Alaia Skyhawk: Ok, here's the rest of what would have been in the other chapter :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.
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Chapter 79: Manefestational Ether
There was a sort of hushed anticipation following his statement, all eyes watching him as the gathered people waited for him to continue. What had already been revealed, was world-changing. What could he possibly say that was bigger than that?
Bunny let them wait, just for a few seconds, but long enough that he knew he had their complete and utter attention. The last time he'd done a talk on the Manefestational Ether, it had been to a seven-year-old Pooka while acting as their private tutor. That memory, and the thought that he might get to teach Pooka kits again someday, made him smile as he at last resumed talking.
"Among you lot, there should be a group from the field of quantum particle research. When you consider the mish-mash of people we invited to this, even so that group is a bit of an odd addition. Except when I get down to the most basic fact about the Ether... What I call the Manefestational Ether, is what you guys call Dark Matter." At the chorus of gasps, he grinned. "That's right, the unseen, undetectable matter that you've theorised the existence of for decades. Which makes up the majority of the mass in the universe, and which stops it all from flying off in different directions."
He went to his projector, bringing up a new diagram on the screen.
"The Ether is a vast and mostly inert sea of particles, that don't react with each other in any way save to conduct resonance over a limited distance, and to passively interact with more regular matter in the conduction of the gravitational forces that hold the universe in shape. But what's really special about the Ether, is that particle interactions among normal matter cause it to resonate on specific frequencies. The range of frequencies upon which the Ether will react, range from around a thousand hertz all the way up to billions of hertz. Most of those frequencies, however, have no natural force that triggers them. Instead, it is possible to build things that cause resonance on those frequencies, and to even cause them to resonate with the power of the mind."
Bunny gazed out across the hall.
"Right now, you lot are doing just that. By the alteration of your perception, caused by you believing that Jack and I are really here, you are causing the Ether to sympathetically resonate on each of the unique 'fingerprint' of frequencies that we've been connected to. Think if it as being like Schrödinger's imaginary cat, which you can't tell is alive or dead without opening the airtight box it's in and looking. Just as shining a light on an electron will cause it to change its speed or its orbit, the perception of you the 'observer' is what causes the Ether to react in those otherwise inert ranges."
He changed his diagram again.
"Every Immortal, be they a Legend or Natural, is at the moment of their creation assigned between twenty and thirty of the unused frequencies. To be theirs to tap into within their planetary region. The more people who believe in them within their region, the greater the amplitude of resonance on those frequencies becomes, and the greater amount of power generated that they can tap into and use. Think of the Ether as a giant wall-socket, with billions of holes for pins, and that each Immortal is assigned their own unique 'plug' to put into it. Legends are only ever linked into the unused frequencies, but Naturals get a second 'plug' that hooks them up to frequencies that resonate in reaction to the natural forces they are to preside over in their territories."
Bunny gestured to Jack, who blinked at suddenly finding himself as a lecture prop.
"Take Jack, for example. As the Spirit of Winter, he is connected to every single frequency that resonates with the compound weather phenomena known as 'winter' for this planet. The reason he's plugged into all of them, is because he's in the top tier for his kind of immortal. By contrast, any lesser Winter Natural will only be connected to a selection of them. Wind resonates across about fifty frequencies, but lesser Naturals who deal with wind will typically only be connected to about two or three of them. Jack has the full whack."
A hand was raised near the back, the owner rising to their feet when Bunny nodded for them to speak.
"You said 'for this planet'. Is that to mean that there are others with Immortals on them? Other worlds that have sentient life?"
A murmur of excitement and speculation spread across the audience, and Bunny gave them a long and wry look.
"And if I were to say, that I am an 'extra terrestrial', would that answer your question?" There were few startled exclamations, but he didn't let any chatter get going. "I'm a Pooka, and my people are known as the Pooka Brotherhood. We're all born as self-sustained immortals, that is mortals who can tap into the power of the Ether in order to extend their lifespan. We're specialists in planetary husbandry. The monitoring of worlds that have life, for the purpose of spotting when something isn't quite right. Something that threatens the continued life on that world, so we go in and fix it without being noticed by the residents. The Earth has had a few rotational stability glitches, and I was the one who sorted them out way back when. I'd go into detail, but that's not what we're here to talk about."
Another tap on the protector, changed the image to a vast star-map.
"You asked if there was sentient life on other worlds, and that is most definitely a yes. The Earth is just outside the fringe of a region of space, where almost a thousand worlds are linked together in friendship, social travel, and trade. That conglomeration of worlds is currently known as the Silver Allegiance, formerly the Golden Allegiance until the fall of the Golden Age caused the name-change. That fall being due to a natural disaster which wiped out the Immortals and Constellations that watched over those worlds. Only myself and a handful of other Immortals, and one Constellation, survived that disaster and ended up here.
"The Earth, and Humans, have long been tagged to be approached with the offer of friendship once you were able to see and be aware of the Immortals set up here on this world to guide you. Unfortunately, at the time us survivors ended up here, contact with the Silver Allegiance would have been catastrophic seeing as that was fifteen thousand years ago and Humanity was still at hunter-gatherer stage. The Man in the Moon decided to remain incommunicado from the Allegiance, to keep outside influences to a minimum, but now you lot are ready. You'll get your invitation soon, by our standards."
On the stage, Director Branspeth tapped his mic.
"Before we get an argument about such, I feel I must ask if the 'Man in the Moon' has considered if we will want such an invitation?"
At his table, Jack snorted and rolled his eyes.
"As as avid reader of book of all kinds, I'd like to point out that mankind has been writing science fiction stories speculating to that sort of thing for over a century. Are you seriously telling me, that the idea of interstellar travel, tourism, and trade is something that as a whole the human race will not want? Give me a break! You guys are already exploring your own solar system, and are nearly to the point of sending a team of astronauts to Mars!"
Marcus raised eyebrows at that, glancing at the Director.
"He makes a good point. Mankind already dreams about reaching for the stars, about finding life out there. Yes, there are those who fear we'll find something that will come back to bite us, but we've just been told that there's a group of a thousand worlds that communicate in friendship with each other. Would we seriously not want to be part of that, once we've had the chance to learn more about it? We can't judge against it, when right now we know so little about it."
At the chatter which that statement started up, Bunny cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.
"You guys are still a couple of decades away from that invitation, at least, so there's no point in dwelling on it now." He pointed towards the research group that specialised in finding new ways to generate electricity. "Instead, I'm about to show you guys something you're really gonna like... A turbine unlike anything you've ever seen before."
He went over to the boxes behind his and Jack's table, lifting out a flat circular device about thirty inches across, which stood on top of a cube that was only four inches square each side. He then plugged a rather heavy-duty cable into the side of that cube, connecting it to an equally heavy-duty power gauge that he'd requested be brought by that research team.
Bunny tilted the device on it's side, allowing them to see the top. The flat metallic disk that sat there, had a misty sheen to it and was punched through with a repeating and almost mesmeric design of holes, slots, and scrolling lines. Bunny pointed to them, and started to explain.
"I can show you how to make this alloy, the transformer, and how to scale up this design. A directly proportional increase in the turbine and transformer sizes, will result in an semi-exponential increase in power generated. Now, that is your power gauge, so you know it's accurate. Check this out."
Bunny set his device flat again, into a sturdy stand he retrieved from another of his boxes, and with a gentle touch of his paw he set the turbine disk spinning. It quickly began to accelerate, and as it did the re-out on the gauge went up almost half-way.
At the surprised reactions of the audience, the power research team in particular, Bunny grinned.
"This is an Etheric Turbine. It doesn't use wind, or water, or steam to push it round. Instead it sets off extreme short-range resonance at the lowest possible frequencies within the Ether around it. With every pulse of resonance created as an action, causing the turbine to move in the opposite direction as a reaction. The turbine then rapidly accelerates up to the point where action and reaction balance out for its size." He folded his arms across his chest, smug. "This is the sort of thing the Earth will gain if it joins the Allegiance when the invitation comes, although I'll give this to you now as a taster.
"A cylinder built tall enough to house ten twenty-foot diameter versions of these, will have the same electrical output as a twin-reactor nuclear power-station. Yet it will require only a tiny amount of maintenance, and with no risks of meltdown or explosion. Ask yourselves which is better for the environment. Also, these turbines can also be scaled down to the size of your palm, to generate an idea level of power for say... electric cars, which are the current big thing as I understand. Basically this technology, the ability to safely generate power though interaction with Dark Matter, will end your reliance on fossil fuels. And the beauty of it is, this technology is totally useless for weaponisation. It has the potential to end conflict over fuel reserves, permanently, because the alloy in this is cheap and very easy to make once you know how."
Bunny gave them all a long look.
"Question is now, do you want me to teach you how to build these?"
The response from the power research team was instant, followed a heartbeat behind by every over mortal in the room, and it was most definitely a yes. The reaction so strongly positive, that even Jack was impressed by it. But part of him did worry, a fact he kept to himself until the conference ended for the day and he opened a mirror to the Warren to take all of Bunny's gear back there for the night.
He waited until they'd brought everything through, and the mirror was closed, before tapping his colleague on the shoulder.
"Um, do you really think it's wise to be giving them that technology? I know it's basically just a generator design, but at the same time they've only just learnt about us."
Bunny glanced at him, even as he lounged casually in a patch of sunshine. It might be night-time in Washington DC, but it was still daytime at the Warren.
"If there's one thing I've learnt about humans, from kids mostly, it's that the right kind of bribery can go a long long way. Etheric Turbines can't be weaponised, because they're impossible to overload. Even if you did manage it, they'd just short out. Try to plug and EMP into one, it wouldn't even start up because the counter-resistance would be too high."
Jack perched himself on a nearby rock, his posture tense.
"But still, it has me worried. What you've done will totally reset the fuel economics of the entire planet, with the monetary economy, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the economy of several oil-rich nations all likely to take a plunge. A lot of people are going to end up broke, starving, and homeless."
Bunny sighed.
"You think I don't know that? The Etheric Turbine isn't the only thing I'm gonna teach them how to do. Once they've got a decent number of them up and replacing power stations, which I can see happening within about five years, I can show them how to put some of that super-cheap electricity to work for farming and other things. When farms have cheap power, they can afford to hire a greater number of people to tend to the little things. Planets in the Allegiance are heavily agricultural, and the working population actually only have a working week of about fifteen hours tops. Life is easy and peaceful simply because everything is so cheap to produce, and that's all down to using Etheric Turbines for clean and limitless power. Humans fight each other, because they're competing with each other for resources. Make the basic necessary resources cheap to get, and you prevent a lot of tension. Even if those science boffins don't build Etheric Generator Towers, I'll be building a lot of them all over the place in the most needy areas first. And there ain't nothing any of them can do to stop me."
Jack raised his eyebrows, and then started to chuckle as he shook his head.
"You're the one who has overseen these transitions before, so I guess I'll just have to trust you on that one... But just in case, I'll keep the winds on lookout for trouble. People can't fight with each other, if they're too busy helpless with laughter to fight. I'll get Kosmotis on watch too, so he can diffuse tensions as well. When they crop up."
Bunny nodded to that, something in his manner revealing he'd relaxed a bit more. Until then, Jack hadn't noticed the Pooka's carefully hidden tension.
"Thanks, I appreciate it. We Guardians, all of us, are gonna have to prepare. Because I figure with the number of sightings now taking place, we have three years maximum before the cat is out of the bag to the general public. Before that happens, we need to get to work on the teenagers that haven't long stopped believing in us, using that same method we used on the researchers last night. They'll be leaving school, heading to work or college, or university, at about time we become public knowledge. The new generation, ready and primed to help make the switch-over, and the good thing is we can probably convince them to keep their belief secret from any adults."
Jack grinned.
"Kids like nothing better than getting on up on the grown ups. Don't worry, I'll make sure they see it as the greatest game." He drifted up into the air from his rock, and conjured a mirror to the Workshop. "And now I think we'd best meet up with the others and start that planning. Because Tooth is gonna have a lot of tooth-containers to ship out and collect again afterwards, unless we rope North into delivering them using his long-distance present delivering spell."
Bunny followed him through the mirror, wearing the same conspirational smile.
"Good idea. It might even keep him occupied enough to stop bugging me."
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Alaia Skyhawk: Modest time-skip after this one. I don't think I need to make you guys sit through day three of that conference. Nope, not when there's more interesting things on the cards :)