Chapter 42:

At the New Years party to bring in 2007 in Kazakhstan the Frightful Twins, meaning Fred and George Weasley, their wives, and their kids called the Frightful Kids, introduced us to Hungarian traditions. Gideon was George's son and Fabian was Fred's son. They were 4 years apart. George and Ivett Weasley were expecting another son, 10 months younger than Fabian.

We all had the Lentil dishes they brought. There was some interesting magic involving throwing small straw dolls in water, and even magic in having cold showers in early New Years day. Their tradition of making noise at midnight was done perhaps a little too enthusiastically by Giedoen and Fabian.

That year we stayed in Kazakhstan for a while and did not rush back the same day to California. During this trip Director Vadim Morozov showed us his underground bunkers. "Entire population in Kazakhstan and other places can be evacuated under the ground. We grow food, have power supply, full living environment. Specified strength of bunker on some of planetary attacks in series Enterprise. If hostile ship approaches, population shelters during fight. If air poison or biological attack, bunker recirculates own air.

Then we were invited to the unarmed sparring league. Morozov said, "You two in level of magically enhanced. No weight classes for this level."

At the sparring center, Fred Weasley said, "This is how you prepare for Starfleet missions. To visit strange new worlds, meet strange new people, and then beat them up."

It was a good workout and the healers got us recovered pretty quickly. Then we stopped by a dueling center, feeling confident enough to duel publicly, and did pretty well.

We had a meeting with Starfleet India's magic researchers to go over some Star Trek Original Series episodes. In "And the Children Shall Lead", we looked at their ritual based magic, using hand and arm gestures as a focus. Also, we discussed if there were many people with magical potential that didn't know it, but which could be awakened, or was that original group of five kids with their parents actually a secret magical group. No other possibility made sense, since all five unrelated kids had magic. If they did not have latent magic, then the entity on that planet that gave magical abilities to those kids could be a model for giving magical abilities to squibs or even non-magicals.

We watched "Charlie X", which has more clues that certain magical entities can bestow magic. We again didn't know if Charlie was a latent magical, or squib, before being on that planet with the advanced magical entity.

We then looked at "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In this episode the ones who suddenly became powerful wizards and witches were those who scored well in ESP tests. This implies that even if magic had been apparently wiped out, many people were born with abilities that could be awakened. Presumably they never showed accidental magic. One thought was that everyone knew to hide any accidental magic. However, why would they test for ESP and then not sanction those who do well, if magic potential was considered so dangerous in that society?

I concluded the meeting with "We need to try to understand, if in Star Trek canon there are many people with essentially a suppressed magic ability that can be unleashed, or if there are presently unknown techniques to give magical abilities to those without it. What is known from this episode is that an ability in Extra Sensory Perception was considered normal, and was routinely tested for. What they call ESP, we would consider very limited magical abilities, but definitely magical abilites. Today's non-magicals officially believe that the same abilities do not exist, along with the rest of magic."

In 2007 there was a world-wide recruitment effort among those scientists and engineers that can understand, or know how to experiment with, plasma. Various jobs were offered, and various prizes for amateurs who submit ideas that were promising. The technical steps that would be needed to create fusion energy, efficient anti-matter creation, plasma handling, and every other step to build a warp engine was being planned. The only step as yet unknown was how to actually warp space, but it was known that the application of a huge amount of energy was going to be part of that process.

Another effort was in understanding gravity and inertia, and how to build gravity plating on decks of a ship, to control the apparent gravity level in the vicinity of that plating. That was an important point, in that blocking gravity would not be enough. Creating gravity could be, if its magnitude could change as quickly as ships acceleration could. However, deck plating creating conventional gravity, such as through extreme mass, would not work due to the inverse square law. Wildly uneven gravity levels based on distance from the floor would be useless.

As a longer term project, Universities around the world were asked to encourage students to specialize in these areas. The actual specialization was more in basic science, since particular research areas might be solved before they graduate, but there would always be a need to refine and improve these technologies and to find breakthroughs for newer technologies. For instance, from the series Star Trek Enterprise, we learn that reaching Warp 5, which was assumed to be 125 times the speed of light, requires a newer set of technological breakthroughs than the original ones that led to faster than light travel.

Starfleet Germany was renamed Starfleet Europe, even though not every country in Europe was affiliated with it. They had a design center in Milan, Italy that had a project going to improve the visual design standards of planned Starfleet ships. At a conference, they showed a picture of the DY-100 class ships, in different configurations and said, "The prestige of Earth, and assumptions about its technology partially depends on the first visual impression of its ships. This ship class, while modular and functional, does not convey a good design." They then showed a few different designs of ships that would have the same capabilities but look much nicer.

Another design center in Italy contracted with the Barilla company for improved zero gravity food experiences. They handed out zero-g ration packs of a fusilli dish. "In zero gravity, the experience of food and the perception of flavors are very different. Barilla wants to challenge this unique environment with its pasta." said the Barilla representative.

The design center also contracted out to Lavazza to make a zero-g espresso machine. Their statement was "Space crews in zero-g can enjoy authentic Lavazza espresso brewed in extreme conditions where the principles of fluid dynamics are completely different than that on Earth. The traditional cup is replaced by a special pouch."

The Statue of Secrecy status in 2007 was fairly quiet. I think more non-magicals were sensing and discussing that there was a great secret being kept from them, but no open breaks of the Statute of Secrecy occurred.

In September, Jean-Laurent started Starfleet School. He also worked with his grandfather Maurice in the Vineyard and Winery, and was starting to learn potion ingredient preparation. Maurice explained, "Some kids like to play with toys. Jean-Laurent has wine in his blood."

The Earth Defense Net was tried out in October 2007. A 7 meter wide asteroid was headed for a close approach to Earth. Beam weapons were used to redirect it slightly away. Plans were made in future years to actually destroy small asteroids headed near Earth. For those, they would need to detect the asteroids further away, so that fragments wouldn't reach Earth. After that, they plan to do something about asteroid 99942 Apophis, which is 370 meters across and will be at a distance from Earth of within a tenth of the distance to the moon, on April 13th, 2029. That is close enough to destroy geostationary satellites.

Luna and I, along with Dumbledore, knew that we needed to publicly solve some problems, and not just provide information. It had been too long since our last successful intervention. All the parts of Starfleet were working smoothly together, so no need for us to intervene there. Between magical ministries and between non-magical countries, there were no active conflicts. There were however frozen conflicts, and if we could solve any of those, we could say that we have prevented future conflict.

We looked into Korea. Their magical ministry, working closely with the Chinese Ministry of Magic, had earlier resolved the dangers of conflict. It was made clear to Kim Jong Il that there would be no conflict with their neighbors. That eased many issues. Also it was made clear that he would regret any detaining of magicals, while at the same time, with his agreement, food and energy production would be vastly increased. With North Korea feeling more secure, both against invasion and against famine, there was no desire to change the status quo. So, no reunification was likely.

The most dangerous of the frozen conflicts was between the two Chinas. The difficulty in solving it was that public opinion in Taiwan was not for reunification. However, just over half of the voters supported a candidate that did advocate a confederation of the Chinas, while running for office. Mainland China had rejected that approach. Lien Chan, in 2004 narrowly won the four year term as President of the Republic of China in Taiwan. I don't know if this is what happened in my original timeline.

It was now time to for Section 31 to act. The downsides would be the status quo, since all sides know that the full force of the world-wide magical society would prevent any war. The upside would be removing a significant tension point, and considerable prestige for Section 31. In our Section 31 discussion, we agreed that Dumbledore would not be present.

We set the conference location to be Hong Kong. It was symbolic as it had been a successful, so far for ten years, experiment in having an autonomous region of China.

Luna addressed the start of the conference, "Distinguished President Hu Jintao of the People's Republic of China. Distinguished President Lien Chan of the Republic of China. Distinguished leaders of the magical communities of all regions of China.

I first must impart some context of the urgency of the success of this conference. The day is approaching when there will be open contact with extra-terrestrial civilizations, which have been observing our planet and Solar system for half of a century. The day is also approaching when it will no longer be possible to hide the existence of magic from non-magical society.

Humanity will have enough challenges to maintain its independence and security in a rough region of the galaxy. We are doing our part, in developing technologies that combined with magic can bring our level to that of peers of our neighbors, hopefully before there is open contact with them. This mission would likely fail if there is any conflict on our planet. Empires throughout our history have used divide and conquer against societies that have grievances against one another. Earth will not give that opening to be conquered."

I continued, "This is what we must achieve, and achieve now. An agreement that will bring a resolution to the outstanding issues within the regions of China and, as well, in their magical communities. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts about this outline.

The government of all of China would be named the Confederated Republic of China.

Its flag be derived from the 1889 Yellow Dragon Flag.

Its capital be in Beijing and its head of state be determined by a national vote.

That the 2 main regions of the Confederated Republic of China continue to be ruled as they are now.

That the main role of the Confederated government would be to represent China internationally, and to encourage trade, tourism, and all manner of peaceful cooperation between its regions.

That the Confederated government have no authority to overrule the two regional governments, or to station armed forces, or otherwise control the two regions.

That the two regions agree to integrate their economies by allowing free trade.

That while each can maintain trade ties independently, they agree to try to coordinate this with each other.

For the magical governments, that the indigenous magicals of Formosa be given their own autonomy within their communities in Taiwan. That the remainder of the magicals living in Taiwan combine their ministry with that of the remainder of China, with the Formosans affiliated with them."

President Hu Jintao said, "We have been seeing the benefits of increasing ties with the magical community of China. We see the potential of integrating further with the province of Taiwan and the magical communities living there.

We see the plan for confederation positively, but would expect it would be a first step towards increasing voluntary integration. We see the model of how the European Union has developed over a period of decades as one to emulate, which also followed a period of war between what are now voluntarily joined economies and governments."

President Lien Chan said, "I also find this plan very acceptable. However, the fine print will be important, and it must win over criticism. It would need to be ratified by the existing government of the Republic of China."

The Ministry of Magic of China leader said, "We regard this proposal very positively, and would preemptively say that magical communities of Taiwan have autonomy in their laws in decisions, with a similar combined leadership that would strive towards full cooperation and eventual integration. We also understand that the Formosans have a very different magical history and traditions, which should always be respected and encouraged."

The Ministry of Magic of Formosa leader said, "We are gratified to see our autonomy and traditions being respected, and therefore find it most acceptable."

The Formasan Ministry member representing those with a mainland China background, which is the majority of the magical community of Taiwan said, "We also find very acceptable having autonomy. In the 58 years that many of us have been in Taiwan, there have been different laws, and a different non-magical society to live amongst. Both we and Magical Ministry of China, have learned the techniques of improving both magical and non-magical societies, from Kazakhstan, and would no longer need to be affiliated with Kazakhstan."

There was a lot of further going over the framework agreement, and it was ratified on Taiwan after some angry responses, but many reassurances that power given to the Confederated government is limited.

Dumbledore congratulated us on solving a long standing issue, and joked "You can consider starting to appear more eccentric."

I replied in turn, "Where can I get those cool outfits you wear?"

Luna joked, "I can copy Cassandra's appearance. I'll base it off of Evelyn De Morgan's 1898 painting."