Epsilon Program
RELATED ARTICLES
Epsilon-Delta Personnel File/Technical Data
Dr. Helen Mirren Lead Researcher, Epsilon Program
"Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome" Science 29 February 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1215 - 1220 [1]
Synthetic Biology Community Site [2]
(On stardate 238305.28, under extraordinary circumstances, Captain Tyr Waltas, CO, USS Discovery-B, directed Dr. Helen Mirren to disclose and declassify information relevant to Epsilon-Delta's origins. The following information was classified information from SD 235812.01 until 238305.28.)
Although the Epsilon series is based on the work of Dr. Noonien Soong, the series' design is largely based on new findings following the return of the highly modified USS Voyager. Her operating system is a realization of new theoretical relationships between positronic theory and Borg technology as well as restricted research on eugenics theory and Terran DNA research.
Furthermore, the continued existence of the Epsilon program is based on a moral imperative to continually design and maintain mechanisms to support a synthetic organism [3][4]. This organism embodies a benevolent convergence of these technologies to serve the Epsilon Program's primary and secondary mission in Starfleet and to minimize casualties and better understand interstellar life.
The organism and its cybernetic technology were developed directly from projects culling data and ship schematics from the modified USS Voyager and research from the Borg Defense Initiative. Using a modification of the Soong-based design, the Epsilon series became a life-support solution for an assimilated Borg individual whose connection to the collective has been effectively severed. The individual's consciousness is preserved within the Zimmerman/Barclay holographic operating system. Per Intelligence regulations, this highly sensitive information was protected from portable sensor equipment with an alloy designed for obfuscation.
The sensor-obfuscating alloy embedded into the Delta exoskeletal structure is constructed of a quantum-based nanotechnology and successfully interferes with most subspatial signals, thus censoring biodata that reveals the sythethic lifesign reading. The Epsilon-Delta holographic program is based on surgically salvaged memory engrams of the aforementioned individual in question and functions within the runtime environment of the Soong-Type positronic brain. The nanotechnology provides a foundation for the holographic signature and is supported by cybernetics that transact memory engrams between the synthetic organism and the positronic architecture.
Since the engrammatic data is non-biological, the positronic software continues to adapt to the holographic program designed to preserve these memory engrams. Although aided by life support, the relationship cannot be considered strictly symbiotic, since the artificial lifesign is an independent entity. In theory, this artificial intelligence structure simulates both cognitive and behaviorial psychology paradigms, producing data interpreted by some cyberneticists as emotion, self-awareness and a state of dream.
Epsilon series units are not recognized as sentient under Federation law; and have yet found a landmark case to prove their sentience. Until the event(s) whereby a legal precedent is presented in a tribunal or court requesting such evidence be provided as necessary to defend them as an innocent party, Epsilon-Delta's rights as a sentient remain in a state of legal purgatory.
It should be noted that the Epsilon-Delta program is aware of its own construction and that her peers have access to her unclassified personal file. Regardless, Delta seeks to continually evolve healthy interpersonal relationships, stating it is essential to the integrity of her program to play multiple roles as a subordinate-ranking officer to commanding officer, a patient to doctor, and the case of Delta's designer, Dr. Helen Mirren, a child to a parent.