Two scientists are attempting to study Space Willy, but the whale has other plans…
I admit this may be a tad bit unrealistic. Also, this may not have been what you were thinking when you made the prompt, but the imagery was too tempting for me to pass up on.
"Metin, are you sure about this? This seems like a very bad idea."
Dr. Hyun could only lament the fact that Dr. Metin Tandogan had been made the project lead for space whale research. Sure, he had the brilliant insight about how it was using radio waves to communicate, but that didn't mean the good Turkish biologist wasn't insane.
"Min, Min, Min, this is a necessary step if we want to take care of our big baby friend here."
Min Hyun had some rather large doubts about the necessity for the space whale to ever experience the pain of a giant needle. Hell, some of the captains had began to cry after they saw what they had transformed the former space lifeboat vessel into. No one liked a giant needle. At least Dr. Tandogan had listened when she had demanded the vessel be remote controlled, for all their safety.
"Listen, Dr. Hyun. We don't know anything about what this space whale. We don't know what it eats, whether it needs to breathe, what kind of social behaviors it will engage in. We need some basis for what it will need in the future if we are going to care for it. By getting a sample of its blood, or whatever the actual equivalent ends up being, we can perhaps better map what changes we will need to make to care for it. At the very least, we need to know what it will need for its diet."
Dr. Hyun could only nod in disbelief. She was sure this explanation was supposed to be reassuring, but Metin's manic tone and his clearly sleep deprived ideas did not inspire confidence. Min has the distinct feeling that this may be one of Metin's dumb ideas, not his genius ones, "So, how sure are you about the whole blood thing? I thought our previous attempts at studying its biology were inconclusive or unfinished."
The Turkish scientist excitedly responded, "Well, perhaps you could confirm the results better, considering we were using spe-... light.... just, some sort of light field analysis-" "Spectroscopy?" "Yes, that. We were using that analysis on the images we had of the flippers, the ones with the star behind the flippers, and you could see all the blood vessels and the light... light surface divergence?" "Subsurface scattering?" "Yes, that! The images we were trying to use to determine body composition. Anyways, we found the body had some weird elements inside of it, and I want to get a much more detailed look, so that we might be able to determine what it actually needs."
Dr. Hyun could already tell her colleague had probably made a mistake. "Dr. Tandogan, are you sure about how you interpreted my analysis. I was still going over those images. I'm not sure you should be using an unfinished analysis as the basis of-"
"Tututut-, Don't worry. The analysis of the blood-like portions of the image is all I needed. I know what capillaries look like. What I need to understand is what exactly is inside of them. Obviously, you were already able to determine that its mostly noble gases, predominantly neon, and then pure sodium of all things as the other main element, with some silicon as the only other element we could observe, but if we can determine just what else is in there, what other trace elements, especially what the sodium and silicon elements might interact with, we could-"
"Dr. Weren't you the one that said it was impossible for the animal to have pure sodium in its blood because we had evidence it was a carbon-based creature? And what about the fact that elemental sodium is explosive and not naturally occurring?"
"Dr. Hyun, please keep up! I believed I've already moved on and said that it was better to get physical evidence, rather than rely on our earthly experiences"
Oh no.... you could already see what had happened. Obviously, he hadn't told you, or any of the other scientists about this reasoning.... Which meant that he had had this revelation during one of his late debates... when he was stuck alone in the lab talking to himself.... and he had forgotten that there was no one around to hear him.
While the first time you had seen it happen had been funny, it still scares you that he continues to think that he believes sharing with the walls is enough to inform the team.
Goddammit, you were going to have to go over the video log to understand whatever the hell he had been going on about.
"Anyways, once we know the elements in its blood, we can determine what we should be feeding it, how often it needs to eat, and-"
Surely there had to be another way. Your slight Trypanophobia was acting up looking at the gigantic needle and-
"Oh, Splendid! Dr. Hyun, Look! It appears our friend finally is heeding our 'calm down' radio frequency, and is finally settling down near our ship. Now now, just take a nap, and this will be all over before you know it"
That was not a good thing. You were supposed to feel safe on the UR-SA Terra Nova, but instead, you felt like you had placed yourself right in the path of a rampaging beast. You
knew the whale would hate this needle.
"Now, Dr. Hyun! Do you wish to do the honors, and guide our new bio-diagnostic vessel to examine our friend?"
Nope, this was a trap! your gut was telling you this was a terrible idea.
"Dr. Hyun?"
Nope! No! no! NOOO!
Why didn't you stick with normal astrophysics, instead of trying to branch out into this astrobiology field? Then you would be safe on some other ship, instead of trying to jam a gigantic needle into a gigantic baby.
"Ah well. I understand the trepidation. Let me do the honors. Full Speed ahead! Watch carefully, Dr. Hyun, as we make history!"
I mean, weren't astrophysicists supposed to be the crazy ones? Like, before all this happened you spent your entire lives wasting time looking through space at balls of gas or plasma or rocks, and hoping that someday you might meet real life aliens.
but nooo! its somehow the biologist, the people literally tethered to earth life, that are the crazy ones. Like, how the hell did he convince anyone that shoving a giant needle into the baby whale was a good idea? ..... wait
"Dr. Tandogan, you did get approval for this procedure, right? I know the needle ship was commissioned as part of the Cthulid analysis, but surely you got separate authorization for this analysis, right?"
....
"Ah.... what is it they always say, Dr. Hyun? Better ask forgiveness than permission?"
Oh.
You were all doomed.
And there goes the needle into the whale. Why does it feel like the final nail in a coffin?
....
....
....
Oh, you were still alive. The baby whale wasn't stirred into a giant rage. In fact, it looked like it had just gone catatonic. Perhaps Dr. Tandogan had made more preparations that you-
SCREEEECH
Oh dear, that was not good at all. Had the baby whale just shifted its wailing into the visible spectrum for a second? Goodness, that was bright. At least the baby whale wasn't thrashing around in a panic. It had just decided to slap the needle ship into oblivion before screaming and running away.
Oh no, you recognized those frequencies. It seemed like it was having an even more intense reaction of fear than when you had first met and approached it. A similar frequency for its fear response, but far greater intensity... You honestly were surprised that it could feel more afraid.
"I believe you said it would be fine, Metin? so tell me, what exactly does our whale friend think of us now? What is everyone else going to think when they realized you have chased off our first friend?"
"Surely, it isn't that bad?"
"Dr. Tandogan... perhaps someone should teach you why so many people fear needles? Just maybe?"
"I... I think you are exaggerating. I can see our friend is heading directly for the UR-SA Jupiter 2. Its not fleeing the fleet-"
"Its just fleeing the idiot who poked it with a giant needle."
The phone almost immediately rung... It was the captain of the Jupiter 2, Tatyana Kuzmina. At first, you thought it was a little strange, seeing as she was the one person who wasn't enamored with the newest friend to humanity, and that she wouldn't immediately crucify them for hurting the baby.
But then you looked back at the Jupiter 2 and the baby whale.... where the baby whale kept softly headbutting the ship, before pointing toward you and emitting more distressed radio frequencies... almost like a child complaining to mommy.
and as you picked up the phone, you could imagine exactly why Captain Kuzmina was so frustrated. She had just barely fixed the ship since the last time it had been damaged by their newest member, and now it was back to bothering her and her ship again.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU LOT DO! WHY THE HELL IS THE WHALE BACK AT MY SHIP! I THOUGHT I MADE IT CLEAR THAT I DIDN'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHATEVER EXPERIMENTS YOU WERE RUNNING. WHY THE HELL IS IT RUNNING TO ME NOW! I JUST FREAKING GOT SOME FREE TIME TO MYSELF AFTER THAT DEBACLE WITH THE LAND SURVEYING MISSION AND THAT CAMERA MIXUP AND BEFORE THAT I WAS DEALING WITH THE MISSIZED OUTER HULL PLATE REPLACEMENTS AND-"
Oh dear, you could already tell she was starting to drink to handle this newest emergency. This whole situation was really driving her up the wall... And she absolutely wasn't stopping. She had a lot to complain about, didn't she?
And in the background, you could Could hear Metin Tandogan muttering, "Huh, does it believe it has been adopted by a new pod? and associate the Jupiter 2 as its mother? or perhaps its bigger sister? Clearly a caretaker role of some kind... perhaps we could use this...
You could only weep as you had to listen to 2 people lost to insanity in either ear. God, you just joined to pet the baby whale! You never signed up for all this!
AN: So I admit the all of the science here is probably off or incorrect in some way. but I kind of wanted to go for the funny image of some dumb ass thinking a gigantic needle was a good idea, and all the science was made to support that image.
Also, there is not as much baby whale being cute as I was hoping there would be in this update, but it makes sense that our playful friend would nearly disappear in a story with a gigantic needle.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the adventures Dr. Metin Tandogan, and his colleague who just wanted to pet the baby whale, Dr. Min Hyun.
