Stardate: 39411.7

Earth calendar: April 11, 2298

Internal Starfleet memo: Species relations at Starfleet Academy – a new crisis.

It is of the utmost importance that the contents of this memo not expand beyond the preview of Starfleet Academy’s Inner Council. It divulges the details of the current crisis preceded by the long history of events at the Academy that contributed to its birth. Several points of embarrassment and possible legal action could result if it were to go public. Again, all portions of this memo are to remain strictly confidential. 

Preface

Historically, humans made up the vast majority of the academy student body. Although Starfleet opened the curriculum and welcomed aliens – humanoid and otherwise – to apply, few did. The token alien presence was usually the offspring of ambassadors from other worlds. Their time with us was often less than two years and while most were on par with human intelligence, some scored repeatedly higher or lower than earthlings on standardized tests. 

Those students who routinely performed worse than their human classmates were treated well and remained respected as was outlined in the Starfleet Academy Code of Conduct. Their poor scores and lack of progress could be attributed to various factors depending on the species: cultural differences, environmental factors (i.e. inability to exist in Earth’s atmosphere without technological help), etc. Humans generally encouraged these academically weaker classmates and often aided them with their studies.

The aliens that clearly outshone the humans were few and far between. If certain members of the student body were envious of these outliers, they remained professional and friendly and relations among species stayed strong and pleasant overall. 

However, this changed drastically when Vulcans accepted Starfleet’s Open Academy invitation and began to enroll. Their numbers grew so rapidly that within a few years, these honorable allies made up fifteen percent of the student body. Every class contained a hand full of Vulcans who nearly always claimed the top scores and overall grades. As such, the best assignments offered to academy graduates went to Vulcans 99.4% of the time.

The good will and tolerance of the human students dropped rapidly. Complaints ranging from earthling rudeness to bullying remarks directed towards the Vulcans rose from zero to several per day by years end. Please see chart 1.0

Perpetrators of the offensive actions (when confronted) described feeling helpless and inept in their abilities to compete directly with the Vulcans. The latter’s apparent lack of sympathy was also mentioned quite often as a contributing factor to human angst. The Vulcans stated they were not unsympathetic to the plight of the “mentally weaker” students, but saw no way to help without purposely scoring badly on assignments and tests and jeopardizing their own future Starfleet opportunities. Also, they said that “speaking soothingly” to upset earthlings was not logical and humans would be better off if they could be less emotional.

Student unrest was close to boiling over when Superintendent Brandice ordered all staff to loudly declare any humans vocalizing displeasure with the competitive environment as “speciesist”. Knowing that being labeled as such was the death knell of a career in Starfleet, the student body fell in line. 

A welcome distraction arrived in the form of the strengthening relationship with the Klingon Empire. After decades of skirmishes and the ever present threat of galactic war, the United Federation of Planets (UFP) and the Klingons at long last put their differences aside and the Empire joined the Federation. Initially, no Klingons attended Star Fleet Academy because they felt it was a waste of time, since according to the Academy mission statement, the institution did nothing more than“prepare students mentally, morally and physically for the rigors of command” and said nothing of combat or warfare. 

A handful of young, rambunctious Klingons did join earth’s last remaining purely military college, the Citadel Military College of North Carolina. Because it was state run and not directly controlled by the UFP it was able to maintain its antiquated “military focused” curriculum. (And ignorant young southern who never fully adapted to civilized society flock to it by the hundreds each year, preventing its closure.)

During the Citadel’s school year, Klingon students often attacked members of any other species that achieved better marks than them with fists and kicks. At the peak level of student infighting, 12% of the academy's human contingent found themselves in sick bay after receiving a pounding at the hands of poorer testing Klingons. This was not Star Fleet Academy’s problem, but did provide a subject of levity at staff mixers and the yearly ball.

Eventually the Klingon Empire decided to transfer all of their students from the Citadel to the Academy as it was the best way to become an officer on a Star Fleet vessel. In spite of the known strength of Vulcans, a few of the most aggressive Klingons challenged them physically, which led to predictable outcomes. That is, lots of broken Klingon bones and fractured skulls. One of them remains in a coma to this day. All Klingon honor attacks stopped shortly afterward. 

Now there were two unhappy species at the Academy: Klingons and Humans. While the threat of being labeled a “speciesist” worked fairly well against humans, it had no measurable effect on the Klingons. Although the physical attacks on the Vulcans had ended, the verbal attacks and open slanders were ramping up alarmingly. Initially the Vulcans stayed true to their character and ignored the Klingons. However, multiple humans – seeing that the Klingons had largely removed the stigma of being called a speciesist – also began to voice their displeasure.

The humans should have been grateful that the Vulcans were there and ranked so highly in their classes. Otherwise they would have received beatings similar to those that occurred at the Citidel, since they generally scored slightly better than the Klingons. As it was, a Klingon would lose face if they attacked a weaker human, when the tops grade went to much stronger Vulcan. This strange set of circumstances protected the human contingent of the student body.

 Vulcan students complained back to their homeworld about the disgusting verbal harassment and within weeks Vulcan High Command threatened to remove all of their students from earth due to the Academy subjecting their best and brightest to “conditions not fitting a civilized society”.

Events were spiraling out of control and the Academy’s hope to be a shiny jewel atop the crown of the United Federation of Planets stood on shaky ground. The Academy Inner Council of the time came to an imperfect solution. They repurposed 10 of the decommissioned garbage scowls located in Surplus Depot Z15, added some hull augmentations they called “warp fins” and outsourced a detailing shop to give them an exciting and tech forward paint scheme. They were then filled with human and Klingon officers and christened as new, state of the art, technology explorer ships. The ruse fooled very few, but the assignments came with rather generous paychecks. Students were never really satisfied with the arrangement, but it was enough to blunt the mounting crisis. An uncomfortable peace fell over the academy that has held for decades. 

The growing crisis

In the last eighteen months a new and more alarming issue has come to light. Some human families saw the writing on the wall and turned to genetic engineering as a means for their offspring to have a successful career in Starfleet. Their children have scored wildly higher than any earthlings before them. The problem is that they are also outscoring the Vulcan students 80% of the time. The initial reaction of the Vulcans – actual hints of emotion on their faces and nearly round the clock study sessions – were shallowly enjoyed by their classmates and taken far too lightly by the staff. The Vulcans worked feverishly to compete for months until a tipping point was reach. 

Last fall the partial body of JuattV’Liakkork, a sophomore Humanoid Respiratory Systems major was found in a storeroom a few hundred meters north of the main mess hall. The Campus police department and Starfleet Bureau of Investigation (SBI) initially declared it a homicide, but further investigation showed that he secretly commandeered a phaser from the weapons range and disintegrated as much of his body as possible before dying. Only his left arm, upper chest and head remained.

Details quickly spread among the student body and within a week the remains of three more Vulcan students appeared on campus. A hastily organized, but thorough joint investigation between Academy campus police, the SBI and a contingent of investigators from the Vulcan home world determined that all four events were suicides. 

The Vulcan officials quietly explained that a permanent stigma is attached to any of their kind who score lower than humans – even if those humans are genetically modified – and they are immediately ostracized from the Vulcan community and their families. These “underperforming” souls are usually dead via self-inflicted wounds within days.

In the week following the investigation another four Vulcans died by their own hands. The Academy had no choice but to temporarily shut down while they struggled to find a way to stop the deaths. Of the multiple proposals suggested by various factions, the council decided on a duel approach. First, posters and communicator broadcasts declaring that “Life is precious” saturated school grounds. Secondly, word was quietly spread among the Vulcan students that free plastic surgery was available for anyone who could no longer live with the shame they brought to their family and species and wanted to start a new life at a one of the more remote planets in the Federation. 

Once classes resumed some 23 days later, the suicide rate dropped to just over 6% of what it had been at its peak. Although not a single Vulcan took advantage of the plastic surgery offer, the Academy administration took great pride in the effectiveness of their solutions and penned letters to various government officials stating as much. To their later surprise, follow-up studies discovered that these highly thought of strategies did very little. During the shut down, most of the humans went on vacation or otherwise pursued leisure activities while it seems every single Vulcan student used the break to do nothing but study. The extra work propelled them past the humans on exams for the next few weeks. Regardless of source of the improving situation, the Academy staff and Star Fleet in general breathed a sigh of relief. 

Within a month, however, Vulcan suicides began to creep upwards again, quickly followed by a sharp decrease to nearly zero. (There has been only one suicide in the last six month and that poor Vulcan had reduced mental capacities due to a Physics of Transporter Tech 101 lab accident a year earlier.)

The drop coincided with Vulcans claiming and keeping the top spots in multiple core areas of study. Some of the GMO humans – crying sour grapes – complained that instructors were intentionally scoring the Vulcan's higher than they deserved or grading the humans more harshly. Although the academy has publicly denied this, a troubling video surfaced earlier this week showing several instructors drinking Romulan Ale and talking about how they would do whatever was necessary to avoid having "green blood on their hands." 

Conclusion

Although the humans complain bitterly, as stated above, they are better off with circumstances as they are. If not for the Vulcans keeping the Klingon threat of physical violence in check, many humans would have, by now, been beaten badly or possibly even killed. Additionally, a return to such violence would regress the Klingon students back towards their innate Neanderthal behaviors. Therefore, it is in the best interest of all at the Academy for the Vulcans to remain atop the class rankings. 

Recommendation

The Academy needs to quickly squash the commotion brought about by the video and human whining. The instructors caught in the act will need to “accept full responsibility” publicly and lose their positions. Hopefully that will be enough to placate those calling for heads to roll. Afterwards they will be transferred to new jobs away from the main campus complete with pay increases, paid moving expenses if necessary and a healthy bonus to restore their morale. 

Steps must also be taken to outlaw genetic engineering – at least among humans. Several senators are already on board and if Star Fleet can organize a campaign warning the general public of “genetically modified monsters”, the ban should become law.

With any luck the entire unpleasant situation can be put behind us without the council suffering further discomfort or anyone losing their Star Fleet pensions.