Exeter Symposium (Part 3)

Posted on 23 Feb 2016 @ 12:18am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant JG Cyrin Xanth & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Anthony Duval
Edited on on 23 Feb 2016 @ 12:23am

1,636 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: Jupiter Station - Deck 75, Auditorium 4
Timeline: MD 82 - 1050 hrs

Previously, on Exeter Symposium (Part 2)...

Hearing a couple more calls for inquiry, Lucero decided to move on.

"Thank you for helping me to clarify that, Commander. Any other questions? Or is that-," he received a gesture that could only have meant one thing. "It appears as though my time is up, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate the attentive and... Well... Active participation in my mini-lecture up here. Thank you all for the opportunity! My crew and I are sincerely grateful."

And with that the Lieutenant gave a short bow as the applause began. He scurried off backstage before he could see whether anyone was standing up or not. An inflated ego was the last thing that he needed right now.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

1050 Hours: Xanth Presentation

The moment that the Galileo crew in the audience or those waiting behind the scenes for their own presentation times saw Cyrin Xanth stride across the stage towards the lectern, they had to have known that something wasn't quite right. The young man wasn't blushing furiously for one, nor was he casting furtive, nervous glances at the large crowd. He walked steadily, with shoulders squared, head held high, grey eyes not hiding from the attention pointed his way, and there was even a hint of a smile on his lips. Cyrin moved easily, fluidly, almost as if he were floating over the ground, apparently unconcerned at the situation. This was, somehow, not the Cyrin Xanth who worked himself to the point of exhaustion as a way to avoid having to interact with others on a social level, the scientist who had spent a year on board the Galileo hiding away in the astrometrics laboratory, the young man who would start to stammer if someone so much as gave him an overly friendly 'hello'.

He stopped behind the wooden height of the lectern, rested his hands together on top of it, and took a moment to look over the assembled scientists and dignitaries, the very picture of calm. "A Tellarite language major at a university was taking an astronomy course to satisfy the science requirement," he began, and it quickly became plain that Cyrin, of all people, was telling a joke. Sure, it wasn't that good of one, but it was just more evidence that something wasn't quite right. "During one lecture, the professor gave an overview about some of the more strange and exotic objects in the universe - including black holes. Despite his teacher's enthusiasm for the subject, the student showed a distinct lack of interest, as he had during all his astronomy class that semester. When the class was dismissed, the student turned to his friend and said, 'The professor says that black holes are interesting, but I think they suck.'"

There had been plenty of those in the audience who had been rather doubtful about Cyrin when they'd seen his name on the presentation list, and his chosen subject. Who was he, at twenty-five years old, with no lifetimes of experience to draw upon, no papers published in any scientific journals, a complete unknown to the scientific community, to present to them? Yet, it seemed the use of the old, old joke had put most of them at ease, and there were even a few appreciative chuckles.

"I promise, no more jokes," Cyrin said, with a slight laugh of his own in his voice. "But I do want to express my gratitude to be here, to have this opportunity to address such a robust and distinguished group of my peers." The compliment won over a good deal more of the scientists out there; as a rule, they were often not the humblest of people. "As many of you are aware, the USS Galileo recently took a trip through a special type of singularity, one that allowed a transit from this universe to another."

"Now, this isn't as noteworthy as it might have been a century or two before. We've documented numerous methods of entering parallel universes in the past: quantum fissures and singularities, interphasic rifts and negative magnetic corridors. The quaintly labeled 'Mirror Universe' invented the multidimensional transporter, based on the famous transporter accident on the USS Enterprise in 2267. Yet, with all of these different methods, we've long thought that there was little to tie them together. No one here would mistake the rift caused by the Beta Niobe Supernova with the collapsing warp bubble of 2367, after all."

The Trill paused a moment to enter in a few keystrokes on the controls on the lectern, which brought to life the massive screen behind him. On it appeared a familiar representation of the known universe, the geography of their reality expressed in both a visual diagram as well as the mathematics that struggled to define it. "What I'd like to postulate today, however, is that despite the vastly different causes of these previous encounters with alternate universes, there is an actual link between them," Cyrin continued with his presentation, still in the same confident, relaxed tone of voice that was so unlike him. The graphics behind him seemed to expand, shrinking their universe and revealing the theorized geometry of others that had been revealed before, along with what could only be an intentionally hazy something that the universes floated in.

"The nature of the interdimensional medium - the stuff in which universes themselves are perhaps contained within - has long been the subject of much debate and speculation amongst cosmologists for centuries. However, with our recent trip through the singularity, combined with the data of many scientists who came before, I believe we can now begin to model and even create falsifiable tests of our theories. We now have numerous, reliable methods of creating tunnels to other universes, but also the sensors that can measure the interior of these exotic structures, structures that pierce reality itself and could contain within them the answers of some of the greatest scientific mysteries ever encountered."

The LCARS screen had slowly shifted during the speech, giving them a view of the singularity that the Galileo had encountered, and though the pictures might be visually impressive, what was most important was the data the ship had managed to get while inside of it. Crewman Sigrid had risked her life to gain much of it at the start, and then on the return trip Cyrin had rigged multiple redundant scanners, even using tricorders out of desperation, to gain the information they had. It was one of the most detailed mathematical descriptions of what went on past an event horizon, where normally no information could return from in its former state. What it revealed was one of the most clear realizations of such a structure to date, with tantalizing mysteries brought up when compared to the other methods of interdimensional travel he had mentioned. In each form of transit, Cyrin seemed to have identified now a number of hypothesized similarities in their makeup.

"With the permission of Starfleet Science, I'll be releasing all the pertinent data on our trip through the singularity soon," Cyrin said, sounding as if he was reaching the end of his presentation. "And I'd like to thank my ship mates, without whom none of these data would be here today. It is my hope that we, the scientific community, can begin to probe the depths of creation like never before, that we will intentionally recreate what was once called accidents in the effort of curiosity, and that we will continue to question our preconceptions to find new truths...and new questions to ask. Thank you, for your time and attention today."

A number of cosmologists and astrophysicists of course had questions, but that was where things began to go south. The Cyrin Xanth on stage seemed to hesitate as he was asked about what sort of sensors were used to gather the data, or just what he was thinking to suggest that a warp bubble could be at all related to an interphasic rift. Then the Trill's entire form flickered, snapped in and out of existence in the tell-tale manner that many had seen before: a malfunctioning hologram.

The real Cyrin rushed out from one corner of the stage, where he'd been hiding the entire time, his face scarlet, his eyes wide and definitely not looking out at the crowd as he hurried over to try to save his hologram before it failed entirely. Cyrin had just reached it, had begun to reach for the small projection unit he'd placed in the lectern earlier, when the hologram decompiled under the barrage of trying to answer questions it hadn't been programed to handle.

Cyrin took one, terrified glance at the audience, then fled from the stage.

Anthony Duval was curious about the symposium so he was seated in the audience, he held his silence as he regarded the guys up on stage.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenat JG Drusilla McCarthy
Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Manuel Lucero V
Asst. Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Petty Officer 2nd Class Rebecca Williams
Yeoman to the Commanding Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC McCarthy]

LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
(and a few temp NPCs asking questions)
USS Galileo

Lieutenant j.g. Naois Mercy
Counsellor
USS Galileo
pnpc Tyrion

PO2 Rheneas Malacy
Archaeologist/engineer
USS Galileo
pnpc Tyrion

Cadet SO Wintrow Paragon
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
pnpc Tyrion

PO3 Veri
Surgical Nurse
USS Galileo
[PNPC Gyce]

...and other assorted Galileans

RSS Feed