The S4C-985 Star System....
From the darkness of space it emerged with only a small flash of light signifying its arrival, though they believed there was no one there to witness. Cruising into the trinary star-system of S4C-985, the
DSS Veridia crept towards its target. The ship had only recently been commissioned by the Dominion's space forces, one of the finest ships ever constructed by the Veridian race. Though still dwarfed by other ships manned by other races, the Veridians and their government were no less proud of their technological accomplishment. On the bridge, Captain Tiberius sat as he overlooked his crew as they preformed their various duties. It was the first real mission that the crew had been assigned since passing their inspection and shake-down operations about a month prior. The star system was not far from the Nag System, home system of Veridia Prime, and was home to three stars each of descending size from one another. Beyond the stars, the system was home to 5 planetary bodies: 3 gas giants, 1 lifeless barren planet with minimal atmosphere suitable for sustaining life, and one life-supporting green world known to the Veridians as P4C-853. Their approach to the planet was slow, taking up a stationary position in high orbit over the planet.
Pleased with their performance, Captain Tiberius excused himself from the bridge though before leaving he requested his senior staff meet him in the briefing room. In the room Captain Tiberius was seated at the head of a long metal table and was flanked on either side by his senior staff as well as another man his staff was yet familiar with, which sat directly to his right. Once everyone was seated, the Captain brought up a holographic image of the planet they were now seated over.
"Welcome to P4C-853 ladies and gentlemen" the Captain said with a slight smile. "I am pleased to see that the crew responded exactly as they did during shake-down. Now as you were briefed prior to our launch, this is a high level mission as far as command is concerned but command wanted us in the system first before we discussed the details. To my right, is professor Caius and the real reason we are out here so I will turn it over to him."
"Thank you Captain" said Caius as he cleared his throat. "Now as the Captain has told you we are currently orbiting the planet designated P4C-853 or as the natives call it, Thra. We discovered the planet about two years ago through our stargate exploration program, our main exploration program prior to our construction of starships. Now the planet itself does not have a gate, the gate for this system is actually on P4C-854, a barren world we believe at one time supported life but due to some ecological event, does no longer. After surveying that planet our teams launched probes from P4C-854 and eventually discovered P4C-853."
"A lush green world, the planet is remarkably much like our own homeworld of Veridia Prime. It supports a diverse landscapes of lush fields, dense forests, high mountain tops and a noticeable desert region. Since our initial discovery, we've sent teams in small ships to further study the planet and what we've found it quite astonishing. The planet is home to several life-forms, though the dominate species and the most evolved call themselves the Gelfling. Humanoid in appearance, the species possess pointed ears and differing hair coloring than we do. Furthermore, and the more interesting aspect of these creatures, is that they possess the ability to exchange memories between them via some form of telepathy."
By now the professor has changed holograms, now the anatomy of the male and female Gelflings are shown.
"Socially, the Gelflings are a mostly agricultural society. They do possess some tools and have come to the point of building with stone, but remained a fairly simply species. Their lack of technology has allowed our science teams the ability to move around their world, while limited, freely and we've also taken several Gelflings for study. Our experiments have led us to believe we might discover a way of neutralizing telepathic abilities in other races, races that may use such abilities to probe sensitive information out of our minds and compromise the security of the Dominion. Furthermore the planet itself, we've discovered, has large caches of resources the Dominion would very much like to excavate for our own purposes, including element zero and Naquadah."
"Professor Caius" said the Captain, "while this is all very fascinating could we possibly skip forward to the actual mission."
"Oh yes, of course Captain" said Caius who often let the thrill of science overcome him. "Ladies and gentlemen the face of warfare is changing. The tactics of the old are no longer effective and now we must adapt." Caius could tell he hit a nerve with some of the officers so quickly moved to smoothing things over. "That is, not to say that there will never be a place for large ships and large guns, but we must face facts....facts our ancestors learned the hard war. Wars utilizing solely these means to fight are costly. Lets us not forget that by the time the last great war ended, our world was almost completely devoid of the basic resources necessary to sustain our civilization. Learning from our past, the Dominion wishes to look into more efficient ways of deals with our enemies."
"After all" said Caius, "we have already been made aware of races such as a Sith and the Hive, one that is far more technologically advanced that us, and both of whom outnumber us as well. While we could charge head long into the fight against either force, the costs in lives and war materials would be astronomical and its doubtful we'd gain victory. Instead, we must fight smarter and understand how to exploit of enemy's weaknesses. After all, what do those two and almost ever other civilization we've come across have in common I ask you? They're organic.....organic, just like you or I, they are nothing more than bone and tissue and just like us, they are susceptible to the elements, to wounds, and....diseases. Why spend billions of velons on building a bomb capable of whipping out a homeworld when we can design a disease tailor made to the species targeted. A silent killer they won't see coming until half their population is dead."
Again the hologram was changed, new data was brought up. One was a virtual representation of the chemical structure of a bioweapon, the other a schematic of its delivery system.
"This ladies and gentlemen is a first generation weapon we hope to one day perfect and tailor to our enemies. So specific that we'll be able to kill a single person if we want or an entire species. But, like all weapons, it needs testing and that is what has brought us to P4C-853. The Dominion would like to colonize the planet but naturally needs to deal with the native species before that is possible, namely the Gelfling. While we wish to harvest a good portion of the species for further genetic testing, the current population number of around 500 million is simply too large. So, we've designed a bioweapon that will effect roughly 99.96% of the Gelfling population, bringing their numbers down to roughly 2,000 which is a sufficient number necessary to breed more if our genetic testing on them warrant such necessities."
The holographic projection was changed one last time, this time a map of the planets surface was shown.
"Now the bioweapon is an airborne agent, designed to dissipate quickly. Of course once infected, a Gelfling will become a carrier whether or not it possess the symptoms of weapon itself. Given that the Gelfling civilization is roughly centralized around the plains areas, with some woodland communities also present, we believe the weapon will be most effectively spread by the Gelfling themselves given their reliance on travel between the communities for trade and communication purposes. To ensure effective exposure to at least one of the larger communities, we're going to fire five missiles, that will denote high over the city and rain down the weapon on to them. Inhalation and absorption into the skin will be the triggers. The symptoms will begin with runny noses, tightness in the chest and the constriction of the pupils no more than 5 hour after exposure. No more than 10 hours after the victim will begin having trouble breathing and experience nausea and drooling fits. 15 hours will lead to continued loss of control of bodily functions such as vomiting, defecating, and urinating uncontrollably. Ultimately, we believe that within a day's time the targeted population percentage will begin going comatose and suffocate in a serious of convulsive spasms."
"Ruthlessly effective professor" said the Captain. "How long until we are ready to launch?"
"We have to fit the warheads to the missiles, about an hour Captain."
"Good enough" said the Captain turning to his staff. "We will begin operations within the hour, I want everything ready by then. The Dominion wants us monitoring this thing til the end and doesn't want any interference from anyone or thing. I was personally briefly by Command of their fears that the Dominion could possibly have suffered an information leak. This planet may be compromised by whomever was behind the attack. I want us ready for anything, understood?"
The captain received a resounding "yes" from his staff.
"Good, lets get the work.....staff dismissed......"
Subject: The Thra Expedition (FT) 
Wed Oct 24, 2012 11:21 pm
