Lieutenant JG Ollie Bergmen - The best idea is always to press something you don't know what it does, am I right?
CPT Arianus
(( Faraday room, Garden Cave, inside the cliffs, Callis I ))
The orange ribbed box could catch the eye, largely due to the prominent Starfleet Delta emblazoned on its top. But that was all interesting you could say about the Accident Data Recorder. Heatsink ribbing may have looked interesting, yet the overall design seemed impractical and almost otherworldly. For those unfamiliar with it, it seemed like just another unnecessary piece of technology. Leaving it behind didn't feel like a loss, especially here, where that gadget was useless, much like all the other electronics down in this place.
Not for Ollie Bergmen. For him, deep in his heart, was that orange ribbed box sign of hope. Well of knowledge, which once will be important again. Maybe not to him, but to others, more well-educated and trained. Those who will understand what the box was trying to say. But now, its screen was black, dead, silent. As everything other down here. Not that much hopeful. Ollie knew exactly what to do, provided that the device was still operational.
A few quick keystrokes brought the screen to life. Not like there would be much to see, except the endless computer code scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. Yet his eyes widened with excitement and hope.
Bergmen: Holy Koala… it works… ::glance to Jovenan:: Accident data recorder from the escape pod… it works, ma’am.
The diagnostics rapidly indicated that all systems were all green. The instrument databanks remained uncorrupted. The device itself stood unharmed and fully functional.
K’Wara: Now I really wish we’d brought all our equipment with us.
Bancroft: Me too. But we couldn’t have known.
Jovenan: If we’re going to be staying here for much longer, we might as well try to return to our pod again. I would love to get my tricorder here, and all the medical tools as well. Maybe… maybe we could even try to figure out what happened to the others.
Bancroft: If other pods made it down here… ::thinking:: It’s pretty unlikely this is the only shielded spot on the planet, right?
Ollie found himself wishing he had at least a tricorder at hand. Although the recorder could display raw data, its formatting and structure were intended for someone to interpret its knowledge on a holodeck, supported by the computing power of the ship's computer - not for a desperate foursome eager to get more from a mere seven-inch flat screen.
But the lieutenant did not give up. He accessed the pod's sensor data moments after their launch from Karnack, hoping that networking remained operational as they descended to planetfall. But data from passive mode showed no results, while active mode only sent a single ping before encountering a cyclic redundancy check error with the networking module and sensors. Ollie opened the data from the single active ping, disregarding the networking module's failure to receive any other ping from other pods, and focused on the active sensors, attempting to translate the data stream into something he could use. In the end, it was merely zeros and ones, and he was a trained programmer.
Bergmen: Our pod… ::paused, looking at the screen:: I think… (beat) I think that our pod registered other pods immediately after we launched from Karnack, just in that split second it had before the maelstrom could disrupt its systems…
Jovenan: We’d have to figure out if the combadge signals carry outside the room anyway. And even if they do, and our friends have found another shielded spot, they might be out of the range. Without a ship to boost it, combadge range isn’t enough to cover but a fraction of the planet’s surface.
K’Wara: What about the Karnack? Maybe it crashed somewhere?
That was an entirely different question. While the ADR included a copy of the Karnack databanks, the backup covered only two or maybe three hours of data, and only from a couple of critical systems used to analyze and determine the cause of the catastrophe—not a complete data dump. Furthermore, the ship had already experienced a system failure for some time when they launched the pod. So it was possible that everything usable for analyzing the situation or the ship's current position had already been overwritten by the error messages in the copy of the databanks uploaded into ADR at the pod's launch.
Bancroft: I don’t remember seeing debris trails. If she’d broken apart in orbit, we would have seen something, right?
Jovenan: Don’t know. It would be large enough to survive the atmospheric entry, but it was also breaking apart when we left it… and well, it was already breaking apart when we boarded it.
Ollie shook his head in dismissal.
Bergmen: Karnack did not fail because it was breaking apart beneath us as we left the dock; it failed because of the Maelstrom.
K’Wara: Maybe... But, there was an explosion, so the Karnack must have taken actual damage before losing electricity. And if it’d gone completely dead immediately, then we wouldn’t have been able to launch the escape pods in the first place. ::scratches their scalp thoughtfully:: Darn it, I really hope it crashed and isn’t just drifting in orbit somewhere.
Bancroft: Is there some way we can find out?
Jovenan: I don’t know. Not with what we have, I reckon. Our time is best used by investigating what options we have. If you can come up with something we can do with combadges, the accident data recorder and, well, sticks, stones and backpack full of fruits, please share it with us. Otherwise, let’s see if the people here had something else useful tucked away.
The commander shrugged. There was no way to answer the question in theory, even less in practice. There, electronics worked. Outside? Not that much. So they were left with what they had here in this faraday cage they discovered.
Bergmen: The ADR can help, Roy, as it holds copies of some Karnack systems. But this… ::points to ADR:: …wasn’t built to be analyzed without proper instruments we don’t and will not have - like computing power of a starship computer. ::glance to Jovenan and K’Wara:: Even with a tricorder, we will need to sift through the data and make connections ourselves, and that takes time. A lot of it. And still we will end with a lot of maybes and probabilities. And all that only if we are lucky, and the data we will need to guess what happened to Karnack after we left it has not been overwritten by its final moments.
He aimed to stay optimistic, avoiding being overly pessimistic, especially since it was his idea and likely his responsibility to see it through. But he also didn't want to raise false hopes. But they have no ship - even if they would want to search for one - nor computing power, nor even that tricorder which would ease the need for making fully manual computations. So that idea could wait for at least that tricorder. And in the meantime? Roy decided to explore the room with the commander. And Ollie tried at least to find out if the data was here, even if he couldn't decode them now.
A pooping sound and a doctor's voice a moment later meant that Roy had finally found something useful.
Bancroft: Woof. ::clears throat, voice rasping slightly:: That’s… distilled. ::studying the bottle:: Alcohol, high proof. ::spreading grin:: I can sterilize things now.
Jovenan: That’s great! But let’s all still continue to avoid getting cuts.
Ollie glanced at the darkened nail beds on his left hand, which he wounded when climbing. The advice had come too late, and even the lieutenant doubted that alcohol would be of any help with this bleed as that bleeding cut was internal—but after all, that's where blood is supposed to be, right?
Bergmen: Good find, doctor. Keep looking for more!
K’Wara: Response
Ollie watched where Bancroft returned the bottle, in case he would need to disinfect something later, even if internally, before he returned to the ADR and its lovely command console interface. The Doctor kept talking, though, as if to reassure them that they were alive, still holding onto hope, and not giving in to the despair that surrounded them. Ollie felt a flicker of understanding at the familiar tug of social anxiety.
Bancroft: And when we get off this godforsaken rock? ::glances between the other three and the bottles:: Our homecoming party’s bar is going to be exceptionally well stocked.
Jovenan: Nothing beats feasting with historical artifacts of an extinct civilisation. When we have access to the sickbay, it doesn’t even matter if it’s spoiled. ::to Bergmen, K’Wara:: Do you have anything yet?
The Karnack system data code scrolled slowly across the seven-inch screen, filled with system messages that demanded more attention than Bergmen could give. He could still make out a little of it, enough to confirm that the oldest data retained some value. Although there was significant cyclic data corruption in the active sensor equipment, the passive systems still functioned, albeit partially.
Bergmen: Give me a tricorder, a whiteboard, a physicist, and a day, and I will find you your ship.
The day was more about buffer time than the actual timeframe for him to do it, but watching the uncorrupted ship's passive gyroscopic data stream uploaded just moments before the escape pod launch gave him hope. Since some older active sensor data remained uncorrupted, and if they decoded those, there - hopefully - could be the coordinates of the unholy rock they had crashed into… and the rest was math to determine whether Karnack could still be locked into orbit, or gone - either crashed or slung into the darkness of space far away.
K’Wara: Response
Ollie rubbed his tired eyes, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle in after a long, arduous day. His limbs felt heavy and sluggish now when he stayed still, and he struggled to maintain the last flickers of energy needed to keep his mind focused. He snapped the cover shut on the ADR, knowing there wasn't much more he could do with it. As he stood up from the device, he felt the stiffness in his muscles. He needed to get moving and freshen up a bit.
Bancroft: Hey… Jo– uh, Commander? Lieutenants? Wanna take a look at this?
Jovenan: Any idea what this is and how to turn it on?
And whatever Bancroft found gave him a chance to move.
Bergmen: Oh, that could help, so, do you see some on-off button to press, doctor?
K’Wara/Bancroft: Response
Jovenan: I doubt something that was built in a place like this would require much outside infrastructure to turn on. Can you see anything that could be a power source, or anything where we could attach one of our own?
Yeah, that made sense, plus it made Bergmen remember the crystal they'd seen before.
Bergmen: Any chance there is a port the size of a shining, glowy crystal?
K’Wara/Bancroft: Response
Jovenan: I don’t know what I expected. ::pause:: At least it works. Good job. Now, anyone see familiar symbols?
The screen flickered to life, and as its UI started up, the commander let out a sigh. The text interface would be difficult, but eventually, they would figure it out - somehow. But pictograms like what they saw on the cave wall? Yeah, that was a language great to be UI, if you are six years old, trying to figure out what happens when you press a button.
Which wasn’t a bad idea, actually.
Bergmen: I recognize this one.
He didn’t, but the pictogram resembling an empty waving flag seemed the least threatening option among the choices.
The console began to make a terrible rattling sound, followed by a cloud of dust erupting from its side under the screen frame. As the rattling turned into a clicking noise, the screen briefly flashed and displayed what could almost be described as a blueprint with three buttons. The arrow likely indicated a return to the menu, but what was the purpose of the large wheel and the small wheel? Who knows…
The larger wheel seemed the right choice, if bigger meant zoom out, so he pressed that one. The console kept clicking; the screen flashed, and whatever it showed grew less detailed yet revealed more of the symbol on the lines that made up whatever it was showing them.
K’Wara/Bancroft: Response
Ollie lifted his finger from the wheel pictogram; the image stopped zooming out, and the console stopped clicking.
Bergmen: So, we have a map of something, if this is the map of… something.
K’Wara/Jovenan/Bancroft: Response
Ollie pressed the pictogram of an arrow and confirmed that the arrow returns the UI to whatever it was looking like a menu.
Bergmen: Any other pictograms someone recognizes or wanna try?
Ollie pointed at the screen as he stepped off the console to make space for others.
K’Wara/Jovenan/Bancroft: Response
TAG/TBC
–– ○● ––
Lieutenant JG Ollie Bergmen
Operations Officer
U.S.S. Artemis-A
A240009JC1