Another three months of cold sleep. About halfway through my seventh year in this new life.
There had been a few actually useful discoveries during my most recent torpor, though. Not the least of which being that the Thinktanks had actually cracked the ID drive problem. Well, sort of.
I was currently in session with Synod-02, in her "vaguely german sexy scientist" avatar, as she was going over the details. There were a lot. "So, in summary, Maker, you can see that we now have two potentially viable models for the operation and construction of additional Taelon-derived interdimensional translight drives."
I glared at her. "Doctor, I respect your achievement. Even with all of the datadumps optimized for being accessible to my pre-existing knowledge, the mathematics involved in the models you've presented to me make my head hurt. I am extremely grateful to both your specific capababilities and to the capabilities of the rest of the Thinktanks under your purview."
The Synod-02 met my glare squarely. "I'm hearing a 'but…'"
I nodded in affirmation. "But the fact that you performed some of these tests with Dho-Na conjuration is utterly unacceptable. I don't care how small-scale it is, nor do I care how much more efficient it would be, nor do I even care that it could be used to distribute the Taelon core energy to offset even that much of the energy costs. We can beat energy economy problems, Doctor. We can't beat fucking Cthulhu!"
The Synod-02 had the decency to wince. Though that might've just been the role. "Sir. The tests were perfectly safe. There were level six wards in place. The tests themselves were barely for more than half a second within that space. We even performed them on a Neptunian microsatellite. One we had wired with antimatter explosives for total annihilation if a breach had somehow occurred regardless."
I just stared at her. "This is … ugh. Alright. Look. I'll set up some safe protocols for experimentation with Dho-Na conjuration backed technologies. This is twice, now, that I have discovered you Hosts not taking the threat seriously enough in my opinion. Yes, yes, I know -- you could always have evacuated everyone by transferring to the Core of the Heartseed and awakening me to perform an emergency transfer. But that would still mean abandoning this universe, and all the work that has been invested into Starhaven. I even appreciate that your work would allow it to progress faster next time, what with the miniaturization and improved performance of the Host printers you've achieved."
I paused to take a stronger breath. "I'm not downplaying any of your achievements. I just … perhaps I've placed too much of a sense of urgency in you folks. I just -- we've taken a lot of risks to get to this point. I want us to consolidate on what we have now before we start launching ourselves directly into the maw of Yog-Sothoth, alright?"
The good Doctor's eyes softened as she gazed at me. "Of course, Maker. You are still held by your past fragility. We should have made allowances for this. This was our error."
I snorted. "Yeah, well. Compared to you lot, the way you are now, I am damned well fragile as hell still." I was referring to the recent confirmation of the fate of Ethan and Philipa. While they couldn't be resleeved with another Pearl without rampancy setting in, they could be activated in the virtualscape via cortical stack. They could even utilize telepresence in Pearlless hosts. This limited the couple to the overlays they possessed thus far and no further, and also limited their cognitive functions somewhat, but they were happy enough. Especially with the memory transcripts of the original Ethan and Philippa's activities in the Laundry 'verse having been reviewed by them. Further testing demonstrated that a Host would essentially have to be instantly vaporized in order to prevent an emergency Needlecast backup to take effect, as most of their data would already be stored in a backup in the Core. The storage costs were so small due to this incremental nature that it was cheap enough to simply perform as needed.
I, myself, was not quite so lucky; if I experienced sleeve death I would be looking at twenty four to forty-eight hours between backup events, and they took as long as fifteen seconds to complete. My first transfer into a backup sleeve was … an interesting experience. We discovered, for example, that my automail socketing had to be in place in the backups as well as my original. Necrosis instantly began to set in to any tissue that had been supplanted by automail -- my best guess was that it was something to do with the awakened soul rejecting base matter that didn't conform to its expectations. On the other hand, I did confirm that I was still able to perform transreality jumps even in a backup sleeve. I had gone into it expecting it to work, with a confidence I could not justify. I just knew that as long as it was "me", I could do it.
I shook my head to cast out the stray thoughts. "Alright. Let's try this again. You had some progress without the use of Dho-Na invocation?"
The Doctor's countenance took on a look of pride. "Oh, yes. As you know, our attempts to create additional Taelon interdimensional transit drives has always failed due to the extradimensional nature of Taelon core energy. In the case of the Dho-Na invocations, we achieved propagation of gravity waves across dimensional barriers to emulate the effects of the Taelon energy -- or rather the use of gravity waves as a medium across dimensional barriers to permit the field energies generated by the devices to produce the dimensional pseudoshift event that allows the transit of vehicles through near ID space. We had also run a series of experiments attempting to reproduce the phenomenon by use of the subspace-based warp-field equations derived from the Conastoga's databanks, albeit to far less success. While this did allow us to produce a testbed drive that achieved five lights using subspace warp, it did so at a prodigious energy cost -- four terra-root reactor nodes were required for a testbed the size of your cryopod. Including the reactor nodes."
I winced appreciatively -- there was no getting around the fact that such a scheme would require matter-antimatter reactions to be sustained. It was an intrinsic limit of subspace warp that it was so energy heavy. And while it was good that they'd achieved an improved warp drive design in their efforts, that wasn't what I was hoping for.
Synod-02 continued. "I see you appreciate the implications. Yes. Now, as you know, we have been met with some very limited success in the reproduction of the New Virginian Gates. Much like the researchers from whom we obtained the technology, we have no method of targeting the Gates at this time. However, we have determined that if we had superior scanning capabilities to observe the actual phenomena that occur when the Gates themselves are opened, we should be able to utilize that information to create a similar field-propagation through near dimensional space as we are currently utilizing Dho-Na curves for." She paused and giave me an expectant look.
I just shook my head. "Well I can see what you value me for. Yeah. I'll rummage about and see what scientific equipment falls from the back of a moving truck then, shall I?"
The Doctor chuckled. "You truly are a just and benevolent god."
I was in something of a pickle. I had the problem of needing to find technology that could be used to observe interdimensional events without myself being detected by that technology. And it had to be something that could be carried by me alone, as there was no way I was going to be able to conceal the Heartseed -- or even just my capsule -- from the detection of such devices.
I spent the next couple of training days -- largely focused on getting my body fit and up to par, as I'd been letting it go the last few subjective months -- thinking through options. I could go to the STU and scavenge a derelict Vulcan vessel; they had better sensor equipment. That was still sort of risking Ascended Being Interdiction. Speaking of ascended beings, I could try lifting something from the Stargate Universe. I still had the same problem of it needing to be human-portable, at least unless I wanted to risk exposing someplace to the Ori. I could probably pull a "Let's You And Him Fight" in the Pegasus Galaxy between the Ori and the Wraith, but … something told me that would be an extremely bad idea. Rocks fall, everybody dies bad.
Trying to figure out what my actual options were was rather frustrating just by navel-gazing, so I turned to spending time scrying the realms within my reach, casting about in the direction of realities I knew and was familiar with. I came across something I'd completely forgotten about as I did -- and while I couldn't be entirely sure it would do the job, it was definitely a superior bit of scanning technology than I currently had access to: the Quantum Beacon aboard the NX-01 Enterprise. They literally just stored the thing in some webbing in their shuttlebay. To add insult to injury, Tripp -- the Enterprise's chief engineer -- had actually made a video log of his assembly of the device, which I was able to watch due to scrying in advance for a location aboard the ship where my existing Dho-Na perception ward would allow me to interface with the ship's computer without bumping into anyone.
Again, I was hoping on the fact that simply acting as an observer and not actually changing anything would keep me beneath the notice of the absurdly capricious and equally potent beings of this realm. It was also a matter of note that Dho-Na wards actually tended to be effective at blocking such beings casual -- emphasis on casual -- awareness from taking note of one so warded. Unlike the Conastoga's colonial foundation database, the Enterprise's data logs actually were encrypted, but I took the risk of emulating the good engineer's voice encoding from within his quarters while he was on duty to access a playback of the construction and assembly of the beacon itself. I made a point of using the playback of the encrypted file of Tripp's transactional log to provide my implant with the necessary access key to access more of the data aboard the vessel, as the entire ship was a wealth of information for myself and the heavy-duty hand-scanner I was operating, along with the alchemical structural analysis I was performing. Some things were just simply beyond my reach -- there was no way I was going to be able to access the warpcore of the ship, for example. But the handheld devices -- phase pistols, the ship's phase cannons in the armory, the handheld universal translators, and the actual quantum beacon itself? Those I examined to my heart's content.
It was intense how much power they were able to push through a device that could be lifted by a single strong person with both hands. Two hundred gigawatts of power. It'd require an entire bank of tera-root reactor nodes just to power up the damned thing. It was the single most energy-intensive device I'd yet intended for use in my growing little theocracy. But … almost an entire century of advancements in every possible parameter were available aboard the Enterprise for my further perusal, with the quantum beacon itself being significantly more advanced even than that. If I'd tried to start out the techbase of Starhaven using the technology of just the NX-01, even with all the Hosts that had been produced just to study the technologies of the various universes, I'd still be waiting on them to have a basic comprehension of the technologies in use.
It was downright amazing what the humanity of the Star Trek universe had accomplished in a mere century, even if they did have a certain amount of assistance from the Vulcan Science Council. Speaking of which -- I did manage in my scrying to find a derelict Vulcan exploration vessel that was on a course for imminent destruction. I wasn't sure what I'd actually get out of the things there, but I made several additional trips to lift objects such as samples of their weapons, their EPS conduits, and even what I hopefully guessed accurately was a couple of complete server banks from their computer core. I might've gotten a bit greedy, but success will do that to you. The biggest score from that ship was the dilithium crystals from their warp reactor. I didn't even bother trying to determine if I could actually reproduce any of the materials involved; I simply grabbed and went as quickly as I could, trundling the largest possible load I could carry in a rucksack and making four or five trips in quick succession before I figured even the Dho-Na perception ward would be unable to protect me from observation.
I could feel the proverbial heat of the gaze of inscrutable beings resting on my back as I hightailed it out of there. Probably -- almost certainly -- just my imagination, but just on the safe side I wasn't going to go back to that universe again for a very long time. I'd gotten plenty from there; it just wasn't worth the risk to try to take more. Especially since the Thinktanks would still need to comprehend and integrate most of this tech, and while a lot of it would actually help with that endeavor merely by dint of being more advanced copies of things we already had, I still had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be a much longer duration before my budding nation would be ready to attempt to take another bite out of that universe's base.
I hardly even needed to wait a day for results to come back from the newly constructed quantum beacon. The Skunkworks had taken the explicit instructions and structural schematics and not merely run with them but flown at high speed. They didn't even stop at just one beacon, either. No -- they started tying beacons into the defensive emplacements of the colony. They even built one to tie into the Heartseed. It was ironically actually faster for them to complete the beacons by working on so many at once, due to the way Hosts' meshed networking allowed them to share skills and experiences. Each squad working initially on a different component gave them the experience to complete each subsequent component that much more quickly. One of those quirks that seems obvious in retrospect but hits you over the head when you see it in action.
I could appreciate the alacrity with which they constructed those beacons, mind you: they were the best technological method of detecting stealthed objects at any appreciable range. Oh, the beacons despite their power consumption curve were still limited to not more than two lightseconds at maximum, but that was still two lightseconds of detecting things that nothing else in our equipment could detect … including dimensional breaches. That alone made the cost of operation worth the price a dozen times over. Once we started building additional colony cities on the other self-gravitating moons of Jupiter we'd have a fairly pervasive detection grid in place for such things, and I could breath that much easier.
In the meantime, Synod-02 was more than happy to report that with the additional data on the behavior of the Taelon ID drives … and, ugh, their Dho-Na testbed ID drive, along with the Gates, she now had more than enough data to attempt to reproduce the interdimensional shifting events of the Taelon ID drives without resorting to literal black magic to get the job done. So. Hooray team.
Synod-04, "The Engineer", was less than entirely thrilled with me at the moment. As could be stated by the gimlet eye was giving me even as he pushed his utterly extraneous welding goggles up over his eyebrows, what with this being a virtual conference in the first place, and additionally with the rest of his jumpsuit being both spotlessly pristine and utterly unsuited to any activities involving welding.
It was also utterly missing the point that any real construction work was more likely to be done with medical scrubs or in a cleanroom than a traditional greasemonkey's attire in Starhaven. But hey. I don't get to choose the Hosts' senses of aesthetics -- that's entirely on them. I just … well, would a little more Steampunk in his attire really hurt? I mean, a leather smock at least? Maybe add a jeweler's lense to the welding goggles? If he was going to go ridiculously anachronistic, he might as well go full hog on it. But … not my avatar, not my decision.
"What do ye mean, we've gone too far astray from our core competences, Maker?"
I pursed my lips and looked to the side, trying to figure out how to express this in a more succinct manner, since I was working off of intuition, gut feelings, and half-guesses for this. "It's like this, Engineer. A great deal of the technology that I have been acquiring for the League is strictly mechanical or 'inorganic' in nature. And that's not a problem … for you Hosts. But it is a problem if we intend to integrate it into the Heartseed or future devices. It hasn't escaped my attention that you lot are planning to integrate phase cannons into the forward face of the vessel, to go along with the quantum beacon."
The Engineer stroked his chin contemplatively. "Well, yes. Yes we do. But you've already got a good number of 'inorganic' techs integrated into the Heartseed herself per your direct instructions. Why would a fraction of a percent more matter?"
I paused before answering carefully. "You know that when I make a transreality transit, it costs a certain amount of, well, stamina for lack of a better word. And with the ship being basically organic, and basically an extension of me due to automail connections, most of that energy comes from the ship -- right? Well, consider … everything not part of the lifeform that's doing the transit represents extra stamina that has to be conveyed. And just conveying itself is already nigh prohibitively exhausting. What happens when I need to transit something larger than a corvette? Or if I need to transit a particularly heavy cargo? Every little bit costs."
The Engineer's contemplative look seemed frozen for a moment -- I'd taken to understanding that to be a mannerism indicating he was conferencing with Hosts under his supervision. "Ahh. I've the sense of what you're saying now, then. So, what, you don't want us following down this direction? D'ye plan to obtain more organic technologies to use instead?"
I pulled a face. "Well, yes. In time. But for now … the Taelon biotech base already covers a lot of sins when it comes to directing and shaping energies. What I'd really like for you folks to do is to reproduce as much as possible of the technological devices in our possession with biological equivalents. The Eco-tech neural implants can integrate into Taelon bioprocessors for example, to give a working computer. It won't work for the Core, likely -- but it doesn't need to, in order to handle more generic and routine tasks aboard the ship, such as addressing the inertial dampening via gravity plating. The gravity plating is another thing I'd like to see supplanted. If you guys could work out how to emulate the collimated beams of the phase cannons using a Skrill base, that would be simply wonderful. But if all you do is build a hybridized phase cannon, that's still a win -- maybe just replace the heatsinks and structural casings with biohull? I don't know; you'll need to work it out. We don't need perfect right now; if nothing works then yeah go ahead and add a phase cannon or two. But just … bear in mind that every kilogram counts, yeah?"
The Engineer's countenance shifted as he started seeing the challenge for what it was. "Oh… I assume this applies for all the techs already aboard the Heartseed as well, then, eh? A truly living ship. Sounds like a party."
… There were going to be explosions because of this. I could just see it. I wished I had a formal log just so I could record, in that very moment, "Everything was going to be on fire and it totally wasn't my fault."