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Operation Coldstone was a research project into the potential applications of time travel. When it was ordered shut down by Starfleet Intelligence the operational personnel were moved under the discretion of Section 31. Captain Lance Thomas, working as an officer for the organization at the time, was paired with Commander Candy Poole along with other Operatives within Section 31 to oversee a repurposing of the project. Commander Poole and Captain Thomas worked together with advisor Jenny Rebecca Courter code-named "Lady J" as their liaison to the rest of the organization. The project officially ran from 2352 to 2355 and was officially terminated in 2355 citing ethical concerns over discussions of possible research applications.
Temporal Incursions
From 2355 until the project was finally terminated entirely in 2359 the team operated under the direction of Lady J taking orders directly from the head of Section 31. During this time period the research team was organized into three distinct groups.
Gold Unit
The research and development team were tasked with figuring out how to theoretically solve technical problems associated with the project. For operational security they were told they were building models for realistic simulations to be executed by Starfleet Intelligence to model how an enemy might use such technology to undermine Federation security. They were classified as Gold Unit.
Green Unit
The fabrication team was tasked with applying the theories of Gold Unit to refit decommissioned vessels and equipment. In order to reduce the chance of being discovered, the resources used by this team were capped forcing them to use parts slated for destruction and would not be missed. This team was told they were researching how parties could, in theory, use decommissioned and outdated technology to weaponize temporal manipulation. They were not aware that the theories they were attempted to apply were coming from another unit within the project.
Blue Unit
This was the only team that was aware of the scope of the project. This unit, however, was told they were correcting potential incursions into the timeline utilizing technology built by Green Unit from science worked out by Gold Unit. During this time the team was assigned to make minor alterations to the timeline, being told they were correcting issues caused by a number of different sources.
Weaponization
Together, starting in 2358, they executed a plan to refit the a Saladin Class Starship the USS Rising Sun and outfit for further practical testing of temporal manipulation, in particular time travel and to see if the technology could be weaponized. By November of that year the vessel had been outfit with an operational temporal core.
Fall
The fall of the project came when in 2359 the command crew of the USS Rising Sun broke from Section 31 and stole the vessel, going into hiding. Earlier that same year the Rising Sun had applied the prototype of Temporal Shields which allowed the vessel to stay clear of changes made to the timeline. During testing they encountered their first Temporal Wave coming from changes made by Section 31 on another group code-named Operation Silky Tension. This second group was unaware of Operation Coldstone but was using their findings to practice an organized and methodical manipulation of historical events.
Evidence / Breaking
Blue Unit was tasked with correcting problems caused by Operation Silky Tension due to mission failure or unforeseen consequences. During the time previous to the activation of the Temporal Shield prototype on the Rising Sun the command crew would have been unaware of changes to the timeline unless they were in the past when a change occurred.
Captain Thomas and Commander Poole had recorded several instances where inconsistencies were noticed between a team who had left on an incursion and came back. These piled up pointing to potential changes in the timeline. As such Captain Thomas ordered the Rising Sun to pick up key members of Green and Gold units even though this violated standing orders.
Now with all three units aware of each other's efforts things became clearer and Gold / Green units were able to work together to compose a method to better detect potential disruptions in space-time as well as shield the vessel from such disruptions. By the end of 2359 the Rising Sun used this technology and obtained proof that Section 31 was altering the past. The vessel officially broke with Section 31 and Captain Thomas along with the crew, engineers, and research team on board the vessel collectively went AWOL to stop Section 31 from continuing their incursions.
Treaty
Under direct threat of exposure and potential reciprocity from a rogue vessel possessing the largest Temporal Core ever constructed the Rising Sun and Section 31 came to an agreement which would eventually lead to the Treaty of Strahelm after the formation of Solas Tempus in 2360.