Starfleet Medical has, at least at this point in time, a fairly good rep for doing exactly this. But those are replacements rather than augments. The Orions, Rigellians, and Gaeni have mass-market applications but the Gaeni ones are probably not easily adapted after a century or two of the fact that they've probably also engaged in other tweaks to their bodies. (For that matter probably so did the Rigellians and Orions back during the heyday of the Orion Empire.) A sensible person might actually be able to get augmented, assuming they want it, through the Rigellians.
It's just that getting seriously into cybernetics is by its nature a very all-or-nothing proposition. Once you start trying to get superhuman or superorion or superrigellian performance out of any bodypart then you also have to make sure the rest of the body can take the stresses implied, leading rapidly to a condition where you're quickly looking at full skeletal replacement being a minimum for what are ultimately modest increases in capability. And full skeletal replacement is kind of a lot just as a medical procedure and recovery go, plus the demands it'll make on other bodily issues that have to worked around. By the time we're talking Gaeni Institutional Security Officers and Orion combat Cybaugs, the percentage that could even be left as meat without causing problems is getting low.
Having to spend a couple of years in surgery and recovery probably just ain't that appealing in the end.
I have to wonder how the Romulans and Klingons are taking these recent developments between the UFP and HoH. Like, are they breathing a sigh of relief about how the Federation is about to get in it's own crippling conflict, or are they getting concerned about the fact that the Federation is getting to the point that it might very well declare war.
Some amateur psy analysis on the Klingon and Romulan empires.
KLINGON: The Klingon empire seems to "merely" be very aggressive. The Klingon's don't seem to have any real issue with the U.F.P., Klingon's tend to fight and to war because that's just the inertia of their culture.
ROMULAN: Recently, the Romulan view of the U.F.P. has done a near complete inversion. When the Romulan Empire first met the U.F.P., they saw the Federation as merely a scheme to gain power - there were four full members in the U.F.P., the rest being merely associates without nearely as much influence upon how the U.F.P. is governed or ran. They were under the impression that the "cabal" of the original four were merely using the U.F.P. as a way to gather power for themselves.
Then the U.F.P. gained another full member. Then another. And another.
The Romulan's thusly realized that the U.F.P.'s message was actual truth. Thus, the Romulan's no longer think of the U.F.P. as an enemy, or even a rival - the Romulan Empire and the U.F.P. are merely neighbors in their eyes, our interests are too different from theirs for our goals to conflict, while simultaneously they are level headed enough to treat us with diplomacy and as a friend.
If anything, I'll say don't be surprised if the Romulan's or Klingon's offer some support - the Harmonies cabal of "gods" are cancerous in their self perceived superiority and duty to absorb and govern all other life, it will take a lot to convince the Harmonic Cabal to stop spreading their mind control stuff everywhere and viewing other life as inherently inferior.
Eitherway, I'll say this - neither of them are concern worthy for the moment.
If anything, I'll say don't be surprised if the Romulan's or Klingon's offer some support - the Harmonies cabal of "gods" are cancerous in their self perceived superiority and duty to absorb and govern all other life, it will take a lot to convince the Harmonic Cabal to stop spreading their mind control stuff everywhere and viewing other life as inherently inferior.
Eitherway, I'll say this - neither of them are concern worthy for the moment.
I agree with your conclusion that the Romulan Star Empire and Klingon Empire are only threats in that they could stop us from getting new members, but that isn't really what I was saying. I was more pointing out how they are going to certainly be concerned about the Federation using more and more military force. They certainly aren't as bad as the Singers, in a way, but many of them are probably thinking what if they are next? What if the Cardassian Union pulls some bullshit while the United Federation of Planets is occupied with the Harmony of Horizon? It could very well radicalize the Federation's population even further. How long would it take for that radicalization to turn on them?
I think that the war with the Harmony of Horizon is going to see the Romulans assist the Federation, making such scenarios unlikely, and the Romulans probably expect that as well. But that doesn't mean that the entire known galaxy isn't watching this conflict, and waiting to see what rises from the ashes.
"You look tired, captain. Didn't get enough sleep?" Commander Kol Deva asked Enterprise's captain as the command team took their seats in the ship's briefing room. Iliae Rurliss shrugged. Inwardly, she was annoyed at herself -- there'd be a war soon, and she needed to project confidence, not show weakness. Especially not to her first officer.
Once everyone was seated, Commander T'Kel tapped at her PADD, and a black-feathered, black-beaked Tseskiya's face appeared on the viewscreen, and then a male voice spoke.
"My name is Singer Abeshta. I know that name means nothing to you. What should mean something to you is this: I know your orders -- get to the TX-2183 system in forty-eight hours and link up with USS Caerliss, preparing for a secret deep recon mission in Harmony space, and escort her on her way to and from Tahlan. And I'm not the only one -- because Starfleet didn't intend to send you those orders. My people did. You won't be meeting up with the Caerliss at TX-2183; you'll be meeting up with a Peacekeeper ambush force.
"I understand if you wonder why am I telling you this. Consider it an attempt to build trust between our peoples. And in the same spirit, I ask that you instead travel to the LE-5200 system, where I will be waiting inside a probe, sealed off from all outside connections. I expect to be there in thirty-eight hours. I hope to see you then."
"We received this transmission, encoded with proper Explorer Corps codes, ten minutes ago. I am inclined to change course to make for the LE-5200 system, but I felt that such a course of action wouldn't be appropriate without first consulting you," T'Kel said.
"Good, because it's a trap," Tiirid, the Fiiral Tactical Officer, spoke up. "It's too good to be true. A Singer, wanting to defect, now?"
"He knew our orders, to the letter," Rurliss noted. "That's concerning enough to make me inclined to change course." That wasn't all, but the vehemence with which Tiirid spoke made her a bit leery of mentioning that she was genuinely inclined to believe this 'Abeshta'.
"Then we need to turn back for the Alban Gulf. Not walk straight into his trap," the Fiiral argued.
"If they know our orders, why wouldn't they just do precisely what he said they're doing? Why tell us?" Deva pointed out. "Either way, we're heading into Harmony space, so if they wanted us to be an inciting incident, they wouldn't have to get us to change our plans."
"It could be a double bluff," said Lieutenant Cindre, Ops Manager.
"Elaborate," said Tiirid. Then he looked apologetically at Rurliss, "Oh, sorry ma'am, it's how we-"
"No need to apologize. I like open discussions. Lieutenant Cindre: Elaborate."
"Ma'am — Maybe they aren't certain that the Caerliss deception wouldn't hold up. Say we realize something is wrong with the codes, or talk to Starfleet Command via unusual channels, or some other flaw. Saying that was fake and this is real sidesteps that."
"Real or not, Abeshta couldn't have picked a worse time," Rurliss noted. "If there is an ambush waiting for us, and we call for help, we are close enough to observed Harmony patrol routes that a Sanctuary and her swarmers could run us down before help would arrive or we could escape."
Roxun nodded, his face grim. "I don't know about the space geometry, but the fact Abeshta broadcast from a Starfleet secure line with secure codes makes any communication with Starfleet Command suspect."
"The problem is deeper than that," Cindre said quietly, "We might transmit to anyone, any time."
Rurliss let only a little of her concern at that disturbing thought show.
T'Kel nodded, "Captain, this is why I think we have to pursue this lead. An actual Singer on our side is likely to have the ability to identify Harmony infiltrators." She turned to Tiirid, slouched back in his chair, tentacle-talons worrying through the black feathers on his neck, "We could be the only secure ship in the Fleet aside from Courageous."
"True…"
"Hopefully we don't pay the same price." Roxun said, eyes wide and fixed on the table.
"T'Kel," Kol said, breaking the gloomy atmosphere, "Could we rig up some probes, send them both ways? Get some more information before we commit?"
T'Kel considered this, "Class eight probes have an effective range of point-eight light years at warp ten. Likely to be too close. We could launch from a runabout at a lower warp factor. But it would be at risk on the way in and if the Harmony launched search operations after detecting the probe."
"A flyby at warp 10, even from a probe, will definitely attract attention," Deva said.
"Agreed."
"Why bother with the probe at all?" said Tiirid, "We could rig up a runabout for remote, use it as a decoy. Coming in at high warp we could make it look like the Enterprise."
"We could use Archer, he's been giving us some trouble," said Deva with a grin. Everyone around the table chuckled except for T'Kel and Rurliss. "Oh, sorry Captain. The good Runabout Archer is something of an inside joke."
"Hopefully that doesn't end up being my legacy on a future Enterprise," Rurliss replied. "Overall, I am inclined to believe Abeshta... but we will send decoy runabouts to both locations. Whichever one doesn't get destroyed, we will recover. Possibly along with a Singer."
"Ma'am?" Cindre said, "One suggestion: if what Abeshta says is true, the runabout to his rendezvous should remain relatively unobtrusive… we might attract unwanted attention."
"Agreed." Rurliss stood, "Deva, I will leave it to you to have all the departments collaborate on our deception. Cindre, I want a plot of possible routes to take ready by tomorrow."
As the command team filed out, Rurliss made her way to the ready room. To what still didn't feel like her ready room. The transfer had been rushed, in light of the deteriorating diplomatic situation ... and yet it had already been ten days now, and she hadn't even begun redecorating. Had done nothing to make this space her own. Maybe she subconsciously felt she didn't belong here?
There was a certain weight that came with captaining the USS Enterprise. She had a legacy to live up to, and right now, it felt ... overwhelming, almost. Pike, Kirk, Nash ... they'd led their crews. They'd been decisive. They wouldn't have felt intimidated by their own officers.
Could she really live up to that?
She'd have to.
She sat, leaning back in her chair, staring at the map of the Federation Zhang had left behind. Then she took out her sketchpad and pencil.
***
If the USS Archer, NCC-1701-7, could communicate, the Nile-class runabout would probably protest its reputation. It wasn't its fault, after all. Archer had showed up with a faulty warp coil installed that had quenched on a test flight and given the crew a scare. After that debut she was assigned to only the most junior or incoming repair personnel as practice. Few runabouts would have operated well under those conditions. Her slew of hilarious but non-lethal mishaps and ill-timed cantankerousness -- who could forget when she broke down on the landing pad and sprayed an ISC diplomat with hydraulic fluid — was not due to a mischievous spirit as Neroth believed, but instead poor choices and uninspired maintenance.
That being said, despite being slapped with the scarlet letter of unreliability, today she was performing well. She was cruising at warp eight, an impressive clip for such a small craft. With some love and special modifications, Archer had finally lived up to the promise of her name.
Eighteen minutes after breaching the target system's Oort Cloud, happily scanning on all frequencies and blasting hails to the USS Caerliss, Archer was vaporized by over one hundred and eighty microtorpedoes fired from 60,000 kilometres away.
***
"Guess that answers that question," Deva said cheerfully. "Tiirid, what would our odds have been?"
Tiirid raised a claw to speak but Cindre spoke up first, "Assuming evasive maneuvers and ECM initiated at five seconds to impact, one hundred hits by microtorpedoes."
Rurliss nodded. "...Localized failure in shields due to saturation of port quarter grid. We'd attempt to compensate, but at the clip they were going we wouldn't have time -- nor be able to out-roll them. Follow on assault within two seconds at close range with plasma cannons would disable our port nacelle."
"Attempt to flee stopped by Liberator battlecruisers. Battlecruisers and Tender commence long range heavy plasma beam fire and torpedo bombardment. Likelihood of destruction within five minutes, 84%."
"I'd like to hope this crew could make it at least six," Rurliss said. "But no, against an ambush on that scale, 84% sounds right."
"You goslings are getting too fast for me," Tiirid said with a sigh.
"... Pike still transmitting and active," said Cindre. "One contact in system ... it appears to be a standard Harmony Type VII probe. One lifesign inside, in stasis."
"I guess that answers that. Set a course for LE-5200, warp factor nine."
***
Captain's Log, Mission Date 4.7, USS Enterprise -- Captain Iliae Rurliss
(Ambassador, EC)
We have brought on board a defector from the Harmony of Horizon: Abeshta, a Singer, one of the uploads that rule the Harmony from the shadows. His opposition to the Harmony apparently stems from his time working in the Antaria Valley, helping evaluate candidates for uploading into Singer-hood; from having known Singers who were 'boxed' for not approving of the party line, so to speak, of the Singers; and from his time working as a therapist, both before and after becoming a Singer, in which he encountered numerous patients who experienced serious mental traumas as a result of actions taken by Singers, both to them and using them. Unfortunately, Counselor Roxun believes that Abeshta thinks the entire system of mind controlling people for their own good is a good idea in principle, just implemented poorly.
Nonetheless, he agreed to assist in removing the control chip from the Tseskiya whose body he used to help him reach Enterprise, a shipyard worker named Rence who Abeshta had been treating for post-traumatic stress disorder. I am attaching Lieutenant Commander Neroth's technical analysis of this chip, which Abeshta identified as a 'basic'-model chip, implanted in ordinary Harmony citizens (in contrast to the 'infiltrator'-model chips implanted in the Harmony's unwitting agents). Based on his analysis, Neroth believes that it may be possible to jam the network connections needed for Singers to directly control 'chipped' people.
With the recent commencement of hostilities between the Harmony and the Federation, and based on intelligence provided by Abeshta and a contact of his, we are unable to successfully return to Federation space at this time. In light of this, and of our initial orders (and Explorer Corps codes) having been compromised, I will be conducting independent operations for the duration. I do not know when -- if -- we will be able to contact Starfleet.
As our first operation, we will be meeting with Abeshta's contact, a fellow Singer. He claims that with her assistance, we can end this conflict, and shift the Harmony's overall posture.
The war has been going for much longer. Now it's inside the Harmony and up to the highest levels. (One is a defector, two starts to look like a faction.)
Looks like we could really use this encryption tech upgrade being finished and rolled out...
If the teams involved aren't already compromised, I suppose.
"He knew our orders, to the letter," Rurliss noted. "That's concerning enough to make me inclined to change course." That wasn't all, but the vehemence with which Tiirid spoke made her a bit leery of mentioning that she was genuinely inclined to believe this 'Abeshta'.
The war has been going for much longer. Now it's inside the Harmony and up to the highest levels. (One is a defector, two starts to look like a faction.)
Yeah, Zarael was a defector, this is an internal political dissident who appears to be gathering support for a coup. That or this is another needlessly elaborate scheme. Possibly both.
Yeah, Zarael was a defector, this is an internal political dissident who appears to be gathering support for a coup. That or this is another needlessly elaborate scheme. Possibly both.
I would assume this is a scheme to get Enterprise chipped rather than blown up. That way, they can not only get it blown up, but get it blown up antagonizing the Cardassians and making them attack from behind while the Singers commit a few dozen instances of Exterminatus to break the Federation's will.
The urgent diversion from our ongoing survey work was unwelcome, but I have enjoyed the chance to meet with the Bolians. The Signal Fellowship is a little known Bolian organisation, but one with a deep and important role to play in Bolian security. Which of course meant they were, marginally, more impressed than annoyed when thanks to the crew's efforts I beamed through about six layers of obfuscation and five of transporter scramblers to join a meeting.
"An Impossible Enterprise" sounds like a great Star Trek title for this story, and I can't wait to see where it's going.
Poor little Archer, blown to pieces. At least it died for a worthy cause. And while "hostilities" rage on, the Enterprise races to for the chance to find another solution. Love it!
It is. Caerliss never received those orders; she was on some other covert task elsewhere.
(I'm not going to just blow up someone else's OC, least of all off-camera).
I'm not sold on the defector being genuine. On the other hand, the Singer's aren't a monolitic bloc, they do scrub memories based on majority decisions. Which poses the question how a defector can be overlooked ...
Maybe less overlooked, and more finally fed up with being the outvoted minority voice in those votes, and despairing that the carefully-crafted SimVerse is barreling headlong into a probably-costly fight with a peer military power?
Still, yeah, gotta hope that these notoriously bad-faith Singers have decided to work honestly with the unchipped ferals.
Maybe less overlooked, and more finally fed up with being the outvoted minority voice in those votes, and despairing that the carefully-crafted SimVerse is barreling headlong into a probably-costly fight with a peer military power?
Still, yeah, gotta hope that these notoriously bad-faith Singers have decided to work honestly with the unchipped ferals.
Basically what Redhead said. I have no trust at all for our new 'friend' and even if we've got one on the level, which is doubtful, we're probably dealing with a pretty screwed up mindset perfectly willing to destroy an entire fleet just to secure a tragic backstory to mold a new Singer.
Could try to subvert Enterprise, or could go for the Federation council. Or is genuine, but his Singer peers orchastrated the whole thing and try to use it somehow.
Do you think the Singer arc may have made me slightly paranoid?
Could try to subvert Enterprise, or could go for the Federation council. Or is genuine, but his Singer peers orchastrated the whole thing and try to use it somehow.
Do you think the Singer arc may have made me slightly paranoid?
I don't see any paranoia. These are all things the Singers would do. They already had a Councilor subverted. Going all-in with the flagship to grab the majority is very much something I would consider in their shoes.
There is justifiedly paronoid and unjustifiedly paronoid.
I think at this point we are still within the first one.
I am willing too entertain the idea that it's legit but let's keep an eye or 2 on thing just in case because you know mind control does raise stakes a lot.
