Lt JG Imril - MORE POWER!
Chris Taylor
(( Hazardous Materials Lab, Deck 11, USS Artemis-A ))
Tho'Bi: ::still thinking outloud:: Either there's too much power or too much impedance.
Imril: Or too many software and hardware conflicts. Tech built to do certain things trying to do five to ten others. The CPU twisting itself up in the crossfire, throwing more and more power at resolving the conflicts. Excess power being shunted from one system to another, say the sensor resonance coils, to avoid overheating could explain the ‘screaming.’
Bancroft: ::raising a brow:: That’s… more sophisticated than my theory. I just assumed the screaming was a cry for help – specifically, from my dismal engineering skills. ::a beat, dry:: And now that I’ve said it out loud… it holds up.
Tho’Bi: Responses
The crewman took their leave of them as they talked. Quickly, quietly, and with an apparent aim of not being noticed by anyone. Of to… do what exactly? Play custodian to a new generation of engineering disasters? On a ship that wasn’t exactly assigned to host them?
A slow suspicion crawled out from the back of Imril’s mind and came creeping through their mouth
Imril: Roy, Is this all a prank? If it is, it’s a good one. Lots of atmosphere. Perfectly built up tension. That rejection letter in the mess hall was perfect bait.
The question came with the soft, rising cadence of suspicion – one friend to another, searching for the glittering edge of a well-set trap.
Bancroft: Believe me, if I had the capacity to pull off something this elaborate, I’d have used it for something far less career-threatening.
Tho’Bi: Responses
Imril: No, really I won't be mad. I like pranks. I once had someone from Blue Squadron convinced that the Troyian Royal Guard was spying on her. Scouting her for a marriage proposal. ::laughs:: You should have seen the look on her face when the ambassador... Never mind. I didn't say anything. We never had this conversation.
Bancroft: ::laughing:: We’d have made a hell of a team in the Department of Mischief. ::softer:: Shame Starfleet doesn’t have one. ::beat:: And no – this isn’t a bit. I’m not nearly that good a liar.
Tho’Bi: Responses
Imril raised their hands in mock surrender.
Imril: Alright, alright, you convinced me. This is real. That device is real. And really, potentially, dangerous. And since it is both things, we should get some preliminary scans before it starts blinking differently again. I didn’t think to bring my kit to breakfast, though. Does this place have any regular, non-evil, tricorders available to borrow? I’ll settle for chaotic neutral.
Bancroft: ::shrugging:: This place has to have one sane tricorder stashed somewhere. Even haunted labs need a control group.
Tho’Bi: Responses
Imril nodded and stepped away. Back to the crewman and her faraway eyes. Eyes that wanted to be looking at some other room, some other assignment, some other life. They returned with enough tricorders to go around and a blank padd for taking notes. They handed out tricorders and then set the padd to collect and collate everyone’s scans. And then downloaded a heuristic inhibitor to it from the ship's computer, just to be on the safe side.
Imril: Ready to go.
Bancroft: ::wincing:: Try not to look directly at it. It responds poorly to confidence.
Imril: Try to stop talking about it like it’s a holocomic supervillain. Your heart rate will thank you.
The engineer knew all too well how easily technology could be anthropomorphized. Particularly the main engine of a starship. A behemoth often spoken of by engineers as though it were a living, breathing thing in need of care and sustenance. Which, arguably, helped people to intuit the needs of maintenance and feel out just how far past the textbook limits said devices could be pushed in a crisis. In this case, however, treating the WHIMPER like it was alive was putting everyone in the room on edge and adding (fearful) bias to what should be a fact-based diagnosis.
Tho’Bi: Responses
The containment field dropped with a low-frequency thrum which was noticeably different from that of the ship’s engines.
Bancroft: Okay. ::deep breath:: Round two. Let’s get it right this time.
Tho’Bi: Responses
Free of the confines of the containment field, W.H.I.M.P.E.R. stirred, shifting from its hibernation state into a soft, steady ‘ready to start up’ hum.
Roy lifted his tricorder like a shield and glanced at the others.
Bancroft: My gut says to activate it. ::a pause:: But given that my gut is the reason we’re in the HML this morning, maybe I let you two go first. ::beat, dry:: What’s step one?
Imril: Step one is to shore up our own safety. Just in case this thing really does start sending out somehting harmful to us.
One way to do that would be to take advantage of the same safety system which could render unsecured phasers harmless.
Imril leaned closer to the device’s storage case. Read the invoice number stamped upon it. And then tapped their combadge.
Imril: =/\= Computer, standby to remotely de-power Hazardous Material Lab Item Number 569-7-Eta, code-name WHIMPER. Activate protocol under the standard HDL safety parameters, and add the following temporary initiation prompt; Code Grey. =/\=
Just in case they all needed to scream something simple to shut the thing down.
Computer: =/\= Acknowledged. Standing by. =/\=
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Responses
Imril initiated their first scan. The WHIMPER’s underlying medical scanner tech was competently put together. Roy clearly had some engineering classes under his belt. The trouble lay in the multiple customizations made to it.
Imril: Looks like we’re both right, Tho’Bi. Or sort-of right. This is a rather hefty battery for the size of the device. And I can see evidence of where a smaller battery housing used to be. There’s also carbon scoring across the various pieces of hardware, evidence of power surges. ::To Bancroft, smiling teasingly:: Looks like someone tried to brute force their way past systemic irregularities by upping the power.
Admittedly not the worst way to try to see if the modified scanner gear actually worked before trying to pin down a problem which was preventing it from doing so.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Responses
Imril continued their analysis.
Imril: The scoring has introduced flaws in the insulation through which electricity can flow in unpredictable directions. Creating the likelihood of impedance to some components while compounding the effect of power surges directed at others. Effectively, random parts of the device are being starved or gorged with energy, and which is which is constantly changing.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Responses
That was the hardware examined. But what about the computer side of the malfunction(s)?
Imri: Downloading software for analysis…. There’s something… unusual… in the firmware command line prompts that I can't readily identify. Tho’Bi, can you sort it out?
‘Firmware’ meaning the specialized programming which was embedded in the device’s hardware, acting as a bridge between it and the onboard operating system. The coding which made the device function as a WHIMPER rather than an engineering tricorder or phase discriminator or some other computerized tool.
Tho’Bi/Bancroft: Responses
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant JG Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12