The Creator's Dimensions

The Creator’s Dimensions

The story of mankind’s quest to go to the far reaches of the Universe by way of going through inter-dimensional space as a short cut.

It is an account of the many worlds and places that this brave band of travellers from earth went to and finally what happened, when one of them broke through to the outside of the known Universe and met the Creator.

The consequences of which were monumental for the human race.

by

Peter J Sell

ISBN 978-1-291-49487-7

Dedications

I dedicate this book like the last ones to my wife and family, and their constant cry of Where’s Dad? Oh, he’s on that bloody computer again

I also dedicate this book to Dyslectics everywhere and to the computer programmers who devised Spell Check and other helps for sufferers such as me.  It’s a pity that it doesn’t work with frenetically spelt words.

Preface

After the success of my first book From Blood to Compassion (the first version and the re-written second version).  They were history books which give an account of the forming of the Knights Templar and how in my opinion they evolved into the Freemasons.  The books also explained what the treasure of the Knights Templar probably was and they were reality checks and myth busters of conspiracy theories.

I then decided to write a Science Fiction novel.  These are the type of fiction stories which I really love.  One of my pet hates is when they lump true Science Fiction with Science Fantasy.  This novel is true Science Fiction (no dragons or wizards anywhere in this book).  This book tells the story of what happens when humans discover the ability to travel between dimensions, eventually finding a way to go outside of the known Universe.  The resulting consequences for the human race were unexpected, to say the least.

The World Order in the mid to late 21st Century

You could skip the rest of this preface, if you wish, but it does explain some of the organisations featured in the book and how the world had evolved politically.  For the short time it will take you to read it, it will give you some of the background.

In the mid-21st century the world was divided up into eight trading groups consisting of the EU (which was the original and still the most successful trading partnerships between sovereign states.  Despite initial teething problem mainly with the currency it became the model for all later economic groups).

The Russia alliance that consisted of Russia and some of the former Soviet block countries.

China, that included a few of the other Soviet block countries near to its borders, plus obviously the vast country of China itself.

South Asia which included countries like India, Pakistan and most of the Southern Asian countries.

A trading block of Africa that consisted of the entire African continent, Egypt, Morocco etc as well as the southern and central countries of Africa.

Australasia, this block consisted of the countries and islands around the Pacific Rim.  This included Japan and most of the Pacific islands plus obviously Australia and New Zealand.

The South America trading partnership, this included all the countries south of Mexico plus a few Caribbean islands.

The final trading block was North America which included the United States of America, Canada and Mexico plus the remaining few small islands in the pacific and the Caribbean.  The North American trading block was not dominated by the United States of America any more because by the mid 21st-century the USA was virtually bankrupt.  This came about for two main reasons, first the trade deficit with China and South Asia became so great that the USA had to transfer vast stretches of land to predominantly China to close this trade deficit.  This did not mean that China had sovereignty over the land but they did own it and therefore the people living on it had to pay rent to China.  The USA also had as a part of the agreed trade deficit reduction program, to sell cheap mineral wealth and oil to China and South Asia.

The other reason that the USA was virtually bankrupt was because the population of the United States of America demanded socialized medicine.  USA was the only industrialized nation (apart from China but their problem was different) at that time that did not give medical help free (well paid for in taxes) at the point of use as did all the other industrialised countries.  As they left it so late to implement this policy it cost the country dearly.  The private medical profession in the USA demanded and got vast sums of money in compensation for the loss of their lucrative business.  There was such a backlog of poor people with serious medical conditions that the USA had to go to the other trading blocks for help, which obviously cost them again dearly.

Apart from these trading blocks the other significant change in the world order was that the United Nations had changed out of all recognition.  No longer was it a toothless bulldog, but was a powerful organisation supported by all the trading blocks.  It was renamed the United Nations of the World or UNW for short.  It had its own armies and a budget that would have matched some of the older larger countries.  It was paid for by a tax that was levied on all the trading blocks.  This tax was paid without exception by even the poorest nations.  There was however a counter flow of money and resources back to the poorer nations in the form of aid and help therefore the poorer nations got more out of it than they put into it.

The UNW Council had no permanent members who could veto any decisions made.  The number of delegates that each trading block had was determined by its population alone.  No longer were the United Nations dominated by the economically large nations.  There obviously was still politics and horse-trading for want of a better word, within the circles of the powerful but a fairer, less corrupt political elite was now in charge.  Any disputes were settled by a World Court and if this was not accepted by an aggrieved party, then there was the option of force controlled by the UNW.  The UNW could, and did, in the early days send an invasion fleet and army to sort out a dispute.  Increasingly this option was no longer required as the racial and national diversity of each of the trading blocks became similar.

There was relatively free movement of people across trading block borders so that most areas looked and felt the same as far as ethnic mix was concerned.  People still tended to gather in areas that were dominated by their own racial or ethnic kind but the main towns and cities were a mismatch of restaurants and businesses from different parts of the world.  The world truly was becoming united.  The world was far from being a utopia but compared with the past it was a much better place to live in.  There were still disputes between neighbouring countries but in general these were sorted amicably by negotiation because the prospect of provoking an intervention from the UNW backed by the rest of the world was not something people would risk lightly.

Apart from world order another benefit from the powerful UNW was that if there was a humanitarian disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami or a hurricane the UNW did not ask for permission from the sovereign state or Trading block before it rushed aid and disaster relief into the area.  It just did it.  There were therefore less lives lost from events after the disaster than there were in the past.  The same was true when there were things like wild fires or drought, the UNW just mobilised what ever resources were required virtually automatically.  The Trading blocks didn’t have to make contingency plans for such disaster scenarios and there was therefore no duplication of effort.

Because there was to all intents and purposes a world government now, the political map of the world changed drastically.  The UNW was, in effect, a world government but with only moral and humanitarian jurisdiction it did not govern in the accepted definition of the word. Each of the Trading Blocks had an administration that governed the day to day workings of its areas of responsibilities. This left the governments of each country with little power over their territories except very minor local issues.  For this reason the old animosities of small areas that yearned for an independent state came to the forefront.  Many large and small countries alike broke up into their constituent parts.  The United Kingdom finally broke up, and countries like Scotland became an independent country for the first time in hundreds of years.  Most people still called themselves British, or that they came from Great Britain because that referred to the islands of Britain and was not technically a country in its own right.  China too broke up into its constituent parts.  Tibet and Mongolia both became independent countries again, as did Kashmir which split from both India and Pakistan.  These entire break-ups were supervised by the UNW and were agreed generally amicably and with no ill-effect on the original countries.  The central administration of the trading block was still in overall charge so the countries breaking away was in name only.

Space travel was now well advanced and now controlled exclusively by the UNW.  The organization that ran space travel was called the USS, which stood for the United Space Service.  The initials still annoyed some of the trading blocks, such as Russia, because the name was too close to the United States and brought back memories of cold wars and the dominance by the United States of America.  It was however mainly the older politicians who objected as the newer ones did not have the political baggage from the past.  The head of the USS reported directly to the World President of the UNW.  He and all his personnel were paid for from the UNW and although they were obviously recruited from all over the world, their allegiance was to the USS followed by the UNW, apart from a very few private space companies that had to follow strict rules laid down by the USS.  There were no national space organisations.

The moon had a permanent base on it and the far side of the moon was used exclusively for astronomical purposes.  There were the largest telescopes ever built by mankind on the far side of the moon.  This included optical telescopes, Infrared telescopes, Gamma Ray telescopes and Radio telescopes.  On the near side of the moon there was extraction of Helium 3 for use in the earth bound fusion power stations.  Helium 3 was in abundance on the whole surface of the moon but it was left alone on the far side so that that area could be used exclusively for scientific purposes.  Helium 3 more than paid for the cost of transportation back to earth and fuelled a cheap energy boom that did not contribute to global warming.  The other ingredient for the nuclear reaction was Deuterium (Hydrogen 2) of which there were millions of tonnes in the oceans locked up in water and only had to be extracted.  What little pollution that fusion power produced was easily managed and the by-products of fusion power could not be used for bomb making.

The moon however was not the most important piece of space real estate.  There proved to be two places, the first was Mars which had a permanent base on it now and terraforming had commenced.  It would be a hundred years or so before Mars was inhabitable and had a breathable atmosphere and flowing water but at least it had begun.  The thought of real-estate about half the size of the earth that would be on the market in the near future was a prize worth pursuing.  Much speculation in this real-estate was going on in the markets of the world with fortunes being made and lost.

The next most important piece of real estate was the asteroid belt, which proved to be a vast resource of mineral wealth.  The asteroid belt consisted of a mass roughly equivalent to that of a mars size planet but in relatively small pieces.  The asteroid belt was the remains of a proto planet that was ripped apart or stopped from forming by the enormous gravity of Jupiter in the early days of the solar system.  As the asteroids had little gravity it was relatively easy to extract the mineral wealth. Some of the asteroids were almost pure iron or nickel and the extraction of earth bound minerals virtually ceased.  Any pollution created by the extraction process evaporated into space and proved not to be a hazard.  Any radioactivity left behind was little more than the background gamma and cosmic radiation and as there were computerised charts giving the updated locations of the offending asteroid they could be easily avoided.

Venus was still too hostile to contemplate colonization but there were plans afoot to even terraform Venus.  Experiments were being conducted on the upper atmosphere of Venus where genetically modified microbes were seeded into the upper atmosphere.  These microbes were genetically designed to convert the harmful gases into oxygen and other non lethal compounds and fix the carbon etc in their bodies.  When the microbes died they would rain down carbon onto the surface of Venus.  Thus with the atmosphere changed into a more earth like one it was hoped that the run away greenhouse effect would cease and the planet would cool down.  Once this had happened we would have a twin of earth to colonize.  These plans however would probably take thousands of years or so to fully implement.

With the relative abundance of mineral wealth from the asteroid belt most mineral mining and extract ceased on earth.  Mainly for two reasons, the first was that it was getting harder and harder to find and all the new mines were at greater and greater depth.  There were less people who hadn’t got alternative employment who were willing to risk life and limb to go down these mines.  With the cost of labour this made the earth bound extraction of minerals uneconomic.

A surprising new industry developed because of this and that was the mining of old rubbish and trash land fill sites.  Genetically modified microbes were pumped down bore holes in the land fill sites and then extracted a few hundred metres from the original bore holes.  The microbes were engineered to absorb into their body’s small amounts of elements such as iron or gold or indeed any element that they were bread to absorb.  With relatively light investment any mineral wealth that had been thrown away in the past in that dump could be extracted.  The microbes would just die in settling tanks and the minerals would then be recovered from the bottom of the tanks.  It was a relatively easy task to purify the mineral and recycle it back into the manufacturing systems.

The poorer nations were predominantly near to the Equator and had most of the forests and bio-diversity of the World in their territory.  It was soon found that the richer more industrialised nations would pay via the UNW the poorer nations to manager their forests and allow them to expand to counter the environmental damage done by the more industrialised nations in the past.  It was soon found that living growing trees were worth more than cut down timber.  This arrangement helped the environment and the excesses of the past were at last starting to be reversed.  With the bio-diversity in the tropical forests they became a tourist’s paradise forming another income for the poorer nations.

The organisation which was formed to control the newly invented inter-dimensional travel was called the United Inter Dimensional Service or UIDS for short.  The director of this organisation was Frank Mattock a very outspoken man with strong convictions from Great Britain.  The organisation had to initially report to the USS for any space travel associated with the programme but this was only an interim solution until the UIDS got themselves organised.  Within a very short time the UIDS had its own space division that was used for its regular space travel but all major space travel still came under the remit of the USS.

The UNW and to a lesser extent the local government and trading partners still had opposition both politically and religiously but in a democracy that is normally a healthy thing.  Most of the opposition on the political front was via the voting system and proved not be a problem.  The same could be said on the religious front but some could not accept the will of the majority and formed fundamentalist terrorist organisations.  The main target for these terrorists was the UIDS as they considered the technology an affront to God.

This then was what the world and the solar system was like in the mid to late 21st century.

The story starts in the very late 21st century with an interview with Frank Mattock who had published a best selling book on the early days of the UIDS and the life and times of a very special Dimensionaut Hazel McGregor-Singh.

Chapter 1 The Interview

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm welcome to the bestselling author Mr Frank Mattock

Frank, the retired Director of UIDS looks out across the stage and smiles to himself at the sound of the studio audience’s rapturous reception. He walks across the room and makes himself comfortable for his interview with renowned media personality David Kennedy.

"Welcome Frank, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

One thing that really struck me after reading your new book is how you engage the reader. I now almost feel I know you and all the other Dimensionauts personally?"

Frank nodded.

What made you decide to write this book?

Frank smiled again and thought for a short while and said.

Well, many books have been written about the early days of the UIDS and what happened to the Dimensionauts but none of them tell the whole story. Most of them are from hear-say and have a lot of exaggerations in them.  Some are complete lies or are made up from legions associated with the UIDS.  I therefore wanted to put the record straight.  Hazel was a complicated person and none of the books written in my opinion did her justice.

So Interrupted David, I think it would help if we went through the book chapter by chapter so we can get the flavour of what life was like for the Dimensionauts. So let’s start with the first part of the book, which I think is the training, yes? Frank shook his head.

"No it’s on the initial selection process that each of the trading blocks went through to produce their Dimensionauts.  The second chapter was on the training and I must say that was fun in the extreme.  The Dimensionauts knew by then that they were not now in competition with each other and so they just treated it as an adventure holiday.  The only unknown factor was who was going to be first to take the ride into the unknown.

Let me try to explain.  The book describes many eventful trips but most of the trips were boring and produced little or no useful data at all.  At the programme's height we were jumping to new destinations at the rate of about one every two weeks.

Initially, we would send a probe to the new destination and that probe would act as a beacon for the main jump with the Dimensionauts.  The problem was that the initial jump was at random and so we had no idea if it was going to yield anything at all.  The probe would report back only rudimentary information that it had arrived safely, and there was no apparent harmful environment near it.  We did not get detailed information and unfortunately received no pictures.

If we wanted detailed information then the probe would have to come back with that information, but with no probe left there to act as a beacon the destination was lost forever.  We could repeat the jump a million times and still not arrive at the same place in the Universe.  The Dimensionauts were therefore jumping blind and only knowing that their immediate initial environment was not essentially hostile.  We could obviously send two probes so that one could return with the information but somehow it affected the probe remaining which often failed so that idea was soon abandoned."

Most of the Dimensionauts destinations were of no scientific value whatsoever.  Some of the pioneering Dimensionauts never got to see any interesting places at all.  It was just pot luck who went where.  Obviously once an interesting place was found the pioneering Dimensionauts job was over. Their job was to only explore the destination and see if it warranted more resources and personnel to investigate it further.

The Dimensionauts who would exploit the new place or extract the information, be it scientific or whatever would go there afterwards and stay as long as necessary.  These were of a different breed and were of necessity more cautious.  The story in this book is not about them and their many discoveries which have been of great importance to the human race, but only about the pioneering Dimensionauts and the early day of the programme.  Some of the destinations were very similar and for example we found many, many water worlds.  In most star systems that had evolved sufficiently to be stable, water seems to be in abundance.  Our own earth, although covered in more areas of water than dry land, is in fact water poor.

I have only described one water world and that was in my opinion the most interesting but I could have written a whole book on the different ones we discovered. I remember one water world and I believe it was Avalon McPherson from Canada and Paramajit Ganapath from India who went there.  Although the world was physically over twice the size of the earth it still had only about 1 G on its surface.  The world appeared to be almost all water and when they tried to measure the ocean depth they could not get a reading.  We believe that it probably had a solid core but the depth of water was tens of thousands of kilometres deep.  It probably would have been interesting to see what that sort of pressure does to liquid water but as there was no life at all in the oceans that we could find, probably because there was no volcanism and no shallow water, the destination was therefore not explored in any detail.

This water world had no moon around it and if it did I hazard a guess at what shape it would end up as.  The whole world wobbled because of its spin anyway and the influence of its parent star.

Each of the destinations described in this book were examples of that particular type of world and normally I selected what I considered the best example.  The only exception was Hazel’s final destination.  There was only one of that destination; it was unique and not repeatable.  We did try to repeat it many times but we just couldn’t break through the boundaries of the Universe again.  Something, or shall we say some one, was stopping us.

The Creator you mean interrupted David

Well, yes, as we know from the many talks that Hazel gave, the Creator is who is stopping us from going there again.  He or whoever the creator is had a special relationship with Hazel and I don’t think it will ever be repeated. "

As you know there were many discoveries that have come out of this programme.  Many are still being evaluated.  The knowledge which is coming out of the Orphan Planet is truly mind blowing.  If we had only gone there it would have been worth all the effort put into the programme.  Astronomy benefited from the very first jump with views of our galaxy from a large distance away.  Biology advanced tremendously from the water and ice worlds.  I could go on but it would take a long time and better that your viewers read the book.

Of course! agreed David

I will however make a special mention of the chapter I called Ant City.  Again we found many worlds that were dominated by insects and once insects get the upper hand there seems to be little likelihood of other species developing afterwards because of the single minded way they wipe out any opposition.  This one world, that had a variant of ants in charge resulted in some remarkable insights into insect culture and intelligence.  As your viewers will find out it was a very dangerous place indeed.  It even spurned a new branch of science, that of insect psychology.

Indeed said David. So, to get back to the special relationships, as far as special relationships go, you and Hazel were Lovers weren’t you?

Frank smiled and looked a little shocked. "That’s a bit blunt.  What, no foreplay in this interview? Our relationship", continued Frank is explained in the book.  NO! I wouldn’t describe us as lovers, but we were very close and things did develop. I would have loved it to have developed to the point of us being together for the rest of our lives but that was not to be. Once Hazel returned from her encounter with the Creator there was no room in our lives for each other.  Hazel belonged to the World then.

Well, excellent introduction.  Can we start with the first chapter then?

Certainly said Frank as the interview continued.  Oh before we continue there was one criticism of the book and that was that the first few chapters of the book were a bit dry and boring, can you explain that? Yes of course I needed to set the picture and establish the characters as well as there strengths and weaknesses.  Also the science was a must as few people outside of the project seemed to understand it.  But once this requirement is overcome then the rest of the book is most interesting and absorbing, of that I can assure you.

Chapter 2 The Competition

The pioneering Dimensionauts had to be the best of the best and as there could only be a very limited number, the trading blocks each had a limited number of Dimensionauts.  Each of the trading blocks went about choosing their Dimensionauts in different ways and it tended to reflect their cultural differences.  The number of the pioneering Dimensionauts were determined by the amount of money or resources that each of the trading blocks supplied to the programme.  The richest trading block and therefore the block that gave the most, was the EU and Australasia.  The EU and Australasia therefore had the privilege of choosing three candidates.  This was done with a mixture of open competitions and behind the scenes interviews.  All of the trading blocks had a strict criterion that had been laid down by the UIDS and had to be stuck to with no variation on the qualifications whatsoever.

The qualifications were as follows.

Academically: - All the Dimensionauts had to be educated to at least Masters Degree standard in a science based subject.  Preferably to PhD and with several degrees in related science subjects preferable.

Physically fit, the candidates should be able to compete at country, if not international level. The sort of sport that they should excel at would be pentathlon or other multidiscipline endurance type sports.

Proven to have an ability to problem solve quickly