Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent

(snip)

Rand sat down before reaching over and squeezing his hand. She could tell he didn’t want to do this, but they were here, and Randy would probably say they had to try. This needed to be about the work. The personal stuff came later. She grabbed her PaDD, pulled out a stylus, and created a blank data file. “I am going to create a new data file for any new work. What is the study name?”

Roman squeezed her hand back, hesitant to let it go. Then she grabbed her PaDD and started to create a new file. “The.. the Chearian Outpost Environmental Study.” He began to give her the study parameters and basic information, the planet type, location, basic environmental details, the type of outpost they planned to place there, and then into hypothesis, research questions, study purpose. Then he described animal subjects. There had been a lot. With two main researchers, a larger science department, and a lot more resources the project had moved much faster than his study of Aldaria.

It was a little odd, but once Rand had the PaDD set up she was able to hold his hand while he talked and write with the other. She could have simple set the PaDD for audio recording, but she felt like putting the physical effort into taking the notes gave them both something to focus on.

The planet was called Chearia, it was in a system that bordered Federation and Klingon space. Starfleet has planned to put a military outpost, to keep an eye on the Klingons. It was meant to have defensive capabilities only, Starfleet wasn’t looking to start a fight, merely be cautious.

Chearia had long days and short nights, and a lot of rainfall, which meant plentiful plantlife, like a planetwide rainforest. Days, though longer than Earth, followed a similar hour cycle to Earth, about twenty five hour day/night cycles. The planet was in its mesozoic era if compared to Earth, meaning the era in which dinosaurs live. Despite the plentiful oxygen however, none of the animals had evolved to be as large as Earth dinosaurs, or at least, not yet.

The outpost was to be placed on the western continent, near a large river to source fresh water from, so that was the portion of the environment their study focused on. They studied both the land creatures, that was Roman and Jay’s specialties, and anything living in the river. They had chosen to place the outpost away from any oceans to prevent potential natural disasters like tsunamis or hurricanes, or other flooding events.

There were several varieties of edible plants, but also a great many toxic plants, and so they’d brought in the Ardent’s botanists to study them. That was on one of the data disks they’d look at later. They’d been studying several varieties of animal, how dangerous they would be and, like with Mr Wyvern, antitoxins and other measures to make them a little safer.

Slowly she worked through the basic information, name, location, environment, animal subjects, study purpose, research questions, hypothesis. She collected each of these for the general study and each animal. Rand couldn’t believe how many animals Roman had had. She wanted to ask all kinds of questions about them, but she stuck strictly to the scientific data as she created the file. It was slow at first, and never much faster, but it was a place to start.

Rand

Roman rambled through the information in a formal, almost robotic way, talking about things as impersonally as possible. As if it were someone else’s project all together that he just happened to be well read on. He answered her questions as she asked them, pausing briefly every so often to make sure she had anything she needed in her data file. He picked up one of the earliest datadisks and put it into his computer console - it was a written report only disk, full of scientific graphs and charts showing the basic planet data as he spoke about it, atmosphere makeup, soil type, plant viability, water type and sustainability, wind and weather reports. A lot of the sort of information they’d gathered on Kelmao. It was a slow going process, but faster than expected as Roman scientifically and formally listed things off as if trying to just belt it all out and be done. The first disk was the easy part, most of the photos and data had been taken by probes or other scientists with relevant specialties, not Roman and Jay themselves.

~ Roman

The first data disk was helpful. Not that Roman had forgotten anything, but it helped to fill in some of the minor details that got glossed over in the bigger picture. They went over each picture and image and sample collected by the probes. Some of the data was lost and had to be filled in by Roman’s memory. It took a few hours. Going over data for the planetary system, the sun, the lunar satellites, and effects on rotation and tide. Rand made them stop for lunch. Even if he didn’t eat. “I can’t ignore Nibbles, she doesn’t do well when I disappear, and Mushu is finally starting to be more active. We need to check on them.” Also Rand had seen the file names and new the next images would be the first recorded plant and animal life, and all she could think of was what Roman had asked her to tell Randy. On the way to the lab, deciding to approach this like the other projects, “We really should research into whether this study is needed. If Star Fleet has decided not to place an outpost or change their objective to the planet, that will decide how to continue.” She didn’t want to say the study was no longer needed, but if the planet had been abandoned then Roman didn’t have to do this at all.

Rand