Chapter 54:

The research using dilithium crystals had a breakthrough. Using dilithium crystals, the warp core could channel more energy to subspace, and then through the manifolds to the warp field generators in the warp nacelles. To make use of the greater energy capacity, a greater level of anti-matter production was needed on board, and various other power handling upgrades. Fortunately, Starfleet ships were modular, so additional fusion powerplants were placed on ships, and overall larger ships were used to make room for the upgrades.

The research group explained, "The use of dilithium crystals for warp are very analogous to how spell casters use wands for magic. While many spell casters can perform magic without wands, magic works so much better with wands that almost all spell casters use wands. A wand does not create magical power, it focuses it. Dilithium crystals do not create power, they channel power from matter and anti-matter reactions. Anti-matter is itself a method of channeling energy, since it is created using energy, and not found as it is."

With the new larger ships, warp 2.1 was achieved. Two of these ships were built, each carrying four dilithium crystals, including a spare. The design of the ships was from Star Trek Enterprise, NX-01, in the Star Trek Enterprise series. Much of the saucer section was used by the expanded powerplants. It was also loaded up with a large number of drones and photon torpedoes.

The ships had phasers, but they were regarded as having limited use since they operated at light speed. There was research being done on phasing subspace energy, but it was nowhere close to being invented. Phasers were considered a useful weapon out to maybe 100,000 kilometers, if the enemy is not trying to dodge it. However, phasers were being mainly setup to combat drones and torpedoes. They had computer and magical controls to rapidly acquire and fire upon close-in targets. There was even a protocol to deal with effective stealth, by rapidly firing in every direction.

Each ship had 25 crew members, 12 marines and carried 250 colonists in stasis. Each ship carried, in magically shrunken form, the materials to unfold three space stations, and one ground colony. On February 12th 2012, both ships left Earth orbit, heading for Proxima Centauri. They would travel together after that to Alpha Centauri A and B. At least one space station would be placed in orbit around each of the three stars, and the additional stations would be placed where it made sense to. Warp 2.1 is 9.26 times the speed of light, so the trip there would take less than 6 months.

There were going to be not only subspace repeaters at Centauri, but a subspace internet relay. The naming convention was one of the only times I can remember Hermione Granger-Potter being overruled. She had designed a system to communicate with Vesta, to have a subspace router for low latency internet traffic with a very limited bandwidth, combined with a lightspeed internet for high volumes of data, but minutes of latency. She wanted the same top level domains for both, with automatic switch, which she had designed.

The committees ruled that subspace got its own top level domain, ".s," and then subdomains below it, such as ".ves" for Vesta, and eventually ".cen" for the Centauri systems, with subdomains below it, example ". .s" for the third planet around Proxima Centauri. To communicate with Vesta, you would need to choose ".ves.s" for quick latency but low bandwidth communication or ". " for slow latency but high bandwidth. The committee also pointed out that lightspeed communication to 4 light years away made no sense, since it was expected that warp speed ships would go back and forth and could carry data storage media far faster.

Briefings on the Tellarites were given. Earth's embassy on Vulcan used its encryption when delivering its report. This was not to hide any military secrets, but simply to avoid offending the Tellarites with their descriptions of them.

"Tellarites are argumentative and sound like they want to fight, but in the end they are quite reasonable. They are impatient and show a stubborn pride. They exhibit strong emotions even when talking to Vulcans. They will greet new acquaintances with a series of complaints or insults.

They prefer rooms at higher temperatures than humans do, while at the same time seem to be from a very cold environment on the settled parts of their home world."

I added "While the Tellarites argue a lot, they were reliable allies in canon. They did however have an armed conflict with the Andorians at some point before the Federation started in canon. Also, individual Tellarites had been bounty hunters, slave traders, and smugglers, but those activities were not supported by their government, as far as I could determine.

There was a theory about the Tellarites I had read, that they come from an unforgivingly harsh and extremely cold environment. They learned to test everything and everyone, because they could not survive errors. It is a trait that makes them good engineers. When dealing with people and ideas, they want to see them withstand argument before relying on them."

I arranged a visit with a former professor.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Mr. Picard? Are you going to enlighten me as to how I should follow your family's potion formulas?"

I answered, "I wouldn't dream of it, Potions Master Snape. It is not potions that I came to talk to you about, but your wit, and how you can use it to help our planet."

"My wit? Has contact with strange crystalline molecules reduced your senses from the barely adequate level they were in my potions class, to the level of a dunderhead?"

I answered, "We are about to meet a people called the Tellarites. They enjoy argument and insult as a pastime, and prefer the company of those that can hold their own with them. I cannot think of a better qualified envoy to meet their delegation than you."

"Aside from the fact that I do not know what we want from them, what we have to offer them, and how violent to expect them to get if I manage to land an insult that they appreciate?"

"You'll get a full briefing. It is easier to teach you what you'll need to know, then to train someone who knows the facts but lacks the talent in the fine art of sarcasm."

"Very well, Mr. Picard. I do expect to be compensated well. My potion brewing time which I will be missing, is quite rewarding."

The research projects on Dilithium Crystals were the next big industrial scale project of Starfleet. It was understood that Starfleet would need dilithium, need a lot of it, and that it was a consumable. We hadn't had a crystal wear out yet, so one area of research would start later, which is finding a way to recrystallize a worn out crystal.

Finding both a detection spell and finding a detection technology for Dilithium was underway, but slowly. Some sort of subspace scan was being looked into. For magic, a variant of the accio spell was being looked into. The main limitation would be range of the spell for a search that would cover every object in the Solar System.

Dilithium had an aspect in subspace. Detection spells could still focus on their aspect in real space, if necessary, but we determined that magic worked in subspace. There were experiments done while ships were in warp, and also spells used in warp nacelles.

The most promising research direction was to use a derivative of the Doubling Charm, called Gemino. The main limitation of Gemino was that duplicated items are less useful than the original. They tarnish or break down over time. This is not as much of a limitation as it would seem. Dilithium crystals were already something that was used up. If we made a lot of duplicates, put them in stasis, and each could be used for a period of time, then starships could have years worth of crystals and not even need their own spell casters on board.

We were able to maintain warp 2.1 using doubled dilithium crystals. A procedure was setup to rotate crystals out and introduce new ones in advance of them breaking down. As far as we could tell the duplicated crystals were as good as the original ones, when new, but deteriorated over time.

With this breakthrough we shipped to the Vulcans on their next ship heading to Vulcan, 100 duplicated dilithium crystals in stasis boxes. To use them, a button would be pressed, ending the stasis, just before the crystals would be used. We asked them to test them out for suitability and if they were suitable for their uses we would like to setup a long term trade of supplying them with these duplicates. We wanted to show the Vulcans that we could help them, not just receive help from them.

Knowing that we could produce warp 2.1 ships, we scaled up the shipyards. Mining stations were setup throughout the Asteroid belt. Space development now reached a point where ordinary people on Earth could decide to work in space, and not just a few specialists. There was no shortage of people wanting to do so. While not a lot of people wanted to be a miner on Earth, many wanted to be miners in space. In both cases, the jobs were mostly automated.

Starfleet Command, a new directorate, put together a plan for near space. Every star within 15 light years would be sent a fleet of three starships. Each ship can build three space stations and one ground station. Any star system that is unoccupied would be claimed in this way. Star systems that have warp capable civilizations would be greeted. Ones with sentient life that was not warp capable would be left alone. Initial approaches would use magical stealth. Subspace messages would be sent out to greet any technological inhabitants or visitors before arrival.

Starships added on additional crew than the ones sent to Centauri had. Various scientific disciplines and magical disiplines were represented. Crew could decide whether or not they wanted to be in stasis for the long journey times when they had no missions.

Cargo ships would continue back and forth to any system with a Starfleet presence, starting with the Centauri system. With the modular design, all the ships looked like the Enterprise in Star Trek Enterprise, but with different shaped saucer sections in some configurations.

The goals of occupying any unoccupied star systems were to provide bases for further human expansion, new places for people to live, make use of any unique resources, prevent other civilizations from using these same locations, and mostly, "Because it is there." We had some interesting discussions with the Vulcans when describing our plans, which seemed illogical to them.

Starship design was to be as autonomous as possible. Anything needed from a base for resupply, could probably be built on a starship. They were made as large as needed to fit whatever equipment they would need. The main need to come back to the Sol system would be refit for design improvements, and personnel rotation.

Continuing education was available on the starships, with a large storage of data. The subspace internet relay was limited. Hermione's group was working on getting more data throughput. Experiments within the Solar System were providing information on what frequencies worked in subspace and how nearby parallel channels worked. It was expected that once a station was setup on Proxima Centauri, more research results would be discovered. Hermione gave a goal for her group, "Every human should be able to read every new book, see every new movie, watch their favorite soap operas, have video calls to any other human whenever they want, and have access to the latest inventions."

Starfleet Academy scaled up now, with a large number of people, both magical and non-magical going on starships. Even those going to mining stations in the Solar System, went through certain classes at Starfleet Academy first.