Of Memory & Evidence
Posted on 01 Aug 2026 @ 2:07pm by Lieutenant Commander Steven Remington & Lieutenant Kristin Emerson PhD, Counselor
Edited on on 01 Aug 2026 @ 2:57pm
1,139 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Time After Time
Location: Lt Emerson's Counseling Office
OOC Note: Edited for clarification in the first paragraph.
// Dr Kris Emerson’s Office //
Steve Remington sat in the Counseling Office waiting area with a PaDD on his lap, answering the standard battery of questions designed by Starfleet to access fitness for duty. Questions about recurring dreams, intrusive memories or gaps in memories while awake, experiencing irritability, lack of concentration, thoughts of harming oneself or others, were checked off as appropriate – no, no, no, some, no. He answered truthfully. He felt hiding anything would be not only dishonest, but not very fruitful in deceiving anyone, computer or human. A computer like a good scientist, would pick up on any inconsistencies and flag those for further discussion with the Counselor.
Short answer questions:
(1) Most vivid aspect of the mission? – The evidence resulting in a shift in self-perception.
(2) Concerns about your mental state? – How long might these memories last.
(3) A decision made that you’d make differently today? – Knowing what I know now, I would have started a written timeline immediately, instead of relying on unreliable memory.
He stood and long legs carried him to the department yeoman’s desk.
“Thank you,” she said, “I’ll give this to Dr Emerson immediately. She’ll be right with you.”
Within five minutes, her door opened and Dr Emerson invited Steve into her office. They sat in comfortable chairs facing each other over a small occasional table, upon which was a thermal carafe of coffee and another of ice water. She offered him either. He chose water. She chose coffee.
“You have been around the block a bit in terms of time travel, haven’t you?” she opened.
“You could say that. Yes Ma’am.”
“Do you have any questions for me before we begin?” asked Kris.
“No.” He thought a moment. “I can’t think of anything offhand. Let’s get on with it.”
“I’m wondering at what point did you begin trusting the tricorder more than your own memory?” asked Kris.
“As soon as I realized it knew who I was, and I didn’t. Both the circumstances and the facts the tricorder was using agreed with its explanation.”
Kris nodded. “When did you first feel like yourself again?”
“I never stopped being myself. I simply forgot my history. A profound distinction.”
“Did you ever distrust Lieutenant Collingway?” asked the Counselor.
“No,” he replied immediately.
“Why not?”
“I had no reason to distrust him. My memory was unreliable. So was Ryan’s. That made us both poor witnesses. But memory wasn’t my only evidence. Every time he remembered something it was matched by an observation. Like me, he could take the tricorder apart and put it back together even though he didn’t remember how to do it. He didn’t remember being an engineer, but he applied engineering concepts correctly. And when he didn’t know something, he didn’t exaggerate what he knew. He said, I don’t know..”
“So you trusted his behavior?” she asked.
“Mostly. Hitting the police officer was a little out of line with things, but hey, maybe he responded wisely. They were not up and up police officers, after all, but something else entirely. And anyway, I don’t think trust begins with certainty.”
She waited.
“It begins with repeated evidence that someone behaves honestly, especially when certainty isn’t possible,” he finished.
Kris moved on in her line of questions. “You accepted an impossible explanation -- that you came from the future -- rather quickly. Why was that?”
“I don’t think I did.” He took a drink of his water.
Kris was intrigued. “You don’t? You started referring to the ship almost immediately.”
“Because the evidence did. The tricorder identified my voice. Knew where I got my boots. Knew my birthday, recognized Ryan, it contained a recording, its predictions were correct. I didn’t accept an extraordinary claim. I did reject increasingly ordinary explanations.”
“Mmmm. Interesting,” said Kris.
Steve tilted his head, curious.
“Most people decide what they believe. You eliminated what couldn’t explain the evidence,” Kris observed.
Steve thought about that for a moment. “I suppose I did.”
Kris’ later note in her report included: LtCmdr Remington demonstrates an exceptional high tolerance for uncertainty. Rather than seeking emotional certainty, he seeks explanatory consistence. This appears to be a long-standing personality trait rather than a response to trauma.
“You have repeatedly indicated a lack of trust in your memories. How do you think that translates to the memories you have now, looking back on the mission. Are they trustworthy?” asked Kris.
Steve sat quietly for several moments before answering.
"I think memory is evidence," he said at last, "but it's not primary evidence."
Kris didn't interrupt.
"I've been thinking about this ever since we returned. During the mission I had to face that fact that memory can be incomplete, suppressed, distorted... even manufactured under the right conditions. That doesn't make it worthless. It just means it shouldn't stand alone."
He folded his hands in his lap.
"If one of my memories agrees with the mission logs, with Ryan's recollections, with tricorder recordings, and physical evidence..." He shrugged slightly. "Then my confidence in that memory increases."
"And if it doesn't?" Kris asked.
"I still don't throw it away."
She looked mildly surprised. "You don't?"
"No."
"What do you do?"
"I mark it as unresolved."
Silence settled between them.
"Uncertainty isn't the same thing as being wrong,” Steve added.
"Does that trouble you?" asked Kris.
Steve looked down at the floor, beyond the floor. In other words, he looked inward for the answer. Not up and away, but inward.
"Less than I expected,” he finally replied with honesty.
"Why's that?"
"Because. I wasn't really afraid of losing my memories."
He paused.
"I was afraid of losing the ability to know what was true."
"And did you lose that ability?” asked Kris.
He smiled faintly. "No. Because truth doesn't depend on memory."
Another pause.
"It depends on whether reality keeps agreeing with itself."
Neither spoke for along moment. Finally, Kris added, “I’m glad you’re our Chief Science Officer.”
“Why’s that?” he queried.
“Because you are comfortable saying I don’t know yet and building outward from there.”
Steve was a little surprised, chuffed a touch of amusement. “Thank you, I think. You’ve given me a lot to think about Dr Emerson; about the nature and value of memory, about trust and evidence, about fear of the unknown, without and within. A lot to consider. Thank you. I had not ever put some of that into words. Aren’t we all our greatest and most profound experiment?”
“That’s why I’m a psychologist.”
“That’s why I’m a scientist.”
~~~
LtCmdr Steve Remington
Chief Science Officer
&
LT Kris Emerson, PhD
Counselor
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