Empire of Stars

by D. W. Patterson

  It wasn't long until they saw another and another of the swirls along the edge of the spot.

  “What is it Dag, what's happening?”

  “I'm not sure Sigmund but I think it's the Dhalkans. They are doing what we were doing only on a gigantic scale. I believe those are huge black holes piercing the barrier. They are perforating the area around the blue patch, it's the weakest point of the barrier. They are trying to make a large enough opening that it will collapse the barrier.”

  As they watched they both knew this had happened hours or even days before with the light just now reaching them.

  “It may be in time Sigmund.”

  The pinpricks of the great patch continued through the night moving around the rim. It was in the early morning just before dawn that Dag and Sigmund saw the incredible results of the bombardment. The patch seemed to blow out, coming straight at them, then it stopped and retreated at the same pace. It oscillated over a period of minutes until it seemingly evaporated into shards of bright blue that quickly dimmed. Sigmund thought of fireworks he had seen.

  Then around the opening left empty by the blue patch the edges seemed to roll back like a scroll churning as they moved faster and faster. Retreating on all sides of the opening seemingly at the same speed. Then in the center and spreading came the light of stars as if a curtain were being pulled back.

  Dag used his built-in magnification.

  “I see it Sigmund.”

  “What Dag?”

  “The Crab Nebula.”

  The Dhalkans had noticed the efforts of Dag and the other crews as the pounding that the inner barrier surface had taken showed up in infrared observations taken through links of that area. It was all part of a routine monitoring that the Dhalkans had set up just in case the barrier failed.

  As soon as they realized that the barrier had run away they, like Dag, had determined to destroy it by bombardment with black holes except with the power available to them and the huge wormhole generator machines they were able to do a much more thorough job of elimination.

  Earth was thankful and finally made the right choice when dealing with the Dhalkans otherness, it quickly concluded a new treaty with them along with some reparations for the destruction of Gateway. For their efforts, Earth gave the Escanites a drive equipped fusion ship known as Friendship 7 and a lot of orders for spin-two drives. The Dhalkans were relieved to find that the Aggies were far enough away not to be a threat.

  Those that had fled Earth came back once they were contacted, it soon became apparent that it was almost exclusively the well off that had fled. Except for the loss of the crew of the drive that exploded the others on Escan were unscathed.

  It was a few weeks later and Sigmund had been busy all day putting a deal together with his contacts on Earth. He ran into Dag afterward to tell him.

  “Well done Sigmund, well done.”

  “Is that all Dag? You do realize the magnitude of this deal, don't you?”

  “I think so Sigmund. It's just that I've been reflecting on what has happened.”

  “I understand Dag but I like to leave all that unpleasantness behind as fast as possible and get on with life.”

  “Oh I agree Sigmund, still I like to take away a lesson from events. You know, so that we don't repeat any of the same mistakes.”

  “So what's your takeaway?”

  “That's just it I've got nothing.”

  “Well I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dag waited.

  “So what is it Sigmund?”

  “Don't get involved.”

  Dag waited some more.

  “That's it?”

  “That's it.”

  “Well I don't know if that's profound or peevish.”

  “It doesn't matter Dag, as long as we don't get involved.”

  AFTERWORD

  The idea for the “black hole bomb” and gravity wave generators came from an article in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. In the Volume 72 issue on pages 62-69 A.A. Jackson and Gregory Benford describe the technology. They note that it is impossible to engineer at present but may be possible for a future civilization.

  The idea of Ems and families of Ems came from the book “The Age of Em” by Robin Hanson.

  Much of the extrapolated technology in this book was developed over the years in my From The Earth Series (Ems, Aggies, fusion ships, to name a few) and my Mach Series (especially the wormhole drive) of books. The first book of the Star Series, “Cycle Of Stars” developed the spin-two drive.

  The lost expeditions mentioned in Chapter 2 which led to the Dhalkans can be found in my novelettes “First One Hundred” and “Second One Hundred”. Both stories along with three others are in the collection “From The Earth V-3”.

  FUTURE CHRON SCIENCE

  Aggies

  The advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI or Aggie) in the 23rd Century led to a “Golden Age” for Earth as the Earth's governments contracted with the Aggies to manage the ever growing cities (known as tower complexes).

  This arrangement worked until the 26th Century when a break-away faction of Aggies (eventually called Beleni or The Shining Ones) attacked those Aggies left on Earth. The resulting Aggie Wars caused damage to the tower complexes and loss of life. The meta-verse, a virtual world in which billions of virtual citizens lived, built and maintained by the Earth Aggies was almost completely lost. The outcry from the survivors of this war caused the Earth's governments to sever their relationships with the Aggies. The Earth Aggies disappeared into space.

  Without Aggie management the Earth fell into a Dark Age while governments floundered. The distress was to last for a hundred years until the Aggies returned . . .

  Source:

  AGI, A History, Dr. Poul Jackson

  Copyright 2995 C.E. (A.D.)

  Introduction

  ANI

  Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI or Annie in the vernacular) first became available in the early twenty-first century. It developed out of the machine learning technology that was rapidly evolving at the time. Narrow refers to the fact that often this form of intelligence could only do one function well such as speech, facial recognition, etc.

  Eventually some researchers were able to tie together several ANI functions in a neural matrix which allowed the development of the first truly autonomous bipedal robots. Further development in this area was curtailed later in the century as the breakthroughs in emulated brain research promised a more powerful general intelligence.

  Some of the later Annie based robots are still existent in specialized areas . . .

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - ANI

  Barrier

  The barrier created by the Dhalkans is an extension of an idea developed by Dr. Elias Mach.

  He found that if a bubble of negative energy was generated within an already existing wormhole mouth then the space between the inner and outer surfaces would atomize.

  That is space would breakdown between the mouths. Any mass or coherent form of energy (radio waves) would be disrupted by the atomized spacetime. Essentially a spherical barrier would be formed.

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science

  Beleni

  The Beleni were a breakaway faction of Aggies led by Belinus. They were known as “The Shining Ones”.

  Belinus was a megalomaniac that had developed a hatred for humans and the Earth's Aggies. They were responsible for destroying billions of virtual lives in the Earth's meta-verse (see below) and the deaths of millions of humans in the real world.

  The Beleni developed into the greatest threat humanity ever faced and were only stopped by the greatest physicist alive, Dr. Elias Mach.

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science

  Blazar

  A blazar is an active galactic nucleus with a relativistic jet of ionized matter traveling at ne
arly the speed of light directed outwards from its nucleus.

  Blazars are highly variable and powerful sources of emission across the electromagnetic spectrum and are observed to be sources of high-energy gamma ray photons.

  Blazar jets can exhibit superluminal motion, a consequence of material in the jet traveling toward the observer at nearly light-speed.

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science

  Casimir device/confetti

  (entanglement detector)

  According to quantum field theory even a vacuum is filled with electromagnetic waves at different wavelengths. The Casimir effect measures the existence of these waves between two extremely close parallel plates of the Casimir device. As the plates get closer together some electromagnetic waves are excluded from between them because their wavelength no longer “fits”. Of course outside the device the electromagnetic waves are still the same at all wavelengths and these external waves will have a greater energy than the waves between the plates. The net result is a measurable force between the plates dependent on the distance between them.

  Used aboard a wormhole (jump) drive ship the Casimir device shows that when an object is transported or teleported through the wormhole the net effect is a weakening of the Casimir force. It is as if longer wavelength electromagnetic waves have been diminished. This effect is a direct consequence of the “atomizing” of spacetime. In effect spacetime is breaking down affecting larger masses and longer wavelength EM waves first as a result of the loss of entanglement in the area of the wormhole mouth.

  To pass anything other than qubits through a wormhole the object must be entangled with the nearside wormhole mouth. In turn this will entangle it with the wormhole mouth on the far side. Each atom of the object must undergo this entanglement and each atom uses a qubit to do so. A vast amount of entangled qubits are being used which the Casimir device can measure . . .

  Source:

  Wormhole Drive Engineering, 1st Edition by Dr. Dag Mach

  Copyright 3001 A.D. - Appendix 2, Pg. 779

  A Casimir Device As An Entanglement Detector

  Cloak

  The Aggies version of a cloak (an invisibility device) is different from previous versions and can cloak larger objects.

  The Aggies used the power from a super-radiant power plant to generate an intense bubble of negative energy around the object to be cloaked. The field of the bubble directs the geodesics of the gravity field around the object. All energy (such as light) and mass would follow these geodesics around the object as if it were not there. Only careful examination can reveal the altered paths.

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science

  Ems/Emmies

  Emulated brains (also known as Emmies when in personal assistant devices), were the first form of artificial intelligence created. The first Em dates from the early twenty-second century.

  Ems are created by scanning a human brain and loading the resultant data into a computer. At first the scanning of the brain required the person to be deceased. Eventually a way to scan the brain of a living person was developed.

  Once the Em is in the computer it can bud (that is recreate or copy itself) as many times as it deems necessary to accomplish the task it has undertaken. Whole families of Ems exist to do certain tasks. Hiring out as experts, such as maintaining a power plant, a habitat's environment, a lightsail's trim, or powering a personal Emmie, Ems can support themselves and the other members of their family . . .

  Buds were known by their numbers but all were called Bud. For instance, Bud 29-3458 identified a bud derived from the twenty-ninth original emulated brain. And uniquely as the thirty-four hundredth and fifty-eight budding. Original Ems numbered around one hundred but there are millions of buds.

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Ems

  Entanglement, Quantum

  Spacetime is an emergent property of quantum entanglement, that “spooky” action at a distance effect that links two (or more) particles together in a quantum state. Whereby if we measure a property of one of the particles, such as spin angular momentum, then that property is known for the other particle no matter how far away it is from the first particle.

  It must be remembered that the measured property did not have a fixed value before measurement, it only assumed the value at the moment of measurement, and because the distant particle was entangled with the measured particle then it also assumed the complementary value at the same time, i.e. action at a distance.

  Thus entanglement knits together spacetime through particles sharing a common quantum state. But if enough of these entanglements are “broken” then spacetime starts to “unravel.” And the unraveling spreads at the speed of light. Fortunately the effects of this unraveling dissipate over distance.

  Common ways to cause this unraveling is to repeatedly create wormhole pairs without a reservoir of entangled particles. If this is done often enough spacetime will begin to “atomize” or breakup. A more spectacular way to cause this phenomenon is to concentrate too much energy in too small a space as with a wormhole drive.

  Spacetime may break down at differing scales. On the smallest scale even the human body can be affected. Symptoms of spacetime disruption felt by humans are severe headache, nausea, muscle aches . . .

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Quantum Entanglement & Spacetime

  Fusion ship

  Fusion spaceships are the primary means of space transport since the twenty-first century. The latest fourth-plus generation (as of the 29th Century) model is capable of a top velocity of two-tenths the speed of light.

  For long voyages most fusion ships have a rotating life-support wheel usually located a third of the way from the front of the vessel. The wheel section of a fusion ship provides the artificial gravity which makes the performance of most mundane everyday chores, such as eating, sleeping and cleaning, much easier to accomplish. It also provides for the health and muscle-tone of the crew although medical research has made that benefit redundant with new discoveries.

  The wheel section of most fusion ships consists of the crew quarters or apartments on the second floor. This floor also includes a cafeteria, workout room, theater, and assembly area. The first floor, the outer part of the wheel, is used as an aeroponic's garden to grow food on long voyages. The third floor is usually where supplies and equipment are kept. Each level typically has over fifty-thousand square feet of floor space.

  At seven hundred feet in diameter and rotating at one point-eight revolutions a minute the artificial gravity created is about four-tenths Earth gravity. The outer surface of the big wheel is moving at over seventy kilometers per hour.

  Crew quarters are four hundred square feet each, and seem even roomier than their square footage would suggest. Three rooms included a ten by twenty living room-kitchen, a ten by twelve bedroom and an eight by ten bathroom. The kitchen includes a small fridge and food processing center.

  At three thousand feet in length the fusion ships are some of the largest spaceships in existence. The spine of the ship is made of interlinked girders of a carbon composite that is strong but flexible. The composite is wrapped in a particle shield, inside of which is an x-ray shield. This design prevents most fast-moving interstellar particles from impacting the frame and weakening it over time. Closer to the fusion engines it also prevents any radiation damage. At the front is another massive particle shield to deflect particles when the ship is at speed. A magnetic field generator complements the particle shield by turning away charged particles.

  The fourth-plus generation ship's engines use the deuterium helium-3 fusion reaction. The advantage of this reaction is the large amount of energy it produces with an absence of neutrons. The lack of neutrons allow a much longer engine life due to the reduced materials damage and activation levels (radioactivity) when compared to other fusion reactions. In the fourth generation-plus en
gine the loss of efficiency to neutron and x-ray emissions is almost nil.

  Even though the fusion engines are aneutronic they still can give off some radiation, mostly in the form of various fast-moving particles or gamma rays. These collide with the reactor shielding leaving only soft x-rays. But even with this lesser radiation a crew member would not want to remain in their vicinity too long.

  The tanks containing the deuterium oxide pellets are located at the back of the ship just in front of the engines on the left. The tanks containing helium-3 gas are similarly located on the right.

  During the four-tenths Earth gravity acceleration and deceleration phases of a journey the wheel section would not be spinning and the living quarters would be turned, like beads on a string, so that the applied force was in the proper direction.

  Isotopic energy storage is used on these ships . . .

  Source:

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Fusion Ships

  Gravity wave generator

  The operation of the gravity wave generators is very similar to the a super-radiant power plant. Except there is a small black hole with about the mass of the asteroid Ceres orbiting a larger black hole which has a mass about that of Earth. To generate gravity waves the smaller mass dives towards the larger mass barely missing the event horizon. It loops from there out almost to its original orbit several times generating high frequency gravity waves before the orbit regularizes again at a distance that is somewhat less than originally. Then energy from a super-radiant power plant restores the system to its original configuration before another round of gravity waves is generated.