Next Steps

Posted on Monday 29 October 2018 @ 15:43 by Commander Cale Llewellyn DSci & Lieutenant Marbim Rejal & 1st Lieutenant John Kayhill & 2nd Lieutenant Bilhana Karki

Mission: The New Collective
Location: USS Merlin, Tactical Information Center
Timeline: after Figuring Out the Borg
2562 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure

John came into the TIC with his data-padd in hand. He looked at the chronometer and he was on time. Although he didn't care for Commander Llewellyn's attitude towards Marines, he wasn't going to disrespect the Commander. The man obviously had the Captain's confidence.

Llewellyn was already in the TIC going over the latest reports on Borg activity when he noticed the new MCO's entry. "Good morning, Lieutenant Kayhill. I trust you had an enjoyable evening," Llewellyn said.

Bilhana came around the corner of the hall from the opposed direction as Kayhill, walking in more or less right behind him, actually kind of hard to see until she moved around to stand besides him. Nodding for to Kayhill then to the Commander. "Sir's."

Llewellyn noticed the new marine walk in and nodded to her. "Lieutenant," he said not knowing who she was or why she at this meeting but from the uniform he assumed Marine Oh great another one., he thought.

[Assuming this takes place after O'Hara's impromptu 4am meeting] Miles wanders in wearing workout shorts and a muscle t-shirt on. He has a padd with him and he is wearing croc style sandals. When he walks in and realizes there are other people in the room he freezes, curses in Klingon, then says, "I'm not on today, and thanks to Chief O'Hara I havent been to bed yet, so sorry for my lack of a uniform, and and, hmmm, do i say Good evening all as I haven't been to bed, or Good morning all as all of you have probably had a good night's rest?" He has what could be considered a mischevious grin on his face as he asks his question. He then makes his way to a replicator and asks for a double raktijino with extra caffeine and chocolate. Once he has his drink he will meander to the closest chair and stare at his padd unless someone engages him.

She listened to Miles and at the end of his joking question answered with a "I don't think that your or any one else's sleep scheduled effects time. I'm pretty sure it would be good morning." She sounded absolutely Vulcan with the statement, like she had totally missed any joking tone. But she didn't seam to have pointed ear. Turning her attention way from Miles to Llewellyn. "I don't think we have met Commander, 2nd Lieutenant Bilhana Karki, I'm the new Marine XO on board. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Commander Cale Llewellyn, Strategic Operations and Second Officer. A pleasure to meet you and welcome aboard the USS Merlin, Lieutenant. I'm sorry we're meeting under these circumstances but I'm sure we'll get to know each other better in the coming days," Llewellyn said extending a hand.

Without really looking up from his padd or drink, Miles asks, "Marines in this day and age, what have you been using against the Borg that stops them better than our phasers? That's something I never could get a straight answer about while at the Academy..."

Karki waited a second after the comment to see if there was more to it. Before asking in the same flat academic tone as before. "Was that rhetorical vitriol Sir? Or would you prefer a serious answer? I'm sorry I'm not very good at reading people..." She did actually sound legitimately apologetic with the last comment.

Miles will sit up straighter and look at Karki, "Actually yes. Some of my time at the Academy I took some classwork detailing the Borg on the off chance I would encounter them. None of my professors would give me any information on current weapons, or even tactics. I can understand that meeting them in hand to hand combat might pose some serious health problems, but what about firepower. I understand that Captain Picard of the Enterprise was able to kill some drones using an archaic submachinegun, but I imagine that today you guys have something better correct, and if not, is this something we might want to talk about?"

She nodded. "As far as the threat the Borg pose... at this point. It's more of a matter of being a slippery slope, while star fleet has made great progress in countering them, all it will take is one major defeat and influx of assimilated knowledge to make all of that progress meaningless. As far as equipment? Indeed, but I would also add that I could myself clear a bridge in a few seconds with a 'archaic submachinegun' I could also with ten minutes notice outfit a party with equipment that would make them immune to the same projectiles it fires. Picard was able to kill drones with a firearm because the drones simply didn't foresee anyone using a firearm. Same would likely happen to a federation security team... The first time." She rather sounded like one of the lecturers at the academy at this point. "As far as the need for Marines on a star fleet operation? Well.. I think need is relative. I myself can pilot a star ship, i can administer medical treatment, but I'm not a helm officer or a medical officer... Security officers have a wider skill set, leaving marines to specialize more."

"Oh I understand the need for soldiers, especially where we are, but I guess my question is, have the Borg learned to adapt to kinetic weapons, such as that submachinegun, or would kinetic weapon research behoove us?"

She nodded. "Considering that we have combat armor in our armory that can stop bullets without any real problem, I would guess it would not take Borgs long to counter submachineguns... But in all fairness, I think that some amount of Kinetic weapon research would be useful. The Enterprise and Klingon's both had experience with using melee weapons against the Borg. Noting that they worked well as long as you didn't give the Borg time to adapt... So to answer the question, Yes I believe if the Borg ran into fire arm wielding troops they would likely adapt rather quickly. Maybe not in a shielding sense, but I think you would see bullet resistant drones in the next attack."

"Perhaps a better comparison would be arrows? Humans developed more or less arrow proof armor some time ago. Metal plate armor, Kenetic redistribution armor. But we don't go around in chainmail now. Because we simply don't run into arrows often. If star fleet started to encounter arrow firing natives on a planet, it would be very likely they would break out body armor quickly. We simply don't have the issue often... Hmm.. Maybe star fleet should look into developing kenetic projectile side arms to use while facing the borg, as a backup. They most likely wont adapt if there not used often" She seamed to be actually thinking about the ideal now. "I'll give it some thought, maybe something useful." She also might have missed the actual point of the conversation at some point.

"I'll do some research of my own and we'll have to compare notes. When we speak of the Borg's ability to adapt, they seem to adapt to energy based weapons quickly, but other forms of attack they seem to actually adapt their bodies. Maybe this is one reason they are upset with us, because the Federation and other races have been proving to them that they are not "superior" or "perfect" in the way they have imagined themselves for such a long time. Forcing someone to constantly be adapting themselves might make them upset, especially since they haven't been able to take down whole systems, and they don't have people flocking to their cubes to be assimilated."

She gave a nod in agreement. "Makes you wonder if the borg actually understand the meaning of the word perfection. You don't improve perfection." She stopped patting the sheet to a bladed weapon hanging on her hip. The thing looking to be about 40cm long, made of wood and animal leather, not the kind of thing made purely for utility. And definitely not any standard issue item. "I often think maybe my Ancestors where paranoid or backwards taking melee weapons into armed conflict after the invention of poison gas, automatic weapons and artillery.. but maybe they where more pragmatic then I give them credit for."

"Interesting tack, Lieutenant Karki. I think perhaps we should push that research into gaseous based weaponry. Or even viral weaponry. Starfleet has never done any research into any of those forms of weapons in the Borg side of things, as far as I know. Maybe we should look into those as a mode of weaponry. I think they could prove to be most helpful," Llewellyn said after he let to two officers ramble on for a few moments.

"Until Saren gets here, I have a topic to discuss, what is our purpose here. To develop plans to get on and off of a cube to gather intel, or determine how to take a cube down using essentially ground forces supported by fighters and the Merlin? Or, are we simply brainstorming ideas to not all end up ashen grey and loaded up with Borg tech? Oh, and thanks to Chief O'Hara, who is crazier than a loon, I think the expression is, we have intel on how to sedate a drone should we need to for whatever reason..." Miles holds up an engineering padd.

"I think we should be brainstorming ideas for getting anything done, people. We need to come up with plans to get everything Mr. Rejal said done. The captain wants us to figure out how to get on and off a cube, capture a drone and try not to get assimilated," Llewellyn said. "What I want out of all of you is to come up with the ideas and Kayhill and I can come up with the execution of your ideas."

Miles takes a long pull from his mug and says, "We know that Seven of Nine's parents used some form of cloaking or shielding technology to make themselves 'invisible' to the Borg, maybe we can build on that. The drones seem to ignore who those they consider 'non-threatening,' what if we played out that role. Bring scanner proof cases to hold the real weapons, and be armed with older firearms, or even just hand to hand weapons so that we appear less-threatening. I would also advise NOT WEARING our normal Starfleet issue garb..."

"That is most interesting, Mr. Rejal. Though I wouldn't recommend that. Borg find anything they deem 'non-threatening' no matter what they're wearing or carrying. Though it was nearly 20 years ago, I want all of you to remember that the Voyager crew still wore Starfleet garb and carried weapons on board the Borg ship they boarded," Llewellyn said. "So, my suggestion is we wear standard outfits and carry weapons when we try to 'raid' the Borg ship. Any other thoughts?"

Miles nods, "True, I was just thinking that in this region the Borg seem already irritated at us, but our uniforms seem fine. What about shielding for our troops, something Borg resistant. Has anyone explored that idea? Also, I know there used to be something called the Geneva Convention that limited what weapons could be used against an enemy...are our hands bound by such constraints? Although I am a Starfleet officer, I am also Cardassian, and while not entirely happy with my race, we have used weapons considered deplorable by others to get results. We mentioned airborne or gaseous weapons, why not just use their own tech against them, freeze them or fry them, or hit them with weaponized acid to destroy both flesh and tech...I don't want to seem grim, but if we are putting our Marines' lives and our own at risk, I'd rather not have a Borg cube or several coming after us without some kind of contingency plans in place..." He stops to take another drink, realizes his cup is empty and gets up to go get something more to drink.

"I like your line of thinking, Miles," Cale said with a smile. "I agree with you on those thoughts. We should use some form of a airborne agent to paralyze the Borg. Maybe we should ask one of the doctors to join us or ask them to work on this idea themselves. Though we could have Lieutenant Barel to come up with something along these lines. Lieutenants Kayhill or Karki, do either of you have any thoughts?"

Karki perked a eyebrow. "Sure... Will that even work? I don't think Borg even breath. I know they can go into space without any other equipment. I think at that point your asking for a technological agent less then a air born agent. I'm not nixing the ideal. I just think we are talking about something that will take a lot more time then it seams at first."

Miles looks slightly amused, "This padd has information on how to medically sedate a drone, as well, we know they have an organic component to their makeup, finding an agent that can mess with that part of them may rattle their cages as most species seem to attempt to defeat their technology first."

"True, Lieutenant, the Borg don't breathe but they still have respiratory systems and breathing is involuntary for the most part. The gas could also be absorbed through the skin. I'd like to review that padd, Mr. Rejal. I may be able to come up with a few more ideas to add to the data," Llewellyn said. He was profoundly proud of the assembled officers and the swift and intelligent brainstorming that was going on.

Having already made a copy of the information on the padd, Miles hands it over. "I guess an alternate question would be, how easy is it to reverse the assimilation process should any of our forces get got, hmm, is that proper vernacular?"

"That sounds about right to me," Cale said chuckling. "It depends on how far the process has gotten. In the past, we saw an almost entirely assimilated Picard 'de-assimilated' in relatively short order as well as a fully assimilated Seven of Nine, who had been assimilated, as a child, removed from the collective after nearly 20 years in the same fashion," Cale said reflectively as he moved across the room in the best professorial mode he could summon.

Once Commander Cale reaches his seat, Miles ponders another question his way, "Here's a thought, how much do we know about the Borg visual acuity (no but I fixed it for you :-)? Is there a way we can adapt our uniforms so they have issues seeing us, that may give us a tactical advantage getting in and out, almost like camoflauge, but instead of being location based, it'd be visually based..."

"Seven of NIne's parents came up with a piece of technology called a 'bio-dampener' that was able to mimic the physio-metric conditions in a Borg cube thus rendering its wearers invisible to the Borg. That would seem to be our best bet. I'm sure I could find the patterns in the Federation database and recreate them though Dr. Ki would have to tailor each unit to the wearer's physiology," Llewellyn said.

Commander Cale Llewellyn
Strategic Operations Officer
Second Officer
USS Merlin

&

Lieutenant Marbim Rejal
Chief of Operations
USS Merlin