Bast smiled benignly at the Captain.

"I figured you where joking captain, and the Stellar services have emergency medical holograms, but those are usually only on the Starfleet cruisers and some of the newer Star Corp vessels."

Suddenly the computer reported that the holoemitters where offline in the science department and if power reading are checked they would be reading normal for the emitters to be offline.

"Back home Captain my kind are called either deity's or Elder Ascended beings, though you might want to caution your crew to be careful what they wish for, they might just get it but not how they expected, especially with me around. After all, Eclipse can confirm that my brethren have odd senses of humor, though never harmful."

Bast then turned to Miranda and her appearance changed, while her height remained the same her wings vanished and her body became more human and her head altered become that more of a house cat.

"Back in our home universe, the Egyptian Bast and myself are one and the same, same with Sekhmet who was my first officer on the last vessel my kind made before we fully ascended, my generation was the last that, at first had both corporeal and non corporeal forms. We left our world to see if there where any others that had sentient life or was developing sentient life. Our vessel suffered damage that made it impossible for us to return to Raksha and Earth had been the closest habitable planet. So we made it our home until we could figure out another way traveling through space quickly."


Bast then resumed hir fully feline form and turned to Deera.

"You might be surprised, we actually believe that the humans Navorn and Eclipse originally where, were different versions of each other."

When Bast had first appeared Eclipse had shaken hir head but now spoke up.

"Correct, I actually had a vehicle identical to Navorns truck even with the same VIN before Bast kept me from dying in the year 2012, also both me and Navorn where originally born September 3rd 1986, at the same hospital, in the same town, at the same times. The only real difference other then our names, was that I had won a record making lottery that allowed me to follow my dreams while Navorn never did, but the odder thing is, that the date of Navorns accident that sent hir to my universe happened on the same exact date as my accident."


"I don't know how much time theory you all know but I think what is most likely is that there is a universe for every possible outcome to every possible situation, and that the one we are primarily aware of is the one that has the highest probable outcome for us."

Eclipse turns to the Captain.

"Sir if your alright with it I would like to see your engineering, maybe compare how your cores are and operate with how mine does, maybe even later one show you and one of your engineers the Ancestors main engineering."

"Yes, that theory of alternate universes has been floating around for... well, probably thousands of years," Deera replied. "Until we actually encountered one, it was all theory."

"And then there's the alternate timelines. Temporal mechanics seem to change with each new incident. The biggest problem with it is that once it changes, no one has the memory of the previous version."

"It's not unreasonable that Navorn and you were the same person from two different quantum universes. Our encounter was with a universe we've labeled The Mirror Universe because everyone there was some sort of mirror version of us... not physically, but personality-wise. The more neutral your personality, the more alike the two versions were."

"Naturally, the scientists are all having headaches, nightmares and fits trying to work out the quantum mechanics. Someone from one universe that shifts to another universe often has trouble adapting... on a quantum level. Putting the mind into a different body may be one solution to that."

"We've had transporter incidents that have indicated that might be a possibility, but we haven't figured it out yet."

She then went about analyzing the sample.

" The Mirror Universe always scared me. If you think I am terrible to work with, imagine my Mirror. She has probably died or killed the Captain by now. "

"Either that, or she was a shy wallflower!" the Captain suggested good-naturedly.

"Very well. It's off to engineering now."

"I don't know what your system is like, but here in the Federation, a captain is expected to be able to function in any other role. Thus, I could make repairs to the warp drive or the power core... if necessary, but I'm not nearly as qualified as our Engineer to do so."

>>>>> To Engineering...

The Captain and Eclipse enter the Science Department. Judiciously, the Captain waits for someone to approach him, preferably Commander Ren, rather than interrupt something.

"We'd like to know what you found out about the sample Eclipse dropped off," he says, then adds, "Also, have you come up with a theory on what happened?"

"Hello, Captain," Deera said and listened to his request.

"Before I answer, let me just ask Eclipse how long she's had this sample? The reason I ask is that quantum levels seem to... equalize after awhile. As near as we've been able to ascertain, a smaller item moved into a universe with a different quantum vibration will be affected by the greater universe and slowly change its vibration to match the universe it is in. It usually takes about a year for that to happen."

"For reasons not yet understood, however, this doesn't seem to happen with people, though we are unsure if that applies to all organic matter or just higher life forms."

"There just haven't been enough examples for us to even work up a reasonable theory."

Starbird tags along, ready to phaser rifle any hostiles who come through the walls.  Besides, the ready room was getting boring.  No action.

In reply to _Deera Ren (msg # 21):

Eclipse frowns sadly as she replies.

"About 11 years, that sample is whats left of one of the original tires from Navorns truck."

suddenly Eclipse looked at the doctor at the comment about people not being effected, there was some hope but tinged with worry.

"So it would be possible that Navorn might still have hir original quantum signature for hir universe? Or would the fact that hir body has been heavily altered negate that, as shi was originally human but due to an accident the only way to save hir life was to make hir what shi is now, though most of the mass for hir current body is from hir old body."


Eclipse looked thoughtful for a second before shi spoke up again.

"I'll have to see if I still have the reports and other information about it, but several years before Navorn showed up, there was another incident. A Chakat had just been beamed down from a star corp vessel to a space port on Earth, when the transporter activated on it's own, but it was different as there where what witnesses claimed to be lighting arcing through the transporter, a male human appeared, the chakat who had just beamed down ran up to ttry to pull him out but then both the man and the chakat where dematerialized. The technician was able to reactivate the transporter and rematerialize the Chakat, but ran into a problem for the human as the system only had a mind pattern for him, but there was excessive mass so they where able to use the humans mind pattern with the Chakats body pattern to save him. But on later questioning, the former human admitted to being the head of security at a research facility that was working on a new type of power generator, and during the first test the device malfunctioned and while he was trying to get others out of the room with the device he had been struck by a bolt of lightning from the device and next thing he knew he was waking up in the hospital as a Chakat."


Eclipse looked like shi was thinking hard about something before shi spoke again.

"I think there was something a bit later about the head scientist discovering a way to rebuild and control the device and was able to allow Goldendale to go back to visit hir old family. I'll have to look through the Ancestors secure storage to see if there's anything about that. But do you have any archival records aboard from Earth? in particular around the 2012 year time for a region of the united states known as Wisconsin? as from the damage to Navorns truck and with the location shi said shi was near, the epicenter would have been a catastrophy, and most likely would have been public knowledge."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Deera responds, "I didn't explain it well. It's not that organic matter isn't affected, it's that it's affected to a far greater degree. Any living thing dies within a week, even people, as the energy that comprises life is disrupted by the different quantum state."

"That's been our--albeit limited--experience with different universes, though not the Mirror Universe, which makes us wonder if it's a truly different quantum universe."

"Kind of reminds me of when Mankind first went into space. There was a theoretical 'ether' rather than the vacuum we later found. Even the theory of the Ether was a fairly modern concept."

"So, what we have here is a mere footstep into the unknown."

"If the transition was 11 years ago, that would explain why we got no results from testing the sample. It long ago matched the vibration level of your universe."

"In the case of Navorn hirself, I can't explain it. There may have been something about the method of transfer, or something in the process you used to save hir. That doesn't seem likely, but in the former case, the process might have been like a magnet. Placing a piece of ferrous metal against a magnet can result in the ferrous metal to take on the magnetic resonance of the original magnet."

She saw that one of her assistants was already calling up the archives. Something that far back and that relatively obscure could take a few minutes to retrieve from the Deep Archives.

"Yes, we know that the Ronulans use a forced singularity, for wont of a better term, to power their starships. According to the data acquired by the away team, the Klingons were attempting to develop the same thing. But, something went wrong. As near as we can tell so far, the glitch produced a semi-stable wormhole into what we've dubbed a 'pocket universe'. We don't yet know if it created the pocket universe as the terminus of the wormhole possibly because there wasn't sufficient energy to complete the process or something else was at work."

"In any case, it seems extremely unlikely that your shift into our universe is unconnected to the event. One theory we have so far is that the pocket universe may have actually been a piece of your universe. There was, therefore, some sort of resonance that connected with your ship. The energy that should have completed the wormhole got diverted to your ship and dragged it into our universe."

"Yes, the theory has a lot of holes in it, but it's a starting point. And it's at least consistent with what we do know."

In reply to _Deera Ren (msg # 24):

Eclipse listened to Deera as she talked but shi started to frown slightly.

"So if your right me and my family have a week to find out how to get back home or die. But Navorn was kept at the hospital for about 3 weeks before the doctors allowed me to take him, at the time, aboard my ship, and then it was another four weeks before I had done enough repairs to the ship to take the ship back into orbit. So Navorn was hir old human male self for about 7 weeks after arriving in my universe."


Eclipse thought for a couple seconds before shi spoke up again.

"Whats the possibility of a kind of universal quantum state or signature, kind of like with human blood types, each human has a blood type and normally if they where given a blood transfusion of a different blood type it could be deadly, but there where some humans that had a universal blood type, where their blood could be transfused into a human with any other blood type without a problem. Could there be an equivalent for universes? As back home there are records of people claiming to be from a different world, or time, but all these claims started after the Gene wars, most of these people, oddly all humans, have lived perfectly fine, some of them well into old age, though some it was able to be confirmed that they where from a different version of Earth."

Eclipse then noticed the person that had gone to a console after hir comment about records and spoke up directing hir words towards that individual.

"Navorn lived in a town called De Pere, right next to another town called Green Bay, and Oneida, and was on the Oneida reservation when the incident happened, Hir old name was Nivek Nogard."

"That's not exactly what I said, but certainly that's one possibility," Deera replies to Eclipse.

"Other possibilities are that you could automatically adapt to this universe's quantum state or you could have or develop a natural buffer that allows you to continue functioning in this universe without a problem."

"I've already got my people working on an adaptive force field that would be a buffer."

"Ah, here we go! The archives have news report from that time that indicates there was severe thunderstorm activity in the area. Now THAT's interesting! The accompanying weather data shows the number of lightning strikes that occurred. That quantity only happens with a supercell, though no mention is made of it. It doesn't quite look right."

"Let me run the weather analysis program... That's what I thought. It wasn't one supercell, it was two that collided! Here. Look at the time stamp for those two lightning strikes. They happened at nearly the same time. Each one was around 2.4 gigawatts of energy."

"Now, normally, that can't cause any sort of rupture between universes, but if something else was going on, it could have generated a resonance that made a rupture possible."

"It's usually impossible to get accurate data about a past event."

"An interesting concept... a universal quantum state. I could see if you had that capability that you wouldn't be bothered about changing universes. If you automatically adapt to this one, that would be a good indicator. It'd also mean that when you shift back to your universe, you re-adapt to it."

Eclipse listened to Deera and when she reported the findings of a possible storm shi frowned and cocked hir head slightly as shi thought before speaking up.

"If a bolt of that power struck the truck or even multiple bolts at once that could explain the trucks body showing signs of high heat, and a electrical surge could have given the engine a sudden burst of power for igniting the fuel air mixture right before the wires melted, that could also explain why Navorn thought there was an explosion but all the windows of the truck cab where still intact. Now about the only thing that could truly confirm it would be if you could find a birth record for Nivek Hanford Nogard on September 3rd 1986 at a ST Vincent hospital in Green Bay Wisconsin. As here's the really odd thing, I was originally born as a human September 3rd 1986 at the same hospital, and the street address I grew up at with my parents was the same for Navorn as well."

" Parallel Universe Dopples. Heard about it at Starfleet Academy. The instructor barely touched on the topic as part of the Parallel universe lecture in one of my few Astrophysics seminars I took. Said something about some are so similar that their differences are extremely wild like looking through a dark mirror. Like some Alice in Wonderland stuff."

"We still don't know quantum states work," Deera responds. "We just know that they do."

"We were aware of the Mirror Universe, but that was Miranda's 'dark mirror' premise. We know that personalities are reversed there, but not matter. And we don't know why."

"You are the first parallel universe we've encountered, if that's even what it is. The vibrational rate is different, but there are many similarities between the two. In the case of divergent timelines, there is a point at which divergence occurs. There may be such a point with a parallel universe, but, if so, why didn't it just produce a divergent timeline? Why a parallel universe? Again, why 'parallel'? Is there something about the quantum vibration that produces it?"

"At least, there's a low end to the vibration rate. If it ever reaches zero, assuming it even can--we don't have the math for it yet, that would be the end of existence... in theory."

"Until we do develop the math, there's no upper end, which means there could be an infinite number of parallel universes. I suppose... the closer two vibrational rates are, the more similar the two universes would be."

"Fortunately--I hope, we don't need to be able to match the vibrational rates in order to send you home. We just need to reverse the process that brought you here."

"The major problem with that, though, is that we could send you to yet another parallel universe that might only be subtly different from yours... one you might not even notice for some time."

"Yes, we have such a record of birth for one Nivek Hanford Nogard. I can't help noticing that the first and last names are Kevin and Dragon spelled backwards. Are you aware of that? That's almost an indication of a mirror universe."

The captain listened to the conversation, but while he understood the premise, the concepts were way beyond his training, experience and knowledge.

He had faith in his Science Department, though. As with most ships, the key personnel were had picked by the captain. These were his people.

"Carry on, Commander," he said to Deera, confident that they were not only doing everything they could but that they would solve the problem. He was also well aware that in such cases, the pressure of solving a problem often pushed the the solution to the very end, or, to put it another way, accelerated the process so that a positive solution occurred at the necessary time.

One of his command courses was on just such a topic. Observed from outside, it all looked risky and 'overly dramatic'. The reality, of course, was that it was no such thing at all. It was mere appearance... a matter of perspective.

"I'll be in my Ready Room."

He exited the Science Department and headed for the turbolift.

In reply to Anther th'Valla (msg # 30):

Miranda exits the department and heads to the bridge conference room.

In reply to _Deera Ren (msg # 29):

Eclipse nodded hir head mostly understanding what Deera was saying and smiled at the last bit about Niveks name.

"I did know, and in favor of that My human first name was Kevin, but My last name was Kuhn, so it's not a perfect mirror, how ever I have looked at some of the races you have here and compared them to known races back home, and the only ones that at least look similar are Humans and Ciatians, Though I used my navigation system to overlapped over your navigation charts and found that all the races from both my universe and this one share the same worlds. So it might just be that something happened to cause a parallel evolution on those other worlds.
For example the Rakshani, their homeworld Raksha is located exactly where your charts say the Klingon homeworld is, and like your Klingons the Rakshani are highly militaristic, but unlike your Klingons they are much more honorable and honor things other then just fighting. In fact every Rakshani warrior I know would consider their tactic of decloaking and attacking cowardly and dishonorable, especially when attacking a vessel in distress that has no way of fighting back."

"Also one theory I heard long ago, would imply that every timeline is it's own universe, but we ourselves only perceive the one with the highest probable outcome, so the higher the probability of an event happening the more likely it will happen in some form, I found some refrences saying that humans had worked on a genetic program to enhance themselves which resulted in a war. Back home Humans experimented with Genetics and started creating anthropomorphic beings, and at first they where used as slaves which led to war."

"It might be something as simply--or complex, depending on how you define it--as the Butterfly Effect," Deera replies.

"We've encountered an older race, though, that claims to have seeded life throughout the galaxy thousands if not millions of years ago. On each world, it took a different evolutionary path that they--presumably--had no control over. Thus, on one world, you get Humans, on another you get Klingons."

"And, of course, that evolutionary path is dictated by that world's environment. One theory holds that if the environment is harsh, you'll get a more... aggressive species, since it has to fight its environment to survive."

"On the other hand, another theory suggests that the further apart the quantum states are, the greater the difference between the two universes will be. Not that we have any way to prove that yet, but your universe isn't too far different from ours and the quantum state is fairly close. This would help explain why the Klingon wormhole connected with yours and wound up bringing you here as a side effect."

"We think it has something to do with the sidebands of the wormhole. We... encountered a race that lives in the sidebands of the Bajoran Wormhole. They were called the Prophets by the Bajorans. It seems that once you reach a certain state of technological development, you can achieve the impossible, such as building a Dyson sphere. And yet, you can't keep a sun from going nova."

"Think of the sidebands as an interface with the rest of the universe. How well you construct the wormhole probably determines the nature of the sidebands. It seems fairly reasonable to think that you can get to a point where you can control these sidebands. On the other hand, it also seems that when you get to that point, your material existence becomes unimportant, insignificant and unnecessary."

"I've heard it described as 'achieving a higher plane of existence', which often means ignoring the effects of that which you've left behind."

"Anyway... we're exploring all of these possibilities to get you back to your own universe. In the mean time, we're constantly monitoring you and your ship for any signs of instability. One of the first signs is a diminished ability to interact with the universe around you."

"I have finished analyzing the technical specifications of the equipment used by the Klingon research station," Dypec announces as he enters the Science Department.

"I believe I can reconstruct their equipment and recreate their experiment. However, the result would be the same. I have not yet been able to determine the error in their calculations, but your talk of sidebands sounds like a promising lead."

The ship had moved to investigate another planet while Eclipse had taken an Away Team to a planet in the Inner Hot Zone.

Meanwhile, the Science Department was still focused on trying to figure out how to send Eclipse and her ship back to her own universe. At least, there didn't seem to be any of the usual decay in stability. Possibly that was because this universe had no equivalent to Eclipse or her family or her ship. It definitely looked like Eclipse and ilk where slowly adapting to this universe.

"Lieutenant Hanson, have we gotten an update yet on the quantum analysis of the Ancestor?" she asked Maribel about Eclipse's ship.

In reply to _Deera Ren (msg # 35):

Maribel is thoroughly absorbed in the data on her workstation screen, so she starts when her combadge chirps, but recovers immediately. "Yes ma'am. Analysis results confirm Captain Eclipse's initial readings; the Ancestor's quantum state is indeed different from our universe and shows no signs of degradation or change." She glances at her screen again as she talks, then leans forward slightly as new data starts streaming in. "Just a moment Lt Commander, I'm receiving more data now." She taps her badge to close the channel.

She spends a minute or so reading through the feed on her workstation screen, then taps her badge to re-open the channel. "The initial scan data that Captain Eclipse provided us with seemed to have a slight discrepancy in the Ancestor's mass, so I took the liberty of initiating a graviton scan just before the Ancestor left for Captain Eclipse's away mission. The computer just finished it's analysis and is showing a corresponding discrepancy in the interactions of elementary particles with the Higg's field. It may be a calculation error, but my gut says otherwise."

"Unless you or the Captain object, I'm going to run an equivalent scan on the Mongoose to compare with that of the Ancestor. In the meantime, I'll double-check the math on these calculations."

18:55, Today: Maribel Hanson rolled 17 using 2d20 with rolls of 16,1.  Re-checking calculations. Reason+Science=16.
OOC: That should be 3 successes, if I'm understanding this correctly.

19:00, Today: Maribel Hanson rolled 21 using 3d20 with rolls of 8,10,3.  Graviton scan of the Mongoose. +1d20 from Talent "Testing Out A Theory" Reason+Science=16.
OOC: That should be 4 successes with my Quantum Mechanics Focus, or just 2 successes if my talent doesn't apply here. Maribel's hunch is that the results for the Mongoose will not share the discrepancy of the Ancestor. If any successes are left over, I'll put them in the Momentum pool.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:09, Tue 03 May 2022.

Maribel only needed one success to recheck her calculations regarding the quantum signature of the Eclipse. The result was the same: no degradation of the ship's quantum state, but it was still closer to this universe that it--reasonably--should have been.


Because the graviton scan of the Mongoose was strictly internal, the dark energy of the Expanse wasn't significantly affecting tasks, so it only required two successes.

The Mongoose's quantum signature has a slight variation from that which is on file, but seems to be the result of microfluctuations probably due to the dark energy. It may also have been because of the proximity of the Ancestor as the fluctuations seem to be slowly diminishing. It was as if the two ships had some sort of resonance with each other.

The net result of course was that the Ancestor--and presumably its crew--were adapting to this universe. That is definitely not normal as far as Maribel was aware, and she had no idea why that was happening.

On the other hand, the microfluctuations might be the key to sending the Ancester back to its own universe. This is significant because if the two quantum signatures reach an equilibrium, it might be too late to send the Ancestor back. Or if you still manage it, it might have the same problem as it's having in this universe--it no longer matches.


OOC: WOW! Great post!

"Hm." Dr Hanson stares at her screen, deep in thought, for several minutes before leaning back and rubbing her eyes. "Okay, this is gonna take some work." She taps her communicator. "Lt Hanson to Ensign Haskins, report to Physics Lab 2 please; I have a project I could use your help with."

"Right away, Ma'am."

A few minutes later, Ensign Haskins enters the room; Dr Hanson is standing in front of the replicator as a cup of coffee materializes. She looks over her shoulder as she hears the door hiss open. "Ah, good." She motions to one of the large viewscreens on the wall while she sips her coffee.

"These are the graviton scan results from earlier, first the Ancestor's, then the Mongoose's. You see that small discrepancy in the mass? That's our project. I have a hunch that discrepancy is what's allowing the Ancestor and it's crew to successfully assimilate into our universe."

Haskins looks at the viewscreen with a puzzled look on his face. "I don't follow."

"The scans are indicating that the fundamental particles of the Ancestor are interacting with the Higgs Field slightly differently than their equivalent particles in our universe, hence the discrepancy in their mass and the lack of degradation in their quantum signature."

"The part about the mass makes sense, I'm confused as to how that affects its quantum signature. Or doesn't affect it, I guess."

Dr Hanson puts her coffee down on one of the desks."Okay, so the current theory concerning why the quantum signatures of objects and people from other universes degrade once in our universe is that multiple instances of the same matter cannot coexist for prolonged periods, especially when in close proximity to  each other. So far, none of the extra-universal visitors on record have exhibited this discrepancy in mass. My theory is that that discrepancy makes the Ancestor and it's crew unique objects with no direct counterparts in our universe, because even if they do have counterparts here, that mass discrepancy makes them just different enough that there's no conflict between their elementary particles, hence no driving force behind the degradation.

Haskins crosses his arms as he speaks, "Okay, that makes sense. So what about the discrepancy in the Mongoose's mass? Shouldn't it be the same as pervious scans?"

Dr Hanson speaks as she lifts her coffee back up to her mouth, "That's the complicating factor here." She pauses while she sips her coffee. "If that discrepancy is a trait of the Ancestor's home universe, it should not be present in the Mongoose, but it is. Therefore, our first task is to figure out what exactly that discrepancy is. I've got a few hypotheses." She touches a button at her workstation and the data on the viewscreen is replaced with a list.

She points at the first item on the list. "Hypothesis One: The discrepancy is a trait of the Ancestor's home universe." She points at the second item. "Hypothesis Two: The discrepancy is a natural fluctuation caused by exposure to dark energy." She points at the third item. "Hypothesis Three: The discrepancy is a sensor malfunction." She sips her coffee again.

"Now obviously, Hypothesis One isn't testable, since we can't exactly send a probe to their universe to check. Two would be simple, just get two scans of the same object while it's in the Expanse and then while it's not. We'd have to do that with a shuttle most likely, since the Mongoose has away teams out right now. Three is even easier to test; we just need to run thorough diagnostics on the sensors used to make our scans." She moves to sip her coffee again, then looks at the cup in mild disappointment as she realizes it's empty now.

"There's not much point in testing Two without being sure the sensors are working properly, so we should start with Three." He turns from the viewscreen to look at Dr Hanson.

She talks while returning the cup to the replicator, "My thoughts exactly." She transfers the data from her workstation to her datapad while the cup dematerializes. "Let's go check those sensors."

>>> To Mongoose: Engineering >>>

<orange>OOC: You can use any NPC in your posts, not just your own NPCs. And the dialog was great.

I suppose sensor processing might be done in engineering, at least they have the ability to deal with damage control for them. The actual sensors would be located on either the outer hull or with the deflector dish.