Mysteries on Mysteries, Part II
Posted on Wed Nov 19th, 2025 @ 10:42pm by Captain Thorrin & Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria & Lieutenant Sivek
Edited on on Mon Nov 24th, 2025 @ 10:08pm
1,707 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
In The Nick Of Time
Location: Astrometrics - Deck 5 - USS Herodotus
Timeline: MD004 2000 hrs
Sivek clasped his hands behind his back again, his gaze still fixed on the rise and fall of the signal. "Since my arrival, I have been occupied primarily with recalibrating the plasma flow regulators and correcting minor inefficiencies in the warp field geometry. It has been--" he paused as if searching for the least indulgent word "--productive, but solitary. An opportunity to engage with something beyond maintenance would be welcome."
He turned toward the main console, his tone even and contemplative. "If this is, as you suggest, a resonance of temporal nature, then our first step should be to reinitialize the ship's chroniton variance sensors and cross-reference them with the temporal gravimetric array in the Science Lab. Those subsystems operate in parallel but rarely in unison. A shared diagnostic could reveal interference patterns too subtle for standard analysis."
Tarian looked towards the Vulcan and waited for a brief moment before replying. Tarian said, "I think the big thing that I'm having issues with is how it was able to withstand the test of time without anyone else hearing it besides the Starfleet vessel now? Was there some temporal matrix involved? If so, what kind of technology must've been involved to make it happen when it did? I can figure out the when, but I just need help with the how is my big thing. Like I mentioned."
Thorrin watched the waveform on the screen and he had an idea that could possible shed some light on the situation. "Gentlemen, Commander Sandoval and Lieutenant Juli have done some research into our hosts. They have learned that at one point this planet had two species the Kroat and the Vwaarti. Perhaps if we look into the Vwaarti it is possible that they were technologically advanced and had something that would cause this signal to remain or echo as you put it. Use the temporal scanners and have a look at the technological development of this planet one hundred years ago."
Tarian's hands moved across the control panel down there in Astrometrics and began a more detailed scan of the planet, incorporating a temporal scan along with the regular scans. Tarian not only scanned the planet around the Kroat homeworld, but the space around it and the entire solar system to make sure that he didn't miss anything. As the scan was underway, the lights within Astrometrics changed as the scans started coming in and were overlaying with what the Herodotus had beforehand.
As the scans were being completed, new bands of chroniton residue lit up across the planetary grid and the space surrounding it. Tarian leaned forward and concentrated on a few areas around the world, in particular, around the capital.
"Captain, I'm detecting something here. Chroniton concentration are off the charts, consistent with temporal technology having gone off about a century in the Kroat's past. However, I'm detecting something else. The temporal variances are off because it's showing that it might be Vwaarti technology, but has a signature from the future. Mr. Sivek, mind helping me clear up the signal and making some heads or tails of what we're seeing?" Tarian asked, wanting to make sure he was reading everything right.
Sivek's face did not change--Vulcan composure makes a very good mask for shock--but the light in Astrometrics sharpened as though it has been tuned right to his attention. "If you will allow, me, Mister Aloria."
"A chroniton event," he said, quiet and certain. "Not a necessarily a long-lived resonance. Perhaps something else."
He stepped to the adjacent diagnostics station and entered in a series of short commands on the console. "As we know, chronitons register differently than sustained temporal emissions," he explained, his fingers still moving over the panel with confidence. "Here." he punched in one last command and a three-dimensional holographic image of a sinus wave in blue appeared above the console before him. "This is a natural temporal emission I found in our database from grid three-seven-seven-eight. Likely a level-five or -six quantum singularity. You will note how its representation carries an equilibrium: the peak and trough have very little variance over time--but a variance nonetheless."
Sivek's fingers danced once more over the console. "Now," he continued, "if we overlay the signal in question with our natural emission, we should see something intriguing." After a few short seconds, another sinus wave represented in orange appeared next to the other. It was longer in amplitude where the first one was not.
"The signal that has been discovered has no variance. This is because chronitons exist outside of normal spacetime and do not decay as a singularity would." He looked over to Tarian with a curt nod. "I will now 'clear-up' the signal--as Mister Aloria requested," he murmured. "By removing naturally-occurring discrete particles, temporal mirroring, and background radiation, we will see a true representation."
"I therefore posit this signal is the result"--Sivek punched in another command, removing the blue sinus wave and increasing the size of the orange wave--"of a chroniton explosion." Sivek stepped back from the large sinus wave hologram that now looked like a solid orange hull strut.
Tarian looked over all of the data that Sivek helped to clear up and showed that there was a chroniton explosion. All the data was staring him down in black and white...or color. Whatever you wanted to call it. He looked at Sivke and Thorrin and said, "Yeah, I think Mr. Sivek is right. There was definitely a chroniton explosion. I'm even detecting a variance of .003 that would match something similar to Vwaarti. I think we might know a bit more of what happened."
"I believe, Mister Aloria," Sivek said, returning his hands behind his back into his neutral posutre, "the question which must now be answered is when did the signal originate."
"Well, I think now that I've got a bit more data, I think that I can start working on narrowing down the exact when of everything," Tarian replied, working the controls and inputting everything that Sivek had helped to figure out. The overlays on the screen started to change as Tarian worked and within a few moments, Tarian snapped his fingers.
Tarian looked at Sivek and Thorrin and said, "I think I've got it. The weapon was used about 100 years ago, but the weapon itself was fired from a weapon 200 years into our future. I think that's part of the reason why I felt like something was off. Since it was a temporal explosion, the weapon wasn't properly focused and caused the cascade through time."
Sivek considered Tarian's findings, then exhaled. "That temporal displacement implies a bidirectional causal event. The explosion did not simply occur in time, it occurred through time. The detonation and its conception are linked, the end feeding into its beginning--but they cannot be one and the same. One is a signal, the other is the carrier. Allow me to explain."
He reached out and traced the edge of the orange waveform with one finger. "Imagine," he said, staring at the holo image, "a voice shouting across a canyon--only for the canyon to collapse while the sound is still in flight. The echo does not vanish; it is folded into the falling rock, buried beneath it, and carried wherever the stone settles. What we are hearing now is not the voice itself, but the echo unearthed some time later. A signal caught in a temporal landslide, as it were."
He paused and looked to Tarian, the orange light giving all three men a tanned appearance. "The detonation did not destroy the signal--it preserved it, displaced in time rather than space. Your theory is sound, Commander."
"As is yours, Mr. Sivek. I think someone maybe programmed a matrix for it to do it through time. Maybe had the explosion start about 200 years in the future and the intended target was 100 years in the past? Maybe, so that the second species that we mentioned could get an upper leg on the first species? But, something happened and took them out instead?" Tarian said as he looked over all of the data points once more. Maybe, the temporal explosion wiped out the Vwaarti instead of giving them an upper leg.
Sivek raised an eyebrow. "Diabolical," he said simply, "and somewhat... poetic."
As Tarian listened to what Sivek said, Tarian was inputting some commands and said, "Yeah, it is. It also looks like we've got a set of both spatial and temporal coordinates. It could be a start, if we wanted to test out the temporal core sometime and go back to see what happened. That way, you could get some baseline readings on the core Sivek and we could truly test what this ship can do."
"An intriguing undertaking," Sivek mused.
Thorrin and simply stood there with his hand on his chin as the two men worked the problem. They were indeed on to something. "Gentlemen, the only flaw I find in what you have here is your upper leg theory. It seems to me that that the Vwaarti were murdered. The Kroat wiped out the Vwaarti. It is the best theory that fits with what we have here and what Commander Sandoval's team has learned. Now, the question is how and whether or not we need to restore them to existence."
"Hey, we've got all the time we can muster to figure all of that out," Tarian offered up, knowing that they'd figure it out. Plus, maybe they'd get to do their very first time jump as well.
A Joint Post By
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Sivek
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria
Chief Temporal Operations Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
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