Ensign Arphazad Lo'Ami's Personal Log

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=/\= Personal Log of Ensign Arphazad Lo'Ami =/\=

 

::Begin Recording::

Personal Log, Stardate 10212.08; It all started as a normal day... I was frantically working on some final simulations on my theory about the second-hand cloaking device in order to meet the submission deadline for the next issue of JFPS.  I left the simulations running in the background on the computer, and they should be complete by the time I'm done with my next assignment, that went something like this...

 

I got a comm call from Cmdr. Alces informing me that we were transporting a "perpetual half-life replenishing generator" to a Marine base.  I admitted to having heard of the theory behind the device, although I didn't quite tell him how -- it was two years ago at the Daystrom Institute, over a couple of drinks after a lab meeting, when we joked about how someone managed to convince the JFPS reviewers to publish an article on the subject.  

 

Anyway, Cmdr. Alces insinuated that I should get involved in determining how the device works, without giving me a direct order.  This left me in the awkward position of having to offer my services directly to the XO.  As soon as the word "volunteer" was mentioned, I was sure that I was getting funny looks from everyone present on the bridge, as if I had broken some unwritten rule.

 

First I wanted to get some information on the device, so I tried to transfer data on it to a datapad.  It turns out that there is now 132 teraquads of data related to the process, an increase of ... well, about 200 times since two years ago.  Later, I skimmed some of the data.  Most of it is published in rather obscure scientific and engineering journals - The Serial Handbook of the Tellarite Warp Reactorman's Guild, The Journal of the Canadian Concrete Manufacturers Association (Canada? never heard of *that* planet!), and, most surprisingly, an inordinate amount of data was in the Pakled Scienz Timez, where the rest of the issue was devoted to "the ongoing debate over the existence of a universal attractive gravitational force."

 

With the help of Cmdr. Alces, I did manage to identify some of the components of the device, which seems to also be known as "Percy," Perpetual Energy Regeneration Chamber Interchange (Don't ask me about the acronym, I didn't invent it) - a name I didn't quite understand until I read additional information from the device - er, Percy -'s manual.  I think I now know at least how to turn the thing on:

There are some slots in the back where you place some cold bread.  You press a button, the bread enters the energy regeneration chamber, and the machine activates a quantum randomization loop.  A few minutes later, due to a physical process that is still unclear to me, perfectly browned bread comes out of the chamber through the slots, and a relativistic stream of subatomic particles streams out of the output port.  The particles can then be recycled through the device continuously to keep them from decaying.

 

Although I don't know what use this device would be to a Marine, I would guess it could be a particle generator for some kind of exotic weapon, but I'm not a weapons expert.    I do not think we'll have time to try the device aboard the Arcadia, and, I wouldn't want to anyway.  Everything I know says that Percy violates some basic laws of physics.  The literature says something about using quantum randomization to trick the universe into providing a supply of energy from the chemical bonds in the bread.   The machine can borrow some energy from the universe... but, the universe is a loan shark... it will surely come back for any energy that's borrowed from it ... And I know that I don't want to be there when it does.

 

In general, I agree with Cmdr. Alces that I would like to be as far away from this device as possible when it's turned on.  Unfortunately, by volunteering, I think I may have finagled my way *on* to the away team meant to install it!

 

Signing off...

 

 

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