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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 47 - When you see me running…[]
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What Happened???[]
Charon (Moon of Pluto), Sol system
December 3061
Well, it used to be a moon...well, moon-like body orbiting a dwarf planet.
"What happened?"
"We're not sure." the Adept in charge of the project answered. "We activated it, and it worked fine… at first… but then the order was delivered from the Precentor in charge of research to shut the project down. So we did… and…" he motioned to the screen, frame frozen in the energy release that split Charon in half. "We lost most of the project staff."
"I… see… How long to pick up and start over? That Precentor will not be interfering this time."
"Months."
“And next time please be sure to preserve your staff more effectively. Some of these specialists are hard to come by, even for us. To help with that there will be even more funding and support.”
“Blake’s will be done.”
“Peace of Blake be with you.”
Though that does give me an idea. What if we send the right student to their University? Have them reveal their secrets to us that way… It would be worth a shot.
Something you shouldn't pass up[]
Nihal Capellan Confederation…December 30, 3061
"Don't try to shut it down, if you don't want to find replacement scientists," Sun-Tzu Liao enunciated. "Just see if you can adjust the imbalance out at higher power without exploding it the other way."
He didn't include the you illiterate moron in his admonishment. Dr. Chang Hu Cha was the best that was available to run the project. But the man was, for a scientist, very good mostly as an administrator. The man simply didn't understand risk.
"Milord, it's very dangerous!"
There you go.
"You want it 'safe'? You should not have entered the Sciences. Why not marry safe science if you're so concerned? Perhaps I failed to make this clear enough for you with the extracts we received!" The Chancellor pressed his palms on the desk, glaring at the academic, "I told you not to try to shut it down for a reason-the team that did the initial experiments destroyed two entire moons and a mountain range. So 'safe' science? No. As our Davion-related competitors, our adversary's scientists might say, “This is not about 'why' it is about 'why not'”. If you lack imagination or commitment, just say so. I will let you go back to running a public school department studying the dissection of frogs to teach anatomy and put someone with some damned imagination in your place. Stabilize this very expensive facility and study what comes out of it, or leave. Perhaps I can find someone with the resolve elsewhere!!"
After the Administrator who was worried that the experiments were going to destroy trillions of Yuan in a silvery explosion had left, Sun-Tzu Liao released his reserve in an anguished scream of frustration and a mild temper-tantrum.
They just didn't have any ****** vision!!
In the wreckage of his traveling office, he felt… less frustrated, not entirely calmed, but calm enough to focus
I need to put someone with imagination in charge of this department, not keep relying on the usual Mandarins.
That would be a problem. The stability of the Confederation tended to mean the kind of chaotic thinkers he needed were purged or suppressed.
But the Steiner-Davions have that open-doors university where this was first explored, don't they?
The answer became transparent to him, no longer obscured. Pick a group of promising lateral-thinkers, and a security element from Maskirovka to assure they don't defect, and send them to Kowloon to study this.
It made sense. Sun-Tzu Liao picked through the debris of his frustration, and started drafting an order to make this very thing happen soon.
Remaining Calm in midst of a breakthrough[]
Principality of Regulus, Free Worlds League
3061
Shah looked at the readouts, then at his assistant. "It works."
"You could try a little more excitement, Doctor."
"Why? We're confirming someone else's results. If you follow the directions in the experiment correctly, which we have, and don't freak out and shut it down mid-process? It works, just the way that Dr. Arthur Steiner-Davion and his wife said it would. Which means the Captain General may be pleased enough to keep funding us. What's the result from the Anduriens anyway?"
"Theirs also worked. They also followed the directions as written… about a week ahead of us."
"Well, then we need to start coming up with new things to do and to try," Shah said smoothly. "I doubt those Andies were more interested in doing something deeper than simply 'keeping up'. WE need to get ahead. So let's find out what this is good for."
Ripples across the Galaxy[]
Strana Mechty, Kerensky Cluster (Clan Space)
December 12th, 3061
"...can not possibly get the result they are claiming, my Khan. There were, no doubt, interesting spectral results when their experiments failed, but these results are simply impossible. Not merely improbable, but outright impossible. It's based on a piece of lunacy from the days of Jocasta Cameron's reign, and that lunacy also broke a moonlet. The spheroids' desperation in attempting such a foolhardy venture just shows how much they have degraded," the Scientist-General of the Coyote Clan testified. "High Energy Physics of this nature is a matured science, there is nothing left of significance to learn."
A snort from the back of the hearing chamber got the attention of the gathered Khans, and illumination was pointed at the gallery where the scientists summoned to answer the Grand Council's questions were seated.
A Blood Spirit scientist caste of low rank winced under the sudden scrutiny.
"Scientist…" saKhan Troy Boques of the Blood Spirits spoke, "...Kenneth? You have something to say?"
"Bollocks," the low-ranking scientist enunciated. "Pure Bollocks, that is to say, Balderdash, chest-beating and impotent, vain and empty Garbage, Bovine Fecal Emissions, ignorant, unscientific," the low rank Blood Spirit Scientist recited, as he stood up from the waiting queue. "Unscientific. Did the Records clerks catch that? I will spell it for you if you need me to. How in the hell did Clan Coyote get their reputation for scientific progress with attitudes like that? Maybe the tart from the Inner Sphere was right, and some of us have been skating on looted works instead of doing Research."
"Your specialty is… Theoretical Physics?"
"An almost extinct discipline, it would seem," Kenneth stated. "Aff. When I am not working on ways to squeeze more performance from inherited weapons designs that really are matured? I have been examining the results reported in that Lyran publication. I think I know what they found and how it works. Or at least, I have a very good idea of those things… and no budget to test it, unlike the Biologist you're asking questions regarding Physics, who has all the budgetary resources one could ever want, and can not, apparently, actually run a fleeping empirical test. But then, any such test would strain the resources of all of the Clans, if we cooperated together. So I am only surprised he would lie about the viability of the experiment instead of telling the truth, which is that we can not even test it."
You could hear a pin drop in the chamber.
"What would be required? To test this?" the Khan of Cloud Cobra asked.
"About seven thousand million tons of refined metal formed into precise shapes to build what amounts to a fusion reactor with a radius of a thousand kilometers, sited well away from anywhere safe. Because we would have to build the accelerator, the starting motor for which is ten distributed twenty-five thousand Petawatt fusion engines, the kind we would have to pull from McKenna Class Warships, since we cannot make them ourselves," Kenneth began. "Then, plug in a Nirasaki 400 or 450 computer to handle the distribution of power loads in a fashion that prevents imbalances. What I have already outlined is equivalent to the entire industrial output of the major Clans… which is why we cannot build it. And why the Spheroids could and did. They built a particle accelerator the circumference of a moon.. .as the primary facility to test theories. We do not have the capability. The Merchant factor I asked about this outlined how much productive capacity would be needed. We do not have it. The 'no waste' policies of the Clan Way do not allow for the needed surpluses to even exist."
“If this ‘no waste’ policy were to be relaxed for this purpose, how long would it take us to build such a structure ourselves?” Khan Ariel Suvarov asked.
"It would take us twenty years just to build sufficient manufacturing and processing facilities to even begin construction," Kenneth stated, "Not 'we' as in Clan Blood Spirit, but 'we' including all of the holdings of all of the Clans together in the Kerensky Cluster. The reason I was given was that we still must maintain all the other systems we have... and that none of the Grand Council can unify enough of the rest of the Clans to avoid sabotage through trials of possession when someone falls behind. Every one of which will push it further back."
“What can be done to make this more feasible?” Ariel continued.
Kenneth shrugged, "Physicist, not an administrator. I asked an administrator and she seemed quite firm that what I was asking for was impossible." He let that sink in for a moment before adding, "But that does not mean the science is impossible. Merely that we, collectively, lack the unity and resources to conduct it. Steiner-Davion's numbers are solid, the results work out mathematically and theoretically. There is no reason I can see that their results would be either a fluke, or impossible… they are merely politically inconvenient."
“I see. Then I must reiterate to this Grand Council we are squandering time that we do not have. We need a new ilKhan to give us this unity and who we choose must be able to meet the challenges we now face. Khan Pryde of Clan Jade Falcon so far has proven to be the only one who has the correct combination of skills, vision, and tradition. Why do we delay?” Ariel proclaimed.
"Kenneth… what do they call you in the lab?" Marthe Pryde asked. "I know about 'labnames', share yours."
"It's a joke. 'Swarzschild'. They call me that in mockery," Kenneth stated.
"I see," she frowned. "Mockery, hm. What could you do, related, tertiary to this research you believe we can not do?"
"I would have to think about that."
"About that. Or about which one you are willing to take the risk to present to the Grand Council?"
"Yes."
"I see," she gave Karianna Schmitt a side-eye. "If you do not want to keep him working or let him work freely, I think he may be a fine replacement for Etienne. It would have to be a sharing arrangement, I have no interest in killing a scientist via the process of trying to convert him to Clan Jade Falcon and I know your Clan's reputation… but I think he may be more valuable with more resources, and we have those."
Cassius N'Buta cleared his throat, and rumbled, "The Blood Spirits?” He mocked, "You must be joking, Marthe Pryde."
"No," she shook her head. "Neg, not joking, not a prank. Out of a dozen scientists so far, only this fellow standing over there-" she pointed at Kenneth, "who is low-ranked because of his speciality, which is not one with much prestige? Has spoken a lick of sense or an understanding that you do not get five national leaders working on a project if it is worthless. Especially an expensive one that requires vast physical resources to even begin. Also, he is the only one in the right kind of science to even start testifying on the viability. Biologists? Geneticists? What, two or three weapon engineers? But this is applied theoretical physics quineg?"
“This… Is not…” Cassius punched the nearest inanimate object in clear frustration.
“You wish to say something further? Or is it finally dawning on some of you the sheer scale of the crises we face?” Ariel spoke again.
“We are warriors. We should be facing our foes on the field of battle, with our Omnimechs. Not engaging in this sort of reckless speculative research,” Cassius countered.
"Trial for the Lyrans laboratory? See if we can take it entirely?" Khan Ian Hawker suggested.
"Clan Jade Falcon will stay out of that," Marthe stated. "But we will not interfere in anyone else's attempt."
"The Falcon cowers?" Cassius smirked.
"No, we will be busy… finding a way to do it better than they did," Marthe stated. "But… you go right ahead. And good hunting to you. I am sure your warriors will look dashing in FedCom prison orange."
“Perhaps there is a wiser way. This is a war that stretches far past prowess in combat. To that end Clan Goliath Scorpion has been training warriors from several Clans for the garrison of a future Embassy on Kowloon. Perhaps we should send one of them to this ‘university’,” Ariel offered.
"I have a better idea," Marthe said. "I say, we should send Kenneth of Clan Blood Spirit to study at the Kowlonese university. He will, after all, have the best chance of actually understanding the material."
“Aff. And to support him perhaps we should find a candidate to study administration, logistics, and project management,” Ariel nodded.
For his part the scientist looked deeply shocked.
"Hmm, yes," Marthe agreed. "So… say, one member of this little expedition from each participating Clan, with 'wild card' slots to cover those that do not wish to?"
“Have it your way Marthe and Ariel. Clan Star Adder will take time to prepare. We will not repeat the Steel Viper’s mistake, but we cannot stay idle forever.”
Marthe shrugged, "Do as you must, provided you do not interfere in OUR operation, we will not interfere in yours. We will see which approach bears what fruit… and from that, perhaps, a definitive choice for ilKhan can be made without wasting too much time and materiel on empty disputes or old feuds."
"....by the beginning of 3062, the pieces were in motion. The human sphere stood at the edge of a new scientific and industrial revolution. As with such things, there are centers. NAIS in the Federated Commonwealth, Ecole Militaire in the Taurian Concordat, Sian University in the Confederation, several institutions in the Free Worlds League, and the University of Kowloon, Nha Tranh on the FedCom periphery. For a moment in time, it looked like we had finally seen the light at the end of a tunnel of ignorance and decay… too bad it was a freight train coming the other way in that tunnel."
-Yvonne Stiener-Davion