Beyond the Galaxy
“What are you doing to the Master Emerald!?” Knuckles shouted.
“Reeeelaaaax!” Jenny said as she slapped yet another sticky green blob with wires coming out of it to the side of the Master Emerald. “I’m just hooking up your trademarked superdrive to your already existing propulsion systems!” She pulled out a grappling hook and launched a wire to the warp core, affixing it directly to the sticky mucus on the Master Emerald. “Booh-yeah, excellent shot.”
“But… but…” Knuckles looked to the Master Emerald, holding his hands to the side in exasperation. “You can’t be okay with this!”
The Master Emerald flashed, though it was harder to see with all the wires, pipes, and sparking magical conduits wiring around its edges.
“You… you can’t be serious…”
“I don’t like it either,” Commander LaForge said, folding his arms. “She’s doing terrible things to my warp core.”
“I’m doing wonderful things!” Jenny called, throwing a purple metallic disc onto the edge of the warp core that produced five wires that connected to different parts of engineering. “You wanna go fast, don’t you?”
“I’ll make you go fast,” Knuckles muttered under his breath.
LaForge sighed. “Yes, we want to get moving, but I wish I didn’t have to witness this… this haphazard crime against engineering to do it.”
“The technique is called cobbling!” Jenny called as she tied several wires together in a bow and fused it together with some arcane crystal. “You take whatever leftover Numenera you have from the past, smash it together, and presto, you got yourselves a superdrive!”
“It’s done?” LaForge asked.
“Just one more piece.” She pulled out the staff of holding and dropped a glass sphere with a four-layered gyroscope inside. “This… is your superdrive.”
“How does it work?”
Jenny stared at LaForge like he was asking the dumbest question in existence.
“Right, you have a ton of technology and you understand jack nothing about why any of it works.” LaForge shuddered. “This world gives me nightmares.”
“Glad I could make your sleep more interesting!” Jenny lazily tossed the superdrive sphere into the middle of the room where it rolled a few inches before coming to rest in a ring of green slime she had placed on the ground earlier. After a few seconds of nothing, the interior of the sphere began to spin so rapidly that the gyroscope was no longer visible—just a blue of red, white, and purple colors shining in all directions.
“Enable and disable here,” Jenny said, pointing to a lightswitch that looked like it belonged in an early twenty-first century home. “It’ll replace your warp drive speeds when active.”
“How fast is… ‘super one’ then?”
Jenny gave him a coy look.
“Right… no idea.” LaForge let out a tense breath. “Guess we’ll just have to try it out to see.”
“Have fun!” Jenny said, saluting. “Well, I’m going to get back to my business. I’ve got people to rob and technology to pretend I invented!” With a chuckle she vanished.
“...She was joking, right?” Knuckles asked.
LaForge shrugged, tapping his communicator. “Captain, it’s installed. It looks ugly as a Rigelian hawk-wasp, but apparently it’ll work.”
“Acknowledged,” Picard’s voice came back. “All hands, prepare for experimental travel.”
~~~
“Helm,” Picard said. “Is the course plotted?”
Tails pressed a button. “Straight line right out of the galaxy and to the Thon Iridescence laid in.”
“Good. Raise shields just in case.”
Riker raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure shields will do much at this speed.”
“It’s still a precaution. Now… Commander LaForge, engage the superdrive.”
“Done, sir,” LaForge’s voice responded.
“Helm… warp… super one.” Picard pointed a finger forward. “Engage.”
Tails pressed a button.
The Enterprise stretched like a noodle of spaghetti and every surface inside and out of the ship became a bright verdant green. The view outside became white, then black, and white again, blinking back and forth faster and faster until nobody’s eyes could detect the blinking and it was just gray. There was no sound, and all the races on board with a sense of smell swore the scent of root beer was everywhere.
The oppressive silence ended with the sound of something shattering. The Enterprise reconstituted itself into a normal, non-spaghetti shape and all the colors returned to normal. The root beer smell persisted, though.
“R-report,” Picard stammered.
“Uh…” Tails shook his head. “We’ve… been traveling for four hours.”
“Four hours?”
“According to the outside universe. According to the internal chronometer, twenty seconds.”
Picard nodded slowly. “Well… where are we?”
Tails pressed a few buttons, displaying the view outside on the main screen. It popped up a beautiful picture of the purplish spiral galaxy they had just left, swirling slowly through the cosmos. Near the edge of the galaxy, they could see a soft purple spark that was the Void.
“You know, I just realized…” Tails scratched his head. “The Void’s light can’t have gotten out this far in this universe, or in any of the others where we were traveling faster than light. How come we can see it?”
“Starfleet has two theories on that one,” Riker said. “Either the Void projects itself faster than light, or if we were to attempt to manipulate time to see it, the past would also have the Void. Out of a fear for world-ending paradoxes, we haven’t really investigated much further.”
“Oh.” Tails blinked. “Well, we’re pretty close to our original destination.” He changed the view to that of the Thon Iridescence. The satellite galaxy was almost devoid of stars, so there was very little in the way of their view. They could already make out the supermassive black hole around which Thon was built, its halo of radiative light paradoxically making the black hole’s edge brighter than any nearby star. The strands of Thon itself were nearly impossible to see, but every now and then a web-like strand would reflect light and be perfectly visible for a few seconds. Amidst these strands walked monstrous moon-sized spidery creatures with ten legs that continually weaved the dreams of billions together.
Beyond these strands was a loose cloud of yellow crystal cubes the size of moons. The cubes were known as Greeters, and they were the primary connection to the Ancient Wanderers; for their crystalline surfaces had the exact same brick design and orientation as Flipside and the heart pillar back on the planet they’d just left. Their primary purpose was also to scan visitors and transmit them into the digital world of Thon itself.
To Picard’s disappointment, Void portals were depositing a Metarex fleet around Thon, and had been for quite some time. How did they know?
“Sir, we’re being hailed,” Bon Bon reported. “By a Greeter and Narcissus.”
“The Greeter is just sending out a standard greeting, correct?” Picard asked.
“It appears so.”
“Then answer Narcissus.”
Narcissus appeared on the main screen, hands clasped together. “Well, it appears we are to cross blades sooner than expected, Captain. I’m afraid my machines have already been beamed into Thon for quite some time and have a rather impressive head start—and I have no intention of letting you even get close to a Greeter. Come any closer and I will open fire.”
“Understood. We’ll find another way around you.”
“Even with your speed, Picard, I will shoot you down.”
Picard cut the channel. “Bridge to Lieutenant Knuckles.”
“I’m here,” Knuckles responded.
“Back in Narnia, the Master Emerald was able to jump us forward significant distances in an instant. Do you think it could do that with a shuttlecraft without moving the Enterprise?”
“...That should be easier, actually.”
“Good. I’ll prepare a team. Explain to the Master Emerald that we want to be transported directly to the opposite side of one of the Greeters, out of sight of Narcissus.”
~~~
Captain’s Log, Stardate 47938.7
I am about to order the away team into Thon. They will effectively be cut off from the ship while in Thon, not because of a lack of communication, but because ten hours in Thon will correlate to a single minute in the real world, causing far too much of a discrepancy. We will be on our own.
I have made the selections for the team, five in total. I find myself wishing Worf and Data were here, for they would be my first choices for this mission, but I have a different, mixed crew now, and I shall trust them to uphold their duties.
There is one choice I am hesitant about, but Doctor Crusher assures me Ensign Lee will be invaluable for her adaptability, charm, and relentless determination. In a digital realm, I find myself thinking that adaptability will be the most indispensable of skills.
There is only one last thing to take care of before departure: my first officer.
~~~
“No, I can’t allow it,” Riker said, giving Picard the traditional “first officer” stare. “Captains do not accompany away teams, their ship needs them.”
Picard leaned against the open door of the shuttlecraft, nodding. “And in most situations, you are correct, Number One. However, I wish to oversee this mission directly, and due to the time discrepancy, I cannot do that from the Enterprise. There are other reasons I could cite—my diplomatic success, first contact protocols, etcetera—but I don’t think I need to.”
Riker sighed and shook his head. “I can see there’s no changing your mind.”
“That would be a correct assumption. And seeing as we’re out of communication range with Starfleet…”
“I know, I know, your word is final. I do want my objection to be on the record.”
“Duly noted,” Picard said, smiling softly. Pausing for a moment, he placed a hand on Riker’s shoulder. “Take good care of them, Will. It won’t seem like long to you. But to us, we might feel as though we’ve experienced an entire week. Keep her warm for me.”
Riker nodded. “Of course, Captain.”
“Now… I believe I have a Master Emerald Express to catch.” With a wave, he entered the shuttlecraft. He took his seat as the copilot, leaving the pilot’s seat to Tails. On the two seats behind them sat Counselor Troi and Ensign Ty Lee, cautiously waiting for the mission to begin. Bon Bon had to stand, but she had herself braced for a bumpy ride even though they weren’t expecting one.
“All right. Our mission is as follows.” Picard turned to the team. “We are to get into the Thon Iridescence through the Greeter’s upload protocol. Once inside, we will make our way to one of the primary digital nexuses and begin asking around. If our intel is correct, we will have three hundred in-simulation hours to get in and get out before we are locked from an easy exit. In that time we must locate the Pure Heart or some information that can put us on the trail of the Pure Heart. Each of you brings a vital component to this mission. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Captain!” All four said in unison.
Picard tapped his communicator. “Lieutenant Knuckles, now.”
“Working on it…”
It took a while, but eventually the Master Emerald’s power was diverted to the warp nacelles of the shuttlecraft, tinging them a beautiful green color. While still inside the Enterprise’s shuttle bay, the shuttle was condensed to an insignificant green speck and jumped all the way to the far side of one of the yellow Greeter cubes. Its surface dominated their viewscreen, and could easily have been mistaken for a nearby planet had they not seen it from a distance previously.
“This is Commander Tails on a secure channel, hailing the Thon Greeter.” Tails pressed a few buttons, putting the moon-sized cube in front of them. No Metarex seemed to be stalking them.
The Greeter’s voice came back—a soothing, feminine voice that sounded like a convenience store announcer. “Welcome to Thon! Do you wish to upload?”
“Yes,” Picard said.
“Then allow your ship to be guided. Thank you!” A yellow tractor beam shot out of the cube, latching onto the shuttlecraft. Carefully, the beam pulled the shuttlecraft in, depositing it floor-down onto the cube face. Elsewhere on the cube were hundreds of abandoned ships, no doubt ones that had once been full of people who uploaded and never returned.
“Here goes…” Bon Bon said. “Brace yourselves.”
“Uploading…” the Greeter said.
A bath of yellow light filled the shuttlecraft. It wasn’t painful, but it was immensely destructive. Once it had completely taken hold of their essence, all five of them were reduced to nothing more than gray dust sitting on the floor of the shuttlecraft.
They had entered the Thon Iridescence.
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Uh... I think you might mean her trademarked superdrive, unless Jenny sold the Enterprise the trademark.
Jenny is a brave soul for messing with the Master Emerald in front of Knuckles and the Enterprise's warp core in front of Geordi. I'd say she has a deathwish, but... well, you know...
This sounds exceptionally dangerous and likely to produce wildly varying results every time you build one. Naturally, I'm all for it.
I think that might be the single best possible response that could ever be given to that statement. I applaud you.
If I had to guess, somewhere between the speed of thought and Warp 10? Though, it might actually be slower than the speed of thought, since Thought Warp 1.5 took them 2,700,000 light years in like 40 seconds... (By the way, I mean Modified Cochrane Unit scale version of Warp 10, the infinite velocity one, not the Original Unit 'faster than Warp 9, slower than Warp 11' one.)
Where I'm from, we call that "going to Ludicrous Speed".
There is some kind of time dilation joke to be made here but I don't know enough about relativity to make it. GM, please just imagine I made a funny joke about time dilation.
Alternatively, it is a hole in the fabric of reality itself and it cares little about things like 'photons' and 'speed of information'. Honestly, this still makes more sense to me, it's not really projecting anything per say, it's just the raw absence of the universe, so it's always 'visible'. Like if you have a crack in your phone screen, you can see it no matter how much you scroll down.
A rule that, as we know, was put in place on Stardate 10293.5 entirely because Captain Kirk wouldn't stop beaming down to planets to punch people and make out with women. Even though he was described as a 'book with legs'. Look, it was the 60s, even the nerd characters had to ooze macho charisma.
This paragraph, completely out of context, is amazing for so many reasons.
Does anyone bother to clean those up? More importantly, can I have them if I just go there and ask not to be uploaded?
There would be a question to be had here about the nature of continuous consciousness, but A: I'm pretty sure we already established souls are real, and 2: Transporters.
The Enterprise has traveled outside the galaxy, thanks to the utilization of powerful technology beyond their understanding. In other words, it must be Thursday. (I joke, but I I think this is like the 3rd or 4th time that exact thing has happened to an Enterprise. Star Trek be whack.) Picard's ramshackle crew has uploaded themselves into the Space Matrix, but the Metarex are sure to make things hard for them. Welcome, boys, girls, and those of unspecified gender... to The Metaverse.
11128711
Well, they should be thankful they didn't go to plaid.
Picard in the Matrix, time to get moovin.
Well, this will definitely be interesting. Let’s see just what the digital world entails, and how much conflict it will allow between interested parties.