The Fall of Earth

[boolybooly]

NOVGLOV An Epilogue

republished from the trans-temporal archives

The unforeseen end of NOVGLOV was the product of the way it had been created.

Had the inner sanctum known they would not have tried to oppose a newly encountered existential threat the way they did. Such was their fear of the invaders, inspired by texts found inscribed in alien ruins and accounts stored in their reactivated data vaults they did not stop to consider what might happen when they reactivated the partially understood alien machinery designed to close the portal which was the invaders’ access to the galaxy in which NOVGLOV and the people of the human race prospered.

What was it about Omicron Phoenicis which attracted trouble the way it did? After the fiercely fought swarm wars in that system which had certainly saved humanity from an extinction level threat, NOVGLOV sanctioned full surveys of the systems beyond it which had been discovered in the pursuit of the enemy.

Analysis of strategic resources had revealed an impending shortage of neutronium. Beyond Omicron Phoenicis lay the system of 89 Ursae Majoris, endowed with significant neutronium and other deposits on an uninhabitable planet with a habitable planet to receive automined mass packets and on which to build a new starport and a new world for humanity. The great business of humanity, guided by NOVGLOV expanded through Omicron Phoenicis, now considered safe and into 89 Ursae Majoris and beyond.

It was only after much investment in materiel and personnel, construction and development, that the anomaly in Omicron Phoenicis was discovered. The high velocity passive infrared recon craft Vincent, the only ship of its class, was sent to monitor the strange phenomenon. Its significance became clearer when three invader craft penetrated the system through it and moved to the three jump points in the system. Unfortunately for the invader and fortunately for human security forces, fears of possible swarm reemergence had lead to the mining of all the jump points with heavy hitting warheads. All three of these scouts were destroyed either before they could reach a jump point or immediately after traversing one.

The mines were replaced and NOVGLOV redoubled efforts to understand their new adversary, identified from the data in reactivated dormant contructs as the invaders which had destroyed so many civilisations during a previous era, leaving the wreckage of the precursors but mysteriously, no signs of life.

Omicron Phoenicis lay between Earth and the new neutronium mines on 89 Ursae Majoris. The anomaly represented a significant strategic threat as an invader “cleansing” fleet could cut Earth off from an important neutronium source and if it was as dangerous as those recorded in the constructs the entire colony of 89 Ursae Majoris was at risk. Defences were bolstered and NOVGLOV initiated a programme to expedite reactivation of the technology believed to have closed the invaders’ portal previously, ending their incursion into the home galaxy of humanity and many other extinct races.

Not even the AI created to accelerate the process understood what would happen when they succeeded in activating the portal closing devices, because the AI did not know what W and a few of the inner circle knew, that the knowledge which gave W such an advantage and allowed them to found NOVGLOV had been gifted through a timespace anomaly. The whole of the modern transnewtonian era was built on an invisible temporal paradox which W had pushed to the back of their mind.

When the devices were reactivated, an ominous cloud formed around the quantum computing centre where W had received much information from the future criminal mastermind X, of a now defunct timeline, who had misused transnewtonian physics to pierce the veil of time trying to make a fortune for themselves and create a criminal empire placing themselves as the boss of bosses.

The physics of the wormhole X had created, to transmit data to W’s quantum computer, were not identical to the physics of the invaders’ portal which extended vast distances through space whereas X’s wormhole extended through both space and time. Arguably a more sophisticated technology but in no way was it defended against the fields emanating from the constructs developed to encapsulate, compress and annihilate the exotic physics of the invaders’ wormholes.

The constructs’ defences had worked as intended and encapsulated the residue of X’s wormhole still anchored at W’s quantum computing centre, situated on the campus of Harwell Transnewtonian Research Institute. As the forces of the constructs’ fields penetrated the wormhole, its structure guided them through time and space and into the past.

At first it was plain to everyone who had seen it the unnaturally spherical and even cloud surrounding W’s quantum computing building had just arrived. At some point everyone remembered it had been there the day before and then the day before that. As the cloud penetrated deeper into the past, events surrounding it began to change. Scientific investigations had been carried out into the nature of the cloud five years before, then it was ten years, then twenty. The results of the investigations were changing the course of history as the cloud followed the wormhole into the past.

At some point fifty years prior to NOVGLOV’s present at the moment the constructs were activated, investigations had revealed the nature of the cloud as a wormhole and its information content was detected. W’s secret was exposed along with her identity, Dr Angelina Ward. The boffin from Harwell was imprisoned while authorities tried to work out what to do with her.

A paradox had been created and still the cloud travelled inexorably back in time, as it did so W’s secret was revealed again and again in different ways. At one point she had voluntarily reported the incident to the authorities, was exhonerated of all suspicion but powerless to use the information. NOVGLOV had never existed and the future which had created the paradox degenerated into quantum foam just as X’s world had done.

The fields and their energies, created by the activation of the constructs in a future which no longer existed were self sustaining and immune to the paradox as they burrowed ever more deeply into the wormhole they had been created to destroy. Eventually they reached the point at which the wormhole had terminated in the past. As their physics decreed, they compressed and annihilated the wormhole. There was an almighty explosion at the termination point. The wormhole and the cloud were gone but so was the Harwell Transnewtonian Research Institute and everyone in it.

The energies released had been tremendous and all that remained was a hemispherical crater a mile wide and half a mile deep, centered on what had been Dr Ward’s quantum computing research building. The world of humanity was baffled, transnewtonian physics was still only a theory and nobody could explain the massive detonation at Harwell.

Observers recorded a huge roiling fireball rising up out of the Earth at the detonation point exuding exotic particles. The data would feed research papers for decades to come and spur the discovery of the transnewtonian elements. From the fireball snippets of transmissions emanated from failed futures, timelines fragmented, revisited and snuffed out again and again in the chaos within the temporal radius of the wormhole’s annihilation blast.

As the fireball entered the interplanetary medium, propelled away from Earth by its own detonation, it was drawn by the magnetic and gravitational forces of the sun and solar wind towards the heart of the greatest body in the solar system. As it fell within the sun’s core it accelerated temporal and physical phenomena and changed the physics of fusion within the star forever. It would take decades for humanity, now missing one of its most advanced research institutes, to understand the process of solar heating created by the persisting terminal event of the wormhole would eventually cause a supernova which would wipe out all life and bodies in the solar system. Humanity would start the technological adventure of transnewtonian physics again, with just a few decades remaining to escape Sol and plant the seed of its own survival somewhere new, in systems where no human had ever ventured before.

[boolybooly]

The Rise of the Dictators.

Prologue.

The cause of the current situation can be traced to one event.

A paradoxically peaceful explosion at Harwell in 2025 sent shockwaves through time, space and the fabric of human society.

An orb akin to ball lightening a mile across, glowed like a miniature star, as it rose out of the perfectly hemispherical crater half a mile deep, where once the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus had stood. At first nobody understood.

European NATO countries immediately scrambled to State Orange, assuming an enemy attack, not a little because of the rising star’s resemblance to a nuclear bomb’s mushroom cloud. In the USA the joint chiefs set DEFCON 2. Russia triggered voyennaya opasnost, ‘military danger’ in response to the USA’s alert, even before the Kremlin received reports of the catastrophe in southern England. China declared ‘er jí zhanbei’, combat readiness two, on receiving the intelligence from Russia and their own intelligence networks, long before the spatial phenomena became apparent to the wider world.

The UN was a flurry of diplomatic activity. Questions and accusations, finger pointing and threats, meetings breaking down into angry shouting matches as no nation believed another. It did not help that the leadership were already on the verge of a cleptocratic era, the very same situation which had once resulted in the activity of a criminal scientist known only as X, who had unwittingly set the event in motion with a telephone call to the past. Once again, although noone alive could know it, the future of humanity had changed.

Alongside the flood of polemics, hyperbole and misinformation, military analysts and scientists studied the available data and shared it with the world by order of the prime minister, Billy Barnham MP Labour, to show the UK had no secrets, once he had checked with military intelligence that they did not and then double checked with leaders of the three major unions of the UKs civil service. In a melodramatic display of open government, independent observers from any and all nations were invited to retrieve and analyse samples from the remains in the crater.

Within days academic discussions began to reach consensus. The event, as it was euphemistically termed, could not have been due to a conventional nuclear weapon of any magnitude. For once experts from India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, Russia and Ukraine were able to agree, there were no traces of fission or fusion isotopes among samples. Recorded satellite imagery showed no incoming warhead delivery vehicle. Seismographic traces did not fit a nuclear detonation, the P-wave too slow and weak for the crater size.

One AI matched the S-wave to high definition audio recordings of micro-crystalline friction generated by gouging pistachio ice cream, from the database of a culinary engineering firm in Kentucky which had been trying to develope a better scoop. The press ran with it and caught peoples’ imaginations with claims Harwell had been scooped off the face of the Earth.

There was no impact crater rim nor ejecta, just a clean cut cliff edge, underlying strata of different hues clearly visible melded with a glassy surface feet thick, vitrified by extreme heat yet without compressing or disturbing surrounding rocks or sediments, as if Harwell had been replaced by a huge ceramic bowl, hewn from the heart of Oxfordshire.

No explanation was forthcoming until a very high level meeting of the UN security council military staff committee (UNSC MSC), which included the permanent five, elected members and several guest nations.

The UK representative looked apprehensive, as if there was something he wanted to say having previously denied that any projects being worked on at Harwell could have generated the event. The Russian delegate sensing something had changed, fixed his gaze on his physics advisor and once he had his attention, turned to look significantly at the UK’s representative.

Colonel Anthony Gilman also eyed the Russian nuclear physics advisor from his side of the UK’s desk. Dr Pyotr Vodyanov, stood to take the floor, shrugged nonchalantly, seeming to enjoy a chance to stir up tension. Pointedly he spoke English, to focus attention on the UK though with a heavy accent. Gilman reflected that Vodyanov almost seemed to take pleasure in mangling his mother tongue.

“Neverdeless sometink did dis, maybe accident?” He waved a hand dismissively. “Maybe new weapon, British deny dis, maybe fusion in podzemny vodorod, you say geo-logic hydro-gen but no trace fusion. What? Maybe attack from… ?” He gestured upwards and glanced towards the ceiling, rolling his eyes. “Eh? UK say dis is sometink we don’t understand? Dis patronise from UK, hidink sometink I tink.” The room muttered. He was not the first to consider an extraterrestrial origin but was the first to use it to ridicule the UK’s version of events.

The UK UNSC MSC representative Colonel Anthony Gilman stood up to respond to the obvious provocation and the guest chairwoman from Poland immediately gave him the floor. He offered the new information to the meeting, which the Russians had guessed they had and would no doubt try to claim credit for obtaining.

“Respected members, many of us here knew people at Harwell. It was a great loss for the entire world. We, like you, seek justice. Today as military liason for the multinational taskforce, I have been asked to announce new evidence, recently obtained, regarding the nature of the object hitherto regarded as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud observed rising from the event.” He glanced with subtly sarcastic deference towards the Russian physicist and went on.

“Collected observations indicate the cloud did not disperse, as corroborated by eye witness accounts, CCTV, mobile and doorbell imagery, which show it developed into a persistent sphere with a consistent size and well defined boundary, which rose upwards and since moved beyond orbital space.” He looked searchingly into the eyes of those gathered around the meeting room to see if they understood what he had just said, then at a piece of foolscap in his hand and read… “This object continues to emit black body radiation at over three thousand Kelvin…” He looked around the room again and put down the paper he was reading and said calmly, “so it is glowing, has its own magnetic field, a mass equivalent to the material from the crater at… Harwell.” He paused, remembering privately a college friend who had become part of the object he was describing. “For reasons we do not fully understand it appears to be falling into the sun.” The colonel glanced at the chairwoman and turned to indicate a man sitting behind him.

“The chair recognises Professor Sir Julian Huxley.” The man stood and adjusted a microphone, then spoke with calm and reassuring confidence of one possessing valuable knowledge.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I will get to the point, reconstructive image based computer modelling has indicated an epicentre for the event, which we have now identified as the quantum processing laboratory of Dr Angelina Ward.” Murmurs from those listening. “We know she was trying to develope a new form of Qbit and was experimenting with Bose Einstein condensates of transition metal plasmas, to investigate transluminal conduction via transient inflationary field energies.” There was muttering from some of the advisors. One suppressed cry of “sacrebleu” from the French representative Brigadier General Michel Robespierre, evincing disbelief that he had not been warned about these discoveries.

The professor continued. “The best minds of the international collaboration, used artificial intelligence modelling to deduce this sphere matches mathematical predictions for a time-space wormhole, which could in theory arise in relation to such condensates, given sufficient energy.” He paused.

“The energy required however would be vastly greater than any available on the Harwell campus, including the diamond syncrotron, or anywhere else on Earth and must have come from an external source. Strange as it may sound we cannot rule out the possibility that such energy could have gained ingress through other dimensions and may not obey the laws of time and space as we understand them. We therefore propose this possibility be investigated, as it is the best explanation we have for the event for now, thank you.” He sat down calmly, though those who knew him could tell he was visibly shaken, hardly able to believe his own words, though their effect had set the room buzzing. Eventually it was agreed the multinational investigative team would examine the wormhole hypothesis and report back to the UNSC.

Months later international tensions had calmed and the crater in Oxfordshire had begun to fill with rainwater and the run off from agricultural drainage ditches, cut in half by the event. Professor Huxley reported to the UNSC once again. The sphere was now approaching the orbit of Venus and still falling. A more sophisticated model of the wormhole had been informed by monitoring it at all frequencies with Earth’s many telescopes. The radio spectrum in particular had revealed transient bursts of intelligible transmissions.

These were recorded, translated and in some cases decoded. It took a while for the investigators to understand and accept they were eavesdropping on the future. Along with data about previously unheard of transnewtonian elements, some of the messages were dated years in the future and appeared to originate from wildy different sources. It took yet another AI to decipher and categorise the transmissions, proposing they originated from three distinct timelines, three different causally related futures converging in one wormhole and broadcasting into the present.

Key to this process was the discovery of a series of data transmissions apparently addressed to Dr Angelina Ward from the future criminal known as scientist X. Eventually it was deduced that a powerful wormhole modulating technology present in as yet undiscovered ‘alien constructs’, mentioned in the transmissions, may have focussed their energies on the tunnel in spacetime X used to communicate with Dr Ward from an alternate future.

Theoretical modelling suggested the wormhole created by the ensuing event might have unexpected interactions with the sun. These predictions were given weight by transmissions from one source within the wormhole reporting a massive rise in radiation from the sun, charting increases over fifty years, with no further transmissions from this source or timeline beyond that time.

The contents of one of the transmissions were addressed to Professor Julian Huxley and other team members, purporting to come from their future selves, deliberately transmitted into the wormhole to reach into the past. The team came to the horrifying conclusion these transmissions were their own attempt to warn themselves of an impending disaster, though in so doing they had created a fourth timeline of a world forewarned of its fate, given a chance to escape their doom and survive.

These communications included data on the nature of transnewtonian elements, their use in space travel, the potential to use jump point wormholes to travel between stars. Beyond this, warnings about the alien constructs their potential power, guardians and attendant danger from competitors they might attract, along with designs for weapons which could defend the fourth timeline of humanity against foes who had persecuted and defeated the Earth of the third timeline and lead to their last desperate act of sending a warning into the past to prevent the extinction of the human race.

Maps of jump points and systems were inconsistent between timelines and the multinational investigative collaboration concluded that whatever had created the Harwell wormhole had been powerful enough to alter the connections between star systems, especially those containing dormant constructs which had been or would one day become active again, arranging them to connect with the solar system as though flowing down a gradient of energy only partially understood.

It took time for the UNSC MSC to truly believe the evidence of a warning from the future, as presented to them by the multinational investigation but they were finally persuaded by the predicted rise in solar radiation after all contact with the wormhole was lost when it crossed the solar corona and was engulfed by the plasma of the sun.

It was the last piece of the puzzle which convinced the nations of earth they had only a few decades to save humanity from apocalyptic destruction if they could seize the initiative and act on the information they had.

Realising the world had been put on notice that it was in a wartime situation, the nations united against an unknown common enemy. Russia was first to declare martial law. The other nations soon followed suit and the UNSC MSC became the de facto ruling council of the human race, striving to do what was needed to survive.

[boolybooly]

Game Start Conditions.

Spoilers beyond this point.

Aurora 4X C# 2.7.1

The game began as a conventional start, with the Sol radiation disaster active at its top setting. One research facility was removed from the standard start condition of 16 to mark the loss of Harwell.

The research points allocated for TN starts were not available to use in a conventional start so were not used in gameplay and all research was done from scratch to simulate a world emerging from total ignorance.

3 academies and GFCC represent the combined forces of the USA, EU and Russia-China.

For the first few systems the chance to roll ruins was changed during play from 20% before exploration (NPR rate) to 100% when exploring a new jump point myself to simulate the changes caused by dormant construct energies, connecting their systems to Sol. Jumps were rolled a few times to find a system, checked via SM, which would fit the bill.

The start roll for Earth minerals was as follows.

A challenging start but interesting. I remember at one point replaying the start due to failure to prepare an adequate response to early Raider attacks which totalled the shipyards. My own fault for setting the Raider PKS threshold to 1. Once I had prepared defences Murphy’s dice rolled another way and they must have attacked an NPR instead, chickens! Given the conventional start I would in a future playthrough set Raider PKS to 2.

[boolybooly]

The UNSC MSC appointed wormhole investigation committee WIC engaged in long hearings with the wormhole investigation laboratory WIL head Prof Sir Julian Huxley, based at the Oxford University physical sciences campus due to its proximity to the event location. Their directives evolved as time passed to express a pressing need to ascertain how the human race could survive the predicted destruction of the Sol system.

According to Huxley there was no known way to prevent the process and only one answer, don’t be there when it happens. It followed humanity needed new places to live and the data from the wormhole transmission suggested there was a way out which required space faring technology hitherto unimagined.

WIL’s strategic analytical reports to the UNSC suggested the priority was to find habitable planets and defend Earth in the meantime using the new technologies promised by the wormhole transmissions.

Dr Imogen Wilkins, an expert in developing advanced metamaterials for applications in construction and production was selected on January 1st 2025 to lead research into TN Technology based on the data from the wormhole. This she did, coordinating Earth’s remaining research institutes to unlock the application of Transnewtonian materials. She went on to improve laboratory research methods using her discoveries and had published two major treatises on improved research methods by September 2028.

Meanwhile the industrial base of Earth’s nations was adapting itself to utilise the new materials. Specialised transnewtonian mines and factories were built by adapting existing conventional industry. It took time and required a balance of construction rates and materials acquisition. The more construction power available the more mining was required to feed it.

Law and order had become a military responsibility and police units of 10x 10kt were trained and equipped to bring peace and order to all the corners of the Earth.

The UNSC commissioned a diplomatic space station to be built using the new technology as a proof of concept and as a symbol to the people of Earth that their nations were united and martial law did not mean endless war. It was named the UN Space Accord station, built at Wright’s shipyard with thick Duranium armour so that in the event of attacks expected from the unknown enemy it could withstand fire for long enough to deal with the threat, providing those means existed which at the time was not the case.

UNSC Space Accord class Diplomatic Station 2,897 tons 60 Crew 492.8 BP TCS 58 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 8-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 8 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1-3 PPV 0
MSP 106 Max Repair 300 MSP
Vice Chancellor Control Rating 1 BRG DIP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Diplomatic Ship for auto-assignment purposes

Ground based surface to orbit weaponry was developed by December 2036, before space based assets as it was easier to deploy heavy fire controls on the surface of Earth. Particle beam STOs of damage 3, range 200km, tracking 5k, DFC 240k, armour 16 HP 24, were deployed in groups of 10, as the earliest reliable long range weapon available deemed capable of fending off the attacks of the unknown enemy.

Ten Odysseus class escort corvettes using the same weaponry and improved fire controls had been built by late 2042.

33 years remained to save the human race and UNSC exploration had not even begun. Some members of the WIC were becoming impatient.

Construction efforts had focussed on an additional 37 research labs to develope engines, sensors and weapons needed to brave the expanse of space but there was a crisis regarding mercassium supplies, which were running out and would be needed for cryo transports to transport humanity out of Sol, if the day ever came.

The search for mercassium supplies became a high priority when it was realised Earth’s mercassium reserves were dwindling, down to 17kt with stockpiles of only 3kt and nothing was known about the reserves in Sol let alone other systems.

On the 1st of October 2042 the first grav survey ships were built and given orders to survey Sol to find jump points.

Specialised exploration vessels of the Gravitas class, the Gravitas and Einstein discovered three jump points at ranges 1, 1.6, 3 bn kms.

Earth prepared its first jump capable ship, Hera class with squadron jump capability able to take gravsurvey and planned geosurvey ships with it.

And the game was afoot.

[boolybooly]

Dr Liam Clements completed research into cryogenic transport in December of 2045. He urged a meeting at the UNSC MSC governance council to take stock of the worlds mercassium reserves as he had found this material essential in manufacturing reliable cryogenic transport pods. The council thanked him for his input.

Their top priority they said, remained the research initiative. Estimated mercassium reserves had fallen from 58kt to 12kt with stockpiles of 4.7kt and ongoing commitments to building three new research facilities which would use nearly a quarter of the total. The MSC was attentive to Clements pleas but had determined to ramp up research.

Two more Gravitas class ships had been built, Rosen and Hawking and four Hera class jumpships were under construction at the Newman Electric Boat Co. There were as yet no plans for a geosurvey vessel capable of finding more mercassium in Sol or through the jumpgates much to Clements’ exasperation.

Nevertheless progress was being made on other fronts. Dr Imogen Taylor, the protégé and namesake of Dr Imogen Wilkins achieved further breakthroughs in applied research. This continued to be a priority for the UNSC as they reasoned optimising the efficacy of the limited number of TN research facilities which could be built on Earth, would improve the rate of research in subsequent decades. In hearings to the governing council of the MSC Prof Sir Julian Huxley had pointed out the importance of playing the long game, fifty years long to be precise, he even used a power point presentation to show a computer model of how early investment in research would increase total productivity of the global economy.

Everything changed early in March 2046 with the construction of the Hera class jumpships, Hera, Olympia, Dione and Anassa. In the furthest reaches of the solar system at 12:21 on the 2nd of May 2046, Hera jumped into the unknown for the first time to discover a system recognised as DX Cancri, once viewed only through telescopes as a bright dot in the far distance, the Hera crew captained by Minister Samantha Davis were amazed to find themselves visiting planets in the system to check for signs of the guardians mentioned in the wormhole transmissions. On Earth, national governments each grappled in their own way with the final proof that the information gleaned from the wormhole transmissions was accurate and probably not a gigantic hoax after all.

Olympia soon followed Hera’s lead, with the discovery of Barnards Star and Dione discovered the passage to a third neighbouring system, Procyon. Grav surveys of Barnards began immediately with the assistance of Olympia acting as a jump tender for the Gravitas survey fleet. Two more systems were discovered, 84 Cancri and YZ Ceti. Of these 84 Cancri and DX Cancri both held potentially habitable refuge planets for the human race and a jump point connected them, meaning once Sol had gone the potential colonies could still communicate. This was hailed a great triumph for science and humanity under the rule of the UNSC and a vindication of both martial law and the policy of prioritising research.

With the commitment to building laboratory space there were now enough labs to support both Dr Imogen Taylor and Dr Lucas Watkins’ in his pursuit of better starship engines, which bore fruit on 1st Oct 2046 with the invention of the magneto plasma drive. Huxley argued the research investment strategy was already paying off.

However critics, notably Dr Clements, carped that although the planet boasted 58 research facilities, global reserves of mercassium were down to 10kt and would run out in under six years while the stockpile was now only 1kt. A similar crisis loomed for neutronium and vendarite with 6kt and 5kt of reserves respectively, though stockpiles were larger at 48kt and 49kt. Yet there was still no way to survey the bodies of the star systems to increase reserves.

In the meantime the Odysseus FAC defence fleet refits were too advanced to include the new engine designs but had provided a modest improvement in weapons and flight range, to defend against predicted threats.