An issue with Adira and Gray...and Stamets

[Ghel]

First, let me begin by saying that I really enjoy Discovery, so this isn't intended to be bashing it in any way. However, I find that the longer the relationship between Adira and Gray is lasting, the less satisfying I am finding it. After pondering it, there are a few reasons:

1. While Adira is paired with a Trill symbiont and therefore would have memories of Gray (and as Gray), the longer the projection of Gray continues, the more concerned I am that either Adira or the Trill has some serious mental health issues. While DS9's "Facets" seemed to also blur the lines between host memory and host personality, it seemed a bit easier to suspend disbelief for one episode rather than watching it play out over a full season. This is especially true since Adira is both seeing and interacting with Gray and believing that Gray exists outside of themselves.

2. Stamets has a unique perspective on relationships since he has been through life and death and life again with Hugh. However, he also seems to be a bit overly casual around the person who is hallucinating and talking to someone who isn't in the room. Especially for an officer who has been known to be a bit prickly and aloof in the past, he just seems a bit too quick to jump on the Gray train rather than first recommending that Adira talk to Hugh just to be sure that there isn't anything physically wrong.

Ultimately, I find myself less than satisfied with a character who sits alone at a cafeteria table or stands alone at a party by choice because they choose to interact with a hallucination rather than the other people in the room. While it's being played as "real" in the Star Trek universe, it feels almost negligent to me that an entire ship of scientists don't seem to have interest in A. determining the cause of the visual and auditory hallucinations (whether those turn out to be "real" or psychological), B. engage this crewperson and help grieve the (possible) loss of Gray and C. (In the case of Stamets) are actively encouraging Adira to interact with said hallucinations and treat them as "real" simply because of his experience with Hugh.

Any thoughts or counter-points?

 

[Markonian]

Makes sense.
I wonder if Paul actually discussed any of this with Hugh.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Gray said in the latest episode that it's "not supposed to be like this" so I imagine it's going somewhere. Paul may think it's a harmless fantasy and be unaware of the seriousness of it.

Gray is in season 4 too so I imagine it'll be addressed then.

 

[Ghel]

Hopefully it will be addressed. I know it's not really the overall plot of the season, and they can only do so much with 13 episodes, but I would love to have seen this explored more on-screen, even if it's only to have a Trill doctor come on board and say something like, "oh that is known as the Ardor Toboxan, or the lover's lifebond. It is rare but it happens in cases where two hosts who were extremely close share the same symbiont."
It would feel much better than the crew basically saying, "we don't know what, if anything, is wrong but Adira's probably fine. . . ."

 

[Angry Fanboy]

I've never given in much thought but yeah, now you mention it if a colleague on a starship tells you they're constantly seeing/interacting with what's essentially a ghost that no one else can perceive then I agree you should probably tell someone about it.

 

[ananta]

Good point. Stamets does come across as humouring Adira a bit much. Starfleet officers need to be at the top of their game. During a moment of crisis they can’t afford to be distracted by hallucinations, or whatever Gray is. This plot line is curious, but not much more for me.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure why anybody's choice of companionship should be the business of the organization at large, unless said companionship is considered a security risk somehow. And Adira, an outsider from a decidedly hostile organization, has been welcomed nicely enough; why would Gray be less welcome, real or not?

As far as I know, there's no requirement in Starfleet for its personnel to be social and sociable. It's allowed, within perhaps broader limits than today, but it's not mandatory. You turn up at work each star-morning, you do your job, you don't attempt suicide too often, you should be fine.

Picard never forced Troi upon people like Barclay if there were no performance issues. Troi in turn never caught up on issues like "Eye of Beholder" on her own initiative. People can simply be allowed to be whatever they wish to be, as far as the organization is concerned. Stamets may take a personal interest, but him being Adira's de facto boss in fact makes that a bit dubious. So it's nice that he's giving it the softest possible touch and not involving any outsiders. Although it's also convenient that his social backup there is the ship's highest-ranking doctor!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TPezz]

Is Adira actually a member of Starfleet? I don’t actually remember whether they officially joined.

Considering they are supposedly the first known joining of a Trill Symbiont and Human, could that possibly be an explanation? Like a side effect of some sort. The humans personality doesn’t take on symbiont traits, but still exist somewhere in their consciousness? Idk. Just throwing out ideas.

Since both Gray and Adira are back next season, I’m sure this will be fleshed out a bit more.

 

[Therin of Andor]

In order for characters to grow, they need to start somewhere. Patience. It is a story arc, not a single episode.

 

[Angry Fanboy]

Adira was part of the Earth Defence Force or whatever it was called, but at some point had come into contact with Admiral Tal which led to the symbiont being implanted.

I'd imagine Adira is currently the equivalent of a Tom Paris Starfleet observer or 'Specialist Burnham' from Season One - not part of Starfleet as such but along for the ride due to the value they can add.

 

[Christopher]

1. While Adira is paired with a Trill symbiont and therefore would have memories of Gray (and as Gray), the longer the projection of Gray continues, the more concerned I am that either Adira or the Trill has some serious mental health issues. While DS9's "Facets" seemed to also blur the lines between host memory and host personality, it seemed a bit easier to suspend disbelief for one episode rather than watching it play out over a full season. This is especially true since Adira is both seeing and interacting with Gray and believing that Gray exists outside of themselves.

You're forgetting DS9: "Field of Fire," where Ezri Dax used a variation of the zhian'tara ritual to separate Joran's memories from her joined consciousness and interact with him as a separate consciousness that she perceived as a hallucination, in exactly the way Adira perceives Gray. So we know for a fact that this is not mental illness or a delusion. It is a known, genuine way for a Trill host to interact with a former host's consciousness. It's unusual for it to happen spontaneously, yes, but that hardly constitutes mental illness. It's also unusual -- unprecedented, in fact -- for a human to host a Trill symbiont successfully. So it's no surprise that the symbiosis manifests in an unconventional way. But unconventional doesn't mean wrong.

In general, it's a mistake to assume that hallucination must be evidence of mental illness. It's more just an alternate mental state that can happen for any number of reasons -- fatigue, meditation, drug use, etc. Most of us have hallucinations occasionally, even if it's just a split-second thing like imagining someone calling your name when you're half-asleep. Many people actively seek out hallucinations as a religious or meditative experience, and there are some who think they have therapeutic value. In the science-fictional case of someone genuinely sharing their brain with a second personality, it's simply a way of visualizing that personality to make it easier to communicate with them.

 

[nafeasonto]

We never fully knew how Trill symbiotes work. They can very well communicate with each other, we don't know. The lore of Trills was never expanded on.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Good point. Stamets does come across as humouring Adira a bit much. Starfleet officers need to be at the top of their game. During a moment of crisis they can’t afford to be distracted by hallucinations, or whatever Gray is. This plot line is curious, but not much more for me.

While it does often seem he is only humoring them, it's hard to tell for sure. It might be that because Stamets has no experience at all with Trills, he thinks it is not that too abnormal for Adira to be seeing Gray.

As for why is Adira seeing Gray and whether this is a symptom of a larger problem, I wonder if maybe it's a side effect of it being a Human-Trill symbiosis, which we know from Will Riker's experience that it cannot be safely done (at least not in the 24th century).

 

[eschaton]

My own guess as to where this is going:

Next episode, when Adira beams down to "the Citadel" and Saru and Culber can see Grey. He manifests as a holographic being. The tell for this was his appearance at the beginning of the last episode, and his discussion regarding his frustration at only being able to interact with Adira.

Then, due to some technobabble, Grey can continue on as a holo-lifeform for Season 4, allowing the rest of the cast to interact with him.

 

[Christopher]

Then, due to some technobabble, Grey can continue on as a holo-lifeform for Season 4, allowing the rest of the cast to interact with him.

I was thinking maybe a permanent zhian'tara into a clone of Gray's original body, but a holo-Gray could work too. Not sure how a holodeck could extract a personality from Adira's (and the symbiont's) brain, but the fact that it's able to make Saru feel he's moving like a human suggests it's able to alter mental perceptions as well as create visual illusions, so maybe it has a psychometric (mind-reading) component.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe the pain of Gray's death is what's making Adira see him all the time.

 

[Deks]

I was thinking maybe a permanent zhian'tara into a clone of Gray's original body, but a holo-Gray could work too. Not sure how a holodeck could extract a personality from Adira's (and the symbiont's) brain, but the fact that it's able to make Saru feel he's moving like a human suggests it's able to alter mental perceptions as well as create visual illusions, so maybe it has a psychometric (mind-reading) component.

A neural interface linked to the holograpric systems would probably do the trick.
They did it in Season 2 in order to chat with Tilly's spore parasite. I suspect they can easily make a neural interface that simply attaches to Adira's head and specifically target's Grays consciousness for the purpose of creating a hologram in the same location Adira usually sees him but by also giving him substance and voice for the rest of the crew to interact with.

That is, if they decide to go down that kind of route.
They could probably also download his consciousness into a holographic body probably... but given that he's part of Tal and how the whole purpose of the symbiots is to acquire many new memories and experiences... not sure if that will actually happen.

 

[Christopher]

A neural interface linked to the holograpric systems would probably do the trick.
They did it in Season 2 in order to chat with Tilly's spore parasite. I suspect they can easily make a neural interface that simply attaches to Adira's head and specifically target's Grays consciousness for the purpose of creating a hologram in the same location Adira usually sees him but by also giving him substance and voice for the rest of the crew to interact with.

That's a good thought.

They could probably also download his consciousness into a holographic body probably... but given that he's part of Tal and how the whole purpose of the symbiots is to acquire many new memories and experiences... not sure if that will actually happen.

But the symbiont is in Adira now. Gray was its former host who died. So it's now Adira's job, not Gray's, to provide the symbiont with new experiences. And having a former host as a holographic life partner is certainly new.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

I've never given in much thought but yeah, now you mention it if a colleague on a starship tells you they're constantly seeing/interacting with what's essentially a ghost that no one else can perceive then I agree you should probably tell someone about it.

It would be a great thing to talk to Tilly about. She had May following her around.

 

[Fateor]

Honestly?

They should probably bring in a telepath or have her mind meld with a Vulcan to make sure what Adira is seeing is actually real and what she thinks it is.

Because potential medical issues aside, there are a number of not so good things that would be sitting in her mind pretending to be Gray that they really really want to rule out.