A Bit of Xenoanthropology

Posted on 09 Apr 2023 @ 5:16pm by Lieutenant Commander Amelia Warner

532 words; about a 3 minute read

Things had become quieter in sickbay, which was a good thing. There had been several long-term treatment cases as well as follow-ups that happened in quick succession, so while it had been some while since the departure of the metal squids, sickbay had still been busy until just now…but, of course, the ship then picked up the distress call.

Doctor Warner found herself in her office doing research, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t have as much time for research as she used to. This wasn’t her usual area of research, more akin to anthropology than medicine, but it all tied together in the end.

“I don’t imagine I’ll be here for long,” she commented to herself.

There wasn’t a great deal in the Starfleet database about the Oran’taku except what had been recorded from the experience of the NX-01 Enterprise oh-so-long ago. She had been granted access to the Sal’kiiran xenobiology database as well, although they had not had much more interaction with the Oran’taku than the Federation had.

After about twenty minutes, she knew several key points.

She knew that the Oran’taku possessed a sort of tactile telepathy, somewhat akin to a Vulcan’s mindmeld, where they could affect the mind of another person via touching. In the case of the Oran’taku, they could put others into a trance state as well as gather biometric data about a person. They were able to transmit this back out via touch into technologic devices.

Their “intriguing eyes” were referenced frequently, as well as their complex retinal structure. It was not stated or seemingly studied, but Amelia’s inference was that the retinal structure allowed them to better “read” what they could see when using their abilities. (There was anecdotal evidence of their telepathy illuminating other organic beings when they were being studied, and she suspected a connection.)

Their telepathy seemed limited to these sorts of effects, however, rather than actual thought reading like the Betazoids and other telepathic species could do. They could affect memory, however, in as far as keeping people from remembering what had been done to them.

“I’m not sure much of this helps us know what’s going on over there,” she thought aloud as she rose from her seat to fetch herself another cup of tea.

Her imagination ran wild as she considered what she had learned and tried to piece it together into reasonable theories about how to make it useful. Could the Oran’taku base been experimenting with their abilities and caused some sort of issue? Maybe they had used their abilities on some other race that hadn’t taken to it kindly.

That didn’t get anywhere near the reason for the interference, and she knew that what was going on may well have had nothing to do with their biology, but all angles needed considering. She was just writing everything up in a report for command when…

Yellow lights started flashing. She looked up and frowned slightly. “That’s not good news,” she declared before getting up to see what was going on and what it might mean for sickbay…

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