Speaking of Fireflies

Posted on Tue Apr 12th, 2022 @ 4:38am by Lieutenant Nevada McKay & Warrant Officer Gen'Terta CrystalCliff

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Sience Annex
Timeline: MD9 : 0930
1231 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Winston walked into the Science Annex, looking for someone to talk to. His Padd, told him they had a lot of scientists but did not tell him who he should talk to. A typical computer gives you all kinds of data that you cant use. He headed towards the central offices, figuring someone would send him in the right direction. walking over to a central desk where several women were talking, he waited for a break in the conversation to ask his question.

He said, "Hi, was doing a recon flight and received a faint distress call, and discovered an old crash site, that is known to have false SOS calls. So I investigated and found bugs, kinda like earth fireflies, that seem to love sound waves, and singing... I guess. Oh yes and can copy distress calls. I have some data here, and would like help figuring it out?"

He stood looking at the science people, hoping they had an explanation. He hated mysteries.

One of the woman, a Darker skinned human with piercing ice blue eyes Glanced at him with a Flicker of amusement crossing through her eyes. "Xenofauna that Can copy and record Transmissions?" she asked with a voice that sound simultaneously youthful and age worn. "Well now Did you happen to bring on of the buggers with you?" she added with excitement..

At her side a Short, White fur covered Vulpine Alien let off a scoff. "Fine Lieutenant...Run off and avoid the issues you brought me here to work on, Typical Erut'tranc behavior." she growled, several words hissing out through the ships universal translator as incoherent. She gave a nod to the Marine before turning towards a darker section of the Science lab, her odd, armored Uniform thrumming with an internal cooling system as she strode away.

Winston, distracted by an overwhelming desire to pet the cute, well relatively speaking, bipedal furry puppy-like thing. He almost reached out towards the rather abrupt-sounding person. Snapping his head back to the science officer, he said, " Ummm no, I would not want to bring anything like that aboard, it would cause all kinds of havoc. The Engineers don't like me already, as it is."

Handing the LT the Padd, he said, " Not to make someone famous, but she has an excellent singing voice, and the fireflies, for lack of a better description loved her. They seemed to like moonlight sonata as well. They were repeating bits of the songs on hundreds of frequencies. it's all in the Padd. I would be more than happy to take you and a team or whoever wants to go back there..But it is a toxic world, decon and respirators required."

Nevada's eyes shot up. "Toxic world?" she asked quietly her brow arched up. "And there were...life forms down there?" she asked almost eagerly as she took the PADD and eagerly looked it over.

He pulled out the Padd of his and pulled up the data he had extracted from his scope, then said” I did not notice this until last night. My scope does an automatic scan and transmits Secure IFF or Identify Friend or Foe coded packets on a complex set of frequencies. They heard it and sent the same pulses scrambled back at us. My scope did not see the expected scrambled code back, so it ignored any transmissions, not within expected parameters. So they are intelligent, or maybe they are natural math coprocessors. There are 20 minutes of multiple “songs from them” the ones closest to us tend to be the most active, they were sending 100 times more signals on hundreds or more frequencies, the ones farther away from us tended to be less active. I did not use a universal translator on them, so that might be an idea, but we need to isolate any networked computer systems so they don't corrupt any systems, taking them over….

"Unfortunately Your Universal translators are Un'tchaka Che'c," The Vulpinoid called from her corner of the Lab her large ears twitching about visibly as she carefully studied her Screen. "It fails a lot with patterns and languages that aren't fully, Hum'tac" she said, words scrapping and hissing around the translated ones.

"Don't mind her," Nevada scoffed. "She's just mad that its not snowing in here," she grumbled as she turned her attention back to the PADD. "Did they show signs of sentience?"

"ummmm, do you remember me saying that they liked music, and singing?" he asked. He pondered the question for a moment, then said, " I don't know, but what if they're just not like us. What if they're different, does that make them not alive?"

Winston thought about the question, and how could one answer it, he was just a backwoods marine. What gave him the right to judge others. What if he was using the wrong information. What if in the grand scheme of things his opinion did not matter, but what if it did? " You have to have a soul, to appreciate music. If you have a soul, then you are alive! Who am I? Just because you can ask that question, does it make you sentient?"

Nevada shot a glance to The Arten who huffed something under her breath. "Are they appriciating it...or mimicing it like a parrot though?" She asked as she turned her gaze back to the Corporal. "I'm not discrediting that theory..." she added to which the Arten Warrent officer added another huff. "But typically we don't see sentience in Things like this."

He smiled at the scientist, then said" Hey my job is to blow things up, not argue over is it alive. However, I am enjoying this debate over the finer points of a glimpse of a painting. If I took you to that french louver place, and showed you a painting, and said you had to decide only by using one painting. weather the artist had an influence on very many people, could you make a decision. No, you need more than just one painting. My grandfather said you can tell the man, by his effect on those around him. so my question to you is, is it alive if it affects those around them, so what about some of those french paintings, if it affects you, does that make it alive?"

"there's a difference between art which is documented to have been Created by An actual artist and Insects or simpler life mimicking Signals and Sounds." The Warrant officer chimed in. "Especially since its from a planet that's been described as Toxic." She said with a harsh tone.

"Hey!", he said, "What about viruses, They mimic life, and some people say the human body is actually over 86,000 viruses working together to function as what we call life!"

The Vulpine alien tensed up, her eyes narrowing to slits. "I'm not saying these things aren't life, I'm questioning if they qualify as Sentient, as you've implied," she trailed off and shook her head slowly. "Well...I'll look over your Data."

Winston was just a grunt, and he tended to leave the decisions up to those of bigger brainpower, so he figured he was done for the day. Smiling, he said, " If you need a lift out to investigate, just holler, I will get us transport." Tipping his imaginary hat, he turned and walked out of the science lab annex.

To be continued?