“In the Lyceum, the voices of all civilized worlds are like a choir of children… beautiful, provided you can get them to stop squabbling and actually sing together.”
- Annu Marth, Hyzaari representative (125 PA)
With a population of over seven trillion spread over thirty-six worlds, the first century of the Alliance was still stretched thin on resources. Need sent the CWA from star to star, searching out the means to support its steadily rising population. Driven by inconveniently long travel times between the worlds, the scientists and engineers of the Central World Alliance wondered at the technology to propel ships at superluminal speeds. While faster-than-light engines were simple enough prospects, at such speeds, mass became a problem. As predicted by physical laws, the closer a starship came to the superluminal threshold, the more effectively massive it became. When the inertia of the ship and its contents became too great, the engines lacked the power to propel them. Simulations of the new engines were not promising.
The answer to the prayers of physicists and shipbuilders alike came in the form of the newly-founded Starwind Enterprises and their new null-inertia technology. Through a clever trick of quantum mechanics, NI fields reduced the effective mass of everything within them to nothing. It was the answer everyone was looking for. There was no longer any mass to increase at superluminal speeds.
But interactions between NI fielded mass and normal matter proved to be sometimes problematic and unpredictable. In theory, anything inside the field had no mass and should have been slid effortlessly through normal matter, but in practice, interactions with most normal mass matter tended to rip testing probes back, usually in pieces. Physics could not be quite so easily tricked, it seemed. So superluminal travel became a viable option for interstellar travel, but not inside a solar system. The systems were too full of planets, comets, asteroids and other debris simply packed too close together to be navigated.
Despite the navigational issues, null-inertia fields were an overnight sensation in the Alliance. Starwind stockholders quickly became the richest men and women in the galaxy. Since the affected objects had no mass, they were immune to the effects of gravity. NI fields were incorporated into all manner of technology, from replacing wheels on vehicles to reducing the firepower required by projectile weapons. Expensive hair accessories even utilized tiny NI field generators to aid the fashion-conscious in their pursuits of ever more wild and imaginative stylings. Of course, only those who had first funded the technology could afford such things.
Superluminal speed let explorers, venaformers and miners fly from planet to planet fast enough to keep up with the needs of the Alliance worlds. Finally, the famines and recessions stopped. The worst was over. Starvation and dissent held at bay, Starwind and the CWA were lauded as saviors. Even after two hundred years, those two remained the greatest powers of the galaxy.
