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In the aftermath of the destruction of Vulcan, the Tellarites are the first to start the Census. A mathematician, somewhere deep in the mathematical biology department of Tellar Prime had looked at the Federation news networks in complete disarray. The misinformation and disinformation were starting to sling while the Enterprise’s engines were still cooling down in the Sol system. He said ‘This is hogwash’ and immediately turned to start an argument with a statistician.
Despite the way that species are sometimes made into digestible archetypes – Vulcans are emotionless and illogical, Andorians are prideful and arrogant, Humans are reckless and unpredictable, Tellarites are stubborn and argumentative – there is sometimes a kernel of truth at the heart of them.
Tellarites are a stubborn people and do enjoy a good argument.
What alien races fail to realise is why.
Tellarites are a people that love life.
Tellar is a world without accessible water.
The planet has a single open water source – comparable in size to Earth’s Lake Michigan, and in salinity to a saltshaker. They call this lake Krognika, after the demon which tempts Tellarites away from the debate forums of Hovah. Krognik is the demon of silence, of obedience, of voicelessness.
Krognika is a lake of silent death.
Scientifically, the lake is home to a species of algae which, for most of the year, is essential as the lungs of their planet. It feeds and feeds and then the algae die off in summer and sinks to the bottom of the lake and Krognika charges with gas from decaying matter. A second species of bacteria feeds on these algae and expels methane – forming a blue haze across most of their planet which tricks visitors into expecting great oceans. Methane is consumed by trees and scrubs in the region, which makes them grow stronger, taller, healthier.
Decaying algae in the deepest crevices of the lake decays into CO2 and builds up over several seasons – the gas pushed down by the water pressure of the lake - until every few years he exhales.
CO2 explodes from the lake and blankets local valleys like an infectious poison coursing through veins– displacing oxygen and suffocating everything it can reach. The blue-tinged mist of death could kill hundreds of thousands without a single sound.
There is danger in silence.
Their early ancestors had known of the danger, although they didn’t understand it. Instead, they clung to the temperate belts during winter and travelled to the cold arctic in summer and huddled around constantly moving puddles of rain – always evaporating too quickly to build permanent structures – until eventually they erupted into passionate arguments. Children were sickly. The elderly struggled to keep up. There was no tangible way to predict where rain would fall except by following clouds which could float over gullies, ravines, and valleys and leave the people behind to die of thirst.
It was how it had always been.
‘Why?’ Was eventually asked, and then someone responded with ‘well, what’s the alternative?’
The first arguments led to deep drilling engineering works which tapped underground oceans and founded the first cities. It led to the first large scale irrigation works which quadrupled agricultural land, and invented hydroponic farms before they’d stopped using local beasts of burden to haul goods. Once they started arguing they did not stop, and they found that constantly challenging each other was a hell of a way to push each other to bring their best ideas and defend them.
To be silent, is to accept death.
A good argument streamlines processes, finds better ways to make life thrive. A good argument required multiple perspectives, different points of view, and where there was only one, it was an absolute delight to find an entirely new perspective to argue from.
It was why Tellarite civil servants were employed in pairs of two.
“The initial counts are 10,000 Vulcans remaining,” A Tellarite statistician said to a mathematician, “They’ve been referenced by the Federation in the initial opening to the special commission into the destruction of Vulcan.”
The mathematician scoffed, “Ridiculous. I can’t believe the Federation are pushing such unconfirmed numbers – it’s in such poor form.”
“Surviving Vulcans were personally evacuated by the USS Enterprise,” The first defended, “They used transporter records to establish the number of evacuees.”
“I’ll bet you that I can find at least twice that number across the sector,” The second complained, “It’s nothing short of irresponsible mathematics to establish ecological modelling on transporter numbers.”
“Those are the numbers the Federation has initially endorsed,” The first says, “They can’t be too far off – else they wouldn’t have allowed them to be published. They’re also using those numbers to calculate resettlement aid.”
Then they both look at each other, and they have a shared duty towards life. There is a sudden feeling of unease that both share – that miscalculated population statistics were a threat – based on sheer under provision of housing, medical officer, and replicators alone.
“You’re full of shit, Prach,” Baorv the mathematician says, to establish which side of the argument he’ll take, “I’ll give you twenty-five hours to gather information – because you of all people will certainly need it – and then we’ll meet in debate.”
Prach the statistician grins back viciously.
And they separate.
The Federation has one hundred and twenty member worlds, with over three hundred species, and 3742 affiliated colonies, outposts, space stations and protectorates. There are over 800 billion individuals living in Federation space. Vulcan maintains 156 Embassies and 387 consulates across Federation, and non-Federation worlds.
Vulcan policy on staffing is dependent on multiple complex factors and they tend to employ both local and Vulcan employees. It is difficult to get exact breakdowns from Vulcans, who priorities the privacy of their staff to a degree which is grudgingly impressive and a real pain in the tusk when trying to filter by species.
Baorv is a Tellarite who thrives in the painful tedium – this is where arguments are made, forging bricks from what others see as sand.
The information he needs is not collated, however, and he sets himself the task of gathering data. Tellar Prime loves a good argument, so he sends messages out to his coworkers to join in the fun. He sets the premise of his argument and opens the forum to different perspectives.
Usually, his work is in ecological modelling to describe population dynamics, which is used to provide evidence for proposed public works. His work is usually simple – four key variables – death, birth, immigration, and emigration, although he ended up in the mathematical biology department due to his work on establishing complex intraspecific competition in mixed-species open population colony worlds. He’d chosen to pursue the work after the horrific news of Tarsus IV broke across Tellar Prime.
His littermates had thrown a party and complained about the inconvenience the whole time after the Federation’s Undersecretary in charge of Agricultural Affairs had referenced his work during the public post-Tarsus IV relief protocol policy review.
Baorv starts with Tellar because the numbers are within his grasp. The Vulcan Embassy on Tellar Prime is small – 67 staff members, with a further four dependents. There are a further 181 Vulcans who have filed their paperwork with Tellar Prime to provide notice of their presence on world. Vulcans are reliable – it is unlikely that they failed to supply documentation.
He looks at their names, their faces, their files, and compiles them all into a list. 252 Vulcans never seemed like such a substantial number but a small part of him was worried that it may soon be a statistically significant percentage.
Alien worlds are less organised and streamlined, than Tellar Prime, however. The numbers less clear – and diaspora populations across multiple worlds make exact calculations hard to pin down. Did Vulcans even do diasporas? There was a little Tellar in Mexico City on Earth that did an amazing Tellarite Linguine and a horrendously strong mudskipper salad that smelled like they cooked it in a recreational mudbath. The community was maybe a little less than a hundred – but they were still there.
Baorv drafted a message and sent it to Kaoshnef in interstellar relations with a request for assistance.
Many voices make the strongest case.
Rather than starting with the usual, he starts with the exceptions to the rule. He starts with Earth, because that is where the Federation currently calls home – and because he needs to look at nice big numbers to convince him the argument holds merit and stop him from loudly complaining about the presumable kindergarteners, the Federation had run their numbers past.
Vulcan’s Earth Embassy in San Francisco houses more than 1,300 staff - both local and Vulcan - but seems to have around 850 Vulcans present at any time. There are diplomats of all levels, consular officers, administrative staff, security personnel, support staff – even a refugee resettlement officer to support the refugees from outside the Federation who came to seek safety within Vulcan space.
Many of whom had also perished with Vulcan.
There are also Vulcan students shadowing elder figures for work placements – although their numbers tended to change rapidly and were not publicly available. Many of these staff had brought their families with them.
Baorv send his first message to them, and asks for a full Census of their numbers, and how many Vulcans were currently registered with the Embassy as visitors to Earth.
Vulcan also maintains two consulates – one in Berlin, and a larger one in Canberra. The Berlin consulate boasts 50 Vulcan staff and is appointment-only. The Canberra consulate supports 200.
There are a number of reputable tertiary education organisations across the planet, and it takes him only twenty minutes to find staff profiles for visiting Vulcan professors who are currently teaching full-time, or who are currently delivering a series of lectures on Earth. He adds another 25 to the total – and they are few – but many drops of rain becomes a lake in the end.
He’s 45 minutes into research when the first message comes through – from an epidemiologist - Hosil - down in agricultural planning. Her work with numbers is impeccable, and her tongue is more cunning than any Romulan.
‘Show me what you have,’ The message says, ‘Let me help you mount a good response.’
He sends her his work, listing the 1,125 Vulcans presumed on Earth and the 252 confirmed Vulcans on Tellar Prime – at a conservative estimate – and waits.
‘You’re only looking at Vulcan civil servants,’ She responds, ‘The Vulcan National Merchant Fleet stands separate from the government- I will start a Census of surviving crews.’
Baorv cannot extrapolate on these numbers alone – Earth is a special case – their Embassies and Consulates busy with Federation and Vulcan business alike. But he can focus on the exceptional cases first, to exclude their influence on his statistical sampling models.
Andoria hosts a single Embassy, although there is a special diplomatic mission team currently deployed to the Aenar compound for linguistic research. 50 Vulcan staff should be permanently based on the frozen world – but certainly not comfortably, based on general Vulcan preferences for dry deserts.
When he messages them, they call him back immediately.
“I am Junior Diplomat Kovar,” The Vulcan greets, and Baorv is thrown by just how young he is, “To whom am I speaking?”
He is short for a Vulcan, with the same sexless haircut that seems to be part of the Vulcan diplomatic uniform. He is standing behind a low table – and while there are staff rushing around behind him in what may just pass as a Vulcan frenzy, he is stiff as a board, and positively crushing a table beneath his hands.
“Baorv jav Blosaan,” He greets, “Mathematical biology department on Tellar Prime. I’m conducting a Census of Vulcan survivours.”
“For what purpose?”
Baorv blinks back and studies the sheer anxiety radiating off the diplomat. He doesn’t know much about Vulcans – he’d taken Orion while at school since he’d grown up near an Orion resettlement irrigation zone and it had seemed more pertinent and useful – but it didn’t quite seem to match what he’d read about them. All he really knows is the basics of Surakian practices of logic, and a few greetings he’d picked up from books and entertainment programs.
“Sarlah etek dvin-tor,” He says, and utterly mangles the pronunciation of the Vulcan words – we come to serve-, but all the same, Diplomat Kovar releases the table. Imprints of his fingers are left behind in solid wood, and Baorv recoils from the sheer display of strength, “There’s more than 10,000 Vulcans – the Federation math isn’t matching ours.”
“I am familiar with your work,” The Vulcan responds, “I believe it to be mathematically robust.”
For a Vulcan, that is glowing praise.
“There is a history of Tellarite vessels communicating with the High Council when they encounter Vulcan vessels in distress,” Kovar adds, with a certain level of scrutiny in his dark eyes, “Do you believe your work to be an extension of the Tellarite belief of Ubalat nahabor shlo por falla kroga?”
Kovar’s pronunciation is flawless, and it throws Baorv for a second. ‘Ubalat nahabor shlo por falla kroga’ is less of a belief and more of a practice – that a single quiet voice should be joined. It was a policy – more or less – not so codified as much of a cultural fact that Tellarites will always boost the signal of a ship in peril – if not make a direct call to a home world.
Tellarite is not a generally popular language of study in the Federation however – it is not always generally known that they abhor silence in all its forms.
“I think it would be a much less interesting place without Vulcans in it,” Baorv replies, and the Federation Standard is a size too small to convey what he is trying to say, “You’re a fussy and particular lot – but at least you cite your sources.”
Kovar considers him – Baorv is sure the twitch of his lip is unintended - “We are at present occupied with receiving Vulcan citizens and locating appropriate housing. We are unable to conduct a sector-wide census at this present time.”
“Call the Tellar Embassy on Andoria for assistance,” Baorv advises, “And the Human one – they like you insufferable lot - something to do with the ears I’m told.”
“We will consider it,” Kovar replies, and that might be as argumentative as he gets, “Although we have as yet, been welcomed by the Andorian Empire.”
That is certainly a story that Baorv wants to hear one day – since he’d sooner have believed a Klingon and a Gorn to plant trees for peace than for a Vulcan and Andorian shelter together only yesterday.
But now they are living in strange times.
“I have the Vulcan Embassy on Andoria with 50 Vulcan staff – can you confirm?” He replies and holds his breath while Kovar considers him for a long while.
“46 Vulcan Staff accounted for,” Kovar replies, “Four had been released from their duties for personal matters on Vulcan – including the Vulcan Ambassador to Andoria.”
Baorv felt his shoulders slump, and he struggled to find the right words.
“We also provide support for thirteen Vulcans who are close kin with our staff,” Kovar responds, “As well as provide support for 86 Vulcans who reside on Andoria for employment, educational or cultural exchange programs. Further, we have made contact with a fleet of Andorian ships who are presently supporting the transfer of 2,573 Vulcans who escaped the destruction of Vulcan on non-warp capable ships. They will arrive within the week.”
Baorz stared back at him, “I’ll notify my government. I cannot make any promises – I just work in mathematical biology – but- “
“It is appreciated nevertheless,” Kovar responds, and then looks hesitant for a single moment, “I would like to hear interim findings of your census.”
“252 on Tellar Prime,” He says, “1,125 on Earth we think. You are the third we’ve contacted.”
Kovar nodded, “I will send you the census we have taken of Vulcans presently on Andoria – I will contact the Vulcan Science Ship T’Alaro to undertake a census of Vulcans enroute and contact you on completion.”
The comm signal cuts out.
Kovar’s file arrives a few minutes later, while he’s summarising the call to the Tellarite Delegates. Baorv adds the names of survivours to the list- and then flicks an email off to an old classmate with a speciality in database programming to call in a favour.
He had only a few seconds before another call comes through – Chaffi, from civil engineering. Her face is tight, and her tusks have a nervous tic to them that reads more like an unconscious movement than an emotional display. He’s known her since she was knee height – she had a thirst for complex problems, and even more difficult answers. She’d been considering Starfleet since she was too small to walk but wanted to finish up her studies on Tellar before jumping into more complex xenoengineering projects.
“Just heard about your upcoming argument,” She said, “Just an idea – send the word out to our embassies to contact their local Vulcan ones for a Census. Delegate tasks. The work needs doing.”
It’s… not a bad idea.
“We don’t keep as many diplomats as Vulcans do,” He responded, only to see her smile wide back at him, “I’ll do it anyway.”
“I suppose that is a benefit for the continued survival of the Vulcan people that they are diplomats, yes?”
That- sparks another thought.
“Is there anyway of determining the location and number of Vulcan diplomats on special deployment – not attached to an Embassy or Consulate? There was a Vulcan team heading to Mazar recently, right? And artists? T’Lar – the musician – was broadcast live from Betazoid a week ago – we need to check passenger ships as well to capture Vulcans who are currently not on-planet.”
Chaffi paused, “Huh. I’ll get back to you soon – when you publish your argument – give me named credit.”
The day is much the same – Tellarites across the Planet, in orbital space stations and in Federation medical clinics across the Federation get loud, send subspace messages and they go ’Let us help.’
It’s gearing up to be the best argument Tellar has ever seen – perhaps the biggest – and somewhere along the way a Tellar Delegate calls to put an official stamp of approval on the project to lend legitimacy to the effort.
Thousands of smaller arguments break out across Tellarite tables across Federation space. It invigorates them to yell a little louder, demand a little more from the worlds they are serving on, complain up chains of alien bureaucracy until the aid starts flowing from worlds who hadn’t really considered Vulcan’s demise to be their problem. Tellarites on Starfleet vessels access Starfleet databases and start asking questions about why there isn’t a standard protocol for post-planetary evacuation management, if they train for the complete evacuation of planets.
The numbers climb and climb until he’s staring at a list of 138,754 Vulcan civil servants alone from across the galaxy, vetted and curated from the near three thousand people who have pitched in to help in the first few hours of the project. The Vulcan diplomatic branches continue to collate their records and send numbers and names – and finds that there are over 623,641 confirmed Vulcans currently spread out across the known galaxy.
There are programmers, psychiatric specialists, teachers, geoengineers, dental hygienists, interplanetary merchants, journalists, navigation specialists, Vulcan priests and priestesses, poets, and botanists – and everything in between. Vulcan has been in the galactic space scene for centuries – and their presence and absence is felt everywhere.
A Bolian woman working in a human tourism agency sends him her yet unpublished and uncompleted dissertation – ‘A comparative analysis of off-world travel growth trends and economic impacts across eight Federation member worlds: An interplanetary study from 2250 – 2260’ – which shows the most recently analysed data of regular Vulcan travel to be 0.02% of planetary population.
As a statistical sample of a population that had been 6 billion - it still suggests there should be an approximate 1.2 million Vulcans who have survived.
‘Will this help’? She had asked, ‘Is this enough?’
Messages keep flooding in from across the Federation – a human couple on Mars was hosting a pair of Vulcan twins on a cultural exchange program; an official from Betelgeuse who had hired a Vulcan musician for his wedding – who had collapsed in agony; a Vulcan teacher and young teaching aide who had 38 now traumatised Vulcan children on a remote Vulcan monastery on what should have been a historiographical field trip. A coworker of a coworker forwards him a newsclip of a young Tellarite on Earth – she’s angry and she’s urging Federation citizens to send samples of seeds, nuts, bulbs and other reproductively capable samples of native Vulcan flora and fauna to the Terran Botanical Society on Earth for conservation efforts.
One by one, they add to the forming debate – Tellarites have never been so visible in the Federation.
Baorv – just isn’t sure what the final argument they’re making will shape up to be yet.
Instead, he sends a standard encrypted subspace message with his growing file to the Tellarite Ambassador to Federation– the body has a single line ‘Update to follow in 25 standard hours’ – even Vulcan records will need to be cross-referenced manually.
By the time he had helped to create something worth a second comment, he leaves his terminal and scarfs down a meal with table manners that would have shamed his mother in her grave. It is his second meal of the day – even though the twin moons of Tellar are low on the horizon and promise the following of a new day. He complains about it loudly to any of his coworkers who venture a little too close, until they tell him to suck it up and get back to work.
Despite this – during his entire break he can hear his terminal chirp as his coworkers send messages. The lights of the mathematical department are still on, and when he looks out – the lights of Tellar’s civil offices are bright. They have been waiting for something to cut their tusks on and are enraged as the Federation News Networks still quote a figure of 10,000.
It is dangerous – it is irresponsible, it is ethically bankrupt, and he doesn’t dare to look up statistics of Vulcan suicides.
Instead, he drafts a scathing letter of complaint to the Federation News Networks Union that just might get him reported for offensive language and sends it off without a second review. When he heads back to his terminal, his coworkers are clustered around a screen, showing the Andorian Ambassador to Tellar loudly thanking Tellar Prime for a civilian-driven donation of native Vulcan vegetables.
He hadn’t known Tellar grew so much plomeek.
It is an hour later that the Vulcan Embassy to Earth calls, and Baorv finds himself string at the face of a Vulcan who was practically legend – Sarek, son of Skon, the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, and representative on the Federation Council. Tellarites do not get starstruck like humans do – but they could certainly appreciate a good orator.
“This is Ambassador Sarek,” The Vulcan greets, as if he needs introduction, “Doctor jav Blosaan, I have been informed that the mathematical biology department on Tellar Prime is conducting an official enumeration of the remaining Vulcan population. To what purpose is this information being conducted?”
“The Federation is conducting initial resettlement aid modelling based on a number reported in the press – more or less 10,000 surviving Vulcans,” Baorv responds, “It’s rubbish math.”
“Based on transporter records, 9,815 Vulcans were rescued by the USS Enterprise during the planetary evacuation,” Sarek agrees, “In addition to the confirmed Vulcan population within the Sol system, our surviving numbers are confirmed at 11,028 – this does not preclude the existence of additional populations. All data is subject to revision.”
An important distinction, but perhaps one that should have been made to the Federation media circuit.
“We have conducted a census of all Vulcan diplomatic centres and civilian interplanetary organisations,” Baorv announced, and felt the hair prickle across his body in excitement to share his findings, “We have a confirmed population at 623,641 – I’m sending you our interim results for your interest. We’ll update the findings when we have.”
Sarek does not visibly react to the news but does immediately tap on the control panel in front of him. Baorv is confident that for interim records conducted in the span of a day – they are decent.
“Basic statistical modelling suggests a population of circa 1.2 million,” Baorv announces, “I’ll need some more time to clean it up before I send it over. These are better numbers to use if you’re planning the development of a new resettlement colony.”
“There is a statistically large Vulcan presence on Andoria,” Sarek comments, and then looks fascinated while Baorv fills him in on the little information he knows, “I will deploy an interim Ambassador.”
“I’ve flagged a few files for your review – a class of children from the province of Raal are stuck on P’Jem – some kids on intercultural exchanges – people kept calling in,” The Tellarite complained, “The work is what we could do. We’ll keep hammering away at it until we get something good.”
“This is more than sufficient – it will enable many of our people to reconnect with surviving kin and plan for deployment of skilled individuals,” Sarek responds, and this time, there is gratitude in his voice, “I will pass on my personal gratitude to the United Planets of Tellar for the work you have conducted.”
“Give the Vulcan Embassy on Andoria a call – the Junior Diplomat there looks like he needs a hug,” Baorv suggested, “At the very least, he needs help to co-ordinate a sizeable refugee intake with the Andorian Government – he mentioned the Vulcan Ambassador to Andoria was on leave to Vulcan.”
“My staff are in the process of contacting surviving Vulcan institutions,” Sarek informs him, “I will ensure adequate time to make a personal subspace communique with the Vulcan Embassy on Andoria.”
Even as he speaks to Sarek, his console lights up with messages. An offer from a Betazoid physicist to double check calculations and equations; an offer from a Starfleet address offering administration help to manage a full census flashed in front of his eyes; a Denobulan doctor is asking if he can consult the census to confirm if a friend has survived.
“I intend to share this interim number with members of the Federation Press,” Sarek states, “I believe it would be…positive for morale.”
And doesn’t that just clinch it – Tellarites are good at reading between the lines.
“I just collate the data,” He replies, “Up to you how you use it.”
Sarek nods, and he wonders how often the Vulcan is given information without rules attached.
“I’m logging off here for the night,” He adds, instead, “Others will keep the argument going until I return. I’ll be back in 10 hours if you have any further need of me.”
Sarek does not have anything else to say, and they depart on positive terms in poor circumstances. Baorv makes some calls, hands the reigns of the Census over to people qualified to gather data and shoots his initial calculations to a former colleague to tear apart and build back better. Then he sets an auto-direct on his terminal and gathers his belongings under the soft lilac glow of the sunrise. The lights of Tellar are strong, and the offices are still abuzz with the roaring argument they are forging into a cudgel. The Federation News stations are reporting interim findings of the Great Vulcan Census, and wondering why the argumentative Tellarites are the ones doing the work.
There should have been more, Tellar Prime is saying, and Tellar’s voices roar with the fury of a thousand questions.
Why was there so little warning? Why did a fleet of untested cadets get sent out as cannon fodder? Why was there no dedicated emergency response fleet? Why did Starfleet not call for support from member worlds in nearby systems?
Why did a Romulan mining vessel suddenly attack and destroy Vulcan? How could they have destroyed a planet? What is stopping this from happening again? How will Starfleet fill their ranks after 90% of their entire singular academy was wiped out in a single day?
And the most important of all:
How do we ensure that silenced voices are never forgotten?