LtJG Gila Sadar - A Historian's Mindset
Gila Sadar
((Entrance Foyer - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Earth))
This marked the fourth time she’d visited an alien museum since boarding the USS Artemis-A. The first time had been the Hrr’ston Space Museum back on Cait, followed by the crew excursion to the art museum where LT Lorana’s brother worked. Then she’d visited a Ferengi Gambling Establishment, which basically doubled as a museum for anyone not inclined towards gambling, and now here... And every single one of them had something new to tell her, not only through the exhibits themselves but through the way the architects and exhibit planners positioned everything.
It was by no means a coincidence that the exhibition hall closest to the entrance concerned long-distant parts of Earth history. Humans were nothing if not a retrospective species, eternally occupied with where they came from and how that influenced the way they were going.
MacKenzie: Do the Mizarians conceptualize art in this way? I must admit, I don’t know much about your people’s culture.
Sadar: Oh, uhh... W-We don’t- That is... ::looks with awe at the colorful exhibits:: M-Mizarian ‘art’ is very, lackluster. It’s to inspire calm and serenity, it’s not made to evoke wonder or- What’s that?
The two officers approached a closed glass exhibit containing a large square of bluish-green tiling, with the colorful glaze covering every single tile varying in every brilliant hue imaginable between green and blue, and some even beyond that spectrum.
MacKenzie: I’m not sure, but it’s beautiful. ::pointing:: What information is on the plaque?
Reading the information plaque, Gila blinked. The section of tiling was part of the walls of King Djoser’s funerary apartments in the galleries beneath his pyramid, and Gila couldn’t help but be astonished by that very concept. She knew that some aliens buried their dead, which was illogical enough, but building actual homes for them?
Ludicrous.
Sadar: ... Such brilliant colors, for a dead man… He must have been a great King.
MacKenzie: Perhaps… I think he had also subjugated the inhabitants of the region in Egypt known as the Sinai Peninsula whenever they were looking to mine valuable minerals, but I don’t remember how brutal of a leader he was. ::shrugging:: The colors are beautiful – I’m sure if nothing else, he had good taste.
Sadar: Hmm... ::eyes wander:: Have you been here before, Sir? You seem familiar with the exhibits.
MacKenzie: Several times, mostly when I was a kid. I did try to visit occasionally when I did my fellowship here a number of years ago.
Sadar: I see. That explains it...
Lending further evidence to the fact that Captain MacKenzie had significant knowledge of this museum, she expertly guided the two of them into the room that followed, and a new exhibition. The tone of the displays shifted visibly, with colorful statues and replicas of pyramids giving way to carvings, masks and wooden tools and weapons. No less beautiful, but far more modern. And yet still from a past so distant that Gila couldn’t quite impress upon her mind that human hands completely ignorant of alien life had once sculpted these items.
oO More history... Oo
MacKenzie: I don’t know as much about this stuff as I should. Humans have a quite a diverse history, particularly from when we were largely tribal people.
Gila looked towards the Captain, shuffling uncomfortably in place as they weaved from exhibit to exhibit.
Sadar: H-Humans are still, uhh... Q-quite diverse. ::stumbles for words:: A-As far as I’m aware, no other species has established quite so many colonies, and so far away from your planet of origin! ::looks at the exhibits again:: Humans are a very driven people, always pushing the boundaries...
Captain MacKenzie walked up to a figurine of an armored warrior, seated with a long lance in his one hand. Something ghosted across the Captain’s face as she looked upon it, but Gila wasn’t quite certain what.
MacKenzie: ::flatly:: Well, we were also a brutal people… Some would argue we still are.
oO Some? Oo
Gila caught herself as she echoed that sentiment with incredulity. Gila often thought of her human crewmembers as exactly that - though, honestly, not just the humans - and yet she knew full well that this was her preconceived notions informing her observations. And as a historian, she knew that that was incredibly problematic.
Sadar: I-I think I might be the wrong person to judge that, b-but... Judging the past with modern eyes will never reflect positively on it. Doesn’t matter what species’ past it is, no modern society has made it to where it is today without travesties...
MacKenzie: Response
Gila looked away, her pale lavender skin deepening slightly in hue as she realized that she had taken the conversation in a perhaps unnecessarily philosophical direction.
oO Bring the flow around! Oo
Sadar: ::clears throat:: Umm... Th-This is all, uhh, very historical. A-Are all the exhibits here of historical art?
MacKenzie: Response
Sadar: N-No, I very much enjoy these pieces. I-I’m just not sure my nephew would. ::twists her ring:: I always send him pamphlets and books on art, but he leans more towards the, uhh... ::searches for correct word:: Excessively expressive pieces?
MacKenzie: Response
Tags/TBC
LtJG Gila Sadar
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240006GS1