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Space/Time-Coordinates: (September 13th 2005 [6:00 pm] -Sheldon & Leonard's apartment)
Sheldon is on his spot on the couch, Howard and Raj are sitting next to him. Leonard is on his spot with the remote.
The guys are 6 episodes deep into a binge watch session. Every so often, someone shifts to adjust themselves.
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Oh, this was bad.
So bad.
No wonder the show got taken off the air.
A few coffee cups were laid out on the table, I was taken the occasional notes on what happened in the show, but it was getting painful to watch. Sitting in one position became exhausting after a while, not to mention the amount of information I was processing. Binge watching a show was one thing. Trying to memorize every minute detail in the background was causing a migraine.
And we were on episode 16 of 22 in the first season.
Cheesy 80's effects, really bad acting, gigantic plot holes that were just glaring at me.
Ouch.
This was almost physically painful to watch.
"Why are you taking notes dude?" Raj asked.
"Oh you know," I said jotting down another point, this one about how there needed alternative gate defense fail safes in place, "researching and all that jazz."
"Researching?" Sheldon said. "Whatever for?"
"Well," I began, "Okay- so you know how in World War two the English government was working on cracking the enigma code?"
"Yeah." Leonard said. "It's basically what lead to the development of punch card computers."
"Okay so—" I placed my notepad down on the coffee table and started rubbing the muscles in my hand in a attempt to get a cramp out. "—So remember when the British government made a crossword puzzle and placed it in the paper that had a math theorem embedded in it?"
The guys stopped and thought for a bit. Sheldon, with his eidetic memory came to a conclusion first.
"Wait." He said. "Are you suggesting that Wormhole extreme is a similar program, and that its on air to find similar mathematical geniuses?"
"Maybe? I mean- if not then shouldn't it be up to us to make a good plan in the eventuality where humanity get access to alien technology?"
"You know," Raj said wagging his finger, just taken a sip of coffee, " that makes sense."
"What?" Leonard said. He paused the episode to focus on the conversation. "How does that even make sense?"
"Well", Raj began, "papers that are written have been looked upon years or even centuries later in mathematical proofs. Especially in astronomy. Take Galileo when he was explaining the mathematics of a Sun centered solar system. He built all his proof from Copernicus. Or even more recently Einstein - his work is based on the mathematics of Newton."
"Huh." Leonard leaned his elbows into his knees. "Valid point."
"So why would it be Wormhole extreme and not any other show?" Sheldon asked.
"Think about it." I said. "The ratings were horrible, so bad that it was canceled and scrapped, and then suddenly its back on the air? Like, come on guys, we follow all the major shows. If someone was going to be funding it again we would know - but instead some blacklisted group fronts the money. It's suspicious, you gotta admit."
"Now that you mention it, that is strange." Leonard said. He reached for his laptop and started googling the show. Raj meantime was getting on board with the idea.
"Oooh hey! We could all write a paper." Raj said.
"Write a paper?" Sheldon said, voice dripping condescension. "Where would we even submit it to? It would just be a collection of random improvements to do on the show which we would have to send to the executives and -"
Suddenly perking up, Sheldon came to a idea that changed his mind entirely. "Trains."
"What?" Leonard asked.
"Trains!" Sheldon said excitedly.
"That's it! That's how you get a wormhole to be a viable trans galactic transportation system! If you have a 40 minute window you could send a really long train through!" Sheldon was getting really into it. I guess that's all it took. Taking his favorite interest in trains and combining it with multi dimensional physics.
"Oh yeah, i'm all about this." Sheldon said. "We can each write up separate topics and then post it online and see what happens."
"Yeah i'm down with that," Raj said scratching his head, "it has bothered me that none of the away teams are using all terrain vehicles."
"It's still ridiculous." Leonard said. "The amount of energy it would take to make a Einstein-Roosevelt bridge connection, much less maintain its stability would literally be astronomical. There's just no way that's possible."
"Not if the Gate is made out of some sort of material that magnifies energy." I said.
"Yeah, but figuring out how to make that sounds like something for another day." Raj said. "Tell you what, you figure out the gear and vehicle situation, and I'll write about how using a gate light months or years away you could observe phenomenon that had passed earth."
"Huh. Yeah, I guess you could do that. Oh! You could also launch a orbital satellite to observe the atmospheres of far away exoplanets via spectroscopy." Leonard said.
"Ooh good point." Raj struck a thoughtful expression, with how many light years away some Stargate planets were, perhaps it would be possible to observe supernovae that happened during the Roman eras.
"Hey what are you picking Howard?" Raj suddenly brought up.
"Mmmm… I'm thinking that the entire way the base is set up is a terrible design. For starters the ramp leading to the gate could be a conveyer belt, I'd make it so much faster to load and unload."
In truth, most of my ideas were that- drastic redesigns to policies and strategic design layout that could theoretically help the away teams greatly.
But the base design was definitely the biggest flaw. Especially when it came to evacuations. The more efficient I could make it getting people and materials into the wormhole, the better chance they had on the other side.
"Well! Let's finish the episode and go to dinner!" Sheldon said. He'd probably turned out our conversation focusing instead on trains. And to be honest, it was a great idea. Wish I'd thought of that.
With a Stargate able to be open for a maximum of 38 minutes without having to draw on external power sources when it's cold fusion reactor started running low, the size of a train you could get through would be enormous.
Even cutting time down to account for the establishing of a stable connection, and human error, a half hour train trip could meet hundreds of tons of materials. Make it a hovertrain and you could potentially build a base camp on another planet in a matter of weeks.
"Oh yeah," Leonard said, "I have been getting hungry. Everyone still up for Cheesecake Factory instead of Big Boys?"
His face was hopeful, and it was easy to see why.
He hadn't seen Penny since last week when we delivered her stuff over. One of her coworkers quit, and another looked like might be leaving soon, so Penny was picking up extra shifts in the meantime.
"I'd be acceptable to sampling their BBQ Bacon Barbecue Burger again." Sheldon said.
"Yeah I'm fine with that," I said turning to Raj, "how about you buddy? You good with that?"
Raj signed. "I don't know…"
"What do you mean you don't know?" Leonard asked slightly worried. And for good reason. We'd only been to the Cheesecake Factory once, last week. If Sheldon didn't decide to make it his new Tuesday spot then Leonard could kiss his chances of seeing Penny goodbye. At least for the foreseeable future.
"It's just that last time," Raj began explaining, "she didn't even take my order and I got the wrong beverage too. I asked for Diet Coke and got Dr. Pepper."
"Aw come on, let's just give it one more shot?" Leonard said, almost pleading with his eyes. "The good old scientific two out of three?"
Raj thought for a moment. Good food, and a waitress he could actually talk to would be nice...But he could see Leonard struggling, really, really wanting to go, but not disappoint his friends either.
"Sure." Raj said defeated by his own kindness. "I guess we can go."
"Yes!" Leonard said. "I mean," he regained his celebratory composure and body language into something more appropriate, "thank you for agreeing to my request Rajesh."
"Enough jibber jabber fellas," Sheldon said adjusting himself back in his spot on the couch, "we have sci-fi to watch. Leonard! Put it back on."
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Space/Time-Coordinates: (September 13th 2005 [7:15 pm] -The Cheesecake Factory)
Sheldon and Leonard sit on one end of the table, Howard and Raj- the other. They all have clipboards with graphing paper.
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Sheldon was completely engaged in drawing. He was taking inspirations from every single train he could remember and combining them into one steampunk futuristic GateTrain.
A workable design was already taking place. Something that looked like a cross between a antique Victorian steam powered locomotive, and a Japanese Magnetic Levitating Bullet train.
Leonard was not drawing at all. He kept looking around without seeming too suspicious trying to catch a glimpse at Penny. We were sitting in her section, so she'd have to be by sooner or later. A hostess had brought all of us water in the meantime.
Raj meanwhile had a string of variable calculations going on one paper while a model of the milky way galaxy was on another paper. He was going through variables of spheres of observation depending on how many light years the Stargates were away.
I was about to start drawing, but instead was listing down criteria. What would make for a good off world base?
Defense was laughable, orbital bombardment could destroy bases now, much less plasma beams from goa'uld spaceships.
Offense really depended on if the base had enough beam defense weapons. From what I remember most things were just projectile weapons….. and only spaceship size guns could hurt ships. Either that, or barrage upon barrage of missles.
Escape then.
Evacuation is what had to be perfected to give the off world bases a shot.
The bases needed to have conveyor belts going towards the gate. In times of evacuation, the speed could be amped up so things would go through faster. Hell, if I got variable multi directional conveyor belts, like the ones used by the post office, the entire base could be evacuated within a small window of opportunity.
Maybe even have a conveyer belt on the other side of the gate and just have people run fake evacuation drills on the Empty Gate.
So many lives could be saved.
"Hello? Oh hey guys!" It was Penny. "Nice to see you again!"
"Mmmllrpp…. nice.. yeah." Leonard was, well, not quite so elegant with words seeing Penny for the first time in a week.
I've been bouncing between his and Raj's apartment while my house was being worked on. Hopefully it would only be a couple of days more until everything was cleared. Thursday or Friday maybe?
"Nice to see you too Penny." I said drawing her attention to me. When I saw her head turning I discreetly kicked Leonard in the shin. "Hey kinda random, but are you doing anything this weekend?"
"I don't think so." She handed out a handful of menus to the table. "I'll have to see what the work schedules look like later in the week. Why?"
"House warming party. My mom's place is finally almost refurbished."
"Maybe!" Penny was getting her things to scurry to another table, it looked like most of the seats were packed and Penny was overworked bouncing back and forth. "I'll let you guys know later! Oh and be back in a bit."
Leonard watched Penny walk away, hips swaying as she started to greet another table that just sat down.
"..Later…." Leonard mumbled, composure still not intact.
"Smooth." I said.
"What?" Leonard asked, still completely distracted.
"I said 'Smooth!'." My voice jerked Leonard out of his self induced trance. "Honestly how are you going to get this girl to like you enough to be receptive to the idea of going on a date if you can't talk to her?"
"Wait what?" Leonard was blinking furiously as his cognitive function came back online.
"Wait… did you just invite her over to your house this weekend?" Leonard was getting a bit angry. Time to de escalate this situation.
"You guys are going to be there too." I said, and watched confusion bloom on Leonard's face.
"I'm not hitting on her Leonard." I said and watched his face get even more scrunched up in confusion. Raj turned and looked at me to, no longer staring at the menu. "I am being a wingman for you."
Side Note- Leonard's confuses expression was hilarious. I'd have to remember this for later.
"In any case, I'm planning to ask another girl to come for the housewarming."
"What?" Leonard gestured and flailed his arms. "Who?"
"Leslie Winkle."
"She hates you dude." Raj said. "Like, hates you hates you."
"I'm aware of that." I said. "So how about we make a bet? If you ask Penny out at the party you win, if I get Leslie to come I do."
"Huh." Leonard said, actually interested. Not that he believed he could ask Penny out, it being far to soon in his opinion, but Leslie hated Howard. With a fiery passion. From his point of view he'd win easily.
Too bad I wasn't the original Howard. I wouldn't make it easy.
"I'll take that bet." Leonard adjusted his glasses. "What are the terms?"
"Wait," Raj suddenly interjected, "I have a better idea. Howard you need to ask Leslie out."
"Ooooooooohhhhh." Leonard said. "Yes let's go with that one."
"Wait what." Now it was my turn to be confused.
"It seems fair." Leonard said crossing his arms. "We both deserve a hard challenge or else a bet isn't worth it."
"Okay one, fair point." I said. "And two, counterpoint - no."
"Aww come on Howard," Raj said. Completely engrossed in the possible drama, "It will be interesting. Please? Otherwise Leonard isn't going to do it, you know how much of a coward he is."
"Hey!" Leonard exclaimed. "I'm not a coward! I'm just.. reserved when it comes to big life altering decisions."
We looked at each other.
"How about this, we decide the stakes later after we make sure both Leslie and Penny can make it." Raj said.
"That idea is…. acceptable." I said grudgingly. Leonard would probably say something embarrassing for me to do when I lost the bet. Let's face it, I'd have to do a lot to make Leslie date me.
But, it would be fun- so why not?
"Deal."
"Deal?"
"Deal." I said sticking my hand out across the table for a shake.
"Deal." Said Leonard shaking my hand. With this, it was official.
Now we just had to find out if Penny could make it. Oh and order food, I was starving.
Authors note:
I like Howard and Bernadette in cannon. She's a little shrill for my tastes personally, but I like her.
This however is not the same Howard. He and Bernadette won't click in the same way.
Will he date Leslie? Who knows. I'm writing this story of a vague outline, but then sometimes things happen and I roll with it.
Next time you get to see Howard's new house, and see if his prodding Leonard makes him more confident, enough to ask out Penny.
As always leave reviews!
I was always planning on showing the new house, but HPfan 7-8 review spurred me to bring the timetable up sooner.
Hope you like it.
Cheers
