Chapter 22:

During the summer many of us got an invitation to dinner at Hermione Granger's house, floo address "Granger House". Since we did not know how separate her house is from non-magicals, Luna and I wore our track suits, instead of wizard wear.

We arrived by floo, and were met by Hermione. As everyone arrived, we went to a large room with many seating areas. She offered us all a tour of the house. It had many expanded areas, and she explained that any non-magical visitors could only go to areas that matched the exterior dimensions of the house. She explained that the house has top of line wards and access control.

The highlight of the tour was her subbasement workshop. It had several computers, some disassembled, and a lot of table space, all of which had been cleared off before our visit. There was also a room with shelves full of technical books. "This is the T1 line, which delivers about 2 million bits per second of internet connectivity. The workshops have carefully separated magic and non-magic technology areas. A vastly improved communication mirror, lets me access the otherwise non-magic technology from anywhere. Kazakh-PC should be selling it next year, but I got a prototype for each of you."

Dennis Creevey asked, "How are you allowed to tell us so much about it?"

Hermione answered, "The amount I have to keep secret is surprisingly small. I can freely share a lot and you in turn don't have to keep what I say a secret."

Dinner had some really good Kazakh dishes, including Radish Salad and Beshbarmak along with Shepherds Pie and few other Wizarding British standbys. She explained, "Director Morozov showed me how to introduce other cuisines, by making sure that familiar ones are available at the same time."

I asked Harry Potter if he went to Kazakhstan also, to which he replied, "Not this summer. I'm in my auror class here. Actually, I have to be back at it at 6am tomorrow."

Luna asked, "How is Alastor Moody treating you?"

Harry suddenly looked around the room, then answered, "Unrelenting. I have to be ready for a surprise attack from him anytime. He also gives me some of the toughest assignments. He wants me to excel compared to the adult students."

We didn't ask him any more about his future plans. If he and Hermione wanted to announce anything, they would. Whether he might eventually work for Morozov probably depended on those plans.

We walked over to talk to Fred and George Weasley, Fred gave me some sort of salute and said, "Still obliged."

I asked him, "We never did find out what happened with your invitations."

George said, "We had our 17th birthdays on the 1st of April, and thereby adults by Wizarding law. We kept in contact with Director Morozov who was insistent that we only visit when we could legally."

Fred continued, as they alternated speaking, "We traveled by official port-key for a long weekend in April."

"An amazing place."

"We can speed up our inventions with a support staff."

"And we can still do our planned joke business with full ownership."

"We invent things for Starfleet"

"Get paid well"

"and still get to sell our own joke items by owl delivery"

"Part of our pay is they help with the non-inventing parts of our joke business"

"While we keep all the profits."

"We are going back for our 7th year at Hogwarts."

"Vadim said we shouldn't miss it, work will still be there next year."

I asked, "During the part of the summer when you and Hermione are there, do you see her much?"

George answered, "We do get together often. However, we work for Starfleet and she works for Kazakh-PC."

Fred continued, "Even it is owned by Starfleet, they have separate locations."

George continued, "They make it easy for us to pop in to Akmola, from our undisclosed location."

I was interested in how the PC market had changed due to changes to the timeline. I didn't ask Hermione about it, because I didn't think she would be free to talk about their marketing strategy and analysis, or even if she knew much about it, since she was in research and development.

I looked at different periodicals. The role of Microsoft was clearly diminished. While they were still doing a major marketing effort to launch Windows 95, it was already competing against free alternatives. While some in the US wanted to ban imports of Kazakh-PC, and even legally shut down open source software, MACUSA, their magical congress intervened to not do so. They saw that emerging global standards were needed, and that the US needed to be competitive against the best that the rest of the world can produce.

Starfleet US branch, as it was starting to be referred to, essentially copied some of the steps that Starfleet Kazakhstan did. It put together a network of front companies throughout the entire high-tech industry. Many of those companies hired open source developers. Those companies cooperated with those in Kazakhstan to develop global standards. They also freely copied each others magical inventions.

Unicode 2.0 was being developed, and it left room for a considerable number of eventual extra-terrestrial written languages. Meanwhile, the emerging standard of software was all using Unicode.

Intel was flooding their market with Pentium Pro, 350 nanometer scale processors at a fairly low price. With the help of the different branches of Starfleet and magical ministries, Intel and Kazakh-PC agreed to mutual licensing and producing compatible chips, and to compete purely in manufacturing ability.

Despite the tense, almost cold war relationship between Russia and Kazakhstan, and their respective allies, space cooperation continued unabated. At this point, nations around the world were trying to show off how much they can contribute to the International Space Station and eventual space travel.

Looking beyond the Space Station, Starfleet was working on an international standard for future long distance space ships. After planning a modular space station, they mapped out a modular ship. It would have a reliable nuclear powered drive and a standard drive section. Then it can be matched to cargo, or human passengers. For longer flights, such as to the outer planets, they were working on suspended animation. For now, they had to use non-magical methods for suspended animation, and for the nuclear drive. The platform was going to be called DY-100, and yes it looked the same as in the Star Trek Original episode Space Seed.

Other technology news I noticed, was a more rapid introduction of the DVD, in Japan, than I think happened in my original history. Also, I noticed that Toyota seemed to be the company selling more of the new type of electric car I saw in Kazakhstan than any other. Kazakhstan no longer had a monopoly on improving technology using magic.

I was finally starting to find a good selection of news articles on the web. It also might have been a little earlier than in my history. Some had advertising, but others required a paid subscription to see more than headlines.

Dumbledore met with the Picards and Lovegoods. I started with, "We should think about how to use more magic in spacecraft, before eventually meeting extraterrestrials. Perhaps, magic as a type of technology used in machinery, could be gradually introduced, rather than wizards and witches as people. If there happened to be specialized technicians tending to the apparently magical technologies, they still would be considered by non-magicals as witches and wizards to be hunted."

Then I asked him about some of the international wizarding events going on behind the scenes. He answered, "In my role as Supreme Mugwump, I do involve myself in resolving international disputes.

The magical ministry of Japan is demanding that they get their own Star Fleet research center, under one of their own wizards. China, India, and Africa are watching the result of that demand, and would likely expect the same if Japan's demand is met. Germany expects the same, as part of a hodgepodge of European Union non-magical communities, and those European magical ministries that want to be part of this trend, as opposed to the traditionalists which do not. As of this time, it is not yet clear which side Wizarding Britain and Ireland will be part of."

I answered, "I think you should encourage a spreading of Starfleet assets around the world, so no part feels left out. At the same time, there should be a good coordination of their efforts and goals, with perhaps Starfleet headquarters under the authority of the ICW providing guidance, which eventually could become control and unification."

Luna added, "Section 31." Everyone but me, looked puzzled. She continued, "There needs to be a secret organization that can look towards the future of the Earth, and take action where needed to keep things on the right path. Action that could seem ruthless at times. Seers could be part of that directorate's planning."

I added, "That is also part of Star Trek canon. There would be a Starfleet charter, with numbered sections, and section 31 of that charter would vaguely describe allowing emergency actions to be taken to safeguard the future of Earth when needed.

What this means in practice is that we will prevent the bad parts of the next steps of Star Trek canon from happening, with a covert force that could bring to heel even directors if needed."

Dumbledore looked surprised and said, "You two want to head this covert force."

I said, "Something to think about. If we did this, maybe you could be the official head of the organization, especially since it seems that Britain is not part of the various regions trying to compete with each other. Your obvious behind the scenes leadership in getting rid of the Death Eater threat might help."