<snip>

“Had thought?” Dagen inquired. He was tempted to offer information that they might have on the local star system that they picked up in passing. Even in not actively visiting the world, they were a science vessel and they would have scanned it in passing. In that pass they would have picked up any possible life signs, planets and in general what the system was good for on a superficial level. But then he thought again. There were some mysteries that they might like to find out on their own. “How have you employed your faster than light drives?” He was curious. Earth had zipped out as far as they could as fast as they could. Trill had undertaken cautious exploration. Cautious meaning single trips to the nearest stars, gathering information and then planning the next trip. Everyone was different as a species or as a person. The Pallosians seemed to be very careful. It too was curious that the first ships they saw that had these drives were warships. What or who were they expecting?
- Dagen

Yeeker seemed enthusiastic in answering, “After we had stabilised the engines that could travel at the speed of light without the time distortion effects, we were able to survey our star system. We had wanted to see if there was life in our neighbouring planets. We were able to reach our nearest planet in minutes. Then we tried to move further and further to explore. The furthest planet in the system was about two and a half days away. We found no intelligent life in the other planets in our system. However, we found sources of minerals and food. We planned to colonise the other planets. We eventually did colonise one other planet and set up posts in the others. We also realised that the technology that we had developed were also being used for robbery. Many of our cargo ships were raided by pirates. We had to think of our security. Thus we began to build our fighter ships to enable us to protect the cargo convoys. We set up our planetary post four decades ago. We had been able to move up to 1.1 times the speed of light at that time. As we tried to move faster than that, we found the time distortion effects more and more difficult to handle. It was only about five years ago that we were able to poke through the 1.2 mark. When we met you, we were trying to reach the 1.5 mark. We had discovered a way to handle the time distortion effects but to churn out enough energy to move at 1.5 times the speed of light, the amount of uranium needed to power the engines were enormous …” She trailed off, her enthusiasm seeming to wane.

GM

Dagen pondered that. To have done what they did on uranium was amazing. He tried to calculate around this and got lost in the equations. Pirates. He glanced at Thomas. That would be a good inclusion in their next update check. There were ‘others’ out there that were not friendly.

Reia had been paying close attention and was pleased at Dagen’s restraint. She had a feeling the scientist wanted to share more. Perhaps Reia would too if she were in his shoes. The thought of using uranium in a FTL drive was surprising to Reia even though she had no formal engineering training.

• Reia, CIO

“Have you considered using other elements for your reactor?” Thomas asked. This was potentially skirting into issues that they shouldn’t disclose, but Thomas was fairly certain the Pallasians had determined, or at least guessed, that the Genesis didn’t use a simple nuclear reactor to power its warp drive.

COS

“We had discovered other radioactive elements in the uranium ores. However, the amount was not large and it was cost prohibitive. In the process of analysing these elements, we discovered that we could synthesise other radioactive elements but the amount of energy to produce these elements was economically feasible,” said Yeeker.

The Chief Scientist, Dang, said, “We did have Plutonium but we were not able to control the reactions well to prevent them from becoming dangerous, and so it was not used.”

GM

“What about fusion reactors?” He asked. That was something that had been danced around by most races in conjunction with and as a next step for fission. He remembered that they had scanned the system and had found some dilithum deposits. He smiled, and tried to look encouraging. “Everything builds on the last step as you are doing. When one technology comes to its limit there are others that step in.”
- Dagen

“You are able to use nuclear fusion technology?!!” Dang asked excitedly. He spoke quickly, “we have theorised it but have not been able to do it on a large scale. The high cost involved in the research has actually been a factor in its development here.”

GM

Dagen inwardly bit his lip. Earth had tinkered with that even as they were developing fission, and it was a natural outflow of research. Fusion was what powered the ships’ impulse engines and had for the past two centuries. They had been refined of course. Engineers did like to change things after all but still. He knew he had to tread carefully here. They were hardly giving out state secrets, and he wouldn’t be referencing the deuterium fuel they currently utilize, though fusion science would be a good diplomatic beginning. It was the next step in energy tech for the vast majority of planets and they were not leaping ahead to current warp or transporter technologies. From past precedents Dagen felt he could throw them that bone so to speak. “We are,” Dagen replied. “The Federation would be happy to, on membership, assist in converting your nuclear technologies.” That was a given. Environmental stability was a key component to Federation thought and to move a world to a clean based energy that was more efficient and safer was just something they did. “That would be something to begin with with your diplomats and ours. I’m just an engineer but know that this is possible.”

It would also give them incentive to work at meeting what entry requirements there were. They needed to see that the Federation was willing to help them and to see it would mean having a tangible something to hope to gain. Dagen felt he was on safe ground there at least. There were four cultures that he could name that were so aided in the ‘next steps’ in technology after first contact. Earth was one of them - aided by the Vulcans, albeit never as fast as the humans would have liked, but it was a prime example.
- Thor, CE

Reia gave Dagen a look. Her white eyes were probably unreadable to him but she hoped he would continue to tread carefully.

• Reia, CIO

Dagen caught the look. He didn’t need to really have it to know he was skiing on thin snow. He gave her a brief nod and hoped he was progressing without giving away the Crown Jewels.

From their faces, it was clear that the scientists and the diplomats were excited by the offer.

“Until that is settled on a higher level, would it be too bold to ask if there are any adjustments that we could do to make our power plants more efficient and safe?” asked Yeeker.

GM

“You can certainly ask,” Thomas said with a smile. “We may not, of course, be able to answer. Your technology is very similar to what we used to use, but there may be some differences that preclude our ability to help without a deeper understanding of your situation.”

COS

Dagen saw the way out per se. They were very excited and yet they knew that things take time to build and test and get up and running. Enhancing what they had now was not out of the question, and Thomas gave some of the ‘what’ away in the technology difference. “By that my companion is saying that your engineers and our engineers would need to get together to study the designs. No two power plants are exactly the same even if the principle is. Your fuel efficiency is more than most worlds had developed with nuclear power. You should be proud. But we both know that things could be made better. I’ll have to take this up with our Captain on how we may proceed.”

He looked to Thomas about making the next ‘update’ with the inclusion of their current ask.
- Dagen

Thomas took the hint, making his excuses to duck out of the room.

=/\=McGregor to Genesis. I’ve got a couple of things to update you on from our talks, and a request.=/\=

COS