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Engineering - Main Sim

Posted Feb. 4, 2021, 7:45 p.m. by Gamemaster GM (Gamemaster) (Kenson Koh)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Engineering - Main Sim

Posted by Gamemaster GM (Gamemaster) in Engineering - Main Sim

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Engineering - Main Sim
Posted by… suppressed (34) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Dagen was riding the waves of being newly married and for this time happy that Chan was on the bridge and he could work undisturbed below decks. He noted they were approaching a nebula. Traditionally that could affect systems but the ship was a tough little ship and was more science related and so better made to handle any such fluctuations. Confident that they were fine as the sensors hadn’t told them differently he was looking at duty schedules.

Then the alarms went off. He visually ‘saw’ the shield strength sink from green into an ugly orange level. 40%?! “What the hell?” he said as he jerked up from his desk and went into the main area of engineering. “Emergency power to shields!” he called out to Bat who was on the controls. “Deeg! Report!”

“Impulse engines in reverse. We’re moving back,” Deeg reported.

Slapping his badge. =^= Thor to Chan. What’s going on up there? What hit us? =^=
- Dagen

OOC: Explanation at this post … https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf6/genesis/posts/97265/
OOC: Got it. Thanks :)

Kenson

As they moved back the settings resumed a reverse of what they had seen. Seraph reported, “The nebula is affecting the shield harmonics. Their pulses are eroding shield strength.”
Deeg rang in, “We’re safe at a billion and a half kilometres. 1.2 we start feeling it.”
Dagen tapped at the console’s edge with his fingers. “Suggestions?”
Sebastion pushed his glasses up his nose. “What happens if we only go with nav shields?
Bat replied, “don’t think so. If they are pulses from the nebula we should be able to predict them and nullify their effects with a neutralizing pulse through the shield emitters.”

Dagen tapped the console. =^= Thor to bridge. Something for our science crew there. We’ve been looking at the effects of the nebula. Two question for them: One: if we only run nav shields will the nebula negatively affect the ship, and two, can they work out the power and frequency of the pulses to work out a neutralizing pulse through the shield emitters or deflector array to nullify it at a distance? =^=
Dagen, CE

It was not long after that Dagen saw on the display that they had abandoned the nebula and were speeding away on impulse. That alleviates the nebula issue, though he was a little irked at there being no reply from the bridge. But then they retreated so probably it was no issue now. Now he just needed to keep an eye on the impulse engines. They’d not had a workout like this since shakedown so he was watching them carefully.

“Bat, keep an eye on the injectors. I’m sure they are fine but this is a good time to run a low level diagnostic on them to check fuel flow rates and efficiency.”
The Bolian waved back his assent; Dagen was sure he was going to stretch and burst his uniform at some time there. He reminded himself to not take the Bolian bowling in uniform.
- Dagen

=^= Chan to Dagen. Apologies for the delay. we’ve encountered a creature of unknown origin.It bumped us as it passed. We’re now following it=^= Chan reported through the com.

Lieut Chan (Sub DH Robotics)

Dagen was curious and cautious. There were lots of creatures that could move about in space and few of them that they had encountered were particularly benign. Nature had an odd way of looking incredibly beautiful but was also incredibly deadly. As his grandfather used to say, ‘It looks nice but it is out to kill you’. =^= A creature? I hope not an energy sucking planetary sized amoeba like creature. Any surface damage from the .. bump? Residuals? =^= He imagined some kind of energy acidic residue eating away at the hull, or a leftover slime that was like the energy of the nebula wreaking havoc on their systems.
- Dagen

The affected systems were in the background now and Dagen was watching the creature on his console, mirroring the bridge monitor. How ‘was’ that thing moving? It’s not like it had internal engines of sorts but how was it moving? It was past any sense of solar. They were too far out for that, Dagen thought. It had a kind of course. Was it working on gravitic waves of sorts? Idly he tapped out spatial gravitic forces in their region. Was it following anything like a galactic ley line?
- Dagen

The sensors showed something strange. For a few seconds, the creature disappeared from sensors and then appeared about 0.9 light yeats away. Then the speed dropped to 83% light speed and stayed there. Whilst not exactly a warp field, the gravitic forces detected showed that it was working in a similar principle. Somehow, the granitic forces just ahead of the creature stayed higher than the forces at its rear. In fact the gravitic forces at the fore was increasing at such a rate that it literally pulled the creature out of space for the few seconds that it disappeared from sensors. Just before it reappeared, a great gravity vortex of sorts formed at the re-entry point. That pulled the creature back into space but at a distance that could not be covered by a warp drive travelling at warp 9 in a few seconds.

GM

“Well hello you beautiful thing,” Dagen murmured as his eyes flickered over the screen and what just happened. His engineering mind marveled at this. Generating a gravity well ahead of one that pulled it ahead, and a decrease behind and to be propelled ahead .. by means of the gravity to such a degree that it rivaled a high warp? Amazing. It was a small creature that affected this. How did it? Could they do such a thing with a warp engine - that kind of power to generate a gravitic anomaly of that magnitude?

He sought to take in the data at the head of the creature where the gravity well was the greatest. What magnitude was it talking? Was it a pinpoint thing or larger? Was it straining dimensions or manipulating this one? How on earth did it do that organically?! And could they duplicate it mechanically as a new source of propulsion? Certainly warp drive did a similar thing in ‘warping’ space that allowed them to travel at such velocities. But still ..
- Dagen, Eng

Unfortunately, the data they had of the animal was not enough for the computer to propose a credible hypothesis at the moment. The interpretation of the gravity ‘potential’ mechanism was due to the fact that these gravitic phenomena had been recorded before when stars went nova.

GM

Dagen shrugged. Seeing an answer for a whole new propulsion system so early was not realistic. “Don’t worry, little guy. You are my new best friend and I hope we are going to stick close to you to figure this out more. Whether you are sucking this up from the star or what … what I want to know from you is how you get going.” There didn’t seem to be more he could learn just yet, but the idea of it was interesting.

What he wanted to know was how powerful gravity well was ahead just before it ‘jumped’ and how much of a reduction behind.
- Dagen

He had another chance to gather data. About half a day’s journey after the Genesis went into warp at factor 8.5, the creature had a surge of energy, and its speed increased to light speed. Just as it reached light speed, a gravity well formed in front of the creature. Then, the sensors lost the creature for about a minute. Just as before, it reappeared about one light year from its last known location.

GM

“Uhhh Boss?” Bat’s large blue head poked around the corner. Dagen was at the ‘situation table’ looking at the plans of Decks 13-14-15. They were nearly identical with the computer cores and impulse engine structures. Dagen had been pointing to the shielding between the engines and the computer core bulkheads. Seraph and Deeg stood around; Deeg leaning over and scratching his chin while Seraph stood in typical Vulcan repose.
“Yes, Bat?” Dagen replied without looking.
“The baby .. thing. Just jumped again.”
Dagen’s head turned around. “Again?” He frowned, having wanted to see it. “Did we get anything?”
“Some. Cleared in a minute what took us hours to travel.” Deeg whistled.
“Okay, thanks. Let’s see what the Bridge might come up with there.” He tapped the comms icon on the table.

=^= Dagen to Chan. Did you get any data on the creature’s … leap? =^=
Thor, CE

OOC: Where was Chan again? The roster says he is AWOL

GM

OOC: Was on the bridge engineering station .. Gene

OOC: Sorry massive work load. Also Chan’s a girl. Nathan

IC: The com chirped =^= Chan to Dagan there was an increase of energy and gravitons about 10 metres in front of the creature. it then created some sort of magneton pulse just before the creature ‘disappeared’. Its an amazing form of travel it took all of 5 nano seconds=^= Chan reported.

Lieut Chan (Sub DH Robotics)

=^= Hoy, that is quick, =^= Dagen responded. =^= And 10 meters? =^= How could they focus a graviton beam that close without damaging the ship. Would it be farther if it was a larger vessel like theirs? =^= Wow. What do you make of it? The forces on the creature must be incredible. =^=

12 hours later, the bridge recorded a similar situation. There had been no extra readings. There was a confirmation of the magneton pulse.

GM

“We have a maximum time of 12 hours at warp 9.2. We are going to need every second that we can buy to make an analysis.” He could wait to use it at the end of the trip, or now. If he used it now, he would have another 12 hours to regenerate his power reserves. =^=Engineering we need warp 9.2 for as long as you can hold it.=^=

Marius

=^= We can do twelve, sir. And push it longer if we nurse it =^= Dagen replied. It was not like it was 9.5. That .3 made a lot of difference. They weren’t damaged so the stressors and factors were less. But, hopefully, not too many more hours.
- Dagen, CE

OOC: Repeating the post from the bridge.

IC:
From the sensor data, the computer came up with the following hypothesis: the creature had moved to a steady constant velocity before building up energy without affecting the velocity. It had then produced the graviton field that was ahead of itself. This means that the particles of gravitons was also travelling at the same velocity as the creature. When it released the magneton pulse, or more accurately the subspace magneton pulse, The effect was that it was able to create a wormhole small enough for it to go through. As the wormhole was created at a specific point in space, the creature, which was moving, went into it almost immediately and emerged a light year away from where it disappeared.

Dagen leaned forward in the chair, elbow on the edge of the console, his chin in his palm and a finger tapping at his nose as he thought of this. The velocity wasn’t as important at the moment as much as the effect. Graviton field with the pulse generating a small wormhole - just enough to slip through wherein its momentum carried it into it and emerged on the other side. Did it’s relative strength determine the distance of the travel? he wondered. How much energy would it take to generate a similar effect for a starship. That would be something to look into. If there was an inverse proportionality to it it might be more suited for smaller vessels, eliciting an entirely different starship design to optimize, something perhaps with retractable nacelles or a more tubular design.

Judging from the two jumps, the creature was travelling at an average speed of Warp 7.25 and that it would only reach the anomaly, if it is really going to the anomaly, in 5 days. It would not catch up with the Genesis, if it was travelling at Warp 8 or Warp 9.

GM

As they were underway a thought niggled at him. They were travelling too fast, unless they wanted to get to the anomaly well ahead of the time. =^= Thor to Bridge. Question related to the creature and the anomaly. Are you looking to arrive much earlier there or about the same time as the creature? =^=
- Thor

=^=Ahead Mr. Thor, I want to be able to find out what’s going to happen before it too late to make a difference. Just in case its something I don’t want to happent.”

marius

‘What’ were they expecting to happen, Dagen thought. And what difference did they want to make? It didn’t sound like they had an idea of quite what was up. However, he added, =^= Right. Okay. At it’s current pace it averages our warp 7.25, sir. We can push the engines to recommended time at 9.2 and scale back to warp 9 and, barring any increase of pace on the creature we’ll be there well ahead of it. =^=

What was at the destination. They didn’t really know if the creature was going to settle there, but if Dagen could see that surely they could. =^= Anything engineering should be prepared for on arrival, sir? =^= Forewarned was forearmed after all.
- Thor, CE

The silence didn’t much bother Dagen. They had a lot of time to figure it out. Days really in travel time and he needed to let the bridge people figure out what was up too. They were on their way through space. The ship was operating fine. Baby was making its moves and as they got closer to it and could better scan things he was sure that more information would come out about how baby moved. His wife was on the bridge too and he could get an update after from her too. So too, Chan was there and he’d see her reports.
- Dagen, CE

OOC: You could do something to look into the phenomenon mentioned in this post: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf6/genesis/posts/109046/ Bridge did not seem to pay too much attention to it . :)

Kenson

OOC: Saw that but wasn’t sure if that was more science related.
IC:

Their travel was stable and the ship tuned well enough that Dagen could leave that to his troops. He tidied up the e-paperwork and suggested some course work for Bat and Angel, judiciously rearranging shifts to allow them part of their shift to do further study. He had kept up on news from the bridge, but that was hit and miss. He had read a notation where they had created an artificial subspace frequency mimicking the spatial anomaly which was their destination and that in turn had caused a reaction in the creature to increase speed and energy. He hadn’t seen anything from science that announced a study there and Dagen had at first passed it off as a biology thing, not an engineering thing.

But what if there was a way to mechanically mimic this? The subspace frequency meeting the creature became amplified. What did cause that in the creature? He checked the ‘biology’ that science had found. That highlighted more. His finger tapped at the ‘organs’ in question that seemed to do all the heavy lifting. They would have to get closer scans of it. Dagen didn’t know if this was something that could be duplicated in a starship. A shuttle perhaps?
- Dagen, CE

He would notice that the creature reacted to the carrier wave of subspace frequencies that was initiated by the CSO on the bridge.

OOC: I agree it is more with science, but there is something that could deal with the subspace signals from the anomaly. :)

Kenson

So, Dagen thought, the carrier wave that was emitted artificially as well as that frequency that came from the anomaly caused a reaction in the creature internally - a reaction that caused it to leap ahead toward it. As much as internal workings were very intriguing, another part of his psyche was poking at him, that which was his past host Lin and her children. Especially, as the memory went, as her husband returned home from a trip and called how her toddlers would respond to the call. Was that subspace frequency a call from mama that spurred the child to respond? In which case, could their artificial wave be considered a problem to mama? If, indeed, that thought was accurate in the least.

He was still intrigued at the internal operation. So many inventions had been made on the heels of a similar observation from nature.
- Dagen, thinking ..

His finger tapped at the edge of the console. Wasn’t there something that was toyed with decades ago about utilizing a layered plate of different metal substrates to generate gravity waves to then magnify to create a kind of artificial propulsion drive? It had only gotten off the ground on limited experimental stages and was only a footnote in alternative warp theory. He tapped his badge. =^= Thor to Ensign Morton. Please join me in engineering. We have a puzzle. =^=
- Thor, CE

In fact he may need more minds on this one. =^= Thor to Chan. We have a puzzle that you may find intriguing. I’m in the console room at engineering. Please stop by. =^=
- Dagen

While Dagen waited he sought to piece together things that he did know ..
- unknown substances in the creature helped to, or likely helped to create this wormhole
- the creature simply did it naturally
- it created not simply the wormhole but an intense gravity well to pull itself through it
- it took a fair bit of energy and the creature needed to rest between ‘jumps’
- these jumps seemed to be less in distance - was it tiring or getting hungry? Was it like a sea turtle on Earth that hatched and then had to make its way to the ocean? And if so, did it have the strength to make it to this destination?

The ‘tech’ to do such a thing was absolutely intriguing and, he wondered, whether it would be able to be duplicated. To create that kind of energy was likely possible with a warp core. The ‘other’ .. the mechanism to generate the gravity well and the likes would necessitate a rather significant structural modification at the bow. But it was fun to brainstorm, and, right now, they had little else to do relating to the creature. Staying ahead of it was not a stretch of the engines.
- Dagen, CE

Bump .. gene

OOC: Sharing the data from bridge.

IC: The probe reached the coordinates programmed into it and began to stream data back to the Genesis.

The other side of the tear was a subspace domain. The tear was relatively stable but showed that it was gradually getting smaller. From the rate, it would close completely in 4 days. If the creature were to follow its present course, it would reach the tear in less than a day, and the tear was still large enough for it to enter.

There was a low frequency - small amplitude subspace signal that was being transmitted through the tear. This signal was that which was detected by the Genesis. The amplitude of the signal was also decreasing very gradually. When the Genesis used the same frequency to try to communicate with the creature, it caused the creature to increase the rate of its movement.

From sensor data, the computer hypothesised that there were a few creatures similar to the one that was behind them on the other side of the tear. It was 70% certain, based on the amount of similar matter detected through the tear. The matter was not stationary but moving about. The energy signatures were similar as well.

There was also the presence of two additional energy signatures that the computer did not have any records of. They were linked to subspace but the computer was unable to determine what function these signatures had.

GM

A subspace domain, Dagen wondered. What kind of forces were behind there in that domain? Could they even survive in that were they themselves to go there? The creature, it seemed, was from there. If this was the baby turtle, was their ‘universe’ then, the beach in which it was hatched from and returning to the ‘sea’, being this subspace domain? He was sure they would send a probe that way, if only to orbit if not go into it.

The creature was one day away from the rift and it was four days away from closing. Talk about cutting it close to the tide? It was well within range and didn’t need any kind of assistance. They were witnessing an intriguing event that this science vessel was well versed to see. What could go wrong? Dagen mused, knowing inside that from past hosts and even his own life experience, that there was a curious Terran fellow called Murphy who tended to show up when all looked like it was going well.
- Dagen

OOC: Bump ..

Some time later, the sensors started picking up the creature preparing for another jump. It’s energy readings were increasing. This time the jump would put the creature ahead of the Genesis.

GM

Dagen was sitting looking over the console display, chin in a palm as his elbow rested on the edge of the LCARS. Idly he was impressed that the sensitive membrane there adapted to elbows. The image of the creature made little twists and 90 degree turns (the computer image, not live image) with related data scrolling beside it. A bleep informed him that it was getting ready for another jump. Curious, with his free hand he tapped in a comparison of ‘distance’ travelled with ‘energy’ expended to see whether there was a correlation with it’s ‘internal engine’ - and if so how much?

=^= Engineering to bridge. Thor here. The creature is readying for another jump =^= Which was rather stating the obvious. =^= This will put it ahead of the Genesis in this jump. Our current speed will allow us to catch up to it, but if you want to get ahead we’ll need to increase speed. =^= He wondered if the little critter knew they were following it and what it thought of them. Probably confused that they didn’t ‘jump’ like it did.
- Thor

From past sensor readings, the creature was able to create a magneton pulse. It theorised that this was what caused the wormhole to form. However, for the creature to fit into the wormhole, there needed to be something else to allow it to enter in. Sensor data could not determine what that ‘something’ was.

GM


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