Chapter XXXI: Sudden Gentleness

The transparent shield covering the cloning vat retracted. The warm jelly of the growth medium drained partly, exposing the clone's head to the air for the first time.

Semil hovered over the controls at the side of the tub, keyiing in commands slowly and deliberately, watching the clone intently between each keystroke sequence. Beneath him, in the tub, the Renvar clone had grown to his adult size, naked and motionless in the translucent glow of the lavender growth medium.

Semil looked across the tub at K'vot, who nodded his assent. Semil reached in and pulled the respiratory regulation probe from the nose of the clone, a long thin tube training behind it.

He keyed in a short sequence of commands - stimulation of only a few nuclei in the midbrain should be enough...

The clone loudly sputtered and wheezed, clearing his lungs involuntarily of the thick jelly bath. Its eyes fluttered uselessly, his limbs thrashing slightly out of reflex and disorientation. The coughs took several minutes to quiet, sounding less liquid, replaced by heavy, rapid breaths.

Semil looked up at the biomonitor displays. He had witnessed this process before in previous lifetimes. He had welcomed his Vorta bretheren back to the world of the living before - but he had never been the one to guide them through the process, from cryonically preserved embryo to full activation. Vorta didn't have parents. But this not being his area of expertise, Semil wondered to himiself whether this vague 'pride' feeling he was experience would be described as 'parental' by other species which relied on less precise methods of procreation.

Biology could be so distasteful sometimes, especially when it wasn't tightly controlled and regulated.

The clone settled, tired from his exertion.

Semil looked over at K'vot, seeking reassurance, and spoke slowly and deliberately, in Dominionese. "Renvar. Your name is Renvar."

The clone lay in the vat, unblinking. It was not clear if he could hear or understand.

"Do you know where you are?"

The clone opened its mouth silently, concentrating very hard on creating speech, but not entirely sure how to proceed. The words spilled out, wet and slurred. "Cloooone. Clooooooning. Vaaaaat."

"Good. That's good. You're right." Semil paused, unclear how to proceed. "You should rest. Let your eyes finish maturing. We will have much to discuss later. But for now, build your strength."

K'vot assessed Semil, unclear where this sudden gentleness had sprung from.
The clone opened its eyes, unfocused and unseeing. In some manner of instinct, he turned to gaze at Semil - at least where his voice was coming from.

"Wwwhhoo..? Who aaaare yoooou...?"

Semil paused, the answer not yet formed in his own mind.

New Aegis Set stats are out!

I think this will make an interesting component for Borg defense :silly:

Chapter XXX: Functional Knowledge

Semil sat up with the startled immediacy of someone surprised by their own dozing off. A brief moment of disorientation passed over him before he remembered he was at the analysis station in the converted cargo bay.

He looked about. Neither K'vot nor Ak'pak were about - he was essentially alone in the darkened room.

Semil lazily stretched his arms overhead, twisting his spine one way then the other, a couple of vertebrae cracking and popping from the exertion.

He turned his attention back to the computer monitor. The cognitive engraftment simulation had returned another failure result. Semil sighed deeply in frustration, resting his hands with locked fingers atop the crown of his head.

He stared at this most most recent in a string of failures. Twenty-three consecutive simulation programs, all ending the same - leaving a pile of useless digital neurons.

He turned his gaze over to the cloning vat at the other end of the smallish room, indicators and displays glowing and blinking. He stood, and stepped over to the largish instrument - another, more decadent species might have labelled the resemblance to a highly modified bathtub.

Inside, beneath the transparent cover, the lavender growth medium bubbled viscously. A lone humanoid figure occupied the space - a naked humanoid, its eyes shut, approximately a young adolescent in growth.

The vented ears denoted it as a Vorta. They had transferred the growing fetus from the jar into the cloning vat only eight days ago. Vorta did not need to mature anywhere near as fast as Jem'Hadar - much greater care was taken in the neurosynaptic templating.

The initial base installationof simple skillsets - language, motor reflexes - had gone off effortlessly. The prepackaged backups were designed to be as easy as possible to operate. But those skills would be useless without higher cognitive functions to integate them, and that window was rapidly narrowing.

The Klingons had salvaged what equipment they could, and jury rigged what was missing. Enough of an obstacle to make sure this process would not be as seamless as Semil had hoped.

What are we missing?

Niether K'vot nor Ak'pak were any help in this matter, other than to offer brusque grunts of acknowledgment, and deny knowledge of any further technology or data that could be helpful.

A dedicated Vorta cloning technician would have been a help - but then that's why they chose to start with the Renvar clone. His skillsets would prove useful in refining the process. An experienced enough cloning tech could remember more functional knowledge of these techniques than even K'vot could...

The train of drifting thoughts had inadvertently led Semil to his intended destination.

Of course they're hiding something. And it's obvious - the Augment vectors.

Semil remembered something. He had hidden -- he hadn't even bothered to check if it was still there. He looked around to double-check he was alone, and reached down into his boot. There, in the seam, he found the isolinear storage chip he had pilfered from the detention facility he had awoken in all those months ago. The boots were reinforced - in some ways, he was almost as surprised that K'vot hadn't found it, as he was that he had managed to forget its existence.

He loaded the chip into a port, and began browsing the file directory, opening a folder labelled 'Augment'.

I am sorry I missed the livestream however started on the video replay! Subscribed!

I'd like to see just how well I can do in PvP with the USS Phantom now :)

Not using the Dreadnaught (as in the sig). Using a Fleet Assault Cruiser.

The Livestream is now on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlWofQdaKaHWaAX78IIUJokS5ANhZvNw

Chapter XXIX: Narrow Window

Like the rest of the facilities on the Vaq'ghol, the cargo bay was small and cramped. Even in comparison to a Jem'Hadar Attack Fighter. On a larger ship, it could pass for a utility closet. The room had largely been cleared of cargo, however. K'vot and the ship's doctor hunched over a dimly lit work bench.

The Colonel motioned Semil over. "Perhaps you have not met Dr. Ak'pak." K'vot motioned absent-mindedly at the otherolder, clearly wizened Klingon. The ship's HaqwI'.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure." These kinds of social niceties were reassuring in their way, maybe even moreso in an environment where it was clear no one meant them.

"Likewise."

All the while, K'vot's attention had not lifted from the readout of the scanner he had trained on one of the Dominion clone canisters, standing upright on the table. "What can you tell us about this?"

Semil bent over to appraise the round smooth surface more closely. He was sure K'vot could read the labeling in Dominionese, but then - he was also used to small routine tests at every opportunity. "Vorta." This was immediately obvious - the Jem'Hadar containers were much smaller and more densely packed - being more disposable even in inception.

The status light on the canister blinked a slow, dull green. It was active. "A Civil Engineer. Grade 4E. Named Sorgen." He squinted at the fine print. "Low batch number, too. Only a couple of clones deep on this line."

K'vot rolled another canister across the table. "And this one?"

"Ondara. She's a Grade 3C Warp Field Mechanics Specialist. Probably extensive experience on her, too judging by how many copies."

K'vot slowly considered Semil. "We were able to recover about a dozen of the Vorta cryotubes. And about 50 more of the Jem'Hadar ones."

"And the others...?"

"Non-viable."

There was a strange solemnity to the moment for Semil. It wasn't grief - Vorta and Jem'Hadar were disposable by design. What could it be then? To feel for these clones, long since dessicated and decayed. Their forebearers, on the far side of the galaxy.

Of the few other items in the room, K'vot motioned towards the cloning vat. "And that. I understand cloning technology is not in your..." K'vot searched for the word "primary programming. But do you think you can get it operational?"

"You intend to activate more clones?"

K'vot was silent.

"How many more do you intend to activate?"

Still, the Klingon did not answer. Instead, he reiterated "Can you do it?"

Semil stepped over towards the large tub, its consoles dark and weathered, in order to inspect it. It had clearly been in better shape. Maybe the Klingons had salvaged it from a wreck, or one of their raids on former Cardassian worlds. In either case, it looked like the oligopeptide assembly processors were still intact. The leads on the osmotic microregulators were corroded, but easily replaceable. And this model was designed to adapt to Cardassian power sources, so that took that obstacle off the list. "I think so."

"Dr. Ak'pak will provide you with any assistance you may require."

Semil exchanged nods with the Doctor.

"There's something else you should know. About the cryotubes."

K'vot nodded, as if he had anticipated it to some degree. "Upon examination, we've found an incredibly sophisticated nanocrystalline fluid lattice memory storage system. We've been trying to decode the encryption..."

Semil interrupted him quietly. "They're memory engrams." This quieted K'vot, catching his attention. "Well, emergency backups at least. If the previous clone's body wouldn't be available as a template - in an emergency, these backups can serve to imprint at least basic skillsets, cognitive function. It's not as robust as a complete memory engram pattern, but it's better than nothing."

The Vorta motioned to an outcropping of probes and hardware to the side of the cloning vat. "We'll need to get the engrammatic programming interface working before anything else. These backups are meant to engraft during a relatively narrow window during the cloning process."

"So the engrams won't take once the clone is matured?"

"Not as well, no."

K'vot motioned for Ak'pak. "Then you'll need to work quickly."

Ak'pak produced another canister from a large cabinet nearby - this one significantly larger than the cryotubes. As it came into Semil's view, it was clearly less a canister, and more of a jar. Inside, a fetus floated in a viscous lavender bath, a weightless curl to its body. Its blind eyes shut, tubes and probes ran from various orifices into the base of the unit. Unaware of its world, the being gave a slight kick.

Semil immediately recognized the vented ears.

I liked the game for a little while. I bought the Spiderman pack during beta and before playing him and realising I didn't like how they did Spiderman's gameplay. I was also disappointed that, even though I bought the expensive spiderman pack, I don't get the new spidey costumes as they are released.

I suppose I should have gone with the uber expensive everything pack, but with how little I play it after losing interest, I suppose it's better I didn't

Quote by Zander_Hawk

Alright, I booked my hotel room and got my tickets. I'll see you all in Vegas.

Awesome, gonna be so much fun. Milmar, I think there's a large contingent of UK Fleeties going in 2016, or once you're settled in your new job, you can always come next year. :)

Quote by SiranNataan

I installed it and played a little bit. Ugh, it just feels so old, does that make sense? The janky controls and the isometric perspective. As someone who prefers Marvel, I wish they had something similar to DC Universe Online.

Truthfully, I expect it's an extension of the larger trend in MMO gaming towards greater casualness.

There are great multiplayer Marvel games... for consoles.

This online adaptation just feels like a more blatant F2P;P2W cashgrab than anything else.

I installed it and played a little bit. Ugh, it just feels so old, does that make sense? The janky controls and the isometric perspective. As someone who prefers Marvel, I wish they had something similar to DC Universe Online.

Chapter XXVIII: Existential Spiral

Semil rested on the small hard bunk of his small quarters fitfully. It was his fourth day of being confined to them. Not that he had anywhere aboard he was interested in being.

The Mess Hall maybe made for a change of scenery, even if Klingon food was still an experience to be tolerated rather than enjoyed.

He had no real duties on the Bridge, other than reporting in to K'vot. Occasionally, he would have popped in, just to watch and observe quietly, accumulating mental notes of the bridge officers' routines and duties.

The officers and crew of the Vaq'ghol had a mutually unspoken agreement of ignoring Semil, an arrangement he was tacitly complacent to oblige. Maybe they were under orders.

He had considered helping himself to the sparring gymnasium, if he'd have had any partners to spar with. He imagined the crew might not have been particularly agreeable on this point.

It wasn't until he'd lost his free run of the small ship that he'd realized he'd missed the privilege.

The reading he'd told himself he would occupy his time with - he hadn't much felt like actually following through with. What he had picked up, he'd mostly skimmed. To be sure, the Alpha Quadrant had seen some interesting development since his last clone - Gorn conquest and annexation, Klingon infighting, the Romulan schism. The Federation of course, could be counted on to be as boring and insipid as ever.

Still, there was the one topic he couldn't bring himself to broach in much detail. After the signing of the Treaty of Bajor - such little mention was made of the Dominion. Occasional refrences back to the War. But retreating back into the Gamma Quadrant, sublimating back into the aether of hearsay and rumor.

He had found reading the chapters on the War strangely dispassionate - even the events he was there for, or at least could remember. The First Battle of DS9. The Tyra system. The Betazed system. The words on his PADD were clinical, aseptic. But not much more so than the fragmented scattering of sights and sounds - memories, he supposed that they were attached to.

In previous lifetimes, studying the history of previous clones was a critical preparatory exercise for a Vorta. How better to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, than to remember having made those mistakes in the first place?

He was reasonably certain it was an exercise no Vorta had ever had to do from someone else's history book.

His communicator chimed. "Semil. Report to Cargo Bay 3."

The Vorta rose, straightening his tunic, glad to be called away, pulled free from this particular existential spiral.

Try this:

www.youtube.com/user/WhiteOnmyoji/videos

This sounds interesting to me. As a major Cruiser user. Although not really into PVP usually.

I think this starts about 1am Sunday UK time? But is there any chance for a recording/VOD version as well?
May sound dense but if on Twitch I never seem able to watch older vids on it. Maybe as I do not have a Twitch account.

So so jealous :(

Alright, I booked my hotel room and got my tickets. I'll see you all in Vegas.

Unfortunatly hate and intolerance exists everywhere.

Although the STO saga has a lot to do with tolerance and acceptance regarding different persons, IMO it has to do more with the greatness of the human spirit.

This particularly discusses me as this opinions and most of all feelings, only show how far are we to be trully great.

Very sorry to hear about the experience.

Just try to ignore them.

Chapter XXVII: Shadowed Figure

Having one Bekk push the pallet behind him, K'vot was down one man, having taken point for the group as they jogged briskly along the corridor at a faster pace than he would have otherwise thought prudent.

If there were Orion security forces responding, at least they were staying ahead of them for now. The beamout point wasn't far. Being slightly ahead of schedule was no excuse for the Vorta to be late. The temptation of leaving the Vorta behind was fleeting, if noticeable.

A junction approached. K'vot knew to turn left and signaled the Bekk pushing the pallet to prepare himself for the turn. K'vot pivoted hard on his foot, when he saw the four armed Orions marching their way further up the transverse hallway.

K'vot barely had time to signal for cover by the time the Orions opened fire. He had barely squeezed himself behind a wall joist, and turned his head to check the status of the rest of the team. The Bekk covering their right flank had been caught by surprise, and lay on his back, a still sparking disruptor wound upon his chest. The others had managed to find cover, one behind the cargo pallet, the other two behind corridor braces, same as himself. Each took turns intermittently returning suppressing fire, as befit their honed training.
K'vot tabbed his wrist comm. "Vaq'ghol, we are pinned in the aft transverse corridor. Come in."

Only static replied. Damn, the Orions were jamming their comms.

K'vot looked back to see if there were signs of other Orions closing in on them from behind. Only because his back was turned for that split second, did he miss the bright flash from up the corridor. It was enough to catch his attention - he could hear indistinct grunts and shouting through the disruptor bolts, which were noticeably fewer.

He peered out from behind his cover, signaling with an upraised hand for his Bekks to hold their fire. A cloud of smoke and haze obscured his view at the far end of the corridor.

A lone, shadowed figure slowly emerged from the haze, indistinct and unidentifiable. K'vot readied his pistol - mentally drawing a beed on the silhouette, selecting his target with only anticipation to guide him.
"No need to hold for applause. We're on a timetable."

The Vorta stood as the smoke wafted up and away clear of him.

K'vot and the Bekks stepped out from their cover positions. "Your timing could not be better if..."

"...if I were a Vorta?" Semil deadpanned.

This new sense of humor of his - at least that's not very Vorta of him. K'vot signaled his team back to readiness, forming up around the cargo pallet as they resumed their jog down the corridor.



Back aboard the Vaq'ghol bridge, K'vot and Semil strode in from the corridor, still sweating from their exertions on the Marauder.

"Sir. The Marauder has stabilized their power grid." K'vot's First Officer remarked from his Tactical station.

Semil had taken up the threat analysis console behind K'vot. "They've locked on with a tractor beam." It had to have been as the Vaq'ghol decloaked with lowered shields to beam back their raider teams. The Bird of Prey's shields had raised, but there was no way she would recloak while held. "We're being hailed."

K'vot took a brief second to compose himself. "Onscreen."

The viewscreen flickered and brought up the glowering visage of their Orion captor.

K'vot nodded. "Fennaz."

"K'vot." The Orion smirked knowingly across the subspace uplink. "I have to admit - your little raid took out some of my best Enforcers. Pity. I'd just signed their contracts, too." His visage grew noticeably more stern. "But this is over. I have your ship. Surrender your cargo, and we'll let you live." He paused, thoughtfully. "Minus your warp cores, of course."

"Have you learned nothing, Fennaz? You're going to have to come and take it. Better send your men whose contracts are almost up." The Colonel cackled into the vidcomm.

For all his experience with these negotiation tactics, Semil had little patience for how the Klingons and Orions conducted it. Such little civility. So lacking in finesse and subtlety.

He supposed playing into their own stereotypes was expected of these Klingons and Orions. The warrior and the pirate, ever locked in their chase.

Up until a few months ago, he would have agreed wholeheartedly with the idea. Best to play to ones strengths - the gifts one had been endowed with. But then, up until his most recent rebirth, he had been an upper-mid tier Vorta facilitator.

Today, he was something new. Something that he had a hand in creating.

The other bridge officers on the Vaq'ghol were too busy, too focused on their preparations for glorious battle to notice the commands Semil was keying into his console.

Onscreen, Fennaz's unremarkable tirade trailed off, interrupted by a low rumble. The Orion scaned around his own bridge, his eyes darting about, unclear of his circumstances.

On the Vaq'ghol, K'vot was similarly confused, looking about at his bridge officers for an update on the situation. They returned only shrugs, when K'vot pivoted about to look Semil square in the eye.

The Vaq'ghol bridge lurched as the ship sheared free of the tractor beam.

The Marauder careened into warp with a screech, failing to take the Bird-of-Prey with it.

Onscreen, K'vot swiveled his head back just in time to watch Fennaz flung head over heels aftwards, his ragdoll body folding over a railing with a sickening crack of his spine just before the commlink cut out.

He knew exactly where to seek answers. "What did you do?"

"I may have found the time to locate an engineering maintenance interface while we were aboard."

"Let me guess. And you bypassed their helm control?"

"And their intertial dampeners," Semil corrected. "A recursive diagnostic cycle, to be accurate."

"And how did you know their tractor beam would release us?"

"I didn't."

Wow, thanks for all the answers, this is supportive :)
Fortnuately I have not encountered any hate speech in game - probably because I just mostly click the Stonewall talk tab and don't look elswhere ;)
It's hard to ignore those comments when they come from a person I know. And I am very impulsive, you know, the Leonard McCoy type :D I feel the urge to react but maybe as long as it is not offensive but just stupid I shall probably ignore it.
Thanks :)

I mean - if you were even looking at the Odyssey Uniforms from the Fleet store, let's face it, it's likely you had Fleet Creds burning a hole in your pocket, amirite?

Especially while we were levelling up the main Starbase.

These days, Fleet Creds may be just a bit more precious - but look at the leaderboards and check amongst yourselves.

Surely you didn't blow that whole wad on Spire Tac Consoles.