Playing The Bloody Game

Posted on Mar 03, 2017 @ 2:37am by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Holodeck Havoc

"PLAYING THE BLOODY GAME"

(Continued from "Flight Lessons")
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Captain's log, supplemental - with the holodeck now operating from a single metafile, it seems that there might be light at the end of the tunnel, and perhaps sooner than we think...

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Location: USS Phoenix, berthed in Spacedock
Stardate: [2.16]0302.2245
Scene: Deck 1, saucer section - Main bridge


Michael Turlogh Kane continued to seethe inwardly as the silence stretched out. No, not silence - the bridge was a hubbub of muttered reports and conversation as Darrell Young and his Spacedock engineers monitored the condition of the holodeck and tried to second-guess whatever Malin-Argo and his team were up to. It was more of a powerlessness, a helplessness that made him impotent and irritable. Nine of his senior officers (and one Bolian incarnation of Chaos) were trapped inside the holodeck, and there didn't seem to be anything to be done except wait the computer out. Right now, it was busily assimilating ten different individual programs into one metafile, meshing them together into a single, over-arching plot that meshed elements from everything into one.

No doubt it was turning into a bizarre experience for those on the holodeck, but here in the real world, the Phoenix was falling behind. Having already notified Starfleet Operations that her slated date for launch now could not be met, he was now being bugged by twice-daily requests for updates - always politely worded, but at this stage they were simply repetitive, just like his answers.

Darrell Young sidled over to him. Kane resisted the urge to give him his special stinkeye, the withering one he reserved for bungling underlings when they couldn't tell him what was wrong or when it could be fixed. Besides being a Commodore, Young was also one of Spacedock's several Yard Masters, and it wouldn't do to go making enemies with any of them. You had to play the bloody game.

"No joy?" asked Young. The black man's head, bald and smooth as a billiard ball, seemed to be reflecting the bridge ceiling lights as he sagely stroked his pencil-thin goatee beard.

"Engineering are working on it," said Kane steadily. "Between you and Commander Malin-Argo, this mess will be worked out soon enough and we can get down to some real work."

"Assuming they let you out there," said Young, still scratching at his beard. "There's probably a good case to be made for shutting down the Phoenix and gutting her main computer to find out what went wrong. After all, if a similar cascade failure were to occur in the one of the main systems, like the relay network, or life support - "

"Is there a chance of that, do you think?" asked Kane in alarm. He hadn't really considered it, but he wouldn't put it past Starfleet's pencil-pushers to decide that the Federation's only dreadnought couldn't put to sea without being one-hundred per cent effective. "I mean, it's not like we have a main computer failure. The holodecks are a self-contained system, you said so yourself."

"You never know," said Young, and the tone of his voice was enough to make Kane's opinion of him change from irritation to loathing. He wondered if Young even knew what he was talking about, or if the man just enjoyed willfully speculating on things to make himself sound important.

Kane opened his mouth to accuse Young of being a pontificating arsehole -

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Scene: Deck 35, drive section - Main Engineering


Malin-Argo had gone upstairs, to the upper deck of the three-storey open plan Engineering deck. The Phoenix's enormous warp core beat only lightly and slowly - the ship at rest. Scattered all over the mid-deck were the teams of computer technicians, alternately monitoring and attempting to hack the holodeck's surprisingly resistant computer system.

The effort was being led by Asta Elgin, who at that moment was staring at her workstation's data readout. The scrolling series of zeroes and ones were unintelligible to anyone but a computer tech, but Asta's brow was furrowed like a field in spring, and her mouth worked a silent incantation as she converted the datas into coherent thought.

He finger jumped out and traced a line down the screen. "Input, output, isolinear chips and ODN relays," she murmured. The metafile was embedded deep now - she saw representations for all sorts of odd holographic characters, and wondered what sort of madness was going on behind the heavy tritanium doors of the various holodecks. "Every age has its dark magic. What's the difference between a curse and a cursor?"

"Something on your mind?" asked Jonathan Maynell, one of the other assistant chief engineers. Maynell had been fiddling around with the idea of shutting down power to the holodecks, either separately or together, but it was pretty much impossible without taking the main computer offline and killing the engines.

"I think so," said Asta. "Look at this."

Maynell approached and stood at her shoulder. Asta's face was eerily underlit by the light from her screen as she jabbed at various binary codes on the screen. "Here. Here, and here."

"I don't see it, Asta. They're elements from the metafile. A fairy-tale castle, by the looks of this one? A wizard or something?"

Asta nodded. "The computer is running one large metafile, right?"

"Right."

Asta touched the screen, bringing up a window that showed the holodeck's operating program. "We kill it with fire."

"The holodeck's OP isn't the problem, Asta, it's the file it's running."

"I know, but think about it - we change the program. We tell it not to run certain elements of the metafile, like the castle or the wizard or this dragon - which one of them wanted to play with dragons? - and the holodeck OP will start deleting them from the metafile!"

Maynell's eye brightened. "Is that - is that possible?"

"Why shouldn't it be? Instead of concentrating on hacking the metafile, we change the conditions it can operate under. Instead of controlling the metafile, we systematically purge it."

Maynell nodded. "Commander!" he shouted upward. "We've found something!"

Malin-Argo's head appeared over the parapet of the upper deck. "Good!" The Grazerite moved to the personnel elevator and quickly came down where Maynell and Asta were waiting for him.

Quickly, Asta and Elgin outlined their plan while the Grazerite listened. When they had finished, the Chief Engineer looked thoughtful. "If we undertake this repair of the operating program, we must be certain that the safeties are not deleted. When we begin work, you should seal the safeties in a sub-routine to prevent them from being affected."

"Yes, sir," said Asta. She shared a glance with Maynell - the Grazerite, far from being his usual critical self, seemed to be pleased.

"And start small, Ensign. Do a few test runs before you even consider purging a sizable element from the metafile, understood?"

"Understood, Commander," said Maynell, as he and Asta turned back to the workstation to figure out how they would approach this new angle.

Malin-Argo stepped away from them. "Engineering to Captain Kane."

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Scene: Deck 1, saucer section - Main Bridge


- and quickly clapped it shut again as Malin-Argo's stentorian tones come over internal comms. [[Engineering to Captain Kane.]]

Young raised his eyebrows in a 'this-might-be-it!' expression, but Kane turned away from him. "Go ahead, Commander."

[[Captain, we have a working theory. Instead of attempting to rewrite the metafile, we are going to try to alter the holodeck's operating program itself. If successful, we will be able to systematically purge the metafile from the holodeck's memory by ordering the program not to run the various code elements that it is now processing.]]

Kane was nodding. "That sounds plausible, Commander, my compliments to your engineering team. How soon can you begin the purge?"

[[Our first task will be to isolate the holodeck safeties to ensure they remain unaffected. Thereafter we will begin tinkering with minor elements of the metafile, before beginning to lock out the major details. If this rewrite works, the holodeck operating parameters will be changed. The software will 'refuse' to recognise larger and larger parts of the metafile, and those elements will fail to run and thus be deleted from the current program. I can brief you as soon as - ]]

But Kane was already heading for the turbolift. "As soon as now, Commander Malin-Argo. I'm on way to you. Kane out."

Finally, he thought, as the turbolift doors closed on Darrell Young's cheery smile and double thumbs-up. This mess was about to be cleaned up.

"Engineering," he snapped, and the turbolift smoothly began to descend, like a curtain being readied for the final act.

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NRPG: Like the theatre analogy implies, let's move this story into endgame now. You don't want Malin-Argo claiming the credit for saving you from the holodeck, do you?


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

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