Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - [CoQF] Building Plans [2.1]

[Quantum Fire]

Several of the group had a desire to build a new place, or new places for a measure of safety from the world, and the isle was going to sooner or later, be discovered. Each of them had their own ideas of how to do that, all of them had some good ideas, even if they weren't all sure how to implement them. Traveler had asked them to gather in the hidden underground to begin carrying out their plans.

[Courier]

Warren warped in and was first there. Realizing he was 9 minutes and 23 seconds early, he chided himself for being over eager. Nothing but good things could come from this endeavor.

He settled in to wait for the others and was quickly distracted by his observations.

[SalmonMax]

Alexandra was second, coming in through the elevator and walking purposefully across the large, high-ceilinged room. Her workstation was at the far end; a long table with several computers so thoroughly networked that the boundaries between them were largely arbitrary, and a bank of six monitors of which three were further subdivided by software into showing smaller images from various news feeds.

She nodded absently at Warren and stepped around the large round table that suddenly existed in the middle of the floor, surrounded by chairs. After picking a chair, Alex created a six foot long scale model of her current submarine design. It looked very sleek...very futuristic. Despite her claim before, it DID look a lot like a spaceship from a sci-fi movie. Long and narrow and tubular; with a big open maw in the front that looked like a gaping mouth, and a large exhaust port in the rear that could easily have been for a rocket. It had no sharp edges either...whatever disturbanes to the smoothness of its form it had were organically smooth and rounded. There weren't many. It had no coning tower. There were three 'bulges' in the main body and several short, stubby fins. That was it.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany wasn't happy with the way everyone had decided to move forward and split into groups already. She couldn't see a clear consensus, but more than that, no one had made back-up rescue plans in case things went foobar. Pip fully expected things to go wrong and she wished there was some plan for everyone coming together to help whoever needed it. Maybe she was too cautious. She knew some of the others thought so. But Pip knew what was out there.

But since the group had split into two teams, Epiphany had to join one of them. And since joining with those who were making contact would be supporting the idea of making contact, that left her with the builders. Pip was fine with the concept of building a submarine, a safe house of sorts. But there wasn't really anything she could contribute to the project.

She did have an idea for a secondary safe house, but Pip wanted to work on that with as few people as possible. If they were going to need it, it was going to be because neither the island or sub were safe. And if that were the case, it would likely be because someone had been mind-raped or, and she didn't believe this possible of the others but had to act as though it was, turned traitor.

With a sigh Epiphany walked into the room with Warren and Alexandra. Stepping around the table, Pip leaned against a wall. The model for the submarine was interesting to look at, but she didn't really know what she was looking at.

[iGod]

Jeffery walked in, shaking his head. "Damn, that all could have worked out a bit better."

[Quantum Fire]

As the four of them gathered the room, Traveler appeared after a moment, and walked over to look at the model a moment, then he looked over at those present a moment. "I see no reason for you four to restriction yourselves to just one option, three, four, or even five safehouses would not be amiss, if nothing else it would allow you to hide and rescue more people.. you might consider the moons of jupiter or saturn.. after all, Alex could shape anything using her capabilities, Warren can get you anywhere in the solar system, and Epiphany and Jeffery can insure the success and safety of the project."

He walked over and looked over Alex's design. "It looks like a spaceship of sorts, I suppose your designing it to certain specifications... the matter of pressure and gravity making it too complicated to do both?"

[Courier]

Unsure if she were listening, Warren sent over the link to Pip, If the contact crew starts screaming about an ambush, let me know.

Warren looked at Alex's workstation and said about the image, "I like. How many people could it hold and for how long?"

When their Uncle walked in Warren mentally frowned. Traveler being here was a good thing, but somehow Warren hadn't expected him. Warren was forcefully reminded that his carts and gear were back on his desk.

Warren said, "Ah... moment", and opened a hole in the air, reached through, and grabbed his bag. Warren dug around in it and pulled out a woefully non-tech folder and opened it to some very professional star charts.

[SalmonMax]

Alex looked up from the table at the Traveler, and there was a mad glint of real, actual anger there that was mercifully slightly defused when Warren asked about the submarine.

Still smoldering, she turned to Warren and said, "There's staterooms and life support for about two hundred. I sincerely doubt we'll need more than that anytime soon. There's heavy use of automation...a crew of five could sail it and do basic maintenance. Pressure hull uses steel and titanium, with zero-gee crystalline formations that make it very, very tough stuff. I estimate crush depth at over a thousand meters. Maybe as much as a mile, though I wouldn't recommend trying. Deeper than any manned sub I've ever heard of anyway."

Warming up a bit, Alex pointed at the back end of the model. "These things here are the exit tubes for the launches. There's four, each one a fully functioning submarine on its own, capable of carrying up to ten people. They use a special forced gas jet supercavitation technique that allows them to travel underwater at around two hundred miles per hour. Lets the mothership loiter at great distances from shore."

She then pointed at the 'mouth' in the front. "This is the intake for it's main propulsion...a linear accelerator magnetohydrodynamic drive. Electrodes in the cone ionize the water, and magnetic fields from superconducting coils around the axial tube suck the water up and accelerate it out the back end...over here. The exhaust has positionable flaps around it, so the outflow can be vectored to aid in maneuvering. The drive should be all but invisible to sonar...though it'll make a BIG blip on any kind of magnetic sensor. There's retractable screws as an alternate propulsion method, in case the MHD fails, or becomes a liability due to MAD scans."

By this time Alex was just talking, hardly even aware of other people nearby as she went over the sub's various systems. Three thorium nuclear reactors (three was a redundancy factor, they weren't all used at once) and missiles that could be fitted with special nose cones to convert them to cavitating torpedoes capable of 500mph speeds underwater. Blue-green LADAR systems that could scan for obstacles and objects in the water with all the precision of an active detection system, but completely undetectable to modern submarines, which relied purely on sonar.

And then abruptly and without warning she shifted from her blathering about the sub to suddenly turning on the Traveler and snapping, "And I already TOLD you why a submarine can't be a spaceship. Would you let it go? Please?"

[Quantum Fire]

"If you wish.. I keep seeing something like this in some of the future possibilities, in space.. though perhaps it's a different ship built to a similar design specification." He responded her to statement, and allowed her a least an understanding why he hadn't dropped the matter completely. "I don't mean to annoy you, Alex.. but if you prefer, I can go, and leave you folks to work as you like."

[SalmonMax]

"You don't have to go. Just stop second guessing me," Alexandra replied testily. "I have put a LOT of thought into these questions. If I somehow discover how to manipulate artificial gravity, the resulting spaceship would STILL be very different than the sub. It'd be bigger for one thing, and I'd still want it built in orbit. It might LOOK similar, but it would have a lot of differences in design."

"Just have some faith in me, alright? I can't see the future, but I'm probably the best engineer on the entire planet right now. I know what I'm doing."

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany smiles at Warren and merely replies, "Of course."

Pip tries to pay attention to Alex's explanation, but her eyes glaze over at technical details she doesn't begin to understand. Epiphany knows she could gain understanding from Alex through the network, but decides against it for the moment. Besides, that kind of understanding was fleeting.

The tension between Alex and Traveler almost made Epiphany reach for the understanding. She trusted Alex and was confident in her abilities, but wouldn't mind having understanding Traveler didn't have. Traveler was okay, and Pip trusted him well enough, but he had always put her on edge. Some people just have personalities that get on another person's nerves for no good reason. At least, Pip hoped there was no good reason. She really hoped there wasn't some tell that her subconscious kept nagging at that would spell trouble for the group. But she had no reason to think there was and every reason to trust him. So even though he bothered her, she would respect Traveler and be grateful for all he had done for them.

[Courier]

With a twinkle in his eye, Warren said, "And speaking of knowing what we're doing..." He tried to hide it but Warren was nervous. His idea was a massive cheat and he wasn't sure if it would work. There were alternatives but they weren't pretty.

Warren had finished getting his papers in order and had spread out a colored star chart on the table. He pointed to a yellow sun and said, "This guy here is a twin of our sun. He's got a number, not a name. Baselines can't see him from the Earth but I can, and he's crystal clear from the moon. He's a thousand light years away, which means he's moved spinward some but not a lot. One galactic orbit is 250 million years."

Warren added, "So I could Warp inside his system in a few seconds, no problem. Finding planets once there is more of a challenge. Basically I'd have to Warp close to the sun and look away from it. Even with my senses it'd take days, and when I'm done we might have nothing but a clone of Jupiter or three."

Warren took a breath and said, "So. Uncle, if I went there right now and did all the leg work, what would I report back with?"

[SalmonMax]

"A thousand light years away? You're overcomplicating things. Most stars at that distance have never even had a telescope pointed at them. Here."

There was a flare of waste heat and light heralding the appearance of a manilla folder in her hand. She handed it over to Warren.

"You want to check out a star, try this one. HD44594. It's a yellow main sequence star with nearly identical age, luminosity and spectroscopy as the Sun. No known exoplanets or stellar companions. Eighty-four light years away in the Puppis constellaton. Time-corrected coordinates are in the file."

[Courier]

Warren accepted the correction with good grace saying, "OK. HD44594 it is."

[Quantum Fire]

"Any sun with a viable planetary system will do.. but..regardless of what happens.. sometime in the next 200 years, the probabilities indicate humanity will unlock a method of faster then light travel.. the further out the better. Of course, having already established ourselves on a star system, they will leave us alone by that point." He looked over the star system that Alex had indicated with a thoughtful look on his face.

"If you go there.. look at the moons, that might be your best option, Warren."

[Courier]

Warren gave a half start. He'd been expecting something more like 'Sorry Grasshopper, you'll spend many hours there but find only a couple of gas giants and several waterless lifeless rocks. Try again.'

On the other hand one hoped Alex was suggesting her top pick, and perhaps there was a lot to find.

Warren sent, Pip, if the link fails I'll open a gate back here to check up every hour or so.

Warren took a second look at Alex's chart then shifted into his massless between-the-gates state, opened a gate, and stepped through it.

[SalmonMax]

Alex gave their mentor a skeptical look.

"Moons?" she asked dubiously. "They're usually too small to have atmospheres. And the big ones are usually around gas giants which means they have radiation and tidal issues."

She shrugged. "Still, I guess hoping for a 'new earth' is a bit optimistic. Some adaptation will have to happen."

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany sighed as the link broke for everyone. She could have told Warren the link would fail at that distance had he waited. But the problem with a network of links like she had was that if anyone dropped out, it disconnected the entire link system.

Connecting tenuous lines to everyone in the room, Pip headed out to find the others. She wanted to be sure the network was reestablished quickly in case the other group ended up needing to call in a rescue.

[Quantum Fire]

After Warren disappeared, Traveler responded. "Moons are more numerous then planets, generally, and as nova's, we're not quite as limited as baseline humans with regards to habitable planets. But, you don't need me to tell you that, I'm sure.. Anyway, I have to go talk to the others about the meeting, then be off to talk with a few folks.. if there is anything you need for your submarine, please talk to Serenity." With that, he vanished, teleporting to join the other group.

[SalmonMax]

"It's not a numbers game!" Alex shouted at the ceiling in the aftermath of the Traveler's departure. "There's MILLIONS of stars! BILLIONS of planets! We don't NEED to look for moons! And SOME of us, like ME, would like to be able to walk around without a mask or radiation shielding...ARGH!"

"Why do I even bother?!"

Alex gripped her temples as if physically stopping her head from exploding, then managed a wan smile as she calmed down and looked at the others. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how being able to see the future doesn't necessarily make you any smarter."

[Courier]

Warren stepped through the gate into the empty void of space and when the gate closed so did his mental link to Pip.

Space was... empty. There was nothing here save a good view of the Milky Way. No solar system even. An 'educated guess' working from paper maps 84 light-years out of date meant he was... um...

Warren looked around. One of the stars was much brighter than the others. He'd missed HD44594 by about two light days. Call it ten times Pluto's orbit. OK, technically he was inside HD's solar system but nothing this far out would be interesting much less habitable.

Warren warped again, this time going as close to the sun as he dared. Mercury orbit or so.

Crap. It. Was. Bright.

Blind. Warren turned his back to the sun and waited for his vision to recover.

No air, no wind, no sound, no smell... he could truly focus out here without being distracted by the entirety of his senses. Out here he wasn't a burned out hippy who started with the answers. He could think clearly.

Thinking was... sometimes harsh. Blind and alone with his thoughts it was hard to not see the big picture. How many novas were there? 20 thousand? 25? 10 in the second generation, there should be ten thousand. Someone had eliminated 99.9% of the second gen. Sterility. Murder. If Uncle was right and there were others, maybe it was only like 99.7%

The proper word for this was genocide, and someone was good at it, scary good.

Warren's eyes cleared, he looked away from the sun and examined each bright speck with his telescopic vision. It'd take a while but he'd rather look at them than think.

[Quantum Fire]

"He doesn't mean to exasperate you, Alex.. Shen is smart, smarting then any human.. but he's not quite as smart as you, few nova's are.. he goes by what he knows..and sometimes he has these weird hunches that are annoying and exasperating." The woman walking down the stairs was human in appearance, but then, Serenity kept herself dormed down most of the time, and had for most of the time they had known her. "Is there anything you need for your project, or shall I just take a seat here and provide company."

*** **** *** *** *** ***

As warren's eyes adjusted, the next biggest planet was easiest to see, though the distance was astronomical, it wasn't as difficult as it might seem. It was a gas giant, about the same distance from this star as mars was, which meant it was a lot closer to the sun..

From the appearance of things, it had caught most of what would have been inner planets in this system, which made it unlikely that he would find a habitable planet in this particular system, sense there didn't appear to be any planets in the habitable zone.. at least, not on this side of this sun.

[Courier]

Warren grunted soundlessly in the vacuum of space. He'd watched the night sky countless times. This close to the Earth... if one could call 84 light years 'close'... there was enough similarly in the star field that the differences stood out. Some of those differences would be planets who would jump out at 10x or 100x magnification like stars wouldn't.

That said, Jupiter-Two was so large it was the first object he'd tried. It was a hope crusher. Planet killer. Nothing got close to a monster like Jupiter without being eaten, and this guy was on the fringe of the habitable zone. Long, long ago the dust which would have formed an Earth or Mars had instead flown into it's stomach.

He still needed to warp to the other side of the sun, but with this guy here there almost wasn't a point. On the other hand there was his Uncle's advise.

Warren warped Jupiter-Two's orbit and let it parade underneath him. Cannibalistic or no, it was pretty... and huge. Big enough that it's 'moons' were large enough to be planets in their own right.

Warren started surveying the larger planets, looking for ones which had atmospheres.

[LydaLynn]

The psychic network buzzed back into place around everyone a few minutes before Epiphany came back into the room. Seeing Serenity there, she sighed and went back to holding up a wall. There wasn't much for her to do with Warren gone but wait, so Pip waited.

[SalmonMax]

"Have a seat," Alex invited Serenity, then nodded at Epiphany. "Hey Pip. He should be back fairly soon."

"Anyway, it's not his premonitions, Serenity. It's just, okay I'll be blunt. It's ego. It's my ego. I've spent time on all these questions, and when he comes along and second-guesses them, that pisses me off. It's like he thinks I don't know what I'm doing."

She made a sour face and went over to the little galley fridge over on cinderblocks at the end of the worktable. "Anyone want something to drink? Soda? Juice? Water?"

[Quantum Fire]

Jupiter 2.. wasn't a bad term, but one he got closer, he would realize that, one, it was bigger then Jupiter, almost twice it's mass.. and it would take time to figure out the orbit of this massive gas giant. Shoot, too much more massive and this planet would be a brown dwarf star, not a gas giant... It was quite beautiful though, with a series of 6 rings of ice that appeared to be maintained by the gravity of the moons in orbit around it, and there were somewhere around 30 to 40 moons, when he got series and counted them, it came to 38..

However, the moons were, well, about three of them were really interesting, a there was one that was actually luminescent, even when facing away from the local sun.. must be some sort of material with regards to it.. second one actually had a series of rings around it, which on close inspection, must have come from a collision of large bodies early in this systems history, and appeared to be filled with rich heavy metals.. and the third..

Well the third one was the one with promise, it had water, was about the size of earth, had the right kind of atmosphere and it's own magnetic field, however.. the moon's orbit put it about to go onto the other side of the giant.. and from all appearance, living there would be like living on a planet that went though a serious ice age every 90 days, then have horrendous storms at the other end of it's orbit around this massive goliath, and generally would be like living in an almost eternal and stormy winter... it was workable, almost, but it wouldn't be a nice place to live..

*********************************************

Meanwhile, back on earth, Serenity replied to Alex..

"Well, if he is second guessing you, Alex, I don't think it's on purpose, I think, perhaps, he's worried about something that he's not ready to talk about....you children are like sons and daughters to him in a way, or at least nieces and nephews... I'm not sure he's been entirely ready for you all to grow up, even though he knew it was happening and even when.... he's doesn't have your brilliance and creativity.. I'll talk to him about it.." She filled a glass full of juice and turned her attention to the everyone.

"So, I know Alex is building a submarine, what are the rest of you planning to do?"

[Courier]

Warren floated intangibly in J2's orbit and basked in the success of his discovery. In a few minutes he'd found more than the D-League had found over a few decades. 37.... Correction, 38 moons... no, make that worlds. An over-abundance of knowledge, an over-abundance of opportunity. Heavy metal world/moon. Something unclear but interesting world/moon.

And ocean world.

Warren looked at Ocean world and tried very hard to convince himself he could visualize a nova-eden there.

Maybe not.

This amount of water was more than ANYONE had ever found before. It beat the idea of 'mining' water from the Earth's desert moon all to spades.

However... there was a larger issue. This amount of water presented the possibility that something else was down there. Dare he think it?

Life. Just waiting to be found.

Warren was going to be the one who found life on other planets. Neil Armstrong, it was time to remove your name from the list of notable feats.

Heady with the possibility but still unsolid, Warren gated to the Ocean world's atmosphere and summoning his surf board, rocketed down to the world's surface.

There was life here, he could feel it.

[Quantum Fire]

Warren descended down the moon's surface, and discovered to his disappointment, nothing living, not even near the hottest areas, around some of the volcanic islands and such. It was true that many of the elements for organic life were present here, the extreme temperatures, lack of certain trace elements, and extreme changes in weather made it this place in hospitable to life. Alex could have explained the details of the problem to him, and it was dimly possible that there might be some sort of microbial life here, but there was no sign of that either.

[Courier]

From orbit Warren stood on his board and looked up at Jupiter two. Gorgeous view. He really shouldn't be disappointed.

Seriously.

He shouldn't.

He'd warped back up here to let the vacuum of space and direct sunlight kill any alien bugs he'd picked up.

Not that there was any chance of that. Microscopic vision showed nothing. No single celled creatures. Every drop of water from Earth's ocean would have been very different.

There was nothing here but water, and he was almost out of juice. He'd burned most of the rest of his pool checking drops of water for things which should have been there. He was 4 minutes and 23 seconds overdue too.

Still...

He really shouldn't be disappointed. Heavy metal world. Water world. Odd-reflective-world he'd check out when he had more time and juice... those were far from nothing.

Maybe more importantly, Alex had a list. This wasn't his first time out and about looking at a star, but this was by far the closest he'd come.

Warren let himself feel the bittersweet sensation of coming *so* *close* and then focused on opening a gate back home. Time to check in and update the crew.

[Toby Lupin]

Suddenly, after some time, Darrik's mental voice popped into Alexandra's head, smooth as butter. *Sorry to interrupt, and for breaking into your plans... When you have the chance, can you start looking into locations for another hidden base where we can hide rescued 2nd generations? By the way, you're missing a delightful meeting with Sophia Rosseau.* She could practically feel the wicked grin of her 'brother.'

[SalmonMax]

Alex grimaced and flicked her tongue against the back of her teeth.

That's what the SUB is for. A mobile HQ is safest against teleporters and warpers. The hull I have in mind can go too deep to catch, and the propulsion will be hard to track on sonar. Safest place to be is where no one can find you...and if they do, you don't have to stick around.

[Courier]

One of Warren's gates opened with his side showing Jupiter2 framed by the vacuum of space. He floated then stepped through the gate when gravity shifted. Warren was tired, low on juice, and seemed both happy and disappointed. He'd made it to the Olympics but missed the Gold by a whisker.

The gate closed and Warren closed his eyes and stood there for a moment. Sensory shock. It's always a surprised at how much more is here than is out there.

[Toby Lupin]

*You're going to need resources for that then... Well, I suggest you start on the sub, since Mme. Rosseau might be looking to us to hide away at least a few of our rescuees at some point. As for resources, I'm considering a deal with Anna DeVries... quiet freelance work in exchange for the materials you might need. How does that sound?*

[SalmonMax]

Alex frowned and paced as she ran that through her head.

*I'm inclined to say no. Every piece of data about us, or our means, is a weapon pressed against our backs. I'm not the only superintelligence on Earth. You've no idea what can be deduced from even something as simple as a shopping list from DeVries. Our best shot is to keep the mega-minds guessing as long as we can. They can't predict results if they lack input. I'm in a position to know. The sub needs to be in-house, unless we absolutely cannot finish it without help.*

*Any other deal you make is up to you...just remember that no one can guarantee privacy, and any information about us is incalculaby valueable. Don't be too eager to share it.*

[Toby Lupin]

Darrik let that go through before decided to let it go. *Fine, just to be sure though, you certain you can do this in house? You have matter creation powers, but is that going to supply everything we'd need?*

[SalmonMax]

*No. But we have other abilities at our disposal too. I'll brief you when the specifics are worked out.*

[Courier]

Warren took his bearings and glanced at the model of a sub. He said to Alex, "I found a good place to park your sub."

To Pip he thought, Hey, am I back online?

[SalmonMax]

Alex folded her arms and glared at Warren. "I hope you don't mean another planet. We'll need to stay more plugged in than that. Welcome back. How'd it go anyway?"

[Courier]

Warren said with good humor, "Of course I mean another planet. I found a world with nothing but water. Perfect for a sub other than there's no life and it storms a lot." Alex could tell he wasn't really serious.

Warren announced, "Jupiter's bigger sister is camped out at the far edge of the life zone. She has 38 planet-ish moons. One is water, one is heavy metals, and one is oddly reflective. I'll have to go back to figure out why." Alex knew he was serious about that. Warren finding something he didn't understand was like a cat finding unused catnip.

Warren continued, "And there was the normal assortment of rocks and/or rocks with lots of volcanic activity. We could build a base there, maybe on the metal world, and have close access to the basics... or we could even drop some plants on water world and start terriforming it."

Warren concluded tiredly, "So it's seriously close but not quite. Much better than a base on Luna, but not Earth 2." Warren clearly had mixed feelings about all this. He'd come so close...

Warren added seriously, "And before I forget, Thank you. That star was a solid pick and I learned a lot. This wasn't a failure, for a first try it was amazingly successful."

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany sighed. Warren was back, that was good. But that meant setting up the network again. Which first meant taking it down. But since some of the others weren't physically accessible at the moment, it would have to wait. She wasn't going to drop their communications when they might have need for rescue.

"Sorry, Warren. You're stuck out of the loop until the others return so I can re-establish. For future reference, I cover pretty much anywhere on Earth, near orbit, and the moon, but get much past that and you'll shatter the link. And if any of the spokes break, the whole wheel is broken." Pip didn't mind dropping and setting up the network, it really wasn't that draining. But it was alot of leg work if everyone was scattered to go around and reset the connections.