Chapter 33:

There was a very public party in honor of the birth of Harry and Hermione Potter's son James, with President Singh in attendance. The Slytherin classmates of Draco who listened to Draco in his first year when he said to not mistreat Hermione now saw the wisdom in that decision.

Sirius was joking, but not really joking about how they'll need two more for house Black and house Dagworth-Granger.

I found a quiet moment to speak to Harry Potter, "I have been curious for years, why did the hat place you in Griffyndor and not Slytherin?"

Harry asked, "In that other timeline what did the hat do?"

I answered, "Draco managed to annoy you sufficiently as to motivate you to tell the hat, anywhere but Slytherin."

Harry laughed and said, "That is hard to picture. Hagrid told me how my parents were in Gryffyndor. Hermione told me how great a house it was and that we can try to be like Dumbledore. Also I saw myself as brave more than sneaky, as I had understood the houses at that time. When the hat told me that I could be great and that Slytherin would help me on the way to greatness, I said I do not want to be like Voldemort, that I want to be like my parents. The hat said that greatness does not require being evil, but I was set on Gryffyndor."

Starfleet Command added more defense resources in the Solar System. It was ironic that its predecessor organization was founded with the intention of controlling nuclear weapons. Now we were mass producing nuclear weapons at a rate far faster than even Earth did in the 1960's. Even our new X-ray laser weapon used a nuclear weapon to power the beam.

Magic solved some of the problems that the original US research had discovered with the concept of a nuclear explosion powered beam weapon. Ace Castillo explained, "We made it much less expensive. It was quite ingenious actually. The mechanism is only needed for a fraction of second. In the original design it would be destroyed while functioning just long enough. We instead duplicate and conjure what is needed where it is needed as it is fired.

You normally do not think of nanosecond precision in magic, but we are investigating different methods of time dilation. We know that consequential time travel is not allowed, which is the exact quote. As you know a time turner has an hour reversal charm. We instead invented a repeating sequence of tiny fractions of a second being reversed every slightly longer tiny fraction of second. It is encased in a way to only slow time, not reverse it, and it does work.

We also have worked on modifications of the freezing charm. Immobulus, to slow down the explosion to have it occur in precise stages with the beam machinery being ready for each new stage. This is still under development."

Other beam weapons were tried out, some involving portable particle accelerators as a source. Other experiments were made using pure magic spell to damage ships. While how effective spells would be at long range was an issue, magically hidden Nomads charmed to release a spell at close range were being developed.

Around 2005, the Earth completed adding 3G mobile service. Most of the planet now had an affordable mobile phone able to use the internet. The devices were sold cheaply and United Earth tried to make them available for all. Tablet computers that can easily connect wirelessly to keyboards or to larger screens were also in common use.

Online education in various forms was available for free for the entire planet. Starfleet Academy coordinated recommended classes for those who planned to apply in future years. There was a basic plan for what skills would be needed when.

By 2008, the asteroid belt had many large mining colonies and nearby factories. There were colonies on the Moon and Mars, each focused on extracting resources.

Space tourism was popular throughout the galaxy among the very wealthy.

2008 was also the year that the super high energy colliders and particle accelerators became operational in the asteroid belt. Various different methods were implemented. They all had energy levels far exceeding any experiments on Earth.

Years earlier we had a global program to find true physics prodigies and encourage them to become researchers trying to discover the yet unknown laws of physics. Now we had a good collection of researchers to design experiments and analyze the results. They were given access to the physics knowledge from Star Trek canon. Earlier, other researchers were given full access to Star Trek canon and distilled down the relevant information for research, and removed it from the context of Star Trek.

In 2009 we had a research breakthrough with phenomenon discovered that were consistent with subspace in Star Trek canon. The physicist knew what to look for and zeroed in on anomalies from their previous understanding of particle physics. They then came up with modifications of the setup for future experiments.

The planning group met. Khan asked, "What do we actually know about Vulcan contact protocols?"

I answered, "While we do not know how similar their protocols were to the later Federation Prime Directive, we do know they arrived as soon as they detected the warp signature of a ship traveling faster than light. They did not arrive during the experiments that must have occurred prior to that flight."

Hermione said, "Why don't we find and interview Mestral, assuming he is still living 52 years after staying on Earth. We can do this, copper based blood detection spells specifically designed to look for humanoid size."

Jonathan Pike added, "We can also use United Earth records to look for profiles similar to his. He would likely avoid conventional medical attention due to his different anatomy. He would likely age at a similar rate to magicals, but would not be listed as a magical. His minor differences in appearance from humans might have been corrected by a cooperative surgeon by now."

In January 2010 he was found living in New York City. Covert operatives stunned him and brought him to a Section 31 facility underground in the Starfleet complex in San Francisco.

We met him as a group and President Khan Singh addressed him, "It is a wonderful honor to meet you Mestral. Earth is greatly appreciative of your cooperation and the help you have given to the miners of Carbon Creek in 1957."

Mestral replied, "It would be logical to avoid claiming a different name and background, since you are aware of the facts mentioned. Are you aware of my place of origin?"

I answered, "You are trying to avoid providing knowledge of extra-terrestrial civilizations to a planet that is as yet unaware. One of the areas that we will greatly appreciate your cooperation would be for us to learn more about the Vulcan High Command's protocols of when to contact a planet developing warp technology."

Festar Tatari, a skilled legilimens, or mind reader, who worked for me in my Albanian operations was at the meeting. He had sparkling eyes similar to Dumbledore's. It was a charm he applied to cause people to want to look at his eyes and try to figure out why they were sparkling. Eye contact made his legilimency much easier. He said, "I am Festar Tatari. You seem to have wanted to study and indeed to help humanity, instead of returning to Vulcan. Can you explain?"

Mestral said, "Sir. You are attempting to read my mind. However, it would be logical for me to allow this intrusion so that you can verify the truthfulness of my statements. The answer I would normally state was that the reason was to study an emerging species. However, a fuller more truthful answer would include motivations of liking your species and wanting to live among them." Festar indicated that he was telling the truth.

Khan Singh asked, "You will now assist us in emerging in our stellar neighborhood in a cooperative but independent way. We want to know likely Vulcan reactions to our research and eventually to our contact with them."

Mestral said, "I should have anticipated that my remaining on the planet could mean that I might remain long enough to be present at the time of official first contact, and might be discovered in that context, not just as a strange alien. Very well, I will help you to understand how to achieve a cooperative relationship with Vulcan. I will not disclose facts that I consider harmful to Vulcan. To answer your earlier question, just the fact that you know about Vulcan means that you can be contacted, it does not require your having warp capability."

Khan said, "Excellent. Your cooperation is very much appreciated."

Afterwards, when Mestral was out of the room, I asked Festar, Did you discover what he was thinking about when said some facts could be harmful to Vulcan?"

Festar answered, "No, he was very careful as to what he allowed my scan to see and what he kept shielded. If he is typical of Vulcans, we are not going to get very far with mind reading, at least non-destructive mind reading."

Khan said, "There is no need to contemplate this against Mestral. Also, against official Vulcan contacts that would be an act of war.

One thing I note from that episode of Enterprise, Carbon Creek, is that not only was Mestral guilty of crimes against Vulcan, but so were his two ship-mates who lied on his behalf."

I added, "Leverage if needed. Presumably he would rather the Vulcans never learn of his survival after the 1957 ship crash. If the other two are still living they could face punishment 52 years later. Even if not, their family's status could be effected. From canon, their family based organization is not that different from the wizarding world, although the Klingons more closely resemble our British wizarding world."

On March 4th 2010 two stealth Nomad probes discovered a Vulcan ship reaching the orbit of Saturn. The Vulcan detector spell indicated Vulcans on board, at least 3 maybe 4. The ship then slowed down and carefully looked at one of the space stations at a distance of 120 million kilometers. It then headed away and then around the outer Solar System and looked at another of the stations from a similar distance from it. It then left the Solar System.

Khan asked Mestral, "What do you think about this, and the 2002 visit?"

Mestral answered, "At Earth's development stage in 1957, and as well in 2002, Vulcan would send a survey ship to view Earth from high orbit about every 20 years. That is not an exact interval. I would surmise that the 2002 visit was simply a flyby of the Solar System, not to view Earth directly. This 2010 visit probably was intended to visit Earth, but avoided doing so after seeing a Solar defense network, and not seeing a warp signature."

Khan asked, "Would they have detected our high energy physics experiments?"

Mestral answered, "Their distance to those was not close, never getting closer than 920 million kilometers from Sol. It is probable that they did not detect anything unless a warp distortion occurred at that time."

I asked, "What would Vulcan conclude from this visit?"

Mestral answered, "That Earth is hostile to visitors and is expecting visitors. They might be trying to understand if their 2002 visit was detected. They would be reasonably certain that no other visitors have been to Earth since they would likely have detected the warp signature of any other visitors. They also would note that the space stations were built since their 2002 visit."

I asked, "What should we expect?"

Mestral answered, "The Solar System will be left alone, until there is a warp signature or a manned sub-light craft leaves the Solar System. A sub-light craft might not be contacted immediately. It would depend on its destination and speed. The rational would be that once contact is inevitable it should be done in a planned manner."