Stuck in Limbo

Posted on Mon Mar 9th, 2020 @ 7:30am by Rear Admiral Heather Theriault & Fleet Captain Racheal Yamaguchi

Mission: Mission 60: Atlas Falls
Location: B Kayor system
Timeline: April 10, 2392

Division Admiral Heather Theriault regarded the PADD in her hands as she sighed softly. "So... six thousand drones have been freed from bondage. Thats good news.. What do we do with the Queen?"

"Those 6,000 where only the easiest cases." Firespirit remarked, while Anzan added," For a lot of these people, especially ones where their very skeleton has been altered, fully deassimilating them is impossible without cloning them a new body and doing a brain transplant. And that includes Rachael Yamaguchi." he indicated the other being in the room.

"Rachael Yamaguchi... I worked with her when I was a cadet... She was my mentor at one point.." Heather Theriault let out a soft sigh as the human shifted her position in her chair ever so slightly.

Rachael Yamaguchi nodded her head but she didn't say anything, she was still wearing her Borg armor plating and the like.

The Cardassian medical officer present didn't say much, other than. "Well, and the fact that our manpower, Federation, Cardassian and Akurian alike is stretched so thin is not helping.

"I know." Theriault responded softly. "We have some civilian hospitals assisting but its limited to a few dozen of the oldest Federation settled worlds like Stapelton Center orbiting Wolf Three Five Nine and Deneva." she regarded the Cardassian official who spoke. "Every little bit is helping and those we deassimilate are wanting to assist us in helping their comrades.."

Firespirit then had an idea. "Well, I think I may have an idea to alleviate our manpower issue at least to some degree."

Theriault raised an eyebrow. "Oh..How so?" she inquired, she had an idea of what the smaller being had in mind but she was unsure. "We've already tapped out any civilian facilities wanting to assist us.."

"Scrape up any EMH's we can find that aren't bolted down, reprogram them especially for dealing with de assimilating former drones," Firespirit suggested," If w need to, get the Voyagers former holographic doctor to assist with reprogramming the other EMH's for this task, since he has experience in dealing with these things. He was the first one to de assimilate a drone whom had been a drone for long term."

Theriault raised an eyebrow. "So we'll need the holographic doctor from USS Voyager for this assignment then?" she sighed softly. "I don't know where he is assigned these days.... Last I heard it was to the science facilities on Galor Four."

Firespirit nodded. "Yeah, we will need him, unfortunately, there are a couple of other problems. One is the limited amount of holospace on our ships, we can only have so many EMH's running at the same time. For the number of EMH's we need, we would need to find out a way to duplicate the Mobile emitter technology, but that in of itself has problems."

"We don't have many medical ships available to assist us... the new Arcadia class is still being built up and ... as I said, there isn't enough." Theriault responded with a sigh. "Most of the newer ships have holoemitters on all decks and all sections of the ship." she paused. "getting EMH's won't be an issue... I know Starfleet Operations has a stockpile of them.." she explained. "I can get them for us.. that part won't be hard."

Firespirit nodded. "As I said, we need to figure out how to duplicate the mobile emitter technology. 14 years ago, we didn't have the technology to really pull this off, but now, I think it can be done, especially if we use Akurian technology to assist us. But unfortunately, the mobile emitter is also the doctors only means of true mobility, and we would likely need some time to study it. And since the doctor won his sentience, that mobile emitter is his property now. And even though he has a proper starfleet commission now, I cannot simply order him to give up his freedom for this."

Theriault nodded her head in agreement. "We could ask him to assist us for this... But we need him to help us.." she let out a soft sigh. "If he refuses then we're back to square one.... Any other ideas?"

Kasana then offered up her suggestion," Well, I have been studying the development of federation AI technology, and I think I have figured out a solution that would appeal to everyone in this situation."

Rachael Yamaguchi who was still decked out like a Borg Queen, sat in silence. she opened her mouth as she spoke up. "How so?" she inquired.

Theriault paused. "Indeed.. how so?"

Kasana picked up her notes and reviewed," Well as it turns out, the EMH mark 1's where unique compared to other EMH's. The Mark one wasn't created using a conventional holomatrix. Rather they where created when Mr. Zimmerman essentially copied his own neural pathways and used it as a basis for the Mark 1 Holomatrix. That's why it was a Mark 1 that achieved what no other EMH achieved. But that potential came at a price, the Mark 1 EMH's used up a lot more computing power than they should. And ships without bioneural circuitry couldn't handle them effectively at all, as a result the Mark 1 EMH's performed poorly and erratically when running on computers that couldn't handle them. Not to mention as the doctor's matrix has evolved, he has required more and more computing power over time."

Kasana moved to the next page of her notes." Nowadays his holomatrix has become so complicated he cant even run at all on most federation computer cores and is limited to only the most advanced computer systems and the Mobile emitter. However like most computer systems, the mobile emitter wasn't designed for continuously running a sentient program, and as a result he is beginning to outgrow his mobile emitter. I think, that for the only way the Doctor can grow to his full potential, is he needs to be transferred to a full android brain. Now the federation doesn't really have the technology to build Android brains, only doctor Soong knew how to build them, and android brains are amazingly complicated to build and maintain. That's why Data was so unique, and the soong type brain was so complicated, even data himself couldn't properly build one."

Kasana then looked up from her notes, looking back to Rachael and Heather. "However, we have the technology to build Android brains, hell we may even have enough components in our storage to build one relatively quickly, then we can transfer the Doctor's holomatrix to the android brain and allow him to mature into his full potential, then we can give him an artificial body, custom built to whatever he wants, and thus allow him to experience things he never could as a hologram. Then since he won't need the mobile emitter anymore, we would be free to study it."

Theriault paused. "That... could work... but it all relies on if he wants to give it up." she responded.

Rachael Yamaguchi smiled. "The Borg were able to acquire some detailed scans on the Doctors mobile emitter from his time assigned to the USS Voyager, however we were unable to really do anything with them. Maybe the information we got can assist here."

Firespirit nodded," Well either way, he will be on his way soon, I'll talk with starfleet medical and get him reassigned here, we need his expertise anyway."

He then turned to Rachael, anyway. "I am aware somewhat on issues with former borg drones, but any specific issues you need to fill us in on."

Yamaguchi regarded the person addressing her. "Cordial Implants can't be repaired, they can only be replaced." she explained. "Some of my drones are damaged others have old nodes and they need replacements quickly. The problems facing me is I can't make new ones and I can't repair them... I risk losing drones before they can be liberated."

"So it is prudent for us to deassimilate people as quickly as possible," Firespirit replied, then continued with," But, even with seven of nine, she was only partially deassimiated. That cortical node couldn't be removed without killing her."

Kasana then offered a solution. "Well Akurian cybernetic technology is far more advanced than the federation, we should be able to manufacture an Akurian equivalent. Plus, the cortical node does not replace memory centers of the brain, so our technology can regenerate the areas of the brain that were removed to fit the implant."

Firepirit nodded. "Well that's something at least, but I have done a rundown of the amount of time needed for these procedures. Seven of nine went through about 50 hours worth of surgery time during her time on voyager, as well as years worth of rehab time, and she was still never fully deassimilated, she still required borg alcoves for regeneration, she still had a lot of borg implants in her body, and there are plenty of drones that have even more borg components in them than she did. If we want these people to go back to their normal lives, then we need to remove everything, and that takes twice as many surgical hours and far more rehab time. Just breaking the surgical hours down, that's 300 million total surgical hours for all the drones, and even if I had sixty thousand surgeons available, that's 5000 hours of surgery for each one. that's 10 hours a day for 500 days straight."

Rachael Yamaguchi was in agreement about the first part but the second was downright cringe worthy. "That's assuming anything doesn't go wrong in the meantime, further adding to your workload." she explained. "However I do have all the information on assimilation that one could ever want... Also since I control all of the Borg's nanoprobes in each drone. I can assist with this effort."

"Yeah but we are still talking about a far more comprehensive purging of their bodies than was even done with Seven of nine," Firepirit replied in a dour mood. "And the thing is, its not our surgical departments that are going to be pushed the hardest, its our rehab facilities. While the drones may only require between 50 to 100 hours of surgery, the rehab time will be much longer. And those cortical implants will be one of the later components we remove, lets face it, no matter what we do, a lot of drones are going to die of cortical implant failure before we can get to them all. Not to mention the risks of having to distribute borg technology, such as borg alcoves, throughout the federation, which is a major risk."

Kasana however again managed to offer a solution," No, maybe not. We can cut the time down by a lot, but its going to be a fairly radical method."

Firespirit gave the small kurokuri a look," How."

Kasana raised a finger. "Simple, rather than trying to deassimiate the whole drone, we simply transplant their brain to an Akurian style artificial body, and the only organ we need to purge of borg technology would be their brain. Then the individual can live in that artificial body until we get around to cloning them a new biological body. Now yes, some of these people will have to live as full cyborgs for years afterwords, but it will be with technology we know how to maintain and operate, so we wont have to worry about distributing borg technology throughout the federation."

Rachael nodded her head. "Yes. that will cut down on the workload drastically." she paused. "I have one cube with me.... but I have access to the entire Borg Collective... and if I announce myself to the collective, I can control them.." she paused as she turned to Kasana. "Does subspace exist in your reality?" she inquired softly. "I think... I have an idea."

Kasana shook her head. "No as far as I know there is no subspace in my universe, but I don't see how it will help, there are no known stable links to our universe, and I don't know when one will open."

Rachael sighed. "Shit.." she muttered softly. "So much for that idea..." she added quietly.

Firespirit looked at her," What Idea?"

Rachael paused. "I could announce myself to the collective and demand they send all of their forces to me and because I am the queen, they will come.... the trouble is.. thats tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ships all heading to one location." she explained. "If no subspace exists then the nanoprobes shut down and stop working... It would have helped deassimilate tens of trillions of drones.."

Firespirit thought about the proposal for a moment, then added. "Well, maybe not, maybe we can modify your plan. You have knowledge of all borg subspace frequencies used. So maybe with your help, we can set up a trap in secured systems loaded down with properly configured subspace jammers. Then you can lure a few borg vessels here at a time separating them from the collective, and we can take it apart piece by piece, at least long enough until that path becomes open and we can use your plan to send them to the Akurian universe."

Rachael Yamaguchi nodded in agreement. "We need to make sure that its somewhere isolated and away from here.. otherwise it'll cause waves of panic across the Federation and her neighbours." she explained. "One Borg cube causes panic ... thousands will cause other issues and disasters.."

Firespirit nodded," Aye, and with this jamming trick I dont want to try doing this with more than a few vessels at a time, there are limits to what we can handle."

He then turned to Kasana "how long does this brain transplant surgery take, getting someone into an artificial body."

"No more than a few hours." The foxlike Kurokuri answered," But that's for humans, and for any Caitans as well. For most of the non human species, Akurian doctors have no experience in working on these species, so that's going to be harder to do."

Rachael paused. "I doubt the collective will settle for this... No... By now its more then likely that a new Queen or several new queens will have been selected... So if we do this then we need to take out the collective in one fell swoop.. don't give them the chance to counter this...a s they will think that persons unknown are committing hostile acts against them as chunks of the collective are being heaved off piece by piece."

Firespirit gave a small light smile. "Well, either way, there was no way in hell we would have the resources to deassimilate ten trillion drones all at once. Trying to do it all at once would result in the vast majority of them dying anyway. If we are to try and save all those drones, we would have to do it piece by piece anyway."

Rachael regarded Firespirit. "Then we'd need to do it in such a way that the collective doesn't perceive a threat." she explained. "I am not the only Queen in the collective." she paused. "When I return... I will need to deal with my successor."

Kasana pondered the problem, then something came to her," Wait I got it. We cant deassimiate the entire collective at once, but we need a way to trap them all at once. Why not create something like a temporal sinkhole. Create or find some pocket in subspace where time moves slower in there than it does in realspace, lure the collective there, and trap them, in there but give us a method to retrieve the drones in groups that we can manage. We need time to slow down probably to be about 1/1000th the speed it normally is, but even the borg collective shouldn't be able to overcome that. "

Yamaguchi's jaw dropped. "How do you propose to create this?" she inquired as she regarded the small being before her. "Last time I checked, nobody has that ability."

Kasana smiled in a very cute manner. "Well I do know of a federation attempt to create a subspace pocket before. For a while I worked at the daystrom institute and was on this very project. We were doing it to study subspace sinkholes and pockets, though it was on a small scale rather than a large scale. Our technique didn't hold out for very long, but it demonstrated the proof of concept, and we used a shuttle craft deflector to do it. The Pocket want very big, only a few cubic centimeters, and it didn't last long before returning to realspace. However I am sure the borg have assimilated species whom have done this before. So using the knowledge gained from other species should allow us to perfect the technique. And then there is the matter of scaling it up. Which I also have an idea to do it, using an OISU derived technique. Its a method we use to put out very high yields out of our gamma ray lasers. We detonate an explosion of exotic particles to generate a massive amount of energy in a very short time and channel all that energy through a gamma ray laser emitter. But in this case, what I am thinking is we build a massively upscaled zero point energy warhead, similar to what is used in quantum torpedoes, hook it up to channel that energy though an oversized deflector dish, and fire it at a star, and send the star and most of everything within its gravity well into this pocket dimension."

Theriault paused. "Wait.. lasers... really?"

Yamaguchi smiled. "You're thinking of infrared or UV lasers..." she then shrugged. "X-Ray or Gamma ray however do a massage amount of damage, our first encounter with both styles was with Species 693 and Species 1492 respectively." she smiled. "We lost dozens of cubes in both encounters... Oh.. and you might not want to shoot a Gamma ray laser at a planet... because.. it'll be like having a nuclear style warhead of fifty megatons across every square meter of the entire planet... " Rachael suddenly grinned. "I've seen it done with my own two eyes.." she added with a sardonic grin. "The cube eradicated the attacking fleet.. because these idiots attacked a Borg world."

Kasana nodded her head. "she is right, one of the three common shipboard Directed energy weapons on Akurian ships is a Gamma Ray Laser. Lets just say, we have to take great care not to aim one of these things at an unshielded planet, otherwise, firing one of those things at a planet, well lets just say, its like what happens to a planet when a gamma ray burst from a supernova hits a planet. Its an extinction level event. And our gamma ray lasers are set to a power high enough to create mutually annihilating electron position pairs in a target." Kasana looked at Rachael, "in fact, I believe the borg cutting beam is a highly modified version of an X ray laser, which is the weaker cousin of the gamma ray laser."

Rachael smiled. "Its actually a highly evolved version of an X-Ray laser after we adapted the use but the first design was adapted from a solid state laser." she explained. "We acquired it over a thousand years ago.."

Kasana nodded. "Anyway, I am confident it is possible to build a very large deflector dish powered by an oversized version of one of our Gamma Ray laser firing chambers, and using a large zero point energy device should do the trick. We have to be careful with this design though, It wouldn't take a lot of modification to turn this design into a giant subspace weapon, so we have to keep knowledge on this device limited, and once its built, it would be advisable to destroy the blueprints afterwords. The device itself will destroy itself after one use though."

Firespirit nodded. "Yeah your right, but for this proposal to work, We will need to have a classified meeting with high ranking members of the admiralty and government officials, this isn't a project we can do on our own."

Rachael Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow. "We'll also violate every last arms treaty in the galaxy with this idea as well." she explained evenly. "So.. should we try to get as many nations as possible onboard with this? or no?"

Firespirit turned his attention to Rachael," Well with the current political situation it remains to be seen how many of these arms control treaties will remain intact. A number of them went by by with the demise of the romulan empire, and if the klingon empire disintegrate too, there goes more treaties. But either way, th's proposal sounds like our best shot, so Kasana, if you can write up a proposal on this thing with Rachael's help, I'll bring it up the chain of command and we will see what we can do."

Kasana nodded but didn't say anything.

Rachael nodded her head. "I'll assist." she answered before she shifted her position ever so slightly. "So... lets do this then."