STF

Main Sim - City

Posted Aug. 24, 2022, 11:37 a.m. by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) (Kate O'Neill)

Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim - City

Posted by Gamemaster Wookius Furrius (Senior Gamemaster) in Main Sim - City

Posted by Commander Shedda Mal’athar (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - City
Posted by… suppressed (16) by the Post Ghost! 👻
OOC: While you are finishing the gathering at the shuttle thread .. moving things along to the city.
IC:

The shuttle did not have far to go. It was mere minutes from firing up the engines and exiting the bay to coming to rest on the pavement. From the air the roads, paths and plazas looked to be of a uniform cream colored pavement, like a smooth, plastic like cement. However, from the ground it looked quite different. The uniform look had an almost cobbly look to them with distinct pieces cleverly arranged both artistically and practical ways. The air felt cool and pleasant with a wisp of breeze. There was a scent that was not unlike almonds in the air. The buildings that looked so crystalline remained so. They possessed a delicate quality to them that was, again, artistically pleasing, appearing to be translucent but in closer inspection, not, through some trick of the eye or technology. The thing that was perhaps the oddest was the lack of sound. There was no machinery or vehicle or other sound beyond the soft murmur of a growing crowd of aliens approaching in twos and threes.

They themselves were tall, nearly 7 feet tall on average, but quite slim. Their faces tended to be a thin oval with wide set eyes, graceful cheekbones and a thin lips. Their chins tended to come to more of a point and their hair was long, even between the genders that were various shades of silver. The women wore diaphanous gowns that shimmered in the pale light. The men leaned toward a simple shift. Both wore sandals or simple footwear but no less delicate in appearance.

The crowd parted enough for two to approach. “Welcome to our world and city.” She glanced up at the ship hovering in the near distance. “You have traveled a great distance. We have troubled you our peril. For that we are sorry.”
- Wookiee

Cochrane stepped forward and said “We harbor no animosity for the circumstances that brought us here. I am Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane of the United Federation of Planets Starship Manhattan. These are some of my crew.” and he turned to each member of the Away Team in turn.

“Commander Shedda Mal’athar, my Second-In-Command.”

Shedda inclined her head while at the same time bowing forward very slightly. She knew that Carpenter would be making scans later, but Shedda was an trained anthropologist/archeologist after all and she was fascinated by the city. The materials, the people, their clothing, body language, the architecture, all of it.

“Lieutenant Commander Max Wynter, our Chief Engineer.”

“Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter, our Chief Medical Officer.”

“So nice to meet you,” she extended her hand not sure if they would return the greeting or not. She knew Celina would be passive scanning them so she did not focus on body but more chemistry and pathology. Stepping into a new world was always a gamble. Things in the air could react differently to different biological beings. If she was caught with the passive scans or Celina, it would easily be attributed to the away team trying to make sure the inhabitants were safe during the contact and nothing more.

“Chief Science Officer Lieutenant Alexander Carpenter.”

When hearing his name, Alexander nodded silently at the civilians and waited.

“Diplomatic Representative Mrs. Revna McKenzie, and her aide Ensign Reil Adami.”

Revna watched the two who had come to greet them, watching their mannerisms and turn of speech. They were welcoming enough and seemed genuinely apologetic for the trouble. Though Revna would withhold judgement until she’d spoken with them more. Body language and intonation didn’t always directly translate between species. She allowed her gaze to travel from them to Cochrane as he spoke and then to each person he introduced as well as casually paying attention to their hosts’ reactions. When introduced she smiled and dipped a very brief curtsey that was mostly a slight bend in the knees while keeping her gaze politely curious and then turning back to Cochrane as he spoke.

“Lieutenant Forgrave, Chief of Security.”

Forgrave’s first impressions were that the two did not move with any urgency. Their motions were slow and with a touch more motion than was necessary, at least to the visitors, though it looked to be universal and cultural.

“And finally Lieutenant Celina Creed, Chief Logistics Officer.”

Celina smiled and waved slightly with one hand after the introduction. The gesture was a sleight of hand trick Jack had taught her and allowed for the other hand she casually moved to her side to activate passive scans of the people. She was not in charge of security but that did not mean she did not support the protection of the crew. The scan was set on wide range and would pick up the crew plus the people around them. It would not be noticed and only record things like body temperature, heights, weights, and basic anatomical systems. It could easily be attributed to her accidentally activating the device if it was ever noticed. The reason was a bit darker. If Celina or the security officers needed to fight their way out, she needed to know how to take them down. As Jack said, hope for the best but always plan for the worst.

Celina Creed CTO

Cochrane, CO

Alexander Carpenter, CSO

Mal’athar, XO

McKenzie, DA

J Wynter CMO

As each were introduced, the two welcomers looked intently at each person.

“Such an auspicious occasion that you have brought such leaders with you for this meeting, Manhattan, Fleet Captain. I am Kela, priestess adept, and this is Thera, master writ-keeper.” Thera was introduced by a fluid, slow gesture of the hand and slight inclination of Kela’s head. “You are all welcome here.”

“A true pleasure to meet you.” Cochrane replied, inclining his head at the writ-keeper. “Even under such circumstances, we are always pleased to meet those who wish to engage in dialogue.”

She made a gesture to the building behind them. “Please, would you join us. This is the Temple to the Goddess. There we may talk and, if you wish, take refreshment.” There was a pause. “And be witness to what has become the Bane of our people, and the trouble which has come upon yourselves. Thera is our master writ-keeper. She of all of us who remain can speak of what has befallen us.”

Kela and Thera, oh and the Wookiee

Cochrane nodded and looked at his team, directing them to follow with a nod. Hands clasped behind his back, he followed the two to the temple.

Celina tried not to react to the way the woman described their society. The word Bane was technically described as an annoyance or something of great distress. To her, there was a huge difference between distress and annoyance. “Interesting choice of verbiage,” she said to her friend.

Celina Creed CTO

“Agreed. Annoyance is when I decided to try to repair something myself that Max doesn’t seem able to get to. Distress is when there are sparks and smoke,” Jasmine said in a whisper to her friend. “The origin of the word however was to describe poison. Wolfsbane, henbane,” she named a few that had now been relegated to holovids or books about witches and werewolves. “It also was used to describe killer or slayer. “

Jasmine Wynter CMO

OOC: Precautionary bump .. Gene
Carpenter approaches the Captain and said : “With your permission sir, I would like to begin research. The sooner we’ll have the result the fastest we’ll solve this situation.” Although he would have preferred to visit the temple, it was not the time to play tourist.

Alexander Carpenter, CSO

“Scan on the way. We will… I hope, anyway… still have some time to study going forward.”

Revna kept her gestures slow in response to Kela’s own gestures. “We would be honored to join you. The sooner we talk perhaps the sooner we can find a solution to help all of us.”

McKenzie, DA
Alexander looked at McKenzie and frowned a bit. Guess it’ll wait, thought the man. Still, he decided to pull out his tricorder to analyze the environment.

Alexander Carpenter, CSO

On the immediate side the air was remarkably free of pollutants, mimicking more a crisp mountain high altitude freshness. Where most worlds would have some industrial particulates as a virtual default, this was noticeably scrubbed, as though there was no industry at all. However, backing that with perhaps a sole planetary population just north of 100,000, that could be explained somewhat. Even up close the buildings were difficult to scan, coming up with a quizzical mixed reading of a crystalline biometric matrix.

When the party passed from the outside to the interior the lighting changed to something almost twilight in nature with the outside sun pushing through the translucent crystalline walls in muted hues. Rays of light were highlighted through the lingering dust motes in the air. What was also striking was that the interior was carved all along the walls in the shape and form of a hollowed out tree trunk, making the surface and walls non linear but rounded with great detail. On the far wall there was an angled bole that held the only stark contrast in the muted colors - a blackness that looked more like a cave than a part of the wall.

The only other thing in the large chamber was 2/3 of the way in and centered in front of the dark ‘cave’. It was a rectangular shape, almost altar-ish in nature, solid in all appearance and of the same stuff as the walls and floor, and utterly featureless but for one thing - when it was peered into it lost its utter solidity and whispers of light playing along unseen fractures within could be seen. It was slow, like northern lights and as lovely and mysterious. Looking face on to the altar like rise could be seen thin tracery along the surface. That tracery was changing, perhaps a script, but fine, delicate and unreadable.

From cleverly placed nooks where the walls were shaped to hide them came several attendants. They moved in the same unrushed fashion as Kela and Thera. Each bore a platter with tall, thin glasses next to an equally elegant pitcher of a yellowy cream colored liquid. These they placed upon the altar.

At a gesture from Kela, Thera began speaking. “Long ages past our sun became unstable and threatened our world with destruction. While we had star travel it could not help with more than a small fraction of our people to bring them to safety. And it came to pass that our scientists devised a daring plan to preserve us as a whole - to bring our people into the great cities and send each of them into our past, but for one. This one. Six cities, linked through the machine, anchored in periods of time in the hope that they may survive and with it, our civilization. That was our hope, misguided as it was, not seeing all ends, all possibilities of what may come.”

Kela, meanwhile, poured out the liquid. It was, they could see, a thick liquid, almost like cream, with a sweet, alien smell to it. With each tall, think glass she filled, Kela placed it onto the platter for the others to take.
- Wookiee

As one of the attendants passed Revna asked her very softly, “Would it offend if our doctor scanned the refreshments to ensure comparability with out physiology?” She did not wish to speak overly loud and disturb Thera as she spoke, nor offend if this was an overly ritualistic proceeding. Revna also wanted to provide the doctor a chance to get as many readings as possible without risk of offending anyone. They would get the readings either way, but it was better to get permission for as much as possible.

McKenzie, DA

Kela spoke with a slow sweeping gesture of one hand that included a tip of the head and body. “Of course. Taking care is wisdom and wisdom is life. We have overstepped in our assumptions. Forgive us.”

“Oh not at all,” Jasmine said warmly as she pulled out the tricorder and began to scan the drink and the person holding the tray. “We just had an unfortunate incident in the past where the drinks the crew consumed turned out to react as an alcoholic beverage in a few race’s bodies as it metabolized.” The event was not during an away mission on the Manhattan but it had a profound enough effect that the medical division sent out a memo about the event.

Scans would show that the drink was benign, a related match being something of a mix of fruit and honey but with a decidedly similar but still different smell. Samples would need to be taken for the specific food values; scan indications showed it was a rich foodstuff moreso than a simple drink.

Nodding to the captain, that the scans were complete on the offered beverage, she did make a note that it appeared to be more of a smoothie in nutritional content than just a beverage.

Jasmine Wynter CMO

Looking at the results, Cochrane nodded and indicated to everyone to get a glass.

Saving a civilization by going into the past? Shedda’s mind whirled with the possibilities of how it could be done, but also how that might affect their present and future. The possibilities were…profuse. “What went wrong?”

Mal’athar, XO

“Evolution. Competition. Ambition. Jealousy,” Thera said. “Sending a city that far into the past we thought would not affect the present so many millions of years later. We were wrong. One of the cities has, in some renderings, sought to change the ways. Two cities are anchors. Ours and the farthest in the past. These are attempting to usurp that and become the anchor and hold dominion. I fear what you have felt are the struggles they are making to accomplish this. Moreover, their attempts have destabilized the machine causing time flashes where past ages show forth upon the world out beyond the city walls. That is but a foretaste of what we may see happen - a complete time wash should the city be successful in its struggles. We would .. cease to be.”
- Thera and Kela

“Can you communicate with the other cities? Are they aware of the damage they are causing?” Cochrane asked politely. “Or is this a case of, as we have seen so many times in countless other civilizations… our own included… of a small group putting their own desires and wants before the greater good for all?”

Cochrane, CO


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