*** personal log entry *** from: Jarline Duke, XO of the Duke family vessel 'Treecat', Freeport 9, Omicron Theta
*** entry begins ***
Log Entry: 2009-06-27 11:42:45 SMT Wrote:[color=#99FFFF]Thank the powers that be... we are alive!
*sigh* Not two days ago the Treecat had her first encounter with a Nomad infested vessel in Omicron Kappa... the LNS-Tundra... and due to her Nomad weaponry and that infernal forward cannon... the Treecat was seriously enough crippled for us to abandon her.
A Zoner Dromedary pilot tractored our escape pods in and helped us reach the Livadia Shipyard, from where - after long range scans showed Omicron Kappa to be clear -a Repair ship ventured out and recovered the Treecat's wreck... *frowns* of course for a substantial fee...
Anyway... repairs to the Treecat were somewhat successful... her armor, powerplant and of course the weaponry work as before... but the internal structure had to be patched up.
We will move the Treecat to Corfu for an extensive analysis...
The rest of the family - after the first shock - are well, and so are our crewmen... even tho No. 8 broke a leg during the evacuation... Sybil seems to have taken a liking in him... *chuckles*
Alright... enough for today.
I'll make another entry once we know more about the Treecat's 'bones'.
*** Personal Log Entry: 2009-06-28 10:24:31 SMT *** from: Jarline Duke, Captain of the Duke family vessel 'Treecat-II', Lavidia Shipyard, Omicron 74
*** Entry Begins ***
We recieved the report about the Treecat's internal structure this morning.
*long pause*[color=#99FFFF] Whatever that [CENSORED] Nomad did with his main gun... well... the internal structure is shot... broken in enough places to make even cruising in a dense nebula a gamble. Any repair would cost more than building a new 'Conference' from start.
*scratching sound* We had a little family meeting wherein my hubby... erm my husband mentioned an alternative. To get us a 'Corvo' class cruiser... More space, better lab equipment and sensors and we could even pick up some more of his side of the family from Erie.
He already had a word with the yard dogs at Corfu... seems we're 'lucky' as in them having an almost finished 'Corvo' ready which was ment for someone who in the last moment chose to get a 'Fearless' class destroyer instead. So we bought the 'Corvo', named it 'Treecat-II' and are now busy setting up the laboratories 'n such.
My sister, her kids, aswell as our parents seem to look forward to having more living space... I also think that having even more family living on board would liven things up.
Last but not least... we've agreed, due to Reisiger's employment at OSI, to make me captain of our new vessel. So I'll update the ship registery soon...
Well enough for now. Time to select the my quarters colors *giggles* oh he'll sooo love it once he sees it...
*** Captains Log Entry: 2009-07-07 15:18:38 SMT *** from: Jarline Duke, Captain of the Duke family vessel 'Treecat-II', Ames Research Station, Kepler *** Entry Begins ***
Been a while since my last entry... guess I underestimated the work of a starships captain... *long pause*[color=#99FFFF]
We've got the 'Treecat-II' up and running nicely and our scientific expedition into the Dark Matter clouds of the Kepler system - aswell as that short sample gathering in Texas - seem to start to pay off.
We've used the downtime, after deploying the drifter buoys in Kepler and hooking them into Ames's com network, to head to Livadia in Omicron 74 to do extensive refits on our ship.
Instead of going over those things one at a time, I'll just add the respective reports I got from the crew... lets see... ah Melody's report about the new armament.
Gotta say we've made some nice refitting with the guns... *giggling sound* and they'll come in mighty handy should we encounter any *cough* Ruffians *cough* on our excursions.
Now lemme see... ah yes, we now have 4 Solaris Turrets against small crafts, 2 Cruiser Pulse Cannons to whack away shields, a Cruiser Missile Turret... dunno why mom insisted of it being able to fire long range probes... meh, a *more giggling* Light Mortar... hm... lovely thing... erm yea, a Reinforced Cruise Disruptor... again mom and her modifications... *sigh* and last but not least a Heavy Countermeasure dropper with... guess what... *audible facepalm* even more modifications!
A'right... I don't mind us being able to drop drifter buoys or send in long range probes or short range anomaly testers... but I wanna have us able to repel any [CENSORED] Nomads and whatever endangers my kids!
M'kay... Melody out.
*** Report Ends ***
Oooookay... now we have Sybil and my dad Gilmore on the new armour we got...
Me and Grumpy... *frown in the background followed by muttering* erm... granpa have finished overseeing the installation of the new armour we designed... and since... well granpa's busy going over the data from our tests with the new alloys, but so far everything checks out like planned.
Basically we now have an intense reduction in radiation leaked into the ship from Dark Matter clouds... which is... *beeping sounds* ah yes, about 83,63% less than before. If we combine that with granpa's pre-emptive medication and my new radiation shields, we'll be able to use any location on our ship while in the clouds for as long as we want.
*short burst of laughter* I'm sure the kids 'll love to be able to use the whole observation deck instead of 'only' the reinforced playroom. *thoughtful pause* But then again the view inside a Dark Matter cloud... will probably scare the [CENSORED] out of 'em...
*more muttering from the background* Erm, yea... I bet your little plant garden will stay alive this time... *mutters* I don't get why he bothers... isn't chaos part of discordian lore?
Ah yes... calculating the resistance and ablative properties... I'd say our armor now is sort of comparable to what the yard-dogs called 'Cap 6'... eh whatever.
Sybil over and out.
*** Report Ends ***
Sweet... scared kids and 'Grumy' has 'seen the light'... *audible facepalm* Now what are we to do with all those Pineal Amulets he bought...
Okay, lets get to the next report... now my mother on her team's findings...
Me and my girls and boys have gotten some perplexing results of the samples we took from Texas... *shuffling of paper can be heard* While we have no definite results yet - *chuckles* surprise, surprise... - we're considering the possibility that the Dark Matter clouds in Texas haven't been 'created' by the accident with that 'Gate, but that the malfunction caused the 'gate to temporarily connect to a jumphole inside a dense Dark Matter cloud and as a consequence the 'Matter 'syphoned into Texas until both sides had the same density.
*more shuffling* Now what caused the accident in the first place, and how and why an anomaly would 'override' the 'gate is a matter of too much speculation at the moment... especially if the differential on both sides cause the 'injected' jumphole to stay open or if it simply disappeared after a certain time... well... I won't bore you by going too much into details.
Now I do hope you can get us somehow long time access to the clouds in Texas and especially getting permission to use our drifter buoys. Meanwhile we'll coordinate our efforts with Ames to compare detailed readings with the data they've collected.
Okay, kisses.
*** Report Ends ***
Well... *beeping sounds* the request was sent this afternoon... *sigh and muttering* I wish she'd stop calling me princess...
Anyway. We're back at Ames now and will be doing some field tests with the new radiation protection.... which we'll definitely need as the radiation in the clouds in Texas seems much higher than here.
Jarline Duke out...
over and out?...
Gah frigging end the [CENSORED] log now! You st...
*** Captains Log Entry: 2009-07-16 8:51:12 SMT *** from: Jarline Duke, Captain of the Duke family vessel 'Treecat-II', Freeport 2, Berin *** Entry Begins ***
Well... now today is the last day of our wait for any official reply from Ageira. *short pause*[color=#99FFFF] I don't like the idea of having the white-boxes cracked open... as this would border on the illegal, but if the LSF can do so, then who am I to deny this.
Reading over mom's report to the LSF, I thought we might have to do something about internal security aswell. So I asked Melody about revising any counter-intrusion protocols we have, to adapt the ones present to emphasise the safety of the research data... and if necessary it's destruction.
Hello Sis, ... *barely audible cursing* curse the Braggard's Bar and that infernal 'Lass' drink... my head's splitting...
Okay... *takes a deep breath* I've had a look at what you asked me. While our plans are up-to-date, I thought we could add some extra physical barriers to secure the research deck and the vault. I've talked about that to Sybil, and we've come up with a few walls and doors that could do with another layer of armour.
Also, we've started adding some surprises to the ventilation shafts what won't only react to Nomads anymore. Then *snigger* we had some fun with the ships plans that are stored on the external network.
Concerning our security team, we'll need some heavy close-range firepower to be of any use, as we expect an attempt to steal the research data to be either of the two most possible events:
A small intrusion team
A full scale attempt to board the ship.
In the first case, our current equipment should do the trick, altho we'd expect such fellows to be highly trained and wearing stealth armour.
The full force attack is an issue... military grade power-suits are a tough nut to crack... so we'll need to get something that can punch through them.
Sybil had some ideas for automated defences... something about "small and nasty things". *sighs* Ok, so far from my side... I'll go to visit Grumpy about something against the headache.
*** Report Ends ***
*chuckles* Well, yea that 'Lass' stuff was a devilishly good drink... rare sight seeing our little Mortar lady to go down after only one bottle... Now, Sybil about those "small naughty thinggies" or something.
*an far to cheery sounding voice starts speaking*
Hellooooo aunty!
I've had such a nice idea to bolster out internal security... you're going to love it! *uncontrolable giggling is heard* Ok, here's the plan... we swarm intruders! Yea, swarm them with small little security bots that have some nasty surprises in them!
Lets see... where did I put the drawing... ah yes... first... in case we have some heavily armoured fellows... we'll equip them with each one or two tractor-bolt-charges, ya know, the kind of explosive charge that latches onto an armour suit and then by detonating causes the internal parts of the armour to become shrapnel. *not sounding cheerfully anymore* Ooookay, maybe I shouldn't be so bent on devising killing machines... but from what we know those little charges are usable to waste Nomads with aswell.
Now the second surprise would be that they should physically hack into any com devices found on an enemy they attack... I know a lane hacker who could give us a nasty pack of computer viruses to punch through then. Even a battleship would end up having to do a complete reinitialisation of all networked computers... so that would render any hostile vessel sharing the com lines unable to act for about one to two minutes. Doesn't sound like much, especially as shields and emergency repair systems would still work, but for a getaway it'll be more than enough.
*sigh* Now the only issue I have... is to design a suiting frame that can do all those things... especially since I'd like to use the design to develop some repair drones. I'll work on that for a bit...
*** Report Ends ***
Good. Her being busy brooding over plans means we won't have to bare with suddenly 'improved' components...
Anyway, we're making progress on our analysis. Ames's own research team have given us some nice input for our simulations, and they're looking pretty much on the spot concerning how the dark matter spread in Texas... but they don't account for that odd single radiation field right next to the planet.
I guess that explains our priorities for the next few field trips.
*** Captains Log Entry: 2009-07-23 16:25:08 SMT *** from: Jarline Duke, Captain of the Duke family vessel 'Treecat-II', Freeport 2, Bering *** Entry Begins ***
We haven't heard anything from Ageira until now... even tho I chose to wait some additional days. I guess we'll take up the LSF's offer to open the white-boxes. *sigh*[color=#99FFFF] We're so far successful at getting the spread of the clouds and the radiation bursts intensity in the simulations, mostly thanks to narrowing down where the supply ship Ft. Worth was during the accident. My mother came up with quite an interesting way to do it... let me play her report on this.
We managed to make a major breakthrough concerning the location of the Ft. Worth during the accident.
One of my lab assistants started investigating any polarisation in the material around which the superconductors are built. Lo and behold, we found a clear vector which we can correlate with the cargopods locations inside the transport!
So we've been able to refine the simulations by taking into account the location of the prototype 'gate, the research station the ship was heading to and the vector in which the dark matter radiation hit it. And thus we've pinpointed the transports location to an area of 257 m^3 and thus calculated the initial radiation blasts strength to 31,27 times the energy observed in the gate nexus of a current-day Jumpgate.
Now that odd radiation field behind the battleship Mississippi doesn't quite fit into our simulations anywhere... as there is no corresponding field on the opposite side of the prototype 'gate, we assume it's creation must be some yet unknown effect of the accident itself.
All in all, we're ready to get to the next phase of researching the anomaly itself, and if possible the technology used back then.
I'll see you tonight, Gilmore is trying to cook his Pentabarf special... whatever that is...
*** Report Ends ***
Oh yea... somewhat had the consistency of the 'What The?' with the flavour of... erm... *audible facepalm* gah... something weird... frigging room was spinning. Oh... of course! He added some of that 'Lass' drink!
Alright, back to the reports... Sybil is still working on those swarm robots... guess she didn't have any inspiration yet... Grumpy even convinced her to use a pineal amulet... seems she gets desperate.
Now... I'll send an transmission to the LSF after tonight's dinner... *mumbles* I sort of doubt Grumpy could mess up an Erie pizza... or was that Eris pizza?... ho boy.
*** 2009-07-31 22:11:52 SMT *** from: Henry Duke, CEO, Bank.of.Dukes, Bethlehem Staton, Pennsylvania to: All Duke family members *** Entry Begins *** *An elderly man can be seen yawning and drinking from a cup*[color=#99FFFF] Ahh... good cup-o-joe... Oi, this thing is already on, heh!
*puts the cup down and fully faces the viewer with a broad smile*
Hello my dear brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, grandchildren and grandparents from both the Erie and the Gran Canaria Dukes.
As you might know, I've recently resigned from my job as a banker on Erie to help managing the ever increasing fortune of our family. And today was the maiden voyage and first day of operation of the Bank of Dukes!
I am happy to report that appart from a pair of starfleas trying to poke us, all has worked as planned... and we've already got our first few customers which now - thanks to our loans - fly bigger vessels than the 'flea' and can contribute much faster to Pennsylvania's economy.