Crusade (standard:science fiction, 2926 words) [1/11] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 11 2003	Views/Reads: 3423/2311	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The first part of the tale of the Furie War, told through the exploits of SNS Crusader. This first section is the prologue in the form of a timeline, if you wish to dispence with this, then start reading from Crusade Pt.2.

CRUSADE 

PROLOGUE 

June 30th 1908, 7:17 am local time, Tunguska river, Siberia: a stricken
alien starship enters Earth's atmosphere and explodes a mile above the 
surface. The explosion is seen in Kirensk, 250 miles away and hurricane 
force winds are recorded 375 miles away. Its mission was to check on 
the progress of human society, but instead, it changed the course of 
society completely. 

Russian officials move in and collect all traces of the ship, the
official explanation is ‘meteor impact', all recovered artefacts are 
sealed in a secret storage bunker under the Urals. Slowly, amid the 
distractions of the 20th century the bunker is forgotten. 

February 17th 2000, a clerk in Moscow discovers the record of what
‘really' happened whilst transcribing files to computer. 

February 25th 2000, the tiny group of officials who know now about the
bunker make a visit and with the aid of modern technology they are able 
to shed more light on the recovered artefacts. They find quantities of 
unidentifiable metal which is light, strong and able to shift between 
solid and liquid states when damaged; when it is dented or holed the 
metal becomes liquid and flows into its original shape. The quantity 
recovered indicates that it was probably used for the hull and 
structural members, it is called ‘memoran'. Also discovered are the 
partial remains of what is identified as a Bussard ramscoop, and many 
fragments of superconducting magnets. Many parts are found which are 
unidentifiable, but nothing that could be attributed to any kind of 
‘faster than light' drive as theorised by man can be found; it is 
supposed that there must have been some device allowing faster than 
light travel, just to allow the craft to get to Earth even from the 
nearest known planet. It is assumed (incorrectly) that it was this 
faster than light drive which detonated in 1908. 

Realising that they had a treasure trove far in excess of their
capability to exploit, the group go rouge and recruit the most 
brilliant physicists, chemists, cosmologists, engineers and technicians 
on Earth, they call themselves Neo Mir: their goal is to replicate and 
backwards engineer the technology in their possession and use it for 
the peaceful advancement of all humankind. 

July 18th 2000. They set up two front companies in the west, Nova
Technologies, based in Aachen, Germany, and British Stellar Dynamics, 
based in Bristol, England. One of their first moves is to patent and  
release through Nova Tech a chip, backwards engineered from the alien 
ship, which allows high speed data compression and transmission, it is 
soon standard on mobile phones and modems, with the capital raised from 
the patent B.S.D. begin construction of Envoy 1, which is intended to 
go into orbit, and then to announce the Group's presence to the world. 

However not long after construction begins, a piece of technology which
had previously been a mystery is suddenly understood. It allows 
penetration into a previously unknown dimension of space-time: the new 
dimension contains no mass but infinite energy and has drag, it is 
realised that with this technology it would be possible to decelerate a 
starship without expending fuel, simply by shifting a large enough mass 
into what was christened ‘the ether'. Furthermore, if the mass is moved 
off centre then turning can be achieved. It is also discovered that the 
ether is actually aligned along one plane and it seems the alignment 
influences etheric masses, starship manoeuvring will therefore be 
easier if the ship is in a parallel position. For a time construction 
of Envoy 1 is halted whilst ether technology is refined; it is found 
that it is possible to transmit waves through the ether and pick up 
reflections from objects that are not ‘shifted' into the ether, the 
system is called EPDAR or 

Etheric Pulse Detection And Ranging 

Two types of epdar are developed, passive and active. The passive system
merely detects disturbances in the ether; it can only detect ether 
shifted objects and only if they are moving - the faster the object 
moves and the more mass it has the bigger it's ‘signature'. Active 
epdar transmits a pulse through the ether and can detect non-shifted 


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