Lt. JG Zhanyt Lafizatar - Presentation

[Koihime Nakamura]

((Briefing Room, USS Veritas))

Lafizatar: ::cautiously:: Aye, ma'am?

Rahman: I've received a request from the local university on the colony. They'd like you to give a talk to their students about it--as well as just your life in Starfleet as a science officer.

Her science officer raised her eyebrow in return but then seemed to be open to the possibilities such a talk might present.

Lafizatar: That would make sense.

Rahman: Would you be interested?

Lafizatar: I can, yeah. I'd need to prep some materials, but I was working on my dissertation, and the scans we took were useful, so it's fresh. I might even be able to submit it while we're here.

Rahman: Great! Is there anything--ship's resources, officers--you need to prepare?

Lafizatar: It's mostly the convenience of the connection network over fixed planets, but it is almost done. I should be able to give the talk whenever the university wants as long as it's after 1600 today.

Rahman: Yes, I think they had in mind a lecture at the end of the week. The CO of the Starfleet Annex on Star Station Esperance, Commander Zhou Tai-Sheng, is aboard and will be going with you. Sort of as the "recruitment" pitch for the more general "How to join Starfleet" questions, but he and I both agree that letting the students ask questions of a science officer such as yourself can help them see what a career in Starfleet might offer them beyond the pop culture image of starship adventure.

Zhanyt nodded. She wouldn't mind seeing the Commander again, and if she had more time, she wanted to actually set up a display she had seen from a seminar in the Academy. It was visually impressive, and really was an excellent example of the potential of holographic projectors.

Lafizatar: Makes sense. Sometimes you want specifics, and with the additional time I can put more effort into the presentation.

The Kriosian nodded and smiled.

Rahman: Well, I just have one pro-tip after having given my own lectures to civilians before...

Zhanyt watched as Roshanara seemed to be lost in memories for a second

Rahman: Try to make things interactive or with lots of interesting visuals.

Lafizatar: Will do!

Rahman: Good luck, Lieutenant! I'm sure you'll have no trouble inspiring the next generation.

.oO I.. well.. I hope so? Oo.

Lafizatar: Aye, ma'am.

((University of New Shanghai, Donova IV, Later That Week))

Commander Zhou Tai-Sheng was waiting by the entrance to the Dr. Ghee P'Trell Lecture Hall with a crate of Starfleet-branded "goodies" to give out to the students during the Q and A session. There were hats with the Starfleet insignia, water bottles, and even rolls of signed posters by the senior staff of the Federation flagship (copies of course).

Zhou: Ready for the firing squad?

Lafizatar: I.. if this is as bad as the thesis committe, I'm leaving right now. ::Zhanyt was only half joking.:: Pleased to meet you again, Commander.

He shook his head.

Zhou: It was a dumb joke. Anyway, it'll be nice. I've done a few of these before. You'll get all kinds of questions--be prepared for some pretty asinine ones. But it's good to see the kids excited still about joining up.

Zhanyt nodded, although she had been hearing that classes had been picking up, partially driven by the continued political crisis spreading across the Federation, including the failure of the Fenris Rangers to take several of the more seedier planets within the former Romulan-Federation NZ area, now often referred to as the Romulus Badlands. Her gold eyes scanned the space around them while they waited.

Still, it was true that enrollment was still down and very much down from what it needed to be for Starfleet to meet all of it's obligations. She personally thought Starfleet should look at their admission procedure, but that's just her personal opinion

Lafizatar: I'd hope so.

Zhou: So, what's your talk about, again?

Lafizatar: It's about the protostar nebula the Veritas investigated, and why it's behaving totally different than we expect, primarily due to the subspace fractures that cause the tetryon fields in the Shoals. It's got some interesting historical perspecives, although I may not have time to get to that in any detail.

Zhou: Ah... of course. Sounds... fascinating.

Lafizatar: ::wryly:: No worries, I will probably be simplifying it in the presentation.

The two were interrupted by Professor Olanrewaju Lawal, an older human man with a dark complexion. He beckoned for the two officers to come into the hall.

Lawal: They're waiting for you two. I think we're all set.

Zhou nodded as he picked up the crate and walked forward.

Zhou: Thank you, Professor.

Lafizatar: Thank you, Professor.

Lawal: Looks like you have a good crowd today. Who's starting?

The Esperance Annex CO looked over and up at his fellow officer and nodded again.

Zhou: Why don't we start with you, Lieutenant. You have the more interesting topic after all. And then I can follow up with the standard, "The Federation Needs You!" speech.

Lafizatar: Fair.

Zhanyt had actually never heard that speech - primarily due to how she joined Starfleet, so she was kinda curious to see the divergence in their answers. As she loaded the program into the holoemitters on the lecture's hall, she looked around - this was a very large crowd, mostly younger teenagers. She mentally revised a bit of her lecture, and waited for the introduction. She had to resist the urge to brush her rainbow hair in her slight anxiety, since she had actually tied it into a long ponytail for this lecture.

Lawal: Thank you all for coming. Today, we have a special treat for you all. The USS Veritas is in orbit, and her science officer Lieutenant Zhanyt Lafizatar is here to give a presentation on her work aboard this vessel. Along with Lieutenant Lafizatar, Commander Zhou Tai-Sheng of the Starfleet Support Annex of Star Station Esperance is here to answer further questions about Starfleet in general. After their presentations, we'll open up to a Q and A session.

Lawal: Lieutenant? The stage is yours.

Lafizatar: Thank you, Professor. ::The Mathenite accent to Federation Standard was a lilting one - something vaguely similar to the Celtic accents present on old Earth, but with an alien dissonance that often made it jarring.:: As she said, I am Lieutenant Zhanyt Lafizatar, and I hail from the planet Zeta Pavlonis, which is near Bajor, and part of the Mathenite Confederacy. ::Zhanyt should probably address that early, since some people actually just asked if the bunny ears were a phase.. once..:: And today..

Zhanyt taps a control, and a star map of the Shoals appears, the stars gleaming, with the occasional glitches due to the tetryon fields, although she was overlaying visual astronomy over the subspace feeds, resulting in glitches appearing around stars. The map expands over the stage, actually reaching over the heads of the ones in front. It was something that Professor Ziegler had demonstrated when covering unusual stars as part of her astrophysics courses, and with the datascreens of data appearing, often more useful than other methods.

Lafizatar: I'm here to talk about the protostar nebula LSSR-102919. ::As she speaks, the hologram zooms in on the sector of space.:: In a fairly rare shift, the tetryon fields had shifted enough for us to analyze this in depth. ::wryly:: While other events happened during the survey, I want to discuss the survey itself, as we discovered that it's not a protostar nebula. ::She waves, and the hologram becomes a recreation of the system, complete with a extremely unusual violet star, and heavily ionizing nebula everywhere.. but odd sites whre it seems there's eruptions of a purple particle that faded into the characteristic purple-white tetryron fields present throughout the region.::

She takes a sip of water, and continues, motioning as the emissions spectra and other details showed up.

Lafizatar: This is the LSSR-102919 system. The violet star there is a one point six Sol mass star, and analysis suggests that it's this way due to tetryonic reactions within the star. In fact, that is likely the only reason we can categorize it as violet. It is one of the few violet stars in the galaxy, and those eruptions - those subspace rifts - are why. The system is awash in ionized tetryon fields that are somehow electromagnetically bound to the nebula. We've left some probes - but I admit they'll have a very short life due to the nebula - and what is more interesting to me is that -

The hologram was actually large enough that she could walk into it, and did so, stopping by two orbits. As she did, short data windows appeared in air. She had actually included some of the little data they got on the two worlds, including the fact both were Minshara-class, and with mostly reasonable climates, although both were prone to peculiar weather. Still..

Lafizatar: -it supports life. One planet, at the early industrial age, and one planet claimed by the sentients on the ark asteroid. The star was named 'Kalion', after the Mathenite word for providence. ::she pauses:: I named it because I won at Rock-Paper-Scissors, let no one tell you that it is a useless skill. ::she gives a moment for laughter to die down:: More specifically, though, it is an interesting microcosm of the tetryonic drift throughout this region, and our science department is actually collecting additional data from all available sources.

She motions again, and due to the haptic glove she was wearing, the hologram shifted to the ongoing Operation Shoal Bank, a Starfleet Science operation to map out the region in greater detail and provide better warning systems as well as ways to ensure better communications. It had actually started in 2299, but it took a lot of time to get this much detail - the Shoals sector, and it's upward and downward sectors full of probabilistic drift and known major tetryon hot spots. When shown in this detail, an oddity was always noticed - the field strength decreased as a *linear* function of distance from a point in the Shoals so deep in the tetryon fields, to this date no ship or probe had survived to reach it.

Lafizatar: We think we might be able to provide more warning for tetryonic storms as well as find out more about why this region has so many subspace rifts, as this data narrows down a few theories, and provides a possibility of a very unusual one. Right now, for example, the competing theories are a chain of high mass supernovas in the past creating rifts in subspace or just that there are areas of the galaxy that are closer to subspace due to hypergravitaion, but the data gathered throughout the sector also notes that the overall pattern is very much like a sphere around a central point.

Zhanyt motioned again, and the holofield returned to it's standby state.

Lafizatar: And, hopefully, providing I can defend my thesis, enough to finish out my work on getting my doctorate. Although, if you think your professors are harsh, turn that up to maximum, then double it. ::Zhanyt gives only a half feigned shudder:: Anyway, that is the presentation. I will now turn it over to Commander Zhou

Zhanyt stepped back, and listened to Zhou give his presentation. It was a bit different than the pitch she got when she joined the Confederate Navy, but the tenor was the same. Also, admittedly, a bit interesting that it appealed more to the adventurous rather than the nationalism and patriotism of the person. And then came the Q&A, which she had steeled herself for.

Students/Lawal: Questions

TAG/TBC

Lt. JG Zhanyt Lafizatar

Science Officer

USS Veritas

C239112CA0