Another distressing possibility would be a limited-range Genesis Device, such as the one used inside the Regula Asteroid, reduced in size to fit inside a scanproof diplomatic courier container or ship’s hold. Our preliminary simulations indicate the Genesis Matrix could be reprogrammed to create a microecosystem of virulent airborne and waterborne genetic pathogens that could swiftly grow and “infect” an entire biosphere, ultimately killing or replacing all life-forms on the planet.
The Genesis Effect for such a weapon could initially be of very low power, perhaps low enough to evade detection by existing planetary sensor nets. More important, the Genesis Device could be programmed to spontaneously tailor its pathogens to the environment in which it is detonated, creating a universally lethal effect in microseconds without requiring any prior research into the target’s genetic code.
02.04 POTENTIAL COUNTERMEASURES
Unfortunately, short of destroying a Genesis Device before its detonation sequence is triggered, there currently are no known methods for shielding a ship or planet from the Genesis Effect. We are researching a system that would create an energy wave whose signature is the perfect inverse of the Genesis Wave, as a potential negation method, but because of the Genesis Device’s tremendous energy level and uniquely complex wave signature, there has been no success with this method as of this time.
02.05 FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Contrary to Dr. Marcus’ suggestion, which we believe to be inspired by her grief over the recent death of her son on the Genesis Planet, we feel that Project Genesis has enormous potential civilian, scientific, and military applications, and requires further top-secret research within Starfleet Research & Development.
In addition, the very real risk of this technology being acquired or independently duplicated by powers external to the Federation make it imperative that our knowledge of this technology be complete and accurate. We must not let others turn our own science against us because we are too morally repulsed to look beyond the horrors of the device’s failures to see its full potential.
Commander Stephen Klisiewicz
03.00 POLITICAL EVALUATION
Xev Chiana, Secretary of State, United Federation of Planets
Paris, Earth
Received via Encrypted Internal Channel 719-Kilo
16 December 2286 (Stardate 8426.9)
03.01 DIPLOMATIC RAMIFICATIONS
The political fallout in the wake of the detonation of the Genesis Device in the Mutara Nebula can best be described as “disastrous.” Aside from the expected howls of alarm that immediately were logged by the Klingon and Romulan ambassadors to the Federation, protests were declared in the Council Hall by several Federation Council representatives, including those from Deneva, Cestus III, Argelius and Mars.
Despite numerous efforts at political rapprochement with both the Klingon and Romulan governments in recent years, their ambassadors’ filibusters in the Council Hall were met with little concern and silenced for the most part by Federation Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan. Despite the Klingon Ambassador’s insistence on referring to the device as “the Genesis Torpedo,” Ambassador Sarek made a compelling argument for the nonmilitary nature of Project Genesis.
Most of the protests entered into the record by Council representatives stemmed from their desire to distance themselves from what they perceived to be the development of a weapon of mass destruction. Ambassador Arwen of Mars, however, criticized the technology because of her mistaken perception that the Genesis Effect was designed to generate only Earthlike environments. After a detailed technical briefing by Dr. Carol Marcus, the Martian ambassador withdrew her protest.
The Klingon High Council and Romulan Senate, meanwhile, continue to demand that the Federation disclose the technical specifications for Project Genesis in order to, as they stated in a joint briefing, “maintain the balance of power in the quadrant.”
In response to unambiguous refusals of their requests by the Federation President, the Klingons have threatened to resort to “more forceful means” and reportedly are tripling energy production output on the Klingon Homeworld’s moon, Praxis, in anticipation of a military buildup.
The Romulans, for their part, appeared to take the President’s refusal in stride, but since that meeting long-range sensors have detected a marked increase in activity by Romulan starships on their side of the Neutral Zone.
Starfleet Command has reported that the additional vessels and personnel required to police both the Klingon and Romulan borders simultaneously is presenting enormous logistical difficulties and is reducing the fleet’s ability to enforce the law and conduct routine patrols within Federation territory. Consequently, Admiral N.J. Weiland of Starfleet Operations is recommending that Starfleet temporarily shift its focus from constructing Starbases to enlarging the fleet, in the interest of interstellar security.
03.02 PACIFICATION OF FEDERATION RIVALS
In order to mollify representatives from the Klingon, Romulan, Gorn and Tholian governments, the Federation Security Council officially interdicted the Genesis Planet on March 28, 2285 (Stardate 8201.5), restricting all traffic in the Mutara Sector and prohibiting all starships from approaching to closer than 10 A.U. from the planet. Only preauthorized Starfleet research vessels were permitted to approach and orbit the planet.
A Klingon bird-of-prey, captained by Commander Kruge, ambushed the Federation science vessel U.S.S. Grissom in orbit over the Genesis Planet on April 28, 2285, and also contributed to the destruction of the hijacked Starfleet vessel U.S.S. Enterprise. Kruge and his crew murdered Dr. David Marcus on April 29, 2285, on the Genesis Planet in a failed effort to obtain scientific data about Project Genesis. Kruge and all but one member of his crew, Second Officer Maltz, perished on the Genesis Planet when it exploded. Their bird-of-prey subsequently was commandeered by Captain James T. Kirk and his expatriate crew, who took the stolen vessel to Vulcan for a three-month period of exile, before returning in the vessel to Earth.
The official position of the Klingon High Council was that Kruge acted alone and in defiance of explicit orders not to violate Federation space, in an effort to enhance his political standing in the Klingon Empire by acquiring “the secrets of Genesis.” The Klingon High Council denied any prior knowledge of Kruge’s intent and disavowed any involvement in his actions.
In the interest of diplomacy, the Federation Security Council has chosen not to seek reparations for violations of the border treaty, the destruction of the starships Grissom and Enterprise, or the murder of Dr. David Marcus. Similarly, the Klingon High Council has withdrawn its demand for the immediate return of the bird-of-prey stolen by Captain Kirk and his crew, choosing instead to view its capture as “spoils of war.”
Further protests, however, have been filed by the Klingon High Council following the August 7, 2285, full pardons of Kirk’s crew and the dismissal of all charges against Kirk himself (except for one charge of disobeying the orders of a superior officer), and their subsequent assignment to active duty aboard a newly commissioned Starship Enterprise, under Kirk’s command. The Federation Council has taken the Klingon government’s protest under advisement.
03.03 THREAT OF EXTERNAL DUPLICATION
In response to the very real risk that a foreign power—such as the Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, or Tholian Assembly—might choose to develop its own Genesis Device for less noble purposes than peaceful terraforming, the Federation Diplomatic Corps has undertaken a major treaty initiative in an attempt to prevent the proliferation of this dangerous technology.
The Tholian Assembly has willingly entered into negotiations to suppress the technology, most likely because they expect to be technologically unable to duplicate the Genesis Effect for at least twenty-five years, due to their technological emphasis on adapting to new planetary environments through enclosed shelters due to the extreme conditions on their homeworld.
The Romulans so far have declined to sign the treaty unless they receive additional territorial concessi
ons by the Federation along the Neutral Zone. Federation Ambassador Liz Braswell currently is developing a counterproposal that would concede no territory directly to the Romulan Star Empire but would extend the area of the Neutral Zone deeper into Federation space.
The Klingons, naturally, are resisting all attempts at diplomacy, demanding instead the surrender of all Project Genesis technical specifications and Genesis Device schematics, and refusing to consider any treaty that requires a ban on weapons development.
03.04 FINDINGS & RESOLUTIONS
Weighing the political stability of the Federation and Alpha Quadrant against both Dr. Carol Marcus’ concerns and Starfleet’s strategic desires, the prudent course of action appears to be to cease all public research into Project Genesis and to halt all Federation-funded research of the technology until the political climate becomes more conducive to diplomacy.
Starfleet Intelligence has been issued an Executive Order from the Federation President to initiate long-term covert operations within Klingon and Romulan territory to detect and actively sabotage any efforts by those entities to develop their own Genesis Devices.
Future inquiry into the applications of Project Genesis will be conducted under Level 9 Security Protocols by Starfleet Research & Development. Project Genesis data and technology are hereby classified as Level Ten munitions, and any publication, duplication, transmission, or possession of said data; or creation, possession, shipment, sale, or transfer of an active or inactive Genesis Device, or any of its primary components, by any unauthorized person(s) or agency will be prosecuted as treason (for Federation citizens) and espionage, and in all cases shall be punishable by a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in solitary confinement, with no possibility of parole.
03.05 ADDENDUM—FINAL DETERMINATION
By agreement of all the parties to the Genesis Nonproliferation Treaty, all records, materials, schematics, mock-ups, and logs of Project Genesis are ordered destroyed, and active research is hereby terminated.
Xev Chiana
04.00 PROJECT GENESIS—A REASSESSMENT
Lt. David A. Mack, Starfleet Research & Development
New York, Earth
Report filed via Encrypted Internal Channel Alpha-5C
12 May 2374 (Stardate 53303.4)
04.01 INTRODUCTION
Officially, only anecdotal evidence exists about Project Genesis, although enough people are familiar with its controversial history to have kept unofficial records and theories, especially of related technologies that might someday be applied to a rebirth of Genesis. Non-Federation powers have tried to duplicate the efforts of Dr. Carol Marcus and her team, to no avail. This document is merely meant as an assessment of where Project Genesis now stands in its development cycle, because this technology is too dynamic to be ignored.
04.02 RECENT DISCOVERIES REGARDING PROTOMATTER
Pioneering work performed at the Vulcan Science Academy by Dr. Temok and at the Daystrom Institute by Dr. Glenn Hauman indicate that the instabilities in protomatter are the result of interactions between its subatomic constituents and a nine-dimensional 5/2 spin variant on the quark strangelet, which Temok and Hauman have agreed to dub a “changelet.”
Changelets affect the strong nuclear force in the covalent bonds of protomatter, and are able to breach the dimensional gap because of natural fluctuations in the fabric of space-time. According to Dr. Temok, because changelets are extradimensional, they are extraordinarily massive when compared with other subatomic particles. They appear to have a mass of approximately 21.9 GEv, placing them beyond the threshold of the gravitational constant.
Because of their already precarious position in the space-time continuum, changelets become volatile in the presence of subspace fields, which further warp the fabric of space-time, thereby permitting the negatively charged changelet to interact directly with the densely clustered protons of protomatter. The result is a catastrophic, chain-reaction annihilation of protomatter into high-energy photons.
According to Dr. Hauman, the tendency of protomatter to violently collapse in the presence of a subspace field can be counteracted through the application of a stasis field generated by a quantum flux capacitor and a Heisenberg compensator working in tandem. The compensator deflects space-time distortions from the protomatter, and at high-enough power levels can actually stabilize protomatter by suppressing microdimensional ripples in its subatomic structure that promote interaction with changelets. The quantum flux capacitor prevents subatomic constituents of protomatter from slipping through microdimensional fractures and encountering changelets.
04.03 A NEW THEORY ON THE COLLAPSE OF THE GENESIS PLANET
It has always been accepted that the Genesis Device had a protomatter core; both it and the Genesis Matrix were stabilized by a Heisenberg compensator and quantum flux capacitor. Although the two components had been used by the Marcus team only to guide the subatomic reassembly of the target planet in accordance with the Genesis Matrix, the device’s compact design necessitated that the protomatter core be contained within the stabilization field.
Conventional wisdom has always blamed the planet’s rapid disintegration on David Marcus’ use of protomatter; our new research refutes that. Based on our study, we have concluded that the device in fact was remarkably stable, and that its results would also have been stable had the device been deployed in the manner for which it was designed.
Dr. Carol Marcus’ own briefing to the Federation indicated that the Phase Three test of the device was intended to be carried out on a lifeless planetoid or small moon. We are confident that if the device had been detonated on an appropriate target—i.e., a lifeless small moon or asteroid in an appropriate orbit for sustaining a Class-M planet—it would have produced a stable, organically rich, and eminently habitable planet. (Our findings are supported by the continued stability of Project Genesis’ thriving underground ecosystem within the Regula asteroid.)
Because the device was triggered in a diffuse nebula of highly charged gas and radioactive debris, the result was a highly unstable planet. Instead of transforming a solid-core planetoid already in a stable orbit, the Genesis Effect was forced to create from loose debris an entire planet with little-to-no inherent gravitational impetus to orbit its star. Furthermore, the newly formed Genesis Planet was subject to highly erratic gravitational fluctuations caused by its situation between two gas giant planets, resulting in its greatly accelerated rotation rate and a variety of severe atmospheric anomalies, which were required by the matrix to sustain a Class-M atmosphere at a less-than-ideal distance of 1.93 A.U. from a yellow dwarf star.
Those factors, coupled with the fact that the Genesis Wave was overextended because of the vast amount of energy needed to build a new planet from gas and dust, left the Genesis Effect incomplete. The final phase of the Genesis Effect, in which the strong and weak nuclear forces are renormalized at the subquantum level, never took place because the formation of the new planet prematurely depleted the reaction’s energy.
Drs. Temok and Hauman concur with our assessment and are prepared to demonstrate to the Federation Security Council that Project Genesis is a successful, viable terraforming technology, and could be a potentially decisive weapon against the Borg if its inherent tactical weaknesses can be remedied.
04.04 PROPOSAL FOR DESIGN UPGRADES
The original Genesis Device was intended to be delivered to its target as a slow-velocity torpedo released from a starship. The original research team omitted warp propulsion systems from their prototype designs because they were unnecessary during the test phase. Later evaluations of the project’s military applications concluded that because the Genesis Device contained protomatter, it would not be safe to equip it with a warp drive because the subspace field would cause the protomatter to detonate.
We believe the stabilizer field for the Genesis Matrix renders its protomatter safe for transport; we therefore can devise a number of methods for protecting the protomatter payload from subspace disru
ption while enabling the Genesis Device to be economically deployed across intermediate interstellar distances.
First, we can produce a more compact design, at roughly 45 percent of the mass of the original device, by employing more-advanced isolinear processors and ODN circuitry. Second, we can add an additional layer of duranium shielding around the Genesis Matrix core without compromising the effectiveness of the device. Third, we can install a Mark X warp coil and antimatter core in the rear half of the casing, enabling the device to sustain a velocity of warp seven for up to ninety-two hours. Last, we can adjust the warp-field geometry to envelop the device payload without putting undue stress on its core stabilizer.
04.05 KEEPING PROJECT GENESIS FROM THE BORG
Although use of the Genesis Device as a weapon is strictly prohibited by the Genesis Nonproliferation Treaty, the Borg are not signatories of that document, and keeping Genesis from them is a more pressing concern.
If the Borg were to capture Genesis Device technology, they would be able to equip it with a transwarp conduit generator, duplicate it, and send one to every Federation planet, instantly transforming them all into Borg homeworlds.
Unless a Genesis Device can be kept from Borg detection, it will be a devasatating tactical alternative. Because of these possible consequences all efforts must be made to prevent their acquisition of the Genesis technology.
The Genesis Wave: Book One Page 16