Posted by Civilian Seamus McKenzie (Future Citizen) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Nia Harmon, others also possible)

Posted by Lieutenant Nia Harmon (Scientist) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Nia Harmon, others also possible)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Nia Harmon, others also possible)
Posted by… suppressed (14) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“It wouldn’t be hard to set up a few terrariams. Set them all up with native soil so we know it’s lifeless. Then add a different native soil bacteria to each. Have two for each bacteria type, add this compound,” Sharah pointed at the screen, “to only one of each pair. I can get spores for native fungi from the botany lab. They have native soil samples as well.” She looked at all of them, “That is if we want to try a small experiment?” They would have to eventually, but this wasn’t her rodeo.

Fayth, SFCMO

“With the time frame we’ve been given, now is probably even too late. But… no time like the present.” McKenzie said.

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Nia chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. “If it works as fast as we’re led to believe it will, then the growth rate is the most important variable we need to monitor and report. So long as nothing is altered in any way that will prove dangerous on a larger scale, and we can use simulations for that, then we can at least give the decision makers a confidence rate so they know how to evaluate whatever results we do give them.”

~Nia Harmon, Sciences

Bump

Sharah looked at them all, “Well let’s get started then.” She looked at Harmon, “You said you and Cmdr Woods,” did she really say it without flinching, “ran computer simulations. Do you feel you exhausted that or should we start there again?”

Fayth, SFCMO

Nia shook her head. “We were only just getting going and set up the base program. I was waiting for the next step of doing a miniature test to actually feed into the simulation. We were going to decide the various soil types for sure and then get going. I can get the samples though and we can begin there.”

~Nia Harmon, Sciences

“If you still have the copies of what you started with Woods I would like to see them. I don’t have all of Woods’ files. Not sure if that was by accident, not going to ponder more problems when we have enough of a time limit as it is.” Tannenn said as she looked at Nia Harmon, then paused to listen to the others voices options.

“Then let’s get crackin’.” the big Scot said and slapped his hands together. “I suggest we start with a microbial growth medium found in the native soil samples collected prior to the comet strike. If’n this is the skeleton key to unlocking rapid repopulation; we’ll need tae start there anyway.”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Sharah stood, “I’ll grab the base soil from the botany lab and containers. We’ll meet at lab 12 in 20?” She waited for any further clarification and then left.

20 minutes later she was in the designated lab, setting up 2x3 pans of the ‘dead’ native soil. She had 5 of them filled, but enough to do more. When they arrived she waved toward them. “One as a control, allowed to grow on its own. The others, I thought we might have to experiment with the amount of ‘the gift’ to use.”

Fayth, SFCMO

“These are perfect, thank you Sharah!” Tannenn said as she glanced at the others. She had no idea how this was going to play out for certain but the team was working well together thus far and the feed back and suggestions from everyone was proving very encouraging they might even pull off the impossible but she didn’t want to get too far head of herself, not at least until they saw what happened with the first samples.

Keen FCSciO

“Can I see the substance they gave us?” Nia said. “How much they gave us will give us a good indication of its potency, unless they don’t expect the whole amount to be enough for the entire planet and we need to ask them for more- which is a good question to ask the powers that be actually. But we can assign a ration based on the total weight of it and measure out a tiny fraction for the first test. Depending on what our base mass is we can go up in very small increments, and I would want to be monitoring constantly. Once we get an idea of the growth rate, we can run simulations and extrapolate a more accurate test.”

Tannenn brought out the sample she had secured and gave a wry grin as she placed the container on the desk before Sharah, Nia, Erin, and McKenzie, “The governor’s aid was most insistent that this not leave the compound not until we’re certain it is not hostile.”

~Nia Harmon, Sciences

Seamus was reading a PaDD and said “In the notes from the previous guy, it says the substance is self-replicating. What we have will always be what we have.”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

“I wonder what stops it from replicating out of the container?” Sharah had her tricorder out and was scanning the bacteria. “Alright I have base readings on the bacteria. We can start when ready.”

Fayth, SFCMO

OOC: I was told I should join this thread, and given that the story is already progressed quite a bit, I’m just going to play it as if Erin has been in the room all along, including the previous meeting. I hope that is okay. – Joana

OOC: Welcome and glad you could join us. I would have invited you sooner but I am still not sure who is who etc, so my fault. Thanks for jumping in! Cassa

OOC: No worries! I haven’t been around too much either in past month or so, so I didn’t help either! :) – Joana

IC:
Erin had been baffled with what she had just been presented. Months prior she had told Governor Hyrushi that the speed in which he would like the terraforming efforts to go was simply physically impossible to achieve. Now she had been presented with something that might just be able to do exactly that.

“Maybe it needs a host to kick start the self replicating process?” It was both a tentative reply to Sharah’s question, and thinking out loud. “In other words, maybe what we have been given is the inert substance, so to speak, and we will start seeing it replicate once it is mixed in with the soil samples.” Hazen said, as she curiously tried to eye Fayth’s tricorder readings over her shoulder.

Erin Hazen-Cooper, Director of Terraforming

Tannenn brought up the notes from Woods again along with the then, projected theories, and added in their current theories and possible outcomes. “It might be that or it might be something else.” Tannenn mused aloud as she read and looked at the others in the room again, she walked back to her desk and started making copies of the notes on more PaDD’s for the others. “Please keep these for working here. I was told this has to remain in these rooms until we’re certain it won’t be a threat to the colony. So keeping the PaDD’s to this location is a must for now but I think you can have your own copies while working here.” She was likely being too trusting but with the PaDD’s locked to the location where they were working seemed at least fair, she didn’t want anyone to feel she didn’t trust them and have each with their own copy was easier than having to keep everything on the screens on the walls when they needed to update or change details.

Keen, CFSO

Taking one of the PaDDs, Erin looked through its contents. Given the circumstances and the substance they seemed to be dealing with, making sure the PaDDs didn’t leave the room seemed the sensible thing to do at the moment.

Nia tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “Well, we can speculate all we want, but I think there’s nothing for it but to try a measured amount and see what happens. I suggest one gram of substance to fifty grams of soil.” At some point they were just going to have to jump in and take the risk. But she was undeniably excited and it had been a long time since she had done any real experiments like this.

~Nia Harmon, Sciences

“That seems a lot.” Seamus said. He thought for a moment and then said “Maybe a microgram and see if that does anything at all? Start really low with ratios? Maybe one to a thousand and gradually increase?”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Sharah nodded, “I have to agree with Mr McKenzie. Smaller is better. We have no idea how fast this will truly grow or what will stop it from overriding the space provided. We don’t want it out of control before we can stop it.” It was time to do the testing, but caution was warranted. “We can also monitor the original sample of the compound to see what happens when we remove some of it. Monitor the self-replication process.”

Fayth, SFCMO

“I second that.” Erin chipped in, even though her gaze was back on the PaDD in her hands. “Better safe than sorry, until we know the growth rate we’re working with. I do have a concern though…” She scanned through the notes, and wanted to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything. “Do we know when it stops? Or how it stops, for that matter? From my understanding, once we add this compound to any kind of organic matter, it should accelerate its growth. A tree would grow in a matter days rather than years… but, shouldn’t that mean that anything generated by this process would also wither and die much faster?” From a terraforming standpoint, it was not ideal, but Erin figured they would find that out with their tests. Her concern, however, was more along the lines of what they could do if there was an accident. After all, they were dealing with an unknown substance, and even though Hazen would like to believe a microgram would not cause anything extraordinary to happen, the more of the substance they added, the more of a fine line it would be between a successful experiment and an out of control one. “What I am trying to say is, do we know anything about its stopping mechanism? As Mr. McKenzie and Dr. Fayth mentioned, we don’t know how fast the self replication process is, which means that, no matter how careful we might be, there is a large chance this could grow out of control. Were we given any information on how to stop the replication process?”

Erin Hazen-Cooper, Director of Terraforming

Fayth looked over the PaDD she had been given as she spoke. “Mr. McKenzie pointed out that the substance is self-replicating. So we will never run out of it. And since it has not broken the container, we can hypothesize that either the substance will grow until it hits the limits of the area it is contained in, or there is a property in the container that keeps it restrained. As for accelerating up to death, we won’t know until we try it. We won’t know anything more until we do. However, this lab can erradiate anything in it. Organic and non-organic. So anything we don’t want destroyed if it goes wrong should be kept out of this area. There is a secured office attached to it.”

Fayth, SFCMO

McKenzie spoke up. “Let’s start witha single harmless substance. Say… a single bacteria. Put that with the growth medium and see what happens. Maybe that will give us the answers. We can watch it in real time, and go from there.”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Sharah went into a storage cabinet and pulled out an incubation machine and two small spherical petri dishes. The quickly set up the parameters and hooked the readouts to the main screen in the lab. “Alright, Mr. McKenzie if you would put a standard measure of bacteria in both these dishes,” she motioned to the two dishes sitting on the machine, “and Lt Harmon if you would add a single drop of the growth medium to just one, we will see what happens.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer

Nia nodded and extracted the required amount of the medium. “I should point out that if this is from the Vren and is from their world, there would naturally have to be a stopping point to the growth process, otherwise their planet would not be the jungles it is supposed to be, barring their environmental crisis, of course.”

When McKenzie was ready and gave her the signal, Nia added the medium.

Lt. Nia Harmon, Scientist

The results were… startling… to say the least. As soon as the medium touched the bacteria, it began to change. In a matter of heartbeats, the medium had duplicated a sizable number of the bacteria. And not just duplicated… but duplicated perfectly. Soon, the petri dish was almost half filled with viable bacteria efore ot slowed and stopped. It was as if the medium could sense the limits of it’s environment and grew to fit, but not over fill, it’s current environment.

McKenzie whistled softly. “Holy crap on a cracker…” he said to no one in particular.

McKenzie, Conservation

Elijah, deciding to spend the majority of his past and first week to acquainting himself with OED and its residents, both civilian and Starfleet members, couldn’t believe his good luck upon finally looking into the details of ongoing scientific endeavours. As the Scientific Advisor and a university professor, he enjoyed certain privileges and access to files, thanks to his connections from his academy days. He immersed himself in a night of extensive reading, he finished, despite his growing enthusiasm and vigour with a deep dive into the terraforming initiative and the mysterious Vren. Despite the temptation to initiate a ‘Mercer Brainstorming Session’ with his family, Elijah chose to to settle for the night and an early morning start. Unfortunately, a forgotten alarm resulted in him rushing to catch up with his with own schedule, risking his timely attendance at what appeared to be one of Starfleet’s most significant discoveries.

However, as he entered the lab, Elijah maintained a composed demeanour and said, “Well, from a scientific standpoint, that’s either really promising or cause for concern,” addressing the observers gathered around an unseen focal point. “Sorry for the abrupt entrance; I’ve just arrived and caught up as swiftly as I could. I’m Doctor Oliver Loughty, Science Advisor,” he greeted with a friendly smile. “Now, should I join the festivities, or is it time to consider running in the opposite direction?”

OOC: Hope you don’t mind, figured I’d join the party (given his role)

Elijah Mercer
Professor / Scientific Advisor
Oed V