Mertens orbital station
Mertens Orbital Research Station was a scientific station orbiting Cymkoe IV. It was one of the most important research facilities in the Federation in the second half of the 24th century.
History[]
The facility was built around 2368 by the Cymkonians when Cymkoe IV entered the Federation to show that they considered themselves worthy of membership.
Named after the father of modern gravitation theory, Dr. Edwin Mertens, its objective was the focus of power generation studies particularly from gravitic sources. In 2365 they built the prototype of an experimental singularity-based power core which handled the station's energy needs. In addition to this, another more secret aim of the facility was the study of ways of detecting cloaked vessels.
One serendipitous discovery was a method of gravitic stress analysis for accurately determining the age of objects. This brought Mertens secondary fame as ain archaeological research facility. After archeologist Shanok sent to the station some Chodak isolinear rods for study, it was heavily damaged by a neutronium-armored mysterious probe in 2370. This incident was the first in a series of encounters with the Chodak, which led to the discovery of the Unity Device. The first attack lasted about 10 minutes which destroyed an entire wing; Commander Wilde ordered an evacuation and most left in escape pods to the planet. This was followed by a hull breach and eventually the power core was destabilized threatening the life support systems, while hundreds aboard remained on the station unable to reach the Shuttlebay.
Not receiving answers to the hails, worrying about the survivors and knowing that the destabilized core would soon breach with catastrophic energy release and radiation, Chancellor Daenub requested assistance from the Starfleet. The USS Enterprise went to the station to investigate. Geordi La Forge detected serious power fluctuation which would breach the core's containment field. Dr. Silas Griems remained on the station and overrode the fail-safe mechanism that would jettison the core. Being inherently unstable, he attempted to manually get it back within operating parameters.
Data suggested to establish a lock on a transporter on the upper decks, where the shields were weakened. An Away Team would jettison the core, lower the shields and then evacuate the wounded. Dr. Beverly Crusher was ready to handle 330 emergency cases and beam the rest down to the planet. The team encountered the probe and shut down the power and caused it to leave.
Then, La Forge met Dr. Griems and with his instructions he managed to repair the damage with a phase inverter and a wave reduction converter. The inverter made the fluctuations reverse and the converter would dampen them so that the reversal would work in the core's favor.
- If La Forge is not part of the team, the only option is to jettison the core, but this is the less than optimal result.
After the repair, Daenub thanked the Enterprise and reported that all the evacuees were safe and sound.
Structure and technology[]
The station was 4.8 kms long.
The Station Administration was in the upper side of the station with the life support controls.
It has a normal crew complement of 583.
The entire hull was lined with a liquid tritanium/duranium aloy in a memory gel suspension. Massive conduits went through the station forming a triply-redundant energy system. Even after a direct assault, the station would be still operational and the hull would be self-healed. (TNG video game: A Final Unity)
Crew[]
- Ana Benyt - chief medical officer
- Commander O.L. Wilde - Commanding Officer
- Dr. Silas Griems - Chief of Energy Research
