Chapter 35:
In late 2010 we setup an organized way to evaluate new ideas. Earlier we had been evaluating more developed ideas from those who could do research. Mr Jackson's idea to increase production of antimatter without magic had passed to the next round of funding since it showed promise, even more when combined with magic. His other idea to have a Uranium-238 solar sail, and bombard it with anti-protons was given a higher priority, since he now had a track record.
This new idea generation, was simply that, ideas. Research teams could use them freely if they thought they were useful. The public was told a lot about what technologies we wanted to develop. Magic was now well known.
A science fiction fan, Mr. Zuzak, was reading a Time-Life book series on magical inventions, and realized that the Vanishing Cabinet could work even better in some ways than Star Trek transporters. He became part of a surprisingly large category of idea generators. In this timeline, there was no fictional Harry Potter or Star Trek world. However there was science fiction. Zuzak was an industrial designer, who also had a hobby level of knowledge of various scientific fields, and was an extreme science fiction fan. There were many on-line discussion groups, and in some people would go into arcane details of possibilities of inventions seen in different science fiction worlds.
Zuzak's idea caught the attention of the reviewing committee, and I saw a report about from his idea of using a fixed portal to move cargo and people using vanishing cabinets, and remembered from the original Harry Potter timeline that it was used between London and Hogwarts, a distance of over 650 kilometers or 400 miles. That is above some standard orbital distances and there was no indication that it was anywhere near the distance limit for a vanishing cabinet.
After being briefed about where to find the two cabinets, Professor Flitwick retrieved the broken one from the Room of Hidden Things. He notified Headmistress McGonagall, and told her about how it could bypass the wards of Hogwarts. She was happy for him to remove it. Flitwick rented space in Hogsmeade and brought the cabinet there, and fixed it in one afternoon. It took Draco in canon months to do that as a 6th year.
Flitwick arrived at the Borgin and Burkes shop in Knockturn Alley, "I would be interested in buying this cabinet."
Borgin looked him over and said, "You aren't buying it for Gringotts. You aren't buying it for Hogwarts, no that would be handled differently. You work for Starfleet and can expense these things." Borgin then quoted a very high price and only let it be bargained down a little.
Now owning both cabinets, and having them both in Hogsmeade, Flitwick did experiments. Reverse engineering the charms without doing any damage was difficult, but Flitwick was a Charms Master. He then improved it. Flitwick, knowing Starfleet procedure, broke down the steps to be able to make more cabinets so that competent spell casters could do so efficiently and as part of mass production.
His report said, "While we do not have actual Star Trek shields to test against, we do know it can get through very powerful wards. Therefore we think it might do something that Star Trek transporters do not, which is transport through shields.
Our initial tests show that the technology can be used while in motion, and we are ready to try sending objects to and from orbit. To preemptively answer a question, no it does not go faster than light speed.
Our development plan is to have a network of cabinets that can be set to transport to any one selected, not just one it is paired with.
A basic idea for away mission use, would be to bring a cabinet down by shuttle then cast a notice-me-not spell. It could then be used for transport back and forth. Cargo can be shrunk before transport."
Other researchers joined in. How to move people through a cabinet pair quickly? It was needed to close the chamber between uses, but instead of a door that opens, an automatic sliding wall was faster.
There would be a circle of platforms. People would get on their platform well before it would be turned to face the vanishing cabinet. When it reached its turn, it would be pulled into the chamber. At the other end, the platform would be pushed out and be turned around in a similar circle to be offloaded before it got all the around again to the vanishing cabinet. This method maximized the throughput of the vanishing cabinet.
Some platforms were designed for cargo that could be shrunk. That cargo would usually be shrunk at the point it was shipped from and only unshrunk at its destination, not at the location of the vanishing cabinet.
At certain intervals, one transportation was done in the opposite direction. Semaphores were set to indicate the status at the other end, if the arrivals needed to be paused, or if there was going to be transportation in the other direction.
Other ideas included building a shelter around a cabinet on a planet, so that arrivals wouldn't need to deal with harsh planetary conditions immediately. There were calls for solving the problem of how to get a vanishing cabinet to a planet without needing to use a space shuttle or drone.
It was 2012 and now the inner Solar System had people everywhere. It was time for a crewed expedition to Jupiter's moons. In canon this mission was launched in 2024 and included Renée Picard, and was interfered with by Q. Clearly he wouldn't be doing that in this timeline.
For this mission we first needed to perfect radiation shields that never failed. Only the fourth moon, Callisto, could be habitable otherwise. Io, which we suspected would be the most interesting moon, couldn't even have brief visits without excessive radiation exposure. The ships sent on this mission had thick physical radiation barriers in addition to magical shielding.
The mission to Jupiter would send video updates. The communications delay between Earth and Jupiter varies between 35 minutes to 51 minutes each way depending where they are in their orbits.
"We are doing a spacewalk today. These are the same spacesuits we are going to use on Io." They appeared in spacesuits that looked like the ones used the Original Series episode "Tholian Web".
"The enchanted radiation shield is constantly monitored. In testing they have never failed, but if they were to fail, the wearer would be port-keyed back to the ship which has a thick layer of radiation shielding."
As the ship arrived at Io, they sent a live update back to Earth, "We are descending through what is called a plasma torus. The tidal effects of Jupiter cause this ionization of 1 ton per second of oxygen and sulfur from Io."
Later the live-streaming crew said, "We are now descending into a crater with an active volcano. Everywhere around us we are mostly seeing sulfur and compounds of sulfur. The colors you are seeing have not been enhanced. These are yellow, red, white, black, and green features on the surface. We are pausing the broadcast for some experiments now and expect to be live streaming again in an hour, of course your live stream is almost an hour later than our transmissions."
Now they setup their subspace detection as well as a battery of other tests. In their secret broadcast to Starfleet, "Roger that, there are indications of what we expected to find with dilithium in that crater. We plan to resume moving towards that location."
The live-stream resumed, "We are going to collect samples for analysis back on the ship, and later at Starfleet laboratories."
One of the landing party said, "Did you see that?" On the live-stream you could see an area of rock with lights flashing on and off.
Another of the landing party said, "Look at the timing of the light I focused my camera on, one flash, then a pause, two flashes then a pause, three flashes then a pause, but then the next is five flashes, then seven, then eleven."
"We are looking at intelligence. I cannot think of a natural phenomena that would do that. I am going to aim my flashlight at it and repeat the pattern back"
"Our computer analyzed the next response. It is a semi-prime sequence that can encode a picture. Our nomad probe assisted by communications specialist Velicka is going to try to build up a common language."
3 days later they live-streamed again, "A combination of our communications specialist, our nomad artificial intelligence, and magic, we now have an ability to communicate with an intelligent life-form of linked micro-organisms composed of sulfur, silicon, oxygen, and iron. It thrives in a high level of radiation."
Only communicating with Starfleet, they then worked out an agreement to bring some of the life-form back to Starfleet. The life form also agreed to having a sample of what was suspected to be dilithium crystals to be removed. They explained that the crystals were part of their ecosystem, but they could allow a specific sample to be removed.
A few weeks later we had representatives of the Ions, as we called them, on a research base in orbit around Jupiter.
We duplicated the suspected dilithium crystals, and did experiments. The duplicating spell which usually results in something initially the same, but which breaks down relatively quickly, was tested. Researchers were rapidly understanding how it can be used to improve matter-antimatter reaction energy flows.
An vault security specialist company which was hired by the Lestrange family to protect the objects in their vault consulted with us, "For vault security it is essential that the original cannot be distinguished from the copy, at least for the few minutes before the vault is so fully filled with duplicates that movement is not possible. Even with this dilithium existing in both space and subspace, we think the duplicate will initially be useful enough assuming the original was useful.
Our planning group visited a luxurious manor on the asteroid Ceres. Hermione announced the agenda, "What to ask the Ions. How to proceed with dilithium experiments. When to test warp fields. How to handle contact with extra-terrestrial civilizations.
I would like to remind us that there are no ideas off the agenda. We can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being meanies."
Khan said, "It might be time to rename United Earth to make it clear that it represents the interests of all sentient species native to the Solar System.
Let me address the request to discuss being mean, as you describe it.
Obviously you are talking about doing what the mirror universe would do and simply mining whatever dilithium exists on Io. I am against this and will explain why.
Before getting into the practical reasons why that would backfire, I'll address the moral reasons. Following Slytherin methods does not mean being soulless or only motivated by advantage. When at the start of the 1990's I set out to take over the world, it was to bring greatness to it. I freely acknowledge wanting it be in charge of it, but that was not my only goal. It was to use the abilities I have to make this species better than it was.
Similarly Lord Malfoy around the same time expressed his desire to protect humanity, magical and non-magical both, from negative futures, while also wanting to profit at the same time. The fact that Q gave us a goal of pushing humanity towards far future evolutions, is not actually anything different than what we would have already wanted."
I answered, "I fully concur with what you said. As far as I am concerned the Ions are one of us now, to be protected and helped, not ever to be considered as being just a resource. The Slytherin ideal was not represented by Voldemort, who looked out only for himself, while pretending to have other goals. We have extremely ambitious goals, and want to provide leadership to achieve those goals. We are not amoral, even if we might eliminate opponents along the way."
Jonathan Pike said, "Then it is clear that we need to come up with what we want from the Ions and evaluate what we can do for them."
Hermione said, "My reports from the warp research group are that the tiny sample of dilithium might be enough to get started. We might prefer a little more, but even everything on Io would not be enough for future unduplicated use. In canon, Starfleet was always looking for more dilithium from distant star systems.
We are not following the thinking of there being a limited pie to divide up, instead we are focusing on how to make that pie bigger. We will understand the secrets of dilithium and not depend on mining it. We also have an idea of how it is formed, using the extreme conditions of Io where it was found as an example."
I continued, "So research continues, we ask the Ions what they want. Now let us get to the question of when to have a warp field and how to address the Vulcans."
Tracey Pike said, "What if we make common cause with the Andorians, who have their own difficulties with the Vulcans? There are also the Tellarites and Klingons."
I answered, "The Klingons are in a more distant location, but are also hostile as a general policy. They might respect us if we were stronger than them, but they will not help us reach that state. They might consider us prey, which is worse than the way the Vulcans would treat us."
Harry Potter said, "What if we sent a sub-light speed ship to Andoria?"
Draco answered, "It might be detected even with magical hiding. There are gravimetric waves that a notice-me-not cannot hide. Suppose it arrives there undetected? Then what? The Andorians wouldn't be that impressed with a non-warp ship. Maybe we show them some of our magic on that ship. Even if they cooperate with us, it wouldn't give us any great advantage that we cannot also gain by visiting them by warp after Vulcan contact."
Daphne added, "The Vulcans didn't place an embargo on the Solar System in canon. They only tried to cajole them into delaying voyages beyond safe areas. There were some long distance colony ships sent out in canon from 2063 to 2151. There would be no reason to expect the Vulcans to fire on us if we wanted to visit the Andorians."
Juan Singh said, "It is settled then. At some point we develop warp, have tea with the Vulcans, tell them how much we admire their ears, and then do whatever we want while they lecture us. We don't expect to gain any useful technology from them."
[June 2012 on a space station orbiting Jupiter]
We gathered on a space station around Jupiter. Its orbit was picked to both be far enough from Jupiter to avoid excessive radiation and also to have a line of sight to Io as much of the time as possible. The Ion group who left Io with us were kept there and had radio communication with Io. With more time to develop communications, we now could speak to a Nomad intelligence that could communicate with and express the intentions of the Ions.
Khan addressed them, "The several sentient species native to Earth and now living throughout the Solar System, welcome you to join in our endeavors."
The Ions asked, "We welcome you also. What are your endeavors."
Khan answered, "To work together to advance technology, to combine it with what we call magic, to build an interstellar civilization, to help each other, to protect each other, and to be able to defend our Solar System from any extra-terrestrial civilization that could be hostile. After that, to encourage our evolution to that of being part of the fabric of the universe."
The Ions answered, "Those are goals we can agree with. What have you learned from the sample of mineral you removed?"
Khan answered, "It can be used to channel energy from matter and antimatter reactions. We have learned to make duplicates of it, which last only a short time, but which can be indefinitely repeated it. We would wish for a larger sample, and would supply you with a steady supply of duplicates in whatever quantity you desire."
The Ions said, "We can agree to that. We will identify a section of mineral that can be spared. We will start experiments with the duplicated mineral as soon as you supply it and then know what we can do with it."
Khan asked, "Will you join United Earth and Solar System, and what can we do for you?"
The Ions said, "Being a different form of life, much of your organization would not be relevant for us. However, we can join on a basis that acknowledges that fact.
We would ask for certain elements that are not abundant on Io. We would also ask for magic and to help knowing how magic can help us."
Khan said, "Wonderful. Welcome to our United Solar System.
Our spell-casters will visit and provide any assistance that they can."
[July 2012, Khan's general broadcast to the Solar System]
"Greetings to our wonderful Solar community. The Ions have formally joined our expanded organization, United Earth and Solar System. We now have several sentient species on Earth and a quite unique one from the inner-most moon of Jupiter. The Ions are a linked microorganism that thrives in a high radioactivity environment that also has subspace distortions. What we share together is sentience and both being part of the Solar System. We now will all work together for the future of our Solar System."