Posted by Commodore Drudoc Andone (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim: Studying the Volograd’s Data - Planetary Science Lab
[snip]

V’alura swept into the Planetary Science lab and set her data chip into the nearest console to bring forth holo outline of J17 for everyone to see. On another holoscreen she brought up an organized outline of the data gathered by the Volgograd separated into two categories. The first being the data from six months ago and the Volgograd’s first foray into J17. The second the data gathered two weeks ago. Once in the lab V’alura created a third category that would display their theories and ideas. One everyone was gathered in the lab V’alura took the lead in getting things started.

“I hope everyone enjoyed their downtime because now it’s back to work and oh boy do we have a doozy of a science mystery to solve.” Though V’alura spoke and acted as she normally would, her scientists could tell her tone lacked its usual bright enthusiasm. Her movements stiff and sluggish as though she were performing underwater. The once famous actress now putting on a canned and forced performance that would make even an amateur shake their head. “Let’s put our heads together everyone. I want to hear your thoughts, your theories. Let’s work together and solve this.”

Lt Belmont, CSO

Sifeda noticed the V’alura in the briefing room was not the V’alura she had spoken to during their first encounter. There was a slight difference in her personality which was a little concerning and prompted Sifeda to make a quick stop by the science lab to check on V’alura. When she entered the lab, Lieutenant Belmont already had her crew working on the Volograd Data. After a brief observation, Sifeda confirmed that something was off with V’alura, so she approached her and simply asked, “Hey, how are you?”

Itri, XO

Information came up when requested the first bit of data from the survey data by long range probes was first. J17 was as shown a two star system, but had a rare case of each star orbiting at the outer edges of the system opposite each other, then with six planets orbiting three each both stars. The inner most 3rd and 4th were class M but the other four were airless lifeless rocks. The original survey probes it seems had missed any sign of intelligence life on the third planet or of any sign of civilization. They scans showed the third planet at the time had just been a bunch of animals, the closest thing to humanoid like was a short race of reptilian like animals that were mostly a carnivore mix working in pack groups. They were similar to small sized velociraptors on Earth during Earth’s older times. The rest of the survey probe data for the region of space was pretty normal, some stellar gases, ancient radio traffic, dust, etc. All within norms more or less nothing that stood out as being ‘this cases aliens to advance super fast’.

The next set of data was from the Volograd’s survey of the local stellar region, again like the survey probes before nothing stood out as being alarming, some of it was in more detail though. Some nebulas some light years away for example were shown to be home to several tiny space faring organisms that fed on helium for example. Another thing of note was the Volograd did make a note that radio traffic was unusually higher then expected given the lack of other space faring powers in the area for some light years. One NE on the ship noted it was like the region ‘echoed’ over and over different signal bands, but no source or reason could be seen or explained for it. The next bit of data was the original observation of J17 by the Volograd where they had found the humanoid like species called the Forseth just entering the early industrial age on the third planet. The data showed that the scans of the race were a likely candidate for unknown rapid evolution of the earlier humaniod short reptiles that roamed in packs, but that they had undergone considerable changes. Much of their reptilian heritage was gone, barring a thick scale like skin, and cold blooded nature. They were shown to be a close knit group of communal culture and it seems the various cities, towns, villages, etc all were linked by well maintained roads or early evolving steam powered engine rail systems or boat/waterways. There was no present showing much in the way of a state or world government rather that everyone and thing was tied to helping up and down the chain of their society. Again nothing really stood out on scans that screamed unusual or ‘rapid evolution/society changing’. The oddity obviously was how an unintelligent society of pack reptiles rose to the industrial age in just over a decade. The Volograd crew suspected some kind of outside interference but again nothing could be located.

The last bit of data showed that their return trip to J17 showed the Forseth had now advanced to the late information/early space age in less then six or so weeks! Again no signs of outside influence was present, nor of any other cause. The society was still showing no signs of a central form of government or state only a singular purpose by the entire society to help up and down the chain of it to push ahead further. Further scans done by the Volograd showed no signs of psychic or telepathic abilities, or a sense of hive minds or such. Carbon date scans showed that earlier era of society were in place underneath the growth of newer ones. It seems that roughly speaking from what could be showed when one era of breakthrough was finished the whole society in a matter of what seemed hours or days piece by piece broke down the old and built the new.

Again stellar scans of the region by the Volograd again during this period showed nothing really amiss. The only stand out oddities were the rapid evolution of the Forseth, and the odd ‘echo’ pattern of radio traffic for light years around.

GM CockRoach

Katie stood near the right hand side of the display. “It strikes me that there are two fundamental solutions to this problem. First, there is the possibility that they developed the technology themselves and the only answer I see to that one is that their brains and metabolisms are so fast they make us look like we’re trying to solve differential calculus problems with an abacus. Second, they got the technology from someone else. That leads to the problem of whether they got it through physical contact with another race… presumably not a Federation species since that would be a prime directive violation… or they got it through a non-physical means,” Katie said with a frown. “Perhaps they are extremely psychic and got it through long distance mind-reading though I tend to discount that possibility.”

LtJg Katherine (Katie) Hobbes, Chief Engineering Officer