Posted by Gamemaster Mischief Maker (co-Gamemaster) in Main Sim: Science Lab 2

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dev Siobhan (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim: Science Lab 2

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dev Siobhan (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim: Science Lab 2
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The door to Lab 2 parted with a soft hiss.

Tolk entered first, carrying a diagnostic padd under one arm and a thermal stim drink in the other. “Tell me again why we’re always the ones who get the weird space dust,” he said, heading for the secondary console.

Sayani didn’t look up from the stellar mapping display. “Because we don’t complain about the weird space dust.”

Tolk snorted. “Debatable.”

The lab was cool and brightly lit, its main display already alive with parsed telemetry from the science deck—layered projections of the surrounding nebula, current density fluctuations, and the beginnings of gravimetric curve modeling. Commander Siobhan’s voice still lingered in Tolk’s mind: “This isn’t just a backdrop. It’s part of the mystery.”

Sayani tapped a control and brought up the spectrographic data. “All right. Per the Commander’s orders: isolate the nebula’s composition. Full elemental breakdown. Look for missing markers—especially carbon, oxygen, nitrogen. Standard stellar yields aren’t matching expected values.”

“On it,” Tolk said, dropping into a stool and setting the padd down. “Running spectral analysis suite four. Recalibrating the sweep parameters to account for multiphasic interference.”

“Good. And I’m starting a search for gravitational irregularities—anything that might suggest a second stellar remnant once occupied the region. If it’s gone, I want to know where it went.”

The hum of the lab deepened as the scanners engaged—long-range readings threading in from the ship’s external arrays. Lines of data began to pour across the main wall display, slowly building into a picture none of them fully understood yet.

Sayani glanced sideways. “You ever study anything like this in your rotation?”

Tolk shook his head. “Nope. But I’ve watched enough horror holos to know that when stars disappear without a trace, it usually means we should turn around.”

Sayani smirked. “Too late for that.”

They worked in silence for a moment—comfortable, focused.

“Let’s tag any anomalies but hold off on interpretation,” Sayani said finally. “Commander Siobhan made it clear—facts first, theories second.”

Tolk nodded. “Copy that. Just the data. For now.”

NEs Sayani and Tolk
Physical Sciences Division
U.S.S. Ogawa

BUMP

BUMP

OOC: has the data been sent to the lab?

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa

OOC: Yes. I will be outlining it shortly. Needed to confer with my co-GM and work out some details first. Hang tight.

~Linds

As the scans came back, the curious situation was potential even more curiouser.

The elemental makeup of the nebula showed the helium and hydrogen they expected to see, but in a planetary nebula (especially one of this size) they would expect to see oxygen, carbon and nitrogen from stellar collapse, but there were none. The remnant present was too new to have created the nebula itself. The second remnant that everything suggested should be there was not. Or was it?

The mapping of the nebula showed an amorphous spread and yet that higher density within the central lightyear also was where the asteroid field was most dense. There was an awful lot of debris- several bodies worth, but not enough that it could easily map to a set number of physical bodies. Furthermore, there were small traces of rarer elements found in planetary crusts scattered within the interior lightyear (such as europium, platinum, lithium, terbium.

What was very obvious was that there was an age difference between the outer spread of the nebula and the inner portion. The inner portion, with all the debris, had a very distinct pattern of spread. They could see on the screen that there was an obvious epicentre with the visible young remnant taking centre stage. Here, the gravitational distortions were the worst.

Additionally, in the makeup of the nebula contained a particle that was not in any record but seemed to interact with the other part of the nebula to create the powerful storms and eddies that made the nebula dangerous. The particle when ionized seemed to give off more energy than one might expect.

OOC: Let me know if I missed anything you were looking for.

~Mischief Maker