Lastly, the assistant confirmed that Faith Massey was estranged from her daughter, but the estrangement was one hundred percent Faith’s fault. The daughter had been dating a focus puller in Venice Beach who was into “unexpected creampies” and had gotten her pregnant. Faith begged her daughter to have an abortion, but the daughter decided to keep the baby. Then Faith said, “Okay, keep the baby, but break up with the boyfriend. I’ll support you.” When the daughter refused to break up with the boyfriend, Faith cut the daughter out of her life, and not vice versa. It had nothing to do with the makeup artist ex-husband, who was abusive; that wasn’t exaggerated. Speaking of the makeup artist ex-husband, Faith had been so glad to indulge in the narrative of doing her daughter’s makeup for Halloween. What she somehow failed to mention was the incident when she was super-wasted—again—and insisted the assistant do her up as Commander Dinara Gorun. They used her ex-husband’s makeup kit, which she inexplicably had kept. In a fluffy bathrobe with a towel wound around her hair, Faith looked like a retired Commander Dinara Gorun on a cruise. As Faith caught sight of her purple reflection, she sobbed. She buried her face in the assistant’s shirt and left a permanent impression from the expired professional cosmetics, as though the shirt were a Kil’aathi Shroud of Turin. Her ex-husband had enjoyed screwing her after tapings as Commander Dinara Gorun. No one had ever loved her for herself. Pressing his forearm into her windpipe, he demanded that she recite her famous catchphrase, so she moaned, “To save the universe, we must also save ourselves.”

Guilt haunts us as we comment, as we like and we dislike, as we throw down, as we emoji. Though we are not as responsible as some for having messed up Faith Massey, we cannot deny that we have not loved her for herself. (Some of us have been attempting for a while to point out that our love is fickle, but when we try to point out that we’ve been pointing that out, we are told to shut up and that we are probably menstruating.) It’s like that episode of Starship Uprising that opens with the death of the ship’s counselor from a random telepad accident, entitled “Mirror, Mirror.” Until a new empath can be located, the crew has to make do with a holographic counselor, otherwise known as a Computerized Affective Relating Lifefacsimile, or CARL. How CARL works is that it scans your brain in order to take bits and pieces of those you love—your mother’s smile, your dad’s dad humor—and project the ultimate composite of a person you’re most likely to trust. Then it uses a technique invented by famous twentieth century psychologist Carl Rogers, wherein the CARL merely repeats back to you what you said so it can get you to spill your guts. “I’m feeling sort of disconnected from everything lately,” you’ll say, and it will repeat, “You’re feeling disconnected lately.” You’ll say, “I’m upset because Portia dumped me,” and so it will repeat, “Portia dumped you.” Perhaps you’ll say, “I don’t need therapy. I know what’s wrong with me. A genetically engineered virus wiped out our colony on Rentathus Nine. That’s what’s wrong with me,” so it will repeat, “A virus wiped out your colony on Rentathus Nine.” The crew stops socializing, instead preferring to spend their recreational allotment with CARL, a portion of them becoming smitten with the holographic counselor. When the replacement empath arrives, she promptly turns off the program.