New Beginnings

[physicalstimuli]

Saval doesn't really know which part of this new assignment is more unsettling. There's the fact that he knows he's been chosen for it due to his lack of seniority among the doctors in his unit, none of whom wanted it, and then there's the fact that he's going to be spending the next several months as pretty much the only Vulcan on a starship, and

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[elizabethdehner]

Elizabeth had come to the Enterprise after the Romulan event. They hadn't put any unnecessary personnel on the ships at the time of the distress from Vulcan and so her trip had been delayed. Looking back, she was actually happy she missed all of that as her place in a starship was rather useless in a crisis since no one has time to sit down and talk about their feelings when they're fighting for their lives and the lives of the people on Earth.

So, she ended up there afterwards and has been aboard the past few months now. Granted, once the crew realized her place on the ship was not to be an additional nurse, then they started to stay clear of her. She was actually a psychologist with her Ph.D and doing a study on the affects of long term space exploration on humans. She had tried, as of recently to expand that knowledge to more than simply humans, but it was slow to start as everyone stayed far from her, which made observation difficult.

However, she was off duty right this moment and she was planning on eating well. As she entered the mess hall, she examined the surroundings, noting the wary looks she receives from some of the crew and then her attention is drawn to the one person who is clearly misplaced. She'd heard about a new crewman coming aboard from New Vulcan as a sort of medical ambassador. The medical team--which she was a part of--was told to watch for him and be kind. They wanted to maintain a good impression.

So, she replicated a plate of chicken, cranberry and walnut spinach salad and headed straight for him with a smile on her face, because even if people didn't like her, Elizabeth was always cheerful.

"May I join you? Seems a lot of seats are taken," she smiled to him, bright blue eyes and red hair making her stand out even more against her blue uniform.

[physicalstimuli]

Saval has always been an extroverted sort of person, capable of endearing himself to people in social situations--at least, among Vulcans, where he knows the rules. Even then, it's a superficial sort of charm, good for making friendly acquaintances, not actual friends. Here, among humans, all of the rules of polite and civilized society have gone entirely out the window, and he doesn't even know how to be superficially charming anymore. Even in the sickbay, his new human colleagues come across like a pack of wild animals. Loud, raucous, laughing, pushing, groping, swearing animals. At least they do him the courtesy of trying to tone it down when they see him watching, but it doesn't make them seem very much less uncouth.

The woman currently standing over him hasn't done anything overtly offensive yet, though, even if her wide smile is unnecessary and rather confusing--what is she even smiling about? He hasn't given her any reason to be that ostentatiously happy. He hasn't even said anything. At least she's being polite enough to ask if she can join him, and there's no reason why he should refuse. He nods at the empty chair. "You may," he says.

There are a few things that remain constant between human social norms and Vulcan ones, and innocuous ice-breaking small talk is something Saval knows how to do, and recognizes when it would be polite. It wouldn't be rude to sit here and eat in silence were this woman a fellow Vulcan, but he's quickly noticed that humans seem to dislike silences, and they always seem to want to introduce themselves to people. As the Terran saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans.

"What is your position on this ship?" he asks.

[elizabethdehner]

Oh! He's polite. How darling. She isn't sure what to expect from him, exactly as her interactions with Vulcans has always been rather brief. Spock isn't the same as the rest of him, given his stronger understanding of Human norms, but that's no reason to assume that this one doesn't at least get part of it. The problem really is her ability to ramble on about seemingly nothing in a way that makes even her fellow humans uncomfortable. And that's on her, not them.

"I'm psychologist, specializing in research and human behavior," she answer, a bite of her salad on her fork, but she can wait. "And you're the new medical ambassador?"

Elizabeth, even with her quirks and insecurities and... well, more troubling quirks she prefers not to disclose, is capable of putting most patients at ease, however, he is not a patient and his psyche doesn't work the same. That is not stopping her from acting just as she would otherwise. She finds no use in hiding her feelings or personality. It doesn't do her any good in the end.

[physicalstimuli]

The mention of her profession doesn't provoke the same wariness that it might from a human. Psychology is just another branch of medicine, after all; the mind needs as much maintenance and treatment as the body does, if not more. Human psychology and Vulcan psychology must be very different, but that's just one more reason why it doesn't occur to Saval to be wary. Someone accustomed to studying the workings of the human mind has no reason to be discomfortingly insightful about a Vulcan's thoughts.

"I am, yes," he says. "I am Dr. Saval." It doesn't occur to him that this probably seems impolitely brusque to a human; it's polite by Vulcan standards. He's discreetly looking for a rank signifier on her clothing, though if she's a psychologist, it's probably most proper to address her as 'Doctor' as well. "And your name is?"

[elizabethdehner]

Well, his introduction doesn't bother her. She doesn't know exactly what one would expect from meeting someone new in their culture, but she assumes that he knows at least somewhat what he's doing. So far he's done nothing to seem offensive, but she doesn't doubt that the Vulcan mentality won't kick in sooner or later. She knows how they can be.

"Dr. Elizabeth Dehner," she smiles as she says, less excited as she had when she first arrived, but smiles no less. The signifier, should he know his Starfleet uniforms indicates she's a lieutenant, however most refer to her as 'Doctor' or not at all.

"It's very nice to meet you. We're glad to have new faces among the crew," especially ones that don't wince and look for an exit when she mentions who she is and what she does. "How did you get selected for this position?" she asks, wondering if it was by choice or appointment.

[physicalstimuli]

If she's introducing herself as 'Doctor,' that's what he'll call her. Vulcans are huge on titles and the etiquette surrounding them; it would strike Saval as terribly disrespectful not to have some kind of title to append to someone's name, unless he knew them very well, or unless they were so low in the social hierarchy as not to have one at all. He and T'Zad have been engaged for months now and they're still 'Dr. T'Zad' and 'Dr. Saval' to each other. He's not entirely sure that won't continue for a while even after they're married. Their engagement has all been rather rushed and strange.

"You as well," he says, when she tells him it's nice to meet him. She does seem more pleasant than a fair number of the others he's met so far. He's considering her a medical colleague too, in a general sense of the term.

The answer to her question is one he has to consider for a moment, figuring how to phrase it so that it sounds less unflattering. "There was a call for volunteers. After some discussion among my colleagues in the fourth New Shi'Kahr medical unit, it was decided that I was the most suitable candidate for a research and teaching opportunity." Translation: nobody else wanted anything to do with this ridiculous idea, because they would all rather be practicing actual medicine on actual Vulcans, but someone had to go and I was the youngest and had the least clout, so here I am. The comparatively luxurious quarters and facilities on the Enterprise hadn't been enough of a draw for Saval's coworkers--well, except Dr. Sylek, but nobody wanted Sylek serving as any kind of ambassador. They all tried not to have much to do with him.

"I am not yet certain what my responsibilities will be, as a temporary member of your crew. As part of my function as an ambassador is to learn, I expect that I will be spending time with most of the medical professionals here in order to gather what information I can. Are you the senior psychologist here, or do you have a superior I will likely be interacting with?" She does seem awfully young, but then again, so does the navigator. Who knows.

[elizabethdehner]

"I know a lot about research and teaching opportunities," she smiles at him, almost mischievous and playful, "I was previous off planet in a facility of limited people doing what they called 'research'. It wasn't so much research as it was sitting around and waiting for them to give me something real to do. I ended up there because I drew the short straw. I was right out of school and barely finishing my internship and... well, it lead me here, so I suppose all is well." And thanks again motormouth Elizabeth. You've yet again given information no one asked you for.

"I'm not sure you would call me 'senior' but seeing as I'm the only one doing what I'm doing, then, well, I'm it. I'm well versed in the needs of the crew's mental state and I'll be not only observing them but offering suggestions if tensions seem high or there's a sudden onset of cabin fever, but aside from requested therapy sessions, I'm assigned to research. I'm sure I make the crew feel like lab rats," she laughed, though it is mirthless this time.

[physicalstimuli]

That smile baffles him, because it seems different from the kind of smiles he usually sees on humans, and it's different from what she was doing before, but he doesn't know what that means. It makes him slightly suspicious, though he's trying to give all these people the benefit of the doubt. Why are they always smiling? Are they making fun of him?

That seems incongruous with how polite she's otherwise being, though, and it would be really counterproductive anyway, so he'll just chalk it up to things he doesn't understand about humans yet and let it go for now. It's not important.

Saval could sympathize with her getting stuck with an unwanted assignment because she drew the short straw--he doesn't know what that means, but he can infer from context--if he were willing to admit that that's what happened to him too, but he'd rather not. He just listens, his face impassive as ever. "Without research, there would be no innovation. Your crewmates should not object to participating." Vulcan hypocrisy at its finest, because Saval wouldn't agree to be the subject of any psychological research himself, but somehow that disconnect doesn't really occur to him. Vulcans can have blind spots that way.

[elizabethdehner]

"Should and would are two different things. They don't like being poked and prodded and observed because it's 'invasive' even if I'm only watching. It's for their own good and anyone in the future of space travel," she explains. He already knows all of this, she's sure. He may even understand more of it than she does, though he seems rather uninterested in prolonged discussion but that may be more efficient to answer briskly.

She takes a bite of her salad and then another, glancing up at him a few times as she lets the silence sit between them. She couldn't help but observe a little, wondering what goes on in a Vulcan's mind at a quiet meal. Maybe nothing. Or perhaps they constantly train themselves to keep from idle thoughts. She wouldn't know since her specialty was humans and always would be.

"Will I have the opportunity to work with you?" she asks finally, "I'm hoping to be able to make this as easy a transition for you as possible."

Maybe it's intuition of a psychologist or maybe it's that 'something else' that she has that allows her to see a fish out of water even when they wear such an impassive mask. She knows that this isn't easy for him and regardless of the trained Vulcan logic and calm, no one can have the destruction of their home go without notice. He's been thrown into a world he doesn't know, forced to share information that the Vulcans never wished to share. It's going to be jarring for him one way or another and she hopes to make that transition easy on him, though her usual friendliness may be less than welcome.

[physicalstimuli]

Nothing strikes Saval as odd about the silence. Vulcans aren't opposed to small talk, but neither do they see it as awkward or rude for two people to sit in silence when they had been talking. He's going over what she's said, wondering if she has a great deal of work to do as the only psychologist on the ship, and what exactly research into human psychology entails, and who takes care of the mental health of the small minority of non-human crew members. His thoughts are orderly, relevant to the conversation at hand, not drifting off into odd tangents.

Her question makes him arch an eyebrow. "Do you mean to work with me as a colleague, or as a patient?" He can't quite deduce which one she means. He'd mentioned learning from her in a more research-oriented capacity, but he's not sure how she would plan to ease his transition, if not through some kind of counseling. But then, if her field is specifically human psychology, she's not qualified to work with a Vulcan anyway, so she must logically mean the former...

[elizabethdehner]

Logically. But this is Elizabeth we're talking about here. She isn't always aiming for logical and she certainly isn't going to back down from a challenge, even if that means she's going to put herself into a position where she may not know much, but she's not afraid to ask for help either.

"As a colleague, yes," she replies, "I thought since you are teaching and learning we might be able to get something from each other for those means. So if that helps your work, I hope to help you. I'm certainly not qualified to be a psychologist for Vulcans, but not for lack of trying. I'm offering to help in any way I can if you'd like. You only have to let me know how I can."

[physicalstimuli]

That had started out sounding perfectly acceptable, and Saval would have been all for it, because that is, after all, why he's here. He'd share what little he knows about Vulcan psychology, or at least, what aspects of it aren't private and off-limits to outsiders, and she can explain how weird human brains work, and voila, information exchange.

But then she's talking about trying to be a psychologist for Vulcans, and Saval arches an eyebrow slightly, not appreciating the sound of that. He doesn't need the services of a psychologist, let alone one who isn't even his own species. At least she's not pushing him, but even the offer is insulting. This woman's known him for all of two minutes, and she's suggesting he needs counseling. From a human. Saval knows nothing about human psychology, but he imagines it involves a lot of talking about feelings, what with them being pretty much entirely composed of those.

Well. He supposes that's how she can help. "You can help by explaining to me the fundamentals of your field. Human psychology must be very different from Vulcan psychology, as our minds work in vastly different ways, and I understand little about the human thought process." Such as it is.

[elizabethdehner]

She nearly winces. There's a flash of something but it's so muffled and gone so fast she hardly has time to analyze. It doesn't help that these kinds of 'flashes' have been happening more frequently and each time they pull her attention almost entirely from what she's doing, should it be work or conversation. Liz glances down at the table, blinking a few times and then pulls herself together, not taking more than a couple seconds to deal with that mentally and return to the conversation.

She doesn't presume to know anything about the Vulcan mind. Given their secrecy, how could she? She is required to study her field with some interest in other life forms and their psychological needs should a situation arise, but of all the life forms on this ship, the Vulcan mind is the most mysterious to her field. She knows next to nothing about it aside from some anatomical differences and what that says about their functions. She also understands their use of logic, even if she feels--something they wouldn't understand--that there's something to be said for intuition.

"That is a very deep well," she replies, "Humans are a psychological mystery in and of themselves. We thrive on emotion, are often pleasure and thrill seekers, unpredictable and fragile. And selfish. We are indulgent and biased. We suffer for our personalities and we make frequent mistakes in social situations, relationships and the like."

She's not exactly talking them up, now is she?

"But we're compassionate, empathetic, giving, trusting and loyal. It's the mistakes we make that make us learn. We need first hand information to feel satisfied with answers, unwilling to let go of a hypothesis without seeing the results ourselves, even if they are potentially harmful. We crave companionship in most cases. It's what I love about us as a species. We are never satisfied and that is what pushes us forward," she takes a moment to pause, think over all that. Those are the things that had lead her to wanting to be in psychology. The needs of the individual mind and how it effects those around it.

"To better answer your question, I study all of those reactions, make data files and map it all out to find the averages in us and better understand why we make decisions like we do and what fuels us. My field is to better understand human behavior and this particular post I've taken up is to find out how that human behavior can be assisted for space travel," she explains.

[physicalstimuli]

Saval's eyebrow is on the verge of disappearing into his bangs as she talks. How very strange this conversation is. Vulcans are known for their honesty--said to be incapable of lying, though Saval knows firsthand that that isn't true--and they have a tendency to mistrust people from cultures that aren't known for that quality, and yet Dr. Dehner is being blunter and more candid about her people than any Vulcan would ever be. Saval has no idea what to make of the assessment she's giving him. Doesn't she want to represent her people well? The things she's saying about humans are things everyone thinks about them anyway, but doesn't she know how to keep those thoughts to herself and spin the rest of it to present a positive front for outsiders? It seems almost...disloyal, what she's saying. No wonder humans are so disorganized and chaotic. There's no internal solidarity, no sense of pride or kinship among them.

She keeps going, though. Apparently humans do have some positive qualities after all, now that she's getting to them. He listens, interested to hear what humans say in their own defense, how they present themselves when they do want to make a good impression. Quite honestly, he isn't all that impressed by the qualities that are supposed to be best about humanity. They're just not things that Vulcans value or respect. Compassionate, empathetic, giving...those aren't negatives, certainly; compassion and generosity are always virtues, but they're not ones he would have thought to associate with humans before. Trusting seems to him to be more of a fault than a virtue, and as for loyal, how loyal can humans be when they're so willing to declare all of their worst faults to alien strangers? Curiosity, yes, that's a virtue Vulcans can get behind, but Saval would like to think that mistakes aren't a necessary part of the learning process. He could say something cutting about that, but...no, best not to be rude and make a deliberately poor impression on his first day here. That won't do him any good.

The stated purpose of her job still baffles him a little. It's not what he expected. "Is human behavior really so unpredictable that it requires so much analysis?" he asks. "Vulcan psychology, you see, is the study and treatment of mental illness. Abnormality is unpredictable, and requires the kind of research you describe, but Vulcans make decisions based on logic and reason. There is no need for data mapping or the creation of algorithms to understand why we do what we do. If human behavior is as difficult to understand as that, I clearly have a difficult journey ahead of me."

[elizabethdehner]

He seems surprised, or at least the Vulcan equivalent of it. Her field is normal for her, something that makes sense to her since she is in fact human and part of the studies. She falls under that. She knows what it's like to live in those minds. She gets it, but there's a lot that he can't possibly understand.

"That's where we differ," she begins, sounding as kind as she would at any other moment, "Humans don't base decisions always on logic and reason. We believe in instinct and desire and emotion. It causes a nearly infinite web of outcomes. Granted, many of us fall among the average, but there are the outlying few, some of them including mental illness, others extreme views. But I will not pretend this is going to be an easy transition for you. You will have to observe and at least adapt and understanding for human behavior, gestures, body language. We're very expressive and that will be difficult, I know."

She pauses a moment, reeling herself back. She felt almost unsure of how far she should offer any help. He doesn't seem fond of her, though she isn't sure what 'fond' would look like in a Vulcan. "I apologize if I'm imposing. I hope I don't make your transition harder and if it's any consolation, it'll be nice to have a new view in the medical field, even if it wont directly affect me."

[physicalstimuli]

"I cannot see how you would make my transition more difficult. You understand that human customs and behavior are unpredictable and therefore difficult for Vulcans to comprehend, and therefore I presume you will not be offended if I ask you for clarification on anything I cannot understand through research."

He may not be keen on the idea of therapy from a human psychologist, but she seems like a better candidate to answer his pressing questions about human social etiquette and other such things than anyone else he's met so far. That's the kind of help that he thinks will actually really come in handy, now that he thinks of it.

"I hope that my medical expertise will indeed prove valuable here." He's not going to articulate his concerns that they're not going to let him be useful enough to justify his presence, but she can probably read between the lines.