This is what I think of PAPAL:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/298 ... n%3Ascraps
"The Decision" (Dominion War ADN fic/followup to &
Moderator: LadyTevar
Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
17 January 2183 AST
14:00 GST
The ceremony began at 9am EST sharp with the large crowd already gathered in the New Mall. To their backs was the Capitol Building, the age-old symbol of legislative power, and further west from that was, of course, the Old Mall, where the Smithsonian, the National Aero-Space Museum, and other America-centric memorials and monuments were still to be found.
The New Mall was the brainchild of Harriet Donaldson, a senior city councilwoman in 2144 AST when the newly-formed Alliance of Democratic Nations opted to temporarily take up Washington D.C., the former capital of the USA (which, in Universe HE-1, had seen it's capital moved to Philadelphia in the 21st Century due to the upheavals and wars that had nearly torn America apart). Though the future of the capital was still undecided, Donaldson acted to head off the inevitable plans to build a new capital on another world by engaging in a beautification campaign that nearly bankrupted the city but saw it's old monuments restored to luster and also involved the creation of the "New Mall" to go with the "Old Mall"; the New Mall went east, not west, of the Capitol, all the way to the Anacostia River where the old RFK Stadium had been refurbished. Here, the monuments of the Allied Nations would be constructed.
It began, in the 2150s, with the Wall of Honor, a memorial area where three great marble walls would bear the names of those soldiers who were awarded the Grand Cross of Honor by the Council - the ADN's equivalent of the US Medal of Honor of the British Victoria's Cross. In the 60s the Cardassian War Memorial had been added, the Jennifer Verdes Memorial in the 70s. Near the RFK Stadium, the Interuniversal War Memorial was being built to commemorate the simultaneous wars against the Dominion and Plymouth.
Before the crowd now was the new great memorial for the Alliance Capital. The Nicolas Mamatmas Memorial was build in similar fashion to the Lincoln Memorial, constructed to resemble a Doric temple of the Classical Greeks. It faced west as Lincoln's faced east, with three staired-entrance pathways moving north, south, and west, each of them covered by ceilings decorated with traditional symbols of liberty, including the eagle and the Alliance four-colored torch. The grand columns of marble numbered twenty facing to the east and eighteen each facing north and south - a pair of symbolic numbers, as twenty nations had founded the Alliance when Nicolas became the first Chancellor of the Alliance Council, and there had been fifty-six member nations when he had left office in January 2163 - maintaining the limestone roof with the decorated ceiling until one got to the cella in the middle, supported by the innermost columns and the solid construction of the rest of the structure. There, standing in a serene, firm pose, was the statue of Nicolas Mamatmas himself. Clad in his customary suit-and-tie, his face weathered from age and trial, Mamatmas' visage gazed east at Capitol Hill, as if he were keeping watch on the institution he had been the first to lead. His stance was simple but elegant, based upon his official Presidential portrait by Francois de Rumy, with both hands pressed firmly together behind his back. At the base of the statue, upon the marble pedastral, was an inscription.
Behind the great sculpture of Mamatmas, at the northeast, east, and southeast corners of the cella, were the engravings of his greatest speeches; his acceptance speech when elected as the Alliance's first Chancellor, his first State of the Alliance speech to the Alliance Council just a few days after he entered office, and the infamous speech of April 29th, 2160 AST, when Mamatmas issued his call to arms to the Allied Nations following the outbreak of war with the Dominion and the imminent outbreak of war with New Plymouth Colony, New China, and New Oranje in CON-5. There were, furthermore, small containers for informational pamphlets, as well as watch stations for the memorial's security and maintainance staff.
In a moment, the screens that had hidden parts of the memorial from view were gone, showing this sight to the assembled crowd, which showed it's approval with applause. Assembled for this occasion was an array of officials. President Alexandria Verdes, Sixth President of the Alliance (and the daughter of Jennifer Verdes, Second President of the Alliance) was in attendance. To her sides sat numerous dignitaries. Nicolas' aging widow, Karyn, looked far older than her last public images had shown; since her husband's death Karyn had grown increasingly withdrawn from the world, seeking solitude in more quiet acts of charity and benevolence to honor her husband's legacy. She was joined by many of Nicolas' family, including Doctor Samuel Mamatmas, the newly-minted Dean of the Orina Belluci School of Sentient History at the University of New Brooklyn, and Admiral Peter Mamatmas, the eldest of Mamatmas' adopted children.
Also in the crowd were other established dignitaries. The two other surviving ex-Presidents of the Alliance, Robert Dale and Sir Kevin Maxwell-Fyfe, were in attendance with families and other close ones. Rachel MacKenzie, the only surviving Chancellor to have served alongside Mamatmas, had also present, as was Prime Minister Omiko Takahara of Japan SE-1, who had served as Mamatmas' trusted Security Advisor in the first years of his Presidency.
A number of foreign dignitaries had decided to be in attendance, mostly people noted for closeness to Mamatmas or sympathy toward him. Standing with her closest advisors was President Delenn of the InterStellar Alliance (Universe Designate EM-5), and nearby, Emperor Vir Cotto of the Centauri Republic from the same universe; both leaders had worked closely with Nicolas Mamatmas in his Presidency in an attempt to maintain the peace of their home universe. Sir Alexander Grant, Alexandria Driscova, and Gabrielle Newson, former Prime Ministers of the British Empire and the Kingdom of the Devenshires and President of Lisea respectively, had come to pay a final respect to their wartime ally of twenty years prior. Some heads turned at the sight of an entourage of Talorans, sitting near Robert Dale, headed by Ulahs Trisimhla, a Hereditary Censor of Quesadia, the most populated city of Talora Prime and one of the major economic centers of the Multiverse.
Shakaar Edon, former President of the Bajoran Republic, had led a delegation of Bajorans to the ceremony, and was joined by Fleet Admiral Benjamin Sisko, Commander-in-Chief of the new Federated Worlds' Stellar Navy and hero of the Dominion War and the Federation Civil Wars, leading a delegation of several prominent officials from the former Federation who regarded Mamatmas as being responsible for their freedom from the Federation and the end of it's increasingly-corrupt government.
Alexandria Verdes was the first to speak.
"I am honored to be here today, in the midst of such a great company of people, to commemorate the opening of this memorial to the great man who proved indispensable to the development and stability of the Allied Nations. Even in death, he continues to inspire with the story of his life, his hardships, and his personal courage. I look around, and I see the common people he loved so greatly, and I see the great and powerful who came here humbly to recognize him, and it fills me with awe that one man can have such a great effect upon others."
"Nicolas Mamatmas believed in the institutions of the Alliance. He believed in freedom, in liberty, in the common man, in a way so few do in the Multiverse. He was blessed with an intelligence and a vigor that led him to high office, from where he could do the most good. And we have all seen the good he did."
"Now we have built this place in his honor, a place of memory that will allow for many generations to come and learn about him. Nicolas himself may be gone, but with this place, he will be immortal in the hearts and minds of all those peoples who love liberty."
There were polite applause. Karyn Mamatmas joined in them, but she was weeping greatly, the wound in her heart still strong after the passing of the years. She missed her beloved husband so greatly that this only served to aggravate the wound.
But she still forced a smile when the cameras came to her. For her family's sake, for Nicolas' sake, she would bear the burden here today, like those burdens he bore so long ago, and allow the people he loved to honor him.
Universe Designate HE-1
17 January 2183 AST
14:00 GST
The ceremony began at 9am EST sharp with the large crowd already gathered in the New Mall. To their backs was the Capitol Building, the age-old symbol of legislative power, and further west from that was, of course, the Old Mall, where the Smithsonian, the National Aero-Space Museum, and other America-centric memorials and monuments were still to be found.
The New Mall was the brainchild of Harriet Donaldson, a senior city councilwoman in 2144 AST when the newly-formed Alliance of Democratic Nations opted to temporarily take up Washington D.C., the former capital of the USA (which, in Universe HE-1, had seen it's capital moved to Philadelphia in the 21st Century due to the upheavals and wars that had nearly torn America apart). Though the future of the capital was still undecided, Donaldson acted to head off the inevitable plans to build a new capital on another world by engaging in a beautification campaign that nearly bankrupted the city but saw it's old monuments restored to luster and also involved the creation of the "New Mall" to go with the "Old Mall"; the New Mall went east, not west, of the Capitol, all the way to the Anacostia River where the old RFK Stadium had been refurbished. Here, the monuments of the Allied Nations would be constructed.
It began, in the 2150s, with the Wall of Honor, a memorial area where three great marble walls would bear the names of those soldiers who were awarded the Grand Cross of Honor by the Council - the ADN's equivalent of the US Medal of Honor of the British Victoria's Cross. In the 60s the Cardassian War Memorial had been added, the Jennifer Verdes Memorial in the 70s. Near the RFK Stadium, the Interuniversal War Memorial was being built to commemorate the simultaneous wars against the Dominion and Plymouth.
Before the crowd now was the new great memorial for the Alliance Capital. The Nicolas Mamatmas Memorial was build in similar fashion to the Lincoln Memorial, constructed to resemble a Doric temple of the Classical Greeks. It faced west as Lincoln's faced east, with three staired-entrance pathways moving north, south, and west, each of them covered by ceilings decorated with traditional symbols of liberty, including the eagle and the Alliance four-colored torch. The grand columns of marble numbered twenty facing to the east and eighteen each facing north and south - a pair of symbolic numbers, as twenty nations had founded the Alliance when Nicolas became the first Chancellor of the Alliance Council, and there had been fifty-six member nations when he had left office in January 2163 - maintaining the limestone roof with the decorated ceiling until one got to the cella in the middle, supported by the innermost columns and the solid construction of the rest of the structure. There, standing in a serene, firm pose, was the statue of Nicolas Mamatmas himself. Clad in his customary suit-and-tie, his face weathered from age and trial, Mamatmas' visage gazed east at Capitol Hill, as if he were keeping watch on the institution he had been the first to lead. His stance was simple but elegant, based upon his official Presidential portrait by Francois de Rumy, with both hands pressed firmly together behind his back. At the base of the statue, upon the marble pedastral, was an inscription.
"In this temple we have consecrated the memory of Nicolas Mamatmas, the Rock of the Alliance. May it stand as firm as he was."
Behind the great sculpture of Mamatmas, at the northeast, east, and southeast corners of the cella, were the engravings of his greatest speeches; his acceptance speech when elected as the Alliance's first Chancellor, his first State of the Alliance speech to the Alliance Council just a few days after he entered office, and the infamous speech of April 29th, 2160 AST, when Mamatmas issued his call to arms to the Allied Nations following the outbreak of war with the Dominion and the imminent outbreak of war with New Plymouth Colony, New China, and New Oranje in CON-5. There were, furthermore, small containers for informational pamphlets, as well as watch stations for the memorial's security and maintainance staff.
In a moment, the screens that had hidden parts of the memorial from view were gone, showing this sight to the assembled crowd, which showed it's approval with applause. Assembled for this occasion was an array of officials. President Alexandria Verdes, Sixth President of the Alliance (and the daughter of Jennifer Verdes, Second President of the Alliance) was in attendance. To her sides sat numerous dignitaries. Nicolas' aging widow, Karyn, looked far older than her last public images had shown; since her husband's death Karyn had grown increasingly withdrawn from the world, seeking solitude in more quiet acts of charity and benevolence to honor her husband's legacy. She was joined by many of Nicolas' family, including Doctor Samuel Mamatmas, the newly-minted Dean of the Orina Belluci School of Sentient History at the University of New Brooklyn, and Admiral Peter Mamatmas, the eldest of Mamatmas' adopted children.
Also in the crowd were other established dignitaries. The two other surviving ex-Presidents of the Alliance, Robert Dale and Sir Kevin Maxwell-Fyfe, were in attendance with families and other close ones. Rachel MacKenzie, the only surviving Chancellor to have served alongside Mamatmas, had also present, as was Prime Minister Omiko Takahara of Japan SE-1, who had served as Mamatmas' trusted Security Advisor in the first years of his Presidency.
A number of foreign dignitaries had decided to be in attendance, mostly people noted for closeness to Mamatmas or sympathy toward him. Standing with her closest advisors was President Delenn of the InterStellar Alliance (Universe Designate EM-5), and nearby, Emperor Vir Cotto of the Centauri Republic from the same universe; both leaders had worked closely with Nicolas Mamatmas in his Presidency in an attempt to maintain the peace of their home universe. Sir Alexander Grant, Alexandria Driscova, and Gabrielle Newson, former Prime Ministers of the British Empire and the Kingdom of the Devenshires and President of Lisea respectively, had come to pay a final respect to their wartime ally of twenty years prior. Some heads turned at the sight of an entourage of Talorans, sitting near Robert Dale, headed by Ulahs Trisimhla, a Hereditary Censor of Quesadia, the most populated city of Talora Prime and one of the major economic centers of the Multiverse.
Shakaar Edon, former President of the Bajoran Republic, had led a delegation of Bajorans to the ceremony, and was joined by Fleet Admiral Benjamin Sisko, Commander-in-Chief of the new Federated Worlds' Stellar Navy and hero of the Dominion War and the Federation Civil Wars, leading a delegation of several prominent officials from the former Federation who regarded Mamatmas as being responsible for their freedom from the Federation and the end of it's increasingly-corrupt government.
Alexandria Verdes was the first to speak.
"I am honored to be here today, in the midst of such a great company of people, to commemorate the opening of this memorial to the great man who proved indispensable to the development and stability of the Allied Nations. Even in death, he continues to inspire with the story of his life, his hardships, and his personal courage. I look around, and I see the common people he loved so greatly, and I see the great and powerful who came here humbly to recognize him, and it fills me with awe that one man can have such a great effect upon others."
"Nicolas Mamatmas believed in the institutions of the Alliance. He believed in freedom, in liberty, in the common man, in a way so few do in the Multiverse. He was blessed with an intelligence and a vigor that led him to high office, from where he could do the most good. And we have all seen the good he did."
"Now we have built this place in his honor, a place of memory that will allow for many generations to come and learn about him. Nicolas himself may be gone, but with this place, he will be immortal in the hearts and minds of all those peoples who love liberty."
There were polite applause. Karyn Mamatmas joined in them, but she was weeping greatly, the wound in her heart still strong after the passing of the years. She missed her beloved husband so greatly that this only served to aggravate the wound.
But she still forced a smile when the cameras came to her. For her family's sake, for Nicolas' sake, she would bear the burden here today, like those burdens he bore so long ago, and allow the people he loved to honor him.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Certainly Mamathas deserved it. The jump from his funeral to several years later after the UFP has fallen and he's getting a monument was quite abrupt, but I can understand why you did it. Are you planning on writing a fic about the Federation's collapse?
And out of curiosity, what has the Alliance been up to in the B5verse?
And out of curiosity, what has the Alliance been up to in the B5verse?
"I want to mow down a bunch of motherfuckers with absurdly large weapons and relative impunity - preferably in and around a skyscraper. Then I want to fight a grim battle against the unlikely duo of the Terminator and Robocop. The last level should involve (but not be limited to) multiple robo-Hitlers and a gorillasaurus rex."--Uraniun235 on his ideal FPS game
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."--Darth Vader
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."--Darth Vader
EPILOGUE
Shiva's Forgery - The Origin
Titan Project R&D Facility, Planetoid AD-492862, Alpha Korva System
Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate SE-1
19 March 2165 AST
The single aerospace military transport, having arrived from the frontier system of Reynolds, slid to a stop on the arrival runway built ino the planetoid. Gravity generators assured a comfortable 1G of gravity for the uniformed runway operators as they secured the craft.
The transport craft was normally designated Reynolds TC11-391 and part of the 391st Transport Squadron of the Alliance Aerospace Force. But on approach it had been called by another designation: PT1.
The designation of a craft carrying the President of the Allied Nations.
Robert Dale descended the steps, accompanied by United States (SE-1) Air Force Lieutenant General Mark Crierie, the officer in charge of the facility. The awaiting detail of Air Force MPs snapped salutes at the President and the General as they made their way off the landing deck.
In the reception area, the President was greeted by two figures; USAF Colonel Shelley MacIntyre, the Chief of Security, and Doctor Phil Richards, the overseer of the civilian research teams that called the facility home. While they talked, Dale was handed the "introductory flier" given to all new arrivals, civilian and military, at "Titan HQ", with Colonel MacIntyre explaining that she wanted him to understand how strict she was in keeping security. Dale nodded in acceptance of the flier, but he stopped reading it at the harsh reminder of the classified nature of the very facility and the threat of criminal prosecution and "lengthy jail time" for even mentioning the facility in an unsecured area.
"I already know the purpose of this place," he noted when closing the flier. "Used to be an American R&D facility, handed over to Alliance control in July 2153 when President Mamatmas signed Executive Order 3-14, establishing the Titan Project."
"Yes. At first, we had one sole purpose...."
"....to develop weapon systems and other means for use in a full-scale war against the Borg," Dale finished for Doctor Richards. "Then you developed Shiva. Preliminary warhead testing began in 2157, I still remember getting the preliminary report as Chairman of the JCS and Defense Minister. After the onset of the Dominion War, you'll remember that it was my signature on the paper approving the first test detonation of a fusion-device boosted with this 'Guyverite' stuff. Then eight months later, you detonated the first Guyverite-boosted anti-matter warhead, again on my signature. By the time the President ordered the Shiva Operation, you'd churned out just enough warheads for the operation to work. Once again, production on my signature."
"We're planning on the Big Bertha detonation in four months," Crierie remarked. "We're shooting for three hundred gigatons."
"I seem to recall making it design policy to search for smaller, more plentiful warheads, General, not big damn ones," Dale remarked.
"Yes sir, but sometimes you have to build big before you can begin to build better small ones," was Crierie's reply.
"So, why did you want me out here, obviously not to see the detonation."
"No sir. We wanted to share something with you." Richards looked back to Dale as they walked past a set of transport tubes, each going to a different lab. "We showed this to President Mamatmas when he visited in 2157 to see the first warhead test."
"The one that fizzled?" Dale asked pointedly.
The remembrance of that embarrassment made Richards' cheeks turn red. "Um, yes, Mister President." He could clearly remember Mamatmas' reaction.
"Okay, so, what is this?"
"Well, sir, it's the source of Guyverite, you might say... it's how Doctor Guyver learned to find it naturally and to give it the refined form necessary for use as a booster in warheads."
The conversation quieted again as a transport tube was opened for them near the end of the transport corridor. It took them deep within the planetoid, to some of it's initial floors and structure. Once they exited the transport tube, they came to a long corridor, with some of the lights overhead flickering and thus showing age. An electric transport cart was waiting for them, complete with a USAF Airman to drive them down the length of the hall. "How long has this been around?" asked Dale. "Looks a lot older than the rest of the base."
"It's the original level, Mister President, built here about seventy years ago," Crierie explained.
"I wasn't aware that the Americans of SE-1 were working on Guyverite that long," Dale answered.
"They didn't start the first work on it until the 30s, sir, after the contact with the Agresskan."
The cart came to a stop at the very end. To their right, stairs led up to what Dale presumed to be a control room, but it was to the large metal double-doors that he was led by Crierie. Crierie put his hand on the security scanner, looked into it, and stated, "Crierie Bravo Delta Zulu Charlie."
The system confirmed his identity with multiple checks on bioelectrics, mass, handprint, geneprint, retina, and voiceprint. When it was done a light flashed green. The doors swooshed open, and the set within did so a moment later, revealing the chamber within.
It was a generally drab chamber, over eighteen feet high, twenty-three feet wide, and eighteen feet long. The gunmetal gray walls were simple and adorned, and there was only a forcefield projector along the side that could, if necessary, seal off the rear two-thirds of the room. To the upper right were the windows of the control room, complete with blast shutters and their own forcefield generators. Dale thought he could see primers for explosives placed along the wall, a final self-destruct measure if necessary.
But the real surprise was toward the rear of the room.
A giant metal ring, easily thirteen or more feet in diameter, had been locked into place by four clamps, one in the ceiling, one on the floor, and two along the walls. Within the ring was a second ring, on which what easily looked to be thirty or more symbols were etched, and along the circumference of the main ring were nine pieces that were shaped like chevrons and looked to fit individual symbols on the ring.
"Just what is that?" Dale asked.
"It's made out of Guyverite," Crierie explained. "Soaks up energy like a sponge and the mechanism looks you dial it like one of those ancient telephones of the 20th Century. Looks like there are some kind of emitters or emission system inside of it, but hell if we know what it does."
"Actually, Doctor Michaels thought that it could be some kind of wormhole generator, like a minitaturized interuniversal jump point generator," Doctor Richards chimed in. "Most of us laughed, but over time the mathematics looked like it could work that way. The energy absorption of the material would potentially be enough to punch a wormhole in space without blasting the ring to bits, but what would anyone do that for?"
Crierie made a harumph sound. "Actually, it gets wackier, 'cause our records from the world where it was found say that the surroundings had a bunch of Egyptian-like hieroglyphics on them. Had an Egyptologist look 'em over, he said it looked like nonsense, but if one translated them a certain way by using Egyptian symbols we know that look similar to what was there..... it made reference to something called a 'Gate to heaven' or a 'Stargate'."
"Just where is this world that the ring was found on?"
"Ever heard of Universe Designate SRC-19, Mister President?"
Dale felt the reference tickle the back of his brain, as if he'd heard it somewhere, but he couldn't think of it. "Not that I recall," he answered.
"It has a rather lonely spot on the IUCEC's blacklist. It's got a big, nice 'Do Not Enter' sign on it on every IU Gate Assembly and GateShip in the known Multiverse."
Dale's only question was, "Why?"
"Back in the 2090s, just before the DN-9 contact caused everyone's feathers to get ruffled, a company here in the US established a colony there. A survey of a nearby Earth-like world found that thing..." Crierie pointed to the ring. "And brought it home just before the company was kicked out by the military and everyone forced to leave the colony and not come back." Crierie smirked. "Hell, I looked over the records myself, and the only thing I could find out was that a USSN explorer ship, the Abigail Thompson, was lost about fifteen hours before the order came down from Washington to get the hell out of SRC-19. Every record they have about the Thompson's final mission, and the last things the military did in SRC-19 before we pulled out for good is sealed way above me. Hell, Mister President, I doubt even you could get into it, since I figure some NSA bureaucrat would find it conveniently misfiled if you asked about it like President Mamatmas did."
"I don't like mysteries, General Crierie," Dale said as he looked over the Stargate. "And I've got my own contacts."
"Well, sir, good luck with that." Crierie nodded to Colonel MacIntyre. "Mac, why don't you take the President up to see our cyberwar department, he can find out about all the nasty computer viruses that our boys will be trying to put into Borg systems if the Borg ever hit again."
MacIntyre nodded and escorted the President out. Once he was gone, Crierie and Richards looked at each other. "Did Michaels ever finish that device he was working on?"
"You mean the rigging that he thought might let him turn that thing into an IU gate and let us hook it into any others that might be around in SRC-19?" Richards snorted. "Still working on it. I don't know why, Hell, sometimes I think we should just melt it down and use it's Guyverite for more warheads."
Crierie snickered. "So do I, Doc, so do I. But standing orders are to find out how the damned thing works, maybe make our own one day. So we'll just keep going by that."
The two men looked at each other and left the room, plunging the solitary Stargate back into pitch black.
Shiva's Forgery - The Origin
Titan Project R&D Facility, Planetoid AD-492862, Alpha Korva System
Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate SE-1
19 March 2165 AST
The single aerospace military transport, having arrived from the frontier system of Reynolds, slid to a stop on the arrival runway built ino the planetoid. Gravity generators assured a comfortable 1G of gravity for the uniformed runway operators as they secured the craft.
The transport craft was normally designated Reynolds TC11-391 and part of the 391st Transport Squadron of the Alliance Aerospace Force. But on approach it had been called by another designation: PT1.
The designation of a craft carrying the President of the Allied Nations.
Robert Dale descended the steps, accompanied by United States (SE-1) Air Force Lieutenant General Mark Crierie, the officer in charge of the facility. The awaiting detail of Air Force MPs snapped salutes at the President and the General as they made their way off the landing deck.
In the reception area, the President was greeted by two figures; USAF Colonel Shelley MacIntyre, the Chief of Security, and Doctor Phil Richards, the overseer of the civilian research teams that called the facility home. While they talked, Dale was handed the "introductory flier" given to all new arrivals, civilian and military, at "Titan HQ", with Colonel MacIntyre explaining that she wanted him to understand how strict she was in keeping security. Dale nodded in acceptance of the flier, but he stopped reading it at the harsh reminder of the classified nature of the very facility and the threat of criminal prosecution and "lengthy jail time" for even mentioning the facility in an unsecured area.
"I already know the purpose of this place," he noted when closing the flier. "Used to be an American R&D facility, handed over to Alliance control in July 2153 when President Mamatmas signed Executive Order 3-14, establishing the Titan Project."
"Yes. At first, we had one sole purpose...."
"....to develop weapon systems and other means for use in a full-scale war against the Borg," Dale finished for Doctor Richards. "Then you developed Shiva. Preliminary warhead testing began in 2157, I still remember getting the preliminary report as Chairman of the JCS and Defense Minister. After the onset of the Dominion War, you'll remember that it was my signature on the paper approving the first test detonation of a fusion-device boosted with this 'Guyverite' stuff. Then eight months later, you detonated the first Guyverite-boosted anti-matter warhead, again on my signature. By the time the President ordered the Shiva Operation, you'd churned out just enough warheads for the operation to work. Once again, production on my signature."
"We're planning on the Big Bertha detonation in four months," Crierie remarked. "We're shooting for three hundred gigatons."
"I seem to recall making it design policy to search for smaller, more plentiful warheads, General, not big damn ones," Dale remarked.
"Yes sir, but sometimes you have to build big before you can begin to build better small ones," was Crierie's reply.
"So, why did you want me out here, obviously not to see the detonation."
"No sir. We wanted to share something with you." Richards looked back to Dale as they walked past a set of transport tubes, each going to a different lab. "We showed this to President Mamatmas when he visited in 2157 to see the first warhead test."
"The one that fizzled?" Dale asked pointedly.
The remembrance of that embarrassment made Richards' cheeks turn red. "Um, yes, Mister President." He could clearly remember Mamatmas' reaction.
"Okay, so, what is this?"
"Well, sir, it's the source of Guyverite, you might say... it's how Doctor Guyver learned to find it naturally and to give it the refined form necessary for use as a booster in warheads."
The conversation quieted again as a transport tube was opened for them near the end of the transport corridor. It took them deep within the planetoid, to some of it's initial floors and structure. Once they exited the transport tube, they came to a long corridor, with some of the lights overhead flickering and thus showing age. An electric transport cart was waiting for them, complete with a USAF Airman to drive them down the length of the hall. "How long has this been around?" asked Dale. "Looks a lot older than the rest of the base."
"It's the original level, Mister President, built here about seventy years ago," Crierie explained.
"I wasn't aware that the Americans of SE-1 were working on Guyverite that long," Dale answered.
"They didn't start the first work on it until the 30s, sir, after the contact with the Agresskan."
The cart came to a stop at the very end. To their right, stairs led up to what Dale presumed to be a control room, but it was to the large metal double-doors that he was led by Crierie. Crierie put his hand on the security scanner, looked into it, and stated, "Crierie Bravo Delta Zulu Charlie."
The system confirmed his identity with multiple checks on bioelectrics, mass, handprint, geneprint, retina, and voiceprint. When it was done a light flashed green. The doors swooshed open, and the set within did so a moment later, revealing the chamber within.
It was a generally drab chamber, over eighteen feet high, twenty-three feet wide, and eighteen feet long. The gunmetal gray walls were simple and adorned, and there was only a forcefield projector along the side that could, if necessary, seal off the rear two-thirds of the room. To the upper right were the windows of the control room, complete with blast shutters and their own forcefield generators. Dale thought he could see primers for explosives placed along the wall, a final self-destruct measure if necessary.
But the real surprise was toward the rear of the room.
A giant metal ring, easily thirteen or more feet in diameter, had been locked into place by four clamps, one in the ceiling, one on the floor, and two along the walls. Within the ring was a second ring, on which what easily looked to be thirty or more symbols were etched, and along the circumference of the main ring were nine pieces that were shaped like chevrons and looked to fit individual symbols on the ring.
"Just what is that?" Dale asked.
"It's made out of Guyverite," Crierie explained. "Soaks up energy like a sponge and the mechanism looks you dial it like one of those ancient telephones of the 20th Century. Looks like there are some kind of emitters or emission system inside of it, but hell if we know what it does."
"Actually, Doctor Michaels thought that it could be some kind of wormhole generator, like a minitaturized interuniversal jump point generator," Doctor Richards chimed in. "Most of us laughed, but over time the mathematics looked like it could work that way. The energy absorption of the material would potentially be enough to punch a wormhole in space without blasting the ring to bits, but what would anyone do that for?"
Crierie made a harumph sound. "Actually, it gets wackier, 'cause our records from the world where it was found say that the surroundings had a bunch of Egyptian-like hieroglyphics on them. Had an Egyptologist look 'em over, he said it looked like nonsense, but if one translated them a certain way by using Egyptian symbols we know that look similar to what was there..... it made reference to something called a 'Gate to heaven' or a 'Stargate'."
"Just where is this world that the ring was found on?"
"Ever heard of Universe Designate SRC-19, Mister President?"
Dale felt the reference tickle the back of his brain, as if he'd heard it somewhere, but he couldn't think of it. "Not that I recall," he answered.
"It has a rather lonely spot on the IUCEC's blacklist. It's got a big, nice 'Do Not Enter' sign on it on every IU Gate Assembly and GateShip in the known Multiverse."
Dale's only question was, "Why?"
"Back in the 2090s, just before the DN-9 contact caused everyone's feathers to get ruffled, a company here in the US established a colony there. A survey of a nearby Earth-like world found that thing..." Crierie pointed to the ring. "And brought it home just before the company was kicked out by the military and everyone forced to leave the colony and not come back." Crierie smirked. "Hell, I looked over the records myself, and the only thing I could find out was that a USSN explorer ship, the Abigail Thompson, was lost about fifteen hours before the order came down from Washington to get the hell out of SRC-19. Every record they have about the Thompson's final mission, and the last things the military did in SRC-19 before we pulled out for good is sealed way above me. Hell, Mister President, I doubt even you could get into it, since I figure some NSA bureaucrat would find it conveniently misfiled if you asked about it like President Mamatmas did."
"I don't like mysteries, General Crierie," Dale said as he looked over the Stargate. "And I've got my own contacts."
"Well, sir, good luck with that." Crierie nodded to Colonel MacIntyre. "Mac, why don't you take the President up to see our cyberwar department, he can find out about all the nasty computer viruses that our boys will be trying to put into Borg systems if the Borg ever hit again."
MacIntyre nodded and escorted the President out. Once he was gone, Crierie and Richards looked at each other. "Did Michaels ever finish that device he was working on?"
"You mean the rigging that he thought might let him turn that thing into an IU gate and let us hook it into any others that might be around in SRC-19?" Richards snorted. "Still working on it. I don't know why, Hell, sometimes I think we should just melt it down and use it's Guyverite for more warheads."
Crierie snickered. "So do I, Doc, so do I. But standing orders are to find out how the damned thing works, maybe make our own one day. So we'll just keep going by that."
The two men looked at each other and left the room, plunging the solitary Stargate back into pitch black.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Master of Cards
- Jedi Master
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- Joined: 2005-03-06 10:54am
