Population III conundrum Pt. 3
Saturday 17 April 2021 – 1800hrs ~ 2100hrs GMT
Commander Kenneth Mikhael – Executive Officer
Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride – Flight Controller
Lieutenant Elli-Navine – Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis – Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Scott McIntyre – Chief Tactical/Security Officer
Podcast: Episode 5 – To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin
Mission 1 Aftermath:
“In a statement from Starfleet Sciences we have learnt today that the Earth Ship Atlantis encountered by the USS Potemkin was in fact from an alternate timeline, or universe. The Quantum Signature is from a universe not before discovered.
This statement coincided with the verdict of the court marshal of four of the surviving senior staff. All have been found guilty of multiple counts of murder, conduct unbecoming an officer and mutiny. They will be sentenced later this week.
We have also just learned that almost all the junior staff of the Atlantis have been granted permission to return to active duty, after a two year long ‘catch up’ course at the academy. The Department of Temporal Investigations state that as they are from another universe their movement through time is more complicated than normal. They refused to expand upon that statement.
We will surely know more as time move on, but for now it seems as though most of the Atlantis’ crew will be given the chance to assimilate into our time.”
Population III conundrum Pt. 3
This statement coincided with the verdict of the court marshal of four of the surviving senior staff. All have been found guilty of multiple counts of murder, conduct unbecoming an officer and mutiny. They will be sentenced later this week.
We have also just learned that almost all the junior staff of the Atlantis have been granted permission to return to active duty, after a two year long ‘catch up’ course at the academy. The Department of Temporal Investigations state that as they are from another universe their movement through time is more complicated than normal. They refused to expand upon that statement.
We will surely know more as time move on, but for now it seems as though most of the Atlantis’ crew will be given the chance to assimilate into our time.”
A planet in shambles, all but destroyed. A culture seemingly lost. An impossible moon, no larger than Luna yet with a thick atmosphere and a people, somewhere in the industrial age with strikingly similar architecture to the lost culture planetside. Clearly not advanced enough to have been a threat to a people who could move entire stars across universes, yet so obviously related to their target world. Strange indeed.
Moreover, across the system there were dozens of artificial objects, drones and satellites and an exceptionally large construct in the upper atmosphere of a large Jovian. Chief of Security McIntyre and Chief Elli-Navine plan to hack the construct to blind it to the presence of the Potemkin. The Federation starship approaches and begin their scans, it is discovered that the construct is a hydrogen scoop, using powerful magnetic fields to funnel the hydrogen into tanks.
While contemplating what to do with this information a large creature swam up from the depths of the Jovian, the creature looked like a blimp, with a whale like fluke. Two huge eyes, each the size of a small shuttlecraft swiveled to watch the Potemkin. The Creatures thick skin was covered in tubing large enough to walk through and connected metal hubs. The 2’000 meter long, 12’000 tonne creature moved to the hydrogen scoop.
Moments ticked by before the crew realize that they were not invisible to the creatures’ senses. After a transfer of hydrogen, it swam around in a wide arc and came directly at them, power spikes were sensed aboard the Potemkin. More power was being stored in each of the metal hubs than the Potemkin could produce in an hour. Both eyes were staring at them. They were being hailed!
Upon the screen the face of an alien appeared, a humanoid with a bony crest sweeping from the forehead back behind them, where a human’s nose and mouth would be were a collection of animated tentacles between 6 and 8 inches in length. As it spoke colour pulsed from top to bottom, the computer had a surprisingly easy time translating the alien language, which used a combination of verbal and visual input.
It didn’t take long for an understanding to be reached, the aliens called themselves protectors, they were protecting their less advanced ‘descendants’ who resided upon the moon. The protectors had spent 3’000 years hiding their advanced technology from a race they call the ‘Tenzim’.
The Potemkin’s crew manage to convince the Protectors that with their help they could end the Tenzim threat in this universe, they only needed to destroy the rings in orbit of the Population III star. No sooner said then more whale like vessels ascend through the clouds, buzzing around the giants were small, Nat like fighters. Using a form of hyperspace, the alien ships set course for the population III star.
Just a few hours pass until they all arrive, the Potemkin dropping to normal space. The sense that they alien ships could have outstripped the Potemkin was had by all. No sooner had they arrived did the whale ships attack; immensely powerful beams of phased energy laced gravity lanced out and struck the rings. At the meeting point sensors showed a sudden spike in gravity, more than a solar mass at each intersection point. The rings crumpled into balls no bigger than that of a golf ball. The beams briefly punched into the star; each beam whipped up a fast whirlpool that quickly degraded into a funnel spinning at hundreds of times a second.
From within the star, dark imposing ships appeared. Their hulls made from neutron-matter, each ship clocking in at more than the weight of the Earth, only being able to move thanks to higgs-boson relays. Should even one of the relays be knocked out the ship’s engines would be powerful to move it.
Wasting no time, the Tenzim ships move in formation, the lead ship opening fire. An anti-proton beam of such power that it seemed impossible shot from an angry looking ‘dot’ on the front plate stabbing into the nearest whale ship. Raking the flank like a fish being gutted. Even with the power of the alien weapon the Whale only took superficial damage and returned fire with a cherry red energy laced gravity beam.
The small fighters flew around the Tenzim ships, their own energy beams having little of no effect. Their other weapon, however punched easily through hyper dense neutron-matter hulls. The Point space time defects, blackhole gun was fired like a dumb fire missile. They strafed the much larger ships, dodging most of the return fire.
Seeing their chance, the Lieutenant McIntyre fired a trio of photon torpedoes, guiding them through one of the jagged rents in the hull, two of the three made it inside. Internal explosions lead to other sections of the hull being blown outwards like a blister.
Return fire pummeled their shields like a hammer to a bubble, they breached, and the beam sliced through the Potemkin’s hull like a blowtorch. Just a sample of the power they were facing, Commander Pride, anticipating his Captains orders swings the big ship around behind some of the larger asteroids in the field.
Meanwhile, a pair of whale ships combine their attacked, sending a squadron of fighters ahead to punch holes in the Tenzim ships hull they sweep in an open fire with dozens of cherry red beams, each one precisely targeted and sparing the pre-made hull breaches. While the Tenzim ship is being torn apart it manages a full broadside, hundreds of small cannons firing, ripping open a whale ships flank. Thick fluid flows from the wound, freezing in seconds; the animal dead, its crew unknown.
The battle rages for what seems like hours, it is mere minutes. The Potemkin manages to disable a Tenzim ship, it drifts further from the population III star. Then, in a blink of an eye. In what seems like a coincidence, timing with the end of some higher being’s time scale the star blinks away. Replaced with the star that ‘should’ have been there, the M-Class Planet has moved back to its normal orbit and the outer worlds reappear.
Aftermath:
“Computer, Captains Log, supplemental.
A week later, the Potemkin has been repaired and has move on with their mission, the Venture will remain on station for the foreseeable future to study the system, The USS Nova, Intrepid and Thunderchild are already out in the system studying the other planet. We await a construction transport to arrive, at which point we will land an outpost on the M-Class world we are orbiting. We arrived too late to help the Potemkin in her original investigation, or the battle that followed but we can make the most of it now. The Thunderchild, carrying a battalion or Marines will start their investigation of the Tenzim ship that was disabled and left behind. So far no life signs or power readings have been detected and Captain Kelli reports that they are having to adjust their ‘orbit’ around the ship to account for the planet sized gravity well it produces.”