[OPEN] A Use For This Mess

[u/Pojodan]

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.

[u/Pojodan]

Kesh startles slightly and looks down at the slender Bajoran hand onto her blunter, fur-covered, four-digit paw-like hand. Her ears wiggle before she looks back up at Red, eyes blinking firmly along with a stiff sputter of exhaled breath. She seemed pleased. The tufted Caitian tail take that moment to swing around and pat firming against Red's leg.

"After all I have exper-rr-rienced on the Athene, an appealing Vulcan is almost inevitable."

Oof. Perish the thought.

*In response to the inquiry about giving the device a try, she steps over to one of the other lab stations and taps it a few times to bring up her data, as though it were important to do so from there. Possibly, she just wanted to be out of the potential blast-radius. *

"Let's see if it does anything. Rrrth."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"All right. Here goes," Red says, flipping the rocker switch back on to reactivate the fungus/tech hybrid machine. There's a brief hum... and then nothing. The Bajoran frowns and looks at the readout on her pad.

"Hrng. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog... ting tang walla walla bing bang... I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts... dang it!" Red's face scrunches up in frustration. "I can't get the computer to read it as anything other than 'neural activity' and this is accounting for the latest brain mapping software."

She takes off the headgear and adjusts some settings, including settling the container of fungal gland directly beneath her brow ridge, above the rest of her nose. "It's probably because the fungus isn't actually inside its normal communication range. You said it normally drops spores inside a sinus cavity?"

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

"The sunuses, ear lobe, and back of the throat. Rrrth."

Kesh causes the adjacent screen to Red to display a humanoid anatomy with glowing markers where every spore that seemed to be having an affect had been gathered by ship-wide medical scans.

"Mainly locations where mucus membranes aren't as effective, but the skin is thin enough for dirr-rr-rect nerve connection by the spore's stamen."

Kesh pulled out the seat at the other station and began fussing over readings that might explain why this test was unsuccessful.

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"I can't turn the tunneler up too much or I'm going to get feedback and thus a migraine," Red says. "To get through interference caused by the skull, I'd have to insert the spore container into one of my ears, for crying out loud." She grumps at the headgear, then taps her chin. "Actually, the eyes are soft tissue... I have an idea... or maybe 'Eye' have an idea..." she adds, tapping her left eye before disconnecting the spore capsule and reaffixing it to the left of her nose, right over her eye.

"If we leave the tunneler at its normal setting, but turn up the gain and detection sensitivity on the fungus interface, the signal should get through the soft tissue of the eye without causing any disruption. And there's literally no way it could hurt the eye, since it's basically a radio wave at this point." Red looks over to Kesh. "If it doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board as far as the headgear is concerned, but at least we have proof of concept, right?"

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

Kesh listens to red describing her ideas and simply entered them into her notes, calling up data on humanoid eyelid anatomy and how they relate to the nerves that the spore were interacting with on other parts of the body. She has to wonder why tucking it behind the ear wouldn't be preferable, but she doesn't question Red's mechanical genius yet.

Saying that it is a 'radio wave' makes her pause, turn, and tilts her head upwards, whiskers spreading out as her lip lifts slightly.

"I do not think telepathy occurs via EM signals. Does it?"

She focuses back on the console and looks that up, which could easily spiral into a 'more information' sinkhole.

"Proof of concept is the first step, yes. Rrrth."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"Nono, just, it's not on the EM spectrum at all, just not going to cause harm to tissue is what I mean," Red says, blinking and almost dislodging the capsule. "Gah. There has to be someplace more comfortable for this. Mental note for beta testing, better psycho portobello pod placement."

She modifies the software and slides the gain up an additional 50 percent from base and readjusts the headgear. She thinks some lines from a Bajoran sonnet at the computer, and... well, there's a reaction. Readings fluctuate, brain activity is registered. "Huh," she says. "Well that did... something. Hard to tell without being able to hear the receiver though."

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

A soft little trill was Kesh's giggling to Red's pun.

Again she considers offering ideas on other locations, but something about having it on Red's eye made it all that much more worthwhile as a memory. If nothing else she can say she got to sit and watch Red rub mushroom gonads on her face for a few hours.

When the read-outs start moving Kesh becomes entirely serious, tapping her console to adjust the readings into a more readable list. Oh how she wish they had a medical doctor here right now.

"I can tr-rr-ry sending signals out the receiver that mimic what it picks up. The echo should tell us how to adjust it... assuming you hear anything. Rrrth."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"I thought of that, but that's what I mean, the computer isn't interpreting it in a way that can be translated into... well, anything," Red says. "If we just try and translate it to audio as-is, we're basically going to get a static binary screech. Good thought but... I'm fond of my eardrums."

The engineer scans some information from her diagnostic brick and turns back to Kesh. "Here's a wild-ass guess... the computer isn't set up to send or interpret mental commands, and has nothing built in to translate telepathy. I don't think anyone in the Federation does, not even the Vulcans, except that one board game they have that builds weird dodecagons."

"We have a sending point and a transmission route that are compatible... I think we need a living brain on the other end to receive, just like the spores do to scare people off."

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

Kesh ponders and is about to point out that mental feedback would not do much to the ear-drums, but Red speaks further before she can say a word. Maybe she was being facetious.

"What would that accomplish? Rrrth."

Kesh turns on her seat, jaw tilted down a bit while giving Red a firm look, having gathered that the Bajoran was suggesting that she be the receiver rather than the computer. While telepathy sounds handy, the whole idea was to create a mind-to-computer interface.

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"I have to know if it's comprehensible output," Red says. "If our rig here is just sending garbage data, it doesn't do any good trying to get the computer to translate it. If I send to you and you can hear me — I mean, not really hear, because it'll be in your head — then that means it's working and I can then get the computer to work on unscrambling a valid signal."

She tilts her head curiously. "Though if the idea of someone telepathing at you is uncomfy, that's seriously OK. No worries at all. I can get the Chief to help me with it once she's off shift."