Posted by Commander Dira Myqian (Executive Officer) in CSO’s Office/Lab

Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Solomon Kane (Chief Science Officer/Research & Development) in CSO’s Office/Lab

Posted by Commander Dira Myqian (Executive Officer) in CSO’s Office/Lab
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

A dark look passed over her face and she took a larger sip. “Both fascinating and terrible. It’s hard to explain properly what it’s like to very suddenly lose a sense but disorienting is a tame word for it. When I’ve done it before, it’s been an emergency situation where I need to focus and there’s so much chaos I can’t filter.” She tapped her head with two fingers. “I can’t block everything they way most others can. There’s a portion of thoughts and feelings that leak through even when I’m intentionally shielding. Most of the time I just exist with it, but in a crisis it can be paralyzing. So when we had the fungal hallucination crisis on the starbase and more recently with the refugee Romulans, I opted for a small short-term dose. It’s awkward but I’m focused on something and honestly by the time it starts to wear off, I’m in a position to handle input again.”

“But right now? I’m on light duty because distracting myself with the larger tasks of running the ship is preventing me from dealing with trauma.” Dira shrugged. “I had dealt with one aspect of it, but the other… I think I pushed it aside so I could move on and be here on the Ogawa without all that baggage.” She chuckled. “If there’s one thing we are told over and over again as therapists, it’s that you can’t do therapy on yourself. We lie to ourselves,” she said with a grin. “So I’m sitting with stuff and being really honest. And it sucks. Not the least of which because I’ve truly realized how much being psi-positive informs so much of my interactions with people. Even subtly. Without it, I…” She shook her head again.

Commander Myqian, XO

Kane watched her and listened, rocking slightly back and forth in his chair. “Ok, here’s a thought. Instead of dosing you with nerosupressants, what if you had something you could wear when you needed the extra filter, take off when you didn’t?” His eyes looked off in the distance for a moment and then he noddrd to himself before focusing again on Myqian and shrugging. “I bet I could make something like that. Would help our empathic and telepathic crew and patients, too. Bit of quiet in an otherwise noisy existence. Shouldn’t be too complicated.”

Dira was slightly taken aback, but mostly because she was trying to process what exactly he was suggesting, how it would work.

He paused and said “And yes, I did hear you. I can’t guess what it’s like, but I do know how life can suck when you don’t have control over things.”

Kane, CSO / R&D

Yes, he did know that. She exhaled slowly. “Filtering for a few minutes, rather than a few hours could be useful. Like taking a quick mediation break.” Her dark eyes shifted elsewhere as she worked through what it might entail. “Most telepathy and empathy works on a frequency that the brain structures of most psi-positive people can detect and process, and it works though what they dub the telepathic medium. The frequency can shift so not all people can read each other equally at all times, but a neurographic scan can detect the frequency that an individual works on. I suppose it wouldn’t be unlike blocking a comm signal, or alternatively isolating to allow only specific ones through. But biological signals are more tricky than artificial ones. We’d have to be exceptionally careful.”

The possibilities were suddenly staggering, and excitement lit up her ebony eyes. She was a psychiatrist by training, a doctor, but she was also a scientist first. A student of the observable world. It was just that she had focused primarily on behaviour. She hadn’t had a project in so long and this was not only interesting but practical.

Commander Myqian, XO

Kane waved off the ‘careful’ comment. “No no, nothing like that. Blocking or isolating signals could be detrimental. No, what I’m thinking is taking a nerugraphic scanner from a medical tricorder, coupling that with a algorithmic frequency duplicator; but switching the programming so it doesn’t uplicate, it generates an opposing frequency that will mask the telepathic medium of the wearer. Basically, we drown out the frequency that the subject’s brain receives with a crap ton of white noise. The signal can’t reach the brain because the device is issuing a competing signal. So instead of making someone deaf… we just turn the sound around them off. Noninvasive, no surgery or implants needed, and we can fit it all into something as small as a headband. Or maybe a tiara for the little girls.” and he gave a crooked smile and took a drink.

Kane, CSO / R&D

“Hey, what if I want a tiara! The Captain got to have a crown, only makes sense that I get a tiara. Besides, I’d look good in one,” Dira said, trying her best to be deadpan, but damn whatever alcohol this was, it was making her efforts more difficult.

Kane gave her a withering look and said “Now I’m gonna make into a Bajoran wedding headdress, smartass.”

“But physiologically, it sounds plausible.” She blew out a breath. “Today is the last day I’m on the neurosuppressant. A short experiment was all we were willing to do. But later, once I get my equilibrium back, I’m willing to be a test subject. Can’t be worse than what I’ve been doing the last few days, and like you said its pretty noninvasive.”

Commander Myqian, XO

Kane nodded and said “Then come back tomorrow. I’ll have something ready by then. At least to test the practicality. We can can fine tune it once we know the theory is sound.”

Kane, CSO/R&D

For a brief moment, Dira wondered what Surra would say about such a device and she could already follow the train of psychology. But it didn’t matter until they knew not only if it could work, but it is could work for her. Brains were not always as straight-forward as a simulation and hypothesis wanted them to be. “Alright, but it’ll have to be later in the day, in order to give me enough time off the suppressant.”

Dira sipped more of the drink, mindful of the half-glass warning. Her being flat on her ass drunk was not only not useful but a terrible idea given everything going on. Though she could feel the liquors effects already and it was making her hands tingle. Interesting. “So what were you working on before Almikaz inspired your little simulation?”

Commander Myqian, XO

“Buncha stuff… some of which I can’t tell you about. You know… clearances and everything.” and he chuckled. “I gotta say, someone was drunk off their ass when they decided to let me play with stuff unsupervised. But hey… no back-sies.” and he chuckled and downed his drink. “C’mon. Let me show you something.” and he moved to his feet and walked out of the office and into the far back corner of the lab.

On a bench was a standard medical tricorder. Kane picked it up and said “Ok. So standard tricorders take in data and then compare to a pre-programmed library and display results. Problem is they are really unreliable when it comes to previously unknown species. Nothing to compare the data to, right? Soooo…” and he flipped the back over to show a strange metallic bump near the top of the device on the underside of the tricorder. “I’ve built in a science scanner with a dual-phase repeating signal booster that ties into the ship’s scanners. What this does is while you are scanning, say, an unknown individual in obvious distress, this scans for other similar life signs using a broader range and compares all of that data to one another. So you are developing a rudimentary baseline for things like blood pressure, respirations, heart beat… whatever you can get. Doinbg that will at least give our Away Teams and our First Contact teams a better idea of what they are dealing with, and save the ship time in trying to establish treatment options.”

Kane, CSO / R&D