Hey all,

I've gotten busy, posting got slow.  My laptop keeps trying to die. 

Excuses, excuses.

I'll have a post up within 24 hours, let's get this baby hopping again!

A week without a game bump seems a bad thing.  I'll see if I can get a post out today.

Welcome back!

I've been offsite for work, and some of us have hit RL, so we've been a tad slow.

Yo mamma jokes are always appropriate, however.

No worries.  Looks like we all had a rough week. 

I'll wait a bit longer, then I'll make a bump post.  Maybe I'll do an NPC post in the meantime.

Length lmit is 65,535 characters.  Let me know if that's not enough. 

If you need hekp with Trek terminology, tech terms, etc - feel free to reach out to myself, Eol, and/or Bromern.

No worries.  We all can get busy, I get that.  I'm always a day later to post than I plan to be. 

I just don't want people sitting around saying "I don't know what to do" and not posting if I can help!

Hey folks,

I felt like we set things up pretty well to give people things to do.  But if you're not feeling it, let me know.  I'll be happy to work with you, set up some prompts, brainstorm, do another Captain post, whatever I can do to keep things rolling.

Squee!

Breath held for the next round of posts...

Meeting over.  Get to work!

Stardate 2365.05.15 - Impact minus 73:04
USS Peregrine, Deck 1, Officers’ Lounge - 1638

Silas finished the briefing, gave his instructions, and opened the floor for responses.

Commander Zai suggested a litany of potential angles to examine, but Silas frowned in response.  "Tochi, this is exactly the sort of thinking I've asked for.  Let's investigate these further," Drake replied.  He took a deep breath.  "That said, I hardly think that Starfleet Command will look the other way on a Prime Directive violation if I offer up probes or a debris field as justification.  I absolutely want you to continue looking at effective ways to sea lawyer any possible angles to our advantage, but I don't know that any of these items - at least on the face of them - will be enough to hold up to potential scrutiny." 

Next, Commander Kennedy joined in, her face a stone mask as she described the replicator issue and the need for the Peregrine to remain in the Calican system for another day or two to effect repairs.  Her gaze never blinked.  Her expression never wavered.

She was lying! 

The Captain's eyes narrowed a bit as he considered this development.  The old temper began to flare instantly.  How dare she lie to a starship Captain on a vessel under weigh!  Who did she think she was?  The insolence, the arrogance to think that he would be so foolish as to think that repairs that were on schedule to be completed within the hour would magically take an extra day or two due to a sudden failing of a system that no one had noticed any problems whatsoever with!  What possible benefit could she gain from derailing their mission like this?

Then, his eyes widened as it hit him.  The Chief Engineer was indeed telling a lie... a lie designed to give them plausible deniability as to why the Peregrine stayed in system, to buy them time to work out a solution to this asteroid problem.

Drake's expression relaxed slightly, but momentarily, it mirrored Kennedy's own stony visage. 

"Very well, Commander Kennedy" he spoke, his voice heavy with seriousness.  "I appreciate you keeping me informed of this delay.  The replicator systems are of course vital to the performance of many of our duties; I will trust you to handle these repairs with the utmost thoroughness that such a job requires.  I see no alternative but for us to remain in the Calican system until such time as the repairs can be completed, but given that your alpha shift is already over their scheduled duty watch, I suggest that you give them sufficient time to rest before taking up these repairs.  Since I've heard of no such issue with the personal replicators, there are no threats to crew rations, so I see no need to have repair crews working through the night.  Better for them to be rested and capable of full focus and attention before they engage this task, wouldn't you agree?"

OOC: assuming an affirmative response...

And then Lieutenant Ferrero spoke his piece. 

Silas felt his knees weaken a bit, heard a ringing in his ears.  He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Starfleet Command would be asking the same questions.  The Prime Directive was clear - they were not to interfere in the natural development of a world, even if that includes the death of the civilization. 

The Captain took a breath before responding.  "You raise fair questions, Lieutenant Ferrero.  In today's most literal interpretations of the Prime Directive - no.  There are strong arguments to be made that we should not interfere here.  If the asteroid wipes out all life, so be it."

Drake looked around the table.  "The problem I have is this - the disaster here is through no fault of the Calicans.  This is not some development of their society, this is nothing more than a cruel chance event."

Silas shook his head.  "Were the Cailcans warp capable and asking for help, we would administer it and no one would hesitate to consider our actions.  But because they lag a couple hundred years behind us in technology, they deserve extinction?  I'm having a very difficult time with that concept, Lieutenant."

The Captain's expression grew harder.  "So as I have stated, I wish to find a way for us to save those seven billion lives while upholding the Prime Directive.  Forgive me, but I am not particularly interested at this moment to discuss why that unthinkable number of innocent people need perish.  If there is literally nothing that we can do..." his voice trailed off, and an awkward silence hung in the air for several long moments.  "Until we exhaust all options, I want us to keep looking for a way," he added.

Once final look around the room, and Drake spoke one last time.  "You have your orders.  Dismissed."

I have given up hope of another book.  And I forgot what was happening, anyway.

Does that mean I have to re-read all of the great stuff... and the painful character deaths... and the betrayalals... and the 13 year old boy fantasies of women and sex?

No worries.  Just a reminder for all - I've seen the colors and the confusion over the =/=designations, all par for the course.

Hey folks,

Post from me is in process.  Sorry, this is my on call week, AND I'm working out of a different office.  AND baseball practice has started. 

I wanted to take a moment to talk about post formatting.  Trek is funny in that we regulate this more than typical games, I get that.  But here are a few reminders:

Character speech goes inside of quotes, no matter who they are talking to - it can be someone in the same room, someone over a communicator, the computer.

"Hello, Doctor," the Captain said.
"Drake to Engineering, damage report!"

Character thoughts go in italics. 

What sort of hare-brained scheme was he up to this time, Bob wondered.

Speech coming from a communicator or intercom, or comuter speech, gets the little =/= markup.

=/=Stand by, Captain=/= Kennedy replied over the intercom.  =/=I'm trying to figure out just how bad it is!=/=
=/=There are no known contacts between the Federation and the sentients on Calican II    =/= came the computer's report.

You don't use the little =/= symbol to dictate your own character's speech into the communicator unless you are writing from someone else's perspective.  If you're confused, just ask, I'll be happy to hekp you format!

Also - please refrain from rainbow posts.  Don't use color to indicate who is writing; handle that with your narrative skills.  You don't buy the latest George R.R. Martin, then have five different font colors to indicate each character.  The author lets you know if it's John Snow, or Cersei, or Seamus the dirt farmer speaking through words.  Please do the same!

Yes, I know.  I'm prickly and picky and a big ol' meanie.    But please do try to follow these, and if you are confused at all, pleae reach out - I'll be happy to help!

Just a litle announcement.  The site has been unbearably slow, and I can't find a reason for that.  My web host has been spectacularly unhelpful, bascially denied any support.

So last night, I reserved new hosting with a different company.  Expect to transition this week, and hopefully, this will help the situation.

Post is coming today. 

At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to tell you all how to play (which I'm not), a few items occur to me in terms of dealing with the asteroid:

Destroy it via phaser/torpedo.  We have the capacity, but I don't know that we could do it and those actions not be known by Starfleet (not sure how closely they'd audit us) or Calican II.

Break it up via the same.  Likely less noticeable.

Redirect it.  My science/space geek son is freaking out that we don't just push it out of the currect trajectory with a shuttle, or even with the ship itself. 

Theoretically, you could get cute with, say, banking a smaller rock into it to again redirect the big one. 

I'm sure I'm overlooking some solutions.

We may need to reach out to her in Discord, then!

To amuse myself, I should probably fire up another game.  Of course, both of the ones I should run fall under the SHALL NOT BE NAMED label.

Anyone hear from Reralae lately?

Itch itch itch itch itch...

Yes to standard torpedos.  

I'll look at the Trek tools permissions. 

The search is a feature I've tried before and am actually working on for a different project, but I'm having big issues with performance.  

Heh.  This will be fun to play out. 

Sa'eridon had laid a clear repair timeline.  No mention of replicator problems was made.  Suddenly, there's a replicator problem that could take a day or two to resolve? 

Yeah, there's no way that Drake won't see though this.  How he responds, however...

I want to give the other players a chance to post before I do.  But man, am I itching to jump in!

Tochi is the XO, I want to see him get more comfortable with command.  Hell, remember that Drake promoted him when he thought he was about to lose his own comission (freedom? life?) so as to give him a shot at his own ship one day. 

I don't know that any of those items are enough to overcome the Prime Directive, but Tochi did PRESICELY what Drake asked - brainstorm ideas to make this work.  If we intervene, it will have to be justified to Starfleet Command.  Technically, we should probably contact them first, but Drake is operating under the idea that asking for forgiveness is better than permission.  If Command says "no", it's no longer a gray area. 

I may work that into a post. 

Not really a premonition.  Given that you already gave me canon sources for Betazoids being able to feel intense emotion over tremendous distances, I don't think that your post was out of line.  The only beef I'd have might be for Veen to be able to approximate the number of people he was feeling; at some point, does it matter how many drops are in a tidal wave?

At any rate, the Captain's post is up.  Cpmsoder this the greenlight to start brainstorming.  We are on the clock!

Stardate 2365.05.15 - Impact minus 73:12
USS Peregrine, Deck 1, Officers’ Lounge - 1630

Captain Drake entered the Officer's Lounge to find everyone present, as expected.  His expression was heavy - something clearly weighed on his mind.

"Thank you all for coming on short notice," he opened, his voice husky.  "I apologize for intruding upon your leisure hours.  Unfortunately, it could not be helped."

The holoprojector on the table sprang to life, focusing on asteroid 2365 C41A3 DN17 and its trajectory.  "Lieutenant Ch'ronnoss and his team," Drake spoke, "have identified this asteroid as being on a collision course with Calican II.  In just over seventy-three hours, it will impact the surface of the planet and cause an extinction event."  His words hung heavy in the air.  "All life on the planet will be extinguised.  Seven billion sentients will die."

"The asteroid itself," Drake continued, "is challenge enough.  It is more than thirty-two kilometers in diameter, and rather dense.  We cannot simply tractor it away, for instance." 

He paused, lines of worry evident on his face.  "But I trust that there are likely several viable solutions to prevent this catastrophe.  The problem, though, is the complex question - CAN we do anything?"

Silas sighed.  "The Prime Directive is very clear.  All of us have sworn on our lives to uphold it.  We cannot interfere in the natural course of a primitive planet's development, no matter how terrible and grim that development may seem to be." 

Even as he spoke the words, Drake had to fight to keep the bile down.  The very idea of sitting idly by was anathema to the Captain.

"That said," he continued, "I am not willing to let seven billion lives end when I could have prevented it.  My ideal scenario would be to come up with some way to save the inhabitants of the planet and still uphold the Prime Directive.  So I have called you here to help me figure out how we can do both."

He glanced around the table.

"Commander Kennedy," he spoke, "I need to know how much longer the beacon repairs will take.  You know the capabilities of the ship better than anyone, so I certainly want you brainstorming solitions to the asteroid."

His gaze turned to Ander.  "Lieutenant Ferrero," he stated, "I want a deeper understanding of the situation on Calican II.  I want thorough, ongoing scans of the system - work with Lieutenant Ch'ronnoss on this.  Furthermore, I think that we need to analyze the communication on the planet itself, see if we can find out what they are saying.  I understand that their communications are more primitive than ours; if we need to get closer to pick them up properly, let's develop the best strategy for that." 

Silas now regarded the Tactical chief.  "Lieutenant Taissud," he spoke, "I want you to set up simulations to determine the outcomes if we used various weapon-based apporaches to destroying or deflecting the asteroid.  Phasers, torpedoes - both launched or remotely detonated.  Get creative in your approach."

He looked around the room.  "Again, though, the big question remains.  Tractor beams, weapons, shuttles, engines... none of that matters if we cannot figure out a way to make this work with the Prime Directive.  So let's start talking."