MdJG Jovenan – I hope the new colleagues will like me :)
Jovenan
((Mess Hall, Deck 3, CIC Desdemona))
After the briefing had concluded, the senior crew broke into smaller teams to tackle each individual problem they had been given by the Human Major. Jovenan had been assigned to the shield development team, and she joined the group led by a Betazoid Lt Colonel in the middle of their discussion.
Lux: Good thinking Kuva, they’ve likely come to the same conclusions that we have. I’m going to head to the lab, I’d like to run some simulations on the prismic shields and we can have a look at the work from the Casperia :: reluctantly looks to Jovenan:: Would you like to make yourself useful?
She was pleased that the Caitian junior officer would recognize that she could be helpful to them and request her assistance. She had been worried that the crew might not receive her presence well, but so far they had been no complications.
Jovenan: Thank you, I would! Well, firstly I would recommend stopping using the electro-magnetic pulses altogether. Any cadet can shield equipment from EMPs, for the Shint it’s just a matter of bothering to do so. If they’re used consistently, the Shint will adapt for them. ::smiles:: It only makes it harder to fight them in the long run.
If they valued the long-term success in the war, using easily counteracted weapons was not advisable. They might save lives now but overusing them could make them less effective in a few years. Surely, they wouldn’t mind sacrificing a few of their own for the benefit of everyone else in the future. After all, they all had made sacrifices, like leaving Rubicun for this garbage raft.
Adea: Which is far from ideal.
Lux: That’s putting it mildly.
Yellir: Considering this is an all-or-nothing mission, I suggest we pull from any old trick. We’ll worry about them adapting when actually live past this, it’s not exactly our problem if we’re space dust.
Jovenan could see her reasoning but wasn’t particularly pleased with the response. If the Commonwealth effectively vaccinated the Shint against EMP weapons, the Divine Fleet would need to come up with something else after the Shint started coming to them.
Kuva: Response
Now that she had found her team and injected herself into the conversation, it seemed like a good time for the introductions. She made a small bop as she extended her right hand for a traditional human salutation of a “handshake”.
Jovenan: ::cheerily, smiling:: Also, I don’t think I’ve been working with some of you before. Hi, I’m Jovenan! Nice to meet you all!
Thevn: ::dryly:: Pleasure, I’m sure.
Adea: Moooooving swiftly onwards, let’s get started on these shields.
Lux: Couldn't agree more, Colonel.
To her surprise, none of the other teammates didn’t respond to her greeting with the enthusiasm she had expected. Greetings and introductions were an important part of any group work made with people one didn’t know well in advance, that’s what Jovenan had learnt already in the kindergarten. Maybe it wasn’t a thing among offworlders, or maybe they were too work focused to care about the individuals, which was supported by the suggestion to move onwards to the project. Staggered by the lack of reciprocation to her greeting, she lowered her hand.
This is gonna be one jarring group project.
Adea: Have any of you actually been on a Shint vessel?
What a silly question! Why would have any one of them been on a Shint vessel? This was Jovenan’s first time out of God’s Claims, and if the Shint controlled areas had even lower standards of living than the Commonwealth had, she would be pleased to stay out of there.
Thevn: ::deadpan:: Once or twice. ::more serious:: But never on a warcruiser. For some reason, they’re more picky with the slavelabour on those. ::mirthless smirk::
Yellir: Surely that means you saw a few things then? A quick glance at their code base maybe? Perhaps even a few command codes? Regardless, I don’t like that we’re going in blind.
Adea: First time for everything.
Lux: What about the weapons and shield systems, even the slave ships will have ways of protecting themselves?
Jovenan listened to the weird-looking junior officer and the question barrage. It made sense that some of these people might have been in close contact with the Shint before, considering that the front line ran close to here. She shouldn’t underestimate the personal experience these people had with dealing with the Shint. That being said, if any of them were to be captured, which was likely if they weren’t killed before that, they might leak all their secrets to the Shint. Jovenan considered if she should reveal any of the Divine Fleet information to them after all or if she should take actions to guarantee they wouldn’t be ratting out the results to the Shint after they were done.
Yellir: Routine security at least. I’d imagine maybe an escort perhaps? An armed one at that. They don’t seem stupid enough to leave manpower unprotected.
Kuva: Response
Thevn: I know the calibrations of grunt Shint weaponry, so perhaps we’d be able to make some contingencies in the shields that would disrupt the more rudimentary weapons, but reality weapons? ::clicks her tongue:: Ain’t nothing we can do about the shields to prevent that. So, best if we go under the radar of those.
Adea: That might require some fancy flying - Kader will be more than up to it. ::he turned to Luana:: You’re our quantum mechanics expert - what’d you think?
Yellir: Well, we can theorize all we want. But anything we do is going to be highly experimental. Our warp core’s natural subspace displacement field could offer a degree of protection in theory. But I’d rather not get close enough to test that.
Jovena had not managed contribute much to the conversation this far, as the team seemed to have been sidestepped to discuss tactics and conventional weapons or whatever, but now they were returning to their original topic. If she had had little to say earlier, they were entering her area of expertise.
Jovenan: Actually, my and my fellow scientists’ research has shown that in simulated scenarios, subspace displacement field caused by a warp core, if used alone, bends the reality weapon’s energy output through subspace lensing effect by 0.6 of the prismic factor. Not enough to protect the subject from the quantum fragmentation but gives them enough time to regret their life choices. ::innocent smile::
Kuva/Thevn: Response
Adea: What about avoiding detection in the first place; how do we do that?
Lux: The tried and tested Trojan Horse method. If we can match the shield frequency of the Shint, and calibrate our quantum variance to one of their vessels, they would mistake us as one of their own. At least at a sensor level.
Yellir: As long as we don’t fly by any windows, we could easily pass. If we’ve intercepted any recent transponder codes— perhaps that could be a nice little ticket.
Thevn/Adea/Kuva: Responses
So, it seemed they had moved from shuttle scale quantum scanning shields to the space equivalent of wearing the enemy’s uniform and crouching under windows? The Commonwealth sure had underwhelming methods to execute their overwhelming plans.
Jovenan: So, instead of making the infiltration team invulnerable or invisible to the reality weapons, we try to make them look… not a target?
This option seemed like the most boring one to her. Sure, they would still need to figure out how to alter their quantum variance to fool the Shint, but this experimentation had little to do with shielding from the reality weapons themselves. Methods to sneak in might have been useful for this mission but had little to offer for the Divine Fleet. Maybe the end result, acquiring a prismagon for study, would justify wasting her time with masking techniques.
Lux: Exactly, it would get us through the prismic scanners and their shields. The only thing is, once inside it would leave the team with no way of communicating outside.
Yellir: Might I recommend avoiding shuttle bays then? Might be a bit hard to snoop around when they discover the team isn’t one of theirs.
This felt like something the tactics team should be talking about, not them. Jovenan’s team weren’t going to the Shint ship, after all… right?
Thevn/Adea/Kuva: Responses
Lux: Gila's experiences may be useful for us to adapt the personal shielding so that we can compensate for Shint's internal systems. ::To Adea:: Is it okay if we take her to the lab as well, if you don't need her for anything?
Yellir: Perhaps maybe some general navigational tips too? A template might help us fill in the blanks.
Thevn/Adea/Kuva: Responses
((OOC: This was getting long and others were writing at the same time, so I'll post this to keep up. I'm continuing with the Lab scene in the next post, probably tomorrow. This post doesn't contain any new tags from me.))
TAG/TBC
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Mediator JG Jovenan
Science officer (secondment)
CIC Desdemona
E239911J11