HIROGEN : Iden's stolen Hirogen ship : Page 3 : laboratory-cum-treatment room
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The ship was previously occupied by a Hirogen crew and the hunter race requires extensive medical facilities in case of accident or injury from prey. Therefore the internal design of the Hirogen ship stolen by Iden includes a well-equipped treatment room. Iden and his holographic crew have converted it into a laboratory in order to develop a method of storing and projecting their holographic matrices permanently in a safer environment. The room's facilities are also used for their original purpose of treating wounded individuals. While the idea of holograms requiring medicl attention may seem unnecessary, the modifications made by the Hirogen to make their photonic quarry worthy opponents include heightened sensory subroutines which means that the holograms can experience pain from injury.
As with many other areas within the Hirogen vessel, the laboratory can be entered from at least two different directions, with main entrances located centrally and at one end of the room. The facility is roughly rectangular in shape, with a fairly open area containing the majority of computer terminals that are used in the manipulation of holographic patterns positioned around the outside of the room. A large treatment bench is positioned in the centre of the room. Access from the end of the room is via heavy-duty hydraulically operated doors, and from there patients must walk to the treatment bench with or without assistance. The side entrance, located behind a metallic bulkhead wall, opens out to the middle of the room close to the bench. The surface of this separating bulkhead wall is covered in the same metallic mesh material found on the bridge, and supports a series of weapons that runs onto a wall close to the doorway to the right of this entrance. A low bench beneath the weapons allows the injured to sit while awaiting treatment. Treatment is always carried out on the treatment bench. The treatment bench is constructed from a series of interconnecting metallic beams which support a number of rectangular padded struts on the upper surface, which angle slightly downward to form a depressed central ridge on which patients can sit or lie. The bench is strong enough to support an individual in full body armour but because the average Hirogen is tall (taller than, say, an adult human) a number of holograms have to step up onto the bench because of its relative height. The curved lower supports beneath the bench rest on a series of metallic grilles that form a cross-shape in the centre of the room, with the flooring in the rest of the laboratory covered in dark blue-grey coloured plates. The lighting throughout the room is practical though harsh, with primary illumination being provided by a series of ceiling-mounted white lamps shining through metallic grilles which cast patterns of light onto the floor below. Secondary illumination comes from sets of vertical wall-mounted lights flanking the entrance at the end of the room. The read-outs from the various computer screens incidentally add further low-level lighting around the room. The large wall-mounted computer station directly opposite the treatment bench generates one of the brightest monitor displays in the entire laboratory, and the display consists of a large semi-circular terminal containing four spherical read-out and touch-sensitivie control panel interfaces to either side of a smaller rectangular monitor screen. Positioned centrally below the primary read-out is a circular control console containing a series of illuminated circular ports with cones sticking out of them which are typical of Hirogen interface design. This large station is used to undertake a number of treatments and it works in conjunction with the free-standing seated console positioned in front of the photonic field generator being tested and developed by the Cardassian hologram named Kejal. |
The main computer console:
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