Project Everglow

Let's be clear - Everglow was a wormhole. A microscopic fissure in spacetime, broadcasting radio waves in all directions, drifting in Earth's magnetic and gravitational fields, just west of Point Nemo. When it was closed, that is.

Open, the wormhole was a terrifyingly beautiful thing to behold, especially at night( the light filtering through the event horizon gives the appearance of moonlight glittering on an immense waterfall!). You see, although the wormhole lay in our South Pacific, it exited onto Iibiru in what would essentially be their North Atlantic. Day became night, north turned to south, and above you, two moons shine: one bone white, the other blood red. Their mass and distance mostly duplicated the effects of our one moon here; however, there was more of a wobble to Iibiru's core, causing a more dynamic electromagnetic field to arise... more on that later...

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Some clarity: Iibiru is the name of the planet the wormhole originated from, at least as good a translation of their language as we can get. The wormhole itself, when traversable, was 100 meters wide and high: half above the surface of the ocean, half below. The forces exerted on it caused the observable portion to be pulled into a roughly parabolic shape. The event horizon had an east-west orientation, with access from the north and south. Yes, she's a standing wave event horizon; obviously, not naturally occuring (a natural wormhole would be spherical in shape, a 3D ball floating in Earth's gravity well..). Impressive, yes?

The planet itself is home to a mix of human and humanoid inhabitants, at last word still trying to claw their way out of a post-apocalyptic Dark Age. (For the record, we didn't help with that!). According to a rough translation of their mostly oral history, about a thousand years ago a massive solar flare hit Iibiru. It set fires that blotted out the sun for years, causing terrible famines. It basically EMP'd their world, knocking their technology out. In the ensuing centuries, their population crashed, while species of megafauna flourished once more. And, unfortunately for them, they were just getting back on track around the time of our Crusades...

Meanwhile, here on Earth, we had our own Dark Age to contend with. Towards the end of the 13th century, with the Crusades turning against the Roman Catholic Church, word was received of a power in the Far East: one that could tumble walls and slay armies. A magic powder of great power and potential. The Church sought this, but knew the Chinese, who possessed it, would be wary of visitors, chose to reach into the far west of the Empire for men who could complete this epic quest. Thus, a band of English speaking knights and priests(Templars), in the guise of merchants, followed the Silk Road east, in search of the magic powder. Of course, by the time they arrived, the Chinese knew who they truly were and what they sought: power. So, the Chinese spun an ancient tale, of a long lost island, deep in the Eastern Sea. Home to great beasts and great powers; feared by the Chinese, who wouldn't dare travel there. So, of course, the Templars would. A ship, provisions, map and compass - and off the went, never to be heard from again...

Except, of course, by the poor inhabitants of Iibiru. The wormhole was probably open for years at a stretch back then; probably more often open, rather than closed. We guess this not simply because these Templars managed to get there and establish a foothold. After the Crusades were lost, and their leaders burned at the stake on trumped up charges, an entire fleet of ships, bearing knights, priests, merchants and kin, set forth out of Europe. They would arrive in China a couple of years later, only to sail on in search of the others who went before them. The same map followed, the same Gate passed, the same world found. From what we have gathered, the Templars founded a new Roman Empire: Latin was their tongue, and as no one in Asia spoke English, it was decided this would become the language of the conquered. And for 600 years, that was a splendid idea... Then, WE found the wormhole. And surprisingly (or not), things actually took a turn for the worse, for everyone involved...

The 1960's were an awesome time, and a terrible one, as well. Satellites in orbit, supersonic jets, television; wars, assassinations, race riots; Civil Rights. And smack dab in the middle, during the Johnson administration, on an aerial reconnaissance flight, a most unusual thing was seen: a glow on the ocean, as though moonlight was shimmering on a waterfall...

To be fair, it didn't take long for the scientists dispatched to the wormhole to realize what it was. The operation became known as Project Everglow, on the assumption that the wormhole was persistent: that is, always open, just only recently discovered. Johnson hastily ordered an expedition, to beat the Soviet's to the punch. He didn't realize the wormhole closed, until it did, trapping his team on the other world. He also didn't trust the radio intercepts the scientists claimed to receive from the world, seeing how more than a few were in Middle English; how could that language have ever reached a world connected to Earth in the Pacific? Well, with the wormhole closed, all of it - all the recordings, measurements, assumptions and observations - became part of the project. Every president after him was briefed, just in case the wormhole began to open again. And sure enough, in the depths of the Cold War, when Reagan was in charge, the call came that the wormhole was awakening.

At this point, I need to explain some things about the wormhole. The electromagnetic emissions from the wormhole interfered with things in two important ways: 1) They interfered with the part of the animal brain that governs fear response: the closer you got to the event horizon, the more fearful you would become. It took tremendous effort to steel yourself and pass through to the other side. 2) The second one involves steel. Specifically, steel alloys took on a strong magnetic potential, then grounded. Since iron in these alloys is orientated in different ways, and steel is a crystal at the molecular level, the result is a structural weakening of the steel alloy. Ships would eventually crumble under their own weight, and guns would disintegrate upon firing. Both of these issues were known in Johnson's time, prior to his expedition. To be fair, the hapless explorers did take bronze and brass weapons with them, plus trade goods and provisions... they weren't helpless, or hopeless...

As for Reagan - he caught the most fortunate (sort of) of breaks: his team assembled on site BEFORE the wormhole opened. Watching this happen must have been awe-inspiring! But, as the team readied their equipment, something startling occurred: a dragon, an honest-to-God FIRE BREATHING DRAGON flew through the event horizon! The size of a commuter jet, he was perhaps just as startled to see them, and the steel ships accompanying them, as the assembled fleet was to see him! Of course, a battle ensued; taking much longer than anyone expected. At it's climax, the dragon suffered a mortal wound (FINALLY!) and pirouetted through the horizon. Unfortunately, the fighter jet in pursuit couldn't pull out in time, and flew through after him! Then, a few seconds later, the jet flew back onto Earth! It took some time to process, but it was apparent that when the wormhole first opens, the interference hasn't yet formed. Guns can get through, along with electronics, etc. Just then, radio operators in the fleet reported hand-sent Morse code coming through: the are survivors of the Johnson expedition, awaiting rescue! The recon mission just got upgraded; men and munitions piled aboard, and off they went to bring our people home...

What was unknown to Reagan, or anyone on Earth, was the effect Johnson's expedition had on the inhabitants of Iibiru. You see, the Templar's Roman Empire had considerable early success conquering that world. A hundred languages died, a couple of Library of Alexandria's of knowledge was ruined or stolen, all to forge an empire. But by the turn of our 20th century, the Templars were in decline. Assorted victories against them in the previous century had fractured the empire, pushing it's leaders to the brink of ruin. And to be fair, the Johnson expedition didn't offer anything the empire didn't already have. Sure, the members were shocked to hear English spoken, if only barely intelligible. And they did have more success surviving in that brutal world than expected. But the stories they told! Aircraft fast as a dragon's roar! Cannon that can shoot farther than eye can see! Bombs that lay whole buildings down in a stroke! Now that was something the Templars could use! If only the empire could get their hands on it... Hmmm...

When the wormhole began to stir, on Earth, you had to be looking at it to see anything, and then only with the right equipment. On Iibiru, however, that more-dynamic electromagnetic field caused changes in the planet's ionosphere; in plain English, an aurora, unique to the wormhole. So, everyone in the northern hemisphere of that planet KNEW that the wormhole was opening. And the Templars knew, from the stories told, that we don't leave our people behind.

So what should have been a relatively easy extraction, instead turned into an overly wrought struggle, against a myriad of forces, to rescue our men. In the end, we fell short. The wormhole collapsed back to a speck, with our Marines less than a day from home! Reagan wrapped everything up, and passed it on, confident that next time would be different. Next time we'd be prepared...

We weren't. The 1990's were... bad. The Soviet Union had fallen, Islamic terror was rising, and Clinton was... distracted. We didn't learn the wormhole was awakening until it stood fully open, beckoning and foreboding. By the time a ship arrived, the report from the other side was disheartening. Our Marines were lost; they had followed the wars that raged all the way to the far side of the continent. Six thousand miles separated us from them, and having missed the keyhole at the start, we couldn't bring anything of consequence to the fight. Besides, just as before, the Templars knew we were coming. So we couldn't. We couldn't lose another team. We couldn't risk anything falling into Templar hands, even (especially) knowledge. But there were still so many questions. We needed answers, and we had to get them, consequences be damned...

The plan, to say the least, was risky. Suicide, in my opinion, which is why I refused to go; and why I'm here, telling the story, such as it is. We were going to wait until the last day; just as the wormhole began to destabilize, our ship would launch, gambling that the Templars would have given up waiting for us and moved on. We would recon the planet, gathering knowledge, samples, etc. Waiting for the aurora to signal a new opening (10 or 20 years down the road!). Then make our way back to the wormhole, and home. Simple, right?! Yeah. The Templars didn't give up waiting; our team never even made it to shore! Based on radio intercepts, teased out of the static of the now-microscopic wormhole, our people suffered one of two fates - death or slavery. Except for Hiram Mitchell of course, team leader and the man that briefed me on this "dumpster fire" of a program. He offered his wealth of knowledge to the Templars: an Industrial Revolution, all their own. In exchange for a crown, kingdom, harem, wealth, etc... you know, the important things!

Needless to say, we had incentive now, more than ever, to exert some control over the wormhole. Some means of manually opening the wormhole HAD to be found! And the one idea that kept coming up was an EMP. Our scientists reasoned that a narrowly-focused electromagnetic pulse "might" have just enough energy to create an imbalance between the forces holding the door shut versus the forces trying to pop in open. We just needed the wormhole open long enough to send another team in, this time with no aurora to tip off the Templars.

So we did it. And the wormhole popped open! For about five minutes... an unstable mass of energy, in constant flux; so much so, that an errant creature came through the event horizon and it took us THREE DAYS to determine it HAD BEEN a dragon! And then the wormhole collapsed, utterly. We searched for MONTHS! Nothing. No little point of radio waves, no light shifts, no indication whatsoever of a wormhole still connected to Earth. Just, gone...

It's been over twenty years now. Technology has gotten to the point that the wormhole, if it did still exist, would have tumbled out of someone's dataset by now. Oh, and no word from Herkimer County, NY either (Hiram took a bag of Herkimer diamonds with him, in case he found what opened the wormhole to Earth. Apparently they carry a quantum X-marks-the-spot for dialing a wormhole back to the U.S.)! So, sadly, although our people are lost, at least we needn't concern ourselves with any threats posed by the world, either...

As for you, the reader: feel free to take this story however you please. Call B.S. Call it a passable work of fiction, the makings of series even. Call it a cautionary tale. Call it a bullet dodged, or an opportunity missed. I, for one, am done with it. It has been my burden these many years, a plague on my conscious, a thorn in my side. What if I had gone? Would I have made a difference? Would anything?