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Post by Lialus Raithe on Oct 29, 2016 7:37:48 GMT -5
*In a quiet room decorated mildly with star charts and Bajoran cultural icons, complete with a prayer mat and candles; a young, auburn-haired Bajoran male paces around with an air of both anticipation and uncertainty. As he dictates the words of this log, he rolls a baseball around in his right hand, occasionally tossing it into the air weakly and catching it again; a behavior he apparently uses to pace himself.*
"Personal Log, Stardate 93184.73.
Nerra was the only member of my family to attend my graduation two weeks ago. Two weeks...it's taken me that long to decide to start this log. She tells me not to lose hope, that mom and dad will eventually realize that I'm doing good with the time I've been given and that Brell is simply too busy with work to attend. She's kind, my sister, but she wears her emotions on her sleeves. *Sigh* I don't expect mom or dad to realize anything anytime soon. Bajorans are notorious for making up our minds about things and then digging in our heels and refusing to change our minds and Mr. and Mrs. Orryn are the worst."
*The young man tosses the ball into the air and watches it rise and then fall as he catches it and rotates it in his hand a few times before resuming.*
"That's not fair...they're not the worst. Well, not empirically at any rate. I wonder what kind of study it would take to prove that?
...never mind.
Prophets, watch over them and keep them. Maybe you can work a miracle in that area? Miracles are your purview anyway, not science's.
Right, enough of that...
I decided to start this log today because it's an auspicious day. I am no longer Ensign Orryn Raza, I was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade and given transfer orders to the U.S.S. Protector at Starbase 220. I'm supposed to meet with the commanding officer there to report for duty, one Lieutenant Commander Tiberius Asada. I'm not sure what my position aboard the vessel will be at this point, I'm sure that will be up to her captain. I am eager to meet him. To be given command as an entry-level command officer means he's earned the position and that his mission is important. It also means his crew will be composed almost entirely of junior officers. I do not envy him the task ahead but I will afford him every effort I am capable of for as long as he is deserving of it.
May the Prophets watch over us. I hope I serve well."
*The young man tosses the ball into the air again and again watches it rise and fall into his hand before pausing a moment and setting it down on a stand in the corner of his room and heaving a heavy sigh.*
"Computer, end log."
*The man then runs his right hand through his thick hair.*
"I'll dictate more when I've met the man and know more about what I"m doing."
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Post by Lialus Raithe on Nov 9, 2016 7:43:02 GMT -5
*In a different and sparsely decorated room the young Bajoran science officer sits on the edge of a bed dictating verbally to a PADD in his hand the next entry in his log. There are travel bags and cases set near the bed indicating he is either in transit or recently arrived at whatever destination he was bound for.*
"Personal Log
"I've arrived at Starbase 220 per my transfer orders and met with designated Chief Engineer Lieutenant Nallie, an Orion that is apparently even more socially awkward than I am. I certainly hope the rest of the crew has enough social clout to compensate for the both of us or this is going to be an extremely uncomfortable assignment filled with a great deal of silence and dancing around personal interactions. I'm not an Engineer by any stretch of the imagination but she did at least seem to have the ongoing refit and repairs well in hand which is certainly a boon. I suppose you don't really have to be good at talking to people to keep a ship in running order. Still, I'll try to at least befriend her, she seems like she could use one and Prophets know I could..."
*The young man lays down on the bed, holding the PADD in hand still and staring at the ceiling distantly.*
"Lieutenant Catherine was also on base today. She's the designated Chief of Operations. She doesn't appear to be lacking in social graces and confidence, which is good for the crew. She also enjoys tea, something we have in common. I admit that I am somewhat intimidated, she seemed much more confident of herself and her position aboard this ship than I am...which makes me wonder how badly I'm projecting that lack of confidence?"
*A frustrated sigh bellows out from the Bajoran as he rubs his forehead before continuing*
"Lieutenant Commander Tiberius Asada, my commanding officer. The man seemed to practically radiate surety. He recognized me immediately, which I hope is a good thing, and put me to work in assisting the U.S.S. Pilgrim in searching for one of its crew members by using the station's sensor array and logs to try and track particle emissions from a cloaked vessel. The station's array was apparently interlinked with the Pilgrim's and together we were able to ascertain elevated levels of various particles in the system that led us to the Aram system where the cloaked vessel may have gone. The Pilgrim was underway and I haven't heard the status of their mission yet...I do hope it was successful.
"I also hope my 'performance' was enough to assure my C.O. that I'm at least competent enough to perform my intended duties aboard his ship. I just finished filing a report requesting the inclusion of a basic science lab in the ship's refitting process. Without that...I'm basically "Chief Sensor Officer" which I will perform as competently as I am able but...I would prefer to be able to continue to develop the skills and education I went to the academy for. We'll see how it goes.
"Computer...lights."
*The young Bajoran sets the PADD down on a small table to the right of the bed as the lights in the room darken. The log ends with him muttering the word, "Prophets..."*
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Post by Lialus Raithe on Nov 12, 2016 8:43:09 GMT -5
In the same room, the lights power on as the door slides open and the same young Bajoran male enters the room, an air of fatigue and frustration permeating the room as he does so. The PADD the young officer normally carries with him is unceremoniously dropped onto the bed as he paces quietly around the room for a few moments. After a deep breath, he looks toward the ceiling briefly before returning his gaze forward and beginning to remove his uniform.
"Computer, personal log Orryn Raza, new entry, begin recording..."
The computer chimes its understanding of the command.
"First day of simulated training with the bridge crew of the Protector today. It never ceases to amaze me how you can do well at simulations and training when you're a student and not expected to know what you're doing but when others are actually depending on your competence, efficiency and capability, you fall apart at the seams....clumsy and inadequate, that is how I would describe my own performance this evening. Tasks that should have been routine seemed inescapably difficult for me. Had this been a real situation instead of a training simulation, my ineptitude would have placed the entire crew at risk..."
The young officer sighs heavily as he removes his combadge and pips, setting them down on a small table in the corner of the room and then removes his jacket and undershirt. Despite his seemingly average physique, the young man has a well-toned musculature reflecting regular exercise and physical conditioning. The most noticeable blemish to his image being a single scar that ran as like a vertical line from the top of his right shoulder to midway down the front of it. He folds his jacket and uniform before putting them into a bin marked "laundry."
"I believe I've met at least most of the bridge crew and critical personnel. I am singularly impressed with Lieutenant V'Tira, a Vulcan tactical officer whom I believe is serving as the ship's Strategic Operations Officer. I know it's largely due to her heritage, but her ability to remain focused and composed even when everything else seems to be crashing down around her is...admirable. Despite an air of superiority she may inadvertently exude, she seems genuinely interested in encouraging and assisting her fellow officers. She and Lieutenant Nallie seem to be the only two I'll have any immediate connection with and for entirely different reasons."
The young officer now removes his uniform pants, sliding into a worn pair of sleepers that covered only his bottom half.
"Our acting captain this evening was our Chief Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Clerie, a Betazoid. She seems capable and experienced, something I think the crew needs right now. There was also a Reman exchange officer whose name I'm probably mispronouncing but Sublieutenant Tuvanik. I've never met a Reman before this evening. If she's any indication of her people, they're largely impersonal and distant. I shall have to interact with her more often and try to see if that rough exterior is simply rigid formality and unfamiliarity or, if not, what conditions her in such a way. For scientific reasons, obviously...."
With that, the young man moves the PADD he had tossed onto the bed to the nightstand beside the bed and crawls under the sheets, his faith earring still attached to his ear as if this were some natural part of his anatomy that was not to be removed. He stares silently at the ceiling for a few moments.
"Computer, end recording. Save log. Lights."
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Post by Lialus Raithe on Nov 16, 2016 16:09:52 GMT -5
The temporary quarters were becoming a familiar site for Lieutenant Orryn Raza and he once again enters them with the gait of a fatigued man and the drooping shoulders of someone down in spirit. He sits down on the edge of the bed and casually tosses his PADD onto it before burying his head in his hands. His normally well-groomed and slightly wavy hair trickles down around his fingertips as he does so, causing an eventual avalanche as his hair cascades downward into disarray.
"Computer, personal log, Lieutenant Orryn Raza, new entry, begin."
The computer chimed its understanding, as usual, and prepared to listen.
"Another day of tests in the holodeck, self imposed ones. I created a series of random test scenarios with variables programmed in so no test would be the same and I wouldn't know the answers throughout them."
He lifted his head out of his hands at this point, standing up from the edge of the bed and beginning to pace around the room slowly, his hair remaining disoriented and framing his face in a chaotic array of auburn waves.
"The test from today was a scenario in which the ship was being held in place by an electro-gravitic field and having its power steadily drained by a series of shockwave pulses that were bombarding it. As any science officer would do in my position, I first attempted to try and determine what was causing the electro-gravitic field that was holding us. Turns out that both the field and the shockwaves were apparently being created by a ship hiding in a nearby nebula that our sensors hadn't picked up. We were caught in some kind of energy net being generated by the ship and bombarded by shockwaves which caused massive energy drains ship wide."
At this point he chuckles to himself, shaking his head.
"The odds of something like that happening are infinitesimal but it would be my job to be prepared, just in case."
He made his way over to the crates and bags of things he had originally carried with him to Starbase 220, where he now resided until the launch of the Protector. He opened one and continued as he searched through it.
"Finding the ship in the nebula was a mark for me. I didn't check to see if I could determine what type of ship it was, which in hindsight may have helped me avoid the situation escalating as it did. Lesson learned. Though, the properties of both the electro-gravitic field and the shockwave were of a more pressing concern."
Withdrawing an old PADD from the crate, Raza sat down on the floor beside the crate and leaned his back against the bed as he activated it.
"If we'd have had the power to generate a graviton barrier around the ship, we could have neutralized the field that was preventing us from moving. A graviton barrier would have formed a nearly tangible barrier that would have disrupted the graviton field of the "net" holding us and acted as something of a "bubble" through which we could have moved. Unfortunately this would have been both taxing and slow."
He brings the PADD to a certain page in what appears to be his academy text books, a page on energy and particle types and he stares at it silently for a moment.
"So the concern instead was to neutralize the energy draining shockwaves. Like a first year cadet I blindly chose a random energy type and charged our deflector to emit a burst of it in the hopes to disrupt the drain. Ha! I chose antiprotons. Energy drains are generally caused by one of three things: polaron quasiparticles, dampening fields (which are primarily photon or phonon fields depending on the type of energy you're trying to dampen) or energy dissipation bursts which involves polarized energy shockwaves designed to disrupt the flow of electrons by either attracting them, thus breaking the flow of current in a conduit or by repelling them, creating a "chokepoint" that would result in an explosion."
The lieutenant leaned his head back against the bed letting out a sigh of frustration and closing his eyes.
"Antiprotons would have worked if we were being bombarded by matter or proton waves. We weren't, and I knew that. Polaron shockwaves are a theoretical impossibility because polarons traveling that close together would cause a state of flux between them, which is why they're usually contained in magnetic fields. That left energy dampening and energy dissipation. Photon dampening would have to be an actual field or barrier and while it could be projected like a shockwave, it would have more of a kinetic effect than an energy dampening affect. It would block Phasers, more-or-less, and then bombard the hull. So it had to have been dissipation bursts. The counter would have been determining the charge and frequency of the polarized burst and adjusting our shield polarization to repel it. It should have been elementary."
The lieutenant pulled himself to his feet, setting the academy curriculum PADD on the bed next to his personal one.
"Seems I need to go back to the basics, just like he said. I hate it when he's right...computer, end recording."
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Post by Lialus Raithe on Nov 21, 2016 11:35:21 GMT -5
Another day and the temporary quarters of Lieutenant Orryn Raza begin to appear less-than-temporary as he walks in. It is clearly late, judging by the exhausted expression on the man's face but he appears to be in good spirits.
"Computer, personal log Lieutenant Orryn Raza, new entry, begin recording. "Another couple of days on the holodeck but this time with a much different purpose."
The young Bajoran plops down onto the bed, laying face-up and picks up his PADD off of the nightstand nearby, fiddling with it as he continues his recording.
"The crew of the U.S.S. Adagio was home for some shore leave after some extended campaign against the Chorus, honestly I don't know all of the details but I know it was a serious threat to the Federation and the galaxy as a whole. Joint operations between most of the ships in the 22nd Mobile were utilized over the past several years to help counter the threat and apparently it all culminated in the defeat of the Chorus. They're heroes, though most will never know it."
There is a period of silence while he reads from his PADD, apparently something having caught his attention. After a short interim, he continues.
"Several of their officers were at the lounge and I happened to be there after leaving duty. I was invited to participate in what they described as a 'holodeck adventure' being hosted by one of their crew named Lindsey. I was reluctant to participate as I was already tired and didn't know any of these officers but they were relentless in their insistence and I was compelled to participate. I will admit that it was nice to feel like part of the family...but I digress.
"The 'adventure' was set in a fictitious remaking of Earth's medieval period in which 'magic' and fictional creatures were present, I was told it was called 'fantasy.' Anyway, Lindsey elected to be the group's wizard, a character who wields magic as their primary tool. I selected the priest, similar to a wizard but uses primarily healing incantations and defensive wards. Actually, when I chose the character, I had no idea they could use 'magic,' I was merely playing the part of a Vedek, which seemed fitting for a Bajoran. A Trill named Eren decided to play something called a 'rogue' which was adorned in leather and brandished twin daggers, large knives, as her weapons. Sinez, a rather large Trill, was playing a warrior with a shield and sword adorned in heavy metal armor. Tia selected an archer and Endel was playing a berserker, a warrior of extreme strength and a short temper. We were joined shortly after by another Trill named Xylvaren, she chose the role of the minstrel, or bard, a magic-wielding musician and wordsmith."
The young lieutenant chuckled lightly at this point, recalling the events of the past two evenings. He set the PADD down on the nightstand again.
"Our ragtag group of 'adventurers' set out on a quest that began with us being chased by Orks, apparently Gorn-like creatures of immense size and strength that organized themselves primarily in war bands. They actually sounded a lot like Klingons in their behavior and society. I don't have time to record all of the details but it was quickly apparent this 'adventure' was going to take more than a couple of hours and was going to be filled with puzzles, diplomacy, danger and no shortage of hilarity between the participants. I am actually eager to continue it when we can, we're on our third day. I might have to look into this, I know a few Bajorans who might enjoy this kind of activity back home."
After a few moments, the lieutenant gets up off of the bed and begins to dress down for the evening.
"Computer, end recording, save log."
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