Chapter 59:

Luna and I had a meeting with Dumbledore. He said, "While I appreciate the critical future role that Renée has to play, your attempt to give her most of the credit for the discovery of the Ions rungs hollow. You will need to be more careful in how you build up her credibility for some important task she will need to do in 2027. It might be more effective if people other than family and friends become the ones to publicly praise her.

You also might consider what the future role of Cora will be. While Renée seems to have some sort of destiny probably in some sort of direct role in events, Cora would seem to be the best candidate for a continuation of your role in Section 31. In fact, she could have much more credibly have been given credit for the discovery of the Ions than Renée did. Cora should learn the intricacies of the running of societies, and it should be verified that she also has inherited the aptitude for that, besides her role as being in direct communication with Q."

We agreed with his advice about Cora. We showed her the Star Trek canon that we had access to from my memories. We also talked to her frequently about canon and current events. We went over canon episodes and discussed them from the perspective of how Starfleet could have made better decisions. Not tactically, like our discussions with Harry Potter, but in terms of the development of the Federation, and its relationships with various other worlds and civilizations.

Cora was upset with both Renée and with Q when watching the Star Trek Picard episodes involving both of them. Cora said she would help Renée focus on what is important when Renée is older. She got an explanation from Q as to his role in those episodes, and seemed to be satisfied. Q also told Cora that based on her interests she might have wanted to learn from the Q continuum or from the Borg, but Q didn't think either would be helpful. Hearing that, Cora insightfully asked if that meant that Q expected humans to become like the Organians, which Q did not answer.

Q saw that she seemed fascinated by the Organians, and sent her on a timeless trip to learn from earlier Organians. She learned much of their philosophies, and was given short timeless trips to different eras of the Organians. She also learned of their advanced magic, but not how to perform it, including that of reanimation. Other magics they can do, such as instant sensing and effects over large distances at speeds far faster than light, was a technique that could be researched. It involved channeling magic through subspace.

We put together a research package which Starfleet Bolivia and Starfleet Solar System R&D was going to pursue. They would try to do perform long range magic channeled through subspace. They would also experiment with using subspace transmitters as a method of extending magical range.

The Dilithium search found a few small deposits in various places in the Solar System, and a modest one on Io. There were some odd interactions between the tidal effects on Io caused by Jupiter, and the magnetic field of Jupiter, which caused much heat, volcanic activity, and oddly a plasma taurus around Io that also has extreme radioactivity.

The Dilithium Crystals themselves had interactions with these other forces. The combination of Dilithium with the various other forces effecting Io, led to an environment that developed sentient life. Starfleet made no request for their Dilithium Crystals, since the crystals were an active part of their ecosystem.

The Ions agreed to join Starfleet. Their equivalent to a government was given a voice in Starfleet. They expressed interest in settling other worlds that seemed suitable to them. Of the ones under Starfleet control, a moon around a planet on Alpha Centauri B was suitable, and a group of Ions were sent there. They also would help terraform other worlds suitable for humans.

The Ions were tied into the Internet, and were active participants in various discussion groups. It was interesting to see the common interests between two life forms that shared almost nothing in terms of their physical existence, but could have similar abstract and philosophical thoughts. They also talked about math and physics, and could actually learn from each other about physics, since their extremely different environments led to different discoveries.

Some groups of Ions volunteered to work on starships, within the high energy section of the engines. While humans needed to be shielded from these environments, the Ions could live there. They could perform some types of engine maintenance while the engines were running, that would otherwise require a shutdown.

In general, the technology of Starfleet was combined with magic. There was now less emphasis on having systems work without magic, except as backups in case a magic suppression field were ever encountered. Without magic, Earth was significantly behind the Orions and the Vulcans. The Vulcans were not providing advanced technology, only ones with limited military use. With magic, Earth could leapfrog some technological hurdles.

March 4th 2016, Sorek the Ambassador of Vulcan told us, "We have met the Klingons and followed your advice. Please relay this message to Firenze the Centaur.

Vulcan thanks you for your advice and would be pleased to meet with you at your convenience.

We did indeed wrestle with Kronos, and are now in the early stages of trying to be friends with Kronos."

One of the few times we specifically asked the Vulcans for information, Quahog officially asked,

"To prepare ourselves for future encounters with the Klingons we would request from you some information. A description or video of the event. A detailed description of the energy levels of weapons used by them. A description of energy levels used against them and the results to them."

The government came back with an approval of the request. This was their overall summary that was sent with the detailed information we asked for.

"Based on Earth's advice we prepared our ships and our tactics for the encounter that Earth told us to expect. A stronger set of ships was used for scouting missions than were used previously. Whether or not to believe in prophecy or seers, was not relevant. The advice for how to interact with a predatory space faring civilization was logical regardless.

Encountering ships traveling at warp speed, but not knowing who they were, we used our standard approach of a broad spectrum communications of who we are and our peaceful intentions. However, when we detected the charging of weapons on the unknown ships, we immediately raised our shields and prepared our own weapons.

The ships, later identified as Klingons, fired upon us. Our shields held, and no more than minor damage was received. We immediately fired back. Our previous doctrine would be to try to deescalate and repeat our peaceful intentions. We calibrated the level of our fire to reduce to zero, three of their ships shields, but to do no further damage. We then communicated that we would welcome cooperative interactions with them and embassies. We then left at high speed."

When we received from the Vulcans the technical information, we saw that we could calibrate the same level of damage done to the Klingon ships with photon torpedoes, but not yet with the type of phasers we had. We additionally determined that our shields needed to be strengthened.

At one of the Starfleet planning meetings Luna said, "In Klingon culture it is not dishonorable to dodge a blow. One does not need to stand there and trade blow for blow."

The rest of Starfleet leadership agreed, that our high speed random maneuvering to dodge phasers, and our close-in net to destroy photon torpedoes before they get too close to a ship can be an effective way to fight Klingons. However, a lucky shot by either phasers or photon torpedoes should not destroy us, so improved shields were still needed.

There was also the earlier research in using magic to bypass many of the effects of phasers. They were cautioned that in canon different civilizations seemed to be able to something similar, but re-tuning the frequencies of phasers often could bypass those protections. So, the plan was to include these magical protections, but assume that enemies might find a way to nullify them.

We also determined the need for ablative hull plating, to absorb some of the damage that might get through shields. We already planned to use armor around the shield emitters and other critical spots on the ship, but in addition the entire ship needed to be clad in armor. Research was conducted as to what materials would be preferable to use for armor. The main negatives of adding armor was expense of production. The added mass is not an issue, since the mass became approximately zero when accelerating, using the same technology as artificial gravity and inertial dampers.

Learning something from the Orions, starships in battle, but not trying to be in stealth mode, would periodically send out subspace bursts with full battle telemetry to Earth. If there were a subspace nullifying field, then drones would be sent out, which would transmit when they could receive the normal navigational transmissions sent by Starfleet transmitters.

The navigational transmissions of Starfleet also sent out some news updates in compressed form, Starfleet updates, and encrypted orders for ships that were in stealth mode. The data was limited, so no full internet access, only a limited highly compressed datastream of the most popular updates were included, along with the essential communications of Starfleet.

We shared all the research data with the Tellarites and worked together on improving the power of shields to the level needed to face the Klingons. We already had made progress on making the shield emitters more robust, so they couldn't be taken offline as easily. That was a different technological challenge than given them more energy shielding capacity.

One project being looked into were to have additional warp cores, which wouldn't be used to power the warp field generators, but instead be directed only to shields and phasers. Another promising area of was in getting more power to flow to recharge the shields. There would be a better chance of the shields being at a sufficient percentage when a second blow hit it. Even if that were to work, the shields at full capacity would need to be able to handle any attack from the Klingons, and also the Orions.

We recruited a group of magically enhanced martial arts trained crew members, and trained them with Klingon edged weapons, and fluency in the Klingon language and culture. They would be on ships that would eventually be sent to meet the Klingons. Another requirement to be on this crew detail was a willingness to eat and drink with the Klingons.