Spotlight on an Original Technology – Pulse Shot
Pulse shot?
Theory
In order to make some of my Star Trek fanfiction work, I needed a means of stepping from our universe to the Mirror, and vice versa. So in Reversal, this is accomplished via shared dreaming, and a crossover is performed by the Calafans by using power from the NX-01, the ISS Defiant, the amplifier dishes on Point Abic, Calafan group meditation and the sodium vapor flares emanating between the two smallest stars in the Lafa System, Fep and Ub. All of this, acting together, brings Doug from there to here, over the course of several hours. The Mirror High Priestess, Yimar (a teenaged girl) decides to leave the doors open in perpetuity. This has the effect of allowing Calafans to pass back and forth between both universes although other species still cannot.
However, the sodium vapor flares in particular are somewhat uncommon occurrences. Plus I wanted a technological solution.
Having read about dark matter, the truth is that it’s exotic and there’s an awful lot of it. It is ripe for fan fiction treatment, as it’s abundant and mysterious. Hence I decided that I would use it for the purposes of heading from here to the other side of the pond, or back again.
Practice
In Temper, the Empress Hoshi Sato has her Science Ensign Lucy Stone, with the help of Vulcan slaves T’Pau and Kefris, devise a means of moving from one universe to the other. In canon, she (Hoshi) is well aware that the Defiant is from another universe. It is an advanced design, with superior firepower, defenses and accommodations. It makes sense that she would be looking for a spare or two or two hundred. Hoshi is a person who wants to be known as a conqueror. So she may have realized it could very well be easier to subjugate our universe, instead of going out to hidden corners of the Mirror.
Three Shots
Therefore, in Temper, in 2161 the Defiant‘s main phaser is calibrated to twenty-one centimeters. And it initially fires a pulse shot into seemingly empty space. Because this works, Richard Daniels is summoned to the Temporal Integrity Commission, as he and Eleanor notice the time change immediately (an ornate sword she was lecturing about, Ironblaze, vanishes). This causes the first alternate timeline, and time becomes incoherent.
The Defiant
Due to temporal incoherence, a few years later, in 2166, another pulse shot opens a second passageway. But this time they fire it near the amplifier dishes. This shot opens things up more widely and it’s not just Calafans who can pass back and forth. Now humans and all other species can as well. At this stage, four people pass from our universe to the Mirror. This act changes history enough, and that triggers Daniels sensing the change but not the specifics.
Then there’s a third instance in 2178. But this is not new. Rather, it’s vestiges of incoherent time. The first repairs to the timeline need to happen in this time period. Richard knows this instance well as it coincides with a major, independently verified historical event in that alternate timeline. After fixing 2178, there is a fix for 2166. And once that is all done, Richard himself repairs 2161.
Aftereffects
Beyond the temporal incoherence, the other effect happens later. Some of the pulse shot is, simply, “lost”. But energy can be neither created nor can it be destroyed. This is according to the Law of Conservation of Energy (Thermodynamics). So where does it go?
The correct question isn’t where it goes. It’s when it goes. And when does it land? 2366, and it hits Wesley and Geordi’s shuttle, thereby causing the toss back in time in Crackerjack.
I have yet to write further aftereffects. I might use this plot device again.
