STF

Bridge Main Sim

Posted March 2, 2021, 6:48 p.m. by Lieutenant Oliver Loughty (Acting Chief Science Officer) (J Ridgley)

Posted by Gamemaster Deus Ex Machina (GM) in Bridge Main Sim

Posted by Commander Garinder’Jen th’Jir (Executive Officer) in Bridge Main Sim

Posted by Lieutenant Oliver Loughty (Acting Chief Science Officer) in Bridge Main Sim
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
Revna nodded, and pulled on that long forgotten command training that she’d never really used. “Do we know how strong their communications are? Is it possible those fighters warned the base of our probe? The they sent out other ships to push that asteroid to divert us?” Misdirection was always a good tactic, especially when dealing with unknowns.
Lt. Edman, Counselor

Jen shook his head and added a Terran ‘shrug’ to accompany it. “I don’t know. That is possible,” he said in a tone that strongly suggested he was mulling that. Yes they knew that the Atlantis was looking for something and were dancing about on the edge of making nice as they knew in that moment anyway that they had the advantage. Destroying their probe that wasn’t going anywhere special could have annoyed, well, him. Right now ‘Jen’ was unknown to them and that was a good thing. “We’ll find out, and we have more probes.” He looked at Edman with a half smile. “That asteroid likely is on a straight line course, but science could better inform me of that. That means something is on the ‘push’ side of it, be it another ship or something bigger. A tractor beam would be a new tech we’ve not seen yet from them. Perhaps it is something that is only available on large structures or that carrier would have played dodge ball with us. We’re flying blind in this asteroid field but one thing we now know - something pushed that rock. What and where is that something?”
- Jen, XO

Lera came onto the bridge then and relieved the NE at the engineering station. The man had a knack with one of the troublesome conduit junctions and the Chief wanted him in engineering right now. She’d come up to relieve him and was listening to the conversation as it wound down.

Lera
Engineering
((finding a way to sneak in lol))
OOC: We need sneaky
IC:

“Ensign,” Jen said even before Lera had a chance to look at the seat. “Have a look at this.” He pointed to the asteroid drifting against the current on one of the screens. “Tell me about force mechanics. How much of a straight line path would that take in an asteroid belt were it given a push? Would the gravity of the field steer it from a straight line route?”
- Jen, XO

Gravitational forces would have minute effects on course and speed, so straight line reverse projections would be accurate enough. The only real concern was if there was a secondary collision that would change the course dramatically.

Oliver entered the bridge, he hadn’t expected to take the role as the bridge science officer but Kai was pre occupied and the call had been for him. It took him longer than expected to shut down his experiment and finally enter the bridge. He had just caught the end of the question but didn’t want to step on the ensigns toes, she was more than qualified to answer the question. Instead he moved to the science station and began activating it reading the information about the asteroid.

  • Lt Oliver Loughty

As ordered the probe did a quick calculation and thrusted off on a new course that was now towards the outer arm of the belt.

GM

“Lt Loughty,” Jen said, waiting for him to activate his work area. “Welcome to the bridge. “Looking at that asteroid, can you detect whether there has been any secondary collisions to alter its course?” Or in other words, has it been banged around recently. “And, given that it is not in the usual pathway of the rest of these asteroids, how much of a force would it take to push that rock from what it normally would be on to what it was now?

“And Ensign, one more thing, was that rock sent on its way by a tractor beam or by mechanical means?” In other words, were there hooks and tow cables attached or evidence of other things like something giving it a good push?
- Jen, XO

“On it now” Oliver began by scanning the asteroid for any obvious large impact craters, it was scattered with hundreds of smaller ones but none would be enough to tilt the asteroid of its initial trajectory, the impact crafter (if any) would have to be large enough that it would likely have split the asteroid or at least taken a large chunk out of the surface that scan would reveal such a thing. her second question had him thinking the force to move such an object even in space would require a lot of energy. He waited as the computer did the calculations and scanned the asteroid surface for impact craters that would suggest it was a natural divergence off its natural path or any energy readings weapon or else that would suggest more mankind manipulation.

  • Lt Oliver Loughty

There was a ‘fresher’ side to the the asteroid. The more flat section of the rock appears to have been shorn by some sort of powered energy weapon. The differing course and speed from the other masses in the field likely came from that. However other minor impacts could vary the course by several degrees.

GM

“Captain if my scans are correct, which I vouch their authenticity considering I helped make them the asteroid shows clear signs of their being a foreign influence to its shape. There is clear use of an energy weapon maybe a mining laser given the clean cut. Some of the smaller asteroids have had some influence in its trajectory but I would put my eggs into the basket labelled ‘fowl play’” Oliver then pushed out his findings to the other consoles on the bridge including the captains.

  • Lieitenant Oliver Loughty

Jen smiled at the slight gaff from Loughty. Another time he might have bore into the Lieutenant to relearn his basic training but this was not the time. Instead he took a slightly different tack. “Lieutenant, it has been a while since I was a Captain. You may try Colonel as that was my last military rank, but then Commander works too.” He would, it seems, answer to both. “But be that as it may, bring up the telemetry and readings of the probe that is going in the direction we think the asteroid came from. Feel free to make any course adjustments you believe it to require. I’m curious where it came from.”

A mining laser. That could mean a prospecting expedition, a mining effort that needed errant asteroids moved on or, perhaps even the elusive pirate base. Lots of possibilities but this was one of their few leads so Jen was happy to follow that up. “Tactical. Any communications going out from that carrier?”
- Jen, XO

The only communications that were detected were to and from the fighters following the probe, which were uncoded although occasional military verbal short-hand was used and communication to the shuttle in terms of landing directions. One of the uncoded communications from the fighters noted the probe course change, but that was not atypical as they had done it every other time the probe had a course change.

GM

OOC: Luke, I figure this is moot based on your post, but just trying to put Revna back in somewhere.
IC:
Revna walked over to the comm’s officer and requested a list of the communications, audio and textual, from the fighters. Just because they weren’t encrypted or coded did not mean that they weren’t speaking in code, as it were. Everything she’d heard seemed normal, and of course she wasn’t as familiar with military verbal as much as someone who was an active marine. She sat down at a spare console and started reading through and listening to the comms to see if there was anything that might be of use to them. She wasn’t expecting much, but it was worth a look.
Lt Edman, Counselor

The communications seemed pretty benign. There actually was less non-tactical communication than what the counselor would have expected given the amount of time the fighters were in space.

“Are we sliding down the wrong M’ent hole?” Jen asked Edman. “The fighters don’t seem too perturbed. What are you getting?”

OOC: Less non tactical… less…
OOC: Sorry, misread that, I tried to fix it

Revna turned from the console she was at and addressed the XO. “Not much, Sir. The communications are more informal than I would expect of a military group. Less Non-tactical in nature. That surprises me, but they aren’t Star Fleet. They are pirates, or privateers, and they don’t typically adhere to strict military standard. The tactical information is there, but from a fighter wing I would expect more. But it’s possible they actually don’t care about our probe. They are following it simply to appear that way. Simply for show? But,” and in all honesty, “I’m not sure Cmdr. Alfo was very amused and conciliatory. I could have gotten more if Shade had spoken, maybe, but there is nothing in their communications to really indicate anything of importance. At least not yet.”

Jen leaned back on the chair and set his arms on the rests of the command chair. “That is a stain on the balance of power in this sector. We’ve not seen the equal yet if such things are floating about the region. I hope that the Captain and the others can divine out what it was that they wanted with the little freighter. This is a puzzle that has many pieces missing.”

Revna didn’t have anything to add but she continued to monitor their communications incase anything of interest was revealed.

“I agree. I think the rock was hit on purpose. The question is, why hasn’t it been stopped and picked up yet if it was mined? I also recommend a probe to follow the trajectory of the tossed stone, as it were, to see where it was pushed to. If this is the start of a purposeful chain reaction, we should get ahead of it rather than get caught in something we can’t escape from if we are in the field when it occurs.”

Lera wasn’t exactly sure what it would be. But no one just sheered a rock of that size without a purpose. Even if it was just to test a weapon, there would be a reason for this section and that meteor. Why not one already on a fringe and less likely to cause disruptions. The fact it wasn’t rolling also gave her pause. If it had been sheered, the force should have tumbled it. Why was it not careening off like a punted ball?

Lera
Engineer

OOC: I don’t remember saying it wasn’t tumbling. If I did I was in error, it is tumbling, although not at a particularly high rate.

Jen rubbed at his chin. “Do it. Let’s see what they do? And let’s see what we see from it,” he said to Lera. Personally he thought it an errand that would not yield much fruit, but he was willing to be surprised - and two eyes are better than one.

Over to Science he said, “Let’s keep track of our probes and recall them back in. We’re too far from home to start leaving bits behind that we can use.”
- Jen, XO

“Aye” Oliver said in response as he began the recall procedure on some of the probes which were on the extent of their fuel and range. There wasn’t any more information to be gathered from them anyway and they seemed to have enough to work on a reasonable theory and possible solution anyway. The computer acknowledged his orders and he waited for the next line of questions and orders.

  • Lieutenant Oliver Loughty

“While you’re at it, you two,” Jen continued, “Have a good scan of that carrier. How ‘patched’ up is she? How ‘old’ is she? What is the form of thrust that she has for impulse power? Can we find a detailed hull composition? Let’s see if we can’t put our jigsaw puzzle together through the back end by comparing ‘that’ with what we know of the building materials and tech of these other systems that we’ve scanned and can inquire of the Orb to fill in some blanks.”
- Jen, XO

The Carrier didn’t seemed patched up at all. She wasn’t brand new by any stretch, nor did each part of the ship seem specifically designed for its use, but it was put to getter properly. The best analogy was a car with a racing package. It wasn’t built with a racing package, but the package was built to go on the car. The building was comparable with the technology of the sector. It was not made with the tech of the Great One, or the Lorn, but any of the other races could had done it.

GM
Lt Edman, Counselor

He looked again at the Science and Engineering people. “I want a full scan of that ship with an estimation of their tech level and primary systems. What do they have for weapons, shields, presumed computing power, fighter class and tech level, impulse efficiency and so on. They are likely going to try to barter for tech from us for repair materials. I want to know where they are and if they are 50 years back I want to know what we can offer that is 25. What do we have even in basic things that they do not. Even something like self sealing stem bolts or sonic showers, a more efficient structural integrity field or comms array, food replicators versus kitchens.”

He looked at the Counselor. “What do they have for currency here? Do we know?” He glanced at the Orb. “Let’s check in with that to see,” he said, inviting her to do that. “If we can replicate the gold or whatever they use then we can just pay them out.”
- Jen

OOC: Ahh the money question. I’m going to fall back on the star-trek universe unexplainable ‘why is there a monetary system’ in a universe that can replicate things… for some unknown reason you can not replicate valuable gems and metals. Sorry.

OOC: but could we get a list of precious gems and minerals they do use and we could search the ship for anything we could use. Commbadges are made of gold. Or is this a moot point? In which case I shall move on. :)

OOC: Sure. the standard Diamond, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire are the ones of value that could impact the negotiation. Interestingly enough dilithum is not listed. Platinum, Palladium, and Gold, but again not gold pressed Latium.

Revna was interested to see what the orb could tell them. She didn’t recall Alfo mentioning anything about currency. She moved over to the orb, if she felt silly talking to it no one could tell. “Orb can you tell me what what currency is used by the pirates and other species in this area?”

“Each race has a value system based on gems or minerals of value, which is converted into a credit system. Interspecies transactions use either an intergalactic banking system or a barter system in a more grand trades. Pirates tend to convert their prizes into credits when they come into ports of call. Although the barter system still applies for many of their dealing.”

Still speaking to the orb, “Can you tell me what the gems and minerals of value are, across all cultures and races of this area of space? And their chemical and mineral composition?” With that information even if the words didn’t translate she could put the information into their computer and they could replicate or find it in stores on the ship. “Also, orb, can you tell me the exchange rate of each to credits? Where is the nearest port of call to convert into credits?”

“Base 5 is a galactic banking hub.” the Orb spoke helpfully.

Another thought occurred to her and she addressed the orb, “Also what can you tell me about covert communications among the pirates of this area?”

“I have no knowledge of that.”

Lt. Edman, Counselor

Oliver had acknowledged the executive officers orders and had now targeted the ships external sensor array towards the ship, he’d given the computer a quick set of orders to priorities the ships state, weapon and defensive capabilities and then to compare it to their own and another know species to give him a good understanding of what they were dealing with. Hopefully, he could give the XO the answer soon but sometimes you could only go as fast as you could.

  • Lt Oliver Loughty CSO

Scans couldn’t project when technological breakthroughs would happen so generational knowledge would be an estimate at best. Also the Carrier itself was likely not state of the art. Impulse engines hadn’t changed in 300 years, but moderate tech changes could improve the effectiveness by a dozen percent in speed, 50% in fuel usage. Warp Engines in this quadrant were huge, overpowered monsters but they lacked tech to make the power exchange effective - dilithum crystals could alter the balance of power significantly. There was no way to tell when this break through would happen as the Federation started with dilithum.
Medical tech was hard to assess without actually getting into their sick bay, but there was no organ replication via transporter tech as they didn’t have it. There beam weapons were mostly unphased weapons. Phasers were likely 20 years away. They used missiles with anti matter warheads, two generation back photon torpedoes.
They used polarized plating for beam and impact deflection. That tech advanced far beyond anything the Federation had as they discovered shields. Shield tech was somewhere around 200 years more advance than what they had, but only about 60 years more effective than their polarization system.
No evidence of sonic showers.

GM
Lt Edman, Counselor

Jen listened to the exchange in the background while his focus was on the carrier. He was sure they could do a better ‘barter’ than the ‘big’ tech. A gradual upgrade would be finer than a huge one especially where it required past tech to manufacture things. Meanwhile he waited for the different reports to get back to him.
- Jen, XO

John-King stood to the edge of the bridge, a cut above his right eye, and he seemed to be flexing his left hand.

“Commander, I haven’t forgotten all my training, if I can be of assistance,” John-King said, “not much call for drinks at the moment,” he paused, “or singing,” a further pause, “or the party games I can do with my left hand and technology. Know very basic engineering, Dagen Thor, a trill Chief Engineer I knew back when I was a CNS in the Academy. He taught me bits and pieces.”
“Don’t wanna be in the way, commander, but happy to assist, and as unnatural as it feels, I’m almost as good a shot with a phaser right handed as I was left handed in the earliest days of my academy time.”
- J-K McKenzie, Lounge Host and temporary Star Fleet officer

“A Trill Chief Engineer,” Jen replied. “I always thought Trills were flighty,” he commented. “Like they had visited Risa and part of them never left. Had a Trill in my unit. If he spent half as much time with his training than with his card games he would have been amazing. Instead he became a General’s adjutant.” By the sound of that it was, to him, a fate worse than death. He assessed J-K. “You should be over there with them,” he added, then a half smiled formed. “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. You are one of many talents.” He stood and addressed those on the Bridge. “Apart from following asteroid trails and finding pirate lairs I want a plan for bartering. It will likely include technology but let’s see if we can’t sweeten the pot with gems and the like that we can replicate. With technology what is the next step forward that we can offer that they could integrate? Science, I want to know from the stars in this sector on a spectrographic analysis of its makeup of whether there are potentially dilithium deposits about? Or even in this mess of rock that we’re in. Think of this as rummaging about in the closet for something to give away.”
- Jen, XO

No detectable dilithum. Nor was there a system that had a high probably of dilithum based on the composition of the system. However dilithum could be flighty and might be at locations that were unpredictable.

GM

Revna turned to Cmdr Jen. “Sir it will have to be technology. They barter in precious metals and minerals, those are then exchanged for credits. We can’t replicate those gems and minerals though. It’s possible we could ask the crew to donate anything they have personally but I doubt it would be enough to be worth while. Base 5 however is the closest area to exchange for credits.”
Lt Edman, Counselor

“Deflectors would be too difficult to consider with a mesh of material in the hull, at least for the ships at hand. My bet would be to consider the next step in their evolution of travel - upgraded inertial dampeners and introduce dilithium to their propulsion. not the current tech of recrystalizing and the like but a more base level tech that they could more easily handle. I don’t know if their computer systems could handle transporters. That is a massive complexity of buffer storage and containment. Food replication.” Jen glanced at the others. “I need to know if there’s any dilithium in the area in order for this to happen.”
- Jen, XO

“Scanning for dilithium pockets in the local sector,” Oliver said when he had an idea, “What about the Asteroid, perhaps there are some valuable ores they would consider bartering? If there is we could take a shuttle and extract the minerals it would be quicker than finding Dilithium.” He explained having already started a scan not he asteroid and the local area incase any other minerals or ores showed up.

  • Lt Oliver Loughty

These asteroids were primarily Iron, Nickel and cobalt. Nothing of great value.

“Good idea, Lt,” Jen said. “If nothing else we might be able to use the knowledge for barter. Knowing a deposit is somewhere that nobody else knows could be worth something as well. People in the past have killed over maps to old mines. But keep on for dilithium. My guess is that they are going to want to miniaturize their drives after seeing ours.”
Jen, XO

OOC: You might not remember that was something the Enodorian captain noted enviously.

GM

Revna waited for a lull in the conversation, “Commander, according to the orb the precious stones they are familiar with and use to barter are standard Diamond, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire. They represent a significant enough value that they could impact the negotiation. Dilithum is not listed as a precious material, interestingly enough. Platinum, Palladium, and Gold as well but not gold pressed Latium.”
Lt Endman, Counselor

“Sir, if they consider Gold as a precious metal we could extract gold from our super conductive relays, we use gold due to its conductive materials.” He explained and then added, “we could also extract gold from any latinum we have onboard but the other minerals are more difficult to come by sir.”

  • Lieutenant Oliver Lought

Nothing was particularly easy. Jen’s fingers slid up to rub along his jaw in thought. He shook his head. “We’ll not come up with enough to make a difference and I don’t want to go stripping even more of our systems when so many are having issues now. Let’s not borrow trouble. We’re talking large purchases. A bit of gold won’t make a dent in the bill. They liked our engines. We don’t have an easy scope on dilithium. So let’s do this the hard way. We’ll have to ask. The pirates may have been around and seen things. Remember Troyius. They had dilithium as a common stone. It may be that the reason it’s not listed here is because it holds little value - provided it is about.” He didn’t much care about latinum. If it wasn’t a currency here then it was irrelevant. If they had a lake of it well, maybe they could dip in before they returned home but until then to the matter at hand.

He turned to the rest on the bridge. “Any objections to potentially sharing older warp technology for them to further develop?”
- Jen, XO

OOC: You have seen ships do warp 5 as a cruising speed and warp 7 in an emergency. So it wouldn’t be ‘that old.’

“Sir, its not so much of an objecting but an observation. I dont think any warp technology we offer unless the latest would be appealing to then. From our readings, they are capable of warp 7 for a small amount of time. Its not great but offering them older technology may seem a little bit of an insult.” Explained the standing in chief of science, his voice was apologetic and he truly didn’t want to sound condescending.

  • Lt Oliver Loughty

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