The Other Side
SECRET//SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED-ZS A691
Date: December 21, 2012. 12:01AM local time.
Location: Area 51, Groom Lake testing site, Nevada, United States
Project Name: Zefram Shaw
Project Description: Attempt to create Alcubierre drive for the purpose of faster than light (FTL) travel
Project lead: Dr. Alex Jenner assisted by Candace Gaines
Dr. Alex Jenner was exhausted but the only time they could successfully run these tests without being spied upon even inside their little test building was at night. Jenner was in his 50’s and was starting to go bald. His hair was a light blonde and wispy, his eyes a chestnut brown, and he wasn’t that tall at five foot eleven and preferred to wear brown slacks and a button down white t-shirt. What he was trying to accomplish was supposedly years beyond even having scientific proof that it could work, let alone an actual real-world testing of it. But here he was working on a device that was meant to go faster than the speed of light.
The initial problem had been in finding an energy source capable of supplying enough energy to power two devices that were each supposedly against the laws of physics. This had actually been the first part of the solution to be solved. Somehow they had found out how to use dark matter and regular matter collisions to produce the energy. They had even discovered how to capture that energy to approximately 99% efficiency. This was huge and allowed for the enormous consumption for the warp bubble to protect and move the ship and the field generator that in effect folded space around it and created a wave that the bubble would ride. The only thing he knew about the dark matter engine was that it used a magnetic field to contain and collide the particles, and that is was incredibly expensive to create the need dark matter. This pretty much proved how important this task was viewed.
The surprising thing was that they were somehow either able to create or gather exotic matter that as far as Jenner was concerned was still just hypothetical work. They had found a substance with negative mass to help propel the ship forward. Negative-mass works the opposite of normal mass. A positively charged ion will be attracted to a negatively charged ion. However, a positively charged ion with negative mass would be repelled by a negatively charged ion and would instead be attracted to a positively charged ion. The other particle was the tachyon, which could somehow move faster than light. These would both be necessary in order to create the warp bubble; which was needed to protect whatever vehicle it was installed on from being folded along with space itself and allowed the ship to ride along the curvature in space that the generator created. The only other way to create the bubble would have been to place a singularity at the front of the ship and Jenner did not want to deal with miniature black holes.
The drive and all constituent parts were in what might as well have been a box. Since all of this was compartmentalized, so that no single leak could give all of this information to foreign powers; it was necessary that even he not know how all it of worked, just that it did and the effects of each part. But then again, what should one really expect from the government.
They had yet to get a successful test run of the warp bubble and the folding of space to happen at the same time. Every time they had tried working them together either the engine would completely fail to fold space or the bubble would lose integrity and disintegrate. Jenner was really getting tired of failures and wished they could just launch this whole contraption into space where it would be easier to work with. But no, they wanted him to work with it in the middle of the Earth’s gravity field because they didn’t want the Russians, the Chinese, or their own people to know what they were working on. Some days Jenner really hated working for the government.
Thankfully, between him and Candace they had managed to clamp down on the exotic particles. For some reason when the different fields would touch they would create exotic particles that could do only God knew what. If they had let him see the math on the dark matter engine, or the field generator, or even how they managed to get ahold of tachyon particles he could figure out where these exotic particles were coming from and how to prevent them. Hell, the negative-mass particles and tachyons were themselves exotic particles. And, because these issues were quote unquote “volatile”; Jenner had been relegated out to the salt flats and not even allowed to perform his tests in his own lab in Area 51. That was gratitude for you.
He double checked his assistant’s numbers one last time. Candace was about five foot four inches tall with skin the color of wet sand that went with her short cut auburn hair and wore a basic white lab coat. Her job in all of this was to basically double check that Jenner didn’t miss anything. They both received readouts on their own computer screens but only Jenner was responsible for controlling the different parts of the Alcubierre drive. He did however; tend to leave the readouts to her. It wasn’t just that he was too busy trying to keep everything stabilized, but because he did trust her. Candace was the only assistant he had let join him on this task.
“Alright” Jenner orders “Let’s start this puppy up.” He typed a command into his computer. “Starting up the dark matter energy generator.”
“Generator is functioning and is maintaining energy output at 98%” She knew this was about standard. Machines never had optimal performance, especially when they were needed too.
“Now for the tricky part.” He issued another command to his computer “Starting up the warp bubble.” This time he looked at his own readings to make sure that the tachyons were within all acceptable limits and that the field was evenly distributed around the drive. He ignored her statement confirming that the field was stable and instead looked up at the generator. It looked just the same as it did before, which was expected; the field was invisible to the naked eye after all. What he had wanted to look at though was the old beer bottle he had tethered to the device as a way of double checking if the field was stable. The thing about warp bubbles was that anything in them was not moving; therefore, any objects in the field would not be affected by gravity and would float as if in free-fall. A grin graced Jenner’s face as he saw the empty beer bottle floating at the end of its tether which was just a paltry six inches from the warp generator.
Now Jenner started working on the hard part. He knitted his brows together as he started up the warping field to fold space around the bubble that would allow it to travel faster than light. He had set it up so that even if it did successfully fold space, the drive would stay in the one location, or else they could lose all of their research and hard earned materials.
He could hear the ecstatic voice of his assistant “We have folding! We actually have folding and a stable warp bubble!”
Holy shit, He thought, the damned thing actually worked! He double checked his numbers and they all read nominal. The old physicist then looked up and saw the distortions around the drive that showed that space was being folded right in front of his eyes. He turned around to the camera behind his work station and flipped it the middle figure. Take away my lab and I can still get the job done.
His head jerked back to his readouts when he heard his assistant’s panicked voice. “Exotic particles detected. Bubble destabilizing.”
He looked at his readouts and sure enough the sensors detected exotic particles. He went to try and restabilize the field when he noticed that these particles had never been seen before, even in these tests and that both the warp field and bubble are behaving erratically. He had no clue how to stabilize it. He gave an angry sigh as he realized he only has one choice. “Shut it down! NOW!!!” he yelled. While Jenner could have shut the whole thing off himself; he knew it would happen much quicker if he had help. This was too unpredictable a situation. Once he got these machines all turned off; it would be quite a while before he turned them back on. He would get a look at the math or he wouldn’t cooperate on this project again.
Jenner heard the bottle crash to the ground and confirmed with his readout that both fields were down and the dark matter generator was off. He looked at his readouts and realized that the field actually collapsed in on itself. That could have ended really badly.
Jenner looked over at Candace. “What the hell happened?!” His anger was getting the better of him and his words had to force their way past his teeth.
“I don’t know sir. One minute everything was fine and the next the readouts were making no sense and both fields were collapsing.” She was visibly shaking. She is visibly shaking. Damn. Guess this means I’ll be needing a new assistant if this project ever gets started again.
He looked over at Candace. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes looked horrified. He followed her gaze and didn’t see anything. The warp generator was gone. The damn thing had completely disappeared. Even the bolts that held the drive to the ground so it wouldn’t float away when the warp bubble was engaged were gone. “Shit.” Is all he managed to mutter. Good thing we shut it down when we did or this whole place could have gone with it.
For a split second Jenner thought he saw a spark where the drive used to be and then time stopped. The spark stayed there for a split second longer and then rapidly expanded to a field of white.
President Margarette Tow was working at her desk in the Oval Office. She was going to be up all day just in case riots were to break out today. Mayan Calendar my ass, she thought, It’s always something new to panic about. She remembered how people were panicking right up until the changing of the clocks for the new millennium.
Margarette Tow had just been reelected for her second term in office the month before and she had some things that she wanted to accomplish this term. She was determined to stop the gender gap and had passed laws that allowed women to serve on the front lines of combat, and she liked the way that had turned out. An elder senator from the other side of the aisle had tried to block the bill and she made sure that anything he had ever done against a woman in his employ was all over the front page of every newspaper in the country. The President was not one to allow others to stand in her way for what she thought was best for the United States.
It had taken a lot to become the first female president of the United States of America. Hell, just look at how few presidents in fictional media are female. She scoffed at that idea. She had never married. That was mostly due to the fact that she had to be cold and calculating and never quite found the time to find a suitable candidate. She was a stern looking woman with pale skin and red dyed hair; just enough to hide the gray yet keep her natural color. Her green eyes gave her a mysterious look, but many adversaries had failed to understand their predatorial side in time. She always wore a black business suit with red accents while in public. The public always expected the President to look at their best.
The phone on her desk rang. “Always something to take care of.” She muttered as she picked up the phone.
“Madam President, we have a guy here from the CIA saying they have some sort of emergency. He’s saying that he needs to talk to you right away. All he would say was that it had to do with a special project out of Groom Lake.” President Tow’s secretary was a female. She had picked this one in particular to lull male senators into a false sense of security before stepping into the Presidential Office.
She thought about what project at Area 51 could possibly be of such importance as to have the CIA running over here in the middle of the night. She could only think of one or two and all of them were major news. “Send him in immediately if you would. Thank you.” President Tow hung up the phone and sat at her desk to await her guest.
The door at the far side of her office opened and a man in a black suit and shoes walked in. He had black hair and brown eyes and looked perfectly unexceptional; it was the kind of face hat you forgot moments after seeing it. He held a manila envelope and walked towards her desk. Her secret service agents around the room didn’t move to stop him. He had already been searched for a gun and had the necessary clearance to see her this late at night. “We had a problem at Groom Lake this evening. There was an explosion at one of the testing sites and there may be an issue.” He handed her the manila envelope and stood waiting for any questions the president would have.
The President just looked up at him and asked “Exactly which program had the difficulties?” The answer would determine her approach to the situation.
“It was the FTL project. All we know is that they had a malfunction and now everything there is gone. I believe the pictures will explain it.”
She sighed. Just once it would be nice if someone, heck, anyone would just give me a straight answer and tell me what needed to be done. President Tow opened up the envelope and looked at the pictures.
The first picture showed the salt flat that was Groom Lake with a prefab building standing in the middle of it. She knew this as the site that would be used if a project was deemed to hazardous to be performed at the regular test sites. The second picture showed a giant ball of white enveloping the entirety of the salt flat. That explosion had to have been huge to create a ball of fire over three square miles. The last picture was a close-up of a sliver of white and two blackened crumpled forms about five feet in front of it. The blackened forms in front of the anomaly were too burnt to be called anything near human anymore.
President Tow looked up at the man that brought her the pictures. “What kind of explosion was that in the second picture? I have never heard of an explosion that was completely white.” She asked eyeing the man critically.
“We don’t know.” Was the only response she received from him.
“Ok then, what is that last picture of?”
“We don’t know that either Ma’am. All we know is that whatever that is is right in the middle of Groom Lake. Right where the Alcubierre drive tests were being run.”
She rested the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger while she thought. She needed to keep it concealed without letting anyone know what was going on and she needed answers. “Ok. Go back to Langley and tell them that they are to get started on it right away. We need answers. Make sure they cover the site. The last thing we need is a Chinese satellite moving over that site and taking pictures of it.” He turned to leave but she stopped him. “And tell Langley to bring in whoever they need.”
He looked back at her and nodded. The man then quickly rushed out the door. Well, she thought, this should be an interesting term.
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Alright. Comment time. Very good story so far. Very interesting. I haven't noticed any mistakes. I'm holding you to have the next chapter out on friday.
2000677
This way even if school gets out of hand my readers won't be deprived.
Very happy about the no mistakes thing, have two prereaders so somebody is doing their job.
As for holding me to the Friday thing...well...you have no worries, I am currently working on chapter 11 with everything before it finished and just waiting to be published.
2000909
Thats good. You don't want Pinkie coming after you. Trust me. *looks around room* She could be anywhere.
Pinkie: CUPCAKES!!!!
AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!
2000909
I love when an author thinks ahead of time. Tracking.
2001863
You like that? You ain't seen nothing yet.
2003053
Sorry to hear that, but this isn't for everyone. That is the only reference to anythig Lovecraftian, and it failed. There were three reason I needed something like that though.
1) The use of something so dark was to break peoples misconceptions that because this is pony it was going to nice and sweet. It's not. Some parts may be dark. It's about how two very different species would react to eachother.
2) The 'void' would need a tremendous amount of power to create, so massive that the other side's catalyst was an Alcubierre drive (warp drive), and I couldn't think of anything bigger.
3) The use of stones as foci for magic is used later on and I needed to set that up as early as possible.
Enjoy, and I am quite curious exactly what it was about a Cthulu reference that made you turn away, if you don't mind me asking.
2001519
Just remember you said that later on.
2004668
Pinkie: *pops up behind Author* CUPCAKES!!!
2004668
Meh, with that many chapters, you could update twice a week pretty comfortably.
2004687
I could if I were at any other university (almost) and weren't on the quarter system. But things move way too fast here, with way too many projects.
2004727
Oh, you at College?
2004809
sorry, linguistics. 
University, with three clubs and tutoring.
College and University are two different things. lol
I am assuming dinky and diamond tiara are dead. And the "machine" that twilight and friend saw was a rover or something of the sort meant to recon to some extent the other side of the er.... portal or wormhole or whatever the little voidish things are going to be called.
2007216
You seem decent at figuring stuff out, but can't comment either way. But as far as I know there is currently only the one 'void'. And if you wanted to know what was on the other side, wouldn't you want to send a scout?
2008306 Sending a scout? Yeah I likely would want to send a scout, and I guess a robot would be the best thing to send. At least the humans aren't all 'we will conquer you' like in other Human in equestria fics. With the equestrian being spoken by whoever is controlling the robot, I would assume it is different than english or some other more widely used language... I wonder if equestrian to the humans is actually some dead or old language?
2010126
Honestly, I hate how most stories show either humans or ponies as either pure good or pure evil. Both people and ponies fall along that equilibrium (blame Doctor Who and Star Trek but I think humans can be great and noble creatures).
Love the thought process you are going through, feel free to comment to your hearts content. And even if it were a dead language it would have involved in a different way, language evolves into what is needed and changes based upon the society.
Okay you have an interesting concept here, and I like the basic direction your taking it, but you are trying to explain to much - I could jump over almost all of this chapter and previous chapters and know what is going on. A little technobable is okay, but paragraphs detailing vague explanations for things that are not really relevant to the plot distract from the story you are trying to tell. The gritty details of how the portal formed on both sides is not interesting, the consequences of the portal forming is interesting. Also side notes about the president and her lack of love life and her administrative goal of decreasing the gender gap, don't seem to be relevant to the story. If you want to slip in little things like that, wait until we see a female army grunt and have her discussing with someone why she signed up.
In short, more action between characters, less exposition description would probably find you a lot more readers.
Thats my two cents anyway - cheers
Interesting. Girl president, also interesting.
What's annoying is the grammatical mistakes and the tense mistakes that I'm noticing. They're impossible to ignore. This entire story would, sadly, benefit just from a small amount of editing.
Hmm a feminazi president. And a self-righteous one too. Shudder
6507327
It's noble to follow a feminist agenda, problem is, it's not something you can fight for anymore, because there's nothing to fight for anymore
6507327
Fuck you
10247137
Yeah don't know what's up with people on this site, the other day I was arguing with a homophobe