Posted by Lieutenant Alexandra Robins (Xenobiologist) in MAIN SIM - away team to the planet (XO, Tigress, Nash, and anyone else that wants to join)

Posted by Lieutenant Cara Esmé O’Farrell (Counselor / Education Specialist) in MAIN SIM - away team to the planet (XO, Tigress, Nash, and anyone else that wants to join)

Posted by Commander Garinder’Jen th’Jir (Executive Officer) in MAIN SIM - away team to the planet (XO, Tigress, Nash, and anyone else that wants to join)
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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Lexi tricorder ran through the loop of pre-existing codes for ships from that period of time. The tricorder worked far faster than an eye could follow, but it took very little time to figure out the electronic signals were being completely rejected and thus indicating that there was not even an electronic over-ride. Someone was going to have to bypass the lock one way or another… or put in the correct DNA strand.

GM

“It is worth a try,” Jen said. It was looking like this was going to be more of a mechanical override - aka picking the lock, or they could just give up this exercise and call to be beamed into the facility directly. At this rate Jen was beginning to feel a level of pride to overcome and hoped that they could by hook or by crook - whatever that meant, but it was a good sounding Terran saying - manage an entry.
- Jen

Cara felt pretty useless just standing there waiting, but she figured she would do more harm than good if she took the panel off and tried to cross wires and make it open. “Maybe there is another way in? Air vent or somewhere for waste or water to pass through. An emergency exit. This can’t be the only way in or out.”

O’Farrell

The wall of the semi-active volcano was worn. There were nooks and cracks that might hide a vent of some sort so nothing was visible to the naked eye from their position.

“Good call,” Jen said. “Our good engineer can do what they do best with the lock. The rest of you have a look around for an alternate entry. Time does have a way of making entries where one may least expect it.”
- Jen, XO

Cara set the building on her right and kept it there. She did not need to get lost. She walked along the complex using her tricorder to scan for any openings, cracks, vents, tunnels or other doorways/access points.

O’Farrell

“Girl trip,” Lexi let out a laugh and lifted up her tricorder. There was also very little she could do except make the situation worse by electrocuting herself of finding the one wire that added an extra door sealing off the place instead of opening it. Taking a step away she raised the tricorder to the side of the mountain and glanced up looking at the sky as she waited for the tricorder to do its thing. Suddenly an idea hit her. Tapping her comm badge she contacted Atlantis. =/\=Hey we are having trouble getting into the complex. Anyway you can help a crewman out and just beam us inside?=/\= The idea was simplistic but not implausible. The word KISS came into her mind which was often uttered by her husband for a multitude of reasons. Keep It Simple Silly. While the last word might annoy others, it always made Lexi laugh because sometimes the end result was so simple one did feel silly for not trying it first.

Lexi Science (using the Robbins scientific method of KISS)

“Tut tut,” Jen said with a small smile. “Where is the fun in that? Embrace the challenge.” His expression shifted to a more evident smile. “That is a thought I had in mind. I was just wondering whether we were up to the challenge of an old lock.” He noticed Nash’s next attempt. “If Mr Nash is unsuccessful we will beam through.” This was in part a tension release from the ship and the ‘darkness’ around them. A simple lock pick and explore, if not too much time was taken, would be, as some Terrans suggest ‘a change is as good as a rest’.
Jen, XO

=^= Transporter room to away team. We don’t detect any active forcefields or magnetic deflectors. A transport directly inside should not be a problem.”

While Lexi worked to get them a shortcut inside, Nash decided to scan the panel and the area surrounding it for traces of old DNA, removing Lexi’s from any readings that might come up. If the machine was rejecting electronic signals it was unlikely he could project that DNA signal onto the display, but, if he could find something and then get the panel open it was possible that he may be able to inject the code for the DNA electronically through a back door, so to speak. It would be cleaner than simply trying to hotwire the panel. Wiring the tricorder into the panel and using it as the ‘detector’ itself might do the trick.

Nash, CE

There were microscopic traces of degraded DNA on the absorption pores of the system. It was too broken and old to in of itself link to any known DNA chain so the tricorder just beeped unhappily at the attempt.

However even the best computer wasn’t as good as the human mind at filling blanks. Nash had seen the fractions before… this week when the ship had a sample of the Darkness bio ship. It was close enough to trigger the synapses of his mind.

GM

“What is it Chief?” Jen asked. There was something, a tick in his expression that suggested some kind of recognition. “You’ve got something?”
- Jen, XO

Beam or make the connection with the darkness dna. Which the ship has a sample of.

GM

Lexi leaned forward and looked at the information on Nash’s display as her face became more serious. “Um sir…I am not sure but this looks like DNA we just entered into our database. I think it is the Darkness.”

“Well I can’t be too sure,” Lexi said in a quiet tone, “but maybe 90-95% chance. The more important thing is that means something with the Darkness DNA occupied or built this place. Maybe we should think about leaving this place?”

Lexi

“If they were about we’d know about it,” Jen said.

“We aren’t picking up any life signs are we?” Cara double checked her tricorder, but maybe Robins was able to conclude something she did not. “If it was the Darkness, it might give us a a unique and opportune chance ta learn something ta help us against them.” Cara wasn’t thrilled with the idea of going into an enemy base, but what they could gain might be worth it.

O’Farrell

There were no signs of “advanced ” life forms on the whole planet. Some plants, lichen, and very simple animals, none more advanced than a shark or alligator type.

Short range tricorder scans didn’t reveal any differences.

Jen was fond of that idea .. but ..

Jen frowned. The Darkness seemed to have fingerprints, or whatever they had, everywhere, including here. Was this possibly a place that was theirs? Or did the play tourist themselves long ago? He didn’t like these people, the Darkness. Perhaps they were too much like Andorians, or pre-Surakian Vulcans for his own liking, shooting from the hip with the intent to cause chaos. Was there a familial connection to his own people in that regard, or was it that they were just the regional bullies where the only one who could stand up to them, well, didn’t seem to care.

“I think we’ve found out enough out here. The presence, if old, of the Darkness, is enough to push us along. =^= Jen to Atlantis. Beam our team within the complex. We’ve learned enough from the outside. =^=
Jen, XO

OOC: I live!! Mostly. Still coming back from a nasty cold ..

=^=Aye, aye, Sir=^= The landing team felt the beam lock them in position for a moment before the shadows came and then went away to reveal, pure unadulterated darkness. Somehow there was a whisper of light that might have come from a vent 40 feet higher than whatever they were standing on.

The expectation of lighting was ever a default in many a thought, though, as Jen’s focus went to the ‘whisper of light’, his antennae moving about curiously, he said, “Lights, people,” and flicked on his wrist lamp.

After a few moments of confusion, the team would figure out that the lighting systems weren’t on and in a windowless room. No lights led to a really dark situation.

“Let’s see if there is activation for any lighting, if there is power for lights,” he continued, flashing the lamp about the room. They could always beam down an area lamp if there was no real lighting available, but they could check. He sought the door where they would have come in and looked nearby. Was this an old style ‘light switch’ era or was lighting more automatic for when presence was detected? Well, evidently not the latter as they were still in the dark.

There was two buttons in an above/below alignment. Pressing the top option the lights came on smoothly. The room was still powered. The lighting system was far less bright than what was human normal, so it was still very dim even with the ‘lights’ on.

(When the lights came on)
The room was clearly part of a multi-room complex. But they were in what seemed to be the control room. The number of consoles suggested a 4-6 person command team. The consoles themselves were a little odd. There wasn’t a central button controls. Instead they were splayed all about as if the controller could press several buttons that were no where near each other.

GM

“Okay, spread out. Let’s try to see what we can see here,” Jen said, moving to one console. The buttons … quaint. Buttons. Which made little sense of how they might be used. Were the beings here octopoid and used different tentacles or appendages to press different buttons, unlike fingers that would have them close together?
- Jen, XO

As the lights flickered on Cara turned off her wrist light. She glanced around getting a feel for the physical layout. Long fingers or multitude armed or tentacles like the shop of the darkness. Or maybe it wasn’t a ship but the parent and the smaller ones were actually offspring? Or they modeled the ship after their physical form. She moved closer to one of the consoles looking for any markings or symbols that might give insight.

O’Farrell

Robins looked at the display and the DNA data from her tricorder. Moving to a console, she stood at what she thought was the center and then reached her arms out trying to judge the distance from an ergonomic standpoint. Being a female, she was smaller than the males in the away team but even they could not probably reach all the buttons comfortably or efficiently. Punching in a few numbers based on the room size, number of probable “stations” and the ability to activate buttons, the tricorder could make a reasonable guess based on the animal she inputted into the equation to come up with a size of the beings that worked the space.

Estimation was an 6 to 10 armed creature that was approximately 5 feet in height with an arm reach over 3 feet giving a wing span of nearly 7 feet or more. Along with the lights each ‘station’ had a two button system in the upper left hand corner of 270 degree loop. It was much like the on/off light button found earlier.

“So I think we are all at the same conclusion that we are dealing with a cephalopod in some shape or form and hopefully the tricorder and give us some dimensions on the beings we are dealing with. It’s finda fascinating to me that we have not met another race yet that resembles octopi in the Federation. Pound for pound, the octopods on Earth have a intelligence rate equal to humans. The IQ rate of humans spans the bell curve from 85 to 115 to be within a normal range with 100 being the median. Crazy enough Octopi fall about 100 in this IQ scale. It is common knowledge in biologist circles that if octopi had a life span equal to humans, we could have been a two-species race on Earth. If this Darkness is cephalopod in genetic origin, they could he just as smart as us and might be the reason no one has been able to contact them. Without vocal folds, which would not be needed for a fully aquatic species, they would not have a traditional form of verbal communication. Next time we meet up with them maybe we should contact Gina the speech therapist instead of comms,” Lexi let out a laugh.

Lexi Robins

GM