収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

well, I didn’t see this coming

but I guess I can no longer say I’ve never written any Star Trek fic. Popped out yesterday.

Lower Decks era. Series 4. Look up the stardate, it slots right in to continuity. You can place it to within five minutes of on-screen events.

[AO3 version]

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An Interview with an Historian On the Eve of Federation
by solarbird

Ferenginar – Stardate 58901.5

[Television Announcer] “…remind our viewers to stay tuned after this special news programme for the hit drama Pog & Dar: Cop Landlords, brought to you by delicious Slug-O-Cola. Remember: It Happens To Everyone Who Drinks It!”

[Interviewer] “And welcome back to our final segment with author and historian Tak, whose new book The Opportunities of Federation is out this week and available wherever finer publications are sold. Professor – you had a story you wanted to tell?”

[Tak] “Yes, very much so,” the Ferengi xenohistorian said, putting his bottle of soda on the table, logo forward towards the camera. “Thank you. Where was I? Ah, of course.”

“I was young,” he continued, “when I first learned about how the Vulcans found the Earthers. How they stayed around to ‘help’ the Hew-mans, how that would go on to produce Federation politics as we know them in our part of the galaxy, which in turn have led up to the events of today. I’m sure you suffered through some of those same courses in school.”

[Interviewer] [chuckles amiably] “Yes, I did.”

[Tak] “We all know they weren’t just staying around to help the Earthers – the Hew-mons, specifically. Oh, no. Vulcans talk a good game about logic ruling everything, and maybe they really do mean it more than they don’t, but there’s no pretending there weren’t two sides to that bargain. They were helping themselves at least as much as they were helping the Earthers.”

[Interviewer] “And yet, not for profit. They requested little in return.”

[Tak] “Yes, but at the same time, no! It was very much for their own profit – if you think in long enough terms. Consider who were they dealing with when this first contact event happened. Who was it? People like the Andorians, and the Tellarites.

[Interviewer] “Very undisciplined, unreasonable species. No proper sense for business.”

[Tak] “Exactly! And certainly, they’re all friends now, but back then? Vulcans were always on the brink of war with people not even rational enough to understand civilisation-making achievements like the Rules of Acquisition! Oh, sure, they had some codes and some laws, but a lot of it – a lot of it – was just plain violence, and I don’t mean the profitable kind either.”

“So then they stumble across these Earthers, these Hew-mons, and they’re in a bad situation, and they’re pretty emotional when it comes right down to it – but compared to the species they’ve been dealing with, they’re practically Vulcan already! So they take a good hard look and realise that with a little ‘help,’ a little ‘aid,’ a little ‘guidance,’ they could build a whole planet of smart, inventive pets who’d stand by them every single time.”

[Interviewer] “You have to admit, it worked out for them.”

[Tak] “Oh, it did! It absolutely did! It’s the smartest investment they ever made!”

“But for a while, the more I studied Earth, the more jealous I got, because the more I looked into Hew-mon history, they more I realised how much more they were actually like us than like Vulcans.”

[Interviewer] “The Hew-mons? The ones from Earth who don’t even have money?”

[Tak] “Yes, yes, the ones from Earth, the ones without money! I know it seems impossible, but it’s true! The deals they made with each other, in their pre-contact era – astounding! They would sell each other things they didn’t own, things that didn’t exist, ideas and concepts of things that didn’t exist – and their modes of currency, well, those were genuinely advanced! They had it all – corporations and private police and landlords and NFTs and monopolists and – if you can imagine it, they tried it. If we’d found them first… I felt sure it would’ve been magnificent. They loved profit, and had a truly unrelenting – and cutthroat – instinct for the deal.”

“But, of course – that was the problem.”

[Interviewer] “How is any of that a problem? They sound like perfect competitors – and perfect partners.”

[Tak] “It took me a while to figure it out. They had that cutthroat instinct all right – but a little too much. Or maybe a lot too much.”

The historian leaned forward in his chair.

“We went through many, many ways of trying to organise our need – our fundamental drive – for profit. From the very beginnings of civilisation, with the Concordance of Money, through the Designation of Legitimacy in Negotiation, the Declarations of Valid Ownership, and the Limits on Externalised Costs all the way up to the summit, the great Rules of Acquisition, we made better and better systems. Systems that led to our prosperity and our deliciously profitable way of life.”

He took a conspicuous sip from his Slug-o-Cola, smiled, and placed it back down, again logo forward, before leaning back into his chair.

“Yes, we made some missteps along the way. It took contact with other species to figure that out. But every time, we learned.”

[Interviewer] “And the Hew-mans, they didn’t do that?”

[Tak] “No, they did, the Earthers did that too, just like us. They have a whole history of documents like ours, though obviously ours are more advanced at every stage, particularly when it comes to profit.”

[Interviewer] “Of course.”

[Tak] “So I hope that you can see why I was so frustrated. It looked so much like they were on their way to being just like us. ‘If only we’d found them before the Vulcans!’ I thought.”

“But then, as I studied more and more, I figured it out. I figured out why their steps were always one behind ours, and always flawed in subtle but critical ways. It’s so simple, but so hard for us to understand.”

“You see – we are all, always, Ferengi. We might think of each other badly, we might hate each other, we might feud, we might even fight or kill each other in our more primitive and less-productive moments, but we always know who each other are. We are Ferengi.”

“But they don’t have that. Or they didn’t. They had – and may still have – a rare and horrible ability to decide that others of their own kind are not their own kind. That other Hew-mons are not actually Hew-mons.”

[Interviewer] “Wait – what? Literally?”

[Tak] “Yes.”

[Interviewer] “That’s insane.”

[Tak] “It is! And it’s not a pretence! It’s not even some kind of negotiating tactic! They can truly believe it – and all too easily. And once they decide that other Hew-mons are not Hew-mons, then they become just… resources, to be used up, and thrown away.”

[Interviewer, visibly confused] I can’t even imagine that.

[Tak] “That’s because you, like me, are Ferengi! I’m not going to say we can’t do it at all, but even if we can, it’s not the same. It doesn’t stick. They, by contrast – they did it all the time. They did it effortlessly.”

[Interviewer] “Oh my customers and cash flow!”

[Tak] “Indeed! I don’t think even the Vulcans knew what they had on their hands. Certainly not at first, because who could? The amount the Hew-mans would waste because of it, the lost acquisitions and productivity, the pointless destruction and horrible bleakness of so much of their history – it’s truly appalling. If you think the Klingons are savage, you should see what the Hew-mans used to do to each other. Who would imagine such a wretched species could make it into space at all? But they did it. By the tips of their teeth, perhaps – but they did it.”

[Interviewer] “Astounding. And yet, here we are, considering joining the Federation they co-founded.”

[Tak] “Yes. And that’s why I’m here talking about it, and why I think we need to join. We need to help make sure they stay the way they are – reasonable if not particularly astute traders who offer plenty of good business opportunities – and not go back to the way they were. Essentially, we need an in on the Vulcans’ deal.”

[Interviewer] “I see.”

[Tak] “It took me a long time to learn, but eventually, I came to understand that sure, while the Vulcans were indeed helping themselves at least as much as they were helping the Earthers… if they’d been found by anyone else – anyone else at all, even us… well…”

“Let’s just say the Vulcans accidentally did all of us a really, really big favour. And that I am no longer jealous.”

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.