LtCmdr Kettick: Code 18s and contaminants
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Darwin Awkward
May 31, 2026, 5:51:05 PM (5 days ago) May 31
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((Power Chamber 2, Deck 742-Beta, Voth Generation Ship Igirni))
The data started coming in. A 4 kHz pulse pattern from the internal electronics of the radiation detectors. Hard to say whether it meant anything; according to the Voth Engineer, their sensors were functionally blind below the 100 Hz range. Aside from Kettick knocking his assessment of this ship's technology down another order of magnitude, it meant that the pulses could have been there and simply undetected since before any of them was born.
The sensor delays on the other hand could offer a possible explanation to the issue at hand, with each correction being just slightly off-beat in a way that builds up over time to a point where they would actually work at counter-purpose.
Except...
Xarrin: ::shaking his head:: It’s not bad because it’s not possible. I don’t know about your ship but nothing within our reactor assembly can be fine-tuned to such a degree.
The reptilian looked over at Kettick. Who looked back, because he had just heard that the main energy-generating construct of a ship this size ran on a feedback loop with a reaction time far too close to the second for comfort.
Kettick: Which could also mean that you have a recurring problem because you have no way to notice its cause, let alone fix it.
ch’Clex: So how do we go about fixing it then?
And that was the answer everyone present would like to have.
Kettick: We would first need to know precisely what is failing, and then try to determine why.
Stapledon: Well, we'd probably be able to tell by looking for fine metallic dust in some of the equipment.
Adea: In which case, let’s run some scans, searching for a fine metallic dust. Should be fairly easy to find, no?
Their host sighed, and Kettick gave him a questioning head-tilt.
Xarrin: I’d be stunned if you didn’t find any given three sets of rods have failed, especially since the two replacements failed in the last three days. They only lasted 30 or so hours each!
Kettick had learnt a lesson in diplomacy early in his career, by speaking his mind without a filter to a Jem'Hadar Prime. The memory of it was still present to his mind, and it was probably the only reason why he managed to force his mandibles shut with an audible click.
Make it an order of magnitude down in technology and overall design level.
Stapledon : Response?
The Andorian lifted his tricorder and adjusted the scan parameters.
ch’Clex: Beginning scan now.
The scan in itself took no time at all. The walk to where the dust was, considerably more so.
Adea: I guess we can clear the dust, but we would need to find its origin as well, no? To prevent it from happening again.
Xarrin: Without stating the obvious, that would require us to find the cause of the failures and we are yet to do that. :: gesturing towards Stapledon:: I also thing we have a long way to go to prove your hypothesis. If the servos controlling the rods are being sent incorrect signals, I’d have expected them to fail long before the rods given the size of them.
The Tactical officer kept his eyes on the tricorder but answered carefully.
ch’Clex: I agree that the dust alone does not prove cause. But it will give us a trail.
The Remmilian nodded as he walked, head and antennae on a swivel, cataloguing everything around him.
Kettick: If we can find the first element to fail, we can hope to reconstitute the chain. And break it.
Stapledon / Adea: Response
The Voth kept his attention on their Science officer.
Xarrin: I’m not saying your hypothesis is wrong, but dust on its own does not prove anything and I’m unconvinced servo’s firing incorrectly would have caused the two replacement rods to have failed as quickly as they did. I think we should consider what else might have caused this.
A sensible approach. Although Kettick thought that they were not going to state the obvious.
Kettick: And we are, Chief Engineer. Simply making sure to check every possibility. This one is simply the first to have jumped up at us. If we notice anything else abnormal, it will go on the list as well.
Stapledon / Adea: Response
Xarrin: No, we shouldn't rule anything out, I just don’t believe this is an entirely mechanical problem. Are your scans sophisticated enough to long for any compounds that shouldn’t be in the reactor? Perhaps it’s become contaminated somehow in a way our diagnostic instruments are unable to detect?
The Remmilian kept his professional composure, but a twitch in his facial feelers told the story to those who knew him. Given that whatever happened had generated enough energy to warp solid metal rods the size of an orbital launchers, on what was perhaps the most critical part of a ship, whose every available surface should be covered with sensors? And had happened no less than three times thirty hours apart, which should have warranted all the department's eyes on it and more? The fact that the locals still did not know what had happened either meant that their sensors were sad jokes, or that the main issue was in front of the consoles.
Kettick: If you give us the baseline, most likely.
Stapledon / ch’Clex / Adea: Response
Their resident blue giant glanced down at his tricorder and adjusted the sweep.
ch’Clex: I can run a parallel scan for compounds that do not match the local material profile.
The Chief Engineer nodded in agreement, lost in the contemplation of the reactor blueprints on his own PADD. His expertise gave him a measure of tactical authority, but ultimately the decision was the Captain's.
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
Kettick: By your command. Mister Stapledon, please carry on. Mister ch'Clex, perimeter sweep, if you would. I will focus on the core.
And the Captain would handle the bruised pride of their prickly contact. Best of luck to him.
They started their scans, and to Kettick's mounting frustration, the energy coming from the reaction caused enough interference to make his readings near illegible. There was a small peak in the spectral analysis that did not match the baseline, but in small enough quantities that it might as well be an artifact.
ch’Clex: I have something.
The Remmilian turned his head towards his colleague.
ch’Clex: Trace amounts of an unknown compound near the affected housing. Very faint. It may be contamination, but it is not part of the reactor assembly.
Kettick: Forward the spectral profile, please.
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
The Andorian took two steps back, following an invisible trail.
ch’Clex: The same trace is present beyond the reactor housing.
The Chief Engineer confirmed his findings, and piped in.
Kettick: Good job, Lieutenant. I have the same trace in minute amounts in the reactor core. Mister Stapledon, in your own expertise, would this kind of compound be likely to emit radiation pulses?
Say, at a couple kilohertz?
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
Kettick: Not quite my expertise, I am afraid. But we could ask Eagle to run a quick simulation of the reaction profile with the extra compound mixed in, see where it leads us?
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea / ch'Clex: Response?
The insectoid nodded, pointing different lcoations with a spindly finger as he exposed his hypotheses.
Kettick: Either the trail comes out of the reactor through this access hatch and moves towards the rest of the facility... :: He reversed the movement :: Or the contaminant has been brought in, by mistake or by malice. Mister Xarrin, if we show you the probable structure of our mystery substance, can you tell us if this has any use elsewhere ons-hip, or quickly get in touch with someone that does?
--
The data started coming in. A 4 kHz pulse pattern from the internal electronics of the radiation detectors. Hard to say whether it meant anything; according to the Voth Engineer, their sensors were functionally blind below the 100 Hz range. Aside from Kettick knocking his assessment of this ship's technology down another order of magnitude, it meant that the pulses could have been there and simply undetected since before any of them was born.
The sensor delays on the other hand could offer a possible explanation to the issue at hand, with each correction being just slightly off-beat in a way that builds up over time to a point where they would actually work at counter-purpose.
Except...
Xarrin: ::shaking his head:: It’s not bad because it’s not possible. I don’t know about your ship but nothing within our reactor assembly can be fine-tuned to such a degree.
The reptilian looked over at Kettick. Who looked back, because he had just heard that the main energy-generating construct of a ship this size ran on a feedback loop with a reaction time far too close to the second for comfort.
Kettick: Which could also mean that you have a recurring problem because you have no way to notice its cause, let alone fix it.
ch’Clex: So how do we go about fixing it then?
And that was the answer everyone present would like to have.
Kettick: We would first need to know precisely what is failing, and then try to determine why.
Stapledon: Well, we'd probably be able to tell by looking for fine metallic dust in some of the equipment.
Adea: In which case, let’s run some scans, searching for a fine metallic dust. Should be fairly easy to find, no?
Their host sighed, and Kettick gave him a questioning head-tilt.
Xarrin: I’d be stunned if you didn’t find any given three sets of rods have failed, especially since the two replacements failed in the last three days. They only lasted 30 or so hours each!
Kettick had learnt a lesson in diplomacy early in his career, by speaking his mind without a filter to a Jem'Hadar Prime. The memory of it was still present to his mind, and it was probably the only reason why he managed to force his mandibles shut with an audible click.
Make it an order of magnitude down in technology and overall design level.
Stapledon : Response?
The Andorian lifted his tricorder and adjusted the scan parameters.
ch’Clex: Beginning scan now.
The scan in itself took no time at all. The walk to where the dust was, considerably more so.
Adea: I guess we can clear the dust, but we would need to find its origin as well, no? To prevent it from happening again.
Xarrin: Without stating the obvious, that would require us to find the cause of the failures and we are yet to do that. :: gesturing towards Stapledon:: I also thing we have a long way to go to prove your hypothesis. If the servos controlling the rods are being sent incorrect signals, I’d have expected them to fail long before the rods given the size of them.
The Tactical officer kept his eyes on the tricorder but answered carefully.
ch’Clex: I agree that the dust alone does not prove cause. But it will give us a trail.
The Remmilian nodded as he walked, head and antennae on a swivel, cataloguing everything around him.
Kettick: If we can find the first element to fail, we can hope to reconstitute the chain. And break it.
Stapledon / Adea: Response
The Voth kept his attention on their Science officer.
Xarrin: I’m not saying your hypothesis is wrong, but dust on its own does not prove anything and I’m unconvinced servo’s firing incorrectly would have caused the two replacement rods to have failed as quickly as they did. I think we should consider what else might have caused this.
A sensible approach. Although Kettick thought that they were not going to state the obvious.
Kettick: And we are, Chief Engineer. Simply making sure to check every possibility. This one is simply the first to have jumped up at us. If we notice anything else abnormal, it will go on the list as well.
Stapledon / Adea: Response
Xarrin: No, we shouldn't rule anything out, I just don’t believe this is an entirely mechanical problem. Are your scans sophisticated enough to long for any compounds that shouldn’t be in the reactor? Perhaps it’s become contaminated somehow in a way our diagnostic instruments are unable to detect?
The Remmilian kept his professional composure, but a twitch in his facial feelers told the story to those who knew him. Given that whatever happened had generated enough energy to warp solid metal rods the size of an orbital launchers, on what was perhaps the most critical part of a ship, whose every available surface should be covered with sensors? And had happened no less than three times thirty hours apart, which should have warranted all the department's eyes on it and more? The fact that the locals still did not know what had happened either meant that their sensors were sad jokes, or that the main issue was in front of the consoles.
Kettick: If you give us the baseline, most likely.
Stapledon / ch’Clex / Adea: Response
Their resident blue giant glanced down at his tricorder and adjusted the sweep.
ch’Clex: I can run a parallel scan for compounds that do not match the local material profile.
The Chief Engineer nodded in agreement, lost in the contemplation of the reactor blueprints on his own PADD. His expertise gave him a measure of tactical authority, but ultimately the decision was the Captain's.
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
Kettick: By your command. Mister Stapledon, please carry on. Mister ch'Clex, perimeter sweep, if you would. I will focus on the core.
And the Captain would handle the bruised pride of their prickly contact. Best of luck to him.
They started their scans, and to Kettick's mounting frustration, the energy coming from the reaction caused enough interference to make his readings near illegible. There was a small peak in the spectral analysis that did not match the baseline, but in small enough quantities that it might as well be an artifact.
ch’Clex: I have something.
The Remmilian turned his head towards his colleague.
ch’Clex: Trace amounts of an unknown compound near the affected housing. Very faint. It may be contamination, but it is not part of the reactor assembly.
Kettick: Forward the spectral profile, please.
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
The Andorian took two steps back, following an invisible trail.
ch’Clex: The same trace is present beyond the reactor housing.
The Chief Engineer confirmed his findings, and piped in.
Kettick: Good job, Lieutenant. I have the same trace in minute amounts in the reactor core. Mister Stapledon, in your own expertise, would this kind of compound be likely to emit radiation pulses?
Say, at a couple kilohertz?
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea: Response?
Kettick: Not quite my expertise, I am afraid. But we could ask Eagle to run a quick simulation of the reaction profile with the extra compound mixed in, see where it leads us?
Xarrin / Stapledon / Adea / ch'Clex: Response?
The insectoid nodded, pointing different lcoations with a spindly finger as he exposed his hypotheses.
Kettick: Either the trail comes out of the reactor through this access hatch and moves towards the rest of the facility... :: He reversed the movement :: Or the contaminant has been brought in, by mistake or by malice. Mister Xarrin, if we show you the probable structure of our mystery substance, can you tell us if this has any use elsewhere ons-hip, or quickly get in touch with someone that does?
Tags/TBC
Lieutenant-Commander Kettick
Chief of Engineering
USS Eagle-A
G239107LR0
Your Engineering department kindly reminds you that you are supposed to read the flakking manual.
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