Posted by Lieutenant Commander Renveer (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival

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

Posted by Colonel Calvin Harris (Marine Commander) in Main Sim - Bridge - The Arrival
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

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

Visual!

Priscilla all but stood up, holding the sides of the console and her seat to keep from doing just that. Could this be a First Contact moment? She bit her lip and waited for the viewscreen to come to life with whatever, or whoever, had hailed them. She glanced over at Drillek a moment to see if he was registering anything with the new turn of events. Was he as excited as her? Or was his worry overshadowing this moment? Either way, she’d support and back him up just like any other member of the crew.

Priscilla
CSO

Forgrave could feel the excitement pouring off of the Science Officer; understandable, he supposed. Hell, he was excited as well at the possibility of first contact - though it was overshadowed by his concerns for safety. Hopefully more information would be gained by visual communication…

Forgrave, CoS

Renveer watched the viewscreen with apprehension. This would be only his second time making first contact. The prior time had gone smoothly, but in the months following Renveer had replayed every conversation, every word exchanged. He couldn’t help but be critical of his own performance. There was always a way to say things better, to give a better first impression… reflecting had helped him learn a lot from that experience. But it also made him more nervous now that he had the opportunity to put those lessons learned to good use. Don’t overthink it though, Renveer reminded himself. Unfortunately, overthinking was Renveer’s fatal flaw.

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

bump 1.5.21

OOC: Sorry for the delay.

IC: The screen remained blank for several seconds as the computer made trillions of calculations to adapt to the new ship’s communications. Then… a figure appeared. It was bipedal with blue gray skin and an angular face. Long, almost but not quite horn-like, appendages reached up from the side of the being’s head; stopping a few inches above the top of their hairless scalp. Yellow eyes with black pupils looked out at the bridge crew through the screen, and their mouth opened to speak.

Music. It was wordless music that issued forth. Similar to the music that they had heard before, but obviously with a much different tone and quality. This music seemed hesitant… concerned… almost scared. The eyes of the figure danced back and forth as it took in the conglomeration of faces before it, and soon the music stopped and the figure looked around expectantly.

GMT

For a moment, Holloway seemed almost enthralled by the figure appearing before the Bridge crew on the screen. And then, they would be able to see the look of confusion in Molly’s eyes (as well as probably many of the members of the crew present on the Bridge) as they opened their mouth to speak. The same music the universal translator hadn’t been able to process just a few moments before.

Molly glanced at Renveer for a split second, wondering if he was hearing the same as she was, and when the being fell silent, she looked back at the screen. A look of dismay in her face. Without at least a partial translation it would be impossible for the Dresden to aid these beings in any way. They needed a language specialist, and maybe someone in Engineering could work with them to upgrade their universal translator. But right now the alien being was waiting for a reply. Molly guessed that just like she couldn’t understand them, they couldn’t understand her. Or maybe they could… they were docked at the station after all… could they have learnt to translate the languages spoken there? There was only one way of knowing, and that way was by trying.

“I am Captain Molly Holloway.” Molly said, standing up from the center chair. Her eyes never leaving the screen. She emphasized her first name as she spoke, as it was by far the simplest word to pick up. She pointed to herself, making it clear that she was introducing herself. “I am the Commanding Officer of the USS Dresden. It seems that our Universal Translator is having some difficulties translating your message. Are you able to understand us?” It was a long shot, and Molly felt incredibly stupid asking said question, but there was not much she could say when she hadn’t understood what she had just been told.

Glancing at Simms and Drillek, Holloway motioned to the console with her head, silently asking if the computer had picked up anything useful.

Holloway, CO

Renveer missed Holloway’s look; he was too concentrated on trying to pick up anything from the music or the body language of the singer. Thankfully, he was able to glean some basic emotional cues, which at least gave hints to the first real question they needed answered: what were their intentions? From what Renveer could gather, the aliens did not have malicious intent. In fact, they seemed nervous. If their ship was caught in some sort of anomaly that had also effected the station (as the scans seemed to indicate) Renveer could imagine that the other crew might fear that the Dresden had come to take advantage of their helpless state.

With this in mind, Renveer set out to use his own body language to indicate their own intent as peaceful and (hopefully) helpful. He turned his hands palms-up and raised his forearms to rest perpendicular to his waist. He tilted his head in a classic body language cue to communicate ‘I’m listening’. Renveer relaxed the muscles in his face, adopting as neutral of an expression as he could and pushed his shoulders back to straighten his posture. He might look a little ridiculous to other members of the bridge crew, but what was important at that moment was establishing some sort of baseline for an understanding of the desire to communicate and cooperate. Maintaining this position, Renveer waited for the being to respond to the captain’s question. He paid particularly close attention to the alien’s body language going forward.

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

The Ship’s Marine Commander watched everything intently. With the slightest move of his right pinky finger, Harris tapped a dark purple button on the very far right of his console. The ship’s computer made not a sound on the Bridge of the warship, but deep within the hull… a distinct purple klaxon flashed silently in Marine Country. Every jarhead on duty knew exactly what the light meant and in the next moment, the Marine Detachment of the USS Dresden began to quickly and quietly prep for First Contact Protocols.

Harris remained focused on the screen, but the corner of his eye stayed on the small, blinking button. When the glow became solid, he would know his troops were ready for peaceful… or not so peaceful… First Contact.

Harris, MarDet CO

Forgrave was remaining still and quiet; feeling distinctly out of place. Sure; he’d been trained in first contact protocols; but frankly, he was keenly aware of the fact that there were much better qualified people on the bridge for that job. He was content to observe the crew and the viewscreen; trying to gauge tensions and reactions. He didn’t miss Harris tapping the ‘alert’ button, and silently agreed. Despite the apparently peaceful (if non-communicative) nature of things so far.... there were simply too many unknowns to allow their guards down.

The Universal Translator was struggling to make sense of the music. Without a contextual starting point, it was currently giving an estimated time to translation of thirty-seven…

Years.

The figure didn’t look at Holloway, nor even seemed to register the sound of her voice. It simply looked from face to face, as if waiting for something.

GMT

Although the being had not responded to or mirrored Renveer’s inquisitive body language, the executive officer did not want to give up on the idea of some form on non-verbal communication just yet. After all, Captain Holloway’s effort proved equally fruitless, so better to try something than just continue to stand here.

Noticing the alien’s gaze lingering on the faces of the Dresden’s crew, Renveer’s instinct was to simply… smile? In almost every humanoid culture, a smile seemed to be a universal indicator of goodwill and friendliness. There was of course the off-chance that this species saw such a gesture as “baring your fangs” but based on the surface physiology of this species, it seemed unlikely that such a gesture had been used by their evolutionary ancestors.

With that in mind, Renveer slowly broke out into a smile. It was a bit forced and definitely awkward, and Renveer sincerely hoped that the Captain did not look his way until he knew whether the idea worked or not.

(Lt. Cmdr. Renveer, XO)

Thirty-seven years… well that’s less than fraggin’ useful! Thought Issac ruefully. He gave Renveer a bit of side-eye at his exaggerated non-verbal communication, but honestly he couldn’t criticize it - this alien species didn’t seem to be responding to audio at all. Which made him wonder.... Quietly, and hopefully below the range of audio pickup, he whispered to the science officer. “Ma’am… is it possible that our audio ain’t being received? Or maybe we could send some music over the comms - they might just not recognize speech…” Issac was silent for a moment, thinking of possibilities. “Or maybe galactic standard ain’t musical enough - I reckon Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, but maybe there’s something else that’s more so?” Issac’s face pulled into a grimace as he tried to explain his thinking. “I don’t know if that makes sense at all…”

Forgrave, CoS