"Listening for Horses"

[Garnoopy 0]

Lieutenant Commander Aphrazed Lo’Ami

Chief Science Officer

 

Lieutenant Junior Grade Garnoopy

Operations Officer

 

Joint Log Stardate 10309.10

"Listening for Horses"

 

Lieutenant (Jg) Garnoopy and Lieutenant Commander Lo'Ami walked together through the thick forest, slowly approaching the last known position of Captain Moose's team. The location had been stupidly given away by their pork-roast.  

 

Garnoopy tapped his tricorder and scanned the surroundings using the linked tricorders' predator-prey hunting algorithm.  Meanwhile, Lo'Ami, himself, no stranger to pushing computer technology to its limits, marvelled at the system Garnoopy had set up.

 

A few moments back Garnoopy had pointed out that the predator-prey system had detected an unusual metal layer under the planet.  Lo'Ami, who was a bit preoccupied with the impressive progress the predator-prey system had made at learning about their surroundings, took some time to respond:

 

"That's not so uncommon. At some point in the distant past, a metallic asteroid collided with this planet.  After its debris blanketed the planet for some time, it fell back down to the ground almost uniformly.  Even Earth has an Iridium layer.  The only difference here is the exact metal composition and that it's closer to the surface, the impact having occurred more recently on a geological timescale."

 

Although Garnoopy did listen with interest geology was not his thing, the extremely remarkable fact of the asteroid was set aside and he suggested that their team use the metallic layer to their advantage.

 

Lo'Ami raised an eyebrow. He looked at the scans taken by the linked tricorders.  The metallic layer was indeed very highly conductive. The physicists' first thoughts surrounded taking advantage of its electromagnetic properties to detect induced currents from the opposing team's electrical equipment.  Knowing the physical properties of the metals and the equipment, combined with the computing power of the linked tricorders, they could, in theory, develop a very accurate technique to find the range of their prey. The only problem with this was that they would also detect any decoys or if they other team turned off their equipment they would never be able to be found.

 

Then, Garnoopy began talking instead about a "large antenna" called a "towed array."  Lo'Ami had never heard of such a strange thing.  After a short discussion about the technology which was used in ancient submarines, Lo'Ami began to understand what Garnoopy was trying to do.

 

Garnoopy had not been betting on the metals' electrical conductive properties, but on its ability to conduct sound over long distances.  He had figured that the linked tricorders, after learning how to filter the data properly, could somehow attach a frequency to their oppositions' movements and track those.

 

Lo'Ami's eyes widened.  He thought back centuries, to the time when Cavalries fought Indians, and steam trains roared through open plains.  Their task was, in theory, much easier than either had anticipated.  They simply had to key the linked tricorders to the vibrations in the metal that was below the entire continent.  It would be like an Indian putting his ear to the ground, and listening for the approaching Cavalry by hearing the vibrations.  Only this time, the ground was conductive enough to transmit sounds over a much longer range, and the "Indian" (the linked tricorders) had enough learning and computing power to separate out sounds.  As the predator-prey system learned how to filter out the natural sounds that it had already scanned in the environment,  it would be able to selectively listen for the unfiltered artificial sounds.  After another set of learned filtering, it might even be able to separate individuals' voices to allow their team to tap into their opponents conversations despite being kilometers away.

 

Garnoopy and Lo'Ami began to work on the necessary modifications in the program.  Time was short, and the potential payoff was a victory in the game.