A.I.: Re-Genesis

Part 17

Chapter 16

Hiccup and Astrid left the common area to give their visitors some time to digest the information they had been handed. Toothless however chose to remain behind saying that he would take the first rotation of guard duty. Hiccup thought that there was more to it given how his friend had been sneaking looks at one of the spacefarers. He would ask him later. For now he turned to Astrid. "So what do you think?"

"They were generally shocked," Astrid spoke as they kept walking. "I can't be sure how space influenced their culture until we talk more. For now I would say we remain cautious around them."

"True, we don't know their main objective yet." Hiccup mumbled and then asked "Say Astrid, what are we going to do with that Prolium anyways? You've been awfully vague about it."

"Frankly, it could be our greatest asset or our downfall." She stated. "Do you want to see how the salvaging operation is going?" Hiccup nodded and both he and Astrid entered one of the elevators that took them further down towards the laboratory section of the base. When the elevator doors opened again they were met with a flurry of activity in the corridors. Astrid led Hiccup to one of the main laboratories on that level and he could see Mrs. Larson bark orders at others as they coupled wires and were milling about with portable scanners. The crashed shuttle had been brought down to the labs through one of the rarely used surface supply elevators and several Berkians, including Mulch and Bucket, were busy stripping it.

"Is that safe?" Hiccup asked as metal parts were being taken off. He knew Astrid was usually in charge of salvaging operations like this but that was just for vehicles they found in the wastelands. Nothing this advanced had ever passed through these halls.

"It's fine," Astrid said, "I had the team take thorough scans and X-rays before they began stripping it. Some of the parts in the shuttle can be used as spares for New Berk. Our main problem was the Prolium core forcefield failing but Fishlegs solved that problem." She gestured to a heap of cables coming out from the floor of the lab and leading into one of the isolation rooms. The sliding door was held open by the cables and Hiccup peeked in to see Fishlegs furiously typing away on the console on the wall. When Fishlegs spotted Hiccup and Astrid he hurried towards them and talked so fast Hiccup couldn't even follow, and he normally could.

"Fish.... Fish..... Calm down," Hiccup said as he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Take a deep breath and go slower..... Please,"

"Right... uh... you guys, this stuff is awesome!" Fishlegs exclaimed as he stepped back a bit to let Hiccup and Astrid enter. "We managed to couple the dam's power supply to the device to keep the forcefield active but once I started scanning this stuff, nothing came up!"

"What?" Hiccup frowned now. "Are the scanners broken?"

"No, No, Hiccup. I mean nothing came up!" Fishlegs said and then gestured towards the black liquid in the forcefield. "It's like this stuff doesn't exist!"

"It shouldn't," Astrid stated as she leaned against one of the walls with her arms crossed while glaring at the Prolium. "It really shouldn't."

"You seem to know a lot about it Astrid," Hiccup realized. "How?"

"You already know that when I was transferred into my new human body it was through the help of nanites." She raised her left hand and waved towards the console Fishlegs had been typing on. A holographic screen popped up. "The nanites still connect me somewhat to the base computer system and enhance my brain functions. I can still access historical records and this Prolium, though it wasn't called that then, has some theoretical mention."

Several documents showed up on the screen as Astrid began filling Hiccup and Fishlegs in. "For many centuries humans have looked to the stars. The thought of even traversing such a fast expanse of space would not be feasible in one lifetime given the conventional rockets they had at that point. The EM drives that were finally developed when the Genesis ships left the planet were big and bulky and it would have still taken humanity hundreds if not thousands of years to reach Alpha Centauri, the closest star and planetary system to Earth which is approximately 4.367 lightyears away. These EM drives would have never fit into such a small scouting ship and this may be why they ended up building colonies on Mars and Saturn's moons. To consolidate their resources and improve their ship engines while using the colonies as bases to train personnel for longer space journeys."

Both Hiccup and Fishlegs nodded as they absorbed the information Astrid was relaying to them. "To reach even the closest star system they would need ships capable of FTL travel, which is the problem itself."

"H-How do you mean?" Fishlegs asked hesitantly while wringing his hands. Hiccup supposed he really wanted to grab his notebook to jot all this down.

"Traveling faster than light is impossible," Astrid deadpanned.

"Wait, you just said....." Hiccup was confused now.

"FTL drives don't necessarily travel faster than light. At least not theoretically. What is hypothesized is that the drive compresses space in front of a ship and expands it behind causing the ship in question to be isolated in a sort of bubble while the universe changes around it." Astrid said as she looked at the still confused faces of her friends. "It's a complicated theory but there is one thing all scientists agreed on, and that is it would take a massive amount of energy from exotic matter to sustain such a machine." She then gestured to the Prolium causing Fishlegs' brows to shoot up towards his hairline.

"This stuff can do that?!" Fishlegs asked.

"If there is a high enough quantity, yes. The amount we got from the scouting ship isn't nearly enough to power an FTL drive. The Talarian was right about that part." Astrid frowned. "Still, even giving humanity this much could have been bad. We're talking about forced technological evolution."

At Hiccup's blank look Astrid elaborated. "Prolium is refined Dark Matter. Even I'm not exactly certain about the refining process as it was only proposed in the 22nd century. Nothing came of it as it was deemed to be too dangerous back then." Here Fishlegs gulped and took a step back from the forcefield containing the Prolium. "In the universe Matter and Dark Matter coexist, with matter being the building blocks of planets, suns and even ourselves. Dark Matter on the other hand can be seen as negatively charged and can only be observed through a single physical force which is gravity. Dark Matter in this form can be considered stable. Prolium is a refined form of this Dark Matter and is very volatile and unstable. I don't know how the Talarians harvested it but if this stuff comes into contact with any Matter it would release an astronomical amount of energy. Hence why it could be used for FTL drives."

"That's..... WOW," Was all Hiccup could utter as he looked at the small amount of black liquid in a new light. He now realized why Astrid almost went bananas at the crash site. Another thing dawned on him as he looked at his girlfriend "You're going to use it to build a weapon aren't you?"

"Not a weapon per se," Astrid muttered. "Just a precaution."

"But... but..." Hiccup sputtered while Astrid gave him a particular look.

"Hiccup, you and I both know that something is coming. Whether good or bad I would like us to be prepared." She said as she took her boyfriend's hand. "These people..... They have technology beyond what we have at the moment. I rather not use the Prolium in such a way but if it means protecting my family then so be it." Hiccup blushed at Astrid's passionate declaration while Astrid gave him a peck on the cheek. "Besides, with your negotiating skills I'm sure it wouldn't come to that," She then proceeded to lightheartedly poke Hiccup in the stomach.

Fishlegs groaned as Astrid and Hiccup were getting sappy. They completely forgot that he was still in the room. All of the Berkians were used to it by now and just ignored them when they became this sappy. The Chief was just itching to throw them a wedding too and was near the verge of telling his son to just pop the question already.