[ Little bit after This, before the escort mission-- ]
You've been up to the Natha ship.
[ Statement, not a question.
After a few seconds, John pings over an audio file -- it's... something all right. It was probably a person saying something at some point, but it doesn't really resemble any of the Natha and it's incoherently noisy. ]
I'd definitely put us higher up the scale than a 1. This is what I'm getting out of pretty much every interactive panel I could get to respond. Well, variations on it. Which means it's not the speakers that are broken, it's something in the system that's corrupted. Which could be a result of the power going up and down, but the question really is how many systems are damaged and if it's getting worse every time the power drops. Sure, we're not going to drop out of the sky in an orbit this steady and the stasis and life support seem like they have back up power, but not knowing what's causing systems to spit out noise makes me uneasy.
[ Two takeaways: one, John Sheppard is indeed taking something seriously. Two: how... did he get this noise out of the ship? Didn't really explain.
Honestly he just wants to talk to someone about it who understands how a spaceship works on some level. Someone who wouldn't instantly panic. ]
The takeaway from my responses there was supposed to be 'non-alarmist'.
[ Just getting that out there first thing, because the last thing Jim wants to do is send a bunch of people who don't know the first thing about spacecraft into a panic. Yeah, he realizes the situation is more serious, but riling people up isn't going to help. ]
Can you explain to me how you're getting this audio? For the record, I'm a captain in Starfleet, which is the humanitarian and defense force of the United Federation of Planets. My standing post is to command a ~500 crew member deep space exploration and military vessel. About thirty percent of my crew is non-human, and my XO is telepathic.
[ So John doesn't have to dumb it down, no matter what the issue is. ]
Anyway, alien spaceships like me. I made a career out of making them light up by touching them. Apparently it's a genetic thing.
[ He's being flippant again. The flippancy is habit. He's really trying to break it but it's hard. ]
It's hard to describe without a lot of context. I don't know if your post involved the Ancients or not, since I've never been involved in a federation of planets or anything, but where I'm from the nearest thing we had to the Natha were the Ancients. Non-interference, oversight, judging our human decisions, that kind of vibe. Apparently some distant relative of mine was one, so every time I touch stuff they make it lights up and reads my mind.
Anyway. I ran around the ship touching panels and trying to get it to tell me what was wrong and it played noise at me. Which, by the way, is the worst party trick I've ever had.
So when you say 'speakers', do you mean it's something you can hear in your mind? Or literal speakers? How'd you get the recording?
I don't disbelieve you, I just want to know exactly what I'm listening to, here, if it's an approximation or it over-rid Darma's message on loop for you, or what. If it's an intelligent response from something in the system or a triggered command-prompt response.
Literal speakers, I just recorded it. The station plays some version of the garbled noise every time I ask things, so it's probably trying to tell me something as a response. Can't vouch for the intelligence of it. It might just be trying to assign me a ticket number and telling me to come back in five working days. I don't speak noise, unfortunately, so I can only hope it's not 'self destruct armed' or 'back up generators low'.
How does this response differ from responses you've gotten prior to the station being interfered with?
[ Jim has a brief moment of his blood pressure rising at that last sentence, because it would be really nice if everyone would stop poking around blindly at things, but he doesn't say anything about it. Sigh. It's not John's fault he's already had somebody from the dark ages nervously point a giant gun in his face. ]
[ I mean that's... pretty much it at a base level. ]
I can show you if it would help, I realise my descriptive skills leave something to be desired. I can't hang around long, I have stuff to do, but I haven't been up today.
[ Man, this is why he offered to show not tell. It's way easier to show than it is to describe. He doesn't know how else to word it. ]
It really depends on the situation. It's not like I've had to go up there when the powers was dipping in and out before to ask it, 'hey show me the problem?'.
Listen, I would love to tell you I have a scientific study of all things I've tried before this and after complete with chart but I don't. Hindsight 20/20. Next time I'll do that. If you want a behavioural comparison, it still works on these things even if the station is a horror movie.
It didn't work the first few weeks after I arrived, I figured maybe it never would. Not in this way, in a just dead silence way. Like it was ignoring me, which I fully understand as a response. But then it all jumped to life. So I assumed maybe I had to prove I could be well behaved first or something.
[ Not that he's well behaved, but you know. Not... excessively badly behaved? ]
[ It's completely unintentional. It's just weird for him to explain. ]
No, mean it did. It came to life. And that's what I meant by these things still work, I meant the communicators. They still listen to me fine. It all began listening to me about the same time.
Don't worry, I gave up after an hour or so. I'm not poking it repeatedly with a stick to see if I can annoy it into action.
[ He actually just wanted to talk about what might have happened conceptually but nvm, this conversation has gone in wild circles and no way is he steering it back to the beginning to try again.
That risks the circle starting over and he still can't explain how his own spaceship whispering works. Explaining unconscious things is too much. ]
Alright. If anything changes with how you're interacting with Natha tech, let me know. As it stands it sounds like you're getting what everyone else is getting: there's a problem. I appreciate you telling me.
I'll be up here for the next day at least. Longer if anything changes, but if it's a consistent state up here it might actually be best if we minimize the depletion of oxygen reserves. We'll have to see how it goes.
[ John feels weirdly like he's being managed. Which, he supposes, makes sense given the deep space big crew thing. Maybe Kirk just has middle-management tone in any problem.
John is used to being the person managing other problematic people. It's unsettling and frustrating to realise he is now the problematic person being managed, even if he's not done much to convince anyone he is anything but problematic. ]
It's worth monitoring for patterns at least, if the power goes out at consistent intervals or if they're getting either further apart or closer together. A shift pattern might work, so we don't have too many people up there at a time and everyone gets a break. At the same time, unless you stumble upon a manual marked 'What To Do If The Natha Vanish' we're pretty much making it up as we go along.
[ John is prevaricating around direct questions, which strikes Jim as odd since the guy told him he was air force; so we're here at Thanks For Your Assistance, Good Citizen. He's being honest, though, since it is useful to know what results a technopath is getting. He really doesn't have the time or the temperament to try to 'manage' anyone, and is just trying to find a way to talk to John that nets clearer results. :( ]
Don't worry, that kind of pattern monitoring is one of the first things I started when I got here.
Nah. This ship is slightly older tech than what I'm used to. Push comes to shove, there's options. It's just a matter of trying to find the least invasive, for now.
[ Older Tech? The phrase spawns a million more questions. Is this a sweeping comment about the complexity of Natha gear, the literal age of the station, something else? They clearly have transporters and stasis pods so they're not exactly backwards.
Is Kirk middle management of fancy time-travelling people who scrap anything older than three years? Who knows.
Clearly they're not advanced enough to avoid being destroyed by the storm like everyone else. ]
I'm not so good at delicate, non-invasive options so I guess give me a call when you get past that desire.
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text | un: J.SHEPPARD
You've been up to the Natha ship.
[ Statement, not a question.
After a few seconds, John pings over an audio file -- it's... something all right. It was probably a person saying something at some point, but it doesn't really resemble any of the Natha and it's incoherently noisy. ]
I'd definitely put us higher up the scale than a 1. This is what I'm getting out of pretty much every interactive panel I could get to respond. Well, variations on it. Which means it's not the speakers that are broken, it's something in the system that's corrupted. Which could be a result of the power going up and down, but the question really is how many systems are damaged and if it's getting worse every time the power drops. Sure, we're not going to drop out of the sky in an orbit this steady and the stasis and life support seem like they have back up power, but not knowing what's causing systems to spit out noise makes me uneasy.
[ Two takeaways: one, John Sheppard is indeed taking something seriously. Two: how... did he get this noise out of the ship? Didn't really explain.
Honestly he just wants to talk to someone about it who understands how a spaceship works on some level. Someone who wouldn't instantly panic. ]
no subject
[ Just getting that out there first thing, because the last thing Jim wants to do is send a bunch of people who don't know the first thing about spacecraft into a panic. Yeah, he realizes the situation is more serious, but riling people up isn't going to help. ]
Can you explain to me how you're getting this audio? For the record, I'm a captain in Starfleet, which is the humanitarian and defense force of the United Federation of Planets. My standing post is to command a ~500 crew member deep space exploration and military vessel. About thirty percent of my crew is non-human, and my XO is telepathic.
[ So John doesn't have to dumb it down, no matter what the issue is. ]
no subject
[ He gets the non-alarmist approach. ]
Anyway, alien spaceships like me. I made a career out of making them light up by touching them. Apparently it's a genetic thing.
[ He's being flippant again. The flippancy is habit. He's really trying to break it but it's hard. ]
It's hard to describe without a lot of context. I don't know if your post involved the Ancients or not, since I've never been involved in a federation of planets or anything, but where I'm from the nearest thing we had to the Natha were the Ancients. Non-interference, oversight, judging our human decisions, that kind of vibe. Apparently some distant relative of mine was one, so every time I touch stuff they make it lights up and reads my mind.
Anyway. I ran around the ship touching panels and trying to get it to tell me what was wrong and it played noise at me. Which, by the way, is the worst party trick I've ever had.
no subject
I don't disbelieve you, I just want to know exactly what I'm listening to, here, if it's an approximation or it over-rid Darma's message on loop for you, or what. If it's an intelligent response from something in the system or a triggered command-prompt response.
no subject
no subject
[ Jim has a brief moment of his blood pressure rising at that last sentence, because it would be really nice if everyone would stop poking around blindly at things, but he doesn't say anything about it. Sigh. It's not John's fault he's already had somebody from the dark ages nervously point a giant gun in his face. ]
no subject
[ I mean that's... pretty much it at a base level. ]
I can show you if it would help, I realise my descriptive skills leave something to be desired. I can't hang around long, I have stuff to do, but I haven't been up today.
no subject
Specifically: how did Thesa Station respond to you prior to you getting the garbled audio now?
no subject
It really depends on the situation. It's not like I've had to go up there when the powers was dipping in and out before to ask it, 'hey show me the problem?'.
Listen, I would love to tell you I have a scientific study of all things I've tried before this and after complete with chart but I don't. Hindsight 20/20. Next time I'll do that. If you want a behavioural comparison, it still works on these things even if the station is a horror movie.
no subject
[ John is more than welcome to come back up, but the question will be the same in person. ]
no subject
[ Not that he's well behaved, but you know. Not... excessively badly behaved? ]
no subject
So the answer there is 'no'.
Have you ever interacted using this ability with other Natha-provided off the station, such as the communicators?
no subject
No, mean it did. It came to life. And that's what I meant by these things still work, I meant the communicators. They still listen to me fine. It all began listening to me about the same time.
no subject
Maybe give it a rest with trying to get anything out of the station for now, since there's no way to know what, if anything, it's trying to say.
no subject
[ He actually just wanted to talk about what might have happened conceptually but nvm, this conversation has gone in wild circles and no way is he steering it back to the beginning to try again.
That risks the circle starting over and he still can't explain how his own spaceship whispering works. Explaining unconscious things is too much. ]
no subject
I'll be up here for the next day at least. Longer if anything changes, but if it's a consistent state up here it might actually be best if we minimize the depletion of oxygen reserves. We'll have to see how it goes.
no subject
John is used to being the person managing other problematic people. It's unsettling and frustrating to realise he is now the problematic person being managed, even if he's not done much to convince anyone he is anything but problematic. ]
It's worth monitoring for patterns at least, if the power goes out at consistent intervals or if they're getting either further apart or closer together. A shift pattern might work, so we don't have too many people up there at a time and everyone gets a break. At the same time, unless you stumble upon a manual marked 'What To Do If The Natha Vanish' we're pretty much making it up as we go along.
no subject
Don't worry, that kind of pattern monitoring is one of the first things I started when I got here.
Nah. This ship is slightly older tech than what I'm used to. Push comes to shove, there's options. It's just a matter of trying to find the least invasive, for now.
no subject
Is Kirk middle management of fancy time-travelling people who scrap anything older than three years? Who knows.
Clearly they're not advanced enough to avoid being destroyed by the storm like everyone else. ]
I'm not so good at delicate, non-invasive options so I guess give me a call when you get past that desire.