Introduction Part I: The Beginning
Among the din of various electronics of every kind imaginable, a high pitched, somewhat geeky slur broke the relative silence.
“Alright, ACe. Initiate Centauri 3, test 15, phase 1,” said Abe, the only human aboard the station for the time being.
A ‘beep’ precluded the Automated Computer partner’s verbal response, in a very somewhat British-American accent as he said, “Very well sir.” A moment passed as several monitors changed their state from passive to very active, complete with graphs of several complicated analyses of various types. Then he continued, “Phase One has started Abe. I’ll monitor the various energies for you.”
Abe answered, “Thanks Ace. I’m adjusting our orbit now.”
As he said this, he looked out the view port, the smart glass, which had been tracking his eye movements, immediately became transparent, and displayed a filtered picture of the sun below him, just a few thousand kilometers away, yet still looming, still massive, and still beautiful.
He blinked, and shook away the thought train, as he had more important things to worry about now, rather than simply star watching.
Looking back to his monitor, he adjusted a few numerical values, changing the layout of the various graphs; among them were hull temperature, magneto funnel integrity, and altitude. In order for the experiment to succeed, they needed to get much closer to the sun, in order to effectively channel enough of the Sun’s enormous energy for the sake of the experiment.
A moment passed, and the sound of the accelerator ramping up indicated the thrusters had fired. As he watched, the various graphs turned from black, to blue, to green, with the exception to the one labeled hull temperature, which simply became a sharper curve.
ACe once again broke the silence. “Approaching ideal orbit height. Estimated time: 15 minutes.”
Abe replied curtly. “Understood.”
Abe got up from where he sat, and floated over to the view port by the center of the chamber. The whole structure was shaped oddly like two mushrooms growing from one another’s bases; it almost resembled an hour glass. Of course, Abe knew perfectly well that the odd structure was just the containment for the experiment of five years and 15 billion IRU, or International Revenue Units.
He glanced over to the cherry wood plaque off to the right, which displayed his own name, and those of his colleagues, who were rotated with him periodically. Below the names, and inscribed on a gold plate were the words:
“Dedicated to First graduate class of the United Earth Federation University: the interstellar gravity tube modulator”.
Looking back, he couldn’t help but feel a spark of pride. The brain child of fifty people was finally complete, and he just knew this would be the lucky day.
No, it would be his lucky day. He had discovered the final puzzle piece this past month, and with the help of ACe, he had finally cracked the puzzle of Time-Sphincter stability. He had discovered how to build a Tesseract.
ACe chose this moment to break Abe from his reverie. A ‘beep’ sounded, followed by the British voice saying, “We’ve achieved the orbital window now, sir. I’ve begun charging the power stores.” Abe gave an affirmative grunt, reaching up to pat the Plexiglas once, before turning back to the horseshoe arrangement of monitors. He took his place in the hollo-monitor, the magnetic flooring engaging now, anchoring his feet. The displays of each station showed up a small icons all around him.
He spoke up now, with a good deal more resolve and confidence, for this was where he belonged. After a deep breath he said, “Then let’s begin.”
More beeping and whirling electronics sounded off as ACe began the second part of phase one. One by one each station enlarged itself as Abe looked to it, observing various indicators such as the color green, and the message “System is Go”. Once Abe sorted through the last of the icons, he looked left to a check box, which displayed all section one system checks as checked. ACe then proceeded to switch the page over to a new section. Abe had no need to look it over just this second. Instead he looked back to the main window which was blank until he gave the command to initiate the countdown. A simple number 60 showed itself, before changing to a 59, then 58, and so on.
Once the counter became two zeros, it disappeared, showing a blank and transparent main window again.
“Initiating Fusion Core heating,” said ACe, who waited a moment before continuing. “Neutron density stable… Electron tunneling stable… Fusion initiated.” Almost ten seconds passed before the final Statistic was reported. “Fusion Core stabilized… All energies are nominal sir. We’re ready to begin Phase One, Part F.”
Abe made the call. “Do it.”
ACe ‘beeped’ the affirmative. After a moment he said, “Beginning electron injection.”
Abe took this moment to watch the fun, the corresponding graphs becoming enlarged in the main window, indicating the energies and densities as the electrons began colliding, the result being a mathematical value he knew perfectly well as a nominal neutrino density.
ACe spoke again; “Photonic rotation has started sir.”
A small smile crept onto Abe’s face; for the first time, finally a useful result had been created.
All was being recorded, and for the first time humanity had managed to pierce the fourth dimension directly.
Just to be sure, he looked to the icon indicating the gravimetric analysis, and his smile only grew. Indeed, one side remained stable, while the other was indicating a steady increase in gravity flux, the side facing space, of course. It simply wouldn’t due to point a singularity directly at himself after all.
Nor would it be advisable to expose it directly to solar plasma. That was a lesson his Colleague, Amanda, could attest to. Though using photonic relativistic mass to create a super conductive plasma was his move, she’d had the idea to directly use a Coronal Mass Ejection coupled with a Bowl Shaped electromagnet for the necessary rotation in the first place. While it had resulted, essentially, in a warp drive device, it had also destroyed the facility when quantum tunneling decided it wanted the some of the solar plasma to exist inside the Lab. At least the discovery provided enough grant money to rebuild the Lab for his rotation.
“Now for the fun part,” Abe thought to himself, before announcing the next move to ACe. He said, “Begin the microwave tuning modulation.” After the affirmative ‘beep’ by ACe, the associated icon occupied Abe’s field of vision. The idea was to use Piezoelectric Diamond to be the interface between eddies in the gravity flux and the microwave signal, allowing for precision interaction with the event horizon.
ACe spoke up; “The microwave modulation is stable sir. Shall I begin Phase Two?”
“Yep!” Abe replied, excitedly. “It’s time to look through this window.”
A blast shield raised itself from above the humming behemoth, revealing an opaque crystalline cylinder with a solid black core. An alert sounded, before a flash occurred as dark radiation began flowing between the two machines.
The outer crystal took on an eerie glow as its atoms became excited by normal electromagnetism. When the image cleared, it was like a holographic image. There was darkness, yes, but there were also stars to be seen.
It could mean two possible options. “ACe!?” he started, “Scan those constellations for familiar Magnetar coordination.” The experiment in question was designed for two purposes:
Advance human understanding of controlled FTL, and allow the study of Einstein-Rosen bridges.
He hoped it was as good as he’d calculated.
Almost a minute passed, before ACe responded. “There are several distinct similarities between constellations sir, however none of them represent a statistical correlation closer than 3%... It would seem as though it is a new region of space, sir.” A pictorial representation showed three glowing dots outside 3 standard deviations from a bell curve, which represented the expected results, versus what was found, the three being the only ones which matched. It would seem the portal opened up to someplace entirely new, where they couldn’t possibly be familiar.
Nonetheless, data was data, so ACe recorded it all. Furthermore, evidence of a connection between two points in space had potential for BIG money.
He made another call. “ACe!?” The ‘beep’ indicated the computer was once again listening for instruction. Abe continued, “Begin Phase 3.”
Phase 3 began as ACe introduced a specific variable amount of noise to the signal. Abe watched as the crystal clear image turned to static, before once again gaining resolution, this time showing a brightly lit village situation, and the screen was occupied by what appeared to be a large crystal structure shaped oddly like a tree.
He held up his hand immediately, shouting, “Pause!”
Immediately, ACe stopped the variations in the microwaves, stabilizing the image.
Abe felt a wave of nauseating excitement as he watched what appeared to be a small Lavender unicorn open the door and walk inside, the door opening of its own accord, whilst surrounded by a glow identical to the glow of the alien’s own horn.
Though conscious thought seemed to be out for lunch, second nature deduced that there must be a direct relation.
Conscious thought then was kicked back into gear when another horned being walked into the field of view, this one an alabaster white, and having immaculately styled and curled hair, indicating further evidence of society; Following this one in were two pony-like beings, one of which wore a hat, resembling an antique he himself owned. The other was a bright pink coloration. Finally, a pair of flying aliens one with wild rainbow colored hair, passed the viewpoint, also entering the castle-like structure.
There was no sound in the images, and there was no sound in the space craft; as the orbital window passed, ACe concluded the experiment.
This time both brain functions took a break, while Abe unwillingly took a nap in a floating heap.
