ten_fwd | Playing with nanotech

She wasn't the only one, Julian still had to catch himself from thinking of the place with the term 'infirmary'.

He was off-duty--in fact, it was ship's night and he should be sleeping, but he couldn't find it in him to relax. It had been a while now since he had the time to truly forget about the war raging around them--not that it was here, he was far too early for that. The Federation knew absolutely nothing about the Dominion. But he had enough work on the station--well and memorized by now, thanks to his enhanced mind--that he could use the Enterprise's facilities to work on until he was tired enough to get some sleep.

The door swished open obligingly before him. The last time he'd been on the Enterprise, he'd needed to override the security codes without sending a signal to the tactical station, which had been an enjoyable challenge. Now the door scanner recognized him as someone that belonged, was authorized to use the laboratory and Sickbay's equipment.

He wasn't the only one making use of it, it seemed, which struck him a bit odd this time of night. One of the others who'd been helping with exams--not Starfleet, but it took him a moment to cast about his memory for a name. Trance.

Well, he couldn't have guaranteed he'd have the run of the place.

"Good evening." Pleasant smile and demeanor firmly on, Julian walks to another computer terminal, PADD in hand.

Between Trance insisting it was Medical Bay, and Julian calling it the infirmary, they were bound to get people confused. Still, she thought it was a lot better than 'sickbay'. What if no one was sick in there! Med Bay or Infirmary were much better options. Maybe she should suggest it to the Captain....as soon as he was less angry about the whole incapacitating Worf incident.

Trance turned around as the doors opened. "Good evening. I didn't expect anyone else at this time of night. Couldn't sleep?" Trance paused, trying to remember what his name was. "Doctor....Bashir isn't it?"

Edited 2014-06-30 01:02 (UTC)

"That is indeed me--Julian, if you prefer." His PADD clicks slightly as he sets it down, and it connects automatically to the Enterprise's computer. But he'd specifically asked Engineering for something to keep his research on that wouldn't be permanently kept on the central computer--trying to avoid contaminating the timeline.

"Not particularly. I'm used to being on-call at all times of night, having so many qualified doctors about is certainly something to get used to."

"I know what you mean. I was the only one on the Andromeda. And now we're surrounded by medical personal."

Trance couldn't help but look at the PADD he set down. That was one thing she just couldn't get used to. They were so thick compared to the flexi's on board the Andromeda. She was going to have to get Harper to make her one. Maybe they could upgrade everyone's.

" That's this ship's version of a flexi right? It contains information?" Trance had to ask. Just in case. Maybe it was something completely different. But...it looked like a PADD. "Doing anything interesting?"

"I don't know what a flexi is, but yes. It's a hand-held computing device."

He looks down, the connection has been made, and he can start work whenever he wants.

"Research, mostly. Nothing applicable to the here and now, but things I was working on before being brought here."

"And you can remember it all? Or were you able to bring the data with you? A flexi is similar--it's portable computing device as well but it contains nanobots to help translate language and syntax. You can write on it too. It's touch sensitive and flexible." She wrinkled her nose and laughed. " I guess that's why it's called a flexi."

It was a little backwards here. Things well, wern't as sophisticated. But, that was expected. She was more than 2000 years in the past, even if it wasn't her universe.

"May I ask where you're from? Before you got....forcibly reassigned here. I'm the chief medical officer on the New Systems Commonwealth starship Andromeda Ascendant, Commonwealth year 10089. I think that's 5169 for you." Trance was pretty sure if she identified Andromeda as a warship there might be problems...

"I can remember enough of it." He shrugs slightly--it's not entirely true, he can remember all of it, though it would be nice to have the samples to run tests on. But he'd just need to make do.

"PADDs are also touch-sensitive, we've had that technology for quite a while. Language translation can be loaded onto it, but that's generally for the more powerful computers. Audible language is translated by our universal translators."

He listens to the time she's from, and can't help the surprise and curiosity on his face. "My. 5169? I can hardly even imagine."

He takes it in stride, though, and goes on. "I'm the chief medical officer of a Starfleet space station near Bajor--it doesn't quite exist yet, not for a couple more years I'm afraid. I'm from the year 2374."

And perhaps not quite as many problems as she'd think. The Defiant was basically a warship, after all--built solely for combat as it was--and Julian also served as chief medical officer of that ship as well.

"Some things are similar, some things aren't. But you, if you're Starfleet, and from a few years in the future, that makes things awfully sticky doesn't it? Is there another you running around somewhere? You must feel a little out of sorts. My Captain, Dylan Hunt, was stuck on the event horizon of a black hole for 300 years. I can understand what you must be going through a little---even if you're going backwards and he was going forwards."

"Our translators are a little different. Andromeda, our AI can translate anything, but we also have nanobots acting as translators. I could use another opinion if you have a little time?"

Trance picked up the device she was working on and brought it over to the Julian. "Our chief engineer just got over a....parasitic infection. It did some damage to his internal organs and I'm repairing them with nanotechnology. But his immune system is dodgy at of times.... and being here..."

"It does--that's what the Temporal Prime Directive is for, and unlike most of the transplants, I am expected to follow it." His smile turns slightly self-deprecating and hollow.

"Anyway, yes, there is a younger version of myself on Earth right now, at Starfleet Medical Academy. Very little danger of us running into each other."

He looks curiously at the device--nanotechnology wasn't something the Federation used a lot of, just like genetic manipulation. "Sure, though I may not be of much help--we very rarely utilize nanotech for medicinal purposes."

"Dr. Crusher said the same thing. We use nano technology for almost everything. Do you have any other suggestions? The main issue with Harper is he grew up on Earth. Malnutrition, beatings, he didn't have a pretty childhood. And he's the only one on the crew who wasn't genetically engineered, so he's strictly human. Chances are he'll get sick with something. He usually does. His immune system doesn't put up much a fight. It....kind of rolls over and plays dead."

Trance took in everything he had said. "Temporal Prime Directive? What's that?"

"A subset of the Prime Directive dealing specifically with conduct for officers that accidentally get displaced in time. It happens often enough that rules were laid out for it. Summed up, it's basically 'do not interfere.'" Which was far more difficult than it sounded.

Julian looked worried, to say the least. Malnutrition and beatings on Earth? They'd eliminated hunger long ago, and the very idea of violence on Earth in a widespread manner was against everything Julian knew.

"We also don't use genetic engineering. It's explicitly outlawed, in fact," he says quietly, absorbing the information on the screen--careful to not do so too quickly. "Aside from in the most dire of circumstances, to correct severe birth defects."

He hums thoughtfully, hands dancing over the LCARS display. "Though there are certainly many medical treatments we have that are used to great effect on immunodeficient individuals."

Trance thought that was the stupidest rule she'd ever heard. Still, it was similar enough to what Dylan had intended when she accidentally piloted then back in time. Accidentally on purpose. "But what if you were meant to interfere in the first place? What if being transported back in time was some kind of...universal balancing act,to keep life, love and order on track?"

Trance caught his worried look when she mentioned earth in the same sentence as malnutrition and beatings."Did Earth fare better here? And why would genetic engineering be outlawed. That's....silly. You could boost immunity, wipe out genetic diseases. Or do you have another method of curing genetic conditions?"

For the most part, the LCARS display looked similar enough to the display on Andromeda. Similar...and yet completely not. "Do you think you could help me come up with a program to help Harper? I could use nanobots strictly but it might make more sense to use something native to this universe to fight off native medical conditions."

"It's open to a bit of interpretation, but basically the spirit of it is that time should be left as you know it, warts and all. The slightest change can have catastrophic consequences." He knows, he's seen it. One man dying before he was meant to in the early 21st century had resulted in the complete obliteration of the Federation before he and Captain Sisko had corrected it.

"Much better, to say the absolute least. There have been periods of upheaval in the past, but we've been at peace for decades, and hunger and illness are in the past."

The history of genetic engineering on Earth was something of a specialty of Julian's, for reasons that would be obvious should anyone know his secret--which, again for obvious reasons, he can't say. He does look rather uncomfortable with the line of conversation, though.

"It was outlawed because despite advances made in it--and we were rather good at it, in the past--those advances were made in the name of more efficient warfare, not more efficient medicine."

"Anyway, I'd be happy to help."

"In my universe there are entire species who have been genetically engineered. Our Captain is a heavy gravity worlder, his muscles and bone structures are heavier to help compensate for planets with a heavier gravity field. Our weapons officer is a Nietschean--homo sapiens invictus. They're the product of almost 2000 years of selective genetic engineering. But you are right, at least about the time travel part. If you aren't aware of the consequences, than it can be rather tricky." That's why it was always good to have a guide.

"Earth is a slave world of the Drago-Kazov Pride. They're Nietzscheans. Before that there were Magog attacks. It hasn't had a pretty history." Thank goodness it didn't play a pivotal role in the universe.

"We've simply not settled on worlds we're not suited for, generally speaking. There's a few colony worlds whose settlers left before the ban on genetic engineering was put into practice, or actively decided to disregard it, but they're independent of Earth.

Genetic treatment is not outlawed, though it is a grey area. Engineering with the specific intent to enhance natural characteristics is."

It would have been fantastic to have a guide to the Bell Riots, but they'd managed to muddle through well enough.

As for the rest, Julian was glad that none of these Nietzcheans seemed to be aboard. For the moment, anyway. They wouldn't be easily accepted by a Federation crew of mostly Humans, who still remembered Khan and the Eugenics Wars with trepidation.

He starts pulling up all the treatment cases he can think of in regards to deficient immunity, sending them to a second PADD with swipes of his long fingers, but continues to speak.

"We had the Augments--Humans created specifically with strength five times that of a normal Human, with increased intelligence and viciousness to match. They rose to power in the late 20th century, then began to fight both amongst themselves, and against anyone who was genetically baseline, so to speak. They eventually lost control and were all either killed from the infighting or left Earth on early sleeper ships.

But there were enough humans left that believed in their ideals of genetic superiority that World War III happened not long after. Millions of people died. If the fighting had continued, it's entirely likely we would have wiped each other out."

"Your Augments sound very much like our Nietzscheans--genetically engineered to be smarter, stronger, faster, more cunning. And in one wrong move, they helped destroy civilization. Our Systems Commonwealth, which was not unlike your Federation of Planets I am learning, fell to civil war. My ship is now trying restoring it, of course we're no where near the million member worlds we had before. But, in case you're wondering, some Nietzchean tribes have joined. We haven't excluded them. Are there any Augments left? If they're anything like the Nietzcheans I'm sure we could take them with us, if it would help you keep the peace."

Trance looked over his shoulder, eyeing what he was pulling up on immune deficiency.

"Thanks for your help Julian."

There's the slightest hesitation as Julian continues searching through Enterprise's databanks, pull, review, swipe. It's seemingly just his focus on the task at hand. "No. Not any longer."

No one like Khan Noonien Singh was left in this reality. Only people like himself, Jack, Lauren, Patrick, and Sarina. Savants with varying levels of dysfunction, from very nearly normal to unable to function in society. Perhaps others, that Julian didn't know about. At any rate, it didn't matter in the here and now.

He smiles at her as he picks up the PADD, full now of case studies and information. "And here we are. I'm sure there are more, but this is enough to be doing with for now."

"That's sad, don't you think? An entire people,gone. Along with their wants, and dreams. And they have a right to live as much as anyone else." Trance was really unhappy with that answer, Julian. "And it's sad that you all couldn't learn to live with each other. Instead of acceptance and compromise, you chose death. Your Augments had as much of a right to live as anyone else. "

She picked up the PADD, looking over the information the man provided. "Thank you though. For the case studies. Do you might if I ask you some questions? Medical techniques are very different here."

"That was decades ago. Four hundred years, in fact. Not that I'm arguing, but that ship has well and truly sailed. The Augments fought amongst themselves, mostly. They had just as much ambition as intellect, and those who took positions of leadership generally weren't content to stay to their own borders--and they weren't very accepting of baseline humans or even other Augments who got in their way."

He doesn't sound very happy with it either, but it's not something a lot of Earth citizens like to talk about.

"You're welcome. And please, ask any questions you like."

Edited 2014-07-01 01:43 (UTC)

"That sounds almost exactly like our Nietzschean Prides. They believe that competition brings out the best, and those that survive are genetically superior. You'll know if you ever see them. A result of the genetic engineering are three bone blades that grow out of their forearm--controlled by a muscle. But, "

Trance paused her work and set down the PADD Julian had copied information to her. "I'm used to using nanotech for a lot of things--like rebuilding bone and muscle.How do you do that here?"

"Dermal and osteo-regenerators." He goes to a medical supplies cabinet and pulls out the two items in question.

"They stimulate the replication of cells--they work similarly to our stasis fields, but localized and in reverse."

"It is similar then. We use nanotechnology to augment the natural healing process in the body. I can program the nanos to act as nerve tissue, blood cells, enzymes. Anything I want."

Trance considered other possibilities. "Medication. Can you synthesize it or does it have to be physically stocked?"

"Aside from a very few too complicated or dangerous for the replicator to reproduce, we can synthesize it. If we had to carry everything for a long-term deep space mission--especially to treat a crew and civilian compliment the size of a Galaxy class like this--we'd never have any space in sickbay." He smiles slightly, trying to make a not-very-good joke.

"We do have the ability to synthesize artificial blood to match the chemistry of other species on-ship. Bolians, for example, have internal chemistry completely incompatible with anyone else on the ship. Their blood is actually slightly corrosive."

Moving about the room now, Julian is looking at some of those aforementioned stocked medicines to see if Doctor Crusher has anything already made that could be used to treat Harper's immune system.

"Good," Trance smiled enthusiastically, looking around, "that makes things a lot easier.So anything I need I can just ask the computer to synthesize? Does your computer know what to do or do I need to manually input the correct formula or enzymes I require?"

Trance looked a bit rueful, "This is going to take some getting used to. I'm used to just asking Andromeda and she gets it for me. It will be different, not talking to her. This ship really isn't alive? The Enterprise isn't sentient at all?" Mind boggling. Well, if she had a mind that is.

"And really? Really? Bolians have corrosive blood? That's fascinating! Do you think I could get some more information on it?" Trance loved life, and that was so interesting, and different than the species she's encountered in her universe. Life truly was everywhere.

Oh, and while she remembered. "Do you have any experience with drug withdrawal?" Not that she didn't, but this ship and her medications were a bit foreign to her.

"We'll have to program it in, if it's something we don't have already. If that's the case, the computer will ask for the specifications." He smiles slightly, their databanks are expansive, but surely wouldn't have absolutely everything she could think of.

"The computer will respond to voice commands and requests, but no, it's not a true artificial intelligence." Commander Data, on the other hand, could probably satisfy Trance's curiosity on that front for quite some time. "I'd feel slightly strange, personally, about walking about in a sentient ship. Like I was within her veins and arteries."

He pulls up a general biological profile of the Bolian race, and shifts it over to the terminal in front of Trance. "It's not corrosive to them, of course."

"As for drug withdrawal...something similar, yes." Garak's withdrawal from the wire in his head surely counted. He'd had a chemical dependency on the endorphins triggered by its activation, and would have died if he hadn't been taken off of it. "In a Cardassian, mind, not in a Human or any other species on this ship. Directly, anyway."

"Exactly! Rommie's the air we breathe. Literally. Oh--Rommie's the Andromeda Ascendant, did I tell you that? She's our ship's avatar, an android that works in conjunction with her ship self and holo-matrix. The idea was to allow the crew and the ship to interact and form a connection on a more human level. I kind of miss it. I do hope you get to meet her one day. She's a wonderful person!"

Trance(and Harper no doubt) would love to meet Data. Harper would probably find some fault with the not entirely human programming and think he could fix it, but it would be fascinating! He'd probably try and install Data into the ship.

Trance reads over the information he provided her on Bolians, before responding. "They're blue. I wonder how similar they are physiologically to Perseids. It would be interesting to study wouldn't it? Assuming we had a Perseid on board. Which we don't. But! the drug withdrawal. Harper--he's our engineer, is out of Sparky cola and....they don't have any here. He's going to be having some rather nasty side effects. And since the only place that can synthesize it is in sickbay, I thought I'd let you know. When he goes behind my back to try and get some. It's a cola with quite a lot of caffeine and a narcotic compound." Despite the warning label he still operates heavy machinery while imbibing. Of course this is the engineer that drinks beer on the job.

"I don't doubt it. You should speak with Commander Data sometime--I'm sure he would enjoy meeting you." He also tosses over a file on Andorians and a few other races she may find interesting.

"We have emergency medical holograms--in my timeline, at least, they won't start being placed on ships until 2371. They're extensively programmed, to the point where I'd believe they qualify as artificial intelligences. They were working on a long-term medical hologram as well, though I'm not quite sure where that project is now."

He glances over at Trance. "Well, if he tries to access the sickbay replicators without proper clearance--and that would be from Doctor Crusher--all he'll manage is to get security called on him."

He turns back toward the console, letting various medications that would be useful to mitigate the symptoms of withdrawal scroll by the screen. His eyes doesn't move to track them, but he's reviewing the details anyway.

"But we can synthesize something to ease the withdrawal symptoms. What's the active compound?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. It's a proprietary recipe. Their not exactly willing to release their ingredient list. " Sorry Julian, unlike the Alpha Quadrant, their universe was filled with greed and darkness. Quark might like it there."But it's available almost everywhere. Probably half the universe is addicted to the stuff. At least my universe. It's not a great vice, but, it beats Flash. Now that stuff will kill you." At least if anyone came in with a Flash addiction, Trance knew how to deal with that--and how to make it thanks to watching Beka steal ingredients.

"My universe isn't as light and organized as yours. It was, in the past. But the wall of civilization crumbled down. And in its wake left drugs, gambling, poverty, violence and greed." Doesn't it sound pleasant?

"And to be forewarned--Harper might be able to disable the alarms. Might not get to it before anyone notices, but, he's a bright boy. And he's got a data port. Do you have those here? He can plug into computer systems, directly into his cerebral cortex."

Trance gave a shrug. " I was planning on using nanobots to help clean the drug from his system and a narcotic antagonist." But she didn't know what there was available here.

"If Harper doesn't know it either, there's very little chance he can program it into the replicator. The exact chemical composition would be needed--and replicators can't produce any narcotics without a cleared voice command from Doctor Crusher, or any of us if we've been given clearance."

Quark would probably have a field day. Julian can only imagine the Ferengi's face.

"We've got our own sets of problems, I assure you. As optimistic as the Federation is, there are balancing forces out there." The Dominion, the Borg--even Section 31, if you wanted to look at Starfleet's seedy underbelly.

"Commander Data can do so, I'm sure, but he's an android. The rest of us simply have to make due with voice commands and manual input."

Julian frowns thoughtfully, pressing down on the aforementioned display. "We do have some general medications to help ease withdrawal symptoms, depending on what they are. But without knowing the composition of the narcotic, I can't recommend anything more specific. Would it still be in his system?"

"Harper might know. But if he doesn't it's probably still in his system. Either Sparky or beer. He doesn't really drink anything else." Yup, this was the engineer they let work on the ship and use heavy machinery. "But I wouldn't put it past him to be able to simulate a voice command from the medical staff. He built Rommie after all, something like that should be childs play to him."

Clearly, Trance had a lot of faith in Harper's ability to maneuver his way through Enterprise security. But she got a bit of a maniacal grin and smiled at him.

"We don't have to help all of his symptoms you know. It's his own fault he drinks the stuff."

"Lovely." Not that alcoholism wasn't still a problem on Earth, but generally it wasn't in Starfleet--the fact that ships of the line mostly only carried synthehol helped with that greatly. Julian knew case studies, of course, but perhaps it would be beneficial to contact an expert on Earth via subspace...

"If he can replicate our voices exactly, more power to him, I suppose." That was a valid concern to bring up with Security, he'd perhaps have to speak with Worf or Data later regarding that.

"I've never been one to leave things half-done." If Julian was involved, he'd do everything he could for Harper, self-inflicted or no.

"The best way to keep Harper occupied is to give him something to do. A problem." That's kind of what they did on the Andromeda. Of course on the Andromeda it was also considered work. Work that kept Harper from creating more work. Or massive bombs. Like Rommie the boy needed a better hobby.

"When he's occupied he doesn't have time for other activities." Like breaking into sickbay to try and make some sparky cola.

"With Harper, sometimes letting him wallow is the best medicine. He learns best under pressure." Trance didn't like seeing people in pain, but, at the same time, sometimes it was necessary.

"Well, I'm sure we could think of something." Julian smiles slightly. "There'd be more on DS9, there's always something breaking there. But a Starfleet ship is rather better built."

Granted, half of DS9's problem is the bizarre interaction of Cardassian and Federation tech, half of the latter juryrigged to barely work with the former. It's a mess.

Leaving him with withdrawal symptoms would go against pretty much everything Julian feels about medicine, it wouldn't be anything close to what he wanted to do. Though he supposes Trance knows him best.

"I'm sure Harper would have had a blast on DS9. Something to tinker with, so much to mess with. He's very good at combining tech, after having to put Andromeda back together without the ability to get compatible spare parts. He had learned to get....creative." His fixes were not exactly up to spec but they worked.

Trance wouldn't interfere if Harper went to Julian for help, she just offered a suggestion. He'd learn quickly enough how to manage Harper. Most people did.

Playing with nanotech

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