Posted by Cadet Aili McMorran (Scientist) in Side Sim - Cadet McMorran’s Presentation in Stellar Cartography

Posted by Cadet Ashlyn Trenton (Security Officer) in Side Sim - Cadet McMorran’s Presentation in Stellar Cartography

Posted by Cadet Aili McMorran (Scientist) in Side Sim - Cadet McMorran’s Presentation in Stellar Cartography
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Lieutenant Garth pivoted awkwardly on his stool to look over either shoulder, then released a grunt of approval at the level of attendance. He clasped both hands around the head of his cane before using it as a gavel, raising it a couple inches off the ground before slamming it back into the bulkhead, creating a THUD THUD THUD meant to quiet the scattered conversation throughout the lab.

The tellarite’s beady eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he extended a stubby-fingered hand in McMorran’s direction, palm up. “Cadet McMorran, please proceed.” His gaze lingered on her for a moment, his expression some combination of ‘don’t mess this up’ and ‘make me proud’.

(Lt. Garth, CSO)

OOC: Sorry for the lengthiness! :D

An acknowledging nod came Garth’s way from McMorran. Still finding his manner largely cryptic, she thought she could make out some encouragement in his eyes. Her department head had been a positive figure during her time on the Challenger and she was hoping to make him proud. The cadet took a deep breath as she turned to face the audience at large. “Thank you for coming everyone!”, she announced, her eyes darting briefly to Garth as the uttered the last word. “This is a project I’ve been working on industriously and I’m proud of the outcome, so your interest means a lot to me.” As she spoke loudly, making sure she projected her words to the cadets at the back of the room, her gaze travelled a circuitous path meeting the eyes of each audience member. Her eyebrows were raised and her lips curled into a smile as best she could while she spoke, all with the goal of expressing her appreciation.

“Now, this is what I’ve been looking at.” She turned to the side and pressed a single control on the console. Overhead and all around, the display panned through simulated space, stars swirling across the great screen, until it arrived at the image of a pale blue nebula. “Now, we’re all familiar with at least the existence of gravitational waves from our academy physics classes. In the field of stellar cartography”, she gestured to highlight the lab they were situated in, “they are extremely useful in the detection of objects which would be difficult to locate through other means, especially those a great distance away. However, while we have sophisticated instruments capable of detecting them and telling us about the nature of the source, identifying the position of sources has remained more challenging.” The cadet again pressed a control. The image of the nebula displayed a brief flash before she continued. “When these waves pass through gas clouds or nebulae, it has recently been found that they stimulate some photon emission, emissions which are highly directionalised. It is my proposal that these emissions, specifically from reflecting nebulae like this one, constitute measurable signals which should allow us to better pinpoint the positions of distant supernovae, black holes and more.”

The cadet went on from her introduction to delve into the more intricate details of her theory and of the work she had done. She explained how she had modified one of the ship’s detectors, with the aid of the transporter chief, to detect the pertanent signals. Half an hour she spoke for with visualisations flashing across the display, towards the end of which she revealed that she had in fact made a detection within a few days of activating her detector and that she believed she had used it to identify and locate a new black hole in the Gamma Quadrant. She stressed, however, that this would require review and further investigation. “Thank you for listening everyone!”, she declared with raised hands pressed together as she completed the presentation. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”, she asked, smiling at the audience. Her eyes gravitated to Garth despite her attempts to avoid unnecessarily encouraging questioning from him, as if he would be deterred from persistence by the behaviour of her eyeballs.

Cadet Aili McMorran - Science

The Cadet’s eyed kept scanning the room for the majority of the presentation, keeping to her duties, but when given the opportunity she did raise her hand to ask a question.

Aili pivoted her head, sweeping the room in search of interventions. The first hand she saw raised came from an unexpected position in her peripheral vision. One of the security officers who had arrived and stood, not joining the audience, had their hand raised. Realising it was in fact Cadet Trenton, she smiled and gave her a nod, and called upon her: “Cadet Trenton, yes.”

“What is the current margin of error for detection? How small, large, or far can a stellar phenomena be and still be detected by this sensor?”

• Cadet Ashlyn Trenton

Aili hummed. “Well, that’s a question with quite a complicated answer. In summary… the margin of error is dependant on direction but as an average, I believe it can pinpoint the position of a source to within 300 light years. And this is essentially just a prototype! There is plenty of room for improvement. When it comes to the types of phenomena, they do need to be extremely high energy to produce detectable waves. Things like a high mass black hole pair colliding or very high mass supernovae. The higher the energy, the further we can ‘see’ them from. We do lose precision with lower energy waves, so with less energetic or more distant sources.” Not knowing the level of scientific education Trenton had but also not wanting to sound patronising, she followed up, along with a friendly smile. “Does that answer your question?”

Cadet Aili McMorran - Science

Trenton nodded softly, “It does, thank you.”

-Cadet Ashlyn Trenton