Meetings
Meetings
Summary: Regas meets with Greje and then Zah, Reed and Thad need some time.
Date: 23 ACH - 12/6/2008
Related Logs: Sunken Outpost
Players:
Regas..Greje..Zaharis..Reed..Thad..

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Chaplains Office Genesis - Deck 11

23 ACH 6735 Souls


This is a small suite set aside for ecclesiastical purposes by the head Chaplain, Greje Diomed Karthasi. The larger office has walls covered in bookshelves, her desk sports a laptop computer and a variety of potted plants under a sunlamp, as well as a portable teapot and a mug tree bearing a collection of mugs, all souvenir mugs from a variety of santuaries at which she's practiced, worshipped, or made pilgrimage. There's a ghastly orange loveseat next to the door (for people seeking a moment to chat with the priest in a secular setting), and you need to squeeze between the arm of the loveseat and the front of the desk, but it's comfy enough to sit on.

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Greje has her laptop open and several books she's consulting stacked around it or propped up on bookstands. She sips tea from a mug with the logo of the Sanctuary of Dionysus at Tempe on one side, and on the other side the words: My Other Mug Is A Kylix. She sits cross-legged on the chair and generally seems engrossed in her work.

Greje's door is open, welcoming, as it always is when she's working in here.

Outside the offices, the Commander has entered the area. The place is rather quiet and while is here he drops something off in the slots along the wall. Seeing the office open to the Chaplain's, he begins to head that way and raps on the door anyway, "Lieutenant?"

Greje looks up at the rapping on her office door and in an instant is on her feet, her knees pushing out the chair behind her until it stops at the bookcase behind her. "Sir!" she replies, looking almost panicked for a moment, before calming down, resting one hand on the desk in front of her, "Please, come in, have a seat… would you care for some tea?" she asks, observing the most ancient strictures of xenia, in her own little way.

Regas walks into the room and reaches back to close the door, since he got this memo, "Tea would be nice, thank you." Walking over, he takes a seat and hitches up one pantleg slightly, "I received a message you wanted to see me, so I thought I'd come in since I had to drop off some paperwork."

"Ah— yes, well, thank you very much for your time, sir," Greje replies gently as she switches on the electric teapot, setting it to heat the water while she selects a mug with an image of a famous bronze statue of Zeus and sets it on the desk. She opens a desk drawer and takes out a tin and a teaball, and goes about preparing the drink with an almost ritual exactness to her motions. "After attending the unpleasant business with the prisoners last week, I had a few concerns. I thought it best to wait until after I was out from underneath Apollo's ritual purity to speak with you about it. Sometimes… the world looks a little bit different, when you're in such a state. But, having looked back at the incident with a less… enthousiastic mindset, I still feel some concern." By then the teaball is full, and she hooks the end of the chain over the edge of the mug just in time for the teapot's indicator light to go out, declaring the water appropriately heated.

Regas raises his knee up and places it over his other one, folding his hands in his lap, he watches the tea ritual and then moves his gaze upward. "Yes, executions are rather unpleasant. But necessary at times. What did you want to speak about concerning what happened?" Not that he is a priest to console people on such things.

Greje pours the water slowly into the mug before setting the teapot down again on its round coaster. "I -do- understand the necessity of such actions. Even considering our present circumstances," her voice keeps calm and steady, the familiar ritual motions of tea preparation evidently keeping her excess energy in check that would otherwise go into fidgiting awkwardly and second-guessing her every other word. "I'm concerned, rather, about the manner of the execution." She stands up straight, picking her way around the desk to hand the Commander the mug, teaball still in place so that he can let the tea brew to his favored strength. She perches on the corner of her desk. "The Sergeant who was assisting Major Gaelan clearly didn't know that there was to have been a change in the procedures that day. The prisoner, likewise, exhibited confusion and panic as the event unfolded differently from how it was supposed to have. Additionally, the Major verbally abused the prisoner moments before he pulled the trigger. While I understand the need for there to be penalties, even unto the highest penalty, I feel I must protest the cruelty and inhumanity which the Major displayed."

"In what way did you see Major Gaelan abuse the prisoner moments before he was shot? You do realize that charging a Major with this kind of a thing, could be very sticky," Regas comments, "As for the cruelty and inhumanity that you say was displayed. Are you aware of what this man did?"

"Verbally," Greje repeats the relevent adverb. "If I'm not mistaken, the proper procedure called for the Major to ask the Gods to grant mercy to the prisoner's soul. In the event, however, Major Gaelan requested that the Gods -not- do so. I spent the evening previous to the execution with the prisoner, helping him come to terms with the Lords, and, yes, I would consider those words at his last moment abusive, as well as simply inappropriate. I'm quite aware that the actions this man performed were… unspeakable. But that's not an excuse for the rest of us to espouse cruel and unrelenting behavior. He was already paying the highest penalty he was able. It's right for us to accept just recompense and hold our grudges no further."

Regas considers her words a moment, "Granted, in a world of rights and wrongs, with no cylons breathing down our necks, we could possibly take a little more leniency. But, with something such as this, I sincerely doubt it. Since he can't be shot 800 times, for each life he helped take. I'd say he got off lucky. If some of the Gods do forgive him, then that is their perogative. Although, Zeus is a very cruel God at times. So are some of his offspring. Somehow I doubt you are going to call up to him and tell him he has done wrong and not by the book."

"It's true. Zeus and the Lords can hold grudges as long as time itself, which no prayer can hope to allay. But we are not Gods, and it is not our place to act like them," Greje points out calmly. "I don't mean to file official complaint against the Major. I only wanted to voice my concern to you, since— well, in the end, it's your call that will determine where we go and who we are as a species. And this… this worries me."

Regas' brows shoot up, "You are worried about the call I make on where we go and what we do?" His leg comes down now and he shifts in the chair to eye her more closely. "Do you think I plan on destroying everyone?"

"No, this— the Major's actions. They worry me. I apologize, I should have been more precise," Greje offers in the same calm, mild tome.

"Ah, well I doubt you'll need to worry. But, if it eases your mind, I will have a talk with Major Gaelan," Regas adds in to calm her little soul some. "If that was all you had, I think we have another meeting to attend, something to do with the medical team."

"I would appreciate it, sir. Thank you," Greje replies.

"That was all," she adds. "Do you want to take the tea with you?"

Regas shakes his head and rises up, "No, I'll drink it here and just call them up," going to the wireless. Where he makes a brief call.

Greje nods quietly and shifts upward off of the corner of her desk, standing as the Commander does. Seems she's at least sort of getting the hang of this military dance. She returns to her computer as the Commander goes to make the call.

Regas hangs up the wireless and then makes his way back to the desk. Since the tea is there, he picks it up. He can perform some etiquette functions. "I realize it is your job to watch for things like this, but I think when we found the Pandora it affected us deeply."

Zaharis comes in from Navy Offices.

Thad comes in from Navy Offices.

Reed comes in from Navy Offices.

"And quite understandably," Greje agrees, gesturing to the Hideous Orange Thing and waiting for the Commander to be seated, if he wishes to sit, before she does. "It was horrific. But our true character is best judged when we're pushed and hurt, and that's the time that people need the most encouragement not to resort to cruelty and undue vengefulness, but to espouse higher motives." She takes a deep breath. "On a more positive note, Dane tells me that Apollo's rites were a great success. He's written out a transcript of the questions and answers, and when — Lords permitting — he returns from his mission, I'm looking forward to discussing the results with him."

Regas doesn't mention much about the rites. He does sit at a chair though and drinks the tea she offered.

Zaharis comes in with the little party of uniformed people. He and Thad both have black file folders with the military's medical crest on them, probably to stop other departments from stealing them. Pausing inside the door as he hears what's being discussed, he raises salute first and waits so they're not interrupting.

Thad follows in and mimics Zaharis in manner as he takes his place near the CMO and stands quietly.

Reed is bringing up the rear of the trio of Uniforms coming in. He pauses as the train of folks stops, he waits for his turn in the saluting. He has a clipboard, himself, not bringing his metal briefcase of doom this time. His salute is crisp in its turn.

Greje does seem, on the whole, to have been stowed into a closet that's been transformed into an office. The lining of bookshelves on all but the wall near the door, Greje's desk and the Hideous Orange Loveseat taken into account, and the space is quite cozy with three. Two more and we're starting into 'phone booth' territory, or a re-creation of the stateroom scene from A Night At The Opera. Greje stands as the others enter, her chair bumping into the bookshelf behind her as she does. "Major," she greets, a little surprised at the little train of people coming in. Medical meeting. It clicks, after a moment, "Ah, are you here to see the Commander? I'm sorry to have kept him."

Regas notices the trio filing in and saluting, "At ease, have some tea." Sounds like his putting Greje back to work, even before she offers any. He has another drink of his own before setting it down and looking over to them and those black regulation folders. His hands move to rest on the chairarms as he waits.

"I had asked the Commander for permission to have you present," Zaharis tells Greje once salutes are dropped. He nods to the folders between him and Thad. "These are the results we got back from the DNA and trace scans from the bodies in the crypt. I think some of them are going to be hard to fully understand without the religious input. This is Lieutenant Roubanis, sir," he says to Regas. "He assisted with assisted with the collection and testing and I thought it best for him to be a second set of ears for Medical."

Thad nods and adds a crisp "Sir." when he's introduced. He lets his eyes dart about the small room, picking out details, like the lack of seating and then shifts his feet a little to be more comfortable against the wall. Not enough places for everyone and he's not about to ask a major to stand so he can be lazy.

Reed looks around as he drops salute, seeking to find some-ah there. He moves to a corner shaking out his left hand and lifting it, pen in his fingers now as he leans against a wall, trying to not take up too much space. "Oh, no tea for me, thank you." He demures seeming to be settling in for some kind of meeting. Listening to the Medical doctors giving their overviews, he nods slightly, kinda crammed into the corner, but he seems perfectly functional.

Greje pushes her desk chair out into a corner where two bookshelves meet, trapping her in the space behind her desk but giving one more person room to sit while she perches on the inner corner of her desk, pulling two more mugs from the tree and beginning to prepare the tea while she listens, mildly baffled. Religious input on DNA evidence? Well, she's intrigued, at least.

Regas nods, "Lt. Roubanis," he glances at the ugly orange couch, which everyone seems to avoid. "Majors," getting them in one feel swoop. "I heard about a little problem with some mines, it seems Lt. Shem is all over that. So, what do you have then? Bodies and…?" He lets it hang there a moment.

Zaharis takes one of the offered seats, whether or not Reed and Thad do. He flips open the file in his hands, though he doesn't really seem to need to look at it. "Yes, sir, there was a mine issue." He glances at Reed at that one. "I believe Major Carter has the details there. As for us…radiocarbon dating showed that almost all the bodies are between 35 and 40 years old. However there were two that are around 100 years old, three times the age of the others." He slides several photographs out of the folder, setting them down where everyone can see them. "As you can see, they were all in burial robes. Most had some manner of trinket, jewellery, or idol. We identified one idol as Aphrodite, but there were others." He pauses a moment then. "They were all in good health at the time, and all suffered internal causes of death — we found evidence of ritual poisons. One of the older two bodies had had its internal organs completely removed. And that is where I had hoped Lieutenant Karthasi might shed some light."

Thad steps over a little more, not claiming a seat still. Far better to be too polite than to make the CMO look like he's got sloppy subordinates. He does add to the meeting as well at last though. "Some of the bodies had books or journals, but those were very fragile and we didn't want to risk damage to the paper." he notes to add to what has been presented so far.

Reed nods, "The Mine found was Colonial Antipersonnel from just after the end of the first war, connecting to the time of the original Muskeg survey mission. Also the sunken building this all was found in seems to match the supply building built by that same team which sank, and seems to have risen back up to the surface. Entirely explainable phenomenon given the environment. S2 is currently organizing sweep and secure operations which will allow us reentry to investigate further. The official original Muskeg Survey report made absolutely no mention of any of this in the official documentation."

Greje looks over the images of the idols, then lifts her head abruptly at the mention of poisons. "Do you know what the poison was?" she wonders, considering as she brews the tea, then continuing to muse, "There was an image of a stalk of barley on the wall… Holly Barley can be fatal if consumed in too high a quantity," she slants her head a little toward the little pot of Holly Barley she's got growing. "And it's used in a number of rites." She huffed a good deal of the stuff the other day, herself.

Regas leans forward slightly as the pictures are laid out on the desk and he picks one up, looking at it more closely, "This doesn't look normal, how are they so well preserved?" He moves the pic back and forth with the light to see the different aspects. Leaning back again, he continues to hold it. "This must be something the medical and researchers are going crazy over," a slight smile as he lifts his gaze to the scientist and doctors. A slight nod goes to Thad's words, "I'm not so sure about disturbing the dead either. Which we may have done in any case by stumbling onto it. Not that it can be helped." Another nod to Reed, "If I remember these are Gemenese? Their religious works are probably alot quieter than most of us even know. I've heard rumors at times." Glancing to the priestess, he then looks back to the group. Since she knows her stuff.

Zaharis first nods to Thad at the mention of the journals, then looks at Regas. "The swamp's acidity, sir. When the structure sank it immersed the bodies, and the chemical mixture preserved the remains. What remains curious is the two older bodies. They were obviously dead before the sinking of the crypt, so their mummification may have been ritualistic. Does Gemenon have that sort of thing?" Again he looks at Greje for help there. "The poison was exactly that, holly barley."

Thad drops quiet again as Zaharis picks up the answer to the questions and the important matters are touched on by the Major's words. His eyes do take in the indicated tea pot and then move back to the photos. Poison used in ritual. Sounds like a good reason not to be religious. Yes indeed.

Reed has been studying the chemical composition of the swamp water of Muskeg since they got here. As Zaharis mentions the process of preservation, his eyes widen and he smiles slightly, pieces falling into place. "Tannins in the water.. over the years.. turned the bodies into.. well, into leather." He listens to the rest of the report on the bodies, and is clearly at a loss for the rest of it.

Greje mms in agreement to the Commander, standing with the two cups of (non-poisonous, not even hallucinogenic) tea for Jesse and Thad and shifting herself a little to hand off each of them in turn. "Some Gemenese cults are very secretive. But if I had to extrapolate…" she picks up her own tea, and settles back on the edge of her desk. "The text on the walls is very difficult to read. The only two words which I was able to make out were North and another which might have been Wind. The North Wind, Boreas, is in some cults considered the gatekeeper between this world and an antediluvian paradise known as Hyperborea… the land beyond the North Wind. Apollo is particularly fond of going there: Pythian Apollo is said to vacate his sanctuary in Delphi every winter to travel among the Hyperboreans, at which point Dionysus takes over his place in the Third Temple. Holly Barley is a key herb in communion with the Pythian Lord… perhaps these people thought that by killing themselves with Holly Barley and having their bodies preserved they could transport themselves past the barrier of the North Wind and live with the Pythian Lord in Hyperborea," Greje reasons. "Of course… it's only extrapolation, since I haven't had much luck deciphering the rest of the wall inscriptions."

"A hundred years past?" Regas lays the photo back with the others, "Gemenon is known for..well, they take things as literal as possible. I could tell you the sun here is going to go nova next week and they would find something in the scrolls for a reason why." He glances to Greje, "Interesting. Well, let's not toss this ritual around, I don't need suicides going on."

Zaharis taps his pen against his file page. He's listening to Greje, though from his expression he still has some doubts. "Maybe. Something doesn't feel solid to me though, I can't explain it." He looks back at Regas. "There are some DNA markers in some of the bodies that seem curiously close to markers we've seen in some crew members. With your permission we'd like to let the lab do a dedicated comparison through our ID files. It may lead to nothing…matter of fact it probably will…but it could very well be that there are relations down there, from this crew."

Zaharis takes the tea, too. Since it's there.

Thad takes the tea when offered and nods his thanks to not interrupt. He steps back right after, leaning against the wall once more to try ad create as much apace in the small office as he can.

Reed lifts his pen, expression intent as he listens. He listens through Zaharis' plan, then speaks, "Lieutenant Karthasi." He speaks very carefully. "It's a fascinating theory, the Gemenese cults and practices. My question is this. Can you, given what we have here, establish any importance or relevance, to the representation.." He points to the pictures, "Of the Cylon Centurion?" He's looking at Greje with a deadly interested gaze.

"Of the…" Greje begins, then looks down to the pictures again, peering and then going wide-eyed. "Is -that- what that is?!" she exclaims, with a note in her voice almost of relief, having been squinting at that patch of dratted algae for far too long today without putting that one together. "Good Gods," is her only further comment, hand at the back of her head in puzzlement and amazement.

Regas glances back with another interested look, seems the Commander missed that little tidbit. He looks closer, crude but…"What the hades?" A frown creases his brow. "Why would these people put…?" He looks slightly puzzled as well and glances to Greje. Poor woman.

Zaharis nods slightly at the photographs. "Corporal Ramiro identified that one," he says, giving Greje a rather curious look when she seems so surprised. "He said it appeared to be a representation of the cylon models from 40 years ago." Which would make sense, timeline wise. He then seems to wait for an answer to Reed's question, watching.

[Intercom] Attention please. To the staff sergeant who recently left the marine offices, please call box 1291.

Greje just shakes her head, keeping her hand planted in her hair. "I… no, I don't have the faintest… I…" she looks up, not at anyone, just off and away, mind evidently racing as she chews on her lower lip.

Reed blinks at the reactions of the Greje, and Regas, and brings his pen to his forehead, using the closed pen to scratch at a ling on his brow, "Umm. Yes." He nods to what Zaharis said, still kind of focused on what this might have to do with the Cylons. He tilts his head, looking at Greje.

Zaharis draws in a breath through his nsoe and exhales it again, slowly. "I'm afraid the answers to that may be on the parchments and journals still in the crypt," he comments.

"I suppose it has some meaning, I mean we did after all create them," Regas adds in and finishes off his tea now as it has cooled.

Reed shrugs, "I don't know, maybe some meaning the cult attached to them..?" He's grasping in the dark.

Greje shakes her head more slowly. "I… I'm just really not sure," she takes a deep, stabilizing breath. "Would you mind if I took some time to look over everything again, now that I know… about that? Maybe it'll shed some insight that wasn't there before. And yes, I'd be very interested to see what's in those texts."

"Or that they were invaded and decided to take their own lives rather than submit…" Zaharis throws that out, frowning. "We need to see those parchments." He glances at Greje and nods, closing his file folder. He's pretty done for now.

Greje hms with a thoughtful nod at Jesse's suggestion, and otherwise just seems half-lost in her own little world of thought while seeing everyone out after the meeting's done.

Reed nods, folding his papers back down on his clipboard, putting his left hand on the clipboard for a moment. He looks to Zaharis, half nodding, half shrugging. He's out of his area here and is unwilling to reach for answers blindly.

Thad sets his cup down as it looks like the CMO is done to judge by the closed folder. "Thank you for the tea." he offers very quietly as he steps back to his place. Even if he didn't drink any.

Regas rises up now, "Well, let me know what you come up with. As long as we can get what we need from the place, it's all well and good. If it continues to be hazardous, we'll discontinue anything on the surface. Once we have returned from Leonis, we'll be moving out of here anyway."

Zaharis nods to Regas and stands, ready to leave Greje in peace. "We'll stay in contact with the S2 on their progress with the mines. If they give us an all-clear we'll see what we can do about the papers." He raises salute to Regas, facing highest ranking in the room. "Sir."

Reed nods to what Zaharis says as he seems to have all that covered, and he snaps salute to Regas., echoing, "Sir."

Regas returns the salutes this time and gets ready to follow those out of here and leave the Priestess go her meditations and ponderings.

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