LtCmdr Jovenan – Surrounded by geniuses
Jovenan
((Lifecarer facility basement, Peace of Ellet, Boraxian Cityship))
Richards: Commander? Can you come take a look at all of this?
Jovenan turned sharply towards the Civilian Scientist, but it took her a few more seconds to adequately comprehend the meaning of the call. She had wandered to the other side of the doubly underground room, nominally scanning objects but only now realising that she had read very little of the figures running across the device’s screen. Instead, she had found herself deep in thought, wondering the ethical implications of what they were about to do. If they were lucky, they might be able to develop the antidote to Andoren’s aggression inducing effect, but doing so, they were merely drugging the population in to submission. Was that better? Could an unethical action that undoes an even worse action be considered justified? She didn’t give in to the desire – as unwanted and unpleasant as a desire could be – to dive back into her thoughts but instead started walking back towards where Richards was working.
Jovenan: Of course. What is it?
It appeared Richards had found a stash of vials and other samples, just like she had on the New Hope. A part of Jovenan’s mind found that a reason enough to suggest that it was not merely a standard medical cabinet Richards had found, but something related to the discovery they had made on the old colony ship earlier today. Jovenan scanned the findings as well, receiving as fascinating and wild readings as they had hoped to see.
Jovenan: You may want to set up your stuff, Doctor. Looks like we’ve found something worth looking at.
The new Artemis crewmember walked closer to her from where Lt K’Wara was working on the computers. Jovenan holstered her phaser and handed the other scientific crewmembers some of the samples for closer inspection.
Jaran: What do we have?
Richards: The scans on these samples are pretty close to the residue we found on the New Hope.
“Pretty close” was indeed accurate. The tricorder had little struggle identifying the molecular structure of what they had just found: it was in large parts similar to what was stored to its memory. Jovenan compared the graphs the device created to her of the sample and those produced by the science team on the Artemis. Although she hadn’t personally been part of that group and wasn’t a medical officer herself, she didn’t need much to spot the difference.
Jovenan: This substance has almost similar molecular structure to the Yurum secretions. Almost. This entire section is missing, almost as if someone had removed it. ::pause, thinks:: What would happen if someone were exposed to it? The receptors wouldn’t read it as the same structure, right?
Jaran: We barely understand how any of this process works yet. It really could go either way. The receptors could either say "eh, close enough" and try to process it like normal, or they could completely reject it as foreign. I can't know without a little time to study.
Richards: I wish we had more time, but unfortunately we don’t.
Jovenan wished she could side with both sentiments without contradicting the other. Sure they couldn’t just pump out whatever it was that they had just found and hope it happened to be the cure, but at the same time, she couldn’t justify full-length medical trials before distributing the antidote. Her very first mission had involved finding a cure to an artificial virus threatening a ship, so she understood both the desire for diligence and the pressure of the time-limit. And less than a year later, she had helped expose the entire crew to medicine to counter an exposure to drugs. Why did she find herself in this same scenario so often!?
Before further internal struggle, her attention was drawn to the computer terminal, which now hummed under Lt K’Wara’s hands.
K’Wara: That’s more like it!
Jaran: Good timing! Are we up and running?
Richards: It sure sounds like it. ::To K’Wara:: Something we can work with?
They stepped closer to the console. At the corner of her eye, Jovenan noticed Richards taking a moment to focus on her pregnant belly. She wondered if she should say something, at least let Richards know that she noticed her struggles, but instead, she turned towards the Lieutenant as if she hadn’t noticed anything. Although she tried to pay attention to the work at hand, Jovenan wondered if she had done what a good team leader and something of a friend would do when she had taken Richards here. She wondered how the actual leaders did it, appear so calm and confident of their choices.
K’Wara: Just a bit of outdated software, thank God. Otherwise, I’d have had far less success. ::accesses the computer:: Now, let’s see what Andoren and his goons kept in here.
The Lieutenant tried accessing their opponents’ databases. It didn’t seem to Jovenan that the system was protected in any way, either because of the revolutionaries/cultists incompetence or certainty of their victory, but the Lieutenant’s sigh indicated some other problem.
K’Wara: Evidently data management is an old nunnery tale to these people... ::looks to the scientists:: Any idea when those samples were last tampered with? Might give me some dates to filter by…
Richards: ::Turning back to the samples:: Let me see if I can find something. I can try and run some organic dating scans and see if that gives us an idea.
Jovenan: How about searching for the combinations of relevant keywords and dates from the past ::looks around:: year? Something like “experiment”, “test”, “result” and “sample”.
K’Wara:
That could work... ::inputs search criteria:: Hmm... Yeah, this
computer was definitely used for some sort of logkeeping. ::clicks
around:: ‘Research Update 258’...
‘Results: Test 21-A’…
Pretty sure what we need is in here, if we can figure out which file
to open. Any clues over there? A ‘Guide to Fanatic Cult
Bookkeeping’ textbook, maybe?
A little chuckle escaped Richards’ lips.
Richards: No but perhaps we can find a ‘Boraxian Illegal Research for Dummy’s’ around here somewhere.
Jovenan allowed herself to smile a little. There might have been a million people raging above the ground, perhaps fighting, maybe even killing each other and her colleagues and loved ones, but at least down there in the core of the ship they didn’t seem to have any danger threatening them. Besides, anxiety and fear were more effective in hindering their work than a joke or two.
Jovenan: Anything yet, Doctor?
Jaran: Does this mean anything? "43 61 72 64 61 73 73 69 61 20 73 75 63 6B 73". It's on the sample. Doesn't mean anything to me.
Richards: Maybe it’s some kind of code or encrypted data?
K’Wara: Response
Jovenan: Might be worth trying to search it from the logs. It could be a sample identifier for example.
It was not much more than a guess, but at least in her labs, the number one would write to their samples was almost always some kind of a code to tell the samples apart and possibly to display other information, such as the date when the sample was acquired or last studied, or what chemicals or other substances were in there.
Jaran: Commander, it may be hunch time. You asked about how the receptors would deal with this altered version of Yurumol? It looks like they would still accept it. All the ends match up, so the receptors would just treat it like the normal Yurumol. If that's the case, it's really dangerous, as it can be hard to predict how it would affect the body's systems.
Yurumol? Did they hear that word from the Boraxians, or did… did they just name it themselves and just assumed into use? The name wasn’t the most important part of their message, however. If she understood correctly, they might have just found what Andoren’s group used to drive the Boraxians mad… or an earlier experiment done in order to find that… or maybe something that worked similarly to “Yurumol” and could be used as an antidote.
Richards: How do we know for sure if that is the case?
Jovenan: I don’t think we’re able to start running our own trials, but we can try a rudimentary simulation with our devices. Finding the correct experiment logs would speed up our work by a lot.
K’Wara: Response
Jaran: I can only assume the research being done here, apart from the replication itself, is trying to dial in the effect of the fake Yurumol on the Boraxian body. I’d wager that each of these samples has iterations on what is missing.
Richards: According to the dating system, this research has been going on for a while. They’ve been at this for possibly years…
Jovenan bit her lip. The revolutionaries/cultists had for years to prepare for this attack. They hadn’t yet figured out – to her knowledge at least – if Andoren had taken advantage of the Yurum leaving or if he had been a force driving them to leave. It wasn’t important at the moment. The team had their own problems to solve first.
Jovenan: Let’s focus on the antidote. We need to figure out which of these samples is the one they used in the general population, then synthesise an antidote to it and find a way to distribute it to large enough an area that the situation above start calming down. Can we do that?
K’Wara/Jaran: Response
Richards shrugged. Jovenan couldn’t blame her; the CSO was asking a lot from her team and especially from Richards.
Richards: ::Turning to Jovenan and Jaran:: I am going to send this data to both of you too. Maybe you can help me sort through some of this.
Jovenan: Of course. We can comb through the data faster by each taking a part of it.
K’Wara/Jaran: Response
Richards: There is a highlighted section, something seems off about it, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?
It appeared Doctor Jaran had been more or less correct with their guess that each of the samples were a slight variation of the Yurumol or each other, removing or replacing different segments of the hormone’s molecular structure. The one Richards had highlighted was one of such experiment, in a way that rang bells in Jovenan’s mind. She scratched her head.
Jovenan: Looks like a some kind of awful combination of the non-functional Yurumol and noradrenaline. That’s a hormone that’s involved in many bodily functions, including the fight-or-flight reaction.
K’Wara/Jaran/Richards: Response
Jovenan: Okay, we have our suspect. Next, the antidote. Can we use a similar mechanism to counter it?
K’Wara/Jaran/Richards: Response
Jovenan clasped her hands together. She considered herself lucky to have this team with her, no matter the hardships and obstacles.
Jovenan: You guys are geniuses! ::pause, less enthusiastic:: If it works. Or, whether it works or not, but let’s try to make sure it does. How do we synthesise the antidote and distribute it without unnecessary risks?
K’Wara/Jaran/Richards: Response
((OOC: As you may have read from Liv’s sim, we’re closing to the end of the mission. Let’s try to solve our scene so that we can end in after a round. We can have some of the action happen off-screen if needed, so you don’t need to push too far!))
TAG/TBC----
Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Acting XO (Chief Science Officer)
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11