Mythos Effect

Transcript: Element Zero

-Transcript of NEF Analysis Regarding The Material Known As Element Zero, I.E. Eezo. Groups present include NEF Military Intelligence, Office Of Internal Security, Eldritch Society, and Project Overwatch-


Erica Lloyd, representing the OIS, looked around the meeting room of the repurposed old DARPA facility, a speaking stadium and projector behind it in the room they all sat in and talked with eachother while waiting for things to begin, seeing the faces of the others called in by the senior researchers regarding their findings of equipment that had been captured during this idiotic war and what it would mean for them. Seeing the number of faces present, whatever it was the eggheads had found, it had to have been big given the number of individuals present and groups represented here.

Multiple sets of eyes tracked the movement of the door as it opened and the speaker for this meeting quickly approached the stadium while holding their work CPU and some folders with paper inside of them. Fuck, anything requiring physical paper usually tended to be bad news. Only question left was 'how bad?'

Well, the speaker was nice on the eyes if nothing else, even if the Nazzadi in question looked exhausted.

"Apologies for the small delay. We had to pull out some ancient petrol generators and hook them up before this meeting started, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. I'll explain why shortly, as what we discovered explains why we had to do so, along with why all of you are present.

For those unaware, my alias for this meeting is Hadrian, and we are the analysis group subjected with studying the turian weapons and citadel technology we have acquired. This is meant as a safety advisory, but you are not to use your real names in this meeting given it can be used to observe where you have used it in the past, and we wish to avoid giving any of our enemies easy postcognition information. So make sure to use completely random names when you feel you must do so."

Ahh, one of those sort of meetings then.

"To get to the heart of why this priority meeting was called, as of this moment, we are putting a blanket ban on the import of anything containing Element Zero, the material the citadel refers to as 'Eezo'. This ban is not going to be permanent, but it is high priority until we can better shield the D-engine from the negative side-effects of it.

As all of you have been made aware, the material we have been calling Element Zero, the material that the citadel races and the turians we are in conflict with use, is unique in that it generates dark energy when exposed to electrity, is able to change the speed of light and mass near it, and appears to violate the conservation of momentum, mass, energy, and thermodynamics. What few seem aware of however is it is not a true form of baryonic matter at all, and fewer still understand the underlying priciples and what they mean. From what we have discovered recently, it is technically speaking a class 2 metamaterial which draws from and interacts with multiple dimensions and the fields bound to them, which is apparently how it functions."

Quiet whispers and grim faces broke out at that news, causing visible worry to grip some of them.

"How bad is the effect on D-engines, and why is this material only being listed as Class 2?" Erica asked right away, knowing this information was damned important and would have insane impact on the New Earth Federation depending on the answer given.

"Please keep most of the questions to the end, but thankfully it is not subvertive, contagious, or otherwise harmful in itself beyond some minor general toxicity, but the major issue is it draws energy from and interacts with other dimensional fields. In the long term, this would cause a containment breach with the current batch of D-engines given the interference active Element Zero causes it. We are positive that a less efficient but better shielded D-engine could be used alongside and with Element Zero, but no one here wants broken D-engine containment fields and random horrors running loose."

No shit no one sane wanted that. Still, fuck, the amount of contingency planning she was going to be involved in was going to lead to a lot of sleepless nights.

"Until we have a usable unit for testing however, all Element Zero samples need kept isolated from standard and sensitive Archanotech. However, there is another reason we have classified it as a Class 2 metamaterial rather than something much more restricted, and it is the reason all of you have been called in for this meeting. With dedicated sensor equipment, the dimensional interactions created from Elemental Zero are blatantly obvious and observable to those who know what to look for. With time, we will be able to find and locate any piece of machinery using Element Zero, potentially from hundreds of lightyears away. Such sensors would make escape and hiding all but impossible from us with it, and many of you understand the implications and uses of that," the man calling himself Hadrian said with a sharp grin.

A lot of amused, thoughtful, and predatory smiles appeared on the faces of those present at that bit of info.

"These sort of sensors however have another potential use, and that is being modified to help find currently active Arcanotech, Od usage, and Cult activity and items where they shouldn't be. However, these secondary sensors would take a lot longer to create, and I cannot understate this. The Element Zero sensors should be active within a decade or twogiven we have access to the material, it isn't actively dangerous, and it interacts with the dimensions and fields tied to specifically and solely to it and has made us aware of how to do this.

Potential sensors for the observation and policing of the arcane however are going to take longer, as in multiple decades at the absolute minimum just to work out most of the math, but Elemental Zero has given us what we need to start work on this. Now, I know many of you have questions and concerns, so we'll start with questions from Project Overwatch, followed by the Eldritch Society and the OIS since this has the most impact for the NEF as a whole, before opening questions up for everyone in the room."

"Thank you," the unassuming woman representing Project Overwatch responded from her seat, her white outer work-wear uniform hiding the barely visible black bodyglove underneath.

"I suppose for the moment my name is Sheena, and I'm here to represent and report back to Project Overwatch. If the citadel races are correct, which we have no reason to believe otherwise, how have we not discovered the trans-dimensional properties that neutron stars can afflict upon matter? Should we start a directorate on the case to discern just what occurs with this material?" She looked intense at that question, a quite understandable feeling. For the astronomy and astral detection corps to NOT discover that Neutron stars can induce trans-meta changes in material would be an embarrassing oversight.

Hadrian took a moment to compose his thoughts before responding. "While we agree that Element Zero is likely being created in either supernova or hypernova explosions, and we suspect it's hypernova ones at the moment, we have looked at the math the citadel has and it does not fully work out for what we are seeing. It's close, but it's still majorly incomplete. We are uncertain at this time whether Element Zero is a 'Stalagmite Metamaterial', or a 'Stalactite Metamaterial', or whether it's something of both, along with whether it's naturally occuring or artificial produced."

Seeing the lack of understanding for most of those who didn't directly deal with the Arcane, as the jargon was a bit confusing, Hadrian clarified a moment later.

"For those unaware of what those terms mean, it's used to differentiate between materials from our reality that have stretched out to another layer of reality, and materials that reach to our reality from their own home-planes and dimensions. A Stalagmite Metamaterial reaches 'up' from our reality towards somewhere or something else, while a Stalactite Metamaterial reaches 'down' towards us. But to get back to your question, while we can confirm that it's being spread in those stellar events, it's possible that the novas themselves aren't producing them, but creating micro-holes to other places and the material is falling through. It could be that the material was produced via some xenos ritual using the stars as catalysts or fuel. It's possible that within the interactions of colliding neutron stars there exists conditions that can allow matter to be changed into a Metamaterial. There is still a lot we do not know, but we now know more regarding what we don't yet know the answers to. All we can say however is that the dispersal patterns show that Element Zero is being distributed alongside other matter from these events, and that we need to do a lot more studying regarding this. Any other questions?" Hadrian asked while smiling at 'Sheena'.

"Yes, how have the citadel races missed all of this?" Sheena asked, her face showing the mixed emotions of exasperation and plain confusion.

"The same way humanity did for most of our history. Lack of exposure, lack of understanding and context, and not having most of the mathematics worked out. With a lot of time they would have spotted most of the things we have, but the only reason we noticed things so quickly is due to the D-engines warning systems eventually going off and giving us enough information to work out some of what was going on. Without the D-engines, it would have made it much harder and taken much longer for us to realize most of what we have already discovered here."

"Thank you. No more questions."

"More than happy to answer nonetheless. Yes, you have some questions?" Hadrian asked the Eldritch Society representative Erica knew. An individual she knew well enough to dread what was to come.

"Can I be named Bob?"

God damnit.

"Sure, why not?" Hadrian said with a smile as some of the room gave small laughs and a few facepalmed.

"So I'm Bobby, representing the Eldritch Society," the self-named 'Bobby' said while childishly bouncing in his seat, before enthusiastically saying something that didn't make Erica want to leave the room. "Given the impact Element Zero has on D-engines, does your department know what other effects it has, and would you mind giving us your department's opinion on its use in shutting down enemy rituals, spells, and arcanotech?"

"A good question. We know it has interactions with some alternate dimensions and dimensional fields, but we are still in the initial discovery phase of things. It's quite possible that Element Zero may make for some useful countermeasures, but at this time we don't know. That said, we want to know the answers ourselves, so it is a priority in regards to future testing and experimentation once we have further secured and safeguarded D-engines from its effects. As for 'normal' effects regarding the material, that information has been detailed pretty well by the citadel races themselves."

Bobby stopped for a moment, tilted his head, and then said "Ok, thank you."

"No problem. Next question?"

Erica knew it was her turn, so she thought over some of the speaker's earlier statements before focusing on one in particular that had yet to be addressed.

"OIS, call me Ignacio. You mentioned earlier that sensor devices could be made to detect active Element Zero. Is there anyway to detect someone 'listening in' to our own usage of this equipment? It occurs to me that any other nation with sufficiently advanced understanding of arcanotechnology could use this to sound out our planets and defenses."

Truly a worrying prospect all considered.

"Possible. We did discuss this ourselves. At the moment though we can't give a definitive answer, even though we suspect the answer may be 'yes'. We still have a LOT of math to work out. However, we also suspect that there may be ways to hide, mask, or muddle such things as well, from both ends, which is just as problematic if so. We don't have enough information to say for certain though."

Damnit all to hell. Fuck, the amount of work this was going to create was not going to be fun.

"Thank you. That's all."

"You're welcome," Hadrian said knowingly, before turning his attention to the last person who had yet to ask any questions.

"Johnathan, Military Intelligence. What is the correlation between individuals who have the abilities dubbed 'biotics' and the necessary infusion of element zero into their body in the womb to form their abilities? We have received no reports of mythos anomalies regarding their existence over thousands of years, and this information raises many concerning questions regarding that. Also, we've already initiated a project to make the Valuvia Engel with great success, should we worry about transdimensional rifts or other side affects?"

"If you are asking about why this Metamaterial isn't more dangerous, it's comparable to some of the known, understood, and usable Metamaterials used by the NEF and NEF Military as it is. The military uses Od-absorbers in many Rituals, as one example, to help prevent accidents, and that is a widely known and available meta-material for those who do work with Arcanotech. As for side-effects, the only one we are 'certain' of at the moment is disruption of D-engine containment fields. Further testing will be needed to determine safety regarding other anomalous and transdimensional effects."

"One last question then. If we can confirm we can use this 'Eezo SONAR' against the galaxy, how quickly can we start up our own listening posts to counter any possible Turian or alien incursion?" He asked excitedly. Damn near everyone in the room was curious about that answer as well.

"The current lab sensor we made to test what we were observing with the D-engines took a single military-grade nanoforge a full week to create. That sensor could detect things within about three meters of an active D-engine and working Eezo device. With the readings we got from the original series of tests, we were able to extend that sensor to a range of over a hundred meters. The issue isn't the building times here, the issue is working out the needed mathematics involved. That is why we expect it to take a decade or so. Having working and relatively 'safe' samples to test with is why this isn't going to take longer than a century. Now, we've covered most of the important details, we will be providing each of you with paper copies of the details of what we have discovered and done. We will be taking a short hour break to eat, rest, and compose our thoughts before we will meet again and plan out worst case scenarios, along with plans and contingencies for them."