Excavation Mission (Part 1)
<Main
sitting room of Tsovereign Commonwealth Research Frigate.>
"I am most pleased all of you
could make yourselves available for this," said Tamaris, settling into her
plush comfortable chair.
Professor Serendipity fidgeted,
"I am most pleased to find out how you are nostalgic and have not
redecorated in 600 years. Are these the same chairs?"
"The chairs have been
reupholstered several times over the years. I was a young girl when these were
new, my parents were fond of them. They wanted to fit in amongst the pithecines,
for security reasons. They were considered very fashionable in their time."
"They, as in the furnishings, or as
in your parents?" Tevya wondered aloud as he finished his tea.
"My parents were as fashionable
minded as you are likely to find most Araxi, although my parent’s personal
tastes were more usually focused about music and cuisine. Fortunately, decoding
pithecine aesthetics preferences is not very difficult. As Professor
Serendipity would know, who has been wearing the same style of apparel since
the mid 19th century."
Serendipity shrugs, "It’s worked
for me. I dislike shopping. This suit is practically new, I got it about 200
years ago. Hard to find a good tailor nowadays, especially one who understands
special materials. Defect free Tholian silk is hard to come by. Worth it to be
bulletproof, phaser & disruptor resistant, AND fashionable. I would trade
in for a sharkskin Tholian silk suit in a minute."
"Don’t I know it. Always make
sure to buy whole thread, never yarn or cloth, and check for defects, that’s
when they cheat you."
"Mister Tevya, you will probably
want to change clothes. It is going to be ten below zero at the excavation
site. At least something with sleeves."
"You don’t think this is good?
You know my rule, when the sun is out, the guns’ are out. Oh, all right, don’t
look at me like that, I hate that. I have something suitable packed for hazmat.
Not my first rodeo."
"I also have my hazmat gear
ready. Is not Mercedes, Moira, and Muircastle joining us?"
"Moira is already at the
excavation site, doing evidence retrieval. Muircastle, Westminster, and Seraphina
are coming later with Mercedes, we need to determine first if there is any
containment needed."
Teyva interjected, "Weyland
Yutani is underwriting this mission, we get first dibs, not Umbrella."
"Any material science and hard
physics finds will got to Weyland Yutani, but we have a prior commitment with
Mutual of Omicron’s Wild Galaxy for biological samples. Umbrella is just
running tests under contract."
Tevya grumbled, "I am going to
check with legal about this."
"Do you really need to check with
legal? Do you? Like every time? It always ends up the same. Mutual of Omicron
gives you shared credit, but they keep the actual bio-samples they
obtain."
"Right, what THEY obtain."
"Don’t be such a whiner. Sure,
but I am not giving you permission to put any of my staff or crew at risk. That
is between you and Serendipity, and I don’t know how the Kumari feels."
"I eat what I kill."
"Literally?"
"Usually yes, but in this
context, I mean that anything I put down goes to the Dominion. I strongly
prefer not to be put into a position of a natural selection even blue in tooth
and claw."
"Good point. I am not interested
in competing, but if I do put down some sample, I will put it up for bid."
Serendipity looked up from his tea, "Am
I contractually obligated to assist you in some durn fool bug hunt?"
"Durn? DURN? DURN?! Yes."
"I am also going to make a call
to legal."
"Okay, okay, don’t make such a
fuss. No bug hunt."
"I never said there was going to
be any sort of creature?"
"Then why’d you call in
RAC?"
"Because I’m prudent. We have protocols
in place for good reasons."
"How long until we are ready to
disembark?"
"22 hours."
"Good, if I don’t get my daily 16
hours of sleep, I can get cranky."
"How did your people ever build a
civilization while sleeping 16 hours a day?"
"We don’t waste time. Have you not
met people, they spend half of their waking hours asleep. Our sleep is more
lucid, we consider quite a bit during our sleep. Pithecine dreaming is all over
the place. It’s a wonder you can think at all. Or why there are so few of you
capable of cogent thought."
"You can eat from anything out of
the terrarium marked Garuda, leave the others alone please. Don’t eat from the
one marked 'archivist', it contains tetrodotoxins."
"We are also mostly immune to tetrodotoxin,
but I will steer away from Mister Chauncey’s meals. Very gracious of you to include
our particular meal plans. I am glad to see that you have maintained your sense
of comfort."
"Don’t get too used to it. This
ship is going to be decommissioned or reassigned soon. Probably back to being a
stratospheric station orbiting a jovian somewhere. The Tsovereign Commonwealth
instead is purchasing a fleet of reconditioned Klingon cruisers."
Teyva burst out in excitement,
"Very durable."
"I know, right? Like the shark,
no need to evolve further. Regardless, we have some ideas for some aftermarket
upgrades."
"From Mox the Magnificent?"
"Directly from Mox’s old man, The
Magnificent Balszac."
"You know they deal with
pirates?"
"Meh, I know, but you should see the service and parts contract. Guaranteed overnight delivery, even to hot contact zones."
<Next
day, all geared up at Excavation Site>
"Where’d you get that drilling
and excavation equipment? That’s not Weyland-Yutani make and model."
"Axium, something like that. They
have good gear, but are a little vague about details. I still don’t know how
much this costs or what they want in exchange for it. It is possible they don’t
know, they do seem mostly nice."
Mirra inquired, “You sure Linus is stable
enough for a job like this?"
Tamaris shrugged, "He stays on
his meds and attends this therapy, his therapist and doctor thinks he’s
stable."
"Who’s stable enough for
this?"
Tamaris shrugged again, "No one
is, so why not Linus? He did not run shrieking into the night. He’ll be okay.
Dr. Aristides can prescribe him whatever he might need."
Tamaris waves, “LINUS! How you doin’?”
Linus looked nervously about, “Fine,
fine. I left everything how I found it. I contact base camp like the employee
manual says. Dr. Aristides has been on the scene within 40 minutes. We changed
into Hazmat Environmental Geer like the employee manual says. I didn’t think
that much about it during orientation."
Tamaris, "If you need a break, no
shame in asking."
Linus nodded, "Thank you, Ma’am,
I am more comfortable now that there are more of you here. If you don’t mind, I
would like to see this thru.
Tamaris nodded, "If Dr. Aristides
says its okay."
"Il va bien et c'est d'une grande
aide. Je garde un oeil sur lui. Il ne constitue pas un danger pour lui-même ou
pour autrui."
Tamaris gave the thumbs up, "Dr.
Aristides says you’re okay to stay."
Linus smiled.
"Mister Tevya, Professor Serendipity,
are you all set up?"
"Almost done."
"I have to check the data from
the cosmic ray observatory. See you in 20."
"We’ll be ready. This looks
suspiciously like the KBH doorway."
"It does indeed, but there is a
critical difference. The cosmic ray observatory detected Centauro events."
"What does that mean?"
"So far, I have no idea. No good
ideas, only that it is different."
Serendipity raises a hand, “I have an
idea."
"Tell us. And don’t raise your
hand, just blurt it out like usual."
"That is how we can detect a
wormhole mouth passing thru the upper layers of the atmosphere, like from a
TARDIS."
"So you think someone is trying
to activate this?"
"Possibly, or just looking for
it. If they were trying to activate it, they would already know where it is. Cosmic
ray observatories occasionally observe strange super-energetic cosmic ray
detection anomalies, called Centauro events. Centauro events are cosmic ray
particles with incredibly high energies that, when striking planets’s upper
atmosphere, produce a large shower of particles that contains too many gamma
rays and too few mu-leptons, as compared to more normal cosmic ray shower
events. The Centauro events lack an explanation for a natural occurring origin.
An accelerated wormhole mouth with a large electric charge should have a large
gamma-ray to mu-lepton production ratio in such collisions, since it would have
large electromagnetic interactions but no strong or weak interactions with the
matter with which it collided."
"By monitoring Centauro Events, interstellar
wormhole transport can be detected. We track these Centauro’s because of
Navigators, Hasturians, and Galifreyans, and others who use traversable wormholes.
I don’t like people thinking they can backdoor us. There’s a reason I am so
much into observatories, it’s all about privacy and other people respecting our
sovereignty."
Linus raises his hand.
"Will you all please stop raising
your hand? No one was talking, just blurt it out."
"Ma’am, yes, Ma’am. Ma’am, what’s
with the dolls?"
"I don’t know exactly. It
something weird around here. Some luddite cult worshipping dolls they imagine
having vast powers, and rewards them by removing their personal agency. When we’re
done here, burn them."
"Dr. Bagrationi, if you don’t
mind, I would like to keep those in containment. We have special containment."
"If our esteemed colleagues from
Weyland-Yutani have no objections, I have none. I would prefer that they be
destroyed."
"The temple princess can have the
dolls. They creep me out. "
"We’re all ready to go."
"This
won’t activate the internal workings of the device?"
"This
is the advanced model with the Mach-Zender Polarization Interferometer.
Elitzur-Vaidmann Quantum Imager with Mach-Zender Polarization Interferometer
requires only the possibility of an interaction, not the actual interaction to
be able to create an image. It is especially useful for scanning objects that
you don't want to spoil via an actual interaction.
"The
EV scheme was originally described as a thought experiment using a set of
"photon-triggered bombs". Suppose that you are given a set of
photon-triggered bombs housed in light-proof cases. There is a hole in each
bomb through which light may pass. Some of the devices are "live"
bombs, constructed so that when any single photon of light enters the hole, the
bomb explodes. There are also "dud" bombs that will allow any photon
to pass completely through the hole and exit without an explosion. You are
given the task of identifying as many devices as possible that are certain to
be live bombs but that have not yet been detonated. "
"This
problem is impossible to solve with classical physics concept. If all the
devices are exposed to photons, the live bombs will all be destroyed and only
the dud bombs will remain. The EV (Elitzur-Vaidmann) scheme employs the peculiarities
of quantum mechanics to solve the problem. A signal can be derived from a
quantum interferometer testing when there is only the possibility that the bomb
will explode, even when it does not actually do so."
"The
original challenge was to know which sensors were active and which were inert
without actually triggering the sensors. With classical physics, the only way
to know which are active and which are inert is to actually attempt to activate
the sensors."
"A
signal can be derived from quantum interferometer testing when there is only
the possibility that the sensor will activate, even when it does not actually
do so."
"The
Mach-Zender interferometer is a standard optical tool used to measure the index
of refraction of gases. The interferometer uses a 50%-50% beam splitter to
divide incoming light into two beams. These beams are then deflected by mirrors
along paths that form a rectangle. They meet at a second beam splitter, which
recombines them. The combined beams then goes to one of two photon detectors."
"The
light source emits photons one at a time on command. A photon emerges from the
source and passes through the upper beam-splitter, which has the characteristic
that 50% of the time the photon will be reflected by 90º and 50% of the time it
will be transmitted straight through. It may then travel to mirror A or to
mirror B where it will be reflected by 90º. Along either path, the photon
reaches the lower beam-splitter, where it may again be transmitted or
reflected, reaching either photon detector D1 or D2."
"If
the paths between the beam-splitters in the Mach-Zender interferometer have
precisely the same path lengths, all photons will go to detector D1 and none
will go to detector D2. The single photon must be treated as a wave that
travels along both paths. After each beam-splitter, the emerging reflected wave
is 90º out of phase with the emerging transmitted wave. This causes the waves
at detector D1 to be in phase and to reinforce, while the waves at detector D2
will be 180º out of phase and will cancel."
"If
an opaque object is placed on the lower path after mirror A, it will block
light waves along the lower path, insuring that all of the light arriving at
the lower beam splitter had come along the upper path and been reflected by
mirror B. In this case, there is no interference, and the lower beam splitter
sends equal components of the incident wave into the two detectors."
"When
we do the single photon measurement with no opaque object, we detect the photon
at D1 100% of the time. If we do the same measurement with the opaque object
blocking the lower path, we detect a photon at D1 25% of the time, a photon at
D2 25% of the time, and detect no photon at all 50% of the time because it was
absorbed. Detection of a photon at D2 guarantees that an opaque object is
blocking the lower path but has not actually intercepted the photon. Detecting
a photon at detector D1, on the other hand, gives no information on whether or
not an object blocks the lower path."
"What
distinguishes quantum mechanics from classical physics is the "collapse of
the wave function". In a situation like the interferometer, in which light
waves that travel along two paths can interfere, the interference can take
place only if we have no way of determining which path was taken. Any measurement
that determines the path will "collapse" the wave function to that
particular path, after which there can be no two-path interference."
"In a
completely light-free laboratory, we place a photon-triggered sensor in the
lower path. If the sensor is live, then sending a single photon through
constitutes a "which-path" measurement. If the sensor activates, we
know that the photon took the lower path. If it does not activate, we know that
the photon took the upper path. In either case, the wave function collapses to
the indicated path. Therefore, if we detect a photon in detector D2 in this
situation, it means that a photon did not take the lower path. In this case, we
are guaranteed that the object in the lower path is a live sensor rather than
inert. Although no photon has reached it and it has not activated, we have
identified an active sensor. The Elitzur Vaidmann scheme detects the
possibility of a photon interaction with the sensor, even though no photon
actually interacts with it. The photon that might have interacted with it has
instead traveled along the upper path via mirror B."
"If
we perform this test on the set of photon-triggered sensors, 50% of the time
the sensor will activate, 25% of the time we will receive an inconclusive D1
signal, and 25% of the time we will receive a D2 signal indicating an
unactivated live sensor. If the test gives a D1 signal, we gain no information,
but we can send in another photon and try again. After we have tried many times
and always received a D2 signal, we may conclude that the lower path is open
and that the sensor is inert. The net result is that we will be able to
identify one third of the live sensors without activating them, while
activating two thirds of the active ones, on average, but we will identify 100%
of the inert sensors. If we are searching for inert sensors, these are good
numbers. If we are searching for active sensors without actually activating
them, this has a high mortality rate."
"The
improved version of the Elitzur Vaidmann technique produces interaction-free
high-resolution profiles of small objects using events in which no photons
interact with the objects being "viewed" and plotted their profiles."
"A
technique for improving the efficiency of the Elitzur Vaidmann procedure, in
effect reduces the number of activated sensors to zero. They use another
peculiarity of quantum mechanics associated with wave function collapse and
called the Quantum Zeno Effect."
"The
Problem of the Arrow is one of the paradoxes proposed by the Greek philosopher
Zeno of Elea. Imagine an arrow in flight. At some instant during its flight, it
is in a fixed position. At another instant it is in another fixed position. In
fact, at any instant, its position is always fixed. When, Zeno asked, does the
arrow move? It is as if the act of examining the arrow's position prevents its
motion."
"Theoretical
physicists noticed that quantum mechanics contained the analog of Zeno's arrow
paradox."
"Suppose
you have a photon that is initially polarized horizontally (H) but that passes
through a series of optical elements that progressively make small rotations of
its polarization direction with the cumulative effect to rotate the photon's
polarization to vertical (V)."
"Quantum
measurements cannot simply measure a photon's polarization direction, instead
we must pass it through a Horizontal (H) polarizing filter and see if it
survives. If so, it has Horizontal polarization, if not, it has Vertical
polarization. The measurement collapses the wave function, which resets the
photon's polarization to be precisely Horizontal or Vertical."
"After
each rotator we place a Horizontal polarization filter, the photon is
repeatedly reset to Horizontal and must emerge with Horizontal polarization.
This is the quantum Zeno effect, the quantum equivalent of "a watched pot
never boils". A "watched" (repeatedly measured) photon can't
change its polarization, while a photon not watched can change its polarization
freely."
"The
quantum Zeno effect applied to horizontally polarized photons are recycled
through one optical device that rotates the polarization orientation by a small
angle. The photon proceeds to a splitter that transmits Vertical polarization
and reflects Horizontal polarization. Because there was only a tiny rotation in
the polarization, the probability of transmission Vertical is much weaker than
that of reflection Horizontal. This split is followed by mirrors and a device
that recombines light on the Horizontal and Vertical paths back into one beam."
"The
Elitzur Vaidmann Test is made by sending a single photon into the apparatus and
intercepting the weak Vertical beam path with an opaque object (the equivalent
of passing it through the sensor). The apparatus is arranged so the light is
repeatedly cycled through, so there are many successive Elitzur Vaidmann tests
using the Vertical component of the beam."
"The
net result is that if no opaque object (inert sensor) is in the Vertical path,
there is no measurement and the recycled light beam after a number of passes
will rotate from Horizontal to Vertical polarization. However, if an opaque
object (active sensor) is in the Vertical-beam, the survival of the photon
constitutes a path measurement, and the photon polarization is repeatedly reset
to the Horizontal polarization state. Therefore, final H polarization of the
photon indicates the presence of an opaque object (active sensor) in the
Vertical path, while final Vertical polarization of the photon indicates no
opaque object (inert sensor) in the Vertical path."
"If
the beam makes N passes through the system and the polarization rotator changes
the polarization direction by an angle of 90º/N on each pass, the probability
that the photon will interact with the opaque object (sensor will activate) is
P(N) = 1 - [Cos(90º/N)]^2N, a probability that decreases roughly as 1/N as the
number of passes N is made large. For example, with 10 passes the probability
of activation is 21.95%, with 100 passes it is 2.4%, 1000 passes is 0.25%, and
so on. After 500 passes, for each 2 times more passes is 2 times less chance of
activation."
"This
technique is used on biological molecules that are light-sensitive and might be
altered or destroyed by interaction with a photon, or on atomic or quantum
scale systems where the act of measurement alters their properties. Another
application is quantum computing, a non-interacting connection to a quantum
computing element entangles the photon with the state of the system, permitting
transfer of un-collapsed quantum information to another part of the system.
Effectively, the quantum information is teleported from one part of the
computer to another."
"Interaction-Free
Measurements: Elitzur and L. Vaidman, Foundations of Physics 23, 987 (1993)."
"Interaction-Free
Imaging: Andrew G. White, et al, Phys. Rev. A58, 605-608 (1998) and , preprint
quant-ph/9803060 , LANL Archive, (26 April, 1998)."
"Quantum
Zeno Interaction-Free Measurements: P. G. Kwiat, et al, Phys. Rev. Letters (in
press), preprint quant-ph/9909083, LANL Archive, (27 Sept., 1999); see also
Scientific American, pp. 72-78 (Nov-1996), and
http://p23.lanl.gov/Quantum/kwiat/ifm-folder/ifmtext.html"
"As
bizarre, exotic and bleeding edge as this sounds, it dates back to only 1993."
"The
modern circa 2523 Concordat 49423 version uses a penetrating potential particle
instead of a photon to view the interior of an object instead of just the
surface. So long as the particle has a polarization, this scheme is equally workable."
"Because
of the recycling of the particle polarization, the scans can take a long time.
The lower the tolerable risk of interaction, the more passes that have to be
made by the polarization recycler."
"The
time taken for a scan is compounded by the desired resolution. If the
resolution is micrometer scale instead of millimetre scale, one has to make 1
billion more scans. A nanometer scale scan will require 10^18 (a billion
billions) more scans than the millimetre scale scan."
"If
one has a base of 10^18 scans, and has a zero tolerance, one must have 10^18 *
10^18 = 10^36 scans per cubic millimetre. If you could do a trillion scans per
second, then it would take 2.8 billion times the age of the universe to
complete the scan of 1 cubic millimetre with absolutely zero percent chance of
actual interaction. Either cut down the resolution, be more risk tolerant or
use many such scans running in parallel."
"There
are time saving methods such as starting with rough resolution and eliminating
certain volumes and concentrating more upon others."
"This
is as close to intuitive and plain language spoken as I can without excluding
the actual process. The original thought experiment used photon-sensitive bombs
for a sense of immediacy, but I found it distracts people unduly."
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes. Sorry."
"Yes. Just yes or no. I don’t
need the full orientation….Is that what I am like to talk to you."
Tevya looks off into the middle
distance and begins to whistle somewhat tunelessly.
Linus wanders off to pretend to
inspect the water tanks of the cosmic ray observatory.
"Don’t worry about it, you’re
among friends here. Friends and one employee."
"Oui, mon cher."
"We mostly find it endearing,
evidence that you care."
"That’s enough self awareness for
me for one day. Okay, fire it up when ready."
"We’ve been ready, it’s already
operating, We’re just waiting for data. Was I supposed to raise my hand?"
"We are going to need some time
to completely go over the data, but preliminarily I can tell you that it is
definitely different than the KBH doorway."
"In what way?"
"The KBH Doorway was a series of
thousands of Casimir Channels used to create enough negative energy to hold
open a wormhole mouth. This one is looking to push into hyperspace."
"Like the Scharnhorst Drive."
"Yes, kinda sorta, but not the
same, but I can’t see how it would operate as a drive. I am going to need time
to figure out what function this has. I did find the activation switch for the
doors."
"Does it do anything else?"
"Only opens and closes the doors,
it is not activated to anything else."
"Okay, we can open it."
"Ready. 3, 2, 1. Open."
"GREAT PUMPKINS! I didn’t disturb
anything at the scene, Dr. Aristides can attest, she was here the whole
time."
"Easy Linus, easy."
"As-tu besoin de t'asseoir,
chérie?"
"I can stand, thank you."
"Um, uhhh, errr, Umbrella can have it."
"We need to do a local census, there’s
only a couple hundred people on the planet. I am sure a missing person would
stand out."
"You think the dolls."
"NO! I don’t think the dolls. I
do think cultists."
"Get the victim out of here and
let Moira do her Evidence Recovery thing."
"Cela devrait me prendre environ
une heure."
"Take all the time you
need."
"Kumari, if you still want those
dolls, you are going to have to wait until after this case is settled. It is a
crime scene now."
"I understand."
"Moira, I need some evidence bags
for these dolls, and we will meet you back at the research frigate when you are
done. Do you need anyone to help you bring the body?"
"Linus peut m'aider."
"Linus, you okay to help Dr.
Aristides."
"I am okay, Ma’am."
"See you soon, about an
hour?"
"Oui."
"I suspect Serendipity needs more
computing power than he has in his portable unit."
"I would like another hour of scans
first. I can help Moira and Linus."
"Will do."
"Pfft, cultists, always littering with corpses."
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