The Star-Rock
Beware of what you wish, because not all noble ideas lead to worthy results.
Elisium. Year 5L 14/17
The genius mind of Andrews had gone into an overdrive. Buoyed by his new findings, Andrews busied himself trying to unravel more and more mysteries about the Two Sisters. He knew that the whirlpool, known in this world as the Abyss of Unknown, will only appear at the beginning of the next cycle and till then he had no option but to stay in Elisium. He decided to utilize this time by trying to learn more and more about this world. Before he returned to his own world he wanted to know everything about Elisium
His reason behind this detailed study was his theory that the Supreme Beings created these identical worlds as they wanted these two worlds to harmoniously co-exist and mutually strengthen each other. Andrews envisaged that in the current loop, the technology of Aden could vastly benefit the people of this world and the manpower and the resources of Elisium could be very helpful to the people of his own world. He strongly believed that there will be a time in future, when people will frequently travel between the two worlds, hence forming a strong cordial bond between them was very necessary. Andrews dreamed of amicably cooperating and peacefully co-existing two friendly worlds. But he had no idea that this dream of his was going to turn into a nightmare for the people of Elisium.
Andrews closely studied different things in Elisium, from landscapes, to plants to rocks to minerals. He made detailed maps of this world so that he can compare it to his maps of Aden when he returned there. He collected different specimens. And then one day he came across something which had so far completely missed his attention. Andrews noticed that areas in and around the Ruins, especially the damaged and deteriorating old monuments of the Ruins, were littered with strange dark stones. These stones ranged from the size of huge boulders to small pebbles. They seemed to have a burnt surface but a very smooth texture. What was intriguing about these rocks was that people in the Ruins used to take away small pieces of these rocks to their homes and use them as fuel.
"Yeah, they seem to burn forever," said Matthews, when Andrews asked him about it. He showed him a piece of this rock burning inside a fireplace in his house. "This piece here is being used in our house for the last twenty years and it has barely reduced in size. You just need to ignite them and they will just keep on burning. When you need to stop the fire just pour some water on it. It is easy to use and we have abundance of it. Every household here uses these Star-Rocks. Don't tell me they don't use this in your village."
"Well, I am not that experienced in household stuff," replied Andrews, "now tell me, are these Star-Rocks found only in the Ruins? I have visited many places in this world but haven't seen them anywhere else."
Matthews gave Andrews an incredulous look, "Are you serious? Every kid in this world knows about Star-Rocks. To be honest, you may may know all the things about the geography of this world, but you seriously need to get some history lessons. Its quite obvious that Star-Rocks are only found in the Ruins, because they were the reason for the Capital getting turned into the Ruins. They don't belong to this world, they rained from the skies. May be fell from the stars, and that is why they are called Star rocks."
Andrews decided it was time he learned some history of this world from Matthews. They sat down on the dinner table where Matthews narrated to him, in explicit details, all the events that transpired at the turn of the loop. Matthews recounted all the stories he had heard about the battle of the Capital, the Demons from Hell and the Catastrophe. Matthews turned out to be quite a good narrator and just like Andrews, he had a great appetite for knowledge. He loved details and knew more about this world's history and geography then any other person Andrews had met so far.
The very next day, Andrews brought a few small Star rocks and began experimenting with them. The first thing he found out was that Matthews was absolutely right. These rocks didn't belong to this planet. Their chemical composition was similar to nothing in both the worlds. He wasn't able to identify any single element in these rocks. But what he did discover was that these rocks potentially stored tremendous amounts of energy. The flames they produced while burning had extremely high temperatures whilst it exhausted very little matter. Under a controlled environment, a small piece of Star-Rock had the potential to release huge amounts of energy for a prolonged period of time.
Andrews decided to leave every other thing aside and indulged himself with experiments on Star-Rocks. He kept experimenting on various different ways of harnessing Star-Rocks' potential. After hundreds of experiments in the next couple of years, Andrews had realized that this rock can be used as a fuel in power plants to produce electricity, in car engines to power the vehicles and even in military to make weapons. Star-Rock had the potential to change the fortune of this world.
As a result of the stagnancy since the turn of the loop, people in Elisium were very backward in the field of scientific discoveries. They hadn't even discovered electricity, let alone all the other devices that were powered by it. There were no engine powered vehicles in Elisium. They were using this rock, a tremendous store-house of energy, just as a domestic fuel.
Whereas on the other hand Aden had developed at a breakneck speed. With the discovery of electricity in the early cycles of this loop, and the subsequent inventions of a whole load of appliances that ran on electricity, Aden underwent an immense transformation. But that also meant that their fuel, the black liquid which people commonly referred to as the liquid gold, being the only source of energy in Aden, was now quickly running out. This liquid gold, which provided power to everything in Aden, from their power plants to their vehicles, was in scarce supply. The only reserves of this fuel were in the deserts north of Aurea, and they were depleting fast. Scientist had tried for alternative energy resources but had failed to find something significant. The main goal behind Andrews exploration to far ends of Aden was to try and locate any new reserves of this fuel, but he had been unable to locate any. The experts estimated that if new reserves of this liquid gold or an alternate fuel wasn't discovered in near future, by the end of this loop they will be left without any source of energy. All the development in their world will come to a grinding halt.
And now, out of sheer luck, Andrews had stumbled upon an alternate source of energy. Earlier Andrews had discovered that there were reserves of the black fuel, just north of the Ruins exactly in the same location as in Aden, but there was no way they could have transferred thousands of tons of fuel from one world to another. But the discovery of Star-Rock completely changed the equation. There was abundance of these rocks all around the Ruins so there was no question of shortage. Small amount of rocks released enormous energy so they only needed a few tons of these rocks to be transported to their world during every Crossing. And since the Abyss of Unknown appeared very close to the Ruins, transporting these rocks was easy as well. All they needed to do was to bring these rocks near the Abyss and drop them into the Whirlpool and they could be collected in the other world. With the discovery of these Star-Rocks, and its huge potential, Andrews had presumably solved the biggest problem which Aden was facing.
But there was a small problem. The people of Elisium must be first convinced to accept people from Aden and then let them take away these rocks.
Andrews formulated a plan according to which, in exchange of these Star-Rocks, people of Elisium can receive the highly advanced technology of Aden. Scientists from Aden can train people of Elisium on how to harness the powers of Star-Rocks. They can help them build power-plants, generate electricity and produce other appliances. In exchange of these rocks, which are of no great use to them anyhow, people of Elisium would benefit from the advanced technology and could start to develop their society as well. In the near future, there was a chance for both the worlds to become identical, even in the terms of development. It was a win-win situation for both of them. One could lay its hands on a desperately required new source of energy, whereas the other could prosper by receiving some much needed technological advancement.
Andrews had very lofty ideas, but beware of what you wish, because not all noble ideas lead to worthy results.
His discovery might have just solved the problem of his world, but what it was about to do to Elisium was beyond his wildest imagination.
Unknowingly Andrews had become the catalyst for a cycle of exploitation.
Quite inadvertently, he was going to adversely affect the fate of millions.