Revisiting Red Alert

Posted on Fri Jan 25th, 2019 @ 9:35am by Ensign Felicie Rivero & Lieutenant Cor Cordale

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/5
Location: Main Engineering

Felicie rested the heel of one foot on the seat in front of her, leaning forward and resting her chin on her knee as she stared at the console in front of her.

The repairs to the ship were almost complete and those that were oustanding had been assigned to teams that were working on them already, the upgrades to the sensors to isolate any attempted Shalti intrusion were in hand with Lieutenant Cordale, who was working with Sciences, so aside from munade every day engineering stuff, Felicie finally had some time to get back to working else.

Glancing up as Lieutenant Cordale started walking across the room. "Hey, Lieutenant, do you have a few minutes?" she called quickly.

The Thux gave Felicie a nod and a cheerful smile as she called herself to his attention, "I sure do. What's on your mind? Let's walk and talk."

Jumping out of her seat, Felicie fell into step beside him. "With the Shalti out of the way at least for the moment, and with all the repairs all under control I thought I'd spend some of my spare time working on something else a little less life or death... I don't know if you remember, I spoke to you, like, forever ago about some holographic emitters? And you mentioned your bar napkin doodles that might have been helpful?"

To that, he smiled and actually chuckled. "Oh man... okay, so did you ever take hologram theory and replicator science back in the Academy? It was an elective, and I needed half a credit so I was like, ehh, fuck it. I'll take it. So about three weeks in I'm learning everything there is about the hologram theory system, forces to light sequencing, and the replicator design, and then the night after a massive lecture the gang and I hit the bar and, well... we get hammered." he admitted.

"Then, I start to think. Cause I'm an Engineer, can't really turn off the brain right. And I start to doodle some math on a bar napkin. And then I ask for more napkins..." he started, "And when I was done, I had designed, well... a project. It was a device that would skim matter off asteroids and store it in a matter buffer, then use it to replicate itself, but ten percent larger. And then it would store the old device in a larger matter buffer, and replicate the process until you had a device large enough and complex enough to skim matter off of asteroids and use it to replicate an entire starship frame. One solid piece of solid construction. Heck, even add in all the internals and the whole shell. Sure, it'd take a small forever, but once it was up and running it could essentially supplement our shipyards."

"Turns out, the professor's nephew worked in the shipyards. My doodle would put him out of work. So, he graciously asked me to leave his class. I bargained for a pass instead of a withdraw, but still." he chuckled.

Felicie laughed as he recounted the tale. "I contemplated taking it, I was keen, but, well, I had a disagreement with our faculty coordinator and I ended up spending 10 weeks studying the machinations of waste management to atone for my sins. I suspect hologram theory and replicator science would have been much more enjoyable. But hey, at least you got the pass, right?" Felicie shook her head. He was a strange one indeed. "Specifically you had talked about mounting holographic emitters into drones for ease of use in a larger scale environment, to be able to have them scattered around the room but still integrated together."

He smirked, and gave a nod, "Networked drones with hologram emitters. they wouldn't even need to be that big really. Biggest part would be the power source, really." he chuckled, already working on the specifics. "So, what's the plan?"

"I'm thinking probably six of them around the room, all interconnected. One in each corner, then then two at other locations to draw the holographic effect in toward the center of the room as well. Power wise, instead of using drones it would be easy enough to hard wire them directly to the ceiling and patch them into the main power feed, it would just need to be done in such a way that it could be removed later if needed." Felicie paused for a moment, trying to think if there was anything else she was missing, that was, other than the actual truth.

"Well if you're looking for permanent or semi-permanent then yeah, full coverage would go for corners and maybe two midway through the room along the walls. Plug them into the main power system and give them computer access and you'd have yourself essentially an infant version of the holodeck. It'd lack the functionality of the holodeck, in that the deck is tied into the replicator system to produce real objects on demand, but aside from that yeah, it'd work pretty nicely."

"Let me guess... hologram enhanced meeting room? Tactical hologram display?" he inquired.

"Nothing that worthwhile," Felicie replied with a laugh. "Just helping a friend plan out a surprise for someone. I'm not terribly concerned about not being able to produce real objects in real time. It's more just being able to create the effect that I'm after."

He smirked, "So just images. Still, plenty of good to come to that. Hologram conversations, adaptive wallpaper and decorations, hell if it's a surprise *party* you could even do digital confetti." he chuckled. "So, what's the effect, or is it Need To Know?"

Felicie laughed and shook her head. "Nothing strictly secretive as such. It's kind of a pop up surprise party, I'm in charge of decorations so I'm thinking holographic confetti, glitter and streamers. Then after it's all done, no mess no fuss and nothing to clean up. Turn off the holoemitters and it's all done."

"As someone with fur, I appreciate digital glitter." he chuckled, a good hearty chuckle that almost made him stop in place. "You know, I like that plan. If you need a hand installing, let me know." he offered.

Given how helpful he was being about the everything, Felicie found herself suddenly feeling rather guilty and offered a sheepish grin. "I'm sure you're much too busy to worry about fussing with my silly toys," she said quickly, silently cursing Renee. "Though I'd be really appreciative if you can help me with the replicating for the actual equipment."

Cordale gave a nod, holding his head in his living hand. "Yeah, I have a pile of repair reports about as thick as a shuttlecraft." he sounded disappointed. "I was looking for a way out, but I really shouldn't shirk my duty. Though yeah, I'll certainly help you at least replicate the parts no problem. This way." he brought Felicie over to the Engineering replicator banks.

A pang of guilt really struck her at his response. "If you really want to help I'd probably welcome it?" she offered with a quick smile. "I mean, I'll be honest, this is kind of well above anything I thought I'd be doing in my first year on an actual assignment. At this point I pretty much expected to be stuck in waste management, especially given my academy transcripts," she grinned across at him. "Though, thanks to about eleventy billion hours in what was essentially detention at the academy I'm actually pretty good at dealing with repair reports, so if you want help I'm more than happy to volunteer my time, it really is the least I can do!"

He gave her a nod and a smile, "No Thux ever turned away from hard work. Says so in the book." he said, almost matter-of-fact. "I mean, I appreciate it, but you've got something on your plate already. Now, I mean, when you're done if you want to help..." he gave her a smirk. "I mean it, I got this. Thux honor and all." he held up two fingers on his living hand. "Seriously."

"Though, I think you *might* have broken my record for detention at the academy." he chuckled.

Felicie laughed openly. "Hey, what can I say, my years at the academy were interesting to say the least. Though it sounds like yours would give me a run for my money. After we replicate the parts I'll help you with the reports. I don't mind. Besides, I might need a good recommendation one day to get me out of trouble," she finished with a wink.

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Lieutenant Cor Cordale
Chief Engineer
USS Wellington

Ensign Felicie Rivero
Engineering Officer
USS Wellington