Brain Trust: Assemble!! [Backpost]

Posted on Mon Apr 14th, 2025 @ 7:12pm by Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Petty Officer 2nd Class Henry Washington & Lieutenant JG Astrja Kyan & Ensign George Paxton

Mission: Pandora's Box
Location: Engineering Labs
Timeline: MD01 - Right after "Sigma Pentricle"
1981 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

Xavier tapped furiously on the console until the tips of his fingers were numb, but he wouldn't let that stop him. He only had 110 minutes left of Finn's original 2 hour deadline and every second counted. He was currently pulling information from everywhere he could think of; long and short-range sensors, surveillance probes, the history archives, everywhere. No data was irrelevant and if he was going to solve this then he would need everything he could get his hands on to draw some kind of conclusion. Not to mention the smartest people on the ship. He had assembled a Brain Trust; a mixture of operations and engineers he felt would give him the best ideas and innovative solutions, and the last one had finally entered the room.

"Good, now that you're all here," he said turning to face the group, "we have less than two hours to come up with a solution that can destroy this planet killer. This is a last resort situation but the Commodore needs an answer soon and if we don't think of one then Commander Keating will have no choice but to destroy the planet the planet killer is currently calling home. No ideas are off the table, hit me."

Astrja spoke up. "What are the parameters here, sir? Are we trying to destroy the core interior technology or the entire fabric of the planet killer? As those are very different tasks."

"Good question," Xavier said with a wink to his number two. "Ideally the entire thing itself but if it's just the interior technology then I believe that would be an acceptable backup to the backup."

"The nesting dolls of plans," Henry said with a grin. "Or to use their correct name; Matryoshka dolls. Which interestingly were once..." he trailed off into silence when he caught Lieutenant Leiko's eyes and realised that this was not the time. "I digress," he said sheepishly as he turned to face the Andorian. "Do you believe it would be easier to gut the planet killer rather than destroy it fully?"

"Some of the, uh...materials that the planet killer is made of is practically classified. Are you sure Starfleet would...would be satisfied with just taking out the interior?" George interjected.

"Well, what if we used a gravetic implosion wave on the interior to destabilize the neutronium matrix?" ask Astrja. "That should cause it to collapse in on itself, leaving it a not as big inert lump of neurtronium."

Xavier shifted his weight to his other leg as he scratched at the stubble on his chin. "We ran the simulation for a possible GIW with very mixed results," he said. "Unless we can find the exact correct frequency harmonic, we run the risk of creating an artificial black hole that will destroy the moon and potentially the system beyond. That's the kind of thinking I need though, keep them coming," he added, trying to be as encouraging as possible. 105 minutes left!

"In that case," said Astrja leaning back. "What if we placed a set of chained tricobolt devices as deep inside as we can and a massive ablative shield generator at the mouth and detonate them? It should give enough of a blast to scrub the interior clean of usable tech. Or use a smaller gravity implosion to seal the mouth before setting off the tricobolt device."

"But then...we're still left with the problem of the exterior and, it seems," George pointed back at the nature of the material itself, "that Starfleet would likely want the whole thing destroyed, not just the interior. Uh, right?" He looked to Xavier for confirmation.

Xavier nodded in acknowledgement.

"Wait a second...black holes..." George scratched his head for second. "Henry, didn't you read some sort of study that the Daystrom Institute published about a theory around, uh...controlled black holes? You might have read it too, Lieutenant Kyan. I...I think it came out recently." He asked as an idea suddenly struck him.

"Yes I did," Henry replied with an enthusiastic grin. "They were studying the artificial quantum singularities used by Romulan ships and how they can be applied to real physics. You know, energy sources, wormholes, and blackholes, too. But from what I remember, the research was in its early stages...what were you thinking?" He asked George.

Astrja called up information on her datapad, her eyes lit up. "What if we used the gravity implosion to deliberately create a pinpoint black hole and use the energy generated to shunt it through subspace to the Ossian black hole?"

"That," George motioned towards Astrja. "It's, well...it's very risky. If anything went wrong, we'd be risking...serious damage. It...could swallow up the planet and all of us with it if things really get out of control, but it would be powerful enough to truly get rid of everything. Though I suppose that might not be any better than blowing up the whole planet?"

"If it worked, there would be nothing recoverable of the planet killer," said Astrja. "But yes, tricky to pull off."

"How tricky?" Xavier asked as he looked at all three of them in turn. "I need actual numbers to bring to Finn and the Commodore. I need to know how easy this will be to pull off, the risk factor, and any margin for error we might be graced with."

"I will have to run some regression analysis on the black hole simulation," said Astrja, "but I think our safest best for rending it unusable remains the controlled gravetic implosion. While it leaves a big lump of neutronium sitting around, it would mostly be a navigational hazard. It is not like anyone will be able to move it."

Xavier checked the chronometer on the display screen; just over 90 minutes left. "Okay, we need to run some preliminary tests, just so I have something tangible to take to the Commodore. Our available data right now is limited, but it's all we have until we enter orbit, so we'll have to make do. Paxton and Washington," he said, turning to the humans. "Work on the black hole theory. We need to know how big of a risk this will be. You and I," he continued as he turned to face his Andorian number two, "can look into the GIW. Your expertise might have better luck than I had. You have just over an hour, move."

Henry nodded and moved closer towards George. "This is your show, Ensign. Show me what you got."

Astrja grinned, "Let's do this."

Xavier ran his hand through his hair as he checked the chronometer again. They weren't as far along as he would have liked but they were out of time and he needed a plan to save the moon from being destroyed by Finn and her cockney counterpart. "Okay people, we're out of time," he said as he gestured for everyone to come back together. "Lieutenant Kyan, why don't you start us off."

"Yes, sir," she said. "Using a controlled gravity implosion is viable but carries risk, the planet killer is already the densest sentient-made object we have encountered. But by using a pulsed gravity implosion working out from the core," she activated a hologram showing the sequence. "We should be able to shut it down before it collapses back to the material's original neutron star density." The hologram shows it is collapsing in on itself, moving from the "tail" to the "mouth", leaving an ovoid chunk of matter. "Even if we have to stop the process early," the hologram rewinds, "the core of the planet killer where all of its technology is will still be flattened though it would be possible that some of the outermost parts could be recovered. But, based on our limited understanding of the technology involved, that should not pose any danger."

"That being said, it will still be a massive lump of neutronium and will affect the gravity of local space in a noticeable way," she concludes.

"Can we speculate how the gravity may be affected?" Xavier asked, more for the other two gentlemen than himself. He had poured over the data with the Andorian, and though he wasn't completely sold on the plan, it did stand a chance of doing what the Commodore had wanted.

"Serious enough to put up a warning beacon for and to tag in star charts," said Astrja. "A civilian shuttlecraft that got too close to it would have no chance of escape and it is going to attract tourists, It may require posting a patrol ship to warn people off."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Xavier responded with a slight nod of his head. He turned to the humans. "I can see you vibrating Henry," he said with a gentle smile. "Give me the facts."

Henry returned the smile but shook his head slightly. "No, no, Sir," he replied, with a buoyancy in his tone. "This is George's baby, I'm just along for the ride. Take it away," he said, turning to his counterpart.

Astrja smiled and waited to see what George and Henry had come up with.

'Well...we looked into, uhm, possibly creating a pinpoint blackhole. Like, we had discussed earlier, but to be honest we had mixed results. However!" George put up a finger with a hesitantly excited smiled. "It is possible to create one that will swallow the entire device. The hard part is...well...keeping it stable enough to consume the planet killer without...you know...consuming everything else. We kept running into problems with the neutronium and as Lieutenant Kyan already stated, it's affect on gravity in a local space. The problem is once it starts interacting with the black hole things get wonky."

"A black hole, even a tiny one, will also be a navigational hazard and will grow over time," said Astrja. "Though less likely to attract tourists." She tapped her datapad. "If we had some Romulan singularity engineers, I think we could do something clever, but without that knowledge, our options are limited."

"Right," George sighed. "I'm...I'm not sure if either of these ideas are much better than...the current solution." He tread lightly as Xavier didn't seem too keen on Finn's plan.

"Current solution?" asked Astrja. "Do we have another option on the table?"

"Destroying the entire moon, Planet Killer and all," Xavier replied with a slight slump of his shoulders. He knew that 60 minutes wasn't a long enough time but he was hoping that one of the ideas would be less crazy than Finn's. "You did well people," he continued, trying to keep their spirits and morale high. "We have a few days before we reach our destination. I ask that you keep working on this and any other possible ideas. For now, I will take them all to the Commodore and let him decide on the best one."

"Which would certainly be easy and cause no navigational hazards," said Astrja with a note of sarcasm, "as well as totally depleting our stocks of expendable weapons. Do not worry, Chief, we will get you usable proposals that are better than that solution."

"I don't think the current plan depletes the stock of expendable weapons, but it definitely has it's....hazards." George commented. "I've only read the outline though. I'll can ask Commander Keating to send us both the detailed plans. Perhaps something in them will clue us to a better option?" He said with hesitant hope.

"Yes, please," said Astrja. "I am most curious."

"If we blow up the planet and create a black hole, we will absolutely have no planet killer to worry about at all," Henry said with a wry smile.

"You are all dismissed," Xavier replied as he shook his head. These were some of the best brains on the ship and he wouldn't change them, not even Henry.