A Chat and a Chart in Stellar Cart

[Sam_SemaJ 0]

"A Chat and a Chart in Stellar Cart."

A Joint Log from Sam Sema'J and Zen Alyriene

SD 10608.09

OOC: so sorry it's so late before the sim, RL has a mind of its own!! If you don't wanna read the whole thing, a summary of the important plot info is at the bottom.

 

Samuel Sema'J and Zenaïde Alyriene stood on the turbolift on the way to Stellar Cartography. There was a slightly awkward silence, the officers had met only moments ago in Main Science, where Sam had come looking for some help. Sam decided to break the silence.

"So how long have you been serving here on Arcadia?" he asked.

"Three months," she replied, thinking back to her arrival on the ship. "I just moved to alpha shift a few weeks ago, though."

Sam raised his eyebrows, "Wow, that's fairly quick. What do you think so far?"

"She's a good ship," Zen replied. "Her crew behaves more like a family than just working components in the great starship machine."

Sam laughed and gave a nod as the TL arrived on the proper deck. "That's exactly how I feel, and it's wonderful to be in a family." He smiled and motioned for her to exit ahead of him.

"Do you have a family of your own, Sam?" she asked.

Sam furled his brow as he stepped off of the TL behind her. "Well...my wife passed away about six years ago...I have a daughter, she was onboard for a time, but she traveled home right after the Elasian civil war quieted down." Sam walked down the corridor to the entrance to Stellar Cartography, he looked at her and gave a 'sorry to be a downer' smile.

The Ardanan glanced downwards and spoke apologetically. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to bring up old wounds. What's your daughter's name?"

Sam slid an iso chip into the computer panel. "That's alright...her name is Rosella, we call her Rosie." He tapped the computer and then spoke to it. "Computer, load these star charts; load these calculations into the interface console"

The computer beeped and then opened the doors to the huge chamber whose starry screen made it look as if they were walking into space itself. Sam again motioned for Zenaïde to go in ahead of him. "After you."

She walked inside, looking at the constellations displayed on the wall. "Interested in Cartography?" she asked.

Sam looked about the room..."Well, I don't know about cartography itself, navigation is part of my post, so I have an educated background in it, understanding charts and orbits and generally the way that interstellar travel works...but it's sorta funny, this unique situation we are in is really the first chance I've head in a year on Arcadia to truly use the nav. part of my job description...usually I'm just steering the ship around." He smiled at her as he finished looking about and sat down at the console in the center of the chamber.

Very interesting work, I'd imagine." She picked at a few buttons on the console, increasing the brightness of the 'stars' a trifle. "I'm more into the biologies and geological sciences, but It's nice to have the change of pace."

Sam nodded, "Same for me" he laughed as a thought occurred to him. "However, this is a little more unnerving to be actually lost, as opposed to those fun academy tests. 'You have this constellation at this degree of rotation at these coordinates...where are you in the galaxy?" he mocked. He laughed aloud to himself and then stifled it, slightly embarrassed, "Sorry, funny memory."

"It's perfectly alright." She smiled, chuckling a bit to herself. "After all, what are friends for if not to share tales?"

He was slightly surprised at the comment. "Well it's good to have another friend on board" he said with a smile. "Now, let's see if we can't solve this interstellar puzzle." He tapped the console and an image of a galaxy enlarged on the screen. "Ah, andromeda is so beautiful...too bad we're seeing the wrong side of her...we're definitely not in our galaxy. We know that there was a temporal fluctuation of some sort when we jumped...so how can we figure out when we are...that may help us to address where." Sam looked at Zen.

She poked a few more controls. "we should be able to match the stellar clusters by 'aging' the dispersion patterns in the computer.

Sam wrinkled his brow. "Dispersion patterns?"

She nodded. "Yeah, the dispersion of particles can show how long a stellar body has been where it was, the computer can somewhat map stellar aging by mapping the change in dispersion patterns.

He nodded as she said something close to what he had just been thinking. "Exactly, when I first attacked this, the computer took these three-dimensional group mappings of...space-things and matched them to groups of things in the computer." He mentally thwapped himself for his lack of technical terms..."The computer originally thought we were still in Local Group, or at least I did..but I was not taking the temporal factors into account." He looked at her to see if she wasn't too confused following his babbling.

She Nodded. "Let's try to dial in the temporal displacements and see if that won't give us a clearer picture."

He nodded to her "Good plan, although this is where my own knowledge starts to slope off" he said, giving her a smile and a shrug. Sam thought for a while, then leaned over to the computer. "I tried to do a little research on Local Group earlier...it confused me at first, but I just thought of something." He scratched his head, "It's possible that we are still in our galaxy, spatially, and that Milky Way just happens to be on the wrong side of Andromeda in this time period...though I imagine that the temporal differences would have to be pretty huge to have that much of a spatial effect." He looked at her in slight exasperation..."that's about as far as my reasoning can get right now...what do you have on that dispersion...stuff?"

"I can't conceive that we've traveled that far back in time. I tend to think we've transversed more distance than time, but that's just a hunch." She studied the computer screen thoughtfully, thinking.

Sam watched her think as he drummed his fingers on the console.

"the computer's still compiling results." She sat back, looking at Sema'J "Do you miss your daughter? She was obviously close to you."

He looked absently into the starfield. "That's sorta a double-edged question, Zen. On one hand, I miss her very much, she and I are all that makes up our family now. However, I'm convinced by the fact that we are now completely lost in the universe and that she's safe at home with my sister...that sending her back was the right choice. But it's really a toss up, would I rather have her here with me in this situation, or safe at home...I guess i have to argue in favor of her future." he finally looked from the starfield to her, "What about you? Your family?"

She sighed, "No spouse, no children. My parents both live on Stratos - the capital of Ardana. They are prominent leaders there. Otherwise, no siblings even." Smiling wistfully, "Arcadia is all that I have off of my homeworld.

He smiled, "What a contrast. Does it feel lonely, if you don't mind my asking? Not Arcadia, I mean not having a family of your own and coming from a small one." He smiled apologetically at the awkwardly worded question.

"Not really," she said, thinking. "I've always had the people of Ardana as a surrogate family, really. Privileges of social rank," smiling lightly.

Sam nodded slowly, "I see." He then laughed aloud, "I think my surrogate family was the warehouse full of vehicles that my Dad works in...you can clearly see where that's lead me." He smiled as he accessed the computer. Suddenly an image of himself, Liz and Rosie appeared on the screen. "That's my real family though...Rosie is of course much older now."

She smiled. "She looks adorable. How old is she now?"

He thought to himself, She's about nine, her birthday is close...I get so screwed up on the months while I'm out here in space." He wondered to himself if his next question was a good idea. "How old are you, if i might ask?" He cleared the screen and then pretended to look at the calculations on the console screen...he then looked up at her, awaiting her answer.

"Twenty-seven." She smiled, "I don't take offense about such things." After considering for a moment, she suggested, "Perhaps you can find some birthday goodie out here, an interstellar present perhaps?"

He gave it a thought, "I suppose i could get her a piece of space rock from...wherever it is we might be..."

She chuckled, "Always can claim it's for research, then 'misplace' it from Starfleet...she'd love that."

He laughed, "I suppose. What I should get her is adequate attention...I do as much as I can for her, but I hate also putting a burden on my sister."

Does she have any other children?" Zen asked.

Sam smiled, "No, Jadyn is single, she's always been very content on her own, but she and Rosie get along well. Jay's really been a big help since Liz died."

"I wouldn't worry about anything in that case. It's good that they get along, and as you said, she's safe."

He nodded, "That's definitely the most important thing." The computer then beeped. "What have we got?" He was slightly annoyed for the interruption.

She looked over at the screen. "Dispersion sweep complete." she keyed in a few commands, then raised an eyebrow. "Um..."

"What does the dispersion show? How far off from our own time index are we?"

She blinked a few times at the results. "We're talking around two hundred thousand years...rather sizeable..."

He screwed up his face, dumbfounded, "That's incredible! Show me the dispersion data, please." The animation played over the screen.

"As you can see..." she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Sam watched in fascination as the spatial material changed positions over time. the Time Index speeding past. "...And this is based on Federation astronomical historical records? Are we that many years back or forward?"

"Backwards. In the past. And not even history as much as conjecture; theories."

He shook his head in disbelief, "Geez...the universe could be arranged in any number of ways that far back. We need to sort the temporal mechanics of this and fast. Is there a way to figure out exactly where we would come out if we just jumped 200,000 years forward without moving spatially?...Computer, is that calculation possible?"

"Affirmative."

Alyriene nodded, speaking slowly to the computer. "Initiate. Best conjecture of spatial location we are currently in, two hundred thousand years in the future."

Sam shook his head again, "Man, if it can't get the star-charts to figure out our location, I don't know how it is going to do this...but that thing never ceases to amaze me." He looked back at Zen as the computer got to work.

"So here is a question for you, if you were living a comfortable, upper class life on Ardana, what led you to hit the Academy and study science?"

"The love of knowledge," she smiled. "I was always more interested in the inner workings of cells and astrophysics than how to manage the affairs of a populace..."

He laughed at this, "Sounds good to me, I feel the same way...I would rather be in a cockpit that most other places."

"Pilot at heart?"

He nodded, "That's me...and it helped that my father has always had tons of different vehicles under his jurisdiction...let's just say I got to...play a lot as a child. I just got hooked on it, to the point where I can pretty much jump into anything and get it going forward in a short amount of time, and that's just from so much time spent."

"I had the resources to indulge the scientific passion - I was lucky. Another case of what Zen wants, Zen gets."

He raised his eyebrows at this comment, but then just nodded. "I see. It's amazing that no matter where we've all come from, we all end up as equals aboard some ship just trying to get by."

No high birth can save you when you're thrown back in time," she noted, nodding assent.

He laughed again, "This is very true...so do you end up missing your parents or close friends back home, or are you content with the company here on board?" The question was slightly bated.

"There are less politics at work here. Generally, people are as they appear on the surface. I don't have to be as wary of ulterior motives. Rather refreshing, I must admit."

He nodded, "I agree, most people are pretty much transparent here, and for the most part I find I enjoy the company very much so." This was said with a smile. The computer beeped again and he looked up at it.

Zenaïde looked up, "That's interesting, it couldn't get coordinates, but we seem to be around the exact same spatial structures as as those near where we jumped, in our time that is..."

"...You've got to be joking...there is no way we did all that and didn't move. Unless in traveling back...(trying to piece together these physics)...unless in traveling back in time we also moved to the spatial position of those structures in that time."

She nodded in agreement, "That seems to be the case". She shook her head.

"Well that's great," he said. "It would appear that all the computer told us is that we moved with the spatial dispersion of astro-history...well at least we know where we are."

She looked at him and simply nodded.

"Well, Zen as much as I'm enjoying this romp through stellar physics, perhaps this will be enough for the Commander to wrap his head around for now..."

"I tend to agree. At least he'll understand it..." she offered, "Hopefully having a former scientist for an XO will be of benefit to the department, and maybe the ship."

"Yes, he's a brilliant scientist, I've seen him do great things in that capacity. Well, I appreciate your assistance, and the company as well. I guess I can compile this all together in something that's sure to give Lo'Ami a physics headache." He smiled

"It's been a pleaure, Lieutenant. I hope we have the opportunity again."

He smiled, "The pleasure's all mine, Zen." He reached out a hand and shook hers as he got up and began collecting padds.

 

Sci/Nav Summary:

Arcadia's specific spatial location is still unknown. We know that we are near some of the spatial bodies that we were near when we jumped to the high speed. Unfortunately they are not necessarily in the same place as they were. There was a temporal fluctuation recorded when we jumped, by mapping particle dispersion and comparing it with astro-historical records, we have discovered that the temporal event threw us 200,000 years back. Yay!:)

-Sam