Post by Brynn on Jun 27, 2021 2:16:21 GMT
On a ship as big as the Tempest, assigned to a station as large as Odyssey, the call-down tree was more like a forest. In fact it was so convoluted and long, that Triia couldn't remember a single time she ever got a call from it. She had plenty of memories of showing up completely out of the loop of some new critical thing that was passed down, or showing up only to find out her lab was under maintenance that day, or that they've been given a leave day. So when a Petty Officer from Operations came running in, his breath heaving, she just looked at him confused, startled at being interrupted in the midst of reading the latest research papers on xenoexoarchaeologic finds.
"Cadet...you're...needed...", he paused and wheezed a few times, "...in the...wardroom."
Triia looked up at him and cocked her head to the side. "Noooo, that doesn't sound right. The senior staff doesn't have a clue who I am. There are like..." She started counting on her fingers, ran out and went with, "...a lot of people between me and the Chief. I'm sure you're looking for one of them."
The Petty Officer looked frustrated and glowered at her. "Nope, gone through all those...checked offices, labs, quarters...been at this for 20 minutes, all over the ship. You're it." He collapsed onto a lab stool and put his head down on the counter, thankful for a breather.
Triia started to argue, but then shrugged and decided there might be something exciting going on.
=======
Triia's mind ran wild as she headed down the halls and waited for the turbolift to take her up to wardroom. "What kind of exciting new tech is there...I wonder how it works...I wonder how long I'll have to wait to take it apart!" She was sure that even though she was a stand-in for a stand-in for a stand-in, that only exciting things happened on the bridge and to the senior staff. There was a bounce in her step, a flick back and forth of her tail and a grin on her face.
Triia fairly bounced her way into the wardroom and was immediately intimidated by the giant conference table in the middle. "I'm just going to sit over here," she thought as she quietly sat down in a much less comfortable chair on the perimeter of the room. She watched as other officers, ones she was sure she probably should know the names of, came in and sat down at the table and then noticed the Orion sitting smugly at the end of the table. "Oh, she's pretty" popped into Triia's head, just as her thoughts got derailed by the conversation beginning.
=======
It was clear the senior staff didn't like this Adria person, but Triia always let people prove themselves to her personally before passing judgment. It quickly became clear that it wasn't simple prejudice at play here. She bristled at being called "cat lady", but when the comment about giving scritches came up, she almost lost it. Triia imagined herself leaping from her chair, over the table and tackling Adria in a satisfying retaliation for the personal slights. She smiled as she saw the atheletic jump, the startled look, the satisfying feel of claws drawing blood as she pounced...and then her brain reminded her that this was a hologram. Now she saw the athletic jump, HER startled look and tumbling to the floor as the chair she attacked fell over and she passed right through the hologram and face first into the wall behind it. Yeah, she was glad she showed restraint there.
=======
Triia found herself in one of the engineering labs, bickering with the computer. The XO had asked her to look into ways to issue a remote synapse feedback pulse to Adria the next time she hologrammed in to the ship. Which really, should be quite simple - find the subspace frequency, generate a large amplitude signal and shove it the wrong way round back to the hologram's source.
But there were two major problems with this. The first involved tracing the subspace frequency in the first place. Triia had gotten through the first two hops, but clearly Adria had been thorough in bouncing the signal off of relays that likely didn't even know they were carrying her signal. Sending a massive overload pulse back along only part of the path would just fry a relay circuit. Triia was pretty sure that the XO wouldn't appreciate destroying Starbase 11's long range comms and Dreon VII's global commercial communications satellite array. When she got frustrated searching for the next hop in the comms path, Triia switched to the other major issue.
It's super easy to overload communications equipment and even easier to overload the human brain. It's a trick and a half to send enough power to traverse half the known galaxy and have what comes out the other end just give someone a headache, or at worse black them out. It's an especially hard problem when you don't have access to the equipment at the other end to install dampers. You want the energy to bleed, not the recipient's ears. Triia fingered her simple stainless steel loop that went through her right ear, a reminder of the oath she took when she became an engineer to put public safety first. Starfleet tended to skirt the bounds of that oath now and then and it took some creative justification, especially when working on weapons systems. That's why she liked sticking with ancient alien tech. In her limited experience, it rarely killed people.
She growled back at the computer, "Increase phase modulation by 3%, reduce carrier power by 1% and add decay rate of 0.24." She sighed heavily as the report came back "I'm afraid you've melted the recipients brain matter again." "They have got to stop putting personalities into computers," she muttered.
"Cadet...you're...needed...", he paused and wheezed a few times, "...in the...wardroom."
Triia looked up at him and cocked her head to the side. "Noooo, that doesn't sound right. The senior staff doesn't have a clue who I am. There are like..." She started counting on her fingers, ran out and went with, "...a lot of people between me and the Chief. I'm sure you're looking for one of them."
The Petty Officer looked frustrated and glowered at her. "Nope, gone through all those...checked offices, labs, quarters...been at this for 20 minutes, all over the ship. You're it." He collapsed onto a lab stool and put his head down on the counter, thankful for a breather.
Triia started to argue, but then shrugged and decided there might be something exciting going on.
=======
Triia's mind ran wild as she headed down the halls and waited for the turbolift to take her up to wardroom. "What kind of exciting new tech is there...I wonder how it works...I wonder how long I'll have to wait to take it apart!" She was sure that even though she was a stand-in for a stand-in for a stand-in, that only exciting things happened on the bridge and to the senior staff. There was a bounce in her step, a flick back and forth of her tail and a grin on her face.
Triia fairly bounced her way into the wardroom and was immediately intimidated by the giant conference table in the middle. "I'm just going to sit over here," she thought as she quietly sat down in a much less comfortable chair on the perimeter of the room. She watched as other officers, ones she was sure she probably should know the names of, came in and sat down at the table and then noticed the Orion sitting smugly at the end of the table. "Oh, she's pretty" popped into Triia's head, just as her thoughts got derailed by the conversation beginning.
=======
It was clear the senior staff didn't like this Adria person, but Triia always let people prove themselves to her personally before passing judgment. It quickly became clear that it wasn't simple prejudice at play here. She bristled at being called "cat lady", but when the comment about giving scritches came up, she almost lost it. Triia imagined herself leaping from her chair, over the table and tackling Adria in a satisfying retaliation for the personal slights. She smiled as she saw the atheletic jump, the startled look, the satisfying feel of claws drawing blood as she pounced...and then her brain reminded her that this was a hologram. Now she saw the athletic jump, HER startled look and tumbling to the floor as the chair she attacked fell over and she passed right through the hologram and face first into the wall behind it. Yeah, she was glad she showed restraint there.
=======
Triia found herself in one of the engineering labs, bickering with the computer. The XO had asked her to look into ways to issue a remote synapse feedback pulse to Adria the next time she hologrammed in to the ship. Which really, should be quite simple - find the subspace frequency, generate a large amplitude signal and shove it the wrong way round back to the hologram's source.
But there were two major problems with this. The first involved tracing the subspace frequency in the first place. Triia had gotten through the first two hops, but clearly Adria had been thorough in bouncing the signal off of relays that likely didn't even know they were carrying her signal. Sending a massive overload pulse back along only part of the path would just fry a relay circuit. Triia was pretty sure that the XO wouldn't appreciate destroying Starbase 11's long range comms and Dreon VII's global commercial communications satellite array. When she got frustrated searching for the next hop in the comms path, Triia switched to the other major issue.
It's super easy to overload communications equipment and even easier to overload the human brain. It's a trick and a half to send enough power to traverse half the known galaxy and have what comes out the other end just give someone a headache, or at worse black them out. It's an especially hard problem when you don't have access to the equipment at the other end to install dampers. You want the energy to bleed, not the recipient's ears. Triia fingered her simple stainless steel loop that went through her right ear, a reminder of the oath she took when she became an engineer to put public safety first. Starfleet tended to skirt the bounds of that oath now and then and it took some creative justification, especially when working on weapons systems. That's why she liked sticking with ancient alien tech. In her limited experience, it rarely killed people.
She growled back at the computer, "Increase phase modulation by 3%, reduce carrier power by 1% and add decay rate of 0.24." She sighed heavily as the report came back "I'm afraid you've melted the recipients brain matter again." "They have got to stop putting personalities into computers," she muttered.