We... have a bit of a problem

[Armedes]

Greetings fellow UFP members, while I am loathe to ask for extra assistance when I can offer nothing in return, I must request your indulgence.

You see, our Patriarch of the First Triumvirate (arguably our most important fleet) was testing a warp corvette with a modified matter-antimatter chamber and for some reason the reaction went out of control. Thankfully, our overload sheilds were able to transfer the building charge to the ship's circuitry, but due to the ship being a project of our Academy students and the fact that they wired the overload circuitry to the warp-drive controls, the ship has gone on a warp run, spinning with no definite direction throughout UFP space. Our attempts to slow it down or redirect it almost ended in tragedy, due to the enhanced warp (it's currently going at warp 8) literally tearing out interdictor tugs apart.

Our calculations predict that the ship's structural integrity field will only be able to keep the ship intact for 36.5 hours at most, however the ship has enough fuel for a 74 hour sustained jump. Due to the nature of the ship as one of combat, before the Patriarch tested it we installed our miniaturized zero-point energy system and a chaos sheild on it. Therefore, it's nigh impossible to take down the sheild and attempt to beam him out of the ship without destroying him and it.

Since we have determined there is little we can do except parking one of our new (and untested) heavy cruisers directly in the corvette's path with sheilds and tractor beams on (possibly destroying one or both ships on impact with the additional possibility of creating two new singularities), we request your assistance in this matter.


Also, the ship must not be damaged or destroyed at ANY circumstances. As we're still considering zero-point reactors to be prototypes, we haven't finished our research into what destroying the machinery of a reactor going at full throttle will do. Our tests so far have been less than encouraging, demonstrated by the gamma pulses you might be noticing from the nearby black-hole cluster.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

Armedes you should really learn to test ships first on the ground with simulations. It makes things really easy. Firstly, since you are mostly a nomadic people you can always have your ships come into my territory to get supplies, medicines, aid, and even some R and R. If a ship is being attacked by overwhelming swarm of pirates and are in the general area of any of my ships, I could assist.

Secondly, as for your ship, there are several options that I can suggest. A) If you don’t want my help you can always try to create an omega particle and detonate it several light years in front of it. B) The Alliance created a black hole generator. We could send a ship to make several black holes behind it to slow it down and use an experimental shield dampening weapon. But there is a chance that the ship will be destroyed along with all hands because of the worm holes. C) I created slipstream drive. With that technology I might be able to create a slip stream field around the ship which will send it to a slip stream (which might lesson the structural integrity field.) This will give you more time. But I could still use the dampening weapon to take out the shields or use a modified arm which might penetrate the shields and the hull. Then the people could evacuate the ship. That way at least you save the people.

Also WHAT HAPPENED TO MY PEOPLE! I am still having a lot of problems with my communications. After the Coalition and the Borg attack on the HE and BCD I have lost a lot of resources and it will take a while to fix the communications system.

[Armedes]

We did test the ship in simulations, we don't know why this happened. The second problem we just found out by going through our schematics. Some overzealous Academy student routed the overload circuit's energy-transfer mechanism into the warp field control to boost power insulation. I'm having him debriefed as I write this, trying to figure out exactly how he wired it so we can bring our modified EMP mines to bear.

On the red giant system, I've recieved word that the new zero-point reactors (Mk3) are very successful. We've isolated a waveform that collapses the zero-point field, redering it harmless if breached. I'm continuing the lab station there (It's moved under the authority of the Second Triumvirate), but we've got an acceptable security grid set up, therefore you can withdraw your forces any time you wish. I've taken the liberty of ordering that all your ships be outfitted with zero-point reactors (Mk3) and our improved chaos sheild AI. I've had to replace some of the wiring to compensate for the increased power loads, and have replaced some older circuitry with out latest generation bio-chips. All these changes should make your ship much more hardy and able to achieve near-sapient levels of data-processing and autonomous control.

(Note: I've had some minor reports that with all the advances in power and circuitry efficiency, at least one of the research ships are showing signs of being intelligent. To prevent damaging your ships' efficiency or your code of ethics being that it might be a sapient ship, I've disabled all higher-learning functions that I added. You can easily enable them if you wish.)

(OOC: You do realize that zero-point energy is pretty much a micro-singularity, right? To go off of star trek canon, this would be a heavily improved version of the romulans' Singularity Drive in which they have a small black-hole powering each ship, that's why you should never destroy a Romulan ship while it's still in warp, since that practically "smears" the blackhole across a couple parsecs of space. My zero-point reactors are supposed to be hyper-efficient engines harnessing miniature blackholes, with event horizons approximately 6 cm across.)

Next, on the derelict ship, the scout ship I dispatched has relayed a message (severely garbled) from the task force commander in charge of the investigation. Apparently, during our explorations of the ships systems, someone triggered a failsafe system on the ship (it was still operating, imagine that) and the ship activated a field that literally freezes entropic action. Only two ships in the fleet are not suffering this effect, but they can't move out. It might be a coincidence, but both those ships had my chaos sheild AI installed. The AI should not affect chronology at all, therefore I am at a loss as to how to explain this.

Upon recieving this message, I instructed the scout ship to fire a probe and a few salvos of torpedoes and phasers into the field. Upon contact with the field, all these things just froze in the space. The phaser blasts are fading, but the torpedoes and the probe are still there and are not responding to any commands. My sensors can not pierce the field, so I am at a loss of what to do. Perhaps your slipstream drive can pierce this? Looking at the basic principles, I find it very close to some of the more esoteric and (I thought) useless parts of the chaos AI.

The black hole idea is brilliant, except for I wonder if creating blackholes all over is a particularly good idea, especially since a zero-point field is a miniature singularity itself. I'll tell my technicians to rush the singularity-waveform nullifier into production and send you a prototype. Beware that it isn't tested out of simulations. Once you recieve it, you can start on your proposal. We are most anxious to have our First Patriarch back and figure out what went wrong with the corvette design.

Finally, we're working on a new sort of hyper-subspace communication. It's based on an old theory from pre-warp Earth regarding "quantum entanglement". Apparently, the theory goes that if you have one atom and you duplicate it precisely, all the way down to it's quantum state and makeup(the theory doesn't explain how), any resonations applied to one atom is instantly applied to the other with no variance in distance, time or any object(s) in between the two atoms.

Needless to say, such reliable and instant communication (even subspace messages suffer from time-lag) would be a boon. However, due to my building my fleets and armadas, I lack enough man-power and time to devote to this endeavor. If you will assist with any quantum physicists you have, can spare labstations and time and are willing to put up with our most arrogant and aggravating quantum physicist, the only one who knows this field enough to start experimentation, we can share the results we glean.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

I know the idea of having black holes all over the quadrant is not a good Idea. But if you look at two colliding black holes generally they both dissipate or that one remains but is weaker than the original two. Also a black hole cannot sustain its self without feeding on matter. So after I make a black hole I can make a black hole extremely close (about 0.0000000000000000000001 centimeters away) to another black hole which will destabilize them both.

The slipstream drive is powered by a very basic singularity drive. With the zero-point reactors I would be able to increase the slipstream speed. As soon as one of my ships has the zero-point reactor installed I will send it to the derelict ship location with prototype temporal shields.

Since I have gained a lot of resources of late I will work on the hyper-subspace communication technology and as soon as I have it completed I will send the technology to you. I should let you know I am attempting to create a slipstream communication system. Basically what happens is that a tiny slipstream forms between to communication satellites and I send a message that way. It is a lot faster than subspace communications but there is a tiny down side. The communication satellites get sucked into the slipstream and come out each end in pieces. So I’m working on it.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

I sent a ship with slipstream drive that got the zero-point reactor, with temporal shielding, and regular shielding underneath it. I only got a few seconds of communications with them but what I received is that the ship you found is generating the field. The field is not just a single barrier but it is through out that entire area. The temporal shielding failed and the primary shielding also failed. The ship is now frozen. It had a proto type slipstream communications array, which worked (for once). I was able to connect with them and I was able to send sensor scans through it (after two days of adjustment on the communications system). I see no way of getting this field down without doing something completely 100% dangerous. Since you have people in the area I would like your permission to use a new black hole/nebula weapon blast at the ship you found. There is a good chance that the ship will be destroyed and I have no clue what side effects might happen.

[Sigma Dome]

"Also, the ship must not be damaged or destroyed at ANY circumstances."

Unfortunately, I doubt that our fleet even approaches the technology level necessary to deal with such a threat ...

Nevertheless, is it acceptable if we send a small group (1 modified frigate, carrying 5 sF-17 Aegis II light fighters and 2 sR-21 Leika scouts) to the area to observe the proceedings? The situation could have ramifications for us if the technology should leak, and we'd like to watch how it is countered ...

[Terran Dominion Empire]

zekesulastin said:

"Also, the ship must not be damaged or destroyed at ANY circumstances."

I have People in there. I will get them out even if I have to create a black hole inside the ship or destroy every molecule of that ship to do it. I don’t leave my people behind.

[BreenCardassianDominion]

Well like most technological endeavors we hit a conundrum. We have Sigma Dome that makes a good point that the ship should not be destroyed for many reasons and then we have the T.E.D. that has people in their willing to do some thing to save them. Oh yes there is also Armedes who is now sitting in the senate with a fruit cake as a paper weight looking at a blank piece of paper while his people are in the weird field thingy............

[Armedes]

Much apologies. You see, I was busy with ... well, nevermind. The last time the patriarch's ship passed close to one of our nomad fleets, we sent out a tightbeam subspace command to the emergency transporters on the corvette. We were able to beam our patriarch out (he's still stuck in the transporter buffers, but that's a simple problem to solve).

Detonate that ship upon sighting, preferably close to a black hole. My research frigate Calistoga will arrive shortly to attempt to patch up the subspace distortions the explosion may or may not cause. I thank the different governments for their assistance in this matter, the blackholes generated by the Terran Dominion helped greatly in reducing the power of the reactor enough to bring the sheilds down so we could beam the patriarch out.

Due to his advanced age and this most troubling circumstance with experimental technology, we will be retiring the patriarch from his duties, putting the substitute in his place.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

Alright I am sending 10 ships to that area. 4 with the modified black hole/nebula generator. 5 troop carriers (all almost empty) to beam people in the area. The last ship will try to gain all the files from the research vessels, probes, and technologies from the ship (if any is remaining. All I need is Sigma Dome’s ok and Armedes ok.

[Armedes]

Yeah, watch out though. That was an experimental ship and therefore not fully rigored for combat. Some tubing may be leaking dangerous coolants and/or radiation into and around the ship.

Destroy it when you are done.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

Then I will begin at my own discretion. Unless Sigma Dome wants to do something?

[Sigma Dome]

There's not much I can do with a couple of scouts and escort except watch ...

[Terran Dominion Empire]

My fleet will be there within the next few days then.

[Terran Dominion Empire]

Good news. While the war was beginning my fleet arrived. I was their personally to watch it. The ship was hit dead on. The stasis field broke and my transports began to do mass beam outs. I will be sending Armedes’s people to the nearest fleet. I have a luxury cruiser in the area that will take them to the nearest fleet. It seems I had 4 people on the ship. They were beamed out by the research vessel. The last ship was able to collect all the data and I will be sending it out to both of you. One last thing, when my science vessel transported my 4 people they were carrying technologies from the ship. One of the items was a highly advance computer that had all the information that that ship had. Also those 4 research people had six stasis field generators. They had a seventh but they dropped it and it activated. That’s how the field went up. I will send to Armedes and two to Sigma Dome. I will be sending them in a group of three battle ships because of current circumstances.