Relic - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Roger Arrivan stood at the dias in the space that SFC had provided for Daystrom Industries to serve as a POC and PR office. DI was short-staffed in all positions, which meant that the sole occupant of the office and the sole POC was himself, which also meant he was the sole PR representative whenever there was news. After one or two rough experiences he had decided to institute a weekly briefing, making himself available to any of the newsies, independent journalists, reporters or other people just trying to find some answers. For months he rarely got more than one or two people showing up as the idea of the M-Series being safe, approved by Star Fleet and now operating in two ships, the USS Grant and USS Gryffon, and being installed in many others that were taken out of storage orbit from Jupiter. Today he had what he hoped would be a simple presentation, but the news being released by Star Fleet of their purchase of captured damaged ships from Daystrom Industries meant that he had to steel himself mentally for what would come from a now packed presentation room.

"Hello, I'm Roger Arrivan of Daystrom Industries and I have some announcements from our company this morning, after which I will take questions."

He smiled with the lights having been toned down in the room while the ones around him were left on full.

"First off I am pleased to announce that Daystrom Industries is now offering M-2/V arrays to commercial transport ship owners. An M-2/V array is a low end array that integrates with the ship's systems to offer an in-depth understanding of how well the systems are working and to offer improvements in ship efficiency not only for systems but for personnel as well. Our first date of delivery will be at the Constantin shipyards in 10 months, but we are now cleared for offering these systems and seeking customers."

He shifted to bring up a display next to the dias that showed funerary transport modules being received by the Klingon Embassy.

"Secondly, as some of you may know we retrieved an abandoned, unclaimed vessel that had been constructed at the start of the Klingon Civil War. Of the nearly 300 bodies on board the vessel, approximately one-half are individuals who are Klingons or that have planetary systems within the Klingon Empire. We are working with Independent Systems to help identify the remains of those who are clearly not part of what is today's Klingon Empire. While the modern Empire is trying to assert claim to those remains, our Executive Board has determined that when modern Independent Systems can clearly identify remains, then they will be sent to those systems so that the dead may return home."

As Roger shifted the display to an overview of the Federation, he saw a number of members amongst the various individuals and news organizations starting to seek to ask questions.

"Mr. Arrivan, what about the claim from the Klingons that this is their vessel and they have full rights to it?"

Roger half-smiled and shook his head.

"That was covered last week. Now the next person who interrupts will be removed from the room and barred from future public releases."

Hands went down and indicators and inquisition markers faded.

"The third topic for today is that Daystrom Industries, now that we have settled with Star Fleet on the safety and use of M-Series Units, has opened up a unit to deal with Federation system space organizations, which are those system military organizations that operate in-system starships for patrol, law enforcement and scientific use, so that they may be equipped with M-Series arrays. At present vessels with crew size of under 5 will be allowed to procure M-2/V arrays, those up to 20 personnel will be allowed M-3/V arrays, after that M-4/V arrays will be for vessels up to 150 and beyond that full M-5/V arrays are allowed. That breaks out to being roughly patrol cruisers for near planetary work, police vessels below Destroyer level, then Destroyer to Light Cruiser level, and M-5/V systems for Heavy Cruisers, Monitors and installations like Base Stations. This section of Daystrom Industries will have two components, a ship installation component that will be at Constantin, and a contract organization that will be established in Cascadia, Earth. Do note that any system wishing such equipment will have to establish diplomatic contact with Cascadia to regularize the sale of such equipment."

That got a murmur from a few that had assembled for this conference.

"That concludes the new information segment of this conference. From here I will take a few questions to fill up the rest of the half-hour, and after that written or other comms can be used with Daystrom Industries to get further responses. " He glanced at the cyber systems that accumulated questions and saw that there was no majority semantic question and then looked at the assembled members in the chamber.

"Yes, Mr. Compton?"

An older man in the first row for the publication Space Engineering Dynamics and Review stood up and nodded at Roger. He had been one of the few to show up at least for every other week's public release and knowing who you were dealing with was just as important as the questions they asked.

"Yes, Mr. Arrivan. There have been a number of reports of agents of Daystrom Industries actually disabling or capturing Orion Pirates and their ships. Are any of these reports true and if so how are you going about doing that?"

"The reports are true, Mr. Compton. Daystrom Industries has been given charter and letters to go after ships and individuals on the known wanted and piracy listings compiled across the Federation. We operate under such laws and regulations provided by both Star Fleet and under contract from Federation Trade Organization as signed off by their Council Member Revar Umak. Daystrom Industries garners no pay from the Federation outside of any bounty listings and any sales of equipment or items garnered from such takings. Any property that can be returned to individuals or companies is returned by us, individuals who have not partaken in Piratical activities are repatriated, and those others captured rendered up to legal procedures either by Star Fleet or by the Systems wanting them. Our methodologies are known to Star Fleet and under classification restrictions from them and considered a trade secret by Daystrom Industries."

"Thank you, Mr. Arrivan. Can you provide a listing of ships and individuals taken by your company?"

"That listing will be put out by Federation Trade Organization after Star Fleet has confirmed the processing of ships and individuals. Goods are rendered on the private market after official capture and since the majority are bulk goods or smaller items that have no identification to them, they are done anonymously. Once the final certifications have been released by Federation Trade," and he didn't add that this was a sore point with them, "then there will be itemized sales of those captured items that are identifiable to those vessels. Again the capture certifications have already been processed and approved for our captures, just final release held up by the Fleet and FTO."

"Yes, and thank you, Mr. Arrivan," he said before sitting down again.

"You are most welcome," he looked around the room, "Yes, Talak?"

Talak of the Cybernetics Journal stood up and examined his personal screen in one hand before looking at Roger.

"Mr. Arrivan, will more details of the construction and programming of M-Units be released to the public in the near future?"

Roger smiled as this was something Daystrom Industries was being nudged about and not just from the outside but by Star Fleet, as well.

"Thank you for bringing this topic up, Talak. At this point there is in-house knowledge to Daystrom Industries of the construction of M-Series Units and that has been widely known for decades and served as a major jumping off-point for reviewers up to 60 years ago. As you know all those who have tried to recreate an M-Series system in the higher, post M-2 Unit suite have failed and even M-1 and M-2 units do not actually do very much. As has been noted that information had not been released by Richard Daystrom at the time of his death on how to actually do what he did. Due to his mental condition it is possible that he may only have known about such programming for short periods of time between lengthening episodes of instability. Thus Daystrom Industries considers its present work to be derivative of Richard Daystrom's past work, but that past work has never been published in any coherent form by him and even as compiled code it lacked enough cohesion to give a clear methodology of what he created. From that there is no published past work beyond what we had to start with which has been publicly available for decades. Our work will be released for higher level programming of M-Series Units within the next six months in a series of learning modules compiled by Daystrom, Arrivan, Varda, Jomra, et. al. This will allow for a personality matrix system and variance of same to fit into lower level engrammatic coding. That code work is much more detailed and is taking much longer to compile and may be some years until it is released for safe formulation of M-Series Units. This company recognizes the past abuse of this technology and refuses to let unsafe systems be designed or developed based on this work. This is gone over as part of an industrial, academic and governmental critique of the original M-Series Units that will be in the Journal of Federation Ethics by DuBois, D'gorna, Daystrom, et. al. within the year. This company will be holding off on answering any more questions about the M-Series and their programming until after the release of that document and subsequent academic discourse."

Talak looked puzzled.

"Which Daystrom is taking part in these papers?"

"Richard for the programming as he was the original source of the material, although without much documentation. The second is Enid Daystrom. Full names outlined for each paper, of course."

"Understood. Thank you."

"You are welcome. I now have one consensus question," Roger said looking at the dedicated display region on the dias, "and that is involving more information on the salvaged vessel," he said paraphrasing an entire set of questions and variation that he had displayed as a tree diagram. No single question could come of that, but they all revolved around a single central trunk theme. That branching semantic presentation was part of Richard Daystrom's post M-Series work and it became one of the most quickly adopted ways to get thematic based questions put together and then consolidated for presenters and people performing public information duties.

"The vessel that was salvaged was one that had been rumored about for some decades after the initial part of the the Klingon Civil War. Although much of the capital and investment was started by the Klingon Empire, it is conjecture as to who finished it and who the actual owner might have been as those records were lost during the Civil War. As I've backgrounded the topic previously, I won't go into the historical records of other groups and lone operators who have tried to find this ship, save to say there were many of them. The vessel itself is apparently an un-named, un-numbered experimental craft that was trying numerous technological innovations in one single ship. At present although there are few, if any, on-board recordings of events although that is more than adequately explained by the general course of the crew's divided loyalties, their destruction and sabotage of equipment and final stand-off between factions leading to the powering down of the entire vessel and opening it to space can only be roughly put in order based on physical evidence. One of Daystrom Industries' employees asked for permission to look for this vessel and used internal help to find the cubic it might be in and was sent with an M-5/V array that was augmented by additional M-1 and M-2 Units to help the system understand any unusual systems on-board and deal with Klingon-based systems. As the ship was not fully completed Daystrom Industries is now determining on the best way to deal with this ship and as our company had hired a group of historians to document the Constantin Shipyards and they have agreed to go over the vessel and do a thorough historical review of it. Currently the ship is docked inside the shipyard at Constantin being analyzed and information about it recorded for future public consumption."

He looked at the room and there was an indicator from a floating interactive system near the back of the room.

"Caluza Vermar, please go ahead," he said towards the device.

"Thank you," the device said in the tones of a mid-tenor male voice, "I'm Caluza Vermar, Starcourses Update, and we've noted that Star Fleet has put up a larger cubic warning in the space surrounding Organia. As the salvage vessel returned near there, can you give any insight as to what is going on there?"

That was a question by one of the most widely used systems of updating navigation hazards and star charts for commercial industry and it would note such changes and look for commercial vessels that my give some insight into them. Starcourses Update was one of the most staid and well respected publications in the Federation as it could and often did update general space hazard warnings days or even weeks faster than the Fleet Instant Update system did. In fact the FIU subscribed to Starcourses Update and one of the gripes at the lowest level of Fleet vessels was that they were often sent on missions to confirm any reports that fell outside of the minor navigation hazard category based on commercial reports. Caluza Vermar was actually stationed at SFC, but his atmospheric needs included a number of toxic elements that fell outside of Federation Standard general atmospheric guidelines. He was also the senior editor of Starcourses Update and this was the first time Roger could remember seeing the sensor infosystem of him at a briefing.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Vermar, but all information regarding Organia and Star Fleet activities are under the Fleet's purview, and they are the ones to answer questions about changes to Fleet navigation restrictions."

"Understood, Mr. Arrivan. I have gotten nothing out of Star Fleet for nearly two months on that question and your vessel was the last commercial vessel to go near that cubic before the restrictions were put in place. As there were no hazard change indications and continue to be none, the increase to a complete ban on travel and the slightly increased volume indicates that Star Fleet wishes to keep even enhanced sensor suites from scanning the Organian System. As a participant in Starcourses Update does Daystrom Industries have any updates to give us regarding Organia?"

Roger smiled as he looked from the dias, shutting it down.

"Daystrom Industries has given you what information we can given our contractual obligations and Star Fleet restrictions, Mr. Vermar, and we filed our notice to your system as promptly as we could. All other questions regarding Organia and our salvaged vessel's course should be addressed to Star Fleet. That is it for questions, if there are any further questions you may send them to my office. Good day to all."

As he turned and walked out there was a moment of silence and than some low level talking as various reporters got up while others were scratching their heads to try and figure out if anything important had actually been given out. Between the short briefing, the information packets and other, prior, disclosures there were a few trying to piece together just what was going on. There had been some discussion about what, exactly, Daystrom Industries was up to prior to the news releases and a great amount of speculation on what it all meant.

When Roger got to his small tiny office he sat down and started pulling up the programming section for higher level engram placement for M-3 and above systems. He was almost done with the section and wanted to finish it today. Yet his mind wasn't able to focus and he stared at the blank wall just beyond the holodisplay projected above the desk surface.

"I could have said a lot more," he whispered, "but was it enough? Did I do the right thing?"

Karl had told him to use his judgment and discretion because of the lives involved. Even after the briefings and discussions he had with Karl, Ushanda, Reyard and L'Tira, plus some discussions with the field operatives he could get in contact with, he was left with a feeling that something was going on that was out of their control. He was the one to give information out and interface with the Council and Star Fleet at the highest levels, because Enid had asked him to since it would allow him to concentrate on that most important work of getting the information together for M-Series programming. The simplest part for the company, that went the fastest and was the most important because it held the basis for engram encoding at the lowest levels of the system from when each unit was first turned on. He considered the rest to be ancillary to that, so that normal people could use the tools the company provided to actually put the equipment to good use once it was made. He knew that the Fleet Corps of Engineers actually had the information on the lowest level work given to them, but they were covered under contract not to use it nor implement it. Now Daystrom Industries had it at multiple facilities as well, but all tied up into the quantum encryption of the M-Series so that only company personnel authorized to it could use it. What was worrying him was no longer that main job, but this one of being the representative for Daystrom Industries.

In one briefing he had confirmed some suspicions, laid others to rest and he knew that process was heading towards something that he couldn't predict.

Pressing his eyes closed he leaned forward.

"Please come home soon, Enid," he whispered very softly, "what is the right thing to do?"

He couldn't help thinking about her and the work to get the M-Series resurrected into what it should have been. There in his memories came the answer from her.

'You're job, Roger, I would not trust anyone else to do it.'

Opening his eyes he nodded and looked towards the text and diagrams and associated notes and figures that would be part of the programming manual. He had been leery of joining the project, then given more responsibility than he thought he could handle. He had feared failure until he realized that he actually had feared success even more. And it was the same again now as in the past. He had done his job and with that he could only let things play out as they would. He hadn't been worried if he had done the right thing, but worried that he had. Failure he had many times in his life and cold cope with, but success had been a relative stranger until just a couple of years ago and the start of one project. And a new life.

***

Col. Davis leaned on Tananda's chair as she called up the schematics of the ship and started to outline the multiple sub-vessels that went into its creation. Large segments of the ship were given class designations and the actual framework of the ship's superstructure started to emerge as the sub-ship segments were taken out.

"You think that a total of six of the Vor'cha Class vessels went into this?" he asked looking at the holodisplay.

"At least, isn't that right, Charles?"

Charles was sitting next to her and nodded.

"I think they left some parts behind or used them for inter-decking spaces where the ships didn't fit well. I can see at least eight or ten nacelle parts where the hull plating was stripped off and decking placed through them."

Smaller vessels began to be denoted and shifted out of the superstructure which included three K'tinga Class cruisers and then a number of Federation denoted E and F models of ship which appeared to be used as deck 'filler' where the deck alignment between ships allowed for it.

"They ransacked all the builds at the shipyard for at least two or three months before this ship left, then," Col. Davis said.

"Some of those larger ships were purposely constructed for fitting," Tananda said, bringing up one of the larger sub-hulls and rotating it, "you can see that the major cooling conduit pass-throughs were already in-place, as well as the engineering top to bottom pass-through."

Davis shook his head looking at the ships as Charles brought up some of the smaller vessels and examined them.

"They probably changed build scheduels for that, left out utilizing of ship plating and utilized some sort of inter-construction crew arrangement so that no one knew exactly what the ships they were working on were supposed to go to. That took some years to arrange."

"Aye, it did," Charles said, "and that was before the Civil War. You were right, M-5, this ship was going to be a nexus of a conflict if it could be done on its projected schedule. I think they lost a year and had to hurry it to this point."

"Yes, Charles," came the voice of M-5, the constant presence that had been helping on the first true understanding of the ship by guiding people with sensors to the open areas and ill-placed decks so that a thorough understanding of just what went into its creation. "I couldn't see everywhere inside the ship, which is not normal for a Klingon vessel. There were also numerous sensor feeds for exterior sensors that went nowhere, and other items like exterior hull plating used as flooring that did not make sense."

"Outside of the engine compartment, that massive heat sink and the specialized cooling array in the rear, plus the armor plating and boom, the rest of the ship is cobbled together out of other ships," Tananda said looking up and back at Davis, "and that means a lot of excess structural members can be weeded out and removed, others need to be refitted and in some places where nothing fit and there are voids, we need to put in new material."

"And get the decks straightened out," Charles said, "that is if we aren't going to break this down into sub-vessels and finish them."

"No," Col. Davis said, "it is possible to do that, of course, but we are missing the major systems from those ships to complete them. All their drive and other components, save for anti-matter storage on a few of the largest vessels, was scrapped. Although every piece of conduit, ducting and anything else that could stay in spec. for cooling the ship, that is all there. More or less. The actual power system to run the warp drive..." he sighed, "...is an amazing kludge."

"Hey, don't knock it! It works," Tananda said, "And it is even efficient if you have an M-Series running it."

"Yes it is," M-5 said, "although it takes nearly two M-1 and one M-2 unit to run it, the system is very efficient. To do this with manual oversight, even with computer augmentation and controls would be very labor intensive. That may be one reason the ship had to come out of warp drive once the internal fighting started."

"You mean that there weren't enough people left to actually run that system?" Col. Davis asked.

"Yes, Michael, and that would fit within the timeline of when the ship crossed over into Federation Space and was finally out of Neutral Zone sensor arrays. Within not less than a month but no more than six weeks the internal fighting on-board had killed or wounded enough individuals so that it could no longer operate the warp drive systems. Then the power systems would be shut off as well."

"A true mess," Charles said, "and Karl isn't going to negotiate the ship back to the Klingons. He pointed out that while their large-scale shipyards are gone, they could easily break this ship down into its sub-ships and gain almost an entire Task Force for the investment of some warp drives. Not cheap, but with most of the ships still there, and with a bit of hull plating you could get them done pretty quickly."

Tananda looked back at the display and shook her head.

"A lot of work, but I see where you're coming from Mike. The Vor'cha would be hardest, of course, but well worth it since they have limited production of heavy vessels."

"No, they would just put a full crew on it, update the weapons, and maybe put something that only a starbase could use. That becomes a major threat vehicle to anchor its own task force. Doesn't need to be a high class task force, either, if they mount some of the heavier and far reaching stuff on it. Run a bunch of old D-7's and E-4 or 5 types, back them up with long-range fire and you could start to push back on some of the independent systems. All on its own. Karl's right, no matter what sort of a pain this is to us, a real government could do a lot of damage with it. Nasty damage."

"Ours included, Charles," Davis said, "And since Karl gets to judge fair value of this vessel," he said glancing up and looking around what would be the main briefing room for the command staff on the ship, "which I certainly couldn't figure out. So this is our headache because we don't like what other people would do with it."

Tananda grunted as she started placing the sub-ships into the vessel in the display volume.

"So, should we start with hull plating that shouldn't be inside a ship? Or the structural members that are excess dead weight?"

"Plating near those pieces that need to come out. Getting them out will be the hard part as we don't really want to pierce the actual hull. Easier to cut than to place."

"Doesn't this company ever generate small jobs?" Charles asked.

"Oh, yes, lots of them," Davis said, "trust me on that."

Tananda turned to look at them.

"Look on the bright side. We now know where the structural members will come from so we can expand the shipyards. And even the tool to do it with."

The two looked at her.

"You don't mean we are going to do both jobs at the same time, do you?" Charles asked.

Tananda shrugged.

"Might as well. Its a better idea than trying to dismantle parts of the old armor mill."

Col. Davis shook his head.

"And what tool are we going to use to do the cutting? We can't take this ship out of the shipyard until its ready to go."

She smiled as she looked at him.

"We don't need the solar stuff, although I'm sure we can rig up some mirrors to still do part of the work. No the tool I'm talking about you are sitting in. This ship and its M-5 system. Precision phaser work with disruptors to break up any material that we can repurpose. You two M-5 systems can do that together, right?"

"Yes, we can, Tananda," M-5 said, "although it will be close quarters work and I won't be able to use deflectors to tune the phasers."

"That's your main way of tuning them, isn't it?" Col. Davis asked.

"Yes it is. To use them as bare phaser systems they really should be tuned properly and get an upgraded targeting and energy management system."

Charles shook his head.

"It is one damned thing after another. Where the hell will we get those?"

"I have just the person," Tananda said, "our engineering and install man at Vesta, Mr. Jomra. I'm sure we could find something the Fleet wants to do some swapping for newer parts. They don't have to be absolutely modern, do they M-5?"

"No, just better than century old Klingon main phaser control systems. There is only so much than can be done with programming, and fine tuned phaser use is beyond this equipment."

***

Star Fleet Command Science Directorate Special Team Report

Organia incident inclusive of Star Fleet Interior Border Security Task Force to Post-Rescue

Chapter 10 - Conclusions

Overall conclusions are taken in consideration with the prior work attached to this report (Appendix I: Co-Dominion Reports Inclusive 1 through 97, Appendix II: Daystrom M-5/V Project Gorn Information, Appendix III: Reports on Delta Quadrant Incursion) as incorporated into the general timeline of events given in Chapter 1 and throughout which serve as foundations of understanding for this report. Additionally Science Directorate Special Reports, Inclusive from Cochrane to Present, on Sub-Space in Appendix VII is a critical set of limitation studies on what is known about sub-space and what can be known given physical limitations of current technology and universal theories. The Organia incident and incursion sit at a nexus of understanding that is examined in specific detail to outline what is known and unknown about the technic species (singular or plural is unknown) known to Star Fleet through Appendix II as 'Swarm'. Appendix V of Organian discussions on the prelude to 'Swarm' incursion indicate that 'Swarm' had targeted Organia during their intervention in a set of incidents between the Klingon Empire and Federation that was already flashing over to open conflict. 'Swarm' identification of Organian power use thus predates the incursion by over a century and the removal of sub-space 'taps' which are the flow of power through sub-space micro-corridors channeling stellar power to localized storage (Chapter 3 and Appendix II, IV and XII) and use puts the generational nature of 'Swarm' activity into context.

Long-term activity at a sustained level are on time passage levels that have been identified as relatively short-term for 'Swarm' activity unless they are in the pre-normal space incursion stage and seeking probable target locations (Appendix II). While not definitive this report by surviving Organians lends validity to the Gorn information which is further backed by information in Appendix III and the summary EWEN reports in Appendix VI. Indications of Appendix III summary put forward that the target system is another that utilized sub-space for comms purposes to such a degree that it would also serve as a weakened interphase point. The super-Jovian planet of that system also weakens sub-space and normal space boundaries causing movement via interphase when there is additional energy input into the system. Initial sub-space work indicated that stellar objects would have a profound weakening on this boundary, though Organians indicate that this is only true of certain classes of low density stellar objects. While they also utilized higher density stars for their energy 'taps', they also indicated that such were placed after shifting equipment via a form of transporter to systems that had a weakened interphase via a super-Jovian or very low density stellar mass. Those highest of energy transport corridors through sub-space may serve as a location attractor for 'Swarm' analysis. From this the role of Jovian or super-Jovian planets or low density 'Brown Dwarf' stars that do not undergo fusion ignition are very large and changes initial conclusions for what constitutes a possible 'Swarm' threat and shifts categories creating high threat zone categories in nearly every star system within the Federation exclusive of the few stars classed O and B which are now put into the lowest threat category.

'Swarm' incursion utilized a number of artifacts including the tracking of sub-space 'taps' physical structures in the Organian System, sub-space comms units utilized by Fleet vessels inclusive of transporter and replicator systems. Organian records indicate that a rocky, high density moon in orbit around the gas supergiant of their system had been reduced to a molten mass in its entirety and that this body was up to three times the size of Earth's Moon or nearly the size of the satellite of Regula System planet orbit 2, Demior and its major moon Chalxis. The body in the Organia System had a lower metallic content and did not undergo more than simple gravity attraction and low level melting via bombardment early in the System's history. Without sufficient gravity to cause heating via consolidation throughout its mass, only a small portion of the metals formed an inner core that allowed for later compression consolidation of exterior materials. While it is not beyond the scope of current technology or the technology of any spacefaring group to actually melt such an object, the sub-month timeframe given points to a much larger expenditure of energy than would be utilized via normal space means. Organian speculation that 'tap' reserve energy was exhausted by 'Swarm' activity to do this and remove both the physical 'taps' and energy reserves simultaneously. If true this indicates a highly sophisticated knowledge of energy storage and utilization in normal space matrices used by energy beings (see Appendix VIII on Known Methodologies for this) for 'Swarm'.

Star Fleet response to Organian distress calls by Admiral Lorris Calhoun were appropriate given the genocidal nature of the attack taking place in the Organian System. Organians as post-physical beings can not be considered of a given gene pool as they lack genes and genotype, but are of a given thought coherence that conforms with a prior genus of being that they transformed from. Each Organian retained a memory of their exacting gene sequencing and body physiology which allowed for those with energy reserves to reform material bodies from local materials without use of a transporter system but mimicing a transporter via physical space matrix use considerations. As it was an 'on the spot' materialization using local materials, no sub-space transfer was required nor could any be performed once 'Swarm' ships had entered into the system. Once taking on a physical form Organians regained genotype and species while sentient thus making 'Swarm' activities one of genocide and not simple physical space matrix depowering. It can be asserted that the latter activity is genocide, but that requires a legal change of definition as it was previously thought that no energy matrix being could undergo such a thing without consent and that is now shown to be false. This report cannot speak to the general legalities and liabilities of the Federation due to Adm. Calhoun's actions, but those activities do conform to the highest general ethics and morals instilled by Star Fleet into its Officer Corps. The lack of success and loss of the entire Task Force demonstrates those same functions and also yields important data on 'Swarm' capabilities, ship types and weapons. Their rescue by the Daystrom Industries recently salvaged Klingon unclassed starship without any question yields firm basis for the conclusions of 'Swarm' capability and conformance of activity to prior Gorn outlines of it.

Primarily there are four types of 'Swarm' vessel that can be generically classed.

Largest type vessels, those that operate at Federation starbase and higher masses, are reclassed to Class IV vessels and they are only discernable single digit quantities within the Organian System, numbering no higher than six. Three of those vessels remain in orbit around the gas super-giant and three others are in orbit around the Organian class-M homeworld. Operations of these vessels is unknown.

Class III vessels are those at or below the size of a typical Federation starbase and down to the size of an old style Federation waystation. There are numerous vessels of this size within the Organian System during this episode and while a precise numbering is not possible, their numbers exceed the one thousand mark. Any of these vessels, similar in size and scope to the salvaged vessel by Daystrom Industries, would be an enormous investment of materials, energy and work effort by the Federation at its current level and take more time to build than a starbase due to the necessity of mobility. Such vessels fall within the recent Gorn vessel seen in the Sol System to exchange individuals at SFC, deposit a small work colony in the unincorporated Earth domain of Cascadia and also take Enid Daystrom with them to their space region so as to allow her to examine Gorn capability and culture first hand. Current estimates for the number of this class of vessel within Gorn space are being revised (Appendix VI) as are the presence of what are called in this conclusion Class IV. Prior high-end estimates of up to a half-million of Class III vessels may be now considered low end estimates given further EWEN reports. As no Federation ship type exists for this Class of vessel, they are called super-dreadnoughts or super-ships in prior reports, there is no easy way to properly express the economic investment of 'Swarm' activity into these ships.

Class II vessels conform to standard Federation size types that include the larger Heavy Destroyers up to the high end Galaxy Class of vessel. Numbering these vessels in the Organian System is difficult due to lack of sub-space sensors and the non-normal space motility of any 'Swarm' vessel which makes non-linear shifts in normal space conforming to sub-space topology. Best estimates for this report put a minimum baseline for Class II at no less than thirty five thousand vessels. It must be noted that as a single fleet this 'Swarm' aggregate of ships represents more economic input into vessels than the entire infrastructure of the Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, Cardassian and Dominion domains, Tholian Enclave and Independent Systems combined and then multiplied by a factor of three.

Class II vessels utilize weapons that can be considered extremely effective and lethal to all standard ship types of the Federation. Only via the self-destruction of anti-matter annihilation for vessels was a one to one ratio of destroyed Federation vessel to destroyed Class II 'Swarm' vessel achieved. Normal space sensor readings indicated that these vessels had undergone a high degree of sub-space matter degeneration and may not have been salvageable by 'Swarm' capabilities and they were simply sacrificed to achieve a desired objective. Other 'Swarm' vessels that played a stand-off role were much more effective and none of those were damaged. Vessels of Class II can utilize esoteric weapons including one hundred gravity opposing shear planes, anti-neutrons accelerated to velocities up to one-half 'c' and then projected through sub-space interphase, and one attack on the USS Vesper was a dislocation of part of its secondary hull, that cubic containing the engine room, displaced into sub-space and brought back out of phase to the terminal end of the vessel immediately.

Class I vessels fall into two sub-categories, Ia and Ib. In general all Class I vessels fall into the sub-Heavy Destroyer size range of vessel and includes many small objects at or below shuttlecraft size. These ships are typically armed with phaser analogs, particle beam weapons projected through sub-space, plasma weapons both normal and sub-space skipping, and other types of weapons within the range of Federation training and experience. Some of these vessels may mount esoteric weapons, as well as normal ones.

Class Ia vessels are standard rigid body construction and generally conform to normal construction considerations and can be considered smaller versions of Class II vessels.

Class Ib vessels are non-rigid body vessels that utilize some sort of partially degenerated biomass and skin exterior. There are indications of rigid body compartments and devices within such ships as well as other parts of the biomass that offer no easy description beyond that of being 'organs'. Unlike Class Ia vessels these vessels do not exhibit a strong normal space indicator when phasing into sub-space or returning from it. They were classed by the Daystrom M-5 unit as scouts or harrassment vessels and that is how they functioned during the encounter between the Federation and 'Swarm' vessels. While armed and a threat not to be ignored, these ships are very light and somewhat fragile. Their utilization by 'Swarm' activities indicates that they are considered fully expendable to gather information and perform harrassment attacks. Coupled with the high affinity to interphase to sub-space, these ships are also difficult to target and only proximity types weapons (fused proximity photon and quantum torpedoes and standard disruptors) can be utilized in an active threat roll unless exacting targeting information can be garnered as in the case of Sopheth (Raul) Edrera and then only using self-guiding systems able to perform a positive identification and lock-on to the target.

It is to be noted that none of these 'Swarm' vessels use standard matter/anti-matter systems for power generation. How they are powered is unknown and scans of them do not yield up enough clarity to resolve this matter. Power use is concentrated in parts of the vessel, but those parts contain no standard signal types associated with radioactive decay, atomic fusion, matter/anti-matter annihilation or any other standard motive power source used by any known starfaring organization. That such ships do have power sources is identified, type and capacity of such sources is unknown.

While the encounter at the Organian System has yielded much information and raised a host of questions, it has also yielded up additiona threat information that conforms to some speculation seen in Appendix II. Particularly informative and of note are the reduction of sub-space comms, transporter and replicator systems to inoperability through directed sub-space energy. As many of these units were turned off so that normal scanners would have difficulty in actually identifying such systems in isolation of other artifacts to utilize them, they were attacked by their ability to resonate for creation of sub-space corridors and micro-corridors at a robust enough level to either transmit energy to different parts of the Quadrant or to move matter streams through them. Low power sensors did not undergo a direct attack but were blanketed out from utility via closing off sub-space openings for them. Larger units with appropriately larger resonance systems had energy back-fed into them, even while dormant, to fuse them solid. Additionally spare parts that contained resonators also underwent such attacks and were rendered useless. While Gorns had indicated that 'Swarm' capability for identifying sub-space activity was acute, there had been no confirmatory evidence until this encounter. As part of the conclusions and threat analysis done previously in this report (see Chapters 7 and 8), it must now be confirmed that sub-space comms save at the lowest power range can be identified and targeted by 'Swarm' activity and that even dormant or unused systems to perform these functions can be targeted for hostile attack.

Another confirmatory piece of evidence is in the attack of Sopheth Edrera (prior Star Fleet INTEL/CO-INTEL agent Raul Edrera) upon a Class Ib 'Swarm' vessel and its subsequent series of events. While Mr. Edrera was engaged in moving back fully into the cargo hatch he had come out of, the vessel he had attacked had started interphasing and moving towards the ship he was on. The M-5 sensor analysis indicates extreme internal damage to the vessel which was venting fluid and gasses as well as undergoing energy discharges as it moved. Mr. Edrera's attack had come after a sub-space energy projection near the volumentric cubic of the Federation rescue mission, but did not target it directly. The normal space analysis of this indicates that something similar to a transporter wave guide had been projected in that direction with a high information density displayed as it phased in and out of normal space. There is only speculation that can be given as to what happened exactly to re-pattern Raul Edrera to his younger self, Sopheth Edrera. That 'Swarm' vessel he had attacked did come directly against the vessel he was on and appeared to concentrate its motion on his position. The vessel was undergoing random interphasing as it moved. There was an attempt to interphase to the interior of the Daystrom Industries salvaged vessle as indicated by some surficial analysis of the armor of the ship, particularly some of its semi-crystalline sub-laminates which had undergone molecular energy releases. The M-5 system recorded a sudden ripple to sub-space upon contact with the armor to a depth that would encompass Mr. Edrera so he can be said to be within the sub-space projected volume of the vessel in normal space. The means and methodology to perform a repatterning of an individual without a transporter system is unknown, but does coincide to something similar reported by the Gorns which they described as a dephasing of individuals who had undergone transportation via sub-space in their lives. It is described as a star system-wide attack by 'Swarm' activity prior to or just after they have entered a star system and it is akin to the attack upon Mr. Edrera. As Mr. Edrera was utilizing a M-3 derived device to shield him from normal sub-space lock-ons, it can only be speculated that it was only via sharing normal space volume with an inter-phased vessel that allowed this attack to be taken upon him.

There are no known counters to such sub-space attacks either of the generic type upon equipment utilizing sub-space, or the personal type performed upon Mr. Edrera.

This report, when taken with other Appendices and prior analysis, puts Gorn description of 'Swarm' capability to a high level of agreement, and only in areas where conversation does not normally go are there places where there are unknowns. Similarly other information from the Gorns for which we have no information, directly or indirectly, are also unknown. There is disagreement between Gorn assertion that 'Swarm' attacks are singular while there appear to be two ongoing attacks in the Milky Way, simultaneously. By Gorn indications there has been a long absence of 'Swarm' attacks and it is possible that attacks were directed towards targets outside the Milky Way, perhaps either in the local cluster or within the larger super-cluster of which this galaxy is a part. That is the only area of disagreement between current circumstances and described prior circumstances by the Gorns.

In conclusion this reports threat analysis for the use of sub-space for long distance comms and matter transmission as these are two obvious and easy modes of use for 'Swarm' to identify and counter on a local basis.

'Swarm' capability and capacity is larger than expected and more capable at every turn than was previously expected. 'Swarm' attacks have little regard for self-preservation when in conjunction with highly degenerated matter coming in from sub-space as vessels. These vessels are utilized perhaps because they are beyond the ability of even 'Swarm' to repair or not worth an energy expenditure to do so. Given two systems now undergoing attack in similar numbers, if even one percent of 'Swarm' vessels were utilized with such disregard on a larger scale, they would account for every known starship of the combined non-Gorn civilizations with many left over.

'Swarm' does not communicate their intentions nor do they declare war or indicate any desire to communicate to anyone. They act autonomously.

If this is the organization that attacked the Borg home world in the Delta Quadrant, then they have no fear of Borg capabilities to analyze them, perhaps due to the nature of the matter that constitutes their vessels and, from that, their very selves as beings. While the Borg will undergo a period of examination and attempt to peaceful submission, 'Swarm' acts and acts without any recourse or appeal to them that gets any response.

By going beyond prior parameters of attacks as given by the Gorns, 'Swarm' must now be considered to be a much larger scale threat particularly to all systems containing ice and gas giants at or above the mass of Jupiter and with stars not undergoing fusion reaction in the Brown Dwarf categories and below. This set of non-stellar to low end stellar objects appear to be the easy weak points for 'Swarm' use. Gorns have indicated that large nebular and gas cloud structures can also serve this purpose, but that has not been observed to-date.

= = =

After reading the document's main points and conclusions, Commodore Leonard Mirak signed off on the document and shook his head as he routed it to DD Wilson Scott.

"Time for another headache, Wilson," he said smiling to himself, "as if you didn't have enough of them already."