IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!
Author's Note: So far, everything's been going pretty well for the ASB, with them keeping the Council off-balance and generally taking advantage of First Contact as best they can. This is when the Council gets their act together.
Procrastination bit me in the butt again...
Council Tower (POV: Tevos)
As I awoke from the nap I had used to recover from my partially self-inflicted headache, I considered the ultimate root cause. Namely the ASB. Their activities had to stop, but using force would just trigger the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario they'd proved they could do. In addition we only knew the location of ONE of their systems with any degree of certainty, with them doubtless having seeded enclaves all over the galaxy. There had to be an option we hadn't considered, some advantage we had over them. Finally, one occurred to me, namely long-distance FTL. While warp certainly got up to top speed quicker than Mass Effect FTL, ME FTL had the great advantage of a higher top speed once it got going. This opened up destinations that warp simply wasn't very practical to go to.
One such destination was a satellite galaxy, which if I recalled correctly the ASB had named the Large Magellanic Cloud. Add to that the fact that we'd managed to (with much difficulty) figure out the basics of WormComm technology from those 'entertainment media consoles' the ASB had given to us and we could easily maintain contact with such a colony. With a bit of Mass Effect cheating to reduce the energy cost, we could possibly establish a gateway for ships to travel through. Mining an entire satellite galaxy for Element Zero would greatly reduce our supply limitations, in addition to granting assets the ASB would at the very least need a substantial amount of time to reach. By my calculations, an eezo drive propelled craft could reach the Large Magellanic Cloud in just over 40 days, while a warp driven vehicle would require most of a year before it arrived. This project was something that could work.
Location Classified, 18 months later (POV: A Salarian named Relt)
As we prepared to fire up the Gate, I blanched a bit internally. Yes, we had managed to make a device that could maintain a doorway sized portal stable enough for someone to walk through 7 months ago (currently being used to secretly link Thessia and Sur'Kesh), but there was a big difference between that and a portal 2.5 kilometers in diameter. Still, everything checked out.
I had managed to acquire the privilege of a seat in the main control center (which was 2 light weeks out and connected by a reverse-engineered WormComm). As the opening sequence started, I watched the energy flow readouts carefully. This was not our first, or second, or third attempt at producing a wormhole this large. All three previous attempts had however exploded violently in a horrendous tangle of distorted space-time and short-lived Event Horizons, the first when we turned it on, and the second and third when we tried to move it via FTL. This meant a certain degree of wariness was warranted. This was why we had the Gate out in the system's Oort Cloud, while the control station was in this star's goldilocks zone.
Initial power source/engine activation successful. Violation of thermodynamics achieved.
I released a breath I didn't even know I had been holding, as the power systems and engines that would both sustain the link and enable the massive construct to move came to life. That part was fairly routine however, with literally thousands of ships using the same process at a time in this galaxy alone. Now came the hard parts.
Establishing initial singularity. Successful.
This was another crucial step, as a microscopic black hole was squished into existence and kept from evaporating in a puff of Hawking radiation by a process we still weren't quite sure on the mechanics of.
Initiating rotation, shift to Ring Singularity. Successful.
And here, the miniature black hole was spun into a ring, forcing a hole in reality open. But going through it wouldn't lead to translocation until the next step.
Quantum photocopying Ring Singularity. Successful.
An apparent impossibility, splitting a singularity. But this machinery achieved it with contemptuous ease. This resulted in two apparently identical Ring Singulartities. And whatever went in one came out the other. In addition, the Event Horizon only sheathed within a micrometer of the singularity ring itself, allowing for vessels to traverse the gateway anywhere within its 2.5 kilometer diameter, seamlessly. While the ASB ultimately knew more about wormhole dynamics than I ever would, they simply couldn't get the energy requirements for a Gate low enough without eezo. And if they were mining and refining eezo, we still likely wouldn't know about it.
and, with the wormhole established, came the true moment of truth.
Gate End 1 going to FTL. Successful.
Large Magellanic Cloud or Bust.