Taes’s personal log:

I thought she wanted me to be her perfect patient.

She knows me. She would have to. The Archivist is me… to a point.

I could be her perfect patient: proof that her graveyard fleet has value. Merit. As she explained the fleet to me, she used the same sort of metaphors I might use in a negotiation. “Witnessed acknowledgement.” “Pre-innoculation against psychological failures.” “Pressure valve for an institution carrying unprecedented catastrophe.”

It still sounded like the Kobayashi Maru to me. Put a captain on a bridge of a museum ship to recreate a battle that wounded them.

That defined them.

I learned it was more than going through the motions of a simulated battle, and it wasn’t about leadership in the face of certain death. The Archivist wanted visiting captains to feel the weight of their failure, to accept it. Offer a space for them to confess without any official record or consequences. Offer them a chance to breathe.

In her own quiet time, she told me that when she lost the Sarek over Farpoint, she absorbed the fear of her entire crew. She believed that empathy cascade clouded her mind, impaired her decision-making.

I told her I never lost a battle like that.

I didn’t tell her about the battle I won. A battle over the Vaadwaur homeworld. The Vaadwaur surrendered, but at too high a price. The fleet needed to be in consensus and I was the final vote. I couldn’t– I wouldn’t be the naysayer who ordered retreat. So I agreed.

I agreed.

We threatened to atomise the Vaadwaur homeworld if they didn’t withdraw their attacks on the Federation.

If I was capable of agreeing to that, it was clear I couldn’t be trusted. We didn’t– I didn’t follow through on the threat, but I was capable of committing to it. I put it into words and I set my mind to it. I don’t say something I won’t do. I came to terms with the act, as if I’d already done it.

Empathy cascade or not, my decision-making was undermined by something sick within me.

I couldn’t be trusted with a squadron, with a ship, out on the edge where the variables are innumerable.

I couldn’t be trusted with myself.