Posted by Lieutenant Commander Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Harmon, Erin, Mercer!)

Posted by Civilian Seamus McKenzie (Future Citizen) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Harmon, Erin, Mercer!)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Tannenn Keen (Chief Fleet Science Officer) in Spotted Glass ( TAGS-Fen, Fayth, Seamus McKenzie. Harmon, Erin, Mercer!)

(snip)

Harmon briefly glanced at the others, but her mind was well into dissecting the details before them. “I’m not a genetic expert but I do have more than a basic understanding. If you think about most sentient beings, their physiologies often operate under need to maintain homeostasis. Whatever affects it, it tries to make sure everything comes back into balance. In some diseases, this is where the immune system can attack itself or affected cells grow uncontrollably. At first glance this looks like a cancer or a virus. Except, it’s intuitive and stops before it becomes dangerous and overrides the homeostasis of our sample dishes. It’s like it can detect the maximum output before it breaks homeostasis and then just… stops.”

“Let’s try a larger sample. Maybe double, so two drops of medium and you do double the bacteria. Let’s see if my hypothesis holds true,” Nia said, unable to contain her excitement at this fascinating experiment. It was by far the most interesting thing she had ever done in her career.

Lt. Nia Harmon, Scientist

Seamus nodded and said “Yeah, lass… good call. Let’s do it.” The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as they prepped another sample for the experiment. The substance had already ‘grown’ back, so it seemed as if it could- theoretically- last forever. Once the sample was prepped, the team added the Vren substance to the dish and waited.

It took even less time than before. And just like before, the growth was exponential and rapid with perfect and optimized duplicates of the bacteria. And just like before, the growth slowed and stopped before it could overgrow the petri dish.

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Nia shook her head and bounced on her toes. “I mean, seriously! she said with a laugh. “It’s amazing. Let’s set up a full series of incremental increases. I think we know I’ll be okay, but what I want to see is if we change the input, what happens. So I am going to propose that after say several more tests just as we’re doing, we change that variable and try something like a seed. A seed in the soil with one drop of the medium.”

Lt. Nia Harmon, Scientist

Seamus looked at the data and then said “Aye, but we cannae do somthin’ too big. The bacteria it replicated were stationary… meaning they went through lag and log stages in a matter of seconds. We put a tree seed in there and you’ll have a new skylight in here in a matter of heartbeats.”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Nia nodded. “I was thinking one of the old native grasses that grew in the drier areas. It’s short and dense. And if our hypothesis is correct, then it would only take up the space of our dish. Which brings up a point I’ve bene mulling over. If this accelerates the growth of whatever it contacts, how do we then create a viable ecology? One bacteria wan’t be enough to inoculate the biosphere. We need diversity and a clear understanding of what we want it to do in each region it might be used in. For example, we want to build healthy soil that will growth things, and the plant material en masse will allow us to generate weather. But we might have to consider weather control, because there won’t be mechanisms in place naturally to control how volatile it gets. Geography, yes, the foundations in the land itself won’t be there.”

It was a long term problem, but it was worth considering as they tested this out in minuscule samples.

Lt. Nia Harmon, Scientist

Sharah returned a little over 20 minutes after she had left. She knew they were curious. “Our unexpected guest is being escorted under guard to the Governor’s office. He, Lt Goc Dasca, and Cpt McBride have been informed. I am sure we will be informed of their decision. Until then let’s keep working.” She walked over to the samples with fascination. “What are you thinking next?”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

Seamus thought about what Harmon said. “Well, we can set up greenhouses all over to provide starter growth. But getting the proper microbial life to support topsoil development on a large scale will be impossible in a short time. It would take decades at this rate.” and then his red eyebrows rose and he looked at the team. “Wait wait wait… if this duplicates like it does with everything…” and he grabbed two petri dishes. He set them down. He took a bit of rhe growth accelerator and put some in each dish. He watched and waited for several minutes, and it did nothing. “Well, damn. I was hoping it would grow on its own.” He then tipped the contents of one into the other and the medium reacted, almost instantly filling the petri dish before it halted.

Seamus looked up and smiled. “Now that makes a difference. What if we can generate a massive amount of this stuff and spray it on inert dirt? We add the microbial life after, and then bam! We got new topsoil almost instantly. Thoughts?”

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Sharah watched and then grinned, “Let’s try it on a small scale, with the terrariums we have set up.” She nodded toward them. “Let’s create more. Add a bit of the medium to the other dish and then pour a bit of the other in. It should fill both containers. We can spray it over the dirt in the terrarium and then add the microbial life and see what happens.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

Tannenn was still shocked silent after the rather sudden appearance of Mercer. She had not met them in person before but memories from Keen were both fond amused. Mercer was the type that held wonderful conversation and often had points of view that helped when there was a block of thoughts. Shaking her head she had not known that Mercer was assigned here otherwise she would have added him to her invitations. She quietly excused herself from the others and went to check the security of the lab. After that she was going to go and offer an apology to Mercer and ask if he would care to join them on their research.

LtCmdr Keen
Chief Star Fleet Science Officer
OED V

McKenzie watched the CSO leave and just shook his head. Looking back at the group he said “Let’s keep going. We’ve got a time limit on this before the Governor’ll want some answers.” He looked at Fayth and said “That’s a solid idea. Let’s get it going.” and he began making some of the necessary preparations.

McKenzie, Conservation Director

Fayth walked over to the terrariums and made some adjustments. “Okay so I’ve set up three. One for a control. The other two are both native dirt, so they are barren. This one,” she pointed left, “is just like we’d find out anywhere on Oed. Hard packed, practically rock. The other one is loosened, like it’s been plowed and prepped for planting. We’ll see if that makes a difference in how it works.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

The whole idea of inoculating topsoil was a fascinating one and Nia set about helping set up this next phase of the experiment, but was also taking copious notes. Yes, they had readouts they could refer back to, but she processed information better if she did something with it herself. She readied the scanners to record each terrarium and nodded. “All set.”

Lt. Nia Harmon, Scientist