Chapter 64:

In August 2018, Jean-Laurent went with his grandparents Maurice and Adeline to visit France. Luna and I, and also Cora, were too busy with negotiations with the Andorians and Vulcans to go with them. Jean-Laurent was about to start his 6th year at Starfleet Junior Academy. He was fairly advanced with runes and wards and was getting special lessons from Bill Weasley, his future father-in-law.

Even though their timeline was very different from the one in canon, Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour got married. They both worked for Starfleet Egypt and specialized in applying wards to starships. Bill used his skills in curse breaking to find ways to make the wards better by trying to defeat them. Bill also used his esoteric knowledge of ancient Egyptian protections to find ones that would be helpful in space.

Their daughter, Victoire was born on August 9th 2002, which was considered the day of the victory against the Death Eaters. In the original timeline she was born on May 2nd which was that timeline's victory day. No, we didn't figure out why the timelines have these strange similarities. She went to Starfleet Junior Academy and was in the same year as Jean-Laurent Picard.

Jean-Laurent was well trained in occlumency, and was immune to her Veela charms, which is the absolute minimum requirement for anyone who a Veela would consider as a partner. They both had a French and English background and were both fascinated by wards and curse breaking. At the end of this school year they both told their parents that they were going to get married just after graduation. After that it was understood that their families would make the arrangements.

Luna quipped to me, "We kept trying to avoid even being in the same room as Molly Weasley and now our son is going to marry her granddaughter."

I answered, "Bill has always been a good guy, and Fleur has been nice also. Any truth to the rumor that Weasleys cannot competently handle money?"

Luna answered, "I do not think so. Bill has never had that problem. Perhaps when he inherits House Weasley he will, if it is a curse. As a curse breaker he should at least be able to identify it, even if cannot remove it, if it were to be true.

However, the Weasley house is only passed down to males, so Victoire will not inherit it, her younger brother will. I also do not see financial problems in Jean-Laurent's future and even see the Manor still intact and used by Picards in the future, just as in canon."

I answered, "That answers my concerns. It would be too rude to bring up the issue with Bill. It might be just a specific set of traits that Arthur, his father, and Molly have had, and not a family curse. Also, in canon the joke shop was successful, and in our timeline the online joke shop is very profitable. If it is a curse it does not apply to anyone else."

We also discussed this with my father, I said, "Branch families of the Weasleys do not have a money problem. And the fact that the main line has for two generations is not evidence of a curse, and in any case, Victoire is not the one who will inherit House Weasley, her younger brother should be the one."

Luna said, "Maybe it was mostly Molly. They bought an owl for Percy and made Ron go to school with a legacy wand at the same time. They won a little bit of money and went on a trip to Egypt instead of rectifying their obvious lackings or even considering the possibility of savings."

Maurice still wanted to talk to Bill about looking into whether there is a family curse because the future of House Picard depends on the eventual son of Jean-Laurent and Victoire.

On their trip to France Bill was going to help them identify the curses around Picard Manor and Vineyards. They assured us that it was only diagnostic spells at a distance that they were going to do. We made sure that everyone involved knew that both Luna and Cora would help with their seer abilities when it was time for Jean-Laurent to start clearing out the curses after he gets his mastery. Bill and Fleur said that they would help also.

Jean-Laurent and Victoire intended to live there after they get married. They still haven't decided to what extent they intend to be employed as curse breakers or ward specialists and what extent to try to extend Picard enterprises. Jean-Laurent was very interested in the interstellar luxury fruit and wine trade, and finding good locations for growing what may be in demand.

Starfleet paid master ward builders well. So, both Jean-Laurent and Victoire were going to gain their masteries in that subject. Starfleet arranged for part-time work on Earth, and where needed in Earth orbit, for ward builders. It was made as convenient as possible and didn't require a full time commitment. Earning extra money from Starfleet would enable Jean-Laurent to invest in some riskier business ventures, without risking Picard enterprises.

Curse breaking, on the other hand, was a dangerous job, with long periods of time needed on the location of cursed places and objects. It paid well, but was not as compatible with Jean-Laurent's goals as being a ward master.

The materials Starfleet got from the Andorians were amazing. A large selection of new elements unknown on Earth, which is exactly what we needed to improve our power flow in warp engines as well as better armor and structural strength of ships and stations. The Andorians themselves didn't know how to make optimal use of these materials. Our advanced methods of using magic to rapidly prototype and do exhaustive experiments gave us the ability to use the materials to their fullest extent. The results of our designs did not require magic themselves, except if we would need to duplicate materials and then need to swap them out before they would fade.

For the Andorians it was a similar reaction to what they received. Being able to equip their soldiers with our mobile platforms added entirely new capabilities on land, in space, in water, even under ice. They asked for special melting charms which we were able to add to the devices we sold them, and then added to our own devices as well. We also showed them how to dodge beam weapon fire. It wasn't a technology per se, more a technique. All sorts of other magical devices were delivered to them.

Since the Andorians were selling so much mined material to us, we were actually in favor of them expanding their territory so that they would have more to sell us. They expanded in their direction, we expanded in ours, and we all traded what we found that was useful. The Tellarites also expanded in a third direction. Three dimensional space is large when you can travel at a decent speed.

For our engineers, the reaction to the new materials were like that of a Hogwarts student on a Hogsmeade weekend visiting Honeydukes. Every material was tested for every purpose. The potential of combining magic and technology was fully realized.

Starfleet released each design after it was fully optimized. With the materials and technologies available, they now reached warp 4.13, which is 70 times the speed of light. Unlike in canon, there was not a separate cruising speed and maximum sustained speed. Instead, the design involved a lot of testing of what would break down when using maximum sustained speed, and then swapping in components while underway. There might be a slightly higher emergency speed, but its use was discouraged since an engine breakdown during an emergency would generally be worse than a slower top speed.

This design choice seemed odd to both the Andorians and Tellarites, but after extensive testing, and determination of the reliability of in-flight repair, they both agreed to it. The Tellarites came up with a method of testing, which was to deliberately run unmanned ships above what was considered the safe speed limit, and send out telemetry of what broke. They said it may well reveal the same flaws that prolonged running at what is considered a safe maximum speed would.

Another change from canon was to use computers to optimally re-tune the engines if it were ever necessary, such as when a component fell out of specifications. In canon, expert chief engineers would get more out of their ships than other ships in the same class. We would still allow this to happen, but any experiments anyone did, even ones that failed, would be logged and would become standard procedure for the entire fleet, if they were beneficial. The entire fleet would know about experiments and modifications as soon as they occurred and a research base would quickly perform tests and send out their conclusions by subspace. There would be no need to wait for a starship to be back at a Starbase before making any modifications that can be done on their own.

Together, Starfleet, the Andorians, and the Tellarites acquired more advanced technology than any had by themselves. Each were going to refit their ships with the latest technology. For Starfleet that meant expanding the nacelle and lower part of the ship. We had a joint project to design one future ship type that all three would build and share components and later upgrades. That project would happen after we all finished upgrading the ships we already had.

Another factor in the combined ship design was whether magicals were needed on board. The basic design didn't need spell casters but did need those with magic, called on Earth, squibs. Vulcans would qualify, as would the Aenar on Andoria, as far as we could tell from canon, but those were not contacted yet, and were pacifists and most would not want to serve on starships.

The solution was to have enough pre-charmed items for the ship's designed autonomy time, and all controls and visible clues to be made useful for those with no magic. Eventually, when Vulcans might be integrated into the technology transfer it was thought that having either Vulcans, or Aenar, or humans with magic, on board each ship might be helpful.

The Tellarites requested a meeting with Starfleet leadership. Grashnish, the original envoy to Earth said, "Ambassador Snape told me to speak to all of you, since no one of you makes decisions. He told me what to expect from some of you from his time at Hogwarts school. He said I am free to share these impressions with you since he as Ambassador cannot keep secrets from Starfleet.

Tom Picard, you were a barely adequate student of Snape's potions class. However, I learned that in his vocabulary that actually meant you were one of his best students.

Luna Picard, if you determined someone needed to be eliminated, they would find themselves in a lethal trap while you would be skipping down the corridor singing nursery rhymes with no apparent connection. However, your father's publication would have a bizarre story about the event, with some details that he shouldn't know of. He said to assume that your daughter Cleodora is the same as you.

Albus Dumbledore, you are a master manipulator. He actually said that with respect.

Harry Potter, you are always on the winning side, no matter how improbable, and no matter what, are considered the hero.

Now to what I actually want to talk about. Your expansion strategy is stupid. As your ally, you being stupid is my business.

Many of you have some sort of rock solid understanding of ancient English law. In that law system, unclaimed territory belongs to the first that improves it. Guess what? There is no law in space.

To the extent there is de facto law, it is you own what you can deny to others. Having a few ships on worthless star systems does not give you any better claim than fleets that intercept trespassers, even if it takes some time to get there. In two of your moon cycles, you can move a fleet over 10 light years.

Instead of garrisoning worthless worlds, you should expand faster and go for worlds that are habitable, or have useful minerals, particularly ones that you do not already have in large quantity. It would be far more useful to pick the best worlds in a 40 light year wedge in your direction of expansion than to fill out everything within 15 light years. You would be missing useful worlds further away by doing that. You also can claim everything within your wedge, just pass through, monitor and send any interlopers away. If you cannot do that, you wouldn't be able to defend it with a garrison of three starships anyway."

Quahog answered, "We would be able to setup our minefields though."

Grashnish replied, "Then setup your minefields on a useful world. Same number of minefields, with much better resources being protected."

After Grashnish left, we discussed the issue, and concluded that especially now that we can travel warp 4.13, we should do that. We'll still leave an automated station on every star system that we claim, but no longer leave space stations or colonies when there are better star systems to pick a little further away.