Lt. Robin Hopper: Watch Out
Lt. JG Kivik
((Amity Outpost – “The Cellar”, Shuttlebay 4))
Robin smiled and walked over towards Richards, hopping up on the crate beside him and showing him what she was doing as she worked.
Hopper: Don’t worry – I’ll save plenty of iterations as I work. ::Tapping:: Rather than build a fully-custom LCARS module from the ground up ::looking up at him with playful judgment:: because, frankly, that’s insane… ::Looking back at the PADD:: What we can do is amend some of your work here, generalizing code, to ‘trick’ the computers into thinking they’re running legacy versions of the software.
Richards: So…simple as that? Just force them to think they are looking at something they really aren’t?
Hopper: It won’t be quite that simple. You see, each of these systems is going to have built in ‘SPOFs’. Single Point Of Failure Breakers. Those’ll check to see that everything’s set up properly before allowing the device to power on, you know, preventing overloads and such. That’s why shuttle pre-flight checks are so obnoxiously long. We’re still going to have to sit here for a good number of hours making sure each SPOF is addressed in our reprogramming or the thing won’t turn on.
Robin passed the PADD back to Richards. With a plan developed, the next step would be getting into the actual guts of the thing and finding out exactly what they were working with and how they needed to go about ‘tricking’ the computers into getting along.
The Ensign shook his head, a smile of disbelief on his face. Robin cocked an eyebrow and gave him a squinty smile back.
Richards: It just might work. Seems kind of complicated, but still.
Hopper slid off the crate and walked back towards the shuttle, turning around to face him as she walked backwards.
Hopper: It’s a little unorthodox – I certainly see why a perfectionist like Ygrix might frown at it – but it should work, at least as a bootstrap solution for now. ::Smirking:: But, if it suddenly becomes sentient and claims to be ‘God’ or something, don’t blame me.
Richards: ::Chuckling:: I won’t be blaming you, as long as you come in to help me knock it off it’s high horse. ::standing from the crate:: Wait, are you saying that you are planning on giving my shuttle a god-complex?
Hopper: Planning? No… But stranger things have happened. ::Looking around at the underbelly of the shuttle:: So, where’s the hatch release? We going to get in there and poke around or what?
Richards: ::Smiling:: You know, with Ygrix, there was no chance of him and I getting along from the get-go. But you… I like you. I think this is that start of a beautiful friendship.
Hopper: Yeah, well, don’t speak too soon! You haven’t been forced to listen to my playlist yet. ::Pointing at the shuttle:: Found it, by the way.
She reached her hand around the lever and gave it a slight tug. The hatch to the shuttle released and began opening. As it did, she turned around and put her hands on her hips, looking back at the engineer.
Hopper: ::Smiling:: But if you can put up with me, I like to think I’m a pretty good friend.
Richards: ::Teasingly, flipping his hair:: You just can’t fall in love with me. ::smirking, winking::
Hopper: ::Eyebrows raised:: Oh! ::Containing a laugh:: That happens a lot, does it? ::Mock shock:: Tell me that isn’t what happened with you and Crewman Ygrix!
Richards: Response
Hopper: ::Sarcastic smile:: Okay, well, I’ll try to be careful then. ::Pointing into the open shuttle:: Come on, lover boy, show me what we’ve got here.
Richards: Response
Hopper followed Richards’ lead, looking around at the components.
Hopper: So, what can she do?
Richards: Response
Hopper: What about music? Can she play any tunes?
Richards: Response
Hopper: ::Grinning:: Well, we know what our first priority is then, don’t we?
Richards: Response
TBC
