Trans-Temporter by Christopher M Robinson - HTML preview

Chapter 9

Trojan Horses

We are approaching the tricentennial of the adoption of the American Declaration of independence. It was 4th July 1776 that the founding fathers, a congress of thirteen states, signed the document, which asserted the colonies' right to be free and independent states and no longer subject to British Colonial rule. Since then there have been many problems and incursions including the first Civil War 1861-1865 which abolished slavery and supposedly united all the 50 States which we recognised as the USA until the present troubles, the start of which can be traced back nearly fifty years.

Last year, Texan Republican Confederates (TRC) attacking Mexico piped 12 mercenaries in six pods, squashed two to a pod, into the country prior to a land incursion, for them to emerge at that time to fight on two fronts. These must have been the pods stolen from UKAP, somehow smuggled into Texas, though with the breakdown of border controls in the Southern States, that wouldn’t have been difficult.

They had arrived at Chihuahua and waited in a holding bay until the temportation completed. Meanwhile their ground forces had traversed the Big Bend National Park and crossed the Rio Grande near Redford to drive their trucks sixty miles SouthWest to meet them where they had hoped they had already surprised and overcome any resistance, at the media broadcasting stations to announce their presence.

The attacking TRC ground forces, already tired drove forward singing, “Chanting our Battle cry, “Freedom or Death!”,” from their unofficial national anthem, and chanting their motto, “Deo vindici!” were poorly armed and over-reliant on the piped-in mercenaries and the incursion was soon quelled by the superior Mexican forces. The failure was in a large part due to the disorientation the Trojan Horse soldiers felt on emerging from their pods. They thought they were still in Fort Worth where their temporters had been piped from using a freight pipeway

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between the two nations. Additionally some concern had been raised at the Ciudad Juárez transfer hub where the pods had changed pipes as they were lacking documentation. The local forces had been sent to Chihuahua and were watching the pods awaiting collection.

The 2035 Trade Treaty between Canada and the Northern States (the “CAN states) had increased the division between North and South with the TRC providing the most vociferous faction wishing to annex Mexico as a part of the Southern States. I think it just shows how uneducated the TRC was in geography. However The attack highlighted some worrying issues:

1. The need for security with parked Trans-Temporter pods which could

end up sitting in holding bays anywhere in the world awaiting

collection.

2. The inability of customs to assess the contents of a temporter. The

mercenaries’ boxes had simply been labelled as perishable foods.

3. The sudden realisation that the main invention of SSS whose main

ethos was to use scientific discoveries to help bring harmony, could

actually be used to the opposite effect.

4. The concerns of disorientation from trans-temported passengers.

To address the first problem, it became a legal requirement for every pod to be trackable. Computers at SSS, plus back-ups in secret, secure locations, constantly monitored the exact location of all pods, including the temporal destinations of any contents recorded when they were despatched, which would be checked and confirmed at the appropriate arrival times. This was all done automatically by the software which would raise alerts if there was any deviation noted. It did happen occasionally that at a routing hub a pod may be interrupted and the destination and temporter settings reset for market reasons. For instance, a market stall in Berlin may find they had overstocked on tomatoes and decided their inbound delivery from Barcelona should be delayed by 24 hours whence the pod could be intercepted at the Frankfurt routing hub with a 24 hour continuation set on the temporter.

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Addressing the second problem was harder as you cannot just look into an empty box and know what was temported in it and will appear in the future. The answer was the requirement to make a hologram of the contents at the same time as the temport was initiated. Automatically digitally encoded and added to the box, this could be viewed by a person as well as an AI scanner as an extra security measure.

Addressing the third problem, the board of SSS held a meeting to see how they could promote its principal aim: “To unite science sources to solve problems for the betterment of all mankind.” Or more succinctly: “Harmony through Science.” One of their suggestions was to provide a prize, a bit like a Nobel prize, for any new peaceful uses of the temporter. It was to be called the Cygnet prize with the possibility of opening up other categories in future for outstanding science innovations and solutions to world problems.

There was a legitimate concern that, despite the tracking, militant nations and groups may still be able to circumvent or simply ignore them and any other protocols.

From previous experiments, it had been determined that one hour of charging the power source of a temporter could provide one hundred kilogramme days. That is sending 100Kg one day into the future. In practice temporters were usually stored precharged by a couple of hundred Kilogramme days. There also seemed to be a maximum possible of 220 hours charging possible providing a maximum limit of 220,000 Kg days per temporter. Of course anyone with the resources could build more charging points and manage a number of temporters at full charge within ten days.

A soldier in full kit weighing 220Kg could be sent forwards up to 1000 days or just under three years. Lei had been sent ten years into the future but she only weighed 60Kg.

A tank weighing fifty tonnes could possibly be sent about four days maximum but, though it wouldn’t fit into the narrow pipeways, it was

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conceivable some rogue faction may attempt to build an equivalent battle pod.

Addressing the last concern on the list was, according to Ark medical, relatively easy. Some people experience ordinary travel sickness. Scopolamine medication usually helps them. Similarly cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEls) have been successfully used to help people suffering from disorientation causing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. These medicines work by preventing the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. The pharmacological wing of Ark Medical developed a new travel pill aimed to help trans-temporter passengers prevent any unpleasant feelings from disorientation using existing ChEls with some added dopamine but alternative therapies are also recommended whereby the future passenger may spend some time wearing Virtual Reality glasses. The latest of these are no bigger than the conventional spectacles many still wear despite all the ophthalmological advances that have taken place in recent years.

…

The establishment of the Cygnet prizes led to some joking on social media that the FAS international awards should be called “the pussies” but SSS did not condone that. There was a good co-operation between the two different organisations each aiming to provide peaceful solutions be it via Science or The Arts and although a little good humoured rivalry was fine, it shouldn’t include anything that might be considered insulting as that could be an initial warning sign of possible conflict generation.

Contenders for the first Cygnet prize included:

1. A proposal to provide carbon free charging of Temporters.

Although most stations were charged by solar, wind or wave power,

this would have provided a feasibility study to see whether batteries

and condensers charged in locations where carbon free energy supply

was abundant, like deserts, could be piped via trans-temporters to

locations still requiring fossil fuels.

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2. A proposal to eliminate the need for food supplements.

This was a bit more complex looking at the need for supplements

when fresh foods could be held in stasis to the point of consumption. There were other contenders too regarding detrimental delay of various health conditions and maintaining sterile equipment for surgery.

There had also been a proposal for maintaining a peace army and utilising trans-temporters for rapid deployment. That was rejected at that time as being the “fighting fire with fire” rhetoric that had fuelled conflicts in the past.

I’m glad I wasn’t one of the judges for the prize.

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