Civilian Science Labs (Deck 9)

These two labs are built to a deliberately generic template, meant to be reconfigured for whatever discipline their current occupant practices rather than fixed to one specialty like the dedicated science labs elsewhere on the ship. The base layout is a simple rectangular room with modular waist-high benching along both long walls, each section on sliding rails so the benches can be rearranged or removed entirely to open floor space. A bank of general-purpose equipment lockers lines the aft wall, holding a mix of standard scanning and analysis hardware that can be checked out and set up wherever a given project needs it, rather than being permanently mounted. A single large display panel dominates the forward wall, capable of showing anything from data visualizations to a magnified sample feed, depending on the current occupant's work. Unlike the ship's dedicated labs, these rooms show clear signs of individual use - handwritten labels beside a standard console, a personal chair swapped in for the standard stool, or a favored piece of equipment left set up in a corner rather than returned to storage between sessions. The walls are the same pale grey composite used throughout the science section, largely bare apart from whatever the current researcher has posted or projected there. Lighting is fully adjustable from a panel beside the door, able to run anywhere from the bright, even illumination typical of a lab to a dimmer, more focused arrangement suited to optical work. The rooms carry whatever ambient sound their current equipment produces - otherwise they are simply quiet, unremarkable lab spaces waiting to be shaped around the next project brought aboard.