"Mad Science" means never stopping to ask "what's the worst thing that could happen?"
- Maxim 14, from The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
The Presidential Complex, Meridian Prime, Galactic Republic of Arkasia
July 20, ASY 123
“A briefing on a research project? Now? Can this wait?” President Bailess looks a combination of befuddled and annoyed as Admiral Shaw, the head of Fleet Intelligence, tries to brief him on a very special new research project. They sat in the President’s office on Meridian Prime, the dampener field down for whatever privacy it was worth in the Oracle era. Both men are tired; for Shaw, excitement cuts through the exhaustion with a gleaming edge.
“No, Mr. President, it can’t. We need your sign-off on this.”
“On a research project?” This time he sounded more curious. He looks at the typed, hardcopy file before him. “The Advanced Materials Joint Research Initiative?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a doozy. Bowman out at Mars worked it up.”
“Oh, you should have led with that! How big a doozy?” He sits back in his chair, gritting his teeth slightly. These days he’d like nothing more than a cigar, even after all these years, but the wife had made him quit so long ago. No matter that these Static would probably kill him before tobacco could.
“How familiar are you with holographic theory?”
“... like holovids?”
“... no. Totally unrelated. It’s a physics phenomena, a hypothetical one.”
“Then not at all.”
“Well, the high level is…” Admiral Shaw gives the President the high-level rundown on holographic technology, growing more excited even as Bailess looks more perplexed.
“Alright,” the President finally interrupts. “Spare me the physics. Tell me what it does and why you need me to sign off rather than just putting it in some black site.”
“We need to collaborate. We don't have anything like this in the archives. Nothing, in fact, except some old debunkings of any possibility of practical applications for the theory. As it turns out, though, other nations have made progress.”
“The Domain?”
“Not this time. The Hypatians and the Eridani.”
“The Hypatians have tech we don’t now?” Bailess looks vaguely alarmed. “For… for crying out loud!”
“As it turns out, they’re much more advanced than we gave them credit for. They’re like us; a lot of the bleeding edge stuff is kept tightly under wraps.” Shaw hastily interjects. “Their historical bumbling, we believe, has largely been an act." He smiles and continues. “But! Neither the Eridani nor the Hypatians have anything like our Origami tech. We think it can work together with holographic technology to pull off some truly spectacular results.”
Bailess nods. “Alright, well. I understand why this is on my desk now. How spectacular are we talking? Not incremental improvements, I assume?”
“Not at all. Think OIC with resolutions at the single-ship level and common Origami drives. It could revolutionize all of our Origami technology if we can integrate holographics. Maybe even get the old precursor stuff that won’t work here to function.”
“Is that so? The initiative… just Hypatia and the Eridani?”
“And the Phoenix Domain.”
“What’s their contribution?” The President isn’t aggressive, more curious.
“They keep the rest of us from blowing ourselves up.”
Bailess snorts. “Fair enough. They’ve done a good job of it so far. Besides, they’ve given us so much tech now, maybe we can return the favor for once. Risks and costs?”
Shaw gulps. “Well… certain powers might not like it.”
“Which ones?”
“The Nimatojin… and the Macisikani.”
“How much will they not like it?”
“Snide comments and snooping Corgis, is what the Domain expects.”
“We’re going to get both of those anyway.”
“The other is, uh… catastrophic reality failure.”
Bailess stares at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“... no. But any tests will be isolated to pocket realities for containment.”
“Yes, and that’s a prerequisite for involvement. No live fire tests in our universe, period. And my condition is that any deployment of resulting technology outside of the pocket has to be approved by every government involved. In your opinion, will that effectively contain the threat?”
“More than, but… yes, you can’t be too safe. We had been looking at doing something like that.”
“Right, so… other than snide comments for Bowman and/or possibly ending the universe…”
“Risk of leak of vital national security information, to the other three nations involved.”
“Which is the point of research collaboration. Anything else?”
“Scale. This is a big one. It’ll likely require dedicated facilities and a significant investment. And a few years to bear fruit.”
“You have my go-ahead there. Starfleet R&D can figure out how to prioritize it; you know I don’t like to step on your toes in that way. Anything else?”
“I’ll keep you informed if anything comes up.”
“Good. By the way, what’s the project file name? You always have some interesting ones.”
“Project: New Amsterdam.”
Bailess frowns. “What even is that? An old Terran city?”
“Yes, and no. It’s nothing, randomly generated from place names in the historical records, which is the point. OpSec said we needed to stop naming projects after their function.”
“Ah. Very well. You have my approval for whatever needs doing, and keep me informed. Assuming the Static don’t eat us all before you get up and running.”