Posted by Commander Heather Grace (Executive Officer/Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Surface Return

Posted by Commander Heather Grace (Executive Officer/Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Surface Return

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Surface Return
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
Cullings turned back to El, “..Well no nothing quite like that. The crystal structure is too natural to by something done artificially, for that matter no known technology or science we know of or that the Vulcans or any trading partners we ran into with our merchant ships mention anyone having that either. Only possibility I could think of without seeing it first hand and with more specific tools from the ship brought down to analyze would be maybe something is actively drawing residual energies from the deposits? But if you didn’t see anything obvious like a reactor or generator in the area then I don’t see how that is possible. I mean if its not technology the only other idea which is impossible is something non-technological is feeding on it? But that’s just silly as your whole ‘alien stuff’ like with the Triangle, some kind of living organism that ‘eats’ dilthium/lithium crystals? Its stupid!” he said with a chuckle.

GM CockRoach

El looked at the data again. ‘Was’ the interference consistent all around the cave? If so it couldn’t be something artificial, could it? Drawing energy from the crystals in their natural state by artificial means? “We didn’t see anything that looked like technology, even a stone tool,” she said, “though we weren’t really looking for technology but trying to do a geological mapping.” She scolded herself for not considering looking for any technology. Surely there were other races about who may have ‘left’ something behind from a survey or something. They were likely not the only ones who had some kind of mineral survey. Had the Vulcans come here and found this deposit they would have turned their noses up even more than El was at the grade of the deposit.

She let out a chuckle, a rare smile creeping onto her features. “You mean like some kind of alternate life form, oh I don’t know, silicon based or something that is impossible, that eats rocks like worms? You’re right. Crazy.” In her mind, too, was that very old video that had originated from Japan in the early days of that medium, of a prehistoric creature named Godzilla, that fed off of radioactivity. The stuff of stories to scare people but were hardly real, like kilometers wide telepathic jellyfish swimming through space or superhuman beings that could alter reality with a snap of their fingers. She looked around her, feeling the breeze on her face, the fading power of the sun as the day ebbed away, the rustle of wind in the grass. It ‘seemed’ like Earth but wasn’t, so could she really expect things to remain ‘like Earth’, or were there things that were truly alien at work here? “You should have been along on this. The caves were wild.”

El, Eng

[C] Commander Grace, this is Captain Renault. What have you found over there? [O]

~ Capt Renault

GM CockRoach

Well that answered that question at least, Heather thought. She had been trying to keep up with El’s discussion with Cullings, while at the same time going through cataloging the samples she had brought back. It wasn’t going so well.

[O] Grace here Captain. We just made it back to basecamp with a couple of samples of ore. Not the purest, but still serviceable. We did find signs of what might have been a mining operation here previously, though definitely primitive. Scans from orbit didn’t pick up any native inhabitants, and we didn’t see anything on our scanners while we were down in the caves. But our scanning range was limited due to something in the cavern we found. I hope you had better luck then we did Captain. [C]

Cmdr. Grace - XO/CSO

El stopped talking and listened. It was hard ‘not’ to eavesdrop, even if it wasn’t quite that. She was curious what they found at the other site. Glancing around the campsite El thought that it could have been set up better. She was pleased that she was part of the expedition to the cave and to see this new world more. That was exciting and she tried to learn from it. It was a stretch for her. That said Cullings would have been better apt to answer the questions that arose than her, and, perhaps, the camp would have been better established with an engineer looking at it. But then both would have lost the chance to learn. El thought the expedition was more positive than the Commander presented it. Perhaps a better deposit would be found elsewhere where it would not interfere with the natural habitat of the big cats; certainly that was El’s hope.

She quietly rehearsed her own ‘failures’ while on this expedition. The lack of sample containers. Her not anticipating this and having some preparation relating to geology rather than her rudimentary metallurgy and dilithium knowledge based on the operation and maintenance of the Cochranes. On a personal level her not reigning in her attitude when she should have. Even if not spoken it was still there. They were all things that El felt she could have done better with. She knew she could learn quickly though had been focusing on the new ship and her systems. Even she couldn’t do it all so much as she tried. It .. kept her humble, to a degree, though humility was something that was supposed to be a part of her but even after years of training and discipline, it was still a struggle. She looked at others about her. They seemed to move in their own persons confidently and easily. On a good day El could be in the ‘zone’ but she needed to work at it. Her masters made it look so natural. While she was with them it came more easily to her. Once away it required her to work. She had an impulsiveness that wanted to ooze out of any cracks she allowed and she needed to plug those leaks both actively and during meditation. And she was due for that later today. Would they remain on the planet and camp here? What would it be like to be here at night?

El, Eng

[O] We have not had better luck over here. The caves we checked were inhabited, by a seemingly primitive people. We pulled out of the caves, not wanting to disturb them or cause conflict. How could the sensors have missed them? [C]

~ Capt Renault

El’s mind ran about with that last question. How ‘had’ the sensors missed them? Certainly were they within the caves it would be easy to be masked what with the limited sensor ability in ground penetration thus requiring their physically exploring of the caves. Would their own internal make up - the natives - be attuned to the energy fields in the caves by simply living there and being ‘aligned’ to it? El dropped that line of thinking. She was far from some kind of biologist to even consider that kind of adaptation apart from something out of science fiction. Still it was a dreamy idea, if impractical. The more practical potential formed in her mind from that. What if they carried their own personal energy fields along that would be almost like a personal cloaking device. If they mined those jewels and ore and made jewelry out of it - ornamentation, and these in turn retained that natural field inhibiting energy field then sure, the sensors could have missed them as they’d just not see them. And the natives would be oblivious to it unless it created some kind of camouflage from the creatures of the world that they picked up on. Now ‘that’ tweaked El’s engineering mind and the potential that it could hold for their own technologies. Could that be incorporated into a micro netting suit to make them undetectable by normal sensors? Could that be used as a kind of enhancement for their hull polarizing - or even incorporated into it to move stealthily? That was all fine and well provided that that ‘theory’ was accurate.

She cast a glance at Cullings to see if he had any bright ideas about that that were perhaps not as fanciful as her own. She would have to ask about what the natives looked like before any more musings led her down those imaginative trails. But her stomach growled at her and had been on the trip back. Extra gravity. Extra effort. Extra calories burned. Extra hungry. Everyone likely was at this point. As the junior she would be the one preparing it, provided she knew where it was stowed. They would likely just be field ration packs that were boiled in water and eaten from the packet itself. It could be too that there was a more robust set up where something could be cooked over a fire - packs combined and cooked with other dry goods and fruits. “Where’s the food?” she whispered to Cullings. It was not obvious just by looking at the camp layout.
El, Eng

Heather was taken aback, an actual primitive civilization here on the planet? Maybe the MACO’s fears had been justified. But there still had not been any evidence that the caves they had been in were part of an active community.

[O] Well it’s just speculation at this time Captain. But we did notice a dampening effect on our scanners while we were in the caves. The effective range was pretty dramatically reduced. This could definitely be impacting the ship’s sensors as well. Ground penetrating scans are only so effective, add in something diffracting the scanners, and then add in that we weren’t surveying for life signs. It’s quite possible that we didn’t even see any of the life sign readings, or the computer automatically categorized them as small animals, because the signature had been so greatly decreased. I would need to do a deeper analysis of the original scan data to be sure Captian. [C]

Cmdr. Grace - XO/CSO

OOC: Bump for the GM.

El thought that given the surface scans of the area with the various rock layers, their thickness, and their angle or pitch or whatever geology term one used for that sort of thing, that they would be able to extrapolate the rock strata at least roughly. It would give a better idea for surveyors who would be coming next to take core samples and much better map the area geologically. Their scans could give them an indication of what was there. Further work would tell what it looked like under the ground. That was beyond a mere engineer unless El was working on the machinery taking the samples. One didn’t worry about a dampening field when one was taking physical samples out of the ground.

The mention again of natives to the planet was exciting. Apart from ‘seeing’ a Vulcan from afar she had never met an ‘alien’. Sure the sounded primitive but it was new. What were they like? But more importantly to El, what mattered was who they were as a people and would we from Earth be able to coexist with them both peacefully and equitably. Had humanity changed from mere centuries ago where those lesser humans were exploited upon contact? El had her doubts. One of her mentors had said to her that ‘Civilization as we know it is a very thin veneer. Peel it back and you will find chaos and anarchy. Mankind thinks it has grown but we will never outgrow our character. Be mindful of pride, Elemirre.’ This will be a very interesting test for humanity, El thought, for herself as well.
- El, Eng