A MAN AND WOMAN IN STAR FLEET UNIFORMS ARE SITTING HAVING A MEAL IN A DEEP SPACE DINER.
Man: So tell me, why did you join Star Fleet? I really want to make the universe a better place, you know? And to play even a small role in the United Federation of Planets is such an honour for me.
Woman: Well, I signed up for more personal reasons.
Man: If you don’t want to discuss it, that’s fine.
Woman: No, I’ll tell you, seeing as you asked. Twelve years ago, my father, a physicist, turned into pure energy in a disastrous science experiment and he disappeared.
Man: Oh, I’m so sorry.
Woman: I’ve been searching space for him ever since, trying to find a means of converting him back into matter. I thought joining Star Fleet would be a good way of exploring the galaxy for him.
Man: Such a noble cause. What you’re doing is so admirable. Have you had any luck?
Woman: No. I’ve had some interesting adventures, though. Last Tuesday, my shuttle got sucked into a quantum singularity during an attempt to contact my father in which I had deliberately induced a build-up of chroniton particles in one of my warp nacelles. I got sucked back to the year 2003 and I was stuck there for 40 minutes.
Man: 40 minutes?
Woman: It was lucky, because I only had 42 minutes of airtime. It really opened my eyes though - the so-called civilised people in 2003 are torturers!
Man: That is interesting. Tuesday was a bad day for me too.
Woman: Do you want to talk about it?
Man: Oh, it’s not such a big deal. I was on an away mission on an M-class planet in the Lesbianic Nebula when I got bitten by an insect that changed my DNA structure so that for three centuries I was actually a homosexually-inclined crocodile.
Woman: Three centuries? But it happened last Tuesday, right?
Man: On the planet I was on, there's a gay inverse timefold.
Woman: Oh, bloody inverse timefolds! They’re literally a waste of time.
Man: Obviously I'm still working through some issues having been a crocodile for the last three hundred years.
Woman: I can imagine.
Man: So if I snap at you later - and I don't mean get angry - I mean actually snap, just ignore me. It’s just I might view you as a challenger to my territory.
Woman: I hate turning into animals. Just a fortnight ago, I was a mouse for three days when an omnipotent entity transformed me into a rodent for his own amusement. I think he was trying to show how clever he was and how inconsequential I am. You know? He didn't explicitly say that, but I got the message. Then he changed me back again, but it was humbling to be a mouse for three days. I was both humbled and annoyed. I had awful cramps (QUIETLY)
Man: Oh you poor thing.
Woman: But how did they change you back to a human from a crocodile?
Man; Luckily, the chief engineer had my original DNA structure recorded in the pattern buffers of the transporter, so the doctor ran a flashy bleepy over me when I was a crocodile that gradually devolved my DNA to its initial state.
Woman: That’s lucky. You know, you're so easy to get along with. I feel like I can tell you anything. You're so much nicer than my last boyfriend.
Man: Really?
Woman: Yeah. He was something of a green-eyed monster.
