Lot's of theories no answers... yet

Posted on Sat Jan 4, 2014 @ 10:15pm by Lieutenant Samantha Raylen & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres

2,011 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: A Whole New World, Part 2 - Durbatuluk
Location: Stellar Cartography Lab

Alex, using the copious amount of sensor data that they had gathered as well as information from LCARS and a little artistic skill, had put together a model using the large Stellar Cartography Lab's holographic screen. After a nap of course. It displayed two ships holding steady in space. One of them was The Victory, its warp trail highlighted in the same glowing blue characterized by the nacelles. The other was the alien ship, surrounded in quite a large, gold cloud.

The young Stellar Cartographer had invited the Engineering Department heads and all the officers from the Science Department to come by, take a look, and hopefully help him figure out how this ship worked.

Sam studied the display closely, she'd never seen anything remotely like what she was looking at. "Look at this.. it's like .. almost looks as if the energy fields being generated by the ship's propulsion systems are folding over one another..see.." she pointed, at the same time revising the display to show the shifting energy fields in contrasting colors to make what she was indicating more easily viewed.

Miguel stood there with his arms crossed as he studied the display carefully. He nodded in agreement with what Sam had said. "Starfleet R&D have been messing with something like this for decades. Theoretically the system allows a vessel to 'fold' the very fabric of space, allowing a ship to travel instantaneously across large distances. We've never been able to make it work."

"Wormhole generation." Alex said with a small nod. "That hypothesis is in line with the spacial distortions picked up. I don't even want to think about the kind of math that would go into making that kind of navigation system work. Not to mention the energy requirements of a system like that, even if only establishing it for a few moments, would be massive."

Resh nodded. Before coming to this meeting, he had taken the time to examine all the relevant sensor data and logs pertaining to both alien ships. "The calculations would be extremely complex, but well within the realm of possibility. With such a seamless fusion of organic and inorganic components, the potential processing power would be well beyond anything we have."

Yarin stood up having remained silent, deep in thought up until this point. "I believe we can modify our engines to create a working facsimile of this propulsion system. I will have to run some tests of course."

Alex tapped the side of his index finger against his lips as the other science officers spoke, something wasn't adding up. "The ship seems to be fusion powered, correct?" He glanced over at Miguel to confirm. "They would have to keep a steady chain reaction going because, like our warp core, it takes a lot of energy to get it started again. That'll put out a lot of energy, but not this much energy." He gestured to the model again. "Not all at once anyway. They'd practically have to set off a fusion bomb in their reactor. Unless..."

He tapped a few more buttons on the control panel and the model shrunk to half its size to display a rough layout of the alien ship. He pointed to several cylindrical, room-sized pieces of equipment that looked something like coils. "Unless those are capacitors." The idea that this ship moved around by creating miniature, temporary wormholes was starting to sound more plausible to him now.

"No they're not wormholes. look at your data again. Zero neutrinos, which are needed for wormholes to exist. No this is something very different." he told them. "Whatever it is that they are doing doesn't seem to require to much power, because as you surmised that ship does seem to be fusion powered. At least some sort or fusion. I would theorize however this smaller craft may only be able to travel a short distance compared to the larger craft." He turned to Alex. "Remember that reactor we saw, that thing was huge, larger than even a Sovereign's warp core but they're using something else to power it. I'm willing to bet that thing generates at least as much power as a Sovereign Class ship, if not more. If they are folding space like I believe, then theoretically they may not even be from this galaxy. They can.... jump to just about any point they want. If we get a chance, we really need to get a hold of one of their ships."

"Well, whatever we want to call it, it seems to be a fold in spacetime. And if we want to get theoretical, folding space to travel is based off of Superstring and M-theory, which means whoever these aliens are, they might not even be from this universe." Alex cleared the ship blueprints from the screen and the model expanded once again to fill the whole wall. "In either case, being able to observe the technology working would make things much easier." He agreed.

"Be a neat trick.. we have no idea who these beings are, where they come from or how to track the one operating ship we've observed.." Sam pointed out.

"Theoretically..." Alex couldn't help but grin. "It wouldn't be impossible. Though, we could always return to the larger, more derelict alien ship and wait for it to come to us. That, however," he said as he turned back to tap on the console some more, "isn't for me to decide."

Resh tapped a few buttons and brought up a small inset on the display, a theoretical diagram of folding space. "The problem, at the moment, is that no one we know of has ever successfully developed folding-space technology, so we don't know what it looks like. All we have to go is our theoretical knowledge of the process of folding space, which would tell us very little about the technology required to produce it. The other problem is the process itself leaves very little trace that it has occurred," he said. Resh then activated his PADD and brought up a paper on the subject from the Daystrom Institute. "However, the energy emissions from the alien ship do appear somewhat consistent with theoretical models made by researchers attempting to fold space, so I think we're on to something. What we need now is to determine how the ship generated the energy fields, so we can attempt to replicate the effect. If we can do that, even on a much smaller scale, we can gather more data and perhaps even determine a way to track these ships."

Looking at Torres, Samantha said "So.. do we contact the XO at this point and report what we've got.. let him decide if we have enough to report to the Captain?"

"I think the XO will think that all we've really come up with is a lot of conjecture." He said as he rubbed his chin. "But yeah we might as tell him what we think we have." he added.

After looking at the others for a moment, Sam signed. "Fine.. I'll call him.."

Touching the control on the computer in front of her, she said "Lt. Raylen to Commander Hunter."

"Hunter here Lieutenant, what can I do for you?"

"Lt. Cmdr. Torres requested that I contact you and advise you that we have a theory regarding the alien ship propulsion systems. If you have a moment can you come down to Stellar Cartography please? It's easier to make sense if you can see the computer model projections from the sensor data and the research Mr. Volos has completed."

"He did, did he? Must be a heck of a theory. I'll be right down. Hunter out."

"Well." Alex said with a quiet chuckle. "That sets the bar awfully high." He continued documenting the brainstorming session they'd had as they waited for the XO to arrive.

Alec made his way to the lift, he was interested as well as curious as to see just what this theory he had was.


While they awaited the XO's arrival, Sam found herself wondering how long the journey to Tarambar would take. It was obviously not too great a distance but she hadn't heard just when they were due to arrive in orbit to take on their illustrious passengers. So, since she was curious..she asked. "Commander Torres," Sam said aloud, being nice and addressing him by his rank like a good little 'fleet officer instead of her usual "Hey you". "When are we due to reach Tarambar? I'm just curious.. if they're local maybe we can find out if they've encountered any ships like the one we ran across.."

"I don't really know." Miguel shrugged his shoulders. Which was the truth since he didn't have time to consult with the helm officer or the computer for that matter on what their ETA was.

Alec entered just as Rayburn finished her statement. "That's a good theory Lieutenant but I don't think the alien ship is from this neighborhood? I can tell you first hand that ship had technology I had never seen before."

"I wish I could have gotten a first hand look at it sir," Sam answered with a smile. "Just from what we've seen from the data recordings you brought back.. it looks like it was amazing even in its present condition.."

"You do?" Hunter repeated as he entered the lab, "Well, can't say I blame you Lieutenant. It was definitely a one of a kind ship."

"That it does. But in truth we have no idea where that ship could be from. It had technology that was similar to what we know, and yet how they came about it seems vastly different. Then they had things there seemed as if it were far beyond us." Miguel chimed in. "There is still so much we don't know about our own galaxy. They could be from some region we had never been before or it could be from somewhere out of our own galaxy. Truth is we just don't know." He then turned to face the first officer. "Good to see you again sir." he added.

"All very true Miguel. I think we have more questions than answers here." Hunter replied smiling, "Good to see you as well Miguel."

"I wish you'd been able to bring back a functional power cell," Sam muttered. Picking up the depleted power cell which had been removed from the heavily damaged ancient robot, she said "There's nothing left to even identify what it was they used to power this thing.."

"Beggars can't be choosers when you come upon an unknown derelict ship you take what it gives you." Miguel said with a smile.

Hunter was about to answer when his comm badge chimed, "Bridge to Commander Hunter, sir there a message for you from Starfleet."

Hunter looked a little puzzled, "All right.. I'll be back to check it shortly."

He turned to the others, "Duty calls.. continue the good work here.."

"Aye sir." Miguel said.

Turning, the XO left and headed back to the bridge to find out what someone back at Starfleet wanted with him.

Once the XO had departed, Sam (who had been fixing Miguel with a scowl) said "I'm not a beggar thank you very much. You brought this funky thing aboard and told me to figure it out and it would have helped if you'd found a power cell.. "

"Then we do the next best thing." he told her. "We figure out away to power it up using our systems. From what I saw over there their reactor was similar to ours at least in how it worked. I was also able to power up the doors with a power-pack." he added. "Volos you and the others keep seeing what you can learn from the sensors data. I want to see if we can at least determine if it or other ships similar to it are nearby."

Alex shifted his attention away from the panel to give Miguel a nod. "Aye, sir. We'll figure it out."

 

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