NationStates Jolt Archive

-Hermes News Network (HNN), Axis, Bryn Shander-
"Good morning. I am Tricia Okuda with you live from the site of the horriffic hyperspace accident that occured yesterday. As cleanup continues, investigations into the accident are begining. Behind me, you can see one of the navy's new science vessels, the Magellen. As debris is collected, it is brought to one of the four Galileo class vessels for identification and sorting. Bodies recovered are then shipped to Axis. What the navy is trying to do is recover all the pieces of the gates that they can find, and try to identify what went wrong. Though it is expected to be weeks before an answer can be found, we expect the government to make a statement some time today. Back to you, Katie."

As various news agencies reported on the disaster, men from the space forces both Bryn Shander and New Haven were hard at work sifting the destruction for clues to the cause of the accident. Even at the early stage into the recovery and investigation, it was easy to tell what one of the keys to the failure was. Throughout the recovered pieces of the gate ships, there was massive heat damage and shorted electrical work.

"Titanium Anomaly #3675 has been collected and tagged," Commander Locke of the NHSRS Nightinggale, a New Haven Search and Rescue Ship, sighed out as the ship collected pieces that had a high probability of belonging to the gate structure. The kind of titanium used in the construction was unique and easily detectable, so finding pieces wasn't the hard part: Identifying everything and screening it for importance was.

Engineers poured over the wreckage being brought into the recovery bay. Large enough to reconstruct a frigate if need be, the bay would be used to initially sift through pieces, catalogue what part of the gate they came from, and determine the importance of every piece, no matter how small.

A fresh bucketload of pebble-sized titanium chunks was poured in front of 10 engineers, each one setting out to determine something about each piece before recataloguing each piece.

"I can tell you what happened right now," a young engineer said as he looked at each piece under an electron microscope. Its got to be the Concordat! They're always going out of their way to screw us over."

"I think you need to shut your fucking mouth," a senior engineer said. "Running your mouth is going to taint the investigation. Look for clues and then draw a conclusion, don't assume a problem and pick and choose your evidence later."

As more and more of the gate was collected, individual modules were loosely reassembled with the collected parts. The more parts that were added, the more the closer the cause of the accident was to being uncovered. For days, destroyed ships were towed from the site while debris was collected and analyzed.

Eventually, the space where the accident was clear, and most of the remaining wreckage had been recovered. New Havenic and Bryn Shanderan engineers and scientists poured over the partially reconstructed hulks. In the areas around the hyperspace emitters, there was immense heat damage. Metals had liquified, ceramics had carbonized and shatterd, and electrical systems fused together and shorted. When the heat and electrical shorts reached the capacitors and reactors, they caused a cascade of feedback, causing many of the capacitors to pop like lightbulbs. When the capacitors blew, they took the reactors and Hermium crystals with them, ripping the modules apart in a huge explosion. When the first module detonated, the dense formation of the combined gate caused others to follow, creating the chain reaction that destroyed the gate and killed thousands of people.

"This is a fairly thorough report," Dr. Carter, New Haven's second leading authority (the first having evacuated to Sculptor) on hyperspace technology, said as he reviewed the report. "But how can you explain the traces of Fullovnium and Shatnum present in the debris cloud?"

"We haven't been able to conclude that part of the research," the Chief Engineer's assistant stated. "We figured they were just normal background traces."

"You idiot!" Dr. Carter said as he threw the report at the Chief Engineer's assistant. "Did you flunk hyperspace material physics 101? Did you mother drop you when you were a baby? The only thing that produces Fullovnium and Shatnum is a sizable quantity of Hermium reaching the HK-limit! Goddamnit!" Dr. Carter threw his PDA at the Chief Engineer before lighting up a cigar and pouring himself a glass of vodka. "I can't believe I almost signed your Ph.D, Bob."

"Look, what difference does it make anyway?" the Chief Engineer replied. "The gate didn't fail because the Hermium reached the HK-limit!"

"Yeah, you stupid ass, but thats not the goddamn point," Dr. Carter said. "We were never allowed to conduct HK-limit tests because there were fears they would create regions of sudden and irreversible hyperspace pockets in real space. Obviously, Dr. Rosenberg's calculations were off... that pathetic excuse for an 'expert'. I still can't believe they took him to the Sculptor Galaxy over me."

"So what?"

"So WHAT? Do you realize the kind of applications we can apply this to? Get me Imperial Fleet Command, tell them I need to speak with the Commander immediately."

While the New Havenite scientists were tinkering with the possibility of weaponising the gate technology, Bryn Shander's scientists were hard at work finding ways to make the gates safer and more powerful. The first step was to prevent catastrophic overheating, and that would be accomplished with larger modules that had more space so that the emitters wouldn't overheat so easily, better, larger heatsinks to properly radiate heat, a more powerful cooling system, and more efficient emitters. As a byproduct of the newer, larger modules, they could produce far more power than the original modules, reducing the required number of modules for a complete window and spacing the modules further apart so that a cascading detonation like the one that glassed axis could never happen again.



Dear Dr. Carter,

I believe that my men and I have discovered the problem with the existing gates. I believe that the Axis disaster was caused in part by overheating and too dense a ring. As a solution, we've drafted a new design that shouldn't have that problem.

Basicly, we've scaled the modules up from 110m to 350m, designed and installed a better cooling system and heatsinks, and we've refined the gate emitters so that they're much more efficient and produce less heat. As a result of the larger modules, we've managed to get significantly more power out of the gates with half the previous numnber of modules, and the added distance between modules reduces the chances of an accident like what happened at Axis to almost zero, even if one module does overload.

I've attatched a copy of the blueprints and my report. I would like to hear back from you with regards to the new design before I submit it to the gate company.

Best of luck,
Dr. Alan Turner
Director of Hyperspace Technology, Axis Design Bureau

TO: Dr. Alan Turner, Director of Hyperspace Technology, Axis Design Bureau.
FROM: Dr. Michael Carter, New Haven Institute of Technology.

I have gone over the redesign specifications and everything is sound. We predicted that the possibility for overload over long distance travel is now dramatically reduced (0.005%, about the same as an overload from normal usage).

I will submit my recommendation in support of the redesign as soon as I can, but I am currently busy signing off on ten hyperspace modules for a different project that I am not at liberty to discuss over open scientific airways. I wish you good luck with your redesign.

================================

(New Haven Institute of Technology)

"Careful now! CAREFUL!" Dr. Carter yelled at a large crate was lowered into the bay of an FTL freighter. Ten large crates in all, they would be modified in the field for Project Ares, the Gate Weaponization Project.

Dear Dr. Carter,

I'm happy to hear that you approve of the new design. I will be submitting the design to the gate company later today. I expect to see the new modules being constructed in shipyards throughout Bryn Shander and New Haven in the near future.

Though there has been no contact from Galileo since the accident, these new gates should allow us to make regular trips to and from Sculptor. If all goes well, we may go down in history as the men that linked the two galaxies.

I wish you luck with your project.

Godspeed,
Dr. Alan Turner
Director of Hyperspace Technology, Axis Design Bureau


At the headquarters of the Hermes Transportation and Construction Corporation on Axis, Dr. Turner submitted the new design. After a short review period, he was informed that the corporation had accepted his design, and the new gates would enter production immediately.

-SV-080 Raleigh, Main Belt near Axis, Several Months Later-
"Modules one through six are reporting no anomalies."

"Work crews report that 8265 Shenzhou is ready for departure."

"Modules seven through twelve are reporting no anomalies."

"Vancouver is reporting from Asherton that things are ready on their end."

"Modules thirteen through eighteen are reporting no anomalies."

Directly in front of the Galileo class science vessel, Raleigh, the new Hermes Gate was slowly powering up for the first time. One by one, running lites on the thirty six 360m modules lit up, indicating that power was flowing as they illuminated the hulls, painted red and dark blue in contrast to the dull grey of the previous gates.

As a result of the disaster during the Sculptor jump, the new gate had been set up far away from Axis and her colonies in preparation for the test. If anything went wrong, it would only be Raleigh's ass on the line.

"Modules thirty one through thirty six are reporting no anomalies. The system is green across the board."

"Activate the window."

"Jump window is opening. No change in status."

"Raise shields and launch Shenzhou."

"Shields up."

"Raise the bridge's blast shields and switch to external cameras."

"Aye."

"Shenzhou is entering the window."

"All systems normal."

"The asteroid has passed through the window successfuly."

"Readings indicate that power consumption spiked at two percent."

"Captain, Vancouver reports that Shenzhou has arrived intact and on target."

"Excellent. Send a report to Axis with the good news."

Over the next few hours, Raleigh and Vancouver tossed the small asteroid back and forth between eachother, making sure that the new gate worked perfectly with the rest of the network and had no operational or accuracy issues. For a week, Raleigh and Vancouver traded the rock, Vancouver moving to the other gates in on the network and even into deep space. Everything was working perfectly. In a short time, the gate could be put into full service back at Axis and new gates would be constructed to replace the older models already on the network.