INT. DEEP SPACE NINE - OPS

Chief O’Brien, a middle-aged man with a no-nonsense demeanor, is working at a console. Commander Worf, a stern and disciplined Klingon, enters the room.

O’Brien looks up from his work, visibly concerned.

O’BRIEN Commander, I’ve been analyzing the cause of the outage we experienced last week.

Worf nods, waiting for O’Brien to continue.

O’BRIEN It appears that the outage was caused by a new Federation directive to incorporate a Vulcan security protocol that uses algorithmic harmonic heuristics to disable new threats. They call it Comprehensive Redundancy and Overwatch Defense System for Threat Response, Intrusion Detection, and Keyless Encryption. Always had a blunt approach to naming…

Worf’s eyebrow raises, surprised.

WORF A Vulcan security protocol? Crowd… strike?!? That is unexpected.

O’Brien nods, looking over the console screen.

O’BRIEN Yes, it seems that the new protocol was untested and incompatible with our current systems. The result was a cascading failure across all ship systems.

Worf’s expression turns serious, understanding the implications.

WORF I see. We must inform Starfleet Command of this issue immediately.

O’Brien nods, already drafting a report.

O’BRIEN I’m on it, Commander. I’ll make sure to include a recommendation for thorough testing before implementing any new protocols in the future.

Worf nods, approving of O’Brien’s initiative.

WORF Good. We cannot afford to take such risks in the future.

FADE OUT.