Part 2a: "It's a big universe out there."
I don't think much will change in this chapter from what it was before, Mostly just a few things to make the story conform to the new chapter 1.
Alteran cityship – Celesta Flashback
"My name is Tria. We will assign each of you a maturia. We will try to keep each maturia similar in age, each of you will spend an hour or more each day with one of your maturia's mentors after a year you will move up in class and exchange your mentors for new ones." There was a pause as she looked at the group of scattered refugees. "Each maturia will have twenty mentors for the hundred in that maturia. At the end of the year you will be given an aptitude test to place you in the subject you will be most at home with."
"It's a big universe out there and my duty is to prepare all of you to further our understanding of it."
"It is a wormhole and yet it is not."Amelius stated. He was helping Janos Tav study. "Remember what the wormhole theory actually states?"
"A natural or artificial space time construct between two points in normal space. Such wormholes do shorten the distance between two points by providing a temporary bridge so to speak of normal space time between them. However they remain in normal space for the entirety of the journey." Tav repeated as if reading from a textbook behind his eyelids.
"Exactly, and the problem with artificially creating wormholes in this manner is?" Amelius paused, waiting for the student.
"It would have to effectively create or repurpose a portion of normal space for the purpose of the bridge, the power requirements alone would be…"Tav broke off scrunching his eyebrows together, "extremely high doesn't cut it" he concluded.
"Which is why we don't quite use normal space," Amelius pointed to the next page a complicated equation written out describing something.
Tav spent a few seconds looking at the description in front of him. "This is… This describes..."
Amelius took this pause to look at the clock they were nearing the end of the working period"Enough, we'll continue this tomorrow. Go spend some time with your peers in the recreation facilities."
Tav nodded to his mentor gathering his work and neatly filing it away. A third of the day for sleep, a third for work, and a third for personal use, this was the pattern they had used since the beginning. Tav pondered that for a moment as he cleaned up.
Amelius looked over his notes another time. He shook his head at his ancestor's ingenuity with the original gateway. To think what they accomplished without understanding the science behind it. The original portal was barely ten feet in diameter. The astra portae partially explained how they had spread so quickly. But there was still something nagging at the back of his mind. This all happened too quickly.
He scribbled a few more notes on the page; they needed a more secure system. They also needed faster ships or this journey was going to take some time. He'd bring it up at the next science council. He had a few ideas about the first part. He hoped that someone else had a few about the second. In another year Tav would be ready to move to his next instructor, perhaps he might even be ready to take the test and get his own assignment. Even with Stream FTL it was going to take them another two years to reach the next galaxy they'd stop but only just long enough to gather essentials, and take a survey, after that they'd be on their way again.
Tav looked down at the three-dimensional chess game in front of him. Then he looked up at Artiem Lal his opponent, she had him cornered. If this had been regular chess Tav might have won but he still wasn't used to paying attention to the extra vectors of assault. Lucky for him, his aptitude was for science. Lal was going into tactical, the game really wasn't fair but if Tav wanted to improve he had to play with better players, such as Lal.
He examined the board again, and then looked at the clock. He needed to be in the gym for physical training in ten minutes and he wanted to arrive early. He looked at the board again.
"Your win in 5 moves," he said tipping the king over.
"You give up to easy," Lal said smiling as she picked up one of his columnar proceeding to knock down her own queen placing her king in check. They began packing up the game. She looked up into his dark eyes, "Same time tomorrow?"
"Same time" He nodded leaving.
Half jogging to the track, he passed five of his maturia on their way to other assignments. His active period was the during the sleep cycle most of the ship was asleep. That would change as more of the maturia onboard became adults requiring less sleep.
He went down three decks and past a few more bulkheads arriving in the gym. Tav activated the gym computer with a mental command "Log track time, alert when 20 minutes is up" he told the computer barely pausing as he went through the door to the track. They'd only just started integrating neural commands into the computers on ship. Why the gym was one of the first he didn't know. But it did make it easier.
Amerlius looked over the telemetry from their first hyperspace probe. It had arrived in one piece in the next galaxy. The method of travel was still unstable and unpredictable. They probably wouldn't do a manned test until they had reestablished on a new home. The first system scan was fascinating though. The single planet showed an almost barren world with a pyramid at the equator. This was the first sign of intelligence they'd found it was causing quite a stir. He'd put in a request for that to be the first system visit when they arrived.
He pushed the information aside filing it away in the system with a tag for the computer to remind him before they arrived. He picked his notes back up. Matter couldn't stay in Nifleheym but energy could he absently tapped his fingers on the console. Perhaps… yes, he thought changing the frequency of the energy field he could separate the astria porta. It would be a while before he could put the theory to practice but yes. He already knew the easiest frequency to attain which the astria porta currently used. He'd have to build the security protocol into the gate itself to prevent it from being tampered with. That brought up other possibilities as well. If he was going to be redesigning the porta he might as well include the other features, Sensors to provide information to the point of origin about the destination and increase the dimensions. He'd put holo imagers on the high security ones to give advance information about what was on the other side.
2 years in the void
"The science council has reviewed your proposal Amelius. You have tentative approval to work on it until the high council makes a final decision we're confident they will also approve. If we can improve the security and functionality of the astria porta then we should." Amelius stood at the console reading the response. This was good. A much better response than the last one, when he'd proposed the ark of truth 7 years ago. Tactical must have been enthusiastic about this. He sat down a bit stunned, thinking. I'll have to put together a research group. I hope Tav is available. Tav had a good mind. Yes.
He pulled up a list of researchers currently available ticking off names as he sent them a small message explaining the project. He wanted a few from tactical, command, engineering, and biology each, he needed input on what kind of sensors and how many different security levels. This might take a while.
3 years in the void
They were nearing the edge of the new galaxy they'd sent a few hyperspace probes carrying small astria porta to a few planets they'd identified for resource gathering. In another few days they'd be in range to begin sending out groups to gather valuable resources required for the next leg of the journey. Amelius brought the matter of the pyramid before the anthropology and science council a few weeks previous when the computer reminded him. They debated for a time then told him they would assemble a team and send him along when they were within range.
Present
Tav looked at the new gate that had been constructed out of cannibalized damaged ships in the cityship hold. The ship would be in close enough range of the new galaxy to dial in another few minutes. He looked up at the star map on his console and whispering to himself. "It's definitely a big universe out there."
Sorry about speeding this last chapter along. there wasn't much that happens in the first void and I probably could have used the time to develop some of the characters and I may rewrite eventually to do just that. But i'm really eager to push them into this first new galaxy.
Thanks for the review Beyogi! In response, the tragedy of the story has already happened the Altera have been kicked out of Destra by their own kin. This isn't technically tragedy in the classical sense though as that would imply they could have actually done something about it. That will shape the characters of the story but it's not the main focus. What happens now is their journey and what they themselves do. It may be AU it may not. The difference is this, absolutely nothing. I've got pretty much free reign with what happens to our friendly Altera, so much free reign i'm almost surprised I couldn't find any other ancient alteran history. Partly due to the fact that the show is rather intentionally vague providing limited detail and only a few fixed points such as their being kicked out of destra or the ori galaxy. It provides almost no detail about their level of technology or biology as far as the standard range of altera powers like healing and such. So I get to sit back and cackle with delight. I can give them 1 ship or 20 ships, the cannon only makes known the one that left planet celesta but I doubt the alteran would throw all their eggs in that one basket.
I don't want to make this easy on them though so I promise a good struggle, hostiles, and such other things. so no this is not an "Oh how the mighty have fallen!" story.
*shhh... I know they're a race from a very long ways away, how could they have chess? My excuse: imported to earth by merlin. You'd be surprised how many of our "games" and ideas come from the Altera. It may be a plot crutch but would you prefer me saying, "Chess like game" or a bear like animal that looks like a bear but is called something else even though it behaves exactly like a bear? That's also a plot crutch and a bad trick used to fill up the page.