Ensign Imril - Wild Hypothesis
Chris Taylor
(( Holodeck 2 - Deck 2, USS Artemis-A ))
Gnai bobbed in its tank, flashing with a bit of excitement.
Gnai: That is a solid plan, this concurs. Best not to get too far ahead of the actual facts and get lost in speculation.
Imril: Does your list of facts include any data about the wormhole itself?
Gnai stole a glance to its PADD, and seemed less than satisfied with what it saw.
Imril couldn't blame the ancient Galadorans for having providing so little information to work with. Especially considering their own past. They hadn’t so much departed Bactrica all those years ago as run away, with precious little on their person at the time. Items that either wore out, were traded off, or swapped for a higher-tech version along the way. By the time they’d gotten to Bajor, all they had left of that world was their name. Gnai’s ancestors could have had their own reasons, be they practical or cultural, for leaving as much behind and the Ensign was in no position to hand out judgements.
Gnai: Not much, but it was mobile and increasing in size, something that was observed before it destroyed the planet. Which is how the original Galadoran hive was able to escape.
Imril: What about the planet? Its neighboring worlds? The properties of its sun?
Gnai: It was a planet primarily covered in liquid water, with minimal land. What little land did support some small flora and fauna, but nothing that was brought aboard the generation ships that escaped. The primary focus was on the organisms that were crucial to sustaining the population.
Imril: Forgive me if I’m being indelicate, but your people’s external similarities to Earth jellyfish does suggest they evolved on a similar ocean climate. An M-class or O-class world.
Gnai: Yes, that’s a reasonable extrapolation to make, this thinks. Given the biological similarities to terrestrial cnidarians, or so this is told, the original Galador likely had similar conditions within the oceans and lower atmosphere as Earth.
Of course, the system’s Goldilocks Zone couldn’t yet be defined.
Imril: Anything you have at all would be helpful at this point.
Gnai: ::handing over PADD with information, sparse as it may be:: There’s more there about the other planets in the system, at least regarding their existence in older texts.
It wasn’t anything specific, but there were at least details on the rough composition (gas, ice, rocks, water…) and order from the star Galador.
But… Maybe…
Imril: Look here! The planetary data is tagged to flight logs for the exodus craft. Vectors, fuel consumption rates, acceleration charts.
Whether or not Gnai’s ancestors found any reason to hold onto ‘trivial’ facts about the star and planets their former world was neighbors with, they did need certain data to chart a path beyond the system’s gravity well.
Gnai: Is this enough for your simulation?
Imril: It’s enough to start, I hope.
The ensign tapped the new information into the simulation.
Imril: Computer, remove existing stellar phenomenon and markers from the simulation and give us just one. One that fits with the data from this ancient Galadorna log. Fill in plants and moons as possible.
The stars, nebulae and so forth vanished from site. Leaving the pair and their platform lit only by a seemingly causeless flow of ambient light. Stark and spooky, without even the gridded lines of the holodeck walls themselves to provide a sense of distance or perspective.
Computer: =/\= Insufficient data to complete this request. =/\=
Gnai: response
Imril: We’re not beat yet. I keep coming back to the wormhole. That’s the X-factor here. If we can work out its impact on these flight vectors, the computer can slot it into the equations.
Gnai: response
Imril: You said it was growing. I’m no expert, but the only way that could happen is if it was ‘feeding’ somehow. But on what? Something that could supply it with neutrinos? Like a coronal mass ejection? A charged plasma belt, like the Bajoran wormhole is anchored to?
Assuming the wormhole was consuming stellar emissions, that could account for its movement, closing in on the star as it naturally moved towards that fuel source. A plasma belt, on the other hand, would have had it moving in a circular path following the belt. There was another possibility, though.
Gnai: response
Imril: Could it have been something on or being emitted by Galador I itself? Something that drew the wormhole to it? Some experiment or technology was spitting out neutrinos? ::Eyes widening in speculative wonder:: Like a projector… Lieutenant, could the source of the wormhole have been Galador I?
Wormhole projection as a means of interstellar exploration had long been floated by Starfleet’s theoretical engineers, but had never come anywhere close to being achieved. Imril was running off into the hazy lands of speculation again, and they knew it. But perhaps if they asked the computer to form simulations based upon it -- or any further ideas which Gnai supplied -- the computer might hit on one that eliminated enough variables to allow a rough estimate of the destroyed system’s makeup.
Gnai: response
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Ensign Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12