LCARS ENTRY 2273-JS
In 2368 the starship Enterprise, responding to a distress call, drops out of warp to discover a nearby Dyson sphere. They trace the distress call to the USS Jenolen, a Federation transport ship that has been reported missing for 75 years, and which has crashed intact on the sphere's outer hull.
An away team transported to the Jenolen while the Enterprise investigated the sphere. Chief Engineer La Forge discovered that the Jenolen's transporter had been jury-rigged to sustain two life signals within its pattern buffer indefinitely, though one had degraded too far to be recovered. La Forge reversed the process and restored the remaining life form, which turned out to be former Starfleet officer Captain Montgomery Scott.
Captain Scott explained that he was only a passenger aboard the Jenolen but when the ship was caught in the Dyson sphere's gravity field, only he and one other officer survived the crash, and Scott had rigged the transporter to try to keep them "alive" until a rescue vessel could arrive.
Continuing the survey of the Dyson sphere, Captain Picard suggested that Chief Engineer La Forge to enlist Captain Scott's help to recover existing survey data from the older Jenolen systems, technology at which Scott is adept.
The Enterprise discovered a port on the side of the Dyson sphere, but when they tried to communicate with the systems, the ship was pulled into the Dyson sphere by automated controls; this temporarily disabled their systems. Though they were able to recover control before the ship impacted with the star inside the sphere, they found the star seemed unstable and was emitting large amounts of radiation which were potentially lethal to the crew, and surmised that the sphere was long abandoned by its creators due to this.
The Enterprise quickly realized the only exit from the interior of the sphere was the port they used but couldn't get it to open it from the inside. When La Forge tried to make contact with the Enterprise, he discovered it missing, and worked with Captain Scott to make the Jenolen flight-worthy. They discovered the same port the Enterprise found and surmised that the Enterprise was trapped inside. La Forge and Scott managed to open the port without being pulled in and then wedged the Jenolen in the opening, using its shields to keep it open while the Enterprise escaped and rescued the two engineers from the Jenolen just before destroying it with photon torpedoes.
LCARS ENTRY 2944-4V
While inside the sphere several probes were launched with a loss of all due to the energy drain but the last moments of transmission bore promising fruit for Jenolen Station.
Shields of a highly unusual nature extended some 275 kilometers from the sphere's surface and protected the environment from the star. In fact the shields were found responsible for the drain on the Enterprise's system and that the sun was likely meant to be as it was.
It takes a vast amount of energy to power a system as large and complex as the Sphere and the shields were the first stage of the collectors.
Star Fleet sent a second mission to the now named Jenolen Dyson Sphere. They used great caution in their observations of it's exterior and special probes to gather information on the interior.
Jenolen was now Star Fleet's grandest chance at exploration ever presented to them.
A spherical shell Dyson sphere with a radius of one astronomical unit, had been built so that the interior surface would receive the same amount of sunlight as Earth does per unit solid angle.
This would also mean that inside it would have a surface area of approximately 28.1 Eha (Exa Hectare), or about 550 million times the surface area of Earth.
As you can see quite a daunting task to explore but the potential of mystery and exploration is boundless.
It was found that high energy systems wouldn't function well within the sphere but that certain archaic systems would. Primary among these systems was Hydrogen fuel cell technology, Vacuum lift and Photovoltaics.
Star Fleet then had to set about using so cumbersome a method to explore the interior with the greatest efficiency
Again it was tech that had been proposed or postulated that came to the rescue.
Star Fleet began building and perfecting as quickly as possibly Vacuum lifting bodies that were propelled by compressor jets.
Any of those governments not involved with the project must have thought Daystrom had gone mad, they were building sleek Zeppelins that flew through the air at plodding speeds just under the speed of sound launching strange spinner jet lifting craft and retrieving them in flight
A new breed of officer was required to man and crew these strange new vessels and the academy's advanced studies program had to meet the task.
The new exploration craft bore such names as Montgolfier, Daimler, Zeppelin, Shenandoah, Macon and others.
The Commanders of the ships are a new type of officer and as with any fondling organization difficult to define.
Their crews trained in skills that would be thought of as odd in the stellar fleets were indispensable in the air fleet.
There are no Warp cores, transporters or many of the other energy intensive systems found in other ships of the Fleet. Replaced by Lift officers, Pilots, Hydrogen technicians and a few other odd titles
Are you the officer we seek, do you have the ability to soar out into the unknown with little or no support?
Then apply to the Jenolen expeditionary service and see if you truly are an explorer of the unknown.
"Join now and secure your place in the New Era of Inner Space"
