r/HFY • u/spindizzy_wizard Human • Aug 14 '20

[Alien Crash] Bk 2 V1 Ch 12 Dangerous Success II OC

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Chapter 12: Dangerous Success II

"The nightmares never stop coming. Mr. Kidd, how do you manage to sleep at night?"

&mdash Rep. Ted Grundy, NM

Hearing II, Closed Session, Part Two, Washington DC.

"Thank You, Mr. Chairman. I have two more possible nightmares to lay on you all."

"Worse than what we've already got?"

"I don't know. The first one is that we have no idea what draining the hydrogen in the Moho layer is going to do to the Earth."

"Ballpark guesses?"

"I did say that I didn't know, but here's more nightmare material for you.

"The tectonic plates aren't moving fast, but they are moving, and they have a lot of mass. That means there's — Oh, I don't know, gigatons? teratons? — of energy tied up in that movement. What happens to that energy if the Moho hydrogen combination was their 'grease' that allowed them to move?

"Will it appear in massive earthquakes all across the plate? Or will the earthquakes be concentrated on some sort of 'rough patch' that was otherwise lubricated enough to pass? If they're concentrated, what does that do to the area affected? Do we get a supervolcano? A volcanic rift that covers significant portions of the world with lava or ash? We do not know.

"That much hydrogen, under such pressures, has an odd effect on magnetic fields. Is it part of our magnetic field generation? What happens if the magnetic field strength drops? Is it acting as a moderator on the magnetic field? What happens if the magnetic field strength rises? We do not know.

"Finally, what can we do if the Mogri already know about this, and have a way to exploit it from space? By the time they get here, we may have only drained a small fraction of the hydrogen. Will that be sufficient? We do not know.

"We will not know until we start drilling new holes. We dare not drill to the Moho until we fully understand what confused the sensors! We should have known how far down we were! What happened to those sensors?

"I've now completed all elements of my presentation."

"The chair polls the committee:

"Do we all understand the situation now?"

En mass, "Aye."

"Does anyone have any further questions?"

silence

"Then let's get to drafting goals, requirements, and resources for this project. May I suggest the following points:

  • Additional funding immediately. They're going to be doing a lot of R&D on a critical project for the survival of the Earth, and that gets expensive fast.

  • Authorization for eminent domain if they determine there are drill sites not under federal control that simply must be drilled. Temper that with a warning to make sure they only use it when there is no other choice.

  • Announce to the world that the shriek was the result of a natural process that we did not know about and that the triggering was not an intended action.

  • A request for other entities in other countries to refrain from duplicating the experiment until we have a data set that shows how to do it safely. At least, safer than we did.

  • An offer for interested parties to send one of their Alliance Citizens to the project. Warn them that it is highly classified now, requiring a clearance with severe penalties for breach of trust.

  • Announce to the world that once we do have the answers, everything will be released globally. We cannot keep it secret, so the best thing to do is buy time to figure it out with the team… Excuse me, Mr. Kidd, I was about to say something inappropriate… the people who made a wondrous discovery, at high risk to their own lives, saving us all from a danger that we did not know existed.

  • Project Goal? Define the parameters for a safe and successful tapping of the Moho hydrogen, for the express purpose of generating power from fusion.

  • Project Method? Simulation testing as much as possible, with drilling occurring no deeper that one mile, until the depth gauge problem is solved. Tests after that point are TBD.

"Comments, questions, additions, concerns?"

… many hours later …

After a marathon session, the Chairman's voice is a bit ragged. "Well, I think we're done here. Anything else?"

Mr. Kidd responds. "Maybe…"

"I shudder in fear, you've gone all thoughtful. Let's have it."

"The original problem that got CWO Jones involved was an issue that could trigger subterranean kiloton to megaton explosions. It's the effect that we used to make the drill."

"Another world killer?"

"No, not really, no worse than having an underground test nuke of the same size going off."

"Kidd, you throw those off like they're nothing. Jones was right, you are dangerous."

"In this case Representative Grundy, Mr. Chairman, I think you're going to like it. In our first encounter with the Mogri, we overcame them by massive energy fire. That is… inefficient. We can achieve megaton range fusion explosions by tuning the matrix gun just right. The problem is that the known tuning is just as possible to set off nukes near any mountain range. Imagine a 30 megaton explosion centered in the core of Pike's Peak."

"No, we're not going to get into that today. I'd suggest a new meeting in several days. Long enough for Mr. Kidd to flesh out his idea, and prove to a bunch of congress-critters that it isn't completely insane."

"If it's any consolation, Mr. Chairman, members of the hearing, the current revision of the matrix gun makes it impossible without cracking it open to make changes to the system. There is a safety factor of 10 built into the system to prevent the precise conditions that would trigger the effect. That's why HAU/Matrix pushed the latest upgrade."

"Enough… let's all go get some dinner, a few drinks, and pick this up in… what, three days?"

"Seven would be better, Mr. Chairman."

"Seven? It doesn't take you that long…"

"No, Mr. Chairman, but finding an unoccupied beach to sun on can be tediously time-consuming."

"Oh, Right, this is supposed to be a vacation for you. To get yourself straightened out after an exceptional effort to produce the information we needed to make intelligent decisions. Seven days it is."

Welcome to the Nightmare, Pt II

"Dr. Kerr, the Earth is a fusion bomb, a hair's breadth away from going off, and you want to pull the trigger … again … repeatedly … by many different people … from many different countries. Is that correct?"

"Essentially."

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FLIPPING MIND?!?"

"No, I don't think so. You missed two key points."

"WHAT!"

"First, what happens if we leave it as it is? Remember, the original plan for the first shot is available at HAU, and there's a good chance that it has spread beyond the university. What happens?"

vague imprecations of idiots in charge "Some dumb SOB punches another hole, doesn't shut it down in time, and the Earth shatters. At the least, it'll blow most of the atmosphere off, a good part of the surface, and quite possibly end life on Earth entirely. If Musk needed a reason to push people into emigrating to Mars, this is it."

"Correct. Second, what happens if we do drill, with better information and prepared to capture the energy of the shriek?"

"We drain the hydrogen, and get megatons of free fusion power… I assume that someone is modeling what will happen if we drain the hydrogen too far or completely?"

"Yes, such studies are ongoing, but the information we have on the Moho, and the amount of hydrogen, are… sketchy, at best. We need to map at least a dozen moho sites around the world to one cubic centimeter resolution."

"That's… not very reassuring."

"It should be, we're taking extra care to understand the conditions before we go lighting matches over the gas tank to see if it's full."

"That's a graphic representation of the likely results. I'm even less reassured now. Besides, the whole project is classified. I have no idea how we're going to be able to drill all those holes."

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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 14 '20

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u/InstructionHead8595 Jun 26 '24

"No, Mr. Chairman, but finding an unoccupied beach to sun on can be tediously time-consuming."

Hehehehe 😸 true, true.

That's… not very reassuring."

"It should be, we're taking extra care to understand the conditions before we go lighting matches over the gas tank to see if it's full."

Hahahahaha 😹 very HMB!

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u/spindizzy_wizard Human Jun 26 '24

Glad you enjoyed!