Voice Transcript, 9 March, 2294

AVL: I don’t know about ages, but too long for sure. I know we don’t have much time to socialize, but, I must ask: how are you doing? When I heard the news about Jim…

CNU: It’s… still a shock. I keep expecting to hear it was all a mistake, that he cheated death one last time, but… but I talked to Chekhov. He told me what he saw, and I believe him. No one could have survived a hull breach like that. But… some part of me still can’t accept it.

AVL: I know. I only met the man once, but even that was enough to convince me that he was… well. He died a hero.

CNU: <a long sigh> Oh, it was better than that, Ambassador. He died on the Enterprise.

AVL: Well said, Nyota. Well said.

AVL: <sigh> Alright. Let’s do this. Enter!

SRS: Ambassador LaGrange, good morning! I’m eager to get started.

AVL: Yes, good morning Delegate Sarn. My apologies for the last-minute reschedule. Some things came up on our end.

SRS: It is nothing to worry about. Tychovians consider patience to be one of our prime virtues, and I am a very, very patient man.

CNU: I see! And, how highly do you place humility, as a virtue?

SRS: <a short laugh> Humility? We barely have a word for it, Ms…?

CNU: Captain, actually.

AVL: Sarn, this is Captain Uhura, of Starfleet.

SRS: Starfleet! Yes, I’ve heard so very much about you, fantastic organization, wonderful history. I actually spent the extra two days you gave me in San Francisco, in the Academy library, reading up on your exploits. Such adventures!

CNU: We have our moments.

SRS: Yes, and I’m very excited for our people to join you on those adventures. My son, in fact, is already talking about applying to the Academy—once our current negotiations are finalized, of course—he’s been wearing nothing but red since I told him what I was being sent to Earth to do. Perhaps you’ll be calling him “Captain” one day… Captain.

AVL: Well, Sarn, that’s… what we’re all here to discuss, isn’t it?

SRS: <a long pause> Victor. Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach?

CNU: Could it be guilt, Delegate Sarn?

SRS: Conceivably, though I have no idea what I might be guilty of, in this context.

AVL: Then let me enlighten you. You lied to us, Sarn. Your government in general, and you in particular.

SRS: You’ll have to explain this to me, Ambassador. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

AVL: I’m talking about your so-called “client worlds,” Sarn. You assured us that their entry into the Tychovian Prosperity Sphere was voluntary and legal.

SRS: And it was, it is. In every single instance.

CNU: Delegate Sarn, I served for decades as the communications officer aboard a starship. I’m a linguist by training. Any reasonable definition of “voluntary” would include “free of coercion.” Which is more than I can say for every… single… instance… in which your government incorporated a client world into your Prosperity Sphere.

SRS: What a… strange fantasy you’ve concocted, Captain Uhura. Please, explain just what the hell you’re talking about?

CNU: In the recording you provided us, the Kain-Shee Mother-of-All uses the future tense, when she says she hopes her children, by which she means the Kain-Shee people, will grow strong and secure under the Prosperity Sphere’s benevolent auspices. Will grow strong, Delegate Sarn.

SRS: So she did, Captain, but I don’t need to take your word for it, I was there when she said it!

CNU: Forgive me, Delegate Sarn, but no, you weren’t. Or rather, yes, you were there when the Kain-Shee signed the treaty to become a client world, but you weren’t there when she said that, because she never did. She never would have.

SRS: And how would you know that?

CNU: Because… the Kain-Shee spoken language does not have a past, or future, tense. Their writing does—in fact, they do not have a present tense, because to them, writing is someone from the past speaking to their future. But when they speak aloud, even when referring to the past and future, they only use the present tense, because the speech itself is happening in the present moment. Therefore… the Kain-Shee Mother-of-All would have been speaking utter nonsense in her own language, if she said that she hopes that her children will grow strong.

SRS: Just how in the—

CNU: I told you. I’m a linguist.

AVL: You doctored the footage, didn’t you Sarn? Put words in her mouth, then passed them onto us.

SRS: We merely lightly-edited the recordings, for clarity and brevity—

AVL: The stipulations of this agreement insist that all records and document you provide to the Federation be unaltered and uncensored in any way. At the very least, you had a responsibility to disclose this “light edit.” Except, we know that’s not what it was at all.

CNU: Once I noticed that discrepancy, I went looking for others. I contacted the communications officer on the USS Endeavor, the ship conducting a technical survey of your orbital installations, to see how compatible they might be with ours? I had him scan the communications shell of Golanna VI, one of your other client worlds. You know what he found? A whole other comms shell, site-to-site radio signals bounced off the planet’s ionosphere, like the old CB radios here on Earth. The kind of thing a starship scanning subspace would never find, unless they went looking for it… the kind of thing that’s perfect for an unlicensed, underground communications network.

The people of Golanna VI are not very happy as your clients, Delegate Sarn… and based on some of the things the people are talking about, over this ghost radio? I can understand why.

SRS: Criminals and malcontents! That’s all! You can’t please all of the people all of the time, surely even a utopia like the Federation knows that! Surely you have your own troublemakers who assume only the worst in your intentions!

AVL: Sure. But we don’t cut them off from communicating with one another just because we find it… embarrassing. That’s exactly what you did, Sarn. That’s why they have to use primitive radio, just to talk to one another… because you control the subspace communicators on Golanna VI. Just like you control the replicators that make the food and clothing. Just like you control the transporters and surface-to-orbit spaceships. Just as you control the climate modulation satellites. You brought all that technology to Golanna VI, and then you threatened to take it all away if the Golannians didn’t crank their mining operations up to meet your demands… didn’t submit every adolescent to your cartel security forces… didn’t cut their local government down until it was small enough for you to keep it in your own pocket.

AVL: But it could have been worse… at least the Golannians really did reach out to your first. They’d had warp travel for four whole years before you absorbed them into the Prosperity Sphere. There are others that weren’t so lucky… isn’t that right, Sarn?

SRS: … what do you want me to say, Ambassador? We saw civilizations struggling in the mire of self-inflicted climate change, standing on the brink of atomic war, barely managing to fight off pandemics and genetic plagues, and we saved them. We offered them better lives. We offered them futures.

AVL: That’s debatable. Everything you just listed, my own world dealt with. Each one nearly destroyed us… but we survived each one, and we learned from them, and those experiences made humanity the people we are today. Every member race of the Federation has lived through its own dark history, and come out the other side. Hell, the Vulcans nearly destroyed themselves a hundred times over, but now they’re one of the most peaceful, enlightened peoples in the galaxy. Those peoples that you say you saved? I call it something else. I say you crippled them. You didn’t offer them a future… you stole it from them. All so that you could exploit their resources and their populations, for your own gain.

SRS: …so that’s it, then? You’d throw away our two peoples’ future together, over a quarrel of ethics?

AVL: I’m sorry, Delegate Sarn… but I cannot, in good conscience, recommend to the Federation Council that we move forward with the Tychovian Prosperity Sphere’s entry into the United Federation of Planets. Not as matters stand, not at the present moment.

SRS: I suppose… I’ll have to tell my son he won’t be attending Starfleet Academy after all.

CNU: I can tell you from experience, Delegate Sarn? The very first thing they drill into you when you arrive, and the last thing they tell you before you graduate, is to respect what we call the Prime Directive. I’m sure your son is a bright and determined young man… but I suspect he’d have a little trouble understanding why that’s important.

SRS: You know what I think, Captain? Ambassador? I think you people are hypocrites. I had a lot of time to read while I was in San Francisco, and I decided to study the history of that great city. I know about the figures, the companies, who made it their home. Brutal, amoral, arrogant, and oh yes, duplicitous and deceptive and manipulative, and you know what? They won. They ruled your world. If it hadn’t been for the Eugenics Wars and the Atomic Horror… your people might be a lot more like mine than you care to admit. You hide behind your ethics, your laws, but I think I know the truth… you don’t like being reminded of who you used to be. And you’re scared that if you let us into this little paradise you’ve created for yourselves, we’ll “corrupt” it. You’re scared that, given a chance between this hollow utopia, and true prosperity, your citizens will choose our way over yours. You’re jealous. You’re weak. You’re fools.

AVL: Maybe. But we’re principled fools, and I suppose we’ll just have to live with that.

SRS: Principles can’t buy peace, Ambassador. I see no reason for this discussion to continue.

<footsteps, followed by a pause>

SRS: I told you, Victor… for my people, patience is a virtue. When the time is right… we’ll be seeing you again. Count on it.