Captain's Personal Log USS Guadalcanal Stardate 0808.03

Stardate 0808.03
USS Guadalcanal
Captain Murphy
In orbit of Jibalia III

Following the events of my log entry stardated 0708.31, I have decided that despite the obvious danger of a species capable of creating illusions on a par with the Talosians, we need to get some answers before Starfleet starts sending more ships through the wormhole. What kind of enemy are we facing? What's inside the planet?

While I understand that no member of this crew, or even the ship for that matter, is indespensable, I also refuse to risk my crew unecessarily. So I turned T'Par's creative scientific energies to the problem.

Her solution borrowed from an experiment conducted by Commander Geordie Laforge on the USS Enterprise. What Laforge did was use an interface probe, connected to his V.I.S.O.R. (An acronym for Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement) via remote telepresence technology to explore a starship that was otherwise unreachable. T'Par interfaced that probe with the holodeck, which would allow us to explore the interior of the planet (in a necessarily limited fashion) from the safety of the ship. The first step was to transport the interface probe through the hole we'd previously drilled in the metal alloy shell of the planet.

Once that was done, T'Par, Lukara and I entered the main holodeck and waited for the probe's sensors to transmit data from the interior of the planet to the holomatrix. What we saw appeared to be thousands of kilometers of computer circuits. According to the probe's long-range sensors, the circuitry is all interconnected and interdependent, and extends throughout the entire interior. Indeed, there is nothing else either on the shell or within the space inside the shell. So the planet is essentially a single, huge computer component. Of course, T'Par pointed out that since it does not appear to serve any obvious function in and of itself, it is most likely a single component of a larger network. The purpose of that network is impossible to determine at this point, but judging by the size of this component, we are assuming the purpose is of similar proportion.

As to the circuitry itself, we determined that it was unwise to attempt to remove any. Simply put, if we break their computer, they'll probably get mad and come after us. I'm not quite ready to confront them on that level. We were able, however, to use the probe's sensors to replicate a portion of the circuitry for analysis. The first thing we determined was that it is biomechanical in nature, not unlike the bioneural gelpaks used in modern Federation starships, but of a different nature altogether. It is, fortunately, not Borg circuitry. That we know without a doubt. But we also know that the organic circuitry we've found here is as much beyond anything we have as our technology is beyond stone knives and bear skins. The probe operated for thirty-five minutes before an electrical discharge from the alien circuitry completely disrupted it. Fortunately we saved all of the data to a portable memory device (completely disconnected from the ship's main computer as a precaution), so we can continue to analyze the data. At that point, we departed Jibalia III at high warp. Our investigation will continue, even as we begin to prepare this part of the Delta Quadrant for a full-time Federation presence.


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