You lost 1 momentum for a new scene starting (planetary orbit), so ch'Pertha's speech will top ya'll up to 6.

As the shuttle Sacajawea launched, the mighty Independence hung in orbit over the blue pearl of Coriolanus IV.

Dr. Layne's bioscans continued to monitor the strange alien ship-being, albeit at far-reduced quality once they broke through the Oort cloud.  The ship-being made no attempt at following the Independence, and the hellish plasma bombs it had hurled at the ship - thankfully without connecting - had long-since ceased. As they neared the planet, interference from the cloud chopped the scan quality down to garbage. Finally, he loses it in the wash of static.

LCDR Decker's scans turned towards the planet, even as the captain queued the shuttle for launch. Visual scans from orbit reveal no significant damage to the planet, save to the settlement itself. The city’s landing pad is strewn with the wreckage of the colony’s only warp-capable transport ship, and there is no visible human activity. Scans of the surface are inconclusive, as it’s covered with electromagnetic anomalies. Since scanners are unable to establish transporter coordinates, the only way down to the surface is via shuttlecraft. The colony had approximately 200 workers, researchers, administrators, and support staff, so taking more shuttles down allows the crew to evacuate more survivors, assuming any are left.

Nonetheless, to begin, the cruiser sent down a lone shuttle to investigate...


This message was last edited by the GM at 01:17, Sat 02 Oct 2021.

ch'Pertha had ordered, via Engineering, for the strongest Beacon's to be delivered to the planets surface with the Landing Party;  so that, once placed, the Independence could use these to establish comms, transporter coordinates, and general location facilities.

"LT Saghalie reports beacon loaded aboard Sajacawea prior to launch, Captain," LT Nipay reported from COMMS.

As the alien ship-being was lost behind the Oort cloud, Dr. Lansing set secondary sensors to warn him if it came within range, then turned the primary sensors to scan the system itself. There were at least three other planets in the Coriolanus system, close to the sun that four, and most likely several more beyond their target planet.

"Try to scan Coriolanus 4, Dr. Verghese. Let me know if you find anything, ordinary or otherwise. Things should hopefully clear up some, when the Beacon is set up."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 15:48, Sat 09 Oct 2021.

"Of course, Doctor," Verghese replied.  "Scanning now."

"The city’s landing pad is strewn with the wreckage of the colony’s only warp-capable transport ship, and there is no visible human activity."

"Scans of the surface are inconclusive, as it’s covered with electromagnetic anomalies.  Trying to compensate..."

Continuing to survey the remainder of the system, Dr. Layne acknowledged the information received. He would spend a few minutes on each planet that was on this side of the star, assuming the rest were unscannable at this time, while keeping an eye out for the alien ship-being.

"Sir," LT Nipay said, turning in her chair towards the Captain.  "I've just lost contact with the Sacajawea."

CDR Decker frowned and leaned over his console. The ship had been doing its best to monitor the course of the shuttle through the interference, but now he focused the primary sensors in an attempt to ascertain its status. "Scanning now, Captain..."

08:32, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 54 using 4d20 with rolls of 12,19,20,3.  Scanning the shuttle as it crashes - Reason(12)+Science(5)+1 momentum+Testing a Theory.
08:49, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 31 using 2d20 with rolls of 15,16.  Re-rolling 19 and 20 using Tech Expertise and Cautious:Science.
Result: 12, 15, 16, and 3. No focuses apply, so that's 4 successes.
Ship's Advanced Sensors should reduce the difficulty by 1.
Also, someone should be able to roll an assist by the ship? 1 die at Sensors(9) + Science(3)

Oh very well, I'll do it.
09:20, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 18 using 1d20 with rolls of 18.  Ship assist to track the shuttle's descent - Sensors(9) + Science(3).
The ship is no help. This is what Decker gets for sending Kezik off to die on an away mission.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:21, Wed 27 Oct 2021.

Decker's attention was riveted to the blue-lit sensor hood, but even with all his skill and the ship's advanced sensors, all he could glean was a few magnetic pulses, the output of a shuttle's impulse engines under strain, and her metallic hull disappearing beneath a haze of magnetic fields.

He's lost them.

Unfortunately, the situation is such that the roll is impossible until something creates an Advantage or changes the situation.

Decker gave a soft grunt of frustration, "I've lost them. The last readings suggested that they were in trouble, Captain. Their engines were running at maximum power."

His mind raced. Sending additional shuttles would be reckless. He couldn't recommend bringing the ship into the upper atmosphere based on the readings - that was dangerous enough for a starship under the best of conditions. But maybe...

He swiveled around, "I can't see anything through this interference. Perhaps one of the atmospheric probes...?"

Ch'Pertha nodded, as he pointed at LCDR Decker, "Lieutenant Nipay, work with the Lt Commander  to punch a connection through to the Sacajawea via the atom-drones", he said.

The Science Officer quickly programmed up a set of directives for the probe and sent them over to the Communications Officer's console.

The young COMMS officer's fingers danced over her console and then she turned to the bridge core.

"Probes ready, sir!" she reported.

ch'Pertha nodded.   "Decker, try to get a lock on their position.
Helm, prepare for atmospheric entry.
Engineering, I want the tractor beam online, and ready for immediate use.

Open a channel the moment you can please, Lieutenant Nipay"

The probe shot down into the atmosphere, boosting the ship's scanning ability... but there was a flare of energy, magnetic interference, and then... it was destroyed.

It was a brief eyeblink of data...

OOC: Decker may make a Difficulty 5 Reason + Science check, assisted by the ship's Sensors + Science.  The Complication range is increased to 17, so any 17+ generates a complication.

As the probe made its way down, the Science Officer prepped the ship's instruments. He knew he'd likely have only the smallest of windows to operate in. He ordered the primary sensor arrays to maximum sensitivity and readied the computer to receive a high speed data burst.

"Lieutenant Nipay, please keep that telemetry channel clear. We're only going to have one shot at this."

And then...

23:19, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 52 using 6d20 with rolls of 10,3,12,12,3,12.  The probe: 5 dice (spending 3 momentum, testing a theory) at (12)+(5) plus 1 ship's die at (9)+(3).
That's 6 successes (and no complications), unless one of Decker's focuses applies. If they do, that would be 8 successes.

"Pirk's cunning strikes again!"

Through all the interference, with the aid of the probes, Decker locates the Sacajawea.  She's flying nape-of-the-earth at high speed, hurtling across a barren valley and angling towards a range of nearby mountains.

"Got her!"

He pauses for just a moment to compose himself.

"Shuttle located, Sir. Transferring data to Helm and Engineering."

He glances over towards Lieutenant Nipay, "Excellent work, Lieutenant."

At the COMMS station, Nipay smiled briefly and nodded to Decker, before turning her attention back to her board.  The probe Tsolo had configured had gone up like a roman candle, but it had lasted just long enough to give Decker a window...

ch' nodded silently to himself, as his team went about their tasks efficiently.
Moving over to Helm, he said, "Keep us in Geo-syncronous directly over the best known location of the Sacajawea, and as close to atmospheric skin as you can".   He wanted to give Comms and Science every possible opportunity to maintain connection with the shuttle.

"Aye, Captain," the slim Nigerian woman said from the conn.  Her fingers danced along the controls and the Indy adjusted orbit as her captain had ordered.

The shuttle had made it to the mountains that the emergency shelter was built in.  The ship would stay over those until further notice...

Decker nodded, possibly to the Captain, or possibly just to the thoughts in his head, and turned his focus back to his console.

With the immediate status of the shuttle settled, he switched his attention back to the standard planetary sensor arrays. Instead of trying to burn through the interference with active sensors to track a shuttle, he started working with the Atmospheric Science specialists to analyze the magnetic anomalies, both to understand them and to try and determine a way to work around them.

"I'll see what we can do to get around those anomalies, Captain. We're essentially blind on the surface, and we shouldn't be."

Decker noticed there was an odd pattern to the anomalies. They moved, they winked in and out.  At first it seemed completely random, but...

(Decker may make an Intuition + Science check, Difficulty 5, to make an unlikely conclusion! His focus in Xenobiology applies.)

The Science Officer hunched over his console and tuned out the rest of the activity on the bridge. There was something here. Sometime he couldn't quite put a finger on. His manipulation of the controls, usually calm and measured even in tense moments, took on an almost frantic tempo as he flipped back and forth between different displays. What was it?! What wasn't he seeing?

Insight (10) + Science (5) - 2 dice, plus 2 dice bought with the last 3 momentum. One re-roll available from Cautious: Science ...
14:46, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 49 using 4d20 with rolls of 9,11,9,20.  Insight(10)+Science(5) to figure out WTF is going on with these anomalies.
Re-rolling the 20 For Great Justice...
14:47, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 5 using 1d20 with rolls of 5.  Insight+Science re-rolling the 20.. Critical success!
And scores a total of 5 successes!

There WAS a pattern to the magnetic anomalies. It didn't follow ley lines or poles or any predictable natural phenomena.

Instead, it was very reminiscent to... a school of fish.

Almost as if they were being caused by living beings...

From the direction of the science station, there is a distracted muttering, "Fascinating..."

He pulls up a couple of examples from the exobiology database and puts them up on separate displays as an example. He then puts together a quick precis and a request to examine his findings and sends it off to his lead Xenobiologist and to Doctor Layne, before opening a comm channel to the latter.

"Doctor Layne, if you have a moment, I believe I've found a very interesting clue about what's going on down below us, and I'd like to have your opinion on it, too."

"Excellent Lieutenant Commander, I shall do so immediately."

Calling up the aforementioned data, Dr. Layne begins to look over the information.

Dr. Layne studied the data with a new eye...

[OOC: No roll needed for this one, given Decker's roll.]

It did indeed show a pattern akin to a school of fish.  Or, in this case, more reminiscent of a squid pod, to be honest.  And its cycle suggested both territorialism, and hunting for food...

Hmmm, most interesting.

From what he knew of squid they were reasonably intelligent creatures. Some researchers believed that squid are on par with dogs in terms of intelligence. Some species of squid were very social and displayed great social communications.

Calling up the computer, he began to do research on squid and how they communicate, wondering if they could devise a way to do so.

Dr. Layne fed his data into the computer and analyzed the results...

(OOC: I know you don't prefer to do your own die rolls, so...)

Dr. Layne is assisted by the computer.

19:12, Today: Starfleet Command, on behalf of DR Ranse Layne, rolled 22 using 3d20 with rolls of 10,4,8.  Reason + Science w/Xenobiology Focus.

With his Focus in Xenobiology, that's 4 successes!

Subspace.  They communicated via subspace flashes.  A primitive form of warp-pulse code, not unlike old-school morse code.

Eureka!

He sent a quick message to the bridge.

"You're instincts were correct Lt. Cmdr. Decker, it is a language! My first impression is that it might be quite sophisticated."

The good Doctor tried to run the sample thru the universal translator, while using whatever resources are at his command to collect more samples, as many as he could get.

"Excellent, Doctor. We've already been focusing on those anomalies, albeit to try and find a way to filter them out. I'll send you all the raw data we've already recorded as well as what we're picking up in real time."

"Excellent, I will let you know more as I discover it, fingers crossed."

Setting up a splitting algorithm, Dr. Lanse has the data go both to the Universal Translator and into a file for his own perusal.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:26, Mon 10 Apr 2023.

The Universal Translator - relatively new technology, designed by Hoshi Sato after the NX-01 Enterprise's historic journeys - began clacking away at the problem.  It made chirps, clicks and whistles as it ran it through multiple algorithms...

Using a pad, Ranse tried plugging away at what he saw, the old fashioned way as well. He had a knock for such things.

He did contact Decker once however, asking him if he could configure the ship to send similar signals.

"I'm sure we can put something together, Doctor. We'll work with Communications and Engineering to determine the best way to broadcast a response."

Decker paused in thought for a moment. Responding to this style of communication would be tricky. They couldn't just broadcast a standard subspace or lightspeed radio signal.

Decker opened another channel between himself, Lieutenant Nipay, and the most senior engineer available. He also sent them a summary of the energy patterns that Doctor Layne was analyzing. "Once we have a response ready, the ship is going to need to broadcast it down deep into the atmosphere. I don't think our normal communication transmitters will be sufficient. I was thinking that the main deflector, or perhaps even the phasers could be modified to do so?"

Rounding up the senior (present) staff in the various technical departments, our two scientists go to work...

(OK here's how we'll do this.  A Science + Reason test from Decker, assisted by a single die from Dr. Layne and an additional die from the ship and crew.  That's 4 dice, plus any you buy with momentum.)

OOC This seems pretty important, I suggest this might be something worth spending some momentum on. But it's Decker's roll, so I accept his decision. I forget, can we opt to add it after we roll? Guessing not, but worth asking.

Yeah, I'll definitely spend a momentum to buy a die - with Cautious: Science, that'll net me a single re-roll.

11:25, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 49 using 3d20 with rolls of 16,18,15.  Reason(12)+Science(5) - working out comm protocol with plasma aliens.
11:26, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 9 using 1d20 with rolls of 9.  Reason(12)+Science(5) - re-roll that 18!
So, that's three successes.

11:31, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 3 using 1d20 with rolls of 3.  Ship's Comms(8)+Science(3) - working out comm protocol with plasma aliens.
The ship ALWAYS rolls as if a focus applies, so that's a critical success. Two more successes!

Bring us home, Doc!

Roll for me boss man! Fingers crossed!

Rolling for Dr. Layne...

20:53, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 13 using 1d20 with rolls of 13.  Reason(?)+Medicine(?) - working out comm protocol with the plasma aliens!

That's gotta be another success, for a total of 6! Go Team!

It takes some time, but Decker, Dr. Layne, and the services division are able to put together a way to modify the main communications relay to (hopefully) transmit on the same frequency as the sky squid.  With the translator plugged in and configured, as they'd done, it would even make sense... in theory!

(OOC: Difficulty was 5, so that puts a point of Momentum back in the pool in addition to the success!)

"Captain, I believe we have a solution. Dr. Layne has put together a translation matrix for the creatures down there, and we've also put together a method of communicating with them. In theory. We think."