Discoveries

Posted on Thu Sep 7th, 2023 @ 8:49am by Lieutenant Commander Deanna Celes & Commander Samantha Howard & Ensign Kate Kono & Ensign James Phoenix

Mission: Damn Dirty Apes
Location: Planet

The power turned on and the lights and computers in the facility sprung to life. Deanna casually suggested to Sarik for them to begin scanning the computers, her hope that they might find some information that explained what had happened here. She came upon a wall panel which had a pair of active files showing. "Phoenix, Kono, do either of you know what VR is?"

A small grin appeared on Phoenix's face. He used to play video games a lot as a child and virtual reality games were one of them. He looked at Deanna. "It stands for Virtual Reality. It was a precursor to holodecks. It was in the form of a type of headset and goggles that you'd put on and you'd look through a built-in screen in the goggles as if you were immersed in a place or game. It was really big with those who enjoyed video games. There was also such thing as Augmented Reality, which was similar, but you could place virtual items into real life without actually placing them into real life with the use of at the time modern, smart phones and tablets and their camera lenses. AR had more tech than just that, including glasses that could do the same function."

"Sounds fascinating" Deanna replied. "This appears to be a panel that controls this adjacent room, which I believe they are calling the VR room. The two recently active files are listed as Caesar and Eden. Those are human names of historical context as I recall. I'm going to take a look at these files. Activating the Caesar file. Anyone wish to join me?"


Sam looked around cautiously, her tricorders actively scanning for anything and everything. Finding nothing of immediate threat she looked at the screen Deanna had found. "Sure"

Kate skipped like an overly happy person as she hopped in front of Phoenix with a big smile on her face. "Don't threaten me with a good time," Kate said at the mention of VR and a precursor to Holodeck technology. This was right up Kate's alley.

After activating the VR simulation, she chose the file labeled Caesar. She entered, waiting for the others to join her as the program began. It began showing a doctor in a lab coat with a chimp in clothing and the doctor introducing the chimp, named Caesar, to Deanna and asking if she wanted to ask Caesar anything. Deanna looked at the others, not sure why someone would want her to attempt speaking to a simple primate. "Anyone have something to say?"

"Other than I don't like where this is going..." Kate shrugged her bony shoulders and wished that her Starfleet uniform had pockets while she looked over the simulation with the rest of the group as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The simulation continued to run, showing how these humans used eugenics to evolve the apes, making them nearly on par with humans from an intellectual standpoint. The best of the apes, a chimp named Caesar, seemed to show far more intelligence that he let on. Deanna went over to the control panel and activated the second file labeled Eden, which showed the terraforming of this planet, in part with eugenics as well. The sight that disturbed Deanna though was that the apes were being used as a pseudo slave labor force, all while something was happening to the humans as they began to show signs of mental deterioration. "Ironic that these people created a place they call Eden while enslaving a populace."

Sam watched carefully, absorbing as much information as possible from the historical scene before then. "Wow, just wow" she whispered as the VR experience ended. "I wasn't expecting that."

"This explains a great deal about what we have seen already on this planet. I would suggest that these wastelands are the natural look of the planet. Somewhat like the terraforming that was done on Mars to create the living space" Deanna mused aloud. She checked her tricorder to make certain it had downloaded both VR simulations. "Sarik, let's check the rest of these computers for additional information. Use decryption algorithm three if you come across anything requiring a password or other security or encryption method."