Chapter 40:
[November 2018]
There was a request by the Vulcans to try to recover the two bodies from 1957 of Mestral and one other crew member. We asked them the parameters of the search and told them that we would conduct it ourselves. The two surviving crew members claimed to have used their beam weapons to vaporize the remains so that humans wouldn't ever find non-human remains. The Vulcans said that there still might be some evidence to find.
Our general policy for media was to make most information known. The areas off limits was any hint of Mestral living and our canon knowledge. We allowed discussion groups to speculate on all sorts of topics.
This is what we didn't do after agreement between Khan and myself. If the people speculating started to get too close to uncomfortable truths, we did not introduce other speculations that they might then latch on to, but which could be easily proven false, thereby trying to discredit entire groups that were getting close to the truth. It might seem a Slytherin way to approach things, but we decided that we wanted a society that can figure things out and that we did not want to try to hobble this ability. Similarly we didn't make certain areas of inquiry off limits, where people would be afraid to talk or even to think about areas or they might be considered to be guilty of something.
The population of the United Earth and Solar System started discussions asking if the way that non-magical societies were being led by magical would be any different than what we worried about with the Vulcans. We gave exhaustive answers, from trends towards nuclear war, severe poverty among billions, and the fact that the two societies were artificially separated in the 1600's due to hostility. We also emphasized that we are all legitimate parts of humanity on Earth and our combined society needed to evolve to reintegrate.
Daphne, as the second in command of Section 31, put together a large number of employees to answer arguments made on the internet and other forums. They would acknowledge their employment and give the United Earth and Solar System arguments. They didn't just quote the party line, but came up with their own arguments. Actually her organization found that they could change some skeptics to instead argue for her side. The generous pay for employees of her organization helped also.
The Safe-Guarding the Future department received a note from the Quibbler. They had a special code to get immediate attention to any email they sent. It said,
"We have an article we are working on. As agreed we would send you information important to the future of our planet. The Vulcans are cool. I am using the mid-20th century usage of that term. Increasing numbers of people want them to visit. They want to personally host them, to hang out with them, etc.
If the Vulcans say to remain in your Solar System and go back to school with the Vulcans teaching, many would agree. If they say that they will protect the Solar System from any others, even more would agree.
Signed Luna Longbottom and Xenophilius Lovegood"
[Planning meeting, November 2018]
Armand Malfoy, born in October 1999, was now formally added to the advisory group. Whether he will eventually inherit the role of head of SGF and its Section 31 and the last word in running the United Solar System would remain to be determined.
Armand Malfoy introduced this meeting, "SGF concurs with what the Quibbler sent. The public opinion is pushing with too much momentum."
Daphne added, "The arguments we give in the discussion groups and other media are not winning."
Khan said, "Time to pull the pin on the canon grenade."
[Solar System announcement, November 2018]
President Khan said, "Magic provides some abilities to see possible futures. We are now releasing some of a future timeline that will no longer be. This timeline knowledge has in fact motivated some of our preparedness towards visitors from space.
While many of our listeners would have found the idea of magic existing to be absurd, just a little over two decades ago, what I will say now will seem even more absurd, even to those who know the capabilities of magic. I will provide certain information in this broadcast. I will make a magical pledge that what I say will be true, although much will still be withheld, but that which will be withheld would not invalidate what will be said."
Khan then made a magical pledge to the honesty of what he says in this broadcast, in front of a large number of magical witnesses.
"A unique type of future knowledge came into our possession. It showed huge amounts of video from a timeline that would have been, if not for our changes from approximately the year 1991. Other knowledge came into our possession that stated that our timeline would not have consequential time travel. That information also said that this future timeline was therefore different than what we would see due that timeline having time travel.
This video of a timeline we call canon, for simplicity. It is an entertainment series shown in yet another timeline. We were informed that it has errors, and what we will see would be similar but not the same as it.
We extensively tested this knowledge and a group of us were convinced that it showed much useful information. While the future events shown will probably not happen as shown, it does accurately show the capabilities and intentions of many. It has also shown as the uses and appearance of many types of advanced technology, which has greatly enhanced our research.
If you are skeptical about this, you are right to be skeptical. I tried to make my magical pledge as easy as possible for you to verify. I was skeptical, but I could see my own alternate future self in that vision and knew that he behaved exactly like I would have in the alternate future circumstances shown.
The pledge is really that I and others investigated this video and found it to be useful and true to the extent it showed how people and groups would have acted in certain circumstances and how much about future technology. Our development of warp engines were greatly accelerated due to this knowledge.
There would have been a very destructive world war according to this timeline. We used this knowledge to prevent that outcome. Then we used the knowledge to prepare ourselves to meet other civilizations in other star systems.
The part I am going to show you now, was in an alternate year 2121 and then 2151. In that timeline Earth recovered from a destructive series of wars from the 1990s to the 2050s. In 2063 Earth achieved warp travel and were visited by the Vulcans, just as we were in 2018. They then proceeded to help the Earth, while at the same time controlling it."
The first few minutes of the Star Trek Enterprise episode, Broken Bow were shown, song and all. The video ended when the NX-01 Enterprise leaves space doc, and doesn't show the next scene with the Suliban.
Khan continued, "Part of what was seen was due to time travel and will not occur in our timeline, which does not allow consequential time travel. The Klingon was not a time traveler, but the circumstances that brought him to Earth were indirectly due to time travel. According to other information from this timeline, the Vulcans should have recently made first contact with the Klingons, but due to a cultural lack of understanding have had one of their ships destroyed by the Klingons. According to canon they will now have low grade hostilities between them, but not all out war and by 2151 will have proper peaceful relations.
The main point of showing that video is to explain why now not is not the time to allow the Vulcans too much influence over us. When we have developed further we can be more comfortable in doing so. The Vulcans do not mean us harm at this time, as far as we can determine in canon, but do feel that they have superior wisdom and knowledge and should be obeyed."
The reaction to Khan's announcement was that of opening a can of worms. Every aspect was debated. Some thought the entire thing was a hoax and that no actual magical pledge was made. Some thought that the pledge was true, but that Khan was mistaken in believing those videos. Others demanded that other information be made public. Many wanted to know their own futures.
Daphne's public relations specialists worked overtime to give arguments that would help the United Earth and Solar System. The response to "Khan used unfair knowledge to take over the world" was, "Yes, and so what? He did so to create a better future for humanity and is continuing to do so."
Meanwhile we kept on with our experiments. At the end of 2018 we reviewed the next steps.
[Late December 2018 planning meeting]
Hermione presented the summary, "We have reached warp 1.82. or just over 6 times the speed of light. This is the limit to tuning and experiments with our current technology base. We will need new theoretical breakthroughs and probably new materials. From canon, getting past warp 2 has difficulties, and then again getting to warp 5.
Beam weapons can still be improved, but our 12 kilometer range, slightly coherent phase canon is what we have now. Shields are still improving. Subspace radio technology given to us by the Vulcans has been fully assimilated. Following the rules of frequency use does not seem to be an undo burden. Subspace inertial dampers and artificial gravity is in the testing stage, but the magical ones are still more reliable. Subspace tractor beams also under development, but the magical ones are better.
Impulse engines combined with mass modification now combine subspace technology with magic.
Photon torpedoes are still not warp capable. We can however, now build new ones in transit."
Juan said, "I think it is clear that we now refit our ships with what we have and start our next steps."
I answered, "Yes. Centuari A, B, and Proxima should each get a colony or at least a space station."
Hermione said, "We can send out 4 starships. They are about 4.3 light years away. We can magically shrink materials needed, including a lot of charmed objects. The colonists will include spell casters.
One of the colonies will build up manufacturing abilities similar to what we have in the Asteroid Belt. Two ships will keep going back and forth bringing more supplies and colonists.
The first priority will be to have a space combat ready station, with stealth drones throughout the three systems."
Khan said, "We can try to have the first landfall by the end of 2019."
Draco asked, "Can the warp 1.82 ships stay at that speed for months?"
Hermione answered, "Yes, we think so. The Ions can maintain it while it is running. We can duplicate parts as needed. It will be a bit of shakedown cruise to test this ability."
I asked, "What about talking to the Tellarites and Andorians?"
Draco answered, "The Tellarites are 11.4 light years away at a binary star called 61 Cygni. We don't have the ships to spare yet to go there. Speaking on subspace would not be wise at this time, since the Vulcans will know about it, and the Tellarites will only hear our voice, making negotiations difficult. The same for the Andorians who are 11.5 light years away. Their binary star is called Procyon and also known as Canis Minor."
Khan, "So it would take almost 2 years each way to visit them. Can we expect faster warp speeds soon?"
Hermione said, "We cannot predict that since we need theoretical breakthroughs."
Armand Malfoy said, "If we were in contact with, and in full technological cooperation with the Andorians and Tellarites, we might get those breakthroughs more easily. Furthermore, even if we are not willing to engage in espionage against the Vulcans, from canon we might assume that the Andorians might, and we could gain from their knowledge."
Hermione said, "We can send a narrow directional sub-space transmission to those star systems. We can also use a 20th century non-magical method called public key cryptography, where we can setup communications in the clear, but then have all communications that follows be encoded, despite having never met.
Any Vulcans in the cone of subspace will know the transmission. If they intercept the initial one, then they could spoof the setting up of the encryption. However, we know that while the Vulcans do lie, they do so on rare occasions, where they consider it logical to do so, and do not want to be caught lying."
Khan said, "Excellent. Let us accomplish this communication."
It was actually more complicated to accomplish this than simply stated the procedure. First, what language to send the initial communications? Then the need to say that we want to communicate using encryption, then explaining the entire encryption algorithm. Then deciding what key length might be sufficient for unknown eavesdroppers. Then not knowing if any of these algorithms are already known and already broken. Then trying to explain the need for true random numbers and how to come up with proper private and public key pairs.
The Tellarites seemed more likely to be technically proficient, so we tried communicating with them first.
The language needed to be Vulcan, since it was the only common one that they likely knew. We expected the Tellarites would find following the instructions an interesting technical challenge. Finally we could talk to them.
We said, "Hello Tellarites. We are a newly warp capable species from the Solar System. We have been recently contacted by the Vulcans and would like to independently contact other warp capable civilizations. No, the Vulcans did not tell us about you, but we have other means of knowledge."
The Tellarites responded, "What is the location of the Solar System?"
We sent coordinates. The Tellarites said, "We will visit your world in 10 months."
[Late December video address to the Solar System by Khan]
"We have made contact with the Tellarites who will be visiting us in some months. I will now show a video of some of our interactions with them in the other timeline."
Scenes from the Enterprise episode Babel One were shown.
Khan continued, "Despite or maybe because of their argumentative manner, the Tellarites were stalwart allies of ours in that timeline, which I will refer to by the term canon. The Tellarites are a skeptical species and test ideas, people, and things, with argument. When they are satisfied by the responses they are stalwart. If you argue with them, you should show intelligence and confidence. You can also point out things that might be uncomfortable to them. They will appreciate your observational skills."
[March 2019 planning meeting]
Armand Malfoy said, "Two big questions to resolve. When to talk to the Andorians and what to do with the Vulcan consulate that will watch every ship arriving here."
Hermione said, "The Vulcans would be able to see warp signatures even if they weren't near the orbit of Jupiter. I think we should maintain our relations with them without accepting their oversight."
Draco said, "Let's talk to the Tellarites first and then have a better idea of what we want to talk to the Andorians about. Maybe the Andorians would want to communicate by subspace immediately and not wait until they fly here."
Khan said, "Assuming we are in agreement to reveal the existence of canon to the Tellarites, we can assume that Vulcans will learn soon after. We might as well tell them directly at that time, and maybe find some video that will be helpful to us for them to see."
Hermione said, "For all we know they already know, and decrypted our communications within the Solar System."
Draco said, "We will go through canon and find what to show to both the Tellarites and Vulcans. We'll have another meeting to go over some selections."
I said, "It seems we are agreed. Now for preparing for the Tellarites, I think we should invite them to Earth. Let the Vulcans draw whatever conclusions they want about that.
Remember when speaking to Tellarites that they prefer argument as a general method of communication."
Khan asked, "How rude should we be to them?"
I answered, "They come from a harsh natural environment, a very cold one. They do not inherently trust the competence of any person, nor the reliability of equipment. They test things and people. They are natural engineers.
Insulting people and arguing with them is how they can determine how smart, how knowledgeable, how confident they are. One thing I note from canon, is that if a Tellarite is smiling and agreeable, he is probably a criminal who means you harm."
Draco asked, "What do we hope to achieve from meeting them."
I answered, "We want their technology and their advanced materials. We'll trade what we need to obtain these. A sort of alliance would also be helpful, but we do not want to be drawn into a war with the Andorians or the Vulcans."
Jonathan Pike said, "Perhaps we can be allies with them and at the same time convince them to avoid war with both the Andorians and Vulcans."
I asked, "Which Hogwarts house would they be? I think Ravenclaw."
Harry Potter said, "This could be fun. We get to come up with insults and arguments."
Hermione said, 'It is really a contest of wits that they enjoy. Definitely Ravenclaw."
Khan asked, "On another subject, let us review the updates from our embassy."
Draco answered, "They are on Vulcan. They have been given assistance in acclimating to the Vulcan environment. There have been visits organized to various Vulcan organizations. However, they report every visit is more or less a formal tour, and they never get informal information."
Khan asked, "Flight to Centauri status?"
Hermione said, "Equipment is working well. Some repairs have been needed and the information will be used to improve the designs."
Tracey said, "Ship controls have functioned well. Interaction of colonists with crew have been fine. There does not seem to be a need to have sleeper ships."
Khan said, "Well in canon, the episode Space Seed, did say that sleeper ships were not needed after 2018. They probably meant faster sub-light ships, or perhaps ones with relativistic speeds that would slow down the time duration of the voyage.
How is research going?"
Hermione said, "Incremental improvements. We continuing to ask for technology challenges from the Solar System population. Another research area is using magic and technology to further increase the production capacity of space assets."