The Pinicon Belt

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Sep 26, 2024 6:41 pm
Using the tools at hand, over the next half hour the crew secretly replicates several new headsets. Connecting the headsets to the archives, the Custodian walks you through restoring the alien material to their home universes that were brought here through the rift explosion. First on your list is the doppelgangers.

The Custodian helps you identify the asteroid material that was sucked in, then together you work to send that back. After that, and you have learned something of what it takes, you begin the more careful chore of sending the other crew back, fitting them safely inside their Raven, along with their weapons and power conduits, then flitting them back through the rift with the last material. They're none the wiser, and might be a bit shocked at what happened, but they're as far away from you as anyone can be, sequestered in a parallel universe.

With that task complete, you can ease the rest of the rocky material in the Pinicon Belt back to their origins. In this way, you restore the balance in the rift, to ensure that the rupture can be repaired. When it's all but done, you can attempt your own return.

Any orders for the Custodian once the damage had been repaired?
Sep 26, 2024 7:17 pm
Drake suggests rather emphatically that the apparatus and the helmet are too powerful.

"We should destroy anything that has to do with this. In the wrong hands it would be ... well we already know what the doppelgangers had planned."
Sep 26, 2024 8:19 pm
Cole's mood brightened considerably as his team of officers carefully and discreetly crafted a number of headsets and quickly and efficiently - with the station's accommodating AI's assistance - began the process of moving the displaced materials of the Belt back to their origins before finally sending their counterparts back to their own reality. Beaming, he offered the crew congratulatory praise for their efforts. Towards the Ensign's suggestion, Cole's eyes narrowed slightly in thought, "While I firmly agree Ensign there is a danger of the wrong people using this station to the wrong ends - particularly now that at least one set of our counterparts knows of its existent and its capabilities - I'm reluctant to destroy anything less we strand someone or a group of some ones

"Aurin, how confident are you that we will be able to seal the rift? And your belief on how permanent that will remain?"
Sep 26, 2024 9:02 pm
"I agree with the XO. It is a powerful device but it is not in the wrong hands it is in our hands. Star Fleet hands. And can be used for good or rescue if something like this happens again. It would be foolish to destroy it." Luna chips in. She don't see the problem Drake sees. They are the real Star Fleet, the good guys.
Sep 26, 2024 9:45 pm
I do worry...the wrong people could find it. Any of the groups with beef against Star fleet....but destroying it isn't the answer either. Some kind of protection maybe?
Sep 27, 2024 1:28 pm
"A safety. A system that allow the apparatus to only repair rifts but not create new ones. The apparatus should be permitted to only restore balance and maintain dimensional equilibrium. But how? I have a sense of the complexities of its neural network, we could engineer a prompt that would be difficult or impossible for any others interacting with the device to bypass. Any thoughts on 'hardwiring' that into a headset Aurin?"
Last edited September 27, 2024 1:29 pm
Sep 27, 2024 3:41 pm
Drake hadn't thought about the possibility of stranding anyone, but he disagreed with Luna. It was very naive to think that every single Star Fleet member was above the temptation of such enormous power.

"I respectfully disagree that we can trust everyone at Starfleet. But I don't mean this to sound disloyal. Anyone can succumb to temptation when the idea of wielding so much power is possible. However, the idea of protecting it, or disabling it such that it can only be used to repair rifts is an excellent idea if it can be done."
Sep 28, 2024 9:59 pm
Aurin sat, hands folded. His crew was counting on his judgement, but the issue was... unspeakably complex. And, furthermore, not in his field. But he needed to make a call, for his own sake, and to let his crew interpret his professional opinion. His brow furrowed deeply as he contemplated, and finally shook his head.

"This device isn't native to our universe." He looked up at the others. "It could contain exotic materials. Foreign technologies. It could be operating on laws of physics that don't apply to matter in our universe."

"In this case, I think we must respect the Prime Directive, even if our role is reversed from... our usual, privileged position. Just as we wouldn't hand a phaser to a bronze age hunter gatherer, we should be reluctant to grasp whatever this is. Until our society and technology has advanced to such a point that we can understand it thoroughly enough to reproduce it and grapple with the consequences of its use, and contain the damage it might cause of our own accord, I think we should surrender it. Send it back where it came from."

He looked around the room, gauging the others' reaction to his assessment.
Sep 29, 2024 8:30 pm
I would agree...but how do we achieve that without stranding one of our own?
Sep 29, 2024 9:00 pm
"We can ask it to try. Perhaps it can displace both us and itself simultaneously. Perhaps it can temporarily open a portal from its universe to ours that the pilot can pass through."

Aurin shook his head. "This machine's nuanced capabilities are so... so far beyond my expertise. Multiple universe theory, quantum probability oscillation, trans-universal wormholes - these are all the things of very, very speculative papers in obscure journals. Some graduate student at the Daystrom institute will earn his PhD on the sensor data we bring back to the Christa alone."

He spread his hands, helplessly. "The machine has claimed to be able to completely erase the Borg from a universe. Using the energy output of a Type III Ship's phaser for a few minutes. If that's true, the implications represent computational precision of unfathomable degree through some sort of... unknown cascade effect, or the dismantling of all of the science of thermodynamics as we know it. Or that energy crystal in the reactor is so impossibly volatile that it poses a threat to the whole sector if it becomes unstable."

He paused for a moment, letting it sink in that they had shot a shipborne phaser at that same crystal, believing it to be safe.

He realized he had been rambling. The stress of the whole operation, all of the scientific and ethical implications that had been boiling in his mind, the dangers he had tried to navigate them around without causing any kind of panic, moral or otherwise, had put a seam in his usually receptive exterior. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to say we shouldn't act, or can't act, but... the safest course of action, the course that presents an acceptable risk, is to operate the machine as it appears to be designed, and to hope it understands our needs, and can perform the tasks we require of it, and deal with the consequences as best we are able."
Last edited September 29, 2024 9:01 pm
Sep 30, 2024 2:15 pm
Cole listened to his science officer's assessment, thoughtfully considering Aurin's words as they echoed what he himself had been thinking. Better to just leave things as is than attempt to get 'cute' with things. Finally, with a decisive nod he addressed the team, "Sounds like the most pertinent course of action is to do what we need to to get the apparatus to send us back to our quantum reality and leave everything else as is.

"Doc. Aurin. Jayce. Continue to work with the AI to make that happen.

"Luna. Drake. With me. Let's make sure we are not leaving anything of ours behind and destroy anything that our counterparts might have as I wouldn't want them to somehow track their stuff back to here and complete their mission."
Oct 1, 2024 2:14 am
"Yes Commander." While he didn't agree with all of it, he had said his piece and had to move on and do what was required.
Oct 1, 2024 9:37 am
She clearly looks worried, but nods. Of course
Oct 1, 2024 7:52 pm
Luna didn't like the idea of letting the powerful device slip out of their grasp but the others seemed to agree on it. Clearing out the station and making sure not to leave traces was however a very good idea in either case, so Luna immediately started following Cole's order.
Oct 7, 2024 1:59 pm
Using the station and your tricorders, you track down any material that resonates with your universes subspace frequency, and ensure it's all stowed on the Raven. When you're confident that is the case, it's time to return to your own universe and your Pinicon Belt. Time will have passed simultaneously you understand, so hopefully the USS Christa McAuliffe hasn't panicked too much over your lack of communication.

With one of you in a charged environment suit operating the headset, and the rest of you aboard the runabout, you're ready to go.
Oct 8, 2024 7:22 pm
Carefully stowing aboard anything that came from their own reality Cole took his seat next to Luna, thankful to finally be out of the environmental suit.

"Lieutenant Ah. Take us home if you would."
Last edited October 9, 2024 3:38 pm
Oct 8, 2024 7:38 pm
Aurin, having suggested the risky course of action, volunteers to operate the device and hopefully return to the Raven once the process is complete, not wanting to put others in danger in the face of his own inability to devise a more elegant solution. Once the runabout is clear, he instructs the device to depart without him - or, failing that, to depart and then project him back to his native quantum reality...
Oct 13, 2024 4:05 pm
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CAPTAIN'S LOG
STARDATE 45665.7
While enroute to the nanotechnology ethics summit on Gnycish 2, Starfleet Command had ordered us to investigate the Pinicon Belt, one of the densest asteroid fields ever encountered. Commander Walker and I used this as an opportunity to evaluate several crewmembers for whom performance evaluations were due, and selected an away team.

The team investigated the field with a runabout and were drawn through a vortex into a parallel universe. There they encountered another crew from an universe nearly overrun by the Borg. Most disturbing, these crewmembers were nigh exact duplicates of themselves, their personalities somewhat altered from this other life.

After finding an alien space station, the apparent cause of the breach between realities. The two crews worked together in finest Starfleet tradition and managed to interface with the alien technology, and repair the rift in the other universe sending all rogue matter back to their home realities. The other crew was then sent back unawares, as my crew suspected that they would endeavor to use the station to alter the balance of power in their galaxy. While eliminating the Borg would likely save billions of lives, the station's artificial intelligence warned them that would result in a profound cascading effect across all realities, a risk that could not consciously be borne in accordance with the Prime Directive.

Successfully sealing the breach, they've now returned to the ship and we continue on our way to Gnycish 2 where they will hopefully have the chance for much deserved shore leave.

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