Xindi War.
The Gateway.
Doctor Roman Soong looked between the scanner he was currently holding in his hand while he gazed down at the iconography of the alien hieroglyphics on the panels. He had been sure that he recognised them from somewhere, but it wasn't until he had checked his palm scanner and linked it with the Xenoarchaeology database back on Earth. The database was relayed to the hand scanners via a subspace link.
He was right.
He had recognised the hieroglyphics. It was a mishmash of different languages that Vulcan archaeologists had discovered scattered on various worlds; while the Vulcans were reluctant to pass on their more advanced technologies and the principles of how they worked, such as warp technology, that didn't extend towards their other discoveries. The logic was easy enough to understand; humanity was more interested in getting out into the stars and exploring them, but the Vulcans saw nothing wrong with giving them access to archaeology records or their medical science.
The languages contained in the Vulcan database and their archaeological findings had helped train thousands of human xenoarchaeologists and xenolinguistics to this day. What made it funny was even though they hadn't travelled to any archaeological site elsewhere in the galaxy, many human scientists had published papers highlighting hundreds of theories about the nature of certain findings.
The Third World War had devastated Earth greatly, and thousands of records were lost during the events, but hundreds of archaeologists had survived and they had passed on their knowledge to others. The experiences of the past and the remaining ancient mysteries on Earth made it easy for humans to have a creative and insightful grasp of the ancient past.
The Vulcans might look down on the humans as an impulsive and irrationally over emotional race, but Soong sometimes wondered if they were often rendered speechless and even jealous of the humans' insights since they had never really studied the ancient mysteries they had. Soong didn't know and frankly, he didn't care even though deep inside he actually respected the Vulcans and their exploration, something only ignorant idiots believed was not true. The Vulcans did explore, they just didn't see the need to advertise it.
Soong had never been on a dig that dug up information on worlds with Dewan, Iccobar, and Dinasian characters, but he had obsessively studied every single piece gathered by Vulcan xenoarchaeologists until he could see the characters in his mind.
"I've got a match on the language; it seems to have bits of Dewan, Iccobar, and Dinasian in their hieroglyphics, but there are other characters there, too," Soong commented.
"Is that what they are?" Bailey asked in surprise.
"You mean you didn't know?" Soong wasn't really taken by surprise by the sweeping question. This was the trouble with Martian born xenoarchaeologists; they were so dedicated to the research of their second home they barely bothered with the languages contained in the Vulcan database.
"No. I've lived and worked my whole life on Mars. Give me a sculpture, a sandstone globe, and I'll tell you about what is inscribed on it, no problem. But this place…I was already out of my depth when I saw the ziggurat, Dr Soong," Bailey sighed as she remembered her reaction when she first took in the superstructure for herself. "How many times have you come to Mars?"
"You don't need to tell me. I know, the Martians didn't believe in building large structures even if they had the technology to relieve their planet's dwindling resources, and I also know some of their religions believed larger buildings could potentially anger their gods," Soong said.
Bailey nodded, "We've collected a lot of Martian artefacts in our time, but the things we found in both the ziggurat and the city surrounding it is beyond us."
Soong guessed Bailey didn't want to hear any kind of what she perceived as criticism on her lack of sense in trying to study the hieroglyphics - why she didn't just log into the Xenoarchaeology database on Earth was beyond him, but truthfully it didn't matter since his team of scientists were hardly bogged down by the belief Mars was the only place in the universe where xenoarchaeologists could understand the past - and he turned to face her with interest.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked curiously.
"The technology is old, but it's just beyond us. We've even sent one or two bits back home to Earth, and they don't understand any of it either. Some of them have been so baffled by what they've been given, they've been sent to Starfleet for examination, but we both know that was pointless."
Soong agreed with her. While Starfleet trained their engineers to a high standard, none of them had ever really been a long way out from Earth to really study alien technologies and get a perspective of how advanced they were compared to Earth. While Soong could understand the resentment towards the Vulcans for how they seemed set to look down on humanity, he didn't understand why Starfleet didn't just ask for some kind of officer exchange program where long-term Vulcan expeditions could take Starfleet officers out into space in order to better teach others of what was out there.
While Earth wasn't completely cut off from the rest of the galaxy thanks to the so-called 'space boomers' of the merchant fleets, and the warp 1 exploratory missions, the experience was still limited.
"It's not just them. I know for certain the Vulcans themselves have had a crack at the studies themselves," Bailey went on.
Soong gasped. The Vulcans were currently their only advanced alien ally, and while Soong and others knew there were other alien races magnitudes older and more powerful than their races combined, it was still a surprise.
"But what I don't understand is how the aliens got here; I mean, okay, they might have landed their ships on the surface, but if they did why bother moving their structures underground and among the Martian ruins? But they must have come here somehow, so why haven't we found signs at any of the spaceports we've uncovered? If an alien race is this sophisticated, they'd have detected the spaceports easily, but we've found no sign of landings, so where else could they be?" Bailey asked.
Soong said nothing as he considered what the other scientist had just said. He had to admit that this was a fascinating mystery, but then science was full of them and this was no different. He could see Bailey's point of view and her visible interest and frustration at not being able to work it out. But at the same time, Soong was putting together different ideas into his mind to test them.
Scenario one - the aliens who built the ziggurat weren't aliens, they were just Martians who had gone out into the galaxy, learnt a few things and came back. That would explain why they had constructed a large structure in an equally large underground space because they knew the cave could support it. But the idea was negated in his mind quickly because he didn't understand why they'd come back to a dying world, build a ziggurat and then scatter technology which was clearly more advanced.
Scenario two - the aliens had indeed used the spaceports, but they had simply not bothered to litter the place with their advanced technology. Bailey was right when she had speculated the aliens could easily find the spaceports given how sophisticated Vulcan scanners had detected asteroid colonies which had been constructed centuries ago, so it wouldn't be hard to picture a more advanced race than the Vulcans to pinpoint them and use them as they saw fit. Unfortunately, the idea ground to a halt quicker than it could get started, and Soong was faced with the same conundrum; how could the aliens scatter their technology down here freely, and yet leave out the spaceport? The answer, they couldn't.
Scenario three - matter transmission was perhaps the only viable explanation that made even a degree of common sense. Soong knew the technology existed; he remembered seeing for himself the Vulcan's transmat technology, and while the physics wasn't exactly his field, Soong's intellect was able to understand how the technology worked, well just the gist. In the 20th-21st centuries, humans had experimented with quantum teleportation, splitting atoms up and then transmitting them to a distant point.
Well, true transmat technology didn't work like that. A transmat or a transporter created a short-range subspace wormhole between two points, and the opposite end could be open-ended so a receiving set would not need to be constructed. Anyone being sent through was essentially squashed into a data stream and despatched on their journey. Soong had never been through the process himself, and really he wasn't sure he wanted to be either, but from what he had seen and heard, it was quite safe and it wasn't as dangerous as quantum teleportation sounded. And the technology was quite well spread from what Soong had learnt from his talks with a few friends in the merchant fleet; while some of their tales were as far fetched as fisherman's tales, Soong knew where to look for the grains of truth.
But what he couldn't understand was how a transmat beam had penetrated through to the Martian underground. Maybe it hadn't. Maybe the aliens had simply come to Mars that way, found the underground and built this place as easily as that without landing any kind of ship?
"Tell me about the technology you found," he said, rubbing his head, deciding to come back to his ideas later. At the same time, Soong decided to wait until he had a better idea before he passed the theories on.
Bailey shrugged. "I wish I could. I've spent my whole academic career understanding and studying Martian technology, but while some of what we've found has given us a lot of insight into how it works and indeed how to copy it, the alien technology of the ziggurat is just beyond us."
Soong remembered what Bailey had told him and his entourage the night before. "Last night, you suggested that aliens had landed on Mars, built the ziggurat underground while using the Ancient Martian infrastructure to make their job easy."
"That's right, and we've found tonnes of proof. You know like we do how old the Ancient Martians were compared to this race. The fact I can't understand the technology, while Starfleet is
"Roman," Bishop called from the panel he was examining, prompting Soong and Bailey to walk over to him and see what he'd discovered, but the other xenoarchaeologist was holding his own palm scanner over another block of hieroglyphics, but Soong leaned in closer.
"Is it just me, or are there two more languages in there?"
"Actually, there are four. Three of them aren't recognised by the Vulcan database," Bishop corrected.
"Four?"
"Yeah."
Dr Bailey rubbed her cheek thoughtfully. "So, an alien race arrived on Mars 200,000 years ago, after the original Martian civilisation had died out, and left this place behind, along with data panels and instruments covered with iconography which shows they are the originators of languages from distant worlds? It has happened before."
"True," Soong agreed before he turned to Bishop. "Any ideas on what it says?"
"Not really. Some of the symbols look like they authentically come from those worlds, but I'm not sure if they are the same. Still, we can check."
"Let's run the symbols through the database. See what they can turn up."
"Okay," Bishop replied as he got to work on scanning the symbols into his scanner and sending them off to Earth for translation. It took the Xenoarchaeology database an hour to go through the symbols, and send off the translated version.
"Roman, I've got the translation," Bishop called and Bailey and Soong returned to his side after they had been scanning in other symbols and studying the panels and displays which showed off maps of the galaxy, and even slightly beyond. Both scientists had been fascinated by the maps, and they wondered if the aliens who'd constructed the ziggurat had been just interested in a form of stellar cartography, but there were no grids, no sector names.
"How did it go?" Soong asked as he and Bailey walked over to him.
"It's not a perfect translation," Bishop admitted, his expression telling the story perfectly for the other xenoarchaeologists. "Some of it looks like it's uncertain, and I don't know for sure if half of this is right, but it's the best we've got."
Soong didn't bother reminding the other scientist not everything in science was 100%. A lot of it happened to be nothing more than guesswork, but Bishop knew that. "We'll just have to go with it. Shall we start?" He asked while he tried to inject some confidence into his voice, but it wasn't entirely successful.
Bishop exchanged an uncertain glance with another assistant before he shrugged and nodded. "Okay," he gestured at a panel in front of him; four touch-sensitive screens made of some kind of plastic with a number of symbols near them, "this would be some kind of library…I think."
Bishop lightly tapped the screen. Instantly the whole room came alive before the strange archway lit up before it fired beams of energy which resembled what Soong identified as bolts of lightning and they formed a small glowing sphere suspended in thin air before it seemed to 'pull outwards' like the petals of a flower opening like someone was pulling them out…
And then suddenly the space behind the archway opened up to what looked like a beach with a gently lapping sea with a nebula in the sky, surrounded by moons…
"What the hell-?" One of the assistant xenoarchaeologists whispered; Soong didn't know who had spoken and he didn't care, they had just taken the words right out of his mouth.
"Is that some sort of hologram?" Bailey asked, although her uncertainty told Soong she didn't expect it to be.
"No. I don't," Soong replied, and he was going to point out it didn't make sense why an alien race would place a holographic window showing scenes from other worlds in a control room before the image 'blinked' and was replaced by another picture, this time showing some kind of coral reef on some distant world.
"Guys, look at this map," one of the xenoarchaeologist assistants called, and Bishop, Bailey and Soong walked over and found the young girl holding up a scanner to the map showing the galaxy. It looked the same as before only now there was a large white spot highlight on the surface of the galaxy, and all over the map there were small purple triangles, some of them really close together, but there were others that were light-years apart.
"Is that…Mars?" Bailey asked uncertainly, pointing at the highlighted white spot.
"I think so, but look, if this dot is Mars, it's connected to another point….here," Lucie pointed out.
An idea was blossoming in Soong's mind, and he hurried over to the archway. Ignoring the others the scientist waited until the image changed, he stuck his hand through.
Bishop couldn't believe what he was seeing, he knew how obsessive the other scientist was, but he had never imagined him being this reckless before. "Soong, what do you think you're doing?!" He yelled, and he rushed over.
Soong wasn't listening. He was enjoying the feel of a cool breeze on his hands. Suddenly he felt himself being pulled away and shoved clear of the gateway, but he found his vision blocked by Bishop. "What the hell do you think you were doing?" Bishop hissed at him.
"I was just testing a theory. When we came here, it was pointed out we don't know how the aliens arrived on this planet. But we do now!" Soong added with a grin even though he prayed Bishop and the others didn't send a report off about what he had done.
"What, through there?" Bailey pointed at the archway, keeping her newfound belief Roman Soong was as irrational as his brother to herself for now; at the moment she was trying to wrap her mind around the fact they'd just discovered a race who was light years more powerful than the Ancient Martian civilisation.
"Yes, I was wondering how any race would manage to build a colony here without using the underground spaceports. They didn't need to. I'd already guessed they had used some kind of transmat technology, and here it is," Soong grinned as he pointed at the archway, which had changed again, this time showing a humid/desert-like world with rough adobe buildings which looked strangely primitive if it wasn't for the signs of advanced technology like ships and scanners and disruptors.
"Matter transmission? Some sort of wormhole?" Tamsin looked around the room as she asked the questions.
"Makes sense. We know the Vulcans, and other races, teleport themselves using a very small wormhole that barely sends people out beyond a light year. Why wouldn't there be a more superior offshoot or evolution of the technology, where you only need to step through a transporter doorway and you find yourself on another planet?" Lucie said with a shrug while she gazed at the changing vistas curiously.
"The map. Don't forget this archway was connecting to other points on the map," Bailey pointed out, glancing at the map, "and look at it now; it's connected to a point on the other side of the galaxy."
"I can't even begin to imagine what kind of mind came up with something like this," Bishop said breathlessly as the implications of what they had begun to dawn in his mind, as it was in all of their minds, "Is this what's going to happen with other races who develop transporter technologies, they come across the means of creating wormholes this sophisticated like out of a science fiction movie?"
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" Soong chuckled.
X
Inside the cell ship, the occupants checked the scanners.
"The humans have activated the Iconian gateway," one of the crew reported.
"From what we know of the gateways, their inclusion in our possession would greatly help our cause, so do not forget that!" One of the crew pointed out.
"When shall we transport down?"
"Not until tomorrow morning. The scanners need to find a weakness in the underground strata for us to beam in."
"Good. In the meantime that will give us plenty of time to send in a report to the Helix, and it will give us the time we need to fully understand the Iconian technology."
Until the next time..
