Although separated by their starting points in time the comparative species all found advances in medicine, physics, electronics, and computers and so on increasing after the steam era.
The biggest problem from the computer age onwards which afflicted all species was the need for clean and cheap power.
Solutions to population growth, pollution, and exhaustion of raw materials were an ongoing struggle with many different factors depending on the homeworld of each species. The common element in implementing the most advanced technological fixes for these problems was the ability to manufacture and power these advances.
In similar ways, the different species expanded from their homeworlds into their own solar systems. Various forms of nuclear power were used; the development of fusion power became the best form of advanced energy source in clean energy.
Fusion was expensive and difficult to manage though.
So the follow on to the technology was the same as with all other components, miniaturization.
If you could make parts, computers, chips and control functions smaller, then you could build complete devices at a size which could be managed. This allowed inter-system travel for space-faring vessels to become smaller and move easier among planets.
Asteroid mining, colonies on rocks and moons, terraforming which started, all of these were also common among the races. Eventually, the faster than light travel barrier would be discovered and overcome, at first allowing inter-system travel to move into hours instead of months or years.
The next expansion phase would usually be travel to other solar systems, even if there were already ark ships on their way at sub-light speeds.
The expansion would be slow; construction of starships would tax the resources of industry and infrastructure. Again the power requirements increased due to speed of light engines, shielding systems, the size of the starships and so on.
Research and advancement would be under constant pressure to find new ways to build and implement. Energy sources like antimatter, different kinds of fusion materials as new base elements for the periodic table were discovered, everything from clothing to complex quantum computing.
Encounters with other aliens or hostile life on new worlds meant radical changes to diplomacy systems, scanning, military and different ways of working with technical assistance.
All in all the species growth would relate to how quickly they could adapt at a technological evolutionary level from the steam age into the faster than light generation.
The difference in the Domums case was their discovery of the Salbion gas.
They had partnered with their closest stellar neighbor, the Aleran on superconducting technologies. During their research into materials sciences in collapsing conductive metals into smaller wiring through high gravity fields, they made the most important discovery of their galaxy.
One set of their tests took place in gas giants; by dropping cables deep into the atmosphere of the massive planets, they tested the effect of the increasing gravity as compression on the metals. In some cases, they also tested the chemical contents of the gas giant storms as a catalyst to the energy capacity of a material.
They then discovered the Salbion gas, inside a deeper layer of a gas giant, not too deep by the standards of the massive planets, but deep enough to avoid easy discovery. Salbion gas was a highly potent form of energy transferring inert plasma.
In its stable form, the gas was like halogen or neon, it did nothing and stayed within a container. Like the inert gases, when an electrical current was applied the gas changed state. Halogen and Neon lit up, used for lighting by species all over the galaxy.
Salbion gas went from an inert state to a plasma conductor producing electrical current at a higher output per kiloliter than a fusion reactor with the same volume. Also, the gas didn’t need complex containment or process initiation.
Reactors became obsolete overnight, their technology redundant.
Salbion gas was inserted into containers with the outside plastic alloy composites already manufactured to move plasma around starships. An easy to produce consumable that was already part of the industrial base of every starfaring species.
Adding an electrical current was as easy as applying a triple-A battery, or the equivalent.
How the energy was generated and how the Salbion gas was consumed would take up a lot of scientific explanation. The simplest way would be to compare it with water evaporation.
The Salbion gas produced plasma electrical output at a constant rate directly related to the incoming electrical charge. So long as there was power enough to start an initial charge a Salbion power cell could regulate its own output.
So the amount of Salbion gas used up over time depended on the required energy output, the gas would evaporate into inert atoms consumed by its own plasma cannibalization.
Since the output exceeded that of reactors hundreds of times the size of an individual energy cell, and the Salbion gas was available in the clouds of gas giants, it became the most straightforward small form of power.
Quickly gas mining ships were built, and since the Salbion gas was in clouds the size of small moons, there was a vast supply. Other gas giants were found to have Salbion gas deposits, and the expanse of the Domum and Aleran took a leap forward which would have taken millennia.
Faster than light engines could have any amount of power they needed. Life support, computing, even luxuries could be built into starships with no need to be concerned about the power requirements. Everything could be shielded with independent power cells.
In fact, after the initial military, industrial and political uses the energy cells became so prevalent in civilian life that all aspects of their species became luxurious by comparison to other species.
As they spread out into their galaxy, the technology the Domums had was shared with species that cooperated and signed up to the Galactic Citizenship. In their pride, the Domum had no doubt they could win any military conflict, and they did a few times when required.
For the most part, though, the removal of resource limitations meant, there was little need for conflict.
Other solar systems were within easy reach, starting up a colony or mining operation, or anything for that matter was quick and easy.
The pressure on research and development went away; most studies were done out of interest or with the newfound galaxy which opened up. Progress into technology became an industrial improvement, new features, other options, rather than a growth based competitive need.
All scientific progress almost stalled in the comfort of the Galactic Citizenship.
In the Milky Way, Salbion gas did not exist.
Automated log update.
Subjects have made progress along relevant timeline events.
Item one: Subjects are now in contact with the Puzzle Box station commander of this period, Obragon Vax. According to records of the Event, the relationship has started on an acceptable note.
Recording of event stored in file X228 – 117.
Item Two: Domum interest in this vessel has escalated. Recorded scans are still being shown the designed starship specifications for a standard vessel of this time period. The curiosity equivalent quotient is expected to propagate as planned within defined parameters.
Thus far the actions taken by the Domum are within expected range of escalation.
Item Three: Adaptic Parasitoid lifeform identified as the “Devourer” has been met earlier than expected. Updating records of historical profile to match new variables. Mission parameters indicate that this change in operating pattern is beneficial to the outcome.
Mission success on primary objective has risen fifteen percent.
Will now press the subjects into pursuing a sample of the lifeform for further analysis and indications against the objective timeline.
Monitoring continues.
**
It was almost like déjà vu when Connor woke up six hours later. He knew it was six hours because the time
in his display told him.
Lovely, he thought. Now I can’t get away from sleeping in either.
Although I feel quite well rested for six hours.
The red-haired man sat up and looked around the room. Again, he was the first to wake up, and so he was also the first to notice the changes that had happened during their sleep. Under each bunk were now plastic crates, about half the length of the cot itself and high enough to just fit under the bed without being a base.
These bunks were sturdy too; there was barely a downwards bulge from the weight of anyone.
To his right, Lekiso still slept, her dark skin and black hair contrasting with the light material of her singlesuit and the gray of the bunk.
Past her slept Meriam.
She must have been tossing and turning because her long hair was in disarray, her golden skin showing through where it was swept over her face, and it hung down the side of her bunk.
Marc’s oriental skin almost blended in; mousy brown hair and a slightly freckled face were the only colors that stood out. Poor guy must have been exhausted, as his smaller body was sprawled out, spread-eagle, on his bunk.
The last bed held Ormond.
He was awake, lying on his back, body straight and staring up at the ceiling.
The man’s rugged features and dark eyes hid thoughts that Connor didn’t want to interrupt right now.
Connor felt afraid.
It was not fear of their situation, strangely enough. Although he knew logically that it should be so profoundly different he should be out of his mind, but he wasn’t. There must be some kind of mood stabilizer or emotional balancing medication at work since the others were not going stark raving mad either.
The suits can administer drugs after all.
For him however the outright horror at where they were and how was of less concern to him than the naked fear he felt that it might all possibly go away.
Not that he was deluding himself with this being a dream opportunity, he was a man from a simple background and had no interest in any of this science fiction world as a child. It was that he could move around and felt healthy.
In one way he looked to have escaped from his problems, both his own making and those he had taken upon himself.
But mostly it was the pure joy of having his body back, being a man who did physical labor for a living and one who was proud of the body he had built before it all came crashing down on him figuratively and literally.
While he was sure the other four would have different problems on their minds, Connor was most concerned with how he would handle it if this were all a dream or worse.
He struggled to find any other feelings, there was some curiosity, the outright awe at their situation and being overwhelmed by everything outside the door. Those feelings seemed deadened but also far less important to him just then than the second chance he inexplicably had.
Whatever else was going to happen, he knew two things.
That he was really grateful to whatever had done this to him, and that he would do whatever he needed to stay this way.
Desperate yes, but then his entire life had been at an end.
While he might not see his parents again or even come to some kind of horribly complicated death in this place or the events that were to come.
He would do it standing on his own two feet again.
**
Marc was terrified.
He had woken up and then frozen there again, lying on the bunk bed and thinking, his thoughts whirling around and around inside his skull.
It was a dull terror, one that did not take him over and make him do irrational things, but it was there, lurking behind him all the same.
He was not equipped for this, nothing in his life had prepared him for this kind of situation, not even feeling helpless about his mother. This was a different kind if helpless, the type that directly threatened his life, if not his sanity.
He needed something, he needed answers.
Marc did not work well without facts and parameters, understanding to build a rational model around. If he had that, then he could base the experience on something and begin to make sense of it.
Or, if not sense, since this made less and less sense as they went along, he could put the events into some kind of order and foresee some sets of outcomes. What were the possibilities, could they die?
Could they go home eventually?
If they did would things be different?
Marc knew a lot about things like space travel, general knowledge but still enough to cover things like distance versus time, dilation of time and so on. Or what would be rattling inside his head the most was that they could not be here without something advanced.
Whatever controlled the technology could take them back, to whatever little he had to go back to.
It was better than all the unexplained things here by comparison.
If he could just find a way to get answers. The irrational drive was fed by his terror, it pushed him constantly. It pushed him so hard that he was surprised that he had slept at all.
Which meant he had been drugged or sedated, whether it was by gas or not was important because he did not remember smelling a gas. It could have been odorless, or they could drug them through their suits, they had no idea what technology was in them after all.
So many unknowns.
If he were not being kept on an even and balanced emotional state, he would have broken down yesterday already. As it was, he knew he had to face today no matter how much it terrified him, and he could not even show the terror because it hovered there in the background.
But it did push him, and he would find a way.
If nothing else the drive he had now was higher than he had ever had in his life.
**
Lekiso fumbled awake around the same time as the others, but she did not open her eyes.
Instead, she did what she had done before, she listened, and she felt around herself with her senses. The room was still that same cool temperature, the air still sterile and flat like it had been washed clean.
From the very young age when she had been taken, another kind of abduction, and then put to… work, she had learned to assess her surroundings on waking up. Just in case someone was waiting for her, which had happened a lot.
Like now, knowing the situation did not change it.
Fear had been a constant companion until she had gotten out of it with her own grit and perseverance. Then it had turned into a righteous need to keep that fear from others. This time, she was not sure if she was angry more than anything else.
Another feeling might take over, but anger put everything in perspective. I do not want to see more people suffer for events outside of their control!
Lekiso would have coped better if it was just her, if only she were in this situation and no one else.
Then the sense of responsibility would not be there, and she could figure things out without worrying. It was the worry, the sense of feeling accountable to these other four which bothered her the most.
Perhaps it was a strange response, after all, she had no part in how or why any of them were there. She did feel that with her skills and training she could bring them through this, or at the very least she could make a difference.
Her whole life, after her own rescue, she wanted to make a difference.
There was little ego inside Lekiso, little sense of self-preservation. That had been beaten out of her while she was a child, then the lack of individuality reinforced as she grew up. She had only been a tool for those who wanted to use her.
As one in a million of the people who maintained their own sense of self after going through what had been done to her Lekiso was stronger for it.
So was she scared?
Yes, in that way which said she should be afraid of a venomous snake.
Lekiso was in control of herself, and she could get the others through it, she knew she could.
**
One moment asleep an
d the next awake but without any change in his breathing or movement from his body.
Ormond had developed that skill long before he had needed it as a bum living on the street. A useful skill, it had saved his lives many times. He could see that Lekiso had learned something similar, but she probably had not shaped it into something like he had.
Like he had?
No, like he had been taught. Trained ruthlessly to be the man he was now, to control his emotions and his reactions.
Humans, on earth the only mammal with the ability to consciously control their fight or flight reaction. He was good at it too, separate the now from the “what now”, to keep the wishes from the facts of the current reality.
React to what is.
With all of the behind him, Ormond had the healthiest way to deal with their situation. He wondered, and he was curious, and while he understood the dangers and possibilities, he did not know all the facts, and he was comfortable with that.
He was alive, and he had options, so the more he learned and the further they got in exploring their current situation the more he could adapt. It also helped that he had nothing to worry about, life on the street did not give him much to miss.
For the first time in a long time, he felt curious, interested in life again.
Whatever kept the others from panicking probably had something to do with his attitude, but he also guessed that the changes to his body contributed. He was not a young man, older than the others by at around two decades.
Ormond looked like he had in his early thirties, something which had astonished him but he had not yet shared with the others. The rush of hormones from being young and fit would account for his interest, not just investment in events but also in the women.
Another thing he had not felt in a very long time, interest in people and sexual excitement.
That he would get under control, emotionally he had no particular interest in whatever kind of relationship there would be. His life, his family, they were behind him, and if the future had another companion for Ormond then so be it.
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