Posted by Lieutenant Oliver Loughty (Acting Chief Science Officer) in Bridge Main Sim

Posted by Commander Garinder’Jen th’Jir (Executive Officer) in Bridge Main Sim

Posted by Lieutenant Auleraine Brison (Engineering Officer) in Bridge Main Sim
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Snip
The asteroid wasn’t particularly remarkable its materials were consistent with the other hunks of rock that populated this area of space. The rock was flat on one side and curved on the other. If anything it looked like a very craggly muffin top.

GM

While Jen waited for both engineering and science to respond, his eyes narrowed and antennae focused. “Note the course of that asteroid long enough to get a straight line trajectory. Then redirect the probe back the way the asteroid came from.” He looked at the counselor. “My guess is that the occupants of their base gave that a push so that it wouldn’t damage them. Have continuous sensor reports from the probe directed to us. If, and I say If I am right on this the fighter pilots might guess that too and take out the probe. I want as much information as I can off of it.”

But he still wanted input from Engineering and Science too on this. He could think of many things; they could confirm it or tell them he was full of it.
- Jen, XO

Revna nodded, and pulled on that long forgotten command training that she’d never really used. “Do we know how strong their communications are? Is it possible those fighters warned the base of our probe? The they sent out other ships to push that asteroid to divert us?” Misdirection was always a good tactic, especially when dealing with unknowns.
Lt. Edman, Counselor

Jen shook his head and added a Terran ‘shrug’ to accompany it. “I don’t know. That is possible,” he said in a tone that strongly suggested he was mulling that. Yes they knew that the Atlantis was looking for something and were dancing about on the edge of making nice as they knew in that moment anyway that they had the advantage. Destroying their probe that wasn’t going anywhere special could have annoyed, well, him. Right now ‘Jen’ was unknown to them and that was a good thing. “We’ll find out, and we have more probes.” He looked at Edman with a half smile. “That asteroid likely is on a straight line course, but science could better inform me of that. That means something is on the ‘push’ side of it, be it another ship or something bigger. A tractor beam would be a new tech we’ve not seen yet from them. Perhaps it is something that is only available on large structures or that carrier would have played dodge ball with us. We’re flying blind in this asteroid field but one thing we now know - something pushed that rock. What and where is that something?”
- Jen, XO

Lera came onto the bridge then and relieved the NE at the engineering station. The man had a knack with one of the troublesome conduit junctions and the Chief wanted him in engineering right now. She’d come up to relieve him and was listening to the conversation as it wound down.

Lera
Engineering
((finding a way to sneak in lol))
OOC: We need sneaky
IC:

“Ensign,” Jen said even before Lera had a chance to look at the seat. “Have a look at this.” He pointed to the asteroid drifting against the current on one of the screens. “Tell me about force mechanics. How much of a straight line path would that take in an asteroid belt were it given a push? Would the gravity of the field steer it from a straight line route?”
- Jen, XO

Gravitational forces would have minute effects on course and speed, so straight line reverse projections would be accurate enough. The only real concern was if there was a secondary collision that would change the course dramatically.

Oliver entered the bridge, he hadn’t expected to take the role as the bridge science officer but Kai was pre occupied and the call had been for him. It took him longer than expected to shut down his experiment and finally enter the bridge. He had just caught the end of the question but didn’t want to step on the ensigns toes, she was more than qualified to answer the question. Instead he moved to the science station and began activating it reading the information about the asteroid.

• Lt Oliver Loughty

As ordered the probe did a quick calculation and thrusted off on a new course that was now towards the outer arm of the belt.

GM

“Lt Loughty,” Jen said, waiting for him to activate his work area. “Welcome to the bridge. “Looking at that asteroid, can you detect whether there has been any secondary collisions to alter its course?” Or in other words, has it been banged around recently. “And, given that it is not in the usual pathway of the rest of these asteroids, how much of a force would it take to push that rock from what it normally would be on to what it was now?

“And Ensign, one more thing, was that rock sent on its way by a tractor beam or by mechanical means?” In other words, were there hooks and tow cables attached or evidence of other things like something giving it a good push?
- Jen, XO

“On it now” Oliver began by scanning the asteroid for any obvious large impact craters, it was scattered with hundreds of smaller ones but none would be enough to tilt the asteroid of its initial trajectory, the impact crafter (if any) would have to be large enough that it would likely have split the asteroid or at least taken a large chunk out of the surface that scan would reveal such a thing. her second question had him thinking the force to move such an object even in space would require a lot of energy. He waited as the computer did the calculations and scanned the asteroid surface for impact craters that would suggest it was a natural divergence off its natural path or any energy readings weapon or else that would suggest more mankind manipulation.

• Lt Oliver Loughty

There was a ‘fresher’ side to the the asteroid. The more flat section of the rock appears to have been shorn by some sort of powered energy weapon. The differing course and speed from the other masses in the field likely came from that. However other minor impacts could vary the course by several degrees.

GM

“Captain if my scans are correct, which I vouch their authenticity considering I helped make them the asteroid shows clear signs of their being a foreign influence to its shape. There is clear use of an energy weapon maybe a mining laser given the clean cut. Some of the smaller asteroids have had some influence in its trajectory but I would put my eggs into the basket labelled ‘fowl play’” Oliver then pushed out his findings to the other consoles on the bridge including the captains.

• Lieitenant Oliver Loughty

Jen smiled at the slight gaff from Loughty. Another time he might have bore into the Lieutenant to relearn his basic training but this was not the time. Instead he took a slightly different tack. “Lieutenant, it has been a while since I was a Captain. You may try Colonel as that was my last military rank, but then Commander works too.” He would, it seems, answer to both. “But be that as it may, bring up the telemetry and readings of the probe that is going in the direction we think the asteroid came from. Feel free to make any course adjustments you believe it to require. I’m curious where it came from.”

A mining laser. That could mean a prospecting expedition, a mining effort that needed errant asteroids moved on or, perhaps even the elusive pirate base. Lots of possibilities but this was one of their few leads so Jen was happy to follow that up. “Tactical. Any communications going out from that carrier?”
- Jen, XO

The only communications that were detected were to and from the fighters following the probe, which were uncoded although occasional military verbal short-hand was used and communication to the shuttle in terms of landing directions. One of the uncoded communications from the fighters noted the probe course change, but that was not atypical as they had done it every other time the probe had a course change.

GM

OOC: Luke, I figure this is moot based on your post, but just trying to put Revna back in somewhere.
IC:
Revna walked over to the comm’s officer and requested a list of the communications, audio and textual, from the fighters. Just because they weren’t encrypted or coded did not mean that they weren’t speaking in code, as it were. Everything she’d heard seemed normal, and of course she wasn’t as familiar with military verbal as much as someone who was an active marine. She sat down at a spare console and started reading through and listening to the comms to see if there was anything that might be of use to them. She wasn’t expecting much, but it was worth a look.
Lt Edman, Counselor

“Are we sliding down the wrong M’ent hole?” Jen asked Edman. “The fighters don’t seem too perturbed. What are you getting?”

“I agree. I think the rock was hit on purpose. The question is, why hasn’t it been stopped and picked up yet if it was mined? I also recommend a probe to follow the trajectory of the tossed stone, as it were, to see where it was pushed to. If this is the start of a purposeful chain reaction, we should get ahead of it rather than get caught in something we can’t escape from if we are in the field when it occurs.”

Lera wasn’t exactly sure what it would be. But no one just sheered a rock of that size without a purpose. Even if it was just to test a weapon, there would be a reason for this section and that meteor. Why not one already on a fringe and less likely to cause disruptions. The fact it wasn’t rolling also gave her pause. If it had been sheered, the force should have tumbled it. Why was it not careening off like a punted ball?

Lera
Engineer

Jen rubbed at his chin. “Do it. Let’s see what they do? And let’s see what we see from it,” he said to Lera. Personally he thought it an errand that would not yield much fruit, but he was willing to be surprised - and two eyes are better than one.

Over to Science he said, “Let’s keep track of our probes and recall them back in. We’re too far from home to start leaving bits behind that we can use.”
- Jen, XO

“Aye” Oliver said in response as he began the recall procedure on some of the probes which were on the extent of their fuel and range. There wasn’t any more information to be gathered from them anyway and they seemed to have enough to work on a reasonable theory and possible solution anyway. The computer acknowledged his orders and he waited for the next line of questions and orders.

• Lieutenant Oliver Loughty

“While you’re at it, you two,” Jen continued, “Have a good scan of that carrier. How ‘patched’ up is she? How ‘old’ is she? What is the form of thrust that she has for impulse power? Can we find a detailed hull composition? Let’s see if we can’t put our jigsaw puzzle together through the back end by comparing ‘that’ with what we know of the building materials and tech of these other systems that we’ve scanned and can inquire of the Orb to fill in some blanks.”
- Jen, XO