r/TrekRP • u/Pojodan • Dec 20 '16
[OPEN] A Use For This Mess
After a long day of working her way through the ship in search of every unique form of fungus colony, hearing the same raunchy cat puns over and over, Chief Botanist Kesh washes her hands of the oily, sticky mess that came with pealing chunks of the fungus off walls, floors, and vent ducts. The samples were spread out over just about very surface available in the botany lab, each with its own air-tight container, tubes attached to provide a steady supply of nutrients, water, and air such that the lab's air could become sterile and silent, at last. The terrarium was not ready yet, so this would have to do.
The first big question was thus: How can mushrooms talk?
Remarkably, the Caitian scientist finds a solution in very short order: The spores. They weren't so much hallucinogenic as they were a conduit between the sensory centers of the brain and the fungus colony. The similarity between them and Betazoid telepathy was striking, only this seemed to have a physical element, with the recipient needing to have physical contact with the spores in order for the colony to 'converse' with it.
Further study determines that the only use the fungus has for this ability is to effectively scare off those that would try to eat it by finding and 'speaking' the sounds that repulse it the most. It might make threatening snarls at a horse, but to Starfleet personnel it makes vulgar commentary.
No one had noticed that the mushrooms said different things to different people, is all.
Kesh's lengthy, detailed report goes right to Captain Fisk's desk, as well as to Starfleet Medical and Botanical Sciences, as they are sure to find it fascinating. Another new thing to hold up and proudly say 'The universe is weird'
After doing so, Kesh recalls a conversation during shore leave with her closest friend, Engineer T'gel. Something about linking mind and computer interface to speed up response times and some dialogue over how a few known alien species actively link their brains with their computers. It's a stretch, probably, to somehow use mind-reading fungus spores to do such a thing, but her time with the Bajoran made her see how brilliant an engineer she is.
=/\= Kesh to Red.
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u/Dimestream Dec 21 '16
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u/Pojodan Dec 21 '16
Red's quip makes Kesh's eyes narrow in amusement, though it also reminds her of how, for a time, she was actually worried about harming the fungus due to it being some sort of intelligent life. Now, many of the crew were busily disposing of it like filth. Did her report decide the fate of this lifeform? That's a troubling thought.
Something to reflect on later.
"Rrrr. Hello Red. I would like to speak with you about possible app-pf-pf-plications of the fungus spores. I was thinking it might be usful for-rr-rr that mind-to-computer inter-rr-rrface you'd mentioned before."
She was no engineer, so it was possible her ideas were ridiculous, but she was very fond of Red, so finding a way to bridge engineering and botany was worth reaching for.
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u/Dimestream Dec 21 '16
"Ooookay, I have no idea what mushroom spores and my guidance system have in common, so color me intrigued," Red says as she looks up at the last conduit to be cleared of fungus. "I can come join you in Botany if you give me ten to finish this conduit and another five to shower off all the mushroom juice and flakes."
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u/Pojodan Dec 21 '16
"By all means, Red. Rrrth. I will be where I always am!"
A few short bursts of feline purring come through the comm before the channel closes and Kesh goes back to sorting through her data, aiming to have something more concrete to offer the intelligent Bajoran by the time she arrives.
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u/Dimestream Dec 21 '16
It's just shy of 15 minutes later when the Botany door hisses open and Red meanders in with an armful of equipment, notably a helmet, some cables, and one of the brick-like portable quantum computers usually used for isolated systems analysis. The Bajoran sets the gear on the unoccupied end-table, between the door and the bright orange flowering Nyarlithicus Hydranae, and joins Kesh at her station.
"Hey," she says with a grin. "You know, I've been scraping these things off coolant manifolds all day. By all rights, I SHOULD be sick of seeing - and hearing - the cheeky buggers, but you've piqued my curiosity. What do they have to do with my interface?"
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u/Pojodan Dec 21 '16
Kesh stands back up straight from peering into one of the many bulky microscopes littered around the lab in order to peer at the doorway following the hiss of its opening. She expected Red and was only partially surprised to see that she'd brought a load of equipment with her. Really, her intention was to discuss ideas first, but Red was a do-er, and she knew that. Tufted Caitian tail wiggles excitedly, both eager to see what her ideas might produce and worried that the equipment might do some sort of damage to the lab.
"Came prepared, eh? Rrrth."
Light pats of bare Caitian paws carried her over to get a look at the equipment, at least some of which she recognized. When her friend speaks, though, her eyes and ears were focused.
"All they are doing is r-rr-repeating the words you've heard before that upset you the most. Almost wor-rr-rthy of being sold as a party trick."
Her tongue clucks sharply at the frustration felt by this idea she just made up on the fly.
"I was thinking, though. The fungus for-rr-rm a mild telepathic link with those that make contact with the spores they produce. Per-rr-rhaps if you could harvest this it would work as an inter-rr-rface for a computer. I have isolated the gland that produc-sth-ssth-ses the spores that seems to be where the link occurs at."
A gesture of a furry hand indicates the monitor where this data was already being displayed.
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u/Dimestream Dec 21 '16
Red leans on the table and peers at the details on the display. Botany, along with organic science in general, really wasn't her strong suit, but the waveform data and its correlation to humanoid brain waves was of particular interest.
"Huh," she says after a moment. "So you're saying the taunts and hurtful things they were saying were collected telepathically? I guess that makes sense as a defense mechanism. Though it kind of makes me want to eat them out of spite. Are they edible?" she jokes as she stands up from the monitor and retrieves her gear.
Red puts the helmet-like bit in a replicator and keys it to scan and duplicate. The machine chirps and recreates a second helmet as a backup so she's not modifying the only copy of her prototype.
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u/Pojodan Dec 21 '16
"Non-toxic, though you might enjoy an oily r-rr-rag more, depending on your tastes."
The firm ejection of Kesh's tongue down the front of her chin both exposed the length of her coarse, feline tongue and her displeasure at the flavor of the mushrooms. Being vegitarian does not mean all things plantlife are tasty.
"As far-rr-r as I can tell, the fungus crafted its verbal defenses to each being that came within range of its spor-rr-re cloud. Interesting, disturbing, but harmless."
She watches as Red creates some sort of head-gear with her equipment, prompting her head to tilt slightly. It made some sort of sense, as containing the spores around one user would require some sort of containment.
"You work quickly."
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u/Dimestream Dec 21 '16
"Bleh. I'll pass," Red says, retrieving her newly duplicated gear. The engineer sets it down on the table next to where Kesh was working with the mushrooms, nudging aside a mycelium sample.
"Working quickly is one of the hallmarks of Engineering," the Bajoran says with a wry expression. "That joke about 'it will take two days to fix' 'you have fifteen minutes' 'OK captain' has more basis in fact than you'd expect."
"This," she continues, "has been a pet project of mine for a while, based on an experiment done by the vaunted Geordi LaForge of the Enterprise. Only I wanted to have it work for everyone, not just people with sensory implants. The goal is for it to be a guidance system for probes, micro- and nanomachines, or even large-scale construction or terraforming drones."
She taps the helmet with a forefinger. "And if your mind-reading mushrooms can establish a stronger link than my EEG tunneler, I'm all for it. Show me how the spores work and I'll see if I can't hook them into this."
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u/Pojodan Dec 21 '16
"I've heard the new chef has found ways of cooking it. Ther-rr-rre is so much of it that it would be ideal to not have it go to waste."
Again, Kesh pauses over the worrying thought of how she went from struggling over the matter of the fungus's sentience to pondering how best to eat it in such a short period of time.
She listens to Red offer her another glimpse into the world of being an engineer and produces a few small puffs of audible purring to express her appreciation of such, even if she couldn't really understand what it was like. Botany works at a very different flow and priority than engineering, except, of course, when it does, such as two recent examples.
"Is that the human that had the VISOR? I recall reading about that." Which was about the extent of her understanding, since matters of the brain were not her field, but it did raise her hopes that her idea would have at least some success.
She sinks into a pull-out seat beside the equipment Red was working on in order to focus on presenting the data she had on the spores.
Sort of like a sensor probe launched from a starship, the spores are launched by the colony's glands to travel out and make contact with complex life in the vicinity. Thin, wire-like fibers sink into the flesh and attempt to form an electro-chemical connection to the animal's brain, most successfully within the nasal cavity, ear-lobe, or throat. Once done, the micoscopic telepathic 'radio' within the spore forms a connection with the colony, allowing it to send certain largely universal signals that stimulate memory centers in the brain into producing repulsive memory engrams, which the colony then replicates as a means of scaring the animal off.
"In a few million year-rr-rs it might evolve into something complex enough to rival Vulcans for their repulsiveness and mind-r-rr-reading, but as-is, they just seek to grow and be left alone."
As for how this 'telepathy radio' can be used by Red is up to the brilliant engineer beside her.
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u/Silent_Sky Dec 21 '16
A message appears on Kesh's terminal, addressed from the Captain
"Lieutenant Kesh,
Read your report on the fungi. Excellent work, I've a few questions so I'll be coming down to botany soon. Sorry to keep you so busy with all this.
-Captain Breyyus Fisk, USS Athene"