Lieutenant Soren gave herself one last look in the mirror of her quarters, adjusting the d’ja pagh that hung from her right ear. With a nod of satisfaction, the Bajoran straightened herself upright and turned toward the door of her new quarters that she’d been assigned only a day earlier. Given the gargantuan nature of the station, it wasn’t all that surprising to the woman that she’d been assigned her own room without the need to share it with another officer, what had come as a surprise to her was the size. Even on her last starbase, the room she’d been allocated had been almost half the size, and felt luxurious to her even at those dimensions. The thought of having twice that much real estate devoted to her felt just shy of excessive, as she had a feeling she would struggle to fill the space she’d been given with anything but artifacts she hoped to be apart of uncovering during her tour in and around the station.

As she stepped out into the corridor just beyond her door, the size of the station was put on display yet again. What she could only call cavernous walkways stretched out to either side of her, the gently curving walls looking almost perfectly straight to her as she turned toward a cluster of turbolift shafts that resided not more than a minute’s walk from where she would reside for the foreseeable future. Despite the walkway she traversed being somewhat busy, at no point did she have to move over to one side of the corridor or another, the distance between all comers extensive enough to prevent such a shuffling from occurring. 

Once she was safely inside one of the dozens of turbolifts, and her destination set, Liara allowed her mind to drift to the future. Having served on a starbase before, the actual exercise of living on a fixed platform wasn’t anything novel or strange to her. If anything, if she ignored the sheer volume of the station itself, it wasn’t any different from being on Starbase 74. What she was more interested in was the facilities that the station had to offer. While SB 74 was by no means antiquated in terms of facilities, it also wasn’t on what could be considered the bleeding edge of things either. The fact that her new home was far more receptive to being upgraded thanks to the module system that had been incorporated around the facility’s main trunk, it was entirely possible for the station to receive with some regularity, rapid upgrades to spaces that would otherwise take months or even years to renovate on a more conventional station.

Her musing carried her all the way to her final destination, Sector Hotel-Turquoise, and stepping out into the module that likely housed her new place of work. The thought of diving straight into research activities flitted through her mind momentarily before the pragmatist voice in her head warned her that such a selfish move on her part would likely not go down well. A smirk tugged at the corners of her lips as she silently surrendered to the sensible path of reporting in first, and delving into research once the mundane formalities were firmly behind her.

While the station was different in a great many regards, the general layout of science facilities tended to follow a general scheme, making it easy to find the office that housed the resident Chief of Science. The woman had, in a burst of pragmatism the day prior, made an appointment to visit the Captain she’d be reporting to somewhat vicariously through others in practice, so her arrival should be routine rather than unexpected and tense. At least, that was the hope as Lt. Soren crossed the threshold separating the corridor from the interior of the small reception area.

The doors to Captain Holmgren’s office parted, signaling the arrival of the Chief Science Officer himself.  The compartment was nearly as spacious as the main living area in Soren’s quarters, although they appeared far more lived-in.  One entire curved bulkhead was obscured by a gallery of holograms, recording snapshots of Holmgren with his family.  On his desk, a couple of archaeological finds and a model of an Olympic-class starship was visible.  

However, Soren was only granted a quick peek into this space.  Holmgren quickly filled the doorway as he sauntered into the reception area.  The doors closed behind him as he approached Soren at a quickstep. 

“Lieutenant Soren, you’re here,” Holmgren said excitedly.  He grinned at her as if they were old friends and he swept a hand back the way Soren had come.  “That means we can go!”

“Oh…” Liara half-squeaked the word out in confusion before finding herself getting pulled along with the man’s momentum, “Where are we going?”

Striding ahead of Soren, Holmgren charged into the corridor.  He shrugged helplessly.  Without looking back over his shoulder, he echoed her words in a lilt of absolute bafflement.

“Where are we going?  Where are we going?” Holmgren asked.  Only when he reached the nearest turbolift and tapped at the call button did he turn to meet Soren’s eyeline.  “We’re off to the Colloquium, of course.  I can’t stand to sit in an office knowing the future of Starfleet exploration is waiting just below my feet.”

“Oh! I read about that when I first came aboard,” Liara remarked excitedly, “I was tempted to visit some of the exhibitions, but I knew if I did I wouldn’t make it for our appointment.” The Bajoran paused for a moment before sucking in a bit of air as her eyes widened, “Do you think I could exhibit some of my findings from our last dig on Tarsus II?! I didn’t get a chance to finish the paper I was writing on their unique pre-industrial metallurgical development of composite metals before they developed blast furnace technologies, this would be the perfect venue for that!” 

Holmgren’s lips pursed and his eyes went for a bit of a wander.  He studied the overhead meticulously in that way Humans often did when they were searching for the right words.  The turbolift arrived before he found the words and the doors parted for them.  Holmgren led the way in and he requested a destination on the promenade.

“Your exhibition might need a bit of a twist,” Holmgren suggested.  “The theme for this year’s colloquium is the future of exploration.  Each exhibit is envisioning what exploration will look like a century from now.  Were there any new excavation techniques you trialed on Tarsus two?”

Soren frowned as she considered the question, “No… most of it was done using the tried and true method of shoveling by hand.” The Bajoran folded her arms and dropped her head a bit as she chewed on the new information. She’d been more focused on the exhibitions she’d read about rather than their actual intent, as was generally her modus operandi went encountering anything that triggered her curiosity. She started thumbing through her mental Rolodex, looking for anything that might fit the bill as the turbolift hummed, filling the otherwise silent cabin.

“Wait…” Soren muttered before looking back up, “We were experimenting with using wide area holographic projectors as a method to recreate sites as we were excavating them. We’d put together an algorithm that could predict general layouts and design quirks as we were scanning in artifacts. That might be something I could showcase…”

Nodding enthusiastically, Holmgren said, “Yes, that has promise.  I’ll put you in touch with my contact at the Starfleet Bureau of Information.  The colloquium will be here for weeks; we still have openings for seminars later in the schedule.”

As he finished speaking, the turbolift halted its vertical movement.  The double doors parted, once the turbolift cab deposited them on the promenade.  At this curve of the wide open passageway, small groupings of people were passing by.  There weren’t large masses of people to wade through, and it wasn’t so loud that they would need to raise their voices to continue their conversation.

As Liara walked alongside her new department head, she scanned the area they were traversing. As with many stations, most of the corridors looked eerily similar to all the rest, making it a daunting task to truly get one’s bearings. The Bajoran couldn’t help but muse to herself that she’d made the right choice not trying to get lost in the festivities before reporting in.

“What was the catalyst for this event? I was so busy focusing on my transfer here that I didn’t catch even a whisper of it on my trip from Starbase 74. Just from looking at the documentation, I can tell it was a very well put together event but I couldn’t find any information on which entity spearheaded the efforts. Was it one of the Federation’s academic institutions or was this something done in coordination with an outside organization of some sort?”

Holmgren waived a hand faintly at holographic signage outside one of the promenade’s converted storefronts.  The sign proudly identified the exhibit as being sponsored by the Corgal Research Center and it also made reference to the event’s organizers.

“The colloquium is curated by the Starfleet Bureau of Information,” Holmgren said in answer to Soren’s question.  “That makes it one part recruitment effort, one part diplomacy, and reminder to all our science officers that there is life and research to be had outside of Starfleet.”

Liara nodded, “That’s a pretty ambitious set of goals. I’m excited to see what this event has in store.” The Bajoran began to scan the area looking for anything that might catch her fancy. It didn’t take more than a few moments before she laid eyes on a display and her curiosity took over, urging her forward and into the flow of onlookers.