002. Video;

[anthropos]

[ Data appears on screen. As before, to those who have never seen him (for the most part those who don't frequent the science department or sickbay), Data is almost indiscernible from being human at first glance, but the second impression is further from it. There are slight mannerisms he can't get quite right, his head is rigid, his attention fixed, his hair too perfect, and though there are imperfections to his skin, it's noticeably tinted gold, like his eyes. ]

With the decline of our medical staff, it is imperative that efforts be made to create a baseline model of all individual life forms on board. Such precautions may help to stymy another outbreak of stasis sickness, or counteract an otherwise similar ailment in the future.

Doctor McCoy employed me to build him secure quarters in which to safely contain not only this information, but medical histories and samples from the Tranquility's passengers. This construction is now complete, meaning that willing patients may now place their complete trust in doctor/patient confidentiality.

[ There is a brief delay. Spot, his ginger cat, jumps up onto the counter, but is quickly shooed down out of the way, and Data resumes his speech. ]

I would like to suggest that any of those on board with rare or unique physiology report to either Xenobiology in the Science Department, or Medbay itself in regard to collecting samples, cataloging DNA and performing scans of your skeletal and biological structures. All information gathered shall make treating you easier in case of illness or injury, and may indeed save your life.

Data out.

------

Filtered to Medbay staff

The new computer and storage can only be accessed by interaction with the nanomachines installed in the forearms of the ship's medical staff. Access is automatic. The override consists of one hundred ninety two random individual symbols and digits changing biweekly, assuring the computer cannot be disturbed. The code is known only to myself, but on the account of my death will be automatically forwarded to most senior member of medical staff on board.


OOC: Hope none of this treads on any toes. Players can assume their characters have had or deliberately haven't had these tests done, or take it and run for your own purposes. Important: Also go to this post and add your information! I don't mind threading some of it out if anyone is interested in action tagging. Any questions, please IM me with them, I don't bite.

Comments

[anthropos]

Such as?

[ What horror. ]

[andblockbuster]

[Siiigh. Things he doesn't like talking about, but might be important for $300, Alex.] You wouldn't have to actually transform an inorganic into an organic. You'd just need a body and a copy of the hard drive their AI is installed on... And the tech to upload a brain imprint to a living, breathing human.

[anthropos]

[ Pause. ]

There are records of such things happening in Starfleet history. Kirk's-- [ He stops dead, his brain having worked too fast, but not catching up with conflicting programming until he's already started. It's a lot to process. Still, he cuts himself off before talking about incidents that had occurred during Kirk's five year missions; those things might yet happen. ] I have myself experienced the opposite. A very prominent doctor had developed a process by which to record his own memory engrams into an artificial intelligence--an intelligence he transferred into my own matrices so that he could not die. His attempt was thwarted. The opposite should, theoretically, also be possible, by the same method you propose.

That does not, however, explain where a suitable body might be procured, though the possibilities are understandably grim.

[andblockbuster]

[STARFLEET. KDSFJSKLDFJSLK Yeah, sorry. Holding that fangasm in right now.]

Yeah, we've heard tell of people doing that too... We being me and the other people who have that kind of technology where they're from. [And that makes three people from worlds with that kind of tech. Add that to Strela and Topher is massively suspicious.] And I try not to think about where the bodies came from.

[anthropos]

Some kind of transporter technology would be theoretically possible. Patterns degrade in buffers because the electronic signals from the brain must be preserved, breaking down over time. If such preservation is unnecessary, creating a body would be tantamount to using a replicator, although the ethics are disturbing.

Such things as body replication in order to store the psyches of other beings has also been recorded. [ Why are starships so dangerous. ] The correct term in that case is doppelgänger.

It may go some way to explaining the duplicates on board, and why our absences from our own timelines go unnoted. It may also explain why we do not return home unless we are in effect being rebooted here with additional data.

[ Do you hear what he's proposing, Topher? It's a mindfuck. Literally. ]

[andblockbuster]

[..........

WHY DOES THAT SOUND WAY LESS RIDICULOUS WHEN YOU SAY IT THAN WHEN EDGEWORTH SAID IT.]

What... Are you implying, basically?

[He knows. He definitely knows. But he wants to chew on it for a second.]

[anthropos]

That all of us; myself with my complicated cybernetics, each human on board, and then those who were larger, lacked bodies or were impossible to replicate, are each of us facsimile copies of originals that no longer exist. Our electrical impulses duplicated like a simple computer program by a greater form of technology, and installed as a perfect copy of the original.

This ship lacks the technology to travel across deep space any faster than at Jump trajectory. That it might have, despite that, the ability to pluck us from our own alternate timelines, returning us unharmed specifically to those precise moments with no memory of where we had been, and occasionally remove us once more is infinitely more complicated, and there for significantly less probable. Moreover, it would negate the necessity of a starship at all.

[andblockbuster]

[A scenario is forming in Topher's mind. He can't explain the bodies, unless they were growing clones somewhere from DNA samples for the sake of imprinting the brains onto, but this ship was obviously some sort of colonizer. But something went wrong and the ship got dropped down to two people, so they had to break out the bodies in stasis, upload the imprints, and just continue on as normal, but there are holes in that. Why all the confusion? And why them, specifically.

The problem is that it makes more sense than it doesn't and Topher's left reeling for an uncomfortable length of time.]

I think I need to go lie down.

[anthropos]

[ Data prefers the idea of a transporter, creating those bodies from atoms, forming them together into an empty shell waiting for electronic patterns. Either way it isn't very comforting. ]

If you are not feeling well, perhaps a visit to the med bay would be more appropriate?

[andblockbuster]

No, it's okay. Just... need to think on this for awhile.

[Obligatory gif]

[anthropos]

If you come to any further epiphany, I would be very interested in hearing it.

[ Disconnected. ]