El Salvador 2409: Mission 1... Picking Up the Pieces
Apr 16, 2023 16:52:04 GMT
Post by Savot on Apr 16, 2023 16:52:04 GMT
[El Salvador: Background & Current Status 2409.0416]
The El Salvador-C, fourth incarnation of the intrepid Starfleet vessel and now built as an Excalibur-class starship, looked like a partially sleeker and more modernized version of the iconic Constitution-class ships of the 23rd century. Now in the early portion of the 25th century, the design theories behind its construction had proven as resilient as its legendary ancestors as the El Salvador had been one of the ships to survive the Betreka Nebula disaster which had flung Starbase 47 and its assigned fleet across the galaxy. Then withstanding the trials faced over 16,000 light years from their home space and the harrowing wormhole journey back to a point at least closer to home, now in the Beta Quadrant near Klingon and Romulan space, the El Salvador had come through physically intact albeit with not insignificant damage and several deaths among her crew. Being an Academy vessel for hands-on training during real missions after students had already gotten simulation experience under their belts elsewhere, a number of the lives lost had been among the cadet ranks and were felt very strongly by the surviving officers and crew of the ship.
With the establishment of regular incoming and outgoing contact with the rest of the Federation bringing some slight stability to Starbase 47's unusual circumstances, and in the aftermath of having been rendered entirely helpless via intrusive computer code generated from within the archive data the El Salvador had retrieved from the Research Station they'd discovered at the center of an artificially generated time-dilation field amidst a horde of ancient, now-malfunctioning, mines... Commander Delbridge in his capacity as the current Chief Engineer of the still relatively new Excalibur-class vessel had reluctantly advised a complete reformatting of the starship's computer cores in order to fully eliminate the potential for future sabotage of the same nature.
Commodore Savot and First Officer Deis Irae had agreed with the rationale, no one aboard having been comfortable when the ship was rendered helpless mere moments before the Section 47 survivors made their return jaunt through the wormhole, and the herculean efforts needed to prepare a starship for total computer overhaul got underway. All personnel had been temporarily grouped together onto as few decks as possible, so those decks' Life Support systems could be run isolated from the ship's computers, engineering teams were outfitted with portable power sources so they could locally power any workstations they needed to use while the main computer's databanks were being reconstructed, and all Shuttlecraft computers were locked from remotely communicating with the El Salvador's computers so their systems could be reformatted with the same totality, albeit on a much smaller scale than their 'mother' vessel.
Due to the life support and power preparations, Savot had invited Commander Irae to share the hospitality of his quarters while her own were shut down for the duration, “Purely in the name of efficiency of course. It would be a detestable abuse of authority for me to orchestrate a starship's shutdown for the sole purpose of increasing my physical proximity to you”, the vulcan Commodore had explained guilelessly.
The preparatory stage getting the ship ready to be as functional as possible during the absence of its computer cores, was full of activity, and the final stage of running performance tests of all ship's systems following the computer's data reconstruction was naturally bustling as well. The period in between; however, in which the computer's data was sifted to ensure non-compromised status before being archived for re-installation once the core was finished purging, the data banks emptied and then double-checked to ensure no fragments of code whatsoever remained, then waiting for the archived backups to be re-installed and synched together... was a long span of very little to do for most of the crew.
Nonetheless; the crew had adapted quite quickly and with little irritation to the extreme measures that had needed to be taken during the computer core purging and reformatting. It seemed that severe conditions could be handled with significant tolerance while secure in the knowledge that at least they had all returned to their home space, more or less. Additional burden was taken off the portable life-support systems by assigning junior officers command of a Training Group of personnel that boarded Starbase 47 to make use of one of their holodecks for training in various environments the holo-projectors were easily able to simulate. Honestly, the odd life changes necessitated by the computer reformat had come at a useful time to distract the crew’s minds from their understandable, and intensifying, desires to at least temporarily depart to visit their families now that Section 47 had returned to semi-local space.
Knowing that the matter of reuniting with families face-to-face after such a harrowing absence where many had believed them dead was a serious matter, Commodore Savot had made the unorthodox choice to request anonymous voting by each member of the crew regarding whether or not to volunteer to be the last Section 47 vessel to take the homeward journey to see family members so their sister vessels and their crews could have that opportunity earlier. The vulcan commanding officer of the El Salvador had been unsurprised, yet impressed nevertheless, when a majority of the crew voted in favor of volunteering to be last, in favor of their comrades on the other ships. The crew of the El Salvador were of course all permitted time on the subspace relay communication bands to have real-time visual exchanges with their families in the meantime, but had otherwise spent the time meticulously repairing the ship and stress-testing the system via shakedown runs to ensure the El Salvador was back up to full performance.
Savot and Deis had been rooming together, while Commander Delbridge did his part for conservation by bunking with the Engineering cadets in communal barracks as a sort of den… uncle. Savot chose not to pursue the matter via questions when one evening he walked past the barracks to find Delbridge instructing the cadets on how to toast marshmallows with an intensity-modulated phaser make-shift constructed from components of a field tricorder and standard communicator badge.
When the time had come to begin restoring the computers, it was done meticulously and, by necessity, slowly 1 system at a time. Each algorithm was scanned and checked for any remnant of the coding that had originated from their alien research station data files. The original files had been stored on a fixed-access computer incapable of remote connectivity of any kind, nested inside 2 additional data drives that would serve as a defense warning if the data somehow found a method of escape though this should be impossible.
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[El Salvador: Bridge, Present Time, Starbase 24 Docking Bay]
Having finally had time to fully repair, replace, and shakedown test every damaged system or component aboard, the El Salvador had been granted clearance to once again travel freely back amongst Federation space following the temporary political quarantine the Federation Council had enacted for all elements of the unexpectedly returned Section 47 fleet. Now, their turn had come to leave local Starbase 47 space and begin making the rounds to let the crew see their families in person as far as was feasible. They could hardly visit every planet that housed family of each crewmember, but when visiting planets that had multiple crews' families thereupon, shuttle use clearance was granted to crew who had family on more off-the-beaten-path worlds to go there, commune with their loved ones, and return within a given window of time.
Commodore Savot sat in the captain’s chair, Deis and Ensign Karysta manning the Helm and Ops respectively, Ensign Zhegras manned the Bridge Engineering station to coordinate orders to and reports from Chief Engineer Delbridge down in Engineering proper. Chief Zakryn manned Tactical with his typical on-duty Gorn stoicism, though off-duty he tended towards a surprising level of socialability. Thus was the norm partially re-established as the El Salvador came into dock at Starbase 24, commanded by Admiral Lisa Hayes. A previous visit to this very base had seen the Court Martial of Savot as a hearing was held to determine his culpability in a disastrous kamikaze attack attempt which while failing to physically destroy the El Salvador-B, the Prometheus-class predecessor to the current El Salvador, had nonetheless resulted in the utter crippling of the vessel such that the construction of a new ship had been deemed more resource-effective than the repairs/refit it would take to resurrect the Prometheus-class to full working order.
This visit was still tinged with an undercurrent of pain as Commodore Savot would be meeting with some families whose sons and daughters had been amongst the fallen of the Betreka Nebula disaster, but it would also allow for the reuniting of surviving loved ones with their families as well as the onboarding of new personnel and a restock of supplies since the El Salvador had departed Starbase 47 local space with only just over the minimum resources for a trip of this duration so as to stop draining the Starbase 47's strained resources until the base received a proper full restock from ships incoming from Federation space proper.
With the docking umbilicals firmly secured and the starship brought to a full stop, the stage was set to go about comparatively 'normal' day-to-day routine once again for the first time in multiple years.
((This post was re-edited to include portions of a previous post already on a previous Starbase 47 thread but seemed like good information to give a recent-history summary about what's been going on aboard the El Salvador specifically, leading into this next journey. So if any portions look familiar, that's why : ) ))
The El Salvador-C, fourth incarnation of the intrepid Starfleet vessel and now built as an Excalibur-class starship, looked like a partially sleeker and more modernized version of the iconic Constitution-class ships of the 23rd century. Now in the early portion of the 25th century, the design theories behind its construction had proven as resilient as its legendary ancestors as the El Salvador had been one of the ships to survive the Betreka Nebula disaster which had flung Starbase 47 and its assigned fleet across the galaxy. Then withstanding the trials faced over 16,000 light years from their home space and the harrowing wormhole journey back to a point at least closer to home, now in the Beta Quadrant near Klingon and Romulan space, the El Salvador had come through physically intact albeit with not insignificant damage and several deaths among her crew. Being an Academy vessel for hands-on training during real missions after students had already gotten simulation experience under their belts elsewhere, a number of the lives lost had been among the cadet ranks and were felt very strongly by the surviving officers and crew of the ship.
With the establishment of regular incoming and outgoing contact with the rest of the Federation bringing some slight stability to Starbase 47's unusual circumstances, and in the aftermath of having been rendered entirely helpless via intrusive computer code generated from within the archive data the El Salvador had retrieved from the Research Station they'd discovered at the center of an artificially generated time-dilation field amidst a horde of ancient, now-malfunctioning, mines... Commander Delbridge in his capacity as the current Chief Engineer of the still relatively new Excalibur-class vessel had reluctantly advised a complete reformatting of the starship's computer cores in order to fully eliminate the potential for future sabotage of the same nature.
Commodore Savot and First Officer Deis Irae had agreed with the rationale, no one aboard having been comfortable when the ship was rendered helpless mere moments before the Section 47 survivors made their return jaunt through the wormhole, and the herculean efforts needed to prepare a starship for total computer overhaul got underway. All personnel had been temporarily grouped together onto as few decks as possible, so those decks' Life Support systems could be run isolated from the ship's computers, engineering teams were outfitted with portable power sources so they could locally power any workstations they needed to use while the main computer's databanks were being reconstructed, and all Shuttlecraft computers were locked from remotely communicating with the El Salvador's computers so their systems could be reformatted with the same totality, albeit on a much smaller scale than their 'mother' vessel.
Due to the life support and power preparations, Savot had invited Commander Irae to share the hospitality of his quarters while her own were shut down for the duration, “Purely in the name of efficiency of course. It would be a detestable abuse of authority for me to orchestrate a starship's shutdown for the sole purpose of increasing my physical proximity to you”, the vulcan Commodore had explained guilelessly.
The preparatory stage getting the ship ready to be as functional as possible during the absence of its computer cores, was full of activity, and the final stage of running performance tests of all ship's systems following the computer's data reconstruction was naturally bustling as well. The period in between; however, in which the computer's data was sifted to ensure non-compromised status before being archived for re-installation once the core was finished purging, the data banks emptied and then double-checked to ensure no fragments of code whatsoever remained, then waiting for the archived backups to be re-installed and synched together... was a long span of very little to do for most of the crew.
Nonetheless; the crew had adapted quite quickly and with little irritation to the extreme measures that had needed to be taken during the computer core purging and reformatting. It seemed that severe conditions could be handled with significant tolerance while secure in the knowledge that at least they had all returned to their home space, more or less. Additional burden was taken off the portable life-support systems by assigning junior officers command of a Training Group of personnel that boarded Starbase 47 to make use of one of their holodecks for training in various environments the holo-projectors were easily able to simulate. Honestly, the odd life changes necessitated by the computer reformat had come at a useful time to distract the crew’s minds from their understandable, and intensifying, desires to at least temporarily depart to visit their families now that Section 47 had returned to semi-local space.
Knowing that the matter of reuniting with families face-to-face after such a harrowing absence where many had believed them dead was a serious matter, Commodore Savot had made the unorthodox choice to request anonymous voting by each member of the crew regarding whether or not to volunteer to be the last Section 47 vessel to take the homeward journey to see family members so their sister vessels and their crews could have that opportunity earlier. The vulcan commanding officer of the El Salvador had been unsurprised, yet impressed nevertheless, when a majority of the crew voted in favor of volunteering to be last, in favor of their comrades on the other ships. The crew of the El Salvador were of course all permitted time on the subspace relay communication bands to have real-time visual exchanges with their families in the meantime, but had otherwise spent the time meticulously repairing the ship and stress-testing the system via shakedown runs to ensure the El Salvador was back up to full performance.
Savot and Deis had been rooming together, while Commander Delbridge did his part for conservation by bunking with the Engineering cadets in communal barracks as a sort of den… uncle. Savot chose not to pursue the matter via questions when one evening he walked past the barracks to find Delbridge instructing the cadets on how to toast marshmallows with an intensity-modulated phaser make-shift constructed from components of a field tricorder and standard communicator badge.
When the time had come to begin restoring the computers, it was done meticulously and, by necessity, slowly 1 system at a time. Each algorithm was scanned and checked for any remnant of the coding that had originated from their alien research station data files. The original files had been stored on a fixed-access computer incapable of remote connectivity of any kind, nested inside 2 additional data drives that would serve as a defense warning if the data somehow found a method of escape though this should be impossible.
********************************************************************************************************
[El Salvador: Bridge, Present Time, Starbase 24 Docking Bay]
Having finally had time to fully repair, replace, and shakedown test every damaged system or component aboard, the El Salvador had been granted clearance to once again travel freely back amongst Federation space following the temporary political quarantine the Federation Council had enacted for all elements of the unexpectedly returned Section 47 fleet. Now, their turn had come to leave local Starbase 47 space and begin making the rounds to let the crew see their families in person as far as was feasible. They could hardly visit every planet that housed family of each crewmember, but when visiting planets that had multiple crews' families thereupon, shuttle use clearance was granted to crew who had family on more off-the-beaten-path worlds to go there, commune with their loved ones, and return within a given window of time.
Commodore Savot sat in the captain’s chair, Deis and Ensign Karysta manning the Helm and Ops respectively, Ensign Zhegras manned the Bridge Engineering station to coordinate orders to and reports from Chief Engineer Delbridge down in Engineering proper. Chief Zakryn manned Tactical with his typical on-duty Gorn stoicism, though off-duty he tended towards a surprising level of socialability. Thus was the norm partially re-established as the El Salvador came into dock at Starbase 24, commanded by Admiral Lisa Hayes. A previous visit to this very base had seen the Court Martial of Savot as a hearing was held to determine his culpability in a disastrous kamikaze attack attempt which while failing to physically destroy the El Salvador-B, the Prometheus-class predecessor to the current El Salvador, had nonetheless resulted in the utter crippling of the vessel such that the construction of a new ship had been deemed more resource-effective than the repairs/refit it would take to resurrect the Prometheus-class to full working order.
This visit was still tinged with an undercurrent of pain as Commodore Savot would be meeting with some families whose sons and daughters had been amongst the fallen of the Betreka Nebula disaster, but it would also allow for the reuniting of surviving loved ones with their families as well as the onboarding of new personnel and a restock of supplies since the El Salvador had departed Starbase 47 local space with only just over the minimum resources for a trip of this duration so as to stop draining the Starbase 47's strained resources until the base received a proper full restock from ships incoming from Federation space proper.
With the docking umbilicals firmly secured and the starship brought to a full stop, the stage was set to go about comparatively 'normal' day-to-day routine once again for the first time in multiple years.
((This post was re-edited to include portions of a previous post already on a previous Starbase 47 thread but seemed like good information to give a recent-history summary about what's been going on aboard the El Salvador specifically, leading into this next journey. So if any portions look familiar, that's why : ) ))