Posted April 10, 2023, 11:32 a.m. by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) (Robert Archer)
[snip]
El’s mind ran about with that last question. How ‘had’ the sensors missed them? Certainly were they within the caves it would be easy to be masked what with the limited sensor ability in ground penetration thus requiring their physically exploring of the caves. Would their own internal make up - the natives - be attuned to the energy fields in the caves by simply living there and being ‘aligned’ to it? El dropped that line of thinking. She was far from some kind of biologist to even consider that kind of adaptation apart from something out of science fiction. Still it was a dreamy idea, if impractical. The more practical potential formed in her mind from that. What if they carried their own personal energy fields along that would be almost like a personal cloaking device. If they mined those jewels and ore and made jewelry out of it - ornamentation, and these in turn retained that natural field inhibiting energy field then sure, the sensors could have missed them as they’d just not see them. And the natives would be oblivious to it unless it created some kind of camouflage from the creatures of the world that they picked up on. Now ‘that’ tweaked El’s engineering mind and the potential that it could hold for their own technologies. Could that be incorporated into a micro netting suit to make them undetectable by normal sensors? Could that be used as a kind of enhancement for their hull polarizing - or even incorporated into it to move stealthily? That was all fine and well provided that that ‘theory’ was accurate.
She cast a glance at Cullings to see if he had any bright ideas about that that were perhaps not as fanciful as her own. She would have to ask about what the natives looked like before any more musings led her down those imaginative trails. But her stomach growled at her and had been on the trip back. Extra gravity. Extra effort. Extra calories burned. Extra hungry. Everyone likely was at this point. As the junior she would be the one preparing it, provided she knew where it was stowed. They would likely just be field ration packs that were boiled in water and eaten from the packet itself. It could be too that there was a more robust set up where something could be cooked over a fire - packs combined and cooked with other dry goods and fruits. “Where’s the food?” she whispered to Cullings. It was not obvious just by looking at the camp layout.
El, Eng
Cullings gave a thumbs over to a small crate marked with ‘field rations’. “..Over there.” he whispered back
Heather was taken aback, an actual primitive civilization here on the planet? Maybe the MACO’s fears had been justified. But there still had not been any evidence that the caves they had been in were part of an active community.
[O] Well it’s just speculation at this time Captain. But we did notice a dampening effect on our scanners while we were in the caves. The effective range was pretty dramatically reduced. This could definitely be impacting the ship’s sensors as well. Ground penetrating scans are only so effective, add in something diffracting the scanners, and then add in that we weren’t surveying for life signs. It’s quite possible that we didn’t even see any of the life sign readings, or the computer automatically categorized them as small animals, because the signature had been so greatly decreased. I would need to do a deeper analysis of the original scan data to be sure Captian. [C]
Cmdr. Grace - XO/CSO
El thought that given the surface scans of the area with the various rock layers, their thickness, and their angle or pitch or whatever geology term one used for that sort of thing, that they would be able to extrapolate the rock strata at least roughly. It would give a better idea for surveyors who would be coming next to take core samples and much better map the area geologically. Their scans could give them an indication of what was there. Further work would tell what it looked like under the ground. That was beyond a mere engineer unless El was working on the machinery taking the samples. One didn’t worry about a dampening field when one was taking physical samples out of the ground.
The mention again of natives to the planet was exciting. Apart from ‘seeing’ a Vulcan from afar she had never met an ‘alien’. Sure the sounded primitive but it was new. What were they like? But more importantly to El, what mattered was who they were as a people and would we from Earth be able to coexist with them both peacefully and equitably. Had humanity changed from mere centuries ago where those lesser humans were exploited upon contact? El had her doubts. One of her mentors had said to her that ‘Civilization as we know it is a very thin veneer. Peel it back and you will find chaos and anarchy. Mankind thinks it has grown but we will never outgrow our character. Be mindful of pride, Elemirre.’ This will be a very interesting test for humanity, El thought, for herself as well.
- El, Eng
As the group was speaking a pair of double beeps drew everyone’s attention to one of the setup scanner consoles nearby. Heading over NE Cullins spoke, “..Seems like survey probe 9 just went dark. It was burrowing down to about 300ft below the surface 200 yards north of here passing through some veins of iron, and lead veins laced with traces of gold and diamonds when it just went dark at the 336ft mark.” He said.
GM CockRoach
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