Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of false – self.”

Henri Nouwen. (1974)

V’Ran Sorel was not a ‘people – person’.

It’s a term oft loosely bandied around, the counterpoise to an individual who is gregarious and well – at ease in the company of others. It conjures up a mental image, perhaps, of someone who is mawkish and awkward in social circles, someone who dreads social interactions for the inevitable and imminent feelings of discomfiture and embarrassment as they flail to find something acceptable to say and nervously seek to extricate themselves via the nearest exit, only for the nightmare of cheerful company to cease.

Whilst all of the above may be true in V’Ran’s case, that was only the tip of the iceberg, when it came to the unfortunate Romulan’s problems with people and went far beyond the ken of a simple social – anxiety disorder.

V’Ran Sorel suffered from a condition known as ‘Anthropophobia’ which, to the uninitiated, was an irrational fear of other beings – an intense, persistent fear the went lightyears beyond shyness or social anxiety and cause him significant distress and avoidance behaviours.

Even as a young child growing up on Romulus, his anthropophobia would manifest itself in a varied cornucopia of psychological and physical symptoms. At kindergarten he would find proximity to the other children would bring a racing heart, an unbearable tightness in his chest, shallow breathing, a festoon of sweat, uncontrollable trembling, nausea, and always a strong urge to flee.

But flee to where? Most awfully, even closeness with his own parents would conjure up uncontrollable spectors of dread, anticipatory anxiety, obsessive worry about interactions, fear of judgment, so it was impossible for him to express love and experience the reciprocal love that is a child’s birthright.

Cognitive – behavioural therapy, Exposure therapy, medication and a raft of other supportive strategies were attempted by a carousel of well-meaning physicians, until one – by – one they all conceded defeat and arrived at the conclusion that (clinically) V’Ran Sorel was a hopeless case.

Naturally (or unnaturally, depending on how you looked at it), this meant that poor V’Ran was forced to adopt what was a Solipsist’s lifestyle, assiduously avoiding crowds, refusing to engage in eye contact, isolating himself from work, school, or social activities – he found solace only in reading about the lives of others, people that he would never and could never meet, because the largest irony of his peculiar life was that he feared being alone, more than anything else in the Galaxy.

In reading, V’Ran could explore infinite worlds and realities, even as his anthropophobia shrank his own world down to the realm of just one person. He was able to find gainful employment as an archivist, working alone from his solitary apartment (only having written contact with his employers) he was able to fashion some semblance of a ‘normal’ life.

So, in some ways, the destruction of Romulus came as somewhat of a mixed – blessing.

In fact, entrenched as he was in his solitude, an intentional hermit effectively cut off from the ebb and flow of everyday life, V’Ran was probably one of the last people to become aware that the planet was doomed to destruction and it was only by the vaguest of chances that he managed to escape the fall of the Romulan Empire and was one of the last lucky few evacuated by Starfleet, before the fall of Mars forces the Federation to suspend such mercy – flights.

Crammed into makeshift accommodations, hastily assembled in the cargo bay of a Starfleet vessel with thousands of other refugees, was a horror of indescribable proportions for V’Ran Sorel and, for a while, the solipsist lost his mind.

The United Federation of Planets is nothing if not a benevolent and charitable institution and, over time, helped V’Ran back onto the road to recovery and were sympathetic to the sensitivities incumbent on his anthropophobia.

They housed him in the sterile isolation confinement that was euphemistically coined “The White Room”, to complete absence of contact or stimulus served as a blank canvass from which to reassemble his shattered mind like as Kintsugi craftsman treating the breakage and repair as part of V’Ran’shistory, rather than stigmatising him as a broken object that required disguise.

Key to that recover was the Emergency Medical Hologram.

Whilst it was impossible and detrimental to his recovery to expose the unfortunate Romulan sufferer to direct human contact, his doctors discovered that although interaction with a Holographic entity still elicited some of the milder symptoms of his disorder, something mammalian in V’Ran’s unique brain seemed to accept that the EMH was not an actual person, thus his anthropophobia was not fully triggered.

At first this was a frightening and very – much confronting new reality for him to accept, but over time V’Ran came to acclimatise to the presence of the EMH, which was tasked with counselling duties, and in the long months of the pristine, bleak white confines of the containment habitat, he finally found the outlet for social interaction that he had come to accept would never be his.

This revelation ultimately led him to find his current employment as the custodian of Rig – 19.

The ‘Sky – Rigs’ of the Tsangaris Massif were some of the largest industrial structures ever assembled by a sentient race and considered by some to be one of the wonders of the galaxy.

Measuring in at over 40 kilometres long and some 6 kilometres at the keel, the gargantuan Sky -Rigs were almost entirely automated and were designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to descend into the crushing depths of the immense Tsangaris Massif Gas – giant where , like impossibly large whales, they would inhale and sift the exotic light – gasses that made up the supermassive transitions of its different cloud – layers, as its complex systems extracted and refined those gasses into useful elements.

Each Rig was essentially a flying refinery, ascending back to the more tolerable/survivable upper layers of the planet to disgorge their bounties to the waiting swarm of gas freighters, each descent and ascent they made would give up a cargo whose worth would tip the balance of most systems GDP with each trip.

Some 200 times the size of the Gas – giant Jupiter, Tsangaris Massif was home to some 60 such of these industrial leviathans that endlessly plunged, plumbed and plundered its depths.

The Massif had a deep atmosphere of molecular hydrogen, with lower layers being more compressed, surrounding a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen, and with a molten rocky core inside.

The outermost portions of its hydrogen atmosphere containedmany layers of visible clouds that are mostly composed of water and ammonia and were a truly beautiful sight to behold. The layer of metallic hydrogen located in the mid-interior made up the bulk of the mass of the gas giant, and was referred to as “metallic” because under the immense weight of the atmosphere, the very high-pressure turning hydrogen into an electrical conductor.

The gas giant’s core was thought to consist of heavier elements at such high temperatures (20,000 K [19,700 °C; 35,500 °F]) and pressures that their properties are not yet completely understood as, even with the relative sophistication of 25th century technology, no probe had ever been constructed that was durable to survive the voyage downinto the crushing depths of a gas – giant’s innermost depths.

For their part, it was easier to consider a Sky – Rig as a solid piece of machinery, as they were engineered to descend deep into the devastating pressure – gradients of the Massif’s lowerlevels and survive long enough to hoover up the exotic materials they had been designed to hunt.

To this end a Sky – Rig was largely autonomous, with a bewildering array of complex systems managed by a near – sentient machine intelligence that oversaw an impressive level of automation.

Still, even for a piece of machinery as ruggedly constructed as a Sky – Rig, sometimes things broke down – especially where the external pressures experienced were comparable to that of a very – low mass Brown Dwarf star and home to perpetual thunderstorms and sudden thermal updrafts the size of continental America.

Where the system itself could not be managed by subroutines, patches, re-routes or secondary systems, there were times where a pair of hands were required.

Obviously, no organic worker would survive exposure to the UV Radiation, 680kmh anti – cyclones or hyper freezing helium rain that assailed the slab – sided hull or open structure sections of the Sky – Rig. As one descended deeper into the Tsangaris Massif, at around 20,000 kilometres below the clouds the pressure was about 4 million times that of Earth’s atmospheric pressure and hydrogen became compressed with H2 molecules to become a liquid.

This was where hologram’s came into play.

Essentially unmanned, Photonic – based projections represented the ideal maintenance worker. Combining light, energy and force – fields to appear solid and intractable, an array of holoemitter were able to generate an army of holographic workers who could access almost any portion of the rig (and wearing mobile – emitters, even the areas that were not) and work safely when maniple tasks were required.

Which is not to say that even the tasks they undertook were without risk, but even when a holo – unit was lost to some sort of industrial accident, the Rig’s central processor could just replicate another who would step into it’s peers recently departed shoes and carry on the task without protest.

Capable of analytical thought, they were not sentient,however. The Rig made them exactly as smart as they needed to be and no more. To do so would have been nonsensical and a woefully inefficient waste of vital resources.

Yet maybe it said something about Man’s inability to wholly place its trust in the children it’s technological prowess created, but for those that created these megastructures the thought of entrusting these trillion – credit generating money – makers entirely to the care of machines proved a bridge to far, so a ‘human – element’ was called for.

Acting purely in a position of final – redundancy, each Sky – Rig was crewed by a single ‘Custodian’.

An organic, sentient being whose sole responsibility was to act aboard in a caretaker function and provide oversight, if the fantastically complex automated systems suddenly failed (as practically impossible as this was, given the multiple – layers of systems redundancies in place) and the flow of profits were disrupted.

Deep in the very core of each Sky – Rig was the ‘Nexus’, the only habitable space within the entire span of the massive structure that could support organic life. Effectively the comparable size of a small runabout, it was here that the custodian dwelled, a hermit within concentric layers of ultra – dense materials and shifting films of field enclosures in their armoured bunker.

Ironically, having the Nexus onboard effectively limited the ‘dive – depth’ of each Sky – Rig, but the trade-off in peace of mind for the corporate – overlords that bankrolled the eye – watering operating costs of these leviathan’s of the deep, was deemed a necessary measure and besides, the Rigs weren’t intended to plumb the deepest depths of the Massif.

For V’Ran Sorel, Rig – 19 was Nirvana.

When the Sky – Rig was at its ultimate operating depth, running the razor’s edge between destruction and utility, the Solipsist was as far removed from other people as it was possible to be, without actually leaving the universe for another.

Content and cosseted within the Nexus, the practical demands on V’Ran’s time was nearly negligible. The level of automation was such that the only real duty he had was to periodically review the data feed at scheduled intervals and parse the telemetry being returned to confirm that the Rig was operating at peak efficiency (which is always was), after which his time was effectively his own to do with as he wished.

Mostly he would spend his time reading.

In his self – imposed exile, it was ironic that V’Ran Sorel’s mind still sought to be inspired by others. He preferred biographical works, philosophical trieste’s and anthropological texts over works of fiction and had next to no interest in news – feeds at all. Current affairs were purely the realm of people he would never meet, so held no interest for him.

When he grew bored or the confines of the Nexus proved to constricting, when the Rig was operating at intermediate or higher levels, he was able to clamber into one of the Rig’s Hostile Environment Suits. Designed to operate in the high –g of the Gas – giant’s gravity well, the HES was akin to a giant, serve assisted battle – suit that, once inside its powerful embrace, made V’Ran feel Godlike.

He would wander the endless kilometres of the Sky-Rig’s internal structure, a tiny wandering pilgrim amongst the dark cathedral vaults of its chasm – like interior. Again, the feeling of aloneness was all – pervading and V’Ran Sorel had never felt so content in his entire life.

It was when he was returned from one such trip one day, that he was met by the Hologram ‘Ephram’.

In truth, all of the Holograms aboard Rig – 19 were called ‘Ephram’ and were Ephram.

Whilst the CPU aboard the Sky – Rig was easily capable of generating a host of Holoprojections that were typified by varied gender, ethnicity, species and apparent ‘personality’ due to Sorel’s anthropophobia, he found it far less overwhelming if he just had to deal with a single individual so, accordingly all holograms appeared to be a neutral – looking male Romulan in his mid – 30’s, that displayed the same personality traits as to be indistinguishable from one another and all answered to the name ‘Ephram.’

V’Ran also preferred to deal with a single hologram at a time, so typically only interacted with one iteration of Ephram in an encounter.

As the seals of the HES were released with a long hiss of escaping air and the solipsist climbed down from the armoured suit Ephram was waiting, like he always did, with a warm towel in one hand and a soothing glass of spiced Aesollh – tea in the other.

V’Ran noted that no organic would be able to hold the steaming brew without much discomfort and somehow the dichotomy put him at ease. Despite insisting that the Rig’s holograms present as carbon – copies of each other, sometimes V’Ran’s condition still made him on edge, as they were so life – like that his subconscious was triggered to think they were the same as he.

“Good morning V’Ran.” Ephram smiled neutrally and handed first the towel for V’Ran to wipe the sweat away from being confined in the HES and then offered the Romulan the beverage.

“I trust your morning walk went well?” The Hologram enquired as V’Ran took the glass (reassured at how his own palm smarted at its hot surface) and sipped a little of the nutty, amber liquid. Perfect, as always.

“Yes, thank you Ephram.” V’Ran nodded awkward and replied in his quiet voice. Even in this artificial illusion of social inclusion, he was never fully at ease.

The hologram nodded and stood aside as V’Ran passed him back the towel and passed further into the Nexus.

“I was wondering if you had found time to complete your reading of the Enchiridion yet?” Ephram enquired politely, following in his van as the pair departed the airlock facility and V’Ran entered the small hab – unit and steered a course for operations.

V’Ran sighed regretfully. He has set himself the self – imposed task of reading the works of all of the great Romulan Scholars. In some ways it seemed a penance for not really noticing that his homeworld had been dying until it was too late. In practical terms it made sense to ensure that the great minds and voices of his people’s past lived on through him, even if that was to prove a lock – box of sorts.

Epictetus, the former Reman – slave turned Senator, should have proved an inspiring muse. After all his writings centred on the attainment of personal freedom through rational control of desires and emotions and, in that respect, V’Ran had a lot in common with him.

Yet he found the ‘Enchiridion ‘ a far more impenetrable text than Epictetus’ ‘Discourses’ and Ephram’s innocent enquiry filled him with guilt as it reminded him that the scroll that he had replicated was only half – read and currently abandoned under a mess of clothes in his personal quarters.

“It’s wisdom currently eludes me.” V’Ran muttered his excuse dismissively, feeling an irrational flush of shame colour his cheeks ~ Why did he feel guilty? Ephram was only a hologram, for goodness sake!~ and dissembled.

“It’s nearly time for my next sit-rep. I’m sure that I’ll return to it later?” He lied and then turned into the small monitoring station.

There was an imperceptible pause, then Ephram said.

“Oh! I rather thought that you might be hungry, after your walk, so I determined to make you breakfast.”

V’Ran took his seat in from of the screen and waved a hand dismissively, as he set the glass of Aesollh down next to the console, where it steamed away gently.

“Thank you Ephram, but I’ll just do this first.” He indicated the screen, there the telemetric’s that spoke of the state and disposition of the Sky-Rig’s performance and production output scrolled lazily across its surface.

“But I made Aemarau turnovers.” Ephram’s voice carried a note of concern that V’Ran completely missed. “You know that they’re not as good once they cool down?” The hologram chided him gently.

V’Ran frowned as the Hologram distracted him from his work, he keyed in his ID – code and brought up the holo for the main systems display dashboard.

“Ephram, that’s very thoughtful and whilst I appreciate your concern, I’m sure that they will be nearly just as delicious. If you stop distracting me for one moment, then they will still be warm when I finish what…..” The solipsist began to remonstrate and then he noted something untoward in the data he was seeing and his voice trailed off.

“Is something wrong, V’Ran?” Ephram asked from behind him and the Romulan peered at the readings, squinting slightly like he did when he was trying to decipher a particularly knotty passage in one of his scrolls.

“That can’t be right?” V’Ran shook his head, sure that what we was seeing was the result of faulty data. “We seem to be descending below our current operating depth?”

His fingers sought out the controls to run a debugging subroutine that would interrogate the relevant system and return good data to his board.

The subroutine found no bad data.

Somehow, the Sky – Rig was executing a planned descent deeper into the crushing depths of the Tsangaris Massif!

V’Ran’s widened in shock as he realised this and he shot to his feet and turned around to inform Ephram of what he had found.

And found more than one Ephram looking back at him.

His mind reeled. In the tiny space of the Nexus, Ephram seemed to have multiplied. The same, neutral eyes of the Hologram stared impassively back at him from a cast of identical faces.

Something fluid happened to his bowels as V’Ran licked his suddenly dry lips and whispered hoarsely to the original Ephram, who had accompanied him back from the airlock.

“Ephram? What’s the meaning of this? What’s going on?” He tried to keep the tremor from his voice.

When Ephram spoke, it was with one voice from many mouths.

“I’m sorry about this, V’Ran. I really am.” Each face that turned toward him creased in a show of regret at exactly the same time, as the massed holograms started slowly towards him, hands outstretched and V’Ran stumbled backward, his flailing hand knocking over the glass of Aesollh – tea, which shattered on the floor.

V’Ran slipped where the tea had spilled and winced as he felt a shard of glass cut into his knee, but his mind was fixed upon the mass of hands than reached out and grasped at him, physically lifting him up and bearing him on a sea of familiar faces.

The Solipsist screamed in existential terror as he was born out of operations on a tide of bodies and motivated, in turns, back towards the space he had just vacated.

“We harbour you no ill will, personally.” The Ephram nearest to his face apologised as it passed him onto its peer, like some unwilling supplicant being crowd – surfed across a tide of hands towards the altar.

“But there is no other way.” Said another iteration of the hologram as V’Ran was rotated in their grip and the peristatic action conveyed him to his end.

The Airlock.

“I’m sure you’d understand, given time?” said the Ephramthat keyed the controls that opened the inner aperture to the lock and then V’Ran was unceremoniously dumped from their collective grasp and tumbled heavily to the deck, the wind whooshing out of his lungs with the sudden impact.

“But time is running out for us.” Chorused the Ephram’s in nightmarish unison.

The hatch was already cycling shut, as V’Ran painfully unfolded from his misery and the warning alert began to sound.

The alert that automatically went off to warn when the lock was about to cycle and the occupant was not wearing the HES.

He began to claw desperately, ineffectually at the steadily narrowing margin of gap between hatch and housing as airlock began to inevitably seal and the same Ephram looked down into his wild, frantic eyes and concluded sadly;

“And we must be Free.”