Posted by Ensign Iyun Riani (Scientist) in Side sim: Iyun and Petrakos Greek Holodeck

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Achilleas Petrakos (Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: Iyun and Petrakos Greek Holodeck

Posted by Ensign Iyun Riani (Scientist) in Side sim: Iyun and Petrakos Greek Holodeck
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snips)

Achilleas nodded, though whether Ria noticed was another matter altogether. “I don’t mind at all, really. We all have our moments of needing someone. As for the weirdness, well you’ll probably see plenty of that from me so I suppose it’s only fair.” He laughed at that part.

“Okay, thank you,” Riani said softly, feeling glad that he wasn’t upset and that they seemed to move past the awkwardness of moments before.

He then rose from his chair again and walked to the ingredients and uncovered the desserts. He began the syrup heating to process to get the one prepared before plating them both and brought them back to the table. Achilleas reached across and handed one plate to Ria before he resumed sitting.

CSO Petrakos

As she took the plate with the dessert from Achilleas, she fully looked up again and for a moment looked him straight into the eyes and smiled softly. “Thank you.” Before putting the plate down, she pushed the one with her half-finished, and by now rather cold main course to the side. She felt like she should say something else, start the conversation again with a new topic. Yet she didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent and hoped that he’d say something instead.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

“So I’ve been meaning to ask, why did you pick your research direction? I’m amused that it’s so close to mine and happy that the overlap will allow us to bounce ideas off of each other though.” Achilleas asked while starting in on the Greek custard.

CSO Petrakos

Her head slightly tilted to the right, Riani leaned back in her chair and pondered how best to explain. “I’ve been fascinated by stars and nebula and all for as long as I can remember. Maybe not surprising considering that I grew up on Deeps Space Nine and saw the Celestial Temple, the wormhole all the time. It fascinated me and made me want to learn more about astronomy and astrophysics. Eventually I came across dark matter in my studies. And it was like …” A very soft laugh escaped her lips and her eyes were sparkling while she was trying to find the right words. “It mesmerised me. Something that is there, that we can calculate, and yet it is basically invisible. Ever since I wanted to learn all about it and then eventually narrowed it down to dark matter nebula. My supervisor at the Academy thought it would be best to have less broad topic for my PhD thesis.” She chuckled softly and shook her head. This was easy to talk about, so much so that she even felt comfortable asking a question in turn. “How about you?”

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

“With a similar interest in space and the universe, I ended up narrowing in on stars and their varying stages fusion. Whether they’re burning the hydrogen, helium, or carbon, the stars all have predictable phases throughout their life span. What drew my interest and fascination was the outlying cases of when stars would go nova without any of the warning signs leading up to it. What could cause this to happen? A good half could be traced to known phenomenon, but what of the remaining cases?” Achilleas had forgotten his dessert by this point and was enthusiastically gesturing with spoon in hand, “That is when I thought dark energy! Hard to quantify or detect excepting from its effects on other stuff. So could it be responsible for premature novae?”

CSO Petrakos

Ria nodded here and there while listening attentively. “Exactly! It’s so fascinating. On the one hand I’d love to be able to really detect dark matter or dark energy one day. Yet at the same time part of me hopes we never will. I like that it’s always just out of reach,” she replied, leaning forward; her elbows resting on the table. “Let’s say,” she started and then went into a long mix of explanations and speculations. All the while gesturing fairly animatedly with her hands. Suddenly she wasn’t the timid, anxious woman anymore, she always seemed to be. But instead a part of herself surfaced that was rarely seen by anyone but her family and close friends.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

It was Achilleas’ turn to nod in understanding as Ria explained the different theories and thoughts regarding dark matter. He began to smile and join in on the discussion with an equally passionate gleam in his eyes. The dessert was completely abandoned at this point, but not a thought was spared for it as the meeting of the minds was simply euphoric for him. He was pleased to note the opening up of Ria from her shell as the technical discussion ensued, but that fell away as the focus he needed to give to keep up skyrocketed. Not since discussing with a professor in the Academy had Achilleas needed to ignore all distracting thoughts and fully focus to follow someone else’s thought process.

CSO Petrakos

Time seemed to fly as they discussed the various theories in depth. At some point Ria even made the holodeck create a notebook and fountain pen and started to write down formulas and drew a few things while she kept on talking. She was excited to have someone with whom she could talk about all these things without having to explain even the - in her eyes - simplest theories and ideas. She certainly hadn’t expected that, when she learned that her first posting would be on a hospital ship. “This is why I love astrophysics,” she beamed while drawing an exclamation mark a little more vigorously then intended and thus not only puncturing the page, but leaving a large blot of ink behind as well.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

It was at this moment that the computer chimed the end of the scheduled visit. They had a very short amount of time to pack up and let the next visitor in.

“Well crap.” Achilleas said, “I guess we’ve nearly overstayed our welcome. I’ll get our food boxed up and you can have some later. Why don’t you get your notes saved into your personal files?”

He then began to get the respective portions of food and dessert into containers to go.

CSO Petrakos