300 Years before Papyrus' 150 Birthday
The CORE was finally finished. After centuries of endless work and failures the complex was finally complete and in working order. Now the real work could start. Officially the CORE was built to provide power to the Underground, allowing for the citizens to have all the conveniences of electric appliances. Unofficially, it is another lab for the famous Royal Scientist, Dr. W. D. Gaster, to work on his many experiments designed to help monster kind exit from the Underground and to once again live upon the Surface.
The tool for such an escape would require a whole lot of energy to even be minutely possible, so creating a large geothermal electric plant is the first step of many in making it happen. Using this massive collection of energy Gaster was hoping that he could create a type of bomb, cannon, or blaster that could help take down the Barrier.
The first attempt was a bit of a failure. The idea was to create a bomb made of metal and magic to lob at the Barrier and when it made contact it would explode taking down the barrier. Unfortunately, no such luck. The amount of energy contained within the bomb was not nearly efficient enough to take the Barrier down. The second attempt involved a canon to be placed in front of the Barrier and using a line from the CORE a shot could be fired carrying ten times the amount of energy that the bomb contained. Once again this experiment failed just as amazingly as the last.
This did not deter the good scientist though, when all his colleagues were disheartened from their lack of success, Dr. Gaster explained that technically the experiments were meant to fail. According to the prophecy, there needed to be souls involved with breaking down the Barrier, something that energy, metal and magic never had. While Dr. Gaster never found himself to be a spiritual monster in the sense that all monsters go to heaven he did have a healthy respect for situations and theories that could not be explained through science alone, it's pretty hard not to believe in ghosts when you worked with some, so he did find value in historic stories that were only a few thousand years old.
Thus, these previous experiments were just that, experiments to make sure that energy, metal, and magic actually could not do the job. This also allowed the scientists to gain readings of what happened when brute force alone was tried, and to see what type of energy output would be needed for the project Dr. Gaster was really banking on.
Dr. Gaster's true project involved creating a blaster made of monster souls, magic, and energy. He would prefer to do it just like the prophecy said, six human souls and one monster soul, to see if that would take down the Barrier. Yet it was not to be, the last human that entered the underground had died after a few years, and was absorbed into the King and Queen's son. Now they were both dead, what a waste.
Children could be so irrational sometimes. Imagine the advancements he could have made in taking down the Barrier permanently if the foolish prince had let him examine the human child before he did something as reckless absorbing their soul and going to the surface to try and lay his dead friend to rest. Now he was dead as well and Dr. Gaster could only reminisce on what could have been. There are rumors that the King's child came back to life in the form of a Yellow Flower, but that was just ridiculous. Reincarnation was not a real occurrence, but it did give Gaster ideas.
To manipulate multiple monster souls in one source and allow it to concentrate the massive amount of magic that such a source would have on the Barrier, that might just be enough to at least significantly dent the Barrier. Then add giving the source access to the CORE's energy you should be able to take down the Barrier for good. After all if seven human souls and one monster soul is said to take down the barrier, what could all the energy from the CORE and about seven hundred no seven hundred and fifty, just to be safe, monster souls do? Dr. Gaster was interested in finding out.
"Dear, dinner's ready. Will you be joining me or do you want me to pack some up for you to eat later?" Gaster looked up to see his wife looking at him from his home office door, a beautiful skeletal female with large eyes and a permanent radiating smile on her face. Smiling he stood to join her.
"I will be more than pleased to join you my darling, what I am doing right now can wait a few moments for me to enjoy dinner with my beautiful wife." Approaching her Gaster lightly brushed his forehead against hers. "How are you feeling today, my dear Helvetica?"
"Much better," Helvetica placed her hand over her chest. "The baby's been calmer lately. Barely giving me any trouble at all."
Smiling Gaster placed his own hand over his wife chest. "I'm glad, I was getting worried. A little birthing sickness is normal, but it was becoming constant for a while there. Now what's for dinner?"
"Well I was hungry for brunch, so I made a quiche." Helvetica laughed and made her way towards the dining room. "I hope you don't mind."
"Of course not, I love your quiche." Gaster followed behind.
"What were you working on?" Helvetica asked as they approached the dinner table set for two.
"Still trying to figure out how to get a bunch of souls into a single source." Gaster sighed as he sat and cut up a slice of quiche to serve to his wife.
"Thank you, dear." She smiled. "Have you even asked King Asgore if this was a project he was willing to back. Collecting all these souls and then placing them in a single source is going to take a massive amount of effort and not many monsters are going to view it as a morally correct action."
"Yes, well you see, my public advisor has been out lately, something to do with having a child. I was hoping that the moment she started to feel better and could get back to work, hopefully it would be possible for her to talk to the King." Gaster smiled. "Dr. Helvetica has such a way with words. If anyone could get the King and monster civilians to agree to my newest hairbrain idea it is sure to be she." Gaster winked at his wife making her giggle.
"My, she sound like quite a woman, doesn't she. If you weren't already married to her I might just be jealous." Gaster laughed.
"You know I only have eyes for one beautiful lady my dear. So what say you? Do you think you can get everyone to see the merit in this idea?"
"Well first off, I'm not your public advisor," Helvetica laughed, "but I know how much you prefer me asking the King for these things." Helvetica then looked at her husband seriously. "Honestly dear I have no idea if he'll go for this. The basic message is good, 'Be one of the seven hundred souls to take down the Barrier. Your sacrifice will help free all of monster kind.' Yet, I'm sure you can also hear the moral qualm at the same time. Not everyone is going to see the merit of such a message and will oppose being used as some sort of tool. Being rational is not something that all of monster kind can be known for."
"Yes, I can see your point. Even the King cannot be considered too rational in his thinking. For centuries we have lived with the barrier with no real move to take it down. Then his son makes it through, gets killed, and now he wishes to take it down? And for vengeance no less. No it's not all that rational is it." Gaster sighed himself as the couple went into silence, both thinking on the predicament.
"Are we being rational my dear?" Helvetica asked quietly.
"What?"
"Is it rational for us to not question this idea of harvesting hundreds of souls, putting them in one contraption, and hoping that plus the energy from the CORE will be enough to take down the Barrier? I mean nothing so far has worked so what are the likenesses of this actually working? Not to mention seven hundred souls is just a starting point, no? Depending on the prototypes, we will probably be needing more than just that. I don't know, sometimes I wonder if the moral argument actually has a place in this." Helvetica was pushing the last bit of her quiche around as she spoke, not looking at her husband. This made Gaster sigh and place his head in the palm of one of his hands.
"What you say is true my love. It is very likely this is a giant goose chase, and that this idea is not very likely to work. Besides I re-ran the calculations and I figured that seven hundred and fifty should be the new starting point to be safe. So are the lives that this idea will ruin worth the potential success? I don't know how to answer such a question. It borders too much on a philosophical debate for my liking." Gaster sighed.
"Fifty more, fifty less, it really makes no difference in the grand scheme of things does it? Maybe we should ask Gerson what he thinks." Helvetica smirked while Gaster looked at his wife, alarmed at her suggestion.
"Please don't. You know that old tortoise will do nothing more than tell us that we should not be taking down the Barrier and to wait for the prophecy to come true. Like we all have as much time as that old coot." Gaster moaned as if he was pain. "Please my dear, do not subjugate me to his company over this."
Helvetica could not help but laugh at her husband's childish antics. "I wouldn't dream of it my dear. But we must remember that King Asgore does value his judgment. It may be necessary to think of an answer for both and not just one, it would at the very least make any answer we do come up with that much stronger."
"True. Let's get some tea and throw some ideas around. How does that sound?" Gaster went to get up and clean off the table.
"Sounds good to me my love. I'll get a pot ready." Helvetica went off to the kitchen to get their favorite jasmine tea prepared.
The rest of the night revolved on how to get the public to support the newest hair-brain idea of Dr. W. D. Gaster. Just because he was a famous scientist did not mean that the monster citizens would support everything that he proposed. The CORE gave them the modern convenience of electricity, something that in the year 171X didn't initially give them much in the form of an ease in living, but was full of hope and promises. With the help of some marvelous engineers, such as Alrep and Protile Pogona, they were able to make modern miracles that extended monster health and gave them new distractions. What will creating the Doctor's Balster give them?
Well freedom right?
What more could monsters want than freedom from the underground? But what will be the cost of this freedom?
"How about the use of inmate souls." Dr. Helvetica said with a bit of trepidation.
"What my dear?" Gaster asked being pulled from his own thought process.
"We could use inmate souls." Helvetica said with a bit more pep.
"My dear, monsters are a mostly peaceful race, we don't exactly have a massive amount of inmates to pull from." Gaster said taking a sip from his tea. His wife laughed.
"That's where you are wrong my dear husband. Monsters are mostly peaceful yes, but that does not mean we do not have inmate. We have approximately a thousand inmates, 9 of which are serving life sentences. I can't believe I didn't think about it before." Helvetica started staring off again trapped in her own thoughts. Gaster looked at his wife like he was seeing her for the first time.
"My dear, could you please explain to me how you know there are monsters being held in a prison within the Underground? It's been mostly common knowledge that there is no such thing for monsters." Gaster said with a little surprise in his voice. This made his wife laugh again.
"Gaster please, you can't possibly buy the notion that every monster that has ever lived in the Underground has had nothing but good intentions." Helvetica giggled. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh I was a bit taken aback as well when I first found out, but I would like to imagine that I wasn't quite so surprised. I never truly bought the notion that all monsters were essentially good, it was a nice surprise to learn that I was right."
"Again how exactly do you know of this? And where are they? The Underground isn't that big, we should know if such a place as a prison existed. Shouldn't we?"
"Maybe, maybe not. The prison lays below the King's Palace, so it's hard to know how many people would think that a thousand prisoners were under the same roof as the King himself. I know because I'm working primarily with behavioral therapy, you know that." Helvetica said looking at her husband to make sure he was following.
"Oh! Oh my, yes that makes so much sense. I just thought you were, well honestly I was never really too sure, you're always so quiet about your work. So what, you are trying to rehabilitate these poor souls?" Gaster asked with a bit more clarification.
"You could say that, yes. We try to understand them and then work out ways to make them assimilate into society without causing anymore trouble." Gaster couldn't help but smile at his wife.
There were many reasons why Gaster loved Helvetica and her mind was in part a major reason. While Dr. Gaster himself was much more a master of chemistry and biology, his wife was a master in the social sciences. They met while they were both apprenticing at the original Lab in the Hotlands. While they both were focusing in different departments their paths crossed more than a few times, and after they started to get to know each other more their paths became parallels. Both of them working directly under the King was the result of them trying to make sure they could spend more time with each other. She was the King Royal Psychologist, while he was the King's Royal Scientist. It wasn't any surprise when the two started dating, and more people were encouraging them to get married then there were those who opposed the two's relationship.
"So why exactly is it not common knowledge that the the Underground has, what was it a thousand inmates?"
"Yes dear." Helvetica laughed. "The Royal Propaganda runs deep. No one wants to believe that there are criminals in the Underground. We all live so close together now it would make people feel unsafe. So people just don't spread it around when there are rumors. When people encounter a rogue monster they tell the Royal Guard, they take them to King Asgore, the media never says anything about any disturbances and the people live happy. Simple my dear."
"So no one cares about these 'rogue' monsters that are lucky enough to live under King Asgore's roof?" Gaster asked intrigued.
"Well, yes and no. Of course some of the families ask about them, but most are too ashamed to wonder about them. They either believe them to be dead or have said that they do not wish to know about them anymore and treat them as if they are." Helvetica looked a little sad over this. "It's really quite depressing if you think about it. Out of the thousand we are treating only about a dozen actually still have family that still worries about them. Even if we could help them all, only a few would have any family or life that they could go back to. The rest are just lost causes in the grand scheme of things." said disheartened.
"Yet the point is to potentially figure out a way to help future cases no?" Gaster inquired hopefully, concerned for his wife's sudden shift in mood.
"Of course, yes. It's all about the end result. To figure out what are making the monsters tick and to make sure more don't become permanent residents within the Castle." Helvetica smiled at her husband to hopefully dispel any concern about her mood. Gaster smiled back.
"So we could get Asgore to give us seven hundred and fifty of these lost souls?"
"Oh yes, I have no doubt. You know how much he wants the Barrier down right now. If we are using souls from inmates that are viewed to be lost causes anyway there should be no real disagreement. We also won't even need to get citizens involved in this debate, philosophical or not."
"Very true, saves a whole set of headaches. What of you colleagues also working with this research?" Gaster pondered.
"Not likely to be a problem. I know these people I can get them to back you." Helvetica said sounding pleased with herself.
"Good to hear." Gaster looked at the clock on the wall. "Well my dear I do believe that it is time for us to get some rest. I presume you are planning to go to work tomorrow if you are feeling better?"
Helvetica looked at the clock in a bit of shock, it was almost 1:00 am. The two could always talk for hours on end if they weren't careful. "Yes, I do plan on it." She smiled at her husband who was picking up their tea set and making his way to the kitchen. "I'll see you upstairs my dear."
Slowly Helvetica made her way to the bedroom. Ever since she got pregnant everything seemed to take her longer to do and was exceptionally more difficult, so climbing the flight of stairs was taking her a lot longer than she would have liked. It was no real surprise, babies were known to drain a lot of the mother's magic and seeing as Skeletons were held together with most of their magic reserv it was only logical to expect mothers to become a little sluggish regardless of how much magic they have stored. Finally, getting to the top of the stairs Helvetica stopped for a moment to catch her breath.
"Maybe it would be best if you took one more day off." Helvetica jumped a bit, not expecting her husband to be behind her. Gaster placed a hand on the small of her back. "Careful my dear. I would hate for you to fall while you are at the top of the stairs."
Helvetica smiled at her husband. "Well, Mr. Sneaky-Bones maybe you shouldn't startle me so much and we wouldn't have to worry about me falling." She laughed when Gaster looked at her shocked.
"Yes, I should have kept that in mind." He said a bit dejectedly. Helvetica cupped his face in her hands.
"Don't worry my love, I'm fine." She touched her head to his. "I love you."
"I love you as well." Gaster said as he held his wife in an embrace.
"Let's go to bed." Helvetica said moving away. "We have an important day tomorrow. You will get you souls and can finally really start on getting monsters to the Surface once more."
"Yes it is sure to be a momentous day." Gaster said following his wife to their room.
Helvetica Gaster: Wife to the famous Royal Scientist W.D. Gaster.
After meeting the now famous scientist when they were just apprentices at the original Lab in the Hotlands, Helvetica quickly became friends with him and they soon started dating. After many years of dating, Gaster felt he should marry the love of his life and proposed to Helvetica who instantly said yes. A few years later Helvetica found out that she was pregnant and that's were we meet up with the happy little family.