Chapter 38:

I noticed some other changes in the timeline in 2001. There was no sign of an impending recession, or what in my timeline was called the dot-com crash. There were many economic differences between the timelines, including that the US wasn't as much the center of worldwide on-line development, although it was certainly still a leading center.

Starfleet Kazakhstan Director Morozov answered President McCain's request for information on Americans in Indochina, since that it was part of his directorate's region. He started a thorough magical search of for all unidentified remains. The request was made to the US, and other nations that had missing persons in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos, to return a cheek-swab DNA collection kit from a parent, child, or sibling of the missing. If not available, then a more distant relation could be used, but with less certainty about the results.

Biotechnology was ahead of where it was in my original timeline. Starfleet was making sure that all machines that could create genetic material had magic oversight checkers on them. They managed to find even the secret government research labs.

A lot of unidentified remains from within Indochina were found, and many were identified. A fair number of US remains were found and identified.

Another search was made for any US citizens living in Indochina, and many were found. Each were checked for compulsion and asked if they wanted to return to the US, and none did. Vietnam became a popular destination due to its business climate, and also for retirees. A full report was sent to the US.

McCain made a state visit to Vietnam to accept the remains found, and generally tour the place, including the location of the prison where he was once held. New trade agreements were signed, and a general improvement in relations occurred.

The ICW yet again postponed any decision on ending the Statute of Secrecy. Plans to deal with any unplanned uncontainable release, or contact by extraterrestrial, were kept up to date. Many non-magical governments were talking to their magical counterparts about what sort of assistance they might want. So, the plan to have the communities connect through their governments already was underway. When the information was to be eventually revealed to the non-magical public, they would learn about their own government keeping secrets from them, not just about the secret magical society. It was hoped that this would spread resentment to non-magical governments and not be only focused on magicals.

The rest of 2001 was relatively quiet, which meant that the timeline no longer even resembled my original timeline.

There were some low-key contacts with representatives of religions that would be assumed to oppose witchcraft. They were mostly theoretical discussions without revealing magic. Most agreed that there wasn't an actual need to kill witches who don't practice witchcraft for evil. The actual texts could be interpreted that way. However in some cases, the requirement to kill witches was considered moot only due to a belief that there wasn't believed to be any true witchcraft, and that there was no requirement to kill people pretending or deluded into thinking that they were witches. That might change if magic were openly revealed.

Opinions varied between religious leaders. Saudi Arabia had the death penalty for witchcraft. The ICW made a ruling that first generation witches and wizards be evacuated from any country that has similar laws. Existing wizarding families were encouraged to relocate elsewhere, and if staying, were required to be in fidelius protected locations and never go amongst the general public.

Jean-Laurent Picard was born on January 2nd, 2002. He was the heir to house Picard after me, and expected to run the Picard enterprises as an adult if I was too involved in Starfleet to want to run that.

In the summer of 2002, my father Maurice always seemed to be carrying Jean-Laurent when he worked in the vineyard. He was constantly pointing out things, explaining was he was doing in French.

Xenophilius increased the difficulty level again of the animated magical creatures for Renée. This time, some of the creatures would hide very well, and would try to escape if chased, but would allow a well meaning approach. He also started an baby level for Jean-Laurent. That version was like a mobile, except moving magically and creatures making amusing sounds and gestures.

On August 3rd, 2002 everyone working for Starfleet, even the ones who work at the cafeteria, got an emergency alert. This was a policy pushed heavily by Albus Dumbledore, who saw the benefit of doing the opposite of keeping unnecessary secrets, which he had done before my arrival. He explained to Starfleet leadership that rumours would spread even if people were magically prevented from communicating. That instead, a reputation of being honest and open with personnel, would result in them having more trust in the information, and in the organization as a whole.

The only secrets that needed to be kept were for tactical information or technical information that could cause great harm if known, but that the default status should be openness. The Director of Starfleet Russia said, "Oh, you are talking about Glasnost." That became the name of the new policy, and glasnost was now considered to be an English word as far as Starfleet was concerned. There would be no secrecy to prevent panic, nor to try to change the mood or opinion people might have if they heard some news.

The alert was the discovery of an extra-terrestrial space probe between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. It was well hidden from Earth technology, but the Vulcans didn't have a cloaking device. The space probe was using impulse engines, that were carefully disguised to use the composition of the slight bit of matter in space as the reaction mass, so no plumes of foreign matter would be seen. However, the density, and movement of these atoms could not be disguised. Starfleet technology was already looking for anomalies and had a large network of stealth probes beyond the orbit of Jupiter, in a full sphere around the Solar System.

The Starfleet probes did nothing overt, but sent their usual volume of encrypted communication back, which now included observations of evidence of an extra-terrestrial space probe. While it was guessed that it might have been the Vulcans, there was no information as to the source of the probe, since there was no active investigation which could have the potential of leading to open contact.

All of the magic news source covered the information heavily. Of course there was not much information except evidence of an extra-terrestrial space probe beyond the orbit of Jupiter that was within detection range for a few days and never got closer to Sol than the orbit of Jupiter.

The only reaction by Starfleet was to speed up space technology development even more, and start work on a super-collider in the asteroid belt a little earlier than planned. There was a lot of analysis of the data that was collected, which wasn't much.

October 2002, had the next Section 31 crisis. The government of China was upset that Taiwan was under a different magical ministry. There were some implied threats, and the situation needed to be dealt with. We decided on a conference, with Albus Dumbledore chairing it. It was agreed that his age and presence would work best with the non-magical culture of China.

The conference included a junior member of Starfleet Kazakhstan, which the Magical Ministry of Formosa was affiliated with, members of the Formosan Ministry, Dumbledore, myself, and the leadership of the Chinese Ministry of Magic which covers the territory of the government of China, including Hong Kong, Macua, and Tibet. The security team was satisfied that all the magicals could get out of the meeting if needed.

Dumbledore said, "The People's Republic of China will start with their suggestions to alter the status quo, then the Formosan ministry will respond, then we will continue until we have a consensus."

Jiang Zemin started, "Distinguished members of the magical community. China in both the magical and non-magical realms cannot be second fiddle to world-wide organizations that keep China limited. We are told that the Province of Taiwan has a separate magical government because we do not have effective rule there. Why then, do many other magical ministries include more than one national government, including your own Director Dumbledore? Why is the magical ministry of Taiwan encouraging separatism? Why are they affiliated with the research center of Kazakhstan and not the one in China, that the Taiwan province's government itself recognizes that China is indivisible?"

The Formosan Ministry replied, "Our ministry goes back centuries, before Chinese people arrived in numbers on our island. We have accommodated them, including when, in 1949, we became a minority in our own land. All the magical people living in Taiwan have reached an accommodation, reached with great difficulty. Adding new elements would destroy this accommodation.

When affiliating with a research center, we rejected Japan and the US, to avoid foreign control. We rejected China since research regions become linked economically, and differences in economic philosophy were a basis for the division of the two groups of the Chinese governments, as well as to keep the accomodation between what we call the Formosans and the Chinese living in Taiwan. The Kazakhstan research center has been of enormous help with the non-magical economy, while not having any designs to rule Taiwan."

Dumbledore indicated for Jiang Zemin to respond. "I would propose making a respect for the culture, people, prosperity, and security, of indigenous peoples of the province of Taiwan a centerpiece of our reunification plans. If Kazakhstan has been more helpful to the province of Taiwan than the Chinese research center has been for the rest of China, then I would ask our own magical community to redouble their efforts to help usher in an era of prosperity for China. We cannot accept China being made a second fiddle, or being divided by outside forces."

Dumbledore made himself look angry and flared some magic, and said, "President Zemin, while we endeavor to help when we can, we are also a separate set of governments, not under the authority of your government. The Magical Ministry of China is endeavoring to help your government, and will try to make that help more effective, but do not doubt our resolve either. If there should be a parting of the ways, while none of us would accept conflict, a complete separation of our communities in China is a possiblity. If that were to happen, all of your neighbors would continue to advance economically with the help of magic, while your country would fall behind. If you tried to capture witches and wizards to make them work for you, rest assured that they would be rescued."

I spoke next, playing the good cop in contrast to Dumbledore's bad cop routine. "Distinguished members of this conference. Let us focus on achievable good outcomes, not ruminate on bad ones.

We want to help China achieve prosperity. The methods that the affiliates of Kazakhstan use, requires a greater integration of magic based enterprises into the non-magical economy. That requires non-magical government intervention to safeguard the secret of magic, which our international magical association is requiring at this time.

The situation of the two governments of China, both magical and non-magical, will need both sides to build trust and feel that a combination would benefit them. You might consider looking into a looser confederation status, which itself could grow over time."