Posted by Lieutenant Commander Sebastian d’Aramis (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge

Posted by Lieutenant Kaia (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim - Bridge

Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim - Conference Room
Posted by… suppressed (27) by the Post Ghost! 👻
As soon as the Manhattan had parked behind the moon of the planet with the mysterious Vulcan energy signature, Shedda stepped through the bridge door to the conference room. “We’re secured behind the moon, Captain,” Mal’athar reported as she took a seat to his right at the table.

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Cochrane took his seat at the head of the table. He looked at the XO and CE. “Lieutenant, you’ve been quiet. What are your thoughts of this situation?”

Cochrane, CO

Ben walked into the conference room, and took a seat at the table.

Lt. Hudson
Chief Medical Officer

Kaia joined everyone in the conference room. “I’m uncertain what to think, Captain. A mysterious signal that seems somewhat Vulcan, but does not match any known ship transponder, way out here in a quadrant far from Vulcan space. It is a puzzle.”

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

Eilah took his own place at the conference table. “It could be something imitating a Vulcan signal. I don’t like it, Captain.”

~ Fayth, COS

Cochrane nodded. “That is a possibility, Lieutenant. But we don’t have any record of Vulcans in the nebula.” A thought occured to him and he tapped the comms. =/\= Comms, send an automated message to the four Vulcan vessels requesting a status update. Send the responses to the Conference Room, please. =/\= He looked at Fayth and said “Might as well check and see if any of the four ships are unaccounted for. =/\=

Cochrane, CO

Shedda didn’t like this either. “Captain, now that we are closer, it might be worth putting out another probe to observe. There is the theory that no idea is every brand new. Someone, somewhere, some time has had the same idea. This could be an example of that and the Vulcan signature is a product of that.”

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Cochrane thought for a second and then said “That would be an incredible scenario, for certain. One I am not keen to believe or dismiss, though. So everyone, keep that in mind.”

A few minutes later, the ping returned - all four were accounted for, with no deviation in their logged flight plans.

Gamemaster Amdirgol
GMT

Cochrane looked at the reports and then said “Okay, then. Hypothesis one is out the window. So any other thoughts, everyone? Any at all… no bad ideas here.”

Cochrane, CO

“Perhaps a Vulcan ship is not the cause. It could be an older Vulcan class that was sold and refurbished. It’s registry wouldn’t fall under Vulcan vessels. Our trade is quite significant now. It might be Vulcan technology that was traded or obtained on the black market.” Mal’athar ran through some of the options.

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Kaia’s brow wrinkled as she thought carefully about the situation. “I agree with Cmdr. Mal’athar. It is not productive to simply speculate without any further information. We should send another probe, and try to gather more detailed scans of the situation.”

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

“Perhaps we’re not seeing the wood for the trees,” Ben suggested. “We’ve been overly focused on the Vulcan signature, but not talked about any other broadcasts that are being detected; nor, for that matter, any other evidence outside of communication signals. Have we detected any evidence of life on the planet?”

Lt. Hudson
Chief Medical Officer

“The level of technological development suggests civilization, but you are correct Doctor. As are you, Lieutenant Kaia.” Cochrane said. “So let us focus on both of those things for the next few hours. Chief Kaia, prep a surveillance drone and ensure it has a self destruct mechanism we can use so we don’t lose it to someone. Doctor, I would like you to work with the Science department and come up with a preliminary report on what we are dealing with. I would very much like to all we can about this world and those who live on it.” He took a breathe and then said “Lieutenant Fayth, please get me a risk assessment as soon as possible. Ok, all. Dismissed.”

Cochrane, CO

Kaia nodded upon receiving her assignment, and once they were dismissed, quickly left the conference room, heading in the direction of drone storage. While she walked, she commed her team to let them know where to meet. =Kaia to Able, meet me in drone storage.”

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

Able tapped his badge and replied, =^=Able here, on my way.=^=

Nightroad, Engineer

As they filed out, Ben playfully nudged his shoulder into Eliah. “Let me know if you need a hand with that risk assessment,” he said with a smile. “You just never know what medical risks there could be.”

Lt. Hudson
Chief Medical Officer

Eilah grinned and grabbed his fingers, only to let them slip out of his grip. “Will do, Doctor, I might page you later.” He winked and headed towards his office.

~ Fayth, COS

Cochrane waited for the Department Heads to file out and then he looked at the XO. “Sheddah, I want you to tackle this from an archaeology perspective. Look at where this place is at technologically, and start working backwards through their records to see how they got here. And try and figure out if they were somehow influenced by the Vulcans…” and a thought occured to him and he held up a finger. “Or the Romulans. See if there is any indication, if we do find influence, if that influence was accidental… or by design. I know it’s a long shot from here, but any direction we can get will help us if we have to make contact.”

Cochrane, CO

“Aye Sir. I’ll see if computer science can get us into any of their databases without being discovered. That will help.” Shedda was sitting still, but inside she felt like a kid at Terran Christmas. She loved this kind of thing, and with their CSO out for the time being she was going to get to take a much more hands on part in it. “I’ll let you know what I find.” She stood and excited the conference room and made her way down a few decks to the computer science labs.

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Cochrane stood after she left and looked out the window at the moon they were hiding behind. He shook his head and smiled. “Well… here we go.” and he turned and went back to the bridge.

Taking his seat in the center chair, Alex looked at the bridge team, each in turn. “Ok. Report. What have we got so far?” he asked.

Cochrane, CO
NE Vasquez, having just vacated the chair at the captain’s return, snapped to attention. “Some preliminary scans have completed, sir. Development appears consistent with a species approaching warp technology, likely within two decades. The universal translator has a primitive communication matrix in development, and we have been intercepting cultural transmissions for later analysis. Still unable to pinpoint the Vulcan signature.”

Gamemaster Amdirgol
GMT

“What have we found in ways of scanning the local space? Any space-based facilities or surveillance satellites?” Cochrane asked.

Cochrane, CO

“There’s a primitive station in orbit, doesn’t appear any more advanced than Earth’s ISS of the 21st century. Nothing surveillance focused, though they almost certainly have the capability to magnify anything in-system unless its obscured.”

Gamemaster Amdirgol
GMT

“Alright, let’s stay here until we can get a better feel for who we are dealing with. All stations, run full scans of the planet. Run their language through the UT and see if there is any linguistic similarities with no languages. Also, identify any institutes of higher education. See if we can access their database and find out who we are dealing with. History, biology, popular culture… anything we can use to build a sense of who these people are and what their priorities are.”

Cochrane, CO

=^=CE to Bridge. The advanced surveillance probe is ready to launch on your command.=^=

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

Cochrane tapped the comms. =/\= Excellent work, Chief. Launch and let’s see what we are dealing with. =/\=

Cochrane, CO

Maeve was on the bridge at her station and had already locked on to the coordinates and was now just awaiting on the captains orders as to when he wanted her to fire the probes.

Lt.Cmdr Maeve Harlow, CTO

At that moment, the green light came from the conference room. Probes were ready and authority to launch had been granted.

Cochrane, CO

Kaia returned to the bridge and stood at the engineering station, waiting for results to come in from the probe.

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

The turbo lift doors opened and Sebastian stepped onto the bridge. Seeing the COin the center seat, he walked over and introduced himself.

“Excuse me, Captain Cochrane. I’m Lt. Cmdr. d’Aramis, the Intel chief you requested from fleet command..I came through the Dyson Sphere Gateway to get to the Delta Quadrant. Unfortunately, some of the files on my shuttle got corrupted. One of which was the briefing for this mission. I would appreciate it if someone could read me in and bring me up to date.”

Lt. Cmdr. Sebastian d’Aramis
CIO-USS Manhattan

Scan data filtered in as the probe swept into the upper atmosphere. There were several large cities in the area it was overflying, with the probe picking up millions of humanoid inhabitants in each. All of them registered with fragmented Vulcan signatures, although a more distinct signature was also identifiable in part of the largest - specifically emanating from a large building complex with sweeping arches and high peaked roofs, glass-ceilinged plazas connecting the buildings. Other buildings seemed to indicate this was likely the capital. The probe was still in high orbit - much lower, while providing more details, and they’d risk being spotted by aircraft.

Gamemaster Amdirgol
GMT