LoAmi

Full Circles and Tangents: Chief Science Officer's Report to the Captain Re: The Vogarts, Miren VI ... and the Vogarts Lt. Arphazad Lo'Ami's Duty Log, Stardate 10306.22 CC: Science Dept, All Department Chiefs, Operations, Marine Corps :: Prepared while sipping a mocha latte on shore leave at Starbase 36, but you didn't need to know that, did you? :: Compiled from all data obtained between Stardates 10301.15 and 10306.18. Synopsis: > Arcadia first encountered the Vogarts on stardate 10301.15. By order of Starfleet command, our mission was to initiate first contact with this distant, highly advanced, yet mysterious race. When normal communications procedures were initiated, no response was received from the alien ship. The ship used a transporting device to kidnap twelve officers, including Captain Moose, to an unknown location, presumably for communication. Afterwards, we were directed by the Vogarts to a nearby, inhabited M-class planet. The locals on the planet were being attacked by large creatures. This incident turned out to be an odd morality test by the Vogarts. After telling us that they would contact us again in fifty years, when we might be able to pass their test, the Vogarts used their faster-than-warp technology to throw Arcadia back into Federation space. The Captain surmised that the real test was not a morality test of our actions on the planet, but a technological test of our ability to get back. Using hypertachyon particles remaining on Arcadia's hull and a hastily concocted theoretical equation, Arcadia made an attempt to return to Vogart space at faster-than-conventional-warp speeds. Arcadia found itself alone, inside a void, with shattered dilithium crystals, and on reserve power only. In an attempt to map the void, the captain's yacht and one crewman were lost. The yacht and its crew (myself included) were on an M-class planet, later determined to have been ancient Bajor. Using some kind of thought-warp linkage, we returned first to modern times, then to Arcadia. Arcadia was linked in the same space, but a different dimension, to the Vogart ship that we had been following. They required us to help them replace their dilithium crystals, and, in the process, gave us a replacement crystal. The Vogarts dumped us out of the void and near Miren VI, a resort planet known for its hospitality. Meanwhile, science and engineering installed the pure Vogart crystal into Arcadia's systems. The slave operation on Miren VI was then discovered, and a second mystery ship began to appear on sensors. The pursuit of the Blue Note, Thomas and Rochelle Riker's slaving ship, put our investigations into the mystery ship on hold. After the slaving operation was destroyed, the rescued refugees, most of them Federation citizens, were scheduled to be returned to Starbase 36 for transportation to their homeworlds. Six refugees were unaccounted for, and four were later found dead. Two armed assailants later surrendered aboard the starbase, and two more beamed over from the Vogart ship, were captured by Marines aboard Arcadia, presumably attempting to retrieve their associates. Given the danger posed by the mysterious ship (the Vogarts), a recon mission was sent using the SS Revere, a 23rd century freighter, as a base for covert operations. Revere was captured by the Vogarts, who then revealed themselves to its crew. Arcadia's rescue attempts were stymied by space-time distortions and sensor deceptions. Revere was later released next to Arcadia. The motives for the Vogarts' actions are still unclear. On the surface, their actions appear confused and purposeless. During our second encounter, the Vogart representative said something about it all making sense in some higher dimensional order of space-time. This may indicate that the Vogarts are pan-dimensional beings, or it could have been yet another deception. The Vogarts: It appears now that the Vogarts are either a joined species or that they are actually two species. When Arcadia personnel first entered the Vogart ship, we encountered beings that resembled "lightning bolts" - a pure form of highly ordered energy. These beings "store" themselves in creches located throughout the ship. The purpose of these devices has not yet been determined, however, it is reasonable to speculate that the beings may require a regeneration period (sleep?) between time spent outside the devices. The energy beings are clearly sentient. They are capable of joining at least some humanoid species and exerting influence over their thoughts and actions. In regeneration cycle, the energy beings appear on scanners as very weak lifesigns or indeterminate species. Outside of regeneration cycle, they appear as stronger lifesigns. The available data that identifies their unique signature has be added to the Starfleet databases. Before we encountered these beings, it was hypothesized that the Vogarts were bipedal, because their ship seemed to be constructed with implements that are most useful to bipeds, such as ladders and crawlways. These bipeds are likely the 1.5m tall albino humanoids that we encountered in our second time aboard a Vogart ship. The Albinos appear to be sentient, but mute, unless joined by an energy being. The Albinos' physiology was unable to be determined by medical scans. The Albinos are only sometimes detectable as humanoid lifesigns on scanners. It is not known what causes the differences in our abilities to detect them. Vogart Technology: We have encountered two Vogart ships, so far. Both were larger than Arcadia; one contained approximately 11,000 lifesigns - 1,000 likely divided between albinos and bolts, and 10,000 likely regenerating bolts. The second Vogart ship was the "mystery ship" at Miren VI and Starbase 36. It was larger, at least 3-4 times the volume of Arcadia. Because of interference on sensors, we were unable to determine the lifesign composition of that ship. The Vogarts have the disturbing ability to mimic other ships' sensor readouts on Starfleet sensor displays. This ability manifested itself as the "mystery ship" appearing on Arcadia's tactical console as a Nebula class Federation vessel, USS Manticore. The ship also registered on the freighter SS Revere's sensor console as a complete and accurate rendition of a Romulan warbird. They also sabotaged Arcadia's systems using what appeared to be Romulan devices. Whether this is simply mimicry or a hint that the Romulans and Vogarts have had previous relations is unknown. The Vogarts possess two more notable technologies. The first is a long range transporter of the type used to kidnap Captain Moose and the others during our first encounter. It is likely that the technology was also used to retrieve the Albino refugees and replace them with dead bodies during the Miren VI encounter. The transporter technology can be stymied, to some extent, by shields, but there is no known perfect defense. The use of the technology is accompanied by a carrier wave in the H-band of frequencies subspace, a seldom used portion of the spectrum not usually included in scans. The encounter with the Vogarts suggests that all scanning equipment should be modified to scan these frequencies routinely. Their second notable technology is a faster-than-warp stardrive system. The system is based on the emission of hypertachyon particles, discovered and characterized in theoretical work in Arcadia's science labs. While we are still unable to create or control these particles, we are now closer to a theoretical understanding, thanks to a hint given by the Vogarts during our last encounter. The asymmetric 26-dimensional equation arrived at by the scientists on this ship is a limiting case of a 52 dimensional symmetric equation. Use of hypertachyon technology may be associated with anomalies in the space-time continuum in nearby space. This technology also seems to require dilithium crystals that are orders of magnitude purer than anything produced with today's technology. All theory and data obtained about these systems have been forwarded to Starfleet Research and Development section, as well as the Cochrane Center and the Daystrom Institute. The Miren VI Slave Operation: The Vogarts may have been victims of the Miren VI slave operation. At least four, maybe six, of their humanoids were among the refugees rescued from Miren VI. They were identified by us as the dead refugees, transported and replaced after their rescue. It is unclear why, with their advanced technology, they could not have retreived them themselves, or even broken apart the operation. The Miren VI slavers may have been involved in opening a transdimensional rift. Arcadia has not yet pursued this lead, nor have we identified the location of the rift or the technology for its opening. It may also be another reason for Vogart involvement and/or reticence to get involved themselves.

Well, just as they say for everyone else, 3 is only a minimum -- very few ppl actually graduate after 3 academies.

:: reserves judgement until Manticore crew logs in ::

Has anyone noticed that the winner here just needs a lead, not a statistically significant lead? Had this been a random poll (which it isn't), the margin of error for it predicting anything about how the whole STSF would vote would have been somewhere around 16% (1/sqrt(38)), or 6 votes. Since it's a self-selected sample, the error is actually probably quite a bit higher. So, in some way, Moose and Fred actually tied in this round, and I'm almost willing to bet that all of these polls will have similar outcomes.

Go to "Your control panel" (link is under the STSF logo). Go to "Personal Info" Click on "Avatar Options" At the bottom of the page, it says "Upload your own avatar" Hit the browse button next to it, find the file on your system. Hit the Upload button. After upload, it will be listed in the "Pre-installed avatars" as "uploaded_***" where *** is the filename of the thing you uploaded.

Good job, Webby, A9, and anyone else who had anything to do with getting this board back up (fictional characters!? Nah!) We really do appreciate what this board does for the STSF community, especially after having lost it for a few days.

For everything you can do, the GM's have an answer. Let's say you did get the shields up quickly. Soon afterwards, there would have been: ACTION: Romulans fire on ship, shields go down. Whatever happens, don't blame yourself for destroying the ship -- there's nothing you could've done. Just have fun participating in its demise.

You could do a site-to-site transport On the other hand, the first away team's shuttle arrived on the planet without ever having left the ship. Now that requires the powers of Q! (But boy was that a fun sim!)

I don't remember who came right before or right after me... but, the graduation rate (cadets/unit time) was much slower back then, even as the number of cadets was increasing. My own graduation was actually first I'd seen. You can imagine the uncertainty and horror when they pointed me out from among the crowd right after I had played a pivotal role in the destruction of that night's academy ship.

Thanks to the efforts of Ens Seiben in engineering -- and the implicit permission of their mysterious "hosts" -- the viewscreen of the 23rd century vintage freighter Revere was operational again. Lt. Arphazad Lo'Ami gazed out of the ship. Revere, while a small vessel in comparison to Arcadia, was no shuttlecraft. But, there it was, sitting inside a large, cavernous structure. A back of the envelope estimate, with Revere, the only object of known size, used as a reference, revealed that Arcadia could indeed fit inside this landing bay -- twice. Lo'Ami's awe of the structure's immensity was interrupted by Ens. Maxwell, who manned the sensors. With a stupified expression, he exclaimed, "Sir, sensors are partially operational... this is just weird... they say that we're in an increasing atmosphere." Sure enough, sensors were reporting that the atmospheric levels were reaching 101 kPa, oxygen-nitrogen-argon composition, with a temperature of 22°C. There was a 9.8m/s^2 gravitational acceleration as well, but it was external -- not provided by Revere's battered artificial gravity generators. Just then, a knock was heard on the hull. Lo'Ami raised an eyebrow. Interpreting adversary's motives is a command decision, and now, that duty fell squarely on him. However, this mystery ship's inhabitants' intentions were anything but clear. They hung around at the edge of sensor range, appearing and disappearing at whim, instead of announcing their presence. They followed Arcadia after the deaths of refugees from the slave colony on Miren VI. They had clearly been connected to a group of armed operatives aboard the Arcadia and the Starbase. They had sabotaged Arcadia's security systems, and had manipulated sensor readouts. And now, they had Revere and its crew at their mercy. Lo'Ami saw no choice but to play along. So far, to his knowledge, they had not actually attacked any Starfleet crew, and he hoped the record would continue. Revere carried a compliment of 12 Marines whom he could call, should their services be necessary. Lo'Ami feared that even they could not stand long against the superior technology of the mystery ship. After a few moments of thought, Lo'Ami announced to the bridge, "I think we're being invited outside."

Yes he was.

Welcome to STSF! Hope to see you around sometime in academies!

Don't take this the wrong way, Vanroy, but you need another hobby.

The other thing is that no matter what you did, the ambassador would have gotten stabbed. There's just no way to stop the GM's from wreaking havoc on their cadets at the academies, so the best thing to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy getting clobbered (not to mention the methods!).

A bit confused about this one, hd. I don't think one Borg ship constitues a significant part of the Borg fleet. Janeway, however, did do major damage to the Borg in the last episode of Voyager.

Nobody of course! there is no finer experience! Well... there was getting crushed by a tidal wave from nowhere, getting eaten by genetically engineered supersharks, and, of course, falling victim to misplaced engineering sealant while eating a burger.

I'm not sure if "Regeneration" really helped answer so many questions about 7 of 9. When the Enterprise-D first encountered the Borg, they seemed pretty clueless about them. I would've just assumed that Annika Hanson lived in some border colony that was attacked by the Borg as a testing ground (if the timing works out and it works with the rest of the Voyager episodes, many of which I haven't seen). One thing it does do is change our perception of Q's intervention in "Q Who." From TNG, you think he's just being mischievous and putting the Enterprise in danger to show them that humans shouldn't be in space. From Enterprise, the danger was created 200 yrs earlier, and Q actually did them a favor.

Can anyone else here see A9 as a motivational speaker? :cool:

Enterprise has had some very good stories, some very bad ones, and some real doozies. It just ended its second season, though. Only TOS managed to be good for its first two seasons (and then got bad in its third). The later series (TNG, DS9, Voyager) all took time to get better, so I'm reserving judgement on Enterprise until at least its third season.

Happy Birthday, Powreal.

Arphazad Lo'Ami sat in the center chair on the freighter "Revere." The deckplates of the old 23rd century hulk rattled as they were propelled at full impulse towards the mysterious ship that hung at the edge of Arcadia's sensor range. Lo'Ami hoped that the visitors, who had let previous freighter traffic pass unharmed, would let them get a close peek at who they were. Perhaps then, their connection to Arcadia, the refugees, the assasins, and the Miren VI slaving operation would be elucidated. Officially, the freighter Revere was carrying hemp seed, fertilizer, and agricultural equipment to the Dagobah system which just happens to be on a near-intercept course to the mystery ship. Unofficially, Revere carried advanced passive scanning equipment from Arcadia that might give the Starfleet crew more information without tipping off the visitors to run further away, or, worse, to attack them. In that event, Revere would be defended by only a minimal shielding system, defensive weaponry that amounted to the 24th century starship equivalent of a bb-gun, and Arcadia, now a few minutes away at warp speed. Their best hope for an attack would be to wait until boarded themselves, or to attempt to board the enemy ship with the twelve Marines, who waited patiently until called to action. Aside from the Marines, Revere's crew consisted of: Lt. William Marx at the helm Ens. Annette Finch (asst science officer) at OPS Ens. Smart Maxwell (asst science officer), monitoring the scanning equipment Doctor Telano Ren, standing by for interpretation of biological scans, or in case of medical emergency Ens. Hans Seiben, acting chief engineer Two engineers from the station The first scans began to provide fruitful data. Lo'Ami's hopes of a peaceful encounter were quickly being layed to rest. Residues had been detected from a quantum singularity drive. The only known spacefarers to use those are Romulans. It was correlating well with the Romulan spy technology found aboard Arcadia -- too well. A moment of decision had arrived - he could order Revere to reverse back to the station and confirm that indeed there were Romulans, or he could continue forward for more data. Lo'Ami decided on the latter. The mystery ship had been capable of producing various sensor echoes ranging from Romulan to Federation. They were far from the Romulan Neutral Zone, and it seemed unlikely that the Romulans would support the slaving operation so blatently in the open. Something just wasn't adding up, and Lo'Ami intended to find out what it was. In science, if the evidence all begins to point one way, a hypothesis is considered more solid. Lo'Ami had come to the realization that this mission more resembled politics than science; in that field, the opposite sometimes held true. And so, Revere moved forward.

Happy B-day, Webbie...

If you plan on posting, please do so soon. As this is supposed to be a "special feature" -- it can only be around for a limited time. As Cpt. Moose said, the two weeks was kinda arbitrary, so it'll probably stay up for at least another week - hopefully, corresponding to an increase in activity. :)

Personally, I don't think that's such a smart idea. It just adds on more unnecessary procedure and might create two classes of players. That, and it might reduce the number of players coming to academies, and that's a loss for everyone. Anyway, who hasn't learned *something* by going to the academy?

Nothing against you - just a matter of emphasis -- now corrected.