Preface to the Mission Arrival, These Old Artifacts

Posted on Sat Mar 23rd, 2024 @ 3:24pm by Captain Remy Johansen & Lieutenant JG T'lenn & Attaché Phesg Tel'im

728 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Side Plots
Location: Science Lab 7
Timeline: MD: 0, 1730 hours

Remy tapped her commbadge as she was on her way to meet Lieutenant T'lenn in Science Lab 7. "Johansen to Tel'im, are you available to meet me in Science Lab 7?"

"Of course--I'm two decks up. Meet you there, Commander." Tel'im trotted towards a turbolift. She'd been on a bit of a walk, stretching her legs as the saying went, when she got the call. Taking the lift down, she met the human commander outside the lab. "Commander, you sent for me?"

"Come on inside," Remy said opening the doors to the lab to reveal T'lenn working with various images of alien control panels and a language, unlike anything in use today. T'lenn continued working, undisturbed by the Commander's entrance. "You mentioned having some knowledge that there was a civilization in the Romulan system that predated their arrival to the area."

"I'm not sure if it will be worthwhile or not, but this lab has the artifacts that have been collected over the last few months as 'space debris' that we believe originate from the same civilization as this vessel," Remy walked to a table where the bracelets sat in a glass casing, along with various other items - most of which looked incomplete or broken, but did seem of a similar origin. "There's more in the crate on the shelf. Lieutenant T'lenn is also sorting through images of the vessel taken by the USS Covina. The UT is getting a significant boost from her work, but it will speed up if we can get some recordings of the spoken language to input."

"Anyway, you have more knowledge than any of us about the roots of these people. I thought you might want to take a look. Ask T'lenn any questions you may have. Dr. Jackson is on board as well, and he will talk your ear off if you let him." Remy stretched out an open hand to signal to Tel'im she had full access to the room.

As the Commander finished, T'lenn stopped what she was doing and faced Tel'im. "Given your proficiency in the Vulcan language, I assume that you are skilled in language acquisition. Have you ever attempted to decipher and translate a completely unknown language?" T'lenn asked.

"Not particularly--Vulcan and Romulan are close kindred, similar to say English and German on Earth if I am not much mistaken... That said, I am fairly good at context--the language of the sacred texts of the Qowat Milat is all context-based. I can certainly give it a try." The Romulan woman turned to the commander. "Thank you, Commander. I'll see what I can find out."

She studied the artifacts, then asked T'Lenn, "Has anything in here been dated with any accuracy? I have a hunch, but I would like to confirm or deny it based on dating."

"Dating has been challenging as we do not know how long the artifacts have been in space, and we do not have a cultural frame of reference with which to fit the artifacts into," T'lenn explained. "The reactive metallic alloys have also proved challenging. However, estimations currently indicate that some of the artifacts could be 3,000 years old."

"Hmmm, well, that takes my suspicion out the window... Definitely not Iconian." Tel'Im went over to one of the cases. Pointing at a triangular stone, she said, "Could you bring that up on the main screen for me?"

"Indeed," T'lenn responded complying with Tel'im's request. "Pattern recognition has been the method of translation used thus far. We have no reference for phonemes, but enough of the artifacts did provide some context to assist with accuracy of the texts," T'lenn explained.

The two worked tirelessly into the late evening hours digging through the artifacts that Dr. Daniels and his small team had brought aboard - all of which carried some clue into the language and into their strange technology. The metallurgy of the materials seemed to be the key behind how the technology would work, though they were missing too many pieces of most of it to make much sense one way or the other of it.

At the end of the night they were much further along than where T'lenn had begun, and she was appreciative of the Romulan's studiousness and dedication to the project.

"Perhaps you will consider a position in the science department in your future," T'lenn suggested before they parted ways.

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