Stellar Mysteries

Posted on Fri Aug 27th, 2021 @ 9:40pm by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Cassian Pell

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Stellar Cartography/Astrometrics, Deck 4
Timeline: Mission Day 6 at 0600

[Stellar Cartography]
[Deck Four]
[[0600 Hours, Mission Day Six]

Full System Recursives Diagnostic, L3. Time to Completion: 18:58:12
Ping Sub-processor Alpha... Success. 0.076ms. 88% Packet Return.
Ping Sub-processor Beta.... Success. 0.08ms. 86% Packet Return.

The words hovered in yellow, suspended in a cool black with a blue penumbra. The room was, otherwise, almost silent. But not completely. Noah listened to the hum of the deckplates, the sound of the inertial dampening, the artificial gravity, the oscillation of the warp field refreshing- all those little things one would seldom notice anymore, unless one specifically listened for them. New people aboard ships tended to pick them up- especially those nervous about space travel. Some people found them comforting, like a ship's pulse. Noah was the latter.

Sometimes Noah wanted to pretend the ship was alive and they were its carers. But he knew unlike the LMH programs and their successors, the ship's computer has still subject to the sentience threshold. But he, an Infolife rights supporter, still wondered what such an intelligence would be capable of. Would it see the people inside it as its family? An invasion? Would the holo-programs be extensions of itself, or some kind of cell-divided hive?

Noah's eyes dropped to the wrinkles in his SOJO t-shirt. His legs were sprouted out in front of him at an acute triangle, and from halfway down his thighs, his pale legs were aglow in the blue on the screen.

Noah had been up early to jog, to eventually shower, and to get on shift by 0800. But he'd gravitated toward his schedule early and saw that Stellar Cartography had logged some major processing and display errors. Another lingering effect of the damage done by the Orion energy dampening weapon, he suspected. And while he'd jogged, he'd hit a wall early. And he decided to get a jump on this.

As he worked his thoughts had drifted back to his personal life. Cendo Prae- Catulla- was out of reach for him for now. And from there he'd drifted into the history of their technology, their own forays into artificial intelligence, holographics and computing. It was second only to, perhaps, the Bynars. They had allowed their society to be ruled by such massive intelligences until it proved to be damaging. And those intelligences- the Fetches- saw any program produced by its resources as an extension of themselves.

"Computer." Noah swayed his foot in an arc, his dark eyes blinking. He drew his legs up against his chest and hugged them. "Show me Enceladus." The blue planet with the spark of light and metal that was Cendo Prae's ecumenopolis flicked away and instead a white-blue orbs with bluish stripes in its southern pole, appeared.

As he entered, Cas recalled a quote he'd read back at the Academy when he'd been studying early Terran spaceflight efforts. One of the astronauts on Apollo 12, Pete Conrad, had said, ‘Eureka, Houston, the Earth is really round.’ A nod to ancient times when people believed you could fall off the end of the world. Every world had tales like that; people wanted to understand and lacking scientific understanding, made up their own reasons. What had fascinated him, more than the joke was what happened when the astronaut returned to Houston. There had been all this mail from members of the Flat Earth Society telling him that he didn't know what he was talking about. People will believe, he thought, what they want and sometimes, no amount of science can sway them from that belief.

He shrugged off the thought, and the investigation he had done afterwards, one rainy afternoon, into the 'Flat Earth' movement, since his purpose here was to investigate an error report he'd received. Seeing that he wasn't alone, his shields came up in a defensive move he'd learned on the research station and reinforced on Vulcan. "Beautiful," he said as his dark gaze dropped to the controls and scanned the data presented. "Not a world I'm familiar with." And, because it was a part of his basic nature, silently amended, yet.

Noah had not expected people for another hour or two and he'd been engrossed enough in his home's blues and whites that he'd not noticed the door open and shut. The voice startled him and with a yank, he looked back at it. Flushing pink, he clamored to a stand like a Cadet was drilled to do. "Sir!" He wanted to fidget with his t-shirt but kept his arms down along his thighs. "It's my home, Sir!"

"Relax," Cas said quietly, one corner of his mouth quirking upward slightly, as he considered the man in front of him. He adopted a more casual pose, leaning against the edge of a console, in the hope that body language would help to put him more at ease. "I'm more scientist than Starfleet, I'm afraid. Introductions. Uh ... let's see, I'm Cassian Pell, heading up the Science team. And you are?"

Noah relaxed at the officer's ease. Some officers were sticklers, some weren't. He blinked. "Oh, um. I'm-I'm Noah Balsam," he extended his hand. "Cadet Balsam. Systems Specialist. I-I saw Stellar Cartography was on my list for, uh, repairs."

"Pleasure," Cas said as he extended his own hand. "I noticed the problems and thought I'd come to take a look for myself." He shrugged one shoulder slightly. "Couldn't sleep, thought I'd get an early start." He cocked his head slightly to one side. "So, what's the prognosis?"

Noah rounded the controls from where he'd sat on the floor for the cinema experience. His fingers tapped, taking the console out of standby. "Are-are you OK?" He asked about the man's sleep. "The-the um, Phi and Chi set of bio-neurals were fried. Either because of the, uh, the hit we took," he swept his glance up to the diagnostic countdown as it pinged the Alpha processor again. "Or because of the thermal failure b-because they took the cooling system offline. I've rerouted operations and put it on backup isolinears. Um, until we get to Starbase 22. Then I can ask Lieutenant Chaali to get new bioneural packs."

"To answer your question, right enough," Cas said. And it was true as far as it went. The only place he was haunted anymore was in his dreams. And at that, not as often as in the past. "So it's useable on backup but it's not going to take another hit like the last one? Is that about right?"

Noah bobbed his wavy-haired head, "Yessir. It's online... or well, it um, will be fully, once the diagnostic finishes. And-and hopefully we don't run into those ships again." Noah stroked at a couple of keys to check an interface.

"Have you put in the request for the new bioneural packs," Cas asked. He stayed where he was though, because he was still and just talking, his hand strayed to his pocket and pulled out a small puzzle. Challenging in its own right, these kinds of puzzles never got in the way of conversation. Just sort of filled in the gaps as it were. "I know how difficult the supply chain can be ... from past experience."

Noah shook his head, "N-no not yet Sir. Lieutenant Chaali comes on duty at 0800. I'll, uh, I'll ask her right after the morning briefing in the computer core." His eyes, naturally, went to movement. Noah didn't know what it was. "What's that?"

"Puzzle," Cas said at once, tossing the small object toward Noah. "Friends send them to me. Once I figure them out, I keep them in a jar on my desk ... so that other members of the crew can do them as well. Once everyone's done with them, they'll get sent on to a different ship." He smiled, a shy quirk of the lips, and nodded. "You're welcome to try it."

Noah looked at the small object, having flinched at the toss- it bounced off his chest and he nearly fumbled it, but in the end, Noah had it in hand. It looked geometric in origin. "Wha-what's the goal? Open it? Get the colors aligned?" His dark eyes glanced up with curiosity toward the Betazoid.

"Part of the mystery," Cas said. Images flashed through his mind, fragments of memory. What he was doing when he figured one out. The look on one of the tech's faces when they finally figured it out for themselves. "Sometimes, its getting it opened, sometimes its getting the colors aligned, once it was creating a pattern out of what appeared to be random markings. Mystery for me anyway. The friend who sends them? Strips off all the packaging first so I never know until its finished. He's devious that way. Fair warning though. They're addictive. Frustrating and maddening at times but very addictive."

Noah nodded. "How-how long do I have it until?" He asked idly, though his fingers had already gone in to motion to work it out. He quickly surmised it wasn't a color matching thing. And parts moved.

"Long as you need," Cas said. Another convert, he thought, and a first step toward this ship starting to feel like home. "Just return it when you're done and you can grab another one from the jar. Sight unseen of course."

Noah agreed with a nod, curious to finish it. "Do-do you need access to the wider systems, Sir? I can shift resources." He gestured at the console.

"No need," Cas said with a wave of his hand. "Computer, display Kulath." He nodded toward the viewer where a world of contrast was displayed. Swaths of red and green dominated this world and while the blue of water was there, it was proportionally less. "Friend of mine was born there. Tribal system with three castes. The warriors of that world, known as Azhadi, devoted their lives to the service of the tribe. Whatever the leader asked, they would do, even if it meant their deaths."

The world was impressive and yet alien to the young Human's eyes. He had grown up around ice with a giant, squashed tan ball with rings as the hovering giant beyond. "That's... that's some fierce dedication," Noah commented back with a sober rise of his brows. It looked, comparatively, like a harsh world with its general lack of water. "What are the castes?"

"Azhadi, the warriors, Mo'aku, the historians and keepers of the mysteries, and the Amrazi, artisans, healers, and care-givers. The leader is called the Imai, mother of the people. My friend, well, he was Azhadi, said that he started his training as a boy. Ever heard of extreme running? That was part of their training. Well, that and making their own weapons."

Noah absorbed like the information sponge that he was, repeating back in a hush a few of the alien-sounding words. He found it curious that the leader was a boy, and yet known as the mother of the people. But then gender had very different connotations in different societies. "I think I would want to be Mo'aku," Noah said, "N-not that you usually get to choose your caste." He scratched the side of his nose. "I-I had a roommate who was Imutta caste on Bajor. He created the most buh-beautiful pottery. If-if they hadn't been able to drop their D'jarras, he would have just been making funeral urns."

"From what I heard, they all start out as Amrazi and then, choose their caste around the age of ten. He said that he never expected to grow old. The Azhadi all knew that they would die young in service to the tribe." Cas pulled away from Phelan and the tragedy that had befallen Kulath and smiled at Noah. "Bajorans are an amazing people, aren't they? I've seen an exhibit of older pottery, stuff that predates the Cardassian occupation. Just lovely."

Noah nodded agreeably though he had only seen a few examples of their pottery from a recent subspace transmission from his Mother. "My mother lives on Bajor now, with her new partner. She says Hill Province is-is really b-beautiful. She sent me some holos of pottery from the Quarre clan of the Hill Province near um... I -I think she said Iwara City." Noah turned back to the screen. "Computer show me Cendo-Prae." The screen flickered to a blue-cast world that was almost entirely lit up by the lights of a city. Where the light of the white F-type star cast, the planet's surface had a cool gray-blue screen over shallow oceans. The albedo of the water had a hazy, satiny sheen. Even from the vantage of the telemetry, dozens of large satellites and stations orbited the planet. Some of the equatorial stations looked tethered to the surface with space elevator cables.

"I wanted to go to University here...." Noah said, leaning on the console. His elbows rest in a slightly hyperextended bend while his dark eyes dreamily- and sadly- settled on the planet. "My grandmother was Catullan. This was her world. They have Diskyts there. S-sort of like corporate castes. Or clans. But you couldn't ch-choose your Diskyt before the Machine Jihads." Noah tapped a few more keys and focused on a small carbonaceous, dark moon with two large opaque domes. "This is where they k-keep the Fetches of Thaith and Neith kernel codelines in containment." Noah's dark eyes glanced at the scientist. "A h-whole civilization that turned itself over to being governed by learning AI's until they decided they weren't benevolent enough."

"I remember reading a bit about Cendo-Prae," Cas said, his dark eyes focused on the world displayed before them. "Panoptic access and the whole reputation-based economy are fascinating but the idea of being governed by an AI? I'm not sure I would be able to trust any machine, sentient or otherwise, to make decisions for an entire civilization. What did they do? These people who decided the AI wasn't benevolent enough."

"Rebelled against the Diskyt system. They s-suffered through Gray-rep. Which is like blacklisting. And eventually, terrorism and war against the AIs until they could show the population that AI-rule wasn't benefitting everyone. Like, f-fifty percent of the world was on basic social assistance without jobs." Noah said, recalling his childhood stories- and his personal studies. "They w-were just a few years out of the Jihads when Starfleet contacted them." Noah twisted his wide mouth into a knot, "And I guess the Edenists and Primitivists are still in the mix. Hating the tech-reliant culture."

He smiled, "When you read 20th and 21st-century Human s-science fiction, some of it I imagine, looks a little like Cendo Prae." Noah blinked with a new thought, "Do Betazoids have science fiction?"

"Imagining a future, extrapolating on current technology to project possible growth, and all that? Yes, we do. Or at least, I understand that we do." He shrugged slightly, his expression becoming almost apologetic. "I'm not much for fiction though I have read the odd mystery. One of the officers on my last ship was big on programming mysteries. So we'd all do the adventure and note any bugs we found." He chuckled, a warm rumble emanating from his chest, "The best was the Klingon sitting in a field making a daisy chain. It was a bug but we all loved it so much that he incorporated into the final version. How about you? Do you read a lot?"

Noah guffawed at the image of a Klingon braiding flowers. Then he nodded quickly, "All the time. W-when I'm not programming things. I usually read at Lunch and Dinner." he could hear his parents echoing in his ears, No reading at the table Noah. "I love reading about other places. Real and imaginary." His brow rose, "Like murder mystery type mysteries or m-more like... espionage uh... um..." he snapped his fingers to try and bring forth the word he wanted, "Conspiracy stories?"

"Conspiracies, huh? I have a good friend, Declan, he's Deltan. Avid reader, like yourself," Cas said and he smiled as memories surfaced. So many memories. "He claims no one writes a good conspiracy like an Andorian. I think he sent me a couple in his last shipment. Would you be interested at all?"

Noah nodded, "S-sure yeah, I'd read it. I never thought about Andorians writing the best conspiracies b-but maybe they do. I always imagined Cardassians... or-or maybe Idanians? Or the Tilonus. But in Cardassian conspiracies, they're backward. You know the conspiracy, you have t-to solve how they are guilty and why. Idanian conspiracy novels remind me of, um, b-byzantine level deep conspiracies within conspiracies. And the Tilonus love t-to make the conspiracy all in your head as a mental illness."

"Romulans too, I'd expect," Cas said, warming to the idea. "Seems to fit with their view of things, doesn't it?"

Noah nodded, "I-I have read only one Romulan mystery. And if left me with q-questions, like, deep questions. Like the conspiracy was just put into check, not checkmate. Like its a constant game and never really done. But I imagine they would be good at them."

"From what I've read of their world and their politics, its entirely believable, isn't it? And its been said that ideas are notoriously hard to kill at any rate. So, makes sense that if one person dies, the conspiracy would live beyond them." He shook his head slightly. "Sometimes, it seems as though reason and science just can't make a dent in what a person wants to believe is true."

Noah wryly smiled at that. "There are entire colonies out there tha-that split away for just that reason. And, sp-speaking from personal feelings, entire laws enacted out of fear, not based on a-anything scientific."

"What kind of laws," Cas asked. "On your own world?"

Noah shook his head, "No, my world protested it. With the Outer Worlds Commonwealth. But Enceladus is really against the Synthetics Ban." Noah firmed up his mouth and added with a single nod, "It's wrong."

"Some would say its erring on the side of caution," Cas said. His dark gaze slipped to the side as he started to turn the question over in his mind. There were those who thought that to truly understand, you needed to be able to argue every side of an issue. Mostly, people that his parent knew and socialized with. Debate for debate's sake. "And I agree with you that, to a degree anyway, its people reacting out of fear because that attack took a lot of people by surprise."

His expression darkened, turned sad for the briefest of moments, before leveling out again. "We lost friends, you know? But having said that, I can't imagine the ban will stand for long. Its over-reaction. Maybe necessary at the time but pendulums, like this one, tend to swing to both extremes and then end up somewhere in the middle."

Noah nodded once, slowly, his eyes on the man's chest as he processed. "Do we stop making people.. or-or allowing people to work in the Federation because people attacked a planet and killed other people?" His mouth twisted, his voice was soft and utterly calm but he was passionate about it. His wide mouth made a grim line. "It-it stuh-still smacks of seeing artificial beings as walking t-talking tricorders, not emerging individuals." Noah's eyes dropped. "Sorry."

Noah fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt.

"There are a lot of questions here that aren't easily answered, are they," Cas said. He had this urge to kneel so that he could see into the man's eyes again, but he didn't. He remained where he was. "Synthetics, who are not sentient, but only act according to programming are different than androids, like Commander Data, that are sentient. And no, I don't think that they should be just shut down. Not at all. But a synthetic, who is at the mercy of their programming, well, that bears looking into, doesn't it. They don't deserve to be destroyed but the programming does need to checked. A cause to be found." He sighed quietly, a whisper of sound that floated across the space between them. "So many died. And in the aftermath, people wanted action and the politicians caved to the pressure. Went with a scorched earth solution."

And again Noah's nod was somber, "And nows there are groups threatening to pull out of the Federation.... it's.." he blinked, "It's-it's all wrong. But we-" The computer squawked as the screen report shifted from yellow to orange. Noah swiveled his head at the unexpected sound. "W-whoa that's a major packet drop off. Something's wrong..." He said. His face, troubled, turned down to the console and he started to flick fingertips around and at keys. "Sh-shit." He bit his lip, "I mean shoot. The Phi set of relays just dropped out. Tha-that means there's something interrupting the signal flow from the subprocessor."

Noah tapped several keys and on the screen the diagnostic data froze and stated, "PAUSED. Enter Code to Resume." The boy smiled at the Lieutenant, "S-sorry sir I need to go get changed into my jumpsuit." He folded his arms over his chest, hands trapped under his pits. "Looks like I n-need to get into the Jefferies." He looked up at the ceiling with a narrowed eye, focusing on the access point.

"I"ll let you get to work then," Cas said. "Pleasure talking to you and ... stop by my office if you want another puzzle."

Noah smiled and lifted the puzzle he had, "I-I will, thank you Sir." Noah looked on at the screen again with a note of disappointment, then another nod and smile at Pell. "I'll be back." The skinny one turned and jogged out the door.

A Post By:

Lieutenant Cassian Pell
Chief Science Officer

Midshipman Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist