Ozzy shrugged and said, "I mean, he can at least point you in the right direction. I'm sure there's some treaties or something like that that govern the International Space Station. Something like that would be a great starting point. I'm honestly not sure if the law even covers this, to be honest. Just don't, like, kidnap anybody. There's probably nothing on the books for FTL ark-ships, though, since they're still just science fiction to anyone but us. It's hard enough to get Congress to act on existing tech, much less bleeding edge stuff like this."

  "Well, hopefully however that gets smoothed over doesn't involve too much complaining that you were already working on it in the first place." Matt really doubts the project would be put to a stop if she was asked, but it would certainly make things more convenient for Meg to get the go ahead.

Ozzy nodded, "More or less. The only thing I can think of is don't put any radioactive, biological or chemical weapons on these, and you're good from a letter of the law standpoint. That's what sis said, anyway, but she's usually right about that kind of stuff."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Right now it doesn't have any weapons, but most of the ones in question are not meant for in-atmosphere anyway.  There are short range lasers which are set to destroy things that threaten hull integrity, if it gets through the shielding, and a couple things that I haven't shown anyone else because they're sort of accidental discoveries while I was working on the grav drive, but nothing radioactive, biological or chemical.  So I guess that neatly covers that aspect.  Ozzy, do I need to type up a proposal for the idea and give it to you to hand off to your family, or can I just explain it to them in person?"  The ship moved through space so smoothly, it was amazingly fun.  And it made one easily picture swanning around the whole solar system with these things, given that Megs could obviously visit just about any planet she wanted with it.  NASA was going to be jealous as hell.

"Come by Gysbourne Manor on Sunday, we have family dinner every week. You're more than welcome, and it's been too long since Mom and Michaela saw you. You can tell Dad and Grandpa then. Like I said, this is a bit too high tech for anything too specific to be on the books, but I'm sure someone can figure something out for you. I'll let them know when we're back in cell phone range, give them some time to research the issue," said Ozzy with a grin.

  "I suppose 'too short range to hit anything from orbit' would logically be a comforting specification for a giant laser.  So I guess hope nobody is smart enough to point out the ship moves so fast that doesn't matter, but still dumb enough to take offense."

  At Ozzy's comments, he adds "Well, unless Meg wants to test out the equally important features of stellar grade communications.  Don't think about it too hard and you're cleared for making successful cellphone calls from space for the moment. Though talking about this sort of thing in person probably would be for the best."

Ozzy nodded and said, "True. I mostly wanted to give my family a chance to do some research so they can have something salient for Meg at dinner."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Well, I did design something, but it's a little hard to test it out without a second shuttlecraft in operation.  Nobody on earth has a matching set of hardware to receive the signals the ship would use to communicate."  She spread her hands a bit, and admitted "Bleeding edge tech like this isn't precisely easy to test when you're working by yourself most of the time."

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Well, if you got NASA or something like them in on this, it may help with that. That would be a good thing to maybe talk to Ethan about. Im pretty sure that the only reason you're still alone on this is you haven't let anyone else know about it. There's a lot of sci-fi geeks with degrees who'd give their left nut to work on this."

  Well, Matt is certainly a head of the curve on that old phrase.  "To-Do list.  Make a phone that does more than talk to itself.  Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as 'space ship. work in progress'."

  Meg laughed, and said "I have three of these shuttles already built.  They all have the FTL comm system, so it will be easy enough to test it when I have more than one of the shuttles out, but yeah, I will have to open up the project to some more scientific minds.
  Although I am NOT asking them to donate nuts to get on the project."  Her cheeks had colored as she considered that idea.

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Still, glad that you're at least thinking about bringing in more people."

  Meg admitted "I can't do everything by myself.  I need psychological experts to help me select the right people to be passengers and crew on the Ark.  Perhaps making it a nonprofit would be a good way to do that?  I am sure your family, Ozzy, with the legal expertise you share, can help me find a way to make my plan B for humanity's survival succeed."

Ozzy nodded and said, "Maybe not us, at least not by ourselves. We may be a big firm in Weston, but we're small fry in the world at large. And you're talking about stuff that organizations like the U.N. are going to want to watch. We'll at least point you in the right direction, though. Make sure whoever represents you has their heads on straight."

  "You should probably remind people that they will be lightyears away from anyone who will care they are famous. That might shave off a dozen applications or so."

  Meg nodded, and said "I figured they would be interested.  That'[s one reason I want to make sure that they know that it will be based on a selection process includoing psychological evaluations, professional skills, and physical fitness.  Health will be an important thing, because a healthy person will do better in a ship than one that requires long term, expensive medical care.  Although I could probably take care of anything that needed fixed if we found a candidate that was perfect except for health.  But we don't precisely want to let the world know that anyone with health issues is wide open to potentially going.  That would make me have to go into hiding since it would reveal I have some method of curing almost anything."  She always had made a point of NOT disclosing that her healing abilities went far beyond just patching up injuries to the world at large, and she likely always would.  After all, given how some people were, if that was known, she would be hounded to the ends of the universe by people desperate to have their person healed, even if the person did not want that.

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Right? I was a little worried after what you did with Don and Nora, though thankfully nobody seems to have caught on that they're both mysteriously like 20 years younger than they were before the wedding."

He then looked at Matt and said, "Maybe, though a big star on the decline might see it as the best way to get away from their careers."

  Gee Matt, why haven't you cured world hunger? I don't know, why haven't the rest of the immortals hundreds of times my age?  Petty, yes. But not one of the worst mindsets to help adjust to his new existence.

  "Screening should probably work out, unless you go full overkill 'you have a family history of heart disease, no space flight for you' and the like.  Though now Ozzy has me wondering about the wild world of famous rocket scientists that don't get grant money like they used to."

  Meg shook her head, and said "I'm thinking more along the lines of 'you had two heart attacks already, you're not eligible' than something that small.  Or something like 'you've had six rounds of skin cancer, and you still sunbathe and tan regularly, not eligible'.
 Behavioral tendencies that are self destructive that way would be bad to include for someone who may have skills that are vital, and I would not want those skills lost."  She waved her hand over another crystal set into a wall, and a panel moved out, the display configuring to reveal most of the current transmissions (there were a crapton) that Earth was currently sending out, aware of it or not.  "This is the commset, by the way."

"So, how does it work? Is it one of those quantum entangled dealies like in Ender's Game?" asked Ozzy.

  "Well, you will certainly avoid people trying to pass their tests thanks to a crippled athlete on their payroll they are impersonating that way." Nerd.

  "Quantum entanglement is overrated and generally used for it's often exclusive nature rather than practicality.  But then old literature also thought a smart talking baby was the most outlandish thing in the world, yet here we are."  Neeeeeeeerd.

  Meg chuckled, and said "Actually, it's a gravity based system.  Gravity travels faster than light, so you can send gravitic information faster than light to a gravity receiver."  She indicated the comm system reading realtime information on the asteroids and the outer planets and their moons as she spoke.

Ozzy nodded and said, "Fair enough, I guess. Though unless you only send out tiny amounts, it might cause issues with pulling things towards it, since gravity curves the spacetime around it. Also, you should make sure that the system won't fail if you're near something that's got high gravity, like a big planet or a star. I wonder what Iris would think about this."

  Meg shook her head, and said "They won't pull.  I worked hard on that part.  See,
 the real trick to it is the sensors on the receiving end of the comm unit, it 'sees' the small fluctuations in the gravitational fields.  Make them sensitive enough, and they can see what amounts to micropulses.  The 'sending' part makes a pulse that's only strong enough to be seen, but not felt, and it's a directional thing.  I designed them so that it shifts direction depending on who or what is being addressed.  Now, there IS a 'normal' commset, with the regular radio, microwwave and suck, but those aren't ftl.  It's built into the same panel,
 and can be used without switching terminals.  But the FTL part basically uses grav pulse patterns.  It can also attach a data-packet in the RF spectrum, although those take a bit longer and have to then be drcrypted.  I never said it was perfect, but it IS FTL comm."

  "If it works without horrible ingredients or metaphysical repercussions, that's good enough for me."  There are very low odds the main component is the tears of orphaned black holes.  But you never know these days. Fortunately, Matt would have been able to tell...

  Matt spends a lot of his time trying not to think about his ability to detect such absurdities.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:54, Tue 08 Aug 2017.