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Samantha_Kent

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About Samantha_Kent

  • Rank
    Bajorans do it better
  • Birthday 06/05/1989

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Science Station, USS Arcadia
  1. Sam leaned on the edge of her console with narrowed eyes, drumming her fingers against the corner. "Alright, I'm adjusting course again," she said aloud, tapping gently on the controls. The aim of their current endeavors was to see if the potentially intelligent distortion they were dealing with might become, in time, acclimated to the approach of their probes, or whether its responses were purely reactionary and instinctual. So far, nothing in particular had shifted about its course changes, but Sam still held out hope. She glanced sideways at Ellie O'Leary and grinned. "Can you imagine what a find this would be? If we could prove it was sentient?" Ellie glanced at her screen, noticing just how big the "thing," for lack of a better word, was. "I just hope we're still alive to prove anything," she answered Sam without looking away from her console. Ellie tapped away on the console, consolidating what little data was sent back to Arcadia from the probes. "Why do I have the feeling that we're poking a rabid dog with a stick here?" She shook her head, trying not to formulate worse-case scenarios. Sam chuckled. "Well...it hasn't shown any interest in us just yet. Just in the probes. It might not even know we're here. Rabid might be putting it a little strongly, though admittedly we don't know just what it might be capable of. Course change!" She broke into her own speech to note the reaction, yet again, to the probe's presence. "Bringing it about, let's try again." Ellie stood by, waiting as the probe moved in for another approach. Then she abruptly mumbled to herself, "Would you look at that..." before resuming her analysis. "Sam, we're actually getting something!" She paused for a second, observing the data coming in. "I'm still getting interference, but I think that if we run it through the proper filters, we will finally be able to determine what we're dealing with!" Ellie stopped typing for a second, blushing when she realized just how loud she had spoken. So much for staying on the down-low... Sam's head swiveled around. "Really, now? That's a good sign...what are you seeing?" she asked excitedly, leaning over to peer over Ellie's shoulder, barely noticing the other officer's nervousness through her own exuberance. Resuming her analysis with cheeks matching her hair closely, Ellie went on, "I'm running it through a series of filters now, trying to clear the remaining interference. In the mean time, I think we should change the probe's direction one more time. If this thing..." Ellie motioned towards her screen with her chin "...is indeed sentient, I think it's getting used to the the probe, or it decided it wasn't a threat per se. Data received is improving with each new heading of the probe. The next one should be really clear." The console beeped having finished filtering the information . The science station's console now showed a still blurred but definitive shape ahead. Sam eyed the blue blur on the screen with curiosity. "Alright...one more pass, then...here we go..." Reaching over, she tapped the probe into another approach, watching for the distortion to change course again. Ellie turned to Sam. "Hopefully this works, I'd love to know what we're really dealing with here, once and for all." "You and me both," Sam said absently. "When I first picked up the readings, I wasn't expecting it to-- hey-o! No course change...no response to the probe! No response -- no physical reaction!" She almost bounced in her seat. "That could potentially be an intelligent response!" Ellie sharply turned back to the screen, just as excited as her Bajoran colleague. "We're getting clear data!" she said loudly, forgetting to be self-conscious. "Excellent, excellent, let me see," Sam said, grinning widely, slapping Ellie lightly on the shoulder as she poked at the console to pull up the readings on her own console as well. "What have we got here?"
  2. Welcome aboard, Cassie! Hope you have a great time here, and feel free to ask around if you have any questions. We are a friendly bunch. :D
  3. Hey, John, and welcome to STSF! The How To Sim page on our website, as well as the Tips from the Moose on the Forums, are a good place to start to get comfortable with how things work here, or you can stop by any of our Starfleet Academy training games (the schedule is here). Everyone is human in the Academy games, and they run an hour each with (usually) no continuing storylines between weeks, so you don't have to worry about creating a character right now; once the GMs feel you are comfortable with the way the game runs, you will graduate from the Academy and be able to attend one of the advanced games, which is when you can put together a bio. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask us if you have any questions; we're a friendly bunch. ;)
  4. No, you're just a roleplayer. ;)
  5. It was, Sam decided, far, far too easy to avoid focusing on the greater problem in favor of its interesting aspects. In pursuit of further answers on the unnamed and rather destitute planet on which Arcadia had deposited them, Sam's team had made offers of assistance to the two beggars who had arrived in the temple of the Deia. It had seemed a reasonable suggestion to make. They had Fleet-grade engineers with them, after all, and their progress in the temple had descended into cyclical inquiries into an incomprehensible manuscript which were getting them nowhere. A change of scenery might at least offer them a chance at a few answers. And there were certainly a lot of questions up for grabs, enough that Sam was starting to lose track of them all. They'd found the Hamarian race, who were, it turned out, little more than livestock for the Armours, who were initially from this planet -- why were sentient creatures like the Hamarians being treated that way? Had they been sentient all along, or had they experienced an unprecedented spurt in intelligence over the short period since they had been deposited on their current "grazing" planet? And the Armours themselves -- the Arcadia had first encountered them on a station some distance from here, but this was their home planet, the source of their economic spread. Just how far did that reach expand? What else did they have their hands into, that Starfleet might need to know about in the event their territory and diplomatic connections ever expanded this far? So much was at play here -- diplomacy, cultural investigation, economic investigation, ethical debate, military intelligence, almost every possible question a starship crew could expect to come up against. And yet despite all this, as they trod slowly behind their new companions back towards their village, all of Sam's curiosity was still wrapped up in that damn rhythmic phenomenon they had seen in the temple. There is no indication that they are anything more than religious devotees, but I saw that data. Something was happening. But what? I would cheerfully kill for a doctor on this team right now; another pair of eyes over the physiology, someone with a bit more dedicated insight into this sort of thing. What would cause that sort of sympathy with sound? Snap out of it, Kent. You don't even know if this is relevant. Of course it's relevant! It's too damned weird not to be! Then again, she was forced to admit, there was a lot of weirdness in the universe that had nothing to do with anything in particular. This wasn't some kind of holonovel, where you could count on an author to call your attention only to details that would move you on in the plot. This was real life, and you had to figure that sort of thing out for yourself. She sighed, and forced her eyes up from their thoughtful stare at the slightly muddy ground through which they were slogging. Time to pay attention to what was going on.
  6. Welcome to STSF, Shalin! Hope you enjoy your time here! Feel free to ask around if you have any questions. :blink:
  7. Sam Kent was and always had been, first and foremost, a scientist. She was also half-Bajoran, so she had no particular problem with a people who were spiritually inclined. Her father had been a staunch believer in the necessity of communing with the Prophets, even (nay, especially) when he was in exile from Bajor, far from his home, from his countrymen, and (as it had later turned out) from the scientific phenomena which housed those celestial beings. As a result, Sam had only the highest respect for religion and its motivational power. A belief in a higher force could inspire, when it was channeled properly, and she had seen the good that was wrought when a person felt they had someone watching over them, someone to whom they would one day have to account for themselves. But she was still a scientist, and that tended to cause some interesting internal debate here and there. When she was sitting in the middle of a religious ceremony in the middle of nowhere on some unnamed barren planet, for instance. She watched the tricorder readings as the white-swathed humanoid men and women around her began to chant in time with the priest of sorts who seemed to be leading the ceremony. It was extraordinary, what she saw on that screen. Heartbeats, breath rates, even synaptic patterns -- all the rhythm that their bodies contained was falling into the same pulsating beat in time with the words they droned. Their eyes were half-shut, their bodies ramrod-straight and turned towards the front of the small, warm, dimly-lit building, and their faces bore an expression of -- there was no other word for it -- rapture. Sam felt nothing. She supposed she hadn't really expected to, but it was still rather disappointing. Their new "friend" who had brought them here from the marketplace -- the only other structure they had yet found on this mostly abandoned hunk of rock -- had seemed so emphatic about the ceremony to which he had brought them that Sam had hoped for some dramatic display at which she might throw all her curiosity. What she had gotten instead, however, was a quiet, almost unnoticeable moment of complete physiological incomprehensibility. It was tantalizing. How were they accomplishing it? Telepathy? Some kind of physical sensitivity to each other? Controlled substances? Was there some sort of divine influence at work in the room? Well. There was certainly an influence at work. But there was a scientific explanation for it. Even the Prophets had, in their own way, an explanation, albeit one which was not very well understood. There would be one here as well. There had to be. At the moment she was not even concerned about how this might fit into the wider picture of this civilization, how it might relate to the things they had seen on Hamaria and in the Armour's factory systems. She just wanted to know what was going on. She heard their guide mumble something next to her and glanced up to see that the priest who had led the ceremony was walking towards them. Good. Good...perhaps now we'll get some answers.
  8. There is a huge wasp in between the curtain of my dorm bedroom and my window. I have no idea how it got there, since none of the windows in the apt have been open in weeks. I'm afraid to do anything about it, since it seems to be stuck there, and if it got loose and went elsewhere in my bedroom I would get even less sleep than I already do. :blink:
  9. Do you have the most recent version of Java?
  10. I have always simmed on a MacBook and have never had that issue. ::cocks head:: Are you using a wireless network? I don't know if you're on a desktop or a laptop but I've occasionally had issues depending on which of my school's networks I was using.
  11. Welcome to STSF! I hope you have a fantastic time learning to sim here! :) Feel free to ask around if you have any questions -- we're a very friendly bunch. :(
  12. Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
  13. From who2.com: On another note...the domain "http://www.rihannsu.com" is apparently not yet registered to anyone. There's still time!
  14. Dog-faced boy meets dough-faced boy.
  15. Sam Kent was many things, but she was not a businessperson. Frankly, she wasn't really that good an actor either, and so she had not been able to help feeling a little unsettled at Captain LoAmi's instructions to Sam SemaJ's away team. The whole idea was to learn about the "Armour" group whom they had followed from Hamaria, find out about the "cannery" business they ran using Hamarian stock, and just generally go undercover and get the facts by pretending to be potential buyers. Not exactly your typical first contact. It was hard not to fidget as Sam SemaJ opened discussions with the Armour representative, Morehl, who had been waiting to greet them. Had this been a diplomatic contact, she might have been more comfortable -- she had been indirectly involved in enough of them in her life that she knew that sort of procedure. But it wasn't. It was an undercover operation, it was a business contact, it was a military investigation, it was everything but the things she was used to. Theoretically the difference between a business contact and a diplomatic contact weren't staggering -- both required a certain guarded openness, negotiation, discussion, exchange of ideas, formality. But it sure felt different. She felt uncomfortable, exposed, like she'd been placed onto the wrong team by accident. She expected to feel relieved when Morehl finished with any pleasantries and got down to the business of showing them his wares. At least then she'd have a situation to analyze with a scientific eye -- that was something she could handle. Of course she'd never actually before had to scientifically analyze the remains of a race she knew to be sentient laid out before her in the manner of a pork chop. It rather startled her how much it upset her actually. It wasn't like the display lacked particularly in the way of taste -- if you assumed you were looking at the same sort of display a butcher back on Earth might have had out. But the knowledge was there and could not be averted -- these had been sentient beings, beings of a race she had spoken to only a few days before. Somewhat naive sentient beings it was true, and ones who saw no harm in this practice, but sentient beings nevertheless. Perhaps it was the fact that she already had some definite moral ambiguity about their place in this whole situation. Perhaps it was just Morehl's easy manner of greeting them, the careless sort of approach and discussion. Whatever it was, though Sam kept her face steady and listened with all the poise she could muster, she definitely was feeling distinctly ill.