Posted by Gamemaster Alias Smith N. Jones, Esq. (GMT) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Renveer (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival

Posted by Captain Molly Holloway (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

As the Ensign’s voice began to carry her words as she sang, the attention of the figure on the screen immediately snapped to look at her and it’s pupils dilated slightly. Shandar could feel a strong shift and surge in emotion from the being. Frustration and anger were immediately replaced with a sense of relief and hope. It’s mouth opened and music began to fill the bridge again… but this time it was in completely perfect harmony with Winter’s.

GMT

Forgrave shifted at the change in posture and attention of the alien; noting the rapid change in focus. And that posture… relaxation, maybe?
NE Shandar couldn’t help but smile; she recognized that she did not have enough practice in shielding herself from thoughts and emotions - Too much time in the labs…. But that thought was put aside. “Hope! I’m getting relief and hope! I think that’s helping, Dr. Winter!”

-Forgrave/NE Shandar

Molly had crossed her arms in frustration. With the alien completely unresponsive to their own body language, she assumed the being might not understand it. She wondered if a torpedo to their ship might get the message across, but as soon as the thought came into her mind, she shook it, and for a second, she wondered if Cal had been rubbing off on her.

Her mind had kept at work, trying to figure out how to take one word out of the being that could potentially help the universal translator. One word was all they needed, according to Drillek. Holloway’s thought had been that the alien on the screen should have a name for people like the ones he was looking at on the Dresden’s bridge, and therefore, pointing to herself and indicating that she was ‘human’ might have given them that link. It hadn’t.

And then, the Ensign Renveer had been working with had started to sing, and it changed… everything. As the alien’s response came through perfectly in tune with the young doctor’s song, and Shandar had indicated the emotions coming from the being had changed to more positive ones, Molly glanced at Winter. Renveer had told her a lot of good things about the young woman, but Holloway had never met her in person. As she turned to face the Ensign, though, there was a smile on her face and gratitude in her eyes.

“Doctor Winter.” Molly said lightly, her eyes back on the screen. “Keep singing! You’re doing great!” Was that… excitement… in her voice? Turning to Drillek, she motioned to the console in front of the Engineer, silently asking whether the universal translator was picking up anything.

Finally, turning to Renveer, she voiced her own thoughts. “So… any ideas on how we can convey our questions in song form?” Molly didn’t want to sing. Not that she was a particularly bad singer, but she wasn’t great either. Average, was the best way to describe Holloway’s singing ability. But before she could delegate that duty to someone else (probably to the newly arrived Doctor…) she wondered if they would be able to convey their own analytical ideas about the station as an emotion on a tune. Or maybe they didn’t need to… maybe all they needed was to gain the being’s trust in order to help them and find out why they were at Julian Echo Station and what had happened to the people on it.

Holloway, CO

Renveer’s eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise as Ensign Winter’s song earned a response. Like Holloway, Renveer was not excited about the prospect of singing… he had never honed the skill past what one might attain from singing in the shower. So for the moment, he was more than happy to let Ensign Winter take the reigns and was happy to hear that the captain agreed. “Bravo, Ensign Winter!”

Having discovered the appropriate medium for conversation, however, did not mean that they could actually convey anything meaningful at the moment… as the captain pointed out. Renveer rubbed his chin in thought. “It sounds like they understand that we come in peace now, which is good. That’s the first step. As far as any questions… that still might be very difficult without understandable lyrics. But…” he paused for a moment. As a counselor, Renveer had taken interest in alien cultures, including music. And in his time observing many different types of song from across the galaxy, he had come to understand that almost all music was based on some mathematical principle: a tempo, a rhythm, a scale. And math was often claimed to be the ‘universal language’.

“Maybe we can communicate concretely, rather than abstractly,” Renveer thought aloud. “If we send over a human bioscan accompanied by a series of notes, we might be able to effectively ‘name’ ourselves in musical form. Translating the entirety of basic into music might be difficult… but if we can create simple musical labels for important things, that might be a place to start.” He added for clarification: “So we could send over a scan of a human lifesign, the spoken word ‘human,’ and a three-note chord combination. Maybe that would give them a better idea of what we’re trying to say.”

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

After a few moments, the singing ebbed to silence. Drillek spoke up from the console he was working at. “Good news is we have something akin to a starting point… but its not concrete. UT is saying that there are too many variances in tone and pitch and it can’t tell if those are linguistic traits or simple emotional additions. We have to get a single word for a single concrete idea. Chair, table, floor, ceiling… something.”

GMT

Priscilla had been watching in shock and awe at the communication between the alien and those trying to understand it. The music, when in harmony, sent a sense of peace thru her. She held her hand to her chest a moment, without realizing it, then turned and went back to paying attention to the console. She kept trying to put phrases and words and sound combinations together hoping the computer would figure out what it was listening to in response to what was being ‘said’ on their own end.

She glanced at Drillek now and then. She also kept an eye on the ship and the station. She wondered if the communication would affect the phasing the two seemed to be experiencing. If the aliens had done it by accident, perhaps miscommunication, then this ‘calming’ affect could potentially help stabilize it. It was a long shot, she knew. But she also knew she didn’t want to miss one sign of anything changing between the ship or station.

Priscilla
CSO