Is This The End For Us?

[Atragon9 0]

 

::Sitting in his Ready Room, getting reports in from all over the ship::

 

Computer, open Personal Log, Admiral Atragon-9, commanding officer, USS Manticore, NCC-5852, password *********

 

[whirr, click]

 

We are completely powerless to stop them. All we can do is wait and see to their demands...

 

Now hold on, I need to break this down - there has to be a flaw.

 

- Sovak was taken over by a machine-like mind that used him to hijack the ship.

 

- They brought us here, out of charted space, in order to "serve us."

 

- We arrived at the 4th planet in a 6 planet system and a huge space elevator was waiting that had the exact dimensions and structure to support the entire underside of the engines, stardrive and saucer sections. We were connected to it and now it is lowering the entire ship to the surface of the planet. Just that technology, alone, is beyond our current science.

 

- They claim that they are a huge machine mind, a "sophotech" or wisdom machine and they (it?) were built to serve organic life, but their original masters are now gone and they were waiting for an appropriately advanced race to trigger one of their markers, left behind millions of years ago. We found one in the Ganges Chasma on Mars.

 

Okay, that's the story we've gotten. But why did they hijack the ship instead of invite us? Why did they threaten to blow the ship up? Why did they almost suffocate the Bridge crew as they were trying to retake control of the ship?? Prisoners - we're their prisoners. Well, it's the duty of every prisoner to escape, or at least distract their captors by trying.

 

I have instructed Precip and his teams to get ready for assault duties. When we reach the surface, I have a feeling that we will be boarded, or herded off the ship. Now is the time for Security to do its part, time to defend our freedoms or die trying. As Their main teams organize, Precip and McFly have been tasked with deputizing the entire crew - getting us ordnance and showing us how best to use it. As we get ready for what could be our final fight, I am reminded of the terrible joke from hundreds of years ago on Earth. Back in the 1800's there was a famous army general who made an infamous blunder against the indigenous peoples of North America that cost him his and his troops' lives. The joke was, as General Custer was falling, he turned to his aid and said, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

 

I don't see any other course for us now, but I wonder if I will turn to Sovak with the same comment as we are overrun by the Sophotech.

 

Computer, EOM, EOT

 

[whirr, click]