A Matter of Perspective

Posted on May 02, 2017 @ 11:44am by Lieutenant Commander Aerdan Jos & Captain Kassandra Thytos & Ensign Sofia Andersson
Edited on on May 02, 2017 @ 11:44am

Mission: In Place of God

"A matter of perspective"
(Cont. "सफलता")
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LOCATION: USS PHOENIX
SD: [2.17]0501.2120
SCENE: Science Lab

"Ya guys got a coupla minutes?" The twangy voice of the Marine Commanding Officer interrupted the relative silence which the science and medical team had been working in.

"Sorry to crash the party, we just had a flash of inspiration as it were, and realized that we might be lookin' at everythin' wrong. Literally. So bein' as I hate using the comms when face-to-face will do, I've dragged all our sorry asses down here to see if we can git ourselves calibrated correctly, as it was."

She stabbed a thumb behind her to indicate Eve and Jasmine who had also entered the room.

"We were thinkin' that maybe the reason some of the art and the scribble-y things didn't make no sense to us was because maybe we ain't seein' it in the right wavelength, or even the right way, I mean, they look insectoid, right? So maybe they got compound eyes or somethin', and what makes sense and looks like a schematic and chart to them looks like random gibberish to us."

"And you want to see what we've got, to see if we can come up with a way to see what they see?" Aerdan flicked his antenna and looked thoughtful. "Perhaps, I have some fascinating monographs on insectoid and crustaceous xenomorphic optics. Let me go and see if I can find them."

He stood and hustled off to his office. The Marine pulled out the chair next to Sofia, whirled it around, and sat down next to her. Sofia froze slightly, when the MCO had been in earlier to get a broken nose set she'd gotten the distinct impression that the nurses were exceedingly nervous around the woman, though the redhead had been polite enough to them. Sofia had guessed that the woman must be the sort with a very strict sense of order and the rules, and that she must be merciless to those who fell outside of it. People, like Sofia, for example, who had been Neo-Essentialists.

"You know, I was handpicked by Richard Edgerton himself to lead a mutiny against Captain Kane," Kassandra said suddenly, quietly enough that the rest at the table couldn't hear her. Sofia's heart sank and throat constricted. She had wanted to put everything that concerned the Neo-Essentialist and her time with them as far away from her as possible, and yet despite her greatest efforts here she was forced to confront them once more.

Her involvement with the group lead by Richard Edgerton had been a learning experience, one that had come with a heavy price, not only for her but for EARTH as a whole. Sofia knew that there was nothing she could do to change the events that hd come to pass, the best and only thing she could do was to accept the responsibilities of her involvement and face the consequences, whatever they may be.
"Led a mutiny against them, nearly killed one of them. Once I realized I was in the wrong, I changed, I joined them, and I helped save em. I'm tellin' you this because, well, the people here, they won't hold mistakes you made against you."

Like the officers of the ANUBIS that she had met back on EARTH, those of the PHOENIX had appeared just as willing to give her a chance to prove herself, this despite the mistake that she had made. Kassandra's take seemed accurate in that regards, but still the assistant Chief Medical Officer could not help but notice something odd about the entire situation. "Maybe so, but they still seem pretty wary about you," Sofia said tentatively as she glanced around the room.

"Oh. That. That ain't about me havin' been a Neo-Essentialist. That's somethin' else entirely, an' you'll no doubt find out about that soon enough," Kassandra's voice was dry.

"An' there's The Tick! I was startin' to think that maybe you'd gotten buried under a stack of nerd material."

"The Tick?" Aerdan's antennae twitched, and he raised one eyebrow in confusion.

"Now you ain't the XO, I realized you're in dire need of a fun nickname, an' I think The Tick suits you well."

"I don't see how..."

"It's an old Earth thing. There was a superhero, he was blue, and had antennae," Kassandra grinned at the Doctor. "Hey, you're just lucky I didn't come up with somethin' based upon the fact that the last time you treated me, I ended up drugged and wanderin' half naked through a space station."

"You mean when I saved your life?"

Sofia could not help herself in grinning at the exchange between the two officers which only served to reinforced what had been said and shown, that the crew of the PHOENIX had been an odd yet very friendly bunch.

"Men. Save yer life once an' they won't shut up about it ever again." The Marine winked to show she was joking. "So, brainiacs, tell me what you think you can glean about these bugs."

"Well, from the pictures, there's no real evidence of large eye structures, which rather rules out compound eyes with regular vision. Instead, we're supposing that their vision may be something similar to horseshoe crabs on earth, multiple different structures that sense different colors and wavelengths of light, dotted around the body. Of course, we're only assuming that they have some sort of visual sense because they chose to send images through the wormhole first," Sophia pointed out.

"Indeed," Arak Schad said suddenly. The Amazaarite was a very quiet man, diligent, and brilliant in his own way, but tended to remain silent or downplay his contributions. "It was an assumption, but one we had to make in order to progress. Otherwise, the possibilities are endless: Sonar, radiation, electromagnetic, we'd never get anywhere."

"Sure. So what we're seein' ain't what they're seein', anyway, right? How do we see through their eyes?" Kassandra frowned. "I'd say we could run a simulation in a holodeck, but you know, oddly I ain't feelin' that. Even if the holodecks weren't shut down until they fix the program."

"We do have equipment here we use to help us visualize what they see, we do use it for atypical neuropathic hallucinations-" Aerdan began.

"Wait, we have some fancy pants medical device specifically to allow the medical staff to see hallucinations? That seems ridiculous and a complete waste of time-" Kass' eyebrows raised.

"That is precisely what I said. But then I started thinking about this crew, and decided that we might actually need it someday," Aerdan deadpanned.

"Touche," Eve said, barely hiding a smile. Suddenly the intercom buzzed.

[[Biology and Cultural Team, we have new data coming through. We seem to be lacking a decryption key for it, so hopefully that's hidden in one of the pictures.]]

The two teams quickly reviewed the data that had just been received, but before either could get to the end, the intercom buzzed once more.

[[Ryan to Andersson, Sofia are you there?]]

"Where else would I be?" the aCMO replied with a smile. "What's up?"

[[We have come up with a theory, one that the team believes solid enough to share with you.]]

"Sharing state secrets with the enemy are you?" Sofia teased. "I think we are all at the point of considering pretty much anything that comes our way, so what do you have?"

[[Colors!]] Lynette simply said. [[Seeing colors.]]

"Is this a theory on how these creatures might see things or a medical condition that you are suffering from?" the Doctor asked in a somewhat serious manner.

[[The creatures of course. Why would I be calling you to say that I am seeing colors?]]

"Because I'm on the medical staff and we are roommates?" Sofia stated in a matter-of-fact manner.

[[Nevermind. We suspect that these creatures might see things on a completely different wavelength which could add a great deal of details to the information we are working with,]] the engineer explained.

Sofia looked around to see everyone nodding in agreement, some having already begun to look at the data with newer eyes.

"We're on it. Should have results shortly, in the meantime try not to see too many colors. Would hate to see you turn into one of those things."

[[Funny Sofia, real funny.]]

There was a titter of suppressed chuckling. It was, in fact, funny.

"Look on the bright side, if you started changing into one, then we'd get our answers that much faster!" Sofia sounded chipper, but her tone was obviously joking, with a compassionate undercurrent.

Though unseen, the pause prompted everyone to envision Lynette shaking her head slowly and quite possible rolling her eyes. [[If I start seeing colors, it's time to have my eyes checked.]]

Thought the banter, the doctors were already starting to plug Lynette's suggestion into the computer. It was that comfortable feeling of wearing an old sweater - the wordplay eased the wait for results.

"Cade would say it's time to start drinking." Aerdan quipped gently, in a tone that sounded like Cade - if Cade ever spoke in a gentle whisper (which he most certainly did not.)

Lynette huffed gently on the other end of the line. [[I'm not gonna follow that advice.]]

"Unless it's directly medical I don't suggest following most of Cade's advice." Aerdan admitted.

Lynette made a sound that was somewhere between an assent and a growl. She had too many unpleasant run-ins with the cantankerous human doctor to remember him in any sort of positive light. Kassandra raised a brow at the sound, but the moment passed without incident as a potential answer lit upon the screen.

Aerdan rocked on his heels as his antennae tipped forward, trying to absorb the information as it spread across the screen. "Actually instead of seeing colors, the answer may be lacking colors."

"Lacking?" Kassandra queried, trying to piece together how this might reveal something in the gibberish.

Both antennae twitched forward again. "If the creatures had a different perception of color than we see, it is possible that colors we differentiate easily - such as green and red or blue and yellow may meld for them; but as compensation colors that we see as melding such a yellow and yellow-green may have stark differences."

"They pick out different details in the visible spectrum." Sofia summed up in a nice concise manner.

Ever the realist Kass decided to play devil's advocate. "So how do we make that work for us?"

[[Well, if you give me a list of parameters, I can run a series of tests using Aerdan's fancy neuropathic equipment.]] Lynette sounded eager.
* * *=/\=* * *

NRPG: Phillip had a flash of inspiration, so here is a threep not quadeep.

A post bought to you by:
Tiffany
as
Ens. Sofia Andersson
aCMO

Jamie LeBlanc
as
Aerdan Jos
CMO

and
Alix Fowler
as
Kassandra Thytos
MCO

of the USS PHOENIX