Chapter 40:

Renée's classes at Starfleet School were for students who already showed accidental magic. They helped to refine the deliberate, rather than accidental use of magic. Since many had their accidental magic under emotional intense moments, they were taught meditation, occlumency, and intention. Occlumency helped prevent accidental magic, help with memory, as well as preventing other people from reading their minds.

Students who were ready, learned to engage emotions and intention, so as to create controlled wandless magic. For others, they started using focii, such as training wands and staffs. The lessons were carefully designed to not interfere with their future bonding to their permanent wand. There was a careful monitoring of magic levels to give only the lessons that the student could handle.

The time to get a wand is not fixed as it was at Hogwarts. It was based upon a determination as to when a student is ready for a wand. It can be younger than 11 or older than 11, and the social environment is arranged to make sure than no-one is made to feel above or below their peers of the same age.

Starfleet's work on phasers have been advancing. I managed to get much more clarity of memories from watching various Star Trek series, and also Luna's and my visit to a duplicate of a Klingon ship. The information was alsol distilled, removing anything that would lead to my origin.

This led to an understanding that a warp field generator of a warp engine does not produce power, that it instead uses power. That the power itself is from harnessing matter with anti-matter reactions, generally made from deuterium and directing that energy in a controlled manner.

What this understanding meant for our research was that we can concentrate on all aspects of technology except actually channeling the energy to create a warp field. We can build a warp core well in advance of building a warp field generator.

Our current level of ability was in very slowly accumulating anti-matter using magic based energy sources. This ability is good enough to create photon torpedoes, which only needs to collapse the containment. It would not suffice for high energy phasers or a warp drive. We needed to invent proper channeling of plasma, and an ability to create anti-matter much faster.

There were some hints in the series that fusion reactors themselves might have been used to create anti-matter aboard ships. At least in the Star Trek Original Series era, the critical resource seems to have been dilithium crystals, which were used to channel and contain the plasma with huge amounts of energy. They never mentioned needed to acquire more anti-matter. In a way it was obvious that if you could create anti-matter at a central facility, you could make a starship large enough to have the same capability. However there was at least one instance where the Starship in Star Trek Enterprise needed to barter for more deuterium.

The experts in the R&D centers concurred that the plan would be to develop the power systems that would provide phaser beams, impulse drives, and shields, first.

Anti-gravity was considered another priority, but there was no pathway understood to lead to that technology. At the same time, we were researching using magic without technology for anti-gravity. The system would have to work not just in static gravity fields, such as creating zero-g on Earth, or 1-g in space, but in preventing injury and damage when sudden high-g maneuvers are needed.

Several research facilities were to be built in space stations in the vicinity of the asteroid Vesta. Each experiment would take place at least 100 km away from other experiments, and all personnel. Vesta itself would have a 1200 km loop near its surface for particle collision experiments.

On Earth, the now worldwide use of magic power stations was handled by saying that they were licensed only with a self-destruct trigger if anyone tried to get into the sealed section of it, except for authorized technicians, and that was due to the ease of getting material for atomic bombs from it. It was a necessary step, but worried us since it was a part of Luna's boggart vision a few years back, that had led to the discovery of magic.

In 2006, another emphasis by Starfleet, was to have an equal amount and type of help offered to each non-magical government. There would be some requirements on the part of the non-magical government for each type of help, so not every nation would get the same help. Also, some areas of the world were more technologically developed than others, but no-one actually accepted this argument, pointing out that Kazakhstan was not very advanced, except for having space launching infrastructure, at the time they started receiving help.

Another Starfleet program was based on the principle that Starfleet operations that depend on magic need an alternative that would be functional without magic. Therefore there was intensive research into actual fusion reactors. If magic failed for whatever reason, ships should not be stranded, even if battery power could run life support for a long time. In addition, fusion reactors would contain many of the same technologies that warp engines would eventually need, including handling of plasma, deuterium, high temperatures.

In this effort, Starfleet China was the leading center. They built a publicly known facility called "Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamek" also called EAST. It already produced plasma and a large electric current, during a short test run. They had a plan called "high-confinement mode" to make the fusion process be able to run for longer periods of time. These plans and accomplishments were more or less what they were already ready to do without magic help. Even their recent launch of their own astronaut into space was unassisted from magic.

Magic was accelerating the rapid experimentation of several promising approaches to fusion power. The public statements were that they were trying to find better methods than the type of fusion power being used world-wide.

Ekdotis Lovegood was born on August 14th 2006. His last name was due to him being the heir to House Lovegood. Renée picked out his nickname, calling him "Ekdy".

I had a meeting with Harry Potter to show him some Star Trek memories about combat on ships, boarding operations, and away missions combat. We decided to make it a social visit also, and invited the Potters to visit our home. Harry, Hermione and their kids James and Evangeline came over.

The kids all played with each other. Jean-Laurent showed James around the vineyard. Cora and Renée played with the animated magical creatures with Evangeline. Hermione was curious about how we were raising each of our kids for their planned role, Renée for a Starfleet career, Jean-Laurent to run the Picard enterprises, Cora as a seer, Ekdy to run the Lovegood enterprise. Hermione asked, "What if that isn't what they want to do?"

Luna answered, "For the boys, the wizarding traditions followed by both the Picard and Lovegood families will give them ownership over these assets, and therefore an assumption that they will run those enterprises. However, the Picard enterprises should also be Tom's role, but he is instead concentrating on Starfleet, and will have nothing to do with running the winery, vineyard, or potions business. They do not have to work in those professions if they wish to do something else, but they are being prepared in case they do. Renée also has free will, but she is being prepared for what I think she will do. Cora has my ability whether she wants it or not, so I can only help her handle her ability, she will not be able to choose whether she wants to be a seer."

In the meeting with Harry Potter we reviewed some video of within ship fighting. Harry said, "No drones, no indirect fire, the use of handheld flashlights."

I added, "I think an 18th century pirate ship's boarding party would outfight what we've seen, even with their more primitive weapons, just due to having greater skill."

We together came up with a list for how it could have been done better. A cloud of drones, providing most of the combat power. The need for the personnel for the attacking force was mostly needed to operate controls on a captured ship, not for the actual capturing of the ship. For the defense, the personnel needed to be protected since they are there and the fighting is coming to them.

We saw how an attack could occur in parts of the ship without any prior warning due to stowaways or unforeseen methods of transport or mental control over personnel. Harry Potter came up with a plan for a defense net of autonomous drones all over a ship, ready to defend at any time. I questioned how to keep that defense net from being reprogrammed to take over the ship.

Luna added "Sometimes there is a mutiny. Sometimes the mutineers are right."

Harry answered, "There needs to be a way for junior offices, in concurrence, to relieve a senior officer. Beyond that, I do not see a way to have the defense net work except to follow the chain of command, and to check for the mental state and any magical compulsion of the officers.

Getting back to examples, lets look at systematically at them in chronological order, which means starting with Star Trek Enterprise season 1. That would be closest to our expected experience after joining the galaxy."

Luna added, "Except we do not know if all the time traveling interference shown is in the future of this timeline."

I added, "Especially that movie about the Borg interfering with the development of the warp drive. They are far more dangerous than our galactic neighbors."

Harry continued, "I'm going to skip past Broken Bow and other similar episodes where Starfleet personnel visit inhabited high technology planets and encounter violent situations therein. The combat preparations they can make are perhaps limited by local law enforcement. Later in that episode, an expected combat situation occurs without much chance for preparation, however the temporal distortion field was a surprise and the personnel improvised about as well as can be expected.

In Fight or Flight, Starfleet boarded what looked like was possibly an abandoned vessel. In this case even though they were not expecting a high probability of combat, they had proper environmental suits and helmet based lighting. Still, their situational awareness was deplorable. They each could view what was in front of them and aimed a hand phaser at possible danger. A full sphere based camera system on their suits would have been much better. With the limitations of their equipment, the team should have been back to back looking at all directions. When an upsetting scene appeared, one of the personnel screamed, which is a unique way of going through the OODA loop which should have been; observe, something dangerous looking, instead of orient, the thing doesn't appear to be active threat, decide and act, investigate further. Instead the crew person screams, backs away, and does not deploy a weapon."

I interrupted, "You sound like how Professor Snape would comment on the response."

Harry laughed and continued, "The crewperson was later sorry for their response, and indicated a lack of training for such situations. So the lesson here, is that every person on an away mission, should be trained for combat and how to respond to upsetting situations. When dealing with other civilizations this is critical, since the wrong response could start a war.

Strange New World is an example of mind influence caused by an alien plant. Here the danger is that crew members could start to fight each other due to random, rather than directed mind influences. This would take a lot of study on how to deal with influences that magnify existing emotions and hypotheses.

In Unexpected, the story starts with a failure of artificial gravity. There is a clue to the technology, that each deck has gravity plating. Defense against failure is difficult if it resulted in a high g event. Ships should automatically stop all acceleration when there is any failure of artificial gravity, and then resume slow acceleration after all people are strapped in. Such facilities should be in every accessible location on a ship. Another lesson was that equipment failure led to a fire put out by personnel with hand-held fire extinguishers. I think automatic systems are available even now.

Terra Nova is an example of where diplomacy mixes with a little bit of fighting. However, looking like a battledroid with a cloud of battledrones might not be ideal for that mission. Maybe we should look into low visibility protections for similar missions.

I'll skip ahead to Fortunate Son. This is an example of where a Starship might need to conduct a law enforcement and to some extent a diplomacy mission. A range of force possibilities are needed, to try to disable and detain if that can be done safely, even while an adversary might be using deadly force.

In Cold Front a guest aboard a Starship is actually a time traveling enemy agent. The time cops appear, but they seem fairly ineffective in stopping timeline changes."

Luna interrupted, "This presents many challenges. Some of the future civilizations that might time travel to our era, the future Suliban or the Borg might be beyond our expectations of capabilities of adversaries. The Borg themselves should not be in contact with Earth for centuries without time travel.

The Temporal Integrity Commission and the temporal agents, should help us. However, I have questions, not answers. Are they capable enough? Would they consider our future knowledge itself a threat? How do they interact with Q? Should we try to contact them? Is there any way for us to help the temporal agents?"

Harry Potter answered, "Above my paygrade. Getting back to the episode, there is the threat of hostile people appearing in crew quarters, bypassing any transportation defenses. Again an issue to be solved with a ship-wide defense net."

In Sleeping Dogs they make the same away team mistakes as before. Lack of situational awareness leads to one crew member being tackled by someone who regards them as invaders. Diplomacy and combat need to be addressed as the opponent is not necessarily a hostile, but one who would regard the Starfleet team as having hostile intent. This requires much thought, how to protect the crew while not starting hostilities with locals before determining the outcome of diplomacy.

Another issue shown in this episode is that the away team tried to operate a ship of another civilization. While figuring out controls has its difficulty, what if there was a password or passkey or biological marker needed?"

I added, "This is where an 18th century pirate crew would do better. They'd capture the authorized operators and make them work for them."

In Fusion we see what Starfleet Headquarters could look like when it is above ground. Later we see the danger of a lightly armed shuttle craft being captured. Another very difficult issue. How to transit to planets when the environment is not secured?

We also learn, that at least in the 2150's some small number of Vulcans exhibit emotions and some use their mind arts aggressively.

In Acquisition we finally see the Ferengi, the people who, in their future version, visited Earth in 1947. They find a Starfleet ship adrift with its crew knocked unconscious and try to claim the ship as salvage or as pirates after they revive the crew and demand assistance in finding and removing valuables from the ship.

That is all the time we have for this visit. We'll have to continue another time."

I answered, "I think we will reach diminishing returns, with fewer lessons as we continue."

Harry said, "I would like to understand more about canon though. The Original series takes place much later than Enterprise, yet the visible technology seems more primitive, in many ways more primitive than even today."

Luna said, "Two possibilities, and I cannot see which is true. One is that these are dramatizations even if the characters are the same as we would see in our reality. That dramatization was done in the 1960's with a limited special effects budget, so might be a lens of sorts, that isn't the full color of the canon reality. Possibility two is that there was a fashion for a very basic sort of user interface to technology at that era in canon history."

I added, "Note also the lack of robots and drones. Not completely absent, but deliberately not commonly used. Also the Original Series has technology interfaces on a human scale. One person shows another a document by passing a pad. One transfers data to another by passing a token, obviously a much larger one that even today's technology would need for the amount of data being contained. Invisible transfers of data aboard a ship are clearly used, but passing tokens are commonly used between people instead of on-line transfers"

Luna added, "A human scale technology, no longer trying to make it as advanced as possible."