CTO Junior Lieutenant Johnny Cleveland
Feb 11, 2018 5:46:52 GMT
Nola, CO_Capt_Savage, and 2 more like this
Post by insertnamehere on Feb 11, 2018 5:46:52 GMT
"Start Log. Is that what I'm supposed to do? Just say start log? Does that start recording? There's a little blinking red light, so I'm assuming that it's now recording."
"Okay. Alright. Hello everyone. Or I guess, no one, because this isn't really for anyone else. These are like journal or diary entries, right? Frankly, I always thought that anyone who still kept a diary after the age of sixteen was stuck in arrested development, but if Captain Savage won't stop annoying me about these damn things, I guess I can just ramble into a camera for four or five minutes just to get him off my back. " Johnny pulls out something that appears to be a flask and begins drinking.
"The super abridged, Cliff-Notes-if-they-still-had-Cliff-Notes-in-the-future version of my life is that I was born to two high ranking Starfleet officials. Kate, my mother, was the captain of the USS something-or-other, and my father, Nicholas, was some muckety-muck at Starfleet headquarters. I never really cared. Me and my older brother, Marcus, were pretty much expected to go into the family business. Hell, I remember them fighting to get us into the pre-school that'd best prepare us for Starfleet command. Our educations were...rough. It's like the thing about the square peg and the round hole. Marcus had a really rough time. He wanted to be an artist and a musician and a professional dancer and basically whatever else would piss off my parents the most. He sleepwalked through Starfleet Academy and they pressured the school into letting him pass. He was given a shiny new post on a shiny new ship that was blown up quite quickly. According to the report, which my parents successfully witheld, he was negligent and caused a key error which led to a whole domino effect type thing which led to the ship and everyone on board dying horribly. Not that I particularly blame him. He never wanted to join the damn service in the first place." He takes a deep swig.
"You can guess that after they lost Marcus, they started focusing a hell of a lot harder on me. I kinda decided to just go with the flow. It's not that I liked or disliked Starfleet, it's that I was never given another option. You can get rid of money, you can get rid of nations, you can get rid of most of the things that start shit in the universe. But you know the one thing that the Federation can't get rid of? Toxic-ass nepotism. Welp. They're both dead now, my parents. Blew up and got cancer. I have a couple of aunts I should probably contact at some point."
"So, here I am. Chief Tactical Officer of the USS Finnmark or Tempest or whatever. Beating out dozens of more qualified and motivated candidates because of my mommy and daddy. I'm surrounded by idealists, all of whom desperately believe in Starfleet, and its mission, and its beliefs. And I just feel nothing. That's been amplified times ten since we time jumped. Before, I could kinda get with the whole "explore the galaxy and be cool to everyone" thing, but now it's just this big, shitty, depressing war. I can't find it in myself to give a shit about any of it."
Johnny pauses.
"Oh yeah, current affairs. Gimme a second. Sully did something stupid because he has some PTSD type issues. Savage and Elianna let him do it. And because it somehow managed to work out, we're all supposed to pat him and ourselves on the back and pretend like everything is totally fine. Sully, at least, is genuine. I can't really hold any of this against him. I just gotta try and help him through his shit. Savage was kind of an asshole to me earlier today. He just shut me down with one of those Captain Ultimatums. Y'know the type. 'It was a tough decision and I considered every angle and made a judgment call and me saying all of this means that you have to go along with it and not question me.' Isn't Starfleet about, like, being a bunch of cool dudes? I know there's rank and chain-of-command and all that, but I feel like you can't lock everyone else out and make major decisions which, in my opinion, were definitely fallacious."
Big gulp of the mystery liquid. "Then there's Elianna. Elianna, Elianna, Elianna. She didn't even say a fucking word to me today. I don't even think she looked at me. Then, when I acknowledged her, she tried to leave the area. She's always sorta vacilated between being condescending and distrusting of me, usually on away missions, and desperately seeking my approval and forgiveness so we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya under the moonlight or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, she's a goddamn hypocrite that'll have to do some major trust-building before I feel even remotely safe around her again."
"Oh yeah, there's the whole omnipotent goddess thing. Full disclosure, I'm like 40% sure that Sully is screwing with me. I mean, I haven't seen or heard from her since I rescued her from the pyramid or whatever thirty-something years ago, so if she's watching and helping me, I'd kinda like to, y'know, talk to her. Especially if she's apparently in love with me despite meeting me once. I'm not a dating expert, but I usually reserve the "L" word for like the tenth or eleventh date."
"Alright, that's enough of this. Log Over. Log End. End Log. Dammit, how do you-"
"Okay. Alright. Hello everyone. Or I guess, no one, because this isn't really for anyone else. These are like journal or diary entries, right? Frankly, I always thought that anyone who still kept a diary after the age of sixteen was stuck in arrested development, but if Captain Savage won't stop annoying me about these damn things, I guess I can just ramble into a camera for four or five minutes just to get him off my back. " Johnny pulls out something that appears to be a flask and begins drinking.
"The super abridged, Cliff-Notes-if-they-still-had-Cliff-Notes-in-the-future version of my life is that I was born to two high ranking Starfleet officials. Kate, my mother, was the captain of the USS something-or-other, and my father, Nicholas, was some muckety-muck at Starfleet headquarters. I never really cared. Me and my older brother, Marcus, were pretty much expected to go into the family business. Hell, I remember them fighting to get us into the pre-school that'd best prepare us for Starfleet command. Our educations were...rough. It's like the thing about the square peg and the round hole. Marcus had a really rough time. He wanted to be an artist and a musician and a professional dancer and basically whatever else would piss off my parents the most. He sleepwalked through Starfleet Academy and they pressured the school into letting him pass. He was given a shiny new post on a shiny new ship that was blown up quite quickly. According to the report, which my parents successfully witheld, he was negligent and caused a key error which led to a whole domino effect type thing which led to the ship and everyone on board dying horribly. Not that I particularly blame him. He never wanted to join the damn service in the first place." He takes a deep swig.
"You can guess that after they lost Marcus, they started focusing a hell of a lot harder on me. I kinda decided to just go with the flow. It's not that I liked or disliked Starfleet, it's that I was never given another option. You can get rid of money, you can get rid of nations, you can get rid of most of the things that start shit in the universe. But you know the one thing that the Federation can't get rid of? Toxic-ass nepotism. Welp. They're both dead now, my parents. Blew up and got cancer. I have a couple of aunts I should probably contact at some point."
"So, here I am. Chief Tactical Officer of the USS Finnmark or Tempest or whatever. Beating out dozens of more qualified and motivated candidates because of my mommy and daddy. I'm surrounded by idealists, all of whom desperately believe in Starfleet, and its mission, and its beliefs. And I just feel nothing. That's been amplified times ten since we time jumped. Before, I could kinda get with the whole "explore the galaxy and be cool to everyone" thing, but now it's just this big, shitty, depressing war. I can't find it in myself to give a shit about any of it."
Johnny pauses.
"Oh yeah, current affairs. Gimme a second. Sully did something stupid because he has some PTSD type issues. Savage and Elianna let him do it. And because it somehow managed to work out, we're all supposed to pat him and ourselves on the back and pretend like everything is totally fine. Sully, at least, is genuine. I can't really hold any of this against him. I just gotta try and help him through his shit. Savage was kind of an asshole to me earlier today. He just shut me down with one of those Captain Ultimatums. Y'know the type. 'It was a tough decision and I considered every angle and made a judgment call and me saying all of this means that you have to go along with it and not question me.' Isn't Starfleet about, like, being a bunch of cool dudes? I know there's rank and chain-of-command and all that, but I feel like you can't lock everyone else out and make major decisions which, in my opinion, were definitely fallacious."
Big gulp of the mystery liquid. "Then there's Elianna. Elianna, Elianna, Elianna. She didn't even say a fucking word to me today. I don't even think she looked at me. Then, when I acknowledged her, she tried to leave the area. She's always sorta vacilated between being condescending and distrusting of me, usually on away missions, and desperately seeking my approval and forgiveness so we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya under the moonlight or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, she's a goddamn hypocrite that'll have to do some major trust-building before I feel even remotely safe around her again."
"Oh yeah, there's the whole omnipotent goddess thing. Full disclosure, I'm like 40% sure that Sully is screwing with me. I mean, I haven't seen or heard from her since I rescued her from the pyramid or whatever thirty-something years ago, so if she's watching and helping me, I'd kinda like to, y'know, talk to her. Especially if she's apparently in love with me despite meeting me once. I'm not a dating expert, but I usually reserve the "L" word for like the tenth or eleventh date."
"Alright, that's enough of this. Log Over. Log End. End Log. Dammit, how do you-"