DISCLAIMER: I Don't Own Star Trek. And I'm not making any money from this.

Still on our little diversion. I think that D'Zorak really needs a few more reasons to be worried about Spock's mental state. It all ties into the original story line, don't worry!

Work Arounds

"So are you saying I am predestined to put half the audience to sleep before I even begin to speak?" He was not angry. Only curious.

"No." And she looked sideways at him with a bit of a smile starting to slip across her face. "Luckily for you we do like to be entertained."

An eyebrow shot up on Spock's face, "I'm not sure of the connotations of this..."

"You don't have to be any one you're not, it can all be completely within character." She turned back to the holograms he'd created earlier, "I think if you incorporated more visuals like these, maybe with a little more contrast -- I wish you'd used them in class. They explain the subject matter so simply and so beautifully, and I think they would appeal to both a human and Vulcan audience, probably Orion and Andorian as well, perhaps not so much to Gorn..."

"Maybe you only think they are beautiful because you are an exceptional human?" Spock asked. It really was just meant as a question. Was her reaction to the holograms unusual? Would other humans respond the same way to dots of light? But there must have been a human way of interpreting the question he doesn't quite understand because she froze in place for a moment, obviously uncomfortable.

"Proceed," he added quickly.

She continued, "The display of quantitative information can be beautiful even for humans, and it can make comprehension faster even for Vulcans as you said earlier. It might also make the material accessible to generalists --there always are some at these gatherings, without diluting it for the specialists."

"Agreed," Spock said, and he did agree. It would be unorthodox, and might raise some curiosity among Vulcans in the audience, but he believed he could explain it as "speaking the language of the audience".

"Anything else?" he asked.

She paused and began slowly, "Well, in human presentations it is usually considered good form to cut the tension, to engage the audience, and to make sure that they are not asleep..." another long pause, "...by starting off with a joke."

Now both of Spock's eyebrows shot up, "You do know what the Vulcan reaction would be if I were to make a..." he took a short breath, "joke?" This was just not done. Not in public. Hardly in private. He was beginning to learn the merits of humor for humans--what did Uhura say, it was for "cutting tension." But it was something most Vulcans simply wouldn't understand.

She nodded, "Yes, they will think you are insane. But we have a work around."

Then she was really smiling Spock noted, ear to ear in fact.

"Do you have something specific in mind?"

"Yes."

After she told him he paused to consider. He wasn't qualified to judge the levity of her suggestion, she had said his deadpan delivery would make it funny, but he did appreciate the sly way it would work around Vulcan's in the audience. "I will consider the use of humor to 'wake up the crowd' as you say, but I accept the suggestion of adding suitable visual imagery.

"We must go look at the auditorium now...Lieutenant-Commander O'Hara's technical specifics were inadequate, he didn't even supply the square footage of the background screen, the cubic circumference of the holoscopes, or even the distance from the stage to the last row of seats."

"Now?"

Spock thought this was a very odd question, perhaps humans didn't understand the fundamentals of information design? "I cannot design visual representations of complex data if I don't know exactly how that data will be displayed," he replied.*

He touched the 3D consoles, then touched his insignia twice to download his data to his Comlink and they were off.

They spent the next two hours hiking up and down steps. Spock had plugged in the data he had in his Comlink into the holoscopes and insisted on checking the visibility of the numbers and images from every angle of the auditorium. He was looking for the most desirable size and height of the holoscope and screen projections, seeking any possible blind spots, and trying to determine the resolution of the equipment. He needed Uhura's perspective, most of the audience members would be human, and he wanted to make sure there weren't any quirks of human vision that would interfere with comprehension of the visuals.

He quickly found one.

"Cadet, are the words in 10% gray sufficiently large enough to read?"

"10% gray?"

"Yes, as opposed to the ones in 15% gray."

"15%?"

"You cannot discern a difference in value between the two columns of text?"

"No, Lieutenant, I'm sorry, maybe if they were right next to each other..."

"And yet your vision is perfect for a human." He'd known that human vision was slightly less acute, but never expected this. He added, "Starfleet's highly contrasting uniforms suddenly make more sense to me."

Uhura laughed, "It was just dawning on me that maybe there was more to Vulcan flat gray and brown fashions than met my human eyes."

By the end of the morning he was satisfied he had the technical information he needed for the location. He'd noticed that Uhura had started to flag a bit as the morning wore on, and realized she'd had her regular combat training that day. She was probably tired. And probably hungry. And she had two hours before her next engagement. It was the perfect opening for something he'd been wanting to ask since she'd returned.

"Cadet Uhura, would you like to get something to eat?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
* Ummm...yes, I am a designer with advanced training in information design (although that isn't all of what I do now). I live in the U.S. I taught English in Japan for a year. I was amazed at how much Japanese school children knew about the fundamentals of design. I'm sure Vulcan's, being ever practical, would be sure that their children knew the basics of good design, especially how to display quantitative information effectively!