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*Ensign Exemplar dons a spacesuit and prepares to join the away team*

*we finally get within visual range*

Visual: The ship, and that is what it clearly is now, is adrift. It is moving rather slowly, and is ascance of its direction of motion by about twenty degrees port of horizontal, and fifteen degrees below pitch. This means that the orientation of the ship is not in the direction either that it last gave thrust, or that force was last exerted on it. The engine column was rather large, but is in burnt pieces spinning and rotating behind the ship, and has littered out some distance but is still in train with the general motion. The ship, on closer sensor examination, or more on the order of 1200-1500 dTons, but the extensive fragmentation of its drive column artificially inflated your initial assessment. The main portion of the ship is a long central column extending fore of the drives, ending in a rounded nose. There do not appear to be any viewports. Four large modules extend the length of the ship, with one in each pure plane, so one above, one below, and one on each side. These have curved edges, and also have no view ports. In the center line of the ship, dividing the port module into two, is what appears to be an access port. At several places along the central body of the ship are eruptions of some frozen gas or liquid. These erupt from what appears to be ruptures in the hull of the ship. A large amount of debris is scattered around the ship. Notably, about eight cubic meters of metal, scattered into six pieces, bounces back with a composition inconsistent with the hull of the ship, and of such a composition as to suggest TL11 metallurgy. The sensor array and communications array of the ship appear to be destroyed, and various portions of the vessel display laser burns. The radiation from the reactor is faint, but can be detected. It is a fusion reactor, which is usually TL10, but it seems to be a more primitive design, in higher need of maintenance that a TL10 version, which is consistent with the apparent TL9 of the vessel. Based on it's size, an analytical investigation shows that it has passed its halflife. It is still giving power, but not very much. Sensor readings investigating life signs receive inconsistent positives. Strangely, the transporter array cannot get a *safe* lock on any point inside the ship, though it seems to contain passageways and rooms within it. The array indicates that it cannot displace enough matter inside the ship to allow a safe transport, and that anyone transporting aboard the contact would be at a high risk of being crushed.

*Exemplar moves toward one of the shuttles and waits for orders to launch*

*steven seems to still be on his way, so, in his absence*

*the SO, aware that the captain is on his way, but still following the lead of the ambassadors, brings the ship to a halt within 100 miles (short range, but safe) of the contact. He brings up the shuttle bay on his communicator*

"Ambassador Exemplar, we have a clear scope and do not detect hostility from the vessel. This is now a diplomatic investigation, you have my clearance to approach the vessel and conduct your investigation. Rescue crews are to follow the lead of the ambassadors."

"Yes sir."

Harold arrives on the bridge and quickly glances at the output of the monitors. He notes that one of the shuttles has already launched with a pair of ambassadors aboard.

He addresses an appropriate bridge officer, "Have a few samples of that debris collected for further analysis. Including the ice."

He sits down in his chair, "Open a comm link to the away team."

*the second shuttle collects debris, including the mismatching metal pieces*

*Challx Rshosth, "walks" onto the bridge moving faster than some people run, and contacts the away team*

"Cananyofyoudetermineanapproximateageofthatvesselor, roughlyhowlongithasbeenfloatinginspace? Myreasonforaskingisthatitisapparentthatitwasattacked, Iwouldliketoknowwhatwemightbeabletoexpectfurtherintothisarea. Ifwecandetermineanapproximateleveloftechnologicalprogression, ofthevesselandageofitwemightbeabletoapproximateaprojectedtechnologylevel, oftheattackersnow. Alsowouldbeveryhelpfulifweknewwhatweaponstheattackersusedbaseduponinjuries, toboththeshipandthecrew."

"ok... i got "how old is it" and "what was it attacked with". it was somewhere around 500 years, and i'm not sure about the other question, maybe {rolled a 7 for my tech/science/whatever} weapons...

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1567321/

OOC: Gideon, I know that there is a formula to calculate the rate of technological advancement. Would anyone in our crew such as Ignak be able to estimate an approximate TL of the peoples that attacked the vessel with the information that we have at had?

::The manniquin(sp?) manning the pilots couch rotates its head to face the excitable fighter jock and a voice emits from an outdated speaker in rythym with to a flashing green light where a mouth would be::

Based on debris in the vicinity of the derelict and the ship itself we can guess there was a noticable difference in technological development between the combatants. That is unless the superior metals scanned were actually part of the mix and match design of the hulk. The hull of the dead ship did display laser burns and the sophistication of those weapons are difficult if not impossible to determine with evidence available (barring GM caveat). The lion's share of the remains were from the presumed defender and their overall design seems to have been cobbled together from various engineering disciplines. It seems too early to make estimates on the abilities of the "attackers" since we do not know how they came out of the encounter but it would seem they were quite successful in disabling this vessel with extreme prejudice.

*the metal fragments near the ship included some pieces of a metal atypical of the derelict itself. Between those, and the equipment of the two black armor clad figures, it is determined that they are mixed TL11/12. The fragments were the chassis for a missile which delivered a penetrating, non-explosive warhead that was streamlined and grooved such that it did not cavitate and was able to pass through the countermeasure medium readily, and penetrate through several bulkheads. Upon draining the ship, it turns out that one of the rooms filled with ice had contained a self destruct device: it appears this room was directly targeted by this specialized penetrating weapon, which rendered self destruct system inoperable.*

*of note, an arms locker was found on the bridge of the derelict that contained sonic weapons of the "screamer" type. It would seem that the crew was prepared to repel boarders with a relatively low tech weapon that would in fact be effective within their countermeasure. These weapons are also insulated such that their surfaces won't get hot enough to rubberize the countermeasure.*

*the two boarders had rainbow laser rifles and were wearing heavy battle armor*

"BzzzzzzIwashopingformoreinformationthatcouldhelpus, ifweeverneedtomountadefenseagainsttheseThreethatthevessel'scomputermentioned."

((I'm going to kill you and laugh))

*Thanks Gideon*

"Sotheywereveryadvancedasof500yearsago..."