The Stirrings of Something...Big (FT)

Thorgood notices Servius looking over his shoulder, and simply beckons him to come take a for real look.

Zalenka nods. "I'm not sure exactly how far your science has come," he says, "which is in part why we asked you here, to help us think from a variety of perspectives, but yes, we can actually go beyond what you would refer to as the 'event horizon' of the black hole, and still return unharmed.

"Gravity works by bending space-time, in the same way that a large object on a trampoline would be draw others towards it. In a way, we are simply ignoring the trampoline. We're incorporeal to space-time."

(OOC: This will really begin when we figure out what is going on, ie go to the black hole. So would y'all mind if I push us to going there next post?)

(OOC: I don't mind.)

OOC: By all means

IC:

Servius moved forward a bit sheepishly after Thorgood motioned him forward. He looked over the calculations as Zalenka answered his questions. "Yes, yes my people have a basic understanding of the way gravity works, hence the reason I asked. That your people possess technology that makes you incorporeal to space-time is something of a wonder to me. My people possess no technology though I imagine you knew that or at least, had your suspicions of such. I willing admit much of this science and your discussion are very advanced for my people's science and understanding of the universe."

Servius began rubbing his hairy chin, his beard was finely trimmed. "Until we have a look at this thing I think we all agree we're bound only to speculation than real investigation."

Thorgood gives a nod to Zalenka, and what looks like a control panel ... sprouts ... from the main table in front of Zalenka. Although it can't really be considered a control panel, per se, since it has only one hand-shaped slot, where Zalenka places his hand. And it could probably be better described as a combination of a "sprout" and an "appear."

So, Thorgood gives a nod to Zalenka who somehow causes a hand device used for control of the disc-shaped ship to appear/sprout in front of him on the main table unit.

And in about as much time as it took you to read through my awkward and unnecessary text there, the entire group was beyond the event horizon of the black hole, onboard sensor systems were collecting data. And displaying data.

Zalenka scratches his head when it appears.

Thorgood looks triumphant.

The normal processes of the black hole (see, black holes normally read lots of gravity and not much else) are disrupted by the presence of rising levels of strange matter.

"That doesn't prove anything," Zalenka says.

"It DOES SO!" Thorgood says. He turns to the others. "When we first tried to produce infinite energy with a matter bridge to other universes, it resulted in massively increased entropy that resulted in the degradation of the energy fields protecting the generator, and in short, dumping strange matter through the matter bridge to the other universe.

"In short, someone has a matter bridge open to this universe and has made the same mistake we did. They're flooding our space with strange matter."

"Thorgood, you're jumping to unwa-" Zalenka tries to begin

"Well can we agree to assume that I'm right?" Thorgood asks. "Because if I am, this entire universe is in serious trouble and we need to start trying to figure out what to do right NOW, before too much strange matter floods in."

Zakharov looks through the data, and after a brief moment he says, "Would you happen to know how the cut off the matter bridge, given that this is in your people's area of expertise? I'm sure that would stop the tide of strange matter, though that might be somewhat too obvious. Still, every option must be considered, yes?"

When the first bits of information came screening across the screen Servius expression looked somewhat like a 5 year old trying to figure out astrophysics...in short...a "deer in the headlights" look. What compounded his confusion at first was the brief discussion between Thorgood and Zalenka. Most of this was science so far over his head that he felt out of place. Discouraged, he felt like simply stepping back and letting stronger minds take on the problem. However, the Veridian inside him prevailed and he took a second look at the problem and the a second thought at the discussion. Zakharov's own comments brought an idea to his mind.

"I admit that a lot this is above my head but I do believe Zakharov has the initial idea, hover obvious it is. Now I know very little of how these matter bridges, as you call them, work. However, assuming they work in any manner like the wormhole technology employed by the stargates, is it safe to assume that the most plausible way of shutting down this bridge is cutting of the device creating it at the source. Furthermore, assuming my previous statement is correct, is it plausible to send any time of matter across the bridge from our side, same a probe or perhaps a individual?"

When Zakharov speaks up, Thorgood nods, "Yes, that is what we must do. But I can't think of a way to sever the bridge from our end. I'm pulling up the specs for what we know about these for you now. But it might take you a while to get up to speed on them. Do you know anything about Strange Matter? We need to predict the effects of this dumping -- you can use the machines to figure out how much there already is here and how quickly strange matter is dumping into the universe. Find out how much time we have and the effects, and if you can, think of a way for us to mitigate them. Can you do that? I think specializing our efforts will get more done."

When Servius mentions sending something to the other side, Thorgood looks thoughtful.

"What if they sent someone to US?" Zalenka asks.

"Unlikely, but... go check conventional scanners," Thorgood says. Zalenka does something to the interface there.

"Let's see if we can't figure out how to send something across the matter bridge in reverse," Thorgood says to Servius, handing him diagrams written in math and physics on the matter bridge. It would be totally readable to Servius, even if it seems far fetched or overly theoretical.

Basically, it does function like a stargate; it seems to be 1 way transport of matter and energy through a "hole" in spacetime. In this case, some power is expended on the other end to open the hole, at which point matter is swapped for energy (with the relation of e=mc^2, or energy = mass*(speed of light)^2), with matter flowing from the other universe to this one, and energy from this one to their universe. For whatever reason, the matter transported to this universe has turned into strange matter upon arrival.

Zakharov nods back to Thorgood, and says, "I will be getting the University of Planet to redirect the computronium reserved for analyzing the contraction of the galaxy to analyzing the incoming strange matter dump immediately. We have a generally good idea of how it works, although much of it is rather theoretical given that strange matter is rather hard to control and apply on purpose. From what we've determined, in any case, the best way to contain strange matter is the usage of stasis fields. If a few of them could be brought here it could stop the strange matter from spreading too much."

***

To: University Computronium Management Department
From: Academician Prokhor Zakharov

Discussions with the Burnites have shown that strange matter is being dumped into this universe from another parallel one. Devote all available computronium resources from the previous analysis of the contraction into analysis of the speed of the strange matter dumping and the amount of time this universe has before being subsumed. Also, an inventory report is requested for the number of stasis generations available for immediate usage.

Signed,
Academician Prokhor Zakharov

Thorgood smiles at Zharkov's response, and mentally notes plus ten for the Centauri. Or, at least for the University. It is likely that after this is dealt with, Burninite ambassadors will visit the University faction to consider formalizing diplomatic relations there, since their connections with the Rutians have lost strength recently, and their contact with the University here is going so well.

A physical machine appears for Zharkov to use, and he finds that he has full command of Burninite technology contained therein. He cannot directly impose a stasis field, but he can use the energy capabilities of the Burninites to call for one to be placed in large areas of space.

He immediately gets to work on doing so, and tries to use the inventory reports on the stasis generators to see how they could be incorporated into the areas that the Burnite technology cannot reach by itself, while his advisers relay him reports on relevant information and equipment from the University.

(OOC: It's the University, and Zakharov's not just a representative, he's the leader )

A Bastian steps forward and speaks. After a series of chirps, purrs, and assorted noises, a Sobekian with him translates for the benefit of those without Universal Translators, "What if we were to fire something through? Though a projectile may undergo spaghettification, the raw energy of the blast may destroy the device, if there is one, on the other side. I have come to this idea through study of Rhean history, particularly the Empire-Federation War and the subsequent reunification of two strands of humanity. Long story short, there were two ends of a great wormhole connecting the two galaxies together, both stabilized by gates. A traitorous brother of the Emperor, seeking to carve out an empire of his own in the new galaxy, fired the superlaser of a great battle station 900 kilometers in diameter known as the Death Star through the wormhole, destroying the gate on the other side, as well as much of the Imperial fleet on the other end, and destabilized the wormhole."

"Interesting," one of the other scientists said. "We do have something similar in the Eclipse. It's nowhere nearly as powerful as a Death Star blast but it may be enough if we go through with the plan."

(OOC: "Much as a white man would look upon a man of color in 1950s deep south, Veridians had little desire to mingle with non-human species and certainly did see any benefits of discussing anything intellectual with them."
It would be a very bad idea to do that sort of thing to a Sobekian's face, considering they are basically talking deathclaws.)

(OOC: Also, this will depend entirely on Burn's approval, but I don't think a massive polity like the Sith Empire would fail to notice this and do something about it. This endangers them, too, after all.)

(OOC: Veridia? Otherwise I'll move on.)

OOC: Sorry, apparently watching The Name of the Rose and attempting to write this response ends in me taking an hour to write this lol Sorry.

IC:
Servius looks intensively over the diagrams while the other scientists talk among themselves. It is by this time that he notices the Bastian scientist and his Sobekian translator. He looked at them only briefly before returning to the calculations before him.What he thought of them was irrelevant and crossed his mind only briefly, the calculations were more important. Then they made mention of a sending a blast of energy through the bridge and an idea popped into his head.

"No, we cannot simply destroy this bridge without first attempt to get to the other side" Servius said confidently. "After all, whose is to say that they won't just build another device and we again a faced with this problem. However, there may be a way to get ourselves across the bridge."

"We Veridians have experiment with stargate technology extensively and we've found that it is possible to force a wormhole connect between two gates to 'jump' from one receiving gate to a second gate, close in range relatively speaking. What if, we choose to connect between two gates on opposite ends of this black hole, ensuring that the wormhole will have to pass through this region of space. However, before the sending gate can connect with the receiving gate, we force the wormhole to jump at the point when it is over the blackhole. If I am right, we could theoretically have a chance that it will seek a stargate in the alternate reality by way of this matter bridge."

"Of course" Servius said as he conclude, "this is assuming the alternate reality has stargates in the first place."

The same scientist that spoke after the Bastian said, "That should be possible. A similar gate was built by the Empire to invade the Federation across the galaxy. It took a fairly short time but they were a Galactic Empire, whereas we have only two planets. Construction time may not be nearly as fast. If we were to eliminate most living spaces inside and automate the processes those there would operate, we might get it done in a few days alone. And if necessary, we could destroy the gate in an emergency."

Zharkov's work proceeds without hitch, and he is unimpeded by the Burninites, and continues to be given full use of their technologies. Although the stasis fields seem to be slowing the spread of Strange Matter, it is nevertheless spreading at an alarming rate.

"I don't think we can close the matter bridge from this side," Zalenka says. "I think that we might need to see what types of energy can be translated back through the portal. It must be regulated from their end to some extent if they are indeed using it for energy production."

"Servius' suggestion is interesting though," Thorgood says, "given that teleportation transports us in energy form. We need a way to test to see if we can be teleported through the portal to the other side."

"Teleportation you say" Servius say with general interest. "Such technology is barely outside the realm of theory on my world. Assuming such devices use a energy stream to transport a object, would it be possible to match the energy signal of the stream to that of the energy being targeted by the matter bridge. I should think that would naturally allow the energy beam to be sucked into the bridge and taken to the other side. Of course I have no idea how one would re-materialize on the other side...."

Servius shakes his head, almost out of pure humor of what just came out of his mouth. Less than a day ago most of what he was now discussing among aliens as facts was in theory back home. There was much the Dominion still had to learn and much catching up to do if it ever hoped to be on par with the other galactic community.

Thorgood brings in a basic radio transmitter and they teleport it through the hole.

No radio transmissions are detected from it after it vanishes.

Meanwhile, strange matter continues pouring in, and Thorgood is forced to slide the ship back, and weird things are witnessed near the black hole as the laws of physics weakened around the clumps of strange matter.

(OOC: That's not quite how strange matter works, but whatever. Stable strange matter is just supposed to convert other matter into strange matter.)

(OOC: OK, well what laws of physics does strange matter conform to, Sela? And if all the matter in the vicinity is being converted into strange matter, what is happening to the laws of physics?

It's mostly semantic quibbling, IMO.)

Servius scratched his head. "It appears things are getting worse...." an understatement he was well aware of. Naturally, he like many of the others were disappointed that they weren't able to pick up the transmission from the radio device. That said, perhaps the strange matter being developed by the bridge was causing interference....maybe the device didn't make it...or it was destroyed on arrival.....the problem was no one knew.

"I am assuming none of us here have any dealings with alternate realities and the travel between realities." he said finally and bluntly. "I understand the air of caution in how we approach the idea of traveling across the bridge but I think we need to face facts that we need to do something quickly and that experimentation may not be a luxury we have."

"That is where you'd be wrong, as we are from an alternate reality. Well, alternate compared to this one. Same goes with the Sith. We've also known of many dealings the Green Lantern Corps has had with extradimensional menaces. The Weaponers of Qward and the Anti-Monitor, both high level threats, hail from what is deemed the Anti-Matter Universe. The latter is a universe eater and it has destroyed countless universes before he was stopped. A lot have ended up on Earth. It appears to be a magnet for this sort of thing. Something about a keystone planet to the multiverse. Blow it up and everything collapses. At least for the main Earth, something we speculate this universe's Earth is not."

The conversation is saved by a strange happening.

Dr. Thorgood teleports into the room.

But Dr. Thorgood was already in the room.

The moment the teleportation beam appeared, Thorgood had a shruiken pistol out, pointing at the beam, and appears slightly taken aback at the visit from himself.

"What -" Zalenka starts.

"Wait, you're from an alternate universe, too, and I think you'd have more experie- gah!" After recovering, he says, "Please let this not devolve into trying to figure out which Thorgood is the good or bad one and we're forced to shoot one."

Servius would have retorted that his people were from an alternate reality but the appearance of the second Thorgood took his attention. The silence in the room was thick until at last broken by remarks from the Rhean ( assuming) scientist.

Shaking his head he looked at the new Thorgood and asked the obvious question "What are you doing here?"

Zakharov raises his eyebrows and briefly adjusts his combined glasses and headset as he looks at the other Thorgood, but then quickly switches his view back to the control panel, continuing to maintain the effort against the spread of the strange matter.