Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - Mostly Harmless
Carter Schimpff
(( Main Mess Hall, Deck 3, USS Artemis-A ))
Bancroft: It’s an Earth dog– never mind. ::to Imril:: So yeah… obviously there are a few… kinks… to work out, but I think the general philosophy behind it is sound. This could really be helpful in cases where patients are non-verbal. Scanners can only tell you so much – a patient’s own voice is one of the most important diagnostic tools we have.
Tho’Bi: ::to himself:: Labour-Door dog ::shrugs:: Labour-Door dog
Tho’Bi continued muttering to himself, seemingly disengaged from the conversation at hand. Roy reminded himself that his Labrador analogy wasn’t terribly far off the mark. Send a squirrel across Tho’Bi’s path, and… well. That would be that.
Tho’Bi: ::to himself:: Bolian interpretive dance…. Meat bags….
Imril: Constructive criticism time, from someone who’s successfully turned an idea into real live Starfleet gear. First of all, this is not how you write an R&D proposal. A sitcom spec script for one of those Ferengi streaming channels, sure. Second, it’s not how you respond to an R&D proposal, either. I’m guessing this Doctor Maran was also writing at Oh-Three-Hundred in the morning. They frankly did you a disservice, and doesn't help clear up any of my questions.
Roy exhaled through his nose, nodding once. Then reached for his coffee and took a slow, meditative sip – like someone bracing for the next wave in an already stormy sea. A sea, he noted, largely of his own making.
Tho’Bi: ::to himself:: Ferengi streaming channels….
Roy rubbed his face. He really should’ve gotten more sleep before trying to defend half-baked medtech to two officers who’d probably been designing circuit architecture while still in the womb.
They were whip-smart to begin with – triply so when you brought engineering into the mix.
Bancroft: I– well, yes. Admittedly, the proposal may have skewed slightly toward narrative flourish and away from… ::beat:: quantifiable data. But I figured the usefulness of the device would be self-evident.
Roy looked at Imril with bleary, slightly bloodshot eyes. His friend responded with a shrug – the kind that said, well, maybe if you’d asked the mushroom for help instead–
Imril: If Tho’Bi or I tried to move this document up the Engineering chain, it would have come back marked Incomplete. But not with a frowny face written in red ink on it, because that would be superfluous. You don't want superfluous. ‘A Nurse Who Reminds Me Of My Mother’ is superfluous.
Tho’Bi looked up from the PADD.
Tho’Bi: ::to Bancroft:: So…. there is a prototype?
Roy grimaced. There was, technically, a prototype, yes. It had been returned to him… in pieces… locked securely inside a portable stasis field… just before the Artemis had departed Deep Space 224.
Imril: Start from the beginning, Roy. Give us your turbolift pitch.
Roy cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. It wasn’t as though he’d been practicing this ad nauseum in nearly every second of downtime he’d had since he’d first come up with the idea.
Bancroft: Every doctor asks the same question: ‘where does it hurt?’ Trouble is… sometimes the patient can’t answer. They’re unconscious. Non-verbal. From a species that doesn’t even have vocal cords.
As he spoke, his hands began moving of their own volition, sculpting ideas from air and gesturing toward invisible graphs.
Bancroft: The scanners we have available today tell us where things are damaged, and to what extent. What they don’t tell us is how it feels. They don’t know if that shattered carapace, for example, feels like a stubbed toe or a supernova. That’s where W.H.I.M.P.E.R. comes in. It reads the neural and biochemical signatures of distress, runs them through a series of learning models, and translates them into a sort of ‘universal language of pain.’
His eyes were bright now – lit with the kind of energy that only true believers or very tired insane people possessed.
Bancroft: It’s not mind-reading. It’s interpretation. Data, turned into empathy. In short, W.H.I.M.P.E.R. gives a voice to the voiceless. For the first time, we can see what a non-verbal patient actually feels – not just what’s broken. Which means we can treat the whole being during an intervention, not just the injury.
He let his words fall into silence for a moment, arms spread wide as if to say ‘ta-da!’
Tho’Bi: It is more Lieutenant Imril's area of experience than mine… I am really more of a bodger ::shrugs:: I guess we could… breakdown the prototype and draw up schematics from there.
His brow furrowed slightly. And just where was that famed Tho’Bi enthusiasm for anything technologically puzzling? Normally by now the Andorian would be sketching out blueprints or trying to rewire the damn thing.
Something was decidedly off with his friend.
Moreso than usual, anyway.
But that was a mystery for another time.
Bancroft: Thobes, you’ve got just as critical a role here as either of us. And if I’d had the foresight to rope you both in from the beginning, this might have already been rolled out fleet-wide, improving patient outcomes. On my own head be it.
Imril: Response
Tho’Bi: …the design feels a little …random.
There. That was the Tho’Bi he was used to. Already mentally disassembling the device… and slightly socially oblivious.
Bancroft: ::clearing his throat:: Right, yes, well– I think we can all agree the technical design is, generously speaking, an affront to engineering. In my defense, I’m a doctor, not an–
He stopped himself short. No. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
Imril/Tho’Bi: Response
He grabbed his banana and stood from the table, the now-cold oatmeal completely forgotten.
Bancroft: The prototype – well, what’s left of it – is currently residing in exile on Deck 11. ::grinning:: Field trip?
Imril/Tho’Bi: Response
Roy looked away sheepishly, peeling the banana just a bit too casually.
Bancroft: No, not in one of the cargo bays. Ops decided, against my passionate and wildly logical protests, to store it in the ::sighing:: Hazardous Materials Lab. Apparently ‘the risk of spontaneous combustion’ would trigger too much PADDwork.
Imril/Tho’Bi: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1