The Science
Everything in Prophecy follows the presently known laws of physics, with a little liberty taken for light speed.
Dark Matter Drive
Invented by Maria Maravilla, and the invention that won her the Nobel Prize in Physics. Dark Matter Drive propulsion is capable of three Niner light speed, 99.999% of the speed of light. Dark Matter annihilation is 98% as efficient as matter–antimatter annihilation, and it produces unprecedented energy. Older Fusion Drive ships top out at a fraction of light speed and take decades to reach the nearest stars. Dark Matter Drive cuts travel time to distant planets by a factor of ten.
Dark Matter
Dark Matter is found only at the outer reaches of the Milky Way, so it has to be retrieved by deep interstellar missions. It sells for 100 million credits a gram. It can be used for superconductivity, energy storage, high-powered weapons and the most powerful magnetic fields ever produced, and Terra Nova owns more of it than anyone else.
The Quantum Pinch Magnet
The superconducting heart of Dark Matter Drive and the one component John’s team of brilliant scientists can’t conquer. Even Nobel laureate Igor Cominski is stuck. The only person in the world who understands its principles in depth is Maria.
Niners
Speeds near light are measured in “Niners”. 99.99% of light speed is 2 Niner, and 99.999% is 3 Niner. At 3 Niner, Prometheus crosses 20 light years in a few months of ship time while decades pass on Earth.
The Anti-Higgs Boson
Maria’s discovery, made with her graduate student Paul Boston. It is one of the breakthroughs that make her the most celebrated physicist of her age.
Quantum Computers
Christine Martínez is the world’s expert in quantum encryption, and her dream is a quantum entanglement communication link that Princeton won’t fund. The finest machines are built by Compu Quanti in Florence, Italy.
Gliese 581G
The first potentially habitable extrasolar planet, 20.3 light years away and orbiting a red dwarf. Colonists are already there waiting to be resupplied. Beyond it lies one of the largest fields of Dark Matter ever detected.
The gWatch
Mandatory for everyone since World War III. It is phone, computer, wallet and navigator in one, and it reports your location and vital signs to the WPCC in real time. Premium models project a 3D holographic display cube with a holographic keyboard, and they have made paper all but obsolete.
