for your stagnant state, and for the days you've spent stewing on my stale thoughts while their taste grows sour on your tongue!
But no more. I am back, the Sii'Yasha you knew cast in the light of strange stars. Sii'Yasha the freighter captain. Sii'Yasha the bar owner. Sii'Yasha the diplomat, the explorer, the preserver of life! Oh diary, I could spend a thousand and one nights recounting my tales, and the tales I've been told by my intrepid patrons since I've found for myself a proper port.
And yet all I can think of is the tale I've yet to write, the path ahead untrodden but promising danger and daring and intrigue unknown. A beast stalks the stars, a predator of strange stripes. It cares not for our words, nor for our lives, or so it seems. But mere beasts do not devise machines to sail the stars, and within all things there is reason. It is not the beast I am to hunt but the truth of its name and its nature, a quarry which may well prove more elusive.
I owe you much more than this, dear diary, and deserve far less than your ear and your patience for my neglect. And yet you so graciously provide that which I need before I even know what it is I truly seek.
To what a sorry state has turnt
My homely port in madn’ing gyre,
By reckless hearts and minds so burnt
With careless words and phaser fire?
I had hoped my troubles would seem less severe in verse, but alas, here I remain, humble steward on a wayward voyage. Had I known the tumult that called this station home I might have opted to remain aboard Bastet. The life of a freight hauler may be of a rough and tumble sort but I know the faces of its devil's. A pirate flies their colors, a raider carries their cry, and the tides of the galaxy have their familiar flows to those that watch the ripples of cast stones.
Perhaps that's all this is, icy whiskers in the face of the unfamiliar. And the sight of a Starfleet officer with phaser drawn must to me ring unfamiliar. Have I thus far been merely sheltered? Ignorant, perhaps, of the harsher side of Starfleet that my migrants life had spared me? No, there is a strain, a thread of the unusual run wire-taught through the heart of this place. Can it be, perhaps, that my eyes are not the only pair gazing upon something unfamiliar, trying to discern the greater shape of the Eldritch tangle lurking beneath the surface of this tension?
I dare not pluck at this string myself, for its note must surely ring sour, but from the ripples I may spot the cast stone yet sinking. ‘Til then may I bear the wisdom to see the poetry within the prose; I've patrons to tend yet, my flock ever faithful, reciting their daily tribulations and adulations and obfuscations as I provide libation.
"War, huh, yeah,
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing"
- Barret Strong / Norman Whitfield
Rare as it may be that I find such fitting words in the Federation's chosen tongue I must admit that these present a succinct, if inelegant, summation of my thoughts. Though given the subject matter perhaps that itself is a sort of fitting poetic elegance? To speak of war in its own prosaic vernacular lays bare the clumsy brutality at the heart of any conflict, or perhaps at the heart of conflict itself.
Of course it would be naïve to imply that conflict bears any intrinsic morality, either good or ill. Like all endeavours conflict is shaped by those who see fit to bring it about. Perhaps like Bajor a people is subjected to the ill will of a malevolent conqueror, and must through conflict liberate themselves? Or perhaps like the Klingons they merely see something in conflict that escapes my eye, and thus indulge themselves at every opportunity in that which they so admire?
No, my wariness, and indeed my weariness as well, stems from the evidently inescapable impulse in times of conflict to give in to the self preserving drive of our ancient tribalism, close the gates, and rally 'round the bonfire in spite of the common enemy poised against us all. All of the high minded rhetoric of peace and cooperation becomes moot if our compassion and generosity evaporate in the face of adversity.
Bastet has been diverted from Ferenginar by Federation traffic control, and will be returning to Sh’Vara with her holds full and her coffers empty. And I will be returning with a heavy heart, not knowing the state of those I would call friend in the face of this latest onslaught. The Federation traffic diversion amounts to a blockade, cutting off worlds like Cardassia and Ferenginar from supplies that must be sorely needed.
How is it that we may espouse unity whilst isolating ourselves?
DS-13
October
Stardate 96765.5 “Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
- Hamlet, Act V
I had thought myself safe from bloodshed in this time of ostensible peace. Yes, the pirates and brigands of our starry seas may never cease, but without the spectre of war looming over the Federation this should be a time for growth, for quiet contemplation, for exploration and betterment.
And yet my bar is rowdy and blood-soaked as a Q’onos drinking hall!
And though I hesitate to ascribe a sole cause to such events, I have found myself penning memorandum more frequently since the arrival of our Dominion allies. Certainly there were less invisible intruders behind my countertop before the arrival of the Jem’Hadar, but are they truly to blame? Could they be merely convenient scapegoats? I am loathe to admit that I may be allowing prejudice to color my opinion. Not because of the war, per se, nor simply the disquiet they have caused me, but… ah, how to put it delicately?
I fancy myself an explorer of culture, traveling through the history and myth of worlds beyond my own. I have immersed myself in the musings of the Bajoran Vedeks and the philosophies of Surak, delighted in the war poetry of Q’onos and the epics of Homer. And yet in the Dominion the only philosophy I see is subservience to their gods. Their warriors are no poets, their battles are not recounted with song and drink.
What life is there in hollow victory? What stories do they fight to preserve? The answers elude me, dripping like bloodwine through cupped hands. But I aim to find them all the same, if there are answers yet to find. Surely their culture must have more depth than servitude and supplication.