January 21, 1991
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Within the Auditorio do IEA, of University of Sao Paulo fame, the silently bustling crowd shuffled about in their seats. Some cast whispers among each other, others cast curious glances up above at the next sign of exposition for that fateful day.
The United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development cast their doubts on this particular conference. Although there were some miraculous hopefuls within the crowd. The UN CSAT had no qualms nor doubts over the verity of Brazil’s scientists, no, yet the commissioners of the conference all hashed their doubts all the same. Sciences for Anomalous and Xenophysical Studies was still a field well into its infancy, after all, and in that same infancy had come many of the growth pains associated with, perhaps, the overzealousness which accompanied the field of rapid discovery. To be frank, most within the crowd expected the next report to be something only the most astute of professors might humor as a discovery. But the title alone drew them in, all the same. After all, with a presentation titled the likes of this, who could resist at least giving them the time of day?
Costanzo reached over the questioner’s table, taking a brief sip from his water glass before the next announcement. Sighing in refreshment, the glasses-bearing man blinked, once again peering down at his papers. Mr. Sciacca tilted the paper up, squinting as he adjusted his glasses, before nodding his head and lowering it toward his microphone.
“And please welcome...Dr. Maria Kawaguchi, Professor of Xenophysics and Quantum Physics.”
Mr. Sciacca and his table of UN CSAT accomplices gave light, polite claps in turn; A gently humbling antithesis to the resounding welcome the crowd behind them returned. The spotlights illuminated the stage before them, and the beading, curious eyes of the crowd soon turned unto their presenter.
"Thank you, Mr Sciacca." The gently middle-aged woman nodded, clad in a finely pressed grey suit, an identification card pinned her to lapelle. Her hair was tied into a tight, immaculate, manicured in much the same way as the rest of her appearance was - and her mannerisms, too, every movement carefully calculated to some inscrutable purpose. In her hands, she clutched a small, electronic remote, quietly clicking button in her palm, activating the projector. The space behind her was suddenly illuminated with the digitized image of one of Brazil's anomalous zones - some stretch of unidentifiable rainforest in which gravity seemed to have failed, floating pieces of the landscape dotting the sky at various heights. "What you'll see behind me is a phenomenon that most of you are familiar with, at least in appearance - and that's what I'm here to talk to you about. In various anomalous zones across the world, there are similar phenomena to what you see here behind me. Places where, in stark contrast to most of what we know about physics, gravity simply doesn't "work" as it should." She said, punctuating the word with air-quotes.
"For the past several months, my team at this very same university has been studying the phenomenon. It doesn't take an expert to reason that, if there are places where gravity works in such a manner, that there must exist an exotic particle with negative mass. We reached the same conclusion, of course, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Not precisely, at least."
She cleared her throat, as if bracing herself for something. Another click, and the slide changed again, this time displaying a mostly flat plane, strangely warped upward and downward around opposite sides of a circle about the center.
"What such a theoretical negative mass particle would allow us to do, however, is the focus of my presentation. For decades, we've all puzzled over how the Visitors reached Earth, and more importantly how we might reach them. What a negative mass particle would allow us to do, according to our projections, is, just that - to expand and contract space around an object such that effective faster-than-light travel is achieved... And without violating what we know about the mechanics of relativity by accelerating a massive object beyond the speed of light."
The crowd paused for momentous moments, slowly turning to one another as they exchanged blank-faced murmurs among one another. The secrets of faster-than-light travel? Certainly, this would be a discovery for the eras, yet...the narrowed eyes of some of the crowd’s more cynical members expressed doubt, disbelief at the theory.
Costanzo smacked his lips, furmering for the words to say. Pacing his eyes between the presenter and his equally awestruck accomplices, Mr. Sciacca nervously adjusted his glasses. He looked up in uncertainty, and curiously presented his query:
“So, Dr. Kawaguchi,” he began, his beaming Latin eyes constantly shifting between unsteady glares away and a straight-faced answer from the professor, “according to your team’s current understanding of these anomalous phenomena, the negative gravitational effect of certain anomalous fields would allow the transport of objects at velocities greater than the speed of light, correct?”
“Yes, Mister Sciacca.” she responded.
He nodded back, slow to keep up his pace of response.
“Would the use of nongravitational artifacts for these purposes - or have these artifacts - produced negative reactions upon practical testing?” he replied, “Such as the stabilization of reaching the current gravitational threshold to enter orbit having negative effects on course trajectory?”
"Preliminary testing indicates that reactions aren't sufficiently negative within Earth's gravity well to make testing impossible, however, the greatest difficulty we've encountered is in acquiring sufficiently large samples to definitively verify or disprove our theory." She explained, gesturing toward the slide. "To produce this sort of distortion on a sufficiently large scale to be effective would likely require a concerted international effort toward either reproducing or uncovering enough of these such artifacts and NLC. There simply isn't enough in Brazil, according to our models."
“And, to add upon this,” Arun Khalachi, an elderly Asian man, situated to Mr. Sciacca’s left inquired, “it appears that this particular use of New Langium Compound would be nonrenewable, if I am understanding correctly?”
"We have no reason, as of now, to believe it would be nonrenewable - the volume necessary would be quite large, however." She said. "The Compound would serve as a component of such a drive, rather than as fuel."
The crowd excitedly whispered at her response, some eyes immediately beaming like the overhead lights in the bleakness of the room’s void. The UN CSAT’s members all turned to one another, exchanging looks varied from impression to cautious optimism. The room began blossoming into an explosion of hushed conversations and excited whispers, illuminating through the darkness as it was suddenly hushed by the interjection of Mister Khalachi.
“I see.” he responded, unraveling his clenched hand unto the table, “Will there be a practical demonstration in the near future? If so, when can we expect the first flight, Doctor Kawaguchi?”
"As soon as we can acquire international funding - and cooperation on the collection of the requisite NLCs. As I said, Dr. Khalachi, we simply can't manage this alone within a reasonable timeframe. The science, however, is sound." She nodded, smiling gently.
Again, the answering committee turned to one another, silently exchanging with one another while the crowd once again resumed its intense murmurs. Slowly, Costanzo Sciacca raised a hand, adjusting his microphone as he leaned in for the closing remarks:
“Well, thank you very much for your time, Doctor Kawaguchi.” he appreciated, exchanging a professional smile towards the physicist. As the projector behind her flickered away, Sciacca once again reached toward the microphone.
“We will be taking a small intermission while we wait for the next panel.” The crowd soon after stood, exiting as they all beamingly discussed among one another the sheer marvel at what they had just beholden. They, more than anyone else, knew that perhaps they had just beheld human history in this very auditorium.
As the room emptied, the hearing committee turned to one another, yet not a single word was said. Etched expressions upon their faces told all which needed to be known, and only by the agreed utterance of Mister Sciacca motioning to his aide, coming in with a hand-wave, sprinting from the back, that this seance was blissfully broken:
“Get Moscow, Washington, Paris, and London on the line. Start drafting a new UN resolution for this. I want preliminary responses by tomorrow morning.”
The United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development cast their doubts on this particular conference. Although there were some miraculous hopefuls within the crowd. The UN CSAT had no qualms nor doubts over the verity of Brazil’s scientists, no, yet the commissioners of the conference all hashed their doubts all the same. Sciences for Anomalous and Xenophysical Studies was still a field well into its infancy, after all, and in that same infancy had come many of the growth pains associated with, perhaps, the overzealousness which accompanied the field of rapid discovery. To be frank, most within the crowd expected the next report to be something only the most astute of professors might humor as a discovery. But the title alone drew them in, all the same. After all, with a presentation titled the likes of this, who could resist at least giving them the time of day?
Costanzo reached over the questioner’s table, taking a brief sip from his water glass before the next announcement. Sighing in refreshment, the glasses-bearing man blinked, once again peering down at his papers. Mr. Sciacca tilted the paper up, squinting as he adjusted his glasses, before nodding his head and lowering it toward his microphone.
“And please welcome...Dr. Maria Kawaguchi, Professor of Xenophysics and Quantum Physics.”
Mr. Sciacca and his table of UN CSAT accomplices gave light, polite claps in turn; A gently humbling antithesis to the resounding welcome the crowd behind them returned. The spotlights illuminated the stage before them, and the beading, curious eyes of the crowd soon turned unto their presenter.
"Thank you, Mr Sciacca." The gently middle-aged woman nodded, clad in a finely pressed grey suit, an identification card pinned her to lapelle. Her hair was tied into a tight, immaculate, manicured in much the same way as the rest of her appearance was - and her mannerisms, too, every movement carefully calculated to some inscrutable purpose. In her hands, she clutched a small, electronic remote, quietly clicking button in her palm, activating the projector. The space behind her was suddenly illuminated with the digitized image of one of Brazil's anomalous zones - some stretch of unidentifiable rainforest in which gravity seemed to have failed, floating pieces of the landscape dotting the sky at various heights. "What you'll see behind me is a phenomenon that most of you are familiar with, at least in appearance - and that's what I'm here to talk to you about. In various anomalous zones across the world, there are similar phenomena to what you see here behind me. Places where, in stark contrast to most of what we know about physics, gravity simply doesn't "work" as it should." She said, punctuating the word with air-quotes.
"For the past several months, my team at this very same university has been studying the phenomenon. It doesn't take an expert to reason that, if there are places where gravity works in such a manner, that there must exist an exotic particle with negative mass. We reached the same conclusion, of course, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Not precisely, at least."
She cleared her throat, as if bracing herself for something. Another click, and the slide changed again, this time displaying a mostly flat plane, strangely warped upward and downward around opposite sides of a circle about the center.
"What such a theoretical negative mass particle would allow us to do, however, is the focus of my presentation. For decades, we've all puzzled over how the Visitors reached Earth, and more importantly how we might reach them. What a negative mass particle would allow us to do, according to our projections, is, just that - to expand and contract space around an object such that effective faster-than-light travel is achieved... And without violating what we know about the mechanics of relativity by accelerating a massive object beyond the speed of light."
The crowd paused for momentous moments, slowly turning to one another as they exchanged blank-faced murmurs among one another. The secrets of faster-than-light travel? Certainly, this would be a discovery for the eras, yet...the narrowed eyes of some of the crowd’s more cynical members expressed doubt, disbelief at the theory.
Costanzo smacked his lips, furmering for the words to say. Pacing his eyes between the presenter and his equally awestruck accomplices, Mr. Sciacca nervously adjusted his glasses. He looked up in uncertainty, and curiously presented his query:
“So, Dr. Kawaguchi,” he began, his beaming Latin eyes constantly shifting between unsteady glares away and a straight-faced answer from the professor, “according to your team’s current understanding of these anomalous phenomena, the negative gravitational effect of certain anomalous fields would allow the transport of objects at velocities greater than the speed of light, correct?”
“Yes, Mister Sciacca.” she responded.
He nodded back, slow to keep up his pace of response.
“Would the use of nongravitational artifacts for these purposes - or have these artifacts - produced negative reactions upon practical testing?” he replied, “Such as the stabilization of reaching the current gravitational threshold to enter orbit having negative effects on course trajectory?”
"Preliminary testing indicates that reactions aren't sufficiently negative within Earth's gravity well to make testing impossible, however, the greatest difficulty we've encountered is in acquiring sufficiently large samples to definitively verify or disprove our theory." She explained, gesturing toward the slide. "To produce this sort of distortion on a sufficiently large scale to be effective would likely require a concerted international effort toward either reproducing or uncovering enough of these such artifacts and NLC. There simply isn't enough in Brazil, according to our models."
“And, to add upon this,” Arun Khalachi, an elderly Asian man, situated to Mr. Sciacca’s left inquired, “it appears that this particular use of New Langium Compound would be nonrenewable, if I am understanding correctly?”
"We have no reason, as of now, to believe it would be nonrenewable - the volume necessary would be quite large, however." She said. "The Compound would serve as a component of such a drive, rather than as fuel."
The crowd excitedly whispered at her response, some eyes immediately beaming like the overhead lights in the bleakness of the room’s void. The UN CSAT’s members all turned to one another, exchanging looks varied from impression to cautious optimism. The room began blossoming into an explosion of hushed conversations and excited whispers, illuminating through the darkness as it was suddenly hushed by the interjection of Mister Khalachi.
“I see.” he responded, unraveling his clenched hand unto the table, “Will there be a practical demonstration in the near future? If so, when can we expect the first flight, Doctor Kawaguchi?”
"As soon as we can acquire international funding - and cooperation on the collection of the requisite NLCs. As I said, Dr. Khalachi, we simply can't manage this alone within a reasonable timeframe. The science, however, is sound." She nodded, smiling gently.
Again, the answering committee turned to one another, silently exchanging with one another while the crowd once again resumed its intense murmurs. Slowly, Costanzo Sciacca raised a hand, adjusting his microphone as he leaned in for the closing remarks:
“Well, thank you very much for your time, Doctor Kawaguchi.” he appreciated, exchanging a professional smile towards the physicist. As the projector behind her flickered away, Sciacca once again reached toward the microphone.
“We will be taking a small intermission while we wait for the next panel.” The crowd soon after stood, exiting as they all beamingly discussed among one another the sheer marvel at what they had just beholden. They, more than anyone else, knew that perhaps they had just beheld human history in this very auditorium.
As the room emptied, the hearing committee turned to one another, yet not a single word was said. Etched expressions upon their faces told all which needed to be known, and only by the agreed utterance of Mister Sciacca motioning to his aide, coming in with a hand-wave, sprinting from the back, that this seance was blissfully broken:
“Get Moscow, Washington, Paris, and London on the line. Start drafting a new UN resolution for this. I want preliminary responses by tomorrow morning.”
Collaboration with @Jeddaven
