The IKEA Space Program

Posted on Sat Nov 17th, 2018 @ 1:47pm by The Narrator

Mission: S0E0: What Came Before
Location: In The Split Second Between Here And There
Timeline: MD 1

The logistics of a Long Jump mission are a matter worthy of consideration.

For the USS Traveller a host of quantum supercomputers were bribed into subserviency, their processors bent to the single task of warping reality. In to these supplicants, mathematical formulae more akin to incantations were poured. With x’s, y's and an assortment of other variables slowly being switched out for their real-world counterparts, a course of devilish complexity was devised.

But not a straight line, as is most often cited as the most efficient course. There would be a small distance to cover to be sure, but not here. Not among the stars, or planets, or atoms of a universe bound by the rules of three-dimensional reality. Not in the crowded wash of subspace, or the crushing depths of fluidic space. For what is needed, deeper depths must be plumbed.

In the higher energy dimensions beyond subspace, where the laws of basic reality and understand fall apart, there are bargains that can be made with magnetic and gravitational forces there. Bring the right amount of energy as a tribute, harmonise it in a song of pleasing chanting, and the very devils that pretend to be fundamental laws will (in this, their secret palace beyond reality) grant you a favour.

But all such favours come at a cost.

Chant your mathematical proof’s out of tune, sour the flow of energy by even the slightest degree, and your best hope might be blowing up the star you’ve tapped as an energy source. Or you might be thrown thousands of kiloparsecs off course, scratching your head and wondering how you landed in Andromeda. Or not all of you might arrive in one place or piece.

For the USS Traveller nearly a year was spent perfecting the course needed to fire them across space, time, and other strange places, to get them beyond the Galactic Barrier and 30 light years short of Messier 4.

For Canopus Station and the near million tons of mass about to shoved into frightful motion, they had three months.

Three months and a bit.

But in that time a lot was accomplished. A crew gathered, the supplies needed to outfit and maintain a frontier outpost assembled, and a Spacedock class Starbase disassembled in such a way that four chief engineer’s had to be given leave to mourn fully once the plasma cutters were done. In its parts, Canopus Station was more a flotilla than fleet staging grounds.

The first part was the Command Module. In basic outline, it was the large space dock dome ane glittering communication towers that marked the top of the colossal structure. Half of the internal volume of the dock was filled with supply crates lashed together in a way it was ‘hoped’ would keep them from flying apart and causing a tidal wave of damage. And in among those, secured in the dock with hard docking restraints, the USS Resolute. As second-hand beaters, the Norway class light cruiser would make a merry companion to the station. Should it survive the crossing. Which given all of the crew would be housed in this section for the transit, to cut down on the life support needs across the other Modules as they transited, was a better hope than not.

Next in the pipeline was the Service Module, the flared dome filled cylinder that sprouted from the bottom of the Space Dock. Here were all of the life support and infrastructure needed to turn a space station into a fully sustainable city in space. A large open green space for the crew's mental health, along with the stand hydro and aeroponic’s bays that would see them all fed in case of dire emergency. It also housed the life support and fungal farms, the latter of which would feed the necessary mass into the replicator network to make clothing or starship parts.

After that was the tapering flanks of the Engineering Module. Within these were the lion's share of the power generation needed to make the station fully functional. Two of the stations four massive fusion reactors, and in its heart the Matter/Anti Matter Reactor that would help power the work ahead. It also housed the fleet of remote skimming drones that would begin their weaving diving into the nearby gas giants to harvest deuterium to fuel the station and starships to come. Their initial supply was quite robust, but it was not infinite. At the modules base was the rounded communications and sensory array, its range nearly good enough to see right across Messier 4 in a single glance. But, more importantly, was the experimental phase space transceiver array that would provide a secure link back to Starfleet and the Federation.

All of these parts would be sent through separately in a single massive departure flotilla, setting the tone for passage to Messier 4. This was no Iconian Gateway or a wormhole: it was a door opened briefly by a bouncer bribed poorly, and would slam close within seconds. All through, or you get left behind.

And with only three months to plot the course needed to get them to where they needed to go…

Well.

Mistakes and oversights.