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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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Jenny said:
Still, in my darkest days, I never really figured myself for a deserter.
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Ouch, I suppose it would feel that way, yeah.
Jenny said:
Thirty operational shuttles of all sizes, including six Nile-class runabouts. Sufficient supplies for five years of extended operations. A full complement of 175 photon torpedoes.
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Man, even an explorer doesn't carry that many photorps. Makes sense I suppose, don't want too many torpedoes, but it's interesting in comparison to the supplies for 5 years. I wonder how fast a ship burns through a full load in a wartime scenario.
Jenny said:
Long odds, at any rate. Impossible odds, even.
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That's why your ship is named Enterprise
Jenny said:
"Yeah. In those circumstances calling anyone sir or ma'am looks ridiculous."
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I suppose it does, at that. Another disturbing thought.
Jenny said:
He gazed down at the cubes of carbohydrate someone dubiously claimed was from a Earth tuber and not from a resequencer
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Ah, I think we've all had those kinds of potatoes. I know that I certainly have.
Jenny said:
Set up a colony for people the Singers didn't want to play with anymore, essentially.
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Jesus Christ that's dark. At least they don't just start dumping rocks from orbit to see what happens to the individual citizens.
Jenny said:
Moral Scope Regression Disorder. The seal on the box. The Singer's term for those who comprehended the world in black and white, or as it was explained, the way a child might. To be 'childish' was to skirt the line of permanent retirement.
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Ironic, given the origin of the eldest singers...
Jenny said:
That was the crux of Abeshta and Jenavol's plan. Letting them out again would flood the Singer network, give them control.
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Hm, an interesting strategy.
Jenny said:
What is necessary is to change the nature of the regime as a whole.
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Rurliss is correct, we can't just replace the Singers with other Singers. Plus, aren't a bunch of the boxed Singers extremely dangerous?
Jenny said:
"Fine, dummy Singer. Once it has access to the network, can replicate itself over and over. After propagating through every planetary node, it floods the chip control network with junk commands. They don't do anything, but it's basically jamming from inside the system. A wide scale DDOS attack on every chip. Harmony citizens won't notice it, but Singers won't be able to drown out the noise."
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This seems like a much more viable plan.
Jenny said:
It's not much, but it's a spark. And revolutions are built from such sparks.
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Well Rurliss, you've got the ship, the crew, and a plan. Now it's just gotta work.
 
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I figure you can always make more photorp casings if necessary; it's having the spare AM that's really the bottleneck. That being said probably could have upped it to the 300 level :V
 
Raw90 said:
Man, even an explorer doesn't carry that many photorps. Makes sense I suppose, don't want too many torpedoes, but it's interesting in comparison to the supplies for 5 years. I wonder how fast a ship burns through a full load in a wartime scenario.
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I mean, it's the equivalent of 1 torpedo for every ten days. Given that getting from place to place tends to take days to weeks at cruising speed even for Amby's, that seems like it budgets an average of 1 torpedo per stop - not that unreasonable given that not all stops are going to involve combat and few of those that do are going to require repeated torpedo salvoes.

It's not really a combat/wartime load you'd use for a ship intended to go fight a peer nation, but it sounds like a pretty reasonable standard loadout for a 5YM - which is most of what Enterprise does.
 
Woof. Rurliss does struggle badly with imposter syndrome. Did she get any joy from hearing of her assignment to command the Enterprise?
Raw90 said:
Ironic, given the origin of the eldest singers...
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Ironic, and very telling I think.

(That the categorisation is applied by those eldest Singers, who were little more than children themselves when they became the original uploads centuries ago.)

Plan is Serious Business, and the update does a good job of making the stakes clear.
Interesting to see on-screen Singers and their internal lives, too.
 
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ReaderJohn said:
Did the Enterprise receive her Amby class refits or no? I don't recall.
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In TBG player future planning, and... uh... with galactic events permitting, the -A refit was expected after the end of Rurliss' just-begun 5YM (for both Enterprise and Ambassador), so basically during 2332. Shortly after the very first -A refits begin, to the Ambassador Wave that launched last year (conveniently, timed after their first 5YMs).
Alliterate said:
Heh. In the Original Timeline, you'd be right. But this is TBG.

Did you know, the Ribbon is on a 39-year cycle? That makes it due to come back through Sol in 2332.

Which is, by some couldn't-be-better-if-scripted coincidence the very year we expect the Enterprise-C to be berthed in Sol SF yards, getting refit to an Ambassador-A, following completion of its second Five Year Misson in 2331.

No lie.

Nash inspecting the refit. Chromatic aberration, lens flare, Space Ribbons and emergency Enterprise launches featuring legendary Enterprise Captains- all coming to a Sol system near you, 2332. You read it here first.

(Unless you saw me freak out on realising this on Discord a while ago).
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That's when you'd see an Ambassador-A with upgraded SFX Phaser Arrays, Replicators, a Holosuite and Isolinear Computers.

Edit-
Which is us crossing from the current 'late TOS Movie' into 'early TNG' signature technology eras, now I look at it.

Isolinear computing to come with LCARS interfaces?
 
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Jenny said:
Letting them out again would flood the Singer network
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... are the boxed Singers on slow time? Because if not, how sane are they?
//
Okay, so - everything went well, the Singers are shut out of the the chip network, some ambitious Harmony scientists take a closer look and one or two (thousand) start thinking how to abuse the still existing infrastructure - what is the plan for the Singers themselves?
 
Jenny said:
Personal log, Mission Date 10.9, Captain Iliae Rurliss -- USS Enterprise
(Amarki, female)

I never thought I'd end my Starfleet career like this. But then, I never thought I'd be facing off against uploads who've deeply infiltrated Starfleet and the Federation, either, so.

Still, in my darkest days, I never really figured myself for a deserter. A washout, sure, stuck in the most dead-end post possible, maybe, but deserter... no. And yet, even though the orders we received were sending us straight into an ambush, even though I clearly can't trust my CO... well, we're still ignoring the chain of command, regardless of how compromised it is. We're still taking the flagship of the Federation off on our own private campaign. Somehow, I don't think T'Lorel will approve.
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Enterprise, thoughtfully and carefully:

"...Mm. She's not Jim, but I'll say this, Jim would not have dared to hoist the Jolly Roger and sail off with me this early in his time with me. Bold."

"I like it."

[shyly glances around to make sure no one's looking, then reaches into a storage locker that wasn't there a minute ago and withdraws a big feathery hat and a piratical eyepatch]

"Starfleet vessels have made a tradition of picking up misfits and adventurers. And refugees."

Rence chirruped with mirth, "I think I fit into all three of those categories." He gazed down at the cubes of carbohydrate someone dubiously claimed was from a Earth tuber and not from a resequencer, pecked at a few. He stared at them a little longer, then slowly pushed the tray with his beak until it dropped them onto the floor.

Deva chewed on his toast as he looked quizzically at Rence.

"That was my first free choice since I was born," Rence said. "Isn't that amazing?" He lowered his head, "And I threw my food on the floor like a child. Maybe..."
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Enterprise: "YARRR!"

"It's a start, kid."

Rurliss sat in her quarters staring at the Enterprise NX-01 patch beautifully framed above her work desk. The glass was signed by Jennifer Zhang. It had been passed down from Captain to Captain, or so Nash said.

She'd learned it was a fake.
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Ah?

I could have sworn it predated Nash, at least. Am I mistaken?

Rurliss' first instinct, maybe the most rational one, was to remind Abeshta she had a counsellor and to politely refrain from psychoanalysing her. But she was wary of her own self-judgement. She had a harsh internal critic that questioned everything she did. So she sought out, desperately, the 'truth' in the assessment of outsiders.

But they weren't always accurate critics either. And they could be even harsher than the voice in her head. Which only gave it more power.
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Enterprise:

"Grumble grumble grumble we have got to get this woman into an altered state of consciousness..."

When she spoke, though, all optimism disappeared. Her skepticism was blatant: "So, in short, your plan is: use the latest Harmony stealth tech to sneak up on the heart of the entire Harmony, then infiltrate a highly-secure facility in the Antaria Valley that neither of you've actually been to, and break out all the 'boxed' Singers ... so that they can outvote the other Singers, who will just accept the will of a bunch of dissidents they had previously boxed up rather than listen to and end the war. Does that sum it up?"
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Enterprise, dressed like a pirate: "This admittedly sounds like a hare-brained scheme."

[droops slightly]

"What does it do, exactly?" asked Rurliss. Once again she kicked herself for getting into astronomy and not computer science.

"It's essentially a virtual Singer," replied Neroth.

"Dummy Singer," said Jenavol.

"Fine, dummy Singer. Once it has access to the network, can replicate itself over and over. After propagating through every planetary node, it floods the chip control network with junk commands. They don't do anything, but it's basically jamming from inside the system. A wide scale DDOS attack on every chip. Harmony citizens won't really notice it, but Singers won't be able to drown out the noise."
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Wait.

I see it.

Singers are basically supercomputer AIs in effect.

We're the Federation.

What Federation hero had a downright deadly track record of stopping supergenius computers in their tracks?

The Singers are gonna try to access their meat puppets.

And they're gonna get infini-spammed with this:

​

"Imagine that," Roxun said, "You would think to yourself, 'I don't feel any different,' maybe even, 'look, I am going to buy some eggs. That is a conscious rational decision I have made.' And then over the next few weeks as more nothing happens and they live their lives as they always have, they'll start to think we fed them some BS." He shook his head, "We need to let someone have access to the network long enough to… well I don't know if planting the idea is going too far, but at least providing some sort of direct proof for everyone to look at and think over. Otherwise — entirely with validity with the facts they have — they're going to say we're just spreading misinformation. If we were Singers ourselves we could do it. But in absence of any…" he gestured at the two across from him, "might as well go with ones we trust."
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A fair point. Having a friendly Singer puppet people for five seconds would do a LOT to convince them that there's, y'know, a problem... though they might still blame US, if it's handled poorly. I see why it's an issue.
 
Jenny said:
She didn't know anyone who had been boxed. But she had heard horror stories. The threat was always there. Moral Scope Regression Disorder. The seal on the box. The Singers' term for those who comprehended the world in black and white, or as it was explained, the way a child might. To be 'childish' was to skirt the line of permanent retirement.
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Honestly, I doubt Singers only ever jailed dissidents and didn't have their own share of crazy murderers that started breaking the game for everyone else and got locked up. So just realising everyone in the box strikes me as a bad plan even if it was more possible.
 
Raw90 said:
Man, even an explorer doesn't carry that many photorps. Makes sense I suppose, don't want too many torpedoes, but it's interesting in comparison to the supplies for 5 years. I wonder how fast a ship burns through a full load in a wartime scenario.
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Certainly a ship could carry hundreds or even thousands of torpedo casings easily- they're tiny relative to the hull and safe to store when not fueled with antimatter. And since a ship may expend several spreads of torpedoes in a single action, or even in a purely non-military event ("blow up that giant asteroid before it hits the planet")... Well, carrying several hundred would be something like a minimum.

They're not like the torpedoes on a German U-Boat. They're like bullets for an infantryman's automatic rifle.

Iron Wolf said:
I figure you can always make more photorp casings if necessary; it's having the spare AM that's really the bottleneck. That being said probably could have upped it to the 300 level :V
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If the ship has onboard capacity to fabricate new casings, then fine.

But since the torpedoes have at least warp drive sustainer coils (so they can maintain warp speeds when fired from warp)... Well, they could be a mite tricky to fabricate.
 
And even if you weren't a danger to others before, what about that subjective time in complete isolation? Just how long did it feel?
Yeah, depending how they're 'stored', dealing with boxed Singers is (another) large future headache for someone.
 
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Alliterate said:
And even if you weren't a danger to others before, what about that subjective time in complete isolation? Just how long did it feel?
Yeah, depending how they're 'stored', dealing with boxed Singers is (another) large future headache for someone.
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Also, if they don't have something to offer the unboxed Singers after a successful rebellion, they run the risk of a few Harmony battle groups bent on revenge. Because their scheme won't work on the secure networks on military ships. Also not seeing what stops a tender going on a longish journey, setting up a new Harmony a few thousand lightyears away.
 
I don't think any unboxing is in the immediate plans anymore.

But good point, I (now) wouldn't be too surprised to see some Expeditionary Fleets just up and leave, if things are going very badly. Singers with different visions seeing the end of the game, so take their slaves elsewhere.
 
Alliterate said:
But good point, I (now) wouldn't be too surprised to see some Expeditionary Fleets just up and leave, if things are going very badly. Singers with different visions seeing the end of the game, so take their slaves elsewhere.
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Singers + Borg = more efficient assimilation?
Singers + Founders = a match made in hell?
 
The basic plan of launching a DDoS attack is nifty: powerful, simple, exploits fundamental weaknesses of the system.

Which is why I'm so worried, because it sounds like exactly the sort of thing some Plucky Rebel; or for that matter a Screaming Vortex of Fractal Personality Disorder, would have gotten themselves boxed for doing 300 years ago.

Using our own hardware instead of just launching an attack within the network may be an advantage, but using a dummy instead of something with enough brains to defend itself in the cyberspace most likely will lead to our attack being shortlived the second it encounters a Singer whose job it is to beat other Singers and shove them into boxes.
 
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065tdsa said:
The basic plan of launching a DDoS attack is nifty, powerful simple, exploits fundamental weaknesses of the system.

Which is why I'm so worried, because it sounds like exactly the sort of thing some Plucky Rebel; or for that matter a Screaming Vortex of Fractal Personality Disorder, would have gotten themselves boxed for doing 300 years ago.

Using our own hardware instead of just launching an attack within the network may be an advantage, but using a dummy instead of something with enough brains to defend itself in the cyberspace most likely will lead to our attack being shortlived the second it encounters a Singer whose job it is to beat other Singers and shove them into boxes.
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What's the worst that could happen - besides a Harmony civil war because the DoS didn't work on all planets/stations, some exploratory fleets doing the 'in case of defeat, start over somewhere else' contingency and a few battle groups hell bent on 'maximum damage to the Federation'?
 
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