Posted by Gamemaster Alias Smith N. Jones, Esq. (GMT) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival

Posted by Lieutenant Priscilla Simms (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Renveer (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

Renveer’s attention snapped back to the viewscreen as the music played. The executive officer tilted his head to the side as his brow creased in thought, wrinkling the trill markings along his temples. “Song-based communication from unknown alien origins has been encountered before, when the probe that visited Earth in 2286 attempted to speak with the native cetacean species known as the ‘humpback whale’. Although I don’t believe these match the frequencies emitted by the probe, the principle may be the same. Unfortunately, such languages are notoriously difficult to translate.”

Lieutenant Commander Renveer moved to stand beside Captain Holloway, joining her in the center of the bridge once again. “I imagine the only way to confirm that it’s a message is to respond and see if it changes. If the universal translator has any hope of gleaning some sort of meaning from the music, the more we hear of it the better odds we have.” In so many words, Renveer was signaling his support for answering the hail. Maybe it was the innocent nature of the music, but he was inclined to believe that it was a distress call of some sort. And because the ship seemed to be half-disabled, the threat posed by making contact seemed minimal.

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

GMT

Priscilla had been about to respond to Molly’s request about a quick temporal flux tutorial, when the music started. Like everyone else she fell silent and still as she tried desperately to place the tune.
Blinking a couple times to bring herself back to the present as voices started once more, she settled back at the console to try and decipher if there was anything underlying in the music. “I’ll see what the computer thinks.”

Because of its repetitiveness, by the third rotation, she was absently humming along without realizing it.

Priscilla
CSO
((Distracted phase tutor))

The Universal Translator was rapidly running through parameters of the music, but nothing was able to be deciphered. =/\= More variances required for extrapolation. =/\= the computer replied at the end of each repeated message.

GMT

Leading up to the arrival of the Dresden, Issac had consciously tried to reduce his expectations of what they might encounter; not wanting to get fixated on any one possibility. This, however.... was far beyond what he had imagined. The music was… interesting, to say the least; but it boded well - it could easily be interpreted as an attempt at communication. Granted, determining what exactly that communication might be was far from easy - it could be a greeting, a threat, a warning… no telling. But the flickering… the flickering was worrisome.

“Any way we can get eyes-on that ship; and the station?” After a brief pause, he clarified. “I mean directly-not through a viewscreen or a sensor. Might be that something’s screwing with the sensors…”
[please disregard per GM’s addendum] Even as he made the proposal, Issac knew his words rang hollow. It wasn’t likely that interference or cloaking would produce that effect; though he couldn’t help but hope that’s all it was.

Forgrave, CoS

OOC: My apologies for not being more clear. The ‘flickering’ effect is just a scanner-related phenomenon. Visually, everything looks normal.

GMT
OOC: Ah, ok! Thanks for the clarification; I’ll leave my post as-is, just disregarding the last bit as noted.
-Will/Forgrave

Renveer turned to nod at Forgave. “I contacted Lieutenant Mason and asked him to prepare the probe you outfitted. I imagine it should be ready to launch momentarily. Hopefully it’ll be able to give our sensors a clearer view of what’s happening out there.”

“Do you want to answer the hail before or after we send out the probe, Captain?”

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

OOC: Just to be clear, because I am a little confused here: we did answer the hail, and the reply was the music, right? Or did I misunderstand something? Just want to make sure I have it right! :) – Joana

Priscilla looked to the XO and CO. “I think contact would be beneficial. As long as we remain out of the area of affect, we could certainly use the answers.” She glanced at Drillek wondering what he thought. “And I can’t see a race of beings wanting to annihilate us, using music to lull us beforehand. Not this repetitive short spurts of notes, anyway.” So far, she hadn’t gotten anything malicious from the readings other than the wavering of the station and the ship.

Priscilla
CSO

Molly nodded in acknowledgement of the XO and CSO’s suggestions. Turning to face both officers, she asked. “I am assuming that whoever this ship belongs to, is the responsible by the ‘alive but not’ readings we are getting on life signs. We might not have reason to fear malicious intent, but we also don’t know what happened to the crew of the station this unknown ship just happens to be docked at.” Holloway pondered for a moment, as she observed the ship through the viewscreen. Why would they broadcast music to them? And what did it mean?

As the Dresden slowly made its way towards the station and ship, the message suddenly changed. This time, comms registered a visual communication request.

GMT

Well, it seemed that they were about to find out, as comms reported the latest hail. With that, Molly took a deep breath and glanced momentarily at Renveer with a small nod.

Turning to the comms officer, Holloway accepted the incoming request. “Patch it through. On screen.”

Holloway, CO