Scientific Endeavours

Posted on Sun Sep 9th, 2012 @ 9:25pm by Ensign K'tan Jur [Byrne]

Mission: Klingons on the Starboard Bow
Location: USS Endeavour - Mess Hall
Timeline: MD05 1900hrs

K'tan had started his routine early - pretty much as soon as he had come onboard the Endeavour. Without much active work to do, even when the Endeavour would eventually leave the system, the geologist had become accustomed to using his extortionate hours of spare time to forward his own personal research projects, though they were hardly the high-level projects that he would rather have; they involved a much more stationary position on a a planet or within a system for long-term study of live subjects - in his case, planets.

At 0700, 1300 and 1900 hours exactly, every day, he had been coming to the mess hall for his meals. He had become acclimatised at the Academy to the standard three meals a day that was the norm for humans on Earth, and it was a regimented structure he had found suited him to stick to. At each meal time, he would take a series of PADDs with him, and array them out on the tabletop as he ate (drank, would be more accurate; though some of his food he took as a solid biscuit or cake-like substance not unlike Starfleet ration packs, he found it much more efficient for him to ingest his required nutrition as a liquid, thus allowing himself more time to divert his attention to his study). His PADDs - two of them the larger size variety - each contained data that he had both compiled from the database and had collected himself over the past few years since he had begun his speciality at the Academy. Though his thesis for graduation had been completed on time, the Arkenite had wanted to expand his research onto a much wider scale.

His project was based primarily in geophysics; gravity, seismicity, electricity and the magnetic properties of planets. Whilst there was already a well-evolved (but still learning and growing) discipline for using geophysics to assist in predicting how a planet would grow and evolve over millennia, K'tan had decided to study the area in a more specific aspect; how geophysics could be utilised in predicting the change and evolution of a terraformed planet.

Though terraformed planets were usually within a systems habitable zone - or in some cases of magnificent feats taking decades, moved into habitable zones - they were in the prime position in order to sustain life, but many of them lacked the substances and gases upon their surfaces in which to create life and a life-sustaining atmospheric shell. Terraforming had evolved to solve these problems, and create new worlds upon which humanoid life could spread, but in the shape of the universe, it was still a very young innovation; not one millennia had passed since the first recorded terraforming project by the Andorians in the 2050s, and so there was no history to study of a terraformed planet that had lived in its current state for long enough for further significant evolutionary changes to occur.

The exact nature of the work K'tan was trying to study made it inherently difficult to predict the eventual state of a terraformed planet; since all terraforming projects were relatively recent in the planet's life cycle, the planet's geological state itself was still in a manner of flux; settling down from the radical change the planet had gone through, and though in a rather chaotic state when compared with planets that had evolved naturally to a class M world. The current phase of K'tan's research was focused upon trying to predict how and when the newly-terraformed planets' geology would conclude its chaotic phase, with the next step of his research focussing on attempting to predict what state the planet's geology would be in at that point.

He knew that it would likely take him a great many years before his research produced any quantifiable results; he would likely be getting into his old age by the point he was working on stage two, and his work may even need to be carried on by someone else after he had passed, but his hope was to get into the Daystrom Institute after he had completed his term in Starfleet, from where he could then utilise a much more expansive array of resources for his work.

As he took the last drink from his cup, and placed it on the plate that had held his solid-food supplement, his meal was done, and he collected his PADDs in one hand, and the kitchenware in the other. Recycling the latter, he headed for the doors to take the former to his quarters, where he would continue with his scientific endeavour.