Breaking Down Barriers

Posted on 19 Nov 2017 @ 9:21am by Ensign Quinn Mackie & Lieutenant Commander Arjin Djinx & Lieutenant Danyl Adan & Lieutenant T'Pai & Lieutenant JG Jace Crystan & Master Warrant Officer Karyna Fordyce

1,845 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Crossing Over
Location: Briefing Room 3
Timeline: MD1 || 0900

Lieutenant T'Pai found herself the first to enter the briefing room, but perhaps that was a logical outcome of events. The purpose of this meeting was to determine a method for the Black Hawk to enter the Convergence Zone and, as the Black Hawk's Chief Engineer, the task for implementing any ideas arrived at would fall upon her.

With this conclusion set in her thoughts, T'Pai took at seat at one end of the room's table.

Ensign Quinn Mackie entered the room, holding a PADD filled to the max with information and another that was ready for note taking. "Lieutenant," greeted the ops officer as he took a seat near the center of the table. He was certainly not a senior officer, but centering himself in the middle of the action would enable him to hear all ideas and perhaps offer a suggestion of his own.

As Quinn sat, he pulled up the notes he'd taken on their last discussion of bombarding the zone's membrane with verteron particles. This hadn't been performed yet, after all, the ship had just arrived at the zone. He even had standing orders to sweep for chroniton particles, which he'd do as soon as a pallet was available.

Arjin enterd the briefing room with a PADD in his hand and plenty of ideas in his head. He nodded towards the engineering and ops officers ans sat himself down on an empty spot.

Entering the briefing room, Karyna took a seat at an empty end of the table. She didn't say anything to other people already present, but she did smile at each of them.

Jace meandered into the briefing room, likely a little more slowly than he should have. It had been another long night, but as always, he did it to himself. Burning the midnight oil was his favorite thing. He saw his department head and took the seat to his left. "Morning, sir."

Arjin nodded back at Lieutenant Crystan. "Morning Lieutenant."

Lieutenant Adan strolled into the conference room a little flustered. There was, after all, lots to do and little time to do it. Spying his cohort in crime, Ensign Quinn Mackie, he sidled up beside him and took a seat.

"Ensign Mackie," he greeted the officer.

"Morning, Lieutenant," Quinn said, smiling and nodding at the Trill Operations Chief.

"If there are no objections," T'Pai began, "Might I begin by reviewing the various theories we have developed to describe the Convergence Zone and the hypothetical methods to traverse it, and the type of methodology we might employ to test the validity of our theories?"

"By all means do.", Arjin replied.

"Accumulated data on the Convergence Zone leads me to agree with the prevalent theory that the area is a subspace distortion, with the 'barrier' around it being some type of Cochrane distortions. I would hypothesize that the 'barrier' is the result of these distortions reaching into higher spatial dimensions, perhaps as high as twelve. This, in turn, would account for the practical impermeability of the 'barrier' surrounding the Zone. Vessels attempting to navigate through the 'barrier' have failed because they are three dimensional objects attempting to navigate through a field that exists in more than three spatial dimensions."

Offered Adan, "That would mean we either fool the barrier into taking us as a twelve dimensional figure or turn it around and make it accept us as the three dimensional object we are. Interesting."

"From my studies of the da Gama's attempts," offered Quinn, "Most of the probes fired into the zone utilized variations of static warp bubbles and adjusted subspace fields. In all cases, telemetry ceased not long after firing, and there's no way to tell whether or not that method worked."

"Putting aside Lieutenant Adan's anthropomorphization of an interstellar object," T'Pai began, "It may be possible to navigate through the Convergence as if it were a three dimensional event. Assuming my hypothesis is correct. I would suggest duplicating the de Gama's attempts. And while doing so, we position auxiliary craft at the various entry points, and bombard those points with verteron particles. If my theory is correct, this should allow us to determine if the Convergence is indeed a higher dimensional event, and if it is possible to map our way through it. Though I suspect if there are navigable routes through the Convergence, they will be dynamic rather than static in nature."

"Seeing we know there are living beings who live inside the Convergence. It would speak for itself there would be navigable routes. And it may well be that not every point of barrier exists as a 12 dimensional event. It is not because we have not yet found the entrance that there is none.", Arjin offered.

"Indeed, Commander," T'Pai said with a nod. "Which is why I suggested bombarding entry points with verterons. We can then decide if the multi-dimensional hypothesis is correct, whether the hypothesis needs to be modified, or whether it should be abandoned all together. However, you raise an interesting point concerning the inhabitants inside the Convergence Zone. Did they migrate into that area at some point in the past prior to the existence of the Convergence Zone? Or if they were able to transit the Convergence Zone without adverse effects in the past, why are they unable to do so now? And there is always the possibility that at least some of the races inside the Convergence Zone evolved independently. There are numerous questions that can only be answered by being able to penetrate the Convergence Zone ourselves."

"If the verterons don't give us an entry point. We will need a plan B. Anyone any ideas?", Arjin added.

"There is the possibility of traversing the barrier via wormholes, Commander, as you suggested earlier," T'Pai answered. "The abundance of singularities and other related phenomena in the area are the byproduct of the spatial instability in the region of the Convergence Zone. It is conceivable that wormholes are spontaneously generating throughout the barrier as a counter to the region's inherent instability. Analogous to how hurricanes formed in the equatorial regions of Earth's oceans in order to disperse heat to the rest of the planet, prior to the advent of weather control," T'Pai added.

"We could test this theory by adapting probes to conduct automated lepton and meson diffraction scans at different points along the barrier, to see if we can detect these spontaneous wormhole generations."

"Sounds like a bit of a risk if you ask me," Ensign Quinn offered. While he was not a scientist, his engineering background required him to study subspace phenomena, especially since warp drives utilized subspace in order for ships to traverse the galaxy at high speeds. "Based on what has happened with the other ships that have left the zone, such wormholes, assuming that they used wormholes, are fatal to organic tissue. Passage through them would be impossible without finding means to protect ourselves from... whatever cosmic rays decimated those other species."

"True. We do not want to jump into one of those holes blindly. Were there any reports on the Vasco da Gamma concerning any biological matter that survived any of the attempts?", Arjin asked.

"Other than the emergence of the Aketi three years ago, I do not believe there has been a successful entrance or egress of the Convergence Zone," T'Pai replied. "It is my understanding that the Aketi themselves are not fully cognizant of the method which they successfully utilized. Assuming we are successful in advancing our understanding of the nature of the Convergence Zone through the use of observation of its reaction to select stimuli, it would be advisable to proceed with diligence and caution. The next logical step, assuming we establish a working model of the Convergence Zone, would be to send simpler biological forms into it, such as spore-producing organisms or smaller, uncomplicated invertebrates, to determine if we can develop a reliable and safe method of entering."

"The Aketi are the only species to have emerged from the Convergance successfully and we have little to go on there," said Adan. "I think the worm holes might prove to be dangerous. I think verteron particles are our best bet."

"Both need to be investigated," T'Pai replied. "As of yet, we have no definite understanding of the nature of the barrier surrounding the Convergence Zone." The Vulcan engineer paused before adding, "With respect, we are collectively engaging in a hysteron proteron...putting the cart before the horse. I believe that is the idiom. I would suggest that we bombard strategic points of the barrier with verteron particles while also monitoring for elevated meson and lepton emissions. If the verteron emissions produce predicted results, we may proceed with the hypothesis that the barrier, in fact, exists in multiple spatial emissions and that it was not traversed by wormholes. If we do find unusual levels of meson and lepton emissions, then we may proceed with the hypothesis that some type of wormhole was, in fact, used to enter and exit the Convergence Zone. Either way, we will have a fuller understanding of the barrier surrounding the Convergence Zone and may then try to devise a way to utilize this information."

"It could take up to a day to reconfigure the deflector to emit a verteron pulse and still maintain its current configuration to keep the Black Hawk safe," stated Quinn. "We could, however, rig up the Mississippi to emit the pulse for us so that the sensor palettes still have priority over the deflector dish. No sense wasting valuable resources when we likely won't have the chance for resupply once we're in there."

"A sensible suggestion, Ensign," T'Pai responded.

"Then let's proceed as planned.", Arjin added. "We need to start so that we may deduce what works and what not. Taking the horse and cart outside the barn first as to speak."

"Aye, Commander," T'Pai replied. "If Operations can spare you, Ensign Quinn, I could use your assistance to make the necessary modifications to the Mississippi, as well as some minor modifications to a trio of Class IV probes. That should 'get us out of the barn,' Commander," T'Pai added to Arjin.

"Lieutenant Adan?" Ensign Mackie asked, turning to face his department head and supervising officer.

"I would like to have everything set up for the first test tomorrow same hour.", Arjin stated. "There is no time to waste. We shall coordinate everything from the bridge off."

Speaking up in an effort to choose her place in this mission rather it being assigned to her, Karyna offered, "I will be in Astrometrics monitoring and collating all of the sensor feeds. We're likely to get enough raw data to keep me busy with analysis for months."

Adan shifted his weight in his chair thoughtfully. "You have my permission," he said to Ensign Mackie. "The sooner we get things together, the better."

"Well if everyone is clear on his or her part, then we better go and do the preparations. Thanks for joining the meeting. That will be all for now.", Arjin added.

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