Chapter 60:
[Los Angeles, Earth 2033]
Canon showed that in 2047 there would be a very destructive earthquake that would also flood a huge area around Los Angeles. Since the Alliance shared all technology, Earth brought in Insectoid-Xindi and Reptilian-Xindi experts who knew how to blow up their own planet using seismic faults. They were instead being asked to help ensure that attempts to prevent the 2047 Hermosa Quake wouldn't cause worse problems. They agreed to magical reading of their intentions when providing this service.
Xyrillians who were rapidly learning magic volunteered to replace many of the Human magicals for a while so that Humans could concentrate on Los Angeles. Human magicals protected every building from the deliberate earthquakes that would ensue to relieve the seismic stresses. They were also ready to hold back flooding in case the land were to suddenly sink, despite precautions to prevent that. In Canon parts of the city sank 200 meters below sea level. Finally they were prepared for emergency evacuations if unanticipated disasters still occurred.
[Magic and the Alliance]
The Xyrillian student at Hogwarts was sorted into Gryffindor and seemed to be doing well in her first year. Two more Xyrillians were going to join in September 2033. No Vulcans or Aenar had wanted to attend Hogwarts.
Most Xyrillian adults with magical potential were getting rapid training in performing useful industrial magic. In the longer term they would learn magic more broadly, and their students would get an education equivalent to Human magicals.
The project by Dr. Soong and Dr. Phlox had a significant number of magical births in 2031, and expected to be more than a million per year by 2035.
Of the species that were contacted that had native magic, only the Tarquin had refused both any assistance with magic and membership in the Alliance. They did however accept that the small number of them born with visible magic would move to the Alliance.
In the Alliance There was a steady increase in magic, with much more expected in the 2050's.
[Alliance 2033]
Klingons and the Alliance had an agreement to stay out of each other's territories. The Orions told the
Alliance that the Klingons were going to concentrate in expanding in opposite directions from the Alliance. They also were going to try to get ahold of magical genes and then magical knowledge. While the Soong family was being watched, others would inevitably find their way to the Klingons once the techniques to bring magic to different species will become in common use.
The Orions brought back a quote from the Klingons, "Today is not a battle lost and it is not a battle won. Today we prepare for tomorrow's battle."
The Orions also worked out a status quo arrangement with the Romulans. The Orions warned the Romulans that the Alliance was well aware of their abilities to try to try to pretend to be ships of the Alliance and also to try to infiltrate governments. That these attempts would fail and lead to an all out war with the odds against the Romulans, even if they combined with the Klingons. They agreed to stay out of Alliance space for now, but not as a formal agreement. They also were assumed to expect to try to learn about magic. The parts of Canon that showed that the Remans, a mistreated offshoot of the Romulans, probably had magic was kept secret.
Shared technology led to most Alliance worlds having significant advances. Infrastructure on planets and in space were being built on a huge scale. A certain coordination among Alliance government started to develop. They each agreed to invest considerably in making use of the new technologies available to them. Alliance agreements also had them spending considerably on research and development.
The Alliance kept building warships, but most of them functioned as cargo and passenger ships in times of peace. For now they were run by Starfleet. There was an idea to have privately financed cargo ships with full fighting ability to function in times of was as privateers, but the agreement wasn't there yet. The question was mainly who would pay for the extra capabilities, and if Starfleet was paying, why not just build and operate the ships themselves.
There was perhaps some misgivings by some of having Starfleet haul their cargo around. It made smuggling and other illegal operations more difficult. The Alliance rules against arbitrary criminal justice actions now extended towards allowing a free flow of materials. What was not forbidden by the Alliance would be allowed to be transported anywhere. Local governments could still ban items, but smuggling itself was not considered a crime.
A combined culture was starting to emerge in newly settled planets and moons that had mixed populations. Much of the population in the home worlds kept their original cultures, but even there, foods, music, styles, and entertainments of other parts of the Alliance became popular.
[Alliance Council Meeting 2034]
Hermione started with the agenda, "This meeting is about long term trends and Alliance responses to them."
Khan said, "When two hostile forces each think the other is gaining strength faster than them, war ensues. On Earth that is what led to the start of World War One in 1914, not the spark that many historians attribute it to. If the Archduke survived, there would have been another spark, until one started the fire.
When both sides think they will gain strength faster, peace for now prevails. That is the situation with the Alliance against the Klingons and Romulans."
Juan Singh continued, "They each think that they will learn the secrets of magic over time. We agree. In 20 years, we will have thousands or more of genetic engineers helping each species develop magic. They will take the brilliant work of our researchers today and distill it down to something that can be taught in a university program. There will be no practical way to keep it a secret.
However, we will be many steps ahead, in the knowledge of how to use magic, and the numbers who wield it. Even if that knowledge would plateau at some time, we expect to have the advantage of numbers. The alliance method should provide the long term advantages over their empire method."
I asked, "If we ever determined that they were gaining faster, would we be ready, willing, and able to engage in a preventative war?"
Balram Singh said, "Absolutely. We are always preparing for war tomorrow. There would however have to be a concerted effort to convince the Alliance if it were to be necessary. This is perhaps a disadvantage an alliance has versus an empire."
Draco said, "To keep the advantages of numbers, we shall expand. We can do so in directions not encroaching on the Klingons and Romulans. Expansion might also result in different technologies than what we would expect to invent soon, and perhaps adding other species with native magic. We will also comb through Canon to find good expansion prospects."
Armand Malfoy said, "As adequate fleets are completed we should redirect much of the construction budget towards research and development. We know from Canon some of what we can and should invent, and we can invent our way to a decisive advantage over our neighboring empires, including the ones that we have not contacted yet."
[Alliance 2034 – 2043]
There was an entire decade of not much of significance to the timeline. Economies were growing, technology was being developed. Magic was still in short supply.
Some of the Alliance formed a joint culture. The universal translator was in widespread use. It non-invasively tied into nerves from the brain. Thought that led to speech in one's native language was used to drive the motor parts of the brain to speak in a different language. Auditory inputs that heard other languages were translated so that the speech perception parts of the brain received the equivalent nerve signals in ones native language.
Alliance Standard, which was English, was also learned. Fluency was a little better with a known language than relying on the universal translator.
The young generation in mixed species worlds evolved their own patois, combining words from many languages, while using the basic grammar and language rules of English.
A time system was based on Earth years. Each stardate was one year. Stardate 2043.5 would be July 1st 2043. The beginning of the year would be in UTC, similar to the earlier Greenwich standard time on Earth. Metric measurements were in common use, as was light-years to measure distance.
Expansion of the Alliance steadily occurred. Some fleets would explore and try to gain new members. Others went to places shown in Canon maps marked in blue, which indicated Federation membership. It was assumed that they would be likely candidates to join the Alliance, and usually were.
Sometimes those planets still hadn't invented warp. There was no prime directive in the Alliance. Decisions were made individually, as to which civilizations should be left alone and which would be helped with contact. The Vulcans didn't like this decision, but most of the rest of the Alliance agreed.
In particular, civilization facing disasters would be helped. In Canon, the Prime Directive stated that they must go through disasters, even extinction, as some sort of natural process that needed to be left to proceed on its own. In the Alliance, the emphasis was on helping the planets encountered, and bringing good prospects into the Alliance. One rational for this policy was that by building up the strength of the Alliance we would have a better chance of later fighting off the Borg, which would assimilate those same planets if we failed.
[Magic in the Alliance 2040s]
The first of Dr. Soong's experimental genetically engineered Human magicals in the UK and Ireland were turning 11 before September 2041. They had all been getting magical tutoring from their first display of accidental magic. So have all other magicals who accepted tutoring. While many magical children preferred Starfleet Education, some wanted to go to Hogwarts. One was planning to enroll in 2041, and three more were expected in 2042. In 2044, 12 of these students started there. The numbers kept increasing. There was also a steady number of Xyrillians, but they were limited to those who established residency in Britain or Ireland. In 2042 the first Vulcan went to Hogwarts. He was from the small Vulcan subculture of those who wanted to experience emotions.
There was already some backlash against these new magicals. I went through a lot of effort in the 1990's to show that muggleborn were actually a revival of lost magic, using as my main examples, Hermione reviving the House and also the abilities of the Dagworth-Grangers, and Tonks getting a magical inheritance from the Tonks family that resulted in the revival of the metamorphmagus ability, long dormant in the Black family. I also showed the examples of Lily Evans Potter, and several others.
However, this new wave of magicals born in the 2030's were genetically engineered. The hostile term for them was Sequencers. Section 31 discussed this with Headmistress McGonagall. She was getting on in years, but magicals had much longer lifespans and she was still capable. She was convinced by us that decisive action was needed to ensure that these genetically engineered magicals were accepted. The phrase used to combat discrimination was, "You might not approve of how they came to be born, but they are sentients the same as you or I and will be treated according to their actions, not their origins."
McGonagall named Luna Longbottom as the head of house Ravenclaw and the Care of Magical Creatures Professor. She was especially qualified since she was bullied by other Ravenclaws until Draco intervened. Her husband Neville Longbottom became head of house Gryffindor and was Professor of Herbology. My grandson, Scorpius Malfoy Greengrass, became head of house Slytherin and was Professor of Combat Arts. The existing head of house Hufflepuff was considered to already be doing a good job of preventing discrimination against the genetically engineered.
In the rest of the Alliance there were now small numbers of magicals being born to other species. That research was still experimental. More Human hybrids were born with magic.
In 2046 the genetic research group gave into pressure by Alliance species. They had the ability to give a 25% chance of having magic for any species, but felt that more testing was needed to avoid negative effects. The Alliance was not willing to wait and this genetic technology became codified.
Now learning centers throughout the Alliance taught how to engineer magic. University programs were teaching the latest techniques and how to become researchers. It became a fairly popular educational major, in addition to the existing ones of plasma physics, subspace, warp technology, beam weapon research, shields research, technomagic, industrial automation, and a few others.